I think CannyDan pretty much summed it up perfectly in post #556.
gj dude
OK, I’m going to try once again from yet another direction, because the difference between Moore’s and O’Keefe’s works seems to me to be so total, so basic, so fundamental, that explaining the difference is like trying to explain why murder is worse than jaywalking. They’re in such totally different leagues that I’m baffled that I even need to point out the difference, and hardly even know where to start.
But I’ll try approaching it from a brand new angle.
I claim that Moore thought that what he was doing was basically honest. It seems to me that the Occam’s Razor simplest explanation for why F911 ended up on screen the way it did was something like this:
(1) Moore was making a movie about guns, so was spending a fair bit of time poking around looking for stuff concerning the NRA and Columbine that would make for good footage
(2) His basic opinion of the NRA was not “the NRA is evilz” but was something along the lines of “the NRA is pro-gun to an extreme degree, even when that leads to insensitivity to other concerns”
(3) He happened upon the 100% true factoid that the NRA had a meeting in Denver shortly after Columbine, despite requests that it not do so (as far as I know this is 100% true). Having happened upon this true factoid, he did not do very much due diligence to look for extenuating circumstances, and decided that the factoid supported his thesis (not a prima facie ridiculous conclusion).
(4) He then said to his staff “let’s get us some footage from this Denver meeting, find some clips that are particularly rah rah pro-gun and will thus make better footage than boring readings of internal minutes”,and he took that non-fabricated footage, put it on screen along with a voiceover explaining the situation that he honestly believed to be true in a vaguely sensationalistic fashion, and presto, F911.
Each step is one that is basically honest, but hasty and overbroad. Which fits in with my impression of Moore as a whole (insert your own weight-related “overbroad” joke here). He starts from an honestly-held and not prima-facie ridiculous position, and he truly believes that he is gathering together accurate footage to honestly make that point. (And note that his gathering of footage consists of looking for preexisting footage in the public record, as opposed to going out and generating new footage of unverifiable provenance.) Since he’s making a movie that has to have a limited running time, he’s of course always taking lots of raw footage and choosing which parts of it to display. So sometimes a perfectly reasonable thing to do (editing shorter bits out of larger bits) combined with a heartfelt but recklessly applied desire to make his point in an entertaining fashion end up combining in a way that ends up in a fairly dishonest place.
Compare that to O’Keefe, who is basically being dishonest every step of the way. What he showed us was basically an utter fabrication from start to finish. It was a cynical hatchet job whose sole purpose was to attempt to show an organization he disliked apparently engaging in a sensationalistic crime, and he basically cut every conceivable corner short of photoshopping CGI’d ACORN employees in order to achieve his goal.
So in one case, you start with an honestly felt accusation, one that is not hugely sensationalistic. You then find a true fact in the public record which you think supports your position. And then you display it somewhat out of context, claiming that it supports your position, but leave out enough details that a fairly dishonest view ends up being presented.
On the other hand, you start with an organization you dislike. You then make up out of whole cloth an accusation against them (or, in the most charitable possible interpretation, you take an honestly held position (“ACORN workers will cut corners in order to help those they view as in need, even if that ends up violating the law”) and stretch it to a sensationalistic extreme (“ACORN workers support sex trafficking”) ). So then you go around and use your hidden camera to generate new footage by filming people in lots of different places, the vast majority of which in no way supports your accusation, but you poke enough cameras in enough places that you finally get some footage that does, when spliced together in an edited fashion, with edited voiceover, and if you ignore the fact that the employees may in fact have just been playing along before calling the police, does in fact appear to lend some credence to your fabricated and sensationalistic claim; and then you release just that bit of footage.
Those two things really seem equivalent to you?
Or, in other words, do you believe that the actual F911 and this hypothetical one I proposed a few posts ago:
are equally dishonest?
Bowling for Columbine. Not F 9/11. Carry on.
Oh, duh, right. Me debate smart.
Well, yes, actually. If you can find one or two credible conservatives criticizing O’Keefe’s ACORN “expose”, insincere or not, I will concede your point. Say, Charles Krauthammer, or somebody of his ilk. Hell, even Rush, Bachmann, Beck, etc. Someone we’ve heard of, let’s say.
The link you previously posted doesn’t suffice because (a) it’s about the Landrieu break-in, not the ACORN bit; and (b) doesn’t even qualify as a pro forma condemnation.
…ROFL!
I can only take your decision to only address one of my many points as a concession. So Bricker:
-Cannot supply one good reason why the omission of this information (either on purpose, or by sheer laziness on the part of O’Keefe) is not orders of magnitude more dishonest than the scene you talk about in Bowling
-Does not really believe that Moore and O’Keefe are comparable
-Does not think their motives, as movie makers, are comparable
-Does not think Bowling is an anti-gun movie
-Does not want to see any raw footage produced by Moore
I’m glad that we cleared that up.
As for the one single point that you did decide to address, Moore said this: "despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charleton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association. "
Here is the image he played over that scene.
http://picasaweb.google.com/banquetbear/BlastsFromThePast#5486540186592441890
Here is the scene in question. (Approximately 5.42 in)
Was this scene filmed at the NRA Annual Meeting? Yep. Does Moore show that in his movie? Yep. Did Charleton Heston come to Denver despite the pleas of a community in mourning? It appears so. Would the scene that we saw, despite being filmed at the NRA Annual Meeting (which you must conceed was clearly shown on screen as identified as being the NRA Annual Meeting) also be fairly described as a pro-gun-rally? Debatable. I clearly have no issue using this definition: you clearly do. So they cancelled some events. Moore’s contention is that "despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charleton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association. " How does the cancellation of some events negate that point?
So despite your assertions it really does come down to one point of contention: rally vs meeting. And if that is the strongest thing you’ve got then you really have nothing. There is no comparable action that Moore has done that rivals the actions that O’Keefe has done.
You have stated that Moore seeks to convince the voting populace to restrict or revoke a fundamental right, necessary for self-protection, one so important it was the second right enshrined in the Bill of Rights. I do not believe this to be true. I do not believe that this was the motivation for Columbine. I think that an objective viewing of Bowling bears this out and if that is your conclusion from watching the movie then you need to watch it again.
MaxTheVool puts it best when he says that "he difference between Moore’s and O’Keefe’s works seems to me to be so total, so basic, so fundamental, that explaining the difference is like trying to explain why murder is worse than jaywalking. " I am as baffled as he is that you can’t see the difference.
IANAL so correct me if I’m wrong, but the NRA is a non-profit organization, not a corporation, so it does not have shareholders. Does the law require 501(3)(c)'s to hold and give notice of an annual meeting to its members?
Answering the low-hanging fruit because I can do it quickly:
The NRA is a 501(c)(4) corporation, which has voting members (not shareholders) that must legally be given notice of the corporation’s annual meeting. Among other things, the voting members elect corporate directors.
Because that statement doesn’t tell the whole story, and by choosing to tell only those pieces, a false story is conveyed.
Let’s try your technique with O’Keefe, shall we?
Were O’keefe’s scenes filmed at ACORN’s offices? Yes. Was an ACORN employee told that Hannah Giles was a prostitute? Yes. Did that same ACORN employee then say she wouldn’t judge that occupation, and offer advice about using “entertainer” codes for employment classification? Yes. (You may quibble about how his footage is so fake we can’t even know this to be true, but ACORN’s own internal investigation affirmed those events happened).
So – how does some irrelevant point like extra dialog or how O’Keefe was dressed negate that point?
Still straining at gnats while swallowing camels, I see.
So doctoring footage and superimposing voiceover tracks thus producing an outright deception is a “quibble”.
And playing excerpts (otherwise unadulterated) of an annual meeting, while displaying signage identifying it as an annual meeting, but calling that large, boisterously cheering gathering of gun proponents a “rally” is somehow the height of dishonesty, a greater or even just an equivalent untruth, is it?
This started badly enough, but it has now become excessively lame. Your continuing defense of the indefensible, while perhaps noble in an abstract lawyerly context, has become an exercise in absurdity. No one, not even all the ‘usual suspects’ combined, can save this stance. Please just give over this epic fail.
And let us get back to trashing the little scumbag’s more recent activities.
It has nothing to do with “rally.”
It has everything to do with the implication that the NRA chose to come to Denver after the shooting, even though they were asked not to. The viewer believes that the NRA callously disregarded the wishes of a grieving community, uncaring. And that’s not the truth.
Meanwhile, there’s no “outright deception” on the O’Keefe side. ACORN’s own internal report was the source for the events I laid out. Are you saying that ACORN’s own report was also a lie?
You made it all about “rally” upthread. Retracting it now, are you?
You’re making far too much of the legal inevitability of this meeting. You know perfectly well that corporate annual meetings can be postponed, rescheduled, or relocated, upon notice. This can be done even on an emergency basis, at the literal last minute, if circumstances require. Granted this may work a hardship for some, even many, attendees. Still, given the extraordinary circumstances (the Columbine shootings themselves, and the sincerely expressed wishes of the community) such a special dispensation would probably be acceptable to many people. But apparently not to NRA officials, who chose to reject the community’s request and hold their meeting anyway. Moore chooses to portray this decision as insensitive. Obviously your mileage varies. That you think this is in any way comparable to O’Keefe’s actions is farcical.
As for your final paragraph-- well, that’s just too much. We’ve parsed and re-parsed the “‘outright deception’ on the O’Keefe side”. The details of that deception, and the totality of those details combined, are well known to everyone in this thread. The fact that you can tweeze out some tiny factoid, and claim that its “truthiness” is at least arguable because its untruth cannot be proven beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt, and the existence of this small grain of might-be-truth therefore allows you to declare that O’Keefe produced a final product that had some actual relationship to what a normal human would call ***truth ***-- well, you’ve made that argument before, and nobody’s buying any.
Can we now get back to the later transgressions of the dirtbag hatchet man?
No, I mentioned “rally.” I never made it all about “rally.” I’m sure you wanted that to be the case, because it’s such a minor point. I’m not retracting the point - I’m simply agreeing that if “rally,” alone were the complaint, it would be a minor one.
Then the HONEST documentary film maker would have at least made some mention of the difficulty associated with emergency changes in annual meetings. If Moore had, as you do above, laid out that case and let people decide how insensitive the NRA was for not absorbing hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs and moving the meetings, that would have been honest. But the BfC viewer knows nothing of that choice. So far as they can see, the NRA simply cruelly and callously decided to have a pro gun rally after the shootings.
You can talk about whatever you wish. If you feel my observations are tangential to the thread, then stop replying to them and continue whatever discourse you wish.
…in this 31 second screen byte that you have picked over with a fine tooth comb: can you explain to me what Moore’s intent was? What false story was conveyed? I showed you a screen shot showing quite clearly that Moore showed this was the NRA annual meeting. So in this 31 seconds Moore didn’t tell you the story you wanted him to tell: this makes the story false?
Are you telling me that the cancellations of certain events surrounding the annual meeting was enough to satisfy the people in mourning? Or did they still complain? Even when they understood that it was legally required to happen, do you think that they stopped being upset? I’m struggling to understand your point here: and I’m struggling to find the equivalence with O’Keefe. Can you state it clearly?
Here is a very badly formated transcript of the speech delivered by Heston:
http://www.coastalga.com/military/Heston.htm
I’m sure you can show me where Heston makes the claim that the meeting had to be held in Denver because of legal obligations. Can you point out where Heston states that the meeting couldn’t have been moved. Or delayed. Or postponed. I’m pretty sure that Heston states that they are there because “This is our country. As Americans we are free to travel wherever we wish in our broad land.” So :: shrug :: . On the basis of Heston’s own unedited words it is really hard not to think that the NRA callously disregarded the wishes of a grieving community. Its a conclusion that is reached without even having to rely on Moore’s Bowling for Columbine. And the odd thing is, before this thread started and before I started to investigate your claims I didn’t think that at all.
After reading the speech from Heston its really the final nail in the coffin of this “Moore is as bad as O’Keefe” meme. Moore is no more dishonest than Heston is in his speech. And its really hard to read that transcript and not read it as a big FU to the Mayor of Denver and to the grieving community who took out advertisements asking them not to come. Heston made this speech. Heston is the one who states why they came to Denver. This is not a Moore invention or a stretch or an omission. Or do you think that Moore shouldn’t take a respected figure like Charlton Heston at his word? Should Heston’s speech have said:
“This is our country. As Americans we are free to travel wherever we wish in our broad land And we were legally obliged to have this meeting here under sub section 2 paragraph 4 of the pulled-out-of-my-arse act.”
So when Moore stated “despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charleton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association” this is literally truth. And the very last of your point by point assessment of 31 seconds of screen time has been debunked. Well done. Shall we hear of it no more?
Absolutely! I was expecting this.
I will concede quite happily what you state to be true. (On the proviso that strong evidence has been provided in this thread that dialog had been dubbed over, doctored or omitted by O’Keefe at times in his videos.)
Well: hold on a second here. How can you ask this question when you have already conceded that the Moore scene is not comparable to the O’Keefe omission?
I asked you this question:
You chose not to answer this: I accepted that as your concession of this point. Now, are you claiming that the scene in Bowling and O’Keefe’s omission are comparable? Did you not concede this point? If you are not conceding, then please state so. Please explain why you consider them comparable because if you do not believe this then you have not asked me this question in good faith. If you can pick and choose what questions to answer then so can I.
Uh huh.
As I said, “Moore chooses to portray this decision as insensitive. Obviously your mileage varies.” You claim that your summation is “honest” and Moore’s is thus necessarily dishonest. This is pure hubris on your part. Moore knew the full facts, and he believed the NRA was being insensitive. (Cruel and callous are your words.) His piece was presented in such a way as to persuade other people to agree with him. That may be propaganda (perfectly acceptable in the documentary genre) but it sure as hell isn’t dishonesty.
Some other people who know the full facts probably share Moore’s opinion, while others similarly fully cognizant share yours. Neither conclusion has about it the inevitability you think your position deserves. It is an arguable point, and the fact that you disagree with Moore is reasonable. But as I also said before, "That you think this is in any way comparable to O’Keefe’s actions is farcical.
On Preview, “And what **Banquet Bear **said.”
Meh.
My continuing discourse: O’Keefe is a dirtbag scumball for illegally entering a Senatorial office to produce another hatchet job masquerading as journalism similar to his disgusting actions regarding ACORN. I invite an expanded pile-on.
If we held O’Keefe to the same standards Bricker would apply to Moore, O’Keefe’s “documentary” would reflect a different theme entirely. It would be about this guy who went all over the country looking to document the utter corruption of the dastardly ACORN, and failed miserably. If ACORN were as awful as he was trying to prove, he would have included every encounter, because every encounter would have supported his case. He would have included the California guy who called the cops, and showed us how that proved ACORN perfidy.
But he couldn’t. So, he didn’t. Moore left out some context, true enough. O’Keefe omitted virtually all of the context. Bricker would have us believe that one hundred pounds of bullshit is the same as a gram.
“Same great taste, less filling.”
BWWAHAHAHA!!
OK, I’m choosing to take your inability to form a coherent argument as a concession of each and every point I have raised now, or will raise in the future, on any subject discussed on, or off, these boards.
On a serious note: you may only take as a concession that which I have explicitly conceded, bub.
Meanwhile you have gotten so distracted that you have stopped responding to me entirely 
Sure it is. What happened to “You would think that a documentary maker would be interested in this information…” as the standard?
When his effort to show people how the NRA reacted in Denver includes a speech form Heston made A YEAR LATER, edited in with no explanation, that is fundamentally dishonest.
And when you accept that as mere propaganda, but not dishonesty, and at the same time react with horror at O’Keefe’s tactics, you demonstrate convincingly that you care about the issue, not the tactic. You agree with Moore as to the NRA’s insensitivity, so his creative editing to make a point that you believe is true bothers you little. You disagree with O’Keefe that ACORN has a predisposition to ignore prostitution as an income source, or you agree with the fact but disagree that it’s contemptible… so your ire at his tactics is great.
How so? It sounds like you believe ACORN is, factually, guilty of no wrongdoing whatsoever – that they acted completely appropriately and O’Keefe fabricated any instances of inappropriate behavior. You… do DO know that’s not so, right?