Fahrenheit 9/11: Take It Or Leave It
by Jeff B. Flinn
I enjoy "giving back" to my community, when schedules don't conflict and I can get "elbows deep" into the fray.
Delivering Mother's Day meals to shut-ins for Meals on Wheels, that was nice. Working with the Texas Emancipation Day Committee's Juneteenth celebration and magazine was uplifting. A future volunteer hook-up with Morningside Ministries awaits.
My involvement with each of these was (or will be) sincere. Each time, the offer was put forth, and I (and select family members) agreed to help out.
Well, I have decided it's high time I sponsor my OWN event. My OWN community effort. I have decided to organize, from the ground up, my OWN event, seek public backing, to see how it goes.
My event? Simple. Only takes 2, 2 1/2 hours of your time, will cost between $5-$20, depending on level of participation and "ordered necessities." And the best part of the event -- the sharing of time with a group of people most are not commonly associated with. And I think I even have a name for my community "giving back" effort:
"Take A Republican to Fahrenheit" Day - TARF Day.
Yes, TARF Day will be an "outreach" of sorts, an attempt to awaken "the sleeping giants" of the GOP, to slap them into reality.
Oh, don't get me wrong, it involves no physical contact -- other than GOP hand wringing, and more Democratic applause than during any George Bush State of the Nation speech.
I am urging people to invite Republican co-workers, neighbors, friends, family members, it doesn't matter who they are -- we're looking to "shine the light" of truth and idealism into their otherwise sheltered existences.
Have I seen "Fahrenheit 9/11" yet, the Michael Moore movie I speak of? No, I have not. But that's why I am extending the offer in the first place!
I will pay the way of the first die-hard Republican who will accompany me through the theater doors, and sit and watch the movie. The entire movie. Start to finish. No leaving, no restroom break, no slipping out the side door when President Bush boasts, "Bring Them On!"
I will even buy you a Coke or Pepsi and a hot dog, with your choice of condi's (as in ketchup and mustard, not as in Condi Rice).
And you have to be a die-hard GOP'er, too. I don't want anybody sneaking in, just because I am buying the ticket. I will need to see at least two forms of ID, such as: your NRA card; a subscription form to National Review with your name and address on it; the receipt from your Rush Limbaugh tie; a Christmas card signed by President and Laura Bush; or your invitation to the Texas state GOP confab. Any two of those will do nicely.
Come on now, don't be afraid. There have been worse segments of 150 minutes that you've sat through -- like the Oklahoma-Texas A&M game last year (77-0), or "Cat In The Hat" (for those parents whose kids dragged them to THAT imbecilic waste of acetate).
Anyway, come on out - my treat.
I sincerely hope I have a taker, I hope my offer doesn't go without a single spine surfacing from among the GOP pack. God knows, there are enough of them here in Texas. About every officeholder above assistant part-time dogcatcher in this state is a Republican.
Heck, in the Dog Days of Summer, traffic comes to a crawl or near-stop for three hours every afternoon, when a formerly-married-and-now "clean and sober" radio talk-show host is on the local AM band.
I find it so ironic that Republicans are so up in arms about Moore's documentary. They've got their Rush Hour, five days a week, three hours a day.
That's 15 angst-filled hours, 52 weeks a year, for the past decade or so " and they're upset about a two-hour movie? There's no comparison, really. It costs MONEY to go to "Fahrenheit 9/11." Rush is free, available to anyone with as few as two fingers on one hand and at least a transistor radio in their ownership.
Moore makes no bones about the intent of his movie. In his words, taken from his Web site:
"Every single fact I state in "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the absolute and irrefutable truth. This movie is perhaps the most thoroughly researched and vetted documentary of our time. No fewer than a dozen people, including three teams of lawyers and the venerable one-time fact-checkers from The New Yorker went through this movie with a fine-tooth comb so that we can make this guarantee to you.
"Do not let anyone say this or that isn't true. If they say that, they are lying. Let them know that the OPINIONS in the film are mine, and anyone certainly has a right to disagree with them."
This is where most people get confused, run aground ,or get sidetracked " Moore makes no bones about his dislike for the current administration; but he bases his belief on truth. He then uses the truth to form his own opinion.
In two of his previous documentaries, "The Big One" and "Bowling For Columbine," Moore states a string of facts and then jumps headfirst into life, using the facts to usurp authority or, as with the famous 1960s buzz phrase, "Question authority."
Example: In "Bowling For Columbine," Moore's research shows that the ammunition used in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting was purchased at a local Kmart. Armed with this information, Moore travels to Kmart's national headquarters, to persuade Kmart to stop selling bullets like those used in the Columbine attack.
But he didn't go alone. In "Bowling," he takes two students with him, Columbine shooting victims -- one confined to a wheelchair, paralyzed after taking a bullet in the spine; the other walking with bullets still in his body.
And you know what? It worked. After speaking with Kmart officials one day, Moore and the students return to Kmart's headquarters the next, ready to hold an impromptu press conference. However, a store official emerges and tells them the chain, indeed, has agreed to remove live ammo from its stores within 30 days.
THAT is classic Michael Moore -- state the facts, beyond a reasonable doubt " then DO SOMETHING about it.
And THAT is what I want to witness " with a dyed-in-the-wool Republican at my side.
One rule, though, for anyone joining me on TARF Day: I don't chat during movies. Once the movie starts, it's "quiet time" until the credits roll. I don't pay good money to chit-chat, quarrel or gab. Once the houselights go down, it's me, the screen " and the message.
Any takers?
Jeff B. Flinn, managing editor of the Herald, asks potential moviegoers to offer up credentials; offer good to GOP members only. No free-loading Independents or Democrats on my $10-spot! (Any true Democrat worth his/her weight in salt should have already seen the movie, anyway!) Jeff reports one taker so far.
Flinn can be reached at: jflinn2001@yahoo.com
Originally Published in the San Antonio Herald
