The narcissism of Michael Moore.

[url]http://www.resurrectionsong.com/archives/001766.html[/url]

Found a comment on the same site:

[quote]Great review of Moore.

[size=6][b]He is one of many on both the left and the right whose name you could plug in at the beginning of your piece and nary change another word.[/b][/size]

For all these folks it is important to innoculate with a strong dose of independent judgement and to carry a fine microscope.

While some of what they say may make sense it may be more important to understand why folks are even listening to them.

[/quote]

Michael Moore gets RIPPED,...

[url]http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/[/url]

Michael Moore's crap.

It is what it is. [img]http://home.earthlink.net/~joshpowelson/images/icons/icon_crackup.gif[/img].

kinda long, but read on...

Unfairenheit 9/11 The lies of Michael Moore. By Christopher Hitchens Posted Monday, June 21, 2004, at 12:26 PM PT

Moore: Trying to have it three ways

One of the many problems with the American left, and indeed of the American left, has been its image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring. How many times, in my old days at The Nation magazine, did I hear wistful and semienvious ruminations? Where was the radical Firing Line show? Who will be our Rush Limbaugh? I used privately to hope that the emphasis, if the comrades ever got around to it, would be on the first of those and not the second. But the meetings themselves were so mind-numbing and lugubrious that I thought the danger of success on either front was infinitely slight.

Nonetheless, it seems that an answer to this long-felt need is finally beginning to emerge. I exempt Al Franken's unintentionally funny Air America network, to which I gave a couple of interviews in its early days. There, one could hear the reassuring noise of collapsing scenery and tripped-over wires and be reminded once again that correct politics and smooth media presentation are not even distant cousins. With Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, however, an entirely new note has been struck. Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl.

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

In late 2002, almost a year after the al-Qaida assault on American society, I had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan, he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified. 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. Indeed, Osama is suddenly so guilty and so all-powerful that any other discussion of any other topic is a dangerous "distraction" from the fight against him. I believe that I understand the convenience of this late conversion.

Fahrenheit 9/11 makes the following points about Bin Laden and about Afghanistan, and makes them in this order:

1. The Bin Laden family (if not exactly Osama himself) had a close if convoluted business relationship with the Bush family, through the Carlyle Group.

2. Saudi capital in general is a very large element of foreign investment in the United States.

3. The Unocal company in Texas had been willing to discuss a gas pipeline across Afghanistan with the Taliban, as had other vested interests.

4. The Bush administration sent far too few ground troops to Afghanistan and thus allowed far too many Taliban and al-Qaida members to escape.

5. The Afghan government, in supporting the coalition in Iraq, was purely risible in that its non-army was purely American.

6. The American lives lost in Afghanistan have been wasted. (This I divine from the fact that this supposedly "antiwar" film is dedicated ruefully to all those killed there, as well as in Iraq.)

It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point. Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.) Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all?the latter was Moore's view as late as 2002?or we sent too few. If we were going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is really recommending. And these are simply observations on what is "in" the film. If we turn to the facts that are deliberately left out, we discover that there is an emerging Afghan army, that the country is now a joint NATO responsibility and thus under the protection of the broadest military alliance in history, that it has a new constitution and is preparing against hellish odds to hold a general election, and that at least a million and a half of its former refugees have opted to return. I don't think a pipeline is being constructed yet, not that Afghanistan couldn't do with a pipeline. But a highway from Kabul to Kandahar?an insurance against warlordism and a condition of nation-building?is nearing completion with infinite labor and risk. We also discover that the parties of the Afghan secular left?like the parties of the Iraqi secular left?are strongly in favor of the regime change. But this is not the sort of irony in which Moore chooses to deal.

He prefers leaden sarcasm to irony and, indeed, may not appreciate the distinction. 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. I banged on about this myself at the time and wrote a Nation column drawing attention to the groveling Larry King interview with the insufferable Prince Bandar, which Moore excerpts. However, recent developments have not been kind to our Mike. In the interval between Moore's triumph at Cannes and the release of the film in the United States, the 9/11 commission has found nothing to complain of in the timing or arrangement of the flights. And Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief of counterterrorism, has come forward to say that he, and he alone, took the responsibility for authorizing those Saudi departures. This might not matter so much to the ethos of Fahrenheit 9/11, except that?as you might expect?Clarke is presented throughout as the brow-furrowed ethical hero of the entire post-9/11 moment. And it does not seem very likely that, in his open admission about the Bin Laden family evacuation, Clarke is taking a fall, or a spear in the chest, for the Bush administration. So, that's another bust for this windy and bloated cinematic "key to all mythologies."

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. President Bush is accused of taking too many lazy vacations. (What is that about, by the way? Isn't he supposed to be an unceasing planner for future aggressive wars?) But the shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won't recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.

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. Well, that's what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm. More interesting is the moment where Bush is shown frozen on his chair at the infant school in Florida, looking stunned and useless for seven whole minutes after the news of the second plane on 9/11. Many are those who say that he should have leaped from his stool, adopted a Russell Crowe stance, and gone to work. I could even wish that myself. But if he had done any such thing then (as he did with his "Let's roll" and "dead or alive" remarks a month later), half the Michael Moore community would now be calling him a man who went to war on a hectic, crazed impulse. The other half would be saying what they already say?that he knew the attack was coming, was using it to cement himself in power, and couldn't wait to get on with his coup. This is the line taken by Gore Vidal and by a scandalous recent book that also revives the charge of FDR's collusion over Pearl Harbor. At least Moore's film should put the shameful purveyors of that last theory back in their paranoid box.

But it won't because it encourages their half-baked fantasies in so many other ways. We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation." (In fact, Iraq's "sovereignty" was heavily qualified by international sanctions, however questionable, which reflected its noncompliance with important U.N. resolutions.) 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. Then?wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003. I remember asking Moore at Telluride if he was or was not a pacifist. He would not give a straight answer then, and he doesn't now, either. I'll just say that the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once. (Actually, that's not quite right. It is briefly mentioned but only, and smarmily, because of the bad period when Washington preferred Saddam to the likewise unmentioned Ayatollah Khomeini.)

That this?his pro-American moment?was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible. Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Munich and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.) In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled?Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more?the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally. (Though why should he not?) Should you and I not resent any foreign dictatorship that attempts to kill one of our retired chief executives? (President Clinton certainly took it that way: He ordered the destruction by cruise missiles of the Baathist "security" headquarters.) Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam. In 2001, Saddam's regime was the only one in the region that openly celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington and described them as just the beginning of a larger revenge. Its official media regularly spewed out a stream of anti-Semitic incitement. I think one might describe that as "threatening," even if one was narrow enough to think that anti-Semitism only menaces Jews. And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war. On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported?and the David Kay report had established?that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition's presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)

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. No problem at all. Now look again at the facts I have cited above. If these things had been allowed to happen under any other administration, you can be sure that Moore and others would now glibly be accusing the president of ignoring, or of having ignored, some fairly unmistakable "warnings."

The same "let's have it both ways" opportunism infects his treatment of another very serious subject, namely domestic counterterrorist policy. From being accused of overlooking too many warnings?not exactly an original point?the administration is now lavishly taunted for issuing too many. (Would there not have been "fear" if the harbingers of 9/11 had been taken seriously?) We are shown some American civilians who have had absurd encounters with idiotic "security" staff. (Have you ever met anyone who can't tell such a story?) Then we are immediately shown underfunded police departments that don't have the means or the manpower to do any stop-and-search: a power suddenly demanded by Moore on their behalf that we know by definition would at least lead to some ridiculous interrogations. Finally, Moore complains that there isn't enough intrusion and confiscation at airports and says that it is appalling that every air traveler is not forcibly relieved of all matches and lighters. (Cue mood music for sinister influence of Big Tobacco.) So?he wants even more pocket-rummaging by airport officials? Uh, no, not exactly. But by this stage, who's counting? Moore is having it three ways and asserting everything and nothing. Again?simply not serious.

Circling back to where we began, why did Moore's evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"? Why instead did they force the United States to switch its regional military headquarters to Qatar? If the Bush family and the al-Saud dynasty live in each other's pockets, as is alleged in a sort of vulgar sub-Brechtian scene with Arab headdresses replacing top hats, then how come the most reactionary regime in the region has been powerless to stop Bush from demolishing its clone in Kabul and its buffer regime in Baghdad? The Saudis hate, as they did in 1991, the idea that Iraq's recuperated oil industry might challenge their near-monopoly. They fear the liberation of the Shiite Muslims they so despise. To make these elementary points is to collapse the whole pathetic edifice of the film's "theory." Perhaps Moore prefers the pro-Saudi Kissinger/Scowcroft plan for the Middle East, where stability trumps every other consideration and where one dare not upset the local house of cards, or killing-field of Kurds? This would be a strange position for a purported radical. Then again, perhaps he does not take this conservative line because his real pitch is not to any audience member with a serious interest in foreign policy. It is to the provincial isolationist.

I have already said that Moore's film has the staunch courage to mock Bush for his verbal infelicity. Yet it's much, much braver than that. From Fahrenheit 9/11 you can glean even more astounding and hidden disclosures, such as the capitalist nature of American society, the existence of Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex," and the use of "spin" in the presentation of our politicians. It's high time someone had the nerve to point this out. There's more. Poor people often volunteer to join the army, and some of them are duskier than others. Betcha didn't know that. Back in Flint, Mich., Moore feels on safe ground. There are no martyred rabbits this time. Instead, it's the poor and black who shoulder the packs and rifles and march away. I won't dwell on the fact that black Americans have fought for almost a century and a half, from insisting on their right to join the U.S. Army and fight in the Civil War to the right to have a desegregated Army that set the pace for post-1945 civil rights. I'll merely ask this: In the film, Moore says loudly and repeatedly that not enough troops were sent to garrison Afghanistan and Iraq. (This is now a favorite cleverness of those who were, in the first place, against sending any soldiers at all.) Well, where does he think those needful heroes and heroines would have come from? Does he favor a draft?the most statist and oppressive solution? Does he think that only hapless and gullible proles sign up for the Marines? Does he think?as he seems to suggest?that parents can "send" their children, as he stupidly asks elected members of Congress to do? Would he have abandoned Gettysburg because the Union allowed civilians to pay proxies to serve in their place? Would he have supported the antidraft (and very antiblack) riots against Lincoln in New York? After a point, one realizes that it's a waste of time asking him questions of this sort. It would be too much like taking him seriously. He'll just try anything once and see if it floats or flies or gets a cheer.

Trying to talk congressmen into sending their sons to war

Indeed, Moore's affected and ostentatious concern for black America is one of the most suspect ingredients of his pitch package. In a recent interview, he yelled that if the hijacked civilians of 9/11 had been black, they would have fought back, unlike the stupid and presumably cowardly white men and women (and children). Never mind for now how many black passengers were on those planes?we happen to know what Moore does not care to mention: that Todd Beamer and a few of his co-passengers, shouting "Let's roll," rammed the hijackers with a trolley, fought them tooth and nail, and helped bring down a United Airlines plane, in Pennsylvania, that was speeding toward either the White House or the Capitol. There are no words for real, impromptu bravery like that, which helped save our republic from worse than actually befell. The Pennsylvania drama also reminds one of the self-evident fact that this war is not fought only "overseas" or in uniform, but is being brought to our cities. Yet Moore is a silly and shady man who does not recognize courage of any sort even when he sees it because he cannot summon it in himself. To him, easy applause, in front of credulous audiences, is everything.

Moore has announced that he won't even appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning. I notice from the New York Times of June 20 that he has pompously established a rapid response team, and a fact-checking staff, and some tough lawyers, to bulwark himself against attack. He'll sue, Moore says, if anyone insults him or his pet. Some right-wing hack groups, I gather, are planning to bring pressure on their local movie theaters to drop the film. How dumb or thuggish do you have to be in order to counter one form of stupidity and cowardice with another? By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation.

However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point. And as for the scary lawyers?get a life, or maybe see me in court. But I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let's redo Telluride. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let's see what you're made of.

Some people soothingly say that one should relax about all this. It's only a movie. No biggie. It's no worse than the tomfoolery of Oliver Stone. It's kick-ass entertainment. It might even help get out "the youth vote." Yeah, well, I have myself written and presented about a dozen low-budget made-for-TV documentaries, on subjects as various as Mother Teresa and Bill Clinton and the Cyprus crisis, and I also helped produce a slightly more polished one on Henry Kissinger that was shown in movie theaters. So I know, thanks, before you tell me, that a documentary must have a "POV" or point of view and that it must also impose a narrative line. But if you leave out absolutely everything that might give your "narrative" a problem and throw in any old rubbish that might support it, and you don't even care that one bit of that rubbish flatly contradicts the next bit, and you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft. If you flatter and fawn upon your potential audience, I might add, you are patronizing them and insulting them. By the same token, if I write an article and I quote somebody and for space reasons put in an ellipsis like this (?), I swear on my children that I am not leaving out anything that, if quoted in full, would alter the original meaning or its significance. Those who violate this pact with readers or viewers are to be despised. At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to be objective. At no moment does he pass up the chance of a cheap sneer or a jeer. He pitilessly focuses his camera, for minutes after he should have turned it off, on a distraught and bereaved mother whose grief we have already shared. (But then, this is the guy who thought it so clever and amusing to catch Charlton Heston, in Bowling for Columbine, at the onset of his senile dementia.) Such courage.

Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (...) is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States ?

And that's just from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.

If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

damn sorry, just noticed somebody posted the link. :(

:Hurl: <--Moore

Yea I posted it here earler or later or whatever: [url]http://www.mercuryserver.com/viewtopic.php?t=1019[/url]

nevertheless it's a great article though.. Rip's him a new one.. :RockOn:

What a rant. Sounds like a republican version of Michael Moore.

He still forgets to point out any lies in Farenheight 9/11. :lol:

Don't you think you could have posted that in:

[url]http://www.mercuryserver.com/viewtopic.php?t=975[/url]

Or, do you intend to post a new topic for every MM hatelink you find...

:roll:

Both threads merged...please continue in this one.

[quote=delirious]What a rant. Sounds like a republican version of Michael Moore.[/quote] :Bingo: :lol:

[quote=delirious]What a rant. Sounds like a republican version of Michael Moore.

He still forgets to point out any lies in Farenheight 9/11. :lol:[/quote]

I know LOL. 8)

Anyway, from what this guy is saying, Moore doesn't want the U.S. to be the only force involved in crises around the world. I don't blame him, because that's how it's been the past few years and it's taken a huge toll on this country. While this country is a superpower, we should not have gone into Iraq with very little support from the rest of the world because, in effect, that destruction of foreign relations will be the end of the U.S.

I hate that fat fucker!!!! Hated "Bowling for Columbine" all he does is whine and bitch about everything. what the fuck does it matter if Kmart sold the 9mm round that hit that kid? does he prefer a .45? tell you what if that were the case, the kid wouldn't have been in his fucking movie. Poor kids, what a tragedy. Hey media dickheads, leave it alone. this shit only give more attention seeking little fuckers ideas on how to get attention!!!!! yeah I feel bad for the lady whose 6yo shot a girl with his uncles gun because his uncle was taking care of him while the mother worked at Dick Clarks for minimum wage. Let me ask this, what the fuck does Dick Clark paying this lady minimum wage have to do with her brother being an irresponsible fuck!!!? What the fuck does Moore want? Every single mother in America to get a fat paycheck from the gov. so they can stay home and watch the kids? That's impossible. Fat idiot!!!

Have I said how much I fucking hate that fat fuckhead?????

michael moore

i like michael moore and the balls he has to put out a movie like this and address important issues.

[quote=Galapidate] While this country is a superpower, we should not have gone into Iraq with very little support from the rest of the world because, in effect, that destruction of foreign relations will be the end of the U.S.[/quote]

You know there are other countries in the world other than France, Russia, and Germany. Look at a map sometime. :idea:

Re: michael moore

[quote=superdave]i like michael moore and the balls he has to put out a movie like this and address important issues.[/quote]

Agreed. :) And I'll walk gracefully into the theatre on Saturday when I go see the movie because I am proud to see a movie by a director who isn't afraid to speak his mind because of a group that disagrees with his free speech rights.

[img]http://home.earthlink.net/~joshpowelson/images/icons/icon_hmm.gif[/img] wtf this is the land of the free. it doesn't take balls to produce crap like this, you just have to live in the U.S.

Everybody que it up on BitTorrent right now if you want to see it. Don't give the bastard any money and go see it in the theater. :Yahoo:

[quote=neur0t0xin64]I hate that fat fucker!!!! Hated "Bowling for Columbine" all he does is whine and bitch about everything. what the fuck does it matter if Kmart sold the 9mm round that hit that kid? does he prefer a .45? tell you what if that were the case, the kid wouldn't have been in his fucking movie. Poor kids, what a tragedy.[/quote]

Poor kids is right. They will never be shot at again in their lives, and Michael Moore is parading them around, asking them to retell their horific story so that he can use them to make sure his vision of America is fulfilled. He is exploiting their suffering for political gain. Disgraceful.

[quote=neur0t0xin64]What the fuck does Moore want? Every single mother in America to get a fat paycheck from the gov. so they can stay home and watch the kids? That's impossible. Fat idiot!!![/quote]

A mother has a baby she can't afford, and eventually the child dies from negligence. Negligence began the life and negligence ended it. Society is def. not to blame for that one.

Unfortunately Michael Moore still hasn't realized that wars and guns don't kill people. People kill people. And they have been killing one another since the dawn of time. A new President or new law isn't going to stop the carnage, it is simply going to change who dies. Even without war and guns, humanity will find economic or governmental ways to make people suffer.

[quote=mylexicon] Unfortunately Michael Moore still hasn't realized that wars and guns don't kill people. People kill people. And they have been killing one another since the dawn of time. A new President or new law isn't going to stop the carnage, it is simply going to change who dies. Even without war and guns, humanity will find economic or governmental ways to make people suffer.[/quote]

That is true, but IF Bush wasn't in office who knows if we would've been in Iraq (I really doubt it). The difference between the war in Iraq and other wars is that there is a very weak motive for going in.

[quote=Galapidate]That is true, but IF Bush wasn't in office who knows if we would've been in Iraq (I really doubt it). The difference between the war in Iraq and other wars is that there is a very weak motive for going in.[/quote]

If we had no Bush, and we weren't in Iraq, sanctions would still be choking the general populous while Saddam sat there unaffected. There is no doubt innocent people are dying......no one is trying to deny it. For some reason people seem appalled that we are causing Iraqi suffering when the sanctions were already impoverishing the Iraqi people on top of the already brutal conditions under which they lived.

To understand what we are doing there you have to understand that we have not worsened conditions.....we have altered them. Most liberals can't understand why we are there because they can't even comprehend living under a brutal dictator. To be able to justify military action you have to learn what the Iraqi people have already suffered; then understand that we have not made it worse, then you have to summon up your resolve in order to see this thing through to better days. The Americans that have died there have died in other people's stead, and if we give up and lose focus of the ultimate goal we condemn them to vain and worthless deaths.

I don't like knowing that Iraqis are dying because of what we have done, but condemning them to poverty and death so that we don't have to fight is even more unacceptable. Like i said, the war hasn't increased human suffering, it has simply attempted to change who is dying. That's why Iraq is so divided right now, people who were in great peril our now safe and people who were once safe are finding themselves in peril. But by temporarily altering human suffering we are hoping to enable the peaceful people to live free from the torment of the war mongers.

Is it more humane to sit down and watch a suffering cancer patient until they die........or is it better to risk their already condemned existence in order to give them a shot at good health. Even if the failure rate is extremely high what have you got to lose from trying to save the person? Nothing. But thanx to Europe and the U.N. they have divided the entire world with hatred, arrogance, and pride. The world has made sure that if we fail to save Iraq, it will cost us our reputation, and our respectability. And the terrorist have assured us that if we fail it will cost us our lives and our prosperity.

That is why people hate George Bush. It has nothing to do with the isolated media circus occurring in Iraq--that is just a cover. They are really upset because George Bush gambled with the two thing that all Americans desire more than all other things combined: pride and self-respect. Funny situation it is to, considering that all of us have learned that those are things that exist deep within the human psyche and can never be stripped away. Terrorists can take your child, they can destroy your business, they can take your head, they can take your parents, but they can never take your pride or your self-respect---and neither can a bunch of uppity socialists or a gun toting Texan.

Emotions are too fickle a device to effectively run country or military. For the sake of all the Iraqis, Americans, British, South Koreans, etc. who suffer, don't allow this war to be fought based upon how you feel when you look at yourself in the mirror--you are the only one who can control that.

[quote=mylexicon]We are fighting for people who do not or cannot wage war to free themselves.[/quote]

[quote=Jenks][quote=mylexicon]We are fighting for people who do not or cannot wage war to free themselves.[/quote]

8)[/quote]

Or in some cases...will not.

As for Michael Moore.... :TNF:

Like someone said in a previous post, he thinks him making a controversial movie in America is somehow new or different. Idiot. Wasn't it proven that half of what was in Bowling for Columbine was either a lie or staged? Some people just live their entire lives to stir shit up. Sounds like a massive inferiority complex to me. I will never give this motherfucker a single dollor of my money and in fact will encourage everyone I know to download this piece of shit movie and never watch it.

Funny how he refuses to go on with O'Reilly. Probably knows he will get torn a new one. He said last time he was on he took it to Bill...so tonight Bill showed the footage and it was very much the opposite. Oh well, just another in a long line of people who think that just because they are free they [b]have to[/b] do something to incite people. I would love to see him go film a movie in Iraq. I gurantee they would kidnap him and cut his fucking head off just beacuse of who he was. Oh, the irony.

[quote=evangelion][quote=Jenks][quote=mylexicon]We are fighting for people who do not or cannot wage war to free themselves.[/quote]

8)[/quote]

Or in some cases...will not.

As for Michael Moore.... :TNF:

Like someone said in a previous post, he thinks him making a controversial movie in America is somehow new or different. Idiot. Wasn't it proven that half of what was in Bowling for Columbine was either a lie or staged? [/quote]

No, it wasn't.

[quote=evangelion] Some people just live their entire lives to stir shit up. Sounds like a massive inferiority complex to me. I will never give this motherfucker a single dollor of my money and in fact will encourage everyone I know to download this piece of shit movie and never watch it.

Funny how he refuses to go on with O'Reilly. Probably knows he will get torn a new one. He said last time he was on he took it to Bill...so tonight Bill showed the footage and it was very much the opposite. Oh well, just another in a long line of people who think that just because they are free they [b]have to[/b] do something to incite people. I would love to see him go film a movie in Iraq. I gurantee they would kidnap him and cut his fucking head off just beacuse of who he was. Oh, the irony.[/quote]

Wow..such anger. Funny how you're reacting to him in exactly the way he wants you to. He wants to incite and you get all angry. If everyone just ignored him... then how "big" would his films be?

[quote=delirious][quote=evangelion][quote=Jenks][quote=mylexicon]We are fighting for people who do not or cannot wage war to free themselves.[/quote]

8)[/quote]

Or in some cases...will not.

As for Michael Moore.... :TNF:

Like someone said in a previous post, he thinks him making a controversial movie in America is somehow new or different. Idiot. Wasn't it proven that half of what was in Bowling for Columbine was either a lie or staged? [/quote]

No, it wasn't.

[quote=evangelion] Some people just live their entire lives to stir shit up. Sounds like a massive inferiority complex to me. I will never give this motherfucker a single dollor of my money and in fact will encourage everyone I know to download this piece of shit movie and never watch it.

Funny how he refuses to go on with O'Reilly. Probably knows he will get torn a new one. He said last time he was on he took it to Bill...so tonight Bill showed the footage and it was very much the opposite. Oh well, just another in a long line of people who think that just because they are free they [b]have to[/b] do something to incite people. I would love to see him go film a movie in Iraq. I gurantee they would kidnap him and cut his fucking head off just beacuse of who he was. Oh, the irony.[/quote]

Wow..such anger. Funny how you're reacting to him in exactly the way he wants you to. He wants to incite and you get all angry. If everyone just ignored him... then how "big" would his films be?[/quote]

Such anger???? Dude, you must new around here or something because this is nowhere near "anger" for me.

So because he lives to anger people I should just give in and respect what he has to say and give him money to make more bullshit anti-Bush propaganda. Not likely. That's fine if you've been drawn into his fucked up mission hook, line and sinker. I have no respect for someone who's only purpose is to incite and outrage. So go ahead...go see his movie, support his message and give in to his ultimate goal: lining his pockets.

But no...he's out to enlighten us, open our eyes, turn us on to the truth and make us see through the lies of this corrupt administration. That's why overwhelmingly liberal Hollywood booed him of the stage during his acceptance speech last year.

"Shame on you, Mr. Bush!!!!" Nice message. :CrackUp: :CrackUp:

[quote=evangelion] Such anger???? Dude, you must new around here or something because this is nowhere near "anger" for me. [/quote]

I'm fairly new so I take that back :)

[quote=evangelion] So because he lives to anger people I should just give in and respect what he has to say and give him money to make more bullshit anti-Bush propaganda. Not likely. That's fine if you've been drawn into his fucked up mission hook, line and sinker. [/quote]

I'm not for Michael Moore or against Michael Moore.

[quote=evangelion]I have no respect for someone who's only purpose is to incite and outrage. So go ahead...go see his movie, support his message and give in to his ultimate goal: lining his pockets.

But no...he's out to enlighten us, open our eyes, turn us on to the truth and make us see through the lies of this corrupt administration. That's why overwhelmingly liberal Hollywood booed him of the stage during his acceptance speech last year.

"Shame on you, Mr. Bush!!!!" Nice message. :CrackUp: :CrackUp:[/quote]

CNN was actually exposed for adding boos to the footage of his sppech. But that's beside the point... he [i]was [/i]booed none the less.

[quote]"Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to ? they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. [b]We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.[/b] Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. [b]And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.[/b] Thank you very much." [/quote]

Funny how the reasons for war have actually turned out to be fictitious!

[quote]The question simply is: has Saddam Hussein made a strategic, a political decision, that he will give up these horrible weapons of mass destruction and stop what he's been doing for all these many years? That's the question. [b]There is no other question.[/b][/quote] Colin Powell

[quote=delirious][quote=evangelion]Wasn't it proven that half of what was in Bowling for Columbine was either a lie or staged? [/quote]

No, it wasn't.

[/quote]

Care to revise that statement?

Howlers in 'Columbine': Some of the distortions and falsehoods that plague the movie "Bowling for Columbine" are already well known, but Hardy and Clarke add details and reveal new whoppers.

Moore claims that National Rifle Association taunted the Denver area and the nation by holding "a large pro-gun rally" only days after the killings at Columbine High School. In reality, the annual meeting had been planned well in advance, was required by law, could not have been changed in time to another city, and was stripped of all rallies and ceremony in deference to the community.

The movie depicts Charlton Heston as making his famous "cold, dead hands speech" in Denver. In reality, the remarks came a year later in Charlotte, N.C., and Moore spliced bits of footage from that and another speech for maximum distortion. "It is a lie, a fraud, and a few other things," Hardy and Clarke write.

The fantasy film claims that Heston exploited a school shooting in Mount Morris, Mich., by staging another "big pro-gun rally" in October 2002. In reality, Heston?s appearance came eight months after the shooting, at a get-out-the-vote event in nearby Flint. Others campaigning in the area around that time included Al Gore, George W. Bush ? and Moore himself, touting Ralph Nader.

The authors conclude: "Bowling for Columbine has less documentary value than the average Bugs Bunny cartoon. You see Heston giving a speech ? but it's doctored. You see history ? but unconnected facts are given a particular Moorewellian spin. You hear that a factory is making weapons of mass destruction ? actually, it's building satellite launch platforms. You're led to believe that a rally was a response to a shooting, but it turns out it was eight months later, in anticipation of an election. You watch a Bush-Quayle campaign ad, but in reality it was an ad Moore himself assembled."

[quote=evangelion][quote=delirious][quote=evangelion]Wasn't it proven that half of what was in Bowling for Columbine was either a lie or staged? [/quote]

No, it wasn't.

[/quote]

Care to revise that statement?

Howlers in 'Columbine': Some of the distortions and falsehoods that plague the movie "Bowling for Columbine" are already well known, but Hardy and Clarke add details and reveal new whoppers. [/quote]

I'm aware of the problems with the movie.

However, how does that prove that "half of it" was either staged or a lie? If you have evidence that half of it was, please provide it.

Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke records this weekend, becoming the first documentary to debut as Hollywood's top weekend film ? but there are holes in the controversial film's story.

For instance, in one often-showed clip, Moore claims that President Bush was on vacation 42 percent of the time during his first several months in office ? but that estimation included weekends at Camp David, a common practice for presidents. Without those days figured in, Bush actually spent 13 percent of his time on vacation.

The movie also criticizes Bush for staying inside a Florida classroom full of kids for a full seven minutes after he learned that the country was under attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

However, the vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission has said that Bush did the right thing. "Bush made the right decision in remaining calm, in not rushing out of the classroom," said Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana.

In "Fahrenheit 9/11" Moore also claims that the White House approved plans for planes to pick up relatives of Usama Bin Laden right after the attacks. But according to terrorism czar Richard Clarke, he alone approved the Saudi flights.

In addition, Moore says that the departing Saudis were not properly processed by the FBI when leaving the country. That too is contradicted by the Sept. 11 commission, which said the Saudis were properly interviewed. Finally, Moore shows prominent members of the Taliban visiting Texas, implying that they were invited by then-Governor Bush. The Taliban delegation, however, was invited to Houston by UNOCAL, a California energy company.

Moore also doesn't mention that the visit was made with the permission of the Clinton administration, which twice met with Taliban members ? in 1997 and 1998.

[quote=cosmo] In "Fahrenheit 9/11" Moore also claims that the White House approved plans for planes to pick up relatives of Usama Bin Laden right after the attacks. But according to terrorism czar Richard Clarke, he alone approved the Saudi flights. [/quote]

According to Richard Clarke's testimony, it was agreed to by the White House and the FBI.

[quote]it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House.[/quote] Testimony of Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, National Security Council, before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 3, 2003.

[quote=cosmo] In addition, Moore says that the departing Saudis were not properly processed by the FBI when leaving the country. That too is contradicted by the Sept. 11 commission, which said the Saudis were properly interviewed. [/quote]

[quote]Most Saudis who left were not interviewed at all by the FBI. In fact, of the 142 Saudis on these flights, only 30 were interviewed. [/quote] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12

I suggest you also read Rumsfeld's testimony. He said he didn't even have a clue who they were, nor if they were interviewed properly.

[quote=cosmo] Finally, Moore shows prominent members of the Taliban visiting Texas, implying that they were invited by then-Governor Bush. The Taliban delegation, however, was invited to Houston by UNOCAL, a California energy company.

Moore also doesn't mention that the visit was made with the permission of the Clinton administration, which twice met with Taliban members ? in 1997 and 1998.[/quote]

Yawn the predictable blaming of Clinton.

LOL Still no lies found in Farenheight 9/11? You must be getting desperate!

[quote=delirious][quote=evangelion][quote=delirious][quote=evangelion]Wasn't it proven that half of what was in Bowling for Columbine was either a lie or staged? [/quote]

No, it wasn't.

[/quote]

Care to revise that statement?

Howlers in 'Columbine': Some of the distortions and falsehoods that plague the movie "Bowling for Columbine" are already well known, but Hardy and Clarke add details and reveal new whoppers. [/quote]

I'm aware of the problems with the movie.

However, how does that prove that "half of it" was either staged or a lie? If you have evidence that half of it was, please provide it.[/quote]

Ok, now we are argueing semantics. Is this what its come too???

Ok...[b][i][size=6]some[/size][/i][/b] of it is staged or a lie.

A portion of it was staged or a lie.

Parts of it are staged or a lie.

Any amount less than half of it is staged or a lie.

Better????

[quote=evangelion] Ok, now we are argueing semantics. Is this what its come too???

Ok...[b][i][size=6]some[/size][/i][/b] of it is staged or a lie.

A portion of it was staged or a lie.

Parts of it are staged or a lie.

Any amount less than half of it is staged or a lie.

Better????[/quote]

Much better. If you remember, you asked the question: [quote=evangelion]Wasn't it proven that half of what was in Bowling for Columbine was either a lie or staged?[/quote]

And I replied: [quote=delirious]No, it wasn't.[/quote]

...which was entirely correct.

[quote=delirious][quote=evangelion] Ok, now we are argueing semantics. Is this what its come too???

Ok...[b][i][size=6]some[/size][/i][/b] of it is staged or a lie.

A portion of it was staged or a lie.

Parts of it are staged or a lie.

Any amount less than half of it is staged or a lie.

Better????[/quote]

Much better. If you remember, you asked the question: [quote=evangelion]Wasn't it proven that half of what was in Bowling for Columbine was either a lie or staged?[/quote]

And I replied: [quote=delirious]No, it wasn't.[/quote]

...which was entirely correct.[/quote]

Like I said...semantics. Get over it.

I like this political threads...

Is america so much more politically aware than Europe? I almost see no Europeans reply in this forum...

[quote]According to Richard Clarke's testimony, it was agreed to by the White House and the FBI. [/quote]

AAAANNNH... Wrong! Dead wrong. Clarke did NOT act upon demands from the White House, he even said so during the 9/11 commission. I would be glad to prove you wrong if you'd like.

[quote]Yawn the predictable blaming of Clinton.

LOL Still no lies found in Farenheight 9/11? You must be getting desperate![/quote]

Me desperate? Hardly, I understand that he's twisting the facts. Sad that you support the guy.

Re: michael moore

[quote=Galapidate][quote=superdave]i like michael moore and the balls he has to put out a movie like this and address important issues.[/quote]

Agreed. :) And I'll walk gracefully into the theatre on Saturday when I go see the movie because I am proud to see a movie by a director who isn't afraid to speak his mind because of a group that disagrees with his free speech rights.[/quote]All he wants to do is create controversy and controversy sells. He wants to make money bar none. He has a couple of pebbles.

Former NY Democratic Mayor Ed Koch wrote an article I feel all should read about Michael Moore.

[url]http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/6/28/190852.shtml[/url]

[quote=LV-8]Former NY Democratic Mayor Ed Koch wrote an article I feel all should read about Michael Moore.

[url]http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/6/28/190852.shtml[/url][/quote]

A little late

[url]http://www.mercuryserver.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1505[/url]

;)

Damn Civic!! I'm 0-2 on this fat crap today. :lol: