Local boys explore America’s world role in new documentary

Glen Arbor Sun

Now that the elections are over, let’s talk politics. Let’s enter the ring and debate about Bush, and the Muslim world, and the war on terror. Wait, no, not the kind of boxing match discussion that pits only two sides against each other — each off in their own corner bouncing up and down in arrogance. Those matches rarely lead to anything other than bloody noses.

Let’s have instead the kind of political discussion that might not produce a winner — one that examines crisis and conscience, what it means to be American, and how our zeitgeist or “spirit of the times” has changed since we began uttering that loaded word, w-a-r, again. Where have we come from? Where are we going? And how do others react to the path we take?

Two young men with legitimate local credentials (they’ve summered in northern Michigan their whole lives) have created a unique and explosive documentary called “American Zeitgeist: Crisis and Conscience in an Age of Terror.” It has been premiering at film festivals all over North America since the spring of 2006 to rave reviews and standing ovations. “An important film about America and for America, one that counters the country’s partisan, bi-fractural politics and media,” writes openDemocracy.net.

Rob McGann, who summers in nearby Frankfort, directed and produced “American Zeitgeist,” and his high school buddy from Springfield, Ill., Aaron Blasius, a familiar face around Glen Arbor because he tended bar at Art’s Tavern for four years while putting himself through school, co-produced it. Both McGann and Blasius were actually in this neck of the woods when the 9/11 attacks changed the world or, as some would argue, reminded the United States that it was part of the world. “The mood that night at Art’s was one of stunned disbelief,” Blasius remembers. Just as in many small towns, suburbs and cities alike, the shock quickly turned into an “anticipation of what America’s response would be. It was nice to be able to spend time with friends and neighbors, and get a grip on what had just happened.”

Fast forward to February of 2003. McGann and Blasius were reacquainted and in New York (neither knew that the other had been holed up in northern Michigan); Bush and the U.S. military were poised to launch another invasion, this time of Iraq; and a year and a half after the terrorist attacks most New Yorkers once again opposed the sitting president’s politics. While perusing bars and coffee shops and listening to the chatter on the street, McGann came up with the question that would form the basis of the movie. “What does it mean to be American? What is our role in the world? Is it right to be offensive in a defensive-minded war?” These questions were going unanswered from Brooklyn to Crawford, Texas as the soldiers and peace activists marched off to their respective beats, their fingers drawn and pointing.

“American Zeitgeist” seeks to cut through all the political posturing that will continue long after the last troops die or come home. Instead this movie embraces the impossible task of asking what America is, what it does, and what it represents — truly the most explosive questions on the world stage since September 11.

“We decided to do a movie about a conversation that would never happen,” explains Blasius. “Gather (more than 40) experts who you’d never get in a room together and interview them.” That’s just what “American Zeitgeist” is — an interview documentary that includes conversations with experts across the political spectrum: Richard Clarke, the country’s first “terrorism czar” who served on the National Security Councils of both Clinton and the current Bush; Noam Chomsky, the famous linguist and critic of American foreign policy; Christopher Hitchens, the controversial and outspoken proponent of the Iraq invasion; Tariq Ali, the Pakistani native who publishes The New Left Review; Steve Coll; Peter Bergen; Samantha Power; the list of experts who agreed to appear in “American Zeitgeist” goes on and on, and it is impressive.

Clarke was the first big-name political figure to accept, and when McGann and Blasius arrived at his house in Washington D.C., Clarke’s book “Against all Enemies” was number one on the bestseller list. “He was intense,” Blasius recalls. “There were cicada insects buzzing around outside, and he only gave us a certain amount of time.”

But “American Zeitgeist” is not just about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In fact, only two or three minutes of the movie are directly devoted to those events. The timeline begins with the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, which the United States answered by supporting and training Muslim fundamentalists to resist the occupier — and that, as we now know, planted the seeds for what became the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.

Instead, the movie’s thesis is the story of how America’s foreign policy has had inverse consequences: funding bin Laden and the mujahadeen against Moscow; forgetting about Afghanistan once the Cold War ended; growing addicted to Saudi Arabian oil (15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis); and, quite possibly, the invasion of Iraq and the attempt to bring democracy to the Arab Middle East. “This movie talks about what we’re doing now, and the potential consequences of those actions,” says Blasius.

“American Zeitgeist” does not take a political stance or judge whether the invasion of Iraq was right or wrong, for absolutism is not the goal here. Nobody — not crowds who’ve scene the premiers, nor political pundits — have pigeonholed the movie as being “liberal” or “conservative,” pro- or anti-U.S. foreign policy. When I met Aaron Blasius at Art’s Tavern late this fall to discuss the film, he surprised me when he told me that the most common question he’s been asked is not what he thinks of Bush, but what he thinks of filmmaker Michael Moore, of Fahrenheit 911 fame. “Moore had the opportunity to inform people and to be true to the art of documentary,” Blasius responded. “But I think he took the easier way out and decided to entertain instead. He took Afghanistan, which is a big, complicated subject, and used a clip from ‘Bonanza.’”

The route McGann and Blasius took was to present experts with a myriad of different viewpoints, some that are extreme, and others that merely cast the room in a different shade of blue: the use of leftist Tariq Ali and rightist Christopher Hitchens as polar opposites, for example, to reflect that there are valid points on both sides of the argument.

Aaron Blasius won’t tell you what to believe about this turbulent period in American history. “My hope for the movie is that it will challenge people, either to re-think their positions or learn more about the issues and ask legitimate questions. Go out and read these people’s books. It matters what people on the other side of the world think of us.”