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Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion
xerid writes "I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night, and the theatre was packed & sold out for each showing. Today, I read on Michael Moore.com about the movie breaking records. However, what I haven't seen was coverage on Slashdot, about the movie's opening day." I saw the film on friday and was really impressed. But while it speaks much truth, and has many funny parts as well as truly heartbreaking ones, I don't know how many votes it will sway. But since there is very little other news so far today, why not talk amongst yourselves!
Seriously, although I saw this movie and liked it, this is not the place to discuss it. This site is supposed to be about technology I thought. The only really interesting technical tidbit of this film was that it was, IIRC, entirely created on a mac using Final Cut pro....
Let's get back to discussing robots and porn tech!
Regardless of his politics, the man is basically dishonest, so you are left with the task of trying to sort the bullshit from the truth. Good luck!
Please don't confuse entertainment with truth.
Michael Moore is an extremist. Extreme left-wing in this case, if I recall correctly. I saw Bowling for Columbine and it was a a good movie, but always, ALWAYS remember that's just ONE side of the spectrum. I'm not much at home at US politics, but I believe that Michael Moore is to left-wing/democrats what Ann Coulter is to the ring-wing/republicans. Except one is a small fat guy with beard and the other... isn't. Don't copy other people's opinions; listen to both sides of the story and make your own.
That said, I still would like to see that movie for fun. I'm no american, so american political views be damned; I just want to see the guy piss over several people!
Hate me!
The guy's not really a liar, he's just very, very out there in terms of his views. Which isn't to say he isn't right a lot of a time. He's got his head on a lot straighter than a lot of radicals, like say, the REAL liar, the subject of the film... Fill in initials of world leader here. Not the place to discuss it? EVERYONE should be discussing the deceit and warmongering of our supremely selected self-declared messenger of God.
This movie really runs the range of emotions from anger to laughter to sadness. I just wish more republicans would go see it. Unfortunatelky they see it as an attack to their party rather than an attack to a small group of people that happen to be republican. I know a lot of people won't go see it because they don't want to put money in Michael Moore's pocket. I urge everyone to go see it. If you can still vote for Bush after watching it, I would love to hear your rationalization.
Lies are completely unnecessary to convince the uninformed.
I was introduced to this absolutely astonishing documentary called "The truths and lies about September 11th". It's basically a video recording of a seminar held in the University of Portland by this guy called Mike Ruppert. I was sceptical to begin with, since i was expecting this to be just another conspiracy theory but i was proven wrong. He runs a website http://www.copvcia.com I suggest you check it out. As for the documentary that i saw - its an incredibly well-structured presentation, with ample proof for everything that is said during its course. No speculations, just plain evidence.
I was very upset when I read that a conservative group tried to pressure theater owners into not showing Moore's film. We have a free market of ideas in this country - if Moore's film is so bad, why not make their own film, or post anti-Moore blogs or buy airtime to put their views out? I don't care for Moore - I think he's a pseudo-populist, a self-aggrandizer, a non-documentarian (his films don't explore issues as much as bolster his point of view). He exploits his subjects (tasteless interview with Charlton Heston, harasses security guards and receptionists in an attempt to talk to the "big cheese," not to mention what he did with those crippled kids at K-Mart.) Not exactly the first person I'd choose to fight for the "little guy" vs. corporate and government power, but dammit, he has the right to say what he is saying.
Think about it... you could easily convince some computer-illiterate person of the superiority of Windows over Linux, or vice versa, without telling a single lie. It's all about withholding the right info, and presenting it in the desired light.
I've seen the first few negative comments about the movie not being truthful. The movie *is* truthful, and if you think otherwise, please state specific claims.
This movie is right on. If you scratch your head and wonder why progressives and the world are against the war, watch the movie and see the other point of view. Our media coverage of the war has been very one sided and this movie points it out very clearly.
Don't brainwash yourself and say Michael Moore is this or that. Watch the movie and think for yourself.
I have not seen it yet but I know Moore has a tendancy to bend the truth by making things seem to imply one thing when it is not really what happened. He just edits things so they seem to say what he wants it to say.
"Most interesting how often you humans seem to obtain that which you do not want" -Spock
Before the number of comments goes through the roof, I'd like to comment on this topic from a non-political perspective.
I first studied Michael Moore in college, in a film class, when the only major work he had done was Roger and Me. This was at it's nature a political film, but the political venom was many notches below his last two movies (Columbine and 9/11).
The prime point that EVERYONE should remember is that Michael Moore can be used as a case study of why to be wary of 'documentaries'. His style as a director is textbook in the art of time manipulation for the purpose of making a point where one would not have existed before.
I will provide an example: In Roger and Me, he had a clip where Ronald Reagan visited Flint Michigan, promising to bring economic properity that did not exist during the end of the 1970s. The film then explained that GM immediately closed a plant and laid off thousands of workers.
This example implies that one led to another directly. In fact, there was a gap of 7 years between the two events; one when Reagan was a candidate in 1979...the other in 1986 when the cuts were announced.
Just remember: he is manipulating to make a point, but to say it is true would be untrue.
This is just one example; I'm surprised no one has written a book on Michael Moore, because there is a lot of evidence that could be covered.
Personally, it's entertainment. If you are spending your hard earned money looking for truth or fact, please look elsewhere.
I do believe that Slashdot's slogan is "News for Nerds, stuff that matters."
/.ers will as well...I'd wager this thread will get about 1200 posts...any takers?)
Now, if you consider every single news flash regarding, oh say, SCO, more important than a movie that I believe will make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America, the fine, avoid this thread. But personally, I think nerds should be just as educated about how their country is run politically as well as technologically.
And besides, one of the greatest lessons to be learned from this movie (though I would have thought it would have been learned much earlier than this) is as follows: Never try and forcefully hide information from the public. The more you try and supress it, the more intreaguing it becomes and the more demand there is for it. If you really do want to hide something, try to be as discrete about it as possible.
But as soon as Disney tried to put the movie away because of benefits they've received from the Bush family, the press pounced, and Moore had a documentary that was "scandalous", and just like Clinton has proved himself, people love a scandal (and I'm sure
Please state first whether you've actually seen the movie or not, OK?
I haven't, BTW.
According to this press release it won't be available in Germany until July 29th. What the hell is taking so long? Maybe some of the more "arty" cinemas will be able to get a copy before that. Ich möchte sehr gern den Film sehen. I hope they don't suck it up by dubbing the film, but just stick subtitles on it instead.
--Residential Interior Design
You may find more truth here.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
Moore is really preaching to the choir with this movie. If you agree with what he says you are unlikely to vote Bush regardless and Bush supporters will most likely view it as fabricated propaganda regardless of its accuracy or failings.
What might make a difference is how the rest of the world feels about it given the closed and inaccessible nature of the current US administration.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Well, I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight and I thought it was pretty good.
I got the tickets earlier today and I'm glad I did. When I got to the theater there was a line down the block for people waiting to get in. The last time I had to wait in a line outside the theater to get into a movie was when I saw Return of the Jedi in '83. So that part of it was pretty cool.
There really isn't that much new information in the movie, unless all you watch for news is the local news at 11 pm or something. There certainly wasn't any out and out lies. Some of the ways he spliced the footage together was pretty funny, but I wouldn't call it deceptive. There was nothing in the narration that was false though.
There was some stuff in the beginning about the 2000 election that was news to me, and painted Democrats in a pretty pathetic light. Plus there were some pretty extreme cases of the government going overboard in the name of homeland security, but again they were more comical than anything.
There was also some pretty surprising information about how much of our economy the Saudis are in control off. I had never seen that before either. Pretty amazing stuff.
As far as the movies rating, I can see why it would be R, but there's nothing in there that a teenager couldn't handle. I'd have no problem bringing 14 year olds and up to the movie. Anybody out there now who's thinking of enlisting might want to go see the movie. There's some footage of solders talking about there experience that's pretty sobering.
All in all I think it was one of Moore's better films. A lot better than Bowling for Columbine. It is an attack on the President. So if you're one of those types who think that we shouldn't be critical of the President during war, you'll hate it. Otherwise though, I think people will enjoy the film.
But I did read Stupid White Men.
Michael Moore does make some good points, but he also fails to check his facts, and if often so innacurate that his honesty becomes questionable, and misses the point a number of times.
For example, he claims that the US government gave permission only to Bin Ladens family out of the US after the September 11th attacks. Further checking of facts will reveal that it was the Saudi government that arranged for all of its citizens to return home should they so desire. And while flights were limited at the time, there were a number permitted for important reasons.
Then there's the complaints that certain politicians want to outlaw abortions "even in cases of rape". That's because some people consider it murder! Now, whether you agree with them or not in this respect, I don't think you can criticise them for not wanting to kill a child because his father was a rapist.
Then there's his "Cold hard statistics". He talks about how the richest 1 percent saw their wages go up by 147%, whereas the poorest 20 percent are earning $100 less (adjusted for inflation). Those are two totally different statistics!
And my final complaint - He seems totally unable to comprehend how any black person could possibly be oopposed to Affermative Action.
In his show bullshit on the Showtime Network, the topic was the overblown emphasis on safety and terrorism in our world today. It was something to the effect of:
"There will always violence and suffering in the world, and Michael Moore will always be there to make a buck off of it."
I liked Michael Moore's work in "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbine" made some good points at times. I just do not agree with him on most of his views and I think his personal political conduct has been reprehensible lately. For one, he canceled an interview with Fox News at the last minute. The station is certainly conservative, but shouldn't that mean he should be big enough to stand up and take his case to the other side? Of course he couldn't use any slick editing and he wouldn't be the only one talking, so that might hurt him.
Of course it presents a specific point of view. It is made by a person taking into account his audience.
He uses a specific set of fact patterns. Other people use other sets of fact patterns. Be an intelligent person and try to get a wide variety of fact patterns before you decide what you will consider the most likely truth. If anyone believe that any single source is going to use an objective set of fact patterns, then that person is naive beyond any help.
And please, don't confuse the office of the President with the person holding the office. Confusing the two, and inducing confusion of the two, is the first step to a dictatorship. The former is an institution. The later is a person who was elected to guard that institution. The former is something that must be protected. The later is someone who should be willing to give his reputation and life to protect and serve. This means that criticizing the person is not treason. Sometimes that person needs to be criticized. Sometimes that person is a liar. Sometimes that person is sex addict. Sometimes, for example, that person is drug addict, and we know the TV has told us that drug addicts support terrorists.
So, no hitting below the belt. No calling people traitors for exercising constitutionally protected free speech. As we used to say, if you don't like it, go to Russia. Or, in other words, if you can't take the heat, get you wussy ass out of the kitchen. So no invoking war scenarios for a war that congress never declared. And remember, all sides are torturing humans, and everyone loves their kids equally.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
sorry, never post before being awake(corrected text): My wife and I saw this movie two days ago at 11 am, and I was floored by it for the rest of that day, the following day, today, and probably will be for a good while. This movie really shouldn't be seen just as a "we hate bush movie" although many will interpret it as that. Rather it's more along the lines of here is _all_ the corruption ( on the oil side of the equation... no mention of drug money) that goes on in our lovely government, even under other admins ( yes iirc clinton's admin wasn't made to look very good either...though to be fair, wasn't demonized like the bushes (and shouldn't be for that matter) ). I must add that while everything is the movie has been checked, I found it interesting that he really didn't try to make the democrats look all that much better then the republicans.. the feel I got was that republicans and saudi(es) are evil and the democrats are clueless-- and not there when you need them... in the best case senario. This move is not for the light hearted, but everyone should see it (as it will be the source of much controversy). I can see why this movie was a winner of the canies award. Regardless of if one thinks that Michael Moore is a crackpot or not, the actual footage speeks for its self ( and in some cases quiet amusingly (if that's a word) so).
Lets just not forget that this is still a movie, not a documentary. I'd rather not see another fiasco at the Oscars again.
I can't see how this comes even close to News for Nerds,
/. editors could come up with a more refined presentation of the article - ie give it some POINT - we'd be discussing the movie, the distribution, the SOMETHING instead of just discussing wether this is okay to discuss!
I have to disagree - that a DOCUMENTARY (admittedly an sensationalist entertainment led documentary) is opening on so many screens in intellectual backwater that is mainstream US multiplex is pretty damn good news for the nerdy populace!
This is a fact / interpretation of facts based movie, with a relatively minor distributor, beating 'the man' to an extent by even being released.
If some shit Mangaporn going to DVD is news, then Im sure as hell that a major documentary opening is. That said - if the
Extremists are necissary in a complex society. Unfair arguments WORK. Would it be logical for a political party to choose to not use unfair arguments?
:^)
That's why true freedom of speech on all levels - even when it comes to one-sided or unfair arguments is also necissary for any level of political freedom.
Why? Because innevitably, any form of censorship about non-violence-inciting words will be enforced selectively by the side that controls the enforcement arm. French censorship is not going to arrest people who use words against the non-French, but will use censorship against someone saying something sufficiently controversial about the current leadership, if the issue is a sore one, ESPECIALLY if the statement may be true, but in dispute.
Unfair arguments usually come in the form of someone presuming something, then picking and choosing facts and observations based on how they can "prove" their point. They are used with almost all subjects, in all cultures. For instance, believers in alien abductions surround themselves with many levels of unverifiable and unfair arguments about how people should believe in aliens who choose to abduct people.
Many forms of humor are entirely composed of people making unfair arguments, with a glint in their eye. It's often very surprising and amusing the way different people can connect the things they see, and how that can show the biases they have.
If the audience is small, then unfair arguments can usually be effectively countered by showing WHY the argument is unfair from other perspectives - but even then, many people will still staunchly believe in the validity of known unfair arguments, and will dismiss all other perspectives as "leaving unknowns" - implying that only the unfair argument can fill in the blanks.
When the audience is larger, unfair arguments will be just a part of the environment. Jokes and tenative arguments will form in conversations, and there will not be a chance to counter all of them all the time. Unfortunately, those with the best unfair arguments can usually pull out win on a topic by sheer weight of their unfair arguments. That's why Rush Limbaugh can change the outcome of elections, why every company has their sneaky gossip, etc. Logic alone cannot change this about our cultures.
That's part of why I'm glad that the left in America is finally fighting back. Not because I like their unfair arguments - but I do like the humor, and I realise that it IS necissary. Lead by commedians, the left is unmasking their rhetoric - and they are loosing unfair arguments because there really are not any other ways to combat them anymore.
And it's definetly fun watching both sides try to hoodwink eachother with sneaky arguments. It's like watching a pickpocketing competition between two skilled theives and one rich man with a monacle. Funny and more funny at every step.
Usually, the political parties have thier muckracking organizations separate from their party at large. But now, unfair arguments are so effective and needed by both sides, that the distinction is gone.
And for those of you who are "disgusted" with the left's arguments now - welcome to the world that Rush created. The genie ain't going back. Hopefully the media itself will learn to distinguish fair and unfair arugments better than the CNN/Fox News split we have now, and we'll have a better arguing environment after everything. Until then, get used to the administration being called the equivanent of baby-killers using their own words.
In other words - thanks, Michael!
Ryan Fenton
"Back up this statement with facts, Coward. Or better yet: make a movie about it, and distribute worldwide. :-)"
It's his opinion, he doesn't need to back it up. Moore certainly doesn't back up most of what he says, and the film in question is an opinion piece as much as that was an opinion post.
Moore is certainly not my favorite outlet for opinions, even though in this case I coincidentally agree with the overall message of the film. Appaently the most convincing and telling parts of the film are from footage that's already been publically circulated. The one clip of the film I've seen, where he ambushes politicians and asks if they want to "sign their kids up to go to Iraq." This just struck me as dishonest and showy. No one can sign other people up for anything, and I heard that one particular politician answered that he had two nephews in Iraq, but was left out of the film.
Moore's film is an opinion piece, and it doesn't pretend to give the other side a fair due, but I think that the issue deserves a film that tries to present a balanced and thoughtful opinion.
Yup...
"this is not the place to discuss it"
The film is classified as a documentary. Who sees documentaries, kids? No. Nerds do.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
Like it or not though, many people are just not intellectually up to the challenge of dealing with Cato Institute, or any of the other instruments of social introspection that may allow commoners to understand the issues with the American coup d'etat currently under way.
Michael Moore is a pop-culture 'documentarist'/'entertainer'. If you want to wake up the masses, don't give them countless reams of reports and articles to attempt to wade through. Save that for the courts.
Remember, America is not the most literate nation on Earth.
Many peoples literary skills stop at the ability to change the channel whenever they see something on TV they don't understand.
While it may be 'popular' to counter the Michael Moore marketing machine with elite intellectual discourse on the condition of the American Empire, most MTV-riddled minds are not up to the task. They just aren't. 50 years of Television programming have brainwashed the American public beyond caring about it if they can't understand it.
Michael Moores' delivery methods serve a very key, very important, very significant demographic.
A very, very important demographic: those who are unable, or unwilling, to peer behind the curtain and try and work out what is going on with their society, while those who are intellectually, corporately, and politically able, engage in nefarious deeds.
Michael Moore, for all his failings (and yes, he does have quite a few), will get to the common man
If you truly believe that an understanding of the nature of the conspiracy against American society is important, you won't discount the actual value of Moore's level of work.
It is just as vital to reach the proles as it is the intellectuals...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I think it's important to view that this film does have a lot to do with technology, however you consider it. The serious cutbacks Moore mentions to several administrative organizations, the obvious kickbacks to Halliburton while neglecting alternative energy are some important things to consider.
Another thing to think about is that while Clinton (whom Moore dislikes just as much as he did Bush) presided over the greatest technology growth in our history, W. seems indifferent to fostering the industry as all of those jobs we used to have float to India.
Just some food for fodder.
--- There is a man in a smiling bag.
Cato receives funding from the oil industry, and had Fox News head honcho Rupert Murdoch as a director. Now that's what I call fair and balanced reporting!
The Republican Party has figured out that they can buy votes from the uneducated. After the last election, Bush handed out $300 Treasury checks left and right after telling people throughout the campaign that it was their money due (to the budget surplus). He never discussed the national debt or the fact that over 25% of all federal taxes collected pay interest on that debt. He never suggested paying down that debt first and then cutting taxes after it was paid down.
The economy is doing well and taxes are pouring in? That means you need a tax cut because "it's your money."
The economy is in the dumps and tax revenue is way down? That, too, means that you need a tax cut to "stimulate" the economy. (Apparently, "stimulating" the economy also involves giving tax incentives to large corporations to outsource good jobs to third world countries.)
What else has Bush done? Drasticially increased the size of government. Waged horribly expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I see the dumb rednecks driving around with bumper stickers that say "I support the war in Iraq" and I think to myself, "yes you do -- to the tune of about $1000 for every man, woman, and child in your household."
And lets not forget the campaign donations. Bush has done everything he could to turn over public lands to oil companies for drilling. So when Exxon, Shell, et al, make billions despoiling the wilderness, how much money will you and I get? None. But our gas prices will be lower? Nope. The oil market is worldwide. If Shell can make more money selling the oil to China, then that's where it goes. Then there is Halliburton. Not only have they donated a ton to the Bush campaign, but with their ex-CEO in office, they have it made. They've received over $2.26billion in "no-bid" contracts in Iraq. That means that other firms weren't even allowed to compete. The way that Bush/Cheney are giving your tax dollars to Halliburtion is disgusting. I could go on and on, but Slashdot doesn't have the hard drive space to document all of the corruption in the Bush/Cheney White House.
To try to keep the record budget deficit (how much more the goverment has to borrow) to less than $500 billion dollars, Bush has cut many programs that provided federal tax dollars to the states for various programs. This has driven many states to the edge of bankruptcy. He's cut federal funding for any overseas aid organization which mentions abortion as an option (yeah, we don't want some woman with AIDS in sub-saharan Africa to have an abortion!). He's cut funding to the EPA repeatedly while increasing funding to the military to pay for his war against Iraq -- waged because of their Weapons of... scratch that... ties to terr... er, no... leader that Bush disliked.
...and that includes the right not to have a film shown if the theatre managers don't want to show it, for whatever reason they choose. It's the same right that allows a newspaper editor not to run a story no matter who wrote it, or allows a newscaster not to air an interview or clip no matter what was said or who said it.
Bias exists in many shapes and forms. Twisting ideas into idealogical talking points is just one, but the most popular (and most people don't even realize it) is leaving out any thing that's true that supports the opposite claim. For instance, Michael Moore has consistently insisted that at least a significant portion of his film is satire and not meant to be taken seriously, but he won't tell us which parts or what makes them untrue. Meanwhile, there are supposedly "intelligent" people in this forum posting comments about how "true" the movie is when they obviously have little to know real knowledge of what comes across the desks and goes through the minds of either Moore or the president.
It doesn't matter which side of the fence any of these people are on. What makes me sick is their incessant whining about rights and truths when neither group understands what they are.
There's a fundamental problem in US politics. It's that there are only 2 parties.
Everything and anything is always black or white.
There is never anything that even remotely resembles honest exchange of ideas on the Senate or House floors, never mind the White House, because things are run through majority politics.
If Republicans rule, they steamroll their ideology down everyone's throat at all costs. If democrats rule, they'll do the same.
The same polarity on political issues is so prelevant on all mass media that you just can not get any independent research on any issues from any source, foreign sources excluded (BBC tends to be kinda ok, most of the time).
While we are on this subject, I find it extremely dishonest of George W. Bush to have claimed in his election campaign that he would unite the American people. The damn fool has done no such thing. Americans are more divided now than ever.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
There is a pretty good response to this article here. Not sure if Moore himself has responded yet.
But at the same time, there's plenty of evidence to be found on the net, that shows he twisted quite a few facts in "Columbine". So please give the parent poster some credit for putting a question mark behind Mr.Moore's integrity, okay?
It's kind of sad, because Moore has got some good points, and there exist more than enough facts, to stick it to the public. No need to twist the facts.
BTW: Can anyone give a view on how much truth-twisting is done in "Fahrenheit"?
Just because your details are largely factually correct does not make the whole true.
Just leave out relevant facts,take things out of context and contiuosly draw an opinion not supporeted by the facts you have presented.
"For instance, Michael Moore has consistently insisted that at least a significant portion of his film is satire and not meant to be taken seriously, but he won't tell us which parts or what makes them untrue. "
Which means that you have to think for yourself and search where is the truth in what you've been told ! What a disgussing concept !
#include "coucou.h"
From the http://www.politicalusa.com/columnists/schlussel/s chlussel_014.htm link:
See How to Deal with the Lies and the Lying Liars When They Lie about "Bowling for Columbine". He addresses the above criticism about half-way down:first off the film is incredible. the theatre here showing it was selling out every showing, including the matinees, something ive never seen. at the end the audience gave some nice loud applause.
its always odd as an "outsider" to watch americans. anyone that speaks out about the government is branded a radical, an extremist. round here in canada this is absolutely normal, the evening news has all sorts of people saying all sorts of critiques about the government and its not odd for people to talk about it on the street. and its not a group of people that do, EVERYONE does. no one looks at you funny, no one says you are anti-canadian. a term that is not used at all, either is unpatriotic. this is a states thing, its used to shut you up, make you feel bad. its wrong. moore isnt an extremist, he is a hero. exposing truths is patriotic. dont listen to the shills that call you names. the amount of brainwashing you poor people get is also astounding. i dont claim to live in some perfect society but its night and day with some things and i hope this movie wakes up many people to reality.
I've read several reviews, and they all contain 2 points that give me pause. The first is that this film is a "documentary" and the second is that it's very, very biased with only one point of view provided. Take the recent CNN, or NYT reviews for example.
According to webster a documenary is "factual and objective". How can this film be considered a "documentary" when even the most favorable reviewer(CNN in our example) comments that it's not even close to fair or balanced?
Considering Michaels last error and bias filled "documentary" aren't Michael Moores movies more "commentary" or propoganda? Why do people insist in calling obviously biased (ie not objective) and factually inaccurate movies "documentaries"? With so much questionable content - can these films even be called good movies? Remember the first amendment protects false speech just as much as it protects truthful speech.
http://www.mooreexposed.com/
http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/
Whats even sadder is that many people will simply ignore the facts if they don't agree with their opinion. With that fact in play, perhaps an objective documentary is dead. After all - a clear and objective presentation would require a great deal of thought on a complicated issue with no easy answers.
Instead of honest debate we get comments like "The arabs aren't ready for democracy". At one time, blacks weren't ready to sit at the front of the bus, women weren't ready to vote and latino's weren't ready for white schools. The pundits that made the aforementioned comments were wrong and bigotted. Some things never change.
cluge
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Michael Moore is awesome!
The first thing I ever saw of his was "The Big One" a couple of years back on the one of them artsy channels on the satellite. I'm a movie junkie whore and would've watched anything, but when I started watching this documentary about this badly dressed putze walking into big ass corporations and asking why they where downsizing and firing thousands of workers while they were reporting profits - I was thunderstruck!
I starting googling up this Michael Moore guy and found out he was making another movie at that time called...ahhh...let me think...oh yeah "Bowling for Columbine"! I'm sure I actually a handful of people that was actually waiting for the release of that movie to hit the theatres. Then when it finally did I disappointed to find out it was only playing in one theatre that was like 2-3 hours away from me. Oh well, I eventually saw it as obviously many did; as well as his first movie "Roger and Me"; went on a fan rant with all my friends and family about how incredible he was; read "Stupid White Men"; and now in complete anticipation for my days off to go see "Fahrenheit 9/11".
I'm actually surprised many people, other than ranting right-wingers, despise the guy including people I once held in such high respect for such as Dennis Miller. What I really liked about Michael Moore after watching "The Big One" is that despite the fact he's pretty much a sloppy nobody, he makes people accountable. It really is something to see the reaction on a PR or HR personnel's face of some big-ass corporation trying to explain why they laid off thousands of people for no reason other than to save a bit of money upon their already ridiculous profit margin. Without people like Moore being a thorn some of these high powers (no need to mention) could go on doing whatever the hell they want, whenever the hell they want, b/c no-one is challenging them or bringing it to the attention of others.
The flaming right-winging ACs' will no doubt rebuttal from their tiny world.
Some aim to please, I aim to tease.
Hitchens discloses many of the Movie's errors quite effectively.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
It's not just the fact that Michael Eisner of Disney did not want Disney to distribute the film. Fahrenheit 9/11 won the highest prize, the Palm D'Or, at the recent Cannes competition! It is only the second documentary in history to do so. The film received the longest standing ovation in the history of the Cannes festival!
This story in Fahrenheit 9/11 is relevant to Slashdot because the situation is far worse than Michael Moore says. I put together links to 2 other movies and 35 books that say there is an extremely serious problem: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government. Slashdotted? Try:
http://www.hevanet.com/peace/usgovcorruption.htm. Michael Moore is reporting things EVERY Slashdot reader and every person in the world needs to know. It they get their way, you WILL become poorer.
People like the movie because they like the movie! Fahrenheit 9/11 is selling out everywhere. Today in the Sports [!] section of the Kansas City Star is an example. The writer, Jason Whitlock, says:
"Fahrenheit is the most powerful movie I've ever seen. Not even Moore's heavy-handed, pro-Democrat slant could undermine his indictment of Bush's reaction to 9/11. The movie appears to have struck a chord with American moviegoers. I spent all Friday afternoon and evening driving from North Carolina theater to North Carolina theater trying to see the movie. The showings were all sold out. I snagged one of the last tickets to a mid-day Saturday showing."
Judging from the stories, other reactions in the U.S. are even more enthusiastic than this. A theater with 10 screens in Portland, Oregon scheduled 18 showings for today, Sunday, June 27, 2004, in reaction to the movie's popularity on Friday and Saturday.
(Reading the Kansas City Star commentary, 'Fahrenheit' powerful, persuasive, requires free registration. Be wary, the company says it will send you email, so you might give a trash email address, or use a free trash email address at Mailinator.com or DodgeIt.com. Judging from the registration information, if you give a real postal mail address, they may send you unwanted mail, also.)
The movie is breaking all-time theater records all over the United States.
If you don't think that a government that is 'of the people, by the people, for the people" that is none of the above anymore, That throw away the constitution rights of the people for a little temporary safety, that use and lie to the populous for personal gains is STUFF THAT MATTERS - what does matter to you? A new computer chip being released?
*DrugCheese rants*
Hitchens discloses many of the Movie's errors quite effectively.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
Maybe Moore will cancel out Limbaugh? Sort of like a proton, anti-proton thing.
Extremism sucks in all its forms.
So, you really think you can decide on the merits of an argument just based on who partially funded the research?
...
You can't ignore it. Sure, you shouldn't complete your final anaysis strictly on the basis of who is pushing the reports, but you should not ignore their history, their background, or their 'other efforts on other fronts', if you truly want to remain free.
Never ignore the man behind the curtain, no matter how much you enjoy watching Punch & Judy, or agree with the act
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Fahrenheit 9/11: A Conservative Critique
by William Norman Grigg
I just returned from viewing Fahrenheit 9/11 here in Appleton, WI. I went to the 1:30 PM showing, which was - astonishingly - sold out. The crowd was overwhelmingly white and middle-class (this IS Wisconsin, remember), ranging in age from early teens to retirees. The people were polite, friendly, well-mannered (something we shouldn't take for granted on the part of contemporary theater crowds). There was tumultuous applause at the end, punctuated by a moment of reflective silence as we read the dedication card invoking those murdered by terrorists on 9/11, and those murdered through state terrorism in the aftermath.
The film itself very much reflects its creator: It's shaggy, flabby, occasionally witty, and frequently infuriating. It will have a HUGE impact because Moore - his facile leftist economics notwithstanding - has nailed his case against the Bush regime flush to the plank. It will be all but impossible for anybody who sits still and watches this film to view Bush the Lesser as anything other than a petty, spiteful, dim-witted, bloody-handed little fool - and the figurehead of a murderous power elite. This explains why the Bu'ushists are threatening to go Abu Ghraib on Moore: They're busted.
The most powerful moments in the film are those that humanize U.S. troops, several of whom are shown on-screen criticizing the regime. A major arc of the film is devoted to a Flint, Michigan housewife from a military family whose son, just prior to being killed in Iraq, wrote a letter condemning "George 'I wanna be like my Daddy' Bush" for staging this useless, unjust war. Moore himself, who narrates the film (and makes himself too much a part of the story, incidentally) observes that the largest immorality of this entire enterprise is the actions of a dishonest president lying our country into war and forcing decent young men (and women) to do immoral things.
It should be pointed out as well that the film - despite being lambasted as an exercise in unalloyed Bush-bashing - doesn't spare Democrats who acquiesced in Bush the Lesser's power grabs and his criminal war against Iraq. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle comes off particularly poorly, which in his case merely requires a recording device of some kind.
An interesting encounter immediately after seeing the film underscores its fundamentally non-partisan nature. Some poor schlep had positioned himself outside the theater with a clipboard soliciting signatures on a nominating position for a would-be Democrat congressional candidate. A couple of people seized the petition and started to sign. Impertinent sort that I am, I asked, "What's this fellow's position on the war?"
The scribbling stopped, and several sets of eyes focused intently on the hapless volunteer. "Well, um, ah, he thinks we should do something," he began, stammeringly. "Ah, he just thinks we should be more careful." On hearing this, a lady looked at her husband, who had signed the petition, and snapped, "Scratch off your name." I told the volunteer that I'm what most people would regard as an "ultra-conservative - not just a `conservative' - but if your guy came out against the war I'd vote for him, and knock on doors." "Well, I can't really address all the details of his positions," the increasingly flustered guy responded. "Just let him know what I said," I suggested, telling him that there are a lot of people who have the same point of view.
I chatted with several other people as they left the theater, all of them roughly my age (early 40s) and of similar economic and cultural background. Each of them indicated that he or she would urge friends to see the film - which means that it will have "legs" even if the GOP and FEC were to choke off advertising somehow.
There were no screaming Bolsheviks (one viewer had an anti-animal rights T-shirt) or marijuana-scented bohemians in the crowd. This wasn't the sort of crowd you'd see at a Phish concert, or storming McDonald's at an an
Ron Paul
No matter what your political leaning, we should all be disturbed by one thing. Michael Moore knows one truth, and knows it well, and exploits it to advantage with this film:
A great many people simply don't have the intellectual capacity to view any film (or TV show, or newspaper article) with an adequate amount of skepticism. Consequently, they accept anything presented to them in such a medium as authoritative, and therefore truth.
Does this advance the quality of political debate?
People should stop attacking this media excerpt from Michael Moore's mind as an opinionated, 100-minute political attack ad.
They should begin to form a cogent and socially-acceptable response to the questions he raises during the course of the film.
I watched "Bowling For Columbine" yesterday and was impressed with Moore's production values. Near the end of the movie, where he converses with Charlton Heston of the NRA, is particularly illustrative of the point of his work. He asks Heston why he defends gun ownership when six year-old child can enter a classroom and gun down another six year-old child. Heston walked away at that point and I believe I know why.
Michael Moore's film was only illustrative of negative consequences of the Freedoms this country gives to it's citizens (2nd Amendment in this case). Those freedoms exist because they were chosen by the Founders of this country. Negative events sometimes occur with the freedoms we enjoy but we cannot be mired in the past. As a country we must accept the bad with the good if we are to remain free. Bush does not see this and is blinded by money and power.
What Moore presenting in this current movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11", is only information about how our basic freedoms are being curtailed by people in Power. These people also have suspicious connections to the the events of September 11, 2001. No matter your opinion on the issues he raises, ask yourself one question. Can you objectively answer the questions he raises and not resort to ad hominem attacks or questioning of his information?
Michael Moore is a film-maker. If you find yourself with only question after seeing this movie, he has made a good film.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
As for its factual accuracy...I'm SURE there are mistakes. But then I'm willing to assert no documentary, article or book written didn't contain SOME mistake. To look only to and for the errors is to miss the forest for the trees.
In any event, anyone seeing the movie will be most moved or swayed by the direct interviews of real people. If you, as an Iraqi, saw your 4 year old's face blown off, could you ever accept that America was your liberator? Or would your anger lead you directly into the arms of the radical anti-American insurrgents/terrorists.? I supported AND support the war in Iraq. (Saddam was evil). For me, however, the documentary emphasized the true price paid by American soldiers, their families and innocent Iraqi's- a price seriously underplayed by mainstream media. I hope history will justify the price.
Now watch this golf shot.
documentary adj. 1. Consisting of, concerning, or based on documents. 2. Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter, as in a book or film.
Notice the word objectively. By definition this film is not a documetary. It is leftist election year propaganda that panders to people who don't pay attention to real news sources. The worst part is the majority of viewers will accept this all as pure fact; not the product of a skilled spin-doctor pushing his agenda. I am not against others voicing their opinions and sharing their views, even if I do not agree with them. What I do have a problem with is blatantly biased material presented as a documentary.
worst sig ever. . .
I was surprised to see how he showed the beautiful coastline of oregon, and pointed out all the people protecting that open space from terrorists sneaking in: 1 lone state policeman, part-time.
It would have been even better if he went down to southern california, arizona and new mexico and showed the nearly 1 million illegal aliens who sneak into the US each year, and the tons and tons of dope that come in.
excellent security down there - no terrorists smuggled in, most definitely. no small 2 pound sacks of anthrax smuggled within the tons of dope, enough to kill tens of thousands of people.
it just shows how homeland security is a sham, just meant to keep an eye on every move the middle class makes, and keep them scared, and not give a real damn about reality
That's too bad. You're missing a lot of good content.
Buy the President
A spokesman for Lions Gate Films said the company debuted the movie in the two theaters to help build good word-of-mouth -- friend telling friend --
Are Americans really that stupid as to need an explanation for what the term "Word-of-Mouth" means?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I see you're about as well informed as the average Moore fan!
If you had even bothered to read the link posted about Cato (which it doesn't surprise me that you didn't--why deal in the realm of facts when you can deal in propaganda and feel good blame games).
I'll put it plain, since I wouldn't want to strain your fact checking muscles.
According to disinfopedia, Cato has an annual income of ~17 million.
Cato is known to have received $30,000 from ExxonMobil during one year. $30,000 is about 0.18% of 17 million.
Now, what was the point of Moore's film? That if someone receives pennies from someone you don't approve of, you can't believe anything they say?
Cato is what it says it is, and nothing more. I would challenge you to dispute that.
I'm against the war in Iraq too, but after he passed off Bowling for Columbine as a documentary, yet blatantly falsified a significant portion of the content, I have no interest in seeing Farenheit 9/11 and supporting this boob.
Frankly, I think you leftists would do your cause better justice to tout someone a bit more reputable than Michael Moore. He's the leftist equivilant of Rush Limbaugh. The fact that he's against Bush makes me question my own contempt for Bush.
http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html
Check out their links page for plenty of sites by people working to track down inaccuracies in Moore's works and an article about how Ray Bradbury is annoyed that Moore stole the title from his similarly titled book without asking and without returning his calls to Moore.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Truth? It's kind of hard to fake actual recorded video. This film is pure propoganda, but that doesn't mean it is in any way untrue. The mother crying for her dead son is the realest thing I've ever seen in a theater.
Showing a child flying a kite, and then cutting to the military preparation for the "shock and awe" campaign, that is satire. It is an absurdity that underscores a deeper truth about the human costs of war. (It might also be a parody of that anti-Goldwater commercial).
His only falsifiable claims have to do with the fact that the Bush family has a cosy relationship with the Saud / Bin Laden family, and that the Bush family and their associates have profited or stand to profit from both wars. Where is the rebuttal to that? Why aren't they pointing out the lies?
Unfortunately, far too many of the people seeing the movie are clearly taking the entire movie at face value. This whole weekend--in forums, on the news, in blogs, at a picnic I went to yesterday--I've had to endure people convulsing with Mooregasms (a phrase I just coined, so Paypal me a buck if you want to use it..haha) over how powerful the whole movie is, how evil my country's leaders are, how worthy of the world's hate my country is, and how stupid we are as Americans. Bollocks...
3000+ comments meta-modded. 0 mod points awarded.
Lesson for other meta-suckers: Don't believe the hype!
who think there is no way to support our troops yet bash their mission or their command in chief:
If a person has to support the troops' mission no matter what...were the citizens of Germany just supposed to support Hitler no matter what? Were they supposed to be "patriotic" and support the troops as they rounded up the Jews?
Now I'm not exactly comparing Bush to Hitler here...but what I'm trying to say is that a person can "not want to see our troops come in harms way" and yet not support the mission they are on. For an intelligent person, what the mission is has to figure into if they support the mission or not. To do otherwise, is a blind flag-waving patriotism that is actually dangerous. A true patriot would ask if the war was a just war and if the war was constitutional. If it is not those things, then it is not unpatriotic to not support it, it is true patriotism.
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
The fact that you think there is any such thing as a non-biased analysis suggests naivity. Everything is biased, the only question is whether you are biased in the same way.
Unfair arguments WORK.
What is an "unfair" argument? My guess is that you mean an argument that isn't "playing by the rules."
Well, what rules are arguments supposed to play by? My answer to that would be, they must play by logic, reason, and evidence, rather than by emotion, deceit, and superstition.
So when you write "unfair arguments", do you actually mean:
1. arguments based in emotion
2. arguments based in lies
3. arguments based in superstition
4. something else?
I think calling an argument "unfair" is an attempt to hide what the real crime is. "Not playing by the rules" seems so much more innocuous than "arguing a point based on completely fabricated bullshit", doesn't it?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Being literate has absolutely NOTHING to do w/this.
... 'most' Americans form their opinion on the basis of what they see on TV and hear in the news, and learn from pop culture.
... and until ... you become informed and educated on a particular subject. Caring and Literacy go hand in hand.
Sorry, but I don't think you know what the word literacy means. How could you possibly have this view, if you did? Literacy has -everything- to do with caring. Education is the first step towards caring about anything.
'Literate' means being well-informed, well-educated, on a particular topic. It doesn't mean just 'able to read and write', though that is one common simple definition.
'Literate' also means, informed, educated, and it was in this sense that I was using the word.
I would hardly call anyone, weaned on MTV, whose opinion on 9/11, Terrorism, and Iraq was spoon-fed by CNN and pop-culture to be 'literate'.
American Telivision is a poor substitute for literacy, and alas
This is not literacy.
Americans just don't care. They don't want to hear about war, they don't want to hear about politics, and they especially don't want to learn anything about any of it.
Right. They are un-informed, and un-educated, or they -would -care. Thus illiterate. The less informed about something you are, the less you care about it.
Now, you can't become literate on a particular subject unless you care a little bit about it, enough for you to get interested and overcome any barriers to understanding a particular topic you may come across. But you also don't really start caring unless
It is American Illiteracy which allowed the neo-con fascists to hijack the American political system. It is un-caring Americans, fat on their white picket fence hubris, who remain un-informed, and politically illiterate, who allow Feudal America to persist.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I have no idea what kind of 'artist' you are. But Politics and Religion have been at the heart of Art
since cavemen were painting their walls.
Art is an expression of Mans inner and outer landscapes. Both are dominated by Religion and Politics. What you say is patently absurd, or you have no grasp of Art at all.
Uh, libel isn't protected by the First Amendment and isn't free speech. If someone can truthfully say something bad about the film or Moore, there's little he can do about that.
However, if someone's going to go out and say that Moore made up the camcorder version of the kids' reading in Florida, or that it happened on another day and Moore spliced it in under lies, that's what I believe Moore is saying is reason for a lawsuit.
Remember, slander and libel are *NOT* protected free speech in America.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
I saw a 10:30PM show friday; particularly because the 7:40PM (and all previous) shows were sold out. And you know what I noticed?
Nearly everyone in the theater was aged 18-30, from all walks of life. The exact demographic that the issues in f9/11 affected.
I was impressed.
does the same things everyday on his show. Conservatives seem absolutely apoplectic about this movie, but I don't understand why. You CAN'T be upset with the things that are said. You MUST be upset with the approach to "news"; the approach is to carefully select issues and facts that may border on truth and then construct them into an argument while leaving out all mention of the other side. If you want to complain about Michael Moore... fine, but complain equally loudly about Rush, Hannity, and O'Reilly (O'Reilly doesn't even belong in this group because he came from Hard Copy and he has been busted by many sources for out right lies). Complain about the approach, complain about the system, but DO NOT complain about the tactics just because someone does not agree with you.
/. discussion.... A few months ago I read a lot of political book from both sides of the fence. Many of the authors claimed their opposite was simply lying and then "proved" it. I began to do some checking into what kind of information/technology was available for me to examine the any available facts and derive an opinion independent of the talking heads. Most of the online research services and transcript companies that can provide original documents (facts) cost thousands of dollars per month. My conclusion... It is IMPOSSIBLE for a common individual to be properly informed about issues that they must vote on. This is a very sad conclusion because our system of government is founded on the principal that the voting public is educated about the issues.
To add a note of technology to this
So what can open source do to correct the strangle hold that talking heads have on primary information sources?
Hmm. The ad on the right of this page is promoting these books:
I'm sure this site is very "relaible".
--falz
It seems that both sides...the left and the right seem to have gravitated to the view that the ends justifies the means. If you have lie, cheat, steal, misinform, omit, denigrate, insult amd some say..murder...its OK because your cause is a right and just one.
I have no doubt that both democrats and republicans both think they have the country's best interest in mind. It seems though, that neither trusts the other enough to sit down at a table to try an understand WHY their opposites think the way they do.
Instead each side assumes that the other side will do anything it can to undermine them and so...they do the same.
The result is people like Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh that would not even consider sitting down with each other because each refuses to believe they would get fair treatment from each other.
Although many would laugh at me for saying this, but this type of atmosphere can lead over time (decades) to an environment that leads to civil war. NO...that's not going to happen in the U.S. today, but if people are not willing to talk to one another and listen to each other's concerns without the insults, it will eventually.
Fighting For Our Freedom?
One of the things that keeps coming up since our troops have gone into harm's way is that they are fighting for our freedom. If a war supporter is asked about the protesters, invariably, the response is that our soldiers are fighting so that the protesters have the freedom to protest.
Could this be true? Is it possible that Saddam's six or seven Scud missiles -- which we can't even agree on as to if they were the "permitted" Scuds or the "illegal" Scuds -- could have affected our freedom here in America? To hear it from anyone in the military, every war we have ever fought was for our freedom here in the US.
Well, was Desert Storm to preserve our freedom? If Saddam had continued to occupy Kuwait after we gave him the green light to take it, would anyone here in America have lost any freedom whatsoever? Well, we might have ended up paying higher prices for gas or -- oh the horror -- been forced to employ Americans to work here in America to pump up American oil.
Does anyone remember the economy in Texas when oil was a booming industry here? I do, and it was nice. Having jobs to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head...with enough left over to save up for the future or send your kids off to college, that sounds like freedom; and instead of keeping that here in America, we closed down entire towns and exported the jobs to the OPEC nations...the very nations that openly despise us.
So if Desert Storm wasn't for our freedom, what was it for? When Saddam originally invaded Kuwait, President Bush, Sr., turned to the United Nations, not the U.S. Constitution to which he'd sworn a solemn oath, for authorization for his military moves. He then began to state his goals -- over and over again:
So here it is painfully obvious that just because we went to war, it wasn't to preserve our freedom here in America, but to empower the United Nations. In fact, not only did Desert Storm not have anything to do with our freedom but in all actuality was more so to enslave us than to free us (those employing the term "New World Order" have sought socialism (economic control) and world government (political control) over mankind. This was also the goal of Bush Sr. for our nation and for the world).
So it is possible for our troops to be in harm's way and it not be for our freedom. And if it is not for our freedom in general but specifically for the "right to protest," legislation is being proposed in Oregon that could make protesting an act of terroris
Ron Paul
In the theater where I saw it, the audience was cheering, jeering, and applauding wildly on key with the points that Moore was trying to make.
I found this slightly startling as some of the cheers came in points that, after listening to the entire 9/11 report, I am confident that the 9/11 report findings contradicted what Moore was saying.
For me, several points like this counteracted the entire persuasive success of this film to change my opinions. If I can't trust the accuracy of information that I can collaberate, how can I trust the information that I can't easily collaberate?
What did strike me, something that hadn't sunk in for me before, is how emotional and deep the divide is between the extreeme right and extreeme left. I suspect that I would have been mobbed if I had stood up after the movie and yelled "This movie contained lies and I am still voting Republican." (btw, I am not voting Republican, and I am not voting Democrat, but I am voting)
Read, listen, think for yourself, discuss it with people you know, make up your own mind and gain some more understanding of others.
From the movie a quote from Donald Rumsfeld in a television interview:
."
"We know where the weapons are . .
Really? Why haven't they found them after more than a YEAR of being there.
A quote from Condi Rice also in the movie from a briefing:
"There is a definite connection between Iraq and 9/11."
How interesting. The 9/11 commission just declared none.
These are facts. Aren't you upset that we have been misled?
Who needs a documentary when this very message is broadcast 24x7 on Fox News (and to a slightly lesser extent CNN)?
And based on what evidence have you concluded that Moore's film is "left wing corporate propoganda"? Sorry, but linking to a review which says there some "inaccuracies" in one of his films doesn't exactly mean something is propaganda.
Michael Moore is bringing to the big screen things that all American news sources ignored while the rest of the world knew perfectly well about it. If anything Moore is showing Americans that they have been duped by the US media. The facts he brings out were commonly seen in the rest of the world except the US. I'm talking about the staged elections, the blacks not being allowed to vote, the false "intelligence", the lacking weapons of mass desctruction, etc...
If anything Moore balances out the very biased news sources you guys have in the states with a refreshing bit of reality. This war was for oil and weapons money and Ben Laden has more chances of being unearth by France than by the US.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "documentary" as A work...presenting political, social, or historical subject matter in a factual and informative manner and often consisting of actual news films or interviews accompanied by narration. Further, it restricts the presentation to "facts" that are presented " objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter , as in a book or film."
According to this definition and Michael Moore's admitting that a significant portion of the documentary is not meant to be taken seriously -- it's only partly true and the rest is meant to be satire, not to mention the lack of objectivity -- then Fahrenheit 9/11 is not a documentary; it is a mockumentary, little more than entertainment with some basis in facts deeply buried beneath the surface of the film (although you wouldn't know it by Moore's presentation) and should be treated as such.
For reasonably objective, reasonably centered reviews from well-respected news organizations (as well as some considered by many to be "left-wing" publications), click the following links:FYI, I have only read the opening paragraphs to each of these reviews, so I have little to no knowledge of any potential direction they may follow. Click at your whim.
While the Iraq war definitely deserves a film that presents balanced arguments, the simple reality is that the culture in America doesn't exist to make a film like this possible. Moore is one of the few people that understands traditional documentaries don't work in America anymore. They have to be sensational, biased, and overall, entertaining. As such, he has made the perfect vehicle for his point of view which is not only being eaten up by the public but has managed to create debate on both sides. For those of us who really want to get to the meat of things and know all the facts before making a decision, there's not much we can do but complain to the minority of others who respect the same. Unfortunately, for the 99% remaining, this is the new "documentary". With the feedback between the media, politics, money and the movies becoming a tighter link every day, we're heading towards a grand new era of unchecked propaganda.
As for those who feel that there are no lies, and want facts to back them up, I only hope I am posting this soon enough for people to read. First off, the movie asserts that Bush invaded Afghanistan for oil and natural gas pipelines, however, I point the the Unocol, the US company of the group that had planned to build a pipeline: Withdrawl Notice
Unocal notes that they do not want to have anything to do with afghanistan, and determined that it is not in their best interest to develop a pipeline. While Afghanistan has different ideas Unocal still is staying away.
Michael Moore also asserts that the White House was responsible for the Saudi and Bin Laden families getting out of the United States. Richard Clarke, however, who has been critical of the White House and had been endorsed by Moore had this to say: "I take responsibility for it. I don't think it was a mistake, and I'd do it again." FBI and Clarke Respond
And as for Moore's filmmaking style, I felt particularly horrified at the blacked out screen and sounds of the attack on 9/11 the first time, when I viewed a film called 11'09''01 - September 11 by Alejandro Inarritu. As Picasso said, good artists copy, great artists steal.
And as for lounging around at the school afterwards being an 'idiot' and not acting presidential, I leave you with a letter, offered by a guidance councilor from the school about that day: Emma E. Booker - Lee Martello
I agree, people have rights to make movies, however how did such simple things get past Moore's fact checking? That he even avoided implicating his buddy Richard Clarke in his movie in favor of lying and slandering the President? I don't agree with the President on a lot of things, but I do hate Michael Moore. I would hate him if he was Conservative too. I don't believe in propaganda, I believe strongly in the written truth. I do believe that Saddam Hussein killed people, and i highly doubt he had a Kennel of kittens and puppies that he played with on a daily basis (not seen in the movie, but not proven false, either). The fact that he hung people from meat hooks, used chemical weapons on his own people, and funded suicide bombers and harbored the murderer from the Achille Lauro terrorist incident should not be forgotten.
I offer this as a voice against those who have watched this movie and have taken it at face value. Do your research, look around the news, "use some critical thinking" as my Professors often say. Dig deeper into this movie than just being fanboys. You'll find that, just like in Bownling for Columbine, he has lied about things, many things, and while it is his perogative to, that he does have the right to, just because you have the right, doesn't mean its right.
-Gamma
Ok, who modded this down all the way from 5 to -1, Redundant? How can this possibly be redundant? There is no mention of Hitchens or his rebuttal before this post. Was it modded down only because it provided a half-decent rebuttal of Moore's movie? Was it modded down by the same people who cried out (and rightly so) when Republican morons attempted to pressure movie managers into not playing this movie? Seems a bit hypocritical to me...
Anyways, here's a link to the full article rebutting Moore's movie. I'm curious whether this post will be modded down as well... after all, dissenting viewpoints are dangerous...
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
I haven's seen it yet, but I suspect it will be as entertaining as Bowling for Columbine, and with the same number of lies and distortions.
I saw a bit yesterday when he asked that congressman if he'd be willing to let his kids sign up to go to war (the point being that those in power don't mind sacrificing the lives of other peoples' children). The congressman declined and that made it into the movie. However, in an interview with someone else, the congressman stated that Moore cut off the part of the interview where he said his nephew just got shipped off to Afghanistan.
Take a Moore film as good entertainment, but do not treat it as a documentary, do not believe everything you see in it.
The Lowes theater chain has just been acquired by Bain Capital, Spectrum Equity... and the Carlyle Group, which has rather extensive ties to the Bush Family/Administration and the Bin Ladens, and plays a rather prominent role in Farenheit 9/11 if I understand correctly.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I've seen the film, and I've also (like most of us) had full exposure to US Government
produced media events, press conferences and speeches. Plus the daily feed from Fox, NBC/ABC/CBS, Rush...
I've visited the pro and con blog sites, and read quite a few books that present the current view of the left and the right.
I've read most of the comments posted in this thread so far.
There's one clear point of commonality that runs through all of this:
The US is a nation of morons. Shallow, greedy, bullshit artists or duplicitous sheep.
How else can you explain how the current president got elected?
King of the morons. We found the dumbest guy we could to represent us and
tell ourselves that ignorance is his charm and virtue.
We can't even be honest with ourselves. If we want to take over another country
to take it's resources and strengthen our power base, then just say it! Don't wrap
it all in ideological bullshit. Don't say it's because the imaginary guy in the sky
told us to do it. Don't call ourselves liberators. We're bloodthirsty invaders that
worship big cars that go fast, cheap shiny toys, hot sex, big bombs, the winning team,
and pity anyone that gets in our way.
Bush will get another four years. Good. We deserve it.
Maybe after that, we'll at least learn to be honest with ourselves about who we really are.
Are you so quick to believe all those facts? Newsweek said that the 9/11 panel found that the Bin Laden family flew out AFTER flights had resumed.
Makes you wonder about some of the others.
My motto is - never trust outright propoganda, from anyone - right or left or center.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
she actually named her book "Treason", implying that anyone not supporting the Bush administration or any one of the wars our president starts is a traitor and should be killed.
I believe that the title "Treason" refers to a number of people within the U.S. government who were working for the Soviets back during the big communist scare. Many of those accused were proven to be guilty in later years with the release of intercepted Soviet cable traffic.
Your reading of the title was quite a stretch. Did you read the book?
Evil is the money of root.
Conservative spin: Moore is lying, the airspace was re-opened on 9/13.
Truth: The airspace was opened on 9/13. No airlines were able to get regularly scheduled flights into service that day because they were all grounded in "the wrong places". That day was spent shuffling empty planes back and forth between airports to get ready to start back up. That process took a few days. On 9/14 most flights were still canceled (I had a flight canceled that day too). The U.S. government most likely assisted the Saudis to charter planes to get them out the moment airspace was opened, and could have been the subject of that meeting Bush had with the Saudi ambassador that day, but that's just speculation.
Moore didn't lie, but he could be accused of deceiving trying to make people think the Saudis were in the air when airspace was closed. The conservative response deceives as well, trying to paint a picture that everything was back to normal on 9/13. It wasn't.
People need to learn to read between the lines and think for themselves. If you're conservative and you think only liberals spin to deceive and not conservatives, you're a fool -- and visa-versa.
While I would agree that it is very wise to note when Moore does and when he does not supply sources, dates for footage, where he got tanslations for speech in other languages, and the like, I completely disagree with your conclusion. It is not entertainment. It is not, in any fair sense, a documentary. There are, despite how people have been pushing to categorize Moore's film, more categories that his films can fall into. Moore maks arguments. Period.
In order to make his argument, Moore draws on facts--appropriately picked out as the strongest ones that fit his case. Moore is often vague in order to make a stroger point than the straight facts will give him (example: in 9/11, Moore is discussing the Saudi presence in American markets with [I'm not sure who]. The man tells Moore that in his estimation, the Saudis control between 6 and 7 percent of the nation's economy, in terms of investments. Moore goes on to say, (paraphrased), "well, if these guys control seven percent..." in his next voice-over.
Moore also employs powerfully emotional footage (Roger and Me, Columbine, and 9/11 all have parts that make me cry) in order to work up the people he's arguing to, thus supplimenting his factual argument.
9/11 is, in essene, an argument for people to vote against Bush in the 2004 election. Fundamentally, that is what Moore wants and what he is using his film to say. Simplifying it down to "entertainment" because it is not a classical documentary does both the film an inustice and also severely impairs your ability to think about the film or the film-maker with any consequence.
"Cornflakes are not the innocent critters they seem"- Sterling Morrison
* The list of the "coalition of the willing" mentioned only tiny, irrelvant countries, and skipped over really important ones
I suspect this was done more for comedic effect than anything else. As you yourself admit, the United States is doing 90%+ of the fighting in Iraq; Moore is simply reminding us of this.
* The story of the man who mentioned to guys in a gym that he considered Bush a terrorist and found himself speaking to the FBI the following day rang false.
It might ring false to you, but I've read a few articles on this guy, and his story is the same as the way Moore presents it -- make anti-Bush comments in public, get CIA on your doorstep. Short of hooking up the guy to a lie detector and grilling him, how can you accuse him of lying just because you didn't get an honest vibe?
* A man's name was blacked out on one of Bush's army papers. The implication was that this was covering up something evil. But it doesn't appear that the relationship between this man and Bush was a secret, and the paper doesn't imply that they did anything sinister except skip out on their service.
See the movie again. Moore's point is not that Bath was dangerous and his name needed to be covered -- his name was uncovered without incident in the pre-9/11 version of the document Moore got from the government -- but that, after 9/11, the White House was actively burying all links between Bush and the Saudis.
The other nasty bits of the relationship between this guy and Bush, like the cozy foreign investments, are irrelevant to this document.
Given that the movie does make a point over the heavy ties between the Sauds and the US, I think this is a relevant topic.
* The bin Laden family claims to have cut off contact with Osama, which makes the Bush family's cozy relationship with the Saudis far less relevant than Moore implies. His refutation in the movie consisted only of a single wedding of Osama's son, and doesn't even state that Osama was in attendance: Osama has many sons if I recall correctly, and being on the run he might not go to the wedding of each one.
Again, go see the movie and pay attention. The point was that Osama had a son who was getting married, Osama was there (see the video), and at least one of Osama's own brothers were there, despite the whole "black sheep" claims from the Bin Laden family. You can also find examples of numerous other active ties between Osama and the Bin Laden clan in House of Bush, House of Saud, so Moore isn't talking out of his ass here.
* His before-the-war footage of Iraq showed happy, smiling children on playgrounds. It skips the grinding poverty, caused by Saddam's refusal to comply with international orders and his skimming of oil profits. It skips the horrific crimes of which his sons stood accused. It skips the thousands of Kurds, dead from the sort of weapons from which Bush claimed we were protecting ourselves. The weapons do not appear to have existed, and the US should not be in the habit of invading every country whose policies we don't like, but to imply that all was sweetness and light in Iraq before we showed up is dishonest.
I think Moore's point here was simply that pre-war Iraq was not a menace to the United States, despite Bush's attempt to paint it as such. There was no need to talk about Iraq's internal problems; Bush has already done that for the last 3.5 years anyway. And showing happy Iraqis living their regular lives was IMO a necessary counterbalance to all the evil-Iraqi-imminent-threat bullshit we've been getting from the White House. Those bombs we dropped didn't fall only on Saddam's head, y'know.
The film is designed to preach to the converted, not to make a case to the neutral or the opposition.
I think it does make a case for the undecided. And the whole point of all documentaries is to convince the viewer to a particular POV, so Moore is hardly doing anything unort
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Yes, that's obvious. The problem is that so many liberals are failing to do that; they're simply praising the film as truth (which is what I said in my last post) despite that Moore has admitted that it is not all true.
Also, when Moore says the film is a documentary and it is not, and when he makes it clear that his intention with this mockumentary is to hurt the president's chance of re-election, then what he has done by disguising his own biased opinions and even some intentionally hidden satirical mistruths in the film is, as you say, a disgusting concept.
Moore commented Friday during an interview with the syndicated program Good Day Live that he may include the undedited video from that classroom event as an extra on the DVD version.
It's a debatable issue whether the president should have cut his visit to the classroom short when he was told that a second plane had hit the second tower. The principal of the school says that Bush did the right thing because running out of the classroom would have scared the kids... however those kids would eventually be told to stand quietly in the backround as the president made his first comments to the world about the 9/11 events. Moore claims that the president put those kids at risk because the president could have been a target in such a crisis, but he was a moving target and the hijackers only went after stationary ones.
However, it doesn't seem as if Moore agrees with free speech all that much: From Moore: "The most important thing we have is truth on our side. If they persist in telling lies, knowingly telling a lie with malice, then I'll take them to court."
So "libel" Moore and get a lawsuit. The hypocrisy!
It would be hypocritical only if he was himself guilty of libel, instead of being guilty of showing people in their worst light.
Free speech is not a free ticket to tell all the lies you want. That is why the libel suits exist. There are limits to free speech, and they aren't "disagreeing with the Leader when the Leader has declared war", they are: telling outright lies about people, hate speech, stuff like that.
"Moore wrote me that he didn't expect such attacks "from you, of all people." But I cannot ignore flaws simply because I agree with the filmmaker."
See, he didn't sue, he said he didn't expect people who agree with him to be so critical of him.
Maybe he expected people who agree with his message to give him a break on the quality of the format his message was in. I'm pretty glad that fellow did his job and called it like he saw it.
if Disney produced a documentary prasing Bush and making Saddam look like Hitler?
If? Its called "ABC News", from 2001 to 2003.
What is to stop Rupert Murdoch and 20th Century Fox from producting a series of right-wing documentaries.
Again, watch the war time coverage from Fox News and CNN, and pay attention this time!
Seriously, be amazed as you see U.S. soldiers looting conquered palaces as a commentator refers to them "taking souvenirs"! Marvel at the positive spin "to keep up morale" on everything the "good guys" do!
Can't believe you need to be told all this...
You can't take the sky from me...
It does mean the movie is not a documentary. A documentary is meant to report facts- a subset of all facts which supports your view, perhaps, but if this movie does not do that then it is not a documentary. It's a getBushoutofofficumentary.
Christopher Hitchens, a long time liberal and very respected writer, has a excellent critique of the movie here
I see people keep saying 'our' country. I'm not from the USA and I've never been there and neither have many other /.'ers , but this I can say, whatever happens there with regards to mass political moves there does affect us in smaller countrys.
Many of the problems we could face tomorrow would be a direct result of Bush and friends. They tend to have 'something' agaist other races/cultures.
Politics does cross over to 'geekland' when it starts passing laws on patents/privacy and other arb laws that effect us on the other side of the pond.
The USA != The known world.
Good to see a quick overview of the theft of the presidency in 2000. This stuff is all common knowledge in the UK and the rest of the civilised world, but in the US it got virtually zero coverage, so the story needed to be told. I thought that it could have used a bit more detail like the voting fraud, the purging of innocent people from the electoral rolls etc. but he had a lot of stuff to cover in the film, so it was understandable that a lot of this was either skimmed over or left out.
The handling of the actual terrorist attacks was very powerful. Sensibly, there was no need to show the planes slamming into the buildings or the buildings collapsing. Instead, the screen was black but we heard the sounds of the jets crashing, the exploding jet-fuel, the rubble falling, the people screaming and the emergency services rushing to the scene. When the screen brightens up, we still don't see the buildings, but we see the people looking up in horror and the expressions on their faces as they watch people leap to their deaths before their very eyes.
Bush's response to the attacks (or lack thereof) is portrayed in a rather distrubing manner. I never knew that he had already been informed of the first plane hitting the WTC when he went ahead with his photo op at the elementary school. When he was informed of the second plane hitting, I thought that he had immediately closed the book and left. But no, he just sat there almost in a trance, and with nobody there to tell him what to do next, he looked completely lost. He seemed to be waiting for someone to come along and whisk him away and put a script in front of him.
Into the nitty-gritty, there's a comprehensive list of photos of extremely cordial meetings, primary sources and official documents that pass before our eyes to back up the story that there is something very troubling about the links between the House of Bush, the House of Saud, and the Bin Laden family business ventures. The overwhelming connections with the Saudis is explored in a lot of depth, including the fact that Bush Senior, who still invokes a seldom-used right of ex-presidents to access classified CIA information, still acts almost as if he were an official ambassador to the Saudi dictatorship but in his capacity of a representative of the Carlyle group. (There's a graphic portrayal of Saudi justice by the way, a public beheading. Brrrrrr.) Even Bush senior himself was prevented from flying on 9/11, but the Bin Laden family, by special request from the Saudi royal family and on the orders of Bush jnr, were picked up and flown out of the country. Moore asks what would have happened if Clinton had flown Timothy McVeigh's family out of the country after the Oklahoma City bombing. A very good question.
Then we get into the changing of the government's tune, showing the comments from Powell and Rice denying any WMD capability in Iraq, only to be seen again several months later trying to talk UP the capability of the Iraqi regime and Powell's performance at the UN that flatly contradicts what he himself and many in the administration had said before. Once the war gets underway, we get to see graphic pictures of Iraqi civilians (what's left of them) after American 'precision' bombing raids. Don't watch this on a full stomach.
The Halliburton connection and other business interests in profiting from the war are explored in depth, and then a considerable amount of time towards the end is devoted to a mother whose son went to Iraq. I'll leave you to see that for yourself, for there's no way I could do it justice here. There is one particular incident when she goes to Washington that just makes your hair stand on end and your blood boil. A lot of time is devoted to hearing from actual troops, their friends and family, and how it affects them.
Despite the powerful subject matter, Moore sprinkles in a profusion of comic relief (usually at the ex
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Didn't he say or imply that bin Laden family members left the US while all flights were grounded and without interviews, when in fact they left after flights resumed and they were made available for interviews, with some interviewed and some not? (The fact that some weren't is not good, but Moore's "facts" are wrong.)
Didn't he say Bush spent 42% of his time on vacation, when in fact Bush spent 42% of his time not at the White House (including weekends), but often working those days? Many of these days included meetings with foreign dignitaries, etc, but the meetings occurred in Crawford or at Camp David.
Let's see, did he not imply that the Taliban visited Bush in Texas while he was governer, when in fact Bush did not meet with them and they were in the country at the invitation of the Clinton administration?
Didn't he say that the Secret Service only guards the Saudi embassy, when in fact it's uniformed division guards many embassies?
Didn't he make a big deal of Bush et al getting hair/makeup care before public appearances, making them appear vain and shallow? If that's legitimate, I guess nearly all public figures and most women qualify. Sheesh, what a misuse of "facts"!
We could go on, but the fact is Moore is vociferous and entertaining, but not terribly talented nor concerned with the truth. If you think this is a documentary with a "whole fact-checking team" behind it, you are naive indeed. I edit videos for a living and know it's trivial to edit things together to make anyone look like a fool or villan. Heck, If I had three hours of Moore footage, I could make him look worse than anyone he's slashed.
Most people here in Europe think that Americans only worry about themselves and are unaware of what happens outside their country. I'm not telling that is true or false, but that is the image people have from them.
There has been a _lot_ of censorship on the American media in this second Iraq war. This has been criticized very much around here, but I don't know if Americans are aware of that, and if they access uncensored information by reading international press or simply blogs.
Unfortunately, anti-americanism is growing up all over the world, not only in muslim countries, and this is very worrying. I think you (and us, of course) should try to see things from the different points of view that people have outside the US.
And here's a rebuttal of Hardylaw on Kuro5hin.
Personally, I don't like either of them, but until Rush disappears, I'm glad Moore's there.
Michael Moore is now the Democrat's Leni Riefenstahl.
First, consider the source. Ralph's ego is so big it get's 2 zip codes. He's just jealous because he is not the focus of Moore's approbrium. Of course, he wouldn't be. Moore is not a member of the Democratic Party. I think he is an independent who voted for, guess who, Nader.
Second, consider this statement:
"Mel Gibson is the Right's Leni Riefenstahl."
If you know anything about Leni Riefenstahl, you would see that the latter is more accurate esp. in terms of Fascistic imagery and personal "I'm a martyr" protestations. Did you see the movie "The Patriot?" Did you know that the British DID NOT commit the atrocities depicted in the film? Of course not.
Also, notice I say "the Right." Democrats are not leftists unless the US suddenly has become the Fundamentalist Theocratic Police State that so few (but so powerful) want. Wait for it....
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
In most countries, the head of state and the executive leader are two different people. The President or Monarch is the one who gets your loyality and respect, but he's just a figurehead with relatively little influence over the day to day running of the country.
The Prime Minister, on the other hand, is the one with all the power, but who doesn't feel entitled to any loyalty or automatic respect on account of his position. In fact, the Prime Minister has to withstand a barrage of criticism on a constant basis from the opposition. This is very healthy since it keeps the government on its toes.
Can you imagine G W Bush having to go through a weekly American equivalent of Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons? That would be entertaining!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
And yet, no one has yet to find a single cinematic documentary that didn't espouse a particular view.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
context in which he shows this true footage he implies other things. What happens is that people go and say "you said this, it isn't true!" when in fact he technically only implied it.
And of course, this is the perfect way to counter the exact same method being used by BushCo. The most notable example, of course, is conspicuously inserting 9-11 and Al Qaida into every pre-war discussion of Iraq. They never directly said "Iraq was involved in 9-11", but somehow 2/3rds of US citizens came to believe it.
What is great about the film are all the clips of Bush making a total ass of himself. Moore doesn't even need to say a word. It is so funny and then you realize that the idiot Bush is the president of the US. Then you realize how fucked we all are that we can have idiots like that running the country.
The press often talks about someone's actions being presidential. And yet they never show the idiotic ramblings of the current president. It is clear that the media is keeping the truth from the public. People may have issues with the things Michael Moore says in the movie, but what can they say about the clips of Bush being himself?
One thing that irritated me back in 2001 after 9/11 happened was that the press refused to seriously ask why did this happen? They never went back and began a discussion about US activities in the Middle East. For decades the US has been fucking around with Middle Eastern countries, overturning governments and trying to force US policies down their throats. At one time the US was a big supporter of Saddam and even helped him gas Iranians. When I saw those planes hit those buildings, my first thoughts were, it's payback time. But right away the media starting aping the "It's because they hate freedom" argument which is just bullshit. You can't go dropping bombs all over the world for decades and not expect to get bombed in return. If you thought 9/11 was bad, wait until we get paid back for what we are doing now.
http://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?fea
The political compass will plot your viewpoints on a two dimensional scale and let you compare your ideas with past and present world leaders.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
All Saturday shows were "sold out". Yet my wife and I saw the 7:30 p.m. show with about 3-4 dozen people in a theater that could easily hold 10 times that many. I kid you not. Nobody -- not ONE person -- in the ten rows in front of us. 5 p.m. B-movie matinee time for an opening Saturday night.
Conspiracy theorists, choose your weapons, fire at 20 paces. Either:
1. Supporters bought up all the tickets so it would get good PR and broader distribution. They'll actually see it in a couple weeks when the crowds thin.
or:
2. Republicans are so insanely terrorized of this movie that they are stemming the bleeding of opening weekend by buying up blocks of showings so the Monday morning water cooler talk isn't going to hit like a sledge hammer across the country.
I haven't decided which I believe yet -- so go for it!
Ya know. I'm sick and tired of the "leaving information out" argument against Michael Moore. When is the last time *you* made an argument and you brought mentioned every last possible fact that could harm your argument? When a person makes anargument, it *is not their responsibility to make the counter argument*. It is the responsibility of the opposing party in the argument. Arguments have always been constructed with the set of facts that support your hypothesis - you have aproblem with moore, you are always free to produce facts that undermine his argument - something you can't do with outright liars.
Beyond that, look at the right. Ann Coulier clearly and repeatedly lies outright in her books. In many casses her attributions are ourtight fabrications. Yet no one says a damn thing about her. Look at Rush. The man also lies on a repeated and regular basis. The chorus of silence criticizing him is deafening. The same goes for almost all of the crackpot commentators on the right like Michael Savage and even Bill O'Reilly. These people have a political agenda, and have no concern for the truth whatsoever.
Compare this to Michael Moore who at least has facts to back up his claims. Does he make the counterargument against himself? No. Is that his job? No.
I'm just sick of the hipocracy in this country that hold the left to a *much much* higher standard then the right. Progressives can't make tiny mistakes without being torn apart by the wolves, yet the right gets free reign to do and say anythign they want and essentially recieve no accountability for their actions.
All you have to look at to see this is a man who has suggested life imprisonment for drug offenders, and I believe at least once executions who turned out to be a drug abuser himself - and *nothing* happened to him. Rush Limbaugh.
SO if you are going to throw your stones at the left, you might want to watch out for your conservative glass house first.
- The unexamined life is not worth leading -
I don't really see the parallel between a film critical of authority and state-sponsored propaganda. If you really want a modern example of a government distorting truth to gain support for immoral policies, I think you know exactly where to look.
Think for a moment about the comparison you have made. Condsider what might have happened if people like Moore had spoken out in Germany while the Third Reich was taking power. It is disgraceful that many people will eat up anything the Bush administration says as gospel truth but can't even let a guy with an opposing viewpoint call his film a documentary.
It is just as vital to reach the proles as it is the intellectuals...
Well said - a point which unfortunately gets ignored far too often these days.
When you have a largely uneducated population (I don't say that to be offensive) it's even more important to reach the proles.
Apathy allows for massive change in the direction that a minority wants and desires, albeit using small steps. For change to occur in a direction that the masses want and desire the masses need to rise up. Revolutions cannot happen without significant support from the general population.
A damn shame, huh? It's a good thing we conservatives do naught *but* tell the truth! And if, for some wild reason, we don't always stick to the facts (unheard of!), we always make sure to point out where our lies are.
Thank God for the Bible! It's kept GWB II the most honest guy there is, even after the White House was tainted with the evil liberal lies of the previous 8 years! Imagine all of the lies that W could be telling- but we can be sure he never does thanks to that little black Book.
Praise Jesus!
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
You can call Moore a liar, call Franken a liar, Coulter a liar, Limbaugh a big fat liar, and it won't make any difference. The same publishing companies will run both books from both points of view, make big bucks, and leave our country seeking conflict before compromise.
Oh, and their news divisions will cover the aftermath :).
www.lonseidman.com
I've followed this story quite closely, and I have NEVER seen any person from Disney say such a thing. So please provide a link or direct quote with a source for it. I do not believe this is accurate, but if it is, I'd like to know it.
You SEEM to be parroting the party line of the Michael Moore crowd on this issue. I tend to think it's more of an effort by Disney not to be involved in something that was going to be highly controversial and potentially spawn new calls from conservative to boycott the company. Think about it. If he had wanted to KILL the film, he could have. Disney owned the piece. It could have been stuck in a vault for no one to see. He simply didn't want Disney involved in the distrubution, for legitimate business reasons.
Just for the record, I don't like the Bush administration, but I also don't like Michael Moore's tendency to play fast and loose with the facts, either. This seems to be a case in which his supporters are alleging something with no basis in fact, just as Moore has shown a repeated tendency to do in his films. Even if you agree with Moore's conclusions about things, his arguments are greatly weakened by his willingness to lie and mislead his audience about details.
The bin Laden extended family and other Saudis were allowed to fly within the United States on chartered planes when all other planes were grounded. These charter flights gathered them together from around the country in Texas and Washington, D.C.
The bin Laden extended family and other Saudis were allowed to leave the U.S. on the first day that the airspace was generally opened, and they left over the next week in several charter planes. At least one flight may have departed the U.S. before the airspace was generally opened, but most of the flights leaving the U.S. took place after the airspace was open.
This is no longer in dispute -- there are eyewitness accounts and flight plans and takeoff/landing records from airports and FOIA records that all support these facts, especially the intra-U.S. flights during the no-fly period. The FBI was substantially involved in organizing and providing protection for these people.
The bin Laden family received special treatment from the U.S. government, approval for which came from quite high up (it's not completely clear where; Richard Clarke said he takes responsibility for the decision, but never said he made it himself).
Many conservative commentators have attempted to confuse the issue by changing this claim to "All the Saudis were flown out of the country while the no-fly was still in effect", then refuting this claim, and declaring their work done and the claim to be entirely false. That's not the claim, and it's not false, and Moore, although he presented an abbreviated version of the claim in his movie, didn't say anything false about the claim at all.
First off, I want to say that if Michael Moore had information about Abu Ghraib before it came out on the news, it was his civic duty to bring it out to the public. No, Michael Moore did not do that because HE IS OUT TO MAKE MONEY! He will put anything on screen, even if it's an out and out lie, just so he can make money. See the article on slate:
Slate
Also, it is said the Mr. Moore says that the Bush government is so in bed with the Saudi's....well if that was so, how come we had to move our headquarters to Doha, Qatar?? It definitely was not a decision the miltary would have made! Why reestablish airbases in Qatar when you had everything all setup in Saudi? Also, if your opposed to the war, why talk about not having enough troops? Did you not say moments before the war you want them to NOT send troops? Also, it is INSULTING to the American soldiers he so dedicates the movie to that he had this video of the happeings at Abu Ghraib and did not bring it out in the proper way. The WHOLE army was not involved at Abu Ghraib. It was simply a few bad apples who overstepped their authority. It has been said that Hezbollah, one of the biggest terrorist and ANTI American (left or right) groups out there are willing to put up their own money to get this movie shown in the UAE!
Farenheit 9/11 a hit with Hezbollah
If Mr. Moore so cares about our troops, then why is he painting our whole military in a extremely bad light. Does he have any idea what this would do to undermine our efforts? How this movie may so inflame the terrorists??
Read this World Net Daily article...theatures are saying no to this film in droves.....todate only 417 theaters are showing Fahrenheit 9/11.
Thaters say no
Also, about his previous movie, Bowling for Columbine, he suggests in that movie that gun problems in schools are rampant yet he misses the facts. The facts have pointed out before Columbine, school violence is going DOWN not UP! It's just reprehensible what he's doing here. I support his freedom to say what he wants, but what he's said in this movie and others he's made has been SLANDER!
Gorkman
This is a point that I am tired of correcting people on. This did not happen as you are lead to believe in the movie. On September 13th commercial flights had already resumed, but private flights were still restricted. Permission came, not from the President, but from Richard Clarke who was a hold-over from the Clinton White House and not a Bush puppet. 22 of the 26 people that were on that flight WERE, in fact, interviewed and cleared by the FBI prior to leaving.
http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m12 82/is_18_55/ai_109411350
The funniest thing about this, is that everyone who watches the movie leaves with the same wrong impression: that while all other airplanes are stuck on the ground, the bin Ladins are give special permission from the President to be the only plane flying. The fact is, that this is a clear case of spin-doctoring. It is common in politics. This is a way of saying TRUE things, but leading people to specific conclusion that may not be accurate. Moore is a master of this kind of work.
Don't get me wrong, I like Moore's work, but at respect him as an Artist... not as a champion of truth.
Bush may have a relationship with the bin Ladin family, but when you are lead to believe that the bin Ladins were given special treatment because of that relationship, it can piss people off. However, this never happened. It is clear that Bush cannot be blamed for the bin Ladin family and Saudi nationals leaving the country... if you know the facts, it just cannot be substantiated; but Moore, knowing the facts, misleads his film-goers.
I'm not saying don't see the movie. I think everyone should see the movie. Moore has crafted a relevant, entertaining movie. But it IS a commercial movie, and commercial movies are made in order to make money. So, go out an enjoy the film, just don't trust everything you think you hear. Double-check the facts before assuming that your conclusions are correct.
- just my $0.02
"Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
How about just a few "twists" of the truth to start?
President Bush's reaction to news of the Sept. 11 attacks
Moore uses video of the president as Bush learned that a second jet had hit the World Trade Center the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The president was in a classroom in Sarasota, Fla., listening to second-graders read.
Bush sat in the classroom for seven minutes after learning of the news from his chief of staff, Andrew Card. Moore superimposes a timer on the screen to document the passage of time, then asks what was going through the president's mind. Was he, Moore wonders, regretting spending 42% of his first eight months in office on "vacation?"
Moore bases his quip on an Aug. 6, 2001, story in the Washington Post that said by the end of that month Bush would have spent 42% of his first seven months in office "at vacation spots or en route." The calculation included weekends spent at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md., and a month-long "working vacation" at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Moore doesn't say that the "vacation" days included weekends or that Bush worked part of most of those days. He met, for example, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The other message Moore sends is that Bush was frozen, unable to do anything until he was told what to do by his aides. The independent 9/11 commission reported that Bush told its members he felt it was important to remain calm when not much was known about the attacks. Andrew Card told ABC's Good Morning America this week that Bush showed "a moment of shock, and he did stare off maybe for just a second."
The decision to let some Saudis leave the USA shortly after 9/11 and alleged connections among the Bush family, Saudi royalty and Osama bin Laden's family
Moore questions why the Bush administration allowed 142 Saudis, including members of bin Laden's family, to fly out of the USA Sept. 14 through Sept. 24, 2001. He suggests that business ties between oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the Bush family might have resulted in special treatment for some Saudi citizens -- even though 15 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked planes on 9/11 were Saudis.
The implication: Saudis who might have had information about the attacks -- or even been involved -- slipped through the president's fingers.
But the movie does not point out that the FBI interviewed about 30 of the Saudis before they left the USA and that investigators say no one on board the planes has turned out to be of interest. The independent 9/11 commission has reported that "each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure."
An alleged connection between Bush and the Taliban that ruled Afghanistan
In December 1997, a delegation of top Taliban officials visited the USA at the invitation of officials from Unocal, a California-based oil and gas company with extensive business dealings in Texas. At the time, Unocal was pursuing a deal to construct a gas pipeline through Afghanistan. Moore notes that the delegation visited Texas while Bush was governor. He doesn't say the delegation met with Bush, but that is implied.
In fact, Bush did not meet with the Taliban representatives. What Moore also doesn't say is that Clinton administration officials at the State Department did sit down with the Taliban officials and that their visit was made with the Clinton administration's permission.
Your claims about Moore's movie are not true. Here's Moore's reply to the accusation you make, taken from michaelmoore.com:
June 20th, 2004
What Fahrenheit 9/11 Says About the Saudi Flights Out of the Country After September 11
WHAT THE FILM SAYS:
Sen. Byron Dorgan: We had some airplanes authorized at the highest levels of our government to fly to pick up Osama Bin Laden's family members and others from Saudi Arabia and transport them out of this country.
Narration: It turns out that the White House approved planes to pick up the bin Ladens and numerous other Saudis. At least six private jets and nearly two dozen commercial planes carried the Saudis and the Bin ladens out of the U.S. after September 13th. In all, 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country.
Additionally, in an interview with author Craig Unger, the film makes reference to the fact that these individuals were briefly interviewed before they were allowed to leave.
WHY WE SAY IT:
1. THE FLIGHTS - WHO GOT OUT WHEN
The facts stated in Fahrenheit 9/11 are well documented and are based entirely on the findings contained in the 9/11 commission draft report, which states, "After the airspace reopened, six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between September 14 and 24. One flight, the so-called Bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on September 20 with 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Usama Bin Ladin." National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12
Unfortunately, some news organizations have misinterpreted what the film says. Some have said Fahrenheit 9/11 alleges that these flights out of the country took place when commercial airplanes were still grounded. The film does not say this. The film states clearly that these flights left after September 13 (the day the FAA began to slowly lift the ban on air traffic).
2. WHO APPROVED THESE FLIGHTS AND WHY
We really do not know why it was so necessary for the White House to allow the quick exodus of these Saudi and bin Ladens out of the country, and "the White House still refuses to document fully how the flights were arranged," according to a June 20, 2004, article by Phil Shenon in the New York Times.
We do know who asked for help in getting Saudis out of the country - the Saudi government. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12 The film also includes a television interview with Saudi Prince Bandar, confirming this as well.
Former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke has testified that he approved these flights, stating that "it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House." Testimony of Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, National Security Council, before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 3, 2003.
3. DID THESE INDIVIDUALS GET SPECIAL TREATMENT BY LAW ENFOCEMENT?
Yes, according to Jack Cloonan, a former senior agent on the joint FBI-CIA Al-Qaeda task force, who is interviewed in Fahrenheit 9/11. Cloonan raises questions about the type of investigation to which these individuals were subjected, finding it highly unusual that in light of the seriousness of the attack on 9/11, bin Laden family members were allowed to leave the country and escape without anyone getting their statements on record in any kind of formal proceeding, and with little more than a brief interview.
Most Saudis who left were not interviewed at all by the FBI. In fact, of the 142 Saudis on these flights, only 30 were interviewed. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12
The film puts this
This article, by ex-leftie Christopher Hitchens, makes a far better response to this than I ever could.
D
This is a very interesting social comment you have unwittingly made against yourself. You have not yet seen, you imply, any "clear, concise, and truthful rebuttal" to Moore's film. You hope someone makes one soon. However, you have already decided we are being "manipulated, misled, and lied to."
That's really interesting to me. In the absence of evidence against Moore's film, you assume it is misleading and untruthful. That's just not rational.
Those books you linked to are parodies, and therefore protected under law.
Therefore it is not an effective rebuttal to the parent's post.
There is no debatability, he is commander in chief, the moment the words "we are under attack" reached him he should have gotten up and commanded. He didn't. That should be all you need to know.
And what would you have had him do in those 5 minutes? Assuming that he didn't need to stay there while the secret service cleared an exit? Would you have liked him to get on the phone and call Washington and tell them.... what? To figure out what the hell is going on? To wake up all the generals? To figure out if more are comming? What would have happened differently had the man jumped up out of his seat screamed out "HOLY SHIT KIDS, WE'RE GOING TO FUCKING DIE!" and then run out of the room? Beleive it or not, the government can operate mostly without a president. Furthermore, there was nothing for him to command, because everything he could have ordered was already being done.
What is debatable is whether or not he should have gone into the classroom in the first place after having been informed of the first attack and having seen the memos al qaeda was planning on attacking the world trade center, and was planning on hijacking airplanes.
1) The memo never said they were planning on attacking the WTC.
2) In the past, Hijackings have been used as hostage situations for political purposes. Something like this was a very remote possibility.
3) After the 1st plane hit, no body knew what had happened, and most people thought it was an accident. Planes have hit the WTC before, and it's not a terrorist attack. No one knew what to think of it until the second one hit.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Wow. The parent post managed to mangle two different definitions and mislead folks in the same way it condemns.
the parent post takes the separate "adjective" definition and splices in words into the "noun" definition while implying that it's all part of the "noun" definition of "documentary".
Here is the real dictionary.com link.
The noun version (the parent post did start with the words "A work...") in its entirey is "A work, such as a film or television program, presenting political, social, or historical subject matter in a factual and informative manner and often consisting of actual news films or interviews accompanied by narration."
The parent post spliced in words from the second definition of the adjective version of the word, and the adjective mentions the "objectively without editorializing", and even in that case it is only one of multiple valid definitions. The parent post purposely ignored the first definition of the adjective "Consisting of, concerning, or based on documents." (Yup, that's the first definition listed in its entirety).
And thus the parent post use of "Further, it restricts the presentation..." is highly misleading since it certainly does not make a firm restriction or preclude its use in other ways.
And the ONLY other NOUN definition on that page is "a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event". And certainly that describes F911 just darn fine.
Don't believe me? Here are the facts. You decide.
In the interests of dialog, I'll try to respond to this when I get back (I have a wedding to go to), but I believe this article is deeply flawed. An example I can whip out real quickly: The person who wrote the article states that the 9/11 commission found that the bin ladens left the country after the airspace had been re-opened. This is a VERY deceptive statement. on September 13th, the air space had been re-opened, but no passengers were allowed to fly until sept 14th. Sept 13th was used to reshuffle the airplanes back to where they should be so that flights could resume the 14th.
No passengers were allowed, *except* for these special charter flights that took the Bin Ladens and the Saudi royalists out of the country.
Hitchens then states that Clark allowed these flights - and thus Moore is a liar.
Well, these saudis were allowed to fly befor anyone else, were not questioned, and were allowed to do so by a member of the Bush administration (Clark was indeed a member of the bush administration, or do you dispute that fact as well). Not one iota of this contradicts Moore and Ferenheit 9/11.
Once again, Moore uses facts, while the talking heads on the right jsut say wheever they want to, so long as it's consistant with their idology - facts be damned.
I'll try to reply more to it when I get back from the wedding.
- The unexamined life is not worth leading -
Go google on images from Vietnam, that were played on the six o'clock news. Try the famous picture of the girl on fire with napalm, that was plastered everywhere.
This is what war *IS*. Blood and death and shattered bodies: this is the real world, not some video game or "action movie". You are, as the citizen of a democracy, *SUPPOSED* to vote on things - and I refer to Bush, Cheney, Rummy et al, as "things" - that affect the real world. If you voted for them, you voted for *this*.
Too real for you? Want to live in a fantasy, and keep your kids in a fantasy?
My kids have to live in the real world, as I do.
No 'R' rating.
mark
I watched this movie, and while I do not always agree with Moore's politics he most certainly does not hate America. He's clearly advocating that America should be stronger, better.
The primary accusations that Moore makes in his film:
- Bush has received millions of dollars from the Saud family, this has resulted in unprecendented access.
- In August of 2001, Bush took a vacation when the threat was building.
- The morning of 9/11, Bush made a photo-op appearance at a school. There is footage showing Bush sitting in shock with a stupid look on his face after he is notified of the attacks.
- There is a very moving interview with a mother from Flint, Michigan... She talks about opportunities, Flint, America... then later she talks about her feelings following the death of her son in Iraq.
So what Moore is saying... Bush doesn't give a shit about Americans, and he's a uncertain leader in a time of crisis.
The accuastions Moore's critics make is nit picking about some petty details. But not once do they ever address the substance of Moore's claims. That video showing Bush is pretty damning, and maybe that's why they want you to avoid looking at it.
this makes a good counterpoint to everything hitchens says...
Now, you tell me if that connection is "close and convoluted":
Here's background (including flight manifest) that clarifies "Flight of Fantacy" errors of "bitchslapped" & Moore.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
Unfortunately, far too many of the people seeing the movie are clearly taking the entire movie at face value.
What's your point?
If "too many" people can't think for themselves, too bad for them. Is that a reason to not show the whole movie? Face it, we live in a world where much of what hits our senses is unjust, untrue, disgusting, whatever. It is each of our jobs to use our crap filter and not take everything as gospel. The world has always been like this, I believe, and is unlikely to ever change.
I have really had it with this site. The libs have taken over.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
It must really frost your ass that Bush is right!
Bush is right wing, not right.
Was he right about "weapons of mass destruction"? No.
Was he right about a strong link between Bin Laden and Iraq? No.
Was he right about the cost of the Iraqi war? No.
Was he right about being able to balance the budget? No.
Was he right to ignore dire warnings about Bin Laden? No.
Was he right about the war in Iraq reducing terrorism? No.
Was he right about ignoring the Geneva Convention? No.
It must frost your ass to realize that you voted for an ignoramous who has made the United States loathed worldwide while destroying the economy.
We've found ten or twelve Sarin and Mustard rounds
.
That is such a small amount that hardly justifies the action taken. It is also not clear when or how those entered Iraq.
The way the Bush administration talked it up, there was just tons and tons of such weapons laying around. Hmmmm . .
There were connections between al- Qaida and Saddam Hussein's government.
I never said this wasn't true. There is no connection with Iraq and 9/11. Period. The 9/11 commission was very clear on that point.
To date, there has not been an effort by the Bush administration to truly justify this war. They have just quipped sound bytes here and there. There were two reasons they tried to harp on to go to war:
1) Iraq had tons and tons of WMD in their possession and
2) Iraq was somehow INVOLVED with 9/11.
So far, neither arguments have held any water. After that became clear, the arguments then became, "Well, he was such a bad person anyway we have done the world a favor."
This war wasn't justified for the reasons it was started. The real question is were these the real reasons for war or was it more about oil and money as Moore and many many others suspect?
I wonder why people get so upset about two hour left-wing propaganda film that will be seen by less people than listen to Rush Limbaugh each week. Seriously, we have 24/7 right-wing propaganda with Fox News. Rush is on what?, three hours a day, five days a week? Not to mention Hannity, Savage, O'Reilly, etc.
Why isn't the rest of the news media questioning the bias, innuendo and fabrications of these sources the way they are going after Michael Moore? Why is a two hour film so much more dangerous and worthy of great debate while round-the-clock right-wing propaganda goes mostly unchallenged?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There have been reports lately of democratic strategists insisting that dems lie in order to sway conservative opinion.
Are these reports coming from Ann Coulter?
Claim that he has broken ties with your views without giving real examples and while relying on sketchy facts at best.
You know what, why don't you check out the American Conservative magazine sometime...
http://www.amconmag.com/
Go back through some of the past issues and articles that our online. The magazine is published by Pat Buchanan(former Nixon/Reagan speech writer) and Taki Theodoracopulos.
They despise President Bush.
Like this particular article from early June, comparing President Bush to an Edsel... "brilliant presentation followed by total failure" is what Taki says.
http://www.amconmag.com/2004_06_07/taki.html
Its hard to trust a party that advises its members to lie in order to win elections.
I've been watching politics for 20 years. I've seen Democrats lie, cheat and steal. I've seen Republicans lie, cheat and steal. But the only part which has institionalized the way by which you lie, cheat and steal in order to win elections is the Republican party.
My father told me several weeks ago. "I realized something the other day. I'm a conservative. That's why I can't vote for President Bush, because he's no conservative."
You should read what Pat and Taki have to say. Like Moore, I don't always agree with their politics, but in many cases I can see the substance of their complaints and understand their thinking.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president ... is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
So, Moore fails to initiate real reflection about what really matters.
First, this is really a petrolum war. Given past posts on /. about the gas crisis and the growing dependancy of America and the Western world on the Persian Gulf oil (25% today to 50% in about 5 years for USA).
It fails to present the real issue to us: The oil embargo on Iraq cannot just continue as it was before the war. Not only Iraqii were penalized by it, but also Western world was penalized since oil dependancy is shifting swiftly to the Persian Gulf. So, would you remove the embargo on Iraqian oil with a guy like Saddam Hussein at the commands of the country?
Since the embargo program was a failure because some corruption exists within the UN administrators of the program (and this is under investigation by UN itself right now, but don't count on Moore to let you know more about this) and Saddam was able to manage to sell more oil than he was supposed to and keep the money instead of buying food for the Iraqis, he was able to stay at the commands of the nation with the help of some UN insiders. It is not impossible at all that some opposing countries were just trying to get a commercial advantage on Iraq oil with the cooperation of Saddam Hussein knowing how much they can sell back this oil to the America.
On his side, bin Laden is just trying to control oil exportation from Persian Gulf countries using the Al-Qaeda terrorism organization. So, he is just trying to break the distribution channels everywhere in the Persian Gulf countries. Democracy is surely his number one ennemy. It is much more easier to make an agreement with half a dozen dictators or war lords than with a democratic country.
At my sense, Michael Moore is just a clown with his so-called documentary movie Farenheit 9/11.
BTW, since some of you have raised the issue about the other Palme d'or winner documentary from Jacques-Yves Cousteau, just keep in mind at the time Slient World was produced it was a real technical advance in the cinematography art to be able to produce an underwater movie. This, itself, justify the Palme d'or. Nothing like that in Moore's movie.
Achille Talon
Hop!
For what it's worth, Fahrenheit 9/11 received a 14A rating in Canada... and we tend to be a little stricter in terms of such things. For example, an R rating in Canada means if you're under 18, you don't get in at all, even if accompanied by an adult/parent.
Return of the King had a PG-13 rating in the US, and that included a scene with several heads being chucked over a wall via catapult.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
All the interviews tool place after his death
"Lipscomb became involved in the project after receiving a call from Moore's company. Staffers had read a magazine article that mentioned her son's death. She met with Moore, a Davison native, at her house. "
The New York Times: Will Michael Moore's Facts Check Out?
By PHILIP SHENON / The New York Times
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/ind ex.php?id=25
some quotes follow, please see the link for the full article...
After a year spent covering the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, I was recently allowed to attend a Hollywood screening. Based on that single viewing, and after separating out what is clearly presented as Mr. Moore's opinion from what is stated as fact, it seems safe to say that central assertions of fact in "Fahrenheit 9/11" are supported by the public record (indeed, many of them will be familiar to those who have closely followed Mr. Bush's political career).
Mr. Moore is readying for a conservative counterattack, saying he has created a political-style "war room" to offer an instant response to any assault on the film's credibility. He has retained Chris Lehane, a Democratic Party strategist known as a master of the black art of "oppo," or opposition research, used to discredit detractors. He also hired outside fact-checkers, led by a former general counsel of The New Yorker and a veteran member of that magazine's legendary fact-checking team, to vet the film. And he is threatening to go one step further, saying he has consulted with lawyers who can bring defamation suits against anyone who maligns the film or damages his reputation.
"We have gone through every single word of this film; literally every word; and verified its accuracy," said Joanne Doroshow, a public interest lawyer and filmmaker who shared in a 1993 Oscar for documentaries and who joined the fact-checking effort last month. Ms. Doroshow is responsible for preparing what she calls a "fact-checking bible," with material ranging from newspaper and magazine articles to copies of the Federal Register, that will allow the film's lawyers and publicists to provide backup for its allegations."
That said, Mr. Moore's fact-checkers does not view the film as straight reportage. "This is an Op-Ed piece, it's not a news report," said Dev Chatillon, the former general counsel for The New Yorker. "This is not The New York Times, it's not a network news report. The facts have to be right, yes, but this is an individual's view of current events. And I'm a very firm believer that it is within everybody's right to examine the actions of their government."
Besides, it may turn out that the most talked-about moments in the film are the least impeachable. Mr. Moore makes extensive use of obscure footage from White House and network-news video archives, including long scenes that capture President Bush at his least articulate. For the White House, the most devastating segment of "Fahrenheit 9/11" may be the video of a befuddled-looking President Bush staying put for nearly seven minutes at a Florida elementary school on the morning of Sept. 11, continuing to read a copy of "My Pet Goat" to schoolchildren even after an aide has told him that a second plane has struck the twin towers. Mr. Bush's slow, hesitant reaction to the disastrous news has never been a secret. But seeing the actual footage, with the minutes ticking by, may prove more damaging to the White House than all the statistics in the world.
It could be that even more than average fell into this demographic for this movie, but I'd like to see some real evidence before I believe that, but otherwise this doesn't look any different than the null hypothesis to me.
The poster to which I replied made the following claim: "Michael Eisner is quoted in the press as saying that he didn't want to risk having certain tax benefit revoked...." I challenged the truth of that statement. None of the replies to me so far have even remotely supported the poster's original statement, and none of the links you provided have any link from Eisner saying any such thing, so what you're saying is not responsive to what I said.
If you are spending your hard earned money looking for truth or fact, please look elsewhere.
Hmm. The documentary is chuck full of facts.
Just as a White House Press Conference is chuck full of facts.
What they both lack is truth. They are both facades, they are facts presented in a way to make an argument. The White House wants you to believe that the President is self-assured, and competent. Michael Moore wants to show you the other side... the vacant look on his face when he learns of the atacks, how he is very chummy with the House of Saud and oil companies.
Or are you claiming that Moore's movie lacks facts? That these things never happened? That the footage he has is also computer generated? That's a pretty bold claim.
If you ever took a course on philosophy, you'd know that the truth isn't so easy to find. It is up to the viewer to take the argument that Moore has composed, and place it in contrast to the facade that the White House Press Office puts forth, and decide... which one is closer to the truth.
I remember Roger & Me, and you're nit picking. Whether the plant closing took place 7 years later, or 1 year later, the fact is that Flint, Michigan was ignored. That's all Moore was trying to point out in that film.
Honestly, what insanity has befallen the United States when people refuse to see a movie because it is biased? What sort of way to behave is that? By this self-censoring of the political spectrum, people become more and more convinced that their side is the "right" side--and that it has the more potent quantity of the "truth", compared to their opponents. Well folks, I've got some news for you. Consider this: the reason more than one opinion in politics exists is because there is no true, or right answer. Despite the fact that the USA Patriot Act is a Civil Rights-limiting document, the average US citizen still holds more freedom in the palm of their hand than do the majority of the people in this world. By refusing to even acknowledge the existence of another opinion on matters you are simply wasting your precious, beautiful freedom. It is an absolute neccesity that not only do you see this movie, that you expound upon, or at least THINK about why you do or do not agree with it. Don't turn to FoxNews or CNN to spit out some sort of trash debate in the name of "balanced and fair news," because by deciding what should be presented, versus what is not presented, they skew the news. Everyone in this nation is in such a hurry to be balanced, never to express an opinion, never creating a new idea, eager to align themselves with current majority trends and, unfortunately, to be normal. I absolutely applaud those individuals who do not fear striking out against the norm to present a side of things that is unique, and well researched. See the movie.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/conspiracytheories/
The Fifth Estats, a Canadian investigative show on CBC, had already done a documentary on 9/11 and literally EVERYTHING Moore says in his film is backed up by this episode (see link). In fact they had even MORE DAMAGING evidence which Moore does not include in his film to which I can only assume he HELD BACK that information in fear of a complete backlash from the American public.
It's very frightening what the Americans are ignoring about Bush. They have been so completely duped that even in the face of truth they can't come to grips with the fact the the Bush family is simply not out for the good of the American people.
I'm so happy to be Canadian, and proud to not have gone to war to line the pockets of your president and vice president.
PLEASE follow the link above and read everything you can from the online report (originally a tv documentary). PLEASE keep an open mind on the subject.
> What would have happened differently had the man jumped
> up out of his seat screamed out "HOLY SHIT KIDS, WE'RE
> GOING TO FUCKING DIE!" and then run out of the room?
I love how some people would like to believe that Bush had only two options: sit there are read "My Pet Goat" or get up screaming his head off that everyone was going to die.
The fact is before the event started, Bush was told that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. Bush, not 6 weeks earlier had been given a briefing called "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States". Bin Laden had also tried to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993. Bush also knew by this time that Bin Laden was behind the U.S.S. Cole attack. I would hope that the man who is in charge of protecting our country would have thought, "I'm going to delay this photo op, since this might be serious." But, hey, maybe that's too much to ask.
So Bush sits down. Kids start reading. Bush is told a second plane crashes. At this point, a leader would tell the kids, "Keep up the good work reading. Thank you for inviting me today, but I'm being called away -- 'president stuff'," and he would have walked out.
There is absolutely every reason to believe that Bush was needed at the beginning of this. Bush is the only person who could give the order to scramble military jets to shoot down civilian aircraft if necessary. It was later determined that Cheney gave this order and no proof could be made that Cheney checked with Bush first, although he claimed the order came from Bush.
What does Bush do instead? He sits there. Eyes looking around. Then he picks up the "My Pet Goat" book. He reads the damn thing. He sits there for close to 10 minutes. I read his reaction as Bush waiting for someone to tell him what to do.
I hope the book was worth it.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The point is that some people believe it to be the same crime as killing a live human being. Would you permit the murder of a child if he had been forced upon the mother in a violent act?
There's an old thought experiment by Judith Jarvis Johnson that goes like this...
"But now let me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you-we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you." Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says, "Tough luck, I agree, but you've now got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him." I imagine you would regard this as outrageous..."
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Check out Christopher Hitchens' article about the film. Hitchens is a liberal but the article is very fair and very balanced.
7 43 25337X/103-1867105-0707807?v=glance
http://slate.msn.com//id/2102723/
I was also watching the history channel today and they had the author of a book critical of the bushes.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0
Craig Ungers, House of Bush, House of Saud. He mentioned that the Bin Laden family are heavily invested in many US corporations, the biggest being Snapple and Disney. Seems that part of Mikes movie is brought to you by the Bin Ladens.
The biggest issue isn't whether or not they were allowed to fly when no one else could, is that they were allowed to fly out of the country at all. Fifteen of the hijackers were Saudis. According to the 9/11 Commission (Staff Statement No. 10), of the 142 Saudis that flew out of the country, only 30 were interviewed by the FBI. And how extensive do you think those interviews were?
Now, I'm not saying that all Saudis were suspects or that they should never have been allowed to leave the country. But why the rush? Especially given that we know there were ties between the terrorists and the Saudi government, ties that our government is doing its best to cover up (remember those 25 or so blacked out pages?). Why do the Saudi government any favors?
I love this!
... by the way, BUSH IS A MILLIONAIRE why do you trust him?
.. THE HAVE's and THE HAVE MORE's
Simple simmian! you're great!
you are the perfect example of what is so damn wrong with your people!
You don't like someone's opinion, so you make fun of his appearance!
I love it when you Dubya lovers make yourselves look so stupid!
You must have at least seen the commercials for the movie, where bush himself jokes about being with his own kind of people
Ya it was a joke he was making, but his choice of humour so blatantly tells us how he really feels about things.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
> then it is not a documentary. It's a getBushoutofofficumentary.
/. kids just ask yourself if you would be less inclined to see a movie at a theatre that was unabashedly conservative? Well isn't it reasonable to assume us conservatives are equally less likely to patronize an out of the closet pinko chain? Doesn't that spell lower attendance for both sides, especially here in flyover country where most towns only have one major theatre showing first run movies?
Exactly. As Moore has been bloviating every time a fawning press has stuck a microphone near his fat head. It is about "getting Bush out of office."
I hope Hollywood understands the implications of this movie. It means their end if they aren't careful. Think about it. This is the first feature film written, produced and released with the expressed purpose of influencing an election. It is so blatent that the FEC is probably going to restrict the TV ads after Jul 31 as political ads. (Which only means the DVD release will get spamvertised on the evening news and Larry King, just means Lions Gate won't have to actually spend ad money but anyway...) But this movie making a profit will only open a floodgate of copycats, and the Hollywood system being what it is almost all will be liberal. Liberal news bias was always something they could argue doesn't really exist. NOBODY is willing to take the position that Moore isn't outright political and all Deaniac/nutjob, including Moore himself. F911 is ALL about Moore's ego and grandstanding. In other words it is Hollywood.
But the backlash will be sure and swift. Theatre chains will have to become like newspapers and choose sides, of course most will be leftist and give prime screen space to the leftist pictures over profitable entertainment. This will cause an even further decline in attendence, especially out here in flyover country where you will be hard pressed to find a screen that averages $100/day over this Moore flick's run.
All you
Democrat delenda est
There are no voters under 17 in this nation, and kids are free to see R-rated movies with their parents (or at some theaters, parents can sign a form letting their kids see any R rated movie). If you want your kids to see the film, take them. Or get it on DVD when it comes out.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
how evil my country's leaders are
They are.
how worthy of the world's hate my country is
It's not.
how stupid we are as Americans
Some are, although I'd say some are ignorant of the damage being inflicted to the US by Bush.
You are confusing the fact that the US is a country founded on the Constitution guaranteeing freedom and justice for all with select people. The US population is certainly as diverse as anything in the world. That also means there are many opinions out there, ranging from extreme left to extreme right. That makes your country as a whole unworthy of hate. In fact, there is much to be admired of the US. However, your leader is certainly a lying hateful corrupt person and a puppet to the neo-cons. Take it personally if you want, but I don't see the fluke of an election is the result of the "stupidity" of the Americans and worthy of being offended by it. What would be stupid is to re-elect the guy who supports the destruction of the environment (for $$), puts the country in deeper debt than any presidents in the US history (for $$), jeopardizes the education for children (for $$), supports the export of jobs outside the US for ($$) etc. etc.. Hey, that is your country... if you hate it so much, by all means, re-elect Bush.
Washington, like many of his contemporaries, did not understand or believe in political parties, and saw them as fractious agencies subversive of domestic tranquility. When political parties began forming during his administration, and in direct response to some of his policies, he failed to comprehend that parties would be the chief device through which the American people would debate and resolve major public issues. It was his fear of what parties would do to the nation that led Washington to draft his Farewell Address.
SECTION FROM WASHINGTON'S FAREWALL ADDRESS:
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy....
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose; and there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
No one has mentioned the PNAC in any of this. Established in the spring of 1997, the Project for the New American Century is a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership. Read their manifesto, it states in plain english that in order for a one world government (read the US) to happen the American people would have to be shocked into it, with someling like a 'new Pearl Harbor'. Look at some of the names of people belonging to this organization(terrorist group).
This is real.
*DrugCheese rants*
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Moore made no attempt at being balanced
Either does Fox News, but they claim to be "Fair and Balanced".
I don't understand this. Why is this barrier only placed for liberal opinion?
Moore has never claimed to be balanced, he wears his bias on his sleeve. He doesn't deny that, why is this a complaint of yours?
I mean come on, what does Moore have to worry about, if bush is as bad as he wants everyone to believe, he could have been fair and balanced and everyone would have reacted the same way? Right? Right?
We'll let the people decide. They've been subjected to one side of the story by the mainstream media. Now they can see the other side from indy film producer Michael Moore.
They get their choice in November.
First of all, I'd like to confess that I'm somewhat of a Michael Moore fan. I've enjoyed his books and movies ever since Roger and Me, I've went to a booksigning of his just to meet him and get a signed book, and I made it a point to see Fahrenheit 9/11 on the first day it was out.
That said, I tend to look at most things, Moore's movies included, with a critical eye. The biggest problems I have with this movie are not with its content, but the way the content will be recieved. Moore has created an extremely powerful movie, but will it meet its goal of persuading people to change their minds about Bush or the war against terrorism? I really don't think so, and I'll explain why.
The crowd at the theater had already made up their minds about Bush. The movies main points - Bush was elected unfairly, Bush is an idiot who didn't know what to do for seven minutes after the second plane hit the tower, Bush diverted attention to creating a war against Iraq as soon as possible, and that he lied to the American people - were all applauded loudly by the crowd inside. Moore used an extreme amount of artistic licence and left out many facts to make his point, and the audience lapped up his viewpoint without question. This was not an audience that needed any additional persuading not to vote for Bush. Perhaps conservatives are seeing the movie in other theaters or waiting until the lines die down. But I didn't see them or hear any of them at the showing I attended.
The thing is, people who are still on the fence about who to vote for this November are likely to be those who need to understand both sides of the story. This movie deliberately sidesteps anything that could be used to question its points of view. Anyone who needs to see a different viewpoint about the things in Moore's movie will have to look elsewhere. When they do, it will become immediately apparent how Moore deliberately avoided lots of obvious things to make the points he did.
For instance, the movie states that with any possible recount, Gore would have been re-elected. That's a rather narrow viewpoint, because with both the recount the Supreme Court stopped and with the recount Gore wanted, Gore still would have lost. What Moore meant, but didn't say was that with any possible statewide recount with a certain arbitrary standard applied uniformly, Gore would have come out ahead. But we are made to believe that the Supreme Court stopped a process that would have resulted in a Gore presidency. Not true.
Richard Clarke appears in this movie where he states the Bush administration too quickly focused on Iraq, which weakened our war with Al-Qaeda. The movie also makes you believe that Bush was behind getting the Bin Laden's family out of the U.S. before the general ban on flight was lifted. What it doesn't say is that the flights didn't begin until the ban was lifted - and the authorization to get the Bin Ladens out of the country was made by Clarke himself.
Anyone wanting to dig a little will have no problem finding out that Moore was against taking action against Afghanistan when we did. But one of this movie's main points was that we didn't go after Osama hard enough and fast enough.
Moore portrays Iraq before we bombed it as an idyllic place, with children playing in the streets and happy citizens going about their business. This at the very least ignores the basic facts about Sadaam's murderous regime. For someone who really wanted to examine the facts, they could easily find out that more people were killed and maimed each year under Sadaam's regime than under the occupation. But this is opposite of the impression we get from this movie.
That's not to say this movie didn't score any points with this skeptical viewer. The scene of the contractors convention designed to teach people how to profit from the war turned my stomach. Watching the blank stare on Bush's face after he was told about the second plane made me seriously wonder about his competence. And I hadn't realized the extent the
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Why I hate Michael Moore, by Down8:
He makes up "controversy".
He pretends his movies are 'documentaries', and lets them be promoted as such, but when confronted, he'll tell you, "oh, by the way, they are just my opinion" (on the most recent Daily Show).
He fakes his films - such as cutting together 2 week apart film to make it look as if you could walk into a bank and walk out with a gun, when, in fact, he arranged to have the gun delievered there, after his 2 week waiting period.
And more than anything, his 'need to be heard'. That smacks of a fat, lonely bastard, with a need to be the center of attention, and I hate that kind of person. He needs to go back to writing a weblog like a normal, attention-starved 14yr old girl.
This has nothing to do with his politics. Point of fact, I can't stand to sit thru any of his garbage for the way it's presented, so I don't know much about his politics. He's a poseur, in the worst sense of the term, and he should not be listened to by anyone with a useful brain cell.
But that's just me, and I prefer to think for myself,
-bZj
.sig
You are the one twisting facts here. His movie stands as is, if you have a specific fact to chalenge, go ahead. Until then, your failing to judge this movie on its merits.
O'Reilly is beyond biased, to the point of being warped. Yet he bills himself as the master of the no spin zone. Horseshit.
Rush actually claims to be infallible, when he's a fucking liar. He is also a coward: he pioneered "unguested" confrontation. He will NEVER present a credible, well-spoken opponent on his show. It's all sycophants and patsies.
"Liberals" actually debate things. Franken has a well-spoken conservative on regularly. It's not totally level, but he doesn't turn off the mike when he's losing the argument, like O'Reilly. He is far more interested in debate than Coulter, et. al. They duck him.
Conservatives are blind. The most prominent ones are sick.
Can we discuss one fact from the movie for a second?
Is it true that for 7 minutes after Bush was told that the second plane hit the WTC, he continued to read to elementary schoolkids?
This came one month after he had received a briefing entitled "Bin Ladin determined to attack in US" which described how Al Qaeda operatives were in the US planning to hijack planes, and 8 years after an earlier attack on the WTC.
It would seem that the President, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military, would not want to waste 7 minutes before taking steps to organize defenses (such as issuing orders to defend against other airliner attacks, which were the sole responsibility of the president under rules in place at the time).
Has GW ever gone on the record explaining what he was doing for those 7 minutes? Did the 9/11 commission ask him about it?
I had never heard about that fact before this film. My first impression was that it made GW look like a clueless moron who had no idea what to do. It's as if he can't think on his feet, he needs someone to tell him what to do.
I live in Central Texas, about fifteen minutes from the Crawford Ranch that Bush stays in so often. It was very interesting here because all two of the local theatres refused to show the film (yes, they do show all the usual "opening everywhere" films on time), and I've heard nothing on the local news about F 9/11. The first time most people around here heard of Fahrenheit 9/11, or even Michael Moore were when the national commercials came on. Mind you, these aren't political dumbasses, most of them knew more than the average person about politics and candidates.
Ah, yes... and here is my favorite passage from mooreexposed.com:
While we're at it: Bowling shows footage of a B-52 on display at the Air Force Academy, while Moore scornfully intones that the plaque under it "proudly proclaims that the plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972."
The plaque actually reads that "Flying out of Utapao Royal Thai Naval Airfield in southeast Thailand, the crew of 'Diamond Lil' shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi during 'Linebacker II' action on Christmas eve 1972." This is pretty mild compared to the rest of Bowling, but the viewer can't even trust Moore to honestly read a monument.
I now have a question for the reader:
What is a B-52 doing northeast of Hanoi during 'Linebacker II' action on Christmas eve 1972?
A) Sightseeing.
B) Planting flowers.
C) Killing Vietnamese people.
Apparently, the viewer can't trust mooreexposed.com to fully understand what the plaque tells us about this plane's actions on Christmas eve 1972.
"... by telling people in the U.K. and Canada that we're a bunch of obnoxious idiots."
He didn't have to tell us. We knew.
Putting the romance back into necromancer.
Michael Moore ungraciously steals from other artists
How can you say that Moore is stealing when he uses that title, but when Lindows steals from Microsoft (Lindows/Windows) it is parody?
(this is assuming you support Lindows right to have that name, a google search makes me think so)
forget it.
Moore showcases the left-wing pessimism that's eating its way through the Democratic party by telling people in the U.K. and Canada that we're a bunch of obnoxious idiots.
I'm Canadian, and having spent a lot of time in the U.S., I knew you were "a bunch of obnoxious idiots" long before I ever heard about Michael Moore. Not all of you are obnoxious idiots, but Bush and Moore are two of the biggest. Moore is quite funny though, and I appreciate humour.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Easily, by simply editing the clips. ie: the Bush clip on a golf course, answering questions and then telling the media to watch his swing. Moore doesnt want you to know because he only flashed the clip there for a second but Bush was spending time with Tony Blair during that trip - not all fun and games. Moore is a genius in the way Joseph Goebbels, Hitlers propagandist was.
Reading through all these comments, I have come to the following observations:
1. People on both sides of the aisle put so much stock in FACTS yet they always conveniently forget about the CONTEXT. Facts are cold and hard, context gives them warmth. Translate that however you like.
2. I am struck constantly as of late as to how arrogant, self-righteous and self-absorbed some of the Left is in the country. Several commentors have made an effort to come across as fair and balanced, but instead have given off a scent of arrogance, especially when talking of the unwashed masses of the very stupid and caveman-ish American public. It is convenient to believe that people who don't believe what you believe are cretons, much easier to just right them off I suppose. I used to believe the same, but I no longer do. People _ARE_ smarter than you think, perhaps you need to try harder to explain your case. And to the Right, you aren't innocent here either, a lot of the same criticisms apply.
3. The Right has nothing to fear from this film. Moore will make a lot of money, some will see confirmation of their views in his film, others will see the opposite. In the end, though, Moore is still a ghoulish opportunist who is more interested in fanning the flames of discontent than anything else, especially if it enhances his standing as spokesperson of the Left and it makes money.
4. Fishbowls are a dangerous place to be. For all those who may visit a website, see a lot of people who agree with you, and then assume that that must be so across the board: big mistake!
5. What is with all the anti-Christianity stuff? For a group who proclaims to be all about acceptance, understanding, loving your fellow man, diversity, there is a lot of intolerance here, an uncomfortable amount.
6. Those on the Left with a seething hatred for Bush. Stop it, it makes you look foolish and petty and turns off those who are in the middle. You want the moderate vote, so don't alienate them. You are in big enough trouble already by having Kerry, don't make it worse.
tekan - somewhere in the middle
Do any other non-Americans find this as hilarious as I do ?
Is it true that for 7 minutes after Bush was told that the second plane hit the WTC, he continued to read to elementary schoolkids?
According to the Memory Hole, is is.
May we live long and die out
It used to be that people of differing opinions could agree to disagree. People could talk about the issues of day with civility and with respect for those with whom they were arguing. Now, the rules seemed to have changed. No longer is there room for intelligent and informed discussion, but only left-wing venom and right-wing drivel. The political landscape of the US is now extemely polarized and the sides keep getting more and more polarized as they fend off the parries of the other.
It seems that this polarization has been steadily increasing since Reagan left office. And now it has reached a point where the country is nearly evenly divided between conservative and liberal. The liberals who I know have become very much more liberal and the conseravtives much more conservative and each side believes that the other is idiotoic, distorts the facts, lies, and spews venom and vile for political gain. With these views being held by both sides, it's now impossible to even simply debate the issues. It's sad that we have reached such a point where "we" are right and "they" are wrong. I fear where our politcs are heading when there is unwillingness to listen to and a hatred of those with different views.
I think a lot of people generally miss the point of Michael Moore's movies. True they might be propaganda, and they might be full of lies, but I don't think making accurate documentaries is what Michael Moore wants to do. His main aim is to get people to think! The fact that a post about F911 on a nerds news site generates 1000+ comments shows that he's succeeded brilliantly in this goal. That's what he deserves an oscar for and all the other awards.
I find it funny that in a country as big as America, there's only ONE person - ONLY ONE - that's got enough courage to produce something different from the mainstream! Americans always talk about freedom of speech and being able to say what you want, but when someone like Michael Moore comes along and does just that, he's pulled through the dirt instantly. No matter how many lies are in his movies, I think he may be one of the greates patriots around at the moment. He sees problems with his country and attempts to make people aware of these problems to improve things.
Even the biggest Michael Moore hater must admit that something's wrong when billions (trillions?) of dollars are spent on a war in Iraq, when people in your own country are dying in the streets because they don't have access to health care, food, education and shelter. I'll just talk about one of the facts that struck me as horrible from Bowling for Columbine (I'm not sure if this fact is true, but if it is it's just absolutely horrible!). The fact I'm refering to is that welfare is being privatized! How can this possibly work?! There's nothing to be gained for a private organisation from running a welfare system for the general public. As a result that welfare system will of course suffer greatly. How can a government allow something like this to happen?!
It's funny to see right wingers across the nation use every forum available in a desperate attempt to discredit Moore while at the same time saying "This isn't a movie that's actually going to change anyone's mind, after all." I wonder why they don't just ignore it, then?
Fahrenheit 9/11 opened as the highest-grossing movie in the country, something no documentary has ever done before. And if you follow that link you'll see that it did it with approximately one-third the number of screens as any of the other movies in the list. This means that all showings, no matter what time, must be sold out. Have you ever heard of such a thing before? I haven't.
Even in Bush strongholds in the South, this movie has people lined up around the block waiting to see it.
Keep on saying the movie is doing "pretty darn poorly" and that it won't be around in another three weeks if it makes you feel better. Come September 1st, when it's released on DVD, Bushies are going to feel even worse.
No, Leni Riefenstahl's 1930's work has a visual impact that made her famous. It wasn't just the propaganda that made her notable. Her work is considered art even though the NAZI system it served was totally depraved and wrong. Moore isn't even in the same class in any respect.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Gee, this is the second post I've seen in this thread in the last few minutes saying that Moore is the left-wing version of Ann Coulter. Was this one of Rush's talking points yesterday or something?
Moore is sensational at times but he takes more care with the truth than pretty much any celebrity journalist you see on the air these days, particularly those of the "fair and balanced" variety on Fox.
Moore's critics tend to focus on minutiae while conceding that his larger points are correct. For example, many complained about the scene in Bowling for Columbine where he was given a rifle for opening up a new account. Some say he could not have picked up the gun from the bank immediately, he would have had to wait for it to be delivered. Moore might have got that point wrong, or he might not have, I haven't been convinced either way, but no one disputes that the bank really was giving away guns for opening new accounts. Most of Moore's critics "smoking guns" are of this caliber.
Ann Coulter, on the other hand, has never been caught saying anything that remotely resembles the truth. She's made a living out of appearing regularly on all major political TV shows while complaining that the overwhelming liberal bias of American media prevents conservatives from being heard. She also says liberals can't argue from policy, that all they do is ad hominem attacks, while in the same breath she labels everyone to the left of Joe McCarthy a traitor.
Really, the only reason she was ever featured on TV was because of her looks. Happily, judging from the recent pictures I've seen of her, this is no longer a factor and hopefully her period of undeserved fame is just about finished.
> Aren't all those social programs simply ways to buy votes?
No - they're a reflection of the idea that we're civilized enough that we don't want to leave the poor to starve and die on our streets, and we're rich enough that we can afford to feed them.
We don't feed poor children in our cities because we want their votes; we feed them because we're not heartless bastards.
The problem with Michael Moore is not really the veracity of what he states, it is that he omits anything that would contradict his point. I am not going to go over any examples. I think that Christopher Hitchens does a fine job outlining some. The shocking thing is that people who I would otherwise consider critical thinkers (on both sides of the aisle) can be taken in by such garbage. Even the most liberal op ed journalists suggest that this movie (not documentary) be taken with a grain of salt. Anyone who actually thinks about this for more than a nano second realize that this movie's conclusions are completely unsupported. In science, you formulate theories and then try and disprove them. The same is true for social science. In Moore's movie, he formulated an oppinion and then taylored what evidence to use to best support the thesis while ommiting anything that is unhelpful.
The crowd that seems likely to find this movie believable are as paranoid as those who are convinced that Clinton had Vince Foster killed. Please read Hitchens for a good retort. BTW for those who are unfamiliar with Cristopher Hitchens, he is a conservative, brilliant writer who is no great fan of Bush.
The same talking heads that like to label all criticism of the president as "extremist" and "anti-American" are the people that made their bones trashing Clinton every day, whether we had troops in the field or not. They have no shame or honesty.
Unfortunately, for most Americans, they are the only source of information. People like Greg Pelast, who was writing exposes about the corruption of the 2000 election right after it happened, had to go to other countries to get published.
The American press won't print anything that goes against the business or political interests of the leaders of the handful of corporation that control all American media. And this is the real crisis, one that will last long after the Chimp-in-Chief has left the stage.
People on the net have been discussing that for years. Same with the lie he told about seeing the first plane hit. Or the lie that Cheney told that there was a credible threat to Air Force 1, which is why Brave Brave Sir George had to spend the day hiding.
When people don't have a wide information feed, they turn into crackpots. Their point of view is shaped by ignorance. Members of the Taliban are examples.
So to keep from turning into crackpots ourselves, and as voters, dangerous ones, Americans should seek out a wide range of information sources. Certainly any American can understand BBC coverage, or that by The Economist magazine. It's interesting how much more critical of America it is than that of our mainstream press. And these are our allies, and in the case of The Economist, conservatives! Regarding diversity of information sources, keep in mind that there's a difference in legitimacy, in terms of fact checking, between news coverage and radio-show opinion that is spontaneously generated in response to a caller on the phone.
In the US, the neo-con right is rejecting the most accessible sources of information by dismissing the media as "liberal", and slowly turning into ignorant crackpots. And ignorant crackpots *inside* the US are even more dangerous that ignorant crackpots *outside*. Just look at who they elected to see what I mean -- one of their own.
BTW, how do you think the press got to be so "liberal"? Do you suppose researching the suffering of other people opened the eyes and hearts of one journalist after another? Maybe the essence of liberalism is "wanting to help those not your own". Or "making everyone your own". I can see how covering the news would do that to a person.
There is an easy way to tell when Moore is lying (or at least distorting the truth). It's whenever he's talking or behind a camera. Bowling for Columbine was a such a propaganda piece I bet it could have taught Pravda a lesson. Not only is much of Bowling for Columbine lies, Moore knows they are becuase he was told his info was inaccurate WHILE he was filming. Please check http://www.bowlingfortruth.com . Moore has ABSOLUTLY NO CREDIABILITY.
Now that you've (hopefully) read that site, lets apply what we know about Moore to his new movie. First, he's a rabid anti-republican. How many of you would pay any attention to a movie about democrats that was filmed by Rush Limbaugh? Hopefully none. It's stupid, it'd be like asking a satanist to tell you about christianity.
Finally, check http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2102723/ . This page is written by a fairly left-wing guy, and he tears apart this piece of crap that Moore has shat out.
I don't like Bush. I'm a libertarian, and a limited-government guy. Bush certainly doesn't appeal to me, but Moore has taken a que from Big Brother about dis-information. To him IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH and lies are truth.
Michael Moore ungraciously steals from other artists
What?!
Look bunky, the title is homage (since in Moore's view the political atmosphere in the United States is approaching that depicted in the book). No matter what Mr. Bradbury says, you can't copyright titles. (I can't believe that man is upset, by the way -- someone must have got to him.) If you could, the available namespace for new creative works would be impossibly cluttered by now. To call naming your movie similarly to another work in order to make a point about similarity ungraciously stealing from another artist is unconscionable.
But I wouldn't be angry at you, except you made that damnable "limousine liberal" crack. If you think it's possible to get rich off of producing documentaries than you are a schmuck, pardon my Yiddish.
Moore's comes from a working class background, a fact that's obvious to anyone whose seen Roger & Me and don't give me that crap about it being full of lies. His father and grandfather worked for General Motors. He had to sell his home to get Roger & Me made. Take a look for yourself. It's impossible he got into this business expecting to make boatloads of cash; that he's succeeded at it means he should be lauded, not condemned for the crime of success. If you're a documentary filmmaker who somehow makes money you must have a spark of genius in you, just like Rush Limbaugh must have for proving talk radio to be profitable. (Whether I agree with him is something else -- but Rush did made it work.)
Conservatives should be lauding his success, but instead they try to prevent people from seeing his movie, all because Moore doesn't agree with them.
free speech also requires that its audience is critical of what it is being told, otherwise, it is just propaganda, regardless of the message. so, i won't rave about 9/11 without asking a few questions. and even then, i probably won't rave about it. moore put together an interesting piece, but i really didn't need this movie to figure out bush was an idiot. what i do ask is that we don't call this a documentary, since there is no room left for objectivity once moore was done riding around capitol hill in an ice-cream truck. there is probably much truth within this movie, but the message is so heavily slanted, it's tough to get beyond the guy with the megaphone. /. readers have already critiqued this thread to death, but i will raise this one question:
moore was so quick to make fun of the "coalition", which, in fairness, wasn't much of a coalition at all ... however there was still one huge omission .. he never mentioned the UK, or blair's solidarity behind the US and its president.
moore has an agenda, just like bush, it just happens to be going in a different direction. take in his message, but don't make it gospel.
-- i'm not paranoid. who told you that???
But also, everyone should be aware of the page in which Moore responds to the people who claim he twisted facts:
Moore's considerably-less-famous response page.
He is NOT Ann Coulter of the "extreme left".
If you think so, you clearly indicate your ignorance and political bias.
Ann Coulter makes probably the MOST stupid baseless claims of ANYONE on any side that I know of today.
This movie was not as good as Columbine; however, factually it will not have the troubles columbine did. Columbine has some fact issues.
Maybe I could see you comparing him with RUSH.
9-11 is VERY mild and VERY careful. He could go so much in depth and make reasonable theories without a single lie---- but he does NOT. Its almost like its a clever ploy to get people to FREAK out about next to nothing just to illustrate how bad things have become.
Remember people it was ANN and RUSH who talked of clinton having mass graves in AK....
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Ack.
Those guys should have spent some time with real leftwing radicals. I mean, come on guys, there are places on the world, wehere gun control is whole heartedly supported by the conservatives, and they and the socialists keep overall tax burden far above 50% with a straight face. Where unions as you know them are a state guaranteed right and hold 50%-1 vote on every company board.
Where the real lefties are so far removed from reality that you ask yourself what universe they come from. Hey, check out Germany's (really) beloved 'Secretary of State/Foreign affairs Secretary' Joschka Fischer, who started his political career personally knowing qiute a few of the 70's Terrorist luminaries, or our somehwat despised "Environment Minister", who not-so-long-ago used to be menmber of a real orthodox communist group ("orthodox" meaning "unconditionally loyal to Moscow" - we used to joke about those Spartakus guys in university that they would open their umbrella as soon as it started to rain in Moscow)
Oh, and go to France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Greece, you name it - you will find all shades of real socialists and communists there as well.
As for Europe, Mr. Kerry (like Clinton before him) is a moderate conservative, while Mr Bush would probably grouped with the likes of Haider, LePen and Fini as a borderline extreme right-wing populist (though his habit to name fundamentalist christian ayatollahs to top governement posts is a practice not seen anywhere in Europe these days).
Most poor rock and roll one hit wonders that make it big and successfull forget were they came from and end up tanking. Even if he was an average poor boy in the beguining doesn't mean he isn't a "limousine liberal" now. As a matter of fact, it apears that he is even less then that and mainly a machine schill for the liberals. It would apear that apeasing them is what really counts to moore in this day and age.
Success makes alot of people forget who they are/were and often is the failing point that make people who have achived drop back to were they came from. The problem is that this time around they don't like any of it. They dispise the roots that help image them into a person admired and successfull that even you become a fanboy. The grandparrent poster was correctly portraying moore from the perception of us non-fanboy liberals/?/.
OK, I googled it. According to some of the results, the top 1% pay about a third. The top 5% pay a bit more than half.
Is someone "getting off light"? I don't know...Assuming you're remembering that statistic right, I suppose it would depend on what "control over 90% of the wealth" means. It doesn't sound like just income or taxable property to me. The owner of a factory or software company probably "controls" a heck of a lot more "wealth" than a factor worker, but the applicable taxes won't necessarily reflect that.
...the film will be released with the title Celsius 488.3, or perhaps Kelvin 761.32 -- The [SI] Temperature at which Freedom Burns.
| Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
Most poor rock and roll one hit wonders that make it big and successfull forget were they came from and end up tanking.
Ah, but after Roger & Me, Moore didn't have a lot of success except for the books, until Bowling for Columbine. Canadian Bacon did poorly (I'd say deservedly so), Pets or Meat I've only even seen mentioned in two places (one of which I found today), The Big One just followed Moore's book tour, and T.V. Nation and Awful Truth were not profitable.
And the thing about Bowling for Columbine, arguably Moore's first really big success since Roger & Me: The movie is not anti-gun.
It's anti-NRA, it's anti-Charleton Heston, it's (weirdly) anti-Dick Clark, it's anti-nightly news, it's anti-James Nichols, it's anti-atmosphere of fear.
But it shows that Canada has more guns per capita than the United States, and a much lower gun-related murder rate. If anything, it shows that American paranoia is responsible for that more than guns.
Bowling for Columbine is arguably Moore's most centered work to date. People who complain about it lying miss the entire point -- none of the supposed lies that I've heard dispute the essential core of the movie.
It's true that he probably is a little too active in going after Heston, and Dick Clark, but I understand why he did it.
Even if he was an average poor boy in the beguining doesn't mean he isn't a "limousine liberal" now. As a matter of fact, it apears that he is even less then that and mainly a machine schill for the liberals.
There are machine shills all over the place. The right's outnumber Moore at least ten-to-one; talk radio and Fox News prove that handily. And I don't think he is one, even then. I'd say that shills don't fall on their face, creatively, as often, but instead stick to safe projects.
It would apear that apeasing them is what really counts to moore in this day and age.
Success makes alot of people forget who they are/were and often is the failing point that make people who have achived drop back to were they came from.
Granted. But until someone shows me otherwise, I will continue thinking well of Moore.
(Yes, that's a challenge. Someone out there, show me something damning. I want to know where these rumors come from, if there's anything to them.)
The problem is that this time around they don't like any of it. They dispise the roots that help image them into a person admired and successfull that even you become a fanboy.
Oh my friend, I know I'm a fanboy. Do a Slashdot search connecting "MilenCent" to "Nintendo" and you'll have all the proof you want of that. I don't dress up as Link for Halloween, mind you....*
I am not a Michael Moore fanboy however; a fanboy wouldn't complain about Canadian Bacon, The Big One, or the one-note tone of his books. I do admire Bowling for Columbine, however, and I'm looking forward to Farenheit 9/11. I think the man does good work, and whatever flaws they have are a result of his earnestness more than any calculated shill-factor.
* This comment is part of a blatant bid to get "Michael Moore" connected to "The Legend of Zelda" in Google searches. Rupees! Flint, Michigan! Heart Containers! General Motors! Ganondorf! John Ashcroft!
Who the hell cares that some members of the bin Laden family got shuttled out of the country? This whole brouhaha is, to use a quaint term, a nothingburger.
The bin Laden family is a HUGE family. From what I understand the family patriarch had 54 children, not counting the hundreds of cousins. Osama was the black sheep of the family. He was disowned kicked out of his home country. This is strike one against Mr. Moore, because any ties between Bush and the bin Laden family are completely irrelevant to anything Osama did.
It's not a big deal that bin Ladens attending university in the US were flown out of the country. This was for their protection. If non-Arab sikhs were killed (one was killed in my hometown a week after 9/11) just because they wore turbans, how much more danger would people be if they were named "bin Laden"?
Michael Moore found a tiny molehill in the flight of some bin Laden family members out of the country. It doesn't surprise me that he managed to make an entire 90 minute propaganda film out of this molehill. What is truly amazing are the hordes of people who think this is significant.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Big the discreditings of the discrediting are, on the whole, a lot less compelling than the initial discreditings, which leads me to declare Moore the winner, when the points are added up. (If these pages are still as I remember them -- Moore supposedly adds to his as new charges are brought.)
Let's face it. Michael Moore made this movie to tell a story and to make a point. He took all of the research and interviews, screened them for useful pieces, and then assembled them in order to make his statement. The moive is a collage of pieces designed to turn people against the Iraqi war and to call for the Persident's head at election time. When/if you see the movie keep this in mind: He always supports the Democrat no matter who's on the ticket. He blindly pulls the Dems' party line and never questions it. He has not problem living a lavish Hollywood lifestyle while at the same time calling for higher taxes on the common man. Then ask yourself: Are these the values that I want represented in Washington? Could I afford the lifestyle that I have now if my payroll taxes were 50% higher then they are now? If Saddam isn't a threat to the US, then why didn't the last President pull US troops home? Flame on!
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
I'm a Canadian, and I've found the same thing. I know plenty of Yankees (and a few South'ners) and almost uniformly, they've been interesting and worthwhile people. Whereas I don't agree with all of them on all things (some are tea-totallers, which I as a Canadian find bizarre, some are profoundly religious right (but in a quiet non-proselytizing way), some are very much of the 'America right or wrong' crowd...), but they've usually been able to have a sensible discussion of right and wrong and take into account the right of Canada and Canadians to differ with them. And while doing so, none of them have said unpleasant or belittling things about us.
Contrast this with how many of my allegedly university educated (and college educated) friends look at the Americans - often times the reactions are vitriolic, uncharitable, and reflect only a superficial interface with *actual* Americans, as opposed to some sort of caricature seen on TV or presented in Canadian (opinionated, spin-doctoring, discontent-formenting) media.
If they're all so smart and well educated, they should be able to 'walk a mile in the other guys shoes' and should know better than to form opinions of a whole body of people by the outliers. And they should know that it makes little sense to form opinions with little data. But this paucity of data seems to lead to very nasty and very mean-spirited opinions.
Whether we as Canadians should or should not have joined the war in Iraq, whether we should support the war on terror, whether we have serious border issues ourselves with our own intelligence and police agencies reporting fairly significant terrorist planning and fundraising activities within our borders, etc. - all of these things are things that should be calmly discussed and upon which differing points of view can be coped-with. We should still be able to maintain a civil relationships with our US neighbours.
It is no mark of distinction, no badge of honour, no sign of integrity or eductation to blindly bash those you've never met, to categorize them blankly based on a few noisy mouthpieces, nor to show your own small-hearted nature by vilifying people who have (for the most part) very similar aspirations, lives, and motivations...
To my mind, this kind of behaviour (especially given the way we open our arms to people the rest of the world over) is just pathetic. We should have our own opinions, but we shouldn't be obnoxious buttheads when it comes to our neighbours in the south.
Many of my American friends have apologized for the kind of stereo-typical American tourista that you sometimes encounter ("Those are the kind of people that we even wince about... they make us all look bad.") I feel very much that way about Canadians that can't disagree with their American counterparts without resorting to unthoughtful and unflattering epithets, errant classifications, and bilious polemic. This kind of conduct is unjustified and makes me want to disown these boorish clowns... or at least makes me embarassed to admit to being from the same country, which is sad, because I love the place and I took and Oath to defend it... I just wish some of the people would act a bit more like polite, rational adults and less like petulant, self-absorbed, egocentric children....
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
In the meantime, Al Qaeda expanded its base (no pun intended) twentyfold without doing anything.
The invasion of Iraq has been a $80 billion recruitment drive for Al queda.
Terrorists kill 3000 innocent US civilians and that gave the US the license to attack terrorist bases.
US attacks Iraq and 10000 innocent civilians die. How many people have taken those deaths as a mandate to attack the US ? Ok, so Saddam killed many of his own people...but can you use that argument against 16-30 yr olds whose mom was blown up by an unseen enemy ?
What are these young men going to do ? Join Al queda. And therefore the US will spend more money and resources for "anti-terrorism".
But with the major sponsers of terrorism, that is Al queda and Iraq have their backs broken according to Bush, shouldnt the money spent be going down ?
And shouldnt terrorist attacks be going down ?
Good job bush.
Indeed.
It's amazing just how far right the US thinks the middle is.
I haven't heard Kerry OR Moore say anything I'd interpret even as "left" let alone "extreme left".
So to all you kids in the US of A I say this: Try to get whatever foreign news you can! If it rates well they'll put more of it on! You might even get some world news in your local broadcasts!
"What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos"
Clarke asked the FBI to investigate the people on the list. After they gave the go-ahead, he gave the order his rubber seal. But to quote the article,
And more harrowingly,
In other words, Clarke followed procedure and talked to the FBI. Somebody at the FBI who didn't have authority talked to ____?____ (I don't know, apparently nobody does) and passed that information back to Clarke. Clarke and the Saudi minister of Information say the person was in the top levels of our government. Moore uses this as more evidence that something is rotten in Denmark. Sounds right on to me.
Finally, the planes WERE flying when others were not. The flights commenced on 9/13, which is when airspace was opened, but as has been mentioned frequently, nobody was actually flying on that day. Except Saudis.
See Moore's site (OK, a google cache, the original is 404'ing... )
and the St. Petersburg Times for reference.
QAExpress: Solid bug tracking for you. Graphs and reports for your PHB.
There is little merit to what Moore has to say. I don't say that because of the content of what he says, but how he presents it: in a one-sided, sensationalist, Fox News fashion. By appealing to people's 'sensitivities' he creates a hot topic, just as major news outlets have with the endless war-related topics, etc.
My views are more aligned than opposed to what Moore has to say, and I still wish he'd shut up. He's a logically-terminant fool, with no insight other than the party line: he's the liberal Rush Limbaugh.
I don't trust Moore any more than I do Fox News. He's skirted nearly every 'unavoidable' question about his motives with strawman questions (ie, "What is your motivation for making this film? Is it to be in the lime light?" answer: "Do I look like the kind of person that would make a good impression on a stage?" - or some proximity). If he can't answer a question directed to him in an honest manner, he can't be trusted to answer questions of his own chosing.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Moore spin: Highest levels of government made arrangements to get the Saudis out of the country on 9/13 when no other regularly scheduled flights were in the air.
Conservative spin: Moore is lying, the airspace was re-opened on 9/13.
Liberal response: you missed the whole point. The point is that the U.S. government should have detained and interviewed these people to learn as much as possible about Osama bin Laden. But someone very high up owed these people a favor, and though it to be more important to make them happy than to get to the bottom of the 9/11 terror attacks. So they got to board flights out of the country long before many other important people did, not to mention regular travelers.
> Do any other non-Americans find this as hilarious as I do ?
Yep. I also don't quite understand why Americans use "liberal" as a term of abuse. Of course, as an Australian, I use "Liberal" as a term of abuse, but in Australia, our Liberal Party is anything but. They're more like Republicans (ie, right-wing, bible-bashing arseholes who want the poor people kept in their place).
What a long, strange trip it's been.
People in the top 2% of wealth pay over 90% of taxes.
uh, no.
taxes vs. income (see "Share of Income vs. Share of Taxes")
According to the CBO, the top 1% paid 23% of all federal taxes. However, they also made 16% of the nations income, and more interestingly, posessed 39% of the nation's wealth (see here, or just google "us wealth distribution")
Pay 23% of all taxes, and get 39% of the wealth? Sounds like a good deal to me.
I saw the movie openight night in Edmonton, and I can tell you that the theatre was packed, and the audience was very eager to see the show; there was a palpable feeling of excitement, the kind of feeling you get (too rarely) when the ENTIRE audience is anticipating a Really Good Movie. The last time I felt that kind of energy was at LOTR.
Anyways, the audience really got into the spirit of the movie, laughing, clapping, hissing at all the appropriate moments... a lot of pent up anti-Bush energy was being released, and it was fun! As for myself, I was quite entertained, though Moore's CHIEF critisisms against Bush do not align 100% with my own (I think he missed a lot of material). Nevertheless, it's was nice to see the tables turned against Bush, since the little twerp so richly deserves it.
Finally, I find it ironic that anyone would get upset at Moore being a "propagandist"... I mean, can anything that helps discredit the institutionalized Bush propaganda count as propaganda? At the worst, it's an inevitable reaction of equal magnitude in the opposite direction.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
For those who care about reality and other people, read the accounts at http://indict.org.uk/
Unless you are one of the people who find 3000 nude people in Cleveland high art ( http://www.spencertunick.com/ ), but feel 5 terrorist prisoners held naked by a renegade private is systematic torture by an oppressive regime.
Did we mention that Vladimir Putin reports Russian Intelligence verified Sadaam's initiatives to committ terror on US soil?
I'm not a big fan of Moore's work. I think incorporates humor to the extent that it allows for critics to berate his techniques. However...
This is a great film for Americans to see simply for the fact that it packages information on the Bush Administration and it's complete incompetence in a way that the average American can digest. Hell, there are still around 50% of us who think Iraq launched the 9/11 attacks (down from a high at over 70% at one time). And, the Bush administration is STILL trying to perpetuate this BS.
The people you hear picking over the details of this film and screaming about the lies are the same ones who don't have a problem with Bush and Cheney lying about Iraq.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
LOL dishonest moderation something I hope I am not guilty of. I have gone from a "troll" to "flamebait" after startign out "insightful." The left is out of touch it's obvious. Don't upset their opinions.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Or you could end up being spat upon and beaten up by the Goon Squads outside the theatres.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
I realize this is complete and utter rubbish flamebait I'm responding to, but these are two totally seperate animals you're talking about. "Windows" (as in MS Windows), is a very generic word used to describe a graphical, _windowed_ operating system. The term "window manager" and "window system" are generic, used by graphical OSs since before the time of MS Windows. I wouldn't say Lindows is a parody, either. Possibly it is part parody, but it is fitting; it brings to mind a Linux-based OS which behaves similarly to MS Windows. (ie it is a windowed operating system)
Moore's title-theft, however, is different. First point of difference: Fahrenheit 451 refers to the temperature at which paper burns, which is integral to the movie. Fahrenheit 9/11 makes reference to the movie content with the "9/11" part, but what does "Fahrenheit" have to do with anything? Because there was a fire in the buildings? woohoo. It's not integral to the theme of the movie that there was a fire. The movie is political propaganda, designed by a skilled lier to attempt to sway an election. To mistake it as anything more significant is folly. That no one has taken Moore out in the streets and publicly flogged him for idiocy and for lying to the public through his agitpropumentaries is telling of the sad state of our society.
Although this story has 2619 comments, I believe it is out of place on Slashdot. This story is not "News for Nerds".
This stirring up controversy and fanning the flame is fitting if the subject is Linux vs Microsoft, Free vs Java, paper-trail vs Diebold, vi vs emacs, etc. It is not fitting when the subject is hate-the-president vs love-the-president.
Maybe someone should start a "News for Freedom Fighters" or "News for Foolproof Voters" site. Maybe someone already has.
Jeff Jarvis, a well-respected and popular blogger, has put together the best review of Fahrenheit 9/11 I have seen so far.
Back a few months ago, I had written a couple of personal thoughts about Michael Moore and his rhetoric.
The executive summary of all my nonsensical ranting is that I've always believed the Iraq situation is far from being the black and white portrait Moore attempts to paint with his rhetoric. While blaming everything on Bush would make things a whole lot easier, and has been serving Moore's book and movie sales very well, I believe this approach oversimplifies a set of very convoluted problems and sets us up for future failures in our foreign policies.
While it is important to acknowledge and reflect on Bush's failures, it is equally as important to look beyond the conspiracy theories, acknowledge the fact that regardless of what party you're looking at, regardless of which country, under-the-table deals and corporate interests always have and always will be a part of the picture, attempt to find what the right course of action is, pursue it and limit casualties on all sides.
The fact that the official democratic candidate, John Kerry, was one of the few to vote for the military intervention, should at least get people to think that maybe, just maybe, there were good reasons for it, even if the ones invoked by this administration (immediate threat, WMD) appear to have been wrong.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
So will Moore do a movie about him and he do another about Moore.... until we have a nothing but scraps of hair and film left?
But, seriously as Moore is not American... isn't this just another attack on all Americans our institutions and everything in America? Wouldn't it be much more honest if he was an American instead of the product of a foreign culture that hates America's?
You've hit a nail on the head I think, describing Kerry & Bush in relation to their Euro counterparts. It has always made me scratch my head a bit that politicians everywhere are often times described as either liberal or conservative. Blair is liberal, Chirac is conservative. Kerry is liberal (though probably more conservative than Chirac), etc.
I think the libertarian quiz page (a bit slanted to convince you you're libertarian) has an interesting point on this, that political affiliation is not 1 dimensional.
Who would send their child to war in Iraq? Nobody in their right mind. But since the legislative people don't have their kids in danger, it is ok to go to war.
Maybe thinsg would be different if the US had mandatory military service for everyone, and in case of war deployment the people in service would be sent for some piece of action... Maybe mommy and daddy would think twice about voting for war.
He explained to the 9-11 commission that his staying with the children in the classroom was to project a sense of "strength and calm". Make of that what you will, especially when you actually see the footage of him staying there. Strength and calm is not what I see on his face.
Here's something else most of us, unfortunately with hindsight blinding us, have forgotten about those crucial minutes after the second plane hit:
No one knew at the time that the ATTACK was over.
There could've been six other planes (ten planes was the original plan) getting ready to line up their sights with various targets around the country (including the very school Bush was having a photo-op that morning). Hell, there could've been all sorts of other terrorist acts, never mind airplane crashes, that would've been all tied to occur as close to 9AM Eastern that morning of Sept. 11. In those seven minutes, Bush could've been doing many many many things to set things in motion as a response.
He could've done all those things in as frantic a manner as possible; I don't care if he scared the entire classroom and left the children there crying scared out of their minds, but instead what we witness, as captured on videotape, is of a person that has absolutely no clue as to what to do.
Hell, I've gotten phone calls of my son throwing up in school, and even if I'm in a very important client meeting I don't wait seven minutes, let alone two, before I've excused myself and checked in on what's happening. Is it so preposterous to expect our president to do the same for the nation? Giuliani projected strength and calm while my city was under attack, yet you can bet he wasn't sitting stoned-face in order to do so.
n/a
Oh, I think Ray is aware of this... I Sing The Body Electric was the exact title of a Walt Whitman poem before he appropriated it for his story.
Off the top of my head, Something Wicked This Way Comes is a Shakespeare quote, while The Golden Apples Of The Sun is a Yeats quote.
I'm sure there are others, but that should suffice to show that Bradbury knows damn well that it's permissible to reference another's work in a title.
The U.S.'s own weapons inspectors don't agree with you and insisted that not only could no WMD be found, but that all evidence indicated that no WMD had existed in the first place. Our weapons inspectors are highly trained professionals, quite capable of detecting the traces of WMD storage, their means of production, and evidence of the presence of materials required to support weapons programs in general. The inspectors also enjoyed the benefits of an impending threat of U.S. military action should any doors be closed to them. If you are also a trained weapons inspector with similar resources and access to Iraq, or if you have an informed analysis to offer on the weapons inspectors' findings, I would be interested to hear what you have to say on the matter. However, I suspect you are not an expert on the logistical intricacies of producing and transporting WMD while "hiding" their chemical, biological or radioactive indicators "somewhere in the desert", so I'll stick with the official conclusions if you don't mind.
You refer to the actions of a "Head of State", meaning Saddam Hussein, as justification for the war on Iraq. Specifically, which actions are you talking about? Any and all claims made by the Bush administration that Iraq posed a threat (immediate or otherwise) to the United States have been thoroughly debunked by subsequent uncovering and investigation of the facts. There were no WMD. There were no significant Iraqi ties to Al-Queda (Our "friend" Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, not only tolerates their presence but promotes their extreme religious views in the national education system and refuses to disrupt their funding). If there remains any justifaction for spending further U.S. blood and treasure on this tragic misadventure, please let me in on the secret. I would like to believe that our boys (one of whom is my recently enlisted nephew) are not dying in vain.
Regarding the nature of documentaries: Moore's films are unusual in the sense that, unlike many documentaries, they are mostly outright position pieces. However, that fact does not weaken nor even speak to the content of the film. The term "documentary", as a film genre, means nothing more than "non-fiction", as opposed to fiction or drama. After all, people refer to Errol Morris' films as documentaries without being challenged on that choice of label. Yet Morris' films are hardly of the classic, journalistic, "objective" style. In fact, he employs many of the same cinematic techniques used in main-stream Hollywood pictures but, because his subjects are real people and events rather than actors and fictional screenplays, the result is easily accepted as "documentary", just as Moore's films are. To call something "propoganda" (not that you used the term, this is merely a "preemptive strike", you understand), you have to address its content and show it be in large part untrue. If you can provide some kind of precedent or professional opinion which supports your narrow definition of "documentary" as a work that must provide a counterpoint in addition to a point, I invite you to do so.
You link to an article on typepad.com which claims that John Kerry lied to get one of his three Purple Hearts and that some of his old "buddies" from Vietnam, the Swift Boat Vets for Truth think he's unfit to be President. The SBVFT was formed in May, 2004 and "leadership and guidance were provided by Republican activists and presidential friends from Texas -- notably Houston attorney John E. O'Neill and corporate media consultant Merrie Spaeth", according to Joe Conason of Salon.com. Dr. Louis Letson is the sole source for the Purple Heart story, but he was not the attending physician for the wound in question, according to the Navy's medical records. These are the only sources mentioned in the typepad.com article and both have been thoroughly discredited.
As a non-US Slashdot poster, I don't see Mizhael Moore as someone who tries to make money off the current dissatisfaction with the ruling administration in America. I see him as someone who tries to encourage foreigners to see that not all Americans are idiots.
He should be made a national hero for calling attiontion to certain facts and promoting the American people and culture.
The fact that he can get his film shown, has made me realise that America may truly still have (some) freedom left after all! (But perhaps it's just because Moore is so persistant?)
Kudos to Moore. Hurrah!
(Perhaps he is just doing this for the money, but it certainly is not doing America any harm! Retrospect and introspection has never been painless, but has always been healing.)
Can't wait to see the movie in sub-Saharan Africa... where we have more freedom of speech than the USA currently has... tsk, tsk.
As T.S. Eliot put it in 'The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and where do I begin.
The above and each of the non-points it tries to make is interesting but only for its flaws. First off, the statement that Moore or anyone else who came from humble origins loses something by leaving them behind is pretty much insane, isn't it? You can't test the statement for truth because there is no objective truth in any 'should' proposition, but you can test it against reality. One equivalent to the statement is to be found in a scenario where a poor boy from a trailor-park who grew up on scut-jobs and welfare invents something and uses his money and position (say, ten million dollar's worth) to buy a trailor and move into the park next to the one he grew up in. You can't prove the insanity of the scenario syllogistically, but it seems so counterintuitive as to be laughable.
In other words, in order to be 'virtuous,' or 'genuine,' in the poster's eyes, he expects every black basketball, baseball and football star in their respective sports leagues to move out of their mansions or condominiums and take up residence in the worst corner of the nearest ghetto. This is, at best, a strange redefinition of the American Dream.
Next!!
The statement pertaining to "Limousine Liberals" used as a slur is a strangely American, and strangely dumb phenomenon that makes you think of George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four. The statement, 'well they do it, it too,' is a classic fallacy since it has nothing to do with your own (bad) actions, but when you consider Moore or anyone else as a 'Limousine Liberal,' you are essentially stating that the recipient of your contempt is a wealthy man who uses his wealth and position to enhance the interests of those who have less in the way of wealth and position.
In the old days, this was called 'christian charity,' or 'tithing,' perhaps. Nowadays, it's used as a term of invective in a way that seems absolutely insane except to a conservative who quacks it out on some forum. Unless you can resolve the immorality and idiocy of a, 'man or woman of wealth and status who seeks to relieve the poverty and sooth the pain of the masses,' the use of the term, 'Limousine Liberal,' in any context is more slogan than sense and thus, irremediably and unctiously cretinous--worthy only of the Rush Limbaugh's and Anne Coulter's of the world.
Next!!
Speaking of 'Limousine Liberals,' if we examine their opposite numbers, the conservatives currently in power, we see at their head, a man of so little talent that, given every educational advantage that money can buy, and then given connections that reached to the capital of the world's richest country (his daddy was president at the time) and that tapped into an international network for information and funding (Middle-Eastern funds that staved off bankruptcy) who managed to fail to find and sell something that everyone uses.
In other words, no one with the sense god gave a dog would let the current President run a gas station for him.
Now, instead of being just another obscure and useless rich person, the man with little talent is the President of the United States and his choice of policy initiatives in the wake of an attack on our nation has led to our armed forces being bogged-down in a useless military adventure that, to date, has killed over eight-hundred of our citizen-soldiers without punishing the attackers whose actions ground three-thousand of my neighbors into dog-food on a fine summer's day.
If limousine liberals who are to be appeased are the opposite of this kind of government, then I will: a. Vote Kerry. b. Set up a shrine to Ted Kennedy, and c. do whatever it takes to appease the current regime out of office.
Have a nice day.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
It seemed to me that while F911 had volumes of facts and evidence which is probably nearly all true, for the most part Moore didn't use them in structured arguments to actually prove his points. The film went sort of like this:
1. Facts
2. ???
3. Conclusion!!!
That 2+2=4 does not prove Fermat's last theorem, and that Bush has a tendency to make a fool of himself on television does not prove that he is a bad president.
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does NOT mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country."
--Theodore Roosevelt
"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."
--Thomas Paine
-- hjw http://puzl.info/
in the end of the day, no parent can sign their kid up for the military, only you can sign you up for the military. and thats the end of the story.
missing from the movie is michael moore trying to get john kerry to recruit his kids to join the military and fight in iraq. he did afterall vote to go to iraq didn't he?
Youve just made his point. Kerry is not left at all, but a righ-centrist. In the USA, who's real Left was destroyed by jinogist mccarthyism, religion and plutocratic domination, a putz like Kerry has to pass as Left.
All these other nations may be truely left. They also enjoy a higher standard of living. The only saving feature that dosnt keep ameirca a backwater of starvation and disease is the fact theyve never hosted a modern war, are still cutting virgin territory (ie. killed the original inhabitants). It is easier to build something new and cheap than lasting cities like Tokyo, Paris, Moscow and Lisbon. If any American thinks that its current Right-leaning will last (and avoid A) Facism or B) The Agressor role in WWIII) ive youve got another thing coming. It is serve-the-self selfishness that really fuels the right (not libertarianism-bootstrap-religion nonsense that the jingos like to hear from the corporate media) -- and that fuel will run out in time... its all about history here folks. History. The USA may well be wealthy now, but it is by no means an example of success. The world knows it, I know it, the REAL American Left knows it -- but the Plutocracy is so entrenched in the USA that we are going to have an incredibly hard time unseating them without causing them to start WWIII.
I haven't seen the movie, and I can't comment on it's exact content, but it's fairly obvious where the title came from. It's called an allusion, and it's alluding to a book by Ray Bradbury entitled "Farenheit 411"; the title of which referred to the temperature at which books burn.
And just what is Moore's point -- what is burning here? Not books, not buildings...Freedom. And what exactly is in the recipe for burning freedom? How about using the worst event of our generation as a catalyst to coerce the public to lower it's guard against attacks against constitutionally guaranteed rights to privacy and due process?
Granted, Moore may be an excellent propagandist doing nothing more than taking potshots at very easy targets. But it is also valid argument to say that the current administration not only brought these issues on themselves, but deserve to have their own idiocies exploited back at them to the fullest extent possible. Remember that this isn't an fight over who's right or wrong -- it's a fight over who controls the country, and in this case, it's a very dangerous group of people who have done nothing to deserve our trust or respect.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
There is nothing wrong with mocking your origins or people whom you were exposed to who are stupid, lazy or simply unlucky. If there were, no comedy act would last for more than thirty seconds. You have no point here except to hold Moore up to an unattainable and (quite probably) undesirable standard of virtue.
Before you talk about accuracy, please consider the accuracy of an Anne Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. I cannot mind a little demagoguery on the part of Liberals, the competition makes me think, 'God, why not?'
Who is despised by whom does nothing whatsoever to invalidate the quality of what they actually say. I could be loathed by multitudes and still have (true) things to say.
You don't really seem to grasp 9/11.
I live and work in New York City: I got to spend weeks smelling the bodies of my neighbors from several miles from what became ludicrously known as 'ground zero', first burning and then rotting in the cold thin rain that followed the event. At that point, the only thing that mattered in the whole world was revenge. As far as I was concerned, the only function of the U.S. government was to provide me and my fellow New Yorkers with a long, loving photographic exploration of Osama bin Laden's head on a spike on the President's desk in the oval office. Had Curious George provided me with that in a timely fashion, in a set of military actions that ranged across half of Asia, demonstrating to the terrorists in the process that an attack on the United States was very like calling down the wrath of God, I would be holding back my vomit with respect to everything else about the Bush administration and *ACTIVELY WORKING* for the Bush reelection campaign.
Instead of this, as witness after witness has shown, the current administration has engaged in a military adventure with a coherence of thought and purpose ordinarily reserved for an acid trip: he has invaded a country other than the one that harbored and still harbors our enemies (probably Pakistan). By invading Iraq, he has actively demonstrated the limits of U.S. Military power in a way that he should have left alone, by making clear an obscure truth: with the weapons available to our military, we could withdraw every U.S. serviceperson and turn Iraq into a radioactive desert in a single afternoon, but we cannot make everyone in Iraq do what we want them to. In other words, the current administration has missed what was patently obvious: we cannot turn Iraq into a secular democracy in a timetable measurable in anything short of decades, if ever.
To put it another way, we've spent tens of billions of dollars and hundreds of lives to accomplish less than nothi
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
Micheal Moore's film is entertaining, sensational, contains snippets of facts taken out of context that are artfully woven together to provoke an emotional response, convincing people of a position by means other than careful, rational analysis.
That is to say, his approach is the same abominable approach use by the right wring ideologues that dominate so much of popular media (talk radio, Newscorp).
I sympathisize with Moore's position, but decry the use of those tactics in his film. It is good that he will provoke debate; but it is bad that opponents, while mixing jibes about his weight problem and how he looks like a homeless person, will have an opportunity to counter his film by logical analysis.
If you want to see a more compelling and credible advocate than Micheal Moore, then I suggest you consider the Nobel laureates concerns about science policy of the current administration and the group of former ambassadors and high-ranking military officers (from both parties) concerns about what the current foreign policies are doing to the United States interests abroad, and not see F9/11. (Unless you won't take it seriously and consider rather as entertainment in the same vein as listening to Rush Limbaugh is entertaining).
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Why is it conservatives compare Michael Moore to Joseph Goebbels and won't make the more accurate comparison of Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly to Herr Goebbels? May I point out that Limbaugh and O'Reilly have a LOT more audience and sway than Michael Moore and both FAUX News (and Limbaugh especially) have been caught in lies more than a few times. Both Limbaugh and O'Reilly represent the closest thing to 'state media' that Goebbels' lie-machine represented. FAUX News claims to be 'Fair and Balanced', but that's just as much a lie as anything else they produce. Problem is that even these days, there's no law against lying on the news. For example: the FAUX News channel first attempted to squash an investigative news report on rBGH/rBST in Florida. When the reporters involved refused to lie down and take it, FAUX News then attempted to bribe the reporters to bury the story, then when they refused that, they attempted to distort and misrepresent the facts in the story. The reporters refused to alter their scripts to lie, which then resulted in the termination of the three reporters, who subsequently sued FAUX News in a 'whistle-blower' lawsuit. The first round of civil courts found in favor of the plaintiffs, made it through the first round of appellate, but when it went to the Florida Supreme Court, it was thrown out because whistle-blower protection can only be granted if the retaliatory termination in question was centered around an illegal action on the part of the business - lying on the news, as it turns out, isn't illegal! FOX News didn't find that part of it worthwhile to report - they simply reported that the reporters who'd filed suit had "lost their whistleblower status", but didn't explain why. Want to know more? Go see "The Corporation". Then I dare you to prove to me that the film lies and FAUX News doesn't. Go on, I dare you.
The difference between Michael Moore and Limbaugh is Moore actually quotes his sources. I've never heard of Moore ever having been sued for libel. IF YOU SAY HE'S A LIAR, LET'S HAVE SOME PROOF! Moore's approach is unique because he allows people's own words and public actions to hang themselves. On the other hand, he's definitely a grandstander. I don't love the guy, but it's nice to have a histrionic leftist get some coverage and distribution in the right-wing corporate media. I've noticed people get more up in arms about Michael Moore's supposed lies than about Rush Limbaugh's real ones, or Bill O'Reilly's bullying and abuse of interviewees with opposing views. Face it guys, they ALL use dirty tricks. Maybe people are so upset because the left is finally fighting back...
Joseph Goebbels, eat your heart out.
Cite a factual error or gross oversimplification of the facts in 9/11. Cite how the Peace Prize and UN have been perverted by politics anymore than the GOP or the corporate dominated media.
Richard Clarke, who can hardly be labelled as a Bush supporter at this point, has come out recently and publically said that he was responsible for getting the bin Laden family out of the US after 9/11, and that no one above him ordered it or even knew about it.
Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
Next!
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
No, they pay about 50% of Federal income tax, which, IIRC, is now about half of Federal individual tax revenue. They pay a trivial percentage of payroll taxes, roughly the other half.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
What would you rather he did? Leapt to his feet, in front of a class of small children, and started issuing orders to shoot down commercial airliners?
How about asking if anyone has claimed responsibility? How about declaring it a federal holiday and evacuating the White House, the Pentagon, and other likely targets? How about checking on the MO and seeing if there were any other planes that turned off their transponders and changed course toward a major city?
Just because there exists some action that would be bad does not mean that all action would have been bad. But then, you must use such logical fallacies to defend the gross inaction of that day.
Learn to love Alaska
How about this interview with David Kay or this overview of his final report or CNN's coverage, or this detailed report that discusses some of the reasoning behind David Kay's findings. I would have gladly linked to Fox News as well, as these official findings are virtually "unspinnable", but I can't find any Fox News coverage of Kay's final report (it may exist, I'm just saying I couldn't find it with Google - please point it out if you come across it). If you'll recall, Kay's initial, interim report also found no evidence of the type of WMD stockpiles or activities that Bush and Powell claimed we would certainly find in Iraq. However, Kay expressed great optimism that the alleged WMD would indeed be found (this was well covered and emphasized on Fox News) and attributed his lack of evidence to, in essence, timing, as there was still much work ahead at that point. Kay later stated that his initial optimism was based on the same erroneous, disproven "intelligence" that was eventually presented as justification for the invasion of Iraq. David Kay was not the only weapons inspector to carry out the task of finding Iraqi WMD. Remember Hans Blix? I've heard quite a bit of typical, hateful, conservative vitriol spewed in his direction, but I have yet to hear a factual criticism of his professional credentials or a substantive accusation of bias against him. Here is a summary of his findings within the rather enlightening context of current events. There are also the findings of Scott Ritter to consider. Even more despised than Hans Blix, the factual content of his work in Iraq and, again, his professional credentials, have not been effectively challenged. Here is an article he wrote in which he mentions his findings on Iraqi WMD among other topics and an interview in Time magazine in which they ask him some of the "tough" questions (i.e. weak and unsupported personal attacks, as is the Republican habit) his critics have raised. If you want more detailed sources on the findings of any of these weapons inspectors, Google is your friend. I challenge - no, I *defy* you to produce even one credible source (judging from your comment about Fox News, I think we more or less agree on the meaning of "credible") that contradicts the findings of these weapons inspectors. If you can't produce such a counterpoint, you are left with no rational conclusion but to accept that the Bush administration either incompetently or willfully misled the American people and the entire world by claiming that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States when, in fact, he literally had no capability to attack us.