Well, it didn’t have enough songs to qualify as a musical…
I agree for the most part – while I thought Bowling for Columbine was thought-provocative and raised some good points (especially regarding the “culture of fear” in the United States), I was reminded while watching it to not take everything Moore presented at face value. He might not outright lie the way Limbaugh and Coulter do, but he is an “entertainer,” first and foremost, and I can see him saying that assembling a good collection of footage is more important than being 100% accurate.
I agree with this too, except that I would say that Moore does lie as egregiously as Limbaugh and Coulter do, and using many of the same tactics. They’re all pretty low on the totem pole of respect, for me.
However, as I said earlier, I do agree that Moore raised some good issues. It’s not so much what he’s saying that I have problems with, but how he’s saying it. His voicing his opinion and casting it as factual, which as we all know on this board is a poor way of trying to make a cohesive argument, and posters who do so get taken to task for it. I don’t have a problem with doing the same for Moore.
Diogenes, you can’t seem to keep your points straight. There have been a number of cites here to show that the bank scene in Bowling for Columbinewas staged. You provide no citation, but call that accusation “false.” Put your keyboard where your mouth is and prove it. Moore got the guns in the bank because he staged the scene so that it would happen that way. Pure and simple. You want to say otherwise, then bloody well prove it.
The “smear campaign” against Moore is no different than the ones against Anne Coulter or Rush Limbaugh when they make similar stupid statements and invent the facts to suit their needs. I don’t see you complaining about those. You’re reminding me of a couple friends of mine who take every word uttered by Michael Moore as the Truth delivered straight down from on high… when just a little research shows it for the pablum that it is. Are you even reading the cites being offered up here?
Personally, when an entertainer goes out of their way to distort the truth as deeply as Moore, Limbaugh, and Coulter do, I don’t call pointing out factual matters a “smear campaign”… I call it fighting ignorance. That’s what we do here. Care to join us?
By the way, while we are complaining about incorrect facts in the movie, one quite incorrect fact that you probably won’t hear corrected by the right-wing attacks on Moore is his claim that gun ownership in Canada mirrors that in the U.S. (or is actually higher than that in the U.S.) and thus that this could not be an explanation for differences in murder rate.
I have heard two things on this:
(1) that Moore likely got those numbers wrong and that the rate of gun ownership in the U.S. is indeed higher than in Canada.
(2) if you look at the rate of ownership of handguns and not just all guns in the two countries, the difference is huge.
Moore does tend to play fast-and-loose with facts it seems. On the other hand, it seems some of his attackers do too. And, quite honestly, you are going to have to do better than an Opinion Journal link, Brutus, to serve as a final word on what the true facts are. Since when has the WSJ editorial page started publishing facts rather than lies and half-truths? It must be since I last read it which was, I think, yesterday.
There is a huge point you are missing here. In reference to the members meeting of the NRA, “corporate law” does not refer to an internal policy, but to US Federal law. The US government requires that companies, charities, trusts, etc. have regularly scheduled meetings of their members (usually yearly). Failing to hold such a meeting is a violation of federal law.
It’s always seemed a shame to me that a talented humorist like Moore feels, for whatever reason, that his audience is best served when he presents his fictionalized pieces as straight-up legit documentaries. I for one would be happier if he used “A Modest Proposal” format for mild exaggerations or stuck to the facts.
Moore’s choice to use a couple of witnesses verses the lengthy and exhausted law enforcement report can only have been deliberate. He is a very solid investigative reporter, and I can’t believe he doesn’t see the difference between his version of the facts and what his research would have to show.
By the way, the US of A isn’t the most violent country in the world. For a while, we were the country where it was most likely that one seemingly ordinary person would feel free to commit an act of violence on another, but throughout the 90s Great Britain and France started to catch up. Violent acts are more effective if you use a gun, but a baseball bat or machete can do plenty of damage. And violence committed by the police and your relatives is just as painful as violence committed by a mugger or rapist. Crime and violence stats are a bit wieldy.
After reading transcript of what Heston said really, and transcript of what Moore am editting together, me(bleeding heart liberal) am feeling disgust for Moore and respect for Heston.
It am Bizarro world.
Since you am Comic guy, me am thinking you know how to get back home. Me thought my Dad could build rocket and put me in, but this make Krypton blow up.
I can’t comment on this thread because I’d just trash Moore, effectively an opinion piece. I did read the Spinsanity piece (I subscribe to their email newsletter) but never saw the movie. Really wouldn’t care to.
That’s kinda funny. He claims to have witnesses to the fact, but refuses to identify the witnesses, in effect saying that we have to trust that he’s telling the truth (Which after the various inaccuracies in the movie, is not an easy sell). The police, however, have the attendance sheets, score cards, and witnesses (Who are identifiable by name in reports) to say they weren’t there. Unless Moore produces names, and those people confirm his story, solidly, then I’m still of the opinion that he’s wrong, if not flat-out lying.
It’s not. According to the International Crime Victim Survey’s 2000 data, the most violent country in the western world (IE, the one that you’re most likely to be a victim of a violent criminal act, statistically) is the UK/Wales, followed by Austrailia. US places fourth. For all crimes in general, the US is actually well below most other countries in the survey, including Canada, Netherlands, and Sweeden. In fact, the US doesn’t even rank highest for firearm homicide. There can certainly be much done to reduce violence in the US, but we’re not the most violent country in the world as many people try to panic us with…
Yes, Chuck Heston may not be the most stellar of persons as some members of the NRA are isolationist militia creating lunatics(not Fenris, so please get that red dot off my forehead, please…)
This is not relevant to the fact that Moore manipulated data and confabulated facts to support his movie and create impact. That is lying, Diogenes.
While I agree with the concepts of a culture of violence degrading and eroding our society, creating a movie that purports to be a documentary and is instead a far left propganda film does nothing to bring forth true debate.
Instead, it allows his lies to be focused on and the message to be ignored. He was a fool to do that, and honestly, I think he should relinquish his Oscar and apologize to the Academy, to te real winner, and to the public at large.
Unless he wants to be forever tarred with the image of being an unrepentant liar.
Didn’t Nixon already show us how that just leads to a lie-brary no one goes to, and an image that people laugh at and scorn, forgettng all the accomplishments that were made?
The interesting thing about David Hardy’s piece was that he put so much emphasis on the Heston speech as the worst deception, and I found it to be the least deceptive of the things he’s complaining about. I read the whole original speech and Moore’s excerpt of it, and I think that the seven sentences were a reasonable summary of Heston’s message. As for the “cold dead hands” bit, that was played in audio and video form several times during the movie, iirc, and I didn’t get the sense Moore was claiming that it was from the same speech—just that this was a thing that Heston had said.
Hardy’s other points seem, by and large, to be valid. I remember wondering about a few of them myself. (There are a few minor quibbles I have, but not worth arguing about, really.)
I agree with blahedo–I really don’t see what was so deceptive about the Heston edits. I knew that the “cold, dead hands” line was from another speech; I didn’t think it was presented as part of the same speech at all. It’s simply the most famous image of Heston during his tenure as NRA President. I got the same message from reading Heston’s entire speech as I got from Moore’s edit, so at least for me, he didn’t change the meaning at all.
I wouldn’t say that Moore “lied”, but he did spin the facts past the safety point a time or two. I wish he hadn’t, because I don’t think he needed to in order to make a good movie, and it gives his opponents an excuse not to address the movie’s ideas. (I thought those ideas could have been more coherent as well, but that’s another thread.)
No, you’ve got it backwards…hating Moore and liking Heston=Superman Earth 1…all that is noble and good.
Liking Moore/Hating Heston=Bizarro on (non-existant) Purple Kryptonite.
GD&R, etc
Kidding aside, my dad, long-time anti-gun type from way back when was really, really disgusted by Moore. His argument (which, I agree with) is that when Moore vomits up lying propaganda like he did in the film, it hurts the cause my dad believes in. People dismiss the propaganda and then ALSO dismiss (what my dad wrongly believes are) the valid anti-gun points (not that I’m about to conceed that there are any… ).
Fenris
On preview: Doctor J, what was so dispiciable about the “cold dead hands” bit is that Moore presented it as taking place right after Columbine.
Sorry for quoting almost th’ whole damn post, but this was so well written that I had to applaud Mockingbird (and let him know I’ve lowered the gun, he can now leave the building safely. )
To clarify this point: “corporate law” doesn’t refer to internal policies, it refers to federal laws under which public organizations exist. The requirement to have an annual meeting is a legal requirement for continued operation in their current form, and changing that requirement would effectively require a judge to suspend it.
MM does two valuable things: one, he cracks me up. Numero two-o, he causes Pubbies to shriek in porcine rage and foam at the mouth. Which, come to think of it, also cracks me up.
Now, if he causes you to run and check his facts, whatever your motivation, he is doing his bit in the fight against ignorance.
I also note that some of the names appearing here, clad in righteous wrath at the merest hint of mendacity on his part, are the same that smiled benignly while GeeDubya served up shovels full of bullshit about WMD’s and ate it up with a spoon. And, of late, are noteable by thier absence when the recent revelations of truth are discussed.
Mike may have been bullshitting. GeeDubya was most assuredly bullshitting. How many people are gonna get dead because of Mike? So howzabout spreading some of this righteous indignation around a bit?
