Well, not to sound like Bill Clinton here (you know, what the meaning of is, is) but first I think we’d have to agree on the definition of “liar.” To me, the word liar means someone who tells lies. To you and most of the other lefties I’m seeing in these threads, it seems to mean only someone who has lied in this movie. So, which is it. Is he a liar if he can be demonstrated to have lied or deliberately have prevaricated throughout most of his life, or is he only a liar if he can be shown to have lied in this particular movie?
Yeah, but this thread is about his latest movie, not any of his previous movies. He may (or may not) have lied in his previous movies, which would cause justifiable suspicion that he is lying in this movie. But it’s not proof.
I was going to defend you against rjung when I noticed this gem of yours, nice way to insult all in this thread who actually saw the movie.
You’ll be surprised on what some left wing groups think of PBS… 
Your “evidence” actually supports the view of the extreme leftists that even mistrust PBS.
Anyhow, it is truly pathetic if you think this proves your point, far from it: you originally said “sources” what someone at PBS said, that makes it a SOURCE (not plural); so on top of everything, you were misrepresenting and exaggerating your “evidence”, and once again: it was a lie to say that Moore had said that “no son or daughter of a congressman was in the service” regardless if it was a “leftist” who said it.
What this also points to, is that from now on I will distrust that PBS person now, until future pieces show that that source is becoming reliable again.
You are completely missing another point: I am a skeptic first and then a liberal, even when I seek information in left leaning blogs, I do avoid linking to any that play loose with the facts. The reason why I talked about Roger Ebert was because there was a perfect example of a left leaning person taking a left source to task. Please feel free to criticize that PBS person, that person only showed certifiable ignorance. Don’t roll on that ignorance, it will only stick to you.
But Moore didn’t claim that. This was one of the ‘lies’ that Michael Isikoff of Newsweek tried to pin on Moore, i.e. letting the Bin Ladens fly when all the planes were grounded:
Moores raises the question about why they weren’t held for question, hence the Dragnet sequence.
I know Lib hasn’t been showing his most sunny side here, and while I don’t agree with his points (as they are), I do think it’s important to note that it’s perfectly possible to discuss something without having first-hand experience. Many times we rely on outside sources to prove a point, as the much asked cite? shows. First hand experiences are usually scorned as anecdotal.
If you’ll note my last post, it wasn’t trying to list things you or I knew about, but about images issues and footage that most people never saw footage of or examples of in this form. It’s one thing to ask devoted news junkies if they’ve seen a clip of something buried under the muck, but quite another to ask if most Americans have seen something.
If so, that might be bad for Moore, but maybe not since people often tape admissions that others don’t want heard for fear of repercussions (especially from the military). But again, it was something I hadn’t heard or seen much at all, whether or not anyone wanted me to see it. Certainly I can’t imagine that the brain damaged ex-Republican soldier who was pissed at Bush and going to spend the rest of his life working to get Democrats elected was upset that his sequence was included.
Ok, but that’s neither here nor there, since I have no interest in defending Moore as a swell guy, only whether or not the film is worthwhile. As I said, it’s a sad statement about our public discourse that some of the stuff in this film has to come from a virulently anti-Bush partisan. But I’d rather have it out there than not, no matter what form it comes in.
I agree, and as I said, not pointing this out more explicitly was a major failing. But then, also as I said, nobody but cave dwellers hadn’t already known about Saddam the bad guy and his brutal rule. Not many people I talk to even today seem to know that the general society, outside of politics, was more than just a crumbled wasteland of people screaming under his boot all day long for Americans to come and save them.
This was a film: there was a brief selection of images, not explicit representations of this or that as a norm. Could he have meant to imply it was the norm? Maybe. Or maybe not. The film doesn’t say. Micro-analyzing in that way, in the way that Hitchens does, is, probably, a bad way to watch a film or, as Kevin Drum describes it, read an editorial cartoon. Films, by their choice of images and subjects for the very brief amounts of time available, explicitly display only editorial priorities, not norms, by their choice of focus.
I really want to put this to rest. I tried to start another thread about it but it fizzled.
There is no “sexual molestation.” in the movie. The “abuses” that are shown are extremely mild and I saw nothing that I even thought was illegal. Inappropriate and assholish, maybe, but not blatantly criminal. You see some prisoners being hooded in the field.
You see a soldier touching an Iraqi’s foot and then wiping his hand on another soldier’s shoulder like he’s got cooties.
The “molestation” consists of an Iraqi lying on the ground under a blanket. The blanket is tented up in such a way as to suggest an erection. A soldier asks “does Ali Bab still have a hard on?”
Another soldier bends down and pokes at the tent in the blanket.
The first soldier says “ooh you touched it.”
End scene.
If that’s molestation then it’s the broadest definition I’ve ever scene.
Quite frankly, there was nothing in that footage worth reporting. If Moore had tried to publicize it he would have been crucified for grandstanding, self-promotion and for sensationalizing completely trivial offenses.
Trust me on this one, Lib. You know I’m not someone to give an inch on human rights issues, I’m as bleeding heart as it gets, and even I didn’t think anything shown in film merited anything more than ass-chewing by a CO.
Moore doesn’t even make much of it himself other than calling it “bad behavor.”
All this stuff only seems ominous or significant in light of Abu Ghraib, which MM knew nothing about at the time
As long as we’re “putting to rest” the unfounded smears against Fahrenheit 9/11 (as opposed to any legitimate smears), here’s the IMO definitive answer to the whole “It’s not a documentary because it isn’t objective!” nonsense:
Man, I usually don’t have much respect for Ebert, but he nailed what I’ve been sputtering to say for weeks.
Remember highschool English composition? remember being assigned to write a “persuasive” essay? what school did rightwing mouthfrothers like Doors that taught them that “persuasive” was a bad thing?
Moore is an editorialist, not a journalist. To hold the first up to the standards of the second just reveals your own ignorance.
Forgive me for jumping in at this late date, but this really bugged me. How dare you sit in front of you computer, in your house that you get to come home to every night, where you get to kiss your wife before you go to bed, and trivialize the legitimate feelings of exploitation being felt by those stuck in Iraq with no visible return date.
And, while we weren’t looking, suddenly the armyisn’t completely voluntary anymore.
-lv
I didn’t trivialize their feelings. I voiced my opinion as it applied to me.
You will note that it is an all-volunteer military. As such, I don’t know that we really have the right to feel exploited. We volunteered to follow orders. We can be pissed off, as I am, but exploited? In my opinion that’s a bit of a stretch. Again, that’s my own personal opinion, obviously others feel differently. So be it. It takes all kinds. shrug
And the other thing, the involuntary activation of some 5,000+ Army guys, really pisses me off. I have volunteered on numerous occasions to go back, but they won’t let me. Why should they activate people who will likely have considerable resentment when they have volunteers like me willing to go back? Yes, I know, they have different training and different specialties, but I am an effective, and if it allows Joe Blow to stay home and get on with the life that he has been trying to build then I will go in a second.
Oh, and one more thing that I forgot to mention. When you sign up you are told that you have to do a certain amount of Active Duty, followed by a period of what is called Inactive Duty. In my case it’s six years follwed by two of Inactive Duty should I not re-enlist for a total of 8. During those two years I don’t have to participate at all, but I will be subject to recall at any time (unless I’m within a certain period of time close to 60, the mandatory retirement age for the Guard- at that point I would be useless due to the time required to retrain and deploy).
The people recalled are within their period of Inactive Duty and therefore subject to recall. It’s written in black and white in their enlistment contract, so technically, they’re still volunteers, just perhaps not willing ones.
Troops are being exploited when they are sent into harm’s way for illegitimate reasons. When the CIC is willing to spend the lives of his troops for purely self-serving reasons, for reasons which have nothing to do with defending the US, I call that not just exploitive but criminal.
Hey, when you’re willing to lie to the world in order to start a self-serving war, sending kids off to die is trivially easy by comparison, yuhknowhutImean?
Being sent off into harm’s way for the profit of a handful of corporations seems a lot like exploitation to me.
With few exceptions hasn’t that what the worlds always been like? Be it lords getting their tenants to fight or Imperial powers throwing their young at hot metal on the Somme.
[Black Sabbath]
Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.
Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgement day comes, yeah.
[/BS]
I agree that it’s a bag of shite but it still SNAFU AFAICS.
Cute pun. Nevertheless, let us put aside how the gentleman, doubtless a Muslim, was caused to produce an erection in the first place, but groping a person’s genitalia is, I believe, considered to be molestation everywhere on earth.
my bolding
“Suggest” gives me the impression the blanket was just creased in such a way either by luck or design to look like a boner was under it. I don’t think he was actually saying it was a boner. I may be wrong but that’s how I read it. YMMV.
Name just one Iraqi in the upper eschelons of any American corporation. Not one? Hmmm…maybe one or two will be able to get there now that Saddam isn’t torturing and killing them.
Last Thursday I went in to have a check on a double hernia. Rock hard thanks to the involuntary response to the sensation. Anyone know a good lawyer? :dubious:
Are you suggesting that the Muslim gentleman’s taunters and gropers (who were on the Abu Ghraib grounds, by the way) were physicians giving him a physical that he had requested? It is no wonder you call Moore credible.