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http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/

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


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

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

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

In late 2002, almost a year after the al-Qaida assault on American society, I had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan, he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified. Something—I cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do now—has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell. Indeed, Osama is suddenly so guilty and so all-powerful that any other discussion of any other topic is a dangerous "distraction" from the fight against him. I believe that I understand the convenience of this late conversion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only sustain itself by a dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods, beefed up by wilder and (if possible) yet more-contradictory claims. President Bush is accused of taking too many lazy vacations. (What is that about, by the way? Isn't he supposed to be an unceasing planner for future aggressive wars?) But the shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won't recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.

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

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

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

Thus, in spite of the film's loaded bias against the work of the mind, you can grasp even while watching it that Michael Moore has just said, in so many words, the one thing that no reflective or informed person can possibly believe: that Saddam Hussein was no problem. No problem at all. Now look again at the facts I have cited above. If these things had been allowed to happen under any other administration, you can be sure that Moore and others would now glibly be accusing the president of ignoring, or of having ignored, some fairly unmistakable "warnings."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If even the liberals hate the film this much it must be really awful. Geez. That's quite a lengthy and detailed tirade to come out of a liberal. Gotta give him credit, he doesn't want his party overtaken by the extremist and hard to take seriously Move.org/Deaniacs/Al Gore/Michael Moore/Al Franken types which have usurped power of the Democratic party.

I thought Bowling for Columbine was funny. I didn't take it seriously and Moore did come across as very anti-American/Pro-Canada in Bowling and during his infamous Oscar acceptance speech, but it was still entertaining. It was as amusing as any other liberal inspired comedy is. Bowling wasn't factual, but I didn't really expect it to be anymore than I would expect David Letterman or SNL to be, and the thesis certainly made no sense to me. Which is funny because Roger Ebert would defend this as a documentary even though he conceeds it disappoints him because it's not factual or accurate. If nothing else I always believed a documentary was supposed to document, not make up for the sake of more convenient comedy and irony. Instead I left BfC not thinking about gun laws, but how Moore's mind works in such a perverted way that he could blame Dick Clark for an employee at his restaurant having a child who used a gun to kill another child. It's this kind of thinking of never holding the right people responsible and never directing your anger in the right place which I think you will see as a demented theme throughout all of Michael Moore's work. Fahrenheit sounds no different, except perhaps even more ruthless and extremist in it's attacks. I think it will turn off people who are undecided because despite all the anger and hatred expressed and encouraged by the film there is no anger towards Saddam, there is no anger towards Bin Laden or the Taliban, or towards terrorism at all. This message I don't think resonates with Americans. I think independent Americans don't appreciate being subjected to vicious propoganda films from either side. And if some liberals/non-Bush supporters are this offended by the film it's got to be particularly vile.

The attacks on the President in regards to his leadership during September 11th is going to turn off the most people I think. I find these descriptions of the movie particularly stomach turning. Think about what the President's approval ratings were and how proud of his reaction during the events of that tragedy everyone was. Trying to use the 7 minutes reading to school children against him, something we all saw take place on live tv, is just utterly despicable. We saw his reaction and could see how visibly angry he was by what was whispered to him. We also saw him keep his cool and deal with the crisis in a careful, calm, but firm and moving manner. I don't even know what the film is trying to imply about that moment, but I do know that Americans will never think of that as a failing moment of the President's leadership. These were moments that galvanized the President and Mayor Guiliani as sources of strength and leadership not just for Republicans, but for the whole nation. If this is a documentary, and not a propoganda hate film, then why is it trying so hard to rewrite our history?

 

[Cloudy]

Do you expect ALL non-Republicans to like the film? I'm sure Moore himself doesn't expect that. Hell, most people are suspect about some parts of it but that doesn't make the WHOLE thing bad or inaccurate....

 

[karasu]

Christopher Hutchens speaks for all liberals? Holy shit. 0.0

 

[teiresias]

With what appears to be the new highest grossing documentary on his hands, dethroning his own Bowling for Columbine, I'm sure Michael Moore really gives a shit.

 

[mjq jazz bar]

Gosh, it must be terrible. I, and all others who enjoyed the film, must apologize for asserting that it was quite meaningful.

 

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I expected conservatives would be fuming mad about the film, but it seems like liberals are pretty pissed off about the irresponsible content and conclusions of the film as well.

http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2004_06_24.html#007356

Fahrenheit 411
Watching Michael Moore

: As I walked out of the theater on the opening day of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, I thought (read: hoped) that even here, in the East Village of Manhattan, true Moore country, where the flick was already sold out all night, surely even here they wouldn't fall for all his obvious, visual/rhetorical tricks, his propaganda too unsubtle for the cheapest tin-horn demagog.

Take this scene: Moore shows dead American soldiers in Iraq, many of them, the more blood the better. Then he says we need to replace them and he asks where they'll come from. He takes us to his favorite man-of-the-people populist playground, Flint, MI, and says that we'll find soldiers "in the places that had been destroyed by the economy." He focuses on poor black men as Bush's next victims -- not even acknowledging that virtually every soldier he has just shown -- and ridiculed -- in the film is white. It's all so convenient: anti-war-pro-poor-multi-culti-heartland. The rhetoric is as obvious as the gut on the guy.

But as I leave, I hear an older woman behind me, with a voice as loud at New York traffic, saying to someone who's passing her on the escalator, obviously a stranger: "Don't you sign up, now! Don't you join!" I turn around. She's saying this to a black man, just because he's black: After all, Michael Moore said those people are all conservative cannon fodder, didn't he? The man and the woman with him are polite enough to wait until they're out the door before they laugh and then sadly shake their heads.

Hoo boy.

: One of the many things I've learned from blogging confrere Jay Rosen is that you have to stand back and investigate the assumptions that underly a media enterprise.

Moore's assumption is venality. He assumes that President Bush and his confreres are venal, that their motives are black, that they are out to do no good, only bad, and that the only choices they make in life are between greed and power.

That's inevitably a bad analysis. It's the exact same analysis Bill Clinton's enemies made of him. If they were wrong about Clinton, well then, Michael Moore is wrong about Bush. Life is never that simple, never that obvious, unless you're a propagandist or one who believes propaganda. I especially can't buy that analysis when we are a under attack as a nation, when we need to decide who the "us" and "them" are. The war on us as well as the dialogue among my confreres here online has made me question that assumption of venality in American politics.

Oh, you can argue Bush is incompetent; sometimes I do wonder. You can disagree with his policies; I disagree with many. You can question his intelligence; jury's out still. I didn't vote for Bush the last time and don't plan to this time. But I don't buy Moore's Bush. To say that he's the dark force of the universe only leads to simple-minded over-generalizations and bilious caricatures.

Like Fahrenheit 9/11.

: The real problem with the film, the really offensive thing about it, is that in Fahrenheit 9/11, we -- Americans from the President on down -- are portrayed as the bad guys. If there's something wrong about bin Laden it's that his estranged family has ties with -- cue the uh-oh music -- the Bush family. Saddam? Nothing wrong with him. No mention of torture and terror and tyranny. Moore shows scenes of Baghdad before the invasion (read: liberation) and in his weltanschauung, it's a place filled with nothing but happy, smiling, giggly, overjoyed Baghdadis. No pain and suffering there. No rape, murder, gassing, imprisoning, silencing of the citizens in these scenes. When he exploits and lingers on the tears of a mother who lost her soldier-son in Iraq, and she wails, "Why did yo have to take him?" Moore does not cut to images of the murderers/terrorists (pardon me, "insurgents") in Iraq or killed him -- or even to God; he cuts to George Bush. When the soldier's father says the young man died and "for what?", Moore doesn't show liberated Iraqis to reply, he cuts instead to an image of Halliburton.

He doesn't try, not for one second, to have a discussion, to show the other side -- and then cut that other side down to size with facts and figures and the slightest effort at argument. No, he just shows the one side. And that, really, is a tragedy. It would be good if we had a discussion. It would be good to have a movie that made us think and reconsider and talk.

But polemics don't do that. They're only made of two-by-fours.

: The cheap tricks keep on coming, mostly in what is not said. At the start of the movie, Moore fuzzes the video of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, et al to make it look as if it were recovered World War II film from Hitler's Berchtesgaden: the bad guys in happier days. The trick is unintentionally appropriate: He's trying to say that these guys are Nazis but he's also using the Nazi propaganda motif to say it.

He asks the same questions, streteches out the same memes, we've seen on the Web regarding Bush and 9/11: Why did he sit there in that school another almost seven minutes after hearing that the second tower had been hit? The implication was that he could have done something. But how often do we hear anyone ask -- certainly Moore does not -- what he would have done? What if he had popped up in a panic and ran off? How would that have looked on TV to a nation and a world in such a moment of disorder? Is there some order he could have given in those minutes that the vast federal power structure could not -- and, in fact, was not better equipped to handle than Bush? And if you think Bush is such a frigging idiot, isn't it better that he sat there? The question keeps getting asked. The ellipsis carries the message. But that's no answer.

He goes after Bush ties to the Saudis again and again but never enumerates the Saudi sins. They're there. It wouldn't be hard. It would be helpful. Why not? Just laziness? Or is it easier to end with another ellipsis? Conspiracies are spiced with silence.

We know that Moore opposed even the war in Afghanistan but here he doesn't say that. Here he says we didn't bring enough force to Afghanistan and thereby gave bin Laden "a two-month headstart." Moore doesn't say that Bush, with his family ties to bin Laden's family, wanted that to happen. But the ellipsis whispers it.

He ridicules the terror threats and alerts, showing goofy stories about poison pens and model airplanes and goofier guys from the canned-bean crowd showing off their terror shelters. He gets a congressman, Rep. Jim McDermott, to downright say that the alerts are all engineered to keep us on edge. The implication is -- the sllipsis says -- that we're not in danger. I watch this scant blocks from where almost 3,000 Americans were killed that day. Oh, yes, Moore, we are in danger.

But Moore wants to pooh-pooh the danger and make it into a conspiracy: "Was this really about our safety or..." [pregnant ellipsis] "...something else?" He adds (and I can't read one word of my scribbled transcription): "The terrorism threat wasn't waht this was all about. They just wanted us to be fearful enough to get behind their plan."

Of course, it was all about Iraq.... Wasn't it?...

: If you don't believe that, well, says Moore, you're an idiot. You're Britney Spears, shown in all her ditziness saying, "Honestly, I think we should just trust our President." There's your spokesman for the other side: Britney.

Or you're a bloodthirsty American goon, which is how Moore portrays soldiers who rush into battle hopped up on rock 'n' roll. He spares us the obvious napalm, morning, smell thing.

In Moore's view, you're either with him or against him. Hmmm, who else looks at the world that way?

Yup, Moore is just he mirror image of what he despises. He is the O'Reilly... the Bush of the left.

: After leaving the theater and walking by the black man now shaking his head at what Moore had wrought and the people with bring-down-Bush clipboards, I made my way back to New Jersey through the PATH train at the World Trade Center where, most of you know, I was on 9/11. And now I was shaking my head. Michael Moore did not present bin Laden and the terrorists and religious fanatics (from other lands) as the enemy who did this. No, to him, our enemy is within. To him, our enemy is us. And that's worse than stupid and sad and it's most certainly not entertaining. It's disgusting.

: Later, I read Christopher Hitchens' wonderful fisking of the film.

And then I read A.O. Scott's mealy-mouthed review in The Times. He points out that the movie is full of crap in many ways: "...blithely trampling the boundary between documentary and demagoguery..." Hey, blurb that!

[Fahrenheit 9/11] is many things: a partisan rallying cry, an angry polemic, a muckraking inquisition into the use and abuse of power. But one thing it is not is a fair and nuanced picture of the president and his policies. What did you expect? Mr. Moore is often impolite, rarely subtle and occasionally unwise. He can be obnoxious, tendentious and maddeningly self-contradictory. He can drive even his most ardent admirers crazy.

But then Scott lets Moore off the hook -- and himself off the hook with that audience that applauded the flick in the East Village, which is Times Country, too -- with this: "He is a credit to the republic."

I guess he'd say the same thing of Rush Limbaugh, then.

Scott keeps going. On the one hand:

After you leave the theater, some questions are likely to linger about Mr. Moore's views on the war in Afghanistan, about whether he thinks the homeland security program has been too intrusive or not intrusive enough, and about how he thinks the government should have responded to the murderous jihadists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11.

Right. But on the other hand:

At the same time, though, it may be that the confusions trailing Mr. Moore's narrative are what make "Fahrenheit 9/11" an authentic and indispensable document of its time. The film can be seen as an effort to wrest clarity from shock, anger and dismay, and if parts of it seem rash, overstated or muddled, well, so has the national mood.

Crap. It is not creditworthy only to attack and call that discussion and democracy; to insult our intelligence with half, quarter, and untruths; to stifle debate with polemic rather than provoke debate with facts; to mock the people he exploits on film; to gloss over his own outrageous opinions for the sake of convenience; to turn his guns on his own people, letting those who attacked us off as free as birds.

No, this is no more good democracy than it is good filmmaking.

 

[Hitokage]

Gotta give him credit, he doesn't want his party overtaken by the extremist and hard to take seriously Move.org/Deaniacs/Al Gore/Michael Moore/Al Franken types which have usurped power of the Democratic party.

Spoken as someone who doesn't have the faintest clue what the fuck he is talking about.

 

[mjq jazz bar]

How about you post your own opinions?

Oh, what's that, didn't see the film? That's right. No one cares.

 

[Pattergen]

Spoken as someone who doesn't have the faintest clue what the fuck he is talking about.

 

[Ripclawe]

Thats MR Christopher Hitchens to everyone! RESPECT!

Gotta give him credit, he doesn't want his party overtaken by the extremist and hard to take seriously Move.org/Deaniacs/Al Gore/Michael Moore/Al Franken types which have usurped power of the Democratic party.

they haven't usurped the power, as Maureen Dowd calls them the Whackadoo section of the party, they just yap the loudest, they make for useful fodder.

 

[Belfast]

Uh, Al Franken does extensive fact-checking. He uses a lot of biting humor to emphasize his points, but most often he's correct. He's one of the BEST things the left has got.

 

[----]

I find it interesting. I mean if someone like Hannity now gets on the radio and trys to paint a picture that all liberals and democrats are embracing this film I won't agree with him at all. Obviously there are a lot of liberals who really love America and don't want to embrace a film like this that will undermine America and poison our discourse just for the sake of getting in some cheap shots at Bush. It's interesting also that some Democrats are shocked to see that the film doesn't mention Kerry or promote him at all. They shouldn't be shocked because Moore isn't on their side either. At the end of the day, despite all the millions he's accumulated by living here, all the opportunity and success he's achieved, he doesn't care that much for this country and makes the case numerous times that he'd prefer to live elsewhere.

The right wingers have their psychos and extremists as well. Just at the moment they're doing a better job keeping them tied behind the woodshed. The liberals unfortunately have unleashed their dobermans and let them have the run of the house. It's unfortunate for their party and for America as a whole. We need two strong healthy parties to thrive. At the moment the Democratic party seems dysfunctional.

The slate article makes a mistake when it compares Rush Limbaugh to Michael Moore. Someone like Rush has more of a human reasonable reaction to the events of a tragedy like 911. Michael Moore's extremism and reaction to 911 would be much more comparative to a psycho like Jerry Falwell.

 

[Ripclawe]

but you are correct liberal opinion is basically not embracing the movie as a source of real seriousness other than its ham fisted propaganda, but Hitchens piece is still #1.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1248200,00.html

and http://oxblog.blogspot.com/2004_06_20_oxblog_archive.html#108823229053086051

 

[Prospero]

Post September 11, Christopher Hitchens has been a liberal in name only. That he went out of his way to criticize the movie doesn't surprise me in the least. I'd agree that the film's biased (duh) and that some of the conjectures are unwarranted (as I said in the other F9/11 thread), but is it as bad as Hitchens makes it out to be? Oh, hell no.

 

[Azih]

Obviously there are a lot of liberals who really love America and don't want to embrace a film like this that will undermine America and poison our discourse just for the sake of getting in some cheap shots at Bush.

Well um, I kinda tend to believe that if you think something like a documentary film can undermine America, then either something is very wrong with America, or very wrong with the way you think. I mean, what the hell is this? The U.S or communist China?

I'm glad I live in Canada, where taking cheap shots at the Prime Minister is a national hobby (even by the people who vote for him). And you know what? Canada isn't undermined by it at all.

 

[RiZ III]

Its funny to see people who havent seen the fil speaking of this movie as "undermining America" cause thats really not what the movie is about.

 

[Ripclawe]

Post September 11, Christopher Hitchens has been a liberal in name only. That he went out of his way to criticize the movie doesn't surprise me in the least. I'd agree that the film's biased (duh) and that some of the conjectures are unwarranted (as I said in the other F9/11 thread), but is it as bad as Hitchens makes it out to be? Oh, hell no.

Well if you put Iraq was this middle east garden of eden then blown up by EVIL AMERIKAN FORCES! , you are going to get on Hitchen's bad side, thats like saying to him " You know Kissinger? he's a good guy"

 

[Azih]

Well if you put Iraq was this middle east garden of eden

Talk about your straw men arguments.

 

[The Promised One]

I read this review last week. Great article. Moore is an asshat, that is only taken seriously by Commi-libs.

 

[Manders]

Great news.

 

[FightyF]

---- please edit the title of your thread. I haven't seen evidence of Liberals going on tirades against Moore's film. If there is, please post it.

 

[----]

With what appears to be the new highest grossing documentary on his hands, dethroning his own Bowling for Columbine, I'm sure Michael Moore really gives a shit.

Is anyone other than a staunch liberal going to accept this film as a documentary though? And even many liberals as you see here will be honest enough to say it isn't really a documentary. It's perfectly fine that it has a point of view and a bias, but if it's not considered factual by right and left-wingers then it isn't documenting. Michael Moore is considered a huge comedic public figure. His movies are marketed and sold the same way most comedies are sold and a large portion of his material is solely comedic. Calling the film a documentary is like calling the Daily Show a news program. The claim that this film is a "documentary" is specious at best. Not being able to tell the difference between what this comedic propoganda film is and what a documentary is, is like not being able to tell the difference between Orange Juice and Orange Soda. I guess the most dangerous thing is for the misfortunate people who can't tell the difference.

I think Michael Moore ultimately cares about changing minds and he's willing to lie, mislead, and confuse the unsuspecting to try to get them to do what he wants. That's what's known as propoganda. He doesn't think highly of most Americans, but I do, I think whether they see this movie or not they're going to see through it. I think a lot of people will be unaffected, I think a lot of people will be angry about trying to be so obviously manipulated by Moore. The only thing I look forward to is Michael Moore's next Oscar acceptance speech while George W. Bush is President. That will be incredibly entertaining for all parties.

 

[mjq jazz bar]

Have you seen the movie, -----?

I wasn't laughing when I saw real human despair being projected onto the screen. I don't find that comical in the least.

 

[etiolate]

Indeed, Moore's affected and ostentatious concern for black America is one of the most suspect ingredients of his pitch package.

This is what bugged me the most about the film. It starts off with a bit of revisionist history, but everyone is making that mistake. The part where he shows black people looking at the ballot cards confused, then showing up at the senate as poor black victims again is where I started sensing pure propoganda. It's like Moore realized he had this Anti-Bush chariot, (and make no mistake that is all this film is. It offers no insight about anything other than the subject as Columbine did) and that he needed something or someone to drive it. So he portrays the black community as helpless,hopeless folk and from the very start gets on their back in order to drive the movie. Its just something that really turned me off.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Hitchens hasn't been a liberal since the mid-90's, capitalist schweinhunds.

 

[----]

Its funny to see people who havent seen the fil speaking of this movie as "undermining America" cause thats really not what the movie is about.

Well do you contest the descriptions of what takes place in the film? If they do take place in the movie I wouldn't willingly expose myself to that or pay money for it. If I had been there for it, I wouldn't have wanted to expose myself to a Nazi proganda film either. And I'm not limiting it to this film, bowling for columbine also held a very anti-american theme. I did see that movie, I have seen Michael Moore's other films, I have listened to him many times and it's very clear that he's funny but he isn't a big fan of this country. If he's protested going to war in Afghanistan and is attacking the President for dealing with 911, refers to the passengers on the on the hijacked planes as "cowards" then I don't really think he wants to achieve anything other than to undermine America. He's completely unwilling to recognize Saddam's regime as evil, he doesn't hold the Bin Laden or the Taliban accountable for 911 and would rather try to convince audiences that Bush had ties to the Bin Laden family. Republican or Democratic, it doesn't matter what party you belong to, you're going to outright reject those beliefs. Unfortunately for Democrats though, he and Al Gore are the guys holding the bullhorn right now.

 

[FightyF]

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

So many factual innaccuracies! Simply astonishing!

I don't think Moore has anything to worry about. I think that debate is healthy, but the right-wing will be embarressed if the arguements are like this.

 

[Mumbles]

The slate article makes a mistake when it compares Rush Limbaugh to Michael Moore.

If anything, Rush is far worse than Moore is - and he's tame when compared to, say, Coulter. The Right wing keeps their nuts under control? You've got to be kidding.

 

[----]

I wasn't laughing when I saw real human despair being projected onto the screen. I don't find that comical in the least.

No I find it sick that he used that. I think most people are sickened by that in particular. That's just dark and twisted in ways most people can't begin to comprehend. I'm not going to watch him use people like that and then pass the blame onto George W. Bush.

The real problem with the film, the really offensive thing about it, is that in Fahrenheit 9/11, we -- Americans from the President on down -- are portrayed as the bad guys. If there's something wrong about bin Laden it's that his estranged family has ties with -- cue the uh-oh music -- the Bush family. Saddam? Nothing wrong with him. No mention of torture and terror and tyranny. Moore shows scenes of Baghdad before the invasion (read: liberation) and in his weltanschauung, it's a place filled with nothing but happy, smiling, giggly, overjoyed Baghdadis. No pain and suffering there. No rape, murder, gassing, imprisoning, silencing of the citizens in these scenes. When he exploits and lingers on the tears of a mother who lost her soldier-son in Iraq, and she wails, "Why did yo have to take him?" Moore does not cut to images of the murderers/terrorists (pardon me, "insurgents") in Iraq or killed him -- or even to God; he cuts to George Bush. When the soldier's father says the young man died and "for what?", Moore doesn't show liberated Iraqis to reply, he cuts instead to an image of Halliburton.

This was one of the first scenes I heard about the film in outrage from the news. It is such a sophomoric simple minded shock tactic, and such a callous exploitation of an innocent person, I can't begin to imagine the simplicity of the minds who fall for it. I find it facinating though to see this reoccuring theme in all of Michael Moore's films where he doesn't ever blame the people directly responsible for these actions, but rather someone who's motives are sound and good natured. Like I said it's exactly the same as attacking Dick Clark in Bowling for Columbine. If Michael Moore can trick you into blaming Dick Clark for the dead child and blaming George Bush for the dead solider, then his propoganda has done it's job.

I don't think Moore has anything to worry about. I think that debate is healthy, but the right-wing will be embarressed if the arguements are like this.

You just quoted a left-wing writer for liberal Slate magazine. If it's innaccurate or a bad arguement don't blame the right-wing, this arguement is coming from the left.

 

[deadhorse32]

Is anyone other than a staunch liberal going to accept this film as a documentary though? And even many liberals as you see here will be honest enough to say it isn't really a documentary. It's perfectly fine that it has a point of view and a bias, but if it's not considered factual by right and left-wingers then it isn't documenting.

the second time in 2 day but what the hell

documentary film :
motion picture that shapes and interprets factual material for purposes of education or entertainment.

Documentary <> News Report

 

[FightyF]

You just quoted a left-wing writer for liberal Slate magazine. If it's innaccurate or a bad arguement don't blame the right-wing, this arguement is coming from the left.

Hitchens is right wing. His arguements are equally right wing.

Liberals understand what Moore meant about opposing the US's actions in Afghanistan. He opposed the toppling of the Taliban as the priority of the US. That action allowed Al Qaeda to escape. Ask ANY Liberal, and they will tell you that capturing Osama bin Laden should have been America's #1 priority, not number 2.

 

[deadhorse32]

For a left-wing writer, Christopher Hitchens, sure love war in Iraq

HITCHENS: WE MUST FIGHT IRAQ

By Christopher Hitchens


IT is almost certainly a mistake to assume anybody's position on Iraq is determined by evidence alone.....

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12227453&method=full&siteid=50143

No surprises then that he hates the movie

 

[----]

If anything, Rush is far worse than Moore is - and he's tame when compared to, say, Coulter. The Right wing keeps their nuts under control? You've got to be kidding.

Coulter is vicious, but her reactions to 911 and terrrorism are a lot more healthy and reasonable than either Michael Moore or Jerry Falwell. You may not like Rush either, but Rush's reaction to these tragic events was much more grounded in reality.

When tragedy occurs we as a society need to filter out the Howard Stern "Kill all the towel heads" and Michael Moore "The Bush adminsitration orchestrated this" type of reactions. If we come to embrace these type of irrational reactions then we're in serious trouble. I don't think America will embrace them though, we're too smart and too resilent, and most importantly we're independent, too independent to fall for cheap propoganda. Let Europe and Canada lap this up.

Hitchens is right wing. His arguements are equally right wing.

Oh jesus, you're disowning the guy already? LOL. The guy wrote for the Nation, writes for Slate, only votes for Democrats, was a frequent guest on AirAmerica and now he's right wing? I guess to the left wing nuts, just about everyone looks right wing.


Not surprised by that lame type of reaction after reading this...

: If you don't believe that, well, says Moore, you're an idiot. You're Britney Spears, shown in all her ditziness saying, "Honestly, I think we should just trust our President." There's your spokesman for the other side: Britney.

Or you're a bloodthirsty American goon, which is how Moore portrays soldiers who rush into battle hopped up on rock 'n' roll. He spares us the obvious napalm, morning, smell thing.

In Moore's view, you're either with him or against him.

documentary film :
motion picture that shapes and interprets factual material for purposes of education or entertainment.

Which is precisely why Michael Moore's films can't be considered documentaries. Roger Ebert has defended Moore's films as documentaries, but in the same breath admits that he's disappointed in them for not being factual and for being innacurate. If a documentary is supposed to be based upon factual material then Moore's decision to frequently present false material to create irony or make the movie more comedic prevents the film from being a true documentary.

 

[FightyF]

Coulter's reaction to 9/11 is not that different that Stern's reaction. In fact, I consider it much more racist...and this ties into my next point...

Oh jesus, you're disowning the guy already? LOL. The guy wrote for the Nation, writes for Slate, only votes for Democrats, was a frequent guest on AirAmerica and now he's right wing? I guess to the left wing nuts, just about everyone looks right wing.

No, he hadn't turned right wing recently, but after 9/11.

His views became more racist and hateful after that point. This hate is based on closed-mindedness.

I am not equating racism, with right wing. I am right wing, but I am also a humanist. But many right wing extremists are racist and closed-minded. His writing shares many qualities that right wing extremists have.

There are people on the left wing, who are equally hateful and racist, but for different reasons. RW extremists base their hate on ignorance and religious zealotry. LW extremists base their hate on intolerance and arrogance.* To tie this point into the current thread, Hitchens is a RW extremist, while Moore is neither.

*It may seem like a bold statement, and this is based on my past experiences with working with different kinds of people. I'd like some feedback on that comment (which I'm not stating as fact, but what I percieve as reality), and if needed, I can post anecdotes and situations on which I form that opinion on.

 

[BuddyC]

damn, that article makes some really good points. after reading it, and thinking for a bit, i now realize

Spoiler

the jews killed christ

 

[belgurdo]

I personally feel that the world will be a better place when I don't have to trudge through pages of GAF "I hate commie libruls" threads anymore.

 

[Diablos]

Michael Moore is a genius. Eff the haters

 

[The Promised One]

So many factual innaccuracies! Simply astonishing!

I don't think Moore has anything to worry about. I think that debate is healthy, but the right-wing will be embarressed if the arguements are like this.

LOL, yes, factual inaccuracies on Moore's side. Keep trying though, it's "simply astonishing".

 

[The Promised One]

But many right wing extremists are racist and closed-minded.

And many left-wingers are socially racist. Look at how much they look down upon and denounce as stupid and inbred, anyone who is considered "southern" or "country" like, unless the person happens to be an absolute staunch liberal. Plus, IMO, most libs just use Blacks and Hispanics to try to further their own cause, and appear like they're all bleeding heart, and humanitarian.

 

[AntoneM]

I find the fact that many people think he is anti-american to be laughable. He doesn't like either party, it doesn't mean he hates America. He has openly admitted that this movie is a slam against Bush, that doesn't mean faked scenes, he didn't make this movie with a special effects team in a hollywood studio.

 

[mjq jazz bar]

I think the funniest thing about this thread is that we're arguing with someone who hasn't seen the movie.

 

[The Promised One]

I find the fact that many people think he is anti-american to be laughable. He doesn't like either party, it doesn't mean he hates America. He has openly admitted that this movie is a slam against Bush, that doesn't mean faked scenes, he didn't make this movie with a special effects team in a hollywood studio.

It's called selective editing to create falsities a view you wish others to see. That's propaganda, plain and simple. Try playing through Beyond Good and Evil.

And Moore doesn't hate America?

Michael Moore: "[Americans] are possibly the dumbest people on the planet... in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks."

Yeah, right. The man takes great joy in portraying everying America does as wrong and evil, while saying that Al Queda and Saddam are basically innocent, or misunderstood. Moore is an ass, and so is anyone who buys into his BS.

 

[Nerevar]

It's called selective editing to create falsities a view you wish others to see. That's propaganda, plain and simple. Try playing through Beyond Good and Evil.

Kinda like a George W. Bush press conference?





I kid, I kid.

 

[iapetus]

Michael Moore: "[Americans] are possibly the dumbest people on the planet... in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks."

Straw men are fun, yes?

Yeah, right. The man takes great joy in portraying everying America does as wrong and evil, while saying that Al Queda and Saddam are basically innocent, or misunderstood.

<sigh> Yet another person who can't tell the difference between 'America' and 'the current US government'.

 

[mjq jazz bar]

It's called selective editing to create falsities a view you wish others to see. That's propaganda, plain and simple. Try playing through Beyond Good and Evil.

And Moore doesn't hate America?

Michael Moore: "[Americans] are possibly the dumbest people on the planet... in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks."

Yeah, right. The man takes great joy in portraying everying America does as wrong and evil, while saying that Al Queda and Saddam are basically innocent, or misunderstood. Moore is an ass, and so is anyone who buys into his BS.

I've never heard of him defending Al Queda.

 

[Ripclawe]

Ralph Nader mocking moore

http://www.votenader.org/why_ralph/index.php?cid=83

I've never heard of him defending Al Queda.

Not openly but he has cheered on the Iraqi terrorists as the equal to American minutemen and was vocally against America going into Kosovo to stop that genocide, said bombing didn't work in World War II which is strange..

http://www.commondreams.org/kosovo/views/mmoore.htm

 

[The Promised One]

Straw men are fun, yes?

You should know.

<sigh> Yet another person who can't tell the difference between 'America' and 'the current US government'.

He said "Americans", not current US Government. No matter what the US does, he calls it evil.

I've never heard of him defending Al Queda.

He at first stated that he thought Al Queda was innocent, and then changed his tune to criticize the US for not sending in even more troops than they did, to try to capture Bin-Laden. This coming from a man who was originally against the hunt, and is currently claiming that the Bush has secret ties with BiniLaden's. Big fat *rollseyes* to that.

Basically, watch the film, and see how he does everything in his power to portray the US as evil, while not once mentioning one single negative thing about Saddam or Al Queda.

 

[Pellham]

both liberals and conservatives are racist and closeminded. the real way to go is to be a moderate

 

[etiolate]

both liberals and conservatives are racist and closeminded. the real way to go is to be a moderate

Or just avoid politics entirely and stand for something yourself.

 

[----]

<sigh> Yet another person who can't tell the difference between 'America' and 'the current US government'.

Moore hated the past US government as well. After a certain number of administrations you're going to have to admit it's the US he hates aren't you? And he doesn't just attack the government in his films. His films are designed to make all classes of Americans look stupid, whether you're a soldier, a politician, a celebrity, a business owner, a banker, a home owner, etc. it doesn't matter Moore's looked down on all types of Americans in his films. The thesis of Bowling for Columbine was essentially Canada is a much better place to live than America, because America is a cold hearted, vile, paranoid, violent, place to live. And all the people are too stupid to realize they've been controlled and manipulated by the media. I guess that's what's so offensive about Moore's films, he thinks Americans can be so easily manipulated so he'll take advantage of it. So he pops up on shows like the MTV Movie awards and tells the "dumb American" kids to go see his film cause it will be a great action movie. He sells his lies and half truths in a cloak of humor and irony so that audiences are more receptive and less likely to be offended or think twice about the veracity of the material being presented.

Michael Moore didn't like Reagan, he didn't like Bush Sr., he didn't like Clinton at all, and he certainly doesn't like the current President, so no it's not just a case of the guy doesn't like the current government. This guy dislikes America very much, he sees now a ripe opportunity to get the people who actually are only unhappy with the current administration to embrace his message, and like a bunch of jackasses some of them are so filled with vitriol they actually fall for it without even thinking twice.

I think the funniest thing about this thread is that we're arguing with someone who hasn't seen the movie.

Wow get over it. The thread isn't at all about my take on this stupid film. It's a much bigger discussion than that. It's about whether liberals actually embrace this guy or will embrace the message of people like him. It's about whether the Democratic party is going to continue to allow people like this take charge of their message. About whether we all can see through to his motives and understand how this type of discourse doesn't help anyone. A similar propoganda smear film about Ralph Nader or John Kerry wouldn't help voters or help America anymore than this film does. Despite all we've given him Michael Moore is not a big fan of America or Americans and that is something that should offend voters across the spectrum.