Fahrenheit 9/11 – reviewed by Armond Blackwater
Fahrenheit 9/11 is the most important film of the new century.
I immediately suspected a right wing plot when we arrived at the Pablo 9 theatre in Jacksonville Beach at the Internet advertised time of 12:35 only to be informed that the film started at noon. I was suspicious because of the trouble Michael Moore had finding a distributor for his film in Amerika. Threats against Disney's tax breaks for their theme park cowered spineless executives into refusing to distribute a film that they had funded. Undaunted, we purchased tickets for the 2:35 showing.
The Pablo 9 theatre is a quaint place in a strip mall near 18th Street and A1A in Jacksonville Beach. It is my favorite theatre in the area because the crowds are always sparse, particularly during matinees. Typical was the virtual private screening of Shrek 2 that Princess J, Travis, and myself shared with a mother and her young daughter. I did not expect a line at the box office and a nearly full theatre.
I looked around at the crowd as we awaited the "Coming Attractions" to view a vast demographic of people. Young surfers, gangsta wannabe's, Viet Nam Vets, oldsters, and even some golfers. An incredible, improbable assembly.
The theatre dimmed and we were deluged with more trailers than I have seen since Titanic. Obviously, advertisers were banking on a big turnout. They got it.
Finally, the feature began. There were a few chuckles during the opening as makeup was applied to the Bush Regime, making them pretty before the many attempts at selling the Iraq War to a far too gullible Amerikan public.
The crowd grew silent as the screen faded to black with only the sound of a jet liner gunning its engines while banking into one of the twin towers. Screams of horror, shouts of disbelief, and the unmistakable sounds of bodies thudding against the patio roofs, bodies that had hurled themselves from 100+ stories to escape the inferno – all set against a black movie screen. No movie has touched me so deeply before the credits even began to roll.
Fahrenheit 9/11 has that power.
Despite the Bush camp protestations this movie is factual, beginning with the theft of the 2000 Presidential election. Objections raised by black House members to the certification of the election results in a joint congressional session were repeatedly gaveled down because not a single senator would sign their petition. Why did the black members object? In Duval County, 16,000 votes were destroyed from precincts in North Jacksonville alone. I live in Duval County. There aren’t many Republicans in North Jacksonville, a predominately black neighborhood of hard working folks who live in dire poverty. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street runs through North Jacksonville. George Bush won Florida, and the election, by less than 600 votes. How many votes were thrown out in nearby St. John’s County, the home of the rich, elitist, all-white gated community of Sawgrass and the Professional Golf Association’s Player’s Club and the obnoxiously arrogant World Golf Village?
While Fox News Channel diverted attention toward a few “hanging chads” in West Palm Beach the real hijacking of the election occurred with the callous disenfranchisement of blacks across this racist nation happened in Duval and other counties of color. I raised this point with a republican acquaintance and he uttered words that chilled me to my core, “Can we help it if they’re too dumb to vote?”
There it was, right there on the table, straight out of Civil War Times, or the War of Northern Aggression as whites call it down here in the Deep South. I was staring straight into the face of arrogant, racist white Amerika. I realized at that moment that I was witness to the end of what was once a great and benevolent nation.
If you repeat a phrase often enough the
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