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Michael Moore propagates fury through distortion

Abstract:
Ah, college, the prerequisite independent years that mark the beginning of adulthood: what better environment to lay the seeds of political leaning and activism? Groups from all over the political spectrum know that it is important to garner as many people from this demographic as they possibly can to not only increase this relatively weak voter base, but to obtain followers for the distant future....

Displaying 1 - 14 of 14

stevezzzz

posted 6/25/04 @ 5:56 PM EST

James,

Your argument is baseless and boring. You obviously have not seen F. 9/11, which is a brilliant defensible polemic designed to spark controversy which will be followed by conversation. What could be better for democracy? I hope you will take the time to report the "lies" in F. 9/11,... if you can find any.

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James Mack

posted 6/28/04 @ 1:32 AM EST

My argument is baseless?

Ok, good point. Now support it. Ah wait, you didn't, you just made a (GASP) baseless assumption and accusation!

I have seen F 9/11, and it is by far, worse than any of Moore's films to date. Another assumption that I didn't see it! And it's baseless too, a word you absolutly adore!

The commentary I would write for the lies in F 9/11 would be far longer than the limit for the section, and I am absolutely sure that many others out there will be pointing them out soon enough. Moore is just too far gone to argue with anymore. Anyone who believes any of the crap in this new movie has a political IQ of a monkey. And I mean that. I will tell you that in person. You're more than welcome to come to my house and I will tell you that in person. You're not necessarily stupid, but your understanding of politics is equal to that of my Tivo.

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jethro_nishimura

posted 6/28/04 @ 4:45 AM EST

>> Hey Jn,
Wish I could by tkts. online but it's sold out and th theater is not selling online tkts. Hopefully the lines won't be to long. <<

--

[Note: Words surrounded by asterisks (*) are to be read as italicized, which is not possible to display on Yahoo! Message Boards. - JN]

Hey KG,

My lady and I caught the next to last showing Sunday evening... wanted to make sure we were among the opening weekend's numbers. LOL! You know how we do.

I had no problem purchasing tickets online.... I scooped 'em up thru Yahoo! Movies. - http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808569540

IMO, the documentary is everything it's been hyped up to be and *THEN* some!

The street corner inquiry of a congressman by Michael Moore, aired a week ago on many Sunday morning news programs, that neocon officials, talking heads (including George Stephanopoulos), and bloggers made such a big deal of, like James Mack, Jr. here:

--
"There is a scene where [Moore] walks up to a congressman and asks him to sign up his *children* for the military to serve in Iraq, and the congressman gives him a look like he just offered him crack-cocaine. What Moore edits out completely is the same congressman explaining his nephew was just sent out to Iraq." -
http://www.thetriangle.org/news/2004/06/25/EdOp/Michael.Moore.Propagates.Fury.Through.Distortion-689591.shtml
--

... wasn't even in the film. The scene, with that particular congressman, started with Moore asking him, in mid-stride, to send his children to Iraq, to which he responds by "giving him a look." That's how it started and finished... with nothing else in between. What was shown on those Sunday morning news programs was at least a 30 second back-and-forth exchange between the congressman and Moore... ending with the congressman stating that he has a nephew in Iraq. The *entire* scene in question begins with a different congressman with Moore stating, in narration, that one congressman has a family member in Iraq.

Neverminding what I wrote above, taken in the way the neocons would have us see it, how does that congressman's nephew equate to being one of his own *children*? Common sense states that there are two other persons, one of whom *might* be a blood relation of that "same congressman", who can biologically state that the congressman's nephew is *their* son... *child*.

Next, Mack offers the following bit of hypocrisy:

--
What "facts" [Moore] places in his film are simply his own distorted and twisted sense of the truth.
--

WTF? The only distortion here is that of the author equating a nephew to a son... *child*. That may be the norm in some redneck circles, but I seriously doubt it's the case here. If so, that congressman needs to fess up to his constituents, then blame the neocons for outing him for helping procreate a son/nephew with his sister... the same way former Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Jack Ryan blamed The Chicago Tribune and WLS-ABC 7 Chicago [ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0406270249jun27,1,7334231.column?coll=chi-news-col ] for successfully suing the California court system to release his sealed public divorce records, that revealed his unsuccessful propositioning of his now estranged wife, actress Jeri Lynn Ryan (of Star Trek: Voyager and Boston Public fame), to perform sexual acts with him at sex clubs both stateside and abroad, on numerous occasions, while others watched, during the course of their failed marriage. PHEWWW!!! Bill and John F. who?!?!?

The neocons can surely dish it out, but when the shoe is on the other foot, they scream FOUL(For Only U Liberals) in perfect unison. ROFLMBAO!!!

We give 'Fahrenheit 9/11' two thumbs *way* up, and a promise to get as many eligible voters registered and to the polls on 11/2 as humanly possible.

I don't expect this documentary to change the minds of the sheeple, but the undecided will definitely be left with food for thought.

VOTE!

Peace!
JN

http://sports.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=SP&action=m&board=18105008&tid=thenontennisthread&sid=18105008&mid=8048

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stevezzzz

posted 6/28/04 @ 3:15 PM EST

James,

You reply to my comment speaks for itself. You are not accepting my challenge to explicitly expose the lies of F9/11.
That should be easy...Right? Please just offer us a few of the most outrageous lies you can find. I'll be satisfied with just one. This, my friend, is how I'm proving your argument baseless.

Let's keep up the debate and let's keep American democracy strong,

Stevie Z.

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James Mack

posted 6/28/04 @ 8:23 PM EST

Why don't you just look outside my commentary for a minute and see my post on the public forum regarding F 9/11?

If that's not enough evidence to just begin to show Moore's lies, then here is some more!

He claimed every independant panel investigating the election results showed Gore won. Really? Because every major news outlet did their own studies and showed Bush still won. So every study but the reputable ones showed Gore the winner.

Richard Clarke is Moore's favorite interviewee and Moore uses him as a "great" source for his material. Moore completely ommited the fact that Richard Clarke was the one who ordered the Bin Laden family out of the country, which was viewed as a move by the Bush's to protect his investments.

Moore claims that no congresspersons have a son or daughter fighting in the armed forces. Ok, because not only does one of his cut-off interviwees have a nephew in Iraq, but John Ashcroft and Senator Tim Johnson both have children in active duty.

Moore states that the war in Afghanistan was fought to build a pipeline for Unocal company. Funny, Unocal abandoned the idea in 1988 and has had no investiment in it since.

Moore mades X degree connections between Bush and Saudi Arabia IN GENERAL. Oh, so now all Saudis are terrorists? Moore clearly infers that.

Moore misleads the viewer knowingly a countless number of times, from jokes that the President made himself, to interviewees of Iraqis killed by America (because they were terrorists possibly?) and not mentioning that the bin Laden name in Saudi Arabia is like the Smith name in America...there are thousands upon thousands of bin Laden's in Saudi Arabia. The vast majority of which are completely unrelated.

Moore claims that the economy is slipping and doing poorly. Really? Because a record number of new homes were built the past quarter, there have been 1.6 million new jobs since August of 2003, and the stock market has been steadily growing since this time last year. I could have sworn we were on an upswing.

Moore makes an inferrence that we did the war in Iraq for oil. Look at the price at the pumps. Enough said.

If you honestly believe Moore still, then I pity you. You're the gullible to believe a movie where the other side is not represented whatsoever. Have you seen any of he financial documents? Have you looked up the ties Moore claims? I bet you haven't. I have. He managed to misconstrue and plain old make up his aargument and present it to a gullible audience so that they remove a good commander in chief from the office.

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Pat_W

posted 6/29/04 @ 2:25 AM EST

Finally, someone stickin it too that fat sack of crap. Glad to know there is another person with a brain out there and can recognize this guy for what he is (and isnt). While personally conservativeish, anyone who laughs out loud at this guy and his groupies is the MAN. As for stevezzzz's comment, well, seems he is just in denial or turning a blind eye to anything that isnt Micheal Moore. In psychology that behavior is termed a "personal defense mechanism" that the patient goes into to prevent mental/physical shock. Seems the truth is too much for this guy

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stevezzzz

posted 6/29/04 @ 3:30 AM EST

Truth?
whose truth?
nobody has it
everybody wants it.

peace.

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stevezzzz

posted 6/29/04 @ 2:01 PM EST

Reagan's Legacy? And Clinton's neoliberal economic policies read about it here:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/incineq/p60asc.html

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stevezzzz

posted 6/29/04 @ 3:16 AM EST

The most important work Moore's film accomplishes is getting people to question what the "news outlets" have told them.

James,
Thanks for taking the time to voice your views publicly. This is a freedom we must exercise, especially in a time of war. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and I hope we can push a productive conversation forward. You have pointed to many possible weaknesses in Moore's polemic, but why should I believe your claims against his? You offer no indication of where you are getting your information. For example, "every major news outlet" isn't exactly a helpful citation. Besides, let's face it, most of the news outlets in this country are heavily slanted and censored. Michael Moore is playing by the same rules, but he insists on showing his audience another side of the story, the one that they would not show on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. These networks don't want to anger their conservative audience or their sponsors so they show the citizens of the United States a lot of fluff and meaningless jabber instead. These "news outlets" are not dedicated to educating the populous concerning worldly affairs. If they were they would report on issues in Africa on a daily basis and if they did Americans might actually become aware, and sensitized to the struggles and genocides that are going on the continent of Africa. FOX news is more interested in Mars than Africa! Where is the humanity in that? This is silent violence.

I know, and you know, that Truth is a point of view about things. No one really has access to the Truth anyway. Truth is a partial perspective and Truth is open to multiple interpretations. Let's face it, words and images mean different things to different people and therefore the Truth is not easily decipherable. That is just the limit of language and we can't communicate in any other way.

I think we make a mistake when we try to argue FOX news is full of lies, or Michael Moore is not telling the truth because both of these organizations, and Michael Moore is an organization, are in the business of telling the truth and to both of their credit they do tell the truth, albeit selectively. They tell the truths they want to tell to support their convictions. FOX news is run by Republicans and therefore they tell you all the truths that support their beliefs and what they want others to believe. Yes it is true and Michael Moore recognizes these guys have way more power than he does. (The last I checked FOX news is on 24 hours per day) Michael Moore's project is to challenge the orthodox news machinery by creating antithetical documentary films, in other words a counterpoint.
Michael Moore is the annoying voice in the crowed that yells BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS! WHY CAN"T WE TALK ABOUT THAT! HEY FOLKS LET'S CONSIDER ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW! This is what F. 9/11 is all about and that gets at the truth too, a more nuanced truth. What is the harm in this?

The most important work Moore's film accomplishes is getting people to question what the "news outlets" have told them. The film is designed to get people to QUESTION AUTHORITY. And that, my friend, is what American democracy is all about, questioning authority. In the end we can rant about the lies we are being told from "news outlet" to "news outlet", but we can't escape the responsibility of having to think, having to process the truths, half-truths and censored truths that are being projected into our minds from the radio to the TV to the internet to the classroom.
As we walk away from the Movie House Americans can turn to one another and say: Why don't more congressmen have kids on active duty in Iraq? That is strange....Why do we send our poor people over to kill their poor people? Why is the congress a millionaires club in the first place! I didn't know that the Saudis helped George Bush finance his first oil company. I wonder how he managed to negotiate that! Do you really think Jeb Bush helped his brother win the state of Florida in 2000? Who knows? It's possible and it sure happens in other places around the world. These aren't lies, these are questions and questions are what come out of Moore's film. Moore's film promotes skepticism and conversation. What is wrong with that?

James, we could spend all week going back and forth over the details in Moore's movie. It's nit-picky and you and I are both college students with a limited amount of time on campus. We are here to learn, we are here to learn from each other so that we can live out our dreams. I don't know about you, but I dream of a better America, one that is not tainted by the greed of crony-capitalists. Are we really a republic for the people by the people?

The growing gap between the rich and the poor should serve as an indicator that our country is heading in a direction that excludes too many people and, for the record, that information can be found at www.census.gov

Cheers,

Stevie Z.

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ArFil

posted 7/01/04 @ 11:33 AM EST

James,

I just wanted to refute some of the republican rethoric that you preach:

>James Mack wrote:
>
>Moore claims that the economy is slipping and doing >poorly. Really? Because a record number of new homes were >built the past quarter, there have been 1.6 million new >jobs since August of 2003, and the stock market has been >steadily growing since this time last year. I could have >sworn we were on an upswing.
>

Economy 101: Government spending has gone from 18.4% to 20% of GDP since 2000 as military and homeland security spending rose from 3% of GDP to 4.2%.

It is obvious that the economy will have to improve when you are pumping so much money into it, but on the other hand, it's all a farce because you are creating a deficit that will have to be paid eventually by our sons and daugthers. Wait another four years, we will see if this bubble designed by the government to buy votes will be able to sustain itself.

Art

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mack

posted 7/02/04 @ 1:21 AM EST

I'd like to add my rebutal, then.

"I just wanted to refute some of the republican rethoric that you preach:"

I'm a libertarian. I am not a democrat or republican. Nor will I be. Both parties have their problems, but the republicans seem to be the ones who are actually willing to take the fight to terrorists before the fight comes to us, as it did. Your ignorant assumption that I am just a republican spouting off shows your superficial understanding of me as a person or my commentaries in the past.

"Economy 101: Government spending has gone from 18.4% to 20% of GDP since 2000 as military and homeland security spending rose from 3% of GDP to 4.2%."

Economy 202 (Macroeconomics): Government spending may have increased in military and homeland security, but it has been reduced elsewhere. Albeit, there is still too much pork in other parts of our spending, we need to keep funding for the military, homeland security, and OGA in order to prevent another attack here. The reason we RAISED our spending on the military in 2000 was because Clinton had cut it so much. You think the increase in spending is bad? You need to remember why the hell we're spending it.

"Wait another four years, we will see if this bubble designed by the government to buy votes will be able to sustain itself."

Bubble? Nice. Even though the tax cuts have been hailed by even libreal economists as a great move fiscally, and even though they have created jobs, put more money into families' hands, caused a slew of positive side effects in the home and stock markets, and made taxes more fair to all citizens, you aparently believe that we are creating a bubble. Show it to me. Since 1996, economists for the Clinton administration warned of a possible bubble created on the stock market and economy overall. It burst in 2001. Economists now from moderate democrats to republicans say that, while some spending needs to be trimmed elsewhere aside from defense, we have no where to go but up. And do you know what Kerry's plan for creating jobs is? The same thing as Bush's. That's why he never talks about it. 1.6 million new jobs in 9 months is nothing short of good work by the President and his economic advisory panel .

If you really believe the simple economics you are spouting off, I suggest you read up on the basic prinicpals of macroeconomics. I would also assume that you believe job outsourcing is bad, even though it has created more higher level jobs here.

Here's an idea: Don't take the worst figure (the rise in GDP spending on defense) that, in your opinion, is bad and tell us it's the whole economy. The economy as a whole is what causes the fall, not a return to spending that was in the early 1990's.

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ArFil

posted 7/02/04 @ 8:46 AM EST

Mack wrote:

"Both parties have their problems, but the republicans seem to be the ones who are actually willing to take the fight to terrorists before the fight comes to us, as it did. "

Really? By morphing Bin Laden into Saddam? The war in Iraq is not the answer to terrorism. I would rather see our Tax dollars spent destroying Al Qaeda than fighting a war that we cannot win. The rest of the world believes that that the United States is a threat to world peace under King Bush, which fuels their hatred for us. Again, you ate up the republican rethoric of fighting the war on terrorism there rather than here. The Iraqi war has done nothing to stop terrorism.

Iraqi War - Dollars & Cents:

Cost of Invading Iraq
$26 billion
(paid by FY2003 supplemental funding [below])
Department of Defense Comptroller Dov Zakheim, April 16, 2003

Ongoing Military Operations in Iraq
$3.9 billion/month
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, July 9, 2003

Ongoing Military Operations in Afghanistan
$1 billion/month
USA Today, September 8, 2003

Supplemental Funding for FY 2003
$62.4 billion
Congress approved April 2003 (10/02-9/03)

Supplemental Funding for FY 2004
$65.8 billion
Congress approved November 2003 (10/03-9/04)

Supplemental Funding for FY 2005
$50 billion

"Economy 202 (Macroeconomics): Government spending may have increased in military and homeland security, but it has been reduced elsewhere. Albeit, there is still too much pork in other parts of our spending, we need to keep funding for the military, homeland security, and OGA in order to prevent another attack here. The reason we RAISED our spending on the military in 2000 was because Clinton had cut it so much. You think the increase in spending is bad? You need to remember why the hell we're spending it."

I have to agree with you that military spending had to be increased, but not to fight the Iraqi war.
You are confusing the war on terror with the Iraqi war. Who's next, North Korea?

"If you really believe the simple economics you are spouting off, I suggest you read up on the basic prinicpals of macroeconomics. I would also assume that you believe job outsourcing is bad, even though it has created more higher level jobs here."

Please show me the numbers, as in how many high level jobs have been created vs. jobs lost to outsourcing.
As a suggestion, use the IT Professional workforce. Tell me how many "High Level" IT jobs gets created
for every one we lose to India.

AF

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ArFil

posted 7/02/04 @ 8:49 AM EST

Mack wrote:
"Both parties have their problems, but the republicans seem to be the ones who are actually willing to take the fight to terrorists before the fight comes to us, as it did. "

Really? By morphing Bin Laden into Saddam? The war in Iraq is not the answer to terrorism. I would rather see our Tax dollars spent destroying Al Qaeda than fighting a war that we cannot win. The rest of the world believes that that the United States is a threat to world peace under King Bush, which fuels their hatred for us. Again, you ate up the republican rethoric of fighting the war on terrorism there rather than here. The Iraqi war has done nothing to stop terrorism.

Iraqi War - Dollars & Cents:

Cost of Invading Iraq
$26 billion
(paid by FY2003 supplemental funding [below])
Department of Defense Comptroller Dov Zakheim, April 16, 2003

Ongoing Military Operations in Iraq
$3.9 billion/month
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, July 9, 2003

Ongoing Military Operations in Afghanistan
$1 billion/month
USA Today, September 8, 2003

Supplemental Funding for FY 2003
$62.4 billion
Congress approved April 2003 (10/02-9/03)

Supplemental Funding for FY 2004
$65.8 billion
Congress approved November 2003 (10/03-9/04)

Supplemental Funding for FY 2005
$50 billion

"Economy 202 (Macroeconomics): Government spending may have increased in military and homeland security, but it has been reduced elsewhere. Albeit, there is still too much pork in other parts of our spending, we need to keep funding for the military, homeland security, and OGA in order to prevent another attack here. The reason we RAISED our spending on the military in 2000 was because Clinton had cut it so much. You think the increase in spending is bad? You need to remember why the hell we're spending it."

I have to agree with you that military spending had to be increased, but not to fight the Iraqi war.
You are confusing the war on terror with the Iraqi war. Who's next, North Korea?

"If you really believe the simple economics you are spouting off, I suggest you read up on the basic prinicpals of macroeconomics. I would also assume that you believe job outsourcing is bad, even though it has created more higher level jobs here."

Please show me the numbers, as in how many high level jobs have been created vs. jobs lost to outsourcing.
As a suggestion, use the IT Professional workforce. Tell me how many "High Level" IT jobs gets created
for every one we lose to India.

AF

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