zut, thanks for your post. Pride by association - yeah. I guess I can fathom it in your Dutch-American example, because it’s so benign, and it has a worthwhile goal. But people willing to fight and die for a country, just because that’s where they happened to be born? Completely alien to me.
(I’m not accusing Airman Doors of this mindset, mind you. But I have heard it from a plethora of low-ranking military personnel of various nationalities, including my own. “Why do you want to be in the army?” “Because I’m proud to be a Dutchman.”)
I think part of my confusion might be a bit of a language barrier, as your dictionary definition illustrates. In my own language, the Dutch word for “proud” would not be the first to come to mind when describing feelings of patriotism, for example. I see, and concur, that in English this is different.
The other part is just cultural, I guess. I know of no western people that is more patriotic than Americans, and try as I might, I just don’t get the sentiment.
Anyway, it’s a bit of a sidetrack in this thread, to say the least.
This touches on what I see as the biggest defect in the movie - what makes it less a documentary and more a case of let’s-throw-up-a-bunch-of-stuff-and-see-what-sticks.
There are multiple places in F9/11 where he actually comes out and says things like “connect-the-dots” and “You can see where this is going”. Michael, it is your job to connect the dots and make the case. Otherwise, you come off sounding like those goofballs who made the videos about how Clinton dealt drugs and had Vince Foster murdered.
It’s not like I needed F9/11 to convince me that Bush should not be re-elected; I went mostly out of curiosity and for the entertainment value (for instance, the clip of the gum-chewing Britney vowing support for GWB was comedy gold) - but it’s disappointing to see so many misfires that the opposition can glom onto.
I remember the threads where **Airman Doors ** was arguing against even going to see Farenheit 911. I suspect he and I would disagree about many things (with Micheal Moore not necessarily one of them), but I have to say, in light of his previous statements, this review/criticism is a remarkable piece work, that falls well within acceptable standards for objectivity, considering the “hot button” natutre of the topic. Well done sir!
These “lies by inference” are the main issue I’ve with this movie (I’ve a number of others though). Moore points at some dots and let you make the obvious connection between them. Obvious only because you’re left with the overall feeling that what he showed you lead to this conclusion. And certainly not because he actually demonstrated anyhting. And IMO, what he tries to convince us of is generally amongst the most dubious elements which can be hold up against Bush. Just reading this board, one can find tons of justified and demonsrable blames to be laid at Bush 's feet re the Irak war. But for some reason, Moore concentrated on the dubious and on the unprovable, picking and choosing facts in order to draw a picture which, still IMO only appears to make a lot of sense.
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Here, I totally disagree with you. And if you blame Moore for lying by omission and inference, it should be obvious why. Their speech was a joke. It’s plainly a shame. They’re recruiting soldiers. What kind of arguments do they use? Things like “You like music? Do you know that you could be recruited in some army band?”. Like these guys are likely to end up playing music. These guys are recruited to kill and be killed, not to spend some years doing fun stuff in ceremonial uniforms. I you want to recruit soldiers, tell them the truth. That they’re going to spill the guts of other people and occassionnaly to have their own guts spilled, and for reasons that can be morally sound or morally corrupt, and that they’ll perhaps be able to understand or perhaps not. The kind of stuff they should be presented with are the footages of children admitted in hospitals with their arms torn apart, or soldier’s mothers crying like we can see in Moore’s movie. Not fancy uniforms and military music bands. Then they’ll be able to make an educated and sound decision.
Which lead me to the element I liked the most about Moore’s movie. I know there have been a number of people criticizing the footages of happy children flying kites and similar things. On the basis that it gives a misleading picture of Sadam’s Irak. I totally disagree with that. We’ve been drowned in news, reports, informations, documentaries, political speeches, footages about the evils of Saddam’s regime. You’d have to live on Andromedae to be unaware of this. There’s no need to show it again in a movie.
But there’s definitely a need to show the other side of the coin. To show people that there were also kids flying kites in Irak. And that if you decide to oust Saddam, some of them wil end up with third degree burns in an hospital, or in a casket. It’s way too easy to decide only on the basis of the political situation in Irak (depicted more or less truthfully). It should be made extremely clear to everybody that wagging a war will result in both Saddam being ousted (hopefully) and men, women and kids being blown up, flag-covered bodybags coming back and mothers crying (100% guaranteed). Anything else in appalingly disingeneous. Public opinion must be fully aware of all the consequences of the political choices made. And I can’t think of any situation where it’s more true than when the choice made is wagging war. Hiding the reality under the carpet in such a situation is something we shouldn’t accept in a democracy.
So, if there’s one thing I would praise Moore for, it would be precisely to have shown the ugly facts behind the grandiloquent speeches and the fancy uniforms.
Thanks, Airman, for posting your interesting review. I’ll agree that the whole section on Bush family ties to various Saudis, and the making of a mountain out of the molehill of the Saudi evacuation flights after 9/11, was pretty weak, and Moore’s rather incoherent attempt to claim that the invasion of Afghanistan was over a pipeline rather than its stated purpose was simply ridiculous. Hell, just before that sequence Moore himself, as narrator, is heard bitching about how the Special Forces didn’t go into Afghanistan fast enough (and, btw, he repeated that claim on the O’Reilly show last night).
I think others have hit most of the points of rebuttal (for example, I have no problem at all, on reading Rice’s full statement concerning supposed ties between 9/11 and Iraq, with Moore truncating it). My only further comment is that, for all the kvetching about Moore’s clearly personal animosity towards our current Prez, the objectives of his film are pretty much the same as in any of his others: in Moore’s view, the rich and well-connected will loudly claim to be looking after our interests to distract us as they line theier own pockets, and again and again, the ‘little guy’ is duped into helping forwarfd this agenda by shameless appeals to patriotism, or whatever mendacities the powerful feel may be necessary.
The film plays fast and loose with a few facts itself, but any reasonably well-informed person can figure out the weak arguments for themselves, and I believe the film makes a substantial case that the administration ruthlessly exploited fear of terrorism to get the public on board with an ambitious plan to remap the Middle East that likely would have been attempted no matter what excuse was put forward.
No, actually I’m wondering why we had enough on Martha Stewart comparatively quickly for what was a petty crime compared to Enron, but the guy who presided over what was basically the biggest business scandal of all time was completely unscathed for about three years. My understanding is that they were trying to get the little fish to roll over on Lay first, but all the same it’s not like you have to think too hard here. Lay was in charge. How hard can it be to find some evidence that he knew what was up?
Well, sure they were. They are professional salemen. You’ve heard it before from other salemen. “If you want the moonroof, sir, you’ll need to buy the $1,000 for underbody protection.” Like I said, I thought they were a little callous with their approach on camera, but on the whole I didn’t see anything wrong with what they were doing.
Location, location, location. If I go to the Harrisburg East Mall, for instance, I can state with near certainty that 8 out of every 10 teenagers walking around are not working, and probably half of those are not working at all, anywhere. If I tell them that they get to see the world, go to school, get health insurance, and get paid for doing it in a secure environment with the only drawback being that you may have to fight occasionally, I’ll have them eating out of the palm of my hand. Out of those four, probably three of those four have seen shootouts. So why would they be concerned about that? They see a way out. And they’re right.
Hold that thought for a moment why I address your contradiction below.
Notice the similarity to what Moore does and what you accuse the administration of? Moore puts together one hell of a story and tries to make something stick. I can guarantee you that some people (including those that I watched the movie with) walked away thinking that Moore told the God’s own truth, even though he demonstrably didn’t. The same can be said of the statement by Condi Rice I referred to. What’s the difference? In Moore’s case it’s “Presenting the information and allowing viewers to draw a conclusion”, but in Rice’s case “It’s a misperception that Bush and company have encouraged through words carefully chosen to promote it while still preserving enough deniability so that they can say “we never said it.”” What’s the difference between the two?
That really bugs you, doesn’t it? Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret…I didn’t cash the check. So much for that. Now maybe you can keep your eye on the ball instead of getting into silly, petty irrelevancies, eh?
I do agree with that, but it stands to reason that these kids were likely children of Ba’ath Party principals. There are pictures of the Hitler Jungen playing happily and flying kites as well. That is not a Godwin card because it is a fair analogy, and holds in practically all one-party societies where wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few party officials.
Everything said about recruiters, both pro and con, is pretty much dead on. Certainly I was inclined to listen to them when I was unemployed, swimming in debt, and in my early twenties.
However, this point of my life was in the early days of the Clinton administration. Other people can surely talk about aggressive military recruitment in the Reagan and Carter years, I’m sure.
How on earth can this be a criticism of the current administration? This has been SOP for the military ever since they got rid of the draft.
Lib, I can think of very few societies that are so oppressive that kids can’t go out and fly kites or play or whatever. So I have no problem believing that it was any one of a million average, run-of-the-mill kids in Iraq that day. What sticks in my craw was that it was so Sound of Music idyllic. I half expected to hear Julie Andrews break into song. But that’s an issue of spinning your perspective. Moore needs to make everyone think about all the death and destruction that came to Iraq because of us. And objectively he’s right. But if he showed some of the people that Saddam had killed/tortured/abused he would have lost the sympathy of the crowd and quite possibly might have screwed up the movie. Even without footage, I still felt the rage when I heard the 9/11 footage. Imagine if he had shown how bad Saddam Hussein really was? Bam, the crowd is suddenly and emotionally reminded of how it was a good thing that we got the guy.
That’s another one of the lies by omission, though it was neither terribly egregious nor was it that big of a point. We all know that Saddam’s Iraq wasn’t peaches and cream. I only wish that he had worked that in for honesty’s sake, but like I said, he simply couldn’t.
Secondly, have you seen any of Moore’s previous work? Personally, I think he made a great stride forward in trustworthyness with this movie. There were certain great heaping chunks of Bowling for Columbine that I have issues with (The Charlton Heston bit, for example), but I really have to say, insofar as this movie goes, there’s nothing I can say that was truthfully wrong or visibly misleading. This piece stands with Al Franken, in my book, as liberal stuff that I can’t stand, but are well researched and well done. (As opposed, say, to Ann Coltier who lies like a dead skunk in the road)
Thirdly, how about your personal reaction? Are you glad you went to see it? Did it speak to you? Ms. Robyn? Assuming his standards stay as high as they did for this movie, are you likely to see his next? Normally, I don’t go to see movies… I have issues with the MPAA and their continued assaults on our civil liberties… but I went to see this one, as I thought it was an important thing to do to remain an informed citizen of the United States.
(I’m proud to be an American. I’m proud of my family’s history in this country, and I’m inspired by it, as well. I seek to further the values that I find to make this country, my state, and my culture worth being a part of. One of these values is self-analysis, mind you.)
Well, I’m a bit closer to your wife’s political position than yours, but I’ll have to admit that I agree with a lot of your conclusions. I don’t know if it’s these boards, my former law experience, or all those logic classes I took in college, but when I see stuff like this I just start checking off the fallacies. Guilt by association could explain the first quarter of the movie. What is so terribly wrong with shaking hands with someone who is wearing a turban? That it got caught on film?
But others I kind of put in context to my corporate experience. The Harken deal? Probably shady. But when put in context of the time, it wasn’t the least bit uncommon. There was no will for agressive prosecution at the time, and he got away with a shady deal much like everyone else was during the boom. I saw it as more of a comment on his charachter than a flaming indictment. His association with Bath is another guilt by association fallacy, and Moore seemed to spend alot of time flogging that. His parade of failed companies a confirmation of my opinion that rich kids have connections, and any idiot can run a company, the problem is that often, one eventually will.
I also saw it as kind of a loose jumble of thoughts. I would have been far more impressed had he set up the arguments the administration used to start the war, and knocked them down one by one. Instead he just flings monkey feces.
But the School room scene is disturbing. But only in the sense that I would expect more from our leadership. Or those around him.
I never knew about the snubbing of the black caucus by the Senate either. I dunno how I missed that one. And the peace group infultration was enough to give me the creeps, but I think that was an over zealous local. But it still is enough to question the Patriot act. Heck, I knew it was a sloppy piece of legislation when it came out, but it bothers me that Bush is so steadfastly against going back and fixing a few things that need fixing, as is often done with hastily drawn up legislation.
All in all, do I think it will make my polar opposite change his mind? No. Will it make me change mine? No. Will it nudge the fence sitter one way or another, mmmmaybe, but who knows which way. Will it make them think? Well yes. So I don’t think that is such a bad thing.
Agreed. More to the point, however, would be footage of Fellujahn children splashing about in ankle-deep sewage, or children in the Baghdad ghettos (read: Shi’ite Muslims) clinging to the pants legs of their fathers and brothers as they are dragged away, or children in northern Iraq choking on nerve gas. Saddam pillaged and squandered billions of dollars earmarked for education, health, and other programs intended to benefit children, and to portray Ba’athist Iraq as having once been a wonderland for shiny happy kids is disingenuous to the extreme.
Thanks. I was hoping that this would be a pleasant discourse. Thus far I’ve not been too disappointed.
I saw BFC and I thought it was a piece of garbage, hence my reluctance to see this movie. Ironically enough, I’m reading Franken right now if you can believe that. Oh, and Ann Coulter is beyond the pale.
I’ll probably go to his next one. I’ll take them one at a time. The first movie that he makes from now on that makes me want to shoot at the screen will be the last one, though.
I’m curious for further opinions on this scene: Whilst it would be ideal to have leaders who act like characters in films (super-human) at all times, what exactly would you (or others) expect of Bush at that time? As you may know, I’m certainly no fan of Bush or any member of the current Administration, but this is one thing I find it hard to blame or ridicule him for; what would you have done or have had him do when faced with the same devastating news? President or not, there is going to be a level of shock and disgust followed by feelings of responsibility and helplessness before affirmative action can be considered. On a personal level, what more could have been done anyway?
I can’t see your point. First, I see no reason to assume that these kids were the children of Iraki officials. It’s not like all children were working in mines all day long in Irak apart from some rare priviledged ones. Nor are kites a luxurious toy that only the wealthiest could afford.
Secondly, even if they were…what would it change, exactly? Are children somehow responsible for their parent’s actions?
You can say that if you like, and I raised that point during diversity training a few months ago. I was told, and it was backed up by a recruiter with evidence, that my unit’s composition is directly proportional to the local population. Which explains why my unit is basically white as the driven snow.
The active duty has their own formula, and I have no doubt that they have exactly the representation that they’d like. Not to mention that everyone is a volunteer. So while you could say that, you can’t make it stick.
All these things we have heard about. Everybody knows that children were gassed in Fallujah. There was no need to show it again. This point has been made plenty of times by the US administration. On the other hand people had to be remembered that “punishing” Saddam means also killing kids in the process. Not making the public aware of the consequences of a war, like hiding away the caskets, that is disingeneous to the extreme. Not showing for the umpteenth time a footage of Fallujah which has already viewed by everybody isn’t.