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QuoteQuoteThen SHOW the fuckin' bias!
The names of half the sites and the fact that they are devoted to being against Michael Moore is proof enough of the bias. The fact that they'd spend hard-earned money on a website against one man alone is fairly glaring evidence of bias against him. If that were not the case do you think anybody would give a damn about the editing of speeches in a documentary or whatever you like to call it?
Does the fact that someone has a vested interest in tearing down the credibility of a certain person diminish in any way the value of a factual finding of dishonesty? Moore is an avowed gun-control supporter; he dislikes the "gun culture"; he joined the NRA in the misguided hope that he could get himself elected its president and then force it to support gun control policies. By your logic, we should discount and discredit anything he says in support of gun control, since we know he's biased in favor of it.
I guess we should believe nothing about the value of space exploration, since most of our information about it comes directly from NASA, which is biased in favor of exploring space.
Perhaps the people who have spent the time and money to fight Moore's lies are simply concerned that the spread of such lies and misinformation could lead people to make erroneous conclusions about what public policy and what elected officials to support. Perhaps they fear harm done to our constitutional rights by a well-meaning but misguided public, fed with lies by demagogues and "documentarists."
They should be discounted just because what they say on the subject exposes their vested interest? Should Congress and the FAA refuse to listen to reps from USPA whenever skydiving regulation comes up, because everyone knows how biased in favor of skydiving those skydivers are!!
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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
QuoteNow, I saw this movie, and didn't much care for it. The only interesting parts of it (to me) were his interviews with militia members and townspeople, because I hadn't heard their perspectives before. But the rest of it was just a filmmaker trying to push his politics.
So I am suprised that so many pro-gun people keep bringing up this movie. There's an old saying that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" and you're proving that old adage true.
What those of us who oppose Moore and his film are hot about is the fact that a movie that can be demonstrated to contain radically inaccurate "factoids," implications, insinuations, and depictions has become the darling of the anti-gun mainstream media. Pundits and editors lauded the film for what it supposedly "exposed," even though it needed to lie in order to make its so-called points.
Perhaps you've heard of another anti-gun LIAR, named Michael Bellesiles. He was a so-called historian who wrote a book a few years ago called Arming America. Its thesis was that until after the civil war, gun ownership among Americans was exceedingly rare, and thus this disproved pro-gun claims that gun ownership was near and dear to the framers who wrote the U.S. Constitution: therefore, gun-proponents' claims of an American heritage of gun ownership were falsely predicated.
Bellesiles of course accumulated his detractors. Among them, Clayton Cramer, an amateur historian who CHECKED ON THE CLAIMS BELLESILES MADE. Bellesiles must have been an abject idiot to make the claims he made and expect that no one would catch his lies. I'm not going to list them here, because you can Google "Arming America" and 99% of what turns up will have to do with the discrediting of it. I'll mention one: Bellesiles cited as a source documents he supposedly read in California pertaining to probate records in San Francisco. Cramer discovered that the records Bellesiles claimed to have read were destroyed in the fires that followed the major earthquake in 1908!
In case you should think that we pro-gunners are making a tempest in a teapot over Bellesiles: the man was stripped of his position at Emory University over this; he was stripped of his prestigious Columbia University Bancroft Prize -- the highest honor for a U.S. historian; the findings of his fabrication were substantiated by a three-professor panel (along with their assistants) from such institutions as Harvard University (I forgot the other two). So it is on very good authority that Bellesiles lied profusely in his book.
But when that book came out, and it "did damage" to pro-gun claims, LAWD how the anti-gun press slavered over it! It was said he'd found the Holy Grail of anti-gun ideology. He was the subject of much buzz, and the publicationof the book MADE NEWSPAPER HEADLINES. How often does the publication of a book -- short of Hillary Clinton's memoirs -- make newspaper headlines? The press ate up any possibility that this could undercut pro-gun arguments and credibility.
They have said little or nothing about the UTTER DEBUNKING of this book and its author, nor of how he lost his position as a professor at Emory University, nor of how he was forced to give up the Bancroft Prize. I had to read about that on all those biased anti-Michael-Bellesiles websites.
So when we pro-gunners are this aware of what happens when someone anti-gun comes up with a glimmer of a socially-credible anti-gun stab, we know we have to go both-barrels against it or it will be the lie repeated often enough to become true.
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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
5{ An opinion that is formed upon distorted information provided cynically for the specific purpose of manipulating that opinion is worthless.
Which reminds me: did you see the 2003 State of the Union Address by President Bush?
Which reminds me: did you see the 2003 State of the Union Address by President Bush?
No. I know better than to watch what I know will be bullshit and propaganda.
Surprised to see me say that? Maybe you thought I was just an unthinking Bushie? No, I know that all politicians lie, and the truth is never found when you listen to one who has stepped up to a lectern to speak.
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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
QuoteFilm is an art and therefore has no rules. I feel that you would be hard pressed to find any document that deals with "subject matter in a neutral way," for any that suggest all documentary "must" necessarily be. The very act of making a film suggests an agenda.
The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences has a list of rules to govern which films are treated as "documentary." That's why "Saving Private Ryan" does not go up against Jacques Cousteau.
QuoteThe things that are presented in a documentary are true (at least until proven false)
Oh, I disagree wholeheartedly. If I said in a documentary film that the Statue of Liberty is 4,000' feet tall, would that be TRUE until someone actually got out there and measured it? If I said that hollow point bullets are designed specifically to penetrate the kevlar vests of police officers (they are not), would that be TRUE until we tracked down the inventor of the hollow point bullet -- or at least consulted some experts in the field of ammunition manufacture?
Some things are objectively false and always will be, even when proof of their falsehood is unobtainable or unavailable. Touching the surface of the sun will hurt, and will not feel like petting a kitty cat: I cannot prove this but we know that it is true. So if I said that it would be like petting a kitty cat, we would not have to wait for you to prove that to be false before we refuse to believe it.
QuoteYou cannot put down Moore for having an agenda.
Funny, I thought I already had.
My problem with Moore's agenda is that in order to support it, he has to lie and decieve. An agenda that cannot stand on its own merit, and garner support when the truth is spoken, is not an agenda worth pursuing, unless one has ulterior and ignoble motives.
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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
smiles 0
CANNES, France
The jury that awarded the top prize at the festival to Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 also considered awarding a special prize to George W. Bush for best comic performance in a movie.
The jury was dealing with reels of film and that's all that mattered...not how they were made, why they were made, or who made them. If the movie said everything they believed but wasn't good filmmaking- it would be opposed to.
Regardless of any duplicity or lies----
The jury awarded the top prize to Fahrenheit 9/11 for good filmmaking.
SMiles
The jury that awarded the top prize at the festival to Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 also considered awarding a special prize to George W. Bush for best comic performance in a movie.
The jury was dealing with reels of film and that's all that mattered...not how they were made, why they were made, or who made them. If the movie said everything they believed but wasn't good filmmaking- it would be opposed to.
Quotebtw - people are slamming Moore for his general lack of integrity and his lies in Bowling. Not many have seen F911, so we don't know what its content is. I do however expect the same duplicity and lies.
Regardless of any duplicity or lies----
The jury awarded the top prize to Fahrenheit 9/11 for good filmmaking.
SMiles
the funny thing about bfc is that it really isn't anti-gun. MM has said that himself in interviews, and even one of the anti-MM sites you posted said that. I am "pro-gun", and while i don't agree with everything MM said or did in BFC, I enjoyed the movie and own a copy of it b/c I also really like some of what he says, and i think he brings up some good points. I looked at some of the anti-MM sites you guys posted. while they offer some interesting points, I don't really think those arguments hold a lot of water.. like the editing of the heston speech. I realized the first time i saw it that the "cold dead hands" part was a different speech, and while they show that he put different clips together, the meaning and the words are the same. MM just makes it a condensed version.
Also, i've noticed that on the sites (and even in these posts) that people against MM seem to have a personal vendeta against him and are hell-bent on destroying him... this seems kinda weird and i have to wonder why they 'protest too much'
Anyway, I've enjoyed seeing points from both sides. craichead: I've also enjoyed your posts- your aguments seem to pretty calm and level-headed...
but, try not to lose your tempers guys! and remember that theres not anything wrong with admiting someone might have a point..
-Seth :)
Also, i've noticed that on the sites (and even in these posts) that people against MM seem to have a personal vendeta against him and are hell-bent on destroying him... this seems kinda weird and i have to wonder why they 'protest too much'
Anyway, I've enjoyed seeing points from both sides. craichead: I've also enjoyed your posts- your aguments seem to pretty calm and level-headed...
but, try not to lose your tempers guys! and remember that theres not anything wrong with admiting someone might have a point..
-Seth :)
piisfish 140
QuoteStill believe this thread belongs in Bonfire?
at the beginning it was... but now we would be throwing logs and beers at eachother... Bad karma around the bonfire...
As Gawain said, the award has been given in France... That sure helped, he certainly will not get one in teh US, more likely to be censored. And yeah, the man needs to eat... Otherwise a big part of the insults he is given here would not be actual anymore.
Will the film be in cinemas in the US finally ??
scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM
AndyMan 7
QuoteI have to agree with Benny here. What I took away from Bowling For Columbine was that America's "culture of hysteria, paranoia, and fear" was more of the problem than the guns themselves.
I agree, too. While the NRA certainly didn't come out looking good, they didn't come out looking nearly as badly as Lookheed Martin, or the Michigan militias. I actually felt sorry Dick Clark over the way he got ambushed.
I'm amazed at the vitriol being spewed forth by the pro-gun lobby in response to this film, compared to the virtual silence from the other groups who got portrayed in a far worse light.
I'll even go so far to say that I don't think Bowling For Columbine is actually a anti-gun movie. I think the only indictment of the gun industry it offers is more reflective of the nations attitude towards, and justification of the gun cultire. The NRA is not only secondary, its tertiary to the point.
Bowling for Columbine is "about" how a country seems to spend its entirety living in fear, which I completely agree with.
Hence the question I've now asked 3 times, but not gotten a response. "Have you actually seen the movie?"
_Am
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You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.
You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.
Finally, arguments and points that are presented in a clear, concise, non-belligerent and reasonable manner. I can finally understand what you're saying, and I'll agree to disagree with you.
If you look back at my first post in that Columbine thread, the very first thing I said was "You're right, nothing was clear in Bowling for Columbine." I admitted that right off the bat; perhaps you chose to ignore it. Oh right, you did. Even after AndyMan admitted that he was mistaken as to what "documentary" he was referring to, nearly 30 posts later, you felt the need to go on a rant that turned into a missionistic rampage to prove everything that Michael Moore says is a lie. Within your ranting and raving, you really didn't have any more credibility than Michael Moore.
Why should I, or anyone else for that matter, believe that you have more credibility than Michael Moore? Especially when 1) you're practically foaming at the mouth arguing this and 2) you're not presenting any type of evidence to support your claims? We should believe you merely because you're paraphrasing and parroting what you read on other people's web sites?
If you look back at the rest of my posts that happen to refer to you, they were to show 1) a missed point by someone else and 2) how poor your arguments were (How many times have I said that?). You're not very credible or clear in many of your posts. If you're going to convince your audience, you have to be...well, more convincing.
As far as this is concerned: "A repost for craichead of part of my original post, since he seems tohave forgotten that I made a request of him for information:"--you never answered my (hypothetical) question. If you trace it back to the original argument, I asked you "Why does it matter to you so much that he uses film to tell his stories, and spins those stories radically to the left?" And you said this:
So I asked:
See how the dialogue progresses? Obviously I know that misinformation is misinformation. I'd lke to know how angry you would be if misinformation came from a successful, popular, right-wing filmmaker. However, all you want to do is try to shove down my throat that all anti-gunners lie. You're throwing in a completely different argument or "request," thereby avoiding answering my questions.
And if you really want to know (as if it really makes any difference), I have no firm opinion about gun legislation. If you have/want a gun and are legal to have it, you should be allowed to have it. I just hope that your anger never gets the best of you if/when you happen to have a loaded gun in your hands.
And lastly...I'm a she.
_Pm
Edited to say: I know missionistic isn't a real word, but I didn't want to say "missionary," since somebody might go off about sex or religion.
QuoteSo why couldn't you say earlier that you agreed that his editing is misleading? That's been my whole point. Why should anyone trust a guy who deceives like that?
If you look back at my first post in that Columbine thread, the very first thing I said was "You're right, nothing was clear in Bowling for Columbine." I admitted that right off the bat; perhaps you chose to ignore it. Oh right, you did. Even after AndyMan admitted that he was mistaken as to what "documentary" he was referring to, nearly 30 posts later, you felt the need to go on a rant that turned into a missionistic rampage to prove everything that Michael Moore says is a lie. Within your ranting and raving, you really didn't have any more credibility than Michael Moore.
QuoteWell, gee, now that I know I'm being held to the standards of a presidential debate or an academic paper, I'll try to shape up my presentation -- just for you.
Why should I, or anyone else for that matter, believe that you have more credibility than Michael Moore? Especially when 1) you're practically foaming at the mouth arguing this and 2) you're not presenting any type of evidence to support your claims? We should believe you merely because you're paraphrasing and parroting what you read on other people's web sites?
If you look back at the rest of my posts that happen to refer to you, they were to show 1) a missed point by someone else and 2) how poor your arguments were (How many times have I said that?). You're not very credible or clear in many of your posts. If you're going to convince your audience, you have to be...well, more convincing.
As far as this is concerned: "A repost for craichead of part of my original post, since he seems tohave forgotten that I made a request of him for information:"--you never answered my (hypothetical) question. If you trace it back to the original argument, I asked you "Why does it matter to you so much that he uses film to tell his stories, and spins those stories radically to the left?" And you said this:
QuoteBecause if it were not convincing people -- who then may very well vote for anti-gun candidates based on Moore's misinformation, distortions and lies -- it would just be some blowhard spouting off.
So I asked:
QuoteSooo...if some successful, popular, right-wing filmmaker (blowhard) convinces me through misinformation and misrepresentation of facts/statistics/whatever information to vote for pro-gun legislation, would you be just as angry? Or do you really think that all right-wing blowhards tell the absolute truth, too?
See how the dialogue progresses? Obviously I know that misinformation is misinformation. I'd lke to know how angry you would be if misinformation came from a successful, popular, right-wing filmmaker. However, all you want to do is try to shove down my throat that all anti-gunners lie. You're throwing in a completely different argument or "request," thereby avoiding answering my questions.
And if you really want to know (as if it really makes any difference), I have no firm opinion about gun legislation. If you have/want a gun and are legal to have it, you should be allowed to have it. I just hope that your anger never gets the best of you if/when you happen to have a loaded gun in your hands.
And lastly...I'm a she.
_Pm
Edited to say: I know missionistic isn't a real word, but I didn't want to say "missionary," since somebody might go off about sex or religion.
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"Scared of love, love and aeroplanes...falling out, I said takes no brains." -- Andy Partridge (XTC)
"Scared of love, love and aeroplanes...falling out, I said takes no brains." -- Andy Partridge (XTC)
smiles 0
QuoteThe Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences has a list of rules to govern which films are treated as "documentary." That's why "Saving Private Ryan" does not go up against Jacques Cousteau.
Bowling for Columbine won the academy award for best documentary. In your opinion were there no rules to govern documentaries...??
Without equivocation, every fact is true in Bowling for Columbine. Three teams of fact-checkers and two groups of lawyers went through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure that every statement of fact is indeed an indisputable fact. No film company would ever release a film like this without putting it through the most vigorous vetting process possible. Total number of lawsuits to date against Moore or his film by the NRA? NONE. That's right, zero. And don't forget for a second that if they could have shut this film down on a technicality they would have. But they didn't and they can't – because the film is factually solid and above reproach. In fact, Moore has not been sued by any individual or group over the statements made in "Bowling for Columbine?" Why is that? Because everything said is true –
The things that are his opinion, are said as "opinion" and left up to the viewer to decide if his point of view is correct or not for each of them.
OPINION
Have you not heard of a DOXA documentary film-??(DOXA is the Greek word for "opinion") DOXA is an international festival, an annual event presenting thoughtful and cutting edge documentary films to audiences. Moviegoers have recently lined up for such films as Spellbound, Bowling for Columbine, Capturing the Friedmans, The Fog of War and, across Canada, the Vancouver-produced The Corporation. "People have caught on that they're entertaining, they're not boring, they're anything any feature drama film could be.
The latest I've viewed at a DOXA fest is considered a "hot documentary", and named: The Take.
A documentary about a movement of occupied factories that turns the globalization debate on its head. After decades of following the rules prescribed by the global market, Argentina’s economy dramatically collapsed. Now, in the rubble of the failed model, thousands of Argentines are defiantly writing some rules of their own. Rule number 1: When owners shut down their businesses, the employees have a right to take over the machines and keep their jobs.
An author and journalist, had been immersed in the globalization debate and were looking for a project that provided audiences with more than a critique. So, in February 2002 they began their search for a movie to make. "We felt it was time to go out to find something that might bring hope and inspiration to people. I really felt the need to go deeper on a subject.
The couple arrived in Argentina as a rebellion was spreading in response to the collapse of the economy. As factories closed, thousands of employees were moving into the vacated premises and resuming production under their own self-management. They spent seven months shooting in Argentina (250 hours of footage), followed by six months of editing and two months of post-production.
This was a DOXA fest documentary (opinion)... left up to the viewer to decide if the point of view is correct or not for each of them.
SMiles
smiles 0
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/
We already know that politicians in denial will dismiss the abuse sequence in Mr. Moore's film as mere partisanship. Someone will surely echo Senator James Inhofe's Abu Ghraib complaint that "humanitarian do-gooders" looking for human rights violations are maligning "our troops, our heroes" as they continue to fight and die. But Senator Inhofe and his colleagues might ask how much they are honoring soldiers who are overextended, undermanned and bereft of a coherent plan in Iraq.
The Los Angeles Times reported that for the first time three Army divisions, more than a third of its combat troops, are so depleted of equipment and skills that they are classified "unfit to fight."
In contrast to Washington's neglect, much of "Fahrenheit 9/11" turns out to be a patriotic celebration of the heroic American troops who have been fighting and dying under these and other deplorable conditions since President Bush's declaration of war.
Whatever you think of Mr. Moore, there's no question he's detonating dynamite here. From a variety of sources — foreign journalists and broadcasters (like Britain's Channel Four), freelancers and sympathetic American TV workers who slipped him illicit video — he supplies war-time pictures that have been largely shielded from our view. Instead of recycling images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center on 9/11 once again, Mr. Moore can revel in extended new close-ups of the president continuing to read "My Pet Goat" to elementary school students in Florida for nearly seven long minutes after learning of the attack.
Just when Abu Ghraib and the savage beheading of Nicholas Berg make us think we've seen it all, here is yet another major escalation in the nation-jolting images that have become the battleground for the war about the war.
Like Mrs. Bush, Mr. Wolfowitz hasn't let that mind be overly sullied by body bags and such — to the point where he underestimated the number of American deaths in Iraq by more than 200 in public last month. No one would ever accuse Michael Moore of having a beautiful mind. Subtleties and fine distinctions are not his thing. That matters very little, it turns out, when you have a story this ugly and this powerful to tell.
SMiles
We already know that politicians in denial will dismiss the abuse sequence in Mr. Moore's film as mere partisanship. Someone will surely echo Senator James Inhofe's Abu Ghraib complaint that "humanitarian do-gooders" looking for human rights violations are maligning "our troops, our heroes" as they continue to fight and die. But Senator Inhofe and his colleagues might ask how much they are honoring soldiers who are overextended, undermanned and bereft of a coherent plan in Iraq.
The Los Angeles Times reported that for the first time three Army divisions, more than a third of its combat troops, are so depleted of equipment and skills that they are classified "unfit to fight."
In contrast to Washington's neglect, much of "Fahrenheit 9/11" turns out to be a patriotic celebration of the heroic American troops who have been fighting and dying under these and other deplorable conditions since President Bush's declaration of war.
Whatever you think of Mr. Moore, there's no question he's detonating dynamite here. From a variety of sources — foreign journalists and broadcasters (like Britain's Channel Four), freelancers and sympathetic American TV workers who slipped him illicit video — he supplies war-time pictures that have been largely shielded from our view. Instead of recycling images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center on 9/11 once again, Mr. Moore can revel in extended new close-ups of the president continuing to read "My Pet Goat" to elementary school students in Florida for nearly seven long minutes after learning of the attack.
Just when Abu Ghraib and the savage beheading of Nicholas Berg make us think we've seen it all, here is yet another major escalation in the nation-jolting images that have become the battleground for the war about the war.
Like Mrs. Bush, Mr. Wolfowitz hasn't let that mind be overly sullied by body bags and such — to the point where he underestimated the number of American deaths in Iraq by more than 200 in public last month. No one would ever accuse Michael Moore of having a beautiful mind. Subtleties and fine distinctions are not his thing. That matters very little, it turns out, when you have a story this ugly and this powerful to tell.
SMiles
Kennedy 0
QuoteLike Mrs. Bush, Mr. Wolfowitz hasn't let that mind be overly sullied by body bags and such — to the point where he underestimated the number of American deaths in Iraq by more than 200 in public last month.
underestimated by 200, or was talking about KIA rather total deaths in Iraq? The number of troops killed in combat is 589. The number of troops killed overall in Iraq is 803. It's not his fault if people can't keep up with the topic of discussion.
witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*
Quotethe funny thing about bfc is that it really isn't anti-gun. MM has said that himself in interviews, and even one of the anti-MM sites you posted said that. I am "pro-gun"...
BWAHAHAHAAHAA!
YES, so have AL GORE, JOHN KERRY, BILL CLINTON, FRANK LAUTENBERG, and a host of other politicians, journalists, and celebrities -- none of whom have the balls to actually come out and state their true intentions with regard to guns, gun rights, gun ownership, and gun control.
They're dumb: they're just not dumb enough to come right out and say, "I want to take away the right to keep and bear arms." That would galvanize their opposition in a way that hedging their language, and going on the occasional photo-op "duck hunt" avoids them doing.
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, and while i don't agree with everything MM said or did in BFC, I enjoyed the movie and own a copy of it b/c I also really like some of what he says, and i think he brings up some good points. I looked at some of the anti-MM sites you guys posted. while they offer some interesting points, I don't really think those arguments hold a lot of water.. like the editing of the heston speech. I realized the first time i saw it that the "cold dead hands" part was a different speech, and while they show that he put different clips together, the meaning and the words are the same. MM just makes it a condensed version.
Also, i've noticed that on the sites (and even in these posts) that people against MM seem to have a personal vendeta against him and are hell-bent on destroying him... this seems kinda weird and i have to wonder why they 'protest too much'
Anyway, I've enjoyed seeing points from both sides. craichead: I've also enjoyed your posts- your aguments seem to pretty calm and level-headed...
but, try not to lose your tempers guys! and remember that theres not anything wrong with admiting someone might have a point..
-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
QuoteBowling for Columbine is "about" how a country seems to spend its entirety living in fear, which I completely agree with.
Then why did Moore not indict the NEWS MEDIA specifically (and almost exclusively)?? They are responsible, more than any other single source, of feeding our hysteria and fear about crime and violence. Every night on the news, you can tune in and see a story about someone getting murdered. How often do you see a story about a woman who was home alone with her kids sleeping, someone broke a back window, and she armed herself with a 9mm handgun and saved the life of herself and her kids by alerting the homebreaker that she was armed and would shoot him?
According to repeated studies, between 800,000 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses occur in the U.S. each year. In the vast majority of cases, a gun is presented but not fired, and no one is shot, but criminal attacks are repelled. This does not make the news. Columbine makes the news. Paducah makes the news. The news media love to make us fear. But Moore said nothing about the skewed coverage of gun crime, even though guns are used far more to stop crime than to perpetrate it.
I wonder why that is?
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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
QuoteAnd if you really want to know (as if it really makes any difference), I have no firm opinion about gun legislation. If you have/want a gun and are legal to have it, you should be allowed to have it. I just hope that your anger never gets the best of you if/when you happen to have a loaded gun in your hands.
And lastly...I'm a she.
_Pm
You don't post like a "she."
As far as me getting angry while in possession of a gun, it's happened lots of times. I never did anything with the gun. It was as though I simply didn't even have it. I'm not that type of person.
I'm armed just about all the time, if not with a gun then with a knife at the very least. But I am not the type of person that the public need worry about because (despite what you may believe based on the tone of some of my posts) I am not an unstable hothead.
A burden is placed on a person who bears a lethal instrument. Legal, ethical and moral considerations exist, and serious soul-searching takes place, generally, in such a person, regarding when, whether, and why he would use his gun or other weapon. Such a person must be prepared to face ramifications if he should ever use his weapon (and that includes just brandishing it).
I'm 11 years into it, now. I've never had to draw my weapon in defense, and certainly never in anger (that's just not a justifiable reason, period). Part of the reason is that I have self-limits in my mentality that prevent me from reacting violently. My gun is kept for defending my life, period. It is not a penis-extension; it is not a fashion accessory; it is not for intimidating others into giving me my way; it is not for settling arguments. It is a tool akin to a fire extinguisher: I hope that circumstances never demand its use, and I will go out of my way to avoid such circumstances; but if I need it, that need will be dire. "It is better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it."
Finally, regarding what you said about "if you have/want a gun and are legal to have it" -- that's tautological. You're saying that you're okay with people having guns as long as the guns they want are legal for them to own. That is hardly neutral, since there are constant efforts underway to make it ILLEGAL to own the very guns that we currently own legally. So if they made it illegal for me to have the gun I have today, according to what you wrote, you would no longer support me being able to have it, yes?
--Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
QuoteMoore is an ass, his movies are fiction, not documentary, and yes, anything involving him is political, weapon related, and basically Speakers Corner material.
or maybe NPR or the National Inquirer.
QuoteRed-blooded, God-fearing, Capitalist, Gun-owning, Heterosexual, Conservative, American, and Proud.
Any questions?
you left out "evil " or "mean" in front of Capitalist
QuoteWithout equivocation, every fact is true in Bowling for Columbine. Three teams of fact-checkers and two groups of lawyers went through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure that every statement of fact is indeed an indisputable fact. No film company would ever release a film like this without putting it through the most vigorous vetting process possible.
Doesn't matter to me how many of MM's lawyers and "checkers" verified his "facts." "Facts" are not all that this is about. It's also about "impressions." Moore deliberately draws his audience into forming various impressions that come about only after deceptive manipulation and application of "facts." "Facts" and "statistics" are well-known to be easily manipulated; you and I could use the same exact facts and statistics (checked thrice or more), and make conclusion statements based on them that would be utterly at odds with each other, from the standpoint of final meaning. Our "facts" could be unchallengable; how they are used would be at issue.
Moore walked out of the bank with a rifle, but customers do NOT do what he did as a general practice -- if at all. He claims in later interviews that they do, but offers no proof, no names, no dates - no reason to be believed. Still, he claims that's how it works, and that he and his people did not set up the bank/gun transaction ahead of time. Someone's lying. Either it's Moore, or the people who have researched this and put up websites saying that Moore's depiction of walking out of the bank with a rifle is aberrent. I suspect it is Moore lying. He didn't have to misrepresent a "fact" to do it, because he never comes out and states, "This bank will hand you a rifle when you open a CD," which would be false. Instead, he invites the viewer to conclude that his experience is typical because he never informs them otherwise. It is actually not unreasonable for people to take from this scene the notion that if they went to the bank they too would be given a rifle to walk out with, despite the fact that we know FACTUALLY that a person has to wait typically a week to 10 days for his gun.
QuoteTotal number of lawsuits to date against Moore or his film by the NRA? NONE. That's right, zero. And don't forget for a second that if they could have shut this film down on a technicality they would have. But they didn't and they can't – because the film is factually solid and above reproach. In fact, Moore has not been sued by any individual or group over the statements made in "Bowling for Columbine?" Why is that? Because everything said is true
An absence of lawsuits proves exactly zero. I've never been ticketed for driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Does that prove I never have?
Not everyone who could sue for slander does sue for slander. It's difficult to prove.
I think that Charlton Heston could sue for being cast in a derogatory light, since it is documentable that his sentences were cut and slapped together in ways that altered the impression they originally gave. I think he is simply above even acknowledging Michael Moore. Heston, who marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the civil rights era, is a slightly more dignified man than Michael Moore, who is just a shameless, intellectually bankrupt publicity hog.
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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
"and while i don't agree with everything MM said or did in BFC, I enjoyed the movie and own a copy of it b/c I also really like some of what he says, and i think he brings up some good points."
You're just full of surprises Jeffrey.
"I already said that I did watch (some of) the movie. I stopped watching in large part because I had to return the video and I was out of time (the library gives only two days without a renewal). I was not interested in bothering to renew the v ideo. I had already read plenty about Moore's b.s. shenanigans in the movie before I took it out to watch, and even if I had not read up on it, I would have been turned off by the parts I did watch.
The movie is a piece of shit. It's paraded around as "documentary," but it's twisted like taffy to make it say what Moore wanted it to say -- truth and accuracy be damned."http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1091184#1091184
When asked if you had viewed the film....
"Fine, maybe I will -- the library has it for free. I just have to find the time. Trust me, watching Michael Moore spew what I know are lies is very far down my priority list. "http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1091195#1091195
For someone who is constantly crusading for FACTS, you seem a little confused.
On the same day, you say that you own a copy and quite like (parts at least of it) it, also that you borrowed the movie from the library, but didn't watch it all, and you proclaim that it is "twisted like taffy".
Whats that term you guys use? Ah yes 'flip flop'.
Facts and statistics are for those trying to prove a tenuous point, I'm just interested in truth.
You're just full of surprises Jeffrey.
"I already said that I did watch (some of) the movie. I stopped watching in large part because I had to return the video and I was out of time (the library gives only two days without a renewal). I was not interested in bothering to renew the v ideo. I had already read plenty about Moore's b.s. shenanigans in the movie before I took it out to watch, and even if I had not read up on it, I would have been turned off by the parts I did watch.
The movie is a piece of shit. It's paraded around as "documentary," but it's twisted like taffy to make it say what Moore wanted it to say -- truth and accuracy be damned."http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1091184#1091184
When asked if you had viewed the film....
"Fine, maybe I will -- the library has it for free. I just have to find the time. Trust me, watching Michael Moore spew what I know are lies is very far down my priority list. "http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1091195#1091195
For someone who is constantly crusading for FACTS, you seem a little confused.
On the same day, you say that you own a copy and quite like (parts at least of it) it, also that you borrowed the movie from the library, but didn't watch it all, and you proclaim that it is "twisted like taffy".
Whats that term you guys use? Ah yes 'flip flop'.
Facts and statistics are for those trying to prove a tenuous point, I'm just interested in truth.
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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson
Quote"and while i don't agree with everything MM said or did in BFC, I enjoyed the movie and own a copy of it b/c I also really like some of what he says, and i think he brings up some good points."
You're just full of surprises Jeffrey.
Oops. That part was written by crazyrock -- I mistakenly left the quoted material there at the bottom. I would never have said that, and from my past context, I'm surprised you didn't conclude that.
So you can take back that part about how I'm so confused and inconsistent. Were it not for my inadvertent failure to clip that text, you'd still have no reason to suspect I had claimed to have both liked the movie, own the movie, and not have seen the movie to the end.
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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
PM'd in the interest of world peace.
--------------------
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson
smiles 0
QuoteMoore walked out of the bank with a rifle, but customers do NOT do what he did as a general practice -- if at all. He claims in later interviews that they do, but offers no proof, no names, no dates - no reason to be believed. Still, he claims that's how it works, and that he and his people did not set up the bank/gun transaction ahead of time.
Open a bank account get a gun??
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/suntimes_20010128.php
Copyright 2001 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Chicago Sun-Times
January 28, 2001, SUNDAY, Late Sports Final Edition
SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. 43
LENGTH: 537 words
HEADLINE: Banks use gifts to target depositors
SOURCE: Bloomberg News
BYLINE: BY MICHEAL NOL
DATELINE:TRAVERSE CITY, Mich.
BODY:
Open a bank account, get a gun.
North Country Financial Corp. is exchanging firearms for deposits, giving away rifles and shotguns in lieu of the interest that normally accompanies accounts.
Put as little as $ 869 in a 20-year certificate of deposit, and the Traverse City-based bank will hand over a Weatherby Inc. Mark V Synthetic rifle that lists for $ 779. Deposit more, and you have a choice of six Weatherby shotguns or a limited-edition rifle.
The bank has 28 branches, mostly in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and the guns-for-CDs program is a potent weapon in the fight for Americans' savings at a time of shrinking bank deposits.
Banks across the country are offering everything from $ 50 gift certificates and books to casserole dishes and clocks to lure back customers and stem a seven-year decline in deposits as Americans shifted money into stocks and mutual funds.
U.S. time deposits, including CDs, totaled about $ 1.05 trillion at the end of last year, down from $ 1.17 trillion in 1990, according to the Federal Reserve. In the decade, assets in mutual funds surged to $ 6.82 trillion at the end of November from $ 1.07 trillion at the end of 1990, the Investment Company Institute said.
Offering freebies for deposits gives banks "a way to get the customer in front of us," says Ken Lewis, president and chief operating officer of Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp., which has more deposits than any other U.S. bank. Getting customers back in the door "gives us an opportunity to sell other products as well," he said.
North Country's arrangement with Weatherby in Atascadero, Calif., is the brainchild of Ronald G. Ford, the bank's chairman and chief executive.
"It's a high-end product that fits the lifestyle here," Ford said.
Ford, who owns seven Weatherby rifles and shotguns, hunts black bear and white-tailed deer in Michigan -- and elk and mule deer in Colorado, pheasant in the Dakotas and moose in Canada.
North Country started offering the Weatherbys more than 10 years ago and displays the guns on its branches' walls. In the Upper Peninsula, where some schools close for the start of hunting season in November, guns on the walls don't necessarily raise eyebrows.
The program has brought in millions of dollars of deposits from customers in every U.S. state, said Rose Garvin, a North Country Bank & Trust manager and federal firearms license holder. It eventually led to other giveaways, such as grandfather clocks and golf clubs, but guns are still the most popular.
North Country advertises its CDs in hunting and gun-enthusiast magazines, attracting hunters and collectors. Its costliest giveaway, available with a $ 14,911 deposit in a three-year CD, is Weatherby's Athena Grade V Classic Field 12-gauge shotgun. It comes with oil-finished stock and rose and scroll engravings on the side plate and carries a suggested retail price of $ 2,919.
The same $ 14,911 deposit in an average three-year account paying 5.48 percent interest yields $ 2,588 at the end of the term, $ 331 less than the price of the gun.
By contrast, $ 869 placed in a CD at that same rate for 20 years returns $ 1,656 of interest, more than double the price of the $ 779 Mark V Synthetic.
MOORE NARRATION: I had spotted an ad in the local Michigan paper that said if you opened an account at North Country Bank, the bank would give you a gun.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/transcript_bankemployee.php
SMiles
Well?
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"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"
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