Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion 3265
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!
Let the flamewar....COMMENCE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's get back to discussing robots and porn tech!
Re:Let the flamewar....COMMENCE! (Score:5, Funny)
Now we have two subjects for the flame war! Cool!
Re:Let the flamewar....COMMENCE! (Score:5, Insightful)
This place is and always has been about "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters to CmdrTaco". He's always posted whatever's of interest to him. I see no reason this should be different.
Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sports writer says: ... most powerful movie ... (Score:5, Informative)
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 [futurepower.org]. 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 [kansascity.com], 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 [mailinator.net] or DodgeIt.com [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.
Re:Sports writer says: ... most powerful movie ... (Score:5, Informative)
Quentin TARANTINO, USA (president of Jury)
Benoît POELVOORDE, Belgium
Edwidge DANTICAT, USA
Emmanuelle BEART, France
Jerry SCHATZBERG, USA
Kathleen TURNER, USA
Peter VON BAGH, Finland
Tilda SWINTON, UK
Tsui HARK, Vietnam
Basically, 44.4% of the jury was of american origin (55.5% if you include the brit) while 11.1% was french. As such, your argument that the film won a prize because it was a French film festival holds no ground.
Re:Sports writer says: ... most powerful movie ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Right... they're at Cannes because they're Francophiles and not because it's the most prominent film festival in the world.
-a
Re:Sports writer says: ... most powerful movie ... (Score:5, Informative)
Which made it in one single day of wide release the 5th highest grossing documentary in history.
As of now on boxofficemojo.com, F911 is showing $16M gross for two days, which now brings it up to 2nd highest grossing documentary in history.
This movie will certainly now gain much wider release than the 868 theatres in which it is showing now. F911 has a very wide release for a documentary, but the nearest showings are a two hour drive for me.
Will it still be in the theater after a couple or three weeks? I doubt it.
Are you seriously that self-deluded that you think F911 is going to just go away?
I sincerely hope you go to see the movie. Sounds like you could use a reality check.
Re:Sports writer says: ... most powerful movie ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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. You accuse these institutions, run by fallable humans, without citing anything as damning as ignoring a real threat to the country to pursue an ideologically driven war against a hypothetical threat.
I am willing to accept mistakes, I am unwilling to accept incompetence and irresponsibility.
National defense information and work product was given to China in the 90s in exchange for campaign cash from the People's Liberation Army under Clinton's watch is acceptable behavior?
I don't think Bush's former business relationships are in the same league as this matter but Mike Moore wants you to believe that conducting legitimate business prior to taking office which is not approved of by Michael Moore is not; and Moore wants you to believe that Rich White Men(tm) have it in for democracy. Well, if that is true, then at the top of the list is Michael Moore and his films.
Where does Moore, or anyone else for that matter, come out and say that Mr. Chung or Mr. Ghandi should not have been indicted or tried? I don't remember anyone from the DNC doing anything other than returning any questionable funds, which totalled less than $500,000 out of $1 Billion in contributions for the 1996 campaign season. Ethics charges have been filed in the House against Tom DeLay (R-Texas) for campaign contribution violations. Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich) alleges that he was promised $100,000 for his son's campaign by the RNC and threatened with marginalization if he refused to vote yes on the Medicare bill in Nov '03. Moore doesn't attribute this to Bush or his Administration directly, why do you attribute problems with the DNC fund raising arm with the Clinton Administration?
The Bush administration have shown little leadership when dealing with the Israelis or Saudis. They have been more concerned with Iraq than the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, they have faltered in pressuring real reform in Saudi Arabia. This could have been accomplished by securing Israeli concessions in the West Bank and Gaza. Clinton was much closer to securing some peace there, which most experts on the area (both Arab and Western) agree that the issue is the number one recruiting/fund-raising poster for real terrorists.
Readers should also consider what the Bush administration has done to protect the USA from further attack from terrorists and what Mike Moore has done. One element has taken pro-active and solid steps for our nations security, the other is like a yelping 300 pound chihuahua, complaining loudly about what Bush did, all the while failing to offer what he should have done.
It may not happen this year but I feel certain that F911 along with 'Bowling for Columbine' will be shown to be propoganda films, not documentaries, and the awards presented to them will be forever stained with this stigma.
Moore is simply stating that the emporer has no clothes. If you would like to state that the emporer has clothes, then you will need to back that up. Moore has claimed that his facts have all been vetted. Either point out ones that haven't or counter them with your own. Distracting the discussion with motive, or trying to discredit the ideas with guilt by association does not accomplish anything. I personally think that Moore falls into that trap sometimes in an attempt to reach a less informed audience, but you fail to even point out where he makes logical errors or overly-speculative arguments. And Moore has talked enourmously about how all of these things should have been handled. He refers to a lot of other policy wonks who actuall
Re:Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Funny)
I remember once reading about a (17th century) playwright who had (proudly) measured the success of his play by the fact that four ushers had been killed at the premiere.
Re:Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, I consider every single news flash regarding SCO more importan than a movie that you believe will make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America, because I believe Michael Moores Fahrenheit 9/11 is little more than a heavily biased satire with truth buried so deep beneath the surface of the film that it is impossible to know what to trust and what to discard as satire.
See the movie. I have, and Moore lists (just about) every single source he uses up front. Newspaper articles, dates, firsthand accounts from relevant experts... you can't say Moore is distorting what so-and-so says when so-and-so is saying it right into the camera.
Moore is definitely biased, but at least he admits his bias, and gives you his supporting evidence up front. Which is more than the Bush Administration has done vis-a-vis Iraq.
Re:Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Insightful)
True. Moore's chief product is not his movies, but himself.
It's pretty well-documented that Disney told Moore at least a year ago that they wouldn't distribute it. And no one at Disney tried to suppress it. Moore knew what the deal was, he had plenty of time to make other arrangements, and he was free to do so. As to their reasons for not distributing it, I'm prepared to admit anything could be possible, but still... that's their decision to make as long as there's nothing illegal going on.
And this is not a partisan post. I don't like any of the people involved in this story. Not Moore, not Bush, not the Disney execs. (nor Kerry, Limbaugh, Franken, etc.)
Re:Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Insightful)
Moore does seem to have some of that, but I think it's been greatly blown out of proportion. I buy what Moore's saying about what happened with Farenheir 9/11, his story there doesn't see fishy, and I'm glad that the movie is seeing wide release instead of dumped into the garbage bin.
I admit I don't have an excellent understanding of the situation concerning Moore, Disney, Miramax, and the ownership of the film, but as far as I can tell, Disney *owned* the film. They paid for it, and as Moore said, from one source Disney was saying "we're not going to distribute it," while another kept handing them money to get it completed.
What would I do in that circumstance? Shut up, finish the movie, and worry about it afterwards. Funding opportunities don't grow on trees, and complaining too loudly about the discontinuity would probably alert the Disney upper brass that the funding's still going on, and halt it. When you're already into production, you'd like to not have wasted the time you've already put into it.
Just my perspective.
As for hating everyone involved with this... I find that's a more and more common reaction these days, to view everyone with a political motiviation with distrust. I think that shows a certain weariness with the process, and also a recognition that neither "side" has entirely clean hands.
I don't know if I agree with that view, but I can certainly understand it.
Re:Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no issue with our attack on Afghanastan. They harboured known terrorists who attacked us.
But the attack on Iraq is bizzare. He did not follow the advice of his own father (IMHO, is one of our better presidents) about avoiding invading Iraq and certainly not without world consensous. While Sadaam was a mad man and was a threat to his ppl, he was no real threat to USA. Whereas N. Korea government is a clear and present danger to their country, the USA, and the rest of the world, W. basically ignores them.
Re:Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Insightful)
The responsibility to use it wisely. When we attack a country it should be to defend our shores, land, society, etc and if it is not to defend our shores, then it should be in conjuction with world approval. When Al Qaida attacks us, then hides in a country that protects it, then we have the right to go after them.
So you have no issue with innocent people being killed as long as it is for a "good cause"?But we should not be invading countries. When Iraq invade Kuwait, Bush built a global coalition to stop that. The group promised to not invade Iraq. They kept to their word. W. invaded Iraq on known false premises. That is irresponsible from both a global perspective as well as a US perspective.
Do I like bombs killing innocent ppl? No. But I think that every nation has the right to protect them selves. If a country is going to harbour terrorists, then they should be prepared for a counter attack.
Re:Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Informative)
From the Seattle Times [nwsource.com]: For example, in Osceola County, Fla., Walt Disney World receives the farming break on 1,600 acres of pasture, timber and nurseries where it grows plants for its theme parks. The land, worth $194 million, is taxed as if it were worth $12.3 million, according to the county land records office. Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Polack said the company keeps a buffer of undeveloped land around the park, but she acknowledged some of this property will be developed.
But this probably wasn't what Moore was thinking about... :-)
Please provide a link to this alleged fact (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Please provide a link to this alleged fact (Score:5, Informative)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=
Also, if you don't want to register:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/02/fi
Or
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/28
Dude, it was all over the national news for weeks. It DID happen and Disney DID refuse to distribute the film...
You seem to be missing the point (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Give me a break... (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Parent is an Idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
The film is classified as a documentary. Who sees documentaries, kids? No. Nerds do.
Demographics (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Let the flamewar....COMMENCE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let the flamewar....COMMENCE! (Score:5, Insightful)
> 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....
On one hand, I agree with you (although my
However, politics certainly fits under the "stuff that matters" category. And in general, we've seen a melding of technology and politics to the point that they're quickly becoming one. Even aside from the DMCA and the RIAA trying to ruin our ability to listen to music, think about these other random connections:
1. Microsoft hired Bush advisor Ralph Reed to lobby for them against the DOJ-Microsoft law suit. Think about how the DOJ basically dropped the entire case after the U.S. had won a judgment against Microsoft. Is this due to Microsoft's significant support for George W. Bush's campaign in 2000? Is it due to the $4.6M Microsoft it gave in political contributions in the 2000 election?
2. Al Gore is on the board of directors for Apple? Is this just a case of the also-ran political candidate joining forces with the also-ran computer company? Steve Jobs is reportedly serving as an advisor to the Kerry campaign. Al Gore is also a technology advisor for Google.
3. In Moore's movie, he says that Microsoft was one of the sponsoring companies for the "How to Make Money Offa Iraq" conference featured in the film.
4. What does it mean when Bush campaign contributor and HP CEO Carly Fiorina says, "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore." Furthermore, what does it mean when it's reported (not in the U.S. press, but in the Sydney Morning Herald) that among the companies that provided Iraq in the 1990s with banned dual-purpose items is HP?
5. What does it mean when Bush advisor and chairman of the Defense Policy Board (since resigned because conflict of interest) Richard Perle was hired by technology service provider Global Crossing to help it be acquired by a Chinese company? How about DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe own questionable dealiings with Global Crossing?
I guess that's the ugly truth about the world today. When we were young, along with believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, we believed that technology was about building cool products and politicians were statesmen who worked for America's best interest. Part of growing up is realizing that, among other things, the world is a lot more complicated than that, and believing you can compartmentalize broad subjects like technology and politics is harder than we'd like.
Of course, you can always choose to not read the article.
Longtime Michael Moore Follower (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Longtime Michael Moore Follower (Score:5, Insightful)
If GM had closed the plant within a year of this speech, it would have necessarily been because of President Carter's economic policies, as those things take time to implement and take effect. So, on a political time scale, almost as soon as Reagan's economic policies were fully in force, replacing Carter's, Flint experienced massive layoffs.
The Washington D.C. state machine is rather slower than anything you could implement on a PC.
For a person who believed Reagan's promises and bought a house, six years is barely halfway through the mortgage, and you would feel somewhat rushed as you went into bankruptcy, losing your job, sitting in an unsellable house that's half unpaid. In that perspective, it's like sitting on packed bags, as foresight would have demanded staying in rented housing without laying down roots in the community, ready to rip your kids out of school and relocate down south or west in search of work.
I like how Penn of Penn and Teller put it... (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Re:I like how Penn of Penn and Teller put it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Right along with Halliburton, the Carlyle group and their Saudi investors!
Remember kids, it's not the corporation's fault, it's the whistleblowers who are to blame.
Re:I like how Penn of Penn and Teller put it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, let's try to be rational (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
opinion from a canadian (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Fahrenheit 9/11: A Conservative Critique (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Fahrenheit 9/11: A Conservative Critique (Score:5, Insightful)
IMDB User Comments: Michael Moore is a traitor to his country
I had a lot of driving to do at work the last couple of days and listened to a lot of WBAP 820. There was a lot of talk about Fahrenheit 9/11 and Michael Moore. Every single bit of it was venomous and hate filled. From Rush to Hannity, to every single person on there, there is no way to support our troops while attacking their mission or their commander in chief. And if you happen to do so, you are considered a traitor to the country.
It's so weird because on every other topic, I usually agree with the majority of what these guys have to say. But they make me so mad on the war issue that I feel like some kind of left-wing liberal. I was actually wanting to e-mail them all yesterday and give them a piece of my mind, but decided not to because they would probably turn me in to home land security.
One thing I will say, though, Rush was out and Walter Williams took his place for the day. I still like him.
Usurper_ii
Are they fighting for our freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
The problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Re:The problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
That would be fantastic. I lived in England for some time, and I used to LOVE Prime Minister's Questions -- especially during the lead up to the war in Iraq. If Bush couldn't even testify alone or in public for the 9/11 commission, he'd just melt with President's Questions...
Thanks fot the explanation... (Score:5, Funny)
Are Americans really that stupid as to need an explanation for what the term "Word-of-Mouth" means?
"Michael Moore Hates America" (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:"Michael Moore Hates America" (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody's going to get a porn film confused with a Hollywood blockbuster. Nobody's going to get Moore's documentary confused with Bradbury's novel. Case dismissed.
Bradbury can complain all he wants, but that's about as far as he's going get. Moore may have stolen his title, but he did so in a way that's most certainly legal.
Rush Limbaugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Rush Limbaugh... (Score:5, Informative)
Regarding open source alternatives to Lexis-Nexis et. al., I think that we're starting to see the emergence of these sources with the Groklaw [groklaw.net] project. Groklaw right now is confined to a narrow issue, but it publishes primary source material and commentary that is superior to many paid services, and in an open source fashion. It is only possible for Groklaw to do this, however, by focusing on a single issue.
I hope that we will see more open source political projects like Groklaw in the future for other important issues.
Rush Limbaugh....Michael Moore and others (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I am not American (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Documentary: "Factual and Objective" (Score:5, Insightful)
The American Heritage Dictionary [reference.com] 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.
Double spin example. Bin Laden and Saudi flights (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Truth? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Truth? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Truth? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have specific issues with the facts in this film them lets hear them.
Re:Define truth. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Truth? (Score:5, Informative)
-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.
Re:Truth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Truth? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Truth? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
computers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Extreme views (Score:5, Interesting)
And from the standpoint of someone who is an American, I think many of us would like to see that too... if only because it would be a great change of pace after having our civil liberties pissed on by.... certain individuals.
Re:Extreme views (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Don't believe what anyone tells you without going out and doing some research yourself. If what you find confirms what you are told, then and only then can you consider it as fact. I see too many people on both sides pick up quick buzz-phrases and run with them only to be made a complete fool by someone who is more informed. Do your homework.
/wow. this took 4 'Previews'... HTML is rusty
Re:Extreme views (Score:5, Insightful)
On a political scale within the United States, although it may not appear that way to American Citizens, all parties are on the far right as compared with other nations.
We Canadians have a Liberal Government, literally named, far beyond the left Americans consider acceptable in their political campgains, etc... yet, we have an extreme leftist party called the NDP -- it's a matter of perspective.
I think that Michael Moore takes his own reality, and the facts to back it up to make his point... it's not to say that he fabricates anything, but it's all about how the information is presented, and in his case... 'left-wing' for Americans. Like any editorial, documentary, etc, it's all about how the viewer perceives the information.
Re:Extreme views (Score:5, Interesting)
For one thing, if you insist on classifying the entire world as left/right you miss a huge degree of differences. What's the difference in right/left terms between hitler, stalin, mao, and gandhi? Probably not as much as you think. Not to mention that right and left mean very different things in Britain (where I *believe* the terms originated) mainland Europe and America. Not to mention, Republicans wouldn't even fit in with most Right wing parties in Europe, many of which aren't classicaly liberal at all. Besides which, saying America is far-right is pretty ridiculous. We may not be as bad a social state as mainland Europe, but it's only a matter of degree.
question, where do the classical liberals fall? The Austrian economists? Popular Swiss ideology? Norwegians? What about Nationalist socialist parties?
Making the US to be some extreme right wing country is nuts.
sorry for rambling.
Re:Extreme views (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dishonest (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Dishonest (Score:5, Insightful)
Holocaust revisionists can make the same claim (Score:5, Insightful)
Just leave out relevant facts,take things out of context and contiuosly draw an opinion not supporeted by the facts you have presented.
Re:Dishonest (Score:5, Informative)
As a side note, the Bin Ladens are a family of oil tycoons, just the people Bush would want to slowly corrupt.
Re:Dishonest (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Dishonest (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dishonest (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dishonest (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Dishonest (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Dishonest (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:AMAZING mov[i]e (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Uh there's a reason for that (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Farenheit 911 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Moore's history of dishonesty (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Moore's history of dishonesty (Score:5, Informative)
Real research? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Moore's history of honesty (Score:5, Interesting)
From the http://www.politicalusa.com/columnists/schlussel/s chlussel_014.htm [politicalusa.com] link:
See How to Deal with the Lies and the Lying Liars When They Lie about "Bowling for Columbine" [michaelmoore.com]. He addresses the above criticism about half-way down:Re:First few comment (Score:5, Insightful)
Well of course it was (and as you said he showed specific quotes of reporters saying, "well yes of course I am biased.") because if they weren't biased they would be boycotted, they would have conservative groups trying to get them expelled from TV, they would be labelled un-American by the president and his staff, and they would probably lose a portion of their viewership to channels that were pro-war.
As far as Michael Moore being this or that... I don't think of that at all. I think of the MOVIE being this or that. Bowling for Columbine was a much better movie than this one. I found this one to be "ok". It certainly didn't show me anything that I didn't know already (and it shouldn't if you are an American with half a brain and you watch/read the news for yourself).
The second half of the movie was not good. It was almost as if he ran out of stuff to rant about and decided to half rally behind the troops overseas. It was poorly done and nearly bored me to sleep (I saw the 12:01am showing on Friday morning).
On a personal note: I don't think it deserves the media attention, the conservative's attention, and I certainly don't believe it deserved multiple standing ovations (LA, NY, Cannes, etc).
Re:First few comment (Score:5, Interesting)
"According to XXX inserst statistic Y here".
Often he asks questions in his movies like
"If X is true and Y is true, does that make Z true?"
People will sall him a liar if Z is in fact false. But he never said Z was true, he only asked. I met this man at U of R just after he won his oscar. He is extremely meticulous in the details and the information. Nobody is going to slip one by. For every fact he actually stated as fact he has evidence to back it up.
How he gets you is that the average american ingoramus who walks away from one of his movies believes that Z is true. He never said it was, but the masses will walk away believing it like the sheep they are.
Now, I don't agree with Moore. He is really a socialist green party hippy type underneath. Let me tell you, I like my Adam Smith. Even before this movie I was determined to vote against Bush. And after I get this movie in a format where I can watch it piece by piece I can extract the facts from the implications and get a lot more ammo to use against that corporate asshat.
Re:First few comment (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the current media seems to appeal to the lowest common demoninator. Either it allows itself to be bullied into printing the type of illogical causality that you mention or it allows it's pursuit of advertising revenue to interfere with it's responsibility to the public. Of course there are also a large number of those in both politics and the media who promote this dishonest causality.
I think that the severe decline of primary education and accessibility to secondary education is contributing to public's willingness to accept such low academic standards for subjects that are so important. If you'll remember, before the advent of Limbaugh, there was a general malaise in the news markets. The rise of talk radio, with it's drudge-like standards for intellectual honesty, managed to appeal to an uninformed populace who easily confuses their culture and religion with the government of the US. In a search for revenue, the increasingly corporate owned media has allowed this yellow-journalism to creep into it's mainstream.
The free market is not friendly to the marketplace of idea's. The free market encourages actors to raise the barriers to entry for competition, which if unchecked, stagnates innovation. The marketplace of idea's is what drives innovation and progress. The goal is to find a balance, which requires an informed and rational populace.
I believe that Moore has been able to rise to fame, by having true talent to communicate, much like Limbaugh. He's a pretty humorous guy, but he sacrifices intellectual honesty in order to cover a lot of ground, to make a point about a larger picture. I also believe that this method emphasizes points that are easily defeated in debate and involve too much speculation. In 9/11, Moore spent way too much time questioning the President's behavior on 9/11 and the links between the Bush and Saud families. 9/11 was a unique situation, it is difficult to effectively question the actions of anyone in that situation, because too many people will be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. The links between the Bush family and the House of Saud goes to motive, which is irrelevent to realpolitik. Motive is only a factor in a criminal court, it helps you to understand a person's goals, but the measure of politics is the outcome. Moore's general point, that the Bush administration is a disaster and the US should keep these people from power as much as possible, could be argued based on the facts. From any measure, this administration appears to be incompetent. They have managed to repeat every mistake of the past 40 years.
The unfortunate thing, is that if Moore had simply presented the case this way, he probably would have lost the majority of the audience. He might have made it to PBS or Sundance's docDay, but that's about it. I can't say that I'm opposed to the extremes on the right and left getting more people interested in politics. It's much easier to rationally argue political points, to someone who has them based on unfounded assumptions, than it is to interest the apathetic.
In my mind, Moore isn't as bad as Limbaugh or O'Reilly, and he has been able to logically defend his criticisms much more effectively. Let's put it this way, the populist right wing media is like Area 51 alien/black UN helicopter documentary films, the left wing populist media (Air America Radio, Moore) is more like Carl Sagan. Sagan was never accepted by academics because he was such a populist and would speculate too much on information that hadn't been truly vetted. For myself, I got interested in science at a very early age due to Sagan on Cosmos. That interest has made it so I can at least discern the difference between actual science and things that pa
How we see America from Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Response to Hitchens (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Christopher Hitchens Review (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyways, here's [frontpagemag.com] 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...
Re:We have a free market of ideas in this country. (Score:5, Insightful)
"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 !
Re:We have a free market of ideas in this country. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We have a free market of ideas in this country. (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Re:We have a free market of ideas in this country. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:We have a free market of ideas in this country. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Please mod parent as TROLL (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:What out for Michael Moore lawsuits through.... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
My Pet Goat (Score:5, Informative)
> 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.
Re:What out for Michael Moore lawsuits through.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:They won't have to try next time... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Angering and Heartbreaking (Score:5, Insightful)
A guy has to make a movie in order for the americans to be informed what the rest of the world already knows... about America!
Another point that doesn't settle right is that somehow if Bush and Co. doesn't get reelected everything will be just fine!
Excuse me but it was Bill Clinton that ordered a similar bombing campaign against Yugoslavia some years ago. The same international laws were broken then as well. Only many more nations had interests at stake then, so the joyfully backed up that endeavor.
The truth can be only one and most of the times it is very painful. I am amazed how people focus on the details (whether Moore makes money or not, if he is biased, if he twists the truth) when it comes to an action out of the norm (making a documentary about a current political situation), when they completely surrender to the corporate bias for example of Fox News or The NY Times.
Never understood that, I guess never will. I watched the movie and kept a close ear to the reaction of the fellow people around me. This is the first time after the Vietnam War that the American public gets an exposure of its true self, the aggrandazing bubble of benevolence was almost shattered when that Iraqi woman was wailing on camera!
Powerful pictures, powerful reactions. It is so sad and unfortunate that only the loss of a dear one (your serving son) can be a potent wake-up call to the reality around you...
Re:Moore's Politics (Score:5, Informative)
Yes - from Common Dreams (who, in turn was quoting the Israeli newspaper Haaretz):
link for your convenience. [commondreams.org]
Another link [haaretz.com]
Too many to even list here, but here's a typical example (from the Center for American Progress claim vs. fact db [americanprogress.org]):
Bush knew, or should have known, that his claim was false.
Sean
Re:Moore's Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
The real tragedy of the invasion of Iraq is that Bush took a legitimate, powerful precendent against terrorism (that any nation that aided terrorists would pay the price) and completely diluted it by sneaking his own personal mission in under the auspices of it. While a lot of eyes are being opened belatedly now, but there were a lot of cynical people asking WTF Iraq had to do with 9/11 or Afghanistan long ago, but amazingly the American public came to believe that it was all one and same. This completely destroyed the anti-terrorism campaign in the world's eyes. Now that we've seen that some absolutely insane individuals in the administration think they can get away with an end run around the Geneva convention (as Ronald Reagan's own son calls it dismissively of the Bush administration), global support has absolutely disappeared, and even if another major terrorist attack occurred few around the globe would trust or believe US intelligence (which seems to just say whatever serves their agenda), or would support US operations. Bush entirely holds the blame for this.
Re:Moore's Politics (Score:5, Informative)
That's very much true. There is a problem though when you get your false assumptions by ignoring evidence that goes against your predrawn conclusions, and consider unreliable evidence most important because it agrees with them. Most of the whitehouse's intelligence on iraq was taken from chalabi, and the iraqi defectors he brought in to tell them what they wanted to hear. The CIA at that point had documented chalabi as a fraud, with clear evidence of a long campaign of lying and evidence of him cooperating with iran, but the bush administration ignored this and instead chose to believe someone known to be a fraud. At the same time they dismissed what the weapons inspectors were saying as bogus. Ignorance of the law is not a defense in a criminal court, and I think being ignorant of the facts on purpose should not be a defense in the court of public opinion.
But, hey, you want a clear lie from bush, here is one [veteransfo...nsense.org].
And that's just where it starts, do a little googling on "bush lies", and you'll turn up tons of lies he has personally told on a wide range of subjects.
Ofcourse, it is hard to catch him personally in a lie, because he always gets someone in his administration to do the lying for him. They call it plausible deniability, and for me it doesn't fly. He can't not be aware of the liars on his administration. That he not only tolerates them, but supports them, proves he approves of the lies.
WHY would Bush lie about WMD's?
I don't think he knowingly lied about that pre-invasion. I think he chose to believe the fabricated evidence that pointed to iraqi wmd's. Still, that just makes him incompetent instead of a liar. That's the problem, you can't look at reality and not go "either bush is incompetent, or he's a liar."
Re:What Nader said... (Score:5, Insightful)
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....