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Michael Moore Seeks TV Airing of Fahrenheit 9/11
telstar writes "According to Michael Moore's website, he plans to forgoe the nomination for Best Documentary in an effort to get his highly controversial movie Farenheit 9/11 on television. Despite having no assurances from the home video distributor, Moore hopes to air the film prior to the November elections ... suggesting the eve of the elections as a potential air date. Considering how many questions have been raised as to whether Moore's movie presents truth or propaganda, one has to wonder whether airing such a controvercial movie on the eve of an election helps or hurts the political process by influencing the vote with last-minute emotions rather than thoroughly contemplation."
From oscars.org:
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No television or internet transmission shall occur at any time prior to, or within the nine months following, the first day of the qualifying exhibition, and not before completing the minimum four-city two-day theatrical runs. Any documentary which is transmitted anywhere in the world in any version as a television or internet program within this period will automatically be disqualified from award eligibility.
http://www.oscars.org/77academyawards/rules/rule1
But... do they cover Kerry? Fox's man covering Bush in 2000 had family (his wife) in the Bush campaign. How could he be objective?
In 2000 a CNN anchor started to work for Gore and they removed him from all Gore stories because of the appearance of impropriety.
Read the script of Outfoxed, see page 73 I believe.
Get your Unix fortune now!
And you imply that this 877 number existed when the movie was made. A quick search for the number you gave found this link. A check on archive.org found that page was first archived on July 6, 2004, almost two weeks after Fahrenheit 9/11 was released in theaters.
"no links found to al-Qaeda and no WMDs"
Actually the 9/11 commission did conclude that there were links to al-Qaeda (just not to the 9/11 attacks). And they did find that sarin gas bomb that had about a gallon of sarin gas.
Besides, what was stated was completely true - Gore won the recount in the vast majority of counting methods
Actually, this is not true. The fact is that Gore did not win the state in any of the recounts. And when the media did their own recount, Bush won using every recount standard except for the one that his lawyers were arguing should be used if a recount was to take place.
US Supreme Court respected states rights and not stepped in
I love it when people try to talk about "states' rights" without understanding what it means. The idea of "states' rights" means that the federal government should not interfere with the rights that the states hold under the Constitution. It also means that states should not exceed their rights and try to interfere with the government's rights. States do not have the right to violate the US Constitution and infringe upon the powers explicitly granted to the federal government.
Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution states (emphasis added)
And Congress did pass a law several years ago requiring that any disputes over the election of delegates to the Electorial College must be resolved under the laws that were in place on the day of the election. These means that the attempts of the Florida courts to change and create new law (by changing deadlines and creating a statewide recount) to help Gore were a violation of that federal law.
The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizens equal protection under the law, yet the Florida Supreme Court's final ruling created a situation where a voter's ballot could be counted differently depending on what county he voted in. This would hardly be equal treatment. When that ruling was issued, even the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court said that the ruling would not survive a test of its Constitutionality and by a 7-2 ruling, the US Supreme Court said that it was unconstitutional (yes it was a 7-2 vote, the 5-4 ruling was only about what remedy should be ordered)
Any claim by Moore that Gore won Florida is best described by Shakesphere's words -
1) Implying that Fox....
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If one news station calls an election, the others follow that call. Call them lemmings, but no news station wants to be the last to call an election. I was watching CNN at the time, and was watching the florida count numbers coming in, was aware that it was incredibly obvious that Gore could still carry the state (and not even that difficult), and then had my jaw drop when I heard them say something to the effect of... "wait, we're getting the news that Florida has been called for Bush..."
2) Implying that a member of the Bush admin hired a company to turn away African American voters at the polls.
Please, then - offer your explanation of why the "Felon Purge List" had over 20,000 African Americans, but less than 50 hispanics (I assume you're talking about Database Technologies and the purge list).
3) Implying that Gore won the election no matter what.
In the method that the State supreme court had ordered, Gore indeed would have won, based on a University of Chicago study. The only case Bush would have won was the one Gore requested, or no recount - but that was not what the State supreme court ordered.
4a) Implying that Bush vacationed 42 percent of the time in his first six months
That is completely true.
4b) With the implication that Bush can't do work away from the White House.
Of course he *can* do work. And I'm sure he's so much more effective without all those "relevant people" around him. Crawford, Texas, is so much more accessable for meetings than DC. I'm sure all of the brush-cutting photos, horseback riding, and talk about having fun was just a media ploy. (/sarcasm)
One thing that sickened me, later, and unrelated to Moore, was watching Bush talk about killing in Iraq (shortly before the war began), while smiling and playing golf - actually answering a reporter's question in the middle of a swing. How sick...
5) Implying that Bush didn't read the briefing
A) Tenet couldn't have given oral testimony about the PDB, as was implied, because A) Tenet was not in Texas that day, and B) Tenet testified that he did not speak to Bush during all of August: http://slate.msn.com/id/2098861/
B) Neither did Condi: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11
C) And, based on a white house press briefing, it appears that Bush didn't read it himself:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04
Watch the administration official dance around the question as to whether Bush ever read it, it's quite amusing.
6) Implying that there were no flights allowed in the air when the saudis left the country
Here's a couple examples:
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/09/Tampabay/TIA_
http://www.iht.com/articles
7) Implying that the Bin Ladens weren't at all questioned before leaving the air.
Please, back up that they were.
Santa Ana Winds: Like the Dustbowl, but with awards shows.
...comparing him to Hitler...
This is one of those myths that has been busted time and time again, but thick-headed conservatives nonetheless spew the lies and thus perpetuate them.
To make the myth more concrete, conservatives believe MoveOn.org, a 527 group clearly connected in some way with the Democratic party (yes, this is itself wrong, but talk to your Congressman about Campaign Finance Reform if you want something to be done about it) ran an ad comparing Bush to Hitler. Here's what really happened--here's the background the soundbite-obsessed Fox News anchors can't dig into because they aren't real journalists.
MoveOn.org ran a content called Bush in 30 Seconds. It was a content that allows ANYONE to submit an ad to MoveOn.org, and the ads would be showcased on the website while voting took place. The ad with the most votes would be aired by MoveOn.org.
Two of the OVER 1,500 ads compared Bush to Hitler. You can see these two ads here and here.
Now, in case we are forgetting, let me remind you of the correct interpretation of the first amendment--in order for there to be freedom of speech, there has to be freedom of speech even for ideas you don't like . Sure, most people absolutely hate even the mention of Hitler, but by censoring those people who use his image or make comparisons to him, we violate the first amendment right in all cases. There are some legal exceptions (the famous "fighting words" case among others).
That said, I am just reminding you that even these two amateur filmmakers did nothing wrong within the law, which sometimes isn't clear to people who don't truly respect constitutional rights.
The bottom line, however, is that MoveOn.org never aired these ads because people never voted them to the top. So, although you can fault these two amateur filmmakers for this film, you can't fault the democratic party, "democrats" at large, or even MoveOn.org. It would be like faulting Salon.com (or "the liberal media") if on one of their Forums I posted a message that said Bush reminds me of Hitler.
Plus, I find this somewhat ridiculous because one could easily turn this around. Conservative "figureheads" have made the same kinds of comparisons in the past. Look no further than Rush Limbaugh who, at least once, used the term "feminazis" to describe feminists, and called abortion "the modern-day holocaust." This is from his published book in 1992. I am positive that most moral theorists and philosophers would find serious problems with that equivalence claim, regardless of their standpoint on abortion. Contrast this to the two ads posted on MoveOn.org, and you find one very important distinction. The ads on MoveOn.org focus on Hitler's power in using propaganda, his military force abroad and his rhetoric saying that he is driven by God. These particular aspects of Hitler's character could be argued to be found in George W. Bush. However, the comparison is unfair because it seeks emotional manipulation and deception, in that whenever someone thinks of Hitler, one thinks immediately of the holocaust and pure evil (thus, the mental connection, whatever the intention, becomes "Bush is this evil murderous leader"). But you have to admit that Limbaugh's comparison is much worse, because he effectively says that feminists are evil, murderous people, conducting their own holocaust. A clear distinction.
But, I won't fault him for that. After all, he is just one person, one viewpoint. It's his right of speech. And that means I can't say, "because Rush Limbaugh said it, it is mainstream conservati