Michael Moore...

Off Topic
41

Nate, I wasn’t directing anything negative toward you. But just like you feel strongly about the many issues you just addressed, so do I about the ones I’ve written about.

1. I like President Bush and think he’s doing a very good job not just with regard to the war with Iraq, but overall as well.

2. I support our country’s leaders’ decision to be at war with Iraq, but you won’t find me at a rally screaming “Kill all Arabs” or “All Iraqis must die” or chanting “USA, USA, USA!” To me, that’s just as ridiculous as radical protesting.

3. Yes, I resent millionaire Hollywood types who criticize a Republican Executive Branch of government as if they could run the country any better. Most of them can’t even run their own lives with any semblance of order, being hooked on narcotics to be able to sleep and function, in and out of the Betty Ford Clinic, and divorced and re-married several times with children scattered all over the place. Yet, these are the people most vehemently and venomously criticizing our country’s leadership, when they present no leadership in even their own lives.

4. Many using the “war for oil” argument aren’t driving little Kias around. Nope, they’re sportin’ their Tahoes, Pathfinders and gas-guzzlin’ Explorers around town. These people would more commonly be called “hypocrites”.

5. I still can’t believe any man would reference the Dixie Chicks and a subject as serious as a war in the same breath.

6. Protesting peacefully is fine. Taking large objects, like metal or wooden sticks, smashing windows of businesses, police cars, mailboxes, etc. in the name of “No war just peace!” is not. These people would more commonly be called “hypocrites”.

7. I drive an SUV. Chevy Blazer to be exact. I like it, but man is it expensive to gas that sucker up! I hope we do take Iraq’a oil so I can get gas for 10 cents a gallon :slight_smile:

8. That last post, except for me owning a Chevy Blazer, was a joke.

I’m just one person with my own distorted opinions. But they’re my opinions, damnit, and I’m sticking by them. :slight_smile:

42

To see what a “beating” Michael Moore has been taking as a result of his Oscar speach, look at his website:

Ticket sales for his documentary went UP, and his book is back at the top of the bestsellers list.

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  1. Michael Moore is a complete douchebag, as evidenced by his appearance on Bill Maher’s show on HBO.
    If you haven’t read MichiganMike’s link, read it.
  2. The Dixie Chick, you know the fat one, deserves to have her career go down the shitter. Maybe then she’ll think the next time she opens her pie hole.
  3. This war is not about oil. We only get 5% of our oil from Iraq.
  4. This war is about protecting ourselves, with the nice little side benefit of liberating the Iraqis.
  5. The tree-hugging hippies who are laying in the road are the same people who need protected. Many of these people believe that violence is never the answer, and would sooner get wacked themselves than raise a fist.
    You better believe that I’m going to teach my kids how to defend themselves. I’m going to tell them “If someone pushes you around, knock the motherfucker out.”
44

Lumpy which leads me to believe no offense Patricia I know documentaries don’t make all that much money. The only reason he said what he said at the oscar was to make contraversy so that people would go see his movie and buy his book. So that he can make money. He’s fictitious not Bush!!!

45

How do pussy liberals wuss’s like Squat700x3 get on T-Nation anyhow? I thought you had to have clanking balls to get on here. I have never met a liberal with clanking balls. They have all been limp wristed wimps.

46

I’m going to reply to iscariot, because, as usual, he has an interesting take, and because I think he will be disappointed if no one hurls an invective his way: You’re a silly, sheepherding Kiwi; your father smells of elderberries, and your mother was a hamster. There, now that he feels better that his expectations were satisfied, I will reply to the post.

The thing about Moore is that he really doesn’t make anyone think at all. That’s what is so laughable about the whole thing. Behind his condescending smirk, his sad intellectual pretensions and his purposefully effected dishevel, he just serves up the same tired drivel you see everywhere else.

Let’s just look at the major points behind his movie, which are supposedly so thought provoking: 1) Guns are bad. Gee, I’ve never heard that before. 2) Wait, what are the other points? Oh yeah, there aren’t any. Everything else is just Moore sneering through his jowls.

What about his thought-provoking Oscar speech? War is bad, M-kay (imagine a Mr. Mackey voice from South Park). Bush is bad, M-kay. (Imagine a sneer through the jowls again).

I’m sorry – the man is obviously an intellectual giant. Who else could grace stage and screen offering such pearls of wisdom, while looking down upon the rest of us for our boring bourgeousie (sp?) grooming habits such as our daily showers?

Now, kidding aside, Moore is entitled to his opinion. What is annoying is that he takes himself seriously and thinks he is a wit – and other half-wits laud him because he parrots some simple platitudes.

Now, I’m going to cut myself off at responding what was directed at me, as there is enough for about 3 separate long and boring posts here (perhaps I’ll take it up with you later). However, my point was that as Moore was purporting to do a documentary, what he should be doing is actually documenting things. His “documentary” is barely more authentic than Spinal Tap, yet he wants everyone to take it as fact and treat it as serious documentation.

Granted, he tries to be humorous, but he expects and wants his “facts” taken seriously. Problem is, in many cases they aren’t facts but fictions. Here’s a short and not-all-inclusive list of facts or blatant misreprestantions: when he gets the shotgun from the bank in return for openning a CD, he edited out the FBI background check, including fingerprinting and photo, he had to go through to get the gun at the bank (not to mention implying it was loaded or there was any doubt as to its loaded status) – oh yeah, and then there’s the fact that supplying the bank with $1000 for the CD is an unlikely way to start a robbery; he fakes “home movie” footage of a gun-related hunting accident, one of 91 such fatalities in the entire country in 2002 (hunting population = well over 16 million, just based on licenses); stating the U.S. gave $245 million to the Taliban in 2000-01 when in fact that money went to the U.N. and humanitarian organizations to provide aid to Afghanistan; paraphrasing a plaque on a Viet Nam era plane to state it celebrated “killing Vietnamese people,” implying innocent civilians, when in fact the plaque listed the number of enemy fighter jets it shot down. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Some “documentary.” And that’s my major beef with Moore. Even if he doesn’t overtly say he is being impartial, his chosen medium of expression does it for him. If he were to just make a normal movie he could spout all the tripe he pleased – just like he does now – and I wouldn’t care.

Actually, iscariot, now that I put it that way, I guess I’m most upset by Michael Moore because of his presentation because of the fact that a lot of people are not smart enough to think for themselves and they just swallow that stuff. But his purposeful misrepresentations in the guise of exposing facts is what irks me – kind of like I’m irked by opinion in the news section of my newspaper.

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" I have never met a liberal with clanking balls. They have all been limp wristed wimps. "

Are you referring to “draft dodgers” like George Bush? LOL!

Fitone, “Bowling For Columbine” was already the highest grossing and longest running documentary, BEFORE the Oscars.

If you don’t like Michael Moore, just ignore him, the same way I ignore jerks like Rush Limbaugh (another draft dodger).

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Boston Barrister said: “…lot of people are not smart enough to think for themselves and they just swallow that stuff. But his purposeful misrepresentations in the guise of exposing facts…”
That sounds like what the USA gov’t does with the people too. It’s ok for the gov’t to lie & trick the people but not ok for Moore? I don’t get it. It looks like you’re one of the people who just swallows the government’s stuff.

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“3. This war is not about oil. We only get 5% of our oil from Iraq.”

Ok, America get on 5% of their oil from Iraq. Fine. I’ll have to take your word for it. But Iraq also has a major influence in OPEC, and if they decide to raise the price of their oil, the rest of OPEC has to follow suit. So if Iraqi oil sells for 45 dollars a barrel, so does Venezulan, Russian and Canadian oil (even though Canada is not part of OPEC they still sell their oil for the same amount of money). So, if America “liberates” Iraq and institutes a new “democratic” government, they’re going to sell their oil for much less money, which will lower the cost of oil world wide.

“4. This war is about protecting ourselves, with the nice little side benefit of liberating the Iraqis.”

Your government did a nice job of scaring the shit out of the general population. “Oh fuck! Its an orange day! Get more duct tape and hide in the cellar! Might as well go to war so we don’t have to live in the cellar.” Maybe the USSR was a threat because they had nuclear weapons aimed at America, but I really don’t think that invading the US was very high on Saddam’s priority list, especailly when its now painfully obvious that he would get his ass stomped into the ground. And please please please do not spout garbage about Saddam’s links to the Taliban…its not concrete.

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Really Say, I’m not about to go over the same things with you that you didn’t understand the last time around. I’ve unfortunately come to the conclusion that your brain is proof that wormholes exist – the info that goes in via your eyes and ears somehow skips your brain entirely. It probably ends up in some millions of light years away from here, which would do us good if the rest of you followed it, but as such doesn’t help much.

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Quick note to SPBM:

You’re correct in that oil sells for the same price per barrel on the commodities market, and an increase in supply via openning up the Iraqi oil fields should generally lead to a decrease in price paid per barrel on the world market. That’s ceteris parabus though. Assuming Iraq gins up production, you can count on the rest of OPEC to vote to slow down - something they are already considering. It’s not really a static picture – the Saudis in particular will slow down production, and Venezuala has already suffered from artificially low production due to its strike issues.

Additionally, don’t forget that it would have been much easier to access the Iraqi oil by just agreeing to loosen sanctions on Iraq – and it would have been much, much cheaper. Given that Bush’s domestic political opposition is going to use the war expenditure to try to avoid enacting his tax-cut package, why would he opt for the expensive military option over the free option of loosening sanctions? There must be other factors at play (and please, no conspiracy theories).

Now, as to the Iraqi threat to the U.S., you can agree or disagree about the extent to which Iraq has sponsored terrorism against the U.S. However, it is difficult to maintain they have done nothing in that regard. With a military as dominant as the U.S. has, one has to re-think the old model of only worrying about some large-scale invasion or a country with a ream of ballistic missles aimed at our cities. Instead, the biggest threat in the world as currently situated is rogue regimes who would work with or supply terrorists, specifically homicide/suicide terrorists, with the type of weapon that could wreak havoc on a large American city.

That is the calculation, and that is why N. Korea, Iraq under Hussein, and Iran are problematic. All those regimes either have or are far along the development path toward nukes, chemical and biological weapons. As such, preemptive enforcement of nonprofliferation is seen as an option with all those regimes. Iraq and I ran are further problematic because of their location in the middle east, which is vital to the world’s economy because of its oil reserves – we would obviously care more about stability in Iraq and Iran than in Central Africa, because the consequences to us are much different. Iran seems to be listening. N. Korea is scary. Iraq is contained. More problematic are reports that Iraq shipped weapons to Syria, but those are unsubstantiated as of yet.

Anyway, I need to get back to work, but I wanted to put forth that paradigm for analysis and see what you though. Cheers.

52

Boston, you’ve obviously met my parents.
After Dad’s death I bought mum a nice new cage with a real purty wheel.

I haven’t been near the sheep in a while - i’m allergic to lanolin.

Now to answer your points - and good ones they were [bastard :slight_smile: ].

I still stand by what I said, if an idiot opens their mouth and says something really dumb then I generally have a reason for thinking why they’re dumb. Most times that will lead me to thinking about my values and attitudes.
[Yes I know it’s inductive as hell].

Thing with Moore is that even in presenting his falsehoods [as he did with Roger and Me as well BFC] he makes you think about why you disagree with him - or think he’s a chicken rapist - or whatever.

Strangely enough I believe human intellectual development is based on opposition, or phrased in a modern way,
‘I’m right, you’re wrong and I’m gunna prove it!!’

Now, in BFC there are various creative uses of the ‘truth’. Sure, he edited things and played around with things BUT - and it’s an important but - he put the issues where people can see them. This is now, unfortunately a highly visual and near completely illiterate population. He chose the medium that reached people and if he polarises them with blatant lies, then fine, at least the message becomes available. Let’s face it, you get an egghead preaching at you you go to sleep - not with a visual medium

ANyway, his half truths etc are no different from what the political establishment has been doing for years.

53

Just a response to those who attack Moore on the grounds he isn’t “supporting the troops” or some such nonsense. Here’s some one who would agree with you.

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to do the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism”
Hermann Goering

I am so sick of conservatives accusing leftists of not being supportive of the troops, if Moore had his way no Americans would have died in the gulf. Its Bush who put them there not Moore, so how does he have any responsibility for the risk their lives are in.

P.S.
Do not give me some bullsh*t about the troops defending Moore’s freedoms, this war has nothing to do with upholding the bill of rights.

54

Stately Plump: as far as the oil thing, refer to Boston Barrister’s post.

I’m assuming you do not live in the US. If that is the case, how the hell do you know what the general public was thinking? From what you saw on TV? I do know some people that are on “high alert” ie stocking up on anti-radioactive iodine tablets, duct tape, canned foods, and plastic. Is it because they smoked some pot, watched the movie The Sum of All Fears, and got paranoid? Probably not. Is it because people like Tom Ridge are doing their jobs by helping Americans to prepare for the worst? Maybe. You know what though? Maybe it has something to do with three fucking planes crashing into the WTC and Pentagon killing thousands of people. A small minority of people are living in fear, but the ones who are make for news, so you see it on TV. Fact is, most Americans did what Bush suggested, and that is to live our lives like we normally would.
And yes, I’m going to “spout some garbage” about the Saddam-Osama connection. Are you aware of the fact that the very same individuals who hijacked the planes on 9/11 were permitted to train for their missions on Iraqi 747’s shortly before coming to the US? And don’t tell me that Saddam didn’t know, he’s a dictator. At the very least he enabled anti-American terrorist training in his country. But I don’t know, do you think maybe Saddam was a little pissed that he was rendered impotent in his own country in '91? Maybe he had a bone to pick with the US. Maybe he needed to find a rich, powerful, military-minded individual with a common hatred for the US who could move without being seen to help him carry out his revenge. They have “religious” differences, and they may not be buddies, but their hatred for Americans supersedes all of these differences.

55

Holy shit, I leave for a few days, come back and theres an ass-load of posts on my Michael Moore topic. I just wanna comment on one thing in particular, to whoever talked about Rush Limbaugh being a draft-dodger. Prove it. Even if he was a draft dodger, does that mean hes still as retarded now as he was back then? No. If anything, it should be a testament to how retarded some of these anti-war protesters are and how in the years to come (ie when they finally get a job and settle down with a family) they might realize that their ways were stupid and smarten up (as did Rush). Just something to think about.

Also, clanking balls. Hahahahahaha. I definitely gotta use that one one of these days…clanking balls…

56

I think the original point of this topic is that Moore is a biased jerk. Keep in mind that Bowling isn’t even a documentary! Moore cut and pasted many of the speeches he featured to make gun owners look like they’re all crazy. The guy should be sued for slander, not rewarded. Btw, a boycott of Hollywood would be an appropriate response to this stupidity.

57

flanker,
I have an idea. How about growing sick of being a liberal? How about realizing what a hypocrite you are? Want proof? Here is a little quote.

The president asks the nation to consider this question: What if Saddam Hussein

“fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.”

The president’s warnings are firm. “If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.” The stakes, he says, could not be higher. “Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal.”

These are the words not of President George W. Bush in September 2002 but of President Bill Clinton on February 18, 1998. Clinton was speaking at the Pentagon, after the Joint Chiefs and other top national security advisers had briefed him on U.S. military readiness. The televised speech followed a month-long build-up of U.S. troops and equipment in the Persian Gulf. And it won applause from leading Democrats on Capitol Hill.
You know what happened then? Nothing. hussein kicked out the inspectors. We did absolutely nothing.
So, flanker, next time you start throwing barbs at George W. Bush, remember that he is actually accomplishing the goal that billy boy didn’t have the nerve to complete. Oh, if you are going to say you didn’t vote for him or don’t support him, I know the truth about you.

58

Stank, a boycott of Hollywood for anything involving Julia Roberts of Goldie Hawn is more appropriate - their acting is appalling.

If you’re going to boycott Hollywood, do it for the right reasons: that 99%* of the films that come out of there each year are crap and an insult to the intelligence.

[Please note: included in that 1% are movies that are good dumb fun]

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About the Dixie Chicks comments:

First of all, why should anybody listen to artists’ viewpoints AT START? What gives them more credibility than anybody else? If I don’t know shit about, lets say, plumbing, I won’t voice my opinion and what is/is not/should/should not be/whas must be done/what must not be done/etc. I’ll learn about it, ask questions, but won’t start a debate unless I have some foundations to my arguments. You get the idea.

As for the jet-set, my hunch is that 1) the media allow the stars to have face-time because the stars have a way of getting people all emotional, thus bypassing all judgment and allowing whatever the agenda to contaminate the masses’ easily changed judgment (‘Monkey does what monkey sees/hears’). 2) It gives stars immediate publicity, which is most often a lifeblood source to them.

Artists show limit their public statements to their field of expertise. If I want to know more about their views, I’ll read their biographies, thank you!

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Micheal Moore RULES!