It’s fun, and sometimes a little daunting, to look at material one has written some years back to see if it still stands up, or simply falls down. Be it political commentary, fictional critique, wry observation or impassioned love letter, one rarely looks at old material through new eyes and comes away feeling the same way they did when it was originally written. That’s to be expected, I guess – we all change. For some of us that change is incremental, for others a paradigm shift occurs.
Almost three years ago to the day I wrote a piece about Michael Moore’s then new film Fahrenheit 9/11. While a fair amount of ‘black water’ has gone under the bridge since then, not to mention another ‘questionable’ election, I think my observations about the film and the ‘temper of the times’ in which it was released still hold true.
With the North American arrival of Michael’s new film, Sicko just a couple of weeks away, I thought it would be interesting to review my feelings about “F9/11”, and the resulting left versus right mindset that proliferated the media outlets three years ago. That mindset, I’m sure you’ll agree, not only hasn’t changed, it’s gotten louder and more polarized. The presidential election campaigns, only just now moving into high gear, the continuing debacle known as ‘Iraq’, and, ironically, the renewed and vociferous debate about American universal healthcare all are responsible for this ‘heightened alert’. As usual, at the eye of this hurricane there sits a burning Bush. (more…)