Fahrenheit 9/11

[Var]

Let's go see this movie on Friday night. I dont exactly know where they are playing it cause i'm too lazy to search. I'm willing to drive somewhere in the bay to see it. Afterwards we can sit around have some smores and talk smack about the government. Who's comin with me?

If you dont know about it yet you can see the trailer here

http://www.fahrenheit911.com/trailer/

[Andrew Bohan]

i'm plainin on seeing it in union city

[citizen]

pfft seeing it for free whenever, maybe go to a dry run of it or something. probably one thursday. only suckas pay for movies nowadays.

[kazuo]

Let's go see this movie on Friday night. I dont exactly know where they are playing it cause i'm too lazy to search. I'm willing to drive somewhere in the bay to see it. Afterwards we can sit around have some smores and talk smack about the government. Who's comin with me?

If you dont know about it yet you can see the trailer here

http://www.fahrenheit911.com/trailer/

YA foo, I was gonna call you 'bout this. We goin' to see it at the Met on friday night.

PS - You also need rear upper arms. Everything else can wait.

[that180guy]

hmm.....looks interesting

[Var]

YA foo, I was gonna call you 'bout this. We goin' to see it at the Met on friday night.

PS - You also need rear upper arms. Everything else can wait.


so who's goin? and what time. i'm down to go.

[knghtryde]

Showtimes for Friday

Century 20 Great Mall (11:35am), (2:20), (5:00), 7:50, 10:30
1010 Great Mall Drive, Milpitas, CA, 95035 Map It
Buy tickets from Fandango by clicking a linked showtime.

I say we get a meet going. Everyone meet up at 7:00 p.m. on the center floor of the Parking structure. That would be the only place we can park together. From there we can walk over to the theatre and watch the movie.

Who's Down.

[knghtryde]

Or would this be better.

Century Cinemas 16
1500 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View, CA, 94043 Map It
Buy tickets from Fandango by clicking a linked showtime.
(11:00am), (1:50), (4:40), 7:35, 10:30

Let me know by 5pm today. Everyone throw out Ideas. At 5pm today I will start the official Friday Night Movie Meet for this flick. Okay guys get those gears turning and throw some ideas out to which theatre you guys perfer.

[knghtryde]

I've been to the second one. We'd all just have to park and meet up somewhere cause I don't know how well getting a meet together would go with how packed the parking lot gets.

I don't know if any AMCs are showing it, but i think they are all hiding between their legs on this flick.

[Var]

well originally Art had set it up for the Metreon in downtown SF. I'm down for wherever though. I just wanna see it. Also we should organize the final details by thursday and buy tickets online just to be safe.

[knghtryde]

That's kewl, but I haven't seen or heard anything from Art.

Art what's going on.

[Var]

YA foo, I was gonna call you 'bout this. We goin' to see it at the Met on friday night.




he posted already

[knghtryde]

Yeah, but that still doesn't say anything.... It's kewl though... Cause I know If wait for Art it's never gonna get set up... lolz... I'm just gonna hit up one of the places around here.

[derrick]

definetely going to watch it this friday with my brother. it's a movie i'd rather watch on dvd but i can't wait that long.

[Var]

Yeah, but that still doesn't say anything.... It's kewl though... Cause I know If wait for Art it's never gonna get set up... lolz... I'm just gonna hit up one of the places around here.


it's says we're going to see it at the Met(Metreon) this friday. That says it all..but still i'm down to go anywhere in the bay... David since you are the more enthusiastic one about setting things up..would you mind posting showtimes and theatres please. Thank you

[knghtryde]

I already did... I just worry, cause Art says he's gonna do something but he won't post up times or meet up locations till like 3 or 4 hours before... I'm not really into the very last minute thing... Here's a repost of locations and times in the South Bay...

Century Cinemas 16
1500 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View, CA, 94043 Map It
Buy tickets from Fandango by clicking a linked showtime.
(11:00am), (1:50), (4:40), 7:35, 10:30

Century 20 Great Mall
1010 Great Mall Drive, Milpitas, CA, 95035
(11:35am), (2:20), (5:00), 7:50, 10:30

I think the top location would be best cause it's kinda in the middle of everything and easy for everyone to get to. But I'm down for anything if it's planned out and not told to everyone Friday morning.

[kazuo]

Well I'm also going with some non-car lyfe buddies so I don't plan on leaving Frisco to go see it... farthest I'll go is Century in DC and I don't think they will be showing it.

I'm still going in Frisco... anyone who wants to go, let's go... unless shit falls through up here I'mma watch it at the Met.

[knghtryde]

Art do you know what time you are going yet. I"m down to go watch it with you guys but I need something planned out. I need the time and all that stuff. I kinda have things that I need to plan out like getting someone to watch my son and all that.

[Var]

9:10pm 11:50pm 12:10am

any of these works for my friday night @ the metreon. i'd rather see the latest one though

[knghtryde]

Well I'm gonna be backing down from this one. I just found out for some stupid reasons, not related to driving or cars, and something I didn't even do. I might be locked up, and most likely be loosing my job. So you guys might not be seeing me a round for a while.

[Var]

ummm.......?

[knghtryde]

Long story... let's just see what happens... I'm not going to go into details on the board.

[Andrew Bohan]

sounds extremely shitty...
good luck with whatever it is though....

[Var]

O and david..like i said. dont ever argue with me. An 85 mr2 weight 2380 pounds, not 1500.

[D1drifter]

umm,how about we all meet up at the great mall this friday?

[NinjaGaiden]

O and david..like i said. dont ever argue with me. An 85 mr2 weight 2380 pounds, not 1500.

there is no way an MR2 weighs as mcuh as an elise. if ti does weigh 1500 lbs i'm all over that bad boy

[knghtryde]

I'm gonna weigh my friends 85 base model mr2 and see what it comes out to be.

[elevator]

I would NEVER pay to see anything from that fat, lazy, propagandizer, commie, anti-american, leftist, magot, bastard Michael Moore! Have I made myself clear!

[ThatGuy]

I would NEVER pay to see anything from that fat, lazy, propagandizer, commie, anti-american, leftist, magot, bastard Michael Moore! Have I made myself clear!

I wouldn't normally post here, living in NC and all, but I totally agree with this statement. Sorry to HiJack. Hey Mr. Moore :rant2: FUCK OFF AND DIE SLOW AND PAINFULLY!!! :rant2:

Anyway, have fun meeting up out there on the left coast. If I ever get stationed out that way, at least I'll know there are people to hang out with. :D

[kazuo]

I would NEVER pay to see anything from that fat, lazy, propagandizer, commie, anti-american, leftist, magot, bastard Michael Moore! Have I made myself clear!

Michael Moore loves his country and how dare you run off your mouth with some pissant attitude just because you disagree with his views. He doesn't pretend that he's anti-Bush, or that his film is objective (cus it clearly is not; but you can't argue with the facts -- he's documented ALL of his statements with third party sources -- and people like you still call him a liar. I'm confused)

Aside from that, I'm going to say 9:10 or 11:50, I will leave it up to you guys. My boys don't really care what time we go but I'm sure they'd prefer 9:10... ;p

Just post up sometime today/thursday afternoon and we'll buy tix thursday night ya?

Later

[Andrew Bohan]

what are the prices at the met?

[that180guy]

i think 10 soild

no student discount :(

[elevator]

Michael Moore loves his country and how dare you run off your mouth with some pissant attitude just because you disagree with his views. He loves Michael Moore and the money he will make from this film. It is a good thing that the fat bastard DOES love himself because nobody else will.
...but you can't argue with the facts -- he's documented ALL of his statements with third party sources -- and people like you still call him a liar. I'm confused Yes you ARE clearly confused. MM stretched the facts to meet his purposes. (ie playing a round of golf does NOT constitute a vacation!)

[ThatGuy]

Well my main reason for calling him a liar was "Bowling for Columbine", you know his other movie where he supposedly gave "the facts". Things is, there were "facts" in that movie that later turned out to completely made up by him. Now I understand marketing, and the making of a decent movie, but this guy was selling it as a documentary. Documentaries generally deal in facts, if I remember correctly.

Of course he loves his country. Only in America could he get away with making a movie that blatantly tries to point out the governments flaws without the worry of that same government striking him down. I just fail to comprehend how he can justify his methods. Perhaps "FUCK OFF AND DIE" was a little harsh of me, but at least curl up in a dark corner and shut-up.

[elevator]

I don't think you were too harsh at all!

BTW Semper Fi!

[lilredstiffy]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

[knghtryde]

I'm guessing that these guys like everyone being laid off. They enjoy seeing people who work hard and have families out on the street. These guys must really enjoy our country killing millions of people who have done nothing wrong. Are you guys forgetting the fact that it's already been proven that Iraq had no ties with Al-Quida. I'm also guessing that they love spending our money that could go towards education to make rich people richer. Are you forgetting that after the distruction of Iraq, Bush gave all the contracts to his friends, and when the UN said that they would step in as long as the contract where given out properly Bush declined.

If you are talking about not loving America. You guys must not love America. You guys enjoy the suffering that's going on every day here in America because of this fact. You love the fact that our country's government is more currupt now than it has ever been in History.

you guys must think it okay for a man to attack Iraq and have millions killed because he wanted to pick up where his father left off. He attacked Iraq not because of terrorism but for oil to make himself richer. You guys must love the gas prices.

You know you guys talk outta your ass. You guys are defending man that is distroying our great nation. To be honest, since he's taken over, there's nothing great about it. You think he didn't know about what was going on in those prisons. He knew. And I bet he ordered it himself. And let me guess you guys think that was okay also.

That's what I hate about people like you. As soon as the truth comes out you pretend it isn't so you can ease your own mind. I bet you guys are the same people that say that America never locked up the Japanese Americans. We locked up our own people. Our soldiers rapped thier little daughters. They starved them and beat them religously. Are you guys gonna say that this treatment of our Japanese Americans Okay also. No you guys are gonna say it never happened.

Through out history the US population chooses to ignore what our government does so that they don't have live day to day with the mistakes our country does.

WELL WAKE UP A S S H O L E S our goverment is skrewing us and the rest of the world. and if we don't wake up and realize this. This country is gonna make itself fall.

Me for one love my county. I have a Son and a Wife. I would perfer my son not see what's going on, but he has to know, but I do want him to grow up in our country.

BUSH IS STARTING THE NEXT WORLD WAR. WAKE THE FRUCK UP.

[kazuo]

Yes you ARE clearly confused. MM stretched the facts to meet his purposes. (ie playing a round of golf does NOT constitute a vacation!)

He "stretched" the truth? Go read "Dude, Where's My Country?" In which he has a bibliography that spans so many pages you'll get tired of verifying it all. He backs up every statement he makes in the book with independent sources.

As far as the vacation thing, its true -- again he backed it up with independent sources. He has plenty of footage of Bushie on vacation, not only just "a round of golf," but horseback riding, fishing, etc etc etc

I can't even begin to count how many times I recall hearing about Bush being "on vacation" before 9/11.

Of course he loves his country. Only in America could he get away with making a movie that blatantly tries to point out the governments flaws without the worry of that same government striking him down.

And?

It's GOOD that we can do this, otherwise our government would walk all over us.

Why do you think the Founding Fathers rebelled against the English Crown?

Because their government was bullshit.

And they didn't even elect their leader... sound familiar? :)

Anyways I'm not going to turn this thread into a left vs right argument, or a "Moore is a Liar" argument, this is about a meet on the West Coast and y'all aint even from here, so I'm gonna have to ask that you guys stop posting in this thread. If you want to contuinue this discussion with me feel free to PM me.

And for "lilredstiffy," until you can come up with your own argument... stay out of this. Thanks.

NORCAL FOLK: We goin' @ the Met. Prolly 9 or 11. Ha! Up to you, make the call, buy tix tonight!

[Var]

I've got an idea, whoever isnt coming to this movie stop posting here. This was supposed to be a meet, not who likes/dislikes Michael Moore. I am unbiased but i find the movie to be interesting and i want to go see it. So Whoever is coming post here or buy your own tickets for tomorrow night @ the Sony Metreon 11:50pm(ok with you art?) cause i gotta so somewhere right before. I'm not gonna bother calling you but maybe i'll IM you on AIM. Then we can figure it out. Drewl..i'm gonna PM you my phone number if you want me to buy you a ticket(s) (girlfirend?) . Anyone else who wants to come and wants tickets call me or pm me if you dont have my number. I'm gonna buy them tonite



I would NEVER pay to see anything from that fat, lazy, propagandizer, commie, anti-american, leftist, magot, bastard Michael Moore! Have I made myself clear!

Life is amazing. You know how things work out sometimes...some people may call it coincidence but it's something bigger and more powerful than you. You dont wanna come AND you arent invited. I think there is a higher power at work here. Me

[knghtryde]

Varr you wish you where the higher power, nobody except god is a higher power than I. LoLz. J/K....

Varr, sorry I didn't get back to you last night, I wasn't in a good state of mind cause of everything that's been going on. I'll try to call you tonight if I can clear my head a little better.

[mjjstang]

..............sorry to bring up a dead thread.