Michael Moore wins at Cannes Part 1

[zonker]

He has a different opinion on how this country is run. Why people get so fired up over that is really strange.

Moore did a TV program a few years back called "The Awful Truth". Great show.

I don't agree with everything he says but it's an alternative to Fox News.

 

[sqwkvfr]

He has a different opinion on how this country is run. Why people get so fired up over that is really strange.

(sigh)

You're not getting this, are ya?

Yeah, I disagree with him...his beliefs are largely socialist.....that's not the problem that I have with him.

He is a LIAR!! There's no two ways about it...he uses emotional response, clever trickery, half truths, inaccuracies and misrepresentaions to try to push far left wing beliefs that wouldn't get the time of day from anyone if he didn't employ such antics.

Read up on your man, guys. Don't fall for it.

 

[zonker]

I guess ol Mikey is lying about this, too?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/30/archive/main313048.shtml

 

[zonker]

He's not "my man"

And I get it just fine.

I'm just not a Bush-bot.

 

[sqwkvfr]

I guess ol Mikey is lying about this, too?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/30/archive/main313048.shtml

And?

And I get it just fine.

Now I'm really starting to wonder.

 

[TWA Dude]

So the anti-capitolist Michael Moore goes oversees and plays to a foriegn country's jelousy of the USA by proping an anti-American propaganda film and wins.

Actually, all different kinds of films are screened at Cannes as a way to drum up interest. Moore is in good company on that. In fact, you're helping him by drumming up controversy which equates to dollars and exposure, which is all he wants in the first place.

I think this says a lot more about Michael Moore than it does President Bush.

Bush is a businessman so I image he'll admire Moore's ability to sell movie tickets.

Now let's just see how he's received in the country that gave him the right to express his views...no matter how ridiculous.

I like to see movies (and read books) that reflect opinions other than my own as well as movies that I agree with. I enjoy Rush Limbaugh even though I politically disagree with him -- because he's entertaining. I saw and was fascinated by Columbine, though I agree that Moore went over the top at the end. I also understand that he took some liberties with dates and possibly mislead his audience. Well, movies are entertainment. Consider the movie JFK by Oliver Stone. Do you agree with his conclusions? If you don't can you accuse him of misleading the audience? You're free to believe whatever you want to believe.

As for me, I plan to pay money to see Moore's new movie. I'll also be voting this November but I doubt Moore will be influencing me as my mind is already made up. Enjoy.

Dude

 

[zonker]

And?



Now I'm really starting to wonder.

Obviously you're not familiar with any of the assertions that Moore has put forth in this film.

But feel free to call him a liar without knowing what's even been said. Much easier than listening to an alternate point of view, I'm sure.

 

[sqwkvfr]

Actually, all different kinds of films are screened at Cannes as a way to drum up interest. Moore is in good company on that.

Yeah, Troma studios is there every year....their upcoming DVD is called "Tales from the Crapper." Good company, indeed. Certainly appropriate company.


Let me get this straight, TWA. You don't think that a guy who is obviously trying to influence an election with what is certain to be Michael Moore's brand of lies all wrapped up in a package veiled as "entertainment" is OK?

And don't give me this "he's just trying to make money selling entertainment" stuff. If you can't see beyond this...something's wrong. Remember his Oscar acceptance speach? Sounds like somebody with no interest in politics to me.

 

[sqwkvfr]

Obviously you're not familiar with any of the assertions that Moore has put forth in this film.

But feel free to call him a liar without knowing what's even been said. Much easier than listening to an alternate point of view, I'm sure.

Do you mean these assertions...?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Every fact in the film is true. Absolutely every fact in the film is true. And anybody who says otherwise is committing an act of libel."

-Michael Moore, responding to a question about reported innacuracies in his films "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbine"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Well, lets just see what kind of distortions we can find in Moore's body of work:


1. When "Bowling for Columbine" was released in theaters, it featured a 1988 Bush-Quayle ad called "Revolving Doors," which criticized a prison furlough program in operation when Michael Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts. Though Horton was furloughed under the program in question, the ad did not explicitly mention him, unlike the more famous ad aired by the National Security Political Action Committee, which had close ties to Bush media advisor Roger Ailes.

But because this part of "Bowling" attempted to show how portrayals of black men are used to promote fear in the public, Moore inserted the caption "Willie Horton released. Then kills again." into the ad, using a text style nearly identical to the ad's original captions. A casual viewer would assume that the text was part of the original ad. The caption is used to support Moore's statement, which runs over the sequence, that "whether you're a psychotic killer or running for president of the United States, the one thing you can always count on is white America's fear of the black man."

However, according to the archived video of the ad linked above, media reports and interviews with a high-level Dukakis official and political experts, the caption did not appear in the original ad. Moreover, it was incorrect -- Horton raped a woman while on furlough, but he did not commit murder.

In a tacit acknowledgment that the caption was both phony and factually incorrect, Moore has altered the text in the DVD version. The caption now reads "Willie Horton released. Then rapes a woman." Clearly, every "fact" in the film was not true, and critics who pointed out the alteration of the Horton ad (among other things) were not committing libel.



2. The DVD also contains further proof of Moore's tendency to stretch and distort the facts. Hardy has criticized Moore for claiming that the plaque at the US Air Force Academy near a B-52 on display "proudly proclaims that the plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972. It was the largest bombing campaign of the Vietnam War." This phrasing insinuates that the plaque praises the bombing of civilians. It actually says the B-52 "shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi" on that date. The plaque does celebrate "the men and women of the Strategic Air Command who flew and maintained the B-52D throughout its 26 year history in the command," including "Aircraft 55,003, with over 15,000 flying hours," which presumably included bombing runs over Vietnam such as the one on Christmas Eve, but it does not "proudly" proclaim that it was used to kill Vietnamese civilians. According to Ebert, Moore's response to this criticism was as follows: "I was making a point about the carpet bombing of Vietnam during the 1972 Christmas offensive. I did not say exactly what the plaque said but was paraphrasing."


3. The DVD captures Moore exaggerating this still further, saying during a speech at the University of Denver on February 26, 2003 that the B-52 participated in the massive Christmas Eve bombing campaign. "And they've got a plaque on there proudly proclaiming that this bomber, this B-52, killed thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese -- innocent civilians." In both cases, his representation of the plaque is dishonest.


4. Contrary to the title of the film, the two boys who committed the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., did not bowl the morning before the shooting. Although early news reports did state that they had attended a bowling class in the morning, police told Lyons it's simply not true.


5. This is similar to Moore's continued repetition of the lie that the U.S. gave millions of dollars in aid ($43 million last year and $245 million in total) to the Taliban government of Afghanistan when, in fact, that aid consisted of food aid and food security programs administered by the U.N. and non-governmental agencies to relieve a famine.


6. The film makes reference to "weapons of mass destruction" being manufactured in Littleton, questioning whether there is a connection between that activity and the Columbine shooting. In fact, the Lockheed Martin plant in Littleton makes space launch vehicles for TV satellites.


7. The scene in a bank in Michigan that that opens the film was staged. Customers who open long-term CDs at the bank actually have to go to a gun store to pick up the weapon after a background check. Yet the film clearly indicates that the bank itself stores and hands out guns to customers and Moore even jokes as he walks out, "Here's my first question: do you think it's a little dangerous handing out guns at a bank?"


8. He tells the story of a young boy who shot and killed a classmate after his mother was forced to leave him with her brother while she took a job, a tragedy Moore blamed on the requirements of a Michigan welfare-to-work program. But he fails to mention that her brother kept drugs and guns in his home and, according to previous article for the Weekly Standard's website by Matt Labash, his home was "a crack house, where guns were often traded for drugs."


9. He edited and distorted Charlton Heston's speech given to NRA members.


10. Moore quotes a New Yorker piece on page 4 of his book noting that "Once the FAA permitted overseas flights [after 9-11], the jet [with the Bin Ladens] flew to Europe." (Other reports have added credence to this version of events). But Moore writes on page 20 that "while thousands were stranded and could not fly, if you could prove you were a close relative of the biggest mass murderer in U.S. history, you got a free trip to gay Paree!" In addition, a September 20, 2001 Boston Globe article notes that the Bin Ladens apparently chartered their own plane - they did not get a "free trip" as Moore suggests.


11. Moore twists around the order of Attorney General John Ashcroft's claims in a Senate hearing in December 2001. Slamming Ashcroft for refusing to give the FBI permission to examine records of background checks for gun purchases by suspected terrorists, Moore writes "The Senate (and the public) only found out about Ashcroft's orders to stop the search for terrorists' gun files until December 2001, when Ashcroft not only proudly admitted to doing this in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but went on to attack anyone who would question his actions to protect the hijackers' gun rights. He told the panel that critics of his anti-terror practices were 'providing ammunition to America's enemies... To those who would scare peace-loving people with phantoms of 'lost liberty,' my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists." Ashcroft actually made the statement (which we condemned at the time) in his opening remarks, well before he addressed the issue of gun checks. Moore's framing makes it appear as though Ashcroft's controversial statement was made with direct reference to the issue of checking firearms records.


12. Moore uses fake quotes as chapter headings, implying that Bush (or administration officials) said things they never said. The most problematic is "#3 Whopper with Bacon: 'Iraq has ties to Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda!'" (page 53) He quotes Bush repeatedly stating that "We know [Saddam] has ties to Al Qaeda" - but provides no source suggesting the administration tied Saddam to Bin Laden personally.


13. Moore repeats a well-debunked myth about Democratic presidential hopeful General Wesley Clark. he writes that "Clark has said that he received phone calls on September 11 and in the weeks after from people at 'think tanks' and from people within the White House telling him to use his position as a pundit for CNN to 'connect' September 11 to Saddam Hussein." Yet, as we have demonstrated, despite a somewhat ambiguous statement on "Meet the Press" last June, Clark has been consistent in his claim that it was a member of a think tank who contacted him, not the White House. A recent report in the Toronto Star identified the source of the call as a member of a Middle Eastern think tank based in Montreal. Moore also makes a second mistake in pluralizng the single call Clark has always referred to into "calls."


14. Moore claims that the U.S. "oversaw the assassination of [Congo leader Patrice] Lumumba" in 1961. However, according to a July, 2000 US News & World Report article, Lumumba was actually killed by Belgian operatives.


15. Moore misrepresents US contributions to the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq as "trade." He writes, "There were claims that the French were only opposing war to get economic benefits out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In fact, it was the Americans who were making a killing. In 2001, the U.S. was Iraq's leading trading partner, consuming more than 40 percent of Iraq's oil exports. That's $6 billion in trade with the Iraqi dictator." Most of the money, however, was used to purchase food and other UN-approved humanitarian aid; the rest went to pay war reparations and adminisratuve fees for the program.


I've got "moore" if you wanna see them, too.

 

[TWA Dude]

You don't think that a guy who is obviously trying to influence an election with what is certain to be Michael Moore's brand of lies all wrapped up in a package veiled as "entertainment" is OK?

I think it's more than OK, I think it's great! Let the viewers make their decisions as to what are lies. If Moore's opinions are as wrong as you believe than you've nothing to worry about. For the record I'd be very pleased to watch an entertaining movie that's pro-Bush as well.

And don't give me this "he's just trying to make money selling entertainment" stuff. If you can't see beyond this...something's wrong. Remember his Oscar acceptance speach? Sounds like somebody with no interest in politics to me.

What don't I understand? Moore has an agenda. Duh! Everybody knows. He's made a movie showcasing his version of events. Maybe he's right; maybe he's wrong; maybe most people don't even care. My advice to you: don't support him by paying to see his movie. As for me, I will continue to see and enjoy controversial movies from all political spectra.

Dude