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Cannes' Palme d'Or goes to Michael Moore
An anonymous reader writes "The Palme d'Or of the Festival de Cannes was presented this year by Charlize Theron to Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore. I don't know if it's the first time this prize is awarded to a documentary, but I guess it's rare enough to be mentioned, especially given the problems this film encounters."
Is it a "documentary" like Bowling for Columbine?
His movies would be more credible if he didn't try to present them as documentaries. They're not documentaries. They're commentaries.
Nothing wrong with that at all, but let's just be clear about it. Up front.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Its the second documentary to get it...
Jaques Coustau got one to.
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Last time Charlize Theron presented me with something it was a restraining order.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Aside from pushing somebody's political agenda ... why is this being posted on Slashdot? It doesn't seem to fit into the normal type of news that gets accepted to the site. Your site, your rules ... it just seems out of place.
Do you mean a documentary or a "documentary"?
A genuine question for Moore fans: doesn't it bother you even slightly that Moore expects you not to independently verify what he presents as fact? You're supposed to be geeks, people who're capable of thinking "out of the box". And doesn't it bother you that Michael Moore is personally getting very, very rich out of September 11th?
I haven't seen the thing and I am sure it is politically biased, but certainly I would like to make that determination myself rather then seeing Buena Vista kiss presidential ass and decide that it is not gonna distribute it for fear of losing tax breaks in Florida...
--- "I didn't think anyone would understand it" -Prof. Bob Muller
Exactly how is this news for nerds? I understand that the prevailing opinion on Slashdot is hatred for the Bush administration, but I fail to see the 'nerd' aspect to this story. Politics aside, if it was a sci/fi or fantasy movie, I could understand, but this was simply a politically charged documentary about 9/11 and the Iraq war. What is next? Reviews of campaign ads?
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Now George, dont be like that!
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Finally we know step #2 of the formula:
1. Steal underpants.
2. Paint anti-bush slogan on underpants, sell to Hollywood/Indie industry.
3. Profit!
jacques custeau won the prize 1956 for his documentary "the silent world". but i guess this is the first time a "mockumentary" wins the golden palm!
now i wish only that in the "land of the free" the films hits the MAINSTREAM cinemas before the election... go bush... go away!
You have a real low user ID, you should figure its not just "tech" news.
Michael Moore is what Opensource means against Microsoft (or any closed source giant)
Will it be aired in (sorry, foreigner here) in ABC for instance? It should be in theaters already but Miramax/Disney blocked it.
If you are a Bush supporter and got mad to the documentary itself, please tell so. Don't hide behind "news for nerds" slogan validity.
I mean...Jacque didn't set up the fish so that they would present the image he desired.....or did he??
Blar.
This is beautiful, really beautiful.
The French were a bit apprehensive because it looked like the US seemed to be taking over the prestigeous festival with their blockbusters and the like, leaving the "other" movies (or what you Americans would call "Foreign Film" movies) largely unnoticed.
Well the Americans did, even awarding an anti-Bush movie top merits. It looks like they were finally able to say the things that they've wanted to for a long time now, but were afraid to back home (look at Moore's reception at the Oscars) and used the Cannes Film Festival for that purpose.
This is history in the making. I'm really curious to see what the American public is going to make of this movie and what they will do next.
Yuioup
None of the above ... and neither am I an Anonymous Coward.
It's probably not even the message on it's own that won it for him. Rather, Disney's unwillingness to distribute the film with that message.
Gosh, how do you post to this thread without looking like a troll?
I know the topic of censorship is near and dear to the Slashdot community. I hope people can see that the right wing has a history of using money to censor media outlets in this country. This is a good example of that as is the holy war the FCC has declared on broadcasters.
The liberals in this country want open and free discussion. the conservatives think that they can get away with censoring the liberals by labeling everything opposed to them as indecent.
Want more information on the republican campaign to quiet the liberal voice check out howardstern.com. (warning, site may be offensive to compassionate conservatives).
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
So, since this film is having trouble being distributed, does anyone have a copy or know where to get one?
Dunno how this is "news for nerds", but I do know that if this is as truthful as was his last "documentary", the master copies might as well be burned. (Pun intended..)
...
..
Moore is a hard leftist political hack. Not to defend Bush, but I can't STAND Moore's smug insipid grin when he thinks he has "proven a point", but he has only used half truths and many outright lies and logical fallacies to do so
Alas, just as this award has gone to him for this, there are millions who will eat this stuff up for breakfast
Want REAL liberty? Check out www.constitution.org and www.fija.org - the fully informed jury association.
Know your rights to defend your rights.
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
four of the nine jurors were American: Mr. Tarantino, Kathleen Turner, the director Jerry Schatzberg, and the Haitian-born novelist Edwidge Danticat. one juror, the actress Emanuelle Béart, is a French citizen, British actress Tilda Swinton, Benoit Poelvoode, a Belgian actor; Peter von Bagh, a Finnish critic; and the Hong Kong director Tsui Hark made up the rest of the jury. taken from here
I really hope that this is a good documentary, because I'd really hate it if the Cannes festival has become nothing more than a vehicle for politics.
Fuck that. Until the rest of the 150 million or so people who haven't been utterly brainwashed by this administration find the gonads to say something more than, "But, he has no exit plan..", Moore is the mouthpiece of the home of the brave, as far as I'm concerned.
Tarentino told Moore exactly the opposite: "It's not only for the message: it's a good movie".
Don't we all hate it when the government comes in and regulates the content of the arts, and other forms of communications. I sure do, except for this is certainly not a case for that. Disney made a decision as a private company and business that they will not produce and distribute a film. Following the logic that a private company should not be able to pick and chose what it stands behind, we obviously need government regulations on what gets published, since no private company should be able to make that decision.
What's another word for Thesaurus?
-Steve Wright
depends where you place the art in a movie.... even though a documentary might not be "artsy" at first sight, it is quite an art to present things in such a way that you get a clear message over. clearly he won because of political reasons, but is it not time some says something to mr bush?
Exactly. Bowling for Columbine was a lot of crap and manipulation. There's a whole group of people out there who got together because Moore completely distorted and took out of context of what they said in their interviews. This guy twists the truth to benefit himself and his bullshit message.
Why is this on slashdot? Well, he's kind of like SCO. He makes a claim, has no real evidence to back it up, and then twists facts to make it seem like he was right all along.
Why did he win? Europeans hate America politics at the moment so they loved this idea of Bush bashing.
What never ceases to amaze me is how, in America, we pay so much to hear and endorse other people's opinions. We give virtually no creedance to those who verify and contradict the supposed facts on which the opinions of politicians, movie makers, and anyone who controls the information flow are based.
Who mediates your information?
Michael Moore
In particular,
Just curious, have you seen the film?
I don't have to do a damn thing to verify his movie - I just sit back and see who sues him. I mean, the gun lobby alone is very, very large, and determined... if there was a single thing in Bowling that could even be remotely picked apart by a lawyer, it would happen. But it hasn't.
By the way, I'd like to make another point to the Slashdot crowd at large - Documentaries are NOT supposed to be "objective". News reporting is supposed to be objective. You have never, ever seen an 'objective' documentary that wasn't trying to inform you of some plight, or problem, or point of view. Ever.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Agreed. I'm utterly saddened to see the Cannes festival jury stoop so low. Let's see if there's still a jury left that at least takes artistic achievement into consideration ! Berlin? Venice?
And "documentary"? No matter what you think of the message the movie is conveying, it's a political satire, just like "Bowling for Columbine" was. "The problems this film encounters", with a link to the usual marketing on michaelmoore.com?
Slashdot Story: -1, Troll.
Oh, wait...
Damn you Slashdot, IHBT!
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
Hopefully this movie will open in the US and will cause some people to open their eyes.
But even more than Moore's documentary, I hope more and more images and video keeps coming out of Iraq in regards to the abuse, torture, rape and slaughter of Iraqi citizens, most of whom are guilty of no crime. That more than anything is Bush's legacy, his mark upon the world and truly the images that best define our Fascist Leader and his doctrines.
The truth is a very scary place in a world run by Bush and the big end of the US war machine. I welcome MM's film.
Trouble with Michael Moore's films is that they hit close to home, and people don't like it. Just because it's uncomfortable, doesn't mean we should ignore it.
Mike.
Just a matter of time before some AC posts links to "michael moore hates america"...
See 2 reactions by Moore on French TV yesterday, and a different link, in yesterday's submission which I kept here
I don't remember where I saw it exactly, but there is a website out there that says that if Michael Moore is as anti-corporate as he likes us to think that he should forget the whole Film distro flim-flam and release this film to the web before he releases it anywhere else.
I agree this. I want to believe that Moore wants to crusade for the little guy, but he seems to benifit quite a bit from the corrupt system that he says he hates. He also conviently forgets about the places he's exploited, like Flynt Michigan.
As much as like some of the stuff in his past, he seems to be in bed with the corps and this stinks heavily of hypocracy. Come on Michael... show us where your heart REALLY is!
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
It has nothing to do with it being "comfortable".
It has to do with the accuracy of what he is saying. Given his track record, I have no reason to belive what he says in this movie as compared to his previous ones.
now someone buy my a ticket to europe so i can see it.
Moore currently doesn't have a US distributor because of the Disney/Miramax situation, but Moore feels so strongly about the the content of Farenheit 911 and that American voters especially need to see the movie before the November election.
I'm personally not a fan of Michael Moore at all, but I will give Moore a lot of credit if he does what seems to be the best option right now: release the movie online, for free. If he does that, he shows that he isn't being a hypocritical war profiteer - he cares more about people hearing the message than the paycheck.
The petition to release the movie is here.
http://www.talknerdy.org
Well, he's kind of like SCO. He makes a claim, has no real evidence to back it up, and then twists facts to make it seem like he was right all along
Now that sounds like WMD and Iraq.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
This has happened before with Disney & Miramax, most recently with the Kevin Smith film "Dogma."
It probably would not be in theaters already even if Disney had not blocked it. Moore wants to add new content to the film prior to release to incorporate more recent events.
this sig deleted by another sig
Amen.
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
is presumably in harnessing the power of the medium. If the Fahrenheit 911 does that, then why not...
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
After reading about Operation Northwoods via the FOIA with my own eyes, I'm not willing to put anything past whatever gang of thugs happens to be in charge.
As for Michael Moore, I get the feeling from watching his documentaries that he's a "David Icke" - someone who surrounds a kernel of truth with a significant amount of hogwash such that the general perception is that all of the information presented by that person is hogwash. IOW, a disinformation artist.
I disagree with many of his positions, but do enjoy his work. I think "Roger and Me" was his best work. It was not too radical, and made some sense. "Bowling for Columbine" was entertaining, but to me it seemed like his was trying to link American foreign policy with our gun culture, a link that is tenuous at best. I'll watch "Fahrenheit 9/11" and probably disagree, but will be entertained. His art is well done.
On an aside, he visited my university in 2001. I love his t.v. shows (before I knew better I thought he was a republican) and always thought that his message was that ultimately the individual is responsible for his actions and his or her place in life. I asked him if that was one of his messages, and much to my surprise, he said yes. Thought it was odd coming from someone that thinks the U.S. needs and could afford universal, federally subsidized health care.
Ahem. You haven't seen the film yet, jackass.
So who's the Troll?
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Michael Moore is a fat, delusional, self-aggrandizing moron who thinks he can singlehandedly change the world.
Singlehandedly? No. However if he prompts others to think and ask questions then real change can happen. It's the old "I told two friends and so on..." on a massive scale.
Trolling is a art,
Wrong.. Michael Moore is the left as Ann Coulter is to the right.
Both can make me equally sick.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
Europeans hate America politics at the moment
No, we don't.
Some do, and unfortunately the majority of the Cannes jury does it to the degree that they're willing to sacrifice the credibility of the festival and the Palme d'Or award, just to make a political statement.
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
Alot of americans hate american politics and love the idea of Bush bashing....
The darkness... controls the music. The music... controls the soul.
Movies, by nature, are not scholarly works. The power of movies is that they can appeal to a wider audience and more directly manipulate emotions. How often do you see citations in a movie? It's just not common practice.
:::did::: raise a number of excellent questions.
That being said, I'd say bowling for columbine was rather good. Yes parts of it exploited sensationalism and there were some factual errors, but it
Also...give one of Moore's books a skim sometimes. I wouldn't have expected it, but Moore does a better job providing evidence for his claims then the supposedly more prestigious Noam Chomsky. Noam likes to make wild claims while assuming you'll take his word for it...Moore at least cites his sources.
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
yes, art almost never mixes with politics.
moron.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Of course not. That does not prevent anyone from stating his opinon on the Internet.
Yeah, I know what you mean...
Guns are good. The more, and the bigger, the better.
Corporate dominance of the working class is good, more is better. Besides, one day, I'll be rich too, so screw 'em!
Invasion of other nations (the biggest guns under corporate dominance) is the ultimate expression of what America is all about.
How dare anyone attempt to question any of this, let alone try to allow access to another's opinion?
Moore must be lying anyway, because he's kind of fat and sloppy.
Me? I'm embracing my inner reptile.
I believe everything the neocon media feeds me without question. It's so much easier that way.
Go team Bush! Go USA!
Not that I would dream of trying to change your mind, but... do you actually think that you know better than the Cannes jury? Really? The 20-minute standing O that Bowling got for instance, matched I believe by Fahrenheit - the longest in the history of the festival - that counts for nothing, eh? P. That's it. You're right, the world's film experts are wrong. You've nailed it.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
If you're gonna post links to sites that attack him, you should at least try to find something other than republican smear sites.
(Come on, someone calling Wes Clarke "slimy"?!?!?)
First, as much as I like Stern, he only is qualified to discuss the proper techniques for tossing bologna at a stripper's butt. His political views are based on whatever pads his pocketbook.
Second, there is not an active "campaign" to censor or quiet Michael Moore -- or at least I didn't get the e-mail or fax. He could only wish that the US Government would try to censor him. It would be even more $$$ in his pocket. Moore and his slavish followers claim that disagreeing with him is the same as trying to silence him.As a part of my civil liberties, I have the freedom to not pay to watch his "documentaries", buy his books, view his TV shows or wear his t-shirts. Or do I have to spend my money supporting the companies that support him. That's not an effort to quiet him, its an effort to make sure my money doesn't make it into his pocket. He is already a rich, union busting fat cat.
The liberals in this country want open and free discussion.
As long as you ignore all the campaigns against Fox News and talk radio hosts plus speech codes on college campuses, I would agree.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Even if Moore wanted to release the film for free online it's by no means certain that he could, given that it's owned by Miramax, not Moore himself.
While it's made by Moore's company, Dog Eat Dog Productions, the actual copyright resides with Miramax who are effectively paying Moore to produce a film for them.
I wonder if THAT is where he got the idea to make the movie?
In my opinion, all differing points of view deserve respect even if you disagree.. if and only if they are based on fact, and not if the facts are modified and presented in a different way as to support the opinion.
Opinions should be inspired by fact, and not the other way around.
Who mediates your information?
We've already seen an earlier and quite successful movie whose distribution was largely funded (if not completely funded) by the producer/director of the movie.
Disney is not blocking the release-- they've given more than a year's notice that Miramax should seek an alternate distributor. So why didn't they?
And I know, of course, why Moore won't pony up the money-- since he'd lose it all. More than likely, Disney knows that documentaries generally don't earn as much as they would cost to promote and distribute (although they've now taken care of the promotion part). Why not just wait and release it on DVD? Probably much more profitable in the long term.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
How many other Cannes Film Festival stories have we seen previously on slashdot? That's right, none. So why is this a front page story, Taco?
The parent comment deserves to be modded up, it's completely relevant, and no less off-topic than this article.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
and, by God, America needs more of them.
Just as I guessed, nobody speaks about documentary (or whatever) and blames Slashdot for posting the story...
.us domain names.
Especially 'nationalist' guys with
Michael Moore is what Opensource means against Microsoft (or any closed source giant)
Good crap people. Why does everybody feel this incessant fucking need to classify everything as an EPIC FUCKING STRUGGLE. Guess what?
Open source is a damn ideology. Not an attack.
You are not an insurgent for using linux. You are not sticking it to the man when you release an OSS program.
You are not. And I repeat -- you are not -- keeping Bill Gates awake at night.
ARGH!
Honestly? I can find more lies in a random 20 minute segment of Rush Limbaugh than I can in all of Bowling for Columbine. And anyway, for those that bother to listen outside of the echo-chamber, Moore posts his defence to the alligations the websites propose on his own website.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
I know tons of people who complain about FOXNews for every imaginable transgression, real or imagined. A lot of people have even taken to calling it Faux News. I don't know where you are that no one complains about FOXNews, but please let me know so I can move there!
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
is well known. Bush sitting and reading to kids even though he knew we were under attack was caught on film.
Much of what he puts in his film is well known world wide, but was not covered by the conservative US media until very recently.
Do you think Fox news to report on the bin Laden's funding GW Bush's first failed business venture? Would they report on Poppy Bush's business ties with the Bin Laden's?
Would they report on how the Bush family got rich on Nazi money and slave labor at Auschwitz?
photosMy Photostream
But making that point did help to get it modded down. I would prefer not to have someone's baseless opinion pass my comment threshold.
Or is "being less of an asshole than Saddam" something to be proud of?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
At least, now that it has this award, US distributors won't be so reluctant to distribute it. This is the reason behind this award I believe.
:)
And the beautiful line M. Moore told aftewards, about him waiting for his invitation to the White House, since it's a kind of tradition for the USA presidents to invite his award winners citizens for a chat : I'm just waiting for Bush reaction
The film has footage of independent 'embedded' cameramen in Iraq, showing pictures that the corporate US networks won't show for fear of upsetting their sponsors. Read the revievs and watch the film before you judge.
Warning: The file doing the rounds on P2P networks "Fahrenheit.911.Michael_Moore.LIMITED.(CANNES_'04) .XviD.SCREENER.-NOX.txt" is a fake.
You are from UK, not Europe. Speak for your own mind.
Be open people! If you voted/support Blair and Bush speak your mind. Yes, you think Iraq war is right and it must be done. Easy as that!
I also know the French agenda or how a political decision this is but you gotta ask Disney when this movie breaks box office record OR internet download record.
"News For Nerds"?
I visit slashdot for geek news, when I want bias and or political commentary, I'll watch CNN or Fox News. Political banter on slashdot, especially Michael Moore, who is quite divisive, only serves to inflame tempers.
"Moore posts his defence to the alligations the websites propose on his own website."
Could you supply a link? Couldn't find it...
Is there no place where I'm not getting harassed by people's political views? Can't we have one fucking forum that remains clear of this bullshit? What makes it worse is that this one is even endorsed by management! These aren't random posts on some Yahoo! message board. For one fucking time I'd like to see people not throw their weight around to support their politics.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Art isn't just about a pretty picture, or the technical prowess of the artist's exectuion of the image. Art is about communication. It is about the message the artist is trying to convey to the viewer. Mr. Moore's message just happens to be political. Guess what! He's not the first artist to make a political statement with his work, and he surely won't be the last.
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
It's a public forum, and some people think that this matters. If you consider yourself an uber-geek and beyond politics, please understand that that in itself is a political position. Anyway, most geeks are very political - just mention GNU, FSF, RMS, or MSFT.
This is not a sig
worked his way up in a very tough business. that is the american dream.
I thought you Republicans liked to see people become rich?
photosMy Photostream
Indeed. You'd think that after Moore had admitted that he knew a year ago that Disney wouldn't distribute his movie, that people would no longer be arguing over this very blatant publicity ploy.
Personally, as much as I despise Bush, I place little value on a 'documentary' by someone like Moore. PR is one thing, claiming that you've only just found out something you actually knew a year ago is something completely different.
Starwars won several awards too.. And has lots of fans. So did 'signs'..
Just because its fantasy doesn't mean people wont like it..
If you snow enough people, playing on public misconception and fears, you will get fans that will swear by your misguided ideas..
Doesn't make it any more factual. No matter how much you may want it to become.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Personally, I place Moore in the same category as Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Which is it: News which is exclusively of interest to nerds, or news which is of interest to a group including nerds. Exclusive or inclusive logical OR.
I'll understand that a lot better than Omlette Analogies... Q. :)
Insert Signature Here
Did you see the film? Did you see the competition?
Wow. You actually waited 20 seconds in order to post that. Or did it take you that long to write it?
But there is a movie icon and topic right?
You have a clue about how big Cannes festival is? If you check the movies which got awarded (Especially IRANIAN censored movies) you can understand the reasons behind this decision.
Oh, different, in Iran government (imams) censor the movie, in USA, Disney does.
A lot of people claimed that movie was very anti-gun, but it was hard for me to conclude that. I'm basically kind of neutral on guns, and I didn't feel like the movie really said anything one way or the other on that part of it. I think it did try to make the point that Americans were too violent, even fond of violence, and that guns allow for more serious consequences, but I think we all know that. He clearly didn't like the NRA's political activism, but he didn't really go after the Second Amendment. At least I didn't notice it, and I certainly should have. (I think the Second Amendment was exactly what the Civil War was about--and it lost. Thanks and a tip of the hat to that great Republican Abraham Lincoln.)
It's going to be interesting to see how BushCo tries to spin their way out of this one. It sounds like he's just collected the facts and shown them in an ugly light--but very artistically. Dubya was probably not amused. Maybe it contributed to his little accident over the weekend? If so, BushCo better watch out for the klutz label. It certainly didn't help Ford in his campaign. (Interestingly enough, I never bought it at the time, and still don't. I don't know how a couple of clumsy stumbles got taken so far out of proportion.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
"You don't have to agree with him, but you should be fighting to allow it to be seen."
And how exactly is the government preventing it from being seen? Are they threatening to send Moore to Cuba and burn all the negatives if the movie is shown?
The linked article was a little slim on details, but I found the AP article that says that Tarantino was the president of the jury for Palme d'Or, and actress Kathleen Tuner (of Baby Geniuses fame) sits on the panel as well. Plus in other cool news, the AP article says that an edited-together 4-hour complete version of Kill Bill was shown. Can't wait for the special edition DVD on that one.
Really? Try having a civilized debate on affirmative action or slavery reparations on a college campus here in the U.S.
And Howard Stern a liberal? He's the guy who sunk true liberal Mario Cuomo by attacking Cuomo's lack of support for the death penalty.
A few years ago, Moore had an ex-employee arrested, when said employee tried to get an interview with him.
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/regio nal/061700ny-col-tierney.html
Is it possible to see this film in the US? Not in theaters, but is it going to be released on video/dvd anytime soon? Otherwise, does anyone have a torrent or some other way to watch it?
Ceci n'est pas une sig
Perhaps you should have spent more time in reading comprehension at school, then you'd realise that that is no restriction on the rest of the amendment.
Equally, you might want to explain why the founders implicitly assume the private ownership of warships in the constitution, but wouldn't have tolerated the ownership of evil baby-killing 'assault weapons'?
That's what Moore said about his film during the height of his spat with Disney about distribution. Now, I if Disney manages to pull enough strings such that the film doesn't get released wide before the November elections, I can almost guarantee that releasing this film on the web is precisely what he'll do.
But that won't happen, especially now. You must remember that there is an assload of money to be made here and somebody is going to make it, political climate be damned.
Those who argue that Moore should release his film to the web anyway, ignoring the millions he could make, in the interest of principals are trolls. He's got himself a goose that lays golden eggs here - killing it to make stew may be ok, but keeping it around to lay golden eggs is a no-brainer.
--
It is the first documentary to win gold at the Cannes since 1956 when Cousteou won for "The Silent World".
He never alleged that any of the big scares he was talking about (e.g. killer bees, millenium bug, etc) were not a threat to ANYONE. I'm sure somewhere, somebody has been killed by killer bees....I'm sure a lot of work went into fixing the Millenium bug, and somewhere, something broke because of it. That's not the point he was making.
Moore was saying that we Americans live in a culture of fear, where a lot of things that aren't a big deal at all are presented as something that we need to worry about. This is exactly the same thing that happened with Iraq; we were told that Iraq had WMD's, everyone flipped out, and we were able to invade. He never said that the whole thing was a "hoax"...he was just pointing out the idiocy of people stocking up enough food for weeks, buying bomb shelters, etc.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
One news network gives both sides, and you libs can't stand it." Which one would that be? FOX News? You can't be serious.
Hannity & Colmes, for one. Sean Hannoty is a Conservative, Alan Colmes if a liberal. If you try saying that Alan Colmes isn't liberal (besides brilliant), then you either have your head up your ass, have never heard of Alan Colmes, or simply have blind hatred of Fox News. Hell, his last book is called Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong for G-d's sake!
Of course, now that I've proven you wrong, you'll have to reply with a retraction. But, of course, you won't. So I'll just be content with having sucessfully negated your post.
"A CEO can not determine the actions of a corporation, he could only advise the board."
ROTLFMAO. Maybe you should try life in the real world sometime.
The plain fact is that Moore knew a year ago that Eisner would not allow Miramax to distribute the film, yet acted as though he only discovered it very recently. That's a publicity stunt, nothing to do with censorship.
From what I read (http://www.moorewatch.com/, http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/, etc.), Michael Moore is utterly unencumbered by honesty or ethics.
Do yourself a favor and read up on what was thought to be "the militia" at the time the second amendment was written. (Hint: all able-bodied men within a certain age range.) Then perhaps you actually will understand the second amendment.
If slashdot wants to now report Cannes news, it's odd that this was the time to do it.
Editors can post whatever they want, i know. But let's stop this charade that they aren't trying to push politics here.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
And the only facts I see are pretty small errors. The same types of errors CNN and BBC make all the time, only leaning the other way.
"But speaking here in my capacity as a polished, sophisticated European as well, it seems to me the laugh here is on the polished, sophisticated Europeans. They think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they've taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities." - Christopher Hitchens
He won not because of his movie, but because of his message. The festival is supposed to be about art, but now its been perverted into politics.
I also fear that may be true, but I know *I* haven't seen the movie yet... have you?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
The real issue here is that companies get special tax breaks if the government likes them!? and you all think thats perfectly normal?!? WTF IS EVERYONE SMOKING??
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
They may not be perfect, but they are more likely to tell viewers what they need to hear, rather than American media that tells us what we want to hear. Just like Hollywood. Give the people what they wan't with no challenges.
The one area that is clearly better than American media is a sense of being in the world. American media is always about America. It's not a death unless it's an American death. It's not suffering unless it's an American suffering. BBC and C-TV have news reports from other parts of the world. I had no idea their were people and entire countries in South America or Africa until I listened to a BBC broadcast. Americans only talk about those parts of the world when an American gets killed there or American investments are effected there.
See how the left can NEVER offer anything constructive? The only thing they know how to do is start with name calling. I heard one a few weeks ago that called Rush a big fatso. I asked them have you ever listened to him? No they didn't. Then how could you base your OPINION on something you've never listened to? Because of what others said about him. LOL....typical. I listen to BOTH sides. I listend to Air America a few hours of the "O Franken factor" to see what it was about. Unlike those on the left, I form my opinion AFTER I listen to something, not before....
Sarin?
What Sarin?
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
We dont speak about the documentary because it has no bearing on "news for Nerds". its you that has the problem and cant be in a forum where politics are "left" at the door.
Read the whole thing. It's not just "News for Nerds" but also "Stuff that matters".
No the trouble with Michael Moore's films is not that they hit close to home. The trouble with them is that they are works of fiction. I would have no complaints with him if he didn't call them documentaries. I fully expect his latest flim to be utterly ripped apart for his "masterful" editing, lets cut and paste these two or three speeches together and now we have something that makes the NRA look like a group of gun toting fanatics who support Columbine.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
I didn't say you had to believe those links, all I said is that those are some I have looked at lately. Go watch a few of his movies, such as Bowling for Columbine, and read a few history books and you will see that he distorts issues to create more support for the issue that he believes.
"Just because someone makes a documentary does not mean they have an obligation to be fair to anyone."
He doesn't have an obligation to be fair no, but if he wants to claim that his documentary is based on true relevant information he has to show both sides of the situation and include some explanations for situations which he clearly leaves out.
"Also, if you believe the web site you've been reading you need to pay better attention. Maybe read something substantial rather than tabloid style web sites trashing a courageous film maker.Whether you agree with his politics or not, you have to agree it takes brass balls to release a film this critical of Bush in this day and age of the PATRIOT ACT and other hystaria."
I have not commented on the balls that it takes to release such a movie as that is virtually irrelevant.
"Btw, do you have any FACTS?"
I am not going to start disecting his movies here for you on slashdot if you would like to do so watch them and pick up a history book or browse the Internet for sources you find viable.
"Your opinions in the above statement contains, "facts [that] are almost always distorted so that they meet [your] perception of reality."
Another top notch response. Did you know that you can do that with virtually any sentence?
"Your weak ass web references only contradict your argument cause those people are no better than Moore himself. They are completely biased and make no effort to be fair."
This is completely ridiculous plenty of those references contain substantial irregularities that exist in Micheal Moore's movies, you don't have to believe everything on there obviously, but you can do some research and see that many are true.
"That is what your point was?"
Well since you barely touched upon my point and retaliated with an idiotic rant the answer is no.
"Don't you feel like a hypocrite now?"
No, you posted under AC and replied with some idiotic jibberish.
Try reading Byrons Don Juan. Art can be about art and be political at the same time.. and The Cannes festival has not been perverted, if you want to blame somebody for this, blame Quentin Tarantino. He and his jury made the decision.
OK, let's dismiss Michael Moore entirely because he has some baggage. - sarcasm Sounds like Mr. Edelstein couldn't take being fired like a man. Firing someone is no easy task, and having to do it to a camera is asking a little much. I'm sure if Edelstein walked into Moore's office, and asked for a straight up reason for his firing, sans camera, he'd get it. Edelstein is obviously vengeful. Moore uses his camera when he doesn't get an answer. Edelstein has his: he's obsessive, and he scares his boss, and apparently his public antics aren't helping. Do that to your boss and try staying employed.
Now, wait just a sec, here. Do you people complaining about having this posted on Slashdot think that somehow, there are two separate worlds: a technological one, and a political one ? Well, folks, there's just one and like it or not, we can't just ignore what's going on around our techno sphere. Heck, I'm not much into politics myself but I don't think I'm allowed to just look in another direction, especially when science and techno get every day more and more employed for stuff I don't approve. So, this news sure is gonna trigger a lot of trolls and flames... Fine. It's stuff worth talking about, anyway.
lol - that's funny.
.us domain? That's absurd. I'm a liberal.. Michael Moore gives liberals a bad name. Do not confuse me for some Bush loving neo-con.
You're going to attack me because of a
Well, it depends on how you look at it. Fox News is heavily watched. For 2003, Fox's Nielsen average daily ratings were 1.02 million vieweres while CNN only had 665,000 viewers. That's the number you hear cited so much when news outlets report "Fox crushing CNN."
What may be more telling though is their respective "cumes" or the cumulative total number of viewers who watch a channel for at least six minutes during a given day. CNN's cume is regularly at least 20% greater than Fox News. The cumes for April 2003 show that CNN had 105 million viewers while Fox only had 86 million.
Even more interesting is when looks at viewers who describe themselves as "very conservative." An ad agency (Carat USA) did such a study and found that 37% of viewers who are "very conservative" watch CNN during a week, while only 32% watch Fox News.
Also, you have to remember that neither network is a ratings success. For instance, on a good night, The O Reilly Factor (Fox News' highest rated program will get about 2 million viewers. Contrast this to CBS News, the lowest rated network news program which regularly gets 8 - 10 million viewers.
All of the above has been drawn from this article from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting). Is FAIR a left-wing or liberal media watch group? Yeah, I would hesitate to use those terms, but I'll concede that they are left in-so-far as they report on the innacuracies of the mainstream news media, which generally ranges mildly right-of-center to hard right. However, they use facts to back up their assertions that are solidly based in reality and not derived from Karl Rove's morning talking points memo.
From wikipedia.com
On what the jury president said to him:
Quentin whispered in my ear, 'we want you to know that it was not the politics of your film that won you this award. We are not here to give a political award. Some of us have no politics. We awarded the art of cinema, that is what won you this award and we wanted you to know that as a fellow filmmaker.
He selectively chooses material to illustrate his extreme leftist views
You mean just like you selectively choose comments to illustrate YOUR extreme anti-moore views? How about this line from the Washington Post?
What's remarkable here isn't Moore's political animosity or ticklish wit. It's the well-argued, heartfelt power of his persuasion. Even though there are many things here that we have already learned, Moore puts it all together.
Its real easy to point fingers, isn't it?
Well, he's kind of like SCO. He makes a claim, has no real evidence to back it up, and then twists facts to make it seem like he was right all along
If that's the case then why hasn't he been sued into oblivion?
If he's making false accusations against very rich people in the most litigous country on the planet then you would have thought that someone would have sued him by now. Last time I looked he still seemed to be solvent...
(Personally, I agree with what he's trying to say, but think that he's going to become unstuck soon as he's sounding more like a politician each time I hear him.)
"What can I say? I'm the queen of java."
subduction.net
This movie looks interesting. Where's the bittorrent?
I doubt that, more that Sunday is always a slow news day and this is guaranteed to get lots of hits (=ad impressions). Better than the dupes they usually serve up on weekends. But in the longer term it destroys a lot of the community feeling by setting people at each others' throats.
While all answers are replies, not all replies are answers.
He doesn't really debunk anything, now does he?
Wacko Attacko's??
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
InstaPundit.com has been posting links to other prison abuse stories. For some reason, these aren't getting as much attention in the mainstream media ("all Abu Ghraib, all the time").
Maybe the French, Germans, Arabs, public employees unions, California Attorney General, and their apologists should take note.
May 22, 2004
PRISON MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS AND A DYSFUNCTIONAL CULTURE OF ABUSE in the California prison guards' union.
posted at 03:53 PM by Glenn Reynolds
May 21, 2004
SOMEONE TELL 60 MINUTES about this secret underground prison:
'It starts off by being stripped naked in front of 10 police officers including two women, gratutious humiliation is used to break you down.' '... worst jail that you can possibly imagine.' 'Not even a hole to go to the bathroom. You have to piss against a wall and you sleep in piss on the concrete floor.' The torture victim demands 'the immediate shutdown of this secret underground prison'. It's not at Abu Ghraib, it's in Marseille, France.
No doubt Ted Kennedy will be condemning it soon.
posted at 07:41 PM by Glenn Reynolds
May 21, 2004
MORE STORIES OF ARAB PRISONERS BEING ABUSED:
ARAB prisoners beaten and tortured, innocent bystanders killed by gunfire - another damning human rights report.
But the difference this time is that the violence is being perpetrated not by coalition forces in Iraq, but by the Palestinian Authority, and the victims are its own people.
The report, partly funded by the Finnish government, claims Palestinian cities are in a state of near anarchy, with people on the payroll of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) blamed for 90 per cent of gangland violence.
It highlights numerous incidents of torture of prisoners and refers to the killing of civilians in gunbattles between Palestinian factions.
It is another blow for Mr Arafat's organisation, which was recently accused of misusing 134 million of European Union funds. Mr Arafat was accused of signing cheques to people linked with terrorist activity.
I'm sure Ted Kennedy will have comments.
posted at 09:55 AM by Glenn Reynolds
May 18, 2004
IRAQI EMIGRES ON ABU GHRAIB: This is interesting:
Hadi Kazwini is an Iraqi engineer who moved to Australia in 1997 and lives in Sydney with his wife and three children. He is amazed at the gullibility of those Australians who have taken the Arab response to the photos at face value.
This sort of brutality goes on all the time, it is happening now in jails right through the Middle East, he says. But of course there are no photos. This is selective outrage.
Kazwini believes that the behaviour revealed by the photos is awful and the US soldiers involved should be punished. But he says some of the Iraqi prisoners shown were Saddam's killers and torturers. They have been responsible for far worse violations of human rights than the Americans.
Where is the outrage about this, he asks. I haven't seen
The World's Smallest Political Quiz
The site is biased towards libertarianism, and the "quiz" is overly simplified, but the concept is quite sound IMO.
> Now that sounds like WMD and Iraq.
Good point. And as a non-US citizen I'd like to honestly ask USians here one question: what are currently the reasons for your presence in Iraq?
As Michael Eisner has said before, we are a company that is founded on ideals of the American family backbone
Not "is founded", but only was founded. Huge Corporations are driven by the bottom line and dreams of ultimate control. Disney has recently been behind so many things that undermine the rights and values of the American Family, this is simply no longer a credible position for Disney.
It is not just groups at one end of the spectrum that feel that Disney is the enemy.
And for slashdot context, what does Disney have against free software that I should be forbidden from playing the DVDs I purchase using free software? And why do they think their shallow mutations of the rich public domain from which they drew their stories should never fall back into public domain, as it was supposed to occur in American society. Is control of all computing and content by monopoly corporations a Disney value, too? How is it not censorship? Most corporations have done something from time to time to show they actually are aware of community and consumer issues and concerns, but clearly not Disney. Why acknowledge the consumer when you can control the market?
It makes the same ad hominem attacks that it accuses Moore of making, does not back up it's cliams with references and is clearly as much of a "no-spin zone" as any ultra right wing conservative crack pot media outlet such as Rush Limbaugh's "no spin" talk shows.
And yes, I will leave it at that because thats my informed opinion on the matter and this is a web site whos foundation is opinion. If you want to know how I can reach the above conclusion, please go read the website you linked to and then attempt to map it's statements back onto the actual reality we live in.
Kind regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Do you honestly believe that that one shell with traces of sarin (unconfirmed, last i saw) justifies invading a sovereign nation? WTF are you thinking? Bush & the neo-fascists running the whitehouse should be tossed in a hole somewhere for all the damage they've done.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
I've met many Americans and they are all nice people. However its American introspectiveness that's the problem. How can America expect the rest of the world to like it when it only take an interest when it is thretened ? For instance, the coverage on the accession of 10 new states to the European Union barely got a mention on the American news sites - despite this affecting millions of people and making the EU the world biggest economic entity. Would you expect you husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend to like you if you decided to ignore them As for WWI & WWII thanks - truly, I guess Americans in their 70's and older get it. But the younger ones don't.
False dichotomy ...
... ?
Ever stop to think that one can be against Moore AND the Neocons
Just because someone can't stand Moore, it does not make them a Republican or a Bush fan.
Moore lies.
Bush lies.
They BOTH have smug insipid grins when they think they have "scored a point".
They both stink!
Neither is a friend of REAL liberty and American values, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
Thank you sir, may I have another?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Bush. Moore. Just two peas at opposite ends of the ideology pod. Following one or the other is to operate at a zero level of intellect.
--- Ban humanity.
If you try saying that Alan Colmes isn't liberal (besides brilliant), then you either have your head up your ass, have never heard of Alan Colmes, or simply have blind hatred of Fox News
Alan Colmes is the Sean Hannity's equivalent of the Washington Generals. He's a punching bag who's put up there to make it look like a contest. Al Franken skewered Colmes in his book Lie and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. I suggest that you read that before trotting out Colmes as evidence that Fox is not biased.
On May 5, the president addressed the spring and summer degree candidates at Michigan State University. As he has done on several occasions, he attempted to shame his political opponents into silence, by somehow linking them with the terrorists. The mainstream media, which never questioned him on this, has only been all too willing to cooperate in this smear campaign.
The president was Bill Clinton. The date was May 5, 1995 -- about 3 weeks after the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. You can read the entire speech at http://oldsite.msu.edu/conv95/
In his last weekly radio address of that year, President Clinton noted that "we can't love our country and hate our government."
Linky
It's long winded and less than calm so you may have to skim it to get to the meat of the argument.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you! Shocked!
(Why can't people who so easily draw inferences between oil price and Haliburton not see the obvious bias inherent in Cannes picking MM's 9/11?)
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Newsommercial should be the new term for USA news. There is some news but in an infommercial kind of way. There is more entertainment value to the news channels than actual news. Face it, USA does not have any bias media out there. In addition, the news that is claimed as news really has no news value to the masses, such as Michael Jackson. Personal tragedies should not be given the same newsworthy status as the Spain's 3-11. The USA's short attention span has played such a critical role to the news media that every news channel is making the news similar to Jerry Springer, Oprah, etc. This is why that no one should place full faith into any one news story in the USA.
Perhaps if we bring those war dead home, the Criminal in Chief won't be too ashamed to show them on television.
I'm not going to provide a specific example. I'm sure I could find several, but I simply don't have time. However, it's well known that Fox News' management likes to add their own special touch to the news. For instance, producer Don Dahler resigned after being asked by senion vice-president John Moody to play down statistics in a story that showed a lack of social progress among blacks. Also, the Columbia Journalism Review has reported that several former employees of Fox News complained that management often interfered in the writing and editing of stories to "make them more palatable to Right-of-centre tastes" and quoted one of them as saying, "I've worked at a lot of news organizations and never found that kind of manipulation."
And how much thought did you give to the possibly millions and certainly tens of thousands who under Saddam got a lot worse treatment then getting their pictures taken while naked wearing a dog leash? I'll bet none, if you didn't find a way to rationalize blaming the US for Saddam.
Look up "moral equivalence" and maybe you will begin to understand how this is fallacious and specious reasoning.
If you don't understand it then come to my neighborhood and I'll sodomize you with a broomstick while talking about what your ancestors did to my ancestors. Maybe then you'll see my point.
it's such an old political scam it has its own catch phrase.
I remember as a grade school kid being asked "are you a democrat or a republican?", as if those are the only choices. It's mass conditioining/brainwashing, and it takes a long time for most people to finally realise how effective it really is. A lot never realise it.
You ask, how to get around it? Exactly what we are doing now, pointing out there is little practical difference once you get to the specifics of what one criminal cartel promises/says/does as opposed to the other. They are both criminal cartels. And at the very tippy top, they are both run by international billionaire fascists, who also own the media empires, etc. They are feudalists, always have been fuedalists, and have generations of practice in how to control the various populations and the political processes. They fund and start both sides of all the major wars, for instance, and profit from them. It goes way, way back. Fascinating once you start delving into it.
So, all you can do is educate, point people to some data, let them figure out what has happened to them, then they usually can logic-out what to do next-if they are so inclined, a lot aren't, until such a time as they become a victim-of their OWN side, their "team" victimises them some how and they go WTF? If you can catch them then, you can reason, offer some data.. Throwing it all at once in their face is too much too quick, most can't or won't accept the fact of how they have been so seriously misled and lied to their entire lives, they fall into immediate denial-usually anyway. It takes time for people to chip away at pre conceived notions, and it's easy to slide back into a comfort zone of what you are willing to look at, let alone accept.
Here's an example from a post further up. A mention was made of a critique of moores film at the NY post, here's the full quote from there:
"NOTHING NEW
MICHAEL Moore's anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11" isn't even original. Two years ago, "9/11: The Road to Tyranny," a real documentary by Alex Jones, had most of the "facts" Moore uses in his scatter-shot diatribe. Jones, who is less interested in making money than the self-aggrandizing Moore, released his film for free on his Web site www.infowars.com, where it drew legions of new fans, including producer Curt Johnson, who is hiring Jones as a consultant on a political action thriller titled "Wake Up."
The deal is, moore is a big hit with the types who associate with criminal gang A, as opposed to criminal gang B-not to say his films aren't at least somewhat provocative and well done-I thought "roger and me" was excellent. But a REAL independent non aligned film maker has a difficult job getting his films out. The same as REAL independent news people are so rare in mass media broadcast venues. They serve their globalist masters, and a major part of their jobs is not to broadcast news or educate, it's to perpetuate the "divide and conquer" scam that has always been so successful.
The main tool we have now is the internet, because so far, it's not controllable like the "media" thing was in the past. So, that's what I used, I just wish we would have had this back in the 60's, stuff would be a LOT different now. I remember when I wrote back then it had to be picked up and run by an "underground" paper, or you literally had to go pay to have it printed yourself andf just hand the stuff out. Very expensive, hard to do, hard to reach a lot of people. And it's also why it's so important NOW to keep the internet as free from government regulation and big money control as possible, whichever nation you happen to reside in, because ALL nations have "the approved" press, they all offer up partial truths and lies mixed with just enough truth to make it seem to be credible, and when most of the people in the various places ONLY get their news from those places, and ONLY get their "education" from government run indoctrination "schools", they will continue to be brainwashed into following the "pa
Michael Moore is what Opensource means against Microsoft (or any closed source giant)
I call bullshit here. RMS, ESR, and Linus have never gotten an interview with Steve Ballmer under false pretenses and proceeded to blindside them with idiotic questions and absurd assertions.
Will it be aired in (sorry, foreigner here) in ABC for instance?
Aside from their own work (20/20, Dateline, 60 Minutes, et al.) I have never seen anything that could even remotely be considered a documentary aired by ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX.
If you are a Bush supporter and got mad to the documentary itself, please tell so.
I am a "Bush supporter" but my beef with Michael Moore goes back further than this.
Don't hide behind "news for nerds" slogan validity.
One could argue that this falls under "stuff that matters", but it is definately NOT news for nerds.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Why do you think right-wing censorship would silence Rush? There is considerable censorship going on today, where it concerns reporting the horrors of the war, but Rush is always on the side of those performing the atrocities.
Release the movie: a campaign by a Moore "fan".
I don't think he can release the movie for free on P2P. I think that would violate his contract with Miramax, and possibly with actors/copyright holders for source material that might have a gross percentage deal on the movie. It won't happen.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
That is a cute word, but when you herd it you misunderstood its definition. a mockumentary is a humorous film. check out this site for examples.
I wonder if in instances, like this what was really behind the award. Nobel Literature and Peace Prizes have often been rewarded to shame and cajole the nations of their awardee into action.
I suspect, there might have been a similar motive here, to embarass the US by awarding the prize to a movie which has been muzzled by a protracted distribution saga. It's also payback from Europeans that resent American foreign policy and hawkish postering against 'old Europe'.
Whether the French do or do not hate America is irrelevant to the Cannes prize.
The jury was presided by an American (Quentin Trantino). Members were two more Americans, one Belgian, one British, one Chinese, and two unknown.
The French, and Europeans in general, are very grateful to the Americans for liberating them in the two WWs. Even the younger are aware of that.
The problem is that in the last 50+ years (mainy during the cold war), things have changed, and America actively supported or put into power about all non-communist dictators, even when it required overthrowing democratically elected governments.
So the Europeans slowly learned that the country which once liberated them had changed...
In what way is this "News for Nerds"?
This is "News For Liberal Nerds".
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Nature documentaries reshuffle time a lot too and add scenes together that were filmed in totally different locations. Want to show a lion hunting? One shot of the lion creeping. Totally different shot of an antilope grazing. Other shot of the same lion creeping but flipped to give the impression he is walking towards the prey on the left. Completly different antilope being spooked by a member of the filmteam and running away. The same lion but running after a zebra that is of screen in totally different hunt. End lion eating on a prey that during one brief glimps turns out to be male antilope while all the previous were off a female antilope.
So yes nature docu's are "false". That is not even touching on the totally staged scenes (insect docu's are famous for this were everything is filmed inside a studio) with sharks. How many shark docu's have you seen where all the footage consisted of shark being fed from a boat?
But any docu is biased and staged. Truly objective journalism doesn't exist. The trick is making sure the journalist/documaker is upfront about wich side he is on. The truly nasty scum pretend to be left while making a rightwing point or the other way around.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
By Stuart Chase.
It's a rather old book. But it covers this situation extremely well.
He defines "blab words" which have no set definitions and are used to trigger emotional responses instead of intellectual ones.
Of course "left/right|liberal/conservative" are part of those. They are words that mean different things to different people. Just like "patriotism" and "good" and "evil".
The trick is to identify all the "blab words" in a political speech or whatever and then then re-read the speech with those words replaced by "blab". Most of the time you'll find that the speech is 100% content free.
The majority (90%+?) of "political discussion" in the US is "blab words". There is no "discussion". There are only emotionally charged diatribes.
This may not be tech news, but there are movie geeks out there as well. That makes this interesting for some of the /.-readers. As we can also see by the number of comments anyway. Not everyone cares about the SCO-case either, but they don't complain about it being off-topic.
... how about saying something constructive or moving along?
So
Here is the Kuro5him link referred to.
...when the big mouthed troublemakers lie and distort just as much as the State, is it really value added, or just divisive bullshit that hides real solutions in ideological fog?
--- Ban humanity.
This is enormous. This is politics going inside the Cannes palmares. A political move to ensure americans will talk about the movie and release it. Not saying that this is not a great movie, I'm very much looking forward to seing it ; but they were fantastic movies featured in Cannes.
This is really an important move from Cannes, the cinema culture, or the society in general.
Even Moore said "Jesus, what have you done ?" to the Jury when he came to receive his prize.
Cannes, the most pedantic cinema club, gave the Palme to a movie that is mostly a work made to make sure Bush won't be president anymore.
This is one of the most important socio-political event this year !
theefer
Equally, you might want to explain why the founders implicitly assume the private ownership of warships
... I just had one of those moments.
Ever have a moment when you say to yourself "No fucking kidding?!?"
As a long time advocate of RKBA and a student of the Constitution, I thank you for pointing this out.
BTW, what this poster is refering to is the Congressional power to "grant letters of marque".
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2004/05/an_exam ple_of_f.html
_____ "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- Orwell
He makes a claim, has no real evidence to back it up, and then twists facts to make it seem like he was right all along.
Sounds like someone else and his case for the war. It is also precisely what you have done.
Why did he win? Europeans hate America politics at the moment
No, they hate war. As does most of the sane world including, according to recent polls, over half of American citizens.
The nice thing about being a troll is that you can make statements without haven to consider the burden of facts. Here are the key passages:
four of the nine jurors were American: Mr. Tarantino, Kathleen Turner, the director Jerry Schatzberg, and the Haitian-born novelist Edwidge Danticat. "I fully expect the Fox News Channel and other right-wing media to portray this as an award from the French," Mr. Moore said. Only one juror, the actress Emanuelle Béart, is a French citizen.
"If you want to add Tilda," he said referring to the British actress Tilda Swinton, "then you could say that more than half came from the coalition of the willing." (The rest of the panel was made up of Benoit Poelvoode, a Belgian actor; Peter von Bagh, a Finnish critic; and the Hong Kong director Tsui Hark.)
So we have: 4 from the US, 1 from Britain, 1 from Belgium, 1 from France, 1 from Finland, 1 from Hong Kong. For the geographically challenged, that means 4/9 of the jurors were Europeans (and one of those doesn't really agree)
You don't get too hung up on facts yourself, it seems. You should apply for a job at FOX news.
On the left is Alan Colmes, a rather less telegenic former stand-up comic and radio host whose views are slightly left-of-center but who, as a personality, is completely off the radar screen of liberal politics. "I'm quite moderate," he told a reporter when asked to describe his politics (USA Today, 2/1/95). Hannity, a self-described "arch-conservative" (Electronic Media, 8/26/96)
(full article in a previous post)
Michael Moore is very smart, in how he is able to work people up to get his movie seen. He is a master propagandist, not afraid to use quotes out of context or outright fabrications to try to indoctrinate what he must view as the American Sheeple.
It'd be more intellectually honest to create documentaries centered around the absolute truth, rather than some self-important manufactured "truth", but it wouldn't get the outrage, and wouldn't sell as many tickets.
For the record, I'm not defending Bush, or the gun lobby, against this obsequious little weasel. I think they deserve strong criticism, but it must be fair, honest criticism. Neither of those are within Michael Moore's grasp.
So it doesn't have to be for "News for Nerds." It can just be "Stuff that matters.".
You can imagine an AND between them and accept only news stories that meet both conditions but this site doesn't do that. Instead it uses the more common english meaning of AND what for programmers would be an OR.
So slashdot has stories that are "News for Nerds." OR "Stuff that matters."
This is hardly the first political story on /. and I say it is the better for it. And if you don't like the political views of /. feel free to make your own site. If you actually bother to read the comments you will learn that their are a fair number of pro-bush posters as well.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'll assume you're being serious, although it seems more likely you're trolling.
...) to people who had comitted a felony, but were felony-free themselves. That's illegal, and it made the difference in deciding who became president. And guess what, They (Jeb Bush's cabinet) are doing it again for the 2004 elections.
First things first: paragraphs. Learn what they are, use them, more people will read what you type and actually take you seriously.
Secondly, go read mediamatters.org and see how biased towards the neocon view all of the mainstream tv is. The reality is that neocons are not just plain wrong on many issues (their economic theories, like trickle-down economics, have long since been disproven, and their military policies are outright failures, e.g. the war in iraq). Yet somehow they manage to get their voice not just mentioned on mainstream news, but presented as having equal value to the truth. It's not biased when you don't report lies. Take a skeptical look at the actual facts that people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Anne Coulter say (go look up the actual quotes and the actual statistics they cite), and you'll see they lie and distort to serve their own wrongheaded worldview.
Additionally, the reality is that the "liberal" voices you hear on mainstream tv are people cherry-picked to make a poor argument, like Alan Colmes. The left has much better arguments, but the good arguments don't end up on the tv screen. It's a well known strategy to discredit your political opponent, and the right has practiced it with much success.
Now, as for specific responses to what you typed:
Their idea of "balance" is to have a commetator, 3 panelist (all of which spout liberal garbage), and one somewhat moderate conservative. That is their idea of balance. Air America, the so far disappointing attempt by the left to "get their message out" will fail. Why? simple. They are not entertaining. I listened to it a few times on XM, and all it was was whinning, name calling about what is wrong with the conservatives. Did they offer any constructive ideas? No.
You should read your own post. First you accuse the mainstream media of left-wing bias, then you say air america is the left's attempt to get their message out. Why would the left need air america if the mainstream media was biased towards the liberal view? Additionally, I have listened to air america, and I've heard a lot of constructive ideas. My guess is you haven't listened for more than a few hours at best. Try listening for a week.
Why do you think they are working to allow convicted felons, and prisoners the "right" to vote?
Are you talking about the scrubbing of the voter rolls in the 2000 florida elections? You should read up on that. They didn't just remove people who had comitted a felony, they removed people with similarities (names, locations,
It's a valid point to say that people convicted of a felony shouldn't be allowed to vote. But you should look into how racist the US judicial system is. Black people get convicted of a lot more crimes, and sent away for much longer terms. That by the very definition is racism, and the only way you can say it is fair is by taking the position that black people are subhuman (naturally commit more and worse crimes than white people). As a result, the system is rigged to ensure people who would vote democratic (the disenfranchised and the poor) don't get to vote because they get locked away more than middle-class white people.
I also invite you to follow the money. Look at how the entire media industry has been making record profits from bush being in the whitehouse (and the matching media deregulation), and how they donate primarily to the right. If they really had a liberal bias, why would they be republican donors, and why would they be biting the hand that feeds them?
Mind you, I'm not opposed to the classical conservative worldview, of small government, sane fiscal policies, and maintaining t
Both parties are the problem.
Both parties supported the war.
Both parties were extremely negligent on the threat of terrorism.
Both parties supported the Patriot Act.
Both parties supported Digital Millenium Copyright Act and every other bad piece of legislation we are suffering under...
We should still be upset at Disney and others who are a cause of much evil and control a press which censors out what most of the rest of the world knows -- not just in this film, but in the news organizations they control.
Abu Ghraib was a yawn for the rest of the world, even in Iraq. It was only a big deal in America because it was something that happened to slip past the censors. The rest of the world had seen this stuff since the war started, and took it seriously from the first day, which is one of many issues filtered by the press (compare international CNN with American CNN) which have caused them to lose all respect for American government.
When this movie comes out to video make sure to find a copy of the ridiculous Jerry Falwell "documentary" about Clinton.
Should be an entertaining comparison of right vs left.
"Do you honestly believe that that one shell with traces of sarin (unconfirmed, last i saw) justifies invading a sovereign nation?"\
First off, it's been confirmed IIRC. A search for "sarin" on Google News turns out too much editorial rhetoric (on both sides) to find information one way or the other, though.
Secondly, I find it interesting that the people who used it to set up that roadside bomb apparently thought it was just a conventional shell. That means it looked like a conventional shell. Now, either it looked that way because the people who made a one-of-a-kind shell went through effort to make it look normal (why?), or the shell looked that way because it was mass-produced (like ordinary shells).
In the 1990's, before leaving, UNSCOM said there were over 500 such shells filled with sarin they couldn't account for.
(What worries me is that the people who used that shell know where it came from and now know what it it was.)
Why is this slashdot material? There are a lot of places to post political drek, and this isn't one of them.
It's retards like you that make me glad I don't believe in this society.
Once convicted of a felony, you have LOST your right to vote. Period
Let me tell you something, you fucking retard. The government decides what is and isn't a felony. The government decides what laws are and aren't enforced and who to investigate. By disenfranchising felons, the government decides who can't remove them from power.
Lets put it to example. Tomorrow, fair use is overturned, copyright becomes (even more) criminalized penalty-wise and the government finds an effective means of identifying any and all copyright infringers.
Bang. Instantly, we're looking at the ability to arrest anyone (75%+ of the populous) and charge them with a felony. As already pointed out, selective enforcement is a reality, so the government will only round up the people unlikely to vote for them in the future. Felons can't vote, and will never again be able to change the path of government.
Before I go any further, I want to say that both the Left and the Right would abuse this, depending on who was in power.
Now, to put it in more realistic terms, look at the Farce, er, War on Drugs. Millions of Americans go to jail for having a fucking joint. Many of them will never be able to effectively change the laws that they don't agree with. You lay it out like the Law of Man == the Law of God.
"We live by the rules". What naivety. I am willing to wager that you don't know the rules of the land you live in. Every rule, from city to county to state to nation. And they accuse the leftys of being politically naive..
Do you have any facts to back up your accusations?
Alan Colmes may say he's a liberal, but if he is he makes the poorest arguments of any liberal I know. Try reading the real liberal arguments, and see how Colmes was selected specifically because he can't argue his way out of a wet paper bag.
It's a straw man argument. You attack your opponents not by attacking their actual strongest arguments, but by attacking their poorest arguments, or arguments they don't even make.
I can't believe how many slashdotters are crying foul (or fowl!) over the Mike Moore story. This is not just a story about Moore's take on Bush, but a story on Disneys attempt at shutting the movie down; you know that censorship topic!
e ff erson_quotes.html
As an American, a poli sci major, and a history freak, what Bush & friends are doing is unprecedented. Sure we have started false wars, or adventures as bombastic William Buckley callously refers to them, but never on this scale.
Bush & friends are at war not just profiteering in Afghanistan and Iraq, but are celebrating major victories on their war on people. Health care, over time, education, pollution and the environment, civil liberties, have all taken major blows by this oligarchy.
"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."
--Thomas Jefferson to W. Jarvis, 1820.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6529/notebook/j
The previous poster who brought up Operation Northwoods should be acknowledged too. At the same time we have the Gulf of Tonkin, the burning of the Reichstag etc. etc.
Well I feel better now. What Bush is doing is truly the "stuff that matters" and considering how little opposition we have to his reign of terror, Mike Moore's movie will be something I will watch, even if I have to fly to China to see it!
http://www.replace-alan-colmes.com/
-ashot
How about the US-sponsored Iraqi National Congress, accused of many crimes and now discovering strong links to the Iraqis, who wanted to be rid of the secular government so that the religous leaders could take over where they control the armies and the populations. The US is the problem and the real terrorists were always first supported by covert action of the US. If only the US believed in letting countries determine their own future instead of always supporting the most-convenient dictator / terrorist and immoral American commanders.
And if WMD or state links to terrorism had been the concern, we would be killing Pakistanis today instead of Iraqis. Pakistan today is Sadaam yesterday.
How is this anything like a net positive?
I would add to that comment by noting that Fox News was the only news channel to be fined by the british government for being biased during the pre-war build-up. The British have law requiring news programs to be unbiased, unlike here in the USA.
Organicsculpture.com
Most of my maternal relatives are so conservative they border on fascism, and they think FOX is the most balanced news program ever.
Liberals think FOX is biased while conservatives think it's peachy. DAMN NEAR EVERYONE thinks the rest of the networks are biased, but don't agree on which direction. That tells me FOX is probably the most skewed of them all.
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
Don't worry, Fox and CNN are just there for your kind. 1 second of news. 20 minutes of non-news. 9.59 minutes of commercials. All easy and no thinking required. The nurse will be along shortly to give you your shot and tuck you in.
Sleep well Mr. President.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Did I say that censorship was less in WWII? No, nor did I imply that in any way. What does this have to do with whether Bush would censor Rush Limbaugh, who ridicules the Iraqi victims as nothing more than victims of a college prank.
Quentin [Tarantino, head of the jury] whispered in my ear: "We want you to know that it was not the politics of your film that won you this award. We are not here to give a political award. Some of us have no politics. We awarded the art of cinema, that is what won you this award and we wanted you to know that as a fellow filmmaker."
- Michael Moore
On the Palme d'Or being a French award: There was only one French citizen on the jury. Four out of nine were American. (...) This is not a French award, it was given by an international jury dominated by Americans.
- Michael Moore
You know, the land of the free, home of the brave, etc.
GeeDubya, just keep repeating to yourself: "It's only a movie, it's only a movie, it's...."
Why the hell is this even on Slashdot? Are we going to start seeing posts about the latest Tabloid news now? ...
Martha Stewart gives birth to alien invertibrate! I'm not sure, but this could be the first time this has happened to a public figure!
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Mockmentaries refers to those scripted comedy films that take documentary style (handheld, talking-head interviews, bad lighting/framing). Many of Christopher Guest's films are good examples:
Spinal Tap
Waiting for Guffman
" A Mighty Wind"
See the difference. These are all staged and scripted(act/performance). Moore's films are anything but mockumentaries. They are neither staged nor scripted!!! (except for narrations, which is necessary)
The parent post is rated completely wrong and/or overrated. I can't belive that people are swallowing this horse sh*t without a doubt...
So much of the disucssion about this new movie is about left this or right that, that I have to reply to the main topic and not individual threads. What is it about left vs right? Each side treats the other like it has the plague. But afterall, we all know that 'left' in other languages is sinister or gauche while 'right' is adroit. Why is liberal equated with the left? I think there are, or at least must be, liberal righties. The Bush administration has definately taken us to where we haven't been before. This was kind of liberal interpretations of the constitution. But wasn't this country founded on some very liberal, forward thinking ideas? Lets wake up and engage in real discussion and debate rather name name calling or labeling.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Dr. Strangelove
This is funny to me because, while Moore's documentary may have generated those warm, goose-bumpy feelings this weekend in enough of the judges to win Fahrenheit 911 the Palme D'Or, I'm betting than 20 (or even 10 or 5) years from now, Moore's film will be to political documentaries what Hackers now is to hacking movies, or what Doc Brown's pronunciation of "1.21 gigawatts!" sounds like today.
Sure, it looked and sounded good at the time, but now it's so dated and so wrong on so many levels that one can't help but treat it as a comedy! But there's still a lot for time to tell on Moore's latest film, so we'll see.
Oh nevermind... if you think "BBC" when you think "unbiased" then you're in a different universe anyway.
*ALL* news sources have a bias. You're simply doomed if you can't see the bias in whatever your favorite source happens to be.
I used to read the People's Daily World everyday (before the Soviet Union collapsed and it became the People's Weekly World..heh) but I was quite aware I was reading Soviet/communist propaganda.
I shall repeat: *all* news is biased and it is a requirement of thinking people to recognise that bias and take it into account. Not just in what they say and report but what they don't say and don't report.
What we have: (1) Extreme Leftist filmmaker (2) Propaganda Movie expressing "proper" political views (=Leftist) (3) Most of Festival Jury consists of Left-biased American or WestEuropean Bohema figures. Now, the result is rather predictable. I wonder, would a movie, say, made by an Israeli Jewish author about Israeli victims of Arab terror war, however genial, win an award at this noble forum? I doubt so. This is a purely political move by Western far-Left and among other thing, this denotes death of Kahn festival as a cultural event. Next prize goes to a North Korean movie, for sure.
yeah, i read Franken's book. It was a good book too. I just wish he wasn't too much of a scardy-cat and admit he's a liberal analyst, as opposed to a "satirist."
IIRC, the reason the film is not being released is because Disney refused to release it in an election year (a move I agree with) - not with the distributors. The timing on the attempted release by Moore of this movie is as politically suspect as the timing and direction of the 9-11 commission.
If I also recall correctly, Moore was told as early as the summer of 2003 that the movie was not going to be released by Disney. He waited until the election year to scream 'censorship'.
While I've got your eye here, I want to take a moment to bitch about Michael Moore's use of the word 'censorship'. The guy repeatedly complains that Disney is 'censoring' his work. It seems to me, anyway, that Disney should have final say in what they do and don't release - they're not a government agency, they're a freakin company. Moore has the right to say what he wants to say, but where does he get the idea that he can force companies into distributing his ideas for him? I might as well call the Today show and demand that Katie Couric interview me so that I can go off on her about her liberal bias! Why can't some people (yes, read: liberals) tell the difference between the government telling you that you can't say something and a company telling you they're not going to spend their money to broadcast your ideas?
(Yeah, I have Karma to burn)
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
FYI, if you read through the responses below, you'll find that four of the nine jurors were Americans. Only one was French.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
"Guns are good. The more, and the bigger, the better."
Definition of irony: Michael Moore bringing light to acts of brutaility by US soldiers and then railing against the Second Amendment in the same brath.
Or am I the only one who's noticed that?
Moore Film Captures French, Arab Awards
(2004-05-23) -- After the stunning triumph of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 at the Cannes Film Festival in France, the winner of the coveted Palme d'Or headed to the Gulf state of Qatar to accept another best film award from Al Jazeera.
The Arab network's Palme d'Tree award recognizes Mr. Moore's anti-Bush documentary as a "stunning journalistic and artistic achievement which is all the more amazing because of the oppressive government under which it was produced."
"That someone could make a film like this in America, under the iron fist of the Bush-Cheney administration, demonstrates a kind of courage unknown and unnecessary in the free Arab film industry," according to the official news release from the Al Jazeera Film Festival.
Fahrenheit 9/11 edged out top Arab-produced films including, The Mighty Eternal House of Saud, Zarqawi: Hero of Modern Islam and Elegy for a Brother: Tribute to Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Moore said he's delighted to receive recognition from both France and the Arab world in the same week, and that he hoped it would inspire other Americans to "rise up and overthrow the Bush regime and thus win freedom of expression for other documentarists."
4/9 of the juries were Amercian, only 1 was French.
Punching bag he may be, but he comes off as more intelligent than Hannity. And I'm not really sympathetic to many of Colmes' opinions, as a libertarian.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
As far as I know most American /.'s prefer to bash the bishop than anything else.
A significant percentaqge of the few people released from Gantanamo reported the same sorts of abuses, making it obvious it was widespread.
How do you think this sort of wide-spread abuse could be hushed up inside of Iraq.
How about the abused Reuters and NBC reporters who were never even interviewed by the military, and warned by the General to give up their claims of being abused in a very similar fashion? This was just one of the highest-profile examples.
Americans who think this was the first report of these problems have their heads where the sun doesn't shine, still wondering why former allies no longer support them.
Large numbers of reports appeared in other presses of murders, tortures, etc. The military has categorically called them all lies, and claimed it was an excuse for censoring in Iraq and trying to cause censorship in other Arab countries. This is also why the Iraqis published the report comparing Bremer with Sadaam, which caused Bremer to shut down his presses and start another major part of the war with groups of Iraqis which previously were willing to cooperate, but had been shown that American democracy was tyrrany.
Military policy was mostly to ignore them or suppress them. Abu Ghraib was raised by an insider in such a way that it was difficult to ignore, but the military was doing their best, until the pictures made it past the censors, despite the efforts of the DOD to supress them.
My mom used to say that when someone get's this angry about something, you must have hit a nerve...
just sayin'
Persons outside the U.S. regularly try to influence U.S. politics. Kerry even publicly acknowledged his support outside the U.S. (note to Kerry: you need support inside the U.S. to win the election). And I can understand why, seeing as we're the current lone superpower. Check out this site, for example.
It does remind me, though, of Cringely's article on "how to compete with Microsoft." Other countries should turn their focus to living their own lives and improving their own nations, rather than focusing on America. Hating America, blaming America, trying to influence American elections, killing Americans, financing folks who kill Americans, toadying to America, etc. won't improve their lives. And it puts the U.S. in a catch-22. We get blamed for everything: for fixing it, for not fixing it, for ignoring it, for not ignoring it, etc. The U.S. is a convenient distraction for many countries' and movements' leaders. Think how much they could accomplish if they focused on being for something, rather than against America.
I didn't vote for Bush in the last election. I would rather vote for Lieberman or Hillary than Kerry. Dean was a disaster. Why? Hillary and Joe are for something, and have specific ideas and goals in mind. Dean was only against Bush. Kerry is a pathetic waffler, and is primarily anti-Bush, rather than pro-anything.
So, maybe this is "one of the most important socio-political events this yeat" -- but the Euros politicizing a film festival to influence U.S. elections is... pathetic.
Come on! No one needs America to fail in order for them to succeed. That's such horrible, negative, zero-sum, defeatist thinking!
Succeed! Form a new, powerful EU nation! We Americans will be cheering you!
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
It would need a lot more sci-fi and anime to be worthy of Slashdot. And instead of holding it on the French Riviera they would probably want to move it to a convention centre in the mid-west. And invite a few actors from Star Trek or Babylon 5.
What about payroll taxes, the taxes paid by people who work for a living?
Ken Lay and Wally O'Dell have income, joe blow from Lima Ohio pays payroll taxes from his work at the garage.
photosMy Photostream
...P-u-lease Michael Moore found a niche and he's exploiting it for riches. It's the American way, he just looks foolish doing it because he's Canadian.
The NRA lobby has nothing in the hand because even if presented with a slant, the fact in "bowling for columbine" are still fact and thus cannot be libel. Maybe did this pass in your thought ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I just want to know how he maintains his Greek-god physic and that Playboy girl friend.
Oh, wait, we can't show the torture and murders that went on back then, that's not fair.
Once a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein becomes your moral compass, you have lost. Completely. Finito.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
If I also recall correctly
/.
According to Moore, you don't.
Moore was told as early as the summer of 2003 that the movie was not going to be released by Disney.
No, somebody claims that he was told this, but Moore claims differently - so it's really a "he said, she said" scenario, until you look at the fact that Disney continued pumping millions of dollars into the film.
If Disney truly had decided a year ago that they weren't going to release the film, why did they continue sending Moore money to continue it? It's not exactly good business sense to fund something you know you're not going to sell, right?
It seems to me, anyway, that Disney should have final say in what they do and don't release - they're not a government agency, they're a freakin company.
Yes, but the reason they're deciding not to release it is because of the government. They're afraid that the Florida government will penalize them. Which sounds an awful lot like censorship to me.
You're correct that it's not technically censorship, but (as they say) if it walks like a duck...
where does he get the idea that he can force companies into distributing his ideas for him?
From the contract they signed that said that they would distribute them?
I might as well call the Today show and demand that Katie Couric interview me so that I can go off on her about her liberal bias!
Well, if you signed a contract with the Today show which said that they would allow you to do this, then you really should, instead of bitching about it on
I try to follow the policy of that anytime I see anyone using the words "liberal", "conservative", "left" or "right" in anything but an incredibly clearly defined context, I just stop paying attention to the person using them. The words just don't mean anything. And yet people try to reason about them like they're the key to understanding everything that happens in politics.
The problem is that since there's no commonly defined clear demarcation for "left" or "right", this means that people can play the neat trick of constantly reassigning those words to whatever is most convenient at the moment. A favorite tactic seems to be to "prove" something in a piece where you mostly talk about "left" vs "right" while constantly tweaking the definitions of both terms. For example, in one paragraph the word "right" might be used to refer to the current presidential administrators and its followers, in the next paragraph the Coulter/Limbaugh set, in the next libertarians; or in one paragraph the word "left" might refer to extremist feminists, in the next paragraph people who oppose the WTO, in the next current congressional Democrats. The neat thing about this trick is that if you're careful about how you skew your use of these terms, you can (for example) make a flat-out statement about separatist lesbian feminists and then trick the reader into thinking you've shown it applies to Bill Clinton.
Another favorite tactic, and the most common one, seems to be to define "conservative" to be "anyone I agree with" and "liberal" to be "anyone I disagree with", or vice versa...
I personally suspect that anyone that I can catch playing these linguistic games doesn't have anything worthwhile to say, since they're hiding behind ambiguous labels rather than actually arguing in concrete terms. So I try to ignore anyone who talks about "left" vs "right" without clearly identifying which groups they mean by those labels.
Unfortunately the false "liberal"/"conservative" dichotomy has saturated our culture so completely that this policy is very difficult to follow.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
In case you didn't notice by his frequent mentioning of it, or by watching Roger and Me, Michael Moore was born and raised in Flint, Michigan, which last time I checked was in the US of A. Now what's all this about Greek gods?
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
He attempts to blister the president over "fiction," when the movie he's accepting the award for is filled with the same, presented as fact.
The funny thing about the Michael Moore "fiction" is that - if it truly is fiction - Michael Moore is guilty of plagiarism by stealing intellectual property from another Moore - comic book writer Alan Moore. The greatest flaw in all of this would have to be the fact that GWB could not be Adrian Viedt simply because Mr. Bush just does not have the mental acuity to pull off a stunt as large as 9/11. Worse yet, most liberals are more than happy to point this out when it benefits them, but out the other side of their mouths speak nonsense about GWB masterminding a Watchmen-like scheme to benefit his own political agenda. I'm drawing the line in the sand and asking Which is it? Is GWB a genius or an idiot? And, considering the mutually exclusive nature of the question, he cannot be both.
It is times like these, I'm reminded of the Malcolm X addage, "You put the Democrats first, and the Democrats put you last." Also, if I remember correctly, he also called the people who do follow Democrats chumps.
It's funny how almost nothing's changed in 40 years.
"Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two" -- RFC 1925
This film sounds like great liberal propaganga just in time for the elections. Maybe he'll support the neonazi party next time. He can call it 'Turnip of the Will'. What a load of hate in movie form. =p
also took a day or so to show up on CNN which Fox news and other local papers had it the day it happened.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I didn't vote for Bush in the last election. I would rather vote for Lieberman or Hillary than Kerry. Dean was a disaster. Why? Hillary and Joe are for something, and have specific ideas and goals in mind. Dean was only against Bush. Kerry is a pathetic waffler, and is primarily anti-Bush, rather than pro-anything.
I agree.
But other than abstaining (which makes you a minor traitor in my book) what options do we have? One of those two guys is being sworn into office next January. John F. Kerry is *far* from my first choice, but at this point I'll gladly lay down my life to see that he's the one on the podium in eight months.
It's always better to be for something than against something, but pragmatism requires that when your house is on fire you stop preaching good fire prevention techniques and fight the damn fire. If you survive you can go back to preaching your good fire prevention techniques with more zeal than ever before, but if you perish in the fire, well, you're dead.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
However, Moore is doing well as a populist Chomsky, and challenging people's conceptions, and to my mind, good for him, and good for the level of debate it creates. He manages to do what politicians keep failing to do - be funny, use the media well, and engage people in politics.
The fact that he's won the Palm D'Or shows what an appetite there is for such work, and the extent to which he strikes a chord with a lot of people. Yet if you believe the corp owned mainline press, you'd think he was a rabid loon that was way left field.
Why do you think they are working to allow convicted felons, and prisoners the "right" to vote? Are you talking about the scrubbing of the voter rolls in the 2000 florida elections? You should read up on that. They didn't just remove people who had comitted a felony, they removed people with similarities (names, locations, ...) to people who had comitted a felony, but were
felony-free themselves. That's illegal, and it made the difference in deciding who became president. And guess what, They (Jeb Bush's cabinet) are doing it again for the 2004 elections.
NO, I'm talking about allowing people who are in prison to vote.
Exactly how is this news for nerds? I understand that the prevailing opinion on Slashdot is hatred for the Bush administration, but I fail to see the 'nerd' aspect to this story. Politics aside, if it was a sci/fi or fantasy movie, I could understand, but this was simply a politically charged documentary about 9/11 and the Iraq war. What is next? Reviews of campaign ads?
While it might fall outside the "News for Nerds" arena, judging by the number of posts (880 at the time of posting) it IS "Stuff that matters".
God is imaginary
In all fairness... You have no idea what the truth is in this situation.
If an ex worker that i fired, kept following me around and harrasing me.. i might be affraid of him to.
This person seems to have made it a hobby to go after Moore on more than one occasion.
Watch Bowling for Columbine and notice how most of the interviews are done by permission with the interviewer.
Yes Moore has marched into K-Marts offices, and others in the past on TV Nation and The Awful Truth (both great shows) But he's making a point about how you CAN NOT contact these corperations on any meaningful level by phonecall alone.
As a consumer you only have access to their call centers in india that answer you with stock answers such as "Thank you for your comments, i will pass them along"
Its a seperation. The corperations are an entity that is seperate from the rest of us, and the only way to get ahold of them is to walk into their headquarters and make some noise.
BUT HE ASKS... the people at K-mart if they will come and speak with him.... and when he should come back.
He does not kick down their door and storm the offices. He enters the lobby which ANY citizen can do.
He has in the past, had public protests outside of congressmen's houses on public streets etc... But never tresspassing.
I see a difference between doing those things, and an ex worker taking out some kind of grudge with him over being fired.... in public.
Its a little too convient and a good way to make money. "EX Michael Moore employee blows whistle on him!" Its too perfect and convient from a self promotion point of view. WHO KNOWS what this guy's deal is.
And i'm sure Micheal Moore is wondering the same thing... And that is probably why Moore reported him.
Afterall It's not as if, Moore hasnt been arrested before for doing the similar things. So dont act as if Moore gets away with anything while the little guy gets sent to jail.
Moore has had many situations with the police that have resulted in him being escorted away, or being arrested.
the fact in "bowling for columbine" are still fact
A tautology. The facts in "Bowling for Columbine" are facts. The facts in LotR:RotK are facts. But what were facts, and what where non-facts? (Or "goodfacts")
It's highly likely that the lawyers in the production company went through the film checking evaluating the risk of being hit with libel lawsuits. But Michael Moore's fact checkers are about as reliable as SCO's MIT mathematicians.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
1. A gallon of Sarin is not "traces". It is enough to kill more people than died on 9/11.
2. It has been confirmed.
3. Iraq violated 18 UN resolutions regarding WMD. The last one promised extreme measures if they were not complied with immediately. We had more UN oversight in the liberation of Iraq than we did for the bombing of the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia. We now are learning through the rampant bribery in the UN Oil-for-Food program why we had some of our "allies" threaten vetos on our use of force. A liberated Iraq would stop their Saddam funded gravy train.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
As if Moore's criticism isnt HONEST?
Bah.
Moore has a point of view, as do others. He shares it, backs it up with why he thinks the way he does.
That is no different than other people sharing opposing views.
Moore is right on.
In other words, that survey is only looking for false positives, so of course it will only find false positives. The number of false positives says absolutely nothing about the relative number of false results out there. A well-crafted survey will look for true positives (statements supporting the war which are true), false positives (statements supporting the war which are false), true negatives (statements opposing the war which are true), and false negatives (statements opposing the war which are false). Only then can you compare which side tends to have more misconceptions. You take the ratio of false positives to all positives, and compare it to the ratio of false negatives to all negatives. The one with the higher rate (assuming your statements were somewhat balanced in their believability and obscurity) would then be the one with more misconceptions.
Anyone pretending to have drawn some sort of authoritative conclusion based on sampling only one of these four possibilities would've been laughed out of any intro statistics course.
Here is a list of political quizzes, to help you determine where you really stand. Most of these are sponsored by libertarian groups.
This quote (from The Political Compass FAQ) is instructive.
"Some of the questions are slanted
Most of them are slanted ! Some right-wingers accuse us of a leftward slant. Some left-wingers accuse us of a rightward slant. But it's important to realise that this isn't a survey, and these aren't questions. They're propositions - an altogether different proposition. To question the logic of individual ones that irritate you is to miss the point. Some propositions are extreme, and some are more moderate. That's how we can show you whether you lean towards extremism or moderation on the Compass.
Some of the propositions are intentionally vague. Their purpose is to trigger buzzwords in the mind of the user, measuring feelings and prejudices rather than detailed opinions on policy.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
> > He won not because of his movie, but because of his message.
> It's probably not even the message on it's own that won it for him. Rather, Disney's unwillingness to distribute the film with that message.
Heck, it's not even because of that. It's because of Moore creating a false scandal, when he knew all along (and he even admits this) that Disney would not distribute his film.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
The phrase is, "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Maybe this falls into the latter category?
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Another instructive FAQ from The Political Compass:
You've got liberals on the right. Don't you know they're left ?
This response is exclusively American. Elsewhere neo-liberalism is understood in standard political science terminology - deriving from mid 19th Century Manchester Liberalism, which campaigned for free trade on behalf of the capitalist classes of manufacturers and industrialists. In other words, laissez-faire or economic libertarianism.
In the United States, 'liberals' are understood to believe in leftish economic programmes such as welfare and publicly funded medical care, while also holding liberal social views on matters such as law and order, peace, sexuality, women's rights etc. The two don't necessarily go together.
Our Compass rightly separates them. Otherwise, how would you label someone like the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who, on the one hand, pleased the left by supporting strong economic safety nets for the underprivileged, but angered social liberals with his support for the Vietnam War, the Cold War and other key conservative causes ?
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
No one in the thread has mentioned it so far, but there is a rumor that Disney pulled out of distribution of Moore's film because they feared losing tax breaks for its theme parks (Disney World) and hotels in Florida, where GWB's brother, Jeb Bush, is governor. Have a look here, for example.
According to Michael Moore, Michael Eisner expressed precisely this concern to his agent, Ari Emmanuel. The Disney corporation has denied it.
If this is true, it would be the worst kind of corporate and government malfeasance. If Disney made its decision for that reason, it would be a corporate cave-ins on par with CBS when it pulled the 60 Minutes report on Brown & Williamson (remember that movie with Pacino and Russell Crowe?). If someone in the Florida government made a threat of that kind, however subtly, it would be a severe case of corruption. If brother Jeb knew about it, it would warrant his impeachment, and if George W. Himself knew it, it would warrant his impeachment as well. In a democracy we cannot tolerate the abuse of government power, especially its power to tax, in order to stifle critical statements about political leaders.
A lot of ifs, I know, and maybe none of them will turn out to be true, but this accusation is so grave that it certainly calls for independent investigation. God knows, the Republicans clamored for special prosecutors during the Clinton era for a lot less than this. This question has to be fully cleared up, and let's not wait until after the election to do it.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
I wonder where that misconception comes from.. that for something to be called a Documentary it must not have an opinion.
Yes they are documentaries, he documents things as they are, and sure he has an opinion - but he doesn't lie. If he did, someone would drag him into court and win a stack of money - and nobody ever has.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The judges may not have been mostly French, but there is still the matter of the 20 minute standing ovation that Moore's film recieved.
Even besides that, I think it's obvious that the French like Moore and hate Bush.. But what I'm really curious about is, why do you (and Moore) feel that this is something that should be covered up? Are you two secretly ashamed of the French or something?
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Punching bag he may be, but he comes off as more intelligent than Hannity.
Big deal, that just shows how far off the deep end Hannity is.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
...when the movie he's accepting the award for is filled with the same, presented as fact.
Except it isn't. Sure a lot of not too intelligent people are unable to understand them and gets scared and start yelling their head of that he is an evil liar.
Except its all fact, he doesn't lie once - if he did all his "victims" would have dragged him to court and sued his ass of. And they didn't.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
actually, this is not the only interpretation. black on black violence, especially murder, is very high. thus the high incarceration rate of blacks is not surprising. black people DO commit more and worse crimes than white people, if you consider murder "worse". (it's another argument entirely whether the murder of one person is more deleterious than the white collar fraud of enron and worldcom that wiped out untold numbers of pensioners' retirement savings.) this is not to say that blacks are subhuman, to which conclusion you so hastily jump.
source, albeit a few years out of date: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/vvr98pr.ht
and relevant quote: "The study also showed that blacks were murdered at far higher rates than other U.S. residents. During 1998 there were 23 blacks murdered compared to 4 whites and 3 victims of other races per 100,000 persons of each racial group."
a second source to back up my claim specifically about black on black violence: http://www.cnn.com/US/9901/02/murder.rate/
and its relevant quote: "The report also found that from 1976 to 1997, 85 percent of white murder victims were killed by whites and 94 percent of black victims were killed by blacks. During the same period, blacks were seven times more likely than whites to be homicide victims and eight times more likely than whites to commit homicides." [paragraph break removed]
Hollywood? Why? This is the Canne film festival. What does Hollywood have to do with it? Did you even read the article?
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
I'll add a specific example, from last summer. A brief snippet reported on the political opposition to the Patriot Act, and focused exclusively on liberal groups such as the ACLU. Anyone who wasn't more informed would have assumed that the only people fighting the act were left-wing agitators. This is absolutely not true. Some Republicans (including Grover Norquist, who is if nothing else consistent) are remembering that their party is supposed to stand for limited government. And bear in mind that a Republican was responsible for ripping out some of the more nauseating provisions of the act in the first place. I can't prove why Fox didn't see it necessary to mention any of this, but if it's not bias it's certainly shitty reporting.
Want some ice cream.
Let's see: You mis-wrote in your post. I responded to your post as written (since I'm not a mind-reader, I wasn't privy to what you actually meant). Now I get to be insulted for responding to what you wrote. Well, thanks very much.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Because in the rest of the world murders are committed with rocks and knifes. I'm pretty sure there are parts of the world were people simply go missing and are never heard from again. Look into archangel and what it is they do to protect the world. The question you should ask is, "Are murders more prominent in the United States than in other parts of the world per capita?" I'm sure there is a reason that fat troglodyte doesn't want to put things into more of a real perspective because it doesn't suit his socialist make everyone feel the pain agenda. You see people are much easier to brain wash if you appeal to their emotional side tempering it wit just enough logic to lul them into a false sense of reality. So to counter that I simply say go educate yourself and try and carry around more than your emotions as your guide. Irrational people with rationalized support are very dangerous just ask a recovering alcoholic.
google: fox news bias
Turns up numerous pages with examples of Fox bias.
Fox News doesn't CLAIM to be unbiased. Fox News CLAIMS to let "both sides" (read that Conservative and Liberal - there are a LOT more than two sides) get a "Fair and Ballanced" airing.
That means they consciously attempt to have some commentators who are biased toward the Conservative, some biased toward the Liberal, side of each issue.
The showcase of this is the highly-rated _Hannity and Colmes_ (though the top-rated O'Reilly tries to do it in one person, pissing off both sides equally).
Can anyone honestly claim that Alan Colmes is right-wing biased? B-)
Of course the only contrast comes from the mainstream media, which has swung farther to the left than Karl Marx since the gutting of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine and the ascention of the baby-boomer journalism-school grads (who formed their biases during the Draft/Vietnam (un)War protests). So an outlet that lets the Conservative side of any issue get any airing AT ALL looks far-right to some viewers used to that ultra-left bias.
For mainstream Conservative "bias" listen to Rush Limbaugh (who is quite proud of it - billing himself as "I AM 'equal time'.", i.e. he's the Conservative answer to the mainstream media's Liberal viewpoints.)
But to hear true ultra-right bias you must listen to some of the broadcast stations to be heard on short wave radio. Radio Shack has some cheap portable receivers, so give it a try.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Well fine next time I won't ask if you want some ice cream!
You can also prevent your underwear from being stolen by anti-Bush forces by buying underwear from Air America Radio (also available as boxers.
Finding God in a Dog
While Michael Moore may be guilty of "creatively editing" various bits for his films (and yes, I agree with someone else who said his films were commentaries, and not documentaries), I think it's still important to recognize that his films do invoke discussion about some serious issues. He brings to light things that some would rather us not bother ourselves with, and gets the debate going. And he does it in an entertaining way.
As I posted in another thread for a slightly different reason:
"80% of misinformed Americans get thier information from FOX news"
The three questions used to guage whether the subjects were "misinformed" were all questions where the Liberal rhetoric matches the facts and the Conservative rhetoric does not. Since the mainstream media airs only the Liberal view and Fox News airs both, Conservative viewers mostly watch Fox. So they are likely to be measuring the political views of the audience more than their ignorance.
A similar study with different "misinformed beliefs" (for instance: "Law changes leading to more Concealed Carry permits raise the gun-death rate.") would no doubt find the opposite result.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What's so striking about "Triumph of the Will" is that there's so little talking. The first words are heard more than twenty minutes into the film. The early parts of the film show Hitler's aircraft flying over the city where the big rally will be held, and the preparations for the rally. That's all. Yet the imagery and editing are very powerful. Most propaganda films consist of endless blithering. Compare the US's "Why We Fight" films, which are illustrated lectures.
When she shows someone giving a speech, she cuts them down to four or five sentences. But sequences with movement run in real time out to the end, giving a feeling of unstoppable power.
Riefenstahl is the inventor of modern sports photography, with trackside cameras, slow motion, high angle shots, and background interviews. She also introduced shooting day-for-night, which required the development of special film stock.
Leni died last year, at the age of 101. She released her last film at the age of 100. As an obituary put it, "Next time you see that footage of President Bush in his flight suit, landing on that aircraft carrier lit by the rented stadium lights, remember that Karl Rove and his ilk owe no small debt to Riefenstahl."
Censorship refers (I assume, in your context) to the actions of a (governmental) body to limit the freedom of speech. If a free market chooses not to purchase or endorse a film, that's the market at work.
It's perfectly legal for Moore to produce, market, and show off his film. No governmental body is stopping him. Disney initially thought that they couldn't sell it, or that it disagreed with their philosophy, or whatever... it doesn't matter what their reasoning is -- they didn't want to distribute it. They're under no obligation to.
Disney is in business to make money. They felt that Moore's film would not help them do that. They've since changed their mind. I can't imagine that all of the free publicity the film's gotten from the (liberal?) media had anything to do with the projected profitability.
I wish Moore well. He's a successful filmmaker. His typical message is a deliberate argument against the conservative philosophy, party, and elected officials. This is the opposite of censorship at work. Just as it's Moore's right and obligation to present this message, it's the right and obligation of the right wing to trash talk it. To portray Moore as a victim of censorship by the right wing is highly disingenuous.
Bret
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
As you wade through the mountain of rhetorical shit that is the inevitable reply to a comment such as this on a site such as this, I'd just like to offer you a small moment of appreciation.
You sir, are THE MAN. That was well-written, succinct, and intelligent in the extreme, and you deserve some congratulations. Best post I've read in quite a while.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
So of course their reviewer is going to say that.
Murdoch does not accept any of his hacks going against his pet ideologies, one of which is Shrub's war in Iraq.
How many poor people do you know that own businesses and provide jobs?
Also, of note, the War in Iraq wasn't a failure. The cleanup, however, is up for debate.
You also don't seem to mention how, when it comes to bias, both sides of the aisle use the exact same dirty tricks.
Now, where might I find a "liberal" news organization that I can use to broaden my views?
Posting logged-in to take the karma hit but to get your reply.
Enjoy your weekend!
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
You should read your own post. First you accuse the mainstream media of left-wing bias, then you say air america is the left's attempt to get their message out. Why would the left need air america if the mainstream media was biased towards the liberal view?
I think he had a problem organizing the history of the issue. For the longest time media has been generally liberal. Since at least Vietnam it's been like this. HNN used to be the only full time news network and they were the perfect example. More recently several other stations have sprung up airing full time news.
Everyone complains about the way Fox skews things in its own particular way, but according to Nielson ratings it's skewing in the direction most people want. Other news stations use the term "conservative" a lot more often than they ever say "liberal" (a guessed observation since I've never heard "liberal" said on CNN or MSNBC). Fox happens to run counter to this clearly identifying themselves as conservative by using words such as "liberal" and by being very critical of Democratic agendas, much more so than Republican.
I think the reason why Air America was started had to do with people with an American "liberal" agenda not liking the rising appeal of "conservative" news programming. So far, yes, Air America has been little more than whining. My girlfriend is a strong Democrat while I used to consider myself Republican though now have mixed feelings about them. I listened to Air America for about a week hoping to hear enough from my girlfriend's side of the issue to understand things better. Originally I was upset by the things I was hearing, but very soon after I suppose I was numbed by the sensationalism of it. Then it starting annoying me to hear so much complaining. I realized that if I listened to it for too long I'd be likely to start parrotting the little facts and tidbits offered by the programs, and I'd probably use them just as out of context as Air America does, and people would become extremely annoyed of me. My girlfriend is a very smart girl so I'm forced to differentiate her from the Air America crowd.
Direct away from face when opening.
That's right! It needs to be pointed out that neoliberalism is not the same as liberalism - but not anywhere in the world!
Neoliberalism means freedom in an economic sense, i.e. total deregulation of the market. Liberalism on the other hand means freedom in every sense and is usually geared towards the people.
A more detailed explanation of liberalism, if you are interested: People's freedom does not only mean their right to say everything, go where they please, etc.. Consider, for example, democratic russia (RF)! The people there are now 'free' - but how free are they really? They are only as free to go where they please as much as their available money will allow, which basically means nowhere out of the RF.
So liberalism is basically all about real freedom (whatever that may be), this has nothing to do with neoliberalism. A primary key to real freedom is a working economy though, so liberals do usually push a strong market agenda.
As an ultra unimportant functionary in the austrian Socialdemocratic party (labour), I can see where the misunderstanding comes from though! The right winged party do often times classify themselves as those who aspire to true liberty. Take for example the Freedom Party (Haider's party): They have strong nationalistic views actually but broadcast that they are the little men's party, that they are a better labour party. They tell people that they would like to give them freedom by lowering taxes, hence leaving more money in their pockets - which is of course completely wrong.
The illustrated is a typical case of a hidden neoliberal agenda (deflux of money from social institutions like healthcare and privatisation of stately matters like this). This agenda is totally 'in program' of a typical right wing party which stems from strong feudalistic sources. In effect people are misinformed about the implications of their vote, tricked into believing something utterly wrong like that neoliberalism would benefit the working population. The trick is to smear concepts and well defined political terms because only an uninformed population is a right voting population.
&& aemula C. ab stirpe interiit
I agree with what most of you seem to say: Michael Moore speaks alot of BS, but so does anybody else that says anything at all. It's just that too many people say the one side and not the other side of the story, Michael Moore says what nobody else has the balls to say, and people like him are needed to balance out the political system:
For example, in Switzerland, there are about 5 main political parties, two left-wing parties, one central, and two right-wing parties. This leads to a balanced system. In the states, all the news reporters and government officials are all saying the same thing (doesn't it get boring?), and thank god the Michael Moore gets up and says the other side of the story, I would go as far as saying that there should be many more M. Moore's in the US.
Luckily M. Moore is quite a vociferous man!!
documentary - Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter, as in a book or film.
I have not seen "Farenheit 9/11", but if it is anything like "Bowling for Columbine" and Moore's other films, it is all about editorializing and there is insertion of some fictional matter. For instance an ad that Moore portrays as being run by George Bush Sr. when facing Dukakis wasn't run by the campaign, is enterspliced with another ad, and has an inflammitory subtitle added. This is not presenting facts, but distorting the truth in the worst way.
I don't even know if he believes what he is expressing in his films, after all he is a multi-millionaire with a million dollar apartment in NYC, he is not "one of us".
4 of the nine jurors were American: Mr. Tarantino, Kathleen Turner, the director Jerry Schatzberg, and the Haitian-born novelist Edwidge Danticat. one juror, the actress Emanuelle Béart, is a French citizen, British actress Tilda Swinton, Benoit Poelvoode, a Belgian actor; Peter von Bagh, a Finnish critic; and the Hong Kong director Tsui Hark made up the rest of the jury.
No, this is the very definition of racism.
I'm tired of hearing people repeat the blatantly false idea that any race-correlated differences in any area are "by definition" racism. Would you say the fact that blacks are vastly overrepresented in professional athletics is "the very definition of racism"? I didn't think so. You're the one who resorts to a clearly racist explanation for something that has complex societal and historical roots, in your own post:
If you're going to play the pathetic "racist" card at every opportunity, please at least learn how to argue it intelligently - throwing up an idiotic strawman like "the only way you can say it is fair is by
"To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it." -- Olin Miller
It's bad enough when /. gets political on technical topics, but c'mon. Who gives a rat's a** about this. There ARE web sites that are dedicated to this sort of topic, just like /. is "dedicated" to all things technology. This is crap.
In looking around at various web sites concerning Michael Moore, I found this interesting account. If you follow it, you'll note that the author is very definitely of the left-wing "progressive" persuasion, and the tone is "more in sorrow than in anger."
Why should I think that Mr. Moore's films are any more accurate than his version of the events that the web page's author recounts?
How do you know this? Have you seen actually seen the film?
If not, your comments are nothing more than the baseless political statement you are accusing others of...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It's a valid point to say that people convicted of a felony shouldn't be allowed to vote.
I find this statement very confusing: if the government convicts you of a crime, it also removes your ability to have a say in what constitutes a crime? How can this possibly be valid (i.e. reflect the will of the people?)
Striping a rapist of his right to vote seems to accomplish little: no politician is running on the right to rape platform. The rapist will probably vote just like everyone else.
Striping a low-level drug dealer of his right to vote means no politician need consider liberalizing the drug laws: the constituency has already plea-bargained away its voting power.
As you note, this "valid point" disenfranchises the blacks, and also the poor. This is neither valid nor good.
Are you insane? Punishing the child might destroy his fragile self-esteem. It is much more important that we don't let this happen than teaching him that such behavior should not be tolerated.
Many Europeans were very much for letting the UN weapon inspectors finish their job. Now, Iraq is a mess and it is much closer to Europe than the US. If Turky was to join the EU we even have a border with Iraq.
I think the EU countries are very much for a joint effort to turn around the Iraq disaster and address the route cause for Middle East unrest - the Palestine problem. Unfortunately there does not seem to be much interest on the American side of the Atlantic to cooperate on these issues. This administration seems to be a firm believer in tackling everything solely relying on America's military might. Blair had to learn the hard way that even if you go along for the ride you are just a junior partner without any power to influence decisions.
Not surprising that most Europeans hope for another administration. Not because they want America to fail - but because they want it to succeed. This is not about Bush this is for a foreign policy that recognizes, engages and fully leverages long standing American allies.
- FYI, if you read through the responses below, you'll find that four of the nine jurors were Americans. Only one was French.
The judges nationality is not the point of my comment. "People in France" does not equate to "French people." That I have to explain this is telling.-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Who the hell cares? A liberal guy makes a liberal movie that uber-liberals vote #1 because they don't like the current political establishment. Is anyone really surprised by that?
Where do you think the people who keep the US urban murder rate high come from?
This kid is a classic example. He's already whacked his first opponent before he's even out of grade school. He will probably kill multiple more times before somebody bigger and/or faster finally whacks him. That's his future in a nutshell without some truly radical intervention by a third party. Like maybe he will lose a limb in a fire fight and the rehab will hammer some sense into him. Counselling ain't going to do it.
What is "disturbing" to me is that you don't seem bothered that there's a little girl dead, who'd be alive except for the horrific ineptitude of the Michigan child health authorities. Notice the Moore silence on the subject. Murder Boy was an obvious and known freak who should NOT have been left in a standard public school. Where he still is, apparently. Probably picking his next target.
Moore's argument in the movie, to which he bends the truth more than slightly, is that Kayla would be alive if there were no guns available. Which is obviously stupid. Murder Boy could have got lucky with a pencil or a rock anytime. He's a walking murder looking for a place to happen.
The larger argument Moore makes in all his films is that the USA is a cesspool of evil and that "conservatives" made it that way deliberately. You'll note he makes no mention of the corrosive effects of crack, its sale and the gang wars fought over it. Somehow its all Bush's fault, and before Bush it was Regan's fault. Kayla was the NRA's fault, for Christ's sake!
The truth about Michael Moore is that he doesn't believe those arguments himself. He uses them to make movies, which then makes him incredibly stinking rich. Because he doesn't have the talent of other film makers, he's developed this con instead. He's a cynical liar and a sloppy director. But rich!
This kid for whom you feel all this sympathy is nothing more than a prop for Mr. Moore. He's got an agenda to push and he's going to use this kid's circumstances to push it. He cares not a single damn what happens to that kid.
So yeah, I'm disturbed that you were so easily taken in by Mr. Moore. His crockumentary is fairly transparent, what were you thinking?
After all the bitching and moaning about how Disney/Miramax "censored" Moore's film, I find it appalling to see the result of the moderation of my original comment:
50% Insightful
30% Overrated
20% Flamebait
Hmmm. Moderated down because it's "overrated" or "flamebait?" Perhaps it was moderated down because it dares to present a dissenting viewpoint.
I am not surprised, but I am disappointed.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/
A very nice, scene-by-scene deconstruction of "Bowling for Columbine".
I'm not a flaming liberal that thinks Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky necessarily have their finger on the dynamics of our society by any means. But if anything, the unbridaled vitriol he elicits from factions of the populace should warrant careful consideration of his work.
I have seen all his movies and some parts I think are incredibly illuminating and others are obviously embellished or distorted, but one thing is for sure: Debate on these issues is productive and there aren't enough outlets for the types of messages he's promoting in our media today, and even if you don't like what he stands for, it's probably incredibly important, even if you disagree with him, that you support his right to express himself. That you recognize that he is passionate about what he believes in and shouldn't be cut down by pedantic, ignorant, sweeping judgements. Otherwise, you will inevitably find at some point, you'll be in his situation as well.
The fact of the matter is that Moore documents his work exponentially better than his ideological rivals in most cases. His underdog status necessitates this, and that's good for everybody. It's also worth noting that the majority of Moore's critics prefer to criticize Moore, the fallible, sometimes-inconsistent MAN (as if any of us are standards by which others should be judged), and completely disregard his work and the issues he raises.
To dismiss him is to bury your head in the sand whether you agree with his agenda or not.
The film is obviously already produced and [Disney is] ordering a company they bought to not distribute it. Their decision is motivated by political pressure, and they are willing to abandon profit in order to appease their Bush overlords (Jeb and Dubya).
His previous "documentary" - _Bowling for Columbine_ - only GROSSED 21 million, despite the enormous publicity generated by the controversy over it. This one has even more controversey - but it has acquired the reputation of a partisan hit piece on a president who won the closest election in recent history.
I'd bet that Miramax looked at that. Then they looked at how _The Passion of Christ_ is doing. Then they started thinking about how much they'd have to spend to promote this turkey, how little they'd make off it, and maybe how much they'd lose if even a few of the people who paid to watch _The Passion_ decide to boycott even one Miramax film.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Are you suggesting that the jury was brainwashed by the French? What are you talking about?
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
I think this just prove how truly corrupt Hollywood has become that a person like that could win an award for simply being a fat, hypocritical, low life, scum bag, with a camera. I'm guessing he has about 5 years left on that cholesterol train before his heart explodes like refried beans left in a microwave to long. I can't wait for Mr. Moore to be making those headlines.
CLASSIC ignorant, mean-spirited response.
Don't address the issues he raises. He's FAT, therefore his work has abstolutely no integrity or relevance.
If anything, Moore is a litmus test to identify the free thinkers from the brain dead. Thank you for so efficiently demonstrating this.
I wonder if Michael Moore suddenly goes on the Atkins diet and loses weight what are you guys going to do? After all, he's not worth listening to because of his current obesity situation. If he was more slim would this actually prompt you to talk about his work instead of his belly?
I digress. Maybe there's an evil liberal supercomputer hiding in his belly that wants to destroy the American way of life. Ok, I understand why Moore's weight is such an issue now.
Let's have him not recoup his costs so that he can't afford to attack some powerful group anytime soon.
First of all, how is that ironic? Why are those ideas mutually exclusive?
Secondly, when exactly did he "rail against the second amendment"?
He's a gun owner. He doesn't believe the government should take all the guns away. Sounds to me like you're taking a very simplistic approach to his work rather than deal with it on the merits. It's pretty easy to build up that strawman and tear it down. Real criticism is difficult.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Seriously, does anyone believe this movie received the Palm d'Or on its merits? The judges at Cannes were making a slap at Bush, nothing more.
Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997
(Finally got a dang account in 2004)
So much for free speech on /. I thought the ability to remain anonymous in society was the holy grail of /. Just look at all the privacy related stories. The /. editors are a bunch of hypocrites.
Vote for Pedro
Moore's prominent presence in the news brings to light some serious questions, such as 'Can't he at least try to look presentable?
-Colin
No, the campaign to censor dissenting views is not overt, it's very much sub-rosa. And it has a great deal more to do with the carrot than the stick.
Large US media companies have billions, even hundreds of billions, riding on various expansion efforts that must be approved by government regulators-- government regulators who are currently under the control of a conservative administration and Congress. It's difficult for you and I to appreciate the sheer pressure that those billions put on corporate executives, but a dispassionate view of the situation should make it apparent: as the leader of a large media corporation, you can't afford to make enemies of the people who determine your company's financial future. You don't have the liberty to think about what's right and wrong, or care about free speech-- your mandate is simply to insure your investors the highest possible return.
So what are you supposed to do when some tiny, insignificant portion of your corporate empire puts the entire company at risk? You do exactly what Disney has done to Moore's film: you squash it like a bug. Not because the film is bad, incorrect, or unlikely to sell tickets. You do it because, as Disney has said up front, it's simply not worth it to piss off the people who will be ruling on your next merger or expansion plan. The very fact that Disney has admitted this and cited it as the reason for ditching the film takes these sentiments out of the hypothetical. This really is happening, and a firm as large as Disney is actually concerned that publishing this film will cause them political difficulties.
And in the end, that's the issue here. All your talk about not paying to watch Moore is irrelevant-- you won't even get the opportunity to protest his film, because the decision has already been made. For you, for me, for all of us. And it's entirely and unabashedly political.
One more thing: I do personally believe that the Democratic party is less likely to operate in this fashion than the Republicans are, if only due to disogranization and the lingering presence of a few idealists. But when one side plays dirty, it's only a matter of time before their opponents learn the game too. So by looking the other way now, you insure that the next slimy liberal president will be the one determining what's ok for you to read, see and hear.
I wonder where Taco got the idea it was the first to receive the Honor? Maybe from Moore himself? It's the kind of self-aggrandizing BS I've come to expect from the guy.
I love that you're criticizing Moore for spreading BS, while at the same time using pure speculation to back up your conclusions. What reason do you have to believe that Moore would have even spoken to slashdot??
Having seen this film it was obvious that Moore was implying that public policy sending the single mother to work and public policy making firearms readily available were the cause of or significant contributing factors to the shooting. People who disagree with Moore point to other contributing environmental factors, like running an illegal-drugs business and poor parenting. It is likely that a more thorough analysis could show several troubling factors in this kid's life that all contributed to him shooting another child. I don't see any evidence that a single change in welfare laws, gun laws, drug laws, or parenting laws could have guaranteed that this shooting never would have occurred. Many of us seem to suffer from the fallacy that we can prevent every tragedy with a new law or government program. Whether these laws or programs are conservative or liberal in nature, it doesn't seem to matter. Not every social problem can be solved with law. Some have to be solved by society.
Stuart Eichert
I haven't seen the thing and I am sure it is politically biased
:)
Everything you see is biased. From the choice of what to put in and leave out, the angles the subjects are shot at, the way they're lit, the juxtapositions they use.
At least Moore is OBVIOUS about it. He's not changing ads in the background and making the goal of so many movies to obtain financial and a hot girlfriend that you don't even think about it any more.
Moore generates DEBATES, just like this one. Which in the end is much more valuable than a boring movie that no one sees or talks about. Trolls are annoying when they bring up the same argument, but NOT when they incite debate on topics that people really NEED TO THINK ABOUT. Voter apathy is at an all time high. The candidates all try to sound alike to avoid offending anybody. We NEED blatantly biased opinions back in our society, so people can have real discussions about real issues.
But I agree that we should have the chance to see it before we argue any more.
Instead of having it reviewed overseas let us see the movie and make our own decisions. Why should we just get if by words of mouth? I didn't agree with his other movies fully. Let me see what he is saying in this one and let me approve or disagee with it. I'm sure the crowd can make up their own minds and do some google searches to find out more
You're assuming that Disney sent Moore money to work on this movie. There are a few obvious assumptions here that haven't been proven. Please read this to have a good understanding of the situation - where Moore admits that Disney told him last year that they would not distribute the film. Miramax obviously went against the wishes of their parent company by continuing to send Moore money. I would think that if there were a distribution contract with Disney, Moore would be flashing it around as proof. Have you seen a copy of it? I haven't.
The statement that Disney is afraid of tax breaks being removed is also out of Moore's mouth, an unreliable and biased source.
If this is supposed to be such a blockbuster hit, wouldn't it bring in more money than a few years of tax cuts? Disney is a publicly held company, I would think the financial statements would be available to verify this. I don't think that Jeb Bush is more powerful than Disney - if Disney got hacked at Jeb Bush, they could start pumping enough publicity and money into the Florida political system to make sure he wasn't the next governor.
The government does not have the obligation to fund ANY art - and if you don't like what they are funding/not funding, vote and send your money to fund the stuff that you like that isn't being funded. The assumption it seems a lot of people make is that the government is obligated to fund things - if more people would start making donations out of their own pockets/time to fund the things they want their money to go to, their would be less need for government funding, and therefore fewer complaints of 'my money's funding something I don't like'.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
I think his point was that by keeping the people underfed and deny them access to any kind of outside resources it made it impossible for them to rise up. Or even be informed enough to rise up, because even if they could get outside materials, they were too busy trying to get enough food to live.
It also reinforced Saddam's ability to tell the people that he was the only thing keeping the country together, in the face of all sorts of opposition.
Dictators survive on fear and punishment. The less afraid you can make the people the more their power weakens. And starving them does not further that goal.
One reason slashdot's readership has declined in the last two years is underlined perfectly by this thread. The times have become more political, and more people are looking for political blogs. Whenever slashdot treads into this territory, it immediately delivers some of the most puerile commentary you can find. Listening to computer fetishists wax political is generally as compelling as reading the Catholic church's pronouncements on same, or a typically loony Christopher Hitchens column. Slashdot should stick with its strengths: consumerism, software, and gadgetry, and leave politics to more focused sites.
So you're criticizing Fox for being biased and then have the gall to recommend readin a book by Al Franken? Ahh, have you considered Al Franken's book might also be bised and you're a hypocrite for telling people not to use biased news sources, and then recommending one? Or do you just want people to not use right-wing biased news sources, but thin left-wing biased news sources are ok?
Vote for Pedro
Iraq was an awful mistake on so many levels... it was a war that was groundless, it was an attempt to "convert" the area, it is getting us into a vietname like quagmire (and those who say its "different" are lying or stupid, you decide).
The fact is, that if this went "well", who knows where else bush would decide to invade.
I voted for the guy back in 2000, but I regret it each day that he diminishes our worldwide reputation, he curtails civil rights, he quells free speech (think of the chilllllldren!). He balloons the deficit.
The capper is during the last press interview when he could form a single, solitary sentence. Just a bunch of "err, emmms" for 30 embarassing seconds.
I didn't like Clinton, but the guy had brains. This guy is stupid and worse, doesn't realize the depth of his stupidity.
He is truely scary.
Oh my goodness, he is really awful.
" but it's not his right to lie or to distort the truth with the intention of deceiving his audience."
True, but lets not drag Bush into this discussion yet again.
... that this gentleman, Mr Moore, is anti-US and unpatriotic?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
For something to be libel in the U.S., it must be: a lie made with malicious intent, viewed by at least three people. That much I am sure of... if there was anything else about it stated in my journalism class, I've forgotten it.
Anyway, "malicious intent" is quite the rub. It is essential that this be proven, but, as one might imagine, is rather hard to do. One has to prove that the alleged libeller knew his statement was false, and made it to do harm.
Besides, if, as is likely in most cases under the law, you don't succeed in the suit, all you've succeeded in doing is giving the alleged libeller quite a bit of publicity, and probably grounds for countersuit.
*honk*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
Thats funny, I saw the story for the first time on CNN the day it happened. They covered the 'discovery', talked about 'binary munitions', and had a brief quote from (I think) Wolfowitz warning that these were preliminary field tests only, and may be unreliable.
From the fact that all of the major news outlets have dropped the story like a hot potatoe (If you'll forgive the Quailism) I'd say the full tests are failing to confirm the initial field test. (field test equipment often gives false-positives, on a better-safe-than-sorry basis).
This incident seems destined to become just another 'discovery'' of WMDs that gets the front page, with the 'correction' either never published or getting a paragraph on page 17 a couple of weeks later.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
... while talking to air-xj03.mail.aol.com.: ... Service unavailable ... "oops."
... I'm sure he could afford his own mail server ...
----- Transcript of session follows -----
RCPT To:
MAILBOX FULL
554
Reporting-MTA: dns; rly-xj03.mx.aol.com
Arrival-Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 15:52:58 -0400 (EDT)
I wonder why he doesn't get his mail at michaelmoore.com
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Funny thing. Having seen Bowling for Columbine I think Moore made exactly your point. It is not the fact that you can get a gun easily in the US that causes all those deaths - rather it's a cultural problem. You can get guns just as easily in Canada but they don't seem to have the same problems.
Being German I was surprised to learn the other day that in terms of guns per capita my country is not that far away from the US. Yet we have far less murders per capita. Why is that? It was that question the culture of violence and anger that Bowling for Columbine explored. I find it rather strange that this movie is simply portrayed as anti-gun. It seems that mainstream America is unable to perceive anything outside pre-conceived notions.
http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2004/DEFGH/Fahre nheit_9-11/trailer.html
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
George Bush is responsible for Iraqi women being raped
There is no worst blind than the one that chooses not to see, from General Taguba's report (look for it, don't be lazy):
Taguba's report listed some of the wrongdoing:
Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
Now, Mister or Miss double-speak-horza, how do you call all of the above?
Humilliation?
Sure, use your game of words to disguise the truth, and look up a dictionary, then you will realize that all of the above is torture , pure and simple.
What a fucked mentality that thinks all the above is just "humilliating"....
Is Bush responsible for the above? I say yes, since this individual has shown a conductual pattern to disregard the most basic human rights in order to achieve his purposes, Guantanamo being a point in case.
Little by little the full reach of a willful policy to use torture to obtain information is emerging. If Mr. Bushs did not know about it he was surrounded by a bunch of liars or inept people, reason enough to consider him responsible since he is the ultimate person that dicates how his troops should beahve in such situations,
Had he issued clear orders to fully respect prisioner's human rights he and his administration would not be on this mess, but he has choosen to contravene all intenrational conventions regarding prisioners of war and to close his eyes in front of egregious violations of human rights since the inception of Guantanamo.
You and many other people may choose to ignore this, the facts sepak for themselves.
In regard to human rights in the US, I am bored to point out numerous human rigths abuses organizations that beg to differ with people like you.
The US executes people with mental illnesses, and minors, does not respect the Vienna convention regarding access of foreign nationals to their diplomatic representatives, allows widespread violence and rape in prisions.
You may choose to decide that the US ia a human rights paradise. It is not, if you happen to have a certain colour of skin, or little money to defend yourself.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Kudos for at least admitting FoxNews is right-wing though.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Properly usage meaning everybody line up for your shot of sarin? The last attempt to kill many people was in a japanese metro. 11 dead. It's not easy to kill many people with chemical weapons. Though it's sure possible to make many people ill for a long time.
Secondly, go read mediamatters.org and see how biased towards the neocon view all of the mainstream tv is.
"All of mainstream TV"? What's the problem, your cable provider only gives you FOX?
The reality is that neocons are not just plain wrong on many issues (their economic theories, like trickle-down economics, have long since been disproven
Err, what? Evidence?
and their military policies are outright failures, e.g. the war in iraq).
Since you obviously haven't been watching any news channel that presents, you know, news, here's something for you: We won the war in Iraq.
Yet somehow they manage to get their voice not just mentioned on mainstream news, but presented as having equal value to the truth.
Since the mainstream media have an obvious bias to the left, I can only assume you group Stalin, Mao and Uncle Fidel with these "neocons" of yours.
It's not biased when you don't report lies.
Hmm?
Take a skeptical look at the actual facts that people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Anne Coulter say (go look up the actual quotes and the actual statistics they cite), and you'll see they lie and distort to serve their own wrongheaded worldview.
I don't have much time for Coulter or O'Reilly, but Limbaugh - while clearly biased - is usually solid.
Now, explain to me just how the New York Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NPR are biased in favour of the "neocons". Any sort of supporting evidence would be welcome.
BINGO.
You make an excellent point.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
Censorship: The act, process, or practice of censoring.
tr.v. censored, censoring, censors: To examine and expurgate.
A company can also censor something. Your obtuse definition of censorship is so stupid and antiquated that does not stand the most basic linguistic scrutiny....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This brings up a very provacative scenario.
Considering how successful Mel Gibson's pro-Catholic epic torturefest, "The Passion" did in theatres, it will be interesting to see if this is a new trend: people using the theater as a means of subsidizing the political agendas they support.
Can we expect the box receipts for F911 to reflect the public's support of domestic regime change?
If you think about it, Moore's movie may have the capacity to outsell The Passion in box office receipts. This would be a very strong signal politically and socially. As a result, it seems there would be some substantive incentive to keep his movie out of theaters in the United States.
It also brings up another interesting paradox, money vs politics. There is undoubtedly a ton of money involved in this film's potential. Will money or political ideology win out in corporate America relating to the distribution and press coverage?
F911 is just a movie. And its content may be thought-provoking and controversial, but I think even more telling will be the treatment this film receives in the press, and the reaction of the populace should the film be made available domestically.
'Actual Malice' must be proved if the defamed person is a public figure. This means the perpetrator knew the statements were false and published them with specific malicious intent. See this page: What is Libel? Associated Terms.
So, if I read in the Weekly World News that Dick Cheney is in cahoots with Red Lectroids from Planet Ten, and reprint that without calling the Lectroid Consulate, I'm safe.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
A percentage of fired shells does not explode. Depending on the model. You can be sure there are plenty of fired shells lying around loaded with chemical weapons. Usually degraded , with reduced potency.
Even unused shells from the war with Iran will have little potency.
And mustard gas, well, maybe they should check if it's not from the British in WWI. Mustard gas only became a forbidden weapon afterwards. Yeah I know, technical violation of rules. But in practice, amounts matter.
The judges may not have been mostly French, but there is still the matter of the 20 minute standing ovation that Moore's film recieved.
I'd also question what percentage of the audience was French. It was probably mostly people in the industry, from all over the world.
Bush and his team, with his isolationist, imperial attitude squandered all that.
The is not such a thing as anti-US sentiment anywhere, it is simply that the US is too unruly to just sit down and say nothing about it.
Heck, surely you would say that somebody complaining because you are beating him with a baseball bat harbours unfounded anti-you sentiments....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Al Franken skewered Colmes in his book Lie and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. I suggest that you read that before trotting out Colmes as evidence that Fox is not biased.
HAHAHA!
Citing Al Franken as an unbiased news source. Good one. Getting all those folks to give you "Insightful" rather than "Funny" mod points just makes the joke better. Cite Al Jazeera or the former Iraqi Information Minister next time. You'll grab those anti-U.S. mod points and get great laughs from those who understand you must be joking
Many people in this discussion have abundantly shown that Mr Moore's offerings are genuine documentaries.
To insist on the contrary is sheer baseless stuborness...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Ulrik
They don't hate our freedom, they don't hate our religion, they wouldn't care at all about us if we weren't a.) Screwing them over continually, and b.) bragging about what Champions of Justice we are.
Look at our record, in the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America. How many freely elected governments have we toppled in the last 30 years? Dozens. How many corrupt dictators have we installed? Dozens. How many evil bastards have we ignored because they were our 'friends?' Dozens again. If anyone is really misinformed enough to debate the facts on this, I'll find some links, it's not hard to do.
Fear will never solve the problem. Aggression leads to aggresion, always. That is the primary reason we still have war and the primary reason most religions teach tolerance and forgivness.
You can't bully humanity into not producing bullies.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The day political commentary becomes illegal (something some people on this discussion seem to desire) then yes, you could equate Mr Moore to Halliburton....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
but the Euros politicizing a film festival to influence U.S. elections is... pathetic. On a related note, I'd like to point out that four members of the jury were american, and one was from the UK. I'd think they know what they're doing, wouldn't you? By the way, hello everyone, this is my first post =)
This is news?
Dog bites man. Oh how droll.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
I'm not sure your example shows they're right leaning. Government friendly maybe.
I'll give another example of government friendliness. I recall that there a CNN internal memo from the Afghanistan war was leaked . It said that war images should be sandwiched in short flashes of 9/11 scenes. This is a classic technique to help people look at the war pictures 'in the right way'. That is unacceptable behaviour for journalists.
Later on, I saw the same happen with the Iraq war. Again short flashes of 9/11 scenes. Now that was weird.
What's your point? Because one liberal journalist was stupid, we should stay the course in Iraq? Huh?!? Did you even read the other side's point of view? How about this: it's wrong to root for the death of innocents anywhere. Or, invading another country for no good reason is dumb.
And who the heck is 'The American Establishment?' Code for anyone you don't like?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It was "look, we are using our freedom to have guns in a negative fashion".
He never advocates against the riht to bear arms and point to other places on this planet (Canada) where they have the same amounts of guns but that for some reason are not killing each other.
Honestly, were you watching the same movie?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This is stuff that matters for many issues related to topics frequently discussed here.
Censorship and copyright for example.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yes, a gallon of Sarin COULD kill over 3,000 people, but you would have to carefully administer it to each and every person.
That's like saying a hunting knife is enough to kill more people than died on 9/11. Technically correct, but the reality is very different.
From everything I've read, this appears to be an old shell from Gulf War I. This does not support Bush's claim that Saddam was making new weapons.
I thought not.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
....
...).
Moore worst than AL Quaeda.
Yes budy, whatever (no wonder the US can't prodeuce anything better than Bush to lead them
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Nerds shold not have political opinions.
And somebody is forcing you to read this discussion....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Here's a .mil url to that info.
s iy ah_ii_refs/n15en156/970409_cia_72668_72668_13.html
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/khamisiyah_ii/khami
It also references 155mm shells filled with mustard gas.
"But is America safer because of the Liberation of Iraq? Yes. Last year, America experienced the lowest number of terrorist attacks, home and abroad, in 20 years according to the State Department."
Actually, those numbers are rather slanted because they don't count "terrorist attacks" by "terrorists" in Iraq. Despite Bush and Co claiming that many of the attacks against US citizens in Iraq are conducted by "terrorists".
Come on, didn't you see the movie with Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy? Any poor guy off the street could do as well as a rich guy, given the opportunity.
The war is a failure. The entire reason given for war was to ensure our security, NOT to remove Saddam. Our security is worse now than ever.
Sure, both sides are biased. Reporters like Bob Woodward who really work at presenting just the facts are few and far between, and even then people will call bias based on your choice of facts to present.
Try www.bbc.com or www.guardian.co.uk or the NEw York Times. You occasionally find liberal points of view there.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I thought the Columbine movie was about American fear and insecurity. And I thought he presented a good case.
Show me one place in Franken's book where he claims, without the slightest hint of sarcasm, to be an unbiased political commentator. Show me one place where the grandparent claims Franken to be such. ... ...
...
I'm waiting.
Fact is, you won't find one. Franken is refreshingly honest when compared with, "Fair and Balanced! We Report, You Decide!"
Now, if you don't grasp the fact that even people with agendas which disagree with your own might be sources of factual information, there's nothing I can do to help you. Otherwise, why not pick up the book and read what Franken actually says regarding Alan Colmes? Or are you afraid of getting liberal cooties?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Here's a good clue as to when one side has 'won' a war: they stop being killed by the opposition.
In this case, it's deeper than that. We didn't (osensibly)( go to war to prove what big, tough guys we were, or to remove a dictator. We wen't to war to protect ourselves from an immenant threat. That reason has been proven false. No one can credibly claim that Saddam was a threat to the US. Our actions against him have angered the world, provided horrific recruiting posters for the terrorists, and decresed American security dramatically worldwide.
So no only haven't we won the war, we l,ost, at least according to our original reasons for going.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I've blogged a couple of entries about Michael Moore. Needless to say, I despise the guy. And I am a democrat who has financially contributed to John Kerry's campaign since day 1 and will continue to do so until I reach my $2000 limit.
My problem with Michael Moore is that he epitomizes the campaign that was being run by Howard Dean: ride the wave of American frustration and self-loathing to blame absolutely all of the world's woes on one person: George Bush. Because it is far more appealing to address complex issues with very simple rants. In my eyes, such rhetoric belongs in stand-up comedy acts, Dennis Miller Live, and Bill Maher. NOT IN A DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL PLATFORM.
Details about what I mean at my blog URL ... that is if someone actually gives a shit what i think.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
Incidentally, I am for cooperation and integration with Europe. I am also for the end of Middle-Eastern Islamo-fascist dictatorships. I'm not really convinced Europe is interested in that, however. I hope things turn around.
I don't see "The Palestine problem" as the root cause of the "middle east unrest." That's naive, and buys into the typical propaganda from Middle-Eastern leaders seeking to keep attention away from themselves. I think the root cause of the "middle-east unrest" is the panoply of theocratic dictatorships in the Middle East who oppress and torture their citizens, in combination with extremist strains of Islam -- the Wahabbism, for example, that the Saudi dictatorship subsidizes and exports.
Instead of believing the tripe on CNN, NBC, etc, I've been looking for the opinions of actual Iraqis. You may find this blog entry interesting; it's written by an Iraqi. In fact, I will copy the text of it here.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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Because some western weddings in places easy to travel to follow a particular schedule, anything else is terrorism. That's how they find so many terrorists to kill, as I said. Kill them all, sort them out later.
Here's a good clue as to when one side has 'won' a war: they stop being killed by the opposition.
In that case, we didn't "win" World War 2 in until years after the "end of major battle."
"Decresed American security dramatically worldwide" -- bullshit!
As far as "encouraging the terrorists," the opposite is true. Libya came clean recently. North Korea is seeking engagement, now. A lot of hurt has been put on Islamo-fascists in many places recently.
Pulling out of Iraq would definitely encourage the terrorists! "America is weak! See!"
That's why Somalia got us in trouble. It displayed weakness. Osama said, "see? kill a few, and they go home."
Well, not this time. Not in Iraq. We stay, and we do the right thing.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
To continue with debunking "eloquence", the American crime rate grew during the 60s and 70s, peaking in 1980, declining until the mid 80s and peaking once again in 1991, then declining until 2001.
American foreign policy has zero correlation with the crime rates in the US; our interventions during the 50s and early 60s did not cause the crime rate to shoot up, but Prohibition did during the 20s and early 30s. The end of vietnam did not result in a decline in crime but the Gulf War on TV marked the peak of violence in the US and saw 12 years of declining murder rates. Wars fought in Bosnia, Gulf war 2, sporading bombings of southeast europe and Iraq did nothing to stem the decrease in violence.
"Americans cheer the killing of children, yet wonder why their own children grow up to be more violent than those in other nations."
1 american does this and "Eloquence" feels the need to present the views of that blogger as the views of all 290 million of us. I can find countless more examples of non Americans cheering the murder of children that he chooses to ignore.
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Documentaries do not have to get ALL their facts right to be considered documentaries, and I'd like to see you show me anyplace that says otherwise. You do know that most of those nature scenes in award winning wildlife documentaries were staged, right?
Much of what Moore's debunker's claim is in fact fluffier than anything Moore ever claimed. Mostly, people read too much into what he's saying, setting up a straw man and knocking it down. Moore doesn't recant what he puts into his documentaries unless it's proven to be wrong, in which case he does. I've read both sides, and I choose to believe Moore.
What the debunkers fail to address is the oevrwhelming preponderance of evidence that Moore presents. It is as if by finding one slightly questionable thing, they think they can discredit the whole piece. Look at the forest, not the trees. And I do hope you are refering to the Academy Award he recieved for 'Bowling for Columbine,' because the Palm d'Or is a general award for any type of movie.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That proves what, exactly? I happen to know that you are not in fact an otter, therefore no one should trust what you say anyway.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The right thing, like imprisoning and torturing innocents?
Libya hasn't been a threat for years. North Korea is not cowed by our actions. The terrorists have fun new recruitment posters. Fascists everywhere are rejoicing at the standards we have set.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You do know this, right? It's not an award for documentaries, it's a general award. You may be thinking of the Acedemy Awards, for Bowling for Columbine. That was a while ago.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Moore's films are anything but mockumentaries. They are neither staged nor scripted!!!
Mr. Moore's films are very, very cleverly edited. He takes clips and snips of footage and present them very out of context.
I don't think he intends his works to be the farces they end up being.
resigned
So if you don't like the Hardylaw article, try this one: www.bowlingfortrugh.com.
They analyize every scene of the movie and point out what Moore does to mislead the viewer.
You are from UK, not Europe.
I'm not from the UK, I'm from Sweden. Maybe you're confused by the domainname under my username? And last I checked the UK was a European nation...
Speak for your own mind.
That was the point of my post. All "Europeans" don't all think one thing, and all "Americans" don't just think something else. This outrageous scandal is the fault of the current Cannes Film Festival jury, not of every "European". It's an embarrassment to the Cannes Film Festival and a devaluation of the (formerly) prestigious Palm d'Or award, not to/of every "European".
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
If /. members were to lean any farther to the left, they would fall over.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
That's an urban legend, according to this.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Harvey discovered and promoted Tarentino. Harvey is producing the movie. Tarentino gets to chair the festival, Harvey's latest project wins. Coincidence?
Probably not. And I love Moore. I think it's important that this movie gets seen. However, he probably did not deserve to win one of the most prestigious awards in cinema for it. His movies make you think, they are more factual than Fox News, and they are fairly amusing. Great cinema? Not quite.
What this really shows is that anti American sentiments have reached such a feverd pitch that the rest of the world is willing to award a film that doesn't really deserve it, just to make sure the message is heard.
And in case any of you are confused, it is Weinstein that got rich of off Moore's films, not Mike. Moore is probably fairly comfortable now, but certainly not rich.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"Oh, before some fat ice cream eating micheal moore's ass kissing life flunky..."
Because he's fat he doesnt know what hes talking about?
Instead of modding crap like this 'interesting' i think what you meant to put it to was -1 flamebait. Thanks.
More people watched a cartoon movie(Shrek 2) this weekend than have watched all of Moores movies put together.
Why anyone cares what someone in the movie industry has to say about anything but movies is beyond me. Then again I'm not sure they know that much about movies? Titanic won 11 Oscars?
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
... before 2004 was 1956, it was Cousteau's "Silent world."
Republicans control all three branches of the federal government and they still can't take responsibility for their own failed policies. Somehow, it's the fault of the liberals, who have no power, because they supposedly *wished* for things to go badly.
I think it's time for a revolution. We have to take the country back from all the stupid people.
Mod parent to zero: nothing to support the assertion, nothing to suggest any truth to it. Possibly a fabrication (i.e. lie); certainly not a shred of actual evidence to support the tale.
Republicans have yet to cease being pro-business, regarding those industries.
It's hard to imagine a business republicans would despise. Well, excluding paleocons, anyway.
Plus, all the people in the past 20 years that have been the biggest pain in the ass about the entertainment industry have been dems. Think : tipper gore and joe lieberman. At least now the FCC is reacting to something.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
That was spectacular. Damn. If it wasn't illegal to use such damning footage because of bullshit "Intellectual Property" laws, the populace would be a lot smarter. I'm going to see if I can get that film put on suprnova.org (never submitted anything there before). If someone beats me to it, that would be great (hint hint). EVERYONE needs to see it.
Highlights:
The spin put on the Christopher Columbus celebration was appalling. They deliberately edited out anything that told the truth about what a monster he was.
Larry King kissing ass with all the 1992 candidates, and offering drugs to George Bush Sr. (WISH I WAS KIDDING!)
Pat Robertson not keeping his mouth shut.
The spin the reporters put on the Rodney King verdict.
Candidates being instructed how to "turn the question around" and "talk about whatever they wanted" when they got hard questions.
Clinton's Littlerock headquarters using the satellite feed to spot abortion protesters in the crowd before an appearance so they could get rid of them.
Larry King telling Bill Clinton how much Ted Turner likes him, and how Bill could give Ted a job AFTER he wins the election.
And much much more.
Startling doesn't even begin to describe how watching this movie makes you feel. My jaw dropped repeatedly. It's a revelation to watch, and SEE the media, Republicans, and Democrats acting like FUCKING ASSHOLES and it's THEM DOING IT in live moving pictures. There is no spin they could ever put on this movie to defend their actions. No wonder it's illegal.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
I don't know if it's the first time this prize is awarded to a documentary
If this movies is anything like Columbine, then you don't have to worry about this being a first award for a documentary. Columbine was so full of falsehoods, misrepresentations and outright lies that it did not deserve the "documentary" classification.
Now, read Heston's speech again with the realization that it was an unlucky occurance that the speech was scheduled for 11 days after Columbine and Heston didn't 'stage a big pro-dun rally' in response to the shootings, but because it had to be done to avoid breaking the law. Under NY State Law and the NRA's by-laws, the NRA MUST hold an annual meeting. If the date or location of the meeting is to be changed, all 4 million members would have to be notified 10 days in advance. Impossible since the shooting in Littleton happened only 10 days before the meeting was to be held. Out of respect, they cancelled all their normal events except the welcoming and the annual meeting that was REQUIRED by law and couldn't be rescheduled in time:
You'll probably get it too -- the country is so evenly divided that the winner of the 2004 presidential election will very likely not have a majority. I don't see how it would help, though... two of the last three Presidential elections were won that way (2000 and 1992), and people pretty much shrugged it off each time.
Those were non-majorities of the popular vote, not the electoral vote--there haven't been any elections recently in which an independent candidate has gotten any electoral votes (which would require a majority in a state), as far as I can recall.
Not that it would make much difference anyway--if nobody gets a majority of electoral votes, the House (and Senate, if necessary) vote instead, and it's not hard to predict how such a vote would turn out. (See here for the gory details.)
you're right, we shouldn't address his work based on his girth. moore's crockumentary* has no merit because it's a lying piece of shit. his words become meaningless the minute he decides to defend them by asking why you need to find fact in "comedy." his poor man's savior facade is killed when you look at how much he charges to speak, the planes he demands he fly on, the hotels he requires he stay in and when he charges the parents of children kill in columbine to prescreen his film he makes about them. moore is a piece of shit and nothing more.
perl -e 's/fat/rich/gi' *
LAME
I watched Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" about the devastation of Flint, Michigan because of General Motors closure of factories.
It was a good movie, raising very valid points.
However, from what I read in the media about Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore used the wrong tactics.
For example, he emphasizes the Bush Family / Bin Laden Family business connections. So what? Bin Laden's family are big time construction businessmen, with huge projects all over the region. Bin Laden's father established this business a long time before Osama was born.
Bin Laden's family disowned him a long time ago (early 90s). This is not like Bush was a friend of Osama or something.
The throwing of irrelevant but sensational bits of data into the debate never helps, and if the neo-cons and their apologists do it, there is no need for those trying to be objectives to mimic this tactic.
This is very much like the other "quasi facts" that are drummed up against Saudi Arabia for example, and etched into the collective psyche of Americans. For example: the allegations that the royal family or officials or the people knowingly funded Bin Laden. Or that Bin Laden was paid "protection money" by the Saudi government (nice Mafia reference there!). These are presented to the American people as undisputed facts. The fact is: the Saudis stripped him of his citizenship very early in the 90s, before he declared any kind of war on America! As for the alleged "funding", it is never stated that this was mismanagement by some charity officials that lead to some money making its way to Bin Laden, and not that royal family/officials/Saudis intentionally funded him against America. Nor does it mention when this happened. It may have happened in the 80s when he was in a jihad against the USSR, something that America wholeheartedly supported.
I am against Bush's ill conceived policies all the way, but using these tactics will not help confront those stupid policies.
Nevertheless, it raises some good points that Americans need to think about.
P.S. Another good documentary that features Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky and others, is "The Corporation". Really worth a look by all readers of Slashdot.
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I think Moore has fallen prey to that old folly: He takes himself to seriously. Watch his earlier film Roger & Me - to me it combines just the right amount of outrage & irreverence. By presenting the sad facts about poor Flint, Michigan the viewer can come to their own conclusions. Bowling for Columbine comes across to me as more like religious evangelism.
Jonathan B.
guns are a recently invented luxury.
Sure, if you 700 years ago "recently".
Some people want to put wacky chemicals in their bodies. Fine, just make sure you don't hurt me. Firearms, however are the absolute best way to ensure the ligitimacy of government.
Frymaster did a VERY insightful article on this very subject. Since I beleive it is licensed under creative commons, I reproduce it here.
====
bowling for colombine... and bazookas
originally aired nov. 10 2002
there's a good chance that you're one of the people who told - nay, exhorted - me to see this movie. well, i saw it. you can stop nagging now.
i'm not going to discuss bowling for columbine. you've seen it. i've seen it. any review would be little more than intra-referential. instead, i'm going to present a simple plan i've had for some time now. it's called the "bazooka plan"
guns. the good
there's a lot of talk about the "legitimate" uses of firearms: hunting, target shooting &c... all namby-pamby bullshit apalogia. guns are weapons. they're instruments of force and coercion.
now, it's no secret that force is the ultimate source of de facto authority. should the state wish to fine you for, say, traffic violations, they send you a ticket. if you refuse to pay, they send you a summons. if you refuse to appear they send some thugs to get you. if you resist, they attempt to subdue. if you will not be subdued, they apply force - the club initially, the gun ultimately. the fact that we mostly just jot off a cheque for that traffic ticket is a sign that we invest our state with de jure authority. we believe they have justification in sanctioning us, so we go along. if that de jure authority loses its support, however, the state is more than willing to exert it's de facto authority: force. violence and coercion are the gold standard of the currency of authority. mostly we never cash in our fiat currency for gold, but we know that fort knox is full of the stuff... just like we know that cop dinging us for the illegal left is packing a glock.
if a state is to have more than the appearance of citizen control (what we in the west refer to, oddly, as "freedom"), it is necessary that that gold standard be controlled at least in part by the citizenry. authority is only de jure if those who submit to it have the capacity and ability to judge its justness and act accordingly. if the means of coercion are completely controlled by the state, state authority can only be judged as de facto in nature.
this isn't a new idea. those patriarchal, slave-holding early americans knew it. when the second amendment talks about the right to bear arms being "necessary for the security of a free state" they're not talking about the security of the state, but the security of the freedom of that state. mao, put it better with his oft-misunderstood statement that "political power flows from the barrel of a gun." note that, contrary to nra propaganda, mao actually armed the population in the early fifties. he passed out free rifles. obviously mr. zedong was confident in the legitimacy of his party's rule. an armed populace is a voluntarily governed populace.
the capacity for revolution is a necessary prerequisite for the legitimacy of governance. guns good.
guns. the bad
bowling for columbine covers this section quite nicely. the culture of glorified violence, machismo, revenge, power and the worship of instant, pocket-sized and portable de facto authority over fellow citizens has made the arming of the american population an absolute and abject failure.
the part of bowling... that drove this home most succinctly (for me at least), was the interview with the michigan militia. i'm on record all over the place as dismissing the militia movement as being nothing more than a motley and poorly-dressed gaggle of right-wing nuts with zero und
I did NOT learn everything I need to know in kindergarten.
There is a difference between using the truth to advance your point of view and using half-truths, quotes out of context, and outright fabrications to advance your point.
If Mr. Moore had engaged in the former, then I wouldn't have the slightest gripe with him. However, there's ample documentation on the internet to prove that Mr. Moore doesn't let the truth get in the way of his point.
Unfortunately, us Americans get a choice this fall between loser 1 and loser 2.
Anyone else notice that Moore's web site says, "According to today's (May 5) New York Times, it might "endanger" millions of dollars of tax breaks Disney receives from the state of Florida because the film will "anger" the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush." and when you go to the excerpt of the Times article it says that Moore's agent is the source of this claim. Doesn't really help the guy's credibility. From the Times excerpt:
"Moore's agent Ari Emanuel says Disney chief executive Michael D Eisner asked him to pull out of deal with Miramax last spring, citing concern film could cost Disney tax breaks in Florida, where Bush's brother Jeb is governor; Disney executives deny tax breaks were issue."
His so called movies are an insult to people who make real documantaries. His work is so full of crap it's unreal. Why doesn't this fat clown go to a real documentary, oh yes he is to lazy to do so. It's to much work to get off his ass and do anything but edit his diatribes. I have an idea for his next movie "Travels of a Turd" Michael follows a turd from it's birth to the waste treatment plant. Along they why he talks with other turds. http://www.gobpl.com
http://www.gobpl.com
If you want to fight Bush by Boycotting Disney, that now means boycotting Miyazaki's movies, since Disney distributs his movies in North America. Is the Slashdot crowd up to the challenge? Can you endure anime withdrawl in order to save America from tyranny?
There are real events, real people and real opinions for filmmakers and journalists to make a film out of. How Moor assembled and presented all the materials in the way they came out is solely depending on Moore's creative decisions and skills (talent).
Moore is an extraordinary documentary film maker who has a thing or two to say. Regardless of how politically motivated his films are, as long as what is shown to us is factual, his films are documentary films, as were many of war-propaganda films in the past. We, in this society, do not subdivide the genre of documentary into pieces based on how the facts are being presented to us.
Fox News itself lobbied for it's right to lie.
Reputible news sources like the New York Times fire reporters like Jayson Blair when they find out about the lies. The whole Andrew Gilligan/Hutton report thing is far more complicated than you make it out to be. It's as if a Nixon-friendly judge had claimed Bob Woodward had distorted the truth and forced the Post to print a retraction. And please note the BBC suffered a severe shakeup over this.
All those others you mentioned? Point me to where they lobbied for the right to lie!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Nuff said, dumbass.
--- Ban humanity.
I don't quite understand how one needs a gun emotionally, unless its some sort of size of penis related thing. :)
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
I agree with you that Wahabbism is a big problem, but I think it is a problem that the Saudi people will have to address from the inside. I fear pressure from the Western world will have the opposite than desired effect. Palestine on the other hand is a festering wound because it undermines the West's and especially US credibility in the Arab public opinion. The US is widely perceived as joint at the hips with Israel's interests. Problem is that given the importance of the Jewish vote in the USA there is some truth in it which makes it so much harder to correct this perception. Yet, I think the chances of the Western world to bring piece to this region are much greater. I think a tenth of the force currently in Iraq would be enough to pacify Palestine and I think the Palestinians would welcome any force that keeps the Israeli soldiers out. Why this hasn't been done years ago is beyond me.
Thank you for sharing your blog link and quote, I think it drives nicely home how diverse the situation on the ground is in Iraq. Of course there are many other voices out there as well i.e. Raed and Riverbend I wished more Iraqis would feel the way that Mohammed does. Unfortunately polls of Iraqis show that he is very much in the minority now.
What kind of myopic view leads you to characterize the US action as "imprisoning and torturing innocents"? Is the "torture" and other failures so prevalent that it somehow counters the good that the US is doing by working to instill a safe and stable democracy for the Iraqi people? (which is what I surmise the gp meant by the "right thing").
What standards has the US set that the fascists are rejoicing about? Is it that mistreatment of prisoners will not be allowed? Is it the replacement of a fellow fascist with a democracy? or is it that the US will attack anyone they believe is an immediate threat?
Maybe the blacks and poor should stop commiting felonies.
Hell, maybe everyone should stop committing felonies, and then we'd have nobody disenfranchised and the voting rolls would just read "Everybody" and we'd buy the world a Coke and teach it to sing in perfect harmony.
Boy howdy, that'd be great.
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
Halliburton, on the other hand, has demonstrated an ability to create the situations in which they will profit by the deaths of thousands.
The difference seems the same as that between an undertaker and a hitman. They both profit from death, about which I don't care. But one of them causes death, about which I do.
The whole idea of a chemical artillery shell is that it is fired from a standard gun. Therefore it has to have the same dimentions and mechanical properties as a regular shell. Add to this the fact that the shell is 20 years old (the production runs of the Iraqi "binary" type sarin shells occured in the 1980's), it was stored in unknown conditions (possibly even fired and found in fields) and you will get yourself a piece of rusted junk that would require an expert to recognise.
In the 1990's, before leaving, UNSCOM said there were over 500 such shells filled with sarin they couldn't account for.
The actual number of the "binary" type sarin shells produced was 170 and this production run was experimental. According to UNSCOM, they were all accounted for and believed to be used as follows: 10 filled with mock chemicals, 10 filled with real stuff but tested (exploded) in the lab and remaining 150 fired at a gunnery range. The current theory as far as I know is that the shell might have been misplaced in that process, or more likely, it was actually fired on the test range and turned out a dud and subsequently dug out after all these years by some ammo-scavenging guerrilla. The examination of the shell would determine if it was inded the case.
Black people get convicted of a lot more crimes, and sent away for much longer terms. That by the very definition is racism, and the only way you can say it is fair is by taking the position that black people are subhuman (naturally commit more and worse crimes than white people).
I agree with most of what you say, but this line caught my eye (and ire). Saying that the justice system is racist just because black people are convicted more often is a leap of logic that seems to be a tad too long to me.
Let me offer you another very plausible explaination: black people may very well commit a disproportionate number of crimes not because of a natural propensity, but because of the disproportionate number of African Americans that live in poverty.
Poverty levels are known to adversely affect the amount and types of crimes (FBI "Crime Factors"). Sadly, 22.7% of the African American population is situated below the poverty line (an income below $18,725 for a single parent with three dependent children) -- astounding when compared with the rate for non-hispanic whites: 7.8% (U.S. Bureau of Census, 2001).
Taking these facts together, a higher crime rate among African Americans appears to be nearly inevitable. I think the main culprit here is an economic environment that affords people little opportunity to improve their income status, rather than a habit of racism within the justice system.
You must not have read my comment entirely, or you would have found my explanation that my opinion of Moore is just as baseless as his opinion of the Bush administration.
The first documentary to win was JY Cousteau's "The world of Silence".
realkiwi
I'll agre it's important to maintain his right to continue to make his films. I do not agree that all his films are important, nor do I believe he backs up his claims with unbiased research or good sources.
Roger and Me was funny, but in the end, Moore was taking potshots at a CEO for killing his home town's economy, not because of his care for the noble common worker. He destroys that image of nobility by finding the most embarassing people in the town and editing them to look like idiots.
Every corporation has the right to do their business as they see fit. Hacking at GM won't fix Ford, Mercedes, Chrysler, Honda , Toyota, or any other car maker deciding to outsource.
Columbine completely ignored the responsible gun owner. It completely ignored the real 2nd amendment debate. It completely ignored the REAL reasons behind Columbine. All it did was make fun of rural folks and make trite commentary about the 2nd Amendment. Here's a hint, you can't sum up this issue in an hour if the framers and Supreme Court have been analyzing it for 200 years without a conclusion.
Now, of course, we have 9/11. Where Moore takes many disparate bits of half-truths and puts them together to form a path to a delusional conclusion that Bush knew about, and aided and abetted those that caused 9/11. When I got to watch this in rough cut, it felt like the psuedo-science used on Fox for their Moon Landing hoax and their Alien Autopsy "documentaries".Using Occham's razor, consider this RATIONALLY....What is more likely;
A: President and his staff miscalculate the determination of some Islamic radicals and get caught with their pants down in a modern Pearl Harbor. After the fact, they do some favors for their closest Arabic Middle East ally to get their help in tracking down the bad guys. They also kick out bin Laden's extended family because they may become targets of hatred, and the bin Laden family is close to the Saud Royals.
or B: The President decided that there is no way American citizens would ever discover his hand in a huge plot requiring 100+ operatives to pull off and KNOWINGLY decides to kill 10,000 + (remember, he would have had NO idea how many would die in a structure holding 40k) Americans so he could go to war in Iraq. In addition, he rewards the peple who helped him. Even though everyone would KNOW he helped them and it would increase his chances of being caught. Further, this President would have to assume these terrorists would only hit the targets they promise to hit, and that the terrorists would still do this if Bush asked them.
Yeah, B does sound a lot more like f-ing fiction when you put it in context. Moore is a once- entertaining filmmaker who has become angry and bitter. I would vigorously defend his right to make and show his films, but I won't go see them in theaters. They aren't MUST SEE, and he certainly isn't making "important" work anymore. He's a Netflix rental for me. One of about 20 programs I will see in a month. That's about the respect and value he deserves.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
1600 Slahsdot posts, countless othe discussions and commentry, all on democracy, freedom, news coverage and the war in Iraq.
Love the film or hate it, it has generated more free speech, comment and thought than any thing else in the media in a long time.
For that alone what a great movie.
Get back to me when that safe and stable democracy you're hoping for materializes. First open election and the Shias win and throw the whole thing out. Or do you propose we keep our noses in the whole thing forever, to keep it 'fair'?
Iraq was never an immediate threat. The mistreatment of prisoners was encouraged from the highest levels and only stopped when it was made public. Our enemies have always known how vicious we can be, ask any of the dozens of freely elected Central and South American presidents we have deposed.
Most of the hijackers were Saudi Arabian, why did we not go after them? No link between Al Queda and Saddam has yet been proved. Why do we continue to support dictators across the world, like our friends the Saudis, who last time I checked were a monarchy who tortures people, suppressed dissent, and does all the bad things Saddam did?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
He is fat, and getting more so, because he doesn't care for his own health and well being. Now what makes you think he cares about yours or anyone else's for that mater? All he cares about is that he can make things unique and that no on else is crazy enough to do yet. This makes him a trail blazer with the full knowledge there are people out there just dumb enough to listen to him agree with him and not look deep enough to see anything below the surface he presents them with.
I've always been of the mindset that I never trust a skinny chef. You my friend are being soon fed by a fat chef so I don't doubt it tastes sweet. Ignorance after all is bliss.
If what I've said is mean spirited then what you said lacks any insight whatsoever and the fact that you were moded to insightful means that your inability to think for yourself about what lies beneath the surface is held by a majority of what is left of slashdot. I truly pains me to see it here but I'm no longer going to just sit back and accept it. I've recently realized there is a big difference between tolerating pinheads and accepting them.
Given Moore's public comments and a previous work I never bothered to watch any of his current movies and I won't. Also, you may have come out with that impression of the movie but he personally certainly never presented his movie in that light while in the US. He also has a preponderancy to discuss his personal opinion presenting them as objective impartial pieces.
The first movie I saw of his was one were he went into a bank in the Midwest and presented it to a public whose social mores are far different from those in a rural area. Begging the question of why is there gun violence as if giving guns away in rural America somehow impacted the lives of those in more urban environments.
In any event I began to see through his "information pieces" a while back and ever since I began investigating some of the issues he has presented I have found much of what he says to either be a total lie or facts misconstrued to paint a particular image of a subject. He does so without showing enough to give people anything more than an emotional way to react.
A recent example of this is his claims of Disney and their attempts to silence his new movie. Disney had informed moore more than 1 year ago they would not distribute his movie. Keep in mind this is before the film was completed. This leaves one of two paths that moore came down. Did he tell Disney he was going to make a political movie that would criticize the president and they said they wouldn't distribute it. If so he is guilty of using his personal political agenda to tell a story he is disguising as a documentary. Kind of slimy in my book. The other option is that Disney did not want their name associated with the distribution of his film regardless of how it came out so they told him at that time they would not distribute the film. In this case Moore is a delusional person (supported by his comments after he was booed off stage at the Oscars.), or he is simply using this situation to try and get his movie out before the election by creating the illusion of big corporate America trying to silence the "fat" little guy. This could only mean he has a political agenda behind his movie and this makes it worthless because the information presented won't be complete and it will have such bias that if your already somewhat familiar with the topic it will be nothing more than a frustrating experience.
Well, let me see. The guy who wrote Stupid White Men ands Dude, Where's My Country as well as directing Bowling for Columbine tells Disney he's making a new movie. What do you think it's going to be about? If Disney were expecting Sesame Street then they must have been pretty naive. Look at what happened with Dogma. Disney shat their pants at that film and in the end, it turned out not to be what was expected (pro-God but anti-church)
Of course Moore has a political agenda. Who doesn't? And in spite of all of the attacks on what has been said in his work, I notice that very few ever actually question the veracity of things, merely argue their degree. It was interesting to listen to an advisor who worked for Bush Snr talking on a radio station in the UK yesterday in exactly this position. Well, yes she said, the Bushes have had contact with the Bin Ladens, but the Bin Laden's are a very big family. Yes, Osama is nasty, but all the other Bin LAdens are lovely, lovely people: besides, look at how much cash they have invested here, we don't want to piss them off too much now do we? I believe there murky waters that certain people in the Bush administration would rather stay that way (like the ever trustworthy Cheney and Rumsfeld)
I can't say that I trust Michael Moore, but I will admit to being far more amenable to what he says than to what the US and UK governemnts have about some of the things he mentions
In amongst all this, you know who I feel sorry for? Think of all of those troops stuck in Iraq, getting tied up in a conflict that they should never have been involved in and risking their lives for objectives that weren't clear then and are even less clear now.
It's not you: I'm just this horrifically socially awkward with everybody.
The neocons policy of kill them all and sort things out later is creating more terrorists by killing innocents. They are taking normal civilians and badly mistreating them, and what do you expect.
My problem with Chomsky isn't that he lacks brains or that his political activism comes from the left. It's that he is a crank -- nothing more, nothing less.
His intellectual career has taken an arc previously travelled by Bertrand Russell with a twist. When Russell had done all that he could do as a Philosopher and Mathematician he invested his energy in political activism. That his Leftist Secular Humanist advocacy took a soundly "common sense" tone was only fitting. He spoke out against Racism, destructive religious dogmas, and a whole host of other topics that we take for granted today. (Imagine fearing social censure for moving in with your girlfriend.) I think Chomsky turned to politics for personal reasons similar to Russell's (to put it negatively, he ran out of innovation), but lost his head about it. I recall watching a clip of an old interview with him once where a student in the audience asked him what he thought of his scientific work in relation to his political thought. His response was that "science changes all the time" and that "we know how society works". With that, Comrade, we witness the birth of a true politician in the pejorative sense. He wanted his audience to believe that he places more stock in his political opinions than in his linguistic work. What a liar. He knows perfectly well that Science has been as much (if not all) process as end result. He knows that Einstein didn't discredit Newton. He wants us to believe we know what can make one species behave like the Etruscans or the Third Reich with more clarity than we can understand the link between radio waves and rainbows. Russell simply wanted to do some good. Chomsky wants college sophmores to read his pamphlets.
"I think most Americans haven't a beginning of a clue how it is the rest of the world don't like them anymore."
To their point of view, nobody really important has said anything that would lead them to such a conclusion.
For example, "First World" national leaders aren't inferring the illegitimacy of the US governmnt, say, openly and formally, in the forums where such statements would be taken seriously.
Americans are permitted to travel to and within these countries where they are supposedly not liked.
Those countries continue to trade with the US.
No military opposition to the US forces has been raised by any nations that were not already considered enemies prior to the current circumstances.
Basically, the idea that America is "not liked" in the world, in general, has not occurred to them. It may appear ridiculously, painfully obvious to you and me, but not everyone sees it that way.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Okay, good point -- Moore was stressing that it wasn't just The French. And that, by and large, the International Community and Hollywood don't like Bush.
Somehow I can't help but think that this helps Bush's re-election campaign, though.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
"Taking these facts together, a higher crime rate among African Americans appears to be nearly inevitable. I think the main culprit here is an economic environment that affords people little opportunity to improve their income status, rather than a habit of racism within the justice system."
I fully agree with your analysis. The argument, therefor, that black people are punished more then white people because they are more criminal, bypasses the real reason. It still is the system that maintains these inequalities that is the root cause, therefor any conservatives saying "It's there own fault! They just are born criminals" is talking pure crap.
Apart from that, one can not exclude some racist prejudice by the courts (maybe partly uncounsiously) as well. For instance, with your above reasoning, it still can't be explained why the courts on average give much longer sentences *for the same sort of crimes* if they are commited by blacks then by whites.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
IMHO, you are correct that the film explored the culture of guns in America, and it was a topic worth examining. Too bad another filmmaker didn't do it, maybe one who had an affinity for facts rather than lies and distortion.
HAHAHA!
Enjoy your laugh, doofus, because I'm about to make you look truly foolish.
Citing Al Franken as an unbiased news source. Good one.
I did not claim that he was "unbiased news source", did I? Nor did Al Franken claim to be unbiased news source. There is a big difference between providing political commentary/analysis and reporting the news. News reports are supposed to be unbiased. Political commentary/analysis is not.
But yet if I called Bush an evil Nazi Jewish dictator then I would be a free thinker?
Thanks for clearer that up for me.
Here's why:
We went there, okay we more than likely fucked up. But to leave now with Iraq the way it is would be really irresponsible. Even if you think the whole war was horrible and evil, you don't think that just bailing out now is the best thing to do, do you? We still have to clean up the mess. Remember, our goal was to remove sadamm and we did that. We now are trying to make it a peaceful democracy so war lords just won't take it over. If that happened, the country would be worse off than before.
For you who love destructive criticism: :) j/k
First, there was request to provide examples that Mr. Moore is spewing propaganda. Read the quotations I posted and see the link below. "Outrageously manipulative"
By definition, propaganda is the systematic propagation of a doctrine. So yes, he's spewing it, voicing it, filming it, producting it. Choose your adverb. Spew seems more appropriate to me because of what Mr. Moore embodies.
I never said Mr. Moore did not have a right to say what he wants, I only present the argument that what he says and how he says it shouldn't be taken at face value or classified incorrectly.
It is my opinion that when one presents his or her opinion, it should be considered an editorial or commentary, just like this post.
What is this guy about?
Mr. Moore created the impression in the public that his movie was somehow being censored. This was a blatant attempt to pander to individuals who put emotion before critical thought (IMHO). All done to generate hype for his movie. It was a complete fabrication and untrue, but it's a great example of what Mr. Moore is all about.
Disney never intended to release the feature via Miramax, only to help produce it. I believe thats changed now because of the attention, though.
What is amazing to me is how the press jumped all over the censorship bandwagon, but that has since been proven to be a lie and you can hardly find a reference to the masquerade. Censorship is a red flag word that sells papers. Lest we forget they're in this to make money, right?
Propaganda is not inherently evil by any means. The vocal open source community puts forth its own arguments for using Linux etc. The difference is these arguments (when not tainted with anti-MS garbage) are normally constructive and present a good point.
However, when the only argument for using Linux is "because it's not windows" or "because windows sucks", it looses it's luster somewhat. An argument may be true, but when presented as opinion, you are making the dicision for your listener.
Michael Moore is a talented individual who creates a persuasive product to not only express his view points, but to persuade you to agree with him. I believe, as a documentary, it's tainted because he, if past behavior is any indication of future performance (see http://www.bowlingfortruth.com), presents facts out of context and not the whole truth.
If you want examples, I suggest this search as a good starting point.
I do not believe the inclusion of short video clips and a voice over constitute the classification of 'documentary'. Its most likely purely editorial comment. I can film women at an abuse center and build up to the point where I ask Mr. Kerry if he's stopped beating his wife. Does that make it a documentary?
As far as the wonders of radical politics and the great advancements it's brought to the world. Let us not forget the Nazi Party, the Crusades, McCarthyism, Fascism, the KKK, Genocide, and other atrocities.
Have there been positive things that come from extreme politics? Yes, absolutely. But, IMHO, extreme politics must been taken in context and adoption of these beliefs by individuals should only be done with careful forethought and research. Woman's suffrage, civil rights, democratic governance all ring true to what is good and proper.
Vigilance against injustice and untruth is the responsibility of the individual, not just the press, not just the government, and not just Michael Moore.
Freedom of the Press is a critical part of the checks and balances of the American government. However, which press you read and believe should always be tempered (IMHO) with what you, as an individual, believe. The truth usually tends to fall somewhere in the middle, so extremist argu
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
And I wish Hannity, Limbaugh, et al. would admit that they are part of "the media." But they won't, because then they would no longer be able to perpetuate the myth of the "liberal" media.
Hear, hear! Limbaugh is heard on how many stations? Fox has how many affiliates? How much of talk radio is dominated by the right? We've got Michael Moore winning awards for his film and Disney trying to prevent the film's distribution.
yeah, that's admirable and all, but how about this one: "even if I have to scour the p2p networks to see it!" Now that's BELIEVABLE as well as admirable!
Ah, come on. I'm saying politics and money probably played a part in the decision. Are you disagreeing? I'm also saying anti-American sentiment played a large part in the decision. Again, do you really disagree with that? In case you can't figure it out, I was only implying that Harvey and Tarentino's relationship may have had something to do with the win. I'm flat out saying that politics had a large part to play. The world is a complex place. Often more than one motivation is important.
I haven't seen the movie. Maybe it really did deserve to win the Palm d'Or. Perhaps it really was the best film of the year. Or maybe money and politics had at least a little to do with the win.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I don't think we really disagree that much. Personally, I would love if we could just leave Iraq. We can't. We need to stay and finish what we started. I'm just not too hopefully that it's all going to turn out peachy.
I suspect that our major differences of opinion are in the means, not the end. I believe that violence begets violence, and in the long run, peaceful solutions are the only kind that lead to lasting peace. Making people scared leads to more war, not less. People with nothing to lose don't just roll over and give up at the first sign of a struggle. Investing people into our system, so they have something to lose if it fails, is the only long term plan for ridding the world of violence, IMHO.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"They think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on."
Well, obviously you will have some dissenting voices, but as a whole, I can assure you that europeans perhaps may find Moore fat, vulgar, greedy and ambitious, but not stupid and ignorant.
Thus, he scores better then the average American.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
That's a very naive thing to believe.
No, that's a goal to which all news organizations should aspire.
I would contend that all news is biased, and it is incumbent on you, as an intelligent consumer, to identify this bias and take it into account.
How do you identify bias? How do you know what has been left out? How do you know that the station to which you are listening purposely picked an inarticulate person to voice one side of an argument? How do you know that the TV station that you are watching carefully chose camera angles which hid, or minimized, the protestors? How do you know that they chose to report only some of the numbers from a poll because those omitted numbers put their side in a bad light?
With all due respect, I don't remember it the same way as you do. Disney just said that they or their subsidiary Miramax wouldn't distribute the film, but that Michael Moore was free to find another distributor for it.
Miramax bankrolled the picture and was then ordered by their parent company, Disney, to not distribute it. That leaves Michael Moore scrambling to find a distributor in time to let the movie affect the outcome of the 2004 Presidential election.
Stridently crying "censorship" in all the newspapers in the last weeks before he took Farenheit 9/11 to Cannes certainly didn't do him any disfavours.
Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey) was so appalled by Disney's behavior that he asked the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation for a hearing on what he termed a "disturbing pattern of politically based corporate censorship of the news media and the entertainment industry." It sounds like it was not just Michael Moore calling this censorship.
So you have seen the movie? Your comment confuses me somewhat. I thought it was quite easy to distinguish between Moore editorializing i.e. him pushing his opinion and the factual bits of the movie.
Anyway this movie was still raising more questions then answers. Moore suggested that the reason for the culture of violence is to be found in the instutionalized racism and the residue fear that it left when abolished. But for me that was certainly just a thought that he tossed out to explore and not really an answer at all.
Given Moore's public comments and a previous work I never bothered to watch any of his current movies and I won't. Also, you may have come out with that impression of the movie but he personally certainly never presented his movie in that light while in the US. He also has a preponderancy to discuss his personal opinion presenting them as objective impartial pieces.
Do I understand you correctly in that you are basically saying that without looking at any of his work you formed a rather firm opinion about him that will preclude you from ever looking at his work?
It is important not only to truthfully analyze and correct the bad actions of the US in Iraq, but also to weigh them in balance with their good actions, lest we attain a distorted view and lose the morale required to achieve our lofty goals. Sorry if I'm waxing rhapsodic.
e.g. Developed countries and their institutions such as the World Bank manipulates other countries, for good or ill, largely by non-violent economic means. Monetary and commodity dependence has crippled many nations. Corruption often becomes rampant, and internal violence is a common result.
Of course, it works both ways. The US is also borrowing obscene amounts of money. In a sense, much of the world is dependent upon the continued economic success of the US. There are ties that bind us all, if we are willing to see them.
Hence, IMHO, peace must be subservient to justice.
We haven't been able to establish yet that Granier et al weren't acting under standing orders. We've already established that Bush's policies in Guantanamo and Afghanistan were crafted with highly semantic tip-toeing around the principals of the Geneva convention. Indeed, at the time he signed off on them one of the lawyers assigned to vet what they could and could not get away with submitted a pro and con list of criticisms for his edification. Of note in the "con" section was the possiblity that the "standard of conduct for millitary personel could be degraded." IIRC, that's a verbatim quote. It's possible that the effects of trickle down "telephone" turned a mandate from Rumsfeld to "find out what you can" into "torture them with sexual humiliation", but the consistancy of the themes these guards employed makes me wonder just how far up the chain of command we can go to to register accountability. Your point about the delegation of authority is worth noting. I don't think that should have stopped Rumsfeld from noticing what was going on four months ago.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Thank you for an interesting and insightful take on all of this.
News itself is inherantly biased: what's newsworthy where you live might not be newsworthy where I live.
Don't confuse newsworthiness with bias. While a murder of a street prostitute in Nigeria might not be of interest to an American audience, that's far different than slanted and/or purposely distorted coverage of a news story.
You, fmaxwell, as a seemingly intelligent and erudite person, are capable of watching a news broadcast on Fox News without mindlessly buying every word as the gospel truth, aren't you?
While I agree that blatant bias is easily recognized, it's the subtle bias which is much harder to recognize and more dangerous. It's the right-wing pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Ann Coulter who claim to be reporting the "news" when, in fact, they are often lying about such basic things as numbers, percentages, chronology, and even events.
This fixation with "biased" news - or, at least, this fixation with claiming that the other guy's news is biased - seems to be an American thing.
Perhaps it is, but I think that it is a good fixation. It's desirable to have television, radio, and print journalists who make efforts to be even-handed and fair. We have U.S. journalists, like Tim Russert, who are admired for their unbiased coverage. They don't give anyone a "break." They don't shy away from covering scandals even if it involves a person or party that they support. They don't pull punches or ask "softball questions." If you watch their coverage of a story or issue, you are presented with factual accounts and specific information.
I think what angers so many of us is Fox's claim that they are "fair and balanced" when, in fact, they are more slanted than any other major new broadcast source.
Well, that's certainly horrific. As is the whole Food for Oil scandal, though not so viscerally so.
Guess what? It dosn't excuse anything anyone else may have done.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It certainly doesn't excuse anything. It does cast doubt on the "Pull out US, put in UN" strategy certain parties are championing. Especially since similar things have been happening in other places, like Kosovo.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
As much as I want us out of Iraq, it is not the right thing to do now. We need to see it through and make sure the place doesn't turn into a terrorist breeding hell-hole.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If you can't read my post why bother replying. The statement of not seeing any of his recent works does not mean I have not seen any of his previous work. I find him to be a toad. Apparently, some people think kissing his ass will turn him into a prince. I'm guessing your one of them?
Moore is good at that. Here are some lies:
There's lots more. As I said, he raises some valid questions in the movie, but he could have done much better by honestly portraying what he shot, and maybe hiring a fact checker.
The fact that the Bush clan had dealings with the (rather extended) Bin Laden clan is just fine.
The fact that Bush (or the Bush gov't; same thing, really) snuck them out of the country on a secret, special flight, during the no-fly period, without letting, say, the FBI so much as ask 'So...know where Osama is these days?' really does raise some eyebrows.
Was he trying to protect them, innocents, from a backlash due to their last name? Quite possibly, and not a bad idea in America.
Still, it *does* raise some questions. Questions Bush hasn't answered.
Now, as a Moore fan, I'll say that I've never seen his films, but his books, especially Stupid White Men, are well worth reading.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Thanks for an excellent reply.
The fact that Bush (or the Bush gov't; same thing, really) snuck them out of the country on a secret, special flight, during the no-fly period, without letting, say, the FBI so much as ask 'So...know where Osama is these days?' really does raise some eyebrows.
Agreed. Excellent point.
Still, it *does* raise some questions. Questions Bush hasn't answered.
Agreed.
My gripe is the "extrapolation" (stated or implied) that he knew about the September 11 attacks, or worse, that he ordered them! Much of these "family links" thing leaves the door open to the viewer/reader's imagination to fill in whatever, and in many cases, it is a conspiracy theory amounting to either knowledge of the attacks or actual complicity in them.
Now, I loath Bush's character, his tactics and his policies, and what he has turned the world we live in to. But, I do not think that making these type of allegations would help at all, other than discredit those who make them. That was my main point.
Now, as a Moore fan, I'll say that I've never seen his films, but his books, especially Stupid White Men, are well worth reading
Check out "Roger and Me". It is great.
From your email, it looks you are in Ontario. Did you get to watch "The Corporation" on TVO a week or so ago? I taped it, but did not watch it all yet (3 hours!). Michael Moore is featured in the movie, and has a lot to say.
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Maybe he'll support the neonazi party next time.
Why would Moore support the Republicans?:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Hrm. Most of the suppositions I've heard about Bush is that he ignored warnings about increased terrorist threats because a) Clinton did the warning, so Bush had a 'fuck you' attitude, b) he, having hired his dad's Cold War era cabinet, was focused on nation-states rather than small groups, or c) just incompetant.
I've not heard it suggested that he orchestrated 9/11, but I have heard the inevitable comparisons to Roosevelt 'allowing' Pearl Harbour to happen.
When you get right down to it, though, 9/11 was inevitable; the book on air terrorism (at the time) said that the pilot was to do what the terrorists demanded, as the terrorists wanted to survive the encounter. Guess what; now they don't.
And yes, I'm from Ontario; no, I didn't see that particular show.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
We are talking about the same guy, right
I meant to say Jim Lehrer but somehow the synapses misfired. Sorry for wasting bandwidth and your time.
Excellent points.
Most of the suppositions I've heard about Bush is that he ignored warnings about increased terrorist threats because a) Clinton did the warning, so Bush had a 'fuck you' attitude, b) he, having hired his dad's Cold War era cabinet, was focused on nation-states rather than small groups, or c) just incompetant.
How about d) all the above? Makes sense to me.
And there could be other reasons: e) he had too little self confidence after the election results not giving him the appearance of a majority (and hence a mandate), f) he was distracted by a sinking economy, g) he was being attacked from every part of the political spectrum on various domestic (Education, Health, ...etc.) and international issues (e.g. Middle East)
I've not heard it suggested that he orchestrated 9/11
The sad part is, I have heard it said that because of all the above, he planned Sept 11, to mask all the problems he had. The famous quotes from the Project for the New American Century expecting a catalyst event like Pearl Harbor does not help dissuade the critics.
The conspiracy minded people believe any of that crap when they see it.
Not that I believe it.
but I have heard the inevitable comparisons to Roosevelt 'allowing' Pearl Harbour to happen.
Good point here. Don't know much about whether Roosevelt actually allowed it conciously, or by neglect though.
When you get right down to it, though, 9/11 was inevitable; the book on air terrorism (at the time) said that the pilot was to do what the terrorists demanded, as the terrorists wanted to survive the encounter. Guess what; now they don't.
Exactly.
The other thing is, the roots of terrorism are not even acknowledged. Before people become terrorists they are extremists, and before that, they have a grievance or two. These grievances are never acknowledged to be real, and they are dissed as "evil" or "freedom hating" or whatever other sound bits put out .... Alas this does not seem to be changing any time soon.
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You know, my first thought upon hearing Bush say 'we will consider any country which gives aid, comfort or support to terrorists, to be terrorists,' was 'Gee, George, how much money does Sinn Fein get from the USA every year?'
I think quite a bit of the problem came not from the fact that 9/11 happened, but from the handling of it by George. And that, as you say, probably stems, in part, from the confusion about just who really did win the election. Myself, I say Gore, but it's rather academic, now.
I'll also point out that six months ago, I said to a co-worker, 'I wonder if Bush will really let the elections go through, or if there will be a 'crisis' or something to suspend them.' Bush really strikes me as the 'I know what's best for you, so I'll force it upon you; if you argue, well, you're proving to me that you don't know what's best for you.' sort of guy.
I think, actually, that America as a group are incapable of understanding that hey, guess what, that group over there? They honestly believe that they have a mandate from God to kill you, and that they will be assured a life in Paradise should they die in the course of taking some of you out. America always believes that something can be negotiated, discussed, bargained. And, in this case, I don't think it is so.
Couple that with the fact that, kill Bin Laden, and you get a martyr, and you're kind of screwed. In this case, I would think, you'd turn to international support. But, Bush has kind of alienated the international community, hasn't he?
The conspiracy theory goes that FDR knew exactly what was going to happen, but also knew that America traditionally loves to bolt the barn door shut only after the horses have buggered off; so he let Pearl Harbour take it in the shorts to shake America out of it's illusions.
I might think the same of Bush, if, as FDR did, he'd then gone on to prosecute a successful war. Bush seems more interested in dead horses, and the flogging thereof.
Which, of course, leads back to the original premise; anything Bush has done, taken individually, isn't cause for comment. But action after action he's taken really raises eyebrows. Why the drama over Iraq? If Bush had said 'We're going back to Iraq to finish what we started ten years ago,' America would have supported him. No question. If he'd said 'Lets go into Afghanistan and clean up the mess we made when we were using it to fuck with the USSR,' again, there'd have been support, I think. Or, at least, not opposition.
Well, time will tell.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
My apologies. It did indeed escape my attention that you specifically referenced older work of his.
This was moderated Informative and I M2d that moderation as Fair, but only because the post included a link and some information about the jury.
What I'm saying here is that I didn't think the accusation against FOX news was the informative part.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!