Did you see it: Fahrenheit 9/11 ?

[Joe Eccleston]

I think I should remind you that you are looking for facts that support what Moore says and can not seem to be able to find any.

I'm asking you your side of the argument to balance what I know and what I've seen in the film. In other words, I am listening to your side--Not really arguing with you. But, I am urging you to give me more concrete answers.

The demographics this movie is going for is the 18 to 22 crowd, the ones who didn't vote in the past election. It's summer vacation, this film is breaking records every where. So, the pressure's on you to convince others this film is a LIE, and you don't do this by simply saying "This film is a Lie". Because politics aside, it's a very well made film--it will piss people off.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Leaving aside the minor (yet symptomatic) issue of correct usage of the word, "intimidates," (one who bullies, "intimidates," their victim; one making a suggestion that is never made explicit, "intimates," their meaning), let's summarize:

a) Moore is a liar. No evidence yet presented; just links to websites, and assertions that he made stuff up.

b) We had to invade Iraq, because they might've had the far-famed Weapons of Mass Destruction. Of course, by 2002, the UN inspectors and our own intelligence reports were saying otherwise, but they might've.

c) We know for a fact that the Bush government grossly exaggerated or invented when it claimed to possess certain solid facts about Hussein's weapons programs, most notably in the case of the African, "yellowcake," purchases that never happened. Moreover, we know for a fact that the Bush government was repeatedly told (not least by Richard Clarke, cited by Mr. Roley as a reliable source) that they were mistaken.

d) The presentation of evidence, and argument based upon that evidence, should not repeatedly rely upon claims about someone's character, or claims that one event, "is like," another, or claims that we have to take these things on trust because Our Government Has Secret Information Too Secret To Even Be Discussed.

e) Moore's main website, it seems, has a feature that takes up specific claims about lying, and documents the sources of his facts. Where I come from, that's what honest scholars do. And not that it's relevant here, but has the Bush government offered anything comparable?

 

[PeachMonkey]

e) Moore's main website, it seems, has a feature that takes up specific claims about lying, and documents the sources of his facts. Where I come from, that's what honest scholars do. And not that it's relevant here, but has the Bush government offered anything comparable?

The URL for this feature is located:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/f911facts/

Among other things, this points out that the film *never* states that Bush made the single decision on these flights. It *does* point out that the Saudi government asked to have Saudis flown out, and that Richard Clarke did testify that he *approved* these flights, *with review by the State Department and the White House*.

Can we finally discard the silly notion that the anti-Moore sites are presenting the truth about what Moore says and when he says it?

 

[Cruentus]

O.K... my take...

I have been very quiet during all this for a reason.

I saw the movie, opening night. I was very excited, for as many of you know (even if you disagree with my political views) I keep up with current affairs. I have the sources to back up a lot of what I already knew he would talk about..so I was excited to see all the little "Moore antics," and a both compelling yet comical interpretation of our current world affairs. Then...I planned on logging on Saturday and giving a steller review of the most entertaining movie of the year. I didn't get what I was looking for.

This film was not Moore's usual work. It was not the usual "docu-comedy" that he puts out. I get a kick out of Moores usual works, but I also can understand why many people don't get a kick out of these same works. Moore's usual stuff is akin to the internet troll who comes on to make a point while starting trouble....it may be funny, but clearly the goal is to piss off half the public. I understand why many of you don't like his earlier works just as much as I understand why one would like them (as I do). However...Farenhiet 9/11 is nothing like anyhting he has done before.

Out of the entire 2 hour film, there was maybe 10 or 15 minutes of "Moore antic." The rest was cold hard documentary....facts, footage, and sources, presented with about as much Bias as any normal documentary would have. Yes...Moore had a clear thesis, so naturally this is his point of view, and the presentation of the facts are in support of that thesis, as one should expect in any documentary. However...this film was a very serious film. It is a film that all people should see, regardless of political beliefs.

This movie illustrated what I knew already in a very compelling manner. It is easy to read and theorize from a distance, as we all are on this forum. Yet, you can't watch the film without having being brought closer to the issues at at hand.

My friend since the 7th grade, who is standing up in my wedding if he can get leave, is in Bagdad right now. I touched hands (on the training floor) with his unit, and another ranger unit that accompanies him. I have other friends and family that are over their right now. This movie humanized these men. Young men and some women, most of them 17 years old to 30, who are fighting for your right to be on your computer and opinionize right now. Men and women who just want to help us, protect us, and keep us from harms way. Men and women who will die for us. And....all they ask for in return is a little respect, and they ask that our leaders don't send them into harms way for a cause that is unjust. Our country is failing these men and women.

Yet, the death-toll for our soldiers rise each day. The injury toll, that people don't realize, is over 5,000. Our soldiers, 5,000 of them with missing limbs, damaged senses, or brain damage, or whatever. Yea..."whatever"....and meanwhile the budget for military and VA hospitals has since been cut, among other things. How many of our soliders do we plan to leave behind this time around?

The death toll on Iraqi citizens rise each day as well. Many of the Iraqi's dying are women, children, and husbands, and fathers... not "terrorists." I know people who have had to watch their friends die. I know people who have killed others; and not just "terrorists", but kids, or regular citizens, who were in the wrong damn place at the wrong time. Who will right that wrong? Who fill fight that "terror?"

And all for what? The FACT is that these evils have been allowed because a few jerks want to make some bucks, and because too many of YOU (as in, voters) are too goddam moronic to realize that this is what is happening. That FACT is, our administration, and the people who enable them, have allowed pure evil to occur for the almighty dollar.

By the time I reached the parking lot, I had tears rolling down my face. The thought of all those people, thousands of people, both americans and non-americans, who's lives have been ruined so a small few could make another few million. The thought of my friends who are over there...and who trusted us, and the poeple in charge. It isn't f**king fair, or right.

Farenhiet 9/11 brings all this stuff to the screen; if you consider yourself human, you cannot emotionally or mentally seperate yourself from what has been occuring...and what is occuring today.

Now...why haven't I posted this before? I do not have the emotional tolerance, at this point, to argue my points with the many of you who cannot step outside of your idealectic boxes, who refuse to see the movie because "Michael Moore is a (fill in blank here)!," or who only have enough acumen to read a bunch of negative reviews on a film to justify your close-minded, outright false accusations and ideas. Unlike many of you, this issue is closer to me then you could ever know. Sure...you all are entitled to your opinions, as it is a free country, but I am entitled to not have to put up with them, or deal with them for that matter.

I am sure many of you, no matter what anyone says, will continue to resort to illogic, and character assasination to support your assertions. I just hope you understand why I won't be posting on this topic again...as I have run out of tolerance for it. I hope you watch the film eventually, regardless of what you think of Moores past works, behaviors, or personality. But, more importantly, I hope that you step back and realize what we've done as a country to innocent people, and what we have done to our soldiers who trust us and depend on us as much as we on them. I hope you realize, come election time, what we have allowed some of our decision makers to do to us, and to our men and women earning their freedoms by putting their lives on the line. I hope that many of you, on this board and elsewhere, will learn to step out of your idealectic box (whether "liberal" or "conservative"), and start supporting decisions that are truely best for our great nation.

Well, one can only hope, anyways....

Paul Janulis

 

[Nightingale]

I've maxed out on giving out reputation for today, so I'll say this here instead.

Paul, that post was absolutely brilliant.

I felt the exact same way upon leaving the movie, and since then have paid for the tickets of six people who didn't want to pay to see it. As of now, at least three have changed their minds as to who they're voting for in November, two are thinking things over, and one walked out of the theatre because he couldn't stand to see what he was sure he "knew" refuted by Bush himself, out of his own mouth.


I don't really care about the economy, or even the religious issues anymore. What matters to me is that my friends are over in Iraq getting shot at and wounded for no f-ing good reason. I'm no safer than I was on September 10, 2001, and my friends are a lot less safe. Right now, all I want is for nobody else to have to get a phone call saying their friend or relative is injured or coming home in a box with a flag draped over it, because that flag doesn't mean $h!t if the nation that flag represents doesn't step up and start placing a lot more value on the lives of the men and women brave enough to sign up to defend her.

I apologize for the tone of this post... I'm just really, really angry right now.

 

[Feisty Mouse]

That was a very powerful post, Paul. I'll be thinking of what you said when I go see the movie.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Great post Paul. I'd pretty much say your post says it all for many of us. Its too tough an act for me to follow. For that, I sign off this thread.


Regards,



Steve

 

[Makalakumu]

One source. There are others with different opinions.

Thousands of peoples opinions went into constructing the 2002 National Intelligence Summary. This constitutes a work that is far beyond the scope of one source and far beyond ANYTHING that we could research ourselves.

 

[Don Roley]

Out of the entire 2 hour film, there was maybe 10 or 15 minutes of "Moore antic." The rest was cold hard documentary....facts, footage, and sources, presented with about as much Bias as any normal documentary would have.

Did you bother to double check each and every "fact" that he presented to see that they are indeed facts and not fabrications or merely a small part of the whole story?

Or are you merely going to accept what he says in the movie instead of challenging your convictions and not acknowledge that he has a history in other movies of presenting things as if they were facts, but were in fact staged instances?

 

[Feisty Mouse]

I have a question or, really a comment for people coming from all different sides of this discussion. Where is the burden of proof? I believe that in discussions here, as in most discussions, if you want to tell someone else that they are taking a point as fact when it is false, the burden of proof lies on you to illustrate the point, and present factual evidence. I think a lot of people here have already done so, but for those of you who have not, I'd encourage you to present facts, sources, and so forth.

So if one person presents a set of data, and another person sees them as false, it would be helpful if the second person could post factual content.

In doing so, others of us interested in and observing these discussions would be greatly helped.

Thanks

FM

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Personally, I'm going to see the film and make up my own mind. Why? Same reason why I (the non-xian) went and saw "The passion" and have encouraged others to do so.

To see with eyes unclouded.

And FM.... Thank you. Nicely said.

 

[Joe Eccleston]

Great post, Paul. If I knew how to give reputation points I'd give you 100 points for that post. You've sum it all up.

 

[Rick Wade]

I didn't see the MOVIE but I can say what the Academy of Motion pictures said. "It is ineligible to be nominated in the documentary catagory because it had actors in it" They also went on to say that over half of the facts were proven to be false. This is just what I read however I will say for every article there is for the film there are two against the film and vice versa.

V/R
Rick

 

[Don Roley]

Now, will you at least concede that the links between the Bushes and the Sauds are more than simple US-Saudi diplomatic relationships?

Will you concede that the financial links, etc between Bush and the house of Saud are a lot less direct than that between Micheal Moore and Micehal Eisner, and they do not seem to be buds?

And will you concede that what may be two guys involved in the same company does not mean that they are really linked that tight? Or that these groups may have quite a number of people involved in them with only a few knowing each other even on a first name basis? Or that a guy as biased as Moore might try to slant the information so that the relationship would appear a lot closer than it was?

And are you going to go out and double check the points made int he movie to see if Moore may be leaving out little things like this and not telling the whole side of the story? Or are you going to let him do the thinking for you?

Oh, and remember the statement about how just because B follows A that A is not neccesarily the cause of B? So how do you think it relates to the fact that Bush senior was involved in a group that dealt with the Saudi goverment before 15 Saudis slammed into the WTC?

But do you expect Moore to try to do anything other than spin things so that you walk away with the impression that there is a cause and effect relationship?

 

[Phil Elmore]

Mr. Robertson,

The hypocrisy of your own behavior must be similarly lost on you, as you blather on about reason while posting little but invective.

 

[Feisty Mouse]

Phil

I checked what Mr. Robertson's last post was, and I do not see him "blathering on" and "posting little but invective".

FM

 

[Phil Elmore]

I'm sure he doesn't, either, which is the problem. To each his own; I gave up teaching pigs to sing a long time ago.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Again, "Sharp Phil," it's either "Robert, " (the informal address, which I'd prefer), or, "Dr. Robertson," (the formal, which you may of course use if you prefer)--if, that is, these demands for accuracy apply to everybody equally.

Similarly, let's use the words right, eh? I don't think I've made any bones about what I think, or presented a big difference between what I think about arguing properly and the way I've actually argued, so "hypocrisy," doesn't seem accurate. See, "hypocrisy," rests on the notion of a difference between what one says to do and what one actually does. It doesn't rest on a fantasy projected by someone who simply disagrees or does not know the facts, and is unwilling to discuss that sort of issue.

Nor would an occasional mistake on my part establish hypocrisy; it would only establish what we already knew, which is that I'm human.

It is not even hypocrisy to post such lines as, "you blather on about reason while posting little but invective;" it is merely bad manners, combined with an attempt to avoid real issues. Regrettably, this has become all too common in the wake of the likes of a long string of right-wing...what's the word I want...let's just say, "political commentators," from Joe McCarthy to Michael Savage. (That, by the way, was not hypocrisy either: it was innuendo.) Apparently attacks on the character of people we do not know, or accusations of being un-American, or insults directed at pointy-head intellectuals, are easier than marshalling facts and defending one's intellectual position.

Now let me see if I can summarize an odd little strain in the last couple pages of this thread. Our President leads us into an undeclared war based upon erroneous, or misinterpreted, or distorted, or in a couple of cases completely invented facts--which this very thread has laid out repeatedly--and Michael Moore's the bad guy. Offhand, I'd say the President's distortions--which are on public record--are a little more serious than what happens in a movie.

Second--apropos of spinning things, or checking the facts--anybody out there think that was a Russian water tentacle--oops, wrong movie--anybody out there who thought that George Bush wasn't, a) representing his case from not just a Republican, but a very conservative, viewpoint? b) leaving out a few little details, such as this country's support and training of what became the Taliban during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan? Anybody out there who thought that the President and his cronies were asking us to think for ourselves, check the facts first, before we jumped in with both feet?

Third--one of the most remarkable things about this thread is the absence of mention of the utterly false, and indeed hallucinatory, suppositions upon which our government relied. Nobody recollects the repeated assertion that the Iraquis would welcome us with open arms? That WMDs would be found all over the place? That there were clear and direct ties between Hussein and Al Quaida?

I STILL haven't seen anybody clearly refute a single fact in one of Moore's movies--I've seen links to sites that attack him, claims that this or that thing can't be right, personal insults galore, but no damn evidence whatsoever. In haven't seen reasoned arguments in opposition, either: I've seen constant changings of the subject, insults, etc., but no real discussion. remarkable, given the reiteratied claims that Moore's lying, that he isn't being logical, etc. Ya wouldn't think it'd be all that difficult.

Just incidentally, O lovers of capitalism, bad news: the movie was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. Looks like the public is speaking.

 

[PeachMonkey]

I didn't see the MOVIE but I can say what the Academy of Motion pictures said. "It is ineligible to be nominated in the documentary catagory because it had actors in it" They also went on to say that over half of the facts were proven to be false.

Rick,

Where did you read this? Can you give us a reference?

 

[PeachMonkey]

Will you concede that the financial links, etc between Bush and the house of Saud are a lot less direct than that between Micheal Moore and Micehal Eisner, and they do not seem to be buds?

Actually, I wouldn't concede that at all. Saudi businessmen lined up from around the world to invest in Arbusto and in Harken Energy, despite GW Bush's record as a businessman. Do you think that could possibly have anything to do with Bush's access to his father, as a senior administration official, and then President? Particularly when GW Bush himself touted his access as an asset?

Moreover, as disclosed by Craig Unger in "House of Saud, House of Bush" (among other sources), Saudi Prince Bandar is so close to the Bush family that they consider him a member of the family, and call him "Bandar Bush".

And will you concede that what may be two guys involved in the same company does not mean that they are really linked that tight? Or that these groups may have quite a number of people involved in them with only a few knowing each other even on a first name basis? Or that a guy as biased as Moore might try to slant the information so that the relationship would appear a lot closer than it was?

That would be a distinct possibility with any polemic; however, it has already been shown that the Bushes and Saudis are far, far closer than this.

And are you going to go out and double check the points made int he movie to see if Moore may be leaving out little things like this and not telling the whole side of the story? Or are you going to let him do the thinking for you?

I have seen the movie since I last posted on this topic.

I *will* continue to research the points raised by Moore, but not for your sake but my own. Honestly, Don, given that I've provided researched point after researched point, and you have responded with evasion, hyperbole, and theory, I think it's pretty clear that the burden of proof in this argument falls to *you*.

But do you expect Moore to try to do anything other than spin things so that you walk away with the impression that there is a cause and effect relationship?

Actually, Moore doesn't spin things this way at all. He never even implies that the Bushes and Saudis conspired to cause 9/11. But you wouldn't know that, because you're letting other people form your opinions for you.

In the future, I would certainly appreciate it if you'd research your points and back them with citations and evidence. I'm tired of doing all the heavy lifting in this conversation.