So what IS wrong with Fahrenheit 911???

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I know a lot of people don’t like Michael Moore (and many are pissed at him after Bush somehow won again). I’ve enjoyed him since the start (one of my fave skits on The Awful Truth or TV Nation (forget which one) was where he goes to Newt Gingrich’s hometown to lampoon his cries for less big gov’t involvement in little areas’ governance–the whole town seems to support the Newt’s pleas, and Moore skewers the whole gang by showing how much federal $$ Newt has scammed for his town/county, which is totally disproportionate given its size/population!!! And Chicken Man ruled…). Okay, so he’s really messed up re. his perceptions of Cuba, but other than that…

Anyway, I know people bitch about Fahrenheit 911 for blah blah blah reasons. So here’s my question: What SPECIFICALLY about the movie is SO WRONG? I know several rabid right wingers have attacked it for various reasons, all of which Moore tears apart in his rebuttals. And I know people like to say “he plays loose with the facts” etc., but what facts are those? He poses many legit questions b/c there are far too many questionable facts out there (and he backs up his statements and questions in his book, “Dude, Where’s My Country,” and other places).

It’s like the Kinsey books 50 years ago: millions of people were outraged, but only a tiny fraction had actually OPENED his books (though millions BOUGHT them…they aren’t an easy read at all). So what are the SPECIFC criticisms? Anyone???

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Wow, maybe it’s just me. But that comment sounds really ignorant. Especially coming from someone in Canada who doesn’t live here in the US.

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Oh shiite. I’ve gone back to the original post to edit it. I meant THE MOVIE, not the incidents of that day. If you were referring to the MOIVE, then please show me how my comment is ignorant. If you were referring to the INCIDENTS, then I apologize for that very poor use of shorthand (totally unintentional).

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Alright man. It was just a misunderstanding. It originally just said “people bitch about 911 for blah blah blah reasons” and I thought you were talking about the incidents that happened; not the movie. As I said…just a misunderstanding. It’s cool now. Carry on…

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Thank you… :unamused:

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What is so wrong? Well the first half is amazing, really, really good. It then just bombs from then on.

Take, for example, the mother of a soldier who gets killed. What was his job? His job was to go to war. And she bitches about the fact that her Son was killed!! What did she think might happen when he was in the army? Yes, I feel sympathy for the women who have lost their children. But to argue that soldiers shouldn’t risk their lives, wtf?

What was the point of Moore having her in the film? None. How does trying to get Senators to sign their children up to the army help his arguments? Not one bit. It completely muddled and diluted his arguments until they were incoherent.

Anyway, armies have always fought wars which aren’t necessarily their ‘own’, but are in their country’s interests. Take the napoleonic, WW1, WW2. That whole vein of argument was specious.

Idiotic and boring, that’s what the 2nd half of that film is, a pure and utter waste of what could have been the hardest hitting doc of all time.

Moore has done it time and time again, starts off amazingly then launches into some twisted sort of pacificism that can’t exist in the real world and it’s crippled all his work, stupid white men, bowling for columbine, Farenheit 911.

Take the lambasting he gives the NRA president in bowling, it’s as if he’s trying to get the guy to admit that he was the one pulling the trigger. All he succeeds in doing is making you think that Moore doesn’t know what he’s talking about and someone else wrote the first half of the film. Moore can’t seemed to stay focused on what the arguments are.

Now if he could have delivered F911 as effectively as Super Size Me was, we would have seen a different person in the White House.

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my biggest problem was that he did about twenty minutes of research and totally pussed out when he could have kept going extremely hard.

if he had half a brain and read anything by noam chomsky, dubya would be assassinated by now, whether or not he was re-elected!

read this. its called ‘the journalist from mars’ and it talks about the two different wars on terror. one was started in the early 80s where we massacred and raped all of latin america in order to save the US from the horrific threat of the communist juggernaut in honduras, which “two days driving time from harlington texas”, and so obviously a very grave threat.

it was all bs, it was all intended purely for corporate profit. its all declassified. i wish i knew about this when reagan had his funeral because i would have thrown a molotov into his coffin that stupid crackhead.

the thing that moore should have talked about, and that noam does, is that the people in charge during the first “war on terror” ARE THE SAME PEOPLE!!! cheney and rumsfeld and plenty of other evil monsters were all in charge behind the scenes of some dumbass president 20 years ago!! it blows my mind that these are the exact same people doing the exact same thing!!

instead, the only things i remember from fatsos failure include bush waiting 7 ENTIRE MINUTES at the preschool reading to children after he heard the most shocking horrible news of his life. fucking michael moore, bush waited seven minutes, and moore probably spent more time than that bitching him out for it. retarded.

then he goes on at length about how one of the hijackers was paid at some point by the saudi govt. i mean, sure it looks kind of shady that almost all of them came right from our friends the saudi royal familys country, but that country is not our friend, only that family is. they are wahhabi which is like the craziest kind of muslim.

he wants to say that its a big conspiracy between the bush family and the saudis, but theres no evidence of that besides one guy being on the saudi payroll at some point in the past. and one guy was affiliated with bush in some way i think. if hes gonna make a theory, and waste my $8 making it, it better be a freaking theory. instead he sounds like geral sosbee excepts with a smug grin like he totally already discovered the conspiracy.

there are SO SO many things he could have said to absolutely destroy every president in the past 100 years. and he said nothing at all.

i truly, honestly, seriously believe with a straight face that the republicans saw this guy cheesily enrage the world with bowling for c, and they paid him millions of dollars to make an even cheesier crappier movie about hating bush in order to discredit all of the people who hate bush. i swear to god there is no other explanation for such a retarded movie. i or noam chomsky could have had millions of people storming washington if we had a worldwide movie deal. i swear to god this is true.

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Matt and FM,

Thank you for your criticisms. I will respond to a few of them. I’m sure Moore has read Chomsky, but so what? Chomsky impresses some people (myself included) and pisses of others. I agree with a lot of what he says/writes but I doubt millions of people would pay to see him talk on the topics at hand. For that matter, FM, based on what I’ve seen HERE, if millions of people saw your thoughts on the topic, they WOULD end up storming somewhere, but not Washington :laughing:

The fact is, Moore DID get millions of people to see the movie and to learn about things they had no idead about previously. Chomsky couldn’t get that done, you couldn’t, and few others could. Moore did. Yes, I already knew all of the things he presented in the movie, but that’s because I’ve read a variety of sources (I personally think he should have pushed the whole Palast-discovered Jeb Bush vote rigging conspiracy much more than he did); from what I heard, many “average Americans” had made no such effort and the facts or speculation presented in the movie was new to them. But his style GRABBED people to see the movie and to see these things. If you could do a better job, do it. Again, look at the success you’ve had in this forum, FM, before criticizing the guy for not covering the topics that you wanted him to cover or in the way you wanted him to do it.

As for the Saudi connection, from what I’ve read (including his “Dude…” book), it’s far more involved than you let on. And the fact that the big media aren’t chasing this down, even though many of them did report on it, should tell us something. So Moore doesn’t have all of the FACTS (or very few of them), but you give me enough convergent circumstantial evidence and I’m going to start to see possibilities. BTW, didn’t Moore clearly point out that the same players are involved in both Iraqi invasions? I was pretty sure he did (I know in his Dude book he did).

Yeah, the Bush sitting there for 7 minutes was kind of long and drawn out, but it also shows his lack of character (Bush’s). It also shows how the White House’s spin masters’ take on the situation (including when he first learned about the attacks and other facts covered elsewhere and MAYBE in the movie…gotta admit I forget what was in the movie vs all of the other relevant material I’ve seen) was b.s.

As for the mother whose son was killed? Her son enlisted to fight FOR A DIFFERENT REASON. He was SOLD A LIE, as were all Americans (and the world). Fuck, man, dozens (hundreds?) of soldiers are now fighting for their freedom b/c they enlisted under false pretenses, and now that they see they are being asked to slaughter innocent women and children (not to mention getting cut down in bulk numbers), they want OUT. One such soldier is in Canada trying not to get deported to face court martial. I personally applaud such soldiers. From what I’ve seen of their stories, they truly changed their mind after realizing that they were FOOLED and being asked to SLAUGHTER INNOCENT PEOPLE (probably not all, but some of your soldiers truly seem to have done this for said reason). THAT is what’s important about this mother. That and the fact that the fucking bitch (pardon the language) who chastized her for protesting the war without any sympathy after hearing that her son had been killed was a very powerful image (manipulative? Maybe, but the left needs someone to stand up to the O’Reilly’s who have no soul when they attack the son of that man killed on 9/11 and purport to speak for that man and say that the man would be ashamed of his son for WANTING PEACE and NOT WANTING HIS FATHER’S MEMORY TO BE HIJACKED BY PRICKS LIKE BUSH AND THE RABID RIGHT WINGERS).

And confronting the senators about enlisting their own kids? How is that NOT effective? These bastards are pushing to sucker (many) poor, uneducated kids to enlist with the hope that after slaughtering a few innocent people and maybe bombing a hospital or two, they can get an education that would otherwise be out of their reach (plus, they get paid better than at McDonalds, I think…not so sure about that one). So, if you are so certain that your call to murder is virtuous, get off your rich, spoiled, pampered, fat ass and do some of the killing YOURSELF! Oh, you’re too old? Okay, get your KIDS to do your dirty work. No? Didn’t think so…Brilliant, Moore, brilliant. Expose the hypocrites for what they are.

As for Bowling, yeah, it was a bit heartless to pester Moses like that. But then again, Moses has been pretty heartless in his refusal to make the streets a little safer for the children of America (though his editing was sleazy in that he made it look like Heston’s infamous speech came RIGHT AFTER the columbine shootings, when in fact it was just stock footage…).

I don’t know, Matt, but I don’t have a problem with Moore’s confrontational and sensational style. I personally think it’s a necessary antidote to the right-wingers who seem to have far better access to the general public (mediamatters.org provides more than ample evidence that the right wingers have totally brainwashed the public into believing in the “liberal media conspiracy” and has got away with saying the Left does ABC, when in fact the Right does EXACTLY ABC). The Left are pathetically unorganized and ineffective in many ways. They preach to the converted but seem unable to convert any middle dwellers. Moore will likely never convert any right wingers, but it looks as if he has moved many middle dwellers over to the left at least a little bit. Chomsky has not done that (I don’t think). Not even Gore Vidal has done that (another one of my heroes). They have many left-leaning fans but are just not “accessible” to many “average Americans.” Moore is.

Hey, on a personal level I think he’s a douche when he tries to pretend he’s still a “common man,” and he’s a douche for his misconstrual of Cuba, and he’s a douche for believing he’s the most important man on the planet (sorry…just played some South Park clips on my computer and have Parker and Stone’s fave word (douche) ringing in my ears). But I think he got more Americans (the rest of the world already seemed to know… :unamused: ) to see something they hadn’t realized before re. just how duplicitous Bush and his cabal are, than any other person. I don’t see how the criticisms outweigh (no pun intended…sorry Moore…) what Moore did…

Just my thoughts…of course it doesn’t mean my points are any more or less valid than your points, Matt and FM…

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chomsky only pisses people off when he doesnt have enough time, or the people dont know the facts. if he had two hours to lay out all the facts, he would either get busted like the dirtiest liar the world has ever known, or the country would be flipped on its head.

the problem is funding. im curious as to where moore got the money to publish his crap. im very surprised disney almost did it. the fact that they almost did really feels like it corroborates the whole conspiracy theory that the ‘left wing conspiracy’ is actually a right wig conspiracy to discredit the left wing.

who did end up paying for him? a large and evil corporation? fact remains, all this movie did was tug on emotional strings that are pointless, inefficient, and most people already had these ideas anyway. when i walked out of the theater, nobody said it was great, all i could hear was dissapointment.

the facts are much more horrible than whatever was in the movie. all it would have taken would be a small cursory glance at the atrocities in south america, and the mugshots of cheney rumfeld and the others who were in the white house at that time and still are today, and that movie could have blown the entire establishment out of the water. the fact that he said nothing about that and wasted his time bitching at senators for not signing up their sons who dont need college tuition money, thats retarded. like nobody ever knew that senator sons dont go to war.

well… bush did gain a lot of credibility by making kerry look like a total pussy for going to vietnam and failing to be the greatest war hero of all time. during the election i wanted to hack fox news and run an ad that had all those swift boat fucks answering the question “how did bush do in vietnam you fat idiot”

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FM, you supported what I am talking about: I am not impressed by somebody who preaches to the converted; if Chomsky pissess off people who don’t know the facts (far too many people), how much of an impact can he have? Again, don’t get me wrong–I personally think Chomsky is very intelligent and knows his stuff and I DO wish more people would listen to or read him. But Moore DID reach many people, and from everything I’ve read, what he presented WAS new to MANY people. Yes, the film could have been better, but so could have The Godfather.

My original question was asking more about the claims some right wingers make about inaccuracies or false representations of some of the material he covered. I haven’t seen any credible evidence against Moore in that regard.

And no offense to all you right minded Americans (that’s right MINDED, not right WING), but following up on what FM wrote, how the hell do you let Bush, a draft dodger (for all intents and purposes), call Kerry to task–a man who was actually THERE in Vietnam? (not that there’s anything wrong with REAL draft dodgers, IMHO…but Bush was the worst kind…a spoiled hypocrite…and how have you let the big media let the story fall into obscurity? From what I know, no one has actually PROVED that Bush did his time as he claims! Everyone got hooked on the faked documents that they’ve ignored the lack of CLEAR SUPPORT for Bush’s supposed time served!!)

ugggggghhhh

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republicans have no excuse of any kind. i know two hardcore 20 year old republicans. they are despicable. they dont care about anybody except themselves. they refused to comment when i asked them about this.

they support bush only because the democrats suck at what they do.

honestly, we cant blame the republicans. the democrats are the party who shows up and says “alright party’s over you drunk fucks. pick up those floaters and drink them you slobs. who puked there, clean it up pussy. wheres the money”

and repblicans have very many reasons to vote against kerry. surely not as many as we have, but we dont rely on mainstream media. the republicans dont discredit the entire govt organizaton, they merely discredit kerry and whatever bulls he probably would have pulled.

none of them are good. dont support any of them. support actual education. sign up for your school newspaper. support nader. get a bullhorn and boycott the vote in rich neighborhoods, or anywhere you think theyll vote republicans.

what a great idea!!! next time they vote, only go to the rich neighborhoods, and spew that noam chomsky propaganda on the bullhorn. i swear to god i will. i hope at that time i have a friend to video tape me. oh boy i cant wait until the next election, i live in the white mans suburb. i am going to start the first country club riot.

ps- when i said chomsky will get busted like the worst liar the world has ever known OR he will be vindicated as the master of truth- im not exagerating. this is the dichotomy we are faced with. a total of 4 websites on google acknowledge “noam chomsky lied” and i say he is the sole arbitor of truth. all on google said something vaguely related to denying the existence of the holocaust, which noam denies denying. what do you think and why?

those websites on google didnt describe at all. i wonder why.

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Those 20-year-old repubs reminded me of someone in another forum I used to frequent till the dictator made me the first ever “banned for life” ex-member (yeah yeah yeah…no bitching about such things on ILP…I know, I know…I’m not bitching, just bragging…).

Anyway, this person professes to be a democrat but is somehow a staunch supporter of all things Bush (including slaughteting thousands of innocent Iraqis). He is quite intelligent and articulate yet becomes single/narrow minded when discussing his beloved America–hell, he’s an out and out jingoist. So here’s a post I wrote elsewhere in his honour (I’m only mentioning all this because it makes it easier than trying to re-edit the post to account for my references to him…I’m sure you can sub other names for his…). Warning–I might come across as FM-light in this post, but when I rant, I rant:

I was reading this article in the Toronto Star and had to think of Mr. F.

thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Conten … alogin=yes

This is another article on how the Conservatives (Cs) have managed to fool millions of Americans (and Canadians) into belieiving that there is some “Liberal Media Conspiracy” (Ls) out there. What’s amazing is that EVERYTHING these Cs accuse Ls of doing is EXACTLY what the Cs themselves do! So then I got to thinking of Mr. F. He is definitely intelligent and articulate and appears to be well-read on politics (and claims to have been raised a Liberal). Yet he spews out the Liberal Media Conspiracy crap himself. Prior to my banning, I never saw him acknowledge what I wrote above (about the hypocritical garbage Ann Coulter et al. spread).

So, I wonder what could lead someone as intelligent as Mr. F to so totally buy into the C’s lies about, if nothing else, the great LMC myth…

I think two possible answers explain it: 1) cognitive dissonance reduction theory (which I wrote about in ___), and/or 2) people such as Mr. F have deluded themselves into believing that they are as “nice” as they claim–that is, he keeps saying “I support good-for-humanity principle A and good-for-humanity principle B, but Ls will never achieve such goals, thus I reluctantly support Cs, but only insofar as they are the only ones who will be able to make the world a better place along the good-for-humanity principles I believe in.” But such claims are bull and are either residuals from his supposed L upbringing and/or are things he says to make his hate-mongering messages more palatable (e.g., supporting nuking North Korea pre-emptively, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghans in the name of “peace” (or, more accurately, safety for the US), etc…). In short, he is either a hard core BIG C and has bought all of their lies hook, line, and sinker b/c he has harboured such beliefs himself for a long time, thus all of the other stuff he writes about being an L is just BS; or, well…I can’t really think of another explanation, unless he is really that fragile that he cannot admit that the gov’t he supports now is making a fool of their believers/followers by making blatant lies about Ls and doing exactly what they accuse the Ls of doing.

In short, I can’t see any other explanation for ppl such as Mr. F, other than that they (a ) have been lifelong Cs and thus have been indoctrinated from a young age; or (b ) had a later traumatic experience that shook up their world views (one of the few things that can make ppl change so dramatically post-adolescence); or (c ) decided to try out something new and have been engaging in cognitive dissonance reduction (or more simply, denial and rationalization–which are part of cog diss reduction) ever since, in order to sleep at night (otherwise they would be wracked with guilt or shame for supporting gov’ts and ideals that truly benefit only a tiny proportion of the world and rape the vast majority…and these gov’ts and their co-conspirators do so while claiming to be HELPING the very ppl they rape…hell, they have the temerity to pretend that they are JUST LIKE the ppl they are raping, when most of them have no idea what the REAL WORLD for the majority of ppl is really like).

But maybe I’m wrong…but if I am, I would love for ONE BIG C to stand up and say “Yes, evidence shows that what the Cs are claiming re. the so-called LMC is really what the Cs themselves are doing. And although I agree with the principles of my C leaders, I find it distasteful that they LIE about such things and NEVER provide any TRUE EVIDENCE to back up their claims, while the L side provide AMPLE STATS and EVIDENCE to back up what they say about such matters.”