FAHRENHEIT 9/11

[lester]

guess you really couldn't face any of my points.  Anyway you say if we hadn't taken out saddam he may have dropped nukes on us.  Well, now that we have taken him out we have more terrorists who are more inclined to do just that.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the next terrorist attack on our soil is in retaliation for the iraq war.

[Acidburn]

Ummm, what points was that.   I will gladly  give you my oppinions on any points you may have tried to make.  Sorry I must have just missed them.

[mr. henry]

moore admits to being a propagandist. i only hope people that go to his film are aware of that.

take the scene where he is confronting congressmen to sign up their children for war. 1. you can't sign someone up. and second, moore says "not one congressman agreed." do you really think he stood around and asked every single congressman the question. if i was a congressman, i'd avoid moore like the plague no matter what my political stance would be. no telling what sound bite he'd use to his advantage.

[Dave Munger]

The congressman he was confronting told him that his son is a soldier in either Iraq or Afghanistan at the moment. Moore cut his reply out of the movie, and shows it as if the guy refused to answer him.

[Kate Webster]

I agree that Michael Moore wouldn't put this film out there if his facts weren't in order. Even though I haven't seen his Columbine film, I would ask you to consider (and I should find out myself) how factual that documentary was because that could be an indication of how factual we could expect Fahrenheit 9/11 to be. As for me, even if there was a little spinning, I found Fahrenheit 9/11 to be as factual as watching CNN or Fox News. Afterall, who doesn't spin a little? And if it is true that Bush spun a whole war in Iraq into existence in the first place, then Moore should be credited for being the first to put it out there so eloquently.

I am a Protestant Christian who voted for Bush in good faith--not because I followed politics all that closely. I even willingly supported Bush's decision to invade Iraq right up until I sat down in the theater tonight and began watching 9/11. I applaud Michael Moore for his effort in revealing this other side of Bush and his presidency that I had not been privvy to.

You may be intrigued to know that I've been extremely anti-Clinton ever since the Lewinsky scandal broke. Interestingly, one of the reactions I had to this film was that yes, Clinton was selfish and screwed up, but at least no one (other than Monica, his family and some other people in politics) was hurt physically. I am appalled actually, that Bush, Cheney and the rest of them would compromise their duty to protect our nation to such an extent. And for what? Financial gain? That's the height of selfishness, and even more so at a time like this when innocent people are dying!

One of the theories this whole time has been that the Iraqi invasion was all about oil. When I think of it now, probably a lot of the people who said this were just as ignorant about politics as I, with the exception that they were sitting on the other side of the fence. Well, now I admit that to an extent, I believe they were right. So, until someone can convince me otherwise, I thank you, Michael Moore, for sharing your insight with the world and for changing my views on Bush and war.

[dean]

What is the matter with all you people?  

Everyone is just as bad as bickering politicians!!

I am definitley not a Bush supporter, I loathe the current state of world politics, and my personal stance on Iraq is that it's too late to b***h about what should have happened, and move on to fixing the mess the world is in PROPERLY!  Yet I also don't think that Moore is in any way an accurate 'documentary' maker.

I'm not stupid enough to take Moore's 9/11 on face value alone, but I do think that it will raise, at least, some interesting points.

What really annoys me is many of you seem to be confused over why there was a war in Iraq.

I can't speak specifically for the US, but the main reason here in Australia was the WMD issue, and that Saddam appeared to be an immediate threat.  We were seemingly led to believe that a war in Iraq was an urgent matter.  It was only after there was no brilliant discovery of WMDs that people started talking about liberating the Iraqi's as a major reason.

Whilst Saddam was almost definitely a threat, he wasn't an immediate one, and as of yet, no real evidence of WMDs were found [a few cannisters don't really count as much in my eyes].  This, in my opinion doesn't justify going to war, one that btw has definitley polarised global opinion against the US.  Sensationalising and dramatising a situation to suit your political aims seems to be very wrong.

This doesn't mean that war should never have happened, given proper planning a realistic approach, and the complete collapse of any other peaceful options, war would have been more justified.  It's just that violence is something that spreads, and should be used as a last resort, not a first or a second.  It doesn't solve long term problems, and I don't see what the Bush administration really expected from this.

Also, as a final point, everyone, get your facts straight before going on rants, and that goes for all bush-haters too.  It seems that everyone jumps on the 'hate Bush' bandwagon with only, as previously mentioned earlier, second hand opinions.


Arghh, as much as I love good political debates, I do get a headache from trying to understand why some people can be so ignorant, on either side of the debate.

Please, we are all [hopefully] good people, I don't see why we can't all get along and start talking about viable options available to the US, and ideas/theories to do with stopping ongoing Terrorist threats [to anyone, not just the US.]

Either that or just go back to the bad movies.  Maybe someone can make a b-movie about the state of world politics, and how stupid the whole situation is!

[AndyC]

Kate Webster wrote:
> I agree that Michael Moore wouldn't put this film out there if
> his facts weren't in order.

As a journalist myself, I can tell you that this assumption is one of the biggest mistakes people make. There is no law requiring anyone to present all the facts, give complete quotes, or present everything in context. There is nothing requiring you to make sure people understand the issue or the reason something was done, and nothing preventing you from exploiting ignorance. An unscrupulous reporter can twist things a lot without committing libel. It's even possible to make out-and-out false accusations, provided you word them carefully.

I've seen another paper (a disgrace to the industry) do this to a mayor, partly for their own gain and partly out of personal dislike. They regularly ignored his successes while getting as much mileage as possible out of anything with potentially negative connotations. I'll give you one example out of many.

The municipality needed a specialized piece of road equipment. Only one company makes it, and the authorized dealer for this part of the country is the mayor. Thus, no competing bids could be obtained. Just the same, he quoted them a reduced price. He declared a conflict of interest and removed himself from the meeting during the discussion and vote.

My story explained all of this. The story in the other paper was different. It was about how the municipality bought a $15,000 grading compactor from the mayor's company without tendering. They got some comments from a councillor who didn't like the mayor, and generally always opposes spending money. They called the mayor (coincidentally while I was interviewing him in his office), with a lot of loaded questions, which he refused to answer because they would never quote him in full or present his comments in context. So they said he had "no comment."

This was accompanied by an editorial that made no direct accusations, but posed a lot of questions (that would be answered if they'd printed all the facts), and suggested that people should be very concerned. There was also an editorial cartoon. In these, the mayor was always drawn in a Boss Hogg suit, which says all kinds of things without actually saying them.

The controversy was entirely a fabrication, but there was no libel. Quite a few people believed it, because "they wouldn't be allowed to print it if it wasn't true." This sort of thing went on for a couple of years, and did real damage, not just to the mayor's reputation, but also to the municipality and the community.

This is the same kind of yellow journalism that Michael Moore practices, and he should be ashamed of himself. The purpose of journalism and documentary filmmaking should be to inform, and to help people understand, so they can form their own opinions based on the facts. To me, it's inexcusable to exploit ignorance, and present just enough carefully selected evidence to advance your own point of view. Moore is an unethical scumbag.



Post Edited (07-12-04 11:11)

[lester1/2jr]

that mans NEPHEW was in Iraq, not son.  YOU'RE response shows YOU are a propagandist willing to twist the truth to suit your pusposes.

[K-Sonic]

After reading this post, I do believe the world is coming to an end....

The film should provoke you to find the facts. Maybe these links can help you do some research. Just cut and paste in your address bar and read away....

http://www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_the_record/

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/apps/custom/cap/findorg.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=45294

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=64326

http://www.accuracy.org/KM072103.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=116445

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=42263

[Dave Munger]

>that mans NEPHEW was in Iraq, not son. YOU'RE response shows YOU are a propagandist willing to twist the truth to suit your pusposes.

Either that or I was mistaken about something easily corrected, in a place in which I could be certain to be called on it if I were to lie, and in a way that does not suit my purposes. My truth twisting propaganda is located here: http://davemunger.blogspot.com

[The Burgomaster]

There is no documentary in the history of filmmaking (nor will there EVER be) that is truly unbiased.  Documentary filmmakers may shoot hundreds of hours of film and edit them down to 90 or 120 minutes.  The act of editing means that the filmmaker made a CHOICE about what to include and what to exclude.  Give two people the same pile of unedited film, and they will edit them into two completely different documentaries.  You can go back even further, because BEFORE the editing, the filmmakers had to decide WHO to interview and WHAT QUESTIONS to ask.  Also, WHERE to conduct the interviews (an interview conducted in someone's living room beside a fireplace will have a far different tone from the same interview conducted in front of a burning building, an erupting volcano, a riot, etc).  Plus, the script for the voiceover narration certainly has a lot to do with the message of the film.  So, even though some documentaries try to show both sides of a story, the opinions of the filmmakers are in there somewhere.  However, Michael Moore's style is much more obvious than most others.

[cody f]

sound like a good movie but nothing tops of house of 1000 corpses!

[Acidburn]

Alright man we get, you liked 1000 corpses.  Sheesh

[AndyC]

Agreed that personal biases will always creep in, in spite of the best intentions. Hard to really care about an issue and still remain impartial. The important thing is to make the effort. And to deliberately skew the facts toward a desired conclusion is just plain wrong.

There's a huge difference between a little unconscious bias and deliberately misleading people with half-truths.

[K-Sonic]

http://www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_the_record/

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/apps/custom/cap/findorg.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=45294

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=64326

http://www.accuracy.org/KM072103.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=116445

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=42263