RSU-
I’ll ask you, are you in favor of punitive marginal tax rates?
Can you simplify your question, please - I’m unfamiliar with your vernacular. Thanks.
If Moore feels a moral obligation to pay more taxes, he’s free to do so. Does he? Hell no. What kind of a liberal wants the government to legislate morality anyway?
{Sigh}
BostonBarrister
Are you really going to try lecture me on documentary films? LOL
“In addition, documentaries are supposed to have a point of view while at the same time “documenting” the events as they occur. They are supposed to be factual representations, not an embodiment of one myopic viewpoint. Under your definition, Nazi propaganda films qualify as documentaries, because they had facts and they advanced a viewpoint.”
You faker. Ever actually see a movie by Leni Riefenstahl? I’d bet a thousand bucks you haven’t. You’re talking out of your ass, stick to lecturing on topics where you know something about what you’re talking about. For example the films of Leni Riefenstahl ARE generally considered great documentaries, as well as (unfortunately) Nazi propaganda. That the subject matter is abhorent to us today does not change her position as one of the 20th century’s most important filmmakers. Her association with the Nazis is tragic, but does not change the fact that she is a key figure in documentary filmmaking history. It’s obvious you don’t know jack shit about documentary films… Maybe you should stop trying to bloviate about the subject?
You may feel Moore is intellectually dishonest, that is your opinion, but it is nowhere near as intellectually dishonest as you reviewing his movie that you haven’t seen yet.
Why don’t you actually see the movie before you review it?
Too scared??? LOL.
[quote]Right Side Up wrote:
Can you simplify your question, please - I’m unfamiliar with your vernacular. Thanks.[/quote]
According to Moore, 50% is not enough tax to pay for someone who has had a good year. In fact, he says it’s our duty to pay more than that if we can afford it.
Do you think that marginal tax rates that high are acceptable?
Dear me. I only wish my country’s filmmakers were this provocative.
I think the Leni Riefenstahl comparison is perfectly apt, if all you do is consider the purposeful nature of her films in the early 30’s. She was an artist in the service of the National Socialism, the same way Moore no doubt considers himself an artist in service of a political agenda. Without semantically dissecting the word ‘documentary’, I think there’s room enough for them both there.
(Caveat: However, Michael Moore will never be a decent actor, a brilliant photojournalist and he will most definitely not live to 101. They don’t call that stuff “heart-attack fat” for nothing.)
These liberal Moore supporters can’t debate the issues with intellectual honesty (like 60-70% tax rates). My point has been proven.
Lumpy:
I don’t usually get too personal, but you’re being maddeningly obtuse.
Please go back and re-read what I wrote above, and then we can look at what you wrote.
[quote]Lumpy wrote:
{Sigh}
BostonBarrister
Are you really going to try lecture me on documentary films? LOL
“In addition, documentaries are supposed to have a point of view while at the same time “documenting” the events as they occur. They are supposed to be factual representations, not an embodiment of one myopic viewpoint. Under your definition, Nazi propaganda films qualify as documentaries, because they had facts and they advanced a viewpoint.”
You faker. Ever actually see a movie by Leni Riefenstahl? I’d bet a thousand bucks you haven’t. You’re talking out of your ass, stick to lecturing on topics where you know something about what you’re talking about. For example the films of Leni Riefenstahl ARE generally considered great documentaries, as well as (unfortunately) Nazi propaganda. That the subject matter is abhorent to us today does not change her position as one of the 20th century’s most important filmmakers. Her association with the Nazis is tragic, but does not change the fact that she is a key figure in documentary filmmaking history. It’s obvious you don’t know jack shit about documentary films… Maybe you should stop trying to bloviate about the subject? [/quote]
I don’t recall saying “Leni Riefenstahl” films in my comparison. I said “Nazi propaganda films,” and by that I meant any Nazi propaganda film. I realize that you may be confused, given the references in articles I posted – which I did not write – and in other people’s posts, to Riefenstahl. I stand by my point: From what you’ve evinced as a standard, anything with a point of view and some footage of events would qualify as a documentary. [BTW, you are incorrect in your assumption – I took an advanced seminar in college on the rise of fascism/nazism in Europe as part of my history honors program, and we watched one of Riefenstahl’s films. Sorry if that doesn’t qualify me as an art expert like yourself.]
[/quote]
You may feel Moore is intellectually dishonest, that is your opinion, but it is nowhere near as intellectually dishonest as you reviewing his movie that you haven’t seen yet.
Why don’t you actually see the movie before you review it?
Too scared??? LOL.
[/quote]
That’s it Lumpy. I’m scared of the movie. Or, perhaps, I might not want to pay $10.50 to see this piece of crap, especially if any of that money would go to finance Moore’s next “mock-umentary”. Perhaps I will watch it when it hits Showtime.
As to intellectual honesty, I do not have to see the movie to hold the opinions I have professed: That the movie is a piece of crap BECAUSE of its intellectual dishonesty. I am not opining on cinematography or any other aspect that I would need to experience in order to have an informed opinion. Unless what I have read about the factual dishonesty of the movie is incorrect - and I notice that you have not attempted to refute any of that - viewing it will not in any way alter that opinion (though it may give me other opinions that I can add to it).
I’m glad you know so much about movies. Now if you would only learn a little about logic…
BTW, Lumpy, just for you, here is a review of the movie that covers all the movie-type stuff and doesn’t just focus on the intellectual dishonesty. And it actually has some complements for Moore on other aspects besides intellectual honesty. Once again, I’ll wait until I can watch it without any of my money going to Moore…
FILM REVIEW
By JOE MORGENSTERN
Burning Bush: Moore Mounts
Assault in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’
But Shots Are Mostly Cheap
Overheated Polemic Trades Logic
For a Couple of Good Zingers;
A Lush and Lovely ‘Notebook’
June 25, 2004; Page W1
At one point in the course of Michael Moore’s rambling, troubling and sometimes rousing “Fahrenheit 9/11,” I recalled a remark that the media-savvy satirist Harry Shearer made years ago about the newspapers of the time in San Francisco. Reading them, he said, was “like getting your news from the crazy lady in the Laundromat.” Well, watching Mr. Moore’s film means getting your news from the media village’s most famous or infamous bomb-thrower, self-promoter, used-theory salesman, glib falsifier, discomfiting truth-teller, aggrieved patriot, shrewd lampooner, serial ambusher and, in his latest feature-length polemic, Bush-beater with a seething vengeance. At its best, “Fahrenheit 9/11” is an impressionist burlesque of contemporary American politics that culminates in a somber lament for lives lost in Iraq. But the good stuff – and there’s some extremely good stuff – keeps getting tainted by Mr. Moore’s poison-camera penchant for drawing dark inferences from dubious evidence.
This movie isn’t journalism, to be sure, or even a documentary in the traditional sense of the term. It’s a postmodern, postliterary piece of agitprop, coming at a time when truth is often the first victim in supermarket tabloids, radio talk shows, campaign commercials on network TV and gabble-fests on cable. Yet Mr. Moore presents himself as a dispenser of significant news in a long, murky plot-theory passage that seeks to establish some sort of cause-and-effect relationship between the Bush family’s well-established connections to Saudi oil interests, including members of the very large, very rich bin Laden family, and the Bush administration’s supposed willingness to let 140 Saudis, including members of the bin Laden family, fly out of the country immediately after Sept. 11, when all other air traffic was grounded. The problem with the theory is it isn’t true. The Saudis left, having been duly interviewed by the FBI, only after air traffic resumed.
To build its case against the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq, “Fahrenheit 9/11” takes potshots, scattershots, cheap shots and at least one devastating shot in the process of some zestful character assassination. Most of us have seen the president in his now notorious moment of triumph aboard the aircraft carrier, and we see him there once again. Some of us have seen John Ashcroft singing, badly, a patriotic anthem of his own composition called “Let the Eagle Soar.” But we have not seen, until now, Paul Wolfowitz preparing for a TV appearance by combing his hair with a saliva-drenched comb. And though we’ve also seen President Bush reading “My Pet Goat” in a Florida classroom on the morning of Sept. 11, Mr. Moore’s film dwells on that bizarre snippet of American history with a long sequence, in slow motion with a superimposed clock, during which the president, after learning that the second tower has been hit, continues to read the children’s book in what appears to be a state of extended bewilderment.
Bush-haters will love this, and Bush admirers will despise it, just as Michael Moore wants them to; he’s made no bones about his hope that “Fahrenheit 9/11” will make a meaningful mark on this year’s presidential campaign. That’s not to say, however, that the film serves nothing but the cause of rabid partisanship. Its scenes of suffering in Iraq – the victims include grievously wounded GIs as well as Iraqi civilians – provide valuable counterpoint to the sanitized coverage on American TV. It’s fair for Mr. Moore to remind us that our volunteer army depends heavily on a supply of youngsters from areas of high unemployment. (One sequence shows a couple of eerily hip Marine Corps recruiters trolling for recruits in a shopping center.) And exploitive though he may be in his interviews, Mr. Moore often traffics in real emotion. One of the most memorable passages reveals the deep grief of a mother who has lost her son to a war she can’t comprehend.
The movie’s title is a reference, made in spite of the author’s objection, to Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” a classic sci-fi novel set in a future when firemen burn books and libraries in a ceaseless campaign to suppress independent thought. Michael Moore isn’t that kind of fireman, but he’s certainly the arsonist auteur of an incendiary feature that has already won the top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival; caused a rift between two American studios (Disney, which financed it, then disavowed it, and the company’s Miramax subsidiary, which had planned to distribute it); captured the imaginations of lots of moviegoers in advance of today’s opening, and will debut on DVD before the November election. Fahrenheit 451, by the way, is the kindling point of paper. For better and worse, “Fahrenheit 9/11” is a new kindling point for film.
Right Side Up-
You are my Hero! Don’t stop posting!
I’ll reply to this presently, but first I must go out and gladly give Mr. Moore about $16 from my g/f and I.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t see it. It is sold out just about everywhere. Maybe I’ll buy my tickets now for next weekend.
The WH is probably shitting bricks.
[quote]PtrDR wrote:
These liberal Moore supporters can’t debate the issues with intellectual honesty (like 60-70% tax rates). My point has been proven.[/quote]
“Liberal Moore supporters”? Strange characterization. While I don’t necessarily mind him, I wouldn’t consider him a hero or a pillar figure for the left…again, weird.
Which point have you proven? Intellectual honesty? Not sure what you’re talking about (once again), but here’s my opinion on taxation:
Yes, maybe 60-70% is too high. Why not just fork over all of your earnings?! Because I made an effort to prevent PtrDr from distorting something someone else (Moore) said doesn’t mean I agree with that someone else…
How much should people be taxed? I don’t know. My intuition tells me that an across the board percentage seems to be most fair. But, it also seems reasonable that those who earn very little will be more affected by that given percentage being taken out. What seems to occur is this: if someone makes $20K/year and they lose 20%, then they’re down to $16K. If this person is a single mother, for example, with no father paying child support, this taxation seems to be eating into her necessary expenses. Conversely, if someone earns $250K and 20% is taken out, then their income is $200K. I think it is more appropriate for someone to lose out on some luxuries than for another to fail to meet their basic needs. Even if this more wealthy person was taxed 50%, then they earn $125K. This income is certainly comfortable and will afford most a very, very nice life.
Moore and O’Reilly - examples of those that Moore proposed should be taxed (the arbitrary figure)60-70% - earn far more than my previous figures. They are, I’d guess, millionairres.
I think it becomes a matter of compassion. I am a compassionate person and I think if suffering can be prevented, then it ought to be done.
I see both sides of the argument, but I think - when pressed - I think the rich can afford to be taxed more than the poor.
The fundamentals of the philosophical problems of distribution of wealth are still heavily debated today. I don’t think it is cut and dry, black and white.
I hope you find my response sufficient, and you can get some sleep now (kidding)!
From the Joe Morgenstern review that BB posted:
“Yet Mr. Moore presents himself as a dispenser of significant news in a long, murky plot-theory passage that seeks to establish some sort of cause-and-effect relationship between the Bush family’s well-established connections to Saudi oil interests, including members of the very large, very rich bin Laden family, and the Bush administration’s supposed willingness to let 140 Saudis, including members of the bin Laden family, fly out of the country immediately after Sept. 11, when all other air traffic was grounded. The problem with the theory is it isn’t true. The Saudis left, having been duly interviewed by the FBI, only after air traffic resumed.”
If Mr. Morgenstern wants to criticize Moore for being innaccurate, he should get his own facts straight. The movie does not say that the Saudis flew when all other air traffic was suspended. The Saudis flew out when the only flights were carrying non-passenger commercial cargo.
Moore never says what Morgenstern claims he says.
PtrDr & Rainjack - I’ve finally responded to your persistent questioning regarding taxation. Do you care to reply? Or, will you be like the many others who upon pushing me to respond to an issue wind up disappearing after I finally do…it’s happened more than once!
“Was I really supposed to read all that drivel from Christopher Hitchens? He’s about as liberal as Fox News is ‘fair and balanced.’”
“I didn’t know that Hitchens writes for the Nation. But so what? Just because a Liberal says something, that means I am compelled to agree with it?”
Lumpy, you wouldn’t be a “faker” would you, “talking out of your ass…” and following the “…Right Wing’s approach(fall lock step…)” into stereotypes of which you know nothing about?
Let’s see- you know enough about Hitchens to make the first quote, but admit in the second that you don’t know he writes for the Nation? And then you say that he is a liberal? I’ve read a fair bit of his stuff, and I doubt that is what he would call himself now, or he would have called himself previously when he was more uniformly to the left. Liberal has a whole different connotation in Britain, where he is from. But you knew that, didn’t you?
Lumpy- do yourself a huge favor. Step away from the keyboard. It’s too dangerous for you. You’re not ready yet. Grab a Dick and Jane reader. Re-learn the basics. Work up to the harder stuff. Pace yourself-slowly. Let the Prozac kick in. Relax. It’s okay.
Sharuper
I didn’t call Hitchens a liberal, BostonBarrister did. So that is #1.
Secondly I didn’t know Hitchens writes for the Nation because he doesn’t anymore. I don’t know when he stopped but his name didn’t appear in my scan of their masthead. Just because some dick writes for a liberal rag, that means I have to agree with everything he says?
Third, Chris Hitchens is a hack who wrote a book about how Mother Teresa is supposedly one of the “most evil people” on the face of the earth. Am I supposed to take anything he says seriously, after that?
Your post is weak and off target.
Some dork with an anti-Michael Moore website (www.MooreWatch.com) has the Fahrenheit 911 movie available to download from his website.
So if you are curious to see the movie but don’t want to shell out 10 bucks, there you go.
I thought Bushies like MooreWatch would try to discourage other people from seeing the movie (like our T-Mag Bushies: Rainjack, Thunder, PtrDr, and Boston Barrister). How in blue blazes does distributing this movie around the internet hurt Michael Moore? Oh it may lighten his wallet ever so slightly, but think of all the Moore haters who visit MooreWatch who would never have watched the film before, and all the ordinary people who don’t want to pay 10 bucks who can now see it for free. The more people who see it, the better, as far as I’m concerned.
Good job Moorewatch.com!!!
Like I said, Lumpy, step away from the keyboard. You did too “call Hitchens a liberal”- on 6-24-04 at 5:09 pm. There are no quotation marks around the word or reference in the sentence to BB’s use of it. The reader can only assume that you labelled Hitchens as such.
Next example of foot in mouth- The Nation is not a liberal publication. They are way to the left of mainstream liberalism. They could more aptly be described as socialist or radical. Of course you don’t have to agree with some you call liberal, social, communist, or radical, even if you are ignorant of what they are or call themselves.
My point was that you dismissed what Hitchens wrote as “drivel” assuming that he wasn’t liberal. Then you assumed he is, but that you don’t have to agree with him. Then you don’t know that he no longer writes for The Nation, which you apparently don’t know much about either. You make definitive statements (“liberal,” “dick,” “hack”) about things you later claim ignorance about. You supposedly knew enough about Hitchens to brush aside his piece as “drivel” off hand, but not enough to know which publication he wrote for and when, or his political affiliations.
Your command of the issue is “weak and off target,” as are your ability to deal with it in a logical fashion, your spelling, your punctuation, and your sentence structure. Don’t go and try to twist your emotions with any evidence or way to sort it out now, Lumpy. Get yourself back to the basics, ASAP.
ACHTUNG!!!
Midwesterners: YOU VILL NOT SEE ZIS MOVIE!!!
VEE VILL DECIDE ZE MOVIES YOU SEE !!!
Midwest Theaters Ban ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’
President of Midwest Theater Company Refuses to Screen Michael Moore Documentary ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’
The Associated Press
DECORAH, Iowa July 3, 2004
The president of a company that owns movie theaters in Iowa and Nebraska is refusing to show director Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
R.L. Fridley, owner of Des Moines-based Fridley Theatres, says the controversial documentary incites terrorism.
Fridley said in an e-mail message to company managers that the company does not “play political propaganda films from either the right or the left.”
“Our country is in a war against an enemy who would destroy our way of life, our culture and kill our people,” Fridley wrote. “These barbarians have shown through (the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001) and the recent beheadings that they will stop at nothing. I believe this film emboldens them and divides our country even more.”
“Fahrenheit 9/11” won best picture at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and has grossed millions of dollars at the box office. Moore won an Academy Award for an earlier work, “Bowling for Columbine.”
Critics accuse the film of being an unfair and inaccurate portrayal about President Bush’s policies before and after Sept. 11, 2001.
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Entertainment/ap20040703_769.html