North Adams Transcript - 'Fahrenheit 911': Spells it out

North Adams Transcript - Local Headlines: "In the end, to say that 'Fahrenheit 911' is an exercise in Bush-bashing is an embarrassing oversimplification. Once Moore has berated the Democrats and the national news media alongside the Bush administration, there is really no one left to be blamed but ourselves. Moore spares his fellow citizens that and he is kind for doing so, but I am not sure we deserve it. His last appeal is for the young armed forces, a parade of na�ve faces that he fears we have betrayed.
In the final, achingly gorgeous sequence, Moore couples haunting slow motion live-feed footage of the Bush administration as he recites a passage from Orwell's '1984.' The words explain why there must always be a war and why a victory can never come, because war is the structure that preserves the hierarchy of upper class and lower class.
As Moore has chronicled for more than two decades, it is always about upper class versus lower class, and it is always about manipulation of data to convince the lower class that what is bad for them is what is good for them. It is classic Orwellian doublespeak.
Moore may sound like a conspiracy nut to some, but let's be honest -- at one point in the film, the Secret Service shows up out of nowhere to check up on him while the camera is rolling. Moore is not near the White House -- he is filming in front of the Saudi Arabian embassy.
You tell me."


By John E. Mitchell
North Adams Transcript