July 2004
by Barry Stagg
Horrible cramps were the most obvious symptoms that appeared almost immediately. The people fresh from the premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11 were dumbstruck at the latest tickertape news crawling across their cell phone screens and insinuating itself into the rapid fire news reports on the television screens in their threadbare and barren penthouse lofts. Michael the Dragonslayer had declared media war on the ICJ, citing its presumptuous assumption of authority over the security affairs of a tiny Mediterranean country surrounded by hostile tribes.
Earlier in the day, the ICJ had ruled 14-1 that the Israeli security fence was an illegal and offensive violation of international law. Moore had been quick off the mark to smack back, calling the judges pompous tools of the international plutocracy, equating them with the Florida Supreme Court and mumbling something about dangling Chad while Sudan burned.
The pleasant urban peasants (Granola and Mutual Fund Division) milled about the streets after the early screening of the movie, still trying to absorb the seeming incongruity of His Corpulence having sided with the warmongering Bush puppets. The PUPs just knew the Bushites were running the sideshow down in Tel Aviv. Lattes and crepes, mineral water and sushi, all went untouched as the crowds pondered the fate not just of their cinematic saint, but of themselves and their precious store bought consciences.
Nausea moved through the sidewalk collectives as quiet and sombre contemplation of the Blackberry screens gave way to a kind of dumbfounded anxiety. "How could we have been so wrong about Israel before this", they thought. "Before we watched the film, Israel was a petty anachronism, a leftover bit of European imperialism, propped up by reactionary dolts in Washington intent on repressing our fellow travellers in the Dynamite Waistband Committee." Confused and tortured thoughts abounded: "Now our sympathies may have been misplaced, especially if The Michael now is slamming these United Nations bigshots just like he did to the Moron Politburo occupying the White House. "
Bookstores near the theatre began to fill with a concerned but befuddled mob of well dressed browsers, all heading toward the Christopher Hitchens books, all of which were resolutely sitting on the shelves, in uneasy association with the massive stacks of Noam Chomsky explanations of American fraudulence and international venality.
The wanderers moved to the Internet cafes too, taking advantage, as they always did, of the free web access the proprietors proffered in exchange for the possibility that the fussy PUPs might buy a latte one day. There they inevitably, one by one, browse to the Hitchens evisceration of the Moore film and read, once more, but with a sinking, sickening feeling this time, the tender criticisms Hitchens had constructively offered to his good friend Michael on the elevated subject of his Cannes winning film: "If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD."
It was becoming all too much for the Saturday night crowd in Yorkville. They contemplated, they mused , they pondered and they agonized and in many cases they tapped their way into the telephone entries for their personal therapists, a convenience available on their Personal Digital Assistants. Some emailed themselves reminders to reorganize their charity donation lists. "Will Michael be recommending I give to the Jewish Defence League", one pretty young thing wondered out loud as her partner sucked determinedly on the biodegradable straw shoved deep into his Mochachino.
Then, in the fashion of supercharged time acceleration common to Blackberry Saturday nights, it was over. The news slithered out onto the PDA screens, serpentine in its casual abandonment of the terror of the previous few minutes: 'Testing Beta Version of Blackbart Saturday Night Live' scrolled the text complete with a wink or two. 'Disregard our Michael Moore heresy, resume grazing' completed the message. With that, the Mochachinos sighed, smiled thinly and did what they were told.
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