Several critics have suggested the movie is confused and bereft of coherent ideas, but I have seen it and the ideas seem fairly straightforward, perhaps except for one. The general outline of political allegory is clear: allusions abound to American Empire, and they're easy to spot. If I had my druthers, I would retain the abstraction of the graphic novel and not situate the story as an allegory of current events. Anyway, I thought perhaps critics were irked by the implication that Bush was complicit with 9/11, or afraid to acknowledge this aspect of the allegory?

In VfV the movie (unlike the graphic novel), the Norsefire government intentionally spreads a plague and uses the fallout to consolidate its power. V also remarks that you can change history by blowing up a building. If this is supposed to be consistent with other allusions to American Empire (statist media, suspension of civil rights, Abu Ghraib-style torture), then the suggestion seems to be that the U.S. government sponsored 9/11.

Of course, many people believe this to be true. But maybe VfV is the first form of American pop entertainment to say so?

It's not a very good movie, but the many accusations that it doesn't cohere as a political allegory are unsubstantiated.

People should object to "United 93" not because it is "too soon," but because the version of events in the film is a bunch of lies. The government shot down flight 93. This "let's roll" nonsense is pure propaganda. See http://www.physics911.net/cellphoneflight93.htm for a study of the improbable cell phone calls. This film will only serve to cement in the pblic's mind the propagandist version of events.

I can't believe how central race is to this Barry Bonds thing. Where are the reporters harrassing Mark McGuire? Sure, Bonds is guilty and he's a major league jackass to boot; but the media should spread the blame a little. McGuire and his arms-like-tree-trunks walk off into a quiet retirement, while Bonds becomes the poster boy for "what's wrong with sports." In ten years, when McGuire experiences "health problems," will he get the same treatment as Bonds?

When Canseco published his book, the story was "Canseco is a desperate nutcase." Nobody badgered McGuire about the charges. McGuire appeared for Congress, and that was it. But Bonds gets a book _about him_. This kind of attention is about more than the fact that Bonds is still in the game, and McGuire is not.

"Or Courtney Love, an addled and unwell figure who has been pilloried even more brutally than Houston, but who has managed to retain a claim on some fuzzy corner of our hearts."

Really? I thought she was reviled for having Kurt Cobain killed?

It's interesting to note how much trendy cynicism and resentment surfaces when the excesses of one's lifestyle are exposed. One poster noted this is not "new" news? That may be the height of cynicism.

Over 160,000 computers will become obsolete in America every day this year, and most of those will be shipped abroad where they will rot in a toxic stew. I'd say that's news worth repeating.

This story draws attention to one of the major blindspots in contemporary capitalism: the fact that waste is considered an economic externality, not a concern for the corporation. Why do we not hold HP, IBM, etc. accountable for the waste their products create? Why is this the task of the public sector, already besieged by private sector forces with substantial power? Why is the corporation not accountable for the entire lifecycle of its product(s)?

Consumables with toxic materials should be treated as such, and not dismissed as just another disposable commodity, and corporations who sell them should be responsible for the entire lifecycle of their product.

I'm surprised Salon posted headlines proclaiming that this video depicts Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon. This video is too grainy to depict anything. Can you really identify a plane in this video? I can't.

Regardless, the whole exercise is a farce. I don't know if a plane hit the Pentagon, and I don't care. Surely the most surveilled building on earth has a better video of the biggest security breakdown in its history? You mean to tell me that the only camera working on 9/11 was the one in the parking lot used to read license plates?

At best, this video proves nothing. At worst, it is being used by the Pentagon to draw attention away from the real anomalies on 9/11:

If a plane hit the Pentagon, how did it avoid being shot down while soaring through the most defended airspace on the planet?

If steel-reinforced highrises have never collapsed due to fire, how did three of them collapse at near-freefall speed into their footprints on 9/11 (WTC 1,2,7)?

Why were multiple warnings of terrorist strikes against the WTC, from within the FBI and from foreign governments, go ignored by US intelligence agencies? Not only were these warnings ignored, they were deliberately suppressed.

On and on the list goes.

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041221155307646