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| How do you feel about Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11? |
| It's a pile of agitprop trash! |
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9% |
[ 2 ] |
| It's a sermon of truth! |
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13% |
[ 3 ] |
| He has a point or two, but he sure is one heck of a manipulator. |
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50% |
[ 11 ] |
| Who's Michael Moore? |
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9% |
[ 2 ] |
| Documentaries are boring, I don't plan to see it. |
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4% |
[ 1 ] |
| Eh. Go back to Cuba, Michael. ;) |
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13% |
[ 3 ] |
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| Total Votes : 22 |
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| Author |
Message |
Hurr78
Commander
Joined: Feb 12, 2004
Member#: 5061
Posts: 739
Location: Toronto
   
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 Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 3:10 am Post subject: Poll on Fahrenheit 9/11 |
 
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New poll, guys... now that Fahrenheit 9/11 is out...
Spoiler: Personally, I found the first half of the film to be mostly a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. So Bush is connected with a host of influential business leaders. Being connected with people doesn't mean that you're laundering money, or planning to rob donut shops, or even conspiring to conceal acts of international terror. Consequently, it's not clear exactly what Moore is trying to suggest. Still, it was kind of startling to watch the president sit there on 9/11 reading kids books after being informed of the attack. In his place, I'm pretty sure I would have gotten up to conference with my advisors immediately.
The second part of the film (about Iraq) was generally a lot better, and certainly had a much greater emotional impact than anything else Moore has ever put on film. |
So who else has seen the film already? What did you all think about it?
(edited to add spoiler function)
Last edited by Hurr78 on Tue Jun 29, 2004 11:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Caliburn
Guest
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 3:15 am Post subject: |
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For your information spoiler tags seems to be working again :-) |
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 mellowman
Captain
Joined: Sep 02, 2003
Member#: 2939
Posts: 1119
Location: UK
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 6:16 am Post subject: |
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To be honest I don't plan on seeing it. Those of you who know me will know that's no surprise as I hardly ever watch films. But it isn't on my enormous wish list of things to see either.
I find there is enough propaganda and s*** stirring around already, a lot of it on public broadcast channels that are supposedly unbiased. So I would rather look into affairs like this under my own steam.
Some of you might say that's narrow minded or perhaps it's blinkered but I just don't like his style. |
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 megadith
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: May 06, 2002
Member#: 82
Posts: 265
Location: Arlington, VA
 
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 8:36 am Post subject: |
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****Spoilers****
Well I watched the movie this weekend and i really enjoyed it. Spoiler: | I was glad at teh beginning he didn't show the planes crash into the WTC and just showed the reaction of the people. it sort of set the mindset of what happened with going through all the visuals |
His comments on Bush were expected butSpoiler: | the part of the Bin Laden's flying around after 9/11 sorta shocked and surprised me. hell, it even pissed me off |
but i feel the end was a little made too long. He could have shorten it quite a bit and been ok. Spoiler: | yes, i know a soldier dying in Iraq is horrible but i feel he spent too much time on this fact. The video from Iraq and its residents i felt was the best part of hte movie. it shows the innocence of the common people over there. |
Overall i liked the film. I don't think it was as good as Bowling for Columbine but thats my opinion. Feel free to jab at me all you want, these are my thoughts, just thought i'd share them with the world. 
On another note, does anyone know if the soundtrack is coming out for this? I know most of the music is pop/rock and roll, but there was one piano piece that is also in the trailer that i really liked. anyone know if it is available or anything??
_________________
Grab a beer, don't cost nuttin... |
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Cocles
Commodore
Joined: Mar 06, 2002
Member#: 15
Posts: 2587
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 10:02 am Post subject: |
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For those of you planning to see this film (or already have), I strongly recommend reading this article I posted over in the "SuperSize Me!" thread.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/
Hurr, I'd like you to read it too.
And for fricks sake don't "skim" it and call that "reading". |
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Legolas
Commander
Joined: Aug 08, 2002
Member#: 178
Posts: 857
Location: Drunkest state in USA
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 11:13 am Post subject: |
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Okay lets get something straight... I have heard lots of people actually being shocked about this tid-bit of news... It leads me to think one thing... YOu never watch the news.
Spoiler: I have known for sometime that the Bin Laden's were flown out of the U.S. If other people would read a paper they would have known right away... If they would follow the 9/11 commision the would have known this before the film was out... Micheal Moore try's to blame this on bush... And it was actually Richard Clark who orderd that they leave the country.(he proudly admitted that.) He was head of terrorism at the time. The thing is the "Bin Ladens" are a huge family. (Like our smiths) These relatives (family) of Bin laden have more than distanced themself from Osoma. Think of Osoma as the crazy uncle in your family that everyone always tells you to stay away from  .The FBI has had tabs on the family for a long time on top of everything else. But for those of you who hear this for the first time in Moores movie I can understand you being upset. No doubt he portrays it as a hughe scandal, an outrage! Even though shortly after the 9/11 atacts moore was qouted saying that Osoma is innocent until proven guilty. that's the american way. Not a lot has changed with new information pining him as the organizer since and Moore is more than happy to believe he is guilty... this guy makes me sick. |
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Hurr78
Commander
Joined: Feb 12, 2004
Member#: 5061
Posts: 739
Location: Toronto
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 11:30 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the link, Cocles.
It's generally a good article... I already read it when you posted it over in the Super Size Me thread.
I agree with almost everything that Chris Hitchens says in it. He's quite right to ridicule Moore for many of the problems that he points out.
At the same time, I think that Hitchens goes a bit overboard toward the end of the article... partly because he is guilty of the same thing that he rightly accuses Moore of: selecting and twisting information that just promotes his own point of view. Sure, people in the former Yugoslavia should be grateful for the assistance of the United States. And the people of Afghanistan should be grateful that the US tipped the balance of their ongoing civil war in favour of the Northern Alliance.
But just to set the record straight, there are some problems with his point of view. It's an oversimplification to say that Iraq was the personal property of Saddam's psychopathic crime family (although that's not a bad way of describing them). It was a society that had plenty of people who gained from their relationships with the Saddam dictatorship. There was an entire class of local bosses with almost tribal-style ties to Saddam... and those are the same Islamo-fascists that are still causing most of the trouble over there (particularly around Fallujah). That's why removing Saddam didn't just clear up the problem right away. You can't just change the way a country works overnight, it takes years or even decades. Iraq never was the personal property of the Saddam family, it was held under the grip of an entire class of thugs... many of whom are still kicking around.
That's why you've got to think really, really hard about whether or not an intervention is in your best interests. It's also one of the reasons why George H W Bush and his national security advisor Brent Scowcroft weren't too enthusiastic about the idea of invading Iraq at this time. (see http://ffip.com/opeds081502.htm for a Scowcroft editorial that outlines his position on the topic).
We see this sort of triage in international affairs all the time: after all, why should the US help out the suffering people of Iraq and Yugoslavia but do nothing about the suffering people of Rwanda and Sudan? It's all about costs and benefits. Let's face it, everybody thinks it's sad that people are dying in Sudan, but there's no clear western interest in doing anything about it. It would cost many billions to take any effective action, and even then there's no guarantee of lasting change. Remember Somalia? It cost the US and a number of its allies quite heavily in blood and money... and we weren't really able to change anything. It still lacks a central government and it's still a dangerous breeding ground for fundamentalist wacko types.
So while Hitchens has every right to smack Moore for his blatantly manipulative techniques, he's more than a little foggy on just what exactly is wrong with Moore's equally foggy take on the war in Iraq. He says:
| Quote: |
| I'll merely ask this: In the film, Moore says loudly and repeatedly that not enough troops were sent to garrison Afghanistan and Iraq. (This is now a favorite cleverness of those who were, in the first place, against sending any soldiers at all.) |
On this point, he just doesn't know what he's talking about: there is a difference between getting into the war in the first place (which Brent Scowcroft correctly understood as the right thing to do but a really bad time to do it) and the issue of what to do now that it's been done.
Now I'm not an expert on documentary filmmaking techniques, but I am a defense policy specialist. Most of the people in my field agree that it was a mistake to go into Iraq last year. But now that it's done, the losses thus far are what economists call sunk costs. The reality is that there are a lot of Islamo-fascists who need to be rooted out and eliminated, or they are going to cause new troubles that could extend indefinitely into the future. Hence it's not paradoxical to say that the US shouldn't have invaded in the first pace, but now we need a much bigger force to get the job done right. The security interests of the US demands that. Heck, the security of the entire western world demands it.
Maybe these issues should remain in the halls of defense policy experts, who have a heck of a lot more information at their disposal than Michael Moore or any other filmmaker can put into two hours of movie. Obviously, the foreign/defense policy community can put Moore's film into context a lot better than the general public can (just as people in the film business are better equipped to see it for the agitprop that it is). But then again, shouldn't government activity be as transparent as possible without compromising national security? And if Moore gets people talking about this stuff (as we are currently doing), isn't there some value in that?
Or maybe I just can't help but enjoy seeing these sorts of "documentaries" as good silly fun, as Cocles once put it. |
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Cocles
Commodore
Joined: Mar 06, 2002
Member#: 15
Posts: 2587
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 11:55 am Post subject: Re: Poll on Fahrenheit 9/11 |
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| Hurr78 wrote: |
| ...and those are the same Islamo-fascists that are still causing most of the trouble over there (particularly around Fallujah). |
Wrong... Hussein kept the religious zealots down with a secular iron fist. It's only good thing he did.
| Quote: |
Iraq never was the personal property of the Saddam family, it was held under the grip of an entire class of thugs... many of whom are still kicking around.
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"Many" is a relative term. You could also say we've already captured or killed "Many" of them.
| Quote: |
| Now I'm not an expert on documentary filmmaking techniques, but I am a defense policy specialist. |
That's good, because I happen to be a specialist in filmmaking. And since we both think the Moore's film a good example of agitprop, that should say something to the rest of you dingoes reading this thread.
Anyways, Hurr, our problem with Moore isn't so much with what he has to say, but how he goes about saying it. |
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Hurr78
Commander
Joined: Feb 12, 2004
Member#: 5061
Posts: 739
Location: Toronto
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 12:08 pm Post subject: Re: Poll on Fahrenheit 9/11 |
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| Cocles wrote: |
| Hurr78 wrote: |
| ...and those are the same Islamo-fascists that are still causing most of the trouble over there (particularly around Fallujah). |
Wrong... Hussein kept the religious zealots down with a secular iron fist. It's only good thing he did. |
Yeah, you're right about that. I guess the term "Islamo-fascists" doesn't really describe the people I'm talking about very well. Let's just call them plain old fascists, then. 
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
Iraq never was the personal property of the Saddam family, it was held under the grip of an entire class of thugs... many of whom are still kicking around.
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"Many" is a relative term. You could also say we've already captured or killed "Many" of them. |
You have. But there's still a lot of work to be done. Like I said, Saddam's power depended on the loyalty of local bosses and their thugs, and there were plenty of them.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
| Now I'm not an expert on documentary filmmaking techniques, but I am a defense policy specialist. |
That's good, because I happen to be a specialist in filmmaking. And since we both think the Moore's film a good example of agitprop, that should say something to the rest of you dingoes reading this thread.
Anyways, Hurr, our problem with Moore isn't so much with what he has to say, but how he goes about saying it. |
Yep. He probably should work on being more straightforward and less tricky. |
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Legolas
Commander
Joined: Aug 08, 2002
Member#: 178
Posts: 857
Location: Drunkest state in USA
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 1:41 pm Post subject: |
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I have to add something... to what cocles said. I don't have a problem what moore is saying. He can say Bush is Satan, he can show a movie of a pretend actor played president drowning babies. I just don't like this idiot and his slew of followers who try to portray this as fact, or as a documentary. Unless you want to consider scripted reality shows documentaries.
He can make a crappy propaganda film like "day after tomorrow". thats fine, but the intent of moore is to tell half truths and minipulated facts to pass off a film as truth to influence the elections. He wants the audience to buy into the lies he is selling. He knows the truth, he has to in order to twist part of it into following the lies he sets up... Thats my problem... |
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 Pixie
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: May 14, 2002
Member#: 90
Posts: 372
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 2:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Legolas wrote: |
He can make a crappy propaganda film like "day after tomorrow". thats fine, but the intent of moore is to tell half truths and minipulated facts to pass off a film as truth to influence the elections. He wants the audience to buy into the lies he is selling. He knows the truth, he has to in order to twist part of it into following the lies he sets up... Thats my problem... |
Here's the funny part. He wants to influence the presidential elections yet check out his apparant voting history .
What a doofus. |
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Legolas
Commander
Joined: Aug 08, 2002
Member#: 178
Posts: 857
Location: Drunkest state in USA
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Posted:
Tue Jun 29, 2004 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah... lets not forget he was pushing for nadar in 2000... the democrats blame nadar for costing them the election. well other than the florida thing.
Anyways, a local station here is about to have mike wilson as a guest... the guy who is making the michael moore hates america movie |
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zirael
Commander
Joined: Feb 05, 2004
Member#: 4924
Posts: 795
Location: North Carolina
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Posted:
Wed Jun 30, 2004 12:59 am Post subject: |
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I contributed to the weekend box office and enjoyed the film, which just expanded the main points in Moore's book, "Dude, Where's my Country?" Since I read the book, there weren't many surprises in the film for me. The song choices were really funny and quite ironic.
At least Moore is vocal and open about the intentions of his propagandistic film to unseat Bush and start some debate in this country. It's worth taking a look for yourself instead of reading what these columnists write about it.
Spoiler: | The most interesting part of the film for me was the footage showing several minority members of the House of Representatives trying to challenge the presidential election results, but no one from the Senate supported them, so they were unable to start a debate on the floor. That made me quite upset because the Democratic members of the Senate basically rolled over for Bush. Seeing this film also reminded me of what a poor job the mainstream media has done to cover the impact of the war on ordinary Iraqis. |
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Cocles
Commodore
Joined: Mar 06, 2002
Member#: 15
Posts: 2587
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Posted:
Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:54 am Post subject: |
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| zirael wrote: |
| At least Moore is vocal and open about the intentions of his propagandistic film... |
I like how zirael always slants his or her posts in a way that would make Moore proud.
Where on earth have you seen Moore being open about his film being propaganda? Everywhere I look, he's spouting that his films are the absolute truth. |
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Legolas
Commander
Joined: Aug 08, 2002
Member#: 178
Posts: 857
Location: Drunkest state in USA
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Posted:
Wed Jun 30, 2004 12:52 pm Post subject: |
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Alright this will be the last time I say it.
PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY GO TO SEE THIS FILM, PLEASE DO NOT THINK OF IT AS A NEWS REPORT. NOTHING IN THIS MOVIE SHOULD SHOCK YOU OTHER THAN HOW GOOD MR. MOORE TWISTS TRUTH AND FACTS TO MEET HIS MIXED UP POINT. IF YOU WOULD ACTUALLY WATCH NEWS OR READ IT  YOU WOULD KNOW the strugles of the Iraqi people, you would now about the aledged connection.
I too have read that book Zireal. I have an autographed copy that I plan to sell soon I finished the book before my MOORE OBBSESSED BLIND FAN friend. And i picked it apart and actually looked at his sources for myself to see how much he was streatching.(you would be amazed that people hardly do this. they see sources and think. oh it must be true!) I'll see the movie on dvd though, and I'll probably borrow it... Or maybe download it. Since moore won't mind because he isn't in it for the money anyway;) besides he's a commie anyways.  I plan to watch because I like to keep an open mind, and because I want to see first hand all the b.s. he tells.
I just still wonder Zireal, would you watch the "michealmoorehates america" movie? |
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