Well, sometimes the things they are powerless over, such as those you mention, create resentment and feelings of inferiority that cause them to strive so hard to find a place where they can feel good about themselves – such as looking down on most, if not everyone else – that they develop beliefs and take certain actions the real purpose of which is to make them look smarter than everyone else because that’s the only area in which they feel they can acheive superiority. And in judging the merits of such a person’s point of view on important issues, I think their motivations are an important factor in judging the accuracy and relevence of the “facts” they present and the conclusions they arrive at.
Having said that, however, I will admit that I probably wouldn’t speak so harshly under ordinary circumstances. It was reading the article about his foreign adventures relating to us stupid and inferior Americans that tripped my trigger. What a pompous ass! We’re supposed to be fighting ignorance here. What else but ignorant and prejudiced is the opinion that the people of one country are more stupid than those of another? We’re all human beings and we’re all stupid or intelligent given our individual genetics and life experience, but not according to the boundries of land in which we live. Is this not the basic premise behind the argument against racism and all other types of prejudiced behavior?
But still, I shouldn’t have used such words, and I apologize.
Vanity Fair, whicih provides Hitchens with his paychecks, doesn’t have his columns online. But there are a lot of indirect references on other sites to one he titled “Confessions of a Functional Alcoholic”. One such summary:
In shortt, the guy’s mean when he’s loaded, which is pretty much all the time. The world’s full of nasty drunks. Why read any of them at all except for entertainment value?
I’m really keen to see Fahrenheit 9/11, but it doesn’t open in Japan until August. Just the other day I was on equal footing with most of the rest of the world when it came to discussing the film, since essentially no one had seen it yet, but now most of you have the opportunity to see for yourselves and form a solid opinion. How I envy you! Thank you for sharing your response.
This is an important point, and I’m surprised how many of Moore’s critics don’t get it. I agree that people who think they’re going to be upset, offended, or just plain annoyed by Moore’s movies shouldn’t go to see them. I don’t go to see movies I think I’m going to feel that way about. I don’t read Rush Limbaugh’s books because I know they’d irritate me and I don’t think I’d get anything of value out of them. We all have limited time and money, and we all have to make decisions as to how we want to spend it. But if you decide to stay away from movies that are just going to make you angry, it’s stupid to go around complaining how bad those movies are when you’ve never seen them. There are lots of movies I don’t want to see because I think they’ll be awful, but I generally keep my big mouth shut on the subject unless someone specifically asks me about it. To do otherwise strikes me as obnoxious and foolish.
Not even a nice try. I saw this one coming even as I was writing my post. I was tempted to put the lie to such a suggestion then, but I then I thought no, it’s late, Saturday night, not much traffic, maybe nobody will try something so transparent and stupid and I could save myself the trouble. But I was wrong. At least you take some comfort in that.
Yes it was transparent. It was also so ironic that you do exactly what you rail about. You’re not clever. You’re just mean-spirited. Every post you make carries an insult in it. Give it a rest, will ya? Yes, their are liberals here and in other parts of the world at large. And yes, their are morons among us. But put that extra wide brush away because it is fucking tiresome.
spooje, you have apparently failed to note that virtually every insult I make is in response to an insult I’ve received or an insult made regarding something I believe in or am in support of. I don’t just spontaneously insult anyone or anything. (See my posts to Qadgop above if you don’t believe this.) I do insult Bill Clinton, Hillary, liberal thought, objections to things I beieve in, etc. just like almost everyone in every forum here. I’m amazed to hear you voice an objection to this as it seems to be the way business as usual is conducted on the SDMB. Bush, the war in Iraq, Rush Limbaugh, and conservatives and conservative thought is ridiculed and criticised harsly and spontaneously everywhere here. Why is it wrong for me to do the same from the opposite point of view? Is the SDMB just supposed to be a liberal bastion where liberals can go to rant and rave without challenge, or is it supposed to be a forum for discussion? (I would also point out this is the Pit, and the insults I’ve used here are far less agressive and vulgar than most of those found in the Pit.)
And frankly, I’m surprised you seem to feel I’m being unfairly rough on liberals in general. In almost every thread I’m vastly outnumbered both in the number of my opponents and in the hurling of invectives. It’s amusing to see the guy coming in for the most abuse being chastised for dishing it out.
And in closing, I would point out that if you find what I have to say all that offensive, you could simply click on “Ignore” and you wouldn’t have to see it. I would make a suggestion, though. If you want to have a civil, reasonable-sounding and sincere discussion with me all you have to do is approach me with in that way.
Pro-Bush? Hardly. It’s more based in loathing of Michael Moore. Since I’m voting for Kerry, don’t you think it’s silly to try to mark me as pro-Bush? I got the stars out of my eyes about Bush long ago.
Anyway, I’m going to shoot off an e-mail to This Year’s Model, who has graciously offered to sponsor my viewing of this “documentary”, as it were. If we can work that out I’ll go and watch the movie with a pen and paper, take some copious notes, and deconstruct the corpse afterwards. Fair enough?
BTW, I must say that that was an excellent refutation, which is what I was looking for. It actually gave me some stuff to think about. I’ll chew on that for a while and get back to you.
Oh, I know I’m generating more publicity for the guy, but what the hell.
I can’t argue with that.
I’m sure you can support that, Hentor.
Well, I guess we’ll see.
Now that’s just not necessary, is it? Just because the guy is an ass doesn’t mean that it’s necessary to attack his physical appearance.
Trinity And Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie. Naturally, most of the footage is from the American bomb tests, but it makes no attempt to moralize or rationalize any part of the nuclear arms race. It even documents the Castle-Bravo incident where the explosion was much larger than expected and caused severe injuries to some Japanese fishermen caught too close to the explosion. Hell of a documentary, and what I think all documentaries should be.
No, I’m not going to ignore you. I am tired of seeing the word ‘liberal’ tossed around as an insult and all democrats lumped in as liberals . (even thought I’m not really a liberal anymore. I am becoming increasingly conservative in my advancing years, althought I still vote for more dems than repubs).
I have seen several of your posts where I thought you had done this. Perhaps I have jumped to an unfair conclusion. If so, I apologize
Thank you, spooje. However, to be honest I do routinely use the term liberal as a sort of catch-all for everyone who happens not to be a conservative. I don’t really mean anything by this in and of itself. It’s just that it seems to me that the SDMB has pretty much boiled down into two groups: liberals and conservatives. When I refer to someone as a liberal, it isn’t alway an insult. EddyTeddyFreddy, Zoe, Qadgop, elfbabe, Mr. Svinlesha, and **SimonX **are all people I would refer to (and perhaps wrongly) as liberals, yet I have a high regard for them. And I’m slowly coming to have very a high regard for Diogenes the Cynic. He can be a wild-eyed spouter of the worst sort of vulgarities and insults, and I’m 180 degrees away from him politically, but he is one hell of a smart guy and he doesn’t seem to carry hard feeling from one thread to the next. There have been times we’ve been going at each other’s throats viciously, but then I’d post a question to another thread and he would come on and explain the answer clearly, intelligently and well with no sign that he even knew I was the same guy he’d just been fighting with, although I’m sure he did. These are just his ethics and I admire him for them.
Thank you again for your apology and for letting me know what you were unhappy about so I could explain. Regards.
Um, because it’s our next-door neighbor and shares a two-thousand-plus-long border with us? Naming the leader of an adjacent country isn’t too demanding, is it?
Now, granted, I don’t know who Canada’s Prime Minister is off the top of my noggin, but my excuse is that I’m closer to our other neighbor, Mexico. And I do have a passing knowledge of who their president is, and can identify several major cities on a map, and do try to follow along with US-Mexican political topics. I mean, bein’ neighborly and all. And I’ve got several Canuck friends, so I can generally grok some of Canada’s big issues, such as that whole Quebec thing, and won’t mistakenly put Vancouver near Niagara Falls.
Again, just being neighborly and all.
Moore’s from Michigan; he’s probably more used to bringing up US-Canadian issues on general reflex. He does that a bit in his other stuff, IIRC.
Soooooooooooooooooo… Michael Moore == Cecil Adams?
So…let me get this right, this guy goes all around the world (including our TV shows, moderately funny, asking US citizens on camera to name common things like leader of opposition, parents name etc. which they never can!) and informs us just how stupid and ignorant you really are (can’t find your own back garden on a map etc. etc.) and then wants you all to back him on his campaign to get rid of your equally stupid president?
Will enough of you know the name of the current president to avoid ticking his name on the ballot paper?
From over here it seems like a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the “No More Bush” Party delivered in the cinema.
Gwen Ifill is the moderator and managing editor for PBS’s Washington Week. She is also a senior correspondent for Jim Lehrer’s The News Hour. She has seen the film, and just now gave this opinion to Tim Russert:
Starving Artist, it seems we have different concepts of who the “small” people are. I don’t feel it has anything to do with intelligence, or the work they do. To me, the “small” people are the ones who lead the willfully unexamined lives, who are unwilling to learn new things, and react with anger to any suggestion that they might need to look at themselves. They also seem to blame others for their own circumstances, be unwilling to look at their own role in how they got where they are in life, and take greater pleasure in someone else’s pain than someone else’s accomplishment or joy. They are seemingly unable to give a sincere apology.
I’ve known some very wealthy, very educated, very powerful small people. And I’ve known some great people living in very humble circumstances. The great people are the ones who respond, rather than react, to circumstances. And they tend to respond with compassion, patience, and kindness. And fairness.
Me? I’m struggling to be an above average person. I may yet make it. I’m not there yet. But I’m sure better than I used to be.
Starving Artist, thank you for your clarification.
Well, i agree with you that Trinity and Beyond is a fabulous film. I liked it so much that i bought myself a copy. But i don’t agree that there is no attempt to rationalize or moralize the bomb.
What about those interviews with Teller, where he is essentially given free rein to tell us what a great and necessary invention the bomb was, and how crucial it was to American security? It’s been a while since i watched the film (i’ll have to drag it off the shelf and have another look), but i don’t remember any countervailing commentary about the dangers of the nuclear arms race, or the idea that it might have been avoided.
I don’t believe that this issue makes the film less valuable. I still think it’s a fantastic piece of work, with stunning visuals, a good story, a great soundtrack, and a suitably-portentous voice-over by Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner.
Whenever i hear people talking about how a documentary is supposed to be “objective,” “unbiased,” “factual,” etc., etc., i always think of the Jean Renoir quotation that hangs next to the documentary section at my local video store:
Renoir, a great film-maker himself, called documentary film “The most false form of film-making.”
Sure, but in the case of Clinton, we know from plenty of people that have worked for both Presdents that he worked longer and harder hours, and more of them. Ditto for Bush’s dad. And so on. That may not be the most important criticism, but in the context of arguing that the guy is an amatuer leader who is all photo-op and no substance and retreats into either seculsion or blustery anger when challenged on anything, it surely merits the passing criticism it gets in the film. And since it’s a film, obviously you are going to illustrate these claims with clips that show the President being clueless and lazy, not stock footagte of pandas mating. This especially makes more sense if it’s done as a direct counter to all the press and photo-ops the White House puts out about Bush being a fantastic and in-control leader working hard for the American people (my favorite being the whitehouse.gov photo of Bush’s finger on the SotU address that was captioned “George Bush through the SotU address line by line”- which looked pretty silly when they were in the midst of claiming that he wasn’t responsible for lines being in there that were deceptive about our intelligence).
By Door’s calculations of Moore’s one-sided footage, aren’t all the official photo-ops, media clips, and so on: propaganda as well? How come they aren’t called such? Where’s the Nazi reference there?
Qadgop the Mercotan, thank you for your post. I must admit I’m a bit confused by a couple of the points you raise. First of all, I don’t recall ever using the term “small” people and your post seems to indicate that I did.
Secondly, I agree with you about greatness existing in people of humble circumstances and “small” people living in great circumstances. I’ve seen this many times, and I tend in fact to gravitate toward those in more humble circumstances but who seem more real. And while I am by no means trying to include myself in the “great” category you mention, I think most of the people who know me would tell you that in day-to-day life, I tend toward the qualities you mention, such as “compassion, patience, and kindness. And fairness.”
If your comments were aimed at me (and I realize they may not have been), perhaps what you perceive as unfairness and judgementalism and mean-spiritedness are due to the overwhelming amount of abuse, criticism and insults someone of my political ideology comes in for here, and in Moore’s case, it’s because I think he is deliberately and destructively presenting dishonest impressions of America and Americans in his attempt to acheive his own ends. It’s somewhat easy to say high-minded people respond rather than react, but I would imagine that while it would probably take more of a reason, anyone, even you, would respond in a similarly angry and insulting way if the provocation was strong enough. I would imagine, for example, that if someone were to come on here and say vile and disgusting things about your daughter, you would probably not respond so much as react…and I for one wouldn’t blame you. My response to Moore, although the personal connection isn’t there, was along the same line, only in this case he was talking about a country and about people I care a lot about, and fomenting hatred and disdain about us in other countries as well.
And I’m somewhat confused as to your comment about an insincere apology. If this is relation to the apology I made to you, I can assure you it is sincere. Although my feelings about Moore are quite virulent, it was still wrong for me to have used the words I did. Had I happened to come up with these same ideas regarding the underlying reasons for his actions under less antagonizing circumstances, I’m sure I could have raised these same points in a more rational and even-handed manner.
