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Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion 3265

Posted by CmdrTaco from the talk-amongst-yourselves dept.
xerid writes "I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night, and the theatre was packed & sold out for each showing. Today, I read on Michael Moore.com about the movie breaking records. However, what I haven't seen was coverage on Slashdot, about the movie's opening day." I saw the film on friday and was really impressed. But while it speaks much truth, and has many funny parts as well as truly heartbreaking ones, I don't know how many votes it will sway. But since there is very little other news so far today, why not talk amongst yourselves!
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Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion More

Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion

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  • Let the flamewar....COMMENCE! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Sunday June 27, 2004 @08:25AM (#9541857)
    Seriously, although I saw this movie and liked it, this is not the place to discuss it. This site is supposed to be about technology I thought. The only really interesting technical tidbit of this film was that it was, IIRC, entirely created on a mac using Final Cut pro....
    Let's get back to discussing robots and porn tech!

    • Re:Let the flamewar....COMMENCE! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 27, 2004 @08:29AM (#9541874)
      entirely created on a mac using Final Cut pro....

      Now we have two subjects for the flame war! Cool!

    • Re:Let the flamewar....COMMENCE! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 27, 2004 @08:29AM (#9541875)
      Not at all.

      This place is and always has been about "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters to CmdrTaco". He's always posted whatever's of interest to him. I see no reason this should be different.

    • Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@@@tedata...net...eg> on Sunday June 27, 2004 @08:36AM (#9541924) Journal
      I do believe that Slashdot's slogan is "News for Nerds, stuff that matters."

      Now, if you consider every single news flash regarding, oh say, SCO, more important than a movie that I believe will make a fundamental impact on the future of how politics are played out in America, the fine, avoid this thread. But personally, I think nerds should be just as educated about how their country is run politically as well as technologically.

      And besides, one of the greatest lessons to be learned from this movie (though I would have thought it would have been learned much earlier than this) is as follows: Never try and forcefully hide information from the public. The more you try and supress it, the more intreaguing it becomes and the more demand there is for it. If you really do want to hide something, try to be as discrete about it as possible.

      But as soon as Disney tried to put the movie away because of benefits they've received from the Bush family, the press pounced, and Moore had a documentary that was "scandalous", and just like Clinton has proved himself, people love a scandal (and I'm sure /.ers will as well...I'd wager this thread will get about 1200 posts...any takers?)

      • Re:Personally, I thought differently... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kristofme ( 791986 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @09:00AM (#9542118)
        Wise words: the impact of popular /. topics like SCO or software patents is minimal compared to that of the next presidential election and anything that might shape it. Not just for Nerds. Not just for the US.

      • Sports writer says: ... most powerful movie ... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @09:15AM (#9542255) Homepage

        It's not just the fact that Michael Eisner of Disney did not want Disney to distribute the film. Fahrenheit 9/11 won the highest prize, the Palm D'Or, at the recent Cannes competition! It is only the second documentary in history to do so. The film received the longest standing ovation in the history of the Cannes festival!

        This story in Fahrenheit 9/11 is relevant to Slashdot because the situation is far worse than Michael Moore says. I put together links to 2 other movies and 35 books that say there is an extremely serious problem: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government [futurepower.org]. Slashdotted? Try:
        http://www.hevanet.com/peace/usgovcorruption.htm. Michael Moore is reporting things EVERY Slashdot reader and every person in the world needs to know. It they get their way, you WILL become poorer.

        People like the movie because they like the movie! Fahrenheit 9/11 is selling out everywhere. Today in the Sports [!] section of the Kansas City Star is an example. The writer, Jason Whitlock, says:

        "Fahrenheit is the most powerful movie I've ever seen. Not even Moore's heavy-handed, pro-Democrat slant could undermine his indictment of Bush's reaction to 9/11. The movie appears to have struck a chord with American moviegoers. I spent all Friday afternoon and evening driving from North Carolina theater to North Carolina theater trying to see the movie. The showings were all sold out. I snagged one of the last tickets to a mid-day Saturday showing."

        Judging from the stories, other reactions in the U.S. are even more enthusiastic than this. A theater with 10 screens in Portland, Oregon scheduled 18 showings for today, Sunday, June 27, 2004, in reaction to the movie's popularity on Friday and Saturday.

        (Reading the Kansas City Star commentary, 'Fahrenheit' powerful, persuasive [kansascity.com], requires free registration. Be wary, the company says it will send you email, so you might give a trash email address, or use a free trash email address at Mailinator.com [mailinator.net] or DodgeIt.com [dodgeit.com]. Judging from the registration information, if you give a real postal mail address, they may send you unwanted mail, also.)

        The movie is breaking all-time theater records all over the United States.

      • The film received the longest standing ovation in the history of the Cannes festival!

        I remember once reading about a (17th century) playwright who had (proudly) measured the success of his play by the fact that four ushers had been killed at the premiere.

    • Parent is an Idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by KrisHolland ( 660643 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @08:49AM (#9542048) Homepage Journal
      "this is not the place to discuss it"

      The film is classified as a documentary. Who sees documentaries, kids? No. Nerds do.

      • Demographics (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fo0bar ( 261207 ) * on Sunday June 27, 2004 @09:43AM (#9542537)
        Who sees documentaries, kids? No. Nerds do.

        I saw a 10:30PM show friday; particularly because the 7:40PM (and all previous) shows were sold out. And you know what I noticed?

        Nearly everyone in the theater was aged 18-30, from all walks of life. The exact demographic that the issues in f9/11 affected.

        I was impressed.

    • If you think politics isn't "News for nerds. Stuff that matters" you must still have a job.

    • Re:Let the flamewar....COMMENCE! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sg3000 ( 87992 ) * <sg_public@ma c . c om> on Sunday June 27, 2004 @10:06AM (#9542735)
      > Seriously, although I saw this movie and liked it, this is not the
      > place to discuss it. This site is supposed to be about
      > technology I thought. The only really interesting technical
      > tidbit of this film was that it was, IIRC, entirely created on a
      > mac using Final Cut pro....

      On one hand, I agree with you (although my .sig might suggest otherwise). Some people take their politics very personally (making it more analogous to the support for a sports team), so the discussion can break down pretty quickly.

      However, politics certainly fits under the "stuff that matters" category. And in general, we've seen a melding of technology and politics to the point that they're quickly becoming one. Even aside from the DMCA and the RIAA trying to ruin our ability to listen to music, think about these other random connections:

      1. Microsoft hired Bush advisor Ralph Reed to lobby for them against the DOJ-Microsoft law suit. Think about how the DOJ basically dropped the entire case after the U.S. had won a judgment against Microsoft. Is this due to Microsoft's significant support for George W. Bush's campaign in 2000? Is it due to the $4.6M Microsoft it gave in political contributions in the 2000 election?

      2. Al Gore is on the board of directors for Apple? Is this just a case of the also-ran political candidate joining forces with the also-ran computer company? Steve Jobs is reportedly serving as an advisor to the Kerry campaign. Al Gore is also a technology advisor for Google.

      3. In Moore's movie, he says that Microsoft was one of the sponsoring companies for the "How to Make Money Offa Iraq" conference featured in the film.

      4. What does it mean when Bush campaign contributor and HP CEO Carly Fiorina says, "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore." Furthermore, what does it mean when it's reported (not in the U.S. press, but in the Sydney Morning Herald) that among the companies that provided Iraq in the 1990s with banned dual-purpose items is HP?

      5. What does it mean when Bush advisor and chairman of the Defense Policy Board (since resigned because conflict of interest) Richard Perle was hired by technology service provider Global Crossing to help it be acquired by a Chinese company? How about DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe own questionable dealiings with Global Crossing?

      I guess that's the ugly truth about the world today. When we were young, along with believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, we believed that technology was about building cool products and politicians were statesmen who worked for America's best interest. Part of growing up is realizing that, among other things, the world is a lot more complicated than that, and believing you can compartmentalize broad subjects like technology and politics is harder than we'd like.

      Of course, you can always choose to not read the article.

  • Longtime Michael Moore Follower (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 27, 2004 @08:35AM (#9541916)
    Before the number of comments goes through the roof, I'd like to comment on this topic from a non-political perspective.

    I first studied Michael Moore in college, in a film class, when the only major work he had done was Roger and Me. This was at it's nature a political film, but the political venom was many notches below his last two movies (Columbine and 9/11).

    The prime point that EVERYONE should remember is that Michael Moore can be used as a case study of why to be wary of 'documentaries'. His style as a director is textbook in the art of time manipulation for the purpose of making a point where one would not have existed before.

    I will provide an example: In Roger and Me, he had a clip where Ronald Reagan visited Flint Michigan, promising to bring economic properity that did not exist during the end of the 1970s. The film then explained that GM immediately closed a plant and laid off thousands of workers.

    This example implies that one led to another directly. In fact, there was a gap of 7 years between the two events; one when Reagan was a candidate in 1979...the other in 1986 when the cuts were announced.

    Just remember: he is manipulating to make a point, but to say it is true would be untrue.

    This is just one example; I'm surprised no one has written a book on Michael Moore, because there is a lot of evidence that could be covered.

    Personally, it's entertainment. If you are spending your hard earned money looking for truth or fact, please look elsewhere.
    • 'Immediately' is a matter of time scale.
      If GM had closed the plant within a year of this speech, it would have necessarily been because of President Carter's economic policies, as those things take time to implement and take effect. So, on a political time scale, almost as soon as Reagan's economic policies were fully in force, replacing Carter's, Flint experienced massive layoffs.

      The Washington D.C. state machine is rather slower than anything you could implement on a PC.

      For a person who believed Reagan's promises and bought a house, six years is barely halfway through the mortgage, and you would feel somewhat rushed as you went into bankruptcy, losing your job, sitting in an unsellable house that's half unpaid. In that perspective, it's like sitting on packed bags, as foresight would have demanded staying in rented housing without laying down roots in the community, ready to rip your kids out of school and relocate down south or west in search of work.

  • I like how Penn of Penn and Teller put it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DaedalusLogic ( 449896 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @08:42AM (#9541977)
    In his show bullshit on the Showtime Network, the topic was the overblown emphasis on safety and terrorism in our world today. It was something to the effect of:

    "There will always violence and suffering in the world, and Michael Moore will always be there to make a buck off of it."

    I liked Michael Moore's work in "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbine" made some good points at times. I just do not agree with him on most of his views and I think his personal political conduct has been reprehensible lately. For one, he canceled an interview with Fox News at the last minute. The station is certainly conservative, but shouldn't that mean he should be big enough to stand up and take his case to the other side? Of course he couldn't use any slick editing and he wouldn't be the only one talking, so that might hurt him.

  • Ok, let's try to be rational (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @08:42AM (#9541985) Homepage Journal
    The movie is an opinion.

    Of course it presents a specific point of view. It is made by a person taking into account his audience.

    He uses a specific set of fact patterns. Other people use other sets of fact patterns. Be an intelligent person and try to get a wide variety of fact patterns before you decide what you will consider the most likely truth. If anyone believe that any single source is going to use an objective set of fact patterns, then that person is naive beyond any help.

    And please, don't confuse the office of the President with the person holding the office. Confusing the two, and inducing confusion of the two, is the first step to a dictatorship. The former is an institution. The later is a person who was elected to guard that institution. The former is something that must be protected. The later is someone who should be willing to give his reputation and life to protect and serve. This means that criticizing the person is not treason. Sometimes that person needs to be criticized. Sometimes that person is a liar. Sometimes that person is sex addict. Sometimes, for example, that person is drug addict, and we know the TV has told us that drug addicts support terrorists.

    So, no hitting below the belt. No calling people traitors for exercising constitutionally protected free speech. As we used to say, if you don't like it, go to Russia. Or, in other words, if you can't take the heat, get you wussy ass out of the kitchen. So no invoking war scenarios for a war that congress never declared. And remember, all sides are torturing humans, and everyone loves their kids equally.

  • opinion from a canadian (Score:5, Interesting)

    by VoiceOfRaisin ( 554019 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @09:09AM (#9542192)
    first off the film is incredible. the theatre here showing it was selling out every showing, including the matinees, something ive never seen. at the end the audience gave some nice loud applause.

    its always odd as an "outsider" to watch americans. anyone that speaks out about the government is branded a radical, an extremist. round here in canada this is absolutely normal, the evening news has all sorts of people saying all sorts of critiques about the government and its not odd for people to talk about it on the street. and its not a group of people that do, EVERYONE does. no one looks at you funny, no one says you are anti-canadian. a term that is not used at all, either is unpatriotic. this is a states thing, its used to shut you up, make you feel bad. its wrong. moore isnt an extremist, he is a hero. exposing truths is patriotic. dont listen to the shills that call you names. the amount of brainwashing you poor people get is also astounding. i dont claim to live in some perfect society but its night and day with some things and i hope this movie wakes up many people to reality.
  • Fahrenheit 9/11: A Conservative Critique
    by William Norman Grigg

    I just returned from viewing Fahrenheit 9/11 here in Appleton, WI. I went to the 1:30 PM showing, which was - astonishingly - sold out. The crowd was overwhelmingly white and middle-class (this IS Wisconsin, remember), ranging in age from early teens to retirees. The people were polite, friendly, well-mannered (something we shouldn't take for granted on the part of contemporary theater crowds). There was tumultuous applause at the end, punctuated by a moment of reflective silence as we read the dedication card invoking those murdered by terrorists on 9/11, and those murdered through state terrorism in the aftermath.

    The film itself very much reflects its creator: It's shaggy, flabby, occasionally witty, and frequently infuriating. It will have a HUGE impact because Moore - his facile leftist economics notwithstanding - has nailed his case against the Bush regime flush to the plank. It will be all but impossible for anybody who sits still and watches this film to view Bush the Lesser as anything other than a petty, spiteful, dim-witted, bloody-handed little fool - and the figurehead of a murderous power elite. This explains why the Bu'ushists are threatening to go Abu Ghraib on Moore: They're busted.

    The most powerful moments in the film are those that humanize U.S. troops, several of whom are shown on-screen criticizing the regime. A major arc of the film is devoted to a Flint, Michigan housewife from a military family whose son, just prior to being killed in Iraq, wrote a letter condemning "George 'I wanna be like my Daddy' Bush" for staging this useless, unjust war. Moore himself, who narrates the film (and makes himself too much a part of the story, incidentally) observes that the largest immorality of this entire enterprise is the actions of a dishonest president lying our country into war and forcing decent young men (and women) to do immoral things.

    It should be pointed out as well that the film - despite being lambasted as an exercise in unalloyed Bush-bashing - doesn't spare Democrats who acquiesced in Bush the Lesser's power grabs and his criminal war against Iraq. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle comes off particularly poorly, which in his case merely requires a recording device of some kind.

    An interesting encounter immediately after seeing the film underscores its fundamentally non-partisan nature. Some poor schlep had positioned himself outside the theater with a clipboard soliciting signatures on a nominating position for a would-be Democrat congressional candidate. A couple of people seized the petition and started to sign. Impertinent sort that I am, I asked, "What's this fellow's position on the war?"

    The scribbling stopped, and several sets of eyes focused intently on the hapless volunteer. "Well, um, ah, he thinks we should do something," he began, stammeringly. "Ah, he just thinks we should be more careful." On hearing this, a lady looked at her husband, who had signed the petition, and snapped, "Scratch off your name." I told the volunteer that I'm what most people would regard as an "ultra-conservative - not just a `conservative' - but if your guy came out against the war I'd vote for him, and knock on doors." "Well, I can't really address all the details of his positions," the increasingly flustered guy responded. "Just let him know what I said," I suggested, telling him that there are a lot of people who have the same point of view.

    I chatted with several other people as they left the theater, all of them roughly my age (early 40s) and of similar economic and cultural background. Each of them indicated that he or she would urge friends to see the film - which means that it will have "legs" even if the GOP and FEC were to choke off advertising somehow.

    There were no screaming Bolsheviks (one viewer had an anti-animal rights T-shirt) or marijuana-scented bohemians in the crowd. This wasn't the sort of crowd you'd see at a Phish concert, or storming McDonald's at an an
    • The night before last, the Independent Film Channel played a 30-minute press conference with Michael Moore that he gave at the Cannes Film Festival. I was really impressed with what he had to say and I think the movie might be worth watching. Rather than being just about Bush, he spent a lot of time talking about how Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 (a.k.a. the truth) and how public opinion was manipulated to stir up support for the war. I'm kind of wanting to see it, surprisingly. The reviews are already in:

      IMDB User Comments: Michael Moore is a traitor to his country

      I had a lot of driving to do at work the last couple of days and listened to a lot of WBAP 820. There was a lot of talk about Fahrenheit 9/11 and Michael Moore. Every single bit of it was venomous and hate filled. From Rush to Hannity, to every single person on there, there is no way to support our troops while attacking their mission or their commander in chief. And if you happen to do so, you are considered a traitor to the country.

      It's so weird because on every other topic, I usually agree with the majority of what these guys have to say. But they make me so mad on the war issue that I feel like some kind of left-wing liberal. I was actually wanting to e-mail them all yesterday and give them a piece of my mind, but decided not to because they would probably turn me in to home land security.

      One thing I will say, though, Rush was out and Walter Williams took his place for the day. I still like him.

      Usurper_ii

    • Are they fighting for our freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by usurper_ii ( 306966 ) <eyes0nlyNO@SPAMquest4.org> on Sunday June 27, 2004 @09:48AM (#9542575) Homepage

      Fighting For Our Freedom?

      One of the things that keeps coming up since our troops have gone into harm's way is that they are fighting for our freedom. If a war supporter is asked about the protesters, invariably, the response is that our soldiers are fighting so that the protesters have the freedom to protest.

      Could this be true? Is it possible that Saddam's six or seven Scud missiles -- which we can't even agree on as to if they were the "permitted" Scuds or the "illegal" Scuds -- could have affected our freedom here in America? To hear it from anyone in the military, every war we have ever fought was for our freedom here in the US.

      Well, was Desert Storm to preserve our freedom? If Saddam had continued to occupy Kuwait after we gave him the green light to take it, would anyone here in America have lost any freedom whatsoever? Well, we might have ended up paying higher prices for gas or -- oh the horror -- been forced to employ Americans to work here in America to pump up American oil.

      Does anyone remember the economy in Texas when oil was a booming industry here? I do, and it was nice. Having jobs to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head...with enough left over to save up for the future or send your kids off to college, that sounds like freedom; and instead of keeping that here in America, we closed down entire towns and exported the jobs to the OPEC nations...the very nations that openly despise us.

      So if Desert Storm wasn't for our freedom, what was it for? When Saddam originally invaded Kuwait, President Bush, Sr., turned to the United Nations, not the U.S. Constitution to which he'd sworn a solemn oath, for authorization for his military moves. He then began to state his goals -- over and over again:

      • September 11, 1990 televised address: "Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective -- a new world order -- can emerge.... We are now in sight of a United Nations that performs as envisioned by its founders."
      • January 7, 1991 interview in U.S. News & World Report : "I think that what's at stake here is the new world order. What's at stake here is whether we can have disputes peacefully resolved in the future by a reinvigorated United Nations."
      • January 9, 1991 Press Conference: "[The Gulf crisis] has to do with a new world order. And that new world order is only going to be enhanced if this newly activated peacekeeping function of the United Nations proves to be effective."
      • January 16, 1991 televised address: "When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the UN's founders."
      • August 1991 National Security Strategy of the United States issued by the White House and personally signed by George Bush: "In the Gulf, we saw the United Nations playing the role dreamed of by it's founders.... I hope history will record that the Gulf crisis was the crucible of the new world order."

      So here it is painfully obvious that just because we went to war, it wasn't to preserve our freedom here in America, but to empower the United Nations. In fact, not only did Desert Storm not have anything to do with our freedom but in all actuality was more so to enslave us than to free us (those employing the term "New World Order" have sought socialism (economic control) and world government (political control) over mankind. This was also the goal of Bush Sr. for our nation and for the world).

      So it is possible for our troops to be in harm's way and it not be for our freedom. And if it is not for our freedom in general but specifically for the "right to protest," legislation is being proposed in Oregon that could make protesting an act of terroris

  • Thanks fot the explanation... (Score:5, Funny)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @09:29AM (#9542407) Homepage Journal
    A spokesman for Lions Gate Films said the company debuted the movie in the two theaters to help build good word-of-mouth -- friend telling friend --

    Are Americans really that stupid as to need an explanation for what the term "Word-of-Mouth" means?

  • "Michael Moore Hates America" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by linuxwrangler ( 582055 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @09:35AM (#9542466)
    I heard an intersting bit on the radio the other day interviewing a guy who is making a movie called "Michael Moore Hates America" [michaelmoo...merica.com] which is due out later this year. In it he tries, in Michael Moore style, to interview Moore himself while documenting the errors, and more importantly, the ommissions in Moore's films.

    Check out their links page for plenty of sites by people working to track down inaccuracies in Moore's works and an article about how Ray Bradbury is annoyed that Moore stole the title from his similarly titled book without asking and without returning his calls to Moore.

    • Re:"Michael Moore Hates America" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Sunday June 27, 2004 @10:15AM (#9542812)
      Bradbury's complaint is never going to make it to a courtroom. Porn makers for years have titled their films as a play on words against a mainstream Hollywood title... it's not a trademark violation as long as the films are so different that nobody's going to confuse them.

      Nobody's going to get a porn film confused with a Hollywood blockbuster. Nobody's going to get Moore's documentary confused with Bradbury's novel. Case dismissed.

      Bradbury can complain all he wants, but that's about as far as he's going get. Moore may have stolen his title, but he did so in a way that's most certainly legal.

  • Rush Limbaugh... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DrRobert ( 179090 ) * <rgbuice@[ ].com ['mac' in gap]> on Sunday June 27, 2004 @09:44AM (#9542540) Homepage
    does the same things everyday on his show. Conservatives seem absolutely apoplectic about this movie, but I don't understand why. You CAN'T be upset with the things that are said. You MUST be upset with the approach to "news"; the approach is to carefully select issues and facts that may border on truth and then construct them into an argument while leaving out all mention of the other side. If you want to complain about Michael Moore... fine, but complain equally loudly about Rush, Hannity, and O'Reilly (O'Reilly doesn't even belong in this group because he came from Hard Copy and he has been busted by many sources for out right lies). Complain about the approach, complain about the system, but DO NOT complain about the tactics just because someone does not agree with you.

    To add a note of technology to this /. discussion.... A few months ago I read a lot of political book from both sides of the fence. Many of the authors claimed their opposite was simply lying and then "proved" it. I began to do some checking into what kind of information/technology was available for me to examine the any available facts and derive an opinion independent of the talking heads. Most of the online research services and transcript companies that can provide original documents (facts) cost thousands of dollars per month. My conclusion... It is IMPOSSIBLE for a common individual to be properly informed about issues that they must vote on. This is a very sad conclusion because our system of government is founded on the principal that the voting public is educated about the issues.

    So what can open source do to correct the strangle hold that talking heads have on primary information sources?

    • Re:Rush Limbaugh... (Score:5, Informative)

      by wrecked ( 681366 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @12:50PM (#9544249)
      I think that your question is extremely relevant. Noam Chomsky, for example, has said that part of the problem with trying to become an informed citizen is that no one has the time to conduct mini research projects on every important topic.

      Regarding open source alternatives to Lexis-Nexis et. al., I think that we're starting to see the emergence of these sources with the Groklaw [groklaw.net] project. Groklaw right now is confined to a narrow issue, but it publishes primary source material and commentary that is superior to many paid services, and in an open source fashion. It is only possible for Groklaw to do this, however, by focusing on a single issue.

      I hope that we will see more open source political projects like Groklaw in the future for other important issues.

  • Rush Limbaugh....Michael Moore and others (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Danathar ( 267989 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @09:48AM (#9542570) Journal
    It seems that both sides...the left and the right seem to have gravitated to the view that the ends justifies the means. If you have lie, cheat, steal, misinform, omit, denigrate, insult amd some say..murder...its OK because your cause is a right and just one.

    I have no doubt that both democrats and republicans both think they have the country's best interest in mind. It seems though, that neither trusts the other enough to sit down at a table to try an understand WHY their opposites think the way they do.

    Instead each side assumes that the other side will do anything it can to undermine them and so...they do the same.

    The result is people like Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh that would not even consider sitting down with each other because each refuses to believe they would get fair treatment from each other.

    Although many would laugh at me for saying this, but this type of atmosphere can lead over time (decades) to an environment that leads to civil war. NO...that's not going to happen in the U.S. today, but if people are not willing to talk to one another and listen to each other's concerns without the insults, it will eventually.

  • I am not American (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xutopia ( 469129 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @10:00AM (#9542688) Homepage
    and I have watched the news in two languages, in 5 countries around the world during the US/British push towards Iraq war. I looked at the news coming from the USA, Canada, England, France, Belgium and Australia as well as many articles from English and French online news sources.

    Michael Moore is bringing to the big screen things that all American news sources ignored while the rest of the world knew perfectly well about it. If anything Moore is showing Americans that they have been duped by the US media. The facts he brings out were commonly seen in the rest of the world except the US. I'm talking about the staged elections, the blacks not being allowed to vote, the false "intelligence", the lacking weapons of mass desctruction, etc...

    If anything Moore balances out the very biased news sources you guys have in the states with a refreshing bit of reality. This war was for oil and weapons money and Ben Laden has more chances of being unearth by France than by the US.

  • Documentary: "Factual and Objective" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by crashnbur ( 127738 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @10:01AM (#9542692)
    (Borrowed the idea of the subject from this comment [slashdot.org].)

    The American Heritage Dictionary [reference.com] defines "documentary" as A work...presenting political, social, or historical subject matter in a factual and informative manner and often consisting of actual news films or interviews accompanied by narration. Further, it restricts the presentation to "facts" that are presented " objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter , as in a book or film."

    According to this definition and Michael Moore's admitting that a significant portion of the documentary is not meant to be taken seriously -- it's only partly true and the rest is meant to be satire, not to mention the lack of objectivity -- then Fahrenheit 9/11 is not a documentary; it is a mockumentary, little more than entertainment with some basis in facts deeply buried beneath the surface of the film (although you wouldn't know it by Moore's presentation) and should be treated as such.

    For reasonably objective, reasonably centered reviews from well-respected news organizations (as well as some considered by many to be "left-wing" publications), click the following links:
    Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] -- "Moore has publicly indicated his goal is to impact this election."

    CNN International [cnn.com] -- "Of course it isn't a fair and balanced look at its subject matter, but it is good filmmaking."

    The Guardian (UK) [guardian.co.uk] -- "According to legend, Fahrenheit 9/11 was made to topple George W Bush and thereby save America from the grip of an evil tyrant."

    New York Times [nytimes.com] -- "Mixing sober outrage with mischievous humor and blithely trampling the boundary between documentary and demagoguery, Mr. Moore takes wholesale aim at the Bush administration, whose tenure has been distinguished, in his view, by unparalleled and unmitigated arrogance, mendacity and incompetence."

    MTV [mtv.com] -- "Are [the facts Moore presents] impenetrable on their own, or are they manicured to fit Moore's own motivations?"
    FYI, I have only read the opening paragraphs to each of these reviews, so I have little to no knowledge of any potential direction they may follow. Click at your whim.

  • Double spin example. Bin Laden and Saudi flights (Score:5, Insightful)

    by weave ( 48069 ) * on Sunday June 27, 2004 @10:16AM (#9542823) Journal
    Moore spin: Highest levels of government made arrangements to get the Saudis out of the country on 9/13 when no other regularly scheduled flights were in the air.

    Conservative spin: Moore is lying, the airspace was re-opened on 9/13.

    Truth: The airspace was opened on 9/13. No airlines were able to get regularly scheduled flights into service that day because they were all grounded in "the wrong places". That day was spent shuffling empty planes back and forth between airports to get ready to start back up. That process took a few days. On 9/14 most flights were still canceled (I had a flight canceled that day too). The U.S. government most likely assisted the Saudis to charter planes to get them out the moment airspace was opened, and could have been the subject of that meeting Bush had with the Saudi ambassador that day, but that's just speculation.

    Moore didn't lie, but he could be accused of deceiving trying to make people think the Saudis were in the air when airspace was closed. The conservative response deceives as well, trying to paint a picture that everything was back to normal on 9/13. It wasn't.

    People need to learn to read between the lines and think for themselves. If you're conservative and you think only liberals spin to deceive and not conservatives, you're a fool -- and visa-versa.

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