I found some of the facts presented in Farenheit 9/11 really interesting and depressing. It's really difficult to separate the bias from the truth, though. I much preferred Bowling for Columbine--I think it was a far better movie. It was less biased, more entertaining, and far more informative and less speculation.
Well, you'll be happy to hear that a lot of the "facts" presented are just plain wrong. The counter to that movie covers a lot of things that are skewed, or just straight incorrect.Originally Posted by Azar With A Hat
I haven't seen it, but from what I hear a lot of the footage from the "documentary" is fabricated, which, to me, completely discredits the movie.
I suppose it's quite possible. The whole concept of Bowling for Columbine really interested me, though. It wasn't the "Make K-mart and Charleston Heston" part that was good. It was the presentation of just how many people die from gun violence in America every year, whereas many other countries have much, much smaller death rates in that area. I can't say I remember the movie perfectly, but I don't think Moore ever presented a reason for why we have more gun deaths than other countries. It's really worth thinking about.Well, you'll be happy to hear that a lot of the "facts" presented are just plain wrong. The counter to that movie covers a lot of things that are skewed, or just straight incorrect.
I haven't seen it, but from what I hear a lot of the footage from the "documentary" is fabricated, which, to me, completely discredits the movie.
I agree with a lot of what Moore says, but I don't always agree with how he says it. He has never claimed that his movies are unbiased documentaries, so anyone who expects them to present both sides of an argument is simply holding an unrealistic expectation of his work. I do think he would have more credibility if he did present both sides of the argmuents, though.
However, I think it's terribly amusing to see the right blow a gasket every time his name is mentioned. Someone posted a recent piece of his regarding the Hurricane Katrina response on FG, and then the reactions of a few rather stereotypical neocons to that piece on another board. Most of them consisted of nothing more than "ZOMG HOW DAER HE CRITICIZE TEH PRESIDENT," and another of them contained the entirely baseless assertion that Moore was great at criticizing and poor at actually bringing about changes (Moore had, I believe, raised twenty-something million dollars to aid victims of the disaster).
I've yet to see the frequently cited "Moore = Ann Coulter of the left" argument validated by examples of Moore calling for the assassination of journalists or politicians, by the way. That alone leads me to suspect that many of the people who criticize his works for lack of objectivity aren't being entirely objective themselves.
Last edited by The Man; 09-25-2005 at 01:42 AM.
Again, I haven't seen that movie, but as I understand it he presented gun death statistics, while many other countries have fewer to no guns. We have more guns because it's in our Bill of Rights. However, he purposefully leaves out overall murder and violent crime statistics because they aren't really any lower than the U.S.'s, even though we have guns. For example, in the U.K. there are more muggings, which we attribute to the fact that muggers have no fear that their victim may have a gun on them.
Don't take my word for any of that though; that's just what I remember discussing with different people or reading somewhere... I haven't looked it up recently and that may not be entirely accurate.
You're right about the UK and other countries he mentioned for the most part, with one major exception: Canada. As many or more people there have guns, and they're exposed to just as much violence in the media as the United States, but they simply have way fewer gun deaths.
Did you miss completely miss this?
Michael Moore is just as bad as Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and all the other conservative nutjobs.
The only liberal nutjob that I like is Al Franken, because he's actually funny.
For those of you who say you find it amusing how the "right-wings blow up" everytime he's mentioned...how about how the liberals blow up everytime Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter are mentioned?
They're all idiots.
Because I think it's important, I'm repeating myself:
I've yet to see the frequently cited "Moore = Ann Coulter of the left" argument validated by examples of Moore calling for the assassination of journalists or politicians, by the way. That alone leads me to suspect that many of the people who criticize his works for lack of objectivity aren't being entirely objective themselves.
Ann Coulter has said things in the past such as "We should kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," and advocated the deaths of journalists and others. So I repeat, how exactly is Michael Moore on the same level as Ann Coulter?
So Moore just lying isn't enough? As I said, they're all idiots. Different degrees of idiocy, maybe, but I don't care to find out.
No, just lying is not enough to put you on the same level as people who compare Abu Gharib to college frat parties and call for the assassination of prettymuch anyone they don't like.
Yes, Raistlin, I did completely miss it because I don't go around looking for things to completely debase Michael Moore's movies. According to that site, more than what I thought of his movie was made up or skewed, but it's not like I was naive enough to think they were all cold, hard facts. Still, his points about the United States media thriving on fear and effecting the people, Canada having less gun deaths, and so on are still legitimate. So other countries have stricter gun laws. Maybe that's more important than anything else in the movie, and it's not even heavily discussed--why don't we have stricter gun laws? I sure as hell wish we did.Did you miss completely miss this?
Michael Moore is just as bad as Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and all the other conservative nutjobs.
The only liberal nutjob that I like is Al Franken, because he's actually funny.
For those of you who say you find it amusing how the "right-wings blow up" everytime he's mentioned...how about how the liberals blow up everytime Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter are mentioned?
They're all idiots.
On a side note, I just bought Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them" and plan on reading it soon.
he hates america because...he's fat...
not phat
but....just fat....chubby.....rubbery...he's a bouncy ball.
he's not just insane....
but he's passionately insane.
Everyday I wish that I could be the one, for you...
Honestly, I've gotten to the point where I don't trust much of anything I read unless it's from an unbiased source, and the American media certainly doesn't count as an unbiased source on American affairs. All the political sites out there have agendas - anti-Moore, anti-Coulter, anti-whoever, and often they're just as biased as the people they're lashing out against, and probably contain just as many lies. It all comes down to a matter of evaluating what you read and deciding whether it comes from a credible source or not. I still read several left-leaning blogs because I simply don't have the time to peruse all the news that comes out to find the stuff that's of interest to me, but I don't take anything there particularly seriously unless it comes from the New York Times or something. (Although of course, there are people who will argue that the New York Times has its own agenda too, but screw that).
...so you don't wish to look at things which may contradict your views?Yes, Raistlin, I did completely miss it because I don't go around looking for things to completely debase Michael Moore's movies. According to that site, more than what I thought of his movie was made up or skewed, but it's not like I was naive enough to think they were all cold, hard facts. Still, his points about the United States media thriving on fear and effecting the people, Canada having less gun deaths, and so on are still legitimate. So other countries have stricter gun laws. Maybe that's more important than anything else in the movie, and it's not even heavily discussed--why don't we have stricter gun laws? I sure as hell wish we did.Did you miss completely miss this?
Michael Moore is just as bad as Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and all the other conservative nutjobs.
The only liberal nutjob that I like is Al Franken, because he's actually funny.
For those of you who say you find it amusing how the "right-wings blow up" everytime he's mentioned...how about how the liberals blow up everytime Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter are mentioned?
They're all idiots.
On a side note, I just bought Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them" and plan on reading it soon.
Of course the media thrives on bad stuff. The conservative media thrives on terrorism and various religious crap (the predominant emotion is fear), and the liberal media thrives on conspiracy theories and enviromental crap (the predominant emotion is anger). Neither of these are level-headed.
Also, they may have less gun-deaths (because, holy crap, they have less guns), but how about overall homicides? You're no less dead if the killer uses a knife.
Al Franken, also, is great. You should also get Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, I think it's called. It's pretty funny.
Of course, much of the stuff in Lies, and the Lying Liars who Tell Them are really misleading (especially about taxes), but most of the crap in that book and his first one (the aforementioned one about Rush) about the right-wing idiots are true. Also, one of his statements about the Homeland Security Act is misleading to the point of being completely false. I was intrigued enough by it to actually look it up (because if it was true, it was a "holy" statement), but it's not. But you'll see for yourself.
But you can't make fun of the right-wing idiots unless you also recognize the left-wing ones. Such as Moore.
I'm under the impression that Moore is just as nuts as Coulter, he's just going the route of playing the sad-for-the-world martyr, while Coulter plays the look-at-me-say-crazy-
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