Slashdot Mirror
Moore Approves Fahrenheit 9/11 Downloads
13.7BillionYears writes "The Sunday Herald reports that Michael Moore has expressed his approval of Fahrenheit 9/11 being downloaded through networks like BitTorrent and eDonkey2000. He also champions a very Lessig-esque outlook in his reasoning. Quentin Tarantino's earlier support for such practices is also mentioned. Meanwhile, Lion's Gate says it has no plans to oppose the practice."
I saw this documentary yesterday and I was both shocked and impressed. I even cried a lot.
It's the only way to do that in the US. A documentary must be very shocking for people to care about. This doesn't work like that in Europ.
This decision from Michael Moore is not surprising as he has always said that his goal is to touch as many people as possible. I think he simply doesn't care about the money.
Besides that, I think the documentary raises some points while I think Michael Moore goes too far in some others. But this movie definitely deserves its Golden Palm.
Please, go there, watch it. Give it a chance.
Oh and I'm French and I'm living in the US so I'm ready to be modded down and insulted.
Iraq: war to save the U
The whole point of the movie is get a message out, why wouldn't he want it to reach the greatest possible audience?
This truly is a first. I am quite pleased by Moore's decision to broaden his audience by allowing free downloads of the film.
I think this would be a great place to link all your Fahrenheit 9/11 torrents!
I already saw Fahrenheit 9/11 in theatre, and it was truly amazing. I don't care if some of it was not factual, because the bulk of it is just too damn funny to worry about trivial he-said, she-said crap. Think for yourself, but also see the movie... it's amazing, imho. Quite a catalyst for provocative thought and discussion. It's not just funny, it's moving and sad, terrifying at times. The funniest parts are when they look at bush in his candid moments, when his true hick nature seeps through the $5000 suits he wears. I won't spoil it. I will say that during the film, they play audio of the 9/11 attacks over a black screen and people in the audience were crying, it was soooo moving, and sad. Now watch this drive!
So much for the MPAA... gosh it's nice to see their hands tied for a change.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The activist, author and director told the Sunday Herald that, as long as pirated copies of his film were not being sold, he had no problem with it being downloaded.
"I don't agree with the copyright laws and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they're not trying to make a profit off my labour. I would oppose that," he said.
"I do well enough already and I made this film because I want the world, to change. The more people who see it the better, so I'm happy this is happening."
Very few people download movies to make a profit off of them. We download the movies because it is convienient to do so (ala iTunes). We also download the movies because the theatres charge entirely too much money (anywhere from $8 to $11 from what I have seen) to watch it.
Let's stop making movies with tons of computer generated special effects, bad acting, and boring plots and then blaming the pirates when it doesn't do well.
Let's make a movie that is powerful, moving, and gets people into the theatres that didn't cost $200 million to make.
http://66.90.75.92/suprnova//torrents/2046/Fahrenh eit.911.CAM-POT(2).torrent
here is a torrent link from suprnova(~1gb)
http://trackerwww.prq.to/download.php/3219853/Mich ael%20Moore%20About%20Filesharing.avi.torrent
While this was intended to be funny, there is some seriousness here. If I were Moore, and my goal was widest possible distribution, not most money made, putting it up for P2P download is a great idea. However, having gone to the trouble to shoot and edit the movie with high enough quality for movie projection, I'd want the highest possible quality to be downloadable. So, if he were really interested, he'd upload a copy from the original sources.
Or, maybe Moore sees P2P as an advertising medium to drive sales of movie tickets? In which case, you'd probably want a low-quality CAM capture to be floating around the net.
Valenti said: "Nobody can allow their rights to be stolen because, if you can't retrieve your investment, you're out of the movie business,
"I don't think there's really a single actor or director in the world who does not believe that if you don't combat piracy, it will devour you in the future."
I've seen this happen so many times that it's the norm for me. A group of my friends used to pirate movies/music/apps/games/etc back in our early days of college. While it is true that there were many things we didn't buy, there were also many things that we DID buy. my DVD collection grew greatly during this period, as did my CD collection and the number of games that I owned. I mean hell, I had a pirated copy of Warcraft III, yet I forked over the $80 to get the special edition of the game when it came out. Yes, there are those assholes who decide that they will never buy anything, but most pirates will pay for things that they really enjoy. Thus, in my experience, Valenti's assertion that piracy is the downfall of the industry is wrong. If they produced something that everyone wants to see or own and sold it at a reasonable price, then even the pirates would go out and buy it.
Michael Moore doesn't own the rights to the movie, Harvey and Bob Weinstein do. Even if Michael Moore doesn't care if his movie is pirated, I'm pretty sure the distributors do. At best, this can put your conscience at rest but it definitely doesn't mean you can start hosting the illegal copy in your website and expect not to get a cease and desist.
Yeah, I know, torrents are different, and slashdot isn't responsible for what we post. You, however, seem to be thinking that it's now legal to download F911 when saying, "I am quite pleased by Moore's decision to broaden his audience by allowing free downloads of the film." He's not really allowing them, he's just saying he doesn't morally disagree with the practice.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
[1] An interview with an Iraqi woman where the subtitles are off the bottom of the screen.
Wow. I've thought that I would give away my record (when it's done) to those who would want to download it, but frankly, I never thought that I'd see a comment like that from a movie maker, whose movie is currently in theaters.
That is a bold move, and probably making Jack Valenti spin in his grave.
Oh, he's not dead yet? Well, I guess you can't have everything...
The title is "Fifty-six deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11" but I think a more suiting one would be "fifty-six insignifciant instances of nitpicking."
Better yet, where the torrent tools?
My favorite is Azureus although it uses java and is a resource hog.
Original client--no bells or whistles
Experimental client with some speed controls
I've read all the attacks on the film...none of them point to any factual errors. What the F911-detractors don't like is that Moore presents certain facts to make a point. "We invaded Afghanistan" and "Afghanistan's natural gas pipeline was built very quickly." Moore puts these facts in proximity to imply we invaded partly for oil. You can't deny the facts, but the implication is debatable.
The IMDB average of the movie is 7.8. If you limit the votes to US voters (Because who cares about Europeans anyway), the average is 7.6.
1355 Americans gave it a "1". 93 gave it a "2". I'm not sure what to think of those numbers. Of course, any accusation of "voting by principle" can also be applied to the other end of the scale.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
If Moore is against Copyright, he should make a film about the DMCA, the Sonny-Bonno copyright extention act, software patents, and similar freedom-inhibiting laws. That kind of film could really make a difference.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Here's one of your "Deceits":
Deceit 8:
Fahrenheit mocks President Bush for continuing to read a story to a classroom of elementary school children after he was told about the September 11 attacks.
What Moore did not tell you:
Gwendolyn Tose'-Rigell, the principal of Emma E. Booker Elementary School, praised Bush's action: "I don't think anyone could have handled it better." "What would it have served if he had jumped out of his chair and ran out of the room?"...
She said the video doesn't convey all that was going on in the classroom, but Bush's presence had a calming effect and "helped us get through a very difficult day."
"Sarasota principal defends Bush from 'Fahrenheit 9/11' portrayal," Associated Press, June 24, 2004.
Yeah. That's a "deceit". The real deceit here is the idea that the only two choices available are to sit there retardedly reading My Pet Goat, making an entire elementary school of kids targets, or to jump up and scream "Holy bejeezers kids! We're ALL GONNA DIEE!!!!"
He could've calmly told the kids that he had to go do some of the things that Presidents do, thanked them, and left.
Bush shouldn't even have gone into that school that day. He was told the first plane hit the WTC *before* he went in. The WTC had already been hit by terrorist attack in 1996, and he'd already been briefed that al Qaeda were planning on hijacking airplanes. This is 1 + 1 kind of thinking, especially if you're the man charged with protecting the United States.
The sheer bizarreness of a loaded jetliner crashing into the WTC ought to have been enough to get him to delay his photo op and wait for more information. He didn't.
Face it, he was asleep at the wheel that day. If you supposedly value honesty so much, at least be honest with yourself.
The ip may change, so YMMV
That said, you should also keep in mind that films do not need to be documentaries to show you the truth, or at least a given version of truth. That is what art is all about.
People hear the word "documentary" and they can only think of National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. Every big newspaper has a page of opinion columns. The goal of that page is to present well thought out arguments from different viewpoints. Think of Farenheit 9/11 as an opinion column using film instead of text. It's still a documentary.
-B
Since I know the claims he made in the movie, and these claims can be fact-checked independently of seeing the movie, why is this not "thinking for myself"?
Because you *can't* know all the claims he made in the movie unless you've seen the movie, or at least read the script. If you're going by what other people are saying about it, then you're getting a second-hand version - they're not going to present all the points, only the ones they picked up on, and they're not going to present them how Moore presented them, they're going to present their own take on them.
For example, reading a critique of the movie isn't good enough, even if you go away and check all the points the critic made and make sure that he's right and the things he claims the movie got wrong are wrong - because you only have his word for it that that's what the movie said, and he'll probably have left out things the movie got right.
And reading a positive review isn't good enough, even if you go away and check all the points the reviewer made, and make sure that all the things he claims the movie got right are right - because you only have his word for it that that's what the movie said, and he'll probably have left out things the movie got wrong.
And even if you read both, you still can't be sure that you have the full story.
Primary sources, Loundry, primary sources. You can't fact-check other people's reports of something - you have to go back to the primary source if you want to know whether what it's saying is true or not.
Saying it's not a documentary does not make its content false. Not if you say it a thousand times or more.
There is no such thing in that stories about Hey dude!!! pirating is OK. There is a cold logic behind Moore's warm aproval...
And the logic is simple: This movie is a COUNTER-PROPAGANDA. More people will see it, More people will be against Bush administration.
By the way, im sure that Moore's wish his movie to be broadcast on national television
"Insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." - Nietzsche
I don't understand why the entire world suddenly thinks that documentary = journalism, or documentary = cinema verite.
Documentaries certainly have points of view, and they always have. At least Moore's is blatant; the "objective" documentaries *still* have some slant, because they are made by humans and humans have opinions.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
Most of these claimed 'deceits' by Dave Kopel are really bogus. Many of them aren't deceits at all. The footage for example with Al Goore cheering that 'he won the presidency'. Yes, Michael Moore show the footage playing along with a scenario of 'what if Gore won' (I agree kind of constituting of a certain degree of a deceit, but continue to read my explanation). Michael Moore clearly says in the end of the segment it was all a dream and that Gore never won presidency. He expects the viewer to understand that Gore never won presidency, thus that the footage of Gore and his mates cheering could have never been for Gore when he won. He's not deceiving anybody; unless they've been living under a rock for the last four years and just left the theatre before that segment was about to end.
He also says on the Afghan pipeline-issue:
After Afghanistan was liberated from the Taliban, the new Afghanistan government did sign a plan to build an oil pipeline. Indeed, any Afghani government (Taliban or otherwise) would rationally seek the revenue that could be gained from a pipeline. But the new pipeline (which has not yet been built) has nothing to do with Unocal.
In that whole 'deceit' section he does NOT mention the Afghani president Hamid Karzai. Who is Hamid Karzai? Presdeint of Afghanistan! And what past does Hamid Karzai have? He used to work for Unical! Michael Moore says this in his movie, and this is a reversed situation where Kopel is being a hypocrite because he leaves this information out!
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Have you ever been happy? Don't give examples, HOW DO YOU MEASURE IT?
If you want to see what qualifies as "ruining people's lives" rent the film Roger & Me.
Why am I bothering to debate someone who doesn't believe that AIDS exists? You're a fucking idiot.
-B
Um, WTF are you talking about? The POT release is *the* worst, most amateur cam release I've ever seen in my life, ever. The image is framed terribly (you're missing a big portion of the screen), it constantly flickers, the sound is almost inaudible, and to add insult to injury, they used *3* wrong formats distributing the thing. They rar'd iso's of VCDs? 1 gig? WTF? Distribute a 250 meg DIVX and let the lamers still using VCDs transcode it themselves.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Without French naval assistance at the battle of Yorktown, General Cornwallis would have escaped, and the Americans would not have inflicted a crushing blow against the Brittish occupation of the colonies. Indeed, the Brittish themselves would probably have slaughtered American resistance long before without money, arms, and supplies from king Louis VI.
While the U.S. has oftentimes been at odds with French policy, we must remember that the U.S. exists mostly due to the efforts of France.
So as my country celebrates the Star Spangled Banner today, perhaps we should spend a few moments listening to the Marseillaise as well.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
Hello! I'm your friendly pseudophilosophy bullshit meter. I rate my parent post at a 9.8 out of a possible 10!
Grandparent was initiating his response with a statement of contrary belief. It's not an argument. Not only is it okay, its the correct way to begin a critique.
Again, this clause is not an argument, nor does it attempt to unjustifiably make fun of you. He is stating, by his argument, that if you do not believe Fahrenheit 9/11 to be a documentary, then you do not understand what it is to be a documentary. It's the same as saying "If you do not think the world revolving around the sun is heliocentricity, then you do not know what heliocentricity means."
Now, if you read the rest of his post, you'd find his argument. His argument is that the movies cited are widely accepted as being documentaries, and since Fahrenheit 9/11 displays more characteristics of a documentary than these movies, a fortiori, it is a documentary.
If you want to attack his argument, that's it. Throwing around incorrect uses of informal fallacies isn't going to help you much.
You lefties have a strange definition of patriotism.
Patriotism: Love of and devotion to one's country.
Now, where does Moore say he doesn't like his country?
I can only see him objecting to his country's government. Maybe he go as far as to make documentaries about it because he cares so much for his country and that it's properly run?
Moore doesn't want a president that's in a school browsing a book when USA is attacked by Al-Qaida. That's what this is all about.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Not that it really matters.
1 - Until Kerry accepts the nomination there exist no federally imposed limits on his spending. Those that exist after the nomination are voluntary though candidates are monetarily encouraged to accept them. Therefore, even if 911 ended with "I'm John Kerry and I approved this message" it's still perfectly justifiable as far as political speech goes.
2 - Documentaries have an opinion. We're socialized to believe otherwise because our first exposure to documentaries is generally in elementary school with a discussion of how babies are made, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, or the formation of stars or some such. Of course, all these documentaries have an opinion as well. Many would argue that the babies films indicate a difference between a fetus and a baby. It's worth noting that Columbus wasn't even the first European to set foot in the Americas and that many prefer Genesis to the gravitational condensation of gas as the reason stars form. (Wow, worst run on sentence ever)
3 - Integrity? Moore said he was producing a film that accused Bush of all kinds of insidious things. He produced the film. Gotta at least take the man at his word. Bush, on the other hand, pledged to reduce the size of the federal government and refrain from engaging in "Nation building." Hmmmm.... guess one of these two has been caught in a lie to two.
I'm not saying Moore's film isn't misleading. I'm not saying it's not propaganda. There is an art to arranging facts in a certain way so as to prove a point. There is a finesse in accomplishing that task in such a way as to leave your audience with an opinion that you never actually stated. Moore is a master of this technique. Nothing, and I say that after an appreciable amount of investigation, in Moore's film is untrue. Nonetheless, he has artfully arranged things to imply more than he says. Those implications are opinion, not fact. A wary observer will note the difference.
As for journalistic... your local newspaper publishes an editorial section. That's journalism too.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
yeah, questioning your leaders is definitely treason.
In a country in which more than 40% of the voters have been so disenfranchised that they don't even bother to vote anymore, and a significant portion of the rest feel trapped into voting for the "lesser of two evils" in election after election, I would think questioning and challenging such a system that is supposed to be "Of, By and For the People" and is plainly NOT would be considered quite patriotic.
But then, I guess any level of discussion of our government in negative terms is only ok if it involves a democratic president getting a blowjob, right? Certainly we have no room to be negative when we're at war, even if we can't generate one solid reason as to why we are at war and what good we are actually doing in a country that never threatened us directly, while giving up on and letting run free a terrorist that has attacked us several times including the largest foreign attack on our soil ever, who happens to be related to the business partners of our president.
Obviously our priorities are out of whack for questioning that. What ARE we thinking?
Warning: there may be a few minor "spoilers" here, but nothing you couldn't handle.
I read through the list and, though some of the points are highly interesting (for example, the "My Pet Goat" scene [by the way, the book is actually called "The Pet Goat", so I guess Michael Moore tried to deceive us again!] and how the teacher actually comended Bush's actions), most of the points are irrelevant. Take the one straight off the top. Fahrenheit 9/11 opens with a scene of Ben Affleck, Al Gore, etc. all celebrating under a banner that says "Florida Victory". The link you sent us to points out that the celebration was pre-election results in Florida and that Michael Moore is thus deceitful in trying to paint it like it's not.
But the stakes of the claim are zero. Who cares if it was pre-election? It's not deceitful, it's a matter of making a movie that's interesting. What is important, in the documentary, are the real facts asserted. For example, if the scene where members of congress futilely protested Bush's appointment to the presidency turned out to be fake or something, then an important argument had been made.
Plus, some of the "Deceit" claims are just plain ol' wrong. For example: "Moore Claimed that Osama bin Laden Might be Innocent and Opposed the Afghanistan War". I saw the movie a few days ago, and I don't think I forgot or missed much, but at no point of time do I remember Moore making the claim in the movie. Outside the movie, he didn't claim Osama bin Laden was innocent, but that the American way means we have to assume so until the facts come out against him. When Christopher Hitchens said "Something--I cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do now--has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell", he's full of it. We obviously have learned a lot more since the initial September 11 attacks, including more evidence to implicate Osama bin Laden. That may have fulfilled Moore's requirements for "till proven guilty".
The list goes on and on. Much of the "deceits" consist of agreeing that what Moore says is right (about the PATRIOT act, for example) but then saying "well, Clinton was involved/did something similar/etc" which is a common defense to any criticism of the Bush administration. Just because someone crticizies the Bush administration doesn't mean they love Clinton. Moore included.
Plus, how is this argument: "He shows Britney Spears saying she supports the President on Iraq. As if there weren't a host of brain-dead bimbo celebs, (Madonna, Sean Penn, Russell Simmons, Lenny Kravitz, Susan Sarandon, The Dixie Chicks, etc.), spouting off on the other side." the exposition of a deceitful aspect of Moore's film? He wasn't trying to hide the fact that they did, nor did he push an implication that they didn't. Obviously the movie is going to better represent his "side".
Take the documentary "Fog of War", for example. There was a driving theme to that whole documentary. Therefore, all the clips from McNamara and from elsewhere were chosen to promote that theme. If I say down and made an argument that everything should have been put in full context and every detail included, then the theme crumbles. Obviously there is another side for every assertion. I didn't see Fahrnheit 9/11 to learn that. I wanted to here one side make it's argument. The other side can have it's chance too.
Here is a link explaining how Moore's alleged stance on copyright issues is being used to damage the profitability of the film:
Link to CNN.com story.
Interesting how Mel Gibson actually cracked down on peer-to-peer distribution of "The Passion of the Christ" (techincally the equivalent to stealing Bibles) where as Moore supports the free sharing of his movie.
Letterman's Top Ten List: "Top Ten George W. Bush Complaints About "Fahrenheit 9/11":
10. That actor who played the President was totally unconvincing
9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election
8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words
7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where I get him deported
6. Didn't have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger
5. Of all Michael Moore's accusations, only 97% are true
4. Not sure - - I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe
3. Where the hell was Spider-man?
2. Couldn't hear most of the movie over Cheney's foul mouth
1. I thought this was supposed to be about dodgeball
The website is:
..... "While I disagree with many of his points and his insulting style, he does raise factual issues."
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723
Paragraph #1. Personal reminiscing. No facts to contradict f9/11.
#2. Still no facts.
#3. Still no facts.
#4. Still no facts. Speaks of a previous debate.
#5. Still no facts.
#6. Stating a premise of the movie is NOT stating a fact against that movie.
#7. See #6
#8. See #7
#9. See #8
#10. I'm not sure what he's saying here.
#11. His opinion of what the movie seems to be saying.
#12. Sets up false dichotomies ("Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not.") that do not seem to be stated in the film.
#13. Complains about Moore ("In a long and paranoid (and tedious) section at the opening of the film, he makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11.").
#14. This one is cute. "A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only sustain itself by a dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods, beefed up by wilder and (if possible) yet more-contradictory claims."
Yet he has not managed to identify the "big lie" yet.
#15. Another cute one. "The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive." But it is factual and caught on tape.
#16. Another cute one. "In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed." But it seems to be actual footage of actual Iraqis before the war.
#17. "Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American." I'm going to need to verify that Moore said that. This may be one actual discrepency.
#18. "Thus, in spite of the film's loaded bias against the work of the mind, you can grasp even while watching it that Michael Moore has just said, in so many words, the one thing that no reflective or informed person can possibly believe: that Saddam Hussein was no problem."
Well I believe that he was not a problem. He was contained and his country was collapsing around him. He couldn't even travel without body doubles.
#19. "From being accused of overlooking too many warnings--not exactly an original point--the administration is now lavishly taunted for issuing too many."
And that is a factual error how?
#20. "Circling back to where we began, why did Moore's evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"?"
Not even complete speculation. This does not count as a factual counter.
#21. No facts. He doesn't like the way Moore picks on Bush.
#22. No facts. He doesn't like the way Moore plays to racial inequality.
#23. No facts. "Moore has announced that he won't even appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning." So? Attack the movie. If you can.
#24. "However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point."
He ADMITS that he doesn't have any facts to counter the movie with. Did you even READ this far into it? Fact-checking would be the FIRST thing to do to show how "flat-out phony" the movie was.
#25. Still, no facts to counter the movie.
#26. See #25.
#27. See #26.
#28. See #27.
#29. No facts. Just attacks on Moore.
Yet you claim
Perhaps someone could point them out? I've already gone through each paragraph, by the numbers. It can't be that difficult, can it?
The French did not plan a stupid defense in WWII. They planned a superb, WWI style defense. The problem is the Germans mounted a WWII blitzkrieg style attack, an attack that had been invented by the Germans just a few years previously.
The French were using tanks in an infantry support roll. The total number of French tanks was about equal to the number of German tanks, but spread across the entire defensive line in groups of one or two per mile. The Germans concentrated their entire tank force into one area and smashed through. Once the line was broken, they were able to attack the rest of the line from the rear.
Or, in terms better understood by the Slashdot community, the French bunker line was 0\/\/n3z by a Zerg rush early in the game.
"Why does everyone think it was ONLY Bush that thought he had them?"
Who is saying that?
I'm sure that they also both believed in Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy at one time in their lives.
But Clinton did not invade. Bush did.
By stating that if you do not believe Fahrenheit 9/11 to be a documentary then opponent does not understand what it is to be a documentary, poster is stating one of the following:
1. opponent is stupid (ad hominem)
2. opponent is uneducated (ad hominem)
3. opponent chose to believe false information (ad hominem)
I see. So if I say I disagree with you, it's an ad hominem attack because it implies you are stupid, uneducated, or believe false information?
You seem to mistakenly believe (and attempt to prove by a baseless assertion, since we're so fond of meta-talk here) that an ad hominem attack is any argument which implicitly insults an opponent, when in fact it is merely an argument which attempts to prove its correctness solely through insulting the opponent. In other words, if I tell you you are wrong about the definition of ad hominem, but back it up with, say, a definition, while I have implied that you are stupid or uneducated, I have not conducted an ad hominem, because that implication was not the main thrust of my argument.
"Widely accepted"? This is ad numeram or perhaps even ad verecundiam, depending on who is doing the "accepting".
Once again, we've somehow managed to retain our knowledge of Latin terms, but not their proper usage. You see, if you were arguing over some factual point such as whether or not Iraq had WMDs, or whether AIDS is a contagious virus, and his argument was, ``well, a lot of people seem to believe it, so it's probably accurate'', then your critique would be correct and justified. But in this instance, you are arguing over the meaning of a word--whether this film can rightfully be called a documentary--and so to make his case, it is perfectly legitimate to present what the majority opinion is on the meaning of that word (assuming we both accept that language is determined by the practitioners and not by the dictionary publishers; feel free to dispute with the parent as desired).
See? Isn't debating fun?
1. Standard right wing/conservative approach to dealing with issues: DON'T
Attack the messenger, ignore the message.
The vast majority of negative reviews of F911 tend to center around character assassination of Moore himself, rather than the issues raised in his movies:
2. Make outrageous claims with no intent to back them up:
3. "Post-hypnotic suggestions" - Tell people what they will think.
It's bad enough that any critic has the job of influencing people based on their opinion, but when they start telling you how you will react to the movie, they've gone too far:
4. Push the boundaries of hypocrisy
This great trick, perfected by Fox News with the advent of the "No Spin Zone" has been elevated to an art form by the Bush administration. Right wing pundits employ this technique more often than they whip out their American Express gold card:
Let's put thoughts in Michael Moore's head, then let's lambast him for putting thoughts in other peoples' heads. Then let's top it all off with a cherry:
I honestly think some people -- maybe not the majority but a significant minority -- download movies, songs, TV shows, software, etc because they are addicted.
I'm willing to bet that everyone here knows at least one guy (or girl) who has hundreds of thousands of MP3s, some of which they've only listened to once. Or maybe someone who has dozens of complete TV series. You walk into these people's rooms and there are tons of 100 disc CD spindles sitting on shelves, completely burned and just collecting dust.
I have to believe in these cases that it's a form of internet cleptomania. Not the most damaging of disorders, but still not fucking right.
In the movie piracy scene, generally films are released as either VCD or SVCD format. These are in BIN/CUE format, ready for burning. The BIN/CUE's are then RAR'd to take advantage of RAR's splitting capabilities and integrity checks. Then the RAR's are distributed.
In other words, this is normal. What's annoying is when somebody hosts a torrent that is the RAR files and not the uncompressed BIN/CUE's. The pirating group never goes so far as to release the thing onto torrents or such. They're sending files between ftp sites, usually on hacked systems or other systems with big fat pipes and lots of storage. They use tools that let them FTP between sites (similar to FSP), and sometimes from multiple sites (this is where having many RAR files comes in handy) to saturate bandwidth on the receiving sides.
Sometimes this is even automated. Those tools are pretty nifty, actually. You feed it a list of sites and a list of files. It FTPs the whole thing to the first site, then uses FSP to copy it to the second site (much faster than directly FTP'ing it there), then uses FSP to send it to the third site from both of the first two sites simultaneously, and so on. By the time it's done, 20-30 sites can have the thing, and it didn't take any longer than it would have took to send to 3 or 4 of them directly, thanks to the FSP using direct connections between sites and the RAR's being split so that it can send from multiple sites at once. More complicated tools can improve on this by transferring to many sites at once from many other sites and maximizing bandwidth on all of them.
In any case, these sites then get distributed to others via IRC, and people download the thing from these sites, and put it onto their 0-day hookups. This goes on for a bit, and then it eventually filters down to people who might actually watch the movie. Up until now, it's just people trading files because they like trading files fast. They might never actually use those files. Anyway, once it makes it onto sites where people will actually download the thing and thus watch it, it often goes from there onto the P2P networks. Some guy makes a Torrent out of it, somebody sticks it onto Usenet, etc, etc. Often it'll hit newsgroups before it gets made into a torrent somewhere. But by the time it's a torrent, you're at least 4-5 generations away from the original pirated site transfers.
This is so commonplace that tools exist to deal with the multiple layers of formatting. I suggest getting a copy of VCDGear (search google). It can convert RAR'd BIN/CUE's directly into MPG files for viewing. One step, instead of two or three.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President."
- President Theodore Roosevelt
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
- President Theodore Roosevelt
And while we're at it, let's ask President Jefferson too...
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
- President Thomas Jefferson
Not that they didn't already, but now it will be more obvious.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
that if right-wingers and the press applied the same scrutiny they've given Moore's film to the Bush administration, we might not be in the mess we're in today.
I've always noticed a lot more America bashing than French bashing on /.
/. childish and embarrassing (despite being essentially on the same "side" as many of the bashers, e.g., I hate Bush and his cronies [but who doesn't these days...], I'm liberal, environmentalist, etc.).
Seriously, though I think that's more a slashdot thing.
I'm American, and am pretty disgusted at the state of the U.S. these days -- having gone so far as to spend 10 of the last 14 years living outside the U.S. -- but even so, I find a lot of the America bashing on
However reasonable their basic complaint, people do not seem to think very critically about what they say, and despite the huge number of valid criticisms end up spewing bile almost randomly. It's as if people somehow believe that they won't be taken seriously in their complaints unless they're entirely against everything American.
That's something refreshing about Moore: though he sometimes succumbs to the temptation to rant, he avoids just attaching himself to simplistic labels -- he isn't "anti-American", "anti-gun", or whatever, he's just "anti-bad-stuff".
We live, as we dream -- alone....