Cannes' Palme d'Or goes to Michael Moore 1856
An anonymous reader writes "The Palme d'Or of the Festival de Cannes was presented this year by Charlize Theron to Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore. I don't know if it's the first time this prize is awarded to a documentary, but I guess it's rare enough to be mentioned, especially given the problems this film encounters."
Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
His movies would be more credible if he didn't try to present them as documentaries. They're not documentaries. They're commentaries.
Nothing wrong with that at all, but let's just be clear about it. Up front.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Watching History Channel in Istanbul, sometimes it amazes me. You know what I mean...
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Ryan Fenton
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-B
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Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Even though I feel CNN is slanted to the left, I normally read CNN.com. However, with all the jokes pouring in about FOX News, I decided to start reading their news articles. I have yet to find a news article or see a news cast from them that appears biased. Can you please locate a biased news article and point it out to me?
They have biased commentary shows on FOX, no question. The no-spin-zone my ass. But all the NEWS I have seen and read from them has been spot on.
Now let's talk about bias. When the story broke about the bomb going off that was hooked up to a sarin gas shell (Sarin is a nerve agent, a weapon of mass destruction), for that day and the next, you could find no news story on CNN.com about it. Not one. It was covered on FOX News and MSNBC's websites. Nothing on cnn.com. On the third day, I did manage to find an article that was discussing something else about the war, and at the bottom it mentioned the sarin bomb found.
I wonder why that is.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't talk for the NYTimes, but I'm confident that the BBC has never attempted to assert its right to distort stories or to transmit outright lies. Why don't you read my response and then respond again?
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Tee hee!
What do you mean, you were serious?! How could you? What?
Ever heard of a man named Andrew Gilligan? The Hutton Report? The whole thing was a cut-and-dried case of the BBC asserting its right to distort stories and transmit outright lies. And it's far from the only example.
Having said that, the Beeb is pretty good when compared to ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, much less the print media - NYT and Jayson Blair, for example, or the hopelessly biased French and German press, or Reuters, or...
FOX is the least of the problem. Yeah, they're biased, but they don't pretend otherwise.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll take honest bias over fake integrity any day.
I liked "Bowling for Columbine," but I understood it to be an indictment of the U.S. media -- especially local TV. Broadcast news in this country is in the business of selling fear and creating opinion. Period. Moore himself, in Columbine, noted that guns couldn't be the problem, and gun ownership couldn't be the problem, as other countries not only allow gun ownership, but have higher rates of gun ownership than the U.S. -- but they also have less gun-related crime. Canada, for example. But Canada also doesn't have the indefensible cesspit that is the U.S. broadcast media establishment. Just watch your "local news" sometime. It is sickening.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
I have seen several stories about WMD being found in Iraq since the war began (or ended if you like sticking your head in the ground)and so far not one has turned out to be actual WMD. Still these stories played prominantly on the 24 hour news cycle. Invariably, several days later, the true identitiy [rense.com] of the "WMD" is found and oubviously not as widely publicized, especially on fox. Ever since the WMD mobile lab with canvas sides (that sounds like a sterile environment) which was paraded around as "proof" of WMD, I have taken every such story with a large grain of salt. Especially when it comes from fox. WOLF!
I can't say for sure that this "sarin" is not real, but I can say that so far 100% of the WMD news stories have been fabrications by either the government [go.com] or the "news" [foxnews.com] media.
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Turns up numerous pages with examples of Fox bias.
The classsic:
http://www.fair.org/extra/0108/fox-main.html [fair.org]
More current:
http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/foxbias.htm [oreilly-sucks.com]
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
"80% of misinformed Americans get thier information from FOX news" [64.233.161.104] (Link to Google cache of same article, since the original seems to randomly require registration...)
Political bias is a matter of debate, but they certaintly don't seem to be "fair and balanced" do they?
=Smidge=
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
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"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to a greater danger. It works the same in any country."
Scary stuff, and oh so real. Even in modern-day USA.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
You may want to read:
Michael Moore responds to the wacko attackos [michaelmoore.com], in which he debunks most of this nonsense.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, I don't even have a suggestion as to how to work around this issue. I think that's exactly the goal of the division, too. Get people so bogged down in shouting people down for being "red" or "blue" without ever touching a real issue. Very clever of them, isn't it?
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
But this movie is not being censored by those in power (which in the US are the oil billionairs and the two media conglomerates) because it is a commedy but because it raises valid issues that threaten them and are hard to counter. The truth about the republican party's ties with terrorists is embarrasing and in retrospect even more foolish than it was then. But it is the truth that Donald Rumsfeld was personally involved in making sure Saddam Hussein gained access to US produced WMDs (which is why he was so sure Iraq had them). Also during that time, US money flowed to such noble characters as Bin Laden. In fact Rumsfelds career started with his political involvement during the Vietnam war (another of the US long list of military triomfs). Very embarrasing indeed and well known & documented. We don't need Micheal Moore to prove these points but just to bring them to the attention to those who need to decide on the political future of the politicians involved. And that is why he is being censored. This message is exremely dangerous to Bush and his associates.
Bush needs stupid, misinformed, ignorant fools to vote for him. There are plenty of those left in the US so IMHO he shouldn't be worried, yet. Despite massive evidence to the contrary there is still some 40% of the electorate who figures that this Bush character is doing a fine job. Witness the power of the media.
Re:Documentary? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fiction presented as fact, eh? Sounds like libel to me. I wonder why the NRA haven't sued yet? I mean, you make it sound like an open and shut case, right?
Nope, Moore tells the truth. He presents it in a very biased way, and completely ignores any facts that don't agree with his thesis, but the things he does present are facts. They have to be, or he'd be spending the next couple of years in court.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Funny)
Coffee helps
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Um. Ok, assuming you're correct, where is the hypocrisy in that?
Shouldn't the President of the United States be expected to hold the truth in a higher regard than a filmmaker?
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Saddam was well contained did not pose any imminent thread and held in contempt by Islamists for being secular.
The strategists of this Iraq war were dreaming of starting a chain reaction of political change in the Middle East. They may get their wish fulfilled. The irony is that even if those countries were to switch to a full blown democracy the first fair election would almost always bring fundamentalists into power (as has happened when Algeria experimented with democracy a decade ago).
This administration played with fire when invading Iraq. The odds were always against them and they played their hand so badly the situation is almost beyond salvaging.
In all fairness I think Bush should be reelected because it'll be a terrible burden for any other administration to have to deal with the inherited mess of Bush's making.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean when he disregarded CIA reports filled with caveats, taking passages that only supported his side and were convenient for his case, and discarding the doubts that CIA officials had? Or when he disregarded the findings of weapons inspectors made since the 1990's? Or when he refused to listen to the "yellowcake uranium" claim being disproven? Heck, I knew about that disproof in late 2002, it made some headlines in anti-war sites.
"...while Sadam was busy doing everything in his power to convince the world he had something to hide from the inspectors?"
Didn't Saddam turn over something like 13,000 pages of documents? Didn't he cave in and allow UN inspectors anywhere in Iraq?
It boils down to this, Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney declared that Iraq was an "imminent threat" and tried to link it to Al Qaeda. Both turned out to be false. In addition, they had claims that they knew were the WMDs were. "We know where they are" one said, indicating that they knew exactly where they were stored. Even Colin Powell's UN speech seemed to sure, but it all turned out to be completely false, and none of it has been substantiated since.
"The world is now ALSO on notice that the US does its flat-out damdest to avoid suppressing others religions and culture"
Then you haven't been paying attention. The US promotes General Jerry Boykin, the general who goes to a church and tells the people that Muslims worship an idol and not a real god? Mr Grainer, the guy who tortured Iraqis in Abu Ghraib, beats the people until they curse Allah and Islam? The US is doing military incursions into Karbala and Najaf, some of the holiest cities to the Shiites? They knocked down a minaret, flattened half of a sacred mosque, and put bullet holes into the dome of the Imam Ali mosque (which is really frightening to all Shiites worldwide).
"Now that the remaining anti-western forces in Iraq have ACCIDENTALLY set off a nerve-gas shell randomly drawn from an Iraqui arms cache, thinking it was an explosive shell, do you STILL believe that all the WMDs were really gone?" Two US soldiers suffered slight reactions to the gas. This was probably just an old 1980s shell of the sort used against the Kurds and Iranians, and its been suggested that many of these remain or are still operative. There are still rusty tanks rotting on the border between Iraq and Iran, it's not that hard to imagine someone could pick up a shell. The insurgents who used it may not even have known what it was. (It was not marked). A couple left-over stray such shells does not prove that there were WMD in Iraq in any signifcant sense. No doubt it will set off a frenzy among the latter-day Juan Ponce de Leones looking vainly for the Fountain of WMDs. It is virtually a non-story.
They aren't going to hate us anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at our record, in the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America. How many freely elected governments have we toppled in the last 30 years? Dozens. How many corrupt dictators have we installed? Dozens. How many evil bastards have we ignored because they were our 'friends?' Dozens again. If anyone is really misinformed enough to debate the facts on this, I'll find some links, it's not hard to do.
Fear will never solve the problem. Aggression leads to aggresion, always. That is the primary reason we still have war and the primary reason most religions teach tolerance and forgivness.
You can't bully humanity into not producing bullies.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
There wasn't much in Bowling for Columbine that could be called fiction. It was mostly speculation that America's obsessions with war, guns and violence are intertwined and aren't particularly healthy. Fact is America is one of the world's most violent developed nations. There were some specific things in it he severely stretched to make his point, not like anyone on the right would ever do that... Coulter..cough..Limbaugh..cough.
When you get to subject matter of Fahrenheit 9/11 its pretty hard for anyone to be sure of what the truth is. Moore is presenting his take on it which may or may not be accurate. One of the problems is the Bush administration has been actively classifying and suppressing just about everything about the Saudi role in 9/11 and the Bush family's excessively close ties to the Saudi's and the Bin Laden family. If you recall they blacked out the entire section on Saudi Arabia's complicity in the congressional report on 9/11 and there were a lot of pages on it. They have also aggressively suppressed all information about the fact that they let airplanes spirit members of the Bin Laden family and other unidentified Saudi's out of the U.S. right after 9/11 at a time when no American could get off the ground.
It is a simple fact that the Bush family has long running ties to people in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait including the Bin Laden family and it colors their dealings in the area, in the opinion of some it clouds their judgment. George H.W. Bush had active business dealings with them when he was at Zapata Oil. He has an active relationship with them today in his role as spokesman for the Carlysle group which is one of Saudi Arabia's major defense contractors.
To be honest I don't know how anyone continues to defend the Bush family especially the current administration. All indications are that they were completely had by Iran, who through Ahmed Chalibi suckered [newsday.com] them in to invading Iraq which is now doing massive damage to America's standing in the world, is making the world more dangerous and is costing the U.S. dearly in blood and money. THe Truth about Chalibi [counterpunch.org].
How do you keep supporting an administration dumb enough to be had by the Iranian's. What are you going to say when the Shia's take power in Iraq as soon as they get a fair election and Iraq turns into an Iranian influenced theocracy and all of America's sacrifice was for worse than nothing.
At LSU commencement Bush joked about being a "C" student. He is proof anyone can be President in America, even someone as intellectually challenged as he is, of course it helps to be from a wealthy and influential family so you can get elected on name only. Bush is great on rhetoric but he simply lacks the intellectual depth to make good decisions when it comes to the enormously complex areas like foreign affairs and economics. The fact that his administration was had by Iran is a case in point. It was his job to take Chalibi skepticially especially considering a long string of red flags about his ethics and motives, but he, Cheney, Perl and Wolfowitz fell for it hook, line and sinker and its costing the U.S. dearly.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html [hardylaw.net]
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact: The little boy was the class thug, already suspended from school for stabbing another kid with a pencil, and had fought with Kayla the day before. Since the incident, he has stabbed another child with a knife.
Fact: The uncle's house was the family business -- the neighborhood crack-house. The gun was stolen and was purchased by the uncle in exchange for drugs.The shooter's father was already serving a prison term for theft and drug offenses. A few weeks later police busted the shooter's grandmother and aunt for narcotics sales. After police hauled the family away, the neighbors applauded the officers. This was not a nice but misunderstood family.
I think Moore is a bit nutty, but this part of the critique strikes me as very disturbing on a level more fundamental than just logic and fact.
Moore's naive protrait is of a disturbed boy from a struggling family who shoots a girl without known reason. The critique is saying that the boy has a history of violence and a bad family. As if that makes elementary school murder completely understandable now?
If anything it seems that these facts greatly strengthen Moore's argument. His mother wasn't selling drugs and for her to make a clean living she couldn't be there to raise him.
Factually he is still a youngster, his family is certainly struggling, and they gave no reason for him to shoot someone other than casting him as being inherently evil. Apparently they are just saying that we shouldn't be sympathetic to the boy?
Is this not very disturbing to anyone else?
Shooting at Buell Elementary in Michigan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
Most the article is discussing issues not even raised on the page I linked [hardylaw.net]. He only addresses two issues from that page, near the end of the article.
The first is regarding the Heston/NRA speech in Colorado after columbine. I have tried to see it from his perspective has described here, but I just can't. He claims "Far from deliberately editing the film to make Heston look worse, I chose to leave most of this out and not make Heston look as evil as he actually was."
How can he think anyone that can think critically will buy this explanation?
View the speech as presented by Moore in the movie, and then read the actual speech. He's as creative as a plastic surgeon, nipping and tucking, here and there, until all meaning is replaced with Moore's agenda.
He left out the opening of his speech which explains that the NRA meeting was shortened, festivities cancelled, out of respect. Heston said, "As you know, we've canceled the festivities and fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. I apologize for that. But it's fitting and proper that we should do this
FYI, the NRA is required to hold an annual meeting, and it was decided it would be held in that location long before Columbine happened. Moore cut out this part of the speech, did not bother informing anyone of the logistics ore requirements of the NRA annual meeting, presented it almost as if the NRA decided to come there and have this fire-breathing meeting in order to piss off Columbine mourners. Moore also started out this section of film with a snippet from a speech that happened long ago, far away. The "cold, dead hands" outtake. Incidentally, that was not a fire-breathing speech about gun rights, but was Heston saying thanks for the antique, collectable gun that was just presented to him.
Anyway, the extend of this colorful editing job by Moore is covered very well in the link I provided above, and you can verify everything for yourself.
He then goes on to address the statistics game, but I don't hold much stock in the statistics presented by anyone, including Moore and the guy that wrote the page on hardylaw.net.
I did enjoy, near the end of this article, where Moore states, "I can guarantee to you, without equivocation, that every fact in my movie is true."
A mere three paragraphs later, he then states:
Well, at least he can admit when he's wrong... uhh.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me, but I still think they're selfish, self-centred and insensitive. The correct thing to do would have been to cancel, postpone or relocate. But no, they were more worried about their meeting going ahead than the feelings of those in Columbine. I couldn't give two hoots whether that would have cost them money even if they had insurance, or inconvenience them - there was only one correct thing to do, and that was not to hold that meeting in that place at that time. And yes, I was working in an office 10 miles away when the shooting occurred and know people with children in the school.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Its a relly well done movie. The scenes are trully awesome, the editing is, as far as I remember, inpecable. Those Nazis sure had a great sense of style and aesthetics.
Doesn't make me a white supremascist. And I won't attack the obvious qualities of the film because it was funded by a genocidal maniac. In fact, that gives the movie a second level, on top of the message it was meant to send, you can see that a monster painted himself as a saviour. Its a fascinating historical document and should serve to show to people that propaganda is a powerful tool indeed.
No Child Left Behind
Clean Forest Initiative
Clean Air Act
Man, those sure sound good...I wonder if there is any past document that could show me that a monster can sugarcoat his actions in a veil of grandiose benevolence...hmmm...
Lets try linking again .... duh! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
The best example of this is the Heston speech in Colorado after the Columbine shootings. How a reasonable person could look at the actual speech delivered and then what Moore did to it and not conclude this was extremely dishonest "film editing" of a documentary escapes me.
Another great example was buying ammo in the Canadian Wal-Mart. Moore wasn't just "a regular citizen", he's a regular citizen who obtained a firearms importation license in Canada. Through "regular film editing," that part was never mentioned by Moore.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
<efaust93> Bold text, refutation of previous allegation with no supporting evidence, contrarian allegation with no supporting evidence.
Welcome to the deep political commentary of slashdot! Tune in next week, when we'll discuss the 2000 election as if it were a black or white issue.
Incidentally, contrary to popular belief, Michael Moore did not miraculously appear from thin air the moment he stepped up to make his Oscar speech and hurt your feelings! He actually existed before that. In fact, he even existed during the Clinton administration. And while I wasn't following him ver closely during that time, I can tell you "Oh, you won't hear anything from moore about Comrade Clinton. He's a saint in the eyes of the left." does not appear to describe his behavior of the period at all. He seems to have criticized Clinton quite a bit. His only film without a journalistic aspect was a wag-the-dog-esque 1995 effort called "Canadian Bacon", in which a Clinton stand-in attempted to fabricate a cold war in order to rally "patriotism" and get the populace to support him blindly. He was one of the loudest voices in the whole "vote Nader, if you vote for Gore you'll be throwing your vote away, he's no better than Bush" thing. Now, he *was* among the people who refused to admit Clinton did anything wrong with the entire Monica Lewinsky scandal and refused to see the impeachment hearing as nothing but a trumped up, politically-motivated abuse of power, but that's hardly unreasonable.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
> Oh, you won't hear anything from moore about Comrade Clinton. He's a saint in the eyes of the left.
Then, you clearly haven't read Stupid White Men.
Unfortunately Amazon won't let us search inside of that book.
But from Dude, Where's My Country:
p27: "During one of their visits there, in May 1998, two Taliban members-this time in the U.S. sponsored by Clinton's State Department-took in some more sites"
Backmatter: "If you'd like to know more about the forty-seven people President Clinton had 'killed,' simply check your favorite Internet search engine and type in the words, 'Clinton Body Count.'"
There's more in Stupid White Men.
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a quote from his website:
"Fahrenheit 9/11 is the first documentary to win the Palme since Jacques Cousteau's "The Silent World" in 1956."
Hmmm... next.
WRONG! not informative at all (Score:5, Informative)
Mockmentaries refers to those scripted comedy films that take documentary style (handheld, talking-head interviews, bad lighting/framing). Many of Christopher Guest [imdb.com]'s films are good examples:
Spinal Tap [imdb.com]
Waiting for Guffman [imdb.com]
" A Mighty Wind" [imdb.com]
See the difference. These are all staged and scripted(act/performance). Moore's films are anything but mockumentaries. They are neither staged nor scripted!!! (except for narrations, which is necessary)
The parent post is rated completely wrong and/or overrated. I can't belive that people are swallowing this horse sh*t without a doubt...
Re:Documentary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Current
- Cannes' Palme d'Or goes to Michael Moore - 264 comments
- Finally Geeks Available in Action Figure Form - 86 comments (posted 40 minutes earlier)
- What To Wear On Mars - 61 comments (posted 90 minutes earlier)
- Microchips to Save Peru's Alpacas - 58 comments (posted 315 minutes earlier)
It certainly interests enough people, although maybe it is just a slow day today.This deserves much more interest than you think (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really an important move from Cannes, the cinema culture, or the society in general.
Even Moore said "Jesus, what have you done ?" to the Jury when he came to receive his prize.
Cannes, the most pedantic cinema club, gave the Palme to a movie that is mostly a work made to make sure Bush won't be president anymore.
This is one of the most important socio-political event this year !
Just like you do? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean just like you selectively choose comments to illustrate YOUR extreme anti-moore views? How about this line from the Washington Post?
What's remarkable here isn't Moore's political animosity or ticklish wit. It's the well-argued, heartfelt power of his persuasion. Even though there are many things here that we have already learned, Moore puts it all together.
Its real easy to point fingers, isn't it?
Lucky Bastard (Score:5, Funny)
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
> I haven't seen the thing and I am sure it is politically biased, but certainly I would like to make that determination myself rather then seeing Buena Vista kiss presidential ass and decide that it is not gonna distribute it for fear of losing tax breaks in Florida...
Disney's veto of the Miramax distribution has probably made it 10x the political bombshell it would have been otherwise.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
As Michael Eisner has said before, we are a company that is founded on ideals of the American family backbone...
What utter crap. Kill Bill was a Disney film. What family ideals does Kill Bill espouse? You've been hoodwinked, boy.
Predictable (Score:5, Funny)
1. Steal underpants.
2. Paint anti-bush slogan on underpants, sell to Hollywood/Indie industry.
3. Profit!
before somebody asks... (Score:5, Informative)
Art OR politics (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Art OR politics (Score:4, Insightful)
And maybe Jimmy Carter won the Nobel on the basis of his Habitat for Humanity and election work throughout the world.
Problem is that I'm not sure if you're kidding or not. I think you're being facetious...
I'm a big fan of science fiction; detractors of SF always say that the ideological elements are too raw, too much on the surface. But it is precisely because of this that I enjoy it so. When China was perceived as a threat there was a huge upsurge in the number of "hive mind" bad guys in SF. "Enemy Mind" looked at the same issues as a recent winner that talked of two enemy combatants in the Middle East that were thrown together. The rawness is, in an odd sort of way, reminiscent of Kafka's "Metamorphosis".
But on to documentaries... The party line is that Moore is full of falsehoods and is creative with the truth. Hmm. So are the administration's recent Medicare ads (the ones which the GAO decided were illegal). I want to see this movie. I want to see "Passion of the Christ". I want more coffee. It's probably time for some. I'm just rambling anyway. I think my foot is asleep.
What a bunch of pussy footers (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck that. Until the rest of the 150 million or so people who haven't been utterly brainwashed by this administration find the gonads to say something more than, "But, he has no exit plan..", Moore is the mouthpiece of the home of the brave, as far as I'm concerned.
Re:What a bunch of pussy footers (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't live in the US, so i can verify his claims. From what i read and hear, however, it does seem that criticism against Bush is generally regarded as not a wise move, and is to be avoided.
So, saying that Moore's works are not documentaries is not really a revelation that 'uncovers his true face', since he himself admits that there are flaws in his works.
Re:What a bunch of pussy footers (Score:5, Insightful)
I found that there is a culture of intimidation in the US (where I currently live again). A colleague of mine actually told me that she is afraid to show her political leanings because she knows that her boss doesn't share them and she's afraid that she wouldn't get a promotion if he knew. I never heart a similar sentiment expressed to me in Germany. Back there it was perfectly normal to strike up a conversation about politics at the office e.g. at your lunch break.
In Corporate America more often then not policies discourage the employees to discuss such controversial topics.
Democracy can not work without public discourse. I think this is actually the underlying reason why the democractic processes are so broken in the US - people in this country do not talk about political topics any more because they are afraid they may offend somebody and fear the repercussions.
More info (Score:5, Informative)
Michael Moore [wikipedia.org]
In particular,
Message or Money? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm personally not a fan of Michael Moore at all, but I will give Moore a lot of credit if he does what seems to be the best option right now: release the movie online, for free. If he does that, he shows that he isn't being a hypocritical war profiteer - he cares more about people hearing the message than the paycheck.
The petition to release the movie is here [moorewatch.com].
Not Moore's to distribute (Score:4, Informative)
While it's made by Moore's company, Dog Eat Dog Productions, the actual copyright resides with Miramax who are effectively paying Moore to produce a film for them.
Michael Moore is a bigmouthed troublemaker.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Michael Moore is a bigmouthed troublemaker.... (Score:5, Funny)
That's right, citizens! If you aren't able and willing to quit your life-long chosen career and devote the next 20-30 years to building up political capital for a presidential run, you have NO RIGHT TO CRITICIZE OUR DEAR LEADER BUSH! So shut up, pay your taxes, vote the way we tell you to vote, and let Dubya's grand vision for world peace, democracy, and unlimited oil unfold!
What does it all mean, Alfred? (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people claimed that movie was very anti-gun, but it was hard for me to conclude that. I'm basically kind of neutral on guns, and I didn't feel like the movie really said anything one way or the other on that part of it. I think it did try to make the point that Americans were too violent, even fond of violence, and that guns allow for more serious consequences, but I think we all know that. He clearly didn't like the NRA's political activism, but he didn't really go after the Second Amendment. At least I didn't notice it, and I certainly should have. (I think the Second Amendment was exactly what the Civil War was about--and it lost. Thanks and a tip of the hat to that great Republican Abraham Lincoln.)
It's going to be interesting to see how BushCo tries to spin their way out of this one. It sounds like he's just collected the facts and shown them in an ugly light--but very artistically. Dubya was probably not amused. Maybe it contributed to his little accident over the weekend? If so, BushCo better watch out for the klutz label. It certainly didn't help Ford in his campaign. (Interestingly enough, I never bought it at the time, and still don't. I don't know how a couple of clumsy stumbles got taken so far out of proportion.)
The Tarantino connection... (Score:4, Interesting)
NY Times - June 17, 2000 (Score:5, Informative)
A few years ago, Moore had an ex-employee arrested, when said employee tried to get an interview with him.
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/regio nal/061700ny-col-tierney.html [nytimes.com]
Why Michael Moore is important (Score:5, Insightful)
I have seen all his movies and some parts I think are incredibly illuminating and others are obviously embellished or distorted, but one thing is for sure: Debate on these issues is productive and there aren't enough outlets for the types of messages he's promoting in our media today, and even if you don't like what he stands for, it's probably incredibly important, even if you disagree with him, that you support his right to express himself. That you recognize that he is passionate about what he believes in and shouldn't be cut down by pedantic, ignorant, sweeping judgements. Otherwise, you will inevitably find at some point, you'll be in his situation as well.
The fact of the matter is that Moore documents his work exponentially better than his ideological rivals in most cases. His underdog status necessitates this, and that's good for everybody. It's also worth noting that the majority of Moore's critics prefer to criticize Moore, the fallible, sometimes-inconsistent MAN (as if any of us are standards by which others should be judged), and completely disregard his work and the issues he raises.
To dismiss him is to bury your head in the sand whether you agree with his agenda or not.
Taken from TheOnion.com (Score:5, Funny)
Moore's prominent presence in the news brings to light some serious questions, such as 'Can't he at least try to look presentable?
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
Re:Some questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some questions (Score:5, Informative)
Staged in what way? Michael Moore writes on his site that the bank was indeed a licensed arms dealer, and had all the necessaries on-site to do background-checks and issue firearms.
Moore also claims that the only prior arrangement with the bank was phoning to ask permission to film. Do you have anything to suggest it wasn't so? From what I understand, you're saying that the bank was somehow used as a film-set, where they convinced the people in the bank to do something highly irregular (if they normally give a voucher, why would they hand over a weapon on-site) just because Moore asks them to?
Now, most of the documentation about that film is fairly clear and easy to read, and I didn't notice anything suspicious about it. So it will take more than a claim of "but it was staged" if your ideas are to carry more weight than the film-maker involved. Perhaps some evidence would be a good start?
Re:Some questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Any website which needs to mock the physical appearance of someone to make a point shouldn't really be trusted.
Documentaries (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have to do a damn thing to verify his movie - I just sit back and see who sues him. I mean, the gun lobby alone is very, very large, and determined... if there was a single thing in Bowling that could even be remotely picked apart by a lawyer, it would happen. But it hasn't.
By the way, I'd like to make another point to the Slashdot crowd at large - Documentaries are NOT supposed to be "objective". News reporting is supposed to be objective. You have never, ever seen an 'objective' documentary that wasn't trying to inform you of some plight, or problem, or point of view. Ever.
Re:Documentaries (Score:4, Insightful)
Ummm, that's complete bullshit.
A real documentary is supposed to DOCUMENT something. In fact, here's the definition from dictionary.com:
Documentary: "Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter."
I have seen PLENTY of real documentaries. Turn to the discovery channel or PBS and you're likely to find one right now.
Re:Some questions (Score:5, Insightful)
As a non-US citizen I even have to wonder what people in the states gets so worked up over in the first place, he's just a reporter who wants to illuminate problems in the society and he happens to have a real knack for storytelling and presentation.
But maby it's just that truth hurts...
/greger
Re:Some questions (Score:5, Insightful)
in fact in one interview his main complaint was that a lot of the stuff in f.9/11 which people say is "new" is not new at all - he just asked around to find it. essentially he said, "i'm just a schmuck who only graduated from high school with no training in journalism - how is it that i found this stuff and "real" journalists didn't?"
as a person who has followed tech "journalism" for years, i can actually answer his question. but like him, i don't much like the answer.
Re:As Much As I Agree (Score:5, Interesting)
It's probably not even the message on it's own that won it for him. Rather, Disney's unwillingness to distribute the film with that message.
Re:As Much As I Agree (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As Much As I Agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As Much As I Agree (Score:4, Insightful)
moron.
Re:As Much As I Agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that sounds like WMD and Iraq.
Re:As Much As I Agree (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Second documentary (Score:5, Informative)
List of winners 1946-2004 [listsofbests.com]
Re:Second documentary (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I know. Here goes my karma bonus. Well, I won't post it as an AC.
Re:which was actually a Documentary (Score:4, Insightful)
Both only show you what they wanted you to see, one wanted you to see a beautifull ocean and a story about great explorers on a great ship... the other wanted you to see a bad Bush & co.
Jeroen
Re:More of the same? (Score:5, Funny)
Guns are good. The more, and the bigger, the better.
Corporate dominance of the working class is good, more is better. Besides, one day, I'll be rich too, so screw 'em!
Invasion of other nations (the biggest guns under corporate dominance) is the ultimate expression of what America is all about.
How dare anyone attempt to question any of this, let alone try to allow access to another's opinion?
Moore must be lying anyway, because he's kind of fat and sloppy.
Me? I'm embracing my inner reptile.
I believe everything the neocon media feeds me without question. It's so much easier that way.
Go team Bush! Go USA!
Give me a break... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, as much as I like Stern, he only is qualified to discuss the proper techniques for tossing bologna at a stripper's butt. His political views are based on whatever pads his pocketbook.
Second, there is not an active "campaign" to censor or quiet Michael Moore -- or at least I didn't get the e-mail or fax. He could only wish that the US Government would try to censor him. It would be even more $$$ in his pocket. Moore and his slavish followers claim that disagreeing with him is the same as trying to silence him.As a part of my civil liberties, I have the freedom to not pay to watch his "documentaries", buy his books, view his TV shows or wear his t-shirts. Or do I have to spend my money supporting the companies that support him. That's not an effort to quiet him, its an effort to make sure my money doesn't make it into his pocket. He is already a rich, union busting fat cat.
The liberals in this country want open and free discussion.
As long as you ignore all the campaigns against Fox News and talk radio hosts plus speech codes on college campuses, I would agree.
Re:Censorship... (Score:5, Insightful)
The film is obviously already produced and they are ordering a company they bought to not distribute it. Their decision is motivated by political pressure, and they are willing to abandon profit in order to appease their Bush overlords (Jeb and Dubya).
a private company should not be able to pick and chose what it stands behind
Miramax picked it, Buena Vista, who bought Miramax some time ago, told 'em no.
I wonder what the shareholders will think of this. They invested in a company who decides to refuse profits, that isn't kosher. Of course, Eisner might be doing the only profitable thing: Protecting the theme park tax credits, in which case this is an instance of political censorship.
Either way, it is censorship, because no matter what your deficient education led you to believe, censorship is not something that only governments can do, nor is it only evil when governments do it.
Re:Some factual errors yes, but overall quite good (Score:4, Insightful)
I appreciate that he tries to give us an angle which is different from what the corporate media present to the average US citizen (and the world at large), but using Milosevic-era Serbian TV footage to shed light on the Balkan conflict is a bit like using WWII Nazi footage to shed light on the holocaust.
Michael Moore is a populist. That said, his sources and conclusions are often more reliable than those of the mainstream media, so his work is important. Just keep a healthy distance and don't accept everything he says as gospel. I'm sure he doesn't want you to either.
Re:Some factual errors yes, but overall quite good (Score:5, Insightful)
The last time I saw someone accuse Chomsky of not having a solid ground for his evidence (during a talk at the JFK school of government, video is online, and highly recommended) Chomsky came back with the exact quoation.
Very embarassing for the accuser
When he does talks, you will notice that he has a small piece of paper with his references to back up his assertions.
That being said, I would agree that Moore's books are easier to crunch through than Noam's.
My personal favorite Noam book (because its easier to digest, its a set of interviews) is called `Understanding Power', is a book that you can pick at any point.
Miguel.
Re:This is not "News for Nerds" (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Riefenstahl made films that glorified Nazism. Among other things, Nazism was responsible for mass murder on an industrial scale and attacking most of Western Europe. I'd be interested to hear which group that Moore glorifies has done anything on that scale?
Abu Ghraib and Cannes (Score:5, Interesting)
InstaPundit.com [instapundit.com] has been posting links to other prison abuse stories. For some reason, these aren't getting as much attention in the mainstream media ("all Abu Ghraib, all the time").
Maybe the French, Germans, Arabs, public employees unions, California Attorney General, and their apologists should take note.
May 22, 2004
PRISON MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS AND A DYSFUNCTIONAL CULTURE OF ABUSE in the California prison guards' union [reason.com].
posted at 03:53 PM by Glenn Reynolds
May 21, 2004
SOMEONE TELL 60 MINUTES about this secret underground prison [blogspot.com]:
'It starts off by being stripped naked in front of 10 police officers including two women, gratutious humiliation is used to break you down.' '... worst jail that you can possibly imagine.' 'Not even a hole to go to the bathroom. You have to piss against a wall and you sleep in piss on the concrete floor.' The torture victim demands 'the immediate shutdown of this secret underground prison'. It's not at Abu Ghraib, it's in Marseille, France.
No doubt Ted Kennedy will be condemning it soon.
posted at 07:41 PM by Glenn Reynolds
May 21, 2004
MORE STORIES OF ARAB PRISONERS BEING ABUSED [scotsman.com]:
ARAB prisoners beaten and tortured, innocent bystanders killed by gunfire - another damning human rights report.
But the difference this time is that the violence is being perpetrated not by coalition forces in Iraq, but by the Palestinian Authority, and the victims are its own people.
The report, partly funded by the Finnish government, claims Palestinian cities are in a state of near anarchy, with people on the payroll of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) blamed for 90 per cent of gangland violence.
It highlights numerous incidents of torture of prisoners and refers to the killing of civilians in gunbattles between Palestinian factions.
It is another blow for Mr Arafat's organisation, which was recently accused of misusing 134 million of European Union funds. Mr Arafat was accused of signing cheques to people linked with terrorist activity.
I'm sure Ted Kennedy will have comments.
posted at 09:55 AM by Glenn Reynolds
May 18, 2004
IRAQI EMIGRES ON ABU GHRAIB: This is interesting [news.com.au]:
Hadi Kazwini is an Iraqi engineer who moved to Australia in 1997 and lives in Sydney with his wife and three children. He is amazed at the gullibility of those Australians who have taken the Arab response to the photos at face value.
This sort of brutality goes on all the time, it is happening now in jails right through the Middle East, he says. But of course there are no photos. This is selective outrage.
Kazwini believes that the behaviour revealed by the photos is awful and the US soldiers involved should be punished. But he says some of the Iraqi prisoners shown were Saddam's killers and torturers. They have been responsible for far worse violations of human rights than the Americans.
Where is the outrage about this, he asks. I haven't seen
Re:Abu Ghraib and Cannes (Score:5, Insightful)
What was becoming known as the Iraqi Prisoner Torture Scandal is now known as the Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Scandal, or even the Iraqi Prisoner Mistreatment Scandal. The word Torture is quickly becoming the elephant in the middle of the room. We all know that those people in those photographs are being tortured. What else can one call it when a jailer pours acid on a prisoner's head?
We're all accustomed to seeing torture in movies, or on the news. But in these situations, the torturer is always an alien figure, usually over-the-top, characterized in broad strokes. The great cinematic torturers, such as Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man, or the captors in The Deer Hunter, have one thing in common: They're not Americans. The Vietnamese soldier photographed shooting his prisoner in the head: Not American. Lynndie England: American.
An American torturer is repellent, alien to our cultural mindset. We're so unaccustomed to the sight that it's doubly disgusting. The racist undercurrent of our popular media feeds back on us in this situation, and tells us that Americans, white Americans, don't do this. They're the good guys. But these soldiers are just average Joe and Jane America, and they did do this. We are they, and they are us, and that means that as a country, we are ashamed.
People in general don't deal with shame very well. We all of us, naturally, try to take shameful moments and acts and deal with them by softening the blow in our minds. One deals with the memory of keen embarrassment by finding the humor inherent in the situation. One deals with a past infidelity by rationalizing that since nobody will ever know, nobody will ever be hurt. The word adultery becomes fling, fling becomes indiscretion. These rationalized lies may even be necessary for us to move on with our lives, and not be locked into paralysis by our inability to deal with our darker natures. Certainly the press were quick to jump upon language which allowed them to lessen the shock. As anyone who's regularly read a newspaper in their lives knows, this is not something journalists are wont to do.
It is not yet time to move on. Let's at least agree in this instance to call it like it is: Torture. Americans, acting on behalf of America, tortured the hell out of these people.
Read it again. Say it out loud, hear it, listen to it, accept it. If you are a patriot, as I am, feel the way it hits your stomach and stays there, destroys your appetite, knocks down the straightness of your shoulders. Americans, acting on behalf of America, tortured the hell out of people. Don't let the words change for you, and slide the full truth of what has happened away. As one who loves this country, it's maybe too painful to look directly into the truth of this matter for too long. As one who loves this country, being seared by the shame our countrymen have brought down on us is a necessary step toward making things right. Gaze full-on into it, and let it make you humble again.
Stop your apologist comparison of the wrong thing we did in one situation to the wrong things other people do in similar situations, as if their abhorrent behavior somehow justifies or lessens the severity of our own.
Re:How is that relevant? (Score:4, Insightful)
As bad as the stuff in prison was, at least we don't resort to live decapitations, like Bergs or Pearl's in Pakistan. There's something about ANY political or religious movement that can endorse that kind of medieval behavior that's sickening, in the same way Nazism is.
Re:Cannes and Abu Ghraib (Score:5, Insightful)
1) You're so stupid you think beeing forced to walk around in female underware is the problem here? They've been routinely tortured and abused, and several of them have been murdered by american prison guards while in prison. This is not the same thing as being killed with a weapon in hand, or while attacking someone. If you think this is acceptable treatment of prisoners, why don't you move to china or something? You clearly dont belong in 'the land of the free', and neither does you current administration.
2)The people in prison where suspected terrorists/criminals. Most of them might be guilty, but I promise you, some where/are not (even your own army commanders admit this).
Next time you're unfairly put in prison, knowing it'll probably take a year before you're aquitted, remember when the guards are beating you to death that "it's ok, I am after all a suspected terrorist"
Asshole...
Re:Release it to the web! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, his message has always been "its wrong to get paid for work you did", it sure wasn't "its wrong to destroy people's lives to make more money".
He also conviently forgets about the places he's exploited, like Flynt Michigan.
And its also wrong to move.
You should never move to another town, especially not if your hometown is an economic wasteland ever since the company that employed most people moved out. Also, never ever go live near where you will find the talent you need for your company. New York is no place for a filmaker to live, Flint has plenty of cameramen and editors and everything a film company needs...
Sheesh.
Re:Moore's films are documentaries? (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, in Bowling for Columbine, Moore wasn't including the scenes about the bank that awards shotguns to its depositers as an indication of how easy it is to get a gun. He was making a point about the absurd prevalence of gun ownership in the USA. Yet at the bowlingfortruth website, their point is that he misrepresented the amount of paperwork and legal checks necessary to obtain the actual firearm.
Sorry, but that just WASN'T the point. And NRA fanatics are probably not able to grasp the point of the film because their judgement is clouded by their unwillingness for any restrictions on gun ownership. I'm not saying NRA members, mind you; I'm referring to the fanatical portion of their membership, a minority I'm sure.
So don't be afraid that your opinion of Moore will drop after visiting these sites. If you liked Moore before, you will still like him; if you hated him as a commie liberal, you'll just have some cookie cutter arguments neatly packaged for you next time someone mentions him at work.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
CLASSIC ignorant, mean-spirited response.
Don't address the issues he raises. He's FAT, therefore his work has abstolutely no integrity or relevance.
If anything, Moore is a litmus test to identify the free thinkers from the brain dead. Thank you for so efficiently demonstrating this.