Has Michael Moore become a full blown Truther?

[Travis]

So has Michael gone over to the Truther side? Prisonplanet seems to think so.

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/june2007/190607Moore.htm

Here's a snippet.

Why don't they want us to see that plane coming into the building? Because, if you know anything about flying a plane, when you're going 500 miles per hour, if you're off by that much, you're in the river. So, they hit a building that's only 5 stories high...[unclear] that expertly. I believe that there will be answers in that video tape and we should demand that that tape is released.

This guy just keeps giving me more reasons to hate him.

[DGM]

Add Michael to the list of people that want to ride the money train known as the "truth movement". 9/11 gear shop opening soon to beat the summer rush.

[VespaGuy]

How old is that quote? I remember reading something similar from Moore a while back, although he was fairly ambiguous about his beliefs in a conspiracy.

[Travis]

How old is that quote? I remember reading something similar from Moore a while back, although he was fairly ambiguous about his beliefs in a conspiracy.

They claim the quote was from him at a recent showing of Sicko.

[Hellbound]

Moore isn't a full-blown truther (IMO). He's just a full-blown idiotic windbag.

He's like the old men on the balcony in the old Muppet Show, except without the humor or intelligence.

He's the only person I know that would be refused a job with the National Enquirer on grounds of a "lack of journalistic integrity".

But that's just me :)

[pomeroo]

Moore wants so badly to proclaim his belief in Da Twoof, but, unlike most loons, he does keep his eye on the bottom line.

[Zep]

Well, let's see if he definitely does or not before we ride him into the ground, hmmm?

[Travis]

To me it doesn't sound like he's a full blown Truther either. That seems more like wishful thinking on the part of Prisonplanet than anything else. But he is enough of a sellout to try and appeal to Truthers too.

[MarkyX]

But Dylan Avery and Alex Jones think Moore is a shill and shouldn't be trusted.

In one of the videos made by AJ, he badgers Moore with questions when he is walking outside some store with "What do you think of NORAD standing down" ? Dylan Avery said in one of his self-masturbation videos saying that he was asking questions Michael Moore didn't want to do.

Besides, since when did the fat idiot become a pilot?

[Civilized Worm]

In one of the videos made by AJ, he badgers Moore with questions when he is walking outside some store with "What do you think of NORAD standing down" ? Dylan Avery said in one of his self-masturbation videos saying that he was asking questions Michael Moore didn't want to do.


The irony of seeing Moore being harassed by a fat loudmouth with a camera crew was delicious.

[NoZed Avenger]

But Dylan Avery and Alex Jones think Moore is a shill and shouldn't be trusted.


I read that as fear that he'd have a much bigger audience and take some or all of theirs away on the subject.

But perhaps I am being unkind.

[The Doc]

Never had much respect for the man anyway to be honest.

[sophia8]

It sounds like he's simply not bothered to research any of the facts:
"I've filmed there before down at the Pentagon-- before 9/11-- there's got to be at least 100 cameras, ringing that building, in the trees, everywhere. They've got that plane coming in with 100 angles. How come with haven't seen the straight-- I'm not talking about stop-action photos, I'm talking about the video. I want to see the video; I want to see 100 videos that exist of this," Moore said.
Somebody should enlighten him.

[gumboot]

The best thing Michael Moore ever did was his performance in Team America: World Police.

-Gumboot

[T.A.M.]

I love that movie...Team America that is.

TAM:)

[Pardalis]

Michael Moore is a traitor.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1240819,00.html

[Dave Rogers]

Michael Moore is a traitor.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1240819,00.html

You've offered evidence that Hezbollah offered him assistance. To prove treason, at the very least you'd have to advance some evidence that he accepted it.

Dave

[peteweaver]

Michael Moore is a traitor.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1240819,00.html

Well in the UK we have George Galloway a man who got chucked out of the Labour party for calling for mutiny in the armed forces, and supporting terrorists.

On the one hand he's a big figure in the anti war movement, and on the other he supports 'freedom fighters' who bomb civillians. He's quite a hypocrite.

And then there was the investigation by the charities commission.

He makes Mr Moore look tame.

[Pardalis]

You've offered evidence that Hezbollah offered him assistance. To prove treason, at the very least you'd have to advance some evidence that he accepted it.

Dave

A quote from his Middle Eastern representative Gianluca Chacra:

Having the support of such an entity in Lebanon is quite significant for that market and not at all controversial. I think it's quite natural.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007121.php

[Dave Rogers]

A quote from his Middle Eastern representative Gianluca Chacra:

Still a long way short of proof - it's no great surprise that Moore and Hezbollah agree on some matters of opinion, and the rep's statement is too general to point to any specific connection. The links in the article didn't go anywhere relevant - is there evidence of any actual business relationship?

Dave

[ConspiRaider]

Michael Moore is a filmmaker. That's it, folks! He doesn't make policy or hold office. He's a great example of an American: Doing what he wants to do, and being damned successful at it. That's the dream that causes millions to attempt breaking into our country. Thanks, Mike. We love you for being a good American.

Moore won an Oscar for Bowling for Columbine.

He won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Fahrenheit 911. Oh, and also the People's Choice Award, same film.

His latest, Sicko, hasn't even been released here in the USA and it's already a winner. Even the uber-right-wing Fox News praised it.

What an awful guy, huh? Geez, I think he should be obedient and just keep his mouth shut.

[Pardalis]

it's no great surprise that Moore and Hezbollah agree on some matters of opinion

That's the problem. Hezbollah are terrorists, if you don't see anything wrong with that then I can't help you.

[gumboot]

Michael Moore is a filmmaker. That's it, folks! He doesn't make policy or hold office.


I disagree. Governments just implement policy. The media dictates it.




He's a great example of an American: Doing what he wants to do, and being damned successful at it. That's the dream that causes millions to attempt breaking into our country. Thanks, Mike. We love you for being a good American.

Moore won an Oscar for Bowling for Columbine.

He won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Fahrenheit 911. Oh, and also the People's Choice Award, same film.

His latest, Sicko, hasn't even been released here in the USA and it's already a winner. Even the uber-right-wing Fox News praised it.

What an awful guy, huh? Geez, I think he should be obedient and just keep his mouth shut.



You have no problem with a documentary filmmaker presenting false information in his work? I assume you have the same opinion of Dylan Avery then? Yes?

Some people here don't seem to like his work. Some people here seem to think factual documentaries should contain... well... facts. How awful of us huh? Geez, I think we should just be obedient and just keep our mouths shut.

-Gumboot

[Dave Rogers]

That's the problem. Hezbollah are terrorists, if you don't see anything wrong with that then I can't help you.

I'm not saying I don't see anything wrong with it. I'm saying that having some opinions in common with terrorists is not evidence of treason. For example, many people felt for many decades that the UK should not have been ruling Northern Ireland, an opinion shared with the provisional IRA among others. Having the opinion is not treason.

Dave

[gumboot]

You've offered evidence that Hezbollah offered him assistance. To prove treason, at the very least you'd have to advance some evidence that he accepted it.

Dave



I think for treason you'd have to provide evidence that Moore offered assistance to Hezbollah. In fact even that wouldn't do it. He'd have to have offered to assist Hezbollah in attacking the USA. Then you might have grounds for treason.

-Gumboot

[Dave Rogers]

I think for treason you'd have to provide evidence that Moore offered assistance to Hezbollah. In fact even that wouldn't do it. He'd have to have offered to assist Hezbollah in attacking the USA. Then you might have grounds for treason.

Quite. Just to clarify, if I see evidence that Moore has knowingly accepted money from Hezbollah, my opinion of him will go down a very very long way, and if anyone says they feel his opinions are morally objectionable I won't have any issue with them. It's simply the use of the word "traitor" that I feel hasn't been justified, and this is after all a skeptics' forum.

Dave

[boloboffin]

Well, this discussion went political in no time flat, imagine that.

I'd like some links to all of Michael Moore's lies, and they had better be pervasive and they had better be egregious and they had better characterize his work throughout, because all I have ever heard are one thing here or another thing there while the bulk of what he says remains unchallenged.

Yes, that is a challenge.

[Pardalis]

I think for treason you'd have to provide evidence that Moore offered assistance to Hezbollah. In fact even that wouldn't do it. He'd have to have offered to assist Hezbollah in attacking the USA. Then you might have grounds for treason.

-Gumboot

To me, moral assistance is enough.

[ConspiRaider]

I disagree. Governments just implement policy. The media dictates it.

How pathetically simplistic. Yes, the media has an input. For example, the policy of our illegal war against the people of Iraq. That was promoted heavily by a turd-boy who originated in your neck of the woods: Rupert Murdoch. He even arrogantly admitted that Fox News tried to promote the pro-war stance of the Bush Administration.

But here's where you're completely wrong. Despite a media blitz from the right-wing over here all through 2006, enough Americans said "screw that", and voted the Republican bastards out of office in the House, Senate and State Governorships.

You have no problem with a documentary filmmaker presenting false information in his work? I assume you have the same opinion of Dylan Avery then? Yes?
You should know better than nearly anyone how silly your above statement really is - considering you are in the media business (film and television).

Moore's films don't fall into easily pigeonholed categories, such as documentaries. Probably more like semi-docu-commentary. Heavily influenced by his view of the world, and he's not shy about admitting the same.

Yet every single documentary ever made contains false information. All. There are no exceptions. One can try, but there will always be a level of bias in any film that attempts to describe historical events or explore recent actions or whatever, especially in the political, law and business realms.

[Stellafane]

I like Michael Moore and have admired a lot of his work for some time (even though politically we disagree on many things). His reputation in my eyes has dropped somewhat in the past couple of years, especially concerning some stuff I read indicating he's cut a corner or two in the journalistic integrity department. But much of his stuff strikes me as well done and persuasive. And his ability to get people to say the most incredibly damning things on camera is amazing.

[geni]

That's the problem. Hezbollah are terrorists, if you don't see anything wrong with that then I can't help you.

What deffinition of terrorist are you useing here?

[Arus808]

The video in question
8399599446820879166

It was stated in this interview done on 6/17/2007 by a couple of pre-screeners of the film Sicko. AT about 4:12 is when the guy with the camera asks if Michael believes 911 was an inside job. They couldn't get Michael to answer. so who do they turn to? Amy Goodman..who of course witnessed the wTC 7 collapse. She didn't answer them ^_^.


I love how the guys who made this video, is using to misinterpret Moore's statement on handling out leaflets (basically alluding to the subject matter of HIS FILM!) as a means to hand out leaflets about 911!! Nothing disgusts me more than a bunch of morons using the REAL events and MUCH MORE distressing subject about our HEALTH CARE, as a reason to HAND out their crap leaflets about 9/11 to theater goers.



At about 6:20 Michael Moore states; some firefighters have stated to him, that they heard explosions, and they (the firefighters) that there is much more to the story.

The video "info" on Google (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8399599446820879166&hl=en) has his statement saying this:
Michael Moore admitted that many of the firefighters that have spoken to him since 9/11 have told him that they thought there were explosives in the buildings.

Yes the author of the video took the "Some firefighters stated that they heard explosions" and turned it into "The Firefighters thought there were explosives in the buildings"

Another twisting of sTATEMENTS by the Truthers.

[gumboot]

Well, this discussion went political in no time flat, imagine that.

I'd like some links to all of Michael Moore's lies, and they had better be pervasive and they had better be egregious and they had better characterize his work throughout, because all I have ever heard are one thing here or another thing there while the bulk of what he says remains unchallenged.

Yes, that is a challenge.



How about the fundamental premise of Bowling for Columbine; that the USA is a significantly more violent society than other western nations. As evidence he cites gun crime in the USA, ignoring other types of crime. He ignores the soaring rates of violent crime in other nations with very rigorous gun control laws, such as New Zealand.

His montage of examples of "American Aggression" in the same film contain numerous falsehoods, either in terms of grossly misrepresenting the facts, or simply outright lying (for example claiming that Osama Bin Laden was trained and funded by the CIA). This isn't even taking into account the fact that many are not examples of aggression.

This is immediately after his contention that the presence of a ballistic missile factory in Columbine contributed to the killings (or at least is another symptom of the USA's violent society) despite the fact that the factory in question had not produced ballistic missile engines for decades, and in fact was actively involved in dismantling ballistic missiles.

There's debate over the accuracy of his "go to bank, get gun" claim - staff from the bank claim that the guns are not delivered up front and that Moore opened the account in advance. Moore denies this allegation.

For the record, I am glad I live in a country with stringent gun laws, and would be strongly opposed to more relaxed gun laws such as seen in the USA. I consider the liberal access to guns a major flaw in US society. Just my opinion. :)

-Gumboot

ETA. Another factual incorrect claim made by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine is that the KKK became the NRA. This despite the fact that the KKK was first established only five years before the NRA, the KKK was established by veterans of the Confederate Army while the NRA was established by Union veterans, and former president Ulysses S. Grant, whom actively and aggressively combated the KKK, pushing through the Civil Rights Act of 1871 and the Fifteenth Amendment, was the eighth president of the NRA, after the end of his Presidency.

[Pardalis]

What deffinition of terrorist are you useing here?

This one (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hizballah.htm).

[gumboot]

How pathetically simplistic. Yes, the media has an input. For example, the policy of our illegal war against the people of Iraq. That was promoted heavily by a turd-boy who originated in your neck of the woods: Rupert Murdoch. He even arrogantly admitted that Fox News tried to promote the pro-war stance of the Bush Administration.


Rupert Murdoch is an Australian, thank you very much. :p

The media has enormous sway over the populace. You should be glad you live in a country such as the USA with a large body of media and a spectrum of agendas and political stances. This at least tempers things a little. Try New Zealand for a bit, with a very limited range of press. They can (and do, repeatedly) quite literally dictate the opinion of virtually the entire nation.




But here's where you're completely wrong. Despite a media blitz from the right-wing over here all through 2006, enough Americans said "screw that", and voted the Republican bastards out of office in the House, Senate and State Governorships.


Did you miss the four years of the US Media rejoicing in reporting the chaos and disasters in Iraq and New Orleans, amongst other places? Are you really surprised?





You should know better than nearly anyone how silly your above statement really is - considering you are in the media business (film and television).

Moore's films don't fall into easily pigeonholed categories, such as documentaries. Probably more like semi-docu-commentary. Heavily influenced by his view of the world, and he's not shy about admitting the same.

Yet every single documentary ever made contains false information. All. There are no exceptions. One can try, but there will always be a level of bias in any film that attempts to describe historical events or explore recent actions or whatever, especially in the political, law and business realms.



Michael Moore's films (which are promoted and packaged as factual documentaries) are propaganda. I agree with the intention of Bowling For Columbine (gun control in the US), but not when it's based on a false premise (that Americans are inherently more violent than other population groups).

-Gumboot

[Jonnyclueless]

I must have missed the rejoicing parts of the news broadcasts.

[geni]

This one (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hizballah.htm).

There is no defintion on that page. Try again.

[Pardalis]

There is no defintion on that page. Try again.

Read it again.

[geni]

Read it again.

Fair use allows you to quote the section that definnes terrorism.

[Pardalis]

Fair use allows you to quote the section that definnes terrorism.

Between the spring of 1983 to the summer of 1985 the Hizballah launched an unprecedented wave of suicide bombings which included an attack on the US embassy and at a US Marine base in Beirut. Known or suspected to have been involved in numerous anti-US terrorist attacks, including the suicide truck bombing of the US Embassy and US Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983 and the US Embassy Annex in Beirut in September 1984. Elements of the group were responsible for the kidnapping and detention of US and other Western hostages in Lebanon. The group also attacked the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992.

snip

The organization was very active against Israel during its stay in Lebanese territory, and since the IDF's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000 it began focusing on increasing and expanding its activities within Israel with the aim of carrying out "quality" attacks in Israeli territory, thus disrupting any attempt at dialogue and any opportunity to return to the peace process. This became evident during earlier attempts to hold negotiations with regard to a 'hudna' (ceasefire), when Hizballah operators encouraged attacks aimed at causing these contacts to fail.

On Saturday morning, 7 October 2000, an armed and frenzied mob, numbering in the hundreds, attacked the border fence from Lebanese territory, immediately followed by heavy shelling of Israeli border positions by Hizballah terrorist elements from Lebanese territory, using explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, Sager missiles and border shells. During the course of this aggression, three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by a Hizballah unit which had entered Israeli territory for this purpose.

The organization operates against Israel in four main ways:
Bringing terrorists and collaborators through the border crossings using foreign documents
Setting up a terrorist organization inside Israel and in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hizballah.htm#)
Cross-border operations - smuggling weapons and terrorists
Financial support for Palestinian organizations and groups.Since 2003 it has been possible to see a trend of increasing cooperation between Hizballah in Lebanon and operational entities among the other Palestinian terrorist organizations, with the accent on Tanzim, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Popular Front. This cooperation is particularly evident between Hizballah and the Tanzim and in practice, in recent months Hizballah has served as a kind of "external command" for most of the Tanzim organizations in the territories.

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizballah, admitted for the first time in public the existence of a Hizballah unit responsible for activities with the Palestinians.

snip

Hizballah's methods of controlling terrorist organizations in the territories are similar to those characteristic of the involvement of the command centers of Palestinian terrorist organizations abroad (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) in the actions of their organizations inside the country. Striking in this framework are the instructions to carry out mass murder attacks within Israeli territory, mediation between terrorists at the different centers of action, the large-scale transfer of money, and finally, coordination of the effort to upgrade the terrorist capabilities of the organizations.

snip

United Nations Security Council Resolution (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hizballah.htm#) 1559 (02 September 2004) called for the "disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias".

snip

A heavy exchange of fire between Hizbollah and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) across the Blue Line took place on 21 November 2005, surpassing any activity level since Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. The exchange began with heavy Hizbollah mortar and rocket fire from a number of locations against several IDF positions close to the Blue Line in the eastern sector of the UNIFIL area of operation. Simultaneously, a large group of Hizbollah fighters infiltrated Ghajar village and launched an assault on the Mayor’s office and the IDF position inside the village, south of the Blue Line, which was vacant at the time. The ensuing Israeli retaliation was heavy and included aerial bombing. The exchange of fire subsequently spread all along the Blue Line and lasted for over nine hours. Around 800 artillery, tank and mortar rounds and rockets were exchanged. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) dropped at least 30 aerial bombs.

snip

On July 12, 2006 members of Hizballah infiltrated the Lebanese-Israeli border near Shtula, an Israeli farming village, and claimed responsibility for an ambush conducted on two Israeli Army Hummvees. The attack resulted in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the deaths of three others. Five more Israeli soldiers were killed in the ensuing pursuit of Hizballah members into Lebanese territory. The combined capture of two soldiers and the deaths of 8 others; was considered the worst loss for Israeli military forces in more than four years. Hizballah also claimed responsibility for two separate Katyusha rocket (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/katyusha.htm) attacks on Israeli towns resulting in the death of 1 civilian and the injury of 25 others.

The kidnapping of Israeli troops by Hizballah came in the wake of a similar incident less than a month before, on June 25th, 2006, when Palestinian militants forcibly captured an Israeli soldier to use as leverage for bargaining with the Israeli government. The last time Hizballah carried out a similar operation against Israel was in October of 2000, when 3 Israeli soldiers were abducted by the Lebanese militants. All three victims died either by execution or wounds sustained during their capture. Their bodies were returned to Israel in exchange for the release of several Arab prisoners.

Better now?

[Slayhamlet]

What deffinition of terrorist are you useing here?

They are officially designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Gov.

[geni]

Better now?


Nope. Repeatky calls Hizballah a terrorist group but fails to provide the defintion being used.

[geni]

They are officially designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Gov.


So if the US gov declaired the boy scouts to be a terrorist organization they would be a terrorist organization?

[Pardalis]

Here's a "defintion (http://www.answers.com/topic/terrorism?cat=biz-fin)".

[geni]

Here's a "defintion (http://www.elook.org/dictionary/*******.html)".

A definition of the letter "l" is not relivant to the subject at hand.

[ConspiRaider]

<snipped>...

Michael Moore's films (which are promoted and packaged as factual documentaries) are propaganda. I agree with the intention of Bowling For Columbine (gun control in the US), but not when it's based on a false premise (that Americans are inherently more violent than other population groups).
(bolding mine)

Hey Gum -

Well, we Yanks are definitely more violent than at least some population groups. I don't know about "inherently", but facts speak for themselves. You only have to compare us to Japan to acknowledge that we do a lot more violence here in the USA. What's their secret? What do the Japanese know that is eluding us? The answers are complex.

I'll tell you exactly why Michael Moore is so viciously attacked in this country. It's very similar to why Hillary Clinton is so viciously attacked. The right wing controls mass media here, and the right wing has NO TOLERANCE for dissenting views. And they hate winners. When one slips by - the right-wing starts bellowing: LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS! LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS! Friggin' crybabies.

So, consider that your opinion of Michael Moore may be based, in part, on the maniacal screaming and gnashing of teeth and stomping of feet from the right wing. If there is one concept that defines U.S. right wingers, it is this: Tremendous love for authoritarianism. That's why so many of them are fundamentalist Christians. That's why they want to ditch the Constitution, habeus corpus, allow unauthorized drug testing, disallow flag burning, remove people from government functions because they are wearing the "wrong" tee shirt and so on and so on...

Moore sticks a finger in the eye of authority and the right wingers cannot stand it.

Hillary Clinton takes every shot fired at her by the right wing, and it's like the wind off a duck's ass, to her. They cannot stand it. How could someone - and a woman no less - be THAT tough?

When the right wingers in this country are unhappy? That means something good is happening.

[Slayhamlet]

So if the US gov declaired the boy scouts to be a terrorist organization they would be a terrorist organization?

Legally, yes. What's your point? You think Hezbollah is unfairly termed "terrorist"? Fine. Many state entities, including the U.S., disagree.

[geni]

Legally, yes. What's your point?

So your defintion of terrorist is a group that is legaly a terrorist group within the US?

So regardless of what Comité Régional d'Action Viticole get up to you will not consider them a terrorist group untill the US gov says they are?

Well at least that is a consistant position even if it has the potential to produce some results that many would consider rather odd.

[Pardalis]

What constitutes a terrorist organization to you Geni?

[geni]

What constitutes a terrorist organization to you Geni?

No you brought the term up you define it (personaly I try to avoid it because I view it as unhelpful).

[Pardalis]

No you brought the term up you define it

I fixed the link.

(personaly I try to avoid it because I view it as unhelpful).Rubbish (http://www.answers.com/topic/rubbish?cat=entertainment).

[geni]

I fixed the link.

A defintion that would define both the CIA and Carl Gustaf von Rosen (his actions during the Nigerian Civil War were illegal under Nigerian law) as terrorists


Rubbish (http://www.answers.com/topic/rubbish?cat=entertainment).

So why so much effort needed on your part to try and define it?

[Pardalis]

So why so much effort needed on your part to try and define it?

So why are you asking me for a definition if you yourself admit you won't accept any?

[Arus808]

To STICK on Topic l...

Yes Michael Moore is a truther, in the sense that he doesn't believe the report from the 911 Commission contained the full disclosure of what happened on 9/11/2001.

But it doesn't stop the Truthers from twisting his comments to mean something else.

[geni]

So why are you asking me for a definition if you yourself admit you won't accept any?

I'm asking you for a defintion to find out what you mean by that word.

[Pardalis]

I'm asking you for a defintion to find out what you mean by that word.

And you've just admitted you're not even interested in defining the word.

(personaly I try to avoid it because I view it as unhelpful).

Dishonest maybe?

[skepticalcriticalguy]

Moore's questions and concerns seemed quite reasonable to me. Can anybody here say that they honestly think we got the whole truth?

Oh, forgot; this is JREF.

[Slayhamlet]

So your defintion of terrorist is a group that is legaly a terrorist group within the US?

I was giving one definition by which they could be considered a terrorist organization. It is not "my definition". It is the definition most relevant to the discussion, however, as it has legal force for U.S. citizens. I am saying nothing more and nothing less than that.

So regardless of what Comité Régional d'Action Viticole get up to you will not consider them a terrorist group untill the US gov says they are?

Excuse me? This has nothing to do with what I consider a terrorist group. Terrorism is a very broad term that can have a number of different meanings depending in large part on subjective criteria. Hezbollah is also a charity organization and Lebanese political party, on top of being a militia. Their militia has engaged in certain activities that can reasonably be called terrorism, but those are only a small part of their entire operations. Does this make them terrorists? I don't know, it's not so clear-cut.

Well at least that is a consistant position even if it has the potential to produce some results that many would consider rather odd.

What position? I have not stated any position. But I will ask you again: What the hell is your point?

[Chedda]

Dylan's blatantly waving his true colours in a manner only true truthseekers could ignore.

My biggest concern with this is that F9/11 1/2 will be a 9/11 truth film, and the mainstream media will suddenly applaud him as if he's the first person to expose this information, which I feel is a gigantic insult and dis-service to those of us who have been busting our asses for years only to be ridiculed by the MSM.

Or am I out of line here?

http://z10.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_Forum/index.php?showtopic=11038&view=findpost&p=13892200

How dare someone consider stealing his troofer thunder.

[boloboffin]

First off, the actual Michael Moore quote:

8399599446820879166

From this quote, it's clear that Moore is happy to have any kind of questions out there that undermine the Bush Administration. And he must know that camera is on him, doesn't he? Could the camera be hidden at that point?

No matter. It's him. Moore is being quite the player here. He mentions that a lot of firefighters talking about explosions, and they believe there is much more than we have been told. He supports a new investigation, and he does the Pentagon thing - there are cameras all around the building, why don't we have video from that building. He thinks that answers are in the tape. He's "not very good with the physics" - palming off any other questions and completely shutting down any endorsement of Ron Paul.

So of course, the truthers have to bash him.

It's this kind of playing the field that I think most people here have a problem with. It's hard to dispute most of the facts that he uses, but it's the way the facts are used in his films that most find questionable. He uses facts (and very occasionally dresses them up) to advance a position that his targets have to spend time debunking.

The problem isn't really propaganda, because everything is propaganda, really. It's really more about the over-the-line tactics available in propaganda, where the ignorant are kept ignorant about other facts that might undermine the basic message. Michael does this, but far less than he is accused of, and much, much less than a Bart Sibrel or a Dylan Avery.

Re: Bowling from Columbine - here is Michael's defense (http://michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/). He deals with the Lockheed question and the bank/gun question there. I don't remember the NRA/KKK statement. That wasn't in the cartoon, was it?

Because having grown up in the South, I can assure you that every member of the KKK would be card-carrying members of the NRA, just as the membership logs of the southern chapters of the Freemasons would have looked incredibly similar to the membership logs of the KKK at a certain point in time. My grandfather was a member of both for a short period of time in the Sixties. Being anti-Mason in the South was a very easy way to be against the Klan back then, and my grandfather was very anti-Mason after he left them. So if Moore says the KKK became the NRA (especially in the cartoon), he isn't too far off the mark, organizational papers be [rule8]ed.

I hear a lot of noise about Fahrenheit 9/11, but the most I've ever been able to nail down is Moore making up a newspaper page for an online story. And Sicko seems to be winning people over from both sides of the aisle.

[geni]

And you've just admitted you're not even interested in defining the word.

I'm interested in watching other people try.

[Redtail]

The problem I've had with Moore is his hyping up point when they don't need it. Like the scene at that memorial foundation dinner in which Bush says something like "Some call you the rich elite, I call you my base." Just no need for it.

In the upcomming Sicko it seems that he's not going to do things like that and just present facts so I'm actually looking forward to this one.

[Jonnyclueless]

I hate to add posts that don't really contribute, but wouldn't Micheal and Rosie make a good couple?

[boloboffin]

Michael is already married and Rosie is a lesbian, but other than complete incompatability... sure, why not?

ETA: Hey, according to Wikipedia, Michael learned how to make movies from a first cousin of President George W. Bush! Da fix is in!

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

<snip>
Oh, forgot; this is JREF.
Your cognative bias is showing again.

[PhantomWolf]

While he might use issues of importance, the fact that he uses deception and that deception borders on outright lies, still places him one step above Bart Sibrel in my book. And by the way, Politically I am a Left leaning centrist so this isn't simply a political view.

[PhantomWolf]

removed because of triple posting due to computer problems

[pomeroo]

(bolding mine)

Hey Gum -

Well, we Yanks are definitely more violent than at least some population groups. I don't know about "inherently", but facts speak for themselves. You only have to compare us to Japan to acknowledge that we do a lot more violence here in the USA. What's their secret? What do the Japanese know that is eluding us? The answers are complex.

I'll tell you exactly why Michael Moore is so viciously attacked in this country. It's very similar to why Hillary Clinton is so viciously attacked. The right wing controls mass media here, and the right wing has NO TOLERANCE for dissenting views.



Why do you always make yourself sound like a Twoofer whenever you start spouting this silly lefty propaganda? The right has the FOX network and talk radio. The left has the three major networks, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, PBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the L.A. Times, almost every other major daily, most of the entertainment industry, and virtually ALL of academia. Are you telling us that you've never seen any of the studies that show the overwhelming preponderance of liberals in the news business? It's not exactly a secret.


And they hate winners. When one slips by - the right-wing starts bellowing: LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS! LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS! Friggin' crybabies.

So, consider that your opinion of Michael Moore may be based, in part, on the maniacal screaming and gnashing of teeth and stomping of feet from the right wing.



When Moore characterized Americans as the "dumbest sons-of-bitches on the planet" to a German audience, should we take him seriously or was this another example of his subtle wit? You're not fooling too many of us about Moore, Conspi.


If there is one concept that defines U.S. right wingers, it is this: Tremendous love for authoritarianism.


Gee, and most of us who idled away our youth taking poli sci courses thought that conservatives prize individual freedoms.



That's why so many of them are fundamentalist Christians. That's why they want to ditch the Constitution, habeus corpus, allow unauthorized drug testing, disallow flag burning, remove people from government functions because they are wearing the "wrong" tee shirt and so on and so on...




Name a conservative who opposes the right of habeas corpus for American citizens.



Moore sticks a finger in the eye of authority and the right wingers cannot stand it.




Moore is a fraud and a hypocrite.



Hillary Clinton takes every shot fired at her by the right wing, and it's like the wind off a duck's ass, to her. They cannot stand it. How could someone - and a woman no less - be THAT tough?




Uh, nothing dents her armor because she is shielded: her crimes are ignored by that LIBERAL media you pretend doesn't exist. Does "New Square" ring a bell?



When the right wingers in this country are unhappy? That means something good is happening.



Yeah, I guess our coming defeat in Iraq is a cause for celebration. I hope you're right about those harmless jihadists.

[PhantomWolf]

removed due to triple posting due to computer issues.

[boloboffin]

While he might use issues of importance, the fact that he uses deception and that deception borders on outright lies, still places him one step above Bart Sibrel in my book. And by the way, Politically I am a Left leaning centrist so this isn't simply a political view.

As somebody who once worked with Bart Sibrel, I can assure you that your bias against Michael Moore is unfounded. I would put David Ray Griffin in the staircase between Moore and Sibrel.

[PhantomWolf]

As somebody who once worked with Bart Sibrel, I can assure you that your bias against Michael Moore is unfounded. I would put David Ray Griffin in the staircase between Moore and Sibrel.

Hang on, it's a bias to dislike the way the guy distorts things? Personnaly I'd put DRG and Dylan on the same rung as Sibrel... actually, no Dylan might be lower. Moore would get a lot more respect from me if he didn't resort to cheap trickery, ommision, cherry picking his facts and cute video editting to get his point of view across. The reason I don't rate him as low as Sibrel is because he doesn't outright lie, but he comes darn close.

[Pardalis]

I hope you're right about those harmless jihadists.

I don't recall ConspiRaider ever diminishing the threat of islamic terrorism.

[pomeroo]

I don't recall ConspiRaider ever diminishing the threat of islamic terrorism.



I can't figure Conspi out. He seems to understand the idiocy of the fantasy movement well enough. But he goes off the deep end with Perry-Logan rants against anything that doesn't conform to his prejudices. His passionate love for a bunch of unprincipled hacks is a mystery to me. I tend to vote Republican because I find the Democrats so objectionable: they seem to regard a person's earnings as government property; they frame every issue in terms of groups, rather than individuals; they are reflexively anti-military and dangerously weak on national security. Still, if I ever found myself claiming to love the Republican Party, I'd take a good long rest.

What does Conspi think about the threat of Islamic terrorism? He strongly favors pulling out of Iraq. Does he want Iran to obtain nuclear weapons? Does he think America is an "imperial" power? I have no business putting words in his mouth, but I wish he'd tell us what he thinks about the jihadist threat. Why would a vet have anything good to say about a thoroughly dishonest America-basher like Michael Moore? Moore called the murderous savages ravaging Iraq "freedom fighters." Does Conspi disagree with that characterization?

[boloboffin]

Hang on, it's a bias to dislike the way the guy distorts things? Personnaly I'd put DRG and Dylan on the same rung as Sibrel... actually, no Dylan might be lower. Moore would get a lot more respect from me if he didn't resort to cheap trickery, ommision, cherry picking his facts and cute video editting to get his point of view across. The reason I don't rate him as low as Sibrel is because he doesn't outright lie, but he comes darn close.

Like I say, I worked with Sibrel once. How should I put this? The dude used to order his pizzas with extra mushrooms. And now he's a member of an extremely legalistic Christian cult (well, he was, and I didn't see any sign of him dropping out the last I knew of him). That's why he chases astronauts with Bibles.

And that's why I object to characterizing Moore offhandedly as "one step above Bart Sibrel." Bart Sibrel is just another species of TV Fakery. Even Dylan and DRG won't go that far, and Moore isn't on their level of chicanery, by your own estimation.

[Jonnyclueless]

I think trying to mislead people by selectively eliminating evidence and facts is wrong on any level. I only have one category for that behavior. I don't see a scale for that. I can maybe put the people who unintentionally mislead in one category, and people who intentionally mislead in another.

MM is one of those people, like Dylan who intentionally tries to mislead people. I hear he breaks that method in Sicko, but we'll have to wait and see. But fraud is fraud to me.

[boloboffin]

I continue to hear a lot of claims about Michael Moore's sins, but precious few have stepped up to provide examples and citations.

This is not the settled question you think it to be.

[pomeroo]

I continue to hear a lot of claims about Michael Moore's sins, but precious few have stepped up to provide examples and citations.

This is not the settled question you think it to be.



The question seems more settled to those who have read the books detailing Moore's numerous distortions and outright lies, the many articles that do the same, and have watched the DVD "Fahren-hype 911."

[PhantomWolf]

Like I say, I worked with Sibrel once. How should I put this? The dude used to order his pizzas with extra mushrooms. And now he's a member of an extremely legalistic Christian cult (well, he was, and I didn't see any sign of him dropping out the last I knew of him). That's why he chases astronauts with Bibles.

And that's why I object to characterizing Moore offhandedly as "one step above Bart Sibrel." Bart Sibrel is just another species of TV Fakery. Even Dylan and DRG won't go that far, and Moore isn't on their level of chicanery, by your own estimation.

Moore uses exactly the same ambush and edit tactics that Sibrel does, minus the Bible. If that one item is your entire case, it's pretty poor.

I continue to hear a lot of claims about Michael Moore's sins, but precious few have stepped up to provide examples and citations.

This is not the settled question you think it to be.

Do a search for "Moore Lies" on Google. The problem being that when people do stand up and point out his deceptions and misleading edits, they get lept on by his fanatical left wing supporters and vilified as Crazy gun-nutters or Bush lovers. There is as much point in giving out links to places that reveal Moore deceptions to his supporters as is there is in giving Gravy's links to a 9/11 Truther.

[boloboffin]

The problem being that when people do stand up and point out his deceptions and misleading edits, they get lept on by his fanatical left wing supporters and vilified as Crazy gun-nutters or Bush lovers. There is as much point in giving out links to places that reveal Moore deceptions to his supporters as is there is in giving Gravy's links to a 9/11 Truther.

I missed the part where I jumped on anyone here for being a Crazy gun-nutter or a Bush lover. You will be so good as to point that passage of mine out to me? I would hate to think that you just pulled a Michael Moore on me.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Admittedly no more than an impression -- but wasn't Michael Moore saying "trooferish" things even before there was such a movement?

Like right after the 9-11 massacre?

I'm pretty sure there was some kind of controversial pronouncement, but I do not remember the details.

[pomeroo]

Admittedly no more than an impression -- but wasn't Michael Moore saying "trooferish" things even before there was such a movement?

Like right after the 9-11 massacre?

I'm pretty sure there was some kind of controversial pronouncement, but I do not remember the details.



He raged on his website about the unfairness of killing all those people in a state that "didn't even vote for Bush." The resultant outcry persuaded him to remove the offensive comments pretty quickly, but you get the idea.

[PhantomWolf]

I missed the part where I jumped on anyone here for being a Crazy gun-nutter or a Bush lover. You will be so good as to point that passage of mine out to me? I would hate to think that you just pulled a Michael Moore on me.

Right after you point out where I said I was talking about you.

[PhantomWolf]

He raged on his website about the unfairness of killing all those people in a state that "didn't even vote for Bush." The resultant outcry persuaded him to remove the offensive comments pretty quickly, but you get the idea.

He was also high critical of them going into Afghanistan and then in 9/11 he blasted them for taking so long to act.

[boloboffin]

Right after you point out where I said I was talking about you.

So when you were justifying your refusal to provide a link to me because doing so only gets you false accusations from fanatical leftwing supporters of Michael Moore, you weren't talking about me?

[Gravy]

As an aside, Sicko is well worth seeing, especially if you're an American.

[Slayhamlet]

I think Moore is a bit too circumspect to come out swinging for "teh Truth". He doesn't want to give his political enemies the ammunition.

[PhantomWolf]

No, I was justifying it in that fact that if you really wanted to find them you could using a search engine in less time that it took for you to post here, and that it wasn't worth it because you'd just look up the pro-moorse sites that attack the anti-moore sites and call them right wing Bush patsies and use them to say Moore was right and his detractors are wrong and we'd be right back where we started.

[gumboot]

I think trying to mislead people by selectively eliminating evidence and facts is wrong on any level. I only have one category for that behavior. I don't see a scale for that. I can maybe put the people who unintentionally mislead in one category, and people who intentionally mislead in another.

MM is one of those people, like Dylan who intentionally tries to mislead people. I hear he breaks that method in Sicko, but we'll have to wait and see. But fraud is fraud to me.



This is pretty much my point of view.

For the record, the cartoon in Bowling For Columbine, which incidentally was written by Michael Moore, quite clearly claims that the KKK became the NRA:

(from about 2 mins in)

Zqh6Ap9ldTs

-Gumboot

[Gurdur]

Michael Moore is a traitor.
Pardalis, you're getting ridiculous.

Tell you what, if your claim is true, you shoudl be able to show the USA government that, and they can prosecute Moore for treason.

Of course, that would only work if your claim is actually true, and not simply demented crap.

If you can't see what's wrong with inflated, nonsensical claims, I can't help you, and no-one else can either.

[gumboot]

Michael Moore also said:

"There is no terrorist threat."

-Gumboot

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Admittedly no more than an impression -- but wasn't Michael Moore saying "trooferish" things even before there was such a movement?

Like right after the 9-11 massacre?

I'm pretty sure there was some kind of controversial pronouncement, but I do not remember the details.

In his "Seven Questions for George Bush" which was published in Dude Where's My Country? in 2003, he proposes a rather bizarre theory that the 9/11 attackers were trained by the Saudi Air Force. Granted, he frames these all as "questions."

You got us all repeating by rote that it was Osama bin Laden who was
responsible for the attack on the United States on September 11. Even I was
doing it. But then I started hearing strange stories about Osama's kidneys.
Suddenly, I don't know who or what to trust. How could a guy sitting in a
cave in Afghanistan, hooked up to dialysis, have directed and overseen the
actions of 19 terrorists for two years in the US then plotted so perfectly
the hijacking of four planes and then guaranteed that three of them would
end up precisely on their targets? How did he organize, communicate, control
and supervise this kind of massive attack? With two cans and a string?


And

would like to throw out a possibility here: what if September 11 was not a "terrorist" attack but, rather, a military attack against the United States? George, apparently you were a pilot once - how hard is it to hit a five-story building at more than 500 miles an hour? The Pentagon is only five stories high. At 500 miles an hour, had the pilots been off by just a hair, they'd have been in the river. You do not get this skilled at learning how to fly jumbo jets by being taught on a video game machine at some ******* flight training school in Arizona. You learn to do this in the air force. Someone's air force.

The Saudi air force?

What if these weren't wacko terrorists, but military pilots who signed on to
a suicide mission? What if they were doing this at the behest of either the
Saudi government or certain disgruntled members of the Saudi royal family?


Full article here (http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/mooreonbush100703.cfm). I brought this up in another thread about Moore, and none of his supporters said anything about it. I have no idea why he hasn't been taken to task for this, but he should be.

[firecoins]

So if the US gov declaired the boy scouts to be a terrorist organization they would be a terrorist organization?
The boy scouts are a terrorist group.

[gumboot]

The boy scouts are a terrorist group.


They sank the Titanic.

-Gumboot

[Alareth]

I continue to hear a lot of claims about Michael Moore's sins, but precious few have stepped up to provide examples and citations.

This is not the settled question you think it to be.

Compliation of problems with F9/11 (http://moorewatch.com/index.php/weblog/f911)

Bowling for Columbine (http://www.mooreexposed.com/bfc.html)

[Checkmite]

I think Moore is a bit too circumspect to come out swinging for "teh Truth". He doesn't want to give his political enemies the ammunition.


Sadly, I think that's quite possibly the only reason he doesn't come out for the TM.

[Jonnyclueless]

I continue to hear a lot of claims about Michael Moore's sins, but precious few have stepped up to provide examples and citations.

This is not the settled question you think it to be.

There are a lot, but I stopped paying attention to Moore so long ago that I forget most of the issues.

I remember seeing Bowling for Columbine I think it was where he was touting how the NRA was so callous as to have a convention in the area just after the shooting occurred and how insensitive it was of them to do that.

But what he left out was that they were contractually obligated by the city to hold the convention and were not allowed to postpone it. To add insult to injury, Moore then proceeds to show clips from a much older convention showing them saying suggestive things. Well, they were not suggestive in context of the convention that was being shown. but the editing and use o the wrong footage was done to make it appear as if they were talking about the Columnbine shootings.

The average person watching would have no way to know that this was not a muchb older convention being shown and that the clips were in no way making such references since they happens so much earlier. They are completely mislead here.

THAT is just one of 100s of examples (and I may be getting it a little wrong) of complete dishonesty that is being portrayed as a documentary. And at the time of me watching it, I believed every word he said and fell for every editing trick he used. I am angry with him for trying to trick me and others.

[Alareth]

You know, when we bitch about truther quote mining and editing videos creatively to alter context in support of the agenda they are pushing, they are only following in the well worn path Moore has paved for them.

[ConspiRaider]

I can't figure Conspi out. He seems to understand the idiocy of the fantasy movement well enough. But he goes off the deep end with Perry-Logan rants against anything that doesn't conform to his prejudices. His passionate love for a bunch of unprincipled hacks is a mystery to me. I tend to vote Republican because I find the Democrats so objectionable: they seem to regard a person's earnings as government property; they frame every issue in terms of groups, rather than individuals; they are reflexively anti-military and dangerously weak on national security. Still, if I ever found myself claiming to love the Republican Party, I'd take a good long rest.

What does Conspi think about the threat of Islamic terrorism? He strongly favors pulling out of Iraq. Does he want Iran to obtain nuclear weapons? Does he think America is an "imperial" power? I have no business putting words in his mouth, but I wish he'd tell us what he thinks about the jihadist threat. Why would a vet have anything good to say about a thoroughly dishonest America-basher like Michael Moore? Moore called the murderous savages ravaging Iraq "freedom fighters." Does Conspi disagree with that characterization?
Your ignorance, Ron, is so transparent that only zealous idealism can be pointed to as the culprit. You certainly cannot claim youth as an excuse for your ignorance. You're an oldster like me. Yet, like a small child, you view the world in the harsh contrasts of black and white.

It is your exceedingly narrow viewpoint that is responsible for you making such pathetically ignorant statements such as Democrats being "dangerously weak on national security". And don't be shy. You DO love the Republican Party. Or rather, what it has become - what it has been hijacked into. Time and time again, your posts illustrate undying adoration for the criminals that are the Bush Administration. You, Ron, are one of the 29 percenters still propping up the criminals. Too bad for you that us 71 percenters have unmasked these thugs. And you, Ron, cannot accept the fact that Bill Clinton, despite being impeached by the House, had an approval rating that never dipped below 50 percent. Hurts, doesn't it? Bill Clinton can wade into any crowd of people, anywhere in the world, and be overwhelmed by the affection and admiration of the folks in such a crowd. Your boy Bush? When he leaves office, he'll need an armed escort just to pick up the newspaper on his front lawn each morning.

What you so completely fail to realize, in your rabid zeal, is that Bush, with his insane "mission" to smash and overtake Iraq, has created an untold number of jihadists, and future jihadists, that never would have gone that route had the path to such madness not been blazed by Stupid-Boy himself. When 9/11 happened - instead of us Americans being able to count on steady, intelligent and reasoned response from our president; instead of our president exploiting the capital that our country had earned (before him) in the world to combat terrorism; instead of our president appointing the shrewdest experts available to deal with the complexities and ramifications of confronting our actual enemies: he did what he did. And he now has the distinction of having directly caused - through his war fever aimed specifically at the country that was NOT involved in 9/11 - the deaths of more Americans than Osama bin Laden. With tens of thousands grieviously wounded.

So, would you like to explain to me once again why my opposition to such a leader is akin to "passionate love for a bunch of unprincipled hacks"?

Your hero - Bush - does NOT fight the jihadists. He invents them, instigates them, provokes them. Give me some reasons as to why he would do this.

[quixotecoyote]

I actually started to defend Moore, because I think he's right about a lot of things. But after doing a little detectigoogling, I can't really defend the dishonest way he goes about making the points.

I focused on Bowling for Columbine. It looks to me like he could have made the same 'culture of fear' arguments without the misleading splicing which is his most common unethical tactic.

eta:Thanks for the links Alareth.

[gumboot]

But what he left out was that they were contractually obligated by the city to hold the convention and were not allowed to postpone it.



It was more than that. They were required to hold the meeting by New York state law. They could change it if they notified all members at least 10 days before the scheduled meeting, however the NRA has 4 million members and the shooting occurred only 11 days before the meeting.

What Moore also neglected to mention was that the NRA cancelled all planned events except the legally obligated members vote.

Michael Moore is nothing more than a more talented, more popular, better funded Dylan Avery.

-Gumboot

[PhantomWolf]

Ouch Conspri, you sound like you're still having trouible getting over thew 2000 election man. Let it go. That level of vitrole will just cause you an ulser for sure. We all know that Bush is an idiot, but criminal? you're really trying to push the anti-Bush hatred uphill with that one.

[NoZed Avenger]

What deffinition of terrorist are you useing here?

Is there a definition that excludes Hezbolah?

[PhantomWolf]

Is there a definition that excludes Hezbolah?

Yup. It's found in the Hamas New English Dictionary. Published in Tehran.

[Gravy]

And you, Ron, cannot accept the fact that Bill Clinton, despite being impeached by the House, had an approval rating that never dipped below 50 percent. Hurts, doesn't it?A small correction here. Clinton's approval ratings were generally over 50%, but his low was 36% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_rating). His high was 73% and he finished his second term at 65% (http://uspolitics.about.com/library/bl_historical_approval.htm).

[ConspiRaider]

There are a lot, but I stopped paying attention to Moore so long ago that I forget most of the issues.

I remember seeing Bowling for Columbine I think it was where he was touting how the NRA was so callous as to have a convention in the area just after the shooting occurred and how insensitive it was of them to do that.

But what he left out was that they were contractually obligated by the city to hold the convention and were not allowed to postpone it. To add insult to injury, Moore then proceeds to show clips from a much older convention showing them saying suggestive things. Well, they were not suggestive in context of the convention that was being shown. but the editing and use o the wrong footage was done to make it appear as if they were talking about the Columnbine shootings.

The average person watching would have no way to know that this was not a muchb older convention being shown and that the clips were in no way making such references since they happens so much earlier. They are completely mislead here.

THAT is just one of 100s of examples (and I may be getting it a little wrong) of complete dishonesty that is being portrayed as a documentary. And at the time of me watching it, I believed every word he said and fell for every editing trick he used. I am angry with him for trying to trick me and others.
Nope. Not true. This is what happens when you go to Web sites specifically setup to discredit Moore. It's hate peddling. Like for Hillary Clinton. Like for Cindy Sheehan. Michael J. Fox (via Rush Limbaugh). These sites, run by right wingers, have the money and motivation.

Here is Charlton Heston's speech given in Denver that day, which in fact was 10 days after the Columbine shooting:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/heston.php

Here's something from Moore, on Bowling for Columbine. Note that he does NOT say all of the movie is a fact. Only that those facts presented in the movie are true:

I can guarantee to you, without equivocation, that every fact in my movie is true. Three teams of fact-checkers and two groups of lawyers went through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure that every statement of fact is indeed an indisputable fact. Trust me, no film company would ever release a film like this without putting it through the most vigorous vetting process possible. The sheer power and threat of the NRA is reason enough to strike fear in any movie studio or theater chain. The NRA will go after you without mercy if they think there's half a chance of destroying you. That's why we don't have better gun laws in this country – every member of Congress is scared to death of them.

Well, guess what. Total number of lawsuits to date against me or my film by the NRA? NONE. That's right, zero. And don't forget for a second that if they could have shut this film down on a technicality they would have. But they didn't and they can't – because the film is factually solid and above reproach. In fact, we have not been sued by any individual or group over the statements made in "Bowling for Columbine?" Why is that? Because everything we say is true – and the things that are our opinion, we say so and leave it up to the viewer to decide if our point of view is correct or not for each of them.


Here's Moore's entire statement on the subject:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/

[Jonnyclueless]

It was more than that.

-Gumboot


Thanks, sorry for the misinfo. I knew I was probably getting something wrong, but it was along the lines of that. I tried to put some hints in there, so I hope no one thinks I was trying to pull the same tricks Moore does. Lol!

[ConspiRaider]

A small correction here. Clinton's approval ratings were generally over 50%, but his low was 36% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_rating). His high was 73% and he finished his second term at 65% (http://uspolitics.about.com/library/bl_historical_approval.htm).
Good catch, thanks. That was apparently just as he was getting started, back there in 1993.

[PhantomWolf]

Nope. Not true.

No?

Heston's speech from BfC

GOOD MORNING.

Thank you all for coming and thank you for supporting your organization.

I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today.

I have a message from the mayor, Mr. Wellington Webb, the mayor of Denver.

He sent me this, and it says: "Don't come here. We don't want you here."

I said to the mayor, "This is our country. As Americans we're free
to travel wherever we want in our broad land."


Heston's speech from Moore's own site.

GOOD MORNING.

I want to welcome you to this abbreviated annual gathering of the National Rifle Association. Thank you for coming and thank you for supporting your organization. I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today. Of course, you have a right to be here.

As you know, we've canceled the festivities and fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. I apologize for that. But it's fitting and proper that we should do this ... because NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity

Wellington Webb, the mayor of Denver, sent me a message: "Don't come here. We don't want you here, "

I say to the Mayor, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I've run small errands for my country from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you could say the same. But the Mayor said, "Don't come."

I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for the newspaper ads saying the same thing. "Don't come here." This is our country. As Americans we are free to travel wherever we wish in our broad land.

notice any minor editing?

[negativ]

I'll tell you exactly why Michael Moore is so viciously attacked in this country. It's very similar to why Hillary Clinton is so viciously attacked. The right wing controls mass media here, and the right wing has NO TOLERANCE for dissenting views. And they hate winners. When one slips by - the right-wing starts bellowing: LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS! LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS! Friggin' crybabies.

This is one of those cases where prolonged exposure to Troofer hyperbole has impaired my ability to discern between sarcastic jokery and outhouse-rat craziness. Some part of my brain genuinely believes, having read many of your posts on this forum, that you are far too intelligent to mean all that stuff literally, but still, I can't really tell.

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[ConspiRaider]

Ouch Conspri, you sound like you're still having trouible getting over thew 2000 election man. Let it go. That level of vitrole will just cause you an ulser for sure. We all know that Bush is an idiot, but criminal? you're really trying to push the anti-Bush hatred uphill with that one.
Hey Wolf -

Any decent and normal-thinking American has trouble getting over the 2000 election. Even those who voted for Bush.

I won't be getting an ulcer. :) Would have already happened.

Bush is a criminal many times over. For him NOT to have been impeached long ago merely underscores the power that the right wing has in the media, the Washington lobbies, the business world; and the reluctance of Republicans in Congress to break out of their lockstepping partisan march.

You can almost throw a dart at Bush and anywhere it hits is crime. He lied - completely - about the reasons and justification for initiating an offensive war against a nation that did not attack the United States. All lies. Every bit of it. When Clinton lied as a result of having sex with an adult woman, he was impeached by the House. No one died as a result of that sexual activity. When Bush lied about the reasons for completely smashing a foreign country - more than 3,500 American families have individually had to figure out some way to adjust to the absence of their family member. Tens of thousands of other American families have to cope with the fact that their loved one has no hands. Or legs. Or is blind. Or is paralyzed. Or has brain damage. Or...

That's criminal. To me, anyway. And to millions of other Americans.

Bush spied on Americans without first obtaining FISA warrants. That is a crime. Then he lied about it. Another crime.

Bush installed former campaign workers in key government positions to suppress the truth about global warming reports. That's a crime.

Bush - or his Administration - destroyed untold amounts of government property (emails) for motivations yet unknown. That's a crime.

And it goes from there, in varying degrees.

I really wish Bush was just an idiot. We've had plenty of those. But this goes much further than mere idiocy.

[ConspiRaider]

This is one of those cases where prolonged exposure to Troofer hyperbole has impaired my ability to discern between sarcastic jokery and outhouse-rat craziness. Some part of my brain genuinely believes, having read many of your posts on this forum, that you are far too intelligent to mean all that stuff literally, but still, I can't really tell.

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:
Are you an American? Do you live here in the USA?

I'm no more intelligent than the guy next door to me or the woman across the street. How can I be? I'm from Ohio, and am part Polish. :)

"Liberal Media Bias" is a right-wing chant that has as much twoof to it as "9/11 Was An Inside Job!".

[PhantomWolf]

He lied - completely - about the reasons and justification for initiating an offensive war against a nation that did not attack the United States. All lies. Every bit of it.

Was it? The almost overwhelming consensous at the time, even from countries such as France and Germany was that Iraq DID have WMDs. The conflict was what should be done. The US and UK wanted to deal with him and any weapons themselves by invading, while France and co wanted to allow the UN inspectors to deal with them. Heck even your hero Hillary voted FOR the invasion. Can you show categoric proof that Bush knew that there were no WMD in Iraq when his own intelligence community was telling him that there were?

[pomeroo]

Your ignorance, Ron, is so transparent that only zealous idealism can be pointed to as the culprit. You certainly cannot claim youth as an excuse for your ignorance. You're an oldster like me. Yet, like a small child, you view the world in the harsh contrasts of black and white.




My ignorance of what? I've been accused of many things but never "zealous idealism." It's fair to say that people who know me would vote me the person least likely to be zealously idealistic about anything.


It is your exceedingly narrow viewpoint that is responsible for you making such pathetically ignorant statements such as Democrats being "dangerously weak on national security".


Why do people like Bob Beckel talk about the necessity for shedding the party's image as weak on national security? Why do you suppose that pundits on both sides acknowledge that the perception that Dems are anti-military is more than an image problem?



And don't be shy. You DO love the Republican Party.



Don't act dumb. I can't imagine loving a cowardly bunch of mediocrities. I don't how you manage it.


Or rather, what it has become - what it has been hijacked into. Hijacked? Words have meanings, you know. Nobody hijacked the party.


Time and time again, your posts illustrate undying adoration for the criminals that are the Bush Administration.


I guess you could say that I adore Bush, I just don't approve of the way he handles his job. Makes a lot of sense, huh?


You, Ron, are one of the 29 percenters still propping up the criminals. Too bad for you that us 71 percenters have unmasked these thugs.


Are you becoming a twoofer? "Unmasked these thugs"? You unmasked them as... people with whom you have policy disagreements. Such absurd overheated rhetoric exposes the intellectual bankruptcy of the left.


And you, Ron, cannot accept the fact that Bill Clinton, despite being impeached by the House, had an approval rating that never dipped below 50 percent. Hurts, doesn't it?


Uh, why should it hurt? I was opposed to his impeachment. The people had the opportunity to vote him out and they opted not to.



Bill Clinton can wade into any crowd of people, anywhere in the world, and be overwhelmed by the affection and admiration of the folks in such a crowd. Your boy Bush? When he leaves office, he'll need an armed escort just to pick up the newspaper on his front lawn each morning.



Clinton never won fifty percent of the popular vote. He wasted eight years of the nation's time amassing enormous wealth for himself and Hillary (they are worth an estimated fifty million dollars today). He left absolutely no footprints in the hourglass. He has no legacy whatever, foreign or domestic. He accomplished nothing. Bush will be viewed as a Wilsonian visionary, although it is likely that his ambitious goal to remake the Middle East will end in failure.


What you so completely fail to realize, in your rabid zeal, is that Bush, with his insane "mission" to smash and overtake Iraq, has created an untold number of jihadists, and future jihadists, that never would have gone that route had the path to such madness not been blazed by Stupid-Boy himself.


You sound very silly today. What's wrong? The mission, obviously, was to replace Saddam Hussein with a democratic government. The jihadists perceive that goal as a deadly threat to their long-term aims. They understand the stakes very well and realize that Iraq is a life-and-struggle for their ideology. I must continue to remind you that Bush is smarter than Gore and Kerry, which isn't saying much. I see rabid zeal from you--very little from me.




When 9/11 happened - instead of us Americans being able to count on steady, intelligent and reasoned response from our president;



Does that include fighting back? Are you certain Gore would have responded with force? What makes you think so?


instead of our president exploiting the capital that our country had earned (before him) in the world to combat terrorism; instead of our president appointing the shrewdest experts available to deal with the complexities and ramifications of confronting our actual enemies: he did what he did. And he now has the distinction of having directly caused - through his war fever aimed specifically at the country that was NOT involved in 9/11 - the deaths of more Americans than Osama bin Laden. With tens of thousands grieviously wounded.




Please. This tired song-and-dance plays well in Democratic primaries. The moment America struck back, we lost the good will of the rest of the world. Our "allies" showed us their true colors. Let's agree that America will be reviled whenever it asserts itself. Our job is to dole out cash and take crap from the fanatics and barbarians of the world. If we want to be liked, we'd better be prepared to absorb plenty of punishment.



So, would you like to explain to me once again why my opposition to such a leader is akin to "passionate love for a bunch of unprincipled hacks"?

Your hero - Bush - does NOT fight the jihadists. He invents them, instigates them, provokes them. Give me some reasons as to why he would do this.


You display unrestrained admiration for unprincipled, short-sighted pols who are clueless to define America's proper role in a very complex world. Bush fights the jihadists as hard as he can. Maybe it's not good enough and they are destined to win. Jean Francois Revel explained why democracies are at a disadvantage in confrontations with authoritarian states. I'd recommend two excellent studies of the jihadist mind, Knowing the Enemy by Mary Habeck and The War of Ideas by Walid Phares, but I suspect you'd dismiss them with a few uninformed slurs at the authors.

You never did get around to telling us how the Democrats will meet the jihadist threat. The Breck Girl, John Edwards, has stated that the war on terror isn't real; it's just a bumper-sticker slogan. Is he right?

[PhantomWolf]

Bush installed former campaign workers in key government positions to suppress the truth about global warming reports. That's a crime.

And exactly how is this a crime? It might be very poor science, but what law was broken?

The other two I honestly don't know US law well enough to know if they are illegal or not.

[PhantomWolf]

Oh, and if Bush is such a Criminal, why haven't the Dem's impeached him yet? They have had nearly a year in control of both houses to do it. Why haven't they?

[pomeroo]

A small correction here. Clinton's approval ratings were generally over 50%, but his low was 36% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_rating). His high was 73% and he finished his second term at 65% (http://uspolitics.about.com/library/bl_historical_approval.htm).



I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing that when the voters swept the Democrats out of control of Congress in 1994 in a historic landslide and polls in early 1995 showed Clinton running fifteen points behind a generic Republican, Bubba wasn't riding too high.

[Jonnyclueless]

One thing that bothered me about in his 9/11 movie was when he showed all the outtakes of people making mistakes and licking their combs and what not. At the time I thought it was very entertaining because I didn't care for any of the people he was making fun of. And I still don't. But after a while I started to think about it. How serious of a documentary maker/film maker can he be if he is going to use cheap tactics to embarrass people. I think that's just irresponsible for a documentary no matter who the people being made fun of are. It showed a real lack of class. I expect that from myself, but not from someone making a serious documentary about serious issues.

[PhantomWolf]

I must continue to remind you that Bush is smarter than Gore and Kerry

I'm not sure he is actually smarter than Gore. Smarter then kerry yeah, but so is a frog.

[ConspiRaider]

Oh, and if Bush is such a Criminal, why haven't the Dem's impeached him yet? They have had nearly a year in control of both houses to do it. Why haven't they?
Let's start with the numbers:

The Dems have NOT had control of both Houses for nearly a year. Five months - since late January, 2007.

In the House of Representatives, a simple majority is needed for impeachment. The Dems have that. But - impeachment is absolutely no simple matter. Lots and lots and lots and lots of work, time, effort are involved is such a serious process.

In the Senate, a two-thirds majority - minimum of 67 votes - is necessary to indict for impeachment. The Dems have only the barest of a majority in the Senate. As close as it can possibly get. And that's with Kissyface (Lieberman) playing one side, then the other, for political gain. And we have already seen that the Republicans in the Senate are going to remain rather partisan in many issues. The Dems in the Senate know - sure as ten dimes buys a buck - that Republicans will NOT do the decent thing and vote to impeach the President for what he has done.

Therefore the Dems are not pursuing what would be seen as an activity purely symbolic: A vote to impeach in the House, no indictment in the Senate (which is in fact what happened with Clinton).

[Newtons Bit]

"Has Michael Moore become a full blow Truther" God I hope so. It would finally be proof to alot of my vastly liberal friends that Moore's feces is not rosy smelling. The guy is about as biased and dishonest as they get.

[Unsecured Coins]

i don't wish anybody harm, but if he were to die in a tornado filled with sharks, I wouldn't lose any sleep that night.

[ConspiRaider]

Bush installed former campaign workers in key government positions to suppress the truth about global warming reports. That's a crime.

And exactly how is this a crime? It might be very poor science, but what law was broken?

The other two I honestly don't know US law well enough to know if they are illegal or not.
Obstruction comes to mind. Suppression of science-based information that concerns the health and welfare of a nation - and even a planet - has to be viewed as a crime in some reasonable context. Would you agree with that? You want to take a guess as to how many people around the world will be adversely affected by global warming? I won't even do that. Reports I'm seeing talk about hundreds of millions.

And I mention "planet" - because we, the United States of America, are the planet's leading contributor to greenhouse gases.

So you'd think we'd be right out front, demonstrating our will, leadership and commitment to dealing with the ramifications of global warming. Europe is the one taking the leadership role, not us.

[Corsair 115]

For the record, the cartoon in Bowling For Columbine, which incidentally was written by Michael Moore, quite clearly claims that the KKK became the NRA...Having just watched the clip, no, it does not clearly claim the KKK became the NRA. It does, however, imply that it did with the juxtaposition of the two and the description of the dates of the two groups' founding as "just a coincidence."

And therein lies the reason I think a lot of folks get upset with Moore. First and foremost, I would say Moore is a satirist. And what do satirists often do to make their point? They exaggerate, they juxtapose disparate elements, they use sarcasm, and so on. Which is exactly how I interpreted the linked cartoon as - satire. I couldn't but help think of South Park while watching it - indeed, the style of it even looks a lot like South Park. I wouldn't for a moment take that cartoon to be correct in terms of whatever historical specific detail it mentioned.

The problem is that Moore doesn't say he's a satirist, he claims his works are documentaries, and of course documentaries are defined by most to be a specific type of work dealing strictly with facts and the recounting of facts. Which of course gets him in trouble if he plays around with the facts to better make his point.

He'd be better served, in my estimatation, if he simply labelled his films as works of satire and left out the word documentary altogether. Then the changing around of facts wouldn't be an issue because that sort of exaggeration is expected in a satire.


Disclaimer: I have no particular love or hate for Michael Moore. I haven't seen any of his works in a long time, not since one of his TV shows from many years back. I do find the political furor which always seems to pop whenever a film of his comes out to be somewhat odd for the reasons I mentioned - his films strike me as works of satire and shouldn't be taken as documentaries or works intended to be straight factual accounts.

[Kevin_Lowe]

Oh, and if Bush is such a Criminal, why haven't the Dem's impeached him yet? They have had nearly a year in control of both houses to do it. Why haven't they?

It requires a 2/3 majority in the upper house.

On the topic of Moore being a Troofer, I can't fault him enormously for responding to an unscripted (if it was unscripted) question on a topic he may not have researched extensively, in a way that reveals ignorance of the topic.

There's a lot of Troofer nonsense floating about, a lot of it looks superficially plausible, and it takes significant effort to sort through it all and figure out that it's all a pantsload.

The idea that some members of the Saudi royal family had some connection to the 9/11 attacks is perfectly plausible, given the suspicious deaths of a couple of family members shortly after 9/11 which looked very much like a coverup or a housecleaning, although it's impossible to tell which. US Government complicity in covering up any such link is made fairly obvious by the fact that important Saudis with links so Osama bin Ladin were waved out of the USA as soon as commercial flights resumed rather than being retained for waterboarding like most potential information sources.

Start a new thread when he makes a prepared statement or releases a film putting forward Troofer rubbish and I'll join the dogpile.

[ConspiRaider]

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing that when the voters swept the Democrats out of control of Congress in 1994 in a historic landslide and polls in early 1995 showed Clinton running fifteen points behind a generic Republican, Bubba wasn't riding too high.
But he sure came on like gangbusters, didn't he? WOW! Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser. Eventually, that is.

That's why your 29 percenter Bush is such a pathetic loser. Not even a third of Americans approve of the job he's doing. OH WAIT! I think it's that "liberal media bias", don't you? (Oh God look who I'm asking :))

[ConspiRaider]

Having just watched the clip, no, it does not clearly claim the KKK became the NRA. It does, however, imply that it did with the juxtaposition of the two and the description of the dates of the two groups' founding as "just a coincidence."

And therein lies the reason I think a lot of folks get upset with Moore. First and foremost, I would say Moore is a satirist. And what do satirists often do to make their point? They exaggerate, they juxtapose disparate elements, they use sarcasm, and so on. Which is exactly how I interpreted the linked cartoon as - satire. I couldn't but help think of South Park while watching it - indeed, the style of it even looks a lot like South Park. I wouldn't for a moment take that cartoon to be correct in terms of whatever historical specific detail it mentioned.

The problem is that Moore doesn't say he's a satirist, he claims his works are documentaries, and of course documentaries are defined by most to be a specific type of work dealing strictly with facts and the recounting of facts. Which of course gets him in trouble if he plays around with the facts to better make his point.

He'd be better served, in my estimatation, if he simply labelled his films as works of satire and left out the word documentary altogether. Then the changing around of facts wouldn't be an issue because that sort of exaggeration is expected in a satire.


Disclaimer: I have no particular love or hate for Michael Moore. I haven't seen any of his works in a long time, not since one of his TV shows from many years back. I do find the political furor which always seems to pop whenever a film of his comes out to be somewhat odd for the reasons I mentioned - his films strike me as works of satire and shouldn't be taken as documentaries or works intended to be straight factual accounts.
Well said, C115. I mean sheez - I'm just a halfwitted Buckeye who's part Polish and I can clearly see that Moore's films are satirical, and are presenting material from his personal point of view. He uses facts within the films to underscore his message.

Well, we ALL do that. Everybody does that. Especially in politics, where the word "objective" has no real meaning. I do NOT agree with everything Moore says, but I absolutely celebrate that I live in a country where this kind of communication is still allowed. You can have your say. I think it's great. And no question about it: Moore can get people to think about things where otherwise they may not have.

If Moore comes right out and clearly states that he thinks 9/11 is an inside job, in pure twooferesque fashion? I'll nail his ass. BAM!

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

On the topic of Moore being a Troofer, I can't fault him enormously for responding to an unscripted (if it was unscripted) question on a topic he may not have researched extensively, in a way that reveals ignorance of the topic.

I'll refer you back to the article I linked to in my post, #91 in this thread. His "unscripted" remark was a rehash of a claim he published, including in his book, Dude, Where's My Country?

The idea that some members of the Saudi royal family had some connection to the 9/11 attacks is perfectly plausible, given the suspicious deaths of a couple of family members shortly after 9/11 which looked very much like a coverup or a housecleaning, although it's impossible to tell which.

Perfectly plausible, except there is no evidence whatsoever that that was the case. Plus, Moore didn't just question that there might be "some" connection between the Saudi government and 9/11. He postulated that elements of the Saudi Government planned, trained, and executed the 9/11 attacks. That is quite a stretch, especially when it is not backed by any evidence at all.

US Government complicity in covering up any such link is made fairly obvious by the fact that important Saudis with links so Osama bin Ladin were waved out of the USA as soon as commercial flights resumed rather than being retained for waterboarding like most potential information sources.

The flights were approved by Richard Clarke after he deferred them to the FBI. And he has stood by his decision to this day, in spite of being a pretty harsh critic of the Bush Administration.

Start a new thread when he makes a prepared statement or releases a film putting forward Troofer rubbish and I'll join the dogpile.

He published it in his book. What more do you want? I don't actually think Moore is a truther, but I do think he throws out wild theories without regard to evidence.

[Pardalis]

Pardalis, you're getting ridiculous.

Tell you what, if your claim is true, you shoudl be able to show the USA government that, and they can prosecute Moore for treason.

Of course, that would only work if your claim is actually true, and not simply demented crap.

If you can't see what's wrong with inflated, nonsensical claims, I can't help you, and no-one else can either.

My statement may have been exaggerated, it was more based on emotion. But his sidling with terrorists should raise some concerns.

[Pardalis]

If Moore comes right out and clearly states that he thinks 9/11 is an inside job, in pure twooferesque fashion? I'll nail his ass. BAM!

We now have this on record. :cool:

[Earthborn]

The problem is that Moore doesn't say he's a satirist, he claims his works are documentaries, and of course documentaries are defined by most to be a specific type of work dealing strictly with facts and the recounting of facts.Only people who do not understand documentary film define it as such. People who I imagine could never have seen a documentary film before in their lives, or are just unable to see the tricks of persuasion documentary film makers use. It is not Michael Moore's fault that people do not understand the work he does.

He'd be better served, in my estimatation, if he simply labelled his films as works of satire and left out the word documentary altogether.His films are opinion pieces, as most documentary films are.

[ConspiRaider]

We now have this on record. :cool:
I wouldn't even have to think twice about that one, Pard. Moore would be nailed, but good. By me.

But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you, on Moore becoming a 911 twoofer. Somebody in this thread foolishly compared Moore to Dylan Avery. Wrong! One obvious difference: Moore is smart.

[Pardalis]

I think there's not that big of a stretch for Moore to become a twoofer. Like Rosie O'Donnell, I think it's the next logical step.

They both have the same rethoric, Rosie started to defend terrorists, and now she's become a complete 9/11 nutcase. So will Moore.

[Travis]

I find it interesting how divisive the subject of Michael Moore is on here. I guess it kind of comes down to this; for better or worse he is both intelligent and talented. That makes those that like him see him as a savior and those that have problems with him see him as a huge threat.

If he were just intelligent, but talentless, than he'd just be some boring intellectual that people could either ignore or quote depending on their attitude towards him.

If he were just talented, but lacking cerebral depth, he'd have all this flash, emotion and rhetoric but would be taken about as seriously as any of the hordes of film students produced every year with all style and no substance.

However Moore does have both. Whether he uses both traits for good or for bad depends on your own personal views of the individual issues at hand, but he is, inarguably, persuasive. That is where the emotions of the crowd come in. Those that agree with his views lionize and defend him because he has articulated what many of them had previously felt better than they had ever done themselves. Those that disagree will become aggressive in their defense due, directly, to how effective they judged the opposing arguments were made. After all an opposing viewpoint, poorly communicated, is not really worth fighting because it isn't perceived as much of a threat. An opposing viewpoint, done well, is most definitely more of a threat.

Just an observation.

[PhantomWolf]

Only people who do not understand documentary film define it as such. People who I imagine could never have seen a documentary film before in their lives, or are just unable to see the tricks of persuasion documentary film makers use. It is not Michael Moore's fault that people do not understand the work he does.

His films are opinion pieces, as most documentary films are.

Well that settles it. Time to pack up the wagons and go home people. We've all been wasting our time refuting Dylan and co's opinion pieces. Don't we feel foolish. Yup it's official, you can distort and edit the truth as much as you want and call it a documentary because everyone should remember that it's all just opinion. How stupid do we feel? :o

[Kevin_Lowe]

I'll refer you back to the article I linked to in my post, #91 in this thread. His "unscripted" remark was a rehash of a claim he published, including in his book, Dude, Where's My Country?

Calling it a claim is a bit strong, seeing as you admit yourself he framed the "claims" as questions. Without knowing the publication date of his book and the release date of relevant information regarding the hijackers' identities and backgrounds, I can't say whether his questions were Troofer nonsense or legitimate questions when he asked them.

I still remember when the media was portraying OBL as a James Bond villain with a multistorey high-tech base hidden in the mountains of Afghanistan. If that sort of nonsense was the popular context in which Moore asked his first question then at the time he had a point.


Perfectly plausible, except there is no evidence whatsoever that that was the case. Plus, Moore didn't just question that there might be "some" connection between the Saudi government and 9/11. He postulated that elements of the Saudi Government planned, trained, and executed the 9/11 attacks. That is quite a stretch, especially when it is not backed by any evidence at all.

My opinion on that question would again depend on how much indepentently verifiable information about the Pentagon pilot was available at the time.

I don't think there's any argument that the pilot who hit the Pentagon was a shabby pilot who pulled off a tricky manoeuvre to hit the Pentagon the way he did. With the knowledge we have today it's reasonably safe to say that he just got lucky, of course.


The flights were approved by Richard Clarke after he deferred them to the FBI. And he has stood by his decision to this day, in spite of being a pretty harsh critic of the Bush Administration.


So what?

Since when is Richard Clarke magically able to tell whether or not a large group of people know anything relevant just by asking them? Does he have a crystal ball that told him none of them would turn out, days later, to have wired money to someone connected with 9/11, or to have made a phone call to someone connected with 9/11?

All Richard Clarke's standing by the decision proves is that he approves of the political reasons why they were released. It doesn't change the fact that a large group of important witnesses were allowed to leave the country before the investigation into the crime had even properly begun, and three of them died shortly afterwards in the usual way incovenient royal family members die in Saudi Arabia.

Prince Ahmad bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz had a heart attack, Prince Sultan bin Faisal allegedly died in a car crash on the way to Ahmad's funeral, and Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud Al-Kabeer "died of thirst while out for a drive". Two different journalists have separately alleged the three were fingered by high-ranking Al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah under US interrogation.


He published it in his book. What more do you want? I don't actually think Moore is a truther, but I do think he throws out wild theories without regard to evidence.

I'd agree with that.

[PhantomWolf]

Calling it a claim is a bit strong, seeing as you admit yourself he framed the "claims" as questions.

You mean he was "Just Asking Questions?"

[Kevin_Lowe]

You mean he was "Just Asking Questions?"

Heh. Decide for yourself if Moore crossed the boundary between just asking questions, which is a perfectly laudable skeptical endeavour, and "Just Asking Questions" in the sense we mock.

[Earthborn]

We've all been wasting our time refuting Dylan and co's opinion pieces.I said "most", as in "not all" and "there are exceptions". Some documentaries -- often fairly boring ones, unless you are really into the subject -- purport not to present the opinions and interpretations of the film maker, but claim to present the truth. They may show graphs, present scientific arguments as to why the viewer should consider some things true and others false. Such films have a much more matter of factly style than most of the documentaries you might see. They require that the film maker needs to be much more careful and do far better research than for opinion pieces, as falsehoods are much more serious. They are also more likely to be used as propaganda.

Loose Change is such a documentary film. It tries to disseminate the truth instead of merely presenting an opinion. It makes very definite statements about what is supposed to be possible and what is not. Dylan Avery definitely strikes me as a person who seems to think that documentary films all need to be 'facty' and 'neutral' and 'objective', which may be an explanation why a film school didn't see a talented film maker in him.

He made the wrong choice of style for his film, as he is piss-poor at doing research. A 'factual style' documentary film is much more likely to convince people, and therefore a film maker has a much greater responsibility for getting the facts correct. A bit like a writer of school books has a greater responsibility for accuracy as a newspaper columnist; both works are non-fiction, but one is expected to present a more balanced view than the other.

Michael Moore makes documentary films that are obviously (to anyone with a sligh understanding of documentary film making, or anyone who bothers to listen to his opinionated commentary) opinion pieces. His research is fairly good.

Dylan Avery makes documentary films that claim to correct widely held but incorrect views, tries to educate the public and make very definite claims and accusations. His research is so piss-poor that it denies even the most basic facts.

I hope you can see the difference.

Yup it's official, you can distort and edit the truth as much as you want and call it a documentaryA documentary film maker can distort and edit the truth as much as s/he wants and call it a documentary film, because that is the sort of film it is. Whether it is a good documentary film depends on other things; if it is an opinion piece, it depends on how well the film maker manages to persuade the viewer, if it has a factual style it depends primarily on how accurate it is.

[gumboot]

Nope. Not true. This is what happens when you go to Web sites specifically setup to discredit Moore. It's hate peddling. Like for Hillary Clinton. Like for Cindy Sheehan. Michael J. Fox (via Rush Limbaugh). These sites, run by right wingers, have the money and motivation.

Here is Charlton Heston's speech given in Denver that day, which in fact was 10 days after the Columbine shooting:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/heston.php



No it wasn't. The NRA annual meeting was on 1 May, 1999, and the Columbine Massacre was 20 April, 1999. 20 April to 1 May is 11 days:

1. 21 Apr
2. 22 Apr
3. 23 Apr
4. 24 Apr
5. 25 Apr
6. 26 Apr
7. 27 Apr
8. 28 Apr
9. 29 Apr
10. 30 Apr
11. 1 May

See here (http://www.nra.org/Speeches.aspx?sid=38).

I also think you missed an important point:

The opening statements with which Heston was introduced were not from the Denver meeting. In addition, Moore assembles together fragments of multiple sentences from all over Heston's speech, and presents them as a single commentary, with cut aways hiding the jumps in the speech, to manipulate and later the context and meaning of what Heston is saying. This is no different than what 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists do when they mangle the comments of firemen. The only difference is Moore is better at it.





Here's something from Moore, on Bowling for Columbine. Note that he does NOT say all of the movie is a fact. Only that those facts presented in the movie are true:


Here's Moore's entire statement on the subject:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/


Oh come on. The film is packaged as a DOCUMENTARY. For christ's sake, it WON THE FRIKKEN OSCAR FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY. Audiences expect and consider documentaries to be factual. In fact, one of the requirements of the "Documentary" category of the Academy Awards is "nonfiction". In addition, many of the "facts" in his film simply ARE NOT TRUE.

-Gumboot

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Calling it a claim is a bit strong, seeing as you admit yourself he framed the "claims" as questions. Without knowing the publication date of his book and the release date of relevant information regarding the hijackers' identities and backgrounds, I can't say whether his questions were Troofer nonsense or legitimate questions when he asked them.

October, 2003 is when it was published, long after the identities and backgrounds of the hijackers had been revealed. Here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,814716,00.html) is George Tenet's public testimony from 2002 in which he goes over their backgrounds in some detail, including Flight 77.

And yes, Moore is very good at avoiding anything that sounds like a direct claim. He just uses many very specific, but of course hypothetical, "what if" questions which sound suspiciously like claims. For example, "what if September 11 was not a "terrorist" attack but, rather, a military attack against the United States?" "What if these weren't wacko terrorists, but military pilots who signed on to a suicide mission?" "What if they were doing this at the behest of either the Saudi government or certain disgruntled members of the Saudi royal family?"


I still remember when the media was portraying OBL as a James Bond villain with a multistorey high-tech base hidden in the mountains of Afghanistan. If that sort of nonsense was the popular context in which Moore asked his first question then at the time he had a point.

I must have missed those broadcasts. Were you watching Fox?


My opinion on that question would again depend on how much indepentently verifiable information about the Pentagon pilot was available at the time.

I don't think there's any argument that the pilot who hit the Pentagon was a shabby pilot who pulled off a tricky manoeuvre to hit the Pentagon the way he did. With the knowledge we have today it's reasonably safe to say that he just got lucky, of course.

Yet this thread was started because Moore repeated almost the exact claim urr.. "questions" that he asked in regards to the Pentagon flight, only he did it a few days ago. And, he went even further into Truthdom:

I've had a number of firefighters tell me over the years and since Fahrenheit 9/11 that they heard these explosions-- that they believe there's MUCH more to the story than we've been told. I don't think the official investigations have told us the complete truth-- they haven't even told us half the truth."





So what?

Since when is Richard Clarke magically able to tell whether or not a large group of people know anything relevant just by asking them? Does he have a crystal ball that told him none of them would turn out, days later, to have wired money to someone connected with 9/11, or to have made a phone call to someone connected with 9/11?

He can't, which is why he didn't decide anything before first deferring to the FBI. You can read Clarke's testimony here (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/24/bn.00.html).

He specifically notes that the Saudi Embassy asked to evacuate some people. He refused to approve the request until the FBI had reviewed it. And here is what he says in regards to the FBI and the bin Ladens:

I was aware, for some time, that there were members of the bin Laden family living in the United States.

And, let's see, in open session I can say that I was very well aware of the members of the bin Laden family and what they were doing in the United States. And the FBI was extraordinarily well aware of what they were doing in the United States. And I was informed by the FBI that none of the members of the bin Laden family, this large clan, were doing anything in this country that was illegal or that raised their suspicions.

And I believe the FBI had very good information and good sources of information on what the members of the bin Laden family were doing.


He later goes on to say that the FBI later still saw no reason to interview those individuals. It seems the FBI kept tabs on the bin Ladens in the country, and they didn't see anything that led them to believe they had anything to do with the attack. It sounds like they had plenty of information already on the bin Ladens in the US, and they hadn't found anything incriminating. An interview probably wasn't going to do much for them. The FBI, the experts on that particular issue, advised Clarke and he took their expert advice. And there has been nothing to show otherwise.


All Richard Clarke's standing by the decision proves is that he approves of the political reasons why they were released. It doesn't change the fact that a large group of important witnesses were allowed to leave the country before the investigation into the crime had even properly begun, and three of them died shortly afterwards in the usual way incovenient royal family members die in Saudi Arabia.

It shows that it is misleading to claim "the US Government" was complicit in a coverup. The US Government, in this case, was Richard Clark and the FBI, and they both evaluated the issue from a law enforcement/counterterrorism standpoint. Unless you have some evidence that Clarke, or the FBI, had any political pressure to release these individuals against their own better judgement, it would be pretty tough to claim that the flight was some sort of knowledgeable coverup, or even complicity in a Saudi coverup, on the part of the U.S. government.

Plus, calling them "important witnesses" is quite begging the question. The entire point is whether they were witnesses to anything. The FBI said then, and still says, that they weren't important witnesses, and that there isn't any evidence that they were.


Prince Ahmad bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz had a heart attack, Prince Sultan bin Faisal allegedly died in a car crash on the way to Ahmad's funeral, and Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud Al-Kabeer "died of thirst while out for a drive". Two different journalists have separately alleged the three were fingered by high-ranking Al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah under US interrogation.

Interesting if true, except that all that we have are two journalists as evidence that there was any connection between these three individuals and Al Qaida. As such, I would evaluate that as a "maybe." This Salon article (http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/10/18/saudis/index.html) casts a lot of doubt on those claims.

Even if it were true, it doesn't prove that the FBI had any reason to believe that those individuals were involved in the attacks. None of the three people you mention above were bin Ladens, and there was no indication that Saudi Royal Family members in the U.S. were part of the attack. Should we have questioned all the Saudis officials in the U.S. at the time?

[gumboot]

Only people who do not understand documentary film define it as such. People who I imagine could never have seen a documentary film before in their lives, or are just unable to see the tricks of persuasion documentary film makers use. It is not Michael Moore's fault that people do not understand the work he does.

His films are opinion pieces, as most documentary films are.



Um... what? Documentaries are NOT opinion pieces. Documentaries are a factual genre. It is expected that a documentary is factual. Indeed it's one of the requirements for the documentary category of the Academy Awards.

Basic film reception theory delves deeply in the genre of documentary filmmaking. Documentary filmmakers have an ethical obligation to ensure their work is as factual as possible. Certainly there is always bias. There's simply no such thing as a truly objective documentary. But it's quite a jump from "subjective" to "containing outright lies".

Indeed, documentary filmmakers employ a host of techniques for the sole purpose of convincing their audience that the information presented is factual. There's an entire category of film theory focused on it.

Robert Flaherty has been heavily criticised by filmmakers over the decades for the dishonest and manipulative fabrications presented in Nanook of the North - the first ever feature length documentary.

-Gumboot

[gumboot]

I don't think there's any argument that the pilot who hit the Pentagon was a shabby pilot who pulled off a tricky manoeuvre to hit the Pentagon the way he did. With the knowledge we have today it's reasonably safe to say that he just got lucky, of course.


What was tricky about the maneouver AA77 performed before hitting the Pentagon?





All Richard Clarke's standing by the decision proves is that he approves of the political reasons why they were released. It doesn't change the fact that a large group of important witnesses were allowed to leave the country before the investigation into the crime had even properly begun, and three of them died shortly afterwards in the usual way incovenient royal family members die in Saudi Arabia.


I assume you're aware they were travelling on diplomatic passports, and thus the USA could not detain them?

-Gumboot

[gumboot]

I said "most", as in "not all" and "there are exceptions". Some documentaries -- often fairly boring ones, unless you are really into the subject -- purport not to present the opinions and interpretations of the film maker, but claim to present the truth.


Simply by labelling your film as a documentary, you are claiming to present fact. The audience considers documentary a factual genre, as do filmmakers.





They may show graphs, present scientific arguments as to why the viewer should consider some things true and others false. Such films have a much more matter of factly style than most of the documentaries you might see. They require that the film maker needs to be much more careful and do far better research than for opinion pieces, as falsehoods are much more serious. They are also more likely to be used as propaganda.



Propaganda pieces rely primarily on emotion. They tend to be highly engaging, and use emotive gimmicks to manipulate the opinions of the viewer. A propaganda piece with a "matter of fact" style, employing "graphs and scientific arguments" would be a dismal failure.

Look to Michael Moore for a prime example. His films are excellent propaganda.




Loose Change is such a documentary film. It tries to disseminate the truth instead of merely presenting an opinion. It makes very definite statements about what is supposed to be possible and what is not. Dylan Avery definitely strikes me as a person who seems to think that documentary films all need to be 'facty' and 'neutral' and 'objective', which may be an explanation why a film school didn't see a talented film maker in him.


Have you seen Loose Change?




He made the wrong choice of style for his film, as he is piss-poor at doing research. A 'factual style' documentary film is much more likely to convince people, and therefore a film maker has a much greater responsibility for getting the facts correct.


Quite the opposite. An emotionally driven film is far more likely to convince people. Hence why it is used in Propaganda.



Michael Moore makes documentary films that are obviously (to anyone with a sligh understanding of documentary film making, or anyone who bothers to listen to his opinionated commentary) opinion pieces. His research is fairly good.


Except for all the "facts" he offers up that are wrong. And all of the lies and manipulations. Aside from that, yeah.





Dylan Avery makes documentary films that claim to correct widely held but incorrect views, tries to educate the public and make very definite claims and accusations. His research is so piss-poor that it denies even the most basic facts.


At least Dylan Avery presents "evidence" for his claims. Unlike Michael Moore.





A documentary film maker can distort and edit the truth as much as s/he wants and call it a documentary film, because that is the sort of film it is.


Only if they want to be labelled as an unethical propagandist by filmmakers. Which, incidentally, many people have claimed of Michael Moore. They've even proposed a distinct genre - Docu-ganda. Personally I think his films fit into the category of Mockumentary, as in they mock their audience.

-Gumboot

[Dave Rogers]

My statement may have been exaggerated, it was more based on emotion. But his sidling with terrorists should raise some concerns.

I'm not sure the links you posted even show that he did. What I saw were an expression of support for Moore from Hezbollah, a statement from his representative that business links would not be unreasonable, and three carefully mined quotes presented side by side to make it appear that Moore shares a common cause with Hezbollah. I'm not going to cry foul on Moore's behalf because it's a perfect example of the sort of tactics he uses himself, used against him, but it didn't seem to me to establish that Moore is "siding with terrorists".

Dave

[Kevin_Lowe]

October, 2003 is when it was published, long after the identities and backgrounds of the hijackers had been revealed. Here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,814716,00.html) is George Tenet's public testimony from 2002 in which he goes over their backgrounds in some detail, including Flight 77.

Fair enough then, that puts Moore's just-asking-a-question clearly within the realm of Troofer stupidity.

He can't, which is why he didn't decide anything before first deferring to the FBI. You can read Clarke's testimony here (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/24/bn.00.html).

He specifically notes that the Saudi Embassy asked to evacuate some people. He refused to approve the request until the FBI had reviewed it. And here is what he says in regards to the FBI and the bin Ladens:


None of the important Saudis alleged to have been involved in 9/11 were bin Ladens, so this testimony about bin Laden family members is beside the point. Nor does this touch on the central implausibility, that a couple of days after 9/11 Clarke and the FBI could already be reasonably certain no future investigation of the attack would lead them back to the Saudis present in the USA at the time.

It took much longer than two days to sort out all the details of the 9/11 money trail, the stock trading then seen as suspicious and so forth.


He later goes on to say that the FBI later still saw no reason to interview those individuals. It seems the FBI kept tabs on the bin Ladens in the country, and they didn't see anything that led them to believe they had anything to do with the attack. It sounds like they had plenty of information already on the bin Ladens in the US, and they hadn't found anything incriminating. An interview probably wasn't going to do much for them. The FBI, the experts on that particular issue, advised Clarke and he took their expert advice. And there has been nothing to show otherwise.


Why all this focus on the bin Ladens?


It shows that it is misleading to claim "the US Government" was complicit in a coverup. The US Government, in this case, was Richard Clark and the FBI, and they both evaluated the issue from a law enforcement/counterterrorism standpoint. Unless you have some evidence that Clarke, or the FBI, had any political pressure to release these individuals against their own better judgement, it would be pretty tough to claim that the flight was some sort of knowledgeable coverup, or even complicity in a Saudi coverup, on the part of the U.S. government.

As I said before, the idea that those who left could have been ruled out as having relevant information that fast is completely inconsistent with the time other aspects of the investigation required, and (dare I invoke it?) inconsistent with common sense.

I can't see any motive for the FBI to want them out of the country, however there's a clear motive for the Bush White House to get them out of the country - to maintain the existing friendly relations between the Bush and Saud families, and perhaps as a bonus to help insure that Saudi Arabia and 9/11 weren't linked in the public mind in any way that would make it difficult to garner support for the coming invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.


Plus, calling them "important witnesses" is quite begging the question. The entire point is whether they were witnesses to anything. The FBI said then, and still says, that they weren't important witnesses, and that there isn't any evidence that they were.


Claiming they could have known that at the time stretches credulity, to say the least.


Interesting if true, except that all that we have are two journalists as evidence that there was any connection between these three individuals and Al Qaida. As such, I would evaluate that as a "maybe." This Salon article (http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/10/18/saudis/index.html) casts a lot of doubt on those claims.

I don't see much there apart from arguments from incredulity ("Nobody in Saudi Arabia would help fund Al Qaeda... because if they got caught, it would look really bad!") and denials of any personal knowledge. The hypothesis that rogue neocons cooked the story up to try to break up relationships between the USA and Saudi Arabia seems to hang on assuming an implausible degree of naivety on the part of these supposed neocon plotters - has this story actually affected the state of the relationship between the USA and SA in any way? I don't see it if it has.


Even if it were true, it doesn't prove that the FBI had any reason to believe that those individuals were involved in the attacks. None of the three people you mention above were bin Ladens, and there was no indication that Saudi Royal Family members in the U.S. were part of the attack. Should we have questioned all the Saudis officials in the U.S. at the time?

A group of people, mostly Saudis, launches a very well-organised attack on the USA that kills three thousand people. The prime suspect, Osama bin Laden, is former businessman who once had close ties to the Saudi government. It would seem to be to be entirely reasonable to ask them to stay in the country while the investigation progresses in case it turns out they were somehow linked to the conspiracy.

The only argument I can see for letting them leave is the good old argument from incredulity. "Surely nobody would be dumb enough to support or coordinate terrorist cells like those that carried out 9/11 and not be out of the country when an attack occurred?". However proper criminal investigations don't work by dismissing every hypothesis you can come up with an argument from incredulity against.

[gumboot]

Having just watched the clip, no, it does not clearly claim the KKK became the NRA. It does, however, imply that it did with the juxtaposition of the two and the description of the dates of the two groups' founding as "just a coincidence."



It's not just about the voice over. Film is a visual medium. An audience member is informed more by the visual information than voice over. And what is happening visually in the cartoon?

The little KKK characters take off their hoods and become NRA characters. That's pretty clear.

-Gumboot

[Kevin_Lowe]

I assume you're aware they were travelling on diplomatic passports, and thus the USA could not detain them?


Good point. Given the Bush government's scrupulous adherence to international and domestic law with regard to terrorist investigations, I cannot possibly imagine them ignoring such an important legal point, even in such trying circumstances as the days immediately after 9/11. Nor could I imagine them doing something like diverting their flight to Guantanamo, because even if it could be justified by some tortuous interpretation of the letter of international law, it would just be wrong.

[gumboot]

I do NOT agree with everything Moore says, but I absolutely celebrate that I live in a country where this kind of communication is still allowed.


I agree. And it's great that others can take individuals to task for what they say. And it's great that others can defend the individuals against those that took them to task. And it's great that people can take the defenders to task for defending the individuals... and so forth...




If Moore comes right out and clearly states that he thinks 9/11 is an inside job, in pure twooferesque fashion? I'll nail his ass. BAM!


So what's the issue, that conspiracy theorists think the US Government carried out 9/11? Or that conspiracy theorists distort, manipulate, and cherry pick data to support something that isn't true, falling back on outright lies when all else fails?

-Gumboot

[gumboot]

Good point. Given the Bush government's scrupulous adherence to international and domestic law with regard to terrorist investigations, I cannot possibly imagine them ignoring such an important legal point, even in such trying circumstances as the days immediately after 9/11. Nor could I imagine them doing something like diverting their flight to Guantanamo, because even if it could be justified by some tortuous interpretation of the letter of international law, it would just be wrong.



Diplomatic immunity is the oldest international custom in existence. Look at the international outcry that has resulted in the expulsion of the New Zealand high commissioner from Fiji. Countries only do what they think they can get away with. The USA isn't stupid enough to think it can get away with seizing diplomats.

-Gumboot

[The Doc]

Admittedly, I haven't been following the thread. However, for the record I would like to point out that Michael Moore's claims regarding the Bin Laden family being transported out of the US whilst air traffic was still grounded, are waaaay off.

A simple reading of the 9/11 Commission report will explain it.

[Kevin_Lowe]

Diplomatic immunity is the oldest international custom in existence. Look at the international outcry that has resulted in the expulsion of the New Zealand high commissioner from Fiji. Countries only do what they think they can get away with. The USA isn't stupid enough to think it can get away with seizing diplomats.


Remember this was immediately after 9/11. I think the USA would have had near worldwide support in doing damn near anything if it was plausibly justified as part of the subsequent investigation. For that matter if the USA had leaned on the Saudi government to tell its people to stay put, or even to yank their diplomatic status, I think the Saudi government would have cooperated.

I don't find the idea that anybody left the country two days after 9/11 against the US government's wishes plausible. If they'd wanted them to stay in the country ways would have been found. I don't think they did want that.

[gumboot]

Remember this was immediately after 9/11. I think the USA would have had near worldwide support in doing damn near anything if it was plausibly justified as part of the subsequent investigation.


I don't. I think it would have been tantamount to dousing the entire Middle East in petrol and throwing a match in.





For that matter if the USA had leaned on the Saudi government to tell its people to stay put, or even to yank their diplomatic status, I think the Saudi government would have cooperated.


I don't.

-Gumboot

[David Wong]

Well that settles it. Time to pack up the wagons and go home people. We've all been wasting our time refuting Dylan and co's opinion pieces. Don't we feel foolish. Yup it's official, you can distort and edit the truth as much as you want and call it a documentary because everyone should remember that it's all just opinion. How stupid do we feel? :o

And to think that none of us here understand the difference between a statement of opinion:

"George Bush is the worst president ever!!!"

And a false statement of fact:

"George Bush faked the Apollo Moon Landing!!!"

Come on. If Moore says:

"Terrorism simply is not a serious problem in America,"

That's opinion. If Moore says:

"Bin Laden is a CIA agent."

That's a lie.

It's not that hard.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

None of the important Saudis alleged to have been involved in 9/11 were bin Ladens, so this testimony about bin Laden family members is beside the point. Nor does this touch on the central implausibility, that a couple of days after 9/11 Clarke and the FBI could already be reasonably certain no future investigation of the attack would lead them back to the Saudis present in the USA at the time.

Alleged when? At that time, the only logical suspects on those flights would have been bin Ladens, not Saudi Royal Family officials. What reasons whatsoever would the FBI have had to suspect the Saudi Royal family, or Saudi government officials?

Why all this focus on the bin Ladens?

See above.


As I said before, the idea that those who left could have been ruled out as having relevant information that fast is completely inconsistent with the time other aspects of the investigation required, and (dare I invoke it?) inconsistent with common sense.

Before you worry about ruling them out, you'd have to have some reason to have them ruled in. There would have to be some reason to believe any of those people had knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. I don't see it as common sense that any of them would. It is no more common sense that Saudi officials would have inside knowledge of the 9/11 attacks than it is common sense that the US Government would have inside knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing.

I can't see any motive for the FBI to want them out of the country, however there's a clear motive for the Bush White House to get them out of the country - to maintain the existing friendly relations between the Bush and Saud families, and perhaps as a bonus to help insure that Saudi Arabia and 9/11 weren't linked in the public mind in any way that would make it difficult to garner support for the coming invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is some motive for the Bush White House to want them out, but again, it goes back to the fact that it was Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism guru, along with the FBI, who made the decision, not George Bush. It seems they were the ones qualified to make that assessment, and they did. Richard Clarke approved it when he was satisfied that the FBI didn't need to question any of them. Nobody has come forward to suggest either he or the FBI were unduly pressured. As such, while the White House may have had some motive, the onus is squarely on the shoulders of Clarke and the FBI.


Plus, calling them "important witnesses" is quite begging the question. The entire point is whether they were witnesses to anything. The FBI said then, and still says, that they weren't important witnesses, and that there isn't any evidence that they were.

Claiming they could have known that at the time stretches credulity, to say the least.

For the bin Ladens, they very well might have. According to Clarke, they had been watching them closely for some time. As for the other Saudis, there would still have to be some reason to be suspicious of them beyond the fact that, they are from Saudi Arabia and so were the hijackers. That doesn't strike me as being a particurly valid reason to be suspicious of someone. A lot of Saudis are in the U.S. Should we have held all of them in the country?


A group of people, mostly Saudis, launches a very well-organised attack on the USA that kills three thousand people. The prime suspect, Osama bin Laden, is former businessman who once had close ties to the Saudi government. It would seem to be to be entirely reasonable to ask them to stay in the country while the investigation progresses in case it turns out they were somehow linked to the conspiracy.

Osama bin Laden, who was expelled from Saudi Arabia and had his citizenship revoked, and was a major critic and enemy of the Saudi Royal Family. So because he once had connections to the Saudi Government, we should have immediately assumed that anyone involved in the Saudi Government who was in the U.S. could be a witness? Why not question everyone at the Saudi Embassy then. Diplomatic immunity notwithstanding, it would have made as much sense to be suspicious of them.

The only argument I can see for letting them leave is the good old argument from incredulity. "Surely nobody would be dumb enough to support or coordinate terrorist cells like those that carried out 9/11 and not be out of the country when an attack occurred?". However proper criminal investigations don't work by dismissing every hypothesis you can come up with an argument from incredulity against.

How about the rationale that: there was no evidence or even reason to believe they were involved, they had legitimate fears about their safety, and they were citizens of a foreign country who have every right to leave if they aren't being held in relation to a crime.

[gumboot]

And to think that none of us here understand the difference between a statement of opinion:

"George Bush is the worst president ever!!!"

And a false statement of fact:

"George Bush faked the Apollo Moon Landing!!!"

Come on. If Moore says:

"Terrorism simply is not a serious problem in America,"

That's opinion. If Moore says:

"Bin Laden is a CIA agent."

That's a lie.

It's not that hard.



I think everyone here appreciates the difference between opinion and fact. I think the issue is some people here thinks his films contain lies as well, and some people don't.

I don't have a problem with Michael Moore's opinions (well, okay I do, he's arrogant and rude, but then all of you Americans are, aren't you? :p), I have a problem with Michael Moore's lies.

-Gumboot

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

George Bush faked the Apollo Moon Landing!!!


Is my above quotation of you my opinion, or a lie? I copied something you wrote verbatim.

You said those words.

So which is it?

[The Doc]

How about the rationale that: there was no evidence or even reason to believe they were involved, they had legitimate fears about their safety, and they were citizens of a foreign country who have every right to leave if they aren't being held in relation to a crime.They did not have every right to leave. Air traffic was closed down. No Saudi persons left the United States until the air travel ban was lifted.

See this:
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp

And this:

9/11 Commission Report - Page 329
"First, we found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals, domestic or international, took place before the reopening of national airspace on the morning of September 13, 2001..

"Second, we found no evidence of political intervention. We found no evidence that anyone at the White House above the level of Richard Clarke participated in a decision on the departure of Saudi nationals..

"Third, we believe that the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals who left the United States on charter flights.."


Again though, I have only really skimmed over the thread and I may be missing your point. Sorry if I have.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

They did not have every right to leave. Air traffic was closed down. No Saudi persons left the United States until the air travel ban was lifted.

I know, although the link you posted contradicts that. The travel ban was lifted on September 13th, which is before they flew out. In fairness, mainstream commercial traffic hadn't started that day, but airspace was re-opened for certain flights.

By saying they had "every right" to leave, I wasn't speaking to the air traffic issue. Merely that there wasn't any investigative reason to hold them in the country. They had every right to move freely and return to their home country, and there was no reason to prevent them from doing so if they had legitimate safety concerns (and I think they did).

EDIT: Okay, nevermind I see what your original post was saying. Yes, no Saudis left while the air ban was in effect, including the flights in question. Neither here nor there on my point in the thread, but worth pointing out I suppose.

[The Doc]

By saying they had "every right" to leave, I wasn't speaking to the air traffic issue. Merely that there wasn't any investigative reason to hold them in the country. They had every right to move freely and return to their home country, and there was no reason to prevent them from doing so if they had legitimate safety concerns (and I think they did).

Ah ok, I agree with you on that then.

[gumboot]

Only people who do not understand documentary film define it as such. People who I imagine could never have seen a documentary film before in their lives, or are just unable to see the tricks of persuasion documentary film makers use. It is not Michael Moore's fault that people do not understand the work he does.

His films are opinion pieces, as most documentary films are.



You've made these statements numerous times. They're not true. I have seen documentaries before - many. I am aware of the tricks of persuasion documentary film makers use. Indeed, I've employed them myself. I understand precisely the work he does.

-Gumboot

[gumboot]

Just a nitpick... on the afternoon of 9/11 the SCATANA Plan was implemented, which turns over control of US Airspace to the military. At the moment that this transfer occurred, the FAA's closure of US Airspace ceased to be in effect. Thus, if the military had allowed a Saudi flight to depart (as we know, they departed later), nothing illegal would have occurred.

The Military could have, if it saw fit, allowed the 9.30pm United Airlines flight from Boston to LA to take place. (I have no idea if such a flight even existed, but I take it you get my point :))

-Gumboot

[Hyperviolet]

On the topic of the War On Terror. Its quite clear that Bush's eye was on Iraq and not dealing with terror. The pretext was terror (using 9/11, despite no Iraqi involvement) and Iraq were pulled into this using the WMD lies.

The Downing Street Memo clearly shows that Bush's eye was on Iraq from the get go and that intelligence would be fixed around a policy of terrorism and WMDs (which we all know, were not there.)

Now, if consciously misleading your country into war were many US citizens will die isn't a cause for impeachment. Then i don't know what is.

[8den]

You've made these statements numerous times. They're not true. I have seen documentaries before - many. I am aware of the tricks of persuasion documentary film makers use. Indeed, I've employed them myself. I understand precisely the work he does.

-Gumboot

Hmmmm I share Gumboots pain, I would not call Moore's documentaries, documentaries, I would call them polemics.

I enjoy Moore's work, but I'm aware I'm going to sit down and watch someone's biased viewpoint. Moore's winning the documentary award in the Oscars is not a validation that it is a "documentary" per say, and I view it as the Acting and Technically community of filmakers, giving voice to their frustration with the Bush administration. Also just to be a pedant, F911 did not win the Oscar, Bowling for Columbine did. F911 just happened to be out at the time he one the oscar, common misconception.

I don't rate Moore's work as I would rate say previous winners like Hoop Dreams, or later winners like capturing the Freidmans (Both films if you've not seen, run, don't walk to your rental store and get). And I won't approach it as I would, say, John Pilger, whose first cinema released documentary is out this week. I will take Moore's word with a healthy dose of cynicism, but in general I respond to his viewpoint, I'm just suspicious of his delivery.

Those who wish Moore ill, well, Moore made a substantial donation to ensure his biggest detractor could keep keep going (http://ksoze.newsvine.com/_news/2007/05/20/729110-michael-moore-helps-his-biggest-nemesis-pay-medical-bills). You could claim it was a publicity stunt, but Moore made the donation anonymously.

Also Moore forced a health insurance company in 99 to honour it's policy and pay for a pancreas transplant. Hey its show boating and playing to the bleachers, but theres a girl who's still got her daddy cause of Moore, I don't think anyone can argue about that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm4sNMKp0Mw

[NoZed Avenger]

i don't wish anybody harm, but if he were to die in a tornado filled with sharks, I wouldn't lose any sleep that night.


I am SO stealing that phrase.

[Hyperviolet]

Hmmmm I share Gumboots pain, I would not call Moore's documentaries, documentaries, I would call them polemics.

I enjoy Moore's work, but I'm aware I'm going to sit down and watch someone's biased viewpoint. Moore's winning the documentary award in the Oscars is not a validation that it is a "documentary" per say, and I view it as the Acting and Technically community of filmakers, giving voice to their frustration with the Bush administration. Also just to be a pedant, F911 did not win the Oscar, Bowling for Columbine did. F911 just happened to be out at the time he one the oscar, common misconception.

I don't rate Moore's work as I would rate say previous winners like Hoop Dreams, or later winners like capturing the Freidmans (Both films if you've not seen, run, don't walk to your rental store and get). And I won't approach it as I would, say, John Pilger, whose first cinema released documentary is out this week. I will take Moore's word with a healthy dose of cynicism, but in general I respond to his viewpoint, I'm just suspicious of his delivery.

Those who wish Moore ill, well, Moore made a substantial donation to ensure his biggest detractor could keep keep going (http://ksoze.newsvine.com/_news/2007/05/20/729110-michael-moore-helps-his-biggest-nemesis-pay-medical-bills). You could claim it was a publicity stunt, but Moore made the donation anonymously.

Also Moore forced a health insurance company in 99 to honour it's policy and pay for a pancreas transplant. Hey its show boating and playing to the bleachers, but theres a girl who's still got her daddy cause of Moore, I don't think anyone can argue about that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm4sNMKp0Mw

In fairness to Moore, he openly admits his documentaries are biased. He says they are his opinion. He fills the piece with facts but openly paints the picture purely how he interprets it. Anyone expecting them to be non-partisan isn't gonna get what they want. They are his films, with his opinion.

However, i'd add that his donation is not really anonymous in the sense that he announces it in a major motion picture release across the globe. Though, i agree entirely about your point of the kidney transplant.

[8den]

However, i'd add that his donation is not really anonymous in the sense that he announces it in a major motion picture release across the globe. Though, i agree entirely about your point of the kidney transplant.

Sorry any press I've heard about the donation is how the guy from Moorewatch.com figured it out was Moore, and when Moore was confronted he admited it. Is it actually in "Sicko"? Can anyone confirm/deny this?

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

In fairness to Moore, he openly admits his documentaries are biased. He says they are his opinion. He fills the piece with facts but openly paints the picture purely how he interprets it. Anyone expecting them to be non-partisan isn't gonna get what they want. They are his films, with his opinion.


In fairness to his critics, however, I don't think anyone has ever expected that his films would be neutral, regardless of whether they are classified as documentaries or not. Everyone who watches Moore knows that he has a bias. The criticism of Moore isn't because he has an opinion, it is the manner in which he bolsters and presents his opinion. It is very possible to be biased as hell, and still be fair and honest. The criticism of Moore is that his tactics are often not fair or honest: that he uses editing to take things out of context, that he presents "facts" that are technically true but misleading in how he presents them in his movie, etc. And I should also point out that there are quite a few critics of Moore who agree with his political viewpoint, but disagree with what he does (case and point, a new documentary by two liberal filmmakers from Canada who originally wanted to make a work praising him, and ended him making a movie very critical of him).

[The Doc]

In fairness to Moore, he openly admits his documentaries are biased. He says they are his opinion. He fills the piece with facts but openly paints the picture purely how he interprets it. Anyone expecting them to be non-partisan isn't gonna get what they want. They are his films, with his opinion.

The problem is how many people expect to see a non-partisan presentation, and then leave the theater/living room thinking that they actually have.

Your average Joe has never heard Michael Moore talk about his films being bias, and full of opinion. Most people, sadly, accept their contents as fact.

Friend: "Afghanistan was all for that darn oil pipeline anyway"
Me: "You mean the one they never built?"
Friend: "Hang on... haven't you seen Fahrenheit 9/11?!"

As you can see, the above conversation is rather annoying.

[Earthborn]

Um... what? Documentaries are NOT opinion pieces.If they're not, then what is the word used for non-fiction films that are opinion pieces? I am pretty sure most of them are labelled "documentary" now, and I don't see a problem with that.

Documentary film makers are usually expected to inject their work with their opinion, to make films that give their interpretation of facts, even to cast moral judgement. Their choices of subject and of what they show and leave out all mean that documentary films present the views of the film makers rather than just cold facts.

But it's quite a jump from "subjective" to "containing outright lies".I've never said that an opinion piece needs to contain outright lies. They better not.

The audience considers documentary a factual genre, as do filmmakers.If the audience expects documentaries to present facts in an unfiltered and unbiased way, then society has a huge problem, because no documentary holds up to such a standard. And neither should they, documentary film makers should be free to tell the stories they want to tell, choose the angles of the stories they want and if they think their opinion has something to add, add their opinion.

Propaganda pieces rely primarily on emotion. They tend to be highly engaging, and use emotive gimmicks to manipulate the opinions of the viewer.Some do, but often propaganda needs to be seen as authoritative and have the appearance the film makers know what they are talking about. A dry 'factual' style (not necessarily presenting actual facts) can help with that.

Look to Michael Moore for a prime example. His films are excellent propaganda.I'm not so sure. I can't listen to his snarly narration and escape from the impression that I am listening to the opinion of some leftist documaker from Flint, Michigan. He also doesn't appear to have a clear message that he wants to propagate. He doesn't attempt to argue that there is an obvious solution to the problems raised that we all must stand behind.

Have you seen Loose Change?Yes.

An emotionally driven film is far more likely to convince people.Only if the people trust the source.

Except for all the "facts" he offers up that are wrong.I've seen all the sites that claim that he gets all sorts of facts wrong. Most of those claims can be fit in patterns: "Michael Moore says something I disagree with" and "Michael Moore omits to mention something I happen to find important". I would like to see a list of the things Moore actually got wrong. Not "unfairly represented", not "specifically selected to fit into the story he wants to tell", not "conveniently forgot about something that did not fit into the story", but just plain proveably wrong.

Surely there is something that doesn't require me to wade through pages of whining against Democrats and just shows very clearly what Mike said was untrue.

[The Doc]

If the audience expects documentaries to present facts in an unfiltered and unbiased way, then society has a huge problem, because no documentary holds up to such a standard.

From my own personal experience, there are one hell of a lot of people out there who fail to exercise critical thinking when it comes to documentaries. A lot of people associate the word "documentary" with "recount of facts, piecing together a factual story". It is very troubling indeed.

[Hyperviolet]

Sorry any press I've heard about the donation is how the guy from Moorewatch.com figured it out was Moore, and when Moore was confronted he admited it. Is it actually in "Sicko"? Can anyone confirm/deny this?

Yes sir, it is in Sicko.

Sorry, i was under the impression you were already aware of this.
My apologies!

[Hyperviolet]

The problem is how many people expect to see a non-partisan presentation, and then leave the theater/living room thinking that they actually have.

Your average Joe has never heard Michael Moore talk about his films being bias, and full of opinion. Most people, sadly, accept their contents as fact.

Friend: "Afghanistan was all for that darn oil pipeline anyway"
Me: "You mean the one they never built?"
Friend: "Hang on... haven't you seen Fahrenheit 9/11?!"

As you can see, the above conversation is rather annoying.

I concede this does happen.

However, id point out that this speaks more of the audience than it does for Moore. Anyone who watches such a political documentary should investigate their sources (at the very least) before they embrace it as fact. If the did that they would find that Moore openly admits his blatant bias.

Moore is entitled to make his movies however he sees fit. His audience have a responsibility to investigate his claims if they intent to embrace his views as their own.

[Graham2001]

And I won't approach it as I would, say, John Pilger, whose first cinema released documentary is out this week.

So John "...we can't afford to be choosey..." Pilger has made a 'documentary', ah well, at least we'll get to see what Loose Change would have been like with a proper budget...

BTW, if you're wondering about the quote, when the first murders occurred in Iraq (eg just after the UN Ambassador was killed) JP told the Anti-War movement that they should give their undivided support to the 'Iraqi Resistance'...

As far as I am concerned the blood of all the Iraqi civilians killed by the 'Iraqi Resistance' (not those killed by the US forces) is on his hands and his alone for that act of hipocracy.

[Hyperviolet]

So John "...we can't afford to be choosey..." Pilger has made a 'documentary', ah well, at least we'll get to see what Loose Change would have been like with a proper budget...

BTW, if you're wondering about the quote, when the first murders occurred in Iraq (eg just after the UN Ambassador was killed) JP told the Anti-War movement that they should give their undivided support to the 'Iraqi Resistance'...

As far as I am concerned the blood of all the Iraqi civilians killed by the 'Iraqi Resistance' (not those killed by the US forces) is on his hands and his alone for that act of hipocracy.

The blood is on his hands? Man, that is a bit extreme.
By that logic, anyone supporting the US Forces has blood on their hands for the deaths of Iraqis. Its not that black and white.

[gumboot]

If they're not, then what is the word used for non-fiction films that are opinion pieces? I am pretty sure most of them are labelled "documentary" now, and I don't see a problem with that.


Certainly opinion pieces get slotted into the category of documentary. My objection is that you claim documentaries are defined by being opinion pieces. This is false. Documentaries are defined by being non-fiction. Non-fiction = true or factual.




Documentary film makers are usually expected to inject their work with their opinion, to make films that give their interpretation of facts, even to cast moral judgement. Their choices of subject and of what they show and leave out all mean that documentary films present the views of the film makers rather than just cold facts.


I totally disagree. Documentary filmmakers certainly do this. It's unavoidable. But it's not something that is expected of them, and indeed most documentary filmmakers go to great lengths to minimise these very things. Filmmakers that actively seek to do the above are pretty broadly criticised for doing so.




I've never said that an opinion piece needs to contain outright lies. They better not.


As I've said repeatedly, some believe Moore's films contain lies. I am one of them. I object to his lies, not his opinions.




If the audience expects documentaries to present facts in an unfiltered and unbiased way, then society has a huge problem, because no documentary holds up to such a standard.


Again, big difference between bias and deception. Bias is unavoidable. Deception is not. Bias is acceptable. Deception is not. I believe Michael Moore deceives his audiences.





And neither should they, documentary film makers should be free to tell the stories they want to tell, choose the angles of the stories they want and if they think their opinion has something to add, add their opinion.


Agreed. But they shouldn't deceive their audiences knowingly.




Some do, but often propaganda needs to be seen as authoritative and have the appearance the film makers know what they are talking about. A dry 'factual' style (not necessarily presenting actual facts) can help with that.


I disagree. You don't want propaganda to be authoritative. People are suspicious of authority. Emotional appeal is far better because most audience members are totally oblivious to it. There's a reason some of the most fundamental aspects of modern fictional filmmaking came from German and Russian propagandists. I would argue that the single most powerful propaganda tool is montage. Invented by Soviets (Sergei Eisenstein), montage is hugely powerful, and totally invisible. It's also very emotionally driven.





I'm not so sure. I can't listen to his snarly narration and escape from the impression that I am listening to the opinion of some leftist documaker from Flint, Michigan. He also doesn't appear to have a clear message that he wants to propagate. He doesn't attempt to argue that there is an obvious solution to the problems raised that we all must stand behind.


The best propaganda does that. Hence my point. Look at German propaganda. It didn't actually have a specific message, or cause, or problem. It simply offered up the audience a highly emotional and evocative presentation of German superiority and excellence. That's good propaganda. Propaganda that says "Jews are evil, let's kill them" is clumsy, obvious, and ineffective. But simply promoting a vague emotional sense of German might and superiority invokes popular support of the government, allowing them to do what they want.

In addition, while I appreciate that his propaganda doesn't necessarily work on you, I think it's undeniable that it does work on a LOT of people. I can say with confidence (having watched both Olympia and Triumph of the Will, amongst others) that Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda doesn't work on me. Yet it's superb propaganda. Perhaps the best the world has ever seen. It certainly worked on a lot of Germans.




Only if the people trust the source.


No, it's the other way around. Authoritative and fact-based arguments only work with the people trust the source. This is why so much work is done to reassure an audience that the guy telling them fact X is trustworthy. All of the elements that do this: Subtitles with credentials, an authoritative, male narrator with a cultured English accent, a nicely lit front-on close up, perhaps cut aways of an engaged and interested interviewer, are emotional cues. People subconsciously respond to them, and so accept what is being said.

On contrast, with something that appeals emotionally, the validity comes from within the audience member, in the genuine emotions felt. By using directly emotional content, you skip the middle man. Instead of using emotion to promote trust in your authority figure so that their argument is accepted, you simply use emotion to present the argument itself. Invisible, and more effective.



I've seen all the sites that claim that he gets all sorts of facts wrong. Most of those claims can be fit in patterns: "Michael Moore says something I disagree with" and "Michael Moore omits to mention something I happen to find important". I would like to see a list of the things Moore actually got wrong. Not "unfairly represented", not "specifically selected to fit into the story he wants to tell", not "conveniently forgot about something that did not fit into the story", but just plain proveably wrong.

Surely there is something that doesn't require me to wade through pages of whining against Democrats and just shows very clearly what Mike said was untrue.



Well I've mentioned quite a few on this very thread.

One of the things I have noticed is that the average member of the public has a pretty mediocre grasp of film language; that is they understand it well enough, but they aren't consciously aware of it, and aren't capable of becoming consciously aware of it.

Filmmaking is a visual medium. When I say a filmmaker tells lies, this doesn't only mean there's an explicit statement in the narration or in a subtitle that is not true. This is an incredibly simplistic way of looking at it, and it totally fails to take into consideration the power of motion pictures, and the basic fact that it is not spoken or written language.

A prime example is the NRA/KKK accusation. In the written narration, Michael Moore does not explicitly state that one became the other. He implies it, by sarcastically stating that they are independent organisations. Frankly, having an appreciation of english language, I consider this itself a lie. If you sarcastically state "I love you", that's exactly the same as stating "I do not love you".

But more importantly, what is Moore saying visually? In this case, he explicitly states, visually, that the KKK turned into the NRA, and that they are one in the same. This is an example of an absolute outright lie in one of Michael Moore's films. Frankly, this is much worse because as I said, most people are not consciously aware of the visual language. They will register being told something, but often even upon repeated reviews of the segment, they will be incapable of detecting what they have been directly told in visual language. Visual language, is thus, for most people, essentially subliminal. And I think lying subliminally is even worse than lying overtly.

-Gumboot

[gumboot]

Moore is entitled to make his movies however he sees fit. His audience have a responsibility to investigate his claims if they intent to embrace his views as their own.


And an audience member aware of any deception has a responsibility to inform other audience members. :)

-Gumboot

[Graham2001]

The blood is on his hands? Man, that is a bit extreme.
By that logic, anyone supporting the US Forces has blood on their hands for the deaths of Iraqis. Its not that black and white.

I for one, don't support what the Americans did... and what you forget is that the prime objective of the 'Iraqi Resistance' is to provide 'journalists' like John Pilger with 'good copy'...

In 1975 the Peace Movement stood by and did nothing while the North Vietnamese army crushed South Vietnam, earlier they had supported the South Vietnamese people against the US Govt...

John Pilger gave the Anti-Iraq-War movement Carte Blánche(sic) to let the Iraqi people rot.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

I've seen all the sites that claim that he gets all sorts of facts wrong. Most of those claims can be fit in patterns: "Michael Moore says something I disagree with" and "Michael Moore omits to mention something I happen to find important". I would like to see a list of the things Moore actually got wrong. Not "unfairly represented", not "specifically selected to fit into the story he wants to tell", not "conveniently forgot about something that did not fit into the story", but just plain proveably wrong.

Surely there is something that doesn't require me to wade through pages of whining against Democrats and just shows very clearly what Mike said was untrue.

Do you not think it is possible to be dishonest and misleading without telling a straight-up lie? Moore is very careful with how he words things specifically so that he can claim he didn't say anything "untrue." But there are still a few:

Moore's claim that "The plan to have Bush get out of the limo for the traditional walk to the White House was scrapped" was untrue, according to this BBC article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1127937.stm). In the same part of the movie, he claims that protestors "pelted Bush's limo with eggs." According to all news reports from that day, a single egg was thrown. So not only misleading, but untrue.I don't think either of these are all that important, by the way, but you asked.

Moore also has a clip of Craig Unger in Fahrenheit 9/11 stating that the Saudis own around 6-7% of the US economy in terms of investment. That is false, as Dave Kopel showed quite well (they might have 6-7% of foreign owned stock in the US, but even that is questionable). But Moore himself doesn't state that, Craig Unger does. Moore just puts the clip in his movie. So do we get credit for Moore stating something "untrue," or does he get a pass because he personally wasn't the one who stated that? (Although Moore himself repeats the figure later in the film, so I guess we can pin it on him too).

Moore also pretty often resorts to legalese when he is challenged, so he can claim he didn't say something "untrue," even when he is quite misleading. When Moore was questioned by Jake Tapper from ABC about his claims regarding Saddam Hussein, Tapper began with this question:

Jake Tapper (ABC News): You declare in the film that Hussein’s regime had never killed an American …

And Moore responded, demanding that he quote the movie directly. Moore used the used the phrase "murdered" in the film, and then tells the reporter that "The government of Iraq did not commit a premeditated murder on an American citizen. "

So he breaks down into legalese, quibbling over the word "murder" so he can claim he is right. Obviously, Americans died in the Gulf War turning back Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Americans died in Palestinian suicide bombings paid for by Saddam. And, of course, Saddam also ordered the assassination of former President Bush, but his agents were thwarted.

So they attempted premeditated murder on an American, and got other people to do acts that resulted in American casualties. But again, in the narrowest definition, Moore is right. He is just being rather sleazy and dishonest, and he knows it, which is why he is so careful to demand they adhere to the very specific word he uses in the movie.

[pomeroo]

=ConspiRaider;2704341]But he sure came on like gangbusters, didn't he? WOW! Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser. Eventually, that is.

That's why your 29 percenter Bush is such a pathetic loser. Not even a third of Americans approve of the job he's doing. OH WAIT! I think it's that "liberal media bias", don't you? (Oh God look who I'm asking :))



You really like to lead with your chin, don't you? Clinton turned to Dick Morris in desperation and together they crafted an effective plan to engineer a comeback. They received some welcome assistance from Newt Gingrich, who failed to realize that arrogance is not an asset when combined with real intelligence. Americans tolerate lots of arrogant oafs, but Gingrich is just too damn smart for many people.

Clinton outmaneuvered the Republicans in Congress during a budget dispute, making them appear responsible for the government shut-down. He took Morris's advice and "triangulated," meaning he veered sharply right, signing off on a welfare reform package that he hated. He started talking about the "end of big government." Most importantly, he got the opponent of his dreams in Bob Dole. An aging candidate described in his own party as the tax collector for the Great Society, Dole ran a lackluster campaign that was rescued from an electoral disaster only by a miracle: a huge, unseemly fund-raising scandal that could not be completely controlled by his media lapdogs exploded in Clinton's face.

So, what part of Bubba's comeback. i.e., what Republican issue that he appropriated for his own use, did you like best? Welfare reform? Smaller government?

Yes, Americans love a winner. When Bush ousted the Taliban, his public approval ratings dwarfed anything Clinton had achieved. You would insist that his popularity proved the correctness of his actions, right?

He could have sat on that achievement and swept to victory in 2004. Instead, he came within a whisker of losing to an unelectable opponent. But, you would argue that his "lie," the promise to find weapons he knew he wouldn't find, was designed to blow a sure thing. That makes sense, doesn't it? It is, after all, what the left has been screaming for four years.

Bush's approval ratings shot up in the wake of the lightning-quick victory over Saddam's army, the same army that Janeane Garofalo predicted would cause tens of thousands of American casualties. Again, the spike in Bush's popularity proved that the invasion was a good idea, right?

Now, America is bogged down in Iraq in a situation that offers no prospects for a satisfactory resolution and Bush's immigration policy has alienated his conservative base. Clinton avoided such pitfalls by doing very little. Yup, he was a winner, all right.

[Hyperviolet]

And an audience member aware of any deception has a responsibility to inform other audience members. :)

-Gumboot


Well when the guy openly admits he is biased and is painting a one sided story... i have to wonder how much of it is really deception. If he was claiming he was making a balanced piece, then yeah absolutely. Though he admittedly skews things... big example being the portrayal of Bush as a complete buffoon for comedic effect. Its a look through his eyes. Moore often states he is film maker first and fore most and not a politican.

If people are going to decide "This is the full truth" then hell mend them for their ignorance of basic research of the creators intent.

[pomeroo]

On the topic of the War On Terror. Its quite clear that Bush's eye was on Iraq and not dealing with terror. The pretext was terror (using 9/11, despite no Iraqi involvement) and Iraq were pulled into this using the WMD lies.

The Downing Street Memo clearly shows that Bush's eye was on Iraq from the get go and that intelligence would be fixed around a policy of terrorism and WMDs (which we all know, were not there.)

Now, if consciously misleading your country into war were many US citizens will die isn't a cause for impeachment. Then i don't know what is.



A blast from the past. The left's Big Lie lives on.

There weren't any "WMD lies." The Downing Street Memo may have been super-Viagra to far-left internet wankers, but it was ignored everywhere else for good reason.

A bi-partisan Senate investigating committee concluded that no pressure had been applied to intelligence-gathering services to shape their conclusions.

And why would the Bush administration apply such pressure. Bush was hurt more than anyone by the intelligence failures. I keep asking, with no hope of ever getting a coherent answer, why he would craft a lie that was guaranteed to be exposed. Politicians generally try to win elections, not squander big leads.

[Matthew Best]

Also just to be a pedant, F911 did not win the Oscar, Bowling for Columbine did. F911 just happened to be out at the time he one the oscar, common misconception.

I don't rate Moore's work as I would rate say previous winners like Hoop Dreams, or later winners like capturing the Freidmans (Both films if you've not seen, run, don't walk to your rental store and get).

Ahem, since you started the pedantry, I will point out that neither Hoop Dreams nor Capturing the Friedmans won Oscars.

[gumboot]

Well when the guy openly admits he is biased and is painting a one sided story... i have to wonder how much of it is really deception. If he was claiming he was making a balanced piece, then yeah absolutely.


Hang on a sec, let's be clear on what the deception is. I'm not saying he's deceiving his audience by pretending to be objective when he isn't. No. He's pretty upfront about that. I'm saying he deceives his audience by intentionally presenting things as true that are not true.

For example, I could tell you I think New Zealand is far better than the USA, and openly admit that I am very biased and not interested in being objective. I'm not deceiving you about my stance at all.

But if, in support of my stance, I tell you that New Zealanders are more patriotic than Americans, I am being deceitful, because a survey by the National Opinion Research Center at Chicago University found the Americans were the most proud of their nation, with New Zealand ranking 7th.

Also, I could claim that New Zealanders earn more. This is also deceitful, because US average income is higher than New Zealand average income - even before taking into account the exchange rate (which increases the margin).

Thus it is possible to be deceitful even while being open about your bias.

-Gumboot

[Matthew Best]

What if, in support of your thesis, you claimed all sorts of good things about New Zealand that are true (higher literacy, greater number of sheep), while deliberately ignoring all sorts of thing about New Zealand that are bad (boring, greater number of sheep).

Would you be creating a documentary, or being deceitful?

[gumboot]

What if, in support of your thesis, you claimed all sorts of good things about New Zealand that are true (higher literacy, greater number of sheep), while deliberately ignoring all sorts of thing about New Zealand that are bad (boring, greater number of sheep).

Would you be creating a documentary, or being deceitful?



Are you calling New Zealand boring? :mad: :p

If I may, I'd like to alter your options a little. How about this, given your scenario above:

A) I am open in my bias.
B) I present my case as objective.

In scenario A) I am creating a documentary, and I am not being deceitful. In scenario B) I am creating a documentary and I am being deceitful.

-Gumboot

[ConspiRaider]

A blast from the past. The left's Big Lie lives on.

There weren't any "WMD lies." The Downing Street Memo may have been super-Viagra to far-left internet wankers, but it was ignored everywhere else for good reason.

A bi-partisan Senate investigating committee concluded that no pressure had been applied to intelligence-gathering services to shape their conclusions.

And why would the Bush administration apply such pressure. Bush was hurt more than anyone by the intelligence failures. I keep asking, with no hope of ever getting a coherent answer, why he would craft a lie that was guaranteed to be exposed. Politicians generally try to win elections, not squander big leads.
Ron, you are so pathetically right-wing biased that it is actually comical reading your posts.

You are trying to be funny, right? Your right-wing parrotting is almost too perfect. It has to be parody rather than parrotting.

On the off-chance (or on-chance) that I am wrong, may I suggest that you submit your resume to the 500 million dollar Bush Library folks over at SMU? You know, the guys who want to rewrite the history of the master criminal Bush so he doesn't come off as pukingly disgusting as he actually is. They NEED you, Ron! Not many folks around in this grand country of ours who are grandstanding for Stupid-Boy. You're marketable. I say, go for it!

BILL CLINTON RULES, DUDE!

And so will Hillary...

[Pardalis]

And so will Hillary...

*cough* Obama *cough*

[gumboot]

Ron, you are so pathetically right-wing biased that it is actually comical reading your posts.



I bet he'll probably shoot back the same thing at you, but before he does I thought I'd point it out, as someone who couldn't care less about either side of the US political spectrum. Not that this is especially significant. From my experience the vast majority of Americans - even the incredibly intelligent critical thinkers on this forum - are so pathetically biased towards left or right that listening to them talk politics is comical.

The politics subforum of these forums reminds me of the Loose Change Forum.

-Gumboot

[Matthew Best]

In scenario A) I am creating a documentary, and I am not being deceitful. In scenario B) I am creating a documentary and I am being deceitful.

I may have misunderstood or be ascribing views to you that you do not hold, but I understood your position to be that Michael Moore does not make documentaries at all, becuase his films are deceitful. Here you seem to be saying that documentaries can be deceitful after all.

[pomeroo]

Ron, you are so pathetically right-wing biased that it is actually comical reading your posts.

You are trying to be funny, right? Your right-wing parrotting is almost too perfect. It has to be parody rather than parrotting.




Wow, I thought I had demonstrated the incoherence of the left's Big Lie. But your incisive dissection of the logical fallacies I committed has made me rethink my position.




On the off-chance (or on-chance) that I am wrong, may I suggest that you submit your resume to the 500 million dollar Bush Library folks over at SMU? You know, the guys who want to rewrite the history of the master criminal Bush so he doesn't come off as pukingly disgusting as he actually is. They NEED you, Ron! Not many folks around in this grand country of ours who are grandstanding for Stupid-Boy. You're marketable. I say, go for it!



Really, when you spout this infantile pap about Bush's criminality, don't you feel awfully dumb?




BILL CLINTON RULES, DUDE!

And so will Hillary...



Possibly. If the left has its way, they will, indeed, rule.

[Matthew Best]

Pomeroo, are you ever going to figure out how to use the multi-quote function?

(Also, if you ever do, can you explain it to me?)

[gumboot]

I may have misunderstood or be ascribing views to you that you do not hold, but I understood your position to be that Michael Moore does not make documentaries at all, becuase his films are deceitful. Here you seem to be saying that documentaries can be deceitful after all.




No, quite the opposite. Michael Moore makes documentaries, and these are deceitful. Documentaries can be deceitful, of course. Documentaries should not by deceitful. It is unethical. Just as Journalists can (and have) completely fabricated news articles. But they should not. It is unethical. If caught, they should be fired. They certainly shouldn't be encouraged.

-Gumboot

[Abdul Alhazred]

*cough* Obama *cough*

The presidential run solidifies his position as senator-for-life.

As senators-for-life go, he's one of the better ones.

[Matthew Best]

The Academy states:

An eligible documentary film is defined as a theatrically released non-fiction motion picture dealing creatively with cultural, artistic, historical, social, scientific, economic or other subjects. It may be photographed in actual occurrence, or may employ partial re-enactment, stock footage, stills, animation, stop-motion or other techniques, as long as the emphasis is on fact and not on fiction.

I think Moore's films come under that heading.

[gumboot]

Pomeroo, are you ever going to figure out how to use the multi-quote function?

(Also, if you ever do, can you explain it to me?)



At the beginning of a post, when you use the "quote" function, you'll get a tag like:



Just copy and paste that tag to the beginning of each new segment of the post you want to comment on, and end each segment with the [ / QUOTE ] tag (no spaces). So:


[ QUOTE = Matthew Best;2705546] Pomeroo, are you ever going to figure out how to use the multi-quote function? [ / QUOTE ]

Hopefully he does one day.


[QUOTE = Matthew Best;2705546] (Also, if you ever do, can you explain it to me?) [ / QUOTE ]

I hope my explanation helps.

Becomes:

[QUOTE=Matthew Best;2705546] Pomeroo, are you ever going to figure out how to use the multi-quote function?

Hopefully he does one day.


(Also, if you ever do, can you explain it to me?)

I hope my explanation helps.

No spaces in the tags, obviously.

-Gumboot

[ConspiRaider]

No, quite the opposite. Michael Moore makes documentaries, and these are deceitful. Documentaries can be deceitful, of course. Documentaries should not by deceitful. It is unethical. Just as Journalists can (and have) completely fabricated news articles. But they should not. It is unethical. If caught, they should be fired. They certainly shouldn't be encouraged.
Uh-huh.

Well, then I think somebody should stop encouraging Michael Moore by giving him awards for his films.

1 for Bowling for Columbine.

2 for Fahrenheit 9/11. And Moore purposely did not let it be considered for the Documentary Oscar because he didn't want to bigfoot the competition. Obviously, it would have won.

Sicko: How many awards? Maybe none, but that would again be due to Moore's actions to avoid bigfooting. He would not let it be considered for an award in Cannes, for example. Still - I bet it'll garner awards. We'll see.

Maybe I'm wrong. Somehow I think Sicko is gonna rock the house, even if it gets no encouragement from awards. Expect lines - big ones - a week from this Friday when it opens all across the USA.

[gumboot]

Uh-huh.

Well, then I think somebody should stop encouraging Michael Moore by giving him awards for his films.

1 for Bowling for Columbine.

2 for Fahrenheit 9/11. And Moore purposely did not let it be considered for the Documentary Oscar because he didn't want to bigfoot the competition. Obviously, it would have won.

Sicko: How many awards? Maybe none, but that would again be due to Moore's actions to avoid bigfooting. He would not let it be considered for an award in Cannes, for example. Still - I bet it'll garner awards. We'll see.

Maybe I'm wrong. Somehow I think Sicko is gonna rock the house, even if it gets no encouragement from awards. Expect lines - big ones - a week from this Friday when it opens all across the USA.



So if a documentary wins awards, that means it's factual? Because there's nothing remotely political about the Oscars, right? C'mon, ConspiRaider, you work in that place. You of all people should know that the Academy Awards are about politics and mass appeal, and nothing more.

I mean, look at the 2001 Oscars. A year of people complaining about racial discrimination, and not enough black people winning the awards, and hey presto, in 2001 "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" go to two crap performances by black actors, both of whom have previously been ignored for far superior performances.

The reality is, for every film that wins an Oscar in a given year, a dozen films are made that same year that are far superior in the given category, and don't even get considered for a nomination.

-Gumboot

[ConspiRaider]

I bet he'll probably shoot back the same thing at you, but before he does I thought I'd point it out, as someone who couldn't care less about either side of the US political spectrum. Not that this is especially significant. From my experience the vast majority of Americans - even the incredibly intelligent critical thinkers on this forum - are so pathetically biased towards left or right that listening to them talk politics is comical.

That, Gum, is because you don't live here. You're perched over there in New Zealand and making judgments about American politics based on - surfing the Net?

And actually you DO care about the US political spectrum because you do a helluva lot of commenting on it. Your posts - easy for anyone to see - indicate your leanings towards the right wing.

That you are evaluating Americans as pathetically biased left or right? Again, an indication that you don't live here, don't have that in-country feel and experience for a more accurate assessment. Because mostly - Americans are moderate. We're not defined as a nation of extremes. We're middle of the roaders, mostly. I, for example, am just a bit to the left of center.

If you're picturing an analog clock, just the top half, with 9 being as left and 3 being as right as one can go: Most Americans are going to be shading the 12 up top, a bit on either side. I'd be about 3 or 4 minutes BEFORE the 12. Ron - he'd be 12 or 13 minutes AFTER the 12. Almost on the big 3. Ron thinks I'm really a rabid left-winger (as in communistic or socialistic), but he's wrong. I'm more of a centrist than anything, leaning just a bit left.

And the reason why hackles are raised more now in America is because of the Iraq War. Controversial wars will tend to do that. And why not? Those are MY taxes being sunk into the sand pit over there. Those are MY neighbors getting turned into red mist over there. That's MY nephew that I have to sit down and discuss what may happen to him if he joins the U.S. Army.

[boloboffin]

Many thanks to all who provided a link or a focused phrase in the spirit of the lively debate this thread has become. I'm working my way through the material found so far -- or should that read the stages of grief?

8den beat me to the descriptive term I would like to see used with regards to Michael Moore - polemics. I don't know from documentary film theory, but there must be categories that distinguish between what Moore does and what Frontline does. This isn't meant to excuse Moore's techniques - in fact, calling his works polemics invites the exacting kinds of criticisms he receives. Moore certainly welcomes the controversy.

I still find myself scratching my head over some of the "deceptions and lies" at the websites. There comes a point when the exposer begins to look ridiculous. Have I made an objective determination where that point is? Not yet, but criticizing Moore because he says the book Bush was reading was named My Pet Goat, when it was actually a reading textbook with a story named "The Pet Goat" is past that point in my opinion. The clip of Bush at the charity dinner calling the haves and the have-mores his "base" is close to that point. Yet implying that the Bin Laden family flew out of the country on September 13th when they didn't is a legitimate criticism to me. When I have gone through this sea change and have a more rational-sounding approach to what I think that point is, I'll post on it.

PS: Gumboot, the KKK/NRA thing was in the cartoon. That is a huge visual cue that Moore is painting with a broad, broad brush and splashing paint everywhere. And as I said before and will now restate, Klansmen through the decades did indeed take off their hoods and head to the NRA conventions without missing a beat. I'm telling you this from my personal experience of growing up in the South.

[Riser Glen]

I always used to take Moore movies with one or two grains of salt. But after hearing this, I'm going to have to watch Sicko with one of these --

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t226/SuperIvanDrago/salt.jpg

When it rains, it pours.

[ConspiRaider]

So if a documentary wins awards, that means it's factual? Because there's nothing remotely political about the Oscars, right? C'mon, ConspiRaider, you work in that place. You of all people should know that the Academy Awards are about politics and mass appeal, and nothing more.

I mean, look at the 2001 Oscars. A year of people complaining about racial discrimination, and not enough black people winning the awards, and hey presto, in 2001 "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" go to two crap performances by black actors, both of whom have previously been ignored for far superior performances.

The reality is, for every film that wins an Oscar in a given year, a dozen films are made that same year that are far superior in the given category, and don't even get considered for a nomination.

-Gumboot
Gum, I'm not obsessing on the factuality of Moore's films, you are. That's because they are exceedingly easy to evaluate. Moore's got a palette of ten million facts from which to choose, and he selects several dozen here and there and splashes them up on his canvas. To create a portrait according to his eye, his liking. Then he says: "Here it is, everybody!" Some like it, some hate it. Some won't ever know about it, or if they do, won't even look at it.

The Oscars are exactly like every single award system I've ever seen. You can see the same pattern right here at JREF, with the TLA Award. Sometimes awards are issued for politics, or favoritism, or to make a statement, or because of vigorous campaigning. And sometimes - an award is issued because the recipient actually deserves it, based upon the criteria laid down in the selection and voting.

The Academy Awards are hit or miss, just as they all are. Within a year's Awards, you'll find some recipients that truly deserved their statuettes, and others who stole them or bought them. I remember when Spielberg kept getting shut out at the Oscars. The reason? He didn't play the Hollywood game, the schmoozing, the inner sanctum stuff, all that nonsense. Remember how The Color Purple was shut out? Sometimes Hollywood punishes an actor or actress for another's actions. Audrey Hepburn comes to mind, with My Fair Lady. She wasn't even nominated for her astounding performance in the Eliza Doolittle role. That's nearly criminal. And why? Because although she did her own singing in the pic initially, it was decided to get someone to overdub most of it - someone with just a bit of a better voice. Marni Nixon fit the bill. But the Academy took it out on Hepburn, and punished her with a shutout for the Oscar.

On the other hand, when I saw Raging Bull, I believe I would have led an armed revolution into Malibu if Robert DeNiro didn't get Best Actor. My regiment got to stand down, fortunately.

[Jonnyclueless]

I am interested to see Sicko myself. Especially after some of the praise from his biggest critics. Unlike the LC guys, Moore has done good stuff in the past so I still take each documentary as it comes. As opposed to the LC camp where probability dictates it will be a waste of time. The only fear is not knowing in advance what I am paying for. I don't want to pay to be deceived like in the last two films, but I have no problem paying to be enlightened or even entertained such as with Roger and Me or Canadian Bacon.

I geuss for the first time I will listen to the reviews. This won't be like the situation where your friend comes in to tell you that MI III was a bad movie and the response is "You had to watch it to figure that out?"

[gumboot]

That, Gum, is because you don't live here. You're perched over there in New Zealand and making judgments about American politics based on - surfing the Net?


No, based on a lot of interaction with lots of Americans. Certainly, I claim no expertise in the matter,




And actually you DO care about the US political spectrum because you do a helluva lot of commenting on it.


No I don't. I seldom comment on it at all. In fact I try to avoid it. Which is hard because Americans are far more political, and tend to make everything political. This thread, for example, is not about politics. That didn't stop you and Ron sending it in that direction.




Your posts - easy for anyone to see - indicate your leanings towards the right wing.


Care to cite some evidence to support this contention? From what I can gather I'm centre left. Were I an American, I certainly would never even consider voting Republican. Although I don't think I'd been keen on the Democrats either.





That you are evaluating Americans as pathetically biased left or right?


Well, I wouldn't use the term "pathetically biased", I was just using your phrase. :)





Again, an indication that you don't live here, don't have that in-country feel and experience for a more accurate assessment. Because mostly - Americans are moderate. We're not defined as a nation of extremes. We're middle of the roaders, mostly. I, for example, am just a bit to the left of center.





Ron thinks I'm really a rabid left-winger (as in communistic or socialistic), but he's wrong. I'm more of a centrist than anything, leaning just a bit left.


But herein lies the problem. What I see repeatedly, from Americans, is they label moderates on the other side of the spectrum as extremists on the other side of the spectrum. And what I also see is that Americans repeatedly think those on the other side of the spectrum think they are extremists. When I saw "left right bias is comical" what I mean is, I see a whole bunch of moderates accusing each other of being extremists, and accusing each other of accusing each other of being extremists. It's truly strange.





And the reason why hackles are raised more now in America is because of the Iraq War. Controversial wars will tend to do that. And why not? Those are MY taxes being sunk into the sand pit over there. Those are MY neighbors getting turned into red mist over there. That's MY nephew that I have to sit down and discuss what may happen to him if he joins the U.S. Army.


Fair enough. This thread is not about politics. It's about Michael Moore and his films. Instead of addressing genuine issues I've raised with the factual content in his films, you've gone off on rants about politics. Why?

I don't want to discuss American politics. If I did, I'd be posting in the politics subforum. I don't for a reason.

I'm here to discuss filmmaking. It's my passion. It's my job. It's something that interested me a great deal.

By the way, topping off some key political issues:

1. I'm pro gun control
2. I'm anti religion
3. I'm pro choice
4. I'm pro free education
5. I'm pro minimal government involvement in business
6. I'm anti monopolies
7. I'm pro a work-tested social welfare state
8. I'm anti republican (in the NZ sense, not the US sense)
9. I'm pro arts (surprise!)
10. I'm pro conservation
11. I'm pro international cooperation (UN etc)
12. I'm pro tough sentencing
13. I'm anti smoking in public
14. I think governments should own infrastructure, but private companies should operate it
15. I'm anti unilateral military action
16. I'm anti oppression, discrimination, etc.
17. I'm pro the rule of law
18. I'm anti terrorism
19. I'm anti close ties with nations that offer economic advantages but have poor human rights records etc...
20. I'm pro graded tax rates
21. I'm pro law and order
22. I'm anti isolationist
23. I'm pro free expression
24. I'm pro military
25. I'm pro free healthcare

What does that make me?

-Gumboot

[gumboot]

Gum, I'm not obsessing on the factuality of Moore's films, you are. That's because they are exceedingly easy to evaluate. Moore's got a palette of ten million facts from which to choose, and he selects several dozen here and there and splashes them up on his canvas. To create a portrait according to his eye, his liking. Then he says: "Here it is, everybody!" Some like it, some hate it. Some won't ever know about it, or if they do, won't even look at it.



You're still talking about bias, and not presenting all the facts. I'm fine with that. All documentary filmmakers do it. You can't not do it. But whatever facts are presented should be true.

You might think all of his facts are true. That's fine. That's what the discussion is about. Please don't strawman me though. :)



I remember when Spielberg kept getting shut out at the Oscars. The reason? He didn't play the Hollywood game, the schmoozing, the inner sanctum stuff, all that nonsense. Remember how The Color Purple was shut out?


IIRC it all started because Verna Fields got an Oscar for cutting Jaws, and was widely lauded for "saving the disaster of a film" when she'd cut exactly to Spielberg's edit, thus he felt he had been snubbed. He wasn't afraid to express his displeasure, and the powers in Hollywood didn't take kindly to a 29 year old telling them what was what. Hollywood felt threated by the wave of New Hollywood filmmakers who were real filmmakers instead of politicians and businessmen/women.




On the other hand, when I saw Raging Bull, I believe I would have led an armed revolution into Malibu if Robert DeNiro didn't get Best Actor. My regiment got to stand down, fortunately.


:) I never liked Bull but DeNiro was indeed fantastic in it.

-Gumboot

[TobiasTheViking]

Sorry any press I've heard about the donation is how the guy from Moorewatch.com figured it out was Moore, and when Moore was confronted he admited it. Is it actually in "Sicko"? Can anyone confirm/deny this?

confirmed

[Hyperviolet]

A blast from the past. The left's Big Lie lives on.

There weren't any "WMD lies." The Downing Street Memo may have been super-Viagra to far-left internet wankers, but it was ignored everywhere else for good reason.

A bi-partisan Senate investigating committee concluded that no pressure had been applied to intelligence-gathering services to shape their conclusions.

And why would the Bush administration apply such pressure. Bush was hurt more than anyone by the intelligence failures. I keep asking, with no hope of ever getting a coherent answer, why he would craft a lie that was guaranteed to be exposed. Politicians generally try to win elections, not squander big leads.

Wait. When Donald Rumsfeld claimed that "We know that Saddam Hussein has Weapons of Mass Destruction".... he was telling the truth?!? I personally thought he was misleading the country (and into a war for that matter)

Wow. Maybe they should get them, they have been gettin a lot of heat over this.

[JimBenArm]

Wow, a thread about Michael Moore, and it got all political. Who woulda thunk it?

Gumboot, I tend to agree with your assessment of American politics. This is why it aggravates me no end to see these threads turn political. Next thing you know, rational people you like and respect are acting like baboons and flinging poo at each other, usually over the most trivial things, such as Michael Moore.

Well, said my piece. Probably get a couple of nasty replies over it, but I don't care. Someone will probably get overwrought, say mean and spiteful things, refuse to apologize, and someone will get kicked off. Yet again. Will this make me eligible for the million?

[Redtail]

So if a documentary wins awards, that means it's factual? Because there's nothing remotely political about the Oscars, right? C'mon, ConspiRaider, you work in that place. You of all people should know that the Academy Awards are about politics and mass appeal, and nothing more.

I mean, look at the 2001 Oscars. A year of people complaining about racial discrimination, and not enough black people winning the awards, and hey presto, in 2001 "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" go to two crap performances by black actors, both of whom have previously been ignored for far superior performances.

The reality is, for every film that wins an Oscar in a given year, a dozen films are made that same year that are far superior in the given category, and don't even get considered for a nomination.

-Gumboot

Sweet Zombie Platypus of New Zealand! Thank you!!! I was the only Black person in my Grad class and only the professors could figure out why I was mad at the fact that they won for those roles! I mean... Auuuuugh! And then there was Tab telling ME congratulations like I'm gonna get partial credit for them winning! "Oh thanks Tab! I talked to Denzel and Halle last night and their each gonna send me right foot from their statues!"

And Conspiri I came very close to leading a revolt when Jamie Foxx won out over Don Cheadle. Jamie was great yeah but Cmon!!!!!!:mad:

Pant, pant,pant.... Sorry... Pant, pant... Rant over.

[WildCat]

National Opinion Research Center at Chicago University
To keep up the pedantic angle, there's the University of Chicago, Chicago State University, the University of Illinois at Chicago... but no Chicago University! ;)

[David Wong]

Wait. When Donald Rumsfeld claimed that "We know that Saddam Hussein has Weapons of Mass Destruction".... he was telling the truth?!? I personally thought he was misleading the country (and into a war for that matter)

Wow. Maybe they should get them, they have been gettin a lot of heat over this.

...And what about when John Kerry said the exact same thing?

Maybe they were all working from the same bad info? Or is it only a lie when a Republican says it?

[Corsair 115]

It's not just about the voice over. Film is a visual medium. An audience member is informed more by the visual information than voice over. And what is happening visually in the cartoon?

The little KKK characters take off their hoods and become NRA characters. That's pretty clear.On the other hand, how many folks are going to take seriously an animated segment with a style quite similar to that used in South Park?

[gumboot]

On the other hand, how many folks are going to take seriously an animated segment with a style quite similar to that used in South Park?



Quite a few. Are you saying most audience members would immediately dismiss any information presented in the cartoon as non factual, because it's a cartoon?

Incidentally it was the similarity to South Park that got Moore blown up in Team America: World Police.

-Gumboot

[gumboot]

...And what about when John Kerry said the exact same thing?

Maybe they were all working from the same bad info? Or is it only a lie when a Republican says it?



No, see, the ebil Republicans knew (of course) that it wasn't true, and they lied. But then they told the good wholesome Democrats the lie, and the good wholesome Democrats took the ebil Republicans at their word, so when they repeated the same remarks they really meant it.

-Gumboot

[Hyperviolet]

...And what about when John Kerry said the exact same thing?

Maybe they were all working from the same bad info? Or is it only a lie when a Republican says it?


No, the difference is John Kerry took the position that he believed his President and his administration who stated that they "knew" Saddam had WMDs. Obviously, they did not know.... because there were none.

Though, i see what your trying to do.... and i'll cut you off early. I'm more right wing than left wing. I dont like John Kerry, and i never liked Bill Clinton either.
So please don't paint the all too typical picture that i'm only criticising the WMDS fraud because i'm a bleeding heart liberal.

[Hyperviolet]

No, see, the ebil Republicans knew (of course) that it wasn't true, and they lied. But then they told the good wholesome Democrats the lie, and the good wholesome Democrats took the ebil Republicans at their word, so when they repeated the same remarks they really meant it.

-Gumboot

Nice try.

Though i don't support the Democrats. I just don't like blatant lies that pull in a country into a war.

First it was
WMD's! He's got em

Once that was found to be totally bunk. It became
Operation Iraqi Freedom, haha yeah sure.

[gumboot]

Nice try.

Though i don't support the Democrats. I just don't like blatant lies that pull in a country into a war.

First it was
WMD's! He's got em

Once that was found to be totally bunk. It became
Operation Iraqi Freedom, haha yeah sure.



Aw c'mon now, I was being silly.

-Gumboot

[JimBenArm]

Aw c'mon now, I was being silly.

-Gumboot
No, you can't be silly! This is politics, man! It's all serious, and people are going to all be shipped off to Guantanamo, have their testicles zapped with tasers! If you're female, they're going to graft testicles onto you, just so they can zap them!
If you're on the wrong side of this issue, you're evil! Not just wrong, EVIL!

Now, what were we talking about? Kinda lost track...

[Hyperviolet]

Aw c'mon now, I was being silly.

-Gumboot

Sorry Gums!

It can be hard sometimes to pick up on the persons tone on ye olde interwebs.

:D

[pomeroo]

That, Gum, is because you don't live here. You're perched over there in New Zealand and making judgments about American politics based on - surfing the Net?

And actually you DO care about the US political spectrum because you do a helluva lot of commenting on it. Your posts - easy for anyone to see - indicate your leanings towards the right wing.

That you are evaluating Americans as pathetically biased left or right? Again, an indication that you don't live here, don't have that in-country feel and experience for a more accurate assessment. Because mostly - Americans are moderate. We're not defined as a nation of extremes. We're middle of the roaders, mostly. I, for example, am just a bit to the left of center.


[quote=ConspiRaider;2705685]
If you're picturing an analog clock, just the top half, with 9 being as left and 3 being as right as one can go: Most Americans are going to be shading the 12 up top, a bit on either side. I'd be about 3 or 4 minutes BEFORE the 12. Ron - he'd be 12 or 13 minutes AFTER the 12. Almost on the big 3. Ron thinks I'm really a rabid left-winger (as in communistic or socialistic), but he's wrong. I'm more of a centrist than anything, leaning just a bit left.



My problem with you is that I like you, but I can't figure out where you're coming from. You say things like, the right controls the media in this country. I mean, liberals like Evan Thomas are embarrassed by the pronounced left bias of the media. Several pundits who are themselves not conservatives have acknowledged that the mainstream media have gone well beyond bias into outright partisanship.


[quote=ConspiRaider;2705685]
And the reason why hackles are raised more now in America is because of the Iraq War. Controversial wars will tend to do that. And why not? Those are MY taxes being sunk into the sand pit over there. Those are MY neighbors getting turned into red mist over there. That's MY nephew that I have to sit down and discuss what may happen to him if he joins the U.S. Army.


I don't approve of Bush's handling of Iraq. But why won't you tell us what every Democrat running for President carefully avoids telling us: What Should We Do Now?

Al Qaeda understands that the establishment of a democratic Iraq spells doom for its vision. The jihadists are fighting for their very existence. You can pretend that America's surrender in Iraq in Iraq is a personal defeat for Bush and Cheney, but the jihadists won't be fooled. They will know that they have defeated America. Why should I be pleased with that outcome?

Should Iran be permitted to build nuclear weapons? How should we stop them?

Let's forget the twaddle about Bush being a criminal and tell us what policies we should follow.

[pomeroo]

No, the difference is John Kerry took the position that he believed his President and his administration who stated that they "knew" Saddam had WMDs. Obviously, they did not know.... because there were none.

Though, i see what your trying to do.... and i'll cut you off early. I'm more right wing than left wing. I dont like John Kerry, and i never liked Bill Clinton either.
So please don't paint the all too typical picture that i'm only criticising the WMDS fraud because i'm a bleeding heart liberal.



Try to understand that it is inconceivable that Bush crafted a lie that was certain to be exposed and cause him great damage. Whatever else he has done wrong in Iraq, he most certainly expected to find WMD. Liars tell lies to benefit themselves, and they don't think they'll get caught.

[Hyperviolet]

Try to understand that it is inconceivable that Bush crafted a lie that was certain to be exposed and cause him great damage. Whatever else he has done wrong in Iraq, he most certainly expected to find WMD. Liars tell lies to benefit themselves, and they don't think they'll get caught.


No.

They might even have expected to find something over there. However, when they stated that they knew he had them. This was a downright fabrication to solidify the case the go over to Iraq.


No, they did not know, because there weren't any. He didnt have em, because there weren't any. Their false certainty was indeed a lie. Like it or not.

Regardless, to answer your question. Getting caught out in the lie didn't do much harm... Bush got re-elected didn't he?

[pomeroo]

No.

They might even have expected to find something over there. However, when they stated that they knew he had them. This was a downright fabrication to solidify the case the go over to Iraq.


No, they did not know, because there weren't any. He didnt have em, because there weren't any. Their false certainty was indeed a lie. Like it or not.

Regardless, to answer your question. Getting caught out in the lie didn't do much harm... Bush got re-elected didn't he?



You're having conceptual difficulties with something that ought to be rather simple.

The Bush administration, as did the Clinton administration that preceded it, relied on intelligence that proved to be faulty. Their certainty could not have been a lie because they believed what they were saying. If they didn't, they would NOT have said it because their mistake nearly cost them an election that should have been a landslide win.

Getting caught in the lie did tremendous harm--obviously. Bush nearly lost to a candidate who rose to national prominence by slandering the men he served with in Vietnam. By most conventional standards, John Kerry should have rejected by the Democratic Party as unelectable. Were it not for the effective attacks by the Swift Boat vets, Kerry would have won.

The notion that Bush promised to find weapons that he knew he wouldn't find makes no sense. He was shocked by the failure to turn up stockpiles that he and everyone else in government believed with all their hearts existed.

[gumboot]

Hyperviolet, correct me if I'm wrong, but from your posts, I gather this is your position, or at least a likely explanation:

The US Government had a degree of intelligence data that indicated Iraq still had a functioning WMD programme. This data was questionable, and left open substantial room for doubt.

The US Government were convinced that the data was accurate, and that Iraq had WMD. Rather than honestly present the evidence as being questionable, they falsely stood 100% behind the evidence and presented the impression that it was solid, substantial, and without doubt.

Thus when the USA went into Iraq, the US government genuinely expected to find WMD, despite the fact that their evidence was shakey, and were no doubt quite surprised when none turned up. A majority of the US people were quite pissed off when it became clear there was no WMD, and therefore the intelligence data had been incorrect, as they had understood it to be correct and without doubt.

Would this be an accurate summary?

Pomeroo, on the other hand, (and again, correct me if I am wrong), you have a problem with those that argue that the US Government were not only aware that their intelligence data was less than compelling, but that they knew for certain that Iraq did not have WMD, and fabricated evidence to fool the world and US people. You point out that this is illogical as it is a lie guaranteed to be uncovered (unless one were to fake WMD, which the Bush administration has not done).

It would appear, from my observations, that you two are not necessarily in conflict. I propose this, because I happen to agree with both of you. Here's my most likely scenario:

1) The US government genuinely believed that Iraq had WMD.
2) The US government could only produce questionable intelligence regarding WMD.
3) The US Government chose to stand behind this questionable intelligence 100%, believing that, regardless of evidence, Iraq did have WMD. Kind of like when you know someone committed a murder, but you can't really prove it.
4) The US Government were genuinely surprised when they went into Iraq and could not find WMD.
5) The US people were genuinely pissed off when they discovered that the US government had misrepresented the credibility of their evidence.
6) Many people with an inherent anti US Government bent took the additional step of concluding that the US Government's professed genuine motivation for going into Iraq - to get rid of WMD - was false.

Pomeroo seems to take issue with those in step 6). I can understand that. I think the US's intentions in going into Iraq were genuine, though incorrect. I think the US has a history of getting involved in conflicts with good intentions, even when misguided. They certainly didn't go into Vietnam to conquer territory or get oil, for example. Nor Korea. Nor Somalia.

Now, the USA doesn't go into all situations, obviously, and how they choose which ones to go into is something far less well-intentioned (at least from an international perspective) - they will only head into good causes that they perceive as in their interests. I don't have a fault with that, really.

Let's say you value freedom and democracy, and consider it somewhat a duty to use your power and influence to spread it to the world, overthrowing brutal dictators. But you don't have the resources to attack every dictatorship - you can only pick one. If there's numerous countries around the world with brutal dictators and secret weapons programmes, and only one of them also happens to have lots of valuable resources and is strategically placed to destabilise other nations that are a thorn in your side of course you choose that one nation. That's just sensible logic.

But there's also plenty of nations with valuable resources that are strategically placed to destabilise problem nations, but that don't have brutal dictators oppressing the masses, and are democratic, and the USA doesn't seem to have the slightest inclination to invade those countries.

-Gumboot

[FactCheck]

How about the fundamental premise of Bowling for Columbine; that the USA is a significantly more violent society than other western nations. As evidence he cites gun crime in the USA, ignoring other types of crime. He ignores the soaring rates of violent crime in other nations with very rigorous gun control laws, such as New Zealand.

His montage of examples of "American Aggression" in the same film contain numerous falsehoods, either in terms of grossly misrepresenting the facts, or simply outright lying (for example claiming that Osama Bin Laden was trained and funded by the CIA). This isn't even taking into account the fact that many are not examples of aggression.

This is immediately after his contention that the presence of a ballistic missile factory in Columbine contributed to the killings (or at least is another symptom of the USA's violent society) despite the fact that the factory in question had not produced ballistic missile engines for decades, and in fact was actively involved in dismantling ballistic missiles.

There's debate over the accuracy of his "go to bank, get gun" claim - staff from the bank claim that the guns are not delivered up front and that Moore opened the account in advance. Moore denies this allegation.

For the record, I am glad I live in a country with stringent gun laws, and would be strongly opposed to more relaxed gun laws such as seen in the USA. I consider the liberal access to guns a major flaw in US society. Just my opinion. :)

-Gumboot

ETA. Another factual incorrect claim made by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine is that the KKK became the NRA. This despite the fact that the KKK was first established only five years before the NRA, the KKK was established by veterans of the Confederate Army while the NRA was established by Union veterans, and former president Ulysses S. Grant, whom actively and aggressively combated the KKK, pushing through the Civil Rights Act of 1871 and the Fifteenth Amendment, was the eighth president of the NRA, after the end of his Presidency.


OK, Lets see how debunkers act when presented with facts...

"How about the fundamental premise of Bowling for Columbine; that the USA is a significantly more violent society than other western nations. "

Top ten in crimes - in bold

New Zealand > Crime statistics

Assaults 30,177 [19th of 57]
Car thefts 21,992 [22nd of 55]
Drug offences 641.6 per 100,000 people [3rd of 34]
Murders 45 [55th of 62]
Murders (per capita) 0.0111524 per 1,000 people [52nd of 62]
Murders with firearms 7 [32nd of 32]
Murders with firearms (per capita) 0.00173482 per 1,000 people [31st of 32]
Rapes 861 [30th of 65]
Rapes (per capita) 0.213383 per 1,000 people [12th of 65]
Total crimes 427,230 [22nd of 60]

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/nz-new-zealand/cri-crime

United States > Crime statistics

Assaults 2,238,480 [1st of 57]
Car thefts 1,147,300 [1st of 55]
Drug offences 560.1 per 100,000 people [4th of 34]
Murders 12,658 [6th of 62]
Murders (per capita) 0.042802 per 1,000 people [24th of 62]
Murders with firearms 8,259 [4th of 32]
Murders with firearms (per capita) 0.0279271 per 1,000 people [8th of 32]
Rapes 89,110 [1st of 65]
Rapes (per capita) 0.301318 per 1,000 people [9th of 65]
Total crimes 23,677,800 [1st of 60]

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us-united-states/cri-crime

Soaring??? I wish we were soaring that low...

http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/f/fahrenheit-911-script-transcript.html

"His montage of examples of "American Aggression" in the same film contain numerous falsehoods, either in terms of grossly misrepresenting the facts, or simply outright lying (for example claiming that Osama Bin Laden was trained and funded by the CIA). This isn't even taking into account the fact that many are not examples of aggression."

This would be true but I didn't see this in F911. Maybe I missed it? I looked at the script online and didn't see it there either.

"This is immediately after his contention that the presence of a ballistic missile factory in Columbine contributed to the killings (or at least is another symptom of the USA's violent society) despite the fact that the factory in question had not produced ballistic missile engines for decades, and in fact was actively involved in dismantling ballistic missiles."

This is a gross misrepresentation of the movie. He was talking about the "tough guy" culture of arms we project to the world and how that may influence how A SMALL FEW may react to different situations. He was simply asking if this irony was part of the problem.

From the script:

"He told us that no one in Littleton, including the executives at Lockheed, could figure out why the boys at Columbine had resorted to violence.

Why would kids do this?

Uh, some of the root of that probably has to do with their anger about various issues and we became aware of a program that provides anger-management training. And so we made a $ contribution to the Jefferson County schools to use this training in the schools. We hope to help both teachers and students learn alternative ways to deal with anger.

So you don't think our kids say to themselves:

"Well, gee, Dad goes off to the factory every day and, you know, he built missiles." These are weapons of mass destruction. What's the difference between that mass destruction and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?

I guess I don't see that connection, that specific connection, because the missiles that you're talking about were built and designed to defend us from somebody else who would be aggressors against us. Societies and countries and governments do things that annoy one another. But we have to learn to deal with that annoyance or that anger or that frustration in appropriate ways. We don't get irritated with somebody and just 'cause we're mad at them, uh, drop a bomb or shoot at them, or fire a missile at them."

Now you may not agree with what hes saying but he isn't lying. He is throwing this part of our culture out there and suggesting this is part of the problem. I agree with him.

At bear minimum he put both sides of the argument on the table. How can you fault him for that?

"There's debate over the accuracy of his "go to bank, get gun" claim - staff from the bank claim that the guns are not delivered up front and that Moore opened the account in advance. Moore denies this allegation."

He never suggested that. It's a pure straw man. He even leaves in: the lady saying "We have to do a background check."

He didn't have to clarify that because it doesn't matter one bit to the issue. It's the idea that a Bank is using guns to get customers regardless of how long it takes to get them. Nowhere does he say or suggest it's the speed in which he gets the guns in the bank at is the issue. This is the NRA's attempt at character assassination.

[pomeroo]

Hyperviolet, correct me if I'm wrong, but from your posts, I gather this is your position, or at least a likely explanation:

The US Government had a degree of intelligence data that indicated Iraq still had a functioning WMD programme. This data was questionable, and left open substantial room for doubt.

The US Government were convinced that the data was accurate, and that Iraq had WMD. Rather than honestly present the evidence as being questionable, they falsely stood 100% behind the evidence and presented the impression that it was solid, substantial, and without doubt.

Thus when the USA went into Iraq, the US government genuinely expected to find WMD, despite the fact that their evidence was shakey, and were no doubt quite surprised when none turned up. A majority of the US people were quite pissed off when it became clear there was no WMD, and therefore the intelligence data had been incorrect, as they had understood it to be correct and without doubt.

Would this be an accurate summary?

Pomeroo, on the other hand, (and again, correct me if I am wrong), you have a problem with those that argue that the US Government were not only aware that their intelligence data was less than compelling, but that they knew for certain that Iraq did not have WMD, and fabricated evidence to fool the world and US people. You point out that this is illogical as it is a lie guaranteed to be uncovered (unless one were to fake WMD, which the Bush administration has not done).

It would appear, from my observations, that you two are not necessarily in conflict. I propose this, because I happen to agree with both of you. Here's my most likely scenario:

1) The US government genuinely believed that Iraq had WMD.
2) The US government could only produce questionable intelligence regarding WMD.
3) The US Government chose to stand behind this questionable intelligence 100%, believing that, regardless of evidence, Iraq did have WMD. Kind of like when you know someone committed a murder, but you can't really prove it.
4) The US Government were genuinely surprised when they went into Iraq and could not find WMD.
5) The US people were genuinely pissed off when they discovered that the US government had misrepresented the credibility of their evidence.
6) Many people with an inherent anti US Government bent took the additional step of concluding that the US Government's professed genuine motivation for going into Iraq - to get rid of WMD - was false.

Pomeroo seems to take issue with those in step 6). I can understand that. I think the US's intentions in going into Iraq were genuine, though incorrect. I think the US has a history of getting involved in conflicts with good intentions, even when misguided. They certainly didn't go into Vietnam to conquer territory or get oil, for example. Nor Korea. Nor Somalia.

Now, the USA doesn't go into all situations, obviously, and how they choose which ones to go into is something far less well-intentioned (at least from an international perspective) - they will only head into good causes that they perceive as in their interests. I don't have a fault with that, really.

Let's say you value freedom and democracy, and consider it somewhat a duty to use your power and influence to spread it to the world, overthrowing brutal dictators. But you don't have the resources to attack every dictatorship - you can only pick one. If there's numerous countries around the world with brutal dictators and secret weapons programmes, and only one of them also happens to have lots of valuable resources and is strategically placed to destabilise other nations that are a thorn in your side of course you choose that one nation. That's just sensible logic.

But there's also plenty of nations with valuable resources that are strategically placed to destabilise problem nations, but that don't have brutal dictators oppressing the masses, and are democratic, and the USA doesn't seem to have the slightest inclination to invade those countries.

-Gumboot



You sum it up very neatly, Gumboot. When Khadafy got frightened at the sight of Saddam being dragged out of his hole and decided to switch sides, U.S. intelligence was astounded to learn how far his own nuclear program had progressed. We had no idea!

I have gradually grown extremely critical of the Bush team's handling of Iraq, but the left's Big Lie remains preposterous. As his approval ratings melted away, Bush wasn't twirling his mustache and cackling that the plan was working. That's just silly.

[ConspiRaider]

Well, well, well. Looky what we gots here. Moore indicated in Fahrenheit 9/11 that certain Saudis got out of the country in the days following the Events. Got to leave before they could be thoroughly investigated, interviewed - even Gitmoed.

Have a peek:
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Bin_Laden_may_have_arranged_family__06202007.html

All LIES, is that what you're saying, Big Ron and Gum? About Moore? Oh really?

[Undesired Walrus]

Is Moore even more fatter than usual this year??

[Undesired Walrus]

What does that make me?

-Gumboot

You do this on purpose? Because it sounded good.

[ConspiRaider]

You're having conceptual difficulties with something that ought to be rather simple.

The Bush administration, as did the Clinton administration that preceded it, relied on intelligence that proved to be faulty. Their certainty could not have been a lie because they believed what they were saying. If they didn't, they would NOT have said it because their mistake nearly cost them an election that should have been a landslide win.

Getting caught in the lie did tremendous harm--obviously. Bush nearly lost to a candidate who rose to national prominence by slandering the men he served with in Vietnam. By most conventional standards, John Kerry should have rejected by the Democratic Party as unelectable. Were it not for the effective attacks by the Swift Boat vets, Kerry would have won.

The notion that Bush promised to find weapons that he knew he wouldn't find makes no sense. He was shocked by the failure to turn up stockpiles that he and everyone else in government believed with all their hearts existed.
You, Ron, are so full of poo that again - it would be comical reading your posts if the subject matter was not so serious.

Are you actually trying to convince people that Kerry rose to national prominence by slandering the men he served with in Vietnam? How dare you. HOW DARE YOU. You have served ZERO days in the military that you are so willing to put in deadly danger. You know nothing. Do you know what it was like in the 'Nam? Do you? I've got somebody from my family - a first cousin (stepped on a land mine and got shredded to pieces) - up there on that Black Wall. You are going to pontificate about someone who was in-country in the 'Nam and call them a slanderer? I'm a Vietnam Era vet - but I did not serve there, having joined in 1974. However, the circle of people with whom I soon after interacted - related lots of stories and experiences from being in the 'Nam. Want to know just a bit what the 'Nam was like? Watch Oliver Stone's Platoon.

See what you and your butt-hero Rove do? Kerry went to the 'Nam, was in action. Your sissy-boy Bush stayed here and played in toy jets. That is, when he wasn't going AWOL to do some politicking for his father's interests. The diabolically evil tactic of a sick psychopath like Der Oberfuhrer Karl Rove (your hero) is to use the strength of a person to destroy that person.

If you had a clue, Ron - even a tiny one - as to how devastating and horrific the activity of war really is: You would then understand that a nation shouldn't EVER initiate a war based on the flimsiest of intelligence. You, Ron, love to champion how "smart" your Texas hero-boy Bush is. Right? Always mentioning how intelligent this man is, despite everyone else knowing how full of crap such a statement is. If your turdboy was so "smart" - Kennedy-smart in the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example - then how come he based his WMD position on something like this?

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/ABCs_Brian_Ross_unmasks_Curveball_0313.html

Tell me how you'd explain to the 14 American families who just very recently are now going to have to get through life WITHOUT their loved one - because he was violently killed in Iraq - that the war in which he died was nothing more than the result of the U.S. Government believing a "clever fake" called Curveball.

[Hyperviolet]

Hyperviolet, correct me if I'm wrong, but from your posts, I gather this is your position, or at least a likely explanation:

The US Government had a degree of intelligence data that indicated Iraq still had a functioning WMD programme. This data was questionable, and left open substantial room for doubt.

The US Government were convinced that the data was accurate, and that Iraq had WMD. Rather than honestly present the evidence as being questionable, they falsely stood 100% behind the evidence and presented the impression that it was solid, substantial, and without doubt.

Thus when the USA went into Iraq, the US government genuinely expected to find WMD, despite the fact that their evidence was shakey, and were no doubt quite surprised when none turned up. A majority of the US people were quite pissed off when it became clear there was no WMD, and therefore the intelligence data had been incorrect, as they had understood it to be correct and without doubt.

Would this be an accurate summary?

Pomeroo, on the other hand, (and again, correct me if I am wrong), you have a problem with those that argue that the US Government were not only aware that their intelligence data was less than compelling, but that they knew for certain that Iraq did not have WMD, and fabricated evidence to fool the world and US people. You point out that this is illogical as it is a lie guaranteed to be uncovered (unless one were to fake WMD, which the Bush administration has not done).

It would appear, from my observations, that you two are not necessarily in conflict. I propose this, because I happen to agree with both of you. Here's my most likely scenario:

1) The US government genuinely believed that Iraq had WMD.
2) The US government could only produce questionable intelligence regarding WMD.
3) The US Government chose to stand behind this questionable intelligence 100%, believing that, regardless of evidence, Iraq did have WMD. Kind of like when you know someone committed a murder, but you can't really prove it.
4) The US Government were genuinely surprised when they went into Iraq and could not find WMD.
5) The US people were genuinely pissed off when they discovered that the US government had misrepresented the credibility of their evidence.
6) Many people with an inherent anti US Government bent took the additional step of concluding that the US Government's professed genuine motivation for going into Iraq - to get rid of WMD - was false.

Pomeroo seems to take issue with those in step 6). I can understand that. I think the US's intentions in going into Iraq were genuine, though incorrect. I think the US has a history of getting involved in conflicts with good intentions, even when misguided. They certainly didn't go into Vietnam to conquer territory or get oil, for example. Nor Korea. Nor Somalia.

Now, the USA doesn't go into all situations, obviously, and how they choose which ones to go into is something far less well-intentioned (at least from an international perspective) - they will only head into good causes that they perceive as in their interests. I don't have a fault with that, really.

Let's say you value freedom and democracy, and consider it somewhat a duty to use your power and influence to spread it to the world, overthrowing brutal dictators. But you don't have the resources to attack every dictatorship - you can only pick one. If there's numerous countries around the world with brutal dictators and secret weapons programmes, and only one of them also happens to have lots of valuable resources and is strategically placed to destabilise other nations that are a thorn in your side of course you choose that one nation. That's just sensible logic.

But there's also plenty of nations with valuable resources that are strategically placed to destabilise problem nations, but that don't have brutal dictators oppressing the masses, and are democratic, and the USA doesn't seem to have the slightest inclination to invade those countries.

-Gumboot

Well you are on the right track, Gumboot.

Though id just clarify that my stance is that they seemed more interested in making the case for Iraq invasion by giving the US public false certainties.... as apose to finding out the whole facts.
That to me is dishonest. Dishonesty when it comes to war is not acceptable in my book.

[Checkmite]

Are you actually trying to convince people that Kerry rose to national prominence by slandering the men he served with in Vietnam? How dare you. HOW DARE YOU. You have served ZERO days in the military that you are so willing to put in deadly danger. You know nothing. Do you know what it was like in the 'Nam?

The "Swift Boat Vets" know what it was like in Vietnam, and they make the same accusations about Kerry.

[pomeroo]

Well, well, well. Looky what we gots here. Moore indicated in Fahrenheit 9/11 that certain Saudis got out of the country in the days following the Events. Got to leave before they could be thoroughly investigated, interviewed - even Gitmoed.

Have a peek:
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Bin_Laden_may_have_arranged_family__06202007.html

All LIES, is that what you're saying, Big Ron and Gum? About Moore? Oh really?



Yup, the story is as phony as a three-dollar bill. In any case, Richard Clarke, the darling of Bush-bashers everywhere, is the man responsible for okaying the Saudis' departure. Ooops!

[pomeroo]

You, Ron, are so full of poo that again - it would be comical reading your posts if the subject matter was not so serious.

Are you actually trying to convince people that Kerry rose to national prominence by slandering the men he served with in Vietnam? How dare you. HOW DARE YOU.




Well, I guess I dare to do it because so many people agree with me. Let me repeat: Kerry, it is indisputably accurate to say, entered the national consciousness by slandering the men who served in Vietnam. Kerry was just a rich lefty from Massachusetts until he showed up in Paris, WHILE STILL WEARING THE UNIFORM OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY, to promote the cause of North Vietnam, America's enemy--technically, an act of treason. He testified before Congress that American troops routinely committed war crimes and likened our boys to the hordes of Genghis Khan. But you already knew all of that.



[quote=ConspiRaider;2709203]
You have served ZERO days in the military that you are so willing to put in deadly danger. You know nothing.


I seem to know a whole lot more about John Kerry than you do.



[quote=ConspiRaider;2709203]
Do you know what it was like in the 'Nam? Do you? I've got somebody from my family - a first cousin (stepped on a land mine and got shredded to pieces) - up there on that Black Wall. You are going to pontificate about someone who was in-country in the 'Nam and call them a slanderer?



Yes, John Kerry, in my opinion, is a liar and a scoundrel. Many of the self-styled vets who who fabricated atrocity stories at the Winter Soldier conference turned out to be frauds. Kerry's baseless slanders of brave men should have earned him the contempt of every fair-minded American. How you, a vet, can say anything good about that arrogant blowhard is another one of those mysteries. I know lots of Vietnam vets and their opinion of Kerry is unprintable. Tell us what the Vietnam vets you know think of him.



[quote=ConspiRaider;2709203]
I'm a Vietnam Era vet - but I did not serve there, having joined in 1974. However, the circle of people with whom I soon after interacted - related lots of stories and experiences from being in the 'Nam. Want to know just a bit what the 'Nam was like? Watch Oliver Stone's Platoon.

See what you and your butt-hero Rove do? Kerry went to the 'Nam, was in action. Your sissy-boy Bush stayed here and played in toy jets.



Foolish twaddle. Bush logged hundreds of hours at the controls of a fighter jet with a high crash rate. Kerry asked for Swift Boat duty because he didn't realize it was brown-water duty. When he found out, he made himself so obnoxious by photographing himself prancing around in an infantry uniform and demanding purple hearts for scratches that were treated with band-aids, that he got himself shipped out in three months.


[quote=ConspiRaider;2709203]
That is, when he wasn't going AWOL to do some politicking for his father's interests.


The Democrats' often-repeated falsehood is nonsense. Bush overqualified for four years. In the last two years of his stint, men returning from Vietnam produced a glut of pilots and Bush slacked off.


[quote=ConspiRaider;2709203]
The diabolically evil tactic of a sick psychopath like Der Oberfuhrer Karl Rove (your hero) is to use the strength of a person to destroy that person.




Funny, your smears of Bush's service strike me as exactly that. Kerry's extremely loud and brief tour is hardly a strength. Ask the men who served with him--the ones not paid by his campaign: they despise Kerry.


[quote=ConspiRaider;2709203]
If you had a clue, Ron - even a tiny one - as to how devastating and horrific the activity of war really is: You would then understand that a nation shouldn't EVER initiate a war based on the flimsiest of intelligence.



You forgot to tell us how we should have dealt with the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. Should Iran be permitted to build nukes?


[quote=ConspiRaider;2709203]
You, Ron, love to champion how "smart" your Texas hero-boy Bush is. Right? Always mentioning how intelligent this man is, despite everyone else knowing how full of crap such a statement is.



You're distorting my words, as usual. I said that Bush is smarter than Gore or Kerry: their IQ tests demonstrate that. He is therefore the least mediocre of three terribly mediocre intellects.


[quote=ConspiRaider;2709203]
If your turdboy was so "smart" - Kennedy-smart in the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example - then how come he based his WMD position on something like this?




Kennedy's handling of a crisis that should never have been allowed to develop was a near-apocalyptic disaster. The eight-to-one advantage the U.S. enjoyed in nuclear throw weight trumped JFK's inept diplomacy, forced the Russians to back down, and ultimately got Khrushchev sacked for recklessness. If something closer to nuclear parity had existed at the time, there is an excellent chance that none of us would be here now.


[quote=ConspiRaider;2709203]
(http://rawstory.com/news/2007/ABCs_Brian_Ross_unmasks_Curveball_0313.html)http://rawstory.com/news/2007/ABCs_Brian_Ross_unmasks_Curveball_0313.html

Tell me how you'd explain to the 14 American families who just very recently are now going to have to get through life WITHOUT their loved one - because he was violently killed in Iraq - that the war in which he died was nothing more than the result of the U.S. Government believing a "clever fake" called Curveball. (http://rawstory.com/news/2007/ABCs_Brian_Ross_unmasks_Curveball_0313.html)
(http://rawstory.com/news/2007/ABCs_Brian_Ross_unmasks_Curveball_0313.html)

I'd explain to them that removing Saddam Hussein was a noble goal. The aftermath of a brilliantly successful campaign was botched by the Bush adminstration, but that does not excuse the irresponsible behavior of Democrats who would sacrifice the security of their nation for tawdry partisan gain.

[gumboot]

Well, well, well. Looky what we gots here. Moore indicated in Fahrenheit 9/11 that certain Saudis got out of the country in the days following the Events. Got to leave before they could be thoroughly investigated, interviewed - even Gitmoed.

Have a peek:
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Bin_Laden_may_have_arranged_family__06202007.html

All LIES, is that what you're saying, Big Ron and Gum? About Moore? Oh really?



I don't believe I ever said that every single statement in every single Michael Moore film is false. Please stop the strawmen. And the name is "Gumboot", not "Gum", not "Gummy" not "Gums" or whatever else you think you can demean me by changing it to.

-Gumboot

[gumboot]

Well you are on the right track, Gumboot.

Though id just clarify that my stance is that they seemed more interested in making the case for Iraq invasion by giving the US public false certainties.... as apose to finding out the whole facts.
That to me is dishonest. Dishonesty when it comes to war is not acceptable in my book.



I see completely where you're coming from. I'm not an American, so my reasons for opposing a unilateral US action against Iraq had more to do with the affect it had on the UN.

-Gumboot

[The Mysterian]

Pomeroo, so when are you going to sign up to go to Iraq? You have nothing to be afraid of! Major combat operations are over you know? We are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here! Notice how terror alerts have dried up since the 2004 election? You remember the summer of 2004 don't you? The terrorist alerts! Strange how we haven't had any since then! So we're fighting them over there! I can get you in contact with a recruiter too!

[ConspiRaider]

I seem to know a whole lot more about John Kerry than you do.

Yes, John Kerry, in my opinion, is a liar and a scoundrel. Many of the self-styled vets who who fabricated atrocity stories at the Winter Soldier conference turned out to be frauds. Kerry's baseless slanders of brave men should have earned him the contempt of every fair-minded American. How you, a vet, can say anything good about that arrogant blowhard is another one of those mysteries. I know lots of Vietnam vets and their opinion of Kerry is unprintable. Tell us what the Vietnam vets you know think of him.
Do you really? Know a lot about Kerry? Wanna guess how many medals he got?

Give up?

Here you go:
http://www.awolbush.com/images/Kerry_Military_awards.jpg

Just in case the image did not load, here they are, Big Ron:

1. Silver Star
2. Bronze Star with Combat V
3. Purple Heart (first)
4. Purple Heart (second)
5. Purple Heart (third)
6. Combat Action Ribbon
7. Presidential Unit Citation
8. Navy Unit Commendation
9. National Defense Service Medal
10. Vietnam Service Medal
11. Republic of Vietnam, Meritorious Unit Citation, Gallantry Cross Medal with Palm
12. Republic of Vietnam, Meritorious Unit Citation, Civil Action Medal with Palm
13. Republic of Vietnam, Campaign Medal

Now, then guess how many medals sissy-boy Bush got. Give up? NONE. Technically he may have been authorized 2 minor ones. But he has no medals (according to the report I saw) credited on his military discharge.

[pomeroo]

[quote=The Mysterian;2710342]Pomeroo, so when are you going to sign up to go to Iraq? You have nothing to be afraid of! Major combat operations are over you know?



I'm a bit old for military service. The chickenhawk argument is one the phoniest ploys in the left's bag of cheap tricks. Are you arguing that only people who have served in the military should make foreign policy decisions that might involve sending troops into battle? I'd bet heavily that you don't believe that one tiny bit. Why do I have a hunch that you were an enthusiastic supporter of a draft dodger in 1992 and 1996?



][quote=The Mysterian;2710342]
We are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here!


A blind squirrel finds an acorn! Yes, you're right.


][quote=The Mysterian;2710342]

Notice how terror alerts have dried up since the 2004 election? You remember the summer of 2004 don't you? The terrorist alerts! Strange how we haven't had any since then! So we're fighting them over there!



Gee, for a moment I thought you were going to make a point. You fooled me. No, neither I nor anyone else has noticed any "drying up" of terror alerts. Everyone notices that such alerts are largely ignored. I'm sure there's a deep meaning hidden somewhere.


][quote=The Mysterian;2710342]
I can get you in contact with a recruiter too!



I sincerely doubt that you know anyone connected with the military.

[Slayhamlet]

The "Swift Boat Vets" know what it was like in Vietnam, and they make the same accusations about Kerry.

The Swift Boat Vets are about the same as Michael Moore in my estimation. They both bend the truth for a political agenda.

But anyway, why has this thread not been moved to the politics forum?

[gumboot]

Do you really? Know a lot about Kerry? Wanna guess how many medals he got?

Give up?

Here you go:
http://www.awolbush.com/images/Kerry_Military_awards.jpg

Just in case the image did not load, here they are, Big Ron:

1. Silver Star
2. Bronze Star with Combat V
3. Purple Heart (first)
4. Purple Heart (second)
5. Purple Heart (third)
6. Combat Action Ribbon
7. Presidential Unit Citation
8. Navy Unit Commendation
9. National Defense Service Medal
10. Vietnam Service Medal
11. Republic of Vietnam, Meritorious Unit Citation, Gallantry Cross Medal with Palm
12. Republic of Vietnam, Meritorious Unit Citation, Civil Action Medal with Palm
13. Republic of Vietnam, Campaign Medal

Now, then guess how many medals sissy-boy Bush got. Give up? NONE. Technically he may have been authorized 2 minor ones. But he has no medals (according to the report I saw) credited on his military discharge.



Pomeroo has expressed issue with his behaviour post his efforts in the Vietnam War, not during. Your argument is akin to Conspiracy Theorist who claim William Rodriguez must be entirely trustworthy and honest because he was a hero on 9/11. It is possible for a soldier to be both a war hero, and to dishonour the soldiers he fought with. Not that I'm saying Kerry did this, just pointing out the problem with your refutation. Certainly if Pomeroo were to claim Kerry was a coward or a poor soldier in Vietnam you could use that list of medals to refute that.

-Gumboot

[gumboot]

The Swift Boat Vets are about the same as Michael Moore in my estimation. They both bend the truth for a political agenda.

But anyway, why has this thread not been moved to the politics forum?



The topic of the thread is Michael Moore and his potential CT-ness. ConspiRaider and Pomeroo have derailed it.

-Gumboot

[pomeroo]

Do you really? Know a lot about Kerry? Wanna guess how many medals he got?

Give up?

Here you go:
http://www.awolbush.com/images/Kerry_Military_awards.jpg

Just in case the image did not load, here they are, Big Ron:

1. Silver Star
2. Bronze Star with Combat V
3. Purple Heart (first)
4. Purple Heart (second)
5. Purple Heart (third)
6. Combat Action Ribbon
7. Presidential Unit Citation
8. Navy Unit Commendation
9. National Defense Service Medal
10. Vietnam Service Medal
11. Republic of Vietnam, Meritorious Unit Citation, Gallantry Cross Medal with Palm
12. Republic of Vietnam, Meritorious Unit Citation, Civil Action Medal with Palm
13. Republic of Vietnam, Campaign Medal

Now, then guess how many medals sissy-boy Bush got. Give up? NONE. Technically he may have been authorized 2 minor ones. But he has no medals (according to the report I saw) credited on his military discharge.



Why should I guess about Kerry's medals? The book by the Swiftees discusses them in detail. Kerry's purple hearts are bad jokes. He and the Swift Boat vets disagree about his other ribbons, but Kerry apparently forgot his promise to release ALL of his relevant military records to settle the disputes.

I find it strange that someone who describes himself as a vet is defending a scoundrel who gained celebrity by lying about men who fought bravely and honorably in an unpopular and misguided war.

[gumboot]

I find it strange that someone who describes himself as a vet is defending a scoundrel who gained celebrity by lying about men who fought bravely and honorably in an unpopular and misguided war.



Do you think it's possible that Kerry was both a heroic war veteran, and gained celebrity by lying about men who fought bravely and honorably in an unpopular and misguided war?

-Gumboot

[pomeroo]

The Swift Boat Vets are about the same as Michael Moore in my estimation. They both bend the truth for a political agenda.

But anyway, why has this thread not been moved to the politics forum?



The Swift Boat vets are honorable men. Tell us how they bent the truth. Their political agenda was to defeat a man they regard with contempt for his vicious, self-serving smears of their comrades.

[pomeroo]

Do you think it's possible that Kerry was both a heroic war veteran, and gained celebrity by lying about men who fought bravely and honorably in an unpopular and misguided war?

-Gumboot



I don't have a personal opinion, as I wasn't there. The Swiftees are men who observed Kerry closely and they don't find him very heroic.

[Slayhamlet]

The topic of the thread is Michael Moore and his potential CT-ness. ConspiRaider and Pomeroo have derailed it.

-Gumboot

Yes, I know. I just think the mods should have moved the derailed segment of the thread to politics before it turned into a monster. I see very few posts having to do with Michael Moore's avowal or disavowal of 9/11 CT.

[pomeroo]

Now, then guess how many medals sissy-boy Bush got. Give up? NONE. Technically he may have been authorized 2 minor ones. But he has no medals (according to the report I saw) credited on his military discharge.



It is disgraceful to call a man who logged hundreds of hours flying a fighter jet a sissy.

[JimBenArm]

Yes, I know. I just think the mods should have moved the derailed segment of the thread to politics before it turned into a monster. I see very few posts having to do with Michael Moore's avowal or disavowal of 9/11 CT.
Hey, can we at least talk about important stuff, like the upcoming election instead of fighting about the last one again? Like, will Hillary nuke Iran, or just give them a firm scolding? Who looks better in pearls, Hillary or Bill? Will Gravy accept appointment to head the Department of Homeland Security? Will Condi declare herself Queen, and who can oppose her if she does? Can I be Secretary of the Navy, or at least CNO for a day? Can we please just go ahead and annex Canada before they attack us? Makes me pretty nervous, being up on top of us!
Come on, let's talk the real issues!

[The Mysterian]

Hey, can we at least talk about important stuff, like the upcoming election instead of fighting about the last one again? Like, will Hillary nuke Iran, or just give them a firm scolding? Who looks better in pearls, Hillary or Bill? Will Gravy accept appointment to head the Department of Homeland Security? Will Condi declare herself Queen, and who can oppose her if she does? Can I be Secretary of the Navy, or at least CNO for a day? Can we please just go ahead and annex Canada before they attack us? Makes me pretty nervous, being up on top of us!
Come on, let's talk the real issues!

But, it's going to come down to 'who has the best smile', etc.

[JimBenArm]

But, it's going to come down to 'who has the best smile', etc.
Well, guess that leaves me out, again!
You sure a wise-ass grin isn't good enough?