You are the one calling him a liar. You are the one saying he is intentionally telling untruths. any of your claims to that affect are nothing more than your own personal reading of second or third hand opinions, and not necessarily factual commentaries on F911. You have cited Hitchens and Ifill so far. The former cries “wolf!” but is unable to back it up with anything but his own personal opinion of Moore, the latter claims Moore’s intentions are dishonest, once again with only opinion and not fact to back her up.
You call it a hack job, etc, but are unable to actually back that up, so instead you resort to distorting sections of a movie you havent seen and attaching motives that aren’t there and were never intended to be there, and when called on it you continue to twist and turn to avoid an answer.
When I say “they”, I mean the folks like Moore who feel they should have simply been questioned. Who are the “they” you are talking about? I’m also against holding people indefinitely, FWIW.
My primary questions is: Do you feel simple questioning should be considered a violation of civil liberties?
Well, he is a liar. But I haven’t said he lied in this film. In fact, I’ve gone to great lengths to say that I haven’t seen it and don’t know whether he lied or not. So, you’re a liar too. It is a hack job, and I did back that up with the opinion of someone who had seen it and believed it to be inaccurate by the technique of juxtaposing situations to imply things that aren’t true. This has all been explained to you, but since you’re a liar just like he is, you pretend you don’t get it. You seem to relish the convenience of being in the pile-on because you just repeat the same stupid shit over and over without contributing a shred of substance.
No, I don’t. But again, how do you know he wasn’t questioned? Before granting them leave, the State Department might have asked them questions.
Blow 'em out of the water, Lib! Just pick one of the many, many factual lies you have at your fingertips. Really, any of them will do, you don’t have to agonize over making the best choice! Just stick ‘em all in a big ol’ thimble, and pick the one closest to hand!
I wouldn’t go throwing accusations like that around if I were you, it might appear a tad hypocritical. I know I don’t contribute much, nor do I pretend I do. but I’ll bet I contribute as much relevance as you do.
You’re like the cowardly little gang-rapist who stands behind the others and plays with his dick while waiting for his turn. I’ve already told what lies I know about. If I list them all in one place, I’m afraid you’ll bust a nut too soon.
Ah, I misunderstood when you said “How do you know they weren’t” previously. I thought you meant “How do you know they (meaning the critics) didn’t mean ‘throw the family members into prison indefinitely under the material witness statute’.” I see now you meant “How do you know the family members weren’t questioned?” My apologies for the misunderstanding.
I heard they weren’t questioned from Michael Moore’s “Dude Where’s My Country” (audio book version). I suspect you will not be impressed with that citation ;)… I admit I have heard no confirmation from other sources, and I suppose it may in fact be untrue, as far as I know; perhaps they were questioned. But I haven’t heard any citations yet that contradict Moore.
This thread is acandidate for the Trainwreck Hall of Fame.
My views on this whpole mischegoss can be summed up by this quote:
"“The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don’t alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views.”
The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Face of Evil.
By all means see F9/11. After the film, check Moore’s quotes, find out the truth for yourself. But to sit through the movie with arms folded and arms closed, determined to “pan it into next week” is to be willfully ignorant and intellectually dishonest.
And calling Moore a liar w/o being able to cite a specific instance of dishonesty in this film is weak indeed.
I honestly don’t. But when you’ve got five people taking bats to your head simultaneously, you fight back as best you can. I’ve stated my position several times. Each time, I’ve said I haven’t seen it, don’t know whether he lied, but here’s what others who have seen it say. Each time, these guys descend on me demanding that I specify any lies and that I explain why the Bin Laden family should be free to leave a free country. I conceded Mhendo’s point as you can see. But these other jackals are just taunting for the sheer joy of it.
Well, as you yourself pointed out, he was not privvy to inside knowledge any more than we are and thus tripped up, however inadvertently, on the whole Richard Clarke thing. I cannot accept his assertions about State Department goings on any more than I could those of the lady at the dry cleaners.
What the fuck? Are you saying he was born just before he began filming F9/11 (a ripped-off title)?
I do have to say that when I saw the film, I felt misled by those who claimed that it was spinning conspiracy theories about Bush being involved in 9/11. Moore’s main point instead seemed to be just as he asked: who’s your daddy? Can we really trust someone like Bush, who not only has such tight ties of family, friendship, business, and financial obligation to many of the players in the War on Terror and Saudis, to objectively judge our policies towards them? It’s about undeniable privelege and blind spots and priorities that might differ from America’s, not about some vast conspiracy.
The film was of course biased and one-sided. But then, I can’t really see why that makes it as astronomically worse as some people are making it out to be compared to what you hear day in and day out from political figures and media. It’s certainly no worse than Rush: humor and pointed edits to attack. But, unlike Rush, there is some compelling stuff in there you won’t see anywhere else (well, that doesn’t go for us who slavishly search out all knowledge, but for most Americans). Even if it’s entirely one-sided, it presents some sides that most people have never seen, and if you understand the film as one element in a much larger political debate, it definately belongs in our national discourse, flawed and unfair as it may be. Better lots of opinionated and sometimes wrong or slanted voices that are refutable and arguable with than one single authoritative arbiter of truth or unified view.
I’m not saying they should have been detained; only that they shouldn’t have got the red-carpet treatment usually reserved for foreign heads of state and Enron CEOs. Yes, you’re right that “[o]rdinary brown people suspected of being of Arab descent were being harrassed by an enraged populace.” And yet the only ones who had special treatment from the United States government in the two or three days after 9/11, at a time when no-one else was allowed to fly, were members of the Bin Laden family.
As i said earlier in this thread, i don’t think they should have been whisked away to Guantanamo and strapped to ducking boards. Nor do i think they should have been detained if the authorities believed that they had no knowledge of Osama’s whereabouts or his recent activities. But to actually break the ban on flying, for them and them alone, seems a little over the top.
Your argument also implies that, if we agree with Clarke’s overall assessment of the Bush administration’s incompetence, then we should also agree with him when he says that the Bin Laden flights were unproblematic. Or, if we disagree with him about the Bin Laden flights, we should also disagree with him about other aspects of the Bush administration’s handling of the war on terror. Neither of these is necessary.
The key to Hitchens’ argument about Clarke is Hitchens’ belief that Clarke is the “ethical hero” of Moore’s movie, the guy upon whom the substance of Moore’s argument rests. I don’t agree with Hitchens’ assesment, as i said earlier in the thread. Sure, Clarke provides some authoritative support for Moore’s position, but, in my opinion, even if Moore had known about Clarke’s approval of the Bin Laden flights, and had included this in the movie, it would not have undermined his case against those flights, or the case against the Bush administration’s handling of the war on terror.
There’s another issue here, and that concerns Osama’s status as the “black sheep” of the family. While the branch of the family that remains in Saudi Arabia maintains that it has cut off ties with Osama, Moore’s film shows video of a wedding, of one of Osama’s nephews i think, at which Osama was present, along with a few members of the Saudi-based Bin Ladens.
Now, admittedly, i’ve attended weddings with family members who i wasn’t especially close to. But none of my family members, as far as i know, is the world’s most wanted terrorist. Moore is not saying that the Saudi-based Bin Ladens are helping Osama’s cause or that they support him, but his unspoken point was obvious: can you imagine the US government’s reaction if they found out that you or i had shared food and drink at a wedding with Osama Bin Laden in the past five or ten years?
No, it’s just saying that we cannot conclude that Clarke was rubber stamping anything. He says the decision was his alone and that he would do the same thing again.
and the people you have quoted have been shown to either be talking without any basis (Hitchens) or purely from opinion (Ifill). Neither of them say anything which proves Moore is a liar. I haven’t read anywhere that Moore is picking on the bin Ladens because they are brown skinned and have the same surname as a terrorist except in your post to this thread.
You thank people who (rightfully) complain about making jokes about being “off meds”, yet have no problem comparing someone to a gang rapist.
And there are people, including more than a few members of congress, who disagree with his decision. And some of those people who disagree with the decision about the Bin Laden flights also agree with his assessment of the Bush administration’s handling of the broader terrorism issue. There’s no particular contradiction here, either in their positions, or in Moore’s movie.
Take you and me as an example. I agree with many of your positions on civil liberties, on issues of social and cultural libertarianism. Yet i disagree with your libertarian economic bent, and believe that democratic socialism and a good welfare safety net is a more reasonable way to organize our economic life.
The fact that i agree with some of your positions does not obligate me to agree with all of them. Nor does it present me with some logical dilemma over whether or not you’re a credible witness for your beliefs.
I can find Clarke a credible person, and yet still disagree with his decision to let the Bin Ladens fly. I don’t believe that he’s being disingenuous or deceptive when he says that he believes he made the right decision. And i don’t believe he’s being disingenuous or deceptive when he criticizes Bush’s other policies. It’s just that, based on my other knowledge and my own examination of the broader circumstances, i find myself in agreement with him on one issue but not on the other.
That’s why i don’t think that this has much bearing on the credibility of Moore’s movie.
And it struck me too how off kilter Hitchens was being. Yes, Moore shows all the Bush figures getting prepped by makeup people and so forth. But Hitchens just jumps on this and says that’s dishonest because everyone does this sort fo prepping. Maybe so. But the movie doesn’t say “only Bush people did this.” It’s just there. Is that the ONLY interpretation for its precense? No. But if you are looking to hate every second of the movie from the start, you can make up any interpretation you wish.
It’s a powerful device. I didn’t take it as “only Bush people do this, they’re morons” but just a filmic way of setting the stage. These people are preparing to sell us a bill of goods, and its a media production, not simply people coming out and being themselves. So is Moore’s film of course. But that doesn’t mean he is wrong to show us that “behind the scenes” look at how things are prepared BEFORE we get these carefully prepared images. Bush’s down home gestures and expressions aren’t just his natural affibility. They are practiced, constructed (for all we know, focus grouped). People aren’t skeptical enough, WEREN’T skeptical enough about media images, and stuff like this is a filmic device of setting up that idea. Is that wrong because it only does it for the targets of the film? I don’t think so. We know they are the targets, that it’s partisan. But with that understood, is it really so off-base to establish scenes like this?
Also, the Nazi propagandist comparisons are totally off base. This film shares nothing filmically with those pictures other than that they both have a point of view: far too weak a comparison to justify the offhand Godwin reference to Nazis. The Nazis were subtle and bold loving portraits of the great leader, Moore makes it completely obvious that he’s doing an op-ed, and his style is satirical, sarcastic, and nothing at all like those films.