Slashdot Mirror
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!
Watch the film and show to me one dishonest thing he did...he has a whole fact checking team there to ensure that there is nothing wrong with what he said. I want to know how your broad generalization can prove them wrong...you seem to sound a lot like Mr. Savage of Savage nation...could you just be regurgitating his little rants?
That's why i always watch Fox news with a bucked of popcorn
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.
That's why I always read Slashdot with a bucket of popcorn.
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.
Back up this statement with facts, Coward. Or better yet: make a movie about it, and distribute worldwide. :-)
>This guy already did.
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
Check out this. I'm a pretty radical guy and I don't care much for moore either. The man got too big for his head.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Never confuse insight with copied one liners.
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!
What's funny is I'm not sure whether you were replying to a post about gwb or it was a post on moore. That statement could pretty accurately apply to 90% of people in politics.
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.
If you have specific issues with the facts in this film them lets hear them.
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).
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
Although Micheal Moore is a "documentary maker", his documentaries don't stand up to tough analysis. He has apparently used rather dodgy editing techniques (Charlton Heston's tie changes colour in what is supposedly one speech) and staged events and presented them as real (getting a shotgun from a bank). Although I am left wing and I enjoy Micheal Moore movies, I see them as the same type of documentary as The Office or This is Spinal Tap.
Decode these
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
"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!
Lies? Like what? Name one lie in Fahrenheit 9/11. Just one, that's all I ask. You can blame the movie for being biased. You can blame it for being a poor source to form an opinion from since it only gives one side. You can blame it for sensationalism and a number of other things. But I don't think you can claim it contains lies.
...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
Here are all the things found wrong with Bowling. Some news sources have accused Fahrenheit of doing the same thing.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
There is a pretty good response to this article here. Not sure if Moore himself has responded yet.
While your comments are probably true, please note that they pertain to Bowling for Columbine. Do you have any such remarks related to the subject of our discussion, which is Fahrenheit 9/11? If so, I guess we'd all be glad to hear them.
Anyway, it's obvious that F9/11 is not a balanced documentary, in fact it doesn't even claim to be. It is a film with a very specific agenda, that is to make Bush loose the elections. In that regard it is more of an op-ed piece than a documentary. However, Moore claims that all the facts presented in the movie were double checked and he's ready to stand by them even in court if necessary.
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
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.
Why do people think that a documentary must be a completely objective, facts only movie? Some of the greatest documentaries in film and print have been made from a social or political motive. Silent Spring and The Jungle spring to mind. Even something as seemingly innocuous as the Cousteau documentaries on sea life had an agenda.
The problem is that in dealing with social events, presenting events with no spin at all makes the report virtually worthless. Take these hoary old examples:
1) 10 men killed 100 men.
2) 10 patriots successfully defeated a horde of barbarous invaders, killing 100 of them.
3) We regret to report that 100 freedom fighters were killed by government thugs today. 10 members of the government's death squad brutally murdered 100 loyalists.
All three of those statements are true and they all describe the same event. But the most purely objective tells us nothing about what really happened.
The Republican Party has figured out that they can buy votes from the uneducated.
Well, in a democracy, you get votes by giving people money. Isn't that why the Democrats were successful for so many years? Aren't all those social programs simply ways to buy votes?
"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.
While there is a bit of this movie that isn't really informational and is meant to appeal to emotion, there are some VERY disturbing pieces of infomration given:
-21 members of the Bin Laden family were flown out of the country on special chartered flights on September 13 while all other flights were grounded. They were NEVER questioned on Osama at all and there is no clear reason why they were given free flight out without interrogation.
-Prior to the war in Afghanistan, there were plans on the board to put in a gas pipeline through the country. Members of the Taliban visited Texas regarding the issue. The project was abandoned after the US bombed Afghanistan in 1999. After the recent war, Hamid Karzai was made the leader. The papers were signed giving the green light for the pipline. Prior to being the leader, Karzai was a consultant for one of the companies trying to build the pipeline.
-Prior to 9/11, Bush had been on vacation over 40 percent of his time in office. During one of those vacations, he was given a security brief that outlined Osama bin Laden training his agents to fly planes in the US as tools of terror. Condi Rice talked about that memo in some of the investigations. Nothing was done about it.
-Pre 9/11, many Bush administration officials are ON THE RECORD as saying that Saddam Hussein didn't have any weapons of mass destruction nor was he capable and wasn't a threat. AFTER 9/11, their tune was exactly opposite. Why?
-Condi Rice is on camera saying "There is a definite connection between Iraq and 9/11." We now know that isn't true.
There are many more points he made that I think MUST be addressed by the Bush administration. If they cannot dispute them, then in my opinion any person with one ounce of thought ability should never consider voting for him.
IT's called editorial spin. Every reporter does it, every journalistic media in the history of human communication has done it, and it will always be done. The thing is, he openly admits he uses editing to suit his agenda. He has, on television, said of this film "no, I'm not fair. I have an opinion. The facts are true, but they presented to support my opinion." I don't know about you, but I think somebody who will admit that up front carries more credibility than someone who staunchly sticks to the same rhetoric which has been proven false, rather than admit having made a mistake (and yes, I'm talking about almost the entire Bush administration).
Well, in a democracy, you get votes by giving people money.
No, in a democracy, you are supposed to get votes by the strength of your ideas, your leadership, and what you stand for.
Isn't that why the Democrats were successful for so many years? Aren't all those social programs simply ways to buy votes?
Yeah. That's why Hollywood actors, directors like Michael Moore, writers like Al Franken, etc. are all Democrats. They just want to get all of those government handouts. They are just itching to benefit from the HeadStart program in inner cities getting funded.
I note that you have marked me as an "enemy." Is that just because we don't share political views? If so, that's pitiful.
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.
and here is a rebuttal to Hardy Law.
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?
OK... He claimed Bush let some Bin Laden family members out of the country during the air lockdown. This is not true. They were clearly let out of the country after the air restrictions were lifted. And yes, they are the same Bin Laden family is the infamous Osama belongs to, but just because one family member is evil doesn't have to mean the rest are evil.
As a side note, the Bin Ladens are a family of oil tycoons, just the people Bush would want to slowly corrupt.
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
So many questions about our current government and so little facts.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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'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!
I saw the film last night, and I noticed numerous dishonest things.
Before I get modded flamebait, I am not planning to vote for Bush in the fall. I think the war is wrong, that the American people have been duped, and that atrocities have been committed in the name of oil profits. Despite that, I came out of the film angry and feeling that I'd been misled.
Numerous inciddents bothered me:
* The list of the "coalition of the willing" mentioned only tiny, irrelvant countries, and skipped over really important ones: England, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands. Yes, we did 90% of the work ourselves, but the film implied that we had absolutely no international support, which is simply not true.
* 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. Many, many people accuse Bush of being as bad as terrorists. If a call is placed to the FBI telling them that, they ignore it. Did the man's gym companions accuse him of something worse? It seems clear that there is more to the story here. Moore implies that the FBI is cracking down on people who dislike the President, and I don't think he justified that.
* 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. I suspect the man's name was blacked out simply because it wasn't relevant: the release concerned Bush's record, not this guy's. The other nasty bits of the relationship between this guy and Bush, like the cozy foreign investments, are irrelevant to this document.
There were others, but I'd need to go through the movie again, point by point. It's not that I disagree with Moore's overall thesis; in fact, I do believe it. But these things, which I consider dishonest, make me wonder about some of the other points he was making where I don't feel I heard the true story:
* 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. Moore never said that the son was a terrorist; do we lay the sins of the father at the feet of the son? It's not that I think the relationship between the Bushes and the bin Ladens is savory, but Moore overstated his point, one he spends a lot of time on.
* He points out that Amnesty International accuses the Saudis of "widespread abuses". I believe that they say the same thing about America.
* 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.
In the end, there wasn't a single Republican in this audience. The film is designed to preach to the converted, not to make a case to the neutral or the opposition. But in my case, I felt that it wasn't just one-sided; I felt I was being manipulated. That makes me want to lean exactly the opposite way of how I'm being pushed. I won't: I consider Bush a greedy fool and a liar. But Moore's movie says he is a monster, and such an accusation requires a higher standard of proof than Moore gave.
I mean, if you look at one of the best documentaries ever made, "Hearts and Minds", which was anti-Vietnam, most of it is just clips of prominent figures saying stuff juxtaposed to clips of the war.
Of course, Michael Moore specifically referred to his work as "non-fiction" rather than a documentary, so this conversation itself (and your attack on it) is bunk.
Such irE
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.
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?
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
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?
I wouldn't take anything the Washington Times says without a a few shakers of salt. The thing that first caught my eye was their obvious right-wing bias; but what really took the cake for me is that the paper is owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Yes, the tie changes color because Moore splices together different bits and pieces to get Heston to sound like a real villain.
l ingforcolumbine /scenes/hestonrally1.htm
It's dishonest and it's wrong.
Here's the "changing tie" claim on bowling for truth (scroll down to the section "Timeline Trickiness").
http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/bow
You will see a very interesting image, a collage of 3 images from Bowling for Columbine-- Heston in blue tie, a billboard, and Heston in a red tie. These are 3 consecutive images from Bowling for Columbine.
Ask yourself why is the billboard image cropped so much that it is not readable?
The billboard as shown in the movie (I'm working from memory here) is an advertisement for the upcoming Denver NRA event at which Heston speaks while wearing the blue tie.
The grandparent poster claimed, "Charlton Heston's tie changes colour in what is supposedly one speech"
But, according to bowlingfortruth.com in the movie you are introduced to Charlton Heston with his trademark catchphrase, then you are shown a billboard that says there will be an NRA Annual meeting in Denver, then you are shown a scene from the Heston speech at Denver, where Heston is wearing different clothes, in a different room, with a different backdrop.
Dishonest how? Wrong why?
Or are you just picking nits because you cannot find any actual factual errors in the movie?
I think the bowlingfortruth.com site is the best thing that could have ever happened for F911. That is, it prepared Moore for the nitpicking and distortion that will be done to F911. There isn't a single word in F911 that hasn't been thoroughly researched and verified by a team of fact checkers.
Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
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.
Actually, the majority of bin Laden's did leave the country during the lockdown. Only one family member was evacuated in the weeks following and it was made public almost immediately. He was a student was begining to be harrassed. The issue of course is that none of them including hte last was questioned. What makes this crimial is the fact that the family was still in touch with Osama. The movie talks about this event as the wedding of one of Osama's sons. It didn't go on to quote the poem that the son read regarding the destruction of the USS Cole
n +p oem&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf -8&oe=utf-8
http://www.google.com/search?q=osama+wedding+so
google search.
The Bin Laden family gained much more of their wealth through construction. They have been the main firm in the service of the Saudi king to build roads and infrastructure. Oil came later and certainly it's no shock that the Bush family would want to continue positive relations with wealthy Saudi elite.
But do you know who authorized that? It wasn't Bush. It was Richard Clarke, the same man who Moore has praised for his comments about Bush's handling of 9/11 and Iraq. Clarke has publicly taken sole responsibility for the flight.
However, in the film, Moore tried to portray Bush as being responsible for it.
Having seen the film, the part that disgusted me the most what when Moore kept making a big deal about Bush's connections to the bin Laden family and making it seem as if that meant that Bush was connected to Osama. Osama was disowned by his family a long time ago.
I once dated the niece of Teb Bundy (the serial killer). Does that mean that I supported his actions? Not at all. Does it mean that she supported his actions, just because they were related? Again, not at all.
I consider a lie to be any statement made with the intent to decieve. That includes outright falsehoods, half-truths, or even the full truth told in a manner to make a personl believe otherwise. Moore's biggest form of lie is in what he ommits, not in what he explicitly says.
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.
* 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
No, welfare programs are a social and economic necessity.
Because of the way capitalism constructs labor markets, it is impossible to have no unemployment (and, therefore, no poverty). In fact, labor markets tend to have an optimal level of unemployment. If unemployment gets too low, labor costs become prohibitive.
Even if every working man and woman in the country was a hard working Phd-holder, a fair chunk of them would still be unemployed and living in poverty.
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.
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.
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.
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
No, because humans want and need to know more about what's going on than just bare facts. Facts with no context aren't helpful. Saying that 10 men killed 100 men has no context. Why did they kill them? Who were the killers, who were the dead?
Here's another example:
10 men killed 100 men. The same 10 men drove into town.
10 men killed 100 men. The killers drove into town.
10 US soldiers killed 100 men. The killers drove into town.
Suddenly the word killer in the third example takes on a different meaning. Are "our boys" killers? Of course not! But "killers" is certainly an objective word in the second sentences. Because in the third example, assuming you're an American who supports our troops and I'm not claiming I am, by giving us more accurate information about the people who killed, suddenly a purely objective word in the second sentence takes on a negative connotation. People generally don't like the word "killer" applied to someone they support.
Think about how Fox news and CNN differ in their reporting of people who set off a bomb to specifically kill other people and purposely die in the act. CNN calls them "suicide bombers" indicating that they are people who kill others and commit suicide at the same time. Fox calls them homicide bombers, which I think is less accurate because it does not indicate that the bomber was committing suicide on purpose in the process.
But both descriptions tell us more about what happened then "an individual set off a bomb and purposefully died". Because we know that the words "suicide bomber" and "homicide bomber" have a particular political bias, and that knowledge gives us more information, not only about what happened but about the people presenting the news.
Everything else, while interesting to a human who can have a 'viewpoint' or stance, is irrelevant.
Hardly irrelevant when humans are the ones parsing the events and reacting to them. What you say may very well true in an academic discussion, but we're talking about the real world. We need to know more information to put it into context.
There are more elaborate examples than the suicide bomber/homicide bomber distinction. For example, what do you call the island approximately 120 miles southeast of China? Do you call it Taiwan or do you call it the Republic of China? The name you choose tells us about your politics. Or if you were doing an article about it would you refer to it as "That Island off the Coast of China" to avoid the various human viewpoints? http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/1671.cfm has more information about the name change.
And yet, no one has yet to find a single cinematic documentary that didn't espouse a particular view.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
The list of the "coalition of the willing" mentioned only tiny, irrelvant countries, and skipped over really important ones: England, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands. Yes, we did 90% of the work ourselves, but the film implied that we had absolutely no international support, which is simply not true.
You missed the Netherlands. Remember the guy lighting up the bong? That was his reference to the Netherlands (yes, the name of the Netherlands was displayed, too). The Netherlands have 1,300 troops in Iraq, making them one of the larger contingents.
Moore didn't bother to mention England, Poland, or Spain because the administration has mentioned them dozens of times. His point was that the grand coalition numbers of countries included a number of countries who actually had nothing to contribute but lip service.
My own criticism is that he ridiculed some of the people in these countries with his choice of images. The Amsterdam pot-head was probably the LEAST insulting of the images he chose.
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. Many, many people accuse Bush of being as bad as terrorists. If a call is placed to the FBI telling them that, they ignore it. Did the man's gym companions accuse him of something worse? It seems clear that there is more to the story here. Moore implies that the FBI is cracking down on people who dislike the President, and I don't think he justified that.
I don't think you quite understood this. The point was not that the FBI was as a whole cracking down on dissent; it was that the USA Patriot act gives the FBI and other law enforcement agencies the ability to crack down on dissent if they so chose. I think the idea was that this particular FBI office was playing Stasi because they could - not that the entire FBI was out to stop dissent.
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. I suspect the man's name was blacked out simply because it wasn't relevant: the release concerned Bush's record, not this guy's. The other nasty bits of the relationship between this guy and Bush, like the cozy foreign investments, are irrelevant to this document.
Not at all. Let's keep in mind - the man's name was not blacked out when Moore got the documents in 2000. They were when he got the documents in 2003. Why? The fellow was a foreign investment advisor for the Bin Laden family, who is listed in the documents as having skipped out on a medical exam at the same time Bush did (the two paragraphs, one on Bush's failure to be examined, one on this guy's failure to be examined, were in sequence). The fellow also invested some money HIMSELF in Bush's own oil drilling company. The implication is that the Administration deliberately censored the document after 9/11 because the fellow was someone investing Bin Laden money who invested his own money in Bush, suggesting the possibility that perhaps Bin Laden money was behind Bush's first oil drilling company. This was of a piece with the point that Bandar has a Secret Service protection squad (which is not normal for Ambassadors), and that one of the Bin Ladens was at a meeting of the Carlyle board with GHW Bush on September 10, 2001, and that the arrangement to spirit the Bin Ladens out of the country when all other passenger flights were grounded did not allow the Bin Ladens to be questioned by the FBI regarding possible financial ties with Osama Bin Laden.
There were others, but I'd need to go through the movie again, point by point. It's not that I disagree with Moore's overall thesis; in fact, I do believe it. But these things, which I consider dishonest, make me wonder about some of the other points he was maki
-Condi Rice is on camera saying "There is a definite connection between Iraq and 9/11." We now know that isn't true.
A partisan congressional committee decided there was no link between Osama and Saddam. This from a culture that created the phrase "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Both had a larger enemy in the US than they did with each other. I'll bet there really was a connection.
On the other hand, an impartial judge agreed with the claims of victims of terrorism that there WAS enough evidence to link Saddam and Osama, and allowed a suit against Iraq for reparrations for the deaths of their loved ones.
Just because a congressional committee (The only creature known to man to have over 4 legs, 4 eyes, and 2 mouths, and yet have no brain) decided for political reasons there was no connection, and a Big Fat Stupid White Guy claims there was no connection, this is not enough to say "We now know that isn't true."
- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades really cramps his style.
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 -
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
he Carlyle Group, which has rather extensive ties to the Bush Family/Administration and the Bin Ladens
I guess you didn't read your own link. According to the Wikipedia article, it also has ties to many prominent Democrats, including leftist money-man George Soros and the daughter of Madeline Albright. The same Wikipedia article says the bin Ladins sold their stake in the company two years ago.
I believe that the chain of events was that these members of the Bin Laden family were accross the country (note they were not flown overseas) while flights were grounded. While we were stuck in airports, they were privately & securely flown to the places they would leave for Saudi Arabia from. When flights resumed, they left the country.
Not as bad as leaving the country while flights were grounded, but they were certainly granted special treatment nonetheless. And, as already mentioned, the problem most americans should have isn't exactly that they were in the air, rather that they were granted special treatment in the first place, & NOT QUESTIONED AT ALL REGARDING THE RECENT TERRORIST ATTACKS. We let them go without a word, because we were "worried about their safety" - while, since then, we've had no problem terrorizing Muslim americans in the name of catching those darned terrorists
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.
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
No, Moore did not claim that the Bin Ladens were let out during the lockdown. He says they flew out on the 13th, which was when the FCC was starting to let planes get off the ground again. Regardless, they were the close family members of the main suspect and were shipped out with no serious questioning about the crime, in direct contravention of all normal police policy. Also, seeing as members of the family were seen with OBL late in the 90s, that hardly indicates that he was disowned.
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.
and here is a picture of a chicken.
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
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?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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.
I'll dispute the article if you are too stupid to do a little critical thinking...
Gee... Maybe Michael Moore used actual facts taken entirely out of context and mixed them with his own bogus theories and spin. Remember the scene when he talks about the memo given to condoleeza rice that was titled bin laden determined to attack in america? He played that little clip of rice saying the name of the memo, which was fact of course, and then proceeded to offer his own spin about how the memo warned of impending attacks in america by hijacking planes. I'm sorry, but did any of you actually watch the full testimony? After she states the name of the memo she proceeds to entirely shoot down the questioner's insinuation that the memo actually did give new specfific threats and warnings about attacks in america. It was totally bogus. The entire movie consisted of little snippets like these. Comments made without hearing the questions that these people were being asked or even anything close the full response. Of course anyone can look bad when everything they say is taken entirely out of context. Hell, someone could make an entire movie out of john kerry saying something he believes in, and then in the next scene saying he believes something completely the opposite. At least bush doesn't flip flop on the issues. He sticks with what he believes, popular or not.
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.
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.
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?
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.
"... 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.
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
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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/?/.
Our children will be recruited to serve in the military. They get recruited while still in high school. They should be exposed to war's bad side before signing up. If older people were the only people going to war then I would agree that this movie would need an R rating.
check out the best blog ever:
http://oehlberg.com
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!
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."
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.
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.
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..."
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?
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..."
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.