Mein Liebling Michael Moore mit seinem neuen Film Fahrenheit 9/11 - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[MarkMitt]

Szenenapplaus für filmische Abrechnung mit Bush

Die Zuschauer applaudieren, auch wenn Regisseur Michael Moore die Regeln des Dokumentarfilms großzügig auslegt. Mit suggestiven und inszenierten Bildern schießt der lautstarke Bush-Kritiker in seinem neuen Film "Fahrenheit 9/11" gegen den US-Präsidenten. Das ist es, was die Besucher der New Yorker Vorpremiere von ihm erwarten. Und sie hoffen, dass Moores Film auch ihre Verwandten in der Provinz überzeugt, dass dieser Präsident schlecht für Amerika ist.



Eben noch hat US-Präsident Bush die Welt aufgerufen, gegen den Terrorismus zusammenzustehen. Dann wendet er sich auf der Leinwand ab, um lässig einen Golfball zu schlagen. Das ist George W. Bush, auf den Punkt gebracht aus der Sicht von Regisseur Michael Moore. Suggestive Bilder wie diese sorgen für Szenenapplaus bei den Kinobesuchern im New Yorker East Village: Vorpremiere für "Fahrenheit 9/11".

"Dieser Film beantwortet viele Fragen, die mich seit der Wahl von Bush beschäftigen. Ich habe das Gefuehl, dass es einen Plan gibt, der nun aufgedeckt wird", meint eine Zuschauerin nach der Vorstellung von "Fahrenheit 9/11".








Moores Film hat nur ein Thema - jenen "Dämon" aus Texas und seine republikanischen Helfer, dem Linke und Liberale in den USA noch immer vorwerfen, seine Wahl mit Tricks und Fälschungen erschlichen zu haben. Moore lässt nichts aus, was das "andere Amerika" an Bush hasst: Um Korruption und Öl und Macht geht es da, um die Beschneidung von Bürgerrechten und natürlich den Krieg im Irak. Dass die umstrittenen Fakten nur mit Hilfe einer montierten Bilderflut vermittelt werden können, stört die meisten Besucher der Vorpremiere nicht.

"Das ist natürlich alles ein bisschen senstationsgierig", räumt ein Besucher ein. "Aber der Film hat wenigstens eine klare Aussage: Die führende Partei Amerikas ist schlicht und einfach korrupt."

Bilder verstümmelter Kinder zeigen Kriegsfolgen
Der lange Applaus am Ende des Films macht deutlich: Nur wenige Zuschauer haben Probleme damit, wenn Moore die Regeln des Dokumentarfilms sehr weit auslegt - indem er etwa mit einem gemieteten Eiswagen vor dem Capitol in Washington vorfährt, um den Parlamentariern Gesetze vorzulesen, die sie bei der Verabschiedung angeblich gar nicht gekannt haben.

In anderen Fällen ist die Wahrheit dagegen einfacher - und so schonungslos grausam, dass ein Stöhnen durchs geschockte Publikum geht. Ein Zuschauer muss das gesehene erst verdauen: "Du siehst die irakischen Kinder und ihre verstümmelten Körper - obwohl angeblich nur Gebäude getroffen wurden. Kleine Kinder haben ihre Arme und Beine verloren. Das ist es, was Bomben anrichten."

Ob Moore den Durchschnittsbürger erreicht, ist fraglich
Für viele Amerikaner wirkt Michael Moore im verbissenen Wahlkampf wie ein regelrechter Heilsbringer. Und "Fahrenheit 9/11" ist seine Botschaft, die Amerika retten soll.

Ob der umstrittene Film aber tatsächlich die Mitte der US-Gesellschaft erreicht und damit die Wahl beeinflussen kann, muss sich erst noch an den Kinokassen herausstellen. Konservative Gruppen rufen bereits zum Boykott auf und üben Druck auf Kinos aus, "Fahrenheit 9/11" nicht zu zeigen. Trotzdem geben zumindest manche Kinogänger in New York die Hoffnung nicht auf, dass ihre Verwandten auf dem Lande ein Einsehen haben und sich von Michael Moore bekehren lassen. "In meiner Familie gibt es viele, die den ganzen Unsinn aus dem Fernsehen ernsthaft glauben. Ich hoffe wirklich, dass meine Mutter nicht mehr auf meinen verrückten Onkel hört, in diesen Film geht und danach richtig wählt", meint ein Premierenbesucher.

Fazit: Wenn sein Film ähnlich gut wird wie sein Buch (Stupid White Man)dann hassen und lieben Ihn die Amerikaner noch mehr.

Mfg Mark

[MarkMitt]

Hatt jemand das Buch " Stupid White Man" gelesen ?
Wenn ja, welche Meinung habt Ihr darüber ?

[Magicdaff]

Michael Moore ????

habt Ihr schon mal gelesen wie Herr Moore über die Deutschen denkt ?


Der "andere" Michael Moore

Bisher kannte ich nur den Schauspieler, Komiker und Bush-Kritiker Michael Moore. Eine Leserin machte mich freundlicherweise auf den "anderen", den Deutsche hassenden "Schriftsteller" Michael Moore aufmerksam.

Vor wenigen Tagen, am 25. März 2004, erhielt er auf der Leipziger Buchmesse dafür auch noch den Deutschen Buchpreis.

Gratulation den Gratulanten !!!

Nachfolgend Auszüge aus der Homepage von Karl-Heinz Heubaum

Ein Holocaust-Denk- und Mahnmal eigener Art hat uns Deutschen der amerikanische Schriftsteller Michael Moore in seinem Buch "Querschüsse" zur Verfügung gestellt. Der Mann - der sich auf deutschen Bestsellerlisten nur so tummelt - muß in sich einen unbändigen Haß auf uns Deutsche aufgestaut haben, der sein Gesicht eigentlich rot vor Zorn werden lassen müßte. Einerseits. Andererseits muß sich gelegentlich wegen der überlaufenden Galle seine Gesichtsfarbe in`s gelblichgiftgrüne verfärben, vor einem ihn zerfressenden und mit dem Haß gepaarten Neid auf alles Deutsche auf Deutschland.

Daß Moore ausgerechnet hier seine Bücher wie warme Semmeln los wird, verwundert sicherlich den einen oder anderen Leser seiner "Querschüsse", in denen sein Hassgesang unverblümt ertönt. Mich allerdings nicht, wenn ich an die vielen Bekundungen bedeutungsvoller Leute denke, die uns im letzten Jahrhundert bescheinigten, daß wir mit Wollust in`s eigene Nest urinieren.

Nur weil dieser Moore auch auf Bush und die USA einhackt, muß man ihn nicht hofieren.

Hier im folgenden kommentierte Zitate aus Moores Haß- und Neidgesang als Leseprobe aus seinem Buch "Querschüsse", das beim Verlag Piper (München-Zürich) erschienen ist:

"Deutschland hat für seine Sünden noch immer nicht bezahlt - und ich will die Schulden eintreiben", titelt der Mann das Kapitel.

Anschließend fragt sich Moore, ob er etwas verpaßt habe, als der 50. Jahrestag des Sieges über Hitler-Deutschland zelebriert wurde. Nämlich den Augenblick, bei dem jeder Deutsche hernieder kniete und inständig um Verzeihung flehte. Wobei die Deutschen versprachen allwöchentlich eine Tageseinnahme an einen KZ-Überlebenden zu spenden. Und um ihr Mitgefühl zu zeigen, stiegen sie allesamt in Viehwaggons. Für Moore wäre das ein adäquates Mitfeiern für Deutsche bei der 50. Wiederkehr des 8. Mai 1945 gewesen und fragt dann seine Leser. "Habt ihr ihn auch versäumt?", diesen Augenblick! Moore fährt fort:

"Bin ich ein bißchen zu hart mit einem Land, das doch bereits Reue gezeigt hat und von dessen Bürgern die meisten noch gar nicht geboren waren, als der Massenmord begangen wurde? Nun ja. Werfen wir mal einen Blick auf die Anzeigetafel:

6 Millionen Juden ermordet.

3 Millionen katholische Polen ermordet.

500000 Zigeuner ermordet.

12 500 Homosexuelle ermordet.

Und dazu noch jede Menge Kommunisten, Zeugen Jehovas und andere Mißliebige, das macht eine Gesamtsumme von fast 10 Millionen wehrlosen Menschen, die im Holocaust abgeschlachtet wurden. Nicht mitgerechnet sind die 400 000 Amerikaner, die in diesem Krieg starben (im Kampf gegen Deutschland und seine Verbündeten Japan und Italien), die 25 Millionen Sowjetbürger, die getötet wurden oder verhungert sind, und die Millionen anderer Europäer, Afrikaner und Asiaten, die von Menschen eines Volkes umgebracht wurden, das damals für die gebildetste, zivilisierteste und fortschrittlichste Nation der Welt gehalten wurde. Und das alles ist gar nicht so lange her."

Nachdem der Mann nun auch noch gleich die Opferzahlen Stalins zu den Verlusten der Sowjets hinzugezählt hat und jeden verstorbenen Afrikaner und Asiaten auf`s Schuldkonto der Deutschen addierte, gibt er uns auch noch die Schuld am Soldatentod seines Onkels Lawrence, der im Kampf gegen die Japaner bei Manila gefallen ist. Und egal wo es derzeit in der Welt knallt, ob in Bosnien oder in Afghanistan, die Deutschen sind in jedem Fall Schuld. Und der Kerl hat ja auch recht. Daß es im Kosovo krachte, haben auch die Deutschen mit ihren Kampfflugzeugen zu verantworten unter der Regie von Rotgrün. Doch ansonsten ist seine Anzeigetafel höchst unvollständig. Er vergaß die vielen Bomben- und Vertreibungsopfer, die Deutschland zu beklagen hat. Nach der Aufzählung deutscher Schuld, fragt Moore:

"Und wie wurde Deutschland für diese Sünden bestraft? Es wurde eines der reichsten Länder der Welt! Und das in nur drei Jahrzehnten! Wie um alles in der Welt konnten wir das zulassen? Heute genießt der durchschnittliche Deutsche einen Lebensstandard, der schlicht einmalig ist. Ein Fabrikarbeiter in Westdeutschland verdiente letztes Jahr durchschnittlich 29 Dollar die Stunde. In den USA verdiente derselbe Arbeiter 19 Dollar. Der amerikanische Arbeiter muß pro Jahr fast 200 Stunden länger arbeiten als der deutsche. Das sind die fünf Vierzig-Stunden-Wochen, die die Deutschen bezahlten Urlaub kriegen, und dabei verdienen sie auch noch doppelt soviel wie wir Amerikaner. Und obwohl Deutschland nur ein Fünfundzwanzigstel der Fläche der USA hat und die USA fast vier Mal so viele Beschäftigte haben, ist sein Bruttoinlandsprodukt pro Kopf der Bevölkerung fast so groß wie das der USA.“

"Könnt ihr euch vorstellen, daß der Großmutter eines heutigen Juden auf dem Weg zur Gaskammer in Auschwitz ein Engel erschien und sagte: `Keine Sorge, die Deutschen werden vom Rest der Welt mit so viel Reichtum belohnt, dass sie gar nicht mehr wissen, was sie mit dem Geld anfangen sollen.`

Er bittet die Leser:

"Versteht mich nicht falsch. Ich bin nicht der Ansicht, daß es besser gewesen wäre, Deutschland wie nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg zu behandeln, als wir die Deutschen demütigten, um sie zu unterwerfen, und sie fast verhungern ließen. Diese Bedingungen waren zweifellos ein Grund, warum so viele Deutsche Hitler wählten. Außerdem haben nach dem Krieg viele Deutsche ihr Leben damit verbracht, ihre Eltern für deren Verbrechen anzuklagen. Tatsächlich sind die jungen Deutschen von heute - wenn sie sich nicht gerade den Schädel kahl rasieren und ausländische Arbeiter zusammenschlagen - sehr progressive, pazifistische Menschen guten Willens, die ohne eigenes Verdienst einfach ein gutes Leben führen."

Selbst wenn M. sich zu einer gewissen Objektivität herbei läßt, gibt es sofort den Seitenhieb, daß Kahlköpfe "ausländische Arbeiter zusammenschlagen", so als gäbe es jedes Wochenende Treibjagden auf Ausländer und zwar "Arbeiter", nicht etwa Asylanten. Womit signalisiert werden soll, daß der Ausländer grundsätzlich hier im Land einer Arbeit nachgeht, was so nicht stimmt, wie jeder weiß.

"Und was haben diese Deutschen getan, um in irgendeiner Form Reparationen für ihre Sünden zu zahlen?

" `Wir nennen es nicht Reparationen`, sagte die Frau am Telefon des deutschen Informationszentrums, `sondern Wiedergutmachung.` Okay, dann fragen wir eben: Wieviel `Wiedergutmachung` ist nach Ansicht der Deutschen das Leben jedes einzelnen Ermordeten wert? Nun, laut ihrer eigenen Aussage eigentlich gar nichts. Für die Toten wird keine `Wiedergutmachung` geleistet, wie man mir erklärte. Aber es gibt auch eine gute Nachricht: Alle Besitztümer, die Juden verloren haben, werden ersetzt. Wenn ihr also im Holocaust ein paar Kerzenleuchter verloren habt, könnt ihr euch melden und Deutschmark kassieren. Ihr habt nur euer Leben verloren? So ein Pech. Dann gibt es kein Geld für eure Lieben. Aber... wenn ihr beweisen könnt, daß ihr `mindestens sechs Monate in einem Konzentrationslager` oder `in einem Ghetto interniert` wart oder euch `mindestens acht Monate verstecken` mußtet, dann bezahlen euch die großzügigen Deutschen etwa 350 bis 600 Dollar für jeden dieser qualvollen Monate. Ihr sagt, ihr wärt nur 5 Monate und 29 Tage in Dachau gefoltert worden? Pech gehabt! Verklagt die Deutschen, dann kriegt ihr vielleicht eine einmalige Entschädigung von 3000 Dollar."

Moore fährt dann fort:

"Ich weiß, daß einige von euch jetzt sagen: `Hey Mike, die Überlebenden konnten sich nach dem Krieg immerhin in Israel niederlassen. War das kein Ausgleich für sie, daß man ihnen dieses Land gegeben hat?` Also, ich bin nicht der Ansicht, daß ihnen Israel wirklich `gegeben` wurde. Die Briten regierten das Land (das damals Palästina hieß), und plötzlich kamen all diese Überlebenden des Holocaust, die nirgendwo anders hinkonnten, und das hat den Briten überhaupt nicht gefallen. Aber sie hatten nicht die Energie, gegen die jüdischen Guerilleros zu kämpfen, nachdem sie gerade erst den größten Teil ihres Weltreichs verloren hatten, also zogen sie einfach ab und sagten: `Na gut, wenn ihr das Land haben wollt, dann gehört es euch.`

Von den arabischen Einwohnern wurde allerdings keiner nach seiner Meinung gefragt.

"Ich habe nie verstanden, warum es so ein großartiges Geschenk war, den Überlebenden des Holocaust Palästina beziehungsweise Israel zu überlassen. Seid ihr je dort gewesen? Es ist eine verdammte Wüste! Es gibt überhaupt nichts dort! `Wir haben die Wüste zum Blühen gebracht!`, sagen die Israelis gerne. Angeblich rationalisieren sie damit ja nur etwas ... Aber ich sage euch, es sind wirklich 100 Prozent Sand und Fels und noch mehr Sand. Wie konnten wir bloß glauben, es sei eine Entschädigung für sie, daß wir sie in diese schrecklichen Gefilde brachten, für die sie in weiteren Kriegen weitere Menschenleben opfern mußten? Weil es in der Bibel steht? Seit wann richtet sich die Welt nach diesem Buch?"

Die Staatswerdung Israels habe nichts mit der Bibel zu tun? Seit wann richtet sich die Welt nach diesem Buch, fragt Moore. Die Welt vielleicht nicht, doch der "harte" Kern der Judenheit schon. Deshalb wird eine jüdische Siedlung nach der anderen im Westjordanland und Gazastreifen errichtet. Vorposten für das biblische Großisrael. Aber auch ansonsten spielt durchaus die Bibel auch hierzulande noch eine Rolle.

Vielmehr hätten wir Deutsche das Land Bayern den Juden überlassen sollen, damit die dort ihren Staat einrichten können:

"Wenn wir wirklich das Richtige tun und obendrein die Deutschen hätten bestrafen wollen, hätten wir den Überlebenden Bayern geben sollen. Bayern ist wirklich ein schönes Land! Und es hätte die Deutschen sehr geschmerzt, Bayern zu verlieren. Daß die Juden Palästina bekamen, tat den Deutschen überhaupt nicht weh. Aber wenn diese Schweinehunde Bayern an die Juden verloren hätten, das hätten sie wirklich gespürt. Israel hat nur 28 076 Quadratkilometer, Bayern hat über 72 000! Israel hat kaum natürliche Ressourcen; Bayern ist reich an Mineralen, Wald und Wasser. Die Israelis sind seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg von Feinden umgeben, die sie umbringen wollen, Bayern hingegen ist von den herrlichen Alpen umgeben, und die sind nur von ein paar Ziegen und diesen drei dicken Saunabadern aus der Ricola-Werbung bevölkert. Leider ist es vermutlich zu spät, um diesen Fehler noch zu korrigieren, indem wir Tel Aviv nach München verlegen und die Deutschen probieren dürfen, ob sie auch die Wüste zum Blühen bringen können."

"Ich sage, bewaffnet sämtliche Bingospieler südlich von Fort Lauderdale, und dann feiern wir das wirkliche Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs.

Also, RENN` UM DEIN LEBEN, KLAUS!

Und einen glücklichen 50. Jahrestag!"

(Zitate aus dem Buch "Querschüsse" von Michael Moore, das beim Piper-Verlag erschienen ist.)

http://home.t-online.de/home/karl-heinz.heubaum/

W I D E R H A L L - Nr. 21 / Januar - Februar - März 2004:

[spicault]

[KinskiKlaus]

Ein ungebildeter ,übergewichtiger und Cheesburger fressender Amerikaner, der sich anmasst, sich in die Weltpolitik einzumischen.

[o_mar]

Ein in #5 treffend charakterisierter Mensch, der nur aufgrund seiner Bush-Antipathie bei der latent antiamerikanischen Linken als Idol verehrt wird.

[MarkMitt]

@ Magicdaff

werd mir AUCH dieses Buch zulegen und sollte es sich bewahrheiten was aus Deinem Auszug zulesen ist dann wird sich meine Ansicht über Herrn Moore rapide ändern.
Danke für Dein Posting !!!

mfg Mark

[spicault]

#7

Also, MarkMitt, wenn er M... über die Amerikaner erzählt, das ist dir ganz in Ordnung, aber wenn er M.... auch über die Deutschen abzapft, das ist ein Skandal!

Na ja, das bedeutet, du musst jetzt einen Ersatz-amerikanischen-Ami-Hasser aussuchen. Einer der den Deutchen wohlbesonnen ist.

Viel Glück dabei!

[Magicdaff]

#7 es stimmt wirklich !! War auch ein bisschen überrascht, als ich das zu ersten mal gelesen habe.

#8 ist es denn so schlimm, eine Meinung zu revidieren. Wenn MM auch über Frankreich so hergezogen wäre, würde das auch meine Meinung relativieren. MM ist halt nur ein linker Populist

[cyberwilly]

MM ist ein Mensch mit
Sendungsbewusstsein.
Seine Mission: Bush muss weg!

Der Mann ist ein Fanatiker.
Solchen Leuten ist nicht zu trauen,
aber alles zuzutrauen.

[endaxi]

#3 Michael Moore bezieht sich eindeutig auf die Kriegs und unmittelbare Nachkriegszeit dabei.Er Spricht nicht die Heutige Generation schuldig,sondern bezeichnet sie als Nutznieser,währrend die palästinenser deshalb stellvertretend daran glauben müssen.Was soll daran falsch sein?,es ist die realität.Er ist ebensowenig Amerika wie Deutschlandhasser,es gefällt euch nur nicht, ebenso einen Spiegel vorgehalten zu bekommen ,was durchaus verständlich ist.

[Joerver]

Wer sich über die Polemiken von Moore über Bush freut, darf nicht sauer sein über seine bitterböse Satire über Deutsche und Juden in Florida.

Die Art von Moores `Humor` ist gewöhnungsbedürftig und auch sein Umgang mit den Fakten.

Nur für alle, die er aufs Korn nimmt, gibt es ein großes Problem, seine Attacken treffen. Nicht umsonst die Aufregung im Bush-Lager über den Film.

Ob er Bush Kommentare mit ein paar Takten von `Cocaine` unterlegt, oder Ashcroft von `eagles` singen läßt, oder auch Wolfowitz Probleme mit den Haaren.

Nur seine Filme sind nicht das, was man landläufig als Dokumentation bezeichznet.

[MarkMitt]

@spicault

Ich hab nicht gesagt das ich wegen diesen kurzen Auszuges
( Posting von Magicdaff )aus seinem alten Buch meine Meinung sofort ändere sondern ich lese das Buch bei Gelegenheit und bilde dann meine Meinung darüber. So oder so !!
Was ich in seinem Buch mag ist seine konstruktive Meinung
über Amerika unter Bush und seine Kritik an einem kranken und teilweise alten System. Wenn schon so viele Leute Amerika als Trend sehen dann sollten sie auch mal hinter denn Spiegel schauen. Und dieses Buch ist halt für mich ein kleiner Einblick !!!!

mfg Mark

[Semikolon]

"Die Art von Moores `Humor` ist gewöhnungsbedürftig und auch sein Umgang mit den Fakten."

Das trifft eigentlich auf die meisten linken Amerikahasser zu, die sich in diesem Board breit machen.

Nur dass manche zwar denselben "Umgang mit Fakten" pflegen wie Moore in #3 zeigt, aber den "Humor" vermissen lassen.

Sie sollten sich mal an Moore ein Beispiel nehmen. Ich habe selten so gelacht wie beim Lesen von #3.

Köstlich selbstentwaffned z. B.:
"Und obwohl Deutschland nur ein Fünfundzwanzigstel der Fläche der USA hat und die USA fast vier Mal so viele Beschäftigte haben, ist sein Bruttoinlandsprodukt pro Kopf der Bevölkerung fast so groß wie das der USA.“

Auch die Persiflierung der deutschen Bürokratie mit der Entschädigung nach 6 Monaten und unter 6 Monaten ist drollig.

Jetzt verstehe ich, warum dieser Schreiber so beliebt ist. Was gibt es Schöneres als sich am Feierabend bei guter Satire und spritziger Komik zu amüsieren?

;

[endaxi]

M.Moor hat mich auch sehr Amisiert konnte mich sehr gut in eine Christlich-Bayuwarische-Freiheitsfront (Terroristen) reindenken,falls es so gekommen wäre.
Ausgangssperre ,verbot München zu betreten und ... zeigt wie empfindlich man bei eigenen leiden werden könnte.
Nun ist ja nicht Bayern besetzt, sondern Palästina als folge der deutschen "Weltmacht" seeligen angedenkens.
Kleines spässchen darf schonmal sein,nichtwahr Semikolon?.

[spicault]

Democrats and the Fahrenheit 9/11 Trap
Do they endorse Michael Moore’s kookiness?


Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe says he believes radical filmmaker Michael Moore`s assertion that the United States went to war in Afghanistan not to avenge the terrorist attacks of September 11 but instead to assure that the Unocal Corporation could build a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan for the financial benefit of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Enron chief Kenneth Lay.

McAuliffe and a number of other prominent Democrats attended a screening of Moore`s new documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, at the Uptown Theatre in Washington Wednesday night. McAuliffe called the film "very powerful, much more powerful than I thought it would be." When asked by National Review Online if he believed Moore`s account of the war in Afghanistan, McAuliffe said, " I believe it after seeing that." The DNC chairman added that he had not heard of the idea before seeing the movie, but said he would "check it out myself and look at it, but there are a lot of interesting facts that he [Moore] brought out today that none of us knew about."

A short time later, McAuliffe was asked by CNN, "Do you think the movie was essentially fair and factually based?" "I do," McAuliffe said. "I think anyone who goes to see this movie will come out en masse and vote for John Kerry. Clearly the movie makes it clear that George Bush is not fit to be president of this country."

Fahrenheit 9/11 devotes a significant amount of time to a fantastical theory that the war in Afghanistan was not part of a wide-ranging U.S. retaliation for the terrorist attacks of September 11, but was in fact undertaken for the financial benefit of Texas oil interests, specifically the vice president and Kenneth Lay. Narrating the movie, Moore briefly considers the administration`s stated reason for the war and then asks,


Was the war in Afghanistan really about something else? Perhaps the answer was in Houston, Texas. In 1997, while George W. Bush was governor of Texas, a delegation of Taliban leaders from Afghanistan flew to Houston to meet with Unocal executives to discuss the building of a pipeline through Afghanistan bringing natural gas from the Caspian Sea. And who got a Caspian Sea drilling contract the same day Unocal signed the pipeline deal? A company headed by a man named Dick Cheney. Halliburton. And who else stood to benefit from the pipeline? Bush`s number one campaign contributor, Kenneth Lay, and the good people of Enron.

That was not all, Moore says in the film. "When the invasion of Afghanistan was complete, we installed its new president, Hamid Karzai," the narration continues. "Who was Hamid Karzai? He was a former adviser to Unocal."

The Afghan pipeline scenario has bounced around among conspiracy theorists of the fringe Left, but Fahrenheit 9/11 is the first expression of the idea likely to reach millions of Americans. For the record, Unocal was involved in bidding for a pipeline in the mid-1990s but dropped the project in late 1998. According to an Associated Press report from the time, "Unocal Corp. withdrew from a consortium planning to build a pipeline across Afghanistan, saying low oil prices and turmoil in the Central Asian nation have made the project too risky."

The Afghanistan segment of the film is one of a grab bag of anti-Bush themes in Fahrenheit 9/11. To name a few: The film suggests that when the president was a young man, his (failed) oil-exploration company was supported by the family of Osama bin Laden. The film attacks the president`s sale of stock in Harken Energy, it attacks his Air National Guard record, it attacks his conduct during the Florida recount, it attacks his vacation habits, it attacks his immediate reaction to the September 11 attacks, it attacks his long-term reaction to the September 11 attacks, and, of course, it attacks the war in Iraq, which Moore suggests was undertaken for the financial benefit of the Halliburton Corporation. When the father of a soldier killed in Iraq speaks of his son`s death, he asks plaintively, "And for what?" At that point, the movie quickly cuts to a clip from a promotional film for Halliburton.

The Washington screening was filled with Democratic politicians and activists. In remarks before the film, Miramax Pictures head Harvey Weinstein praised former Clinton White House social secretary Capricia Marshall, who organized the screening, for doing "an incredible job of, you know, bringing together such a bipartisan audience." When the audience laughed, Weinstein joked that the film would provide the crowd a "truly interactive experience while watching the movie trying to guess which person in your row is the undercover member of the RNC."

In addition to McAuliffe, other Democrats at the Washington screening included Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, Montana Sen. Max Baucus, South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings, Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, New York Rep. Charles Rangel, Washington Rep. Jim McDermott, and others. Harkin told the Associated Press that all Americans should see the film. "It`s important for the American people to understand what has gone on before, what led us to this point, and to see it sort of in this unvarnished presentation by Michael Moore."

Since Fahrenheit 9/11 is so heavily identified with Democratic causes, it seems likely that a number of Democratic leaders, possibly including presidential candidate John Kerry, will be asked whether they endorse the conclusions of the movie. That could present a dilemma. To do so would mean associating with some of the least credible theories of the radical Left, while declining to do so would tend to undermine Moore`s status as an anti-Bush hero.

Meanwhile, Moore himself, who has often claimed that he had no political motive in making the film, seems to be changing his position. In May, when he spoke to reporters after winning the Palme d`Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Moore said, "I did not set out to make a political film.... The art of this, the cinema, comes before the politics." Last night, however, speaking to a crowd gathered on the sidewalk outside the Uptown Theatre after the showing, Moore appeared to have another message. "We`re all in the same boat and we all have a job to do," he told fans. "And if we do it, this country will be back in the hands of the majority."

National Review

[MarkMitt]

@Semikolon

Ich würd mich nicht direkt als Amerikafreund aber auch nicht als Amerikahasser betrachten und von links schon gleich dreimal nicht.
Steck nicht gleich alle in eine Ecke die vielleicht ein Buch informativ finden das Du vielleicht noch gar nicht gelesen hast. Und ich glaub die Leute die es gelesen haben können sehr wohl Wahnwitz und Informativ unterscheiden.

[Semikolon]

@MarkMitt,

Steck nicht gleich alle in eine Ecke die ...
Wenn du dich von meinem Beitrag angesprochen fühlst, kann ich nichts dafür. Auf jeden Fall deutlich weniger, wie Moore was dafür kann, wenn ein Deutscher sich von seinen Äüßerungen über Deutschland auf den Schlips getreten fühlt. Oder anders herum gefragt, woher nimmst du aus #14 einen Bezug zu Dir?

Im Moment kann ich nichts in meinem Beitrag #14 erkennen, was ich nicht wiederholen würde.

Ich fasse es für dich noch einmal zusammen:

Aussage 1)
Es gibt hier im Board viele Amerikahasser, die zwar einen seltsamen Umgang mit Fakten pflegen, der auch Moore nachgesagt wurde, aber nicht den Humor von Moore haben, den ich in der Textkostprobe #3 schätzen gelernt habe und den ein User vor mir besonders hervorhob.

Aussage 2)
Moore´s Text war derart komisch, dass ich brüllen mußte vor Lachen. Besonders lustige Passagen habe ich sogar herausgestellt.
Deshalb sagte ich, dass ich nun weiß, warum manche diesen irrsinig witzigen Autor mögen.

Allein daraus kann nun Jeder schließen, dass ich Moore bisher ganz sicher noch nicht gelesen hatte, nicht nur "evtl. nicht", wie du andeutest.
Aber dieses Manko werde ich bald nachholen. Wie der offensichtliche Moore-Kenner aus # 12 der ja von der "gewöhnungsbedürftige(n) Art von Moores `Humor`" schrieb, also sich wohl mit Moore gut auskennt, scheint ja der mich sehr amüsierende Text #3 sehr typisch für ihn zu sein.

;

[MarkMitt]

@Semikolon

Ich red hier vom Buch " The Stupid White Man " und nicht vom " Querschüsse " das hab ich selber noch nicht gelesen, werd ich aber auch nachholen und mir dann über Herrn Moore wieder eine Meinung bilden.

mfg Mark

[puhvogel]

Wie er schon richtig sagt: "stupid white man"

[Steigerwälder]

Man kann ja über Michael Moore sagen was man will. Aber der Multimillionäer Moore ist auf jeden Fall ein brillanter Geschäftsmann. Keiner beherrscht die Kunst sein Publikum zu verarschen so perfekt wie er.

[Joerver]

SPIEGEL ONLINE - 24. Juni 2004, 17:40
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/kino/0,1518,305697,00.html

US-Presseschau

"Moore bringt es auf den Punkt"

Am Freitag läuft Michael Moores Bush-kritische Dokumentation "Fahrenheit 9/11" in den USA an, der Vorverkauf läuft auf Hochtouren. Auch die amerikanische Kritik widmet sich jetzt dem Film - und ist geteilter Meinung. SPIEGEL ONLINE präsentiert eine Auswahl an Pressestimmen.

Filmemacher Moore: "Schnell dabei, jedem die Liberalität abzusprechen
Mehrere hundert Kinos in allen US-Bundesstaaten werden Michael Moores "Fahrenheit 9/11" zeigen, am Ende soll der Film in rund 1000 Kinos zu sehen sein. Die Dokumentation sorgte bereits im Vorfeld für viel Medientrubel, jetzt schalten sich auch die Filmkritiker des Landes ein. Die sind jedoch längst nicht so euphorisch wie erwartet.

"Seinen Titel nicht eingerechnet, hat Michael Moore einen Film abgeliefert, der weit weniger Zündstoff bietet als erwartet oder als seine Fans gehofft hatten. Die streckenweise sehr wirkungsvolle Dokumentation operiert weit mehr mit emotionalen Appellen als mit dem systematischen Aufbau einer Beweis-gesättigten Anklage gegen den Präsidenten und seinen Zirkel."
Todd McCarthy, "Variety"

"Noch ein Hinweis: `Fahrenheit 9/11` mag vieles sein, aber um Gotteswillen, bezeichnen wir ihn nicht als Dokumentation."
Ty Burr, "Boston Globe"

"Moores Gefolgsleute sind schnell dabei, jedem die Liberalität abzusprechen, der die Art und Weise, in der er seine Informationen präsentiert (oder, in manchen Fällen, erfindet), in Zweifel zieht. Für sie ist Michael Moore mit seinen Themen gleichzusetzen, in der Folge müssen seine Gegner auch Feinde des demokratischen Prinzips sein. Es ist ein alter Trick, ähnlich wie damals Pauline Kael (US-Filmkritikerin; Anm. d. Red.) angeklagt wurde, sie sei unempfindlich gegenüber dem Holocaust, weil sie `Shoa` nicht mochte."
Stephanie Zacharek, "Salon.com"

"Auch wenn Michael Moores `Fahrenheit 9/11` auf der Grundlage seiner faktischen Ansprüche und filmischen Verfahren angemessen diskutiert werden wird, sollte er erst einmal als temperamentvolle und ungestüme Übung in demokratischer Selbstverwirklichung gesehen werden."
A.O. Scott, "New York Times"

"Kein Kinogänger wird sich langweilen. Die vernichtende Attacke gegen den Irakkrieg und George W. Bushs Präsidentschaft ist informativ, provokativ, erschreckend, unwiderstehlich, witzig, manipulativ und vor allem unterhaltsam."
Claudia Puig, "USA Today"

"`Fahrenheit 9/11` ist dann am besten, wenn er Gesprächstoff für die wachsende Masse der Irakkriegsgegner liefert. Insgesamt ist er ein erschreckend fesselnder Leitfaden durch Moores Auffassungen von Fehlern und Vergehen der Bush-Regierung."
Mary Corliss, "Time"

"Was hier bemerkenswert ist, ist nicht Moores politische Feindseligkeit oder sein gefährlicher Scharfsinn. Es ist die gut vorgebrachte, aus dem Herzen kommende Energie seiner Überzeugungskraft. Obwohl vieles schon bekannt ist, bringt Moore es auf den Punkt. Ein Blick zurück, der wie ein Ausblick in die Zukunft wirkt."
Desson Thomas, "Washington Post"

"Obwohl überlang und von einer verschachtelten Beweisführung gehemmt, bringt der Film eine faszinierende Erzählung zustande, die auch als Unterhaltung funktioniert (...). Wenn Moore ernst zu nehmen ist, dann nicht, weil er ein großer Filmemacher wäre (weit entfernt), sondern weil er sein Talent für Verspottung mit der Wut moralischer Entrüstung anreichert."
J. Hoberman, "Village Voice"



© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2004

[LunkwillFook]

Man tut Mr. Moore unrecht - er hat wirklich gute und vor allem witzige Filme gemacht. Und ich habe bisher immer Tränen beim Lesen seiner Bücher gelacht. Der Mensch hat originelle Ideen und erreicht Millionen seiner Mitbürger und bringt kontroverse Diskussionen in Gang. Von wem können wir Deutschen das behaupten? Dieter Bohlen? S. Christiansen? Gääääähn!
Bin kein Freund von Copy and Paste, aber das Vorwort zur deutschen Ausgabe von "Volle Deckung Mr. Bush" - seinem letzten Buch - möchte ich hier einstellen. Vielleicht sind dann einige nicht mehr ganz so erschreckt über seine Wortgewalt...

Und bitte: Habt viel Spaß dabei - es lohnt sich!

"Nicht ganz Amerika ist verrückt"

Die Koalition der Unwilligen formiert sich. Auch in den USA wendet sich die öffentliche Meinung gegen Präsident Bush

Von Michael Moore

Seid gegrüßt, meine deutschen Freunde, stolze Überreste des alten Europa und Anführer der Koalition der Unwilligen! Was zum Teufel ist los mit euch? Habt ihr nicht mehr gewusst, dass ihr gehorchen müsst, wenn die einzige Supermacht der Welt einen Befehl bellt? Wir bellen, ihr springt – das ist die Regel. Hat Mr Bush euch nicht hoch genug bestochen, damit ihr mitmacht und die Bevölkerung des Iraks bombardiert? Habt ihr nicht gewusst, dass Saddam der Übeltäter Massenvernichtungswaffen besaß? Große Waffen! Oh ja! Grausige Waffen! Er … er … er konnte sich unsichtbar machen, und er besaß geheime magische Kräfte, wie dass er, äh, dass er sich in eine Motte verwandeln konnte! Und, und … fliegen konnte er auch! Ich habe gesehen, wie er auf dem Empire State Building landete, und er sah so grimmig drein, als wollte er uns alle töten! Echt!

Millionen von uns versuchen hier in den USA mit aller Macht zu verhindern, dass das Bush-Regime rund um den Erdball noch mehr Unheil anrichtet. Für uns ist es dringend notwendig, dass ihr Deutschen Bush Widerstand leistet, und ihr sollt wissen, dass wir diesen Widerstand geradezu verzweifelt begrüßen. Es schadet uns sehr, dass Leute wie Tony Blair unsere Anstrengungen sabotieren. Aber zum Glück haben in Frankreich und Deutschland und zahlreichen anderen Ländern einige der größten Antikriegsdemonstrationen aller Zeiten stattgefunden. Ich kann dazu nur sagen: Danke, Danke und nochmals Danke.

Ein Volk, das den Irak nicht einmal auf der Landkarte findet

Als ich kürzlich nach Übersee reiste, kamen viele Leute auf mich zu und dankten mir, weil ich „der einzige vernünftige Amerikaner“ sei. Dieses Kompliment entspricht schlichtweg nicht der Realität. Ich kann euch versichern, dass nicht das ganze Amerika verrückt geworden ist. Bitte vergesst niemals die folgende Wahrheit: Die Mehrheit der Amerikaner stimmte nicht für George W. Bush. Es ist nicht der Wille des amerikanischen Volkes, dass er im Weißen Haus sein Amt ausübt. Im Gegensatz zu einem weit verbreiteten Irrglauben ist eine Mehrheit der Amerikaner ziemlich fortschrittlich – ihr würdet es „linksliberal“ nennen –, aber sie hat keine engagierten liberalen Führer. Wenn sich das (hoffentlich bald) ändert, bessert sich die Lage.

Ich schreibe euch, damit ihr wisst, dass ich keineswegs allein bin, sondern mitten in einer neuen amerikanischen Mehrheit stehe. Viele Millionen amerikanischer Bürger denken wie ich, oder ich denke wie sie. Ihr erfahrt bloß nichts von ihnen, jedenfalls bestimmt nicht aus der Presse. Aber sie sind da draußen – und ihre Wut brodelt dicht unter der Oberfläche. Deshalb mache ich weiter meinen Job und versuche, das eine oder andere Loch zu bohren, damit die Wut sich in einem Geysir demokratischen Handelns entladen kann.

Ich kann gut verstehen, dass Deutschland und der Rest der Welt über das Verhalten der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika ausgeflippt sind. Recht hatten sie! Der Haufen, der bei uns regiert, fühlt sich an kein Gesetz gebunden. Ihr braucht euch nur zu fragen, wozu diese Gauner noch fähig sind, wenn sie schon die Wahl gefälscht haben. So viel kann ich euch sagen: Sie haben keine Hemmungen, alles zu zerstören, was sich ihnen in den Weg stellt, besonders wenn sie unterwegs sind, um noch mehr Geld zu machen. Und sie bestrafen euch, auch als alte Verbündete, wenn ihr nicht mit gebeugtem Knie und gesenktem Kopf am Wegrand steht und ruhig zuseht, wie sie zum nächsten Regimewechsel marschieren (vorzugsweise in einem Land, das ein paar profitversprechende Ölfelder hat).

All dies wird natürlich zu ihrem – und unserem – Untergang führen. Ich glaube, eine knappe Mehrheit der Amerikaner spürt das tief unten in ihren Bäuchen. Sie sind nur völlig verwirrt, und zwar nicht zuletzt, weil sie unter einer aufgezwungenen Unwissenheit leiden. Die Grundlage für diese Unwissenheit wird schon in der Schule gelegt, denn in unseren Schulen lernen sie fast nichts über den Rest der Welt. Und sie werden auch ihr ganzes Erwachsenenleben lang unwissend gehalten, weil die Medien kaum noch über das Ausland berichten, es sei denn, die Nachrichten haben etwas mit den USA zu tun. Dass wir nichts über euch wissen, solltet ihr an uns am meisten fürchten. Die meisten von uns finden euch nicht einmal auf der Landkarte. Laut einer kürzlich erschienenen Studie finden 85 Prozent der Amerikaner zwischen 18 und 25 den Irak nicht auf der Weltkarte. Ich meine, die erste Vorschrift des Völkerrechts sollte lauten: Ein Volk, das seinen Feind nicht einmal auf dem Globus findet, darf ihn auch nicht bombardieren.

Sollte ein derart unwissendes Volk die Welt führen? Wie ist es überhaupt dazu gekommen? 82 Prozent von uns haben nicht einmal einen Pass! Nur eine Hand voll kann eine andere Sprache als Englisch (und auch das sprechen wir nicht besonders gut). George W. sieht den Rest der Welt jetzt zum ersten Mal – weil er muss, weil das Reisen bei einem Präsidenten, verdammt noch mal, zum Job gehört. Vermutlich bekamen wir die Verantwortung für die Welt, weil wir die größten Kanonen haben. Komisch, das funktioniert anscheinend immer. Wir haben den Kalten Krieg gewonnen, weil unser Gegner die Flagge gestrichen hat. Die Sowjetunion beschloss dank Mr Gorbatschow, den Kampf aufzugeben, weil sie sich mit einem System stranguliert hatte, das einfach nicht funktionierte. Das Regime in Ostdeutschland ging zu Ende, weil die Leute auf die Straße gingen und gegen eine Mauer hämmerten. Wow, das muss man sich mal vorstellen, ein Regimewechsel, ohne dass ein einziger Schuss abgefeuert wird!

Dasselbe passierte in Südafrika – niemand musste das Land bombardieren, um es zu befreien. Tatsächlich gibt es etwa zwei Dutzend Länder, die – grob gerechnet – im letzten Jahrzehnt befreit wurden, einerseits durch den Druck der Weltöffentlichkeit, vor allem jedoch, weil ihre Bevölkerung durch einen gewaltlosen Aufstand die Macht ergriffen hat.

Aber wir Amerikaner kriegen ja keine Nachrichten aus Gebieten, die jenseits von Brooklyn oder Malibu liegen. Vermutlich haben wir gar nicht erfahren, wie ein richtiger Regimewechsel vor sich geht. Deshalb war es vor dem Irak-Krieg auch so einfach, uns schaufelweise Sand in die Augen zu streuen (meine Lieblingsschaufel war, dass der 11. September mit Saddam Hussein in Verbindung gebracht wurde), und die meisten von uns ließen sich blenden.

Ein Volk, das George W. Bush nicht noch einmal wählen würde

Okay, das ist verständlich. Wir wussten es nicht besser, und ich bin sicher, den meisten von euch ist klar, dass wir ein wirklich leichtgläubiger Haufen sind. Wir gehen das Leben ziemlich offen und großzügig und unkompliziert an. Wenn ihr uns um Hilfe bittet, kommen wir euch zu Hilfe. Und wenn ihr uns sagt, dass Esel fliegen können, glauben wir es (wenn ihr es im Fernsehen sagt). So sind wir nun mal, und ihr habt bestimmt schon festgestellt, dass das eine bezaubernde Eigenschaft von uns ist. Na los, gebt’s schon zu, das ist doch der Grund, warum ihr uns so gern habt. Und unseren Unternehmungsgeist nicht zu vergessen! Wir haben die nächste große Erfindung schon gemacht, bevor es 12 Uhr mittags schlägt. Wir haben Drive! Und Ehrgeiz! Und Selbstvertrauen! Klar, wir haben seit sechs Jahren keinen Tag mehr freigehabt, aber was soll’s! Wer braucht schon Schlaf! Wir müssen eine Welt regieren!

Das erklärt vermutlich, warum wir uns so verhalten haben, wie wir uns verhalten haben. Aber jetzt kommt meine Frage an euch: Welche Entschuldigung habt ihr? Warum habt ihr euren Regierungen im Lauf der Jahre gestattet, immer mehr von dem sozialen Netz wegzuschnippeln, das ihr uns vorausgehabt habt? Ihr Deutschen habt doch immer gesagt: „Wir sind füreinander verantwortlich.“ Deshalb gab es bei euch die Krankenversorgung, die Ausbildung und überhaupt alles, was Alle brauchen, umsonst. Aber jetzt wird das alles immer weniger. Es ist, als ob ihr euch in uns verwandelt, in ein Volk, das glaubt, dass die Reichen immer reicher werden müssten und alle anderen ihnen den Arsch küssen sollten. Ach, kommt schon, ihr Deutschen, ihr wisst es doch besser! Ihr seid belesen. Eure Medien berichten auch, was südlich der Alpen geschieht. Ihr macht Reisen. Ihr wisst Bildung zu schätzen. Und ihr habt im vergangenen Jahr die moralische Führung in der Frage Krieg oder Frieden übernommen. Ich bitte euch inständig, zeigt dieselbe moralische Urteilsfähigkeit, wenn es darum geht, das soziale Netz für jene Deutschen zu erhalten, die in eurem Land die Schwächsten sind. Beschreitet nicht den amerikanischen Weg, wenn es um die Wirtschaft, um Arbeitsplätze und um Dienstleistungen für Arme und Einwanderer geht. Es ist der falsche Weg.

Okay, jetzt kommt eine gute Nachricht: Während ich dies schreibe, wird über eine neue Meinungsumfrage in den USA berichtet. Ihr zufolge sind die Amerikaner zum ersten Mal mehrheitlich der Ansicht, dass Bush keine zweite Amtszeit mehr regieren sollte. Das ist eine großartige Nachricht, wenn man bedenkt, wie viel Unterstützung er zunächst für seinen kleinen Krieg bekam, der inzwischen zu einem endlosen Krieg geworden ist. Es hat also auch etwas Positives, dass wir Amerikaner uns nicht lange auf eine Sache konzentrieren mögen und immer nach sofortiger Befriedigung streben! Der Irak war kein Grenada, und jetzt ist uns die Sache langweilig geworden! Wir wollen Fernsehshows mit Happy End! Hey, warum schießen die immer noch auf uns? Ich will nach Hause! Hilfäääääääääää!

Noch eine letzte Bemerkung: Ich bin ganz überwältigt, wie die Menschen auf der ganzen Welt, seit Stupid White Men und Bowling for Columbine erschienen sind, auf meine Arbeit reagiert haben. Besonders aber bin ich von der Reaktion der Deutschen überwältigt. Die deutschsprachige Ausgabe von Stupid White Men wurde über eine Million Mal verkauft, und das Buch stand über sechs Monate auf Platz eins der Bestsellerliste. Zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt war es gleichzeitig Nummer eins und sechs – in der deutschen und in der englischen Version! Während ich dies schreibe, stehen Bücher von mir in Deutschland auf Platz eins und zwei (mein erstes Buch, Querschüsse von 1997, belegt den zweiten Platz). Über vier Millionen Exemplare von Stupid White Men sind inzwischen weltweit gedruckt (anscheinend hat sich nur Harry Potter besser verkauft), und Bowling for Columbine war für einen Dokumentarfilm der größte Kassenschlager aller Zeiten. Ich bin dafür sehr dankbar, weil es bedeutet, dass ich ohne Einmischung anderer die Bücher und Filme machen und veröffentlichen kann, die ich will. Dies ist ein Geschenk, das ich keineswegs als selbstverständlich betrachte. Ich nehme es als Zeichen, dass sich die Öffentlichkeit von der Rechten abgewandt hat und dass die Zeit reif ist für eine Bewegung, die sich für ein paar von den guten Dingen einsetzt, die endlich realisiert werden sollten. Ich hoffe, es ist euch ein Trost, dass die Amerikaner letztes Jahr, als Bush (wie die Medien fälschlich berichteten) so populär war, kein Buch öfter kauften und lasen als Stupid White Men, in dem George W. Bush die Hauptrolle spielt. Wie ihr seht, ist nicht alles verloren! Habt Vertrauen! Habt Hoffnung! Und schickt uns eine Zeitung mit interessanten Artikeln!

September 2003


© Piper Verlag GmbH, München 2003. Übersetzt von Helmut Dierlamm. Das Buch erscheint am 14.11.; Michael Moore tritt u. a. in Berlin (16.11. ) Hamburg (17.11. ), Köln (18.11) und München (20.11.) auf

[Semikolon]

@LunkwillFook #23
Danke für den Beitrag.

Ich kann deine begeisternde Meinung immer mehr verstehen. Der Typ ist einfach genial. Seine Geschäftsmethode mit dem bei pseudointellektuellen weitverbreiteten subtilen resignativen Antiamerikanismus ebenso. Allein schon dieses an "Deutsche" gerichtete Vorwort, ein Volltreffer an Sprachwitz, überheblicher Ironie und echtem, genialem Humor.

Jeden Satz muß man sich einzeln auf der Zunge vergehen lassen und sich dazu den sich den sein Buch kaufenden Adressaten vorstellen, der nach verlorenem Weltkrieg auch noch das Wirtschaftswunder verschlafen oder vergurkt hat und seither glaubt, nur noch Defätismus ist die moralische Rettung, wie er von Moore "gepauchpinselt" mit seinen antiamerikanischen Vorurteilen gestärkt wird.
Am Schluß auch noch der "intellektuelle" Hammer: Wie erhalte ich kostenlos Zeitungen.

;

[LunkwillFook]

Und schickt uns eine Zeitung mit interessanten Artikeln!

Das ist meiner bescheidenen Meinung nach ein gelungener Schluss seiner Glosse. Mehr nicht.
Ich kann Deinen Sarkasmus durchaus verstehen - ich kenne viele Amerikaner und kann sagen, dass ich selten Menschen begegnet bin, die offener, freundlicher und neugieriger waren als sie. Und das ist die Crux des ganzen: Ich liebe sie, deren Land und deren Möglichkeiten. Und fürchte mich gleichzeitig vor deren Naivität, Bigotterie und politischem Einfluss in der Welt.
Ich habe kein Patentrezept, finde es aber wichtig und richtig, dass die US-Gesellschaft einen Polemiker wie MM hervorgebracht hat.

[Semikolon]

@ Lunkwillfook

Gehe mal davon aus, dass ich diesen Moore tatsächlich nur durch diese hier veröffentlichte Passagen wahrgenommen habe und mich auch ganz unvoreingenommen mit dieser für im Leben stehende Deutsche absoluten Peanuts-Problematik, wer in den USA Präsident ist, und wer dort gut und böse ist, etc., beschäftige, dann lese mal selbst nochmal diese launigen Moore-Zeilen, dann kannst du mich vielleicht besser verstehen.

Oder, neuer Versuch:

Mir ist es völlig unverständlich, wie ein deutscher Normaldenkender sich den Kopf von US-Bürgern zerbricht, wer denn für sie der beste Amerikaner ist. Denn nur aus solchen Überlegungen werden sie ihren Vorstand wählen und sich einen f. Dr. um unsere jeweilige Meinung kümmern. Zu Recht. Dies schien wohl auch Moore selbst überrascht zu haben, da er ja verwundert schien, dass sich seine an US-Bürger gerichtete Polemik gerade in Europa so gut verkaufte. S. die Moore-Texte hier.

;

[LunkwillFook]

Auch wieder wahr!
Dennoch beunruhigend, mit welch missionarischem Eifer Mr. Bush die Welt "verbessern" will. Ich find`s nur traurig. Bin auch ziemlich resigniert. Was solls...

[endaxi]

#25 Es ist nicht unbedingt der kopf von US-Bürgern den man sich zerbricht,sondern über deren führungsspitze.
Das "Alte Europa" wurde mehr oder weniger zwangsmäßig zum Krieg eingeladen,dem sich erfreulich Deutschland nicht angeschlossen hat.
Ob dies in Zukunft für uns auch noch möglich sein wird,Afghanistan lässt grüßen,ist es wohl wert sich mit Amerikas gründen zu beschäftigen.
Sieht man die Globale Ausdehnung Amerikas an Rußlands und Chinas Grenzen im zeitraum von nur 15 jahren an,so kann diese nur durch die Aktive einbindung Europas gehalten werden.
Die den Krieg oder die nachkriegsfolgen nicht erlebt haben,sollten ihrer Ballerneigung besser beim Moorhuhnschiessen nachgehen,oder real in Amerikas Slumgebieten wo sich jeder trottel selbstverwirklichen kann.

[spicault]

Unfairenheit 9/11
The Lies of Michael Moore .
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 21, 2004, at 12:26 PM PT



Moore: Trying to have it three ways

One of the many problems with the American left, and indeed of the American left, has been its image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring. How many times, in my old days at The Nation magazine, did I hear wistful and semienvious ruminations? Where was the radical Firing Line show? Who will be our Rush Limbaugh? I used privately to hope that the emphasis, if the comrades ever got around to it, would be on the first of those and not the second. But the meetings themselves were so mind-numbing and lugubrious that I thought the danger of success on either front was infinitely slight.

Nonetheless, it seems that an answer to this long-felt need is finally beginning to emerge. I exempt Al Franken`s unintentionally funny Air America network, to which I gave a couple of interviews in its early days. There, one could hear the reassuring noise of collapsing scenery and tripped-over wires and be reminded once again that correct politics and smooth media presentation are not even distant cousins. With Michael Moore`s Fahrenheit 9/11, however, an entirely new note has been struck. Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl.

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

In late 2002, almost a year after the al-Qaida assault on American society, I had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan, he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified. Something—I cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do now—has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell. Indeed, Osama is suddenly so guilty and so all-powerful that any other discussion of any other topic is a dangerous "distraction" from the fight against him. I believe that I understand the convenience of this late conversion.

Fahrenheit 9/11 makes the following points about Bin Laden and about Afghanistan, and makes them in this order:

1) The Bin Laden family (if not exactly Osama himself) had a close if convoluted business relationship with the Bush family, through the Carlyle Group.

2) Saudi capital in general is a very large element of foreign investment in the United States.

3) The Unocal company in Texas had been willing to discuss a gas pipeline across Afghanistan with the Taliban, as had other vested interests.

4) The Bush administration sent far too few ground troops to Afghanistan and thus allowed far too many Taliban and al-Qaida members to escape.

5) The Afghan government, in supporting the coalition in Iraq, was purely risible in that its non-army was purely American.

6) The American lives lost in Afghanistan have been wasted. (This I divine from the fact that this supposedly "antiwar" film is dedicated ruefully to all those killed there, as well as in Iraq.)

It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore`s direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point. Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush`s removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn`t even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.) Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all—the latter was Moore`s view as late as 2002—or we sent too few. If we were going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is really recommending. And these are simply observations on what is "in" the film. If we turn to the facts that are deliberately left out, we discover that there is an emerging Afghan army, that the country is now a joint NATO responsibility and thus under the protection of the broadest military alliance in history, that it has a new constitution and is preparing against hellish odds to hold a general election, and that at least a million and a half of its former refugees have opted to return. I don`t think a pipeline is being constructed yet, not that Afghanistan couldn`t do with a pipeline. But a highway from Kabul to Kandahar—an insurance against warlordism and a condition of nation-building—is nearing completion with infinite labor and risk. We also discover that the parties of the Afghan secular left—like the parties of the Iraqi secular left—are strongly in favor of the regime change. But this is not the sort of irony in which Moore chooses to deal.

He prefers leaden sarcasm to irony and, indeed, may not appreciate the distinction. In a long and paranoid (and tedious) section at the opening of the film, he makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11. I banged on about this myself at the time and wrote a Nation column drawing attention to the groveling Larry King interview with the insufferable Prince Bandar, which Moore excerpts. However, recent developments have not been kind to our Mike. In the interval between Moore`s triumph at Cannes and the release of the film in the United States, the 9/11 commission has found nothing to complain of in the timing or arrangement of the flights. And Richard Clarke, Bush`s former chief of counterterrorism, has come forward to say that he, and he alone, took the responsibility for authorizing those Saudi departures. This might not matter so much to the ethos of Fahrenheit 9/11, except that—as you might expect—Clarke is presented throughout as the brow-furrowed ethical hero of the entire post-9/11 moment. And it does not seem very likely that, in his open admission about the Bin Laden family evacuation, Clarke is taking a fall, or a spear in the chest, for the Bush administration. So, that`s another bust for this windy and bloated cinematic "key to all mythologies."

A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only sustain itself by a dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods, beefed up by wilder and (if possible) yet more-contradictory claims. President Bush is accused of taking too many lazy vacations. (What is that about, by the way? Isn`t he supposed to be an unceasing planner for future aggressive wars?) But the shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won`t recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.

The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that`s what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm. More interesting is the moment where Bush is shown frozen on his chair at the infant school in Florida, looking stunned and useless for seven whole minutes after the news of the second plane on 9/11. Many are those who say that he should have leaped from his stool, adopted a Russell Crowe stance, and gone to work. I could even wish that myself. But if he had done any such thing then (as he did with his "Let`s roll" and "dead or alive" remarks a month later), half the Michael Moore community would now be calling him a man who went to war on a hectic, crazed impulse. The other half would be saying what they already say—that he knew the attack was coming, was using it to cement himself in power, and couldn`t wait to get on with his coup. This is the line taken by Gore Vidal and by a scandalous recent book that also revives the charge of FDR`s collusion over Pearl Harbor. At least Moore`s film should put the shameful purveyors of that last theory back in their paranoid box.

But it won`t because it encourages their half-baked fantasies in so many other ways. We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation." (In fact, Iraq`s "sovereignty" was heavily qualified by international sanctions, however questionable, which reflected its noncompliance with important U.N. resolutions.) In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore`s flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don`t think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003. I remember asking Moore at Telluride if he was or was not a pacifist. He would not give a straight answer then, and he doesn`t now, either. I`ll just say that the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once. (Actually, that`s not quite right. It is briefly mentioned but only, and smarmily, because of the bad period when Washington preferred Saddam to the likewise unmentioned Ayatollah Khomeini.)

That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam`s depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible. Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Vienna* and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.) In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally. (Though why should he not?) Should you and I not resent any foreign dictatorship that attempts to kill one of our retired chief executives? (President Clinton certainly took it that way: He ordered the destruction by cruise missiles of the Baathist "security" headquarters.) Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam. In 2001, Saddam`s regime was the only one in the region that openly celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington and described them as just the beginning of a larger revenge. Its official media regularly spewed out a stream of anti-Semitic incitement. I think one might describe that as "threatening," even if one was narrow enough to think that anti-Semitism only menaces Jews. And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war. On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported—and the David Kay report had established—that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition`s presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)

Thus, in spite of the film`s loaded bias against the work of the mind, you can grasp even while watching it that Michael Moore has just said, in so many words, the one thing that no reflective or informed person can possibly believe: that Saddam Hussein was no problem. No problem at all. Now look again at the facts I have cited above. If these things had been allowed to happen under any other administration, you can be sure that Moore and others would now glibly be accusing the president of ignoring, or of having ignored, some fairly unmistakable "warnings."

The same "let`s have it both ways" opportunism infects his treatment of another very serious subject, namely domestic counterterrorist policy. From being accused of overlooking too many warnings—not exactly an original point—the administration is now lavishly taunted for issuing too many. (Would there not have been "fear" if the harbingers of 9/11 had been taken seriously?) We are shown some American civilians who have had absurd encounters with idiotic "security" staff. (Have you ever met anyone who can`t tell such a story?) Then we are immediately shown underfunded police departments that don`t have the means or the manpower to do any stop-and-search: a power suddenly demanded by Moore on their behalf that we know by definition would at least lead to some ridiculous interrogations. Finally, Moore complains that there isn`t enough intrusion and confiscation at airports and says that it is appalling that every air traveler is not forcibly relieved of all matches and lighters. (Cue mood music for sinister influence of Big Tobacco.) So—he wants even more pocket-rummaging by airport officials? Uh, no, not exactly. But by this stage, who`s counting? Moore is having it three ways and asserting everything and nothing. Again—simply not serious.

Circling back to where we began, why did Moore`s evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"? Why instead did they force the United States to switch its regional military headquarters to Qatar? If the Bush family and the al-Saud dynasty live in each other`s pockets, as is alleged in a sort of vulgar sub-Brechtian scene with Arab headdresses replacing top hats, then how come the most reactionary regime in the region has been powerless to stop Bush from demolishing its clone in Kabul and its buffer regime in Baghdad? The Saudis hate, as they did in 1991, the idea that Iraq`s recuperated oil industry might challenge their near-monopoly. They fear the liberation of the Shiite Muslims they so despise. To make these elementary points is to collapse the whole pathetic edifice of the film`s "theory." Perhaps Moore prefers the pro-Saudi Kissinger/Scowcroft plan for the Middle East, where stability trumps every other consideration and where one dare not upset the local house of cards, or killing-field of Kurds? This would be a strange position for a purported radical. Then again, perhaps he does not take this conservative line because his real pitch is not to any audience member with a serious interest in foreign policy. It is to the provincial isolationist.

I have already said that Moore`s film has the staunch courage to mock Bush for his verbal infelicity. Yet it`s much, much braver than that. From Fahrenheit 9/11 you can glean even more astounding and hidden disclosures, such as the capitalist nature of American society, the existence of Eisenhower`s "military-industrial complex," and the use of "spin" in the presentation of our politicians. It`s high time someone had the nerve to point this out. There`s more. Poor people often volunteer to join the army, and some of them are duskier than others. Betcha didn`t know that. Back in Flint, Mich., Moore feels on safe ground. There are no martyred rabbits this time. Instead, it`s the poor and black who shoulder the packs and rifles and march away. I won`t dwell on the fact that black Americans have fought for almost a century and a half, from insisting on their right to join the U.S. Army and fight in the Civil War to the right to have a desegregated Army that set the pace for post-1945 civil rights. I`ll merely ask this: In the film, Moore says loudly and repeatedly that not enough troops were sent to garrison Afghanistan and Iraq. (This is now a favorite cleverness of those who were, in the first place, against sending any soldiers at all.) Well, where does he think those needful heroes and heroines would have come from? Does he favor a draft—the most statist and oppressive solution? Does he think that only hapless and gullible proles sign up for the Marines? Does he think—as he seems to suggest—that parents can "send" their children, as he stupidly asks elected members of Congress to do? Would he have abandoned Gettysburg because the Union allowed civilians to pay proxies to serve in their place? Would he have supported the antidraft (and very antiblack) riots against Lincoln in New York? After a point, one realizes that it`s a waste of time asking him questions of this sort. It would be too much like taking him seriously. He`ll just try anything once and see if it floats or flies or gets a cheer.



Trying to talk congressmen into sending their sons to war

Indeed, Moore`s affected and ostentatious concern for black America is one of the most suspect ingredients of his pitch package. In a recent interview, he yelled that if the hijacked civilians of 9/11 had been black, they would have fought back, unlike the stupid and presumably cowardly white men and women (and children). Never mind for now how many black passengers were on those planes—we happen to know what Moore does not care to mention: that Todd Beamer and a few of his co-passengers, shouting "Let`s roll," rammed the hijackers with a trolley, fought them tooth and nail, and helped bring down a United Airlines plane, in Pennsylvania, that was speeding toward either the White House or the Capitol. There are no words for real, impromptu bravery like that, which helped save our republic from worse than actually befell. The Pennsylvania drama also reminds one of the self-evident fact that this war is not fought only "overseas" or in uniform, but is being brought to our cities. Yet Moore is a silly and shady man who does not recognize courage of any sort even when he sees it because he cannot summon it in himself. To him, easy applause, in front of credulous audiences, is everything.

Moore has announced that he won`t even appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning. I notice from the New York Times of June 20 that he has pompously established a rapid response team, and a fact-checking staff, and some tough lawyers, to bulwark himself against attack. He`ll sue, Moore says, if anyone insults him or his pet. Some right-wing hack groups, I gather, are planning to bring pressure on their local movie theaters to drop the film. How dumb or thuggish do you have to be in order to counter one form of stupidity and cowardice with another? By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation.

However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point. And as for the scary lawyers—get a life, or maybe see me in court. But I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let`s redo Telluride. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let`s see what you`re made of.

Some people soothingly say that one should relax about all this. It`s only a movie. No biggie. It`s no worse than the tomfoolery of Oliver Stone. It`s kick-ass entertainment. It might even help get out "the youth vote." Yeah, well, I have myself written and presented about a dozen low-budget made-for-TV documentaries, on subjects as various as Mother Teresa and Bill Clinton and the Cyprus crisis, and I also helped produce a slightly more polished one on Henry Kissinger that was shown in movie theaters. So I know, thanks, before you tell me, that a documentary must have a "POV" or point of view and that it must also impose a narrative line. But if you leave out absolutely everything that might give your "narrative" a problem and throw in any old rubbish that might support it, and you don`t even care that one bit of that rubbish flatly contradicts the next bit, and you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft. If you flatter and fawn upon your potential audience, I might add, you are patronizing them and insulting them. By the same token, if I write an article and I quote somebody and for space reasons put in an ellipsis like this (… ), I swear on my children that I am not leaving out anything that, if quoted in full, would alter the original meaning or its significance. Those who violate this pact with readers or viewers are to be despised. At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to be objective. At no moment does he pass up the chance of a cheap sneer or a jeer. He pitilessly focuses his camera, for minutes after he should have turned it off, on a distraught and bereaved mother whose grief we have already shared. (But then, this is the guy who thought it so clever and amusing to catch Charlton Heston, in Bowling for Columbine, at the onset of his senile dementia.) Such courage.

Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (...) is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …

And that`s just from Orwell`s Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it`s highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It`s also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.

If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

Correction, June 22, 2004: This piece originally referred to terrorist attacks by Abu Nidal`s group on the Munich and Rome airports. The 1985 attacks occurred at the Rome and Vienna airports. (Return to the corrected sentence.)


Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His latest book, Blood, Class and Empire: The Enduring Anglo-American Relationship, is out in paperback.

Photograph of Michael Moore by Pascal Guyot/Agence France-Presse. Stills from Fahrenheit 9/11 © 2004 Lions Gate Films. All Rights Reserved.Photograph of Michael Moore on the Slate home page by Eric Gaillard/Reuters.

[coke]

@lle Moore Freunde sage ich: "Dieser Typ ist ein dekatender, vor Schmutz triffender, geldgeiler, narzistischer Mensch.
Wer ihn gut findet ist genauso.

Bitte sendet keine Überzeugungspostings.

Ich ändere meine Meinung über den Typ nicht.

coke

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
Steve Sack, Minnesota, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

[spicault]

[endaxi]

#30 Hast mich ja gut beschrieben,soll ich dir mein spendenkonto übermitteln.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]Matt Davies, The Journal News, NY

[Joerver]

THE NATION
`Fahrenheit` Is Casting a Wide Net at Theaters
Anti-Bush sentiment runs high at showings of the documentary, which has had a strong opening weekend on 868 screens.
By Stephanie Simon
Times Staff Writer

June 27, 2004

DES PERES, Mo. — Before the movie started, Leslie Hanser prayed.

"I prayed the Lord would open my eyes," she said.

For months, her son Joshua, a college student, had been drawing her into political debate. He`d tell her she shouldn`t trust President Bush. He`d tell her the Iraq war was wrong. Hanser, a 41-year-old homemaker, pushed back. She defended the president, supported him fiercely

But Joshua kept at her, until she prayed for help understanding her son`s fervor.

Emerging from Michael Moore`s "Fahrenheit 9/11," her eyes wet, Hanser said she at last understood. "My emotions are just…. " She trailed off, waving her hands to show confusion. "I feel like we haven`t seen the whole truth before."

That`s the reaction Moore hopes to provoke with his film, which explores the ties between the Bush family and Osama bin Laden`s relatives, the president`s response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq. Moore has said he aims to shake the apathetic, move the undecided — and inspire voters to deny President Bush a second term.

Riding a week of enormous publicity, and controversy, "Fahrenheit 9/11" was a hit at the box office. Opening Friday on 868 screens, the movie grossed more than the farces "White Chicks" and "DodgeBall," even though those films showed on far more screens.

Industry sources estimated that the weekend gross for "Fahrenheit 9/11" could approach $20 million. That`s close to the $21.6 million that Moore`s "Bowling for Columbine" — until now, the highest-grossing documentary ever — took in during its entire run.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" got a shot of free publicity when Walt Disney Co., concerned about the movie`s partisan edge, barred its subsidiary from releasing it. The buzz only grew last month when the film won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Yet its appeal seemed to take some by surprise: In the heavily Latino and Asian community of Downey, theater manager William Vasquez was surprised at the line — which was so long, he decided to show the film on two screens simultaneously Friday night. "I don`t know of any documentary that has created this kind of stir," he said, noting that even teenagers seemed "glued to the screen."

In many cities, and even in conservative suburbs, the crowds were predictably (and loudly) liberal, hissing and hooting their reactions to Bush on screen.

Here in suburban St. Louis — in a multiplex catering to well-off neighborhoods that were flocked with Bush/Cheney signs in 2000 — the rowdy throng cheered when a man in back stood to shout an appeal for Democratic Party volunteers. "Anyone here for [Ralph] Nader?" another man called out. He was booed.

Across the country, in another conservative neighborhood, the audience at an Orange County multiplex chanted: "Throw Bush out! Throw Bush out!" as the lights came on.

College student Jebodiah Beard, 25, summed up the crowd this way: "I think we`re preaching to the choir."

Moore acknowledged as much — but saw no need to apologize.

"It`s good to give the choir something to sing," he said at a politician-packed premiere in Washington last week. "The choir has been demoralized."

If so, the movie was an electric wake-up call.

Outside a sold-out screening Friday on Santa Monica`s Third Street Promenade, activists stamped hands with peace signs and passed around petitions calling for universal healthcare, gay rights and the repeal of the Patriot Act.

"I can`t imagine anyone coming out of [the movie] and not working their brains out to get rid of this administration," said Mimi Adams, 70, who was holding a sign that said: "No One Died When Clinton Lied."

In theaters nationwide, many viewers said they couldn`t imagine loyal Republicans coming to see a movie the Bush administration had dismissed as a twisted montage of misleading innuendo and outright falsehoods. But for all the partisan hooting, the movie did appear to draw at least a strong smattering of the Republican and the undecided voters that Moore most desperately hopes to reach.

And some of them said they were deeply moved.

Moved enough, perhaps, to consider voting for Kerry in November.

For Richard Hagen, 56, it was the footage from Iraq: the raw cries of bombed civilians, the clenched-teeth agony of wounded American troops. A retired insurance agent from the wealthy River Oaks neighborhood in central Houston, Hagen described himself as a lifelong Republican. But then, standing by his silver Mercedes, he amended that: A former lifelong Republican.

"Seeing [the war] brings it home in a way you don`t get from reading about it," he said. "I won`t be voting for a Republican presidential candidate this time."

Mary Butler, too, may not bring herself to punch the ballot for Bush.

She didn`t vote for him in 2000. But Butler, 48, said until this weekend, she was leaning strongly toward supporting him this year. "In a war situation, I figured it was too hard to switch horses midstream. I thought the country would be too vulnerable," she said.

Butler, a librarian from suburban St. Louis, said one sentence in Moore`s film made her rethink.

After showing faces of the men and women of America`s military, Moore reminds his audience that they have volunteered to sacrifice their futures for our country. We owe them just one obligation, he says: to send them into harm`s way only when we absolutely must.

That got Butler. She doesn`t feel the war in Iraq fits into that category. And that one sentence — a filmmaker`s accusing voice-over — might cost Bush her vote in the pivotal swing state of Missouri: "This is probably the strongest I`ve ever felt about voting against him," she said.

Their tears reflected in the bluish light of the movie screen, many viewers here and elsewhere seemed especially moved by the story of Lila Lipscomb, the mother at the heart of "Fahrenheit 9/11." When Moore first encounters her in Flint, Mich., she speaks with pride of her children`s military service, of all the opportunities the armed forces can give them. Then her son was killed in Iraq.

Appearing with Moore at the film`s premiere in Washington, Lipscomb received a standing ovation.

"President Bush said he was a president of war," Lipscomb said. "Well, I stand before you tonight as a mother that is now a mother of war. I urge all of America to stop being ignorant. Open your eyes to see. Open your ears to hear. Open your mouth to speak."

Many who watched "Fahrenheit 9/11" over the weekend vowed the movie would spur them to do just that — to look deeper, listen closer, to speak out with conviction.

In the end, however, some doubted whether a summer movie, however pointed, could really affect the outcome of November`s election.

"It will have an impact of some sort," said Rep. Jim McDermott, (D-Wash.), who is interviewed by Moore in the film, "but I`m not sure what."

*

Times staff writers Jia Lynn Yang in Washington, Elaine Dutka in Santa Monica, Lianne Hart in Houston, Jeff Gottlieb in Orange County and Brett Brune in Burbank contributed to this report.






Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

[flitztass]

@MarkMitt: Du brauchst Dir dieses Buch "Querschüsse" von Michael Moore nicht zu kaufen, um die dortigen Ausfälle über Deutsche zu lesen. Die wurden schon vor längerem auch hier im Board diskutiert, z.B. in Thread: Michael Moore - - - auch sein Haß auf uns Deutsche ist scheinbar grenzenlos

Ich zitiere mal einen Auszug:
----------------------------------
Germany still hasn`t paid for its sins - and I intend to collect

DID I Miss the most exciting part of the fiftiethanniversary festivities celebrating the end of World War II? You know, when every single German got down on his or her knees, begged for forgiveness, climbed into boxcars in a show of empathy, and then promised to devote one day`s salary each week to a Holocaust survivor`s family. Man, that must have been a sight. | Did you miss it, too? I`m being a little too harsh, you say, on a country that has already repented and most of whose citizens weren`t even alive for all the killing? Hmmm. Let`s go to the tote board: 6 million Jews murdered 3 million Catholic Poles murdered 500,000 Gypsies murdered 12,500 homosexuals murdered

Those, plus the Communists, Jehovah`s Witnesses, and other undesirables, bring us to a grand total of nearly 10 million defenseless humans slaughtered in the Holocaust. This figure does not include the 400,000 Americans who died in the war (fighting Germany and its partners, the Japanese and Italians), the 25 Million Soviet citizens killed or starved to death, plus the millions of other Europeans, Africans, and Asians who died at the hands of what was considered to be the most intelligent, most civilized, most advanced society on earth. And to think, it all happened not many years ago. We continue to live with the results of this tragedy. All of our families, Jewish and non-Jewish, were somehow touched by this event. My dad`s brother, Lawrence, was killed near Manila. The map of the world is forever screwed up by World War II, and whether it`s Bosnia or the Middle East or skinheads terrorizing the residents of Idaho, you can trace the roots of these conflicts back to what the Germans did. And what was Germany`s punishment for these sins? They got to become one of the richest countries in the world! And it took only three decades! How on earth did we let this happen? Today the average German enjoys a standard of living that has no equal. A factory worker in western Germany last year made an average wage of $29 an hour. In the U.S., that same worker made $19. The American worker annually has to put in nearly 200 hours more on the job than his or her German counterpart. That`s five 40-hour weeks the Germans get paid and don`t have to work while they`re earning 50 percent more per hour than we Americans. And even though Germany is 25 times smaller in size than the U.S., and has one-third fewer workers, its gross domestic product, per capita, is nearly the same as that of the U.S.

Can you imagine, as someone`s grandmother was being shoved into the ovens at Auschwitz, an angel appearing to her and saying, "Don`t worry, the Germans are going to be rewarded by the rest of the world with so much wealth, they won`t know what to do with it"? Don`t get me wrong. I`m not suggesting that we should have treated Germany the way we did after World War I, humiliating them into submission and starving the country to death. Those conditions certainly created the climate for Hitler to be elected by a majority of the German people. And since the war, many Germans have lived their lives denouncing what their parents did. Young Germans today—if they aren`t shaving their heads and beating immigrant domestic workers—are actually very progressive, pacifist, and well-meaning individuals who just happen, through no fault of their own, to be living the good life. The war may seem like a long time ago, and the work of only a few evil Nazis, but, according to Daniel Goldhagen, the author of Hitler`s Willing Executioners, the German government has cataloged more than 330,000 average, everyday Germans who physically participated in the daily slaughter of the Jews. Thousands of those Germans are still alive today. In fact, there are over 12 million Germans still kicking around who were fifteen years or older during World War II. And what have these Germans done to make some kind of reparation for their sins? "We don`t call it reparation," said the woman on the phone at the German Information Center. "It`s restitution." Okay, so how much "restitution" has Germany decided each life they exterminated is worth? Well, according to them, nothing. They won`t make any "restitution" for the dead, it was explained to me. But here`s the good news. They will make up for any property loss the Jews suffered. So if you lost a few candlesticks in the Holocaust, step right up for your deutsche marks. Lost your life? Too bad. No geld for your loved ones. But . . . if you can prove that you spent "at least six months in a concentration camp," were "confined in a ghetto," or were "forced into hiding for a minimum of eighteen months," then you can collect about $350 to $600 a month from the generous Germans. You say you were only tortured in Dachau for five months and twenty-nine days? Too bad! Sue the Germans and you might get a one-time settlement of $3,000. To date, Germany has doled out $68.3 billion in "restitution" payments. If we break that down for everyone they killed in the Holocaust, how much is it for each of the 10 million they butchered? The answer: $6,831. That`s it—$6,831 per mother, father, infant, girl, and boy they gassed, burned, shot, or buried alive. Not a bad price to pay, if it means you can end up one day as the wealthiest nation on earth. As far as I`m concerned, $6,831 per innocent life is not enough. Not that any amount would be "enough," but my life and your life are worth a little more than $6,831. I know some of you are saying, "Hey, Mike, the survivors got to move to Israel after the war. Didn`t giving them that land make it up to them?" Well, I don`t think Israel was actually "given" to them. The British were ruling the place (then called Palestine), and suddenly all these Holocaust survivors with nowhere else to go started arriving and the Brits didn`t like that one bit. But they didn`t have the energy to fight the Jewish guerrillas after having just lost most of their British empire, so they just bagged the place and said, "Fine, you want this, it`s yours." Most Arab residents were not consulted in the deal. I have never understood why giving the Holocaust survivors Palestine/Israel was such a great gift. Have you ever been there? It`s a friggin` desert! There`s nothing there! Israelis like to tell you, "We`ve made the desert bloom!" Talk about rationalizing something . . . I`m telling you, it`s 100 percent sand, rock, and more sand. Why did we think we were making it up to them by placing them in a horrible environment that has cost them even more lives in more wars? Because the Bible said so? When did the world start going by that book? If we had really wanted to do what was right—and punish the Germans—we should have given the survivors the state of Bavaria. Now, that`s one beautiful piece of real estate! And it would have cost the Germans plenty. Turning Palestine into Israel didn`t hurt the Germans one single bit. But losing Bavaria to the Jews would have really kicked those bastards where it counted. Israel has only 10,840 square miles; Bavaria has over 28,000! Israel has few, if any, natural resources; Bavaria is rich in minerals, forests, and water. Since the war, the Israelis have been surrounded by hostile enemies who want them dead; Bavaria is surrounded by the beautiful Alps containing a few goats and those three guys in the Ricola commercial. I guess it`s probably too late to correct this mistake by moving Tel Aviv to Munich and forcing the Germans to go and try to make the desert bloom. I`d say that Germany got off real easy. Only 20 percent of its war criminals were ever put on trial. Many who fought in World War II are still alive. And where do you think they all are today?

Florida!
It`s true. Tens of thousands of Germans, many of them of World War II age, have permanently moved to the state of Florida. German investment in Florida has increased by nearly 200 percent in the past five years. According to the Tampa Tribune, together with the British, the Germans provide over 50 percent of the total manufacturing jobs in Florida. They have over $1.8 billion invested in the state. Over on the southwest coast, just in the counties of Collier, Lee, and Charlotte, there are as many as 86,000 Germans. On a recent trip to southwest Florida, I arrived at the airport in Fort Myers, which has extended its runway so that nonstop jumbo jets to and from Germany can land there. I noticed German flags flying from houses. Everywhere I went there were signs that were printed in German: RAUCHEN VERBOTEN!—NO SMOKING. Menus in restaurants were printed in English and German. They are buying up property and businesses and settling in for the good life. And more and more of their friends from the fatherland are joining them. I am of two minds regarding this German invasion of Florida. On the one hand, I hate Florida. It`s full of bugs, humidity, and stupid people running around with guns. And it`s got those nutty Cuban exiles. If there were a pair of scissors big enough, I wish we could just snip the state where it hangs off the rest of the country. There is a part of me that likes the fact that all these ex-Nazis are moving there to terrorize the people of Florida. Serves them right. The Right-Wing Cubans versus the Geriatric SS in a fight to the finish! I`d pay money to watch that one on Pay-Per-View. On the other hand, it is ironic that right there in south Florida are thousands of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Is it right that those Jewish men and women who fortunately survived the Germans` slaughter should have to be reading menus written in German to accommodate their new "neighbors"? I don`t think so. I have a solution. We all know that Florida is infamous for German tourists being murdered there. I do not believe this phenomenon is the result of gang-related violence. I think it`s payback time. One by one, the survivors are getting their revenge. Somebody with a sense of justice has armed the elderly residents of Miami Beach, pointed them in the direction of Fort Myers, and let them loose to even the score. Who would have thought that the Germans would make it this easy for them, foolishly moving to the area that contains the highest concentration of Jews outside of New York? What were these Jerries thinking—that the Moskowitzes were going to "live and let live," and "turn the other cheek"? Obviously these Germans forgot about the tote board. I say arm every bingo player south of Fort Lauderdale and let`s celebrate the real end of World War II. So—RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, KLAUS! And Happy 50th Anniversary!!

[borazon]

Es ist erstaunlich, wie unglaublich dumm der Artikel aus #35 erscheint, wenn man vorher #29 gelesen hat.

Eines Tages wird Multimillionär Moore vor die Kameras treten und sagen, er hätte mit seinen Machwerken nur beweisen wollen, wie manipulierbar Pseudointellektuelle und stupid white men sind.

[endaxi]

#37 keine angst,du fällst bestimmt nicht unter die kategorie pseudointellektuell,du bist mehr.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
http://movies.yahoo.com/boxoffice/latest/rank.html
[/TABLE]
`Fahrenheit 9/11` Tops North American Box Office
Sunday June 27 11:30 AM PST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michael Moore`s red-hot documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" earned more in its first three days of release across North America than his Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine" did in its entire run, the film`s distributors said on Sunday.

"Fahrenheit 9/11," in which Moore takes aim at President Bush (news - web sites), and the war in Iraq (news - web sites), opened at No. 1 after selling about $21.8 million worth of tickets in the United States and Canada since June 25.

The film opened in two theaters in New York on Wednesday to help build even more media buzz before expanding to a relatively modest 868 theaters two days later. (In contrast, most of the other movies in the top five were playing in more than 2,500 theaters each.)

Including the sales from the head start in New York, the film`s total stands at $21.96 million. Moore`s previous movie, "Bowling for Columbine," grossed about $21.5 million during its nine-month run, during which it peaked at about 250 theaters, according to Moore.

"This is a testament to Michael Moore. His voice resonates across the country in what I think we can all now fairly describe as America`s movie," said Tom Ortenberg, the president of distribution at Lions Gate (news - web sites) Films, which backed the movie.

He said in a conference call that the film played strongly in both Democrat and Republican states, even drawing sell-out crowds in Republican strongholds like Nassau County, New York and Fayetteville, N.C., home of Fort Bragg.

Lions Gate, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., partnered on the film`s distribution with IFC Films, a unit of Cablevision Systems Corp.`s Rainbow Media Holdings LLC, and Miramax co-chairmen Harvey and Bon Weinstein. The Weinsteins bought the movie`s rights with their own money after Miramax parent Walt Disney Co. refused to let them release it under the Miramax banner.

The movie cost about $6 million to make, according to Moore. Additionally, the distributors spent less than $10 million -- a relatively modest sum -- to market the movie, said Ortenberg.

Weekend Box Office Estimates (U.S.)
Jun 25 - 27 weekend View Last Week`s Actuals
This
Wk Last
Wk Title Dist. Weekend
Gross Cumulative
Gross Rlse
Wks # of
Theaters
1 - Fahrenheit 9/11 LIONS $21,800,000 $21,958,000 1 868
2 - White Chicks SONY $19,600,000 $27,103,000 1 2726
3 1 Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story FOX $18,500,000 $67,170,726 2 3020
4 2 The Terminal D`WORKS $13,900,000 $41,800,000 2 2914
5 - The Notebook NL $13,025,000 $13,025,000 1 2303
6 3 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban WB $11,420,000 $211,710,000 4 3404
7 4 Shrek 2 D`WORKS $10,500,000 $397,100,000 6 2937
8 5 Garfield FOX $7,000,000 $55,770,278 3 2880
9 - Two Brothers UNIV $6,200,000 $6,200,000 1 2175
10 7 The Stepford Wives PARA $5,200,000 $49,005,000 3 2437
11 9 Around the World in 80 Days BV $4,258,000 $18,265,000 2 2801
12 8 The Day After Tomorrow FOX $4,250,000 $175,

[disgruntled_goat]

Schon lustig, wie sich hier ein Haufen Schwachköpfe das Maul über einen Film zereißen, den sie noch gar nicht gesehen haben. Es ist besonders interessant, dass ihm bei diesem Film endlose Lügen vorgeworfen werden - wenn man bedenkt, dass ein großer Teil des Films aus altem, ungeschnittenen Filmmaterial besteht, dass jetzt in diesem Film erstmals zu sehen ist. Ist es eine Lüge, wenn man zeigt, wie Bush am 11.09. minutenlang aus einem Kinderbuch vorliest, während draussen tausende Menschen sterben? Ich finde diesen Fakt allein immer noch unglaublich und nichts und niemand auf der Welt konnte mir bisher plausibel erklären, warum er das getan hat.

Es ist doch klar, dass jetzt die Rechten in den USA Gift und Galle spucken. Es klingt alles sehr verzweifelt. Warten wir es doch mal ab, was man Moore konkret vorwirft. Bis jetzt habe ich nur allgemeine Hasstiraden gelesen.

[bares@nobles]

#40
Die Szene, als Bush im Moment des Anschlages auf das WTC an 9/11 in einer Kindertagesstätte in Florida sitzt, ist wohl die bezeichnendste des ganzen Filmes.
Der Mann, den die eigene Partei als eine Person mit starker leadership verkauft, setzt sich nachdem er die Meldung vom ersten Einschlag eines Verkehrsflugzeuges in einen Tower des World Trade Centers vernommen hat, zu den Kindern, um mit ihnen kameragerecht zu posieren.
Nach einiger Zeit sieht man einen seiner Mitarbeiter zu ihm gehen, der ihm den Einschlag eines zweiten Flugzeuges in den anderen Tower ins Ohr flüstert.
Bush sitzt dann regungslos mit leeren Blick und ohne eine Reaktion herum und greift sich schliesslich verlegen ein Kinderbuch aus dem Regal neben ihm.
Die Zeit im Kindergarten läuft dann minutenlang weiter, ohne dass der Präsident mit dem Buch im Arm oder einer seiner Begleiter irgendetwas unternimmt.

Letztlich wurde dann der Präsident in seine Maschine gesteckt und kreuz und quer durch Amerika geflogen, wo man ihn letztendlich in einem Luftwaffenstützpunkt in Nebraska verwahrte.
Zwei Tage später stand er dann wieder fernsehgerecht mit einem Feuerwehrmann im Arm auf den Trümmern von Ground Zero und liess sich als grosser Retter und Held für das amerikanische Volk darstellen.
Diese Szenen zeigt der Film von Moore jedoch nicht.

B@N (USA)

[spicault]

Ich habe diesen Artikel schon in einem anderen Thread gepostet, aber ich poste ihn wieder mal hier, für diejenige die ihn noch nicht gelesen haben.

Deutschen, die sich ernsthaft mit dem Thema Michael Moore beschäftigen wollen, aber kein Englisch lesen, sollten sich eine Übersetzung dieses Artikels besorgen.


BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE

Documentary or Fiction?

-David T. Hardy-

Michael Moore`s "Bowling for Columbine" won the Oscar for best documentary. Unfortunately, it is not a documentary, by the Academy`s own definition.

The injustice here is not so much to the viewer, as to the independent producers of real documentaries. These struggle in a field which receives but a fraction of the recognition and financing of the "entertainment industry." They are protected by Academy rules limiting the documentary competition to nonfiction.

Bowling is fiction. It makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer. Statements are made which are false. Moore leads the reader to draw inferences which he must have known were wrong. Indeed, even speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker`s voice, but which he never uttered. Bowling uses deliberate deception as its primary tool of persuasion and effect.

A film which does this may be a commercial success. It may be entertaining. But it is not a documentary. One need only consult Rule 12 of the rules for the Academy Award: a documentary is a non-fictional movie.

The point is not that Bowling is biased. No, the point is that Bowling is deliberately, seriously, and consistently deceptive.

1. Lockheed-Martin and Nuclear Missiles. Bowling contains a sequence filmed at a Lockheed-Martin manufacturing facility near Columbine. Moore intones that the missiles with their "Pentagon payloads" are trucked through the town "in the middle of the night while the children are asleep." Moore asks whether knowledge that weapons of "mass destruction" were being built nearby might have motivated the Columbine shooters.

After Bowling was released someone checked and found that the Lockheed-Martin plant does not build weapons-type missiles; it makes rockets for launching satellites.

Moore`s website has his response:

"[T]he Lockheed rockets now take satellites into outer space. Some of them are weather satellites, some are telecommunications satellites, and some are top secret Pentagon projects (like the ones that are launched as spy satellites and others which are used to direct the launching of the nuclear missiles should the USA ever decide to use them). "

Nice try, Mike.

(1) that some are spy satellites which might be "used to direct the launching" (i.e., because they spot nukes being launched at the United States) is hardly what Moore was suggesting. Quote:

"So you don`t think our kids say to themselves, `Dad goes off to the factory every day, he builds missiles of mass destruction. What`s the difference between that mass destruction and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?`"

(2) One of that plant`s major projects was the ultimate in beating swords into plowshares: taking the Titan missiles which originally had carried nuclear warheads, and converting them to launch communications satellites and space exploration units.

2. NRA and the Reaction To Tragedy A major theme in Bowling is that NRA (National Rifle Association)is callous toward slayings. In order to make this theme fit the facts, however, Bowling repeatedly distorts the evidence.

A. Columbine Shooting/Denver NRA Meeting. Bowling portrays this with the following sequence:

Weeping children outside Columbine;

Cut to Charlton Heston holding a musket and proclaiming "I have only five words for you: `from my cold, dead, hands`";

Cut to billboard advertising the meeting, while Moore intones "Just ten days after the Columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charlton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association;"

Cut to Heston (supposedly) continuing speech... "I have a message from the Mayor, Mr. Wellington Webb, the Mayor of Denver. He sent me this; it says `don`t come here. We don`t want you here.` I say to the Mayor this is our country, as Americans we`re free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. Don`t come here? We`re already here!"

The portrayal is one of an arrogant protest in response to the deaths -- or, as one reviewer put it, "it seemed that Charlton Heston and others rushed to Littleton to hold rallies and demonstrations directly after the tragedy." The portrayal is in fact false.


Fact: The Denver event was not a demonstration relating to Columbine, but an annual meeting (see links below), whose place and date had been fixed years in advance.


Fact: At Denver, the NRA canceled all events (normally several days of committee meetings, sporting events, dinners, and rallies) save the annual members` meeting; that could not be cancelled because corporate law required that it be held. [No way to change location, since you have to give advance notice of that to the members, and there were upwards of 4,000,000 members.]


Fact: Heston`s "cold dead hands" speech, which leads off Moore`s depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver after Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was his gesture of gratitude upon his being given a handmade musket, at that annual meeting.

Fact: When Bowling continues on to the speech which Heston did give in Denver, it carefully edits it to change its theme.

Moore`s fabrication here cannot be described by any polite term. It is a lie, a fraud, and a few other things. Carrying it out required a LOT of editing to mislead the viewer, as I will show below. I transcribed Heston`s speech as Moore has it, and compared it to a news agency`s transcript, color coding the passages. (CLICK HERE for the comparison, with links to the original transcript.)

Moore has actually taken audio of seven sentences, from five different parts of the speech, and a section given in a different speech entirely, and spliced them together. Each edit is cleverly covered by inserting a still or video footage for a few seconds.

First, right after the weeping victims, Moore puts on Heston`s "I have only five words for you . . . cold dead hands" statement, making it seem directed at them. As noted above, it`s actually a thank-you speech given a year later in North Carolina.

Moore then has an interlude -- a visual of a billboard and his narration. This is vital. He can`t go directly to Heston`s real Denver speech. If he did that, you might ask why Heston in mid-speech changed from a purple tie and lavender shirt to a white shirt and red tie, and the background draperies went from maroon to blue. Moore has to separate the two segments.



Moore`s second edit (covered by splicing in a pan shot of the crowd) deletes Heston`s announcement that NRA has in fact cancelled most of its meeting:

"As you know, we`ve cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that."

Moore then cuts to Heston noting that Denver`s mayor asked NRA not to come, and shows Heston replying "I said to the Mayor: As Americans, we`re free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. Don`t come here? We`re already here!" as if in defiance.

Actually, Moore put an edit right in the middle of the first sentence, and another at its end! Heston really said (with reference his own WWII vet status) "I said to the mayor, well, my reply to the mayor is, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I`ve run small errands for my country, from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you here in this room could say the same thing."

Moore cuts it after "I said to the Mayor" and attaches a sentence from the end of the next paragraph: "As Americans, we`re free to travel wherever we want in our broad land." He hides the deletion by cutting to footage of protestors and a photo of the Mayor before going back and showing Heston.

Moore has Heston then triumphantly announce "Don`t come here? We`re already here!" Actually, that sentence is clipped from a segment five paragraphs farther on in the speech. Again, Moore uses an editing trick to cover the doctoring, switching to a pan shot of the audience as Heston`s (edited) voice continues.

What Heston said there was:

"NRA members are in city hall, Fort Carson, NORAD, the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center. And yes, NRA members are surely among the police and fire and SWAT team heroes who risked their lives to rescue the students at Columbine.

Don`t come here? We`re already here. This community is our home. Every community in America is our home. We are a 128-year-old fixture of mainstream America. The Second Amendment ethic of lawful, responsible firearm ownership spans the broadest cross section of American life imaginable.

So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy."


B. Mt. Morris shooting/ Flint rally. Bowling continues by juxtaposing another Heston speech with a school shooting of Kayla Rolland at Mt. Morris, MI, just north of Flint. Moore makes the claim that "Just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally."


Fact: Heston`s speech was given at a "get out the vote" rally in Flint, which was held when elections rolled by some eight months after the shooting ( Feb. 29 vs Oct. 17, 2000).

Fact: Bush and Gore were then both in the Flint area, trying to gather votes. Moore himself had been hosting rallies for Green Party candidate Nader in Flint a few weeks before.

Moore creates the impression that one event was right after the other so smoothly that I didn`t spot his technique. It was picked up by Richard Rockley, who sent me an email.

Moore works by depriving you of context and guiding your mind to fill the vacuum -- with completely false ideas. It is brilliantly, if unethically, done,. Let`s deconstruct his method.

The entire sequence takes barely 40 seconds. Images are flying by so rapidly that you cannot really think about them, you just form impressions.

Shot of Moore comforting Kayla`s school principal after she discusses Kayla`s murder. As they turn away, we hear Heston`s voice: "From my cold, dead hands." [Moore is again attibuting it to a speech where it was not uttered.]

When Heston becomes visible, he`s telling a group that freedom needs you now, more than ever, to come to its defense. Your impression: Heston is responding to something urgent, presumably the controversy caused by her death. And he`s speaking about it like a fool.

Moore: "Just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally."

Moore continues on to say that before he came to Flint, Heston had been interviewed by the Georgetown Hoya about Kayla`s death... Why would this be important?

Image of Hoya (a student paper) appears on screen, with highlighting on words of reporter mentioning Kayla Rolland`s name, and highlighting on Heston`s name (only his name, not his reply) as he answers. Image is on screen only a few seconds.

Ah, you think you spot the relevance: he obviously was alerted to the case, and that`s why be came.

And, Moore continues, the case was discussed on Heston`s "own NRA" webpage... Again, your mind seeks relevance....

Image of a webpage for America`s First Freedom (a website for NRA, not for Heston) with text "48 hours after Kayla Rolland was prounced dead" highlighted and zoomed in on.

Your impression: Heston did something 48 hours after she died. Why else would "his" webpage note this event, whatever it is? What would Heston`s action have been? It must have been to go to Flint and hold the rally.

Scene cuts to protestors, including a woman with a Million Moms March t-shirt, who asks how Heston could come here, she`s shocked and appalled, "it`s like he`s rubbing our face in it." (This speaker and the protest may be faked, but let`s assume for the moment they`re real.). This caps your impression. She`s shocked by Heston coming there, 48 hours after the death. He`d hardly be rubbing faces in it if he came there much later, on a purpose unrelated to the death.

The viewer thinks he or she understands ....

One reviewer: Heston "held another NRA rally in Flint, Michigan, just 48 hours after a 6 year old shot and killed a classmate in that same town."

Another:"What was Heston thinking going to into Colorado and Michigan immediately after the massacres of innocent children?"

Let`s look at the facts behind the presentation:

Heston`s speech, with its sense of urgency, freedom needs you now more than ever before. As noted above, it`s actually an election rally, held weeks before the closest election in American history.

Moore: "Just as at Columbine, Heston showed up in Flint to have a large pro-gun rally." As noted above, it was an election rally actually held eight months later.

Georgetown Hoya interview, with highlighting on reporter mentioning Kayla and on Heston`s name where he responds.

What is not highlighted, and impossible to read except by repeating the scene, is that the reporter asks about Kayla and about the Columbine shooters, and Heston replies only as to the Columbine shooters. There is no indication that he recognized Kayla Rolland`s case. It flashes past in the movie: click here to see it frozen.

"His NRA webpage" with highlighted reference to "48 hours after Kayla Robinson is pronounced dead." Here`s where it gets interesting. Moore zooms in on that phrase so quickly that it blots out the rest of the sentence, and then takes the image off screen before you can read anything else.



(It`s clearer in the movie). The page is long gone, but I finally found an archived version and also a June 2000 usenet posting usenet posting. Guess what the page really said happened? Not a Heston trip to Flint, but: "48-hours after Kayla Rolland is pronounced dead, Bill Clinton is on The Today Show telling a sympathetic Katie Couric, "Maybe this tragic death will help."" Nothing to do with Heston.

Yep, Moore had a reason for zooming in on the 48 hours. The zooming starts instantly, and moves sideways to block out the rest of the sentence before even the quickest viewer could read it.

If this is artistic talent, it`s not the type that merits an Oscar.

C. Heston Interview. Having created the desired impression, Moore follows with his Heston interview. Heston`s memory of the Flint event is foggy (he says it was a morning event; in fact the rally was at 6 - 7:30 PM.). Heston`s lack of recall is not surprising; it was one rally in a nine-stop tour of three States in three days.

Moore, who had plenty of time to prepare, continues the impression he has created, asking Heston questions such as: "After that happened you came to Flint to hold a big rally and, you know, I just, did you feel it was being at all insensitive to the fact that this community had just gone through this tragedy?" Moore continues, "you think you`d like to apologize to the people in Flint for coming and doing that at that time?"

Moore knows the real sequence, and knows that Heston does not. Moore takes full advantage.

As noted above, Moore`s deception works on reviewers. In fact, when Heston says he did not know about Kayla`s shooting when he went to Flint, viewers see Heston as an inept liar:

"Then, he [Heston] and his ilk held ANOTHER gun-rally shortly after another child/gun tragedy in Flint, MI where a 6-year old child shot and killed a 6-year old classmate (Heston claims in the final interview of the film that he didn`t know this had just happened when he appeared)."

Bowling persuaded these viewers by deceiving them. Moore`s creative skills are used to convince the viewer that things happened which did not and that a truthful man is a liar when he denies them.

A further question: is the end of the Heston interview faked?

3. Animated sequence equating NRA with KKK. In an animated history send-up, with the narrator talking rapidly, Bowling equates the NRA with the Klan, suggesting NRA was founded in 1871, "the same year that the Klan became an illegal terrorist organization." Bowling goes on to depict Klansmen becoming the NRA and an NRA character helping to light a burning cross.



This sequence is intended to create the impression either that NRA and the Klan were parallel groups or that when the Klan was outlawed its members formed the NRA.

Both impressions are not merely false, but directly opposed to the real facts.


Fact: The NRA was founded in 1871 -- by act of the New York Legislature, at request of former Union officers. The Klan was founded in 1866, and quickly became a terrorist organization. One might claim that while it was an organization and a terrorist one, it technically became an "illegal" such with passage of the federal Ku Klux Klan Act and Enforcement Act in 1871. These criminalized interference with civil rights, and empowered the President to use troops to suppress the Klan.


Fact: The Klan Act and Enforcement Act were signed into law by President Ulysess S. Grant. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus and deploying troops; under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made and the Klan was dealt a serious (if all too short-lived) blow.

Fact: Grant`s vigor in disrupting the Klan earned him unpopularity among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him, and an associate of Douglass wrote that African-Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

Fact: After Grant left the White House, the NRA elected him as its eighth president.

Fact: After Grant`s term, the NRA elected General Philip Sheridan, who had removed the governors of Texas and Lousiana for failure to suppress the KKK.

Fact: The affinity of NRA for enemies of the Klan is hardly surprising. The NRA was founded by former Union officers, and eight of its first ten presidents were Union veterans.

Fact: During the 1950s and 1960s, groups of blacks organized as NRA chapters in order to obtain surplus military rifles to fight off Klansmen.

4. Shooting at Buell Elementary School in Michigan. Bowling depicts the juvenile shooter who killed Kayla Rolland as a sympathetic youngster, from a struggling family, who just found a gun in his uncle`s house and took it to school. "No one knew why the little boy wanted to shoot the little girl."


Fact: The little boy was the class thug, already suspended from school for stabbing another kid with a pencil, and had fought with Kayla the day before. Since the incident, he has stabbed another child with a knife.


Fact: The uncle`s house was the family business -- the neighborhood crack-house. The gun was stolen and was purchased by the uncle in exchange for drugs.The shooter`s father was already serving a prison term for theft and drug offenses. A few weeks later police busted the shooter`s grandmother and aunt for narcotics sales. After police hauled the family away, the neighbors applauded the officers. This was not a nice but misunderstood family.


5. The Taliban and American Aid. In discussing military assistance to various countries, Bowling asserts that the U.S. gave $245 million in aid to the Taliban government of Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001.


Fact: The aid in question was humanitarian assistance, given through UN and nongovernmental organizations, to relieve famine in Afghanistan. [Various numbers are given for the amount of the aid, and some say several million went for clearing landmines.]

6. International Comparisons. To pound home its point, Bowling flashes a dramatic count of gun homicides in various countries: Canada 165, Germany 381, Australia 65, Japan 39, US 11,127. Now that`s raw numbers, not rates -- Here`s why he doesn`t talk rates.

Verifying the figures was difficult, since Moore does not give a year for them. A lot of Moore`s numbers didn`t check out for any period I could find. As a last effort at checking, I did a Google search for each number and the word "gun" or words "gun homicides" Many traced -- only back to webpages repeating Bowling`s figures. Moore is the only one using these numbers.

Germany: Bowling says 381: 1995 figures put homicides at 1,476, about four times what Bowling claims, and gun homicides at 168, about half what it claims: it`s either far too high or far too low.

Australia: Bowling says 65. This is very close, albeit picking the year to get the data desired. Between 1980-1995, firearm homicides varied from 64-123, although never exactly 65. In 2000, it was 64, which was proudly proclaimed as the lowest number in the country`s history.

US: Bowling says 11,127. FBI figures put it a lot lower. They report gun homicides were 8,719 in 2001, 8,661 in 2000, 8,480 in 1999. (2001 UCR, p. 23). Here`s the table:




To be utterly fair, this is a count of the 13,752 homicides for which police submitted supplemental data (including weapon used): the total homicide count was 15,980. But what weapon, if any, was used in the other homicide is unknown to us, and was unknown to Moore.
After an email tip, I finally found a way to compute precisely 11,127. Ignore the FBI, use Nat`l Center for Health Statistics figures. These are based on doctors` death certificates rather than police investigation.

Then -- to their gun homicide figures, add the figure for legally-justified homicides: self-defense and police use against criminals. Presto, you have exactly Moore`s 11,127. I can see no other way for him to get it.

Since Moore appears to use police figures for the other countries, it`s hardly a valid comparison. More to the point, it`s misleading since it includes self-defense and police: when we talk of a gun homicide problem we hardly have in mind a woman defending against a rapist, or a cop taking out an armed robber.

Canada: Moore`s number is correct for 1999, a low point, but he ignores some obvious differences.

Bias. I wanted to talk about fabrication, not about bias, but I`ve gotten emails asking why I didn`t mention that Switzerland requires almost all adult males to have guns, but has a lower homicide rate than Great Britain, or that Japanese-Americans, with the same proximity to guns as other Americans, have homicide rates half that of Japan itself. Okay, they`re mentioned, now back to our regularly scheduled program.

7. Miscellaneous. Even the Canadian government is jumping in. Bowling shows Moore casually buying ammunition at an Ontario Walmart. He asks us to "look at what I, a foreign citizen, was able to do at a local Canadian Wal-Mart." He buys several boxes of ammunition without a question being raised. "That`s right. I could buy as much ammunition as I wanted, in Canada."

Canadian officials have pointed out that the buy is faked or illegal: Canadian law has since, 1998, required ammunition buyers to present proper identification. Since Jan. 1, 2001, it has required non-Canadians to present a firearms borrowing or importation license, too. (Bowling appears to have been filmed in mid and late 2001).

While we`re at it: Bowling shows footage of a B-52 on display at the Air Force Academy, while Moore scornfully intones that the plaque under it "proudly proclaims that the plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972."

The plaque actually reads that "Flying out of Utapao Royal Thai Naval Airfield in southeast Thailand, the crew of `Diamond Lil` shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi during `Linebacker II` action on Christmas eve 1972." This is pretty mild compared to the rest of Bowling, but the viewer can`t even trust Moore to honestly read a monument.

8. Race. Moore does not directly state that Heston is a racist--he is the master of creating the false impression --but reviewers come away saying "Heston looks like an idiot, and a racist one at that" Source. "BTW, one thing the Heston interview did clear up, that man is shockingly racist." Source.

The remarks stem from Heston`s answer (after Moore keeps pressing for why the US has more violence than other countries) that it might be due to the US "having a more mixed ethnicity" than other nations, and "We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning." A viewer who accepts Moore`s theme that gun ownership is driven by racial fears might conclude that Heston is blaming blacks and the civil rights movement.

But if you look at some history missing from Bowling, you get exactly the opposite picture. Heston is talking, not about race, but about racism. In the early 1960s, the civil rights movement was fighting for acceptance. Civil rights workers were being murdered. The Kennedy Administration, trying to hold together a Democratic coalition that ranged from liberals to fire-eater segregationists such as George Wallace and Lester Maddox, found the issue too hot to touch, and offered little support.

Heston got involved. He picketed discriminating restaurants. He worked with Martin Luther King, and helped King break Hollywood`s color barrier (yes, there was one.). He led the actors` component of King`s 1963 march in Washington, which set the stage for the key civil rights legislation in 1964.

Here`s Heston`s comments at the 2001 Congress on Racial Equality Martin Luther King dinner (presided over by NRA director, and CORE President, Roy Innes). More on Heston.

Most of the viewers were born long after the events Heston is recalling. To them, the civil rights struggle consists of Martin Luther King speaking, people singing "We Shall Overcome," and everyone coming to their senses. Heston remembers what it was really like.

If Heston fails to explain this in Bowling, we`ve got to note that Moore (despite his claim that he left the interview almost unedited) cut a lot of the interview out. Watch closely and you`ll see a clock on the wall near Moore`s head. When it`s first seen, the time is about 5:47. When Heston finally walks out, it reads about 6:10. That`s 23 minutes. I clocked the Heston interview in Bowling at 5 1/4 minutes. About three-quarters of what Heston did say was trimmed out. [Why the clock indicates six o`clock, when Moore is specific that he showed up for the interview at 8:30 AM, will have to await another investigation!]

9. Fear. Bowling probably has a good point when it suggests that the media feeds off fear in a search for the fast buck. Bowling cites some examples: the razor blades in Halloween apples scare, the flesh-eating bacteria scare, etc. The examples are taken straight from Barry Glassner`s excellent book on the subject, "The Culture of Fear," and Moore interviews Glassner on-camera for the point.

Then Moore does exactly what he condemns in the media.

Given the prominence of schoolyard killings as a theme in Bowling for Columbine, Moore must have asked Glassner about that subject. Whatever Glassner said is, however, left on the cutting-room floor. That`s because Glassner lists schoolyard shootings as one of the mythical fears. He points out that "More than three times as many people are killed by lightning as by violence at schools."

10. Guns (supposedly the point of the film). A point worth making (although not strictly on theme here): Bowling`s theme is, rather curiously, not opposed to firearms ownership.

After making out Canada to be a haven of nonviolence, Moore asks why. He proclaims that Canada has "a tremendous amount of gun ownership," somewhat under one gun per household. He visits Canadian shooting ranges, gun stores, and in the end proclaims "Canada is a gun loving, gun toting, gun crazy country!"

Or as he put it elsewhere, "then I learned that Canada has 7 million guns but they don`t kill each other like we do. I thought, gosh, that`s uncomfortably close to the NRA position: Guns don`t kill people, people kill people."

Bowling concludes that Canada isn`t peaceful because it lacks guns and gun nuts -- it has lots of those -- but because the Canadian mass media isn`t into constant hyping of fear and loathing, and the American media is. (One problem).

Which leaves us to wonder why the Brady Campaign/Million Moms issued a press release. congratulating Moore on his Oscar nomination.

Or does Bowling have a hidden punch line, and in the end the joke is on them?

One possible explanation: did Bowling begin as one movie, and end up as another?

Conclusion

The point is not that Bowling is unfair, or lacking in objectivity. The point is far more fundamental: Bowling for Columbine is dishonest. It is fraudulent. To trash Heston, it even uses the audio/video editor to assemble a Heston speech that Heston did not give, and sequences images and carefully highlighted text to spin the viewer`s mind to a wrong conclusion. If there is art in this movie, it is this art -- a dishonest art. Moore does not inform his readers: he plays them like a violin.

David T. Hardy

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]
In a scene from "Fahrenheit 9/11," President Bush after being told "America is under attack" on Sept. 11, 2001.

[/TABLE]
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[spicault]

#41 und #43

Zu diesem Punkt solltet ihr meine Posting #29 lesen.

[spicault]

[disgruntled_goat]

Diesen Scheissdreck liest keiner. Hast du nichts in deinen eigenen Worten zu sagen? Du hast den Film doch nicht mal gesehen, also halt einfach die Luft an.

[disgruntled_goat]

Diese Fotomontage - süß.
Das ist alles, was du bringen kannst?
Armselig.

[Joerver]

Für die meisten Europäer enthält der Film nichts Neues, weil die Zusammenhänge hier ausführlich in der Presse erörtert wurden.
Für die meisten US-Bürger sind viele Sachen neu, weil sie mit den Lügen vieler Zeitungen und besonders der Fernsehsender gefüttert wurden.
Vor nicht langer Zeit lief ein Film im US-Fernsehen, der Bush an 9/11 zeigt wie er sich in ein Flugzeug schwingt und mit markigen Worten die Welt retten will. Wobei in Wahrheit er sich in einer Vorschulklase versteckt und dann stundenlang sinnlos durch die USA geflogen wird.
Das Video von der Klasse wurde schon vor einem Jahr veröffentlicht, ich habe auch in meinen Thread eingestellt, nur damals wurde es nicht beachtet. Wenn Moore es nun in seinem Film bringt, ist es ein Aufreger.
Moore hat nichts anderes gemacht als bekannte Fakten in besonders effektiver Art zusammenzustellen und daraus einen provokanten Film gemacht.



June 28, 2004
The Political `Fahrenheit` Sets Record at Box Office
By SHARON WAXMAN

LOS ANGELES, June 27 — Michael Moore`s anti-Bush "Fahrenheit 9/11" became the highest-grossing documentary of all time on its first weekend in release, taking in $21.8 million as it packed theaters across the country this weekend.

The movie, mocking President Bush and criticizing his decision to go to war in Iraq, was No. 1 at the box office, beating out the popular comedies "White Chicks" and "DodgeBall," which were playing on almost triple the number of screens.

Theater owners in large cities and smaller towns reported sellout crowds over the weekend, with numerous theaters declaring house records.

The phenomenal opening represented a decisive victory for Mr. Moore and for the Miramax movie executives Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who released the film independently after it was rejected by Miramax`s corporate parent, the Walt Disney Company, as too political.

"We sold out in Fayetteville, home of Fort Bragg," in North Carolina, Mr. Moore said on Sunday. "We sold out in Army-base towns. We set house records in some of these places. We set single-day records in a number of theaters. We got standing ovations in Greensboro, N.C.

"The biggest news to me this morning is this is a red-state movie," he said, referring to the state whose residents voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. "Republican states are embracing the movie, and it`s sold out in Republican strongholds all over the country."

Harvey Weinstein said: "It`s beyond anybody`s expectations. I`d have to say the sky`s the limit on this movie. Who knows what territory we`re in."

Mr. Moore`s 2002 film, "Bowling for Columbine," had held the record for the highest-earning documentary until this weekend, taking in $21.6 million in its domestic run.

Market research leading up to the weekend had shown that the documentary would rank second or third at the box office after the two mainstream comedies. But "White Chicks" took in $19.6 million for the weekend on 2,726 screens, while "DodgeBall" took in $18.5 million on 3,020. "Fahrenheit 9/11," rated R, was released on 868 screens.

Even rival studio executives recognized that documentary`s opening as exceptional. "This picture came from nowhere," said Tom Sherak, a principal at Revolution Studios, which made "White Chicks." "It`s what movie viewing has become. If you make it feel like it has urgency, people will have to go."

Attendance for "Fahrenheit 9/11" resembled nothing so much as the other surprise movie event of this year, the fervor ignited by Mel Gibson`s movie about the Crucifixion, "The Passion of the Christ." That film has taken in $370 million domestically and sailed to blockbuster status on a wave of media controversy and debate.

Mr. Moore and Mr. Weinstein are masters at creating media hype, and "Fahrenheit 9/11" benefited from the controversy over its release when Disney declined to distribute it in late spring. The film went on to become a sensation at the Cannes International Film Festival, where it won the Palme d`Or in May, and was picked up for distribution by the independent distributors Lions Gate and IFC Films, who promised to release the film by the Fourth of July.

The movie depicts the Bush family`s business ties to Saudi Arabia and portrays the president as over his head and out of touch; Mr. Moore goes to Flint, Mich., his hometown, to interview a devastated mother who has lost her son in Iraq and questions what he died for.

Mr. Weinstein predicted that "Fahrenheit 9/11" would certainly take in $50 million, and possibly $100 million. He said he expected the film to expand to twice as many theaters next week, and ultimately to be on as many as 2,000 screens, a scale that would redefine the traditional reach of documentary films.

Beyond making box-office history, the movie may be seen by some as a bellwether of political support for the president and the war. The film`s weekend success was fodder for the Sunday morning political talk shows, as pundits wondered what the political influence of the film might be, if any, on President Bush`s re-election campaign.

Mr. Moore said that the film was a wake-up call to the pundits too. "I can`t tell you how many times in the last week I`ve watched commentators say, `But people who like Bush are going to stay home.` They broke it down that way," he said. "It was far too simplistic."

Mr. Moore said that he first got an inkling that his movie would be more than just an average release when he learned that it had broken the house records on Wednesday at the two Manhattan theaters where it opened.

Then on Friday night he said he went to watch the movie at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, and in the middle of the screening was recognized by audience members. "Suddenly everyone was turning around, and starting to applaud during the movie," Mr. Moore said. "I was going, `Sit down, watch the movie.` I had to get out of there."

He added: "Clearly something has happened here that no one expected. And there aren`t words to describe how any of us feel this morning on hearing this news."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

Ich möchte hier noch einen Kommentar aus der WaPost von heute einstellen, weil ich finde er drückt vieles aus, was über diesen Film zu sagen ist.
Die Hass-Pamphlete haben den Film nur unterstützt.

washingtonpost.com

Fiery Hatchet Job

By William Raspberry

Monday, June 28, 2004; Page A21

Michael Moore`s "Fahrenheit 9/11" is everything you`ve heard. It is a searing indictment of the Bush administration`s war on terror. It is an eye-opening expose of a president whose inexperience and limited intelligence make him tragically unsuited for the job. It is a masterful job of connecting the dots between Saudi money and the business interests of the president and his friends. And it is an overwrought piece of propaganda -- a 110-minute hatchet job that doesn`t even bother to pretend to be fair.

That last may be a part of its appeal: There is no hidden agenda, no subliminal message. Moore thinks George W. Bush is dumb, devious and dangerous, and needs to be voted out of office. He doesn`t have that much good to say about the Democrats or John Kerry, their presumptive candidate. But it`s mostly about how bad Bush is.

It`s easy enough to see why Republicans hated the movie before they ever saw it, why they used their influence to try to stop its production and distribution, and why, having failed at that, they are calling on theater owners not to show it.

But why did the mostly liberal crowd at last week`s Washington premiere -- people who like to think of themselves as thoughtful and fair-minded -- applaud so unrestrainedly?

They applauded, I suspect, for much the same reason so many members of the black Christian middle-class applaud the harangues of Black Muslim minister Louis Farrakhan. Some of his facts may be wrong and some of his connections strained, but his attitude is right. What`s more, he`ll say in plain language what nice, educated people cannot bring themselves to say: The man is a devil.

I thought from the beginning that the Bush administration was wrong to launch its unprovoked war on Iraq. "Fahrenheit" makes it easier to believe that the war was not simply a horrible mistake based on over-extrapolation from slim evidence. I`ve long had my doubts about the president`s intellectual gifts. Moore tempts me to doubt his basic competency.

There is that Sept. 11 scene at a Florida elementary school where the president is reading to a group of children when an aide whispers in his ear that an airliner has crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. He blanches at the horrible news but then returns to his reading: "My Pet Goat." What should he have done? Was he well-advised not to show panic? I don`t know, and Moore doesn`t tell us. He is content to give us the impression of a man who has no idea what to do unless there is someone there to give him instructions.

Or of a man who only pretends to care about terrorism. There is the vacationing President Bush making a grim-faced denunciation of some terrorist action, then turning back to his golf game with: "Now watch this drive."

You can tell how bad that looks -- but should he have bagged his clubs after delivering that TV message? To what purpose?

The movie is full of such slyness -- and if Moore is afraid it`s too subtle for you, he`ll spell it out in one of his numerous voice-overs.

But it`s not all slyness. The most powerful story in the film is that of Lila Lipscomb, from Moore`s hometown of Flint, Mich., who, when we meet her, is boasting of her family`s military service. A daughter served in the Gulf War and a son is serving in Iraq. Later, after the son is killed, she reads, on camera, his last letter home; in it he tells her how pointless and wrong and destructive the war seems to him.

And now this woman, who "used to hate those [Vietnam War] protesters," is a peculiarly effective war protester herself.

Will the film (along with the recent spate of books questioning the administration`s approach to fighting terrorism) produce a similar about-face on the part of the American public?

I wish Moore had been more scrupulously honest, more interested in examining other points of view, less inclined to make the facts line up to serve his purposes. But I can`t say he reached the wrong conclusion.

[e-mail]

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

[spicault]

#48

Moore hat nichts anderes gemacht als bekannte Fakten in besonders effektiver Art zusammenzustellen und daraus einen provokanten Film gemacht.

Um zu wissen, wie Moore mit den Fakten umgeht, braucht man nur die Artikel zu lesen, die ich oben gepostet habe und die seriöser als alles andere sind, das in diesem Thread zu lesen ist.

Joever imagines that the Americans are ignorant as regards the background of the war against terror. In fact, they are better informed than the Europeans, and the lies propagated by Moore are being exposed in the US media and especially in TV talk shows.

The Cannes festival jury members who hoped, with their polically-motivated award, to deal a blow to Bush`s election chances, are likely to be disappointed, if we are to judge by the effect that the bogus documentary "Bowling for Columbine" had on voting behaviour in the previous presidential elections. Political analysts came to the conclusion that "Bowling for Columbine" actually helped Bush, and not his opponent Gore. Quite simply, the American public, once properly informed of the facts by the media, reacted negatively to Moore`s concoction of lies.

That the Cannes award was a political one cannot be seriously doubted. Most jury members are known for their left-wing and anti-Bush views. For example, the French actress Emmanuelle Beart is a left-wing activist with radical anti-American views.

[SoeinPech]

der gute Michael Moore dürfte einer jener Personen sein, der in diesen Tagen die anrührendsten und herzzerreißendsten Nachtgebete in seinem stillen Kämmerlein zum Himmel schickt.

Und darin seine inständige Bitte vorträgt, Bush möge doch die nächsten Wahlen gewinnen.

Denn sollte dies anders kommen, so wird man sich nach dem Wahltag an diesen Michael Moore erinnern, und der wird dann gute Gründe haben, bereits von da an außer Landes zu sein.

Denn so viel Mist, wie der in seinem Film zusammengetragen hat über die USA: das ist die eine Sache.

Eine andere ist, daß er damit natürlich das Wahlverhalten der Amerikaner beeinflußt haben wird. Auf eine, wie man sich erinnern wird, sehr unamerikanische, sehr ärgerliche Weise. Das häßliche Wort der antiamerikanischen Hetze wird die Runde machen.

In die Wahlen in dieser Weise wirksam einzugreifen, das hat niemand gerne. Bei einigen hört da der Spaß auf und es wird der Streit beginnen, wer denn das Land entzweit, an die Wand gefahren hat. War es Bush ? oder Moore ?

Sich mitten in einem derartigen Streit zu befinden, das wird dem sicher nicht lange gefallen.

[disgruntled_goat]

#50: Das ist ein Riesenblödsinn was du da schreibst. Die Amerikaner besser informiert als die Europäer über den Krieg gegen den Terror? Das ich nicht lache. Letztlich kommst du immer mit irgendwelchen bekloppten Zitaten. Eine eigene Meinung scheinst du ja nicht zu haben.

#51: Du reihst dich in die Liste oberdussliger Kommentare nahtlos ein. "Antiamerikanische Hetze" wurde Moore schon immer von den Rechten vorgeworfen. Moore hat mehrfach und ohne jeden Zweifel klar gemacht, dass er Amerika und sein Land liebt. Nur weil er die Regierung scharf angreift, macht er Hetze? Was kommt als Nächstes? Der Vorwurf des Hochverrats?

Ich liege hier echt am Boden vor Lachen. Ihr seid so doof, dass sich die Balken biegen. Wenn ihr den Film gesehen habt, dann könnt ihr euch drüber auskotzen. Aber vorher so eine Scheisse zu labern und nur das in den Sräd schieben, was ihr irgendwo anders hergeholt habt, ist einfach armselig, ihr kleinen Wichte.

[Joerver]

Ich möchte nur wissen, weshalb CNN und die NYTimes sich bei ihren Lesern entschuldigt haben, dass sie auf die Propaganda der Bush Clique reingefallen sind.
Man hat ziemlich lange gebraucht in den USA bis man in einem Großteil der Presse wieder zu einer unabhängigen Berichterstattung zurückgefunden hat.
Natürlich bringen die Neocon-Blätter und auch Fox-TV immer noch die schon längst widerlegen Geschichten.
Kein Wunder, dass auch noch jetzt über 50% der US-Amerikaner glauben, dass Saddam für 9/11 verantwortlich ist.
Noch einen Tag nachdem die Senatuntersuchungskommission festgestellt hat, dass es keine Verbindung zwischen Al Kaida und Saddam gab, haben Bush und Cheney das Gegenteil behauptet.
Die Neocon Schreiberlinge arbeiten mit Methoden der Verleumdung und Unterstellung, die wir uns hier nicht vorstellen können.

[Joerver]

Spiegel-Online ist zwar sonst nicht so mein Fall, weil sie meist nur Agentur-Texte verramschen, aber dieser Artikel ist brauchbar, weil in etwa das darstellt was auch die großen US-Blätter in den letzten Tagen berichten.

SPIEGEL ONLINE - 28. Juni 2004, 12:18
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,306139,00.html

Bush-Messer

Mit Stullen zum Präsidenten-Prügeln

Von Marc Pitzke, New York

Michael Moores Anti-Bush-Polemik "Fahrenheit 9/11" bricht in den USA alle Kassenrekorde und mobilisiert die Massen mehr, als es jeder Wahlspot bisher konnte - ein böses Omen für den Präsidenten.

New York - Insgesamt 273 Millionen Dollar haben George W. Bush und John Kerry bisher für den US-Wahlkampf ausgegeben, ein historischer Rekord. Trotzdem ist ihnen nicht gelungen, was der Filmemacher Michael Moore mit schlappen sechs Millionen Dollar und einer Kamera nun geschafft hat: die Leute politisch aufzuwühlen. Washington könnte noch was lernen von dem Provokateur aus der Provinz.

Sagenhafte 21,8 Millionen Dollar hat Moores cineastischer Bush-Verriss "Fahrenheit 9/11" übers Premieren-Wochenende in Nordamerika eingespielt (knapp 22 Millionen, wenn man den strategischen Frühstart in zwei New Yorker Kinos hinzurechnet). "Fahrenheit 9/11" ist schon jetzt, nach nur ein paar Tagen, der erfolgreichste Dokumentarfilm aller Zeiten, trotz - oder dank? - aller republikanischer Proteste: "Diese Zahlen sprengen einem ja das Hirn", staunte da selbst der Regisseur. "Bush-Bashing", meldete die Nachrichtenagentur Reuters aus Los Angeles, "ist zum populärsten Zuschauersport der Nation geworden".

Sie kommen mit handgemalten Spruchbändern und selbst geschmierten Stullen, sie stehen Stunden lang Schlange, sie jubeln und brüllen, und vor den Kinos lauern die wackeren Wahlhelfer der Demokraten schon mit ihren Partei-Aufnahmeanträgen: Michael Moore mobilisiert die Massen, wie es kein einziger, teurer TV-Spot Bushs und Kerrys vermochte.

Und so bewegt die Debattier-Zirkel der US-Hauptstadt diese Woche meist nur eine Frage: Kann es sein, dass dieser schamlose Stänkerer - von links verehrt, von rechts verhasst - diesem Patt-Wahlkampf endlich mal den nötigen Drall in die eine Richtung gegeben hat?


Jede Woche analysiert SPIEGEL ONLINE die Chancen des US-Präsidenten für seine Wiederwahl. Für die Werte der letzten Wochen hier klicken...
Die Auflösung dieses Rätsels gibt`s natürlich erst im November, doch schon heute sehen sich beide Seiten gleichermaßen bestärkt: die Demokraten in ihrem "wishful thinking" auf einen Machtwechsel, die Republikaner in ihrer Weiter-so-Bunkermentalität. "Fahrenheit 9/11" räumte nicht nur in den liberalen Hochburgen an der Ostküste ab, sondern auch in den konservativen Käffern des Mittleren Westens, nicht nur in "blauen" Staaten wie Texas, sondern auch in "roten" Staaten wie Kalifornien - und in Wankelwähler-Regionen wie Pennsylvania. Und auf gerade die hat es Moore abgesehen: jene 21 Prozent der Amerikaner, die sich nach jüngsten Umfragen noch nicht festgelegt haben, weder auf Bush noch auf Kerry. Alle anderen dürfte "Fahrenheit 9/11" in ihrer jeweiligen Meinung nur bekräftigen.

Bedeutet Moores enormer Erfolg aber wirklich, dass die US-Wähler aus ihrer Lethargie aufschrecken? Oder, dass es hier einem Polemiker nur gelungen ist, die alte Anti-Bush-Basis zu kitzeln, deren Crème-de-la-crème sich zur Premierenfeier im so trefflich benannten Restaurant "Leftbank" in Washington traf? So oder so, für den Präsidenten könnte das zu einem Problem werden: "Wähler der Mitte werden nach diesem Film eher zu Kerry tendieren", prophezeit Terry Neal, der politische Chefkorrespondent der "Washington Post". Und: "Fahrenheit 9/11" könnte die scheintote demokratische Basis neu beleben, "vor allem Liberale, die sonst nicht wählen".

Doch nicht nur das bereitet Bush Kopfschmerzen. Auch die Weigerung der US-Grünen, den Joker-Kandidaten Ralph Nader zu unterstützen, kommt nur John Kerry zu Gute. Der wiederum wagte sich langsam aus dem Off und ließ sich von Hollywood auf einer Fundraising-Gala feiern - ausgerechnet in der Walt Disney Concert Hall, benannt nach dem Gründer des Konzerns, der Moore zuerst den Vetrieb von "Fahrenheit 9/11" verweigerte. Da trällerte Barbra Streisand eine bissige Tirade auf Pentagon-Chef Donald Rumsfeld, Oscar-Chefverleiher Billy Crystal nannte Kerry einen "echten Action-Helden", und die hochkarätigen "Gäste" warfen allein an einem Abend fünf Millionen Dollar in Kerrys Wahlkampfkasse.

Kein Wunder, dass im Weißen Haus die Nerven inzwischen blank liegen. So blank, dass Bushs PR-Strategen jetzt mit Hitler Stimmung gegen Kerry zu machen versuchen und Bush-Vize Dick Cheney im Senat ausrastete, wo er dem Demokraten Patrick Leahy das F-Wort hinterherrief - und darob trotzig verkündete, er habe sich "hinterher besser gefühlt". Hätte Cheney das im Hörfunk oder im Fernsehen getan, hätte er sich zweifelos eine saftige Geldstrafe wegen Obszönität eingehandelt, wie sie Bushs Medienaufsicht seit Janet Jacksons Busen-Skandal ja verschärft verhängt.

Der Wahlkampf verkommt zur Farce. Derweil übergibt US-Zivilverwalter Paul Bremer im Irak die Macht an eine von US-Truppen beschützte Übergangsregierung, Terroristen drohen mit der Ermordung weiterer Geiseln und in Washington sorgen immer neue Pentagon-Memos für immer mehr Verwirrung im Folterskandal. Das Gewicht all dieser Bilder lastet schwer auf dem Bush-Messer. Dieser sieht die Wiederwahlchancen des Amtsinhabers nur noch bei 1:2 und empfiehlt demselben, vielleicht einen ebenso cleveren Agigator für seine Sache zu engagieren wie Michael Moore.

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2004

[SoeinPech]

@disgruntled_goat

das hast Du schön gesagt, d_g

ach wenn Du doch wenigstens nur lesen könntest. Oder gar verstündest, was Du da liest.

So liegst Du nur "echt am Boden"

Vor Lachen, natürlich. Was sollst Du auch anders machen.

[spicault]

[disgruntled_goat]

Ja, wenn man keine Argumente hat, muss man eben so einen Müll posten. Naja, ich lass euch dann mal in dem Sräd allein.

Don`t feed the trolls.

[spicault]

[endaxi]

#58 Da loben wir uns doch dem Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger, der als Patriot und Mister Universum der Muskelmasse, hinter Mister Universum Bush uneingeschränkt steht,wie wir seit seinem besuch im Irak wissen.

[spicault]

This is what I mean when I say that the Americans are better informed about 11/9 and the war on terror than the Europeans.

This kind of close scrutiny of the assertions made by Moore in his latest "documentary", and their measurement against the facts, is being offered to Americans by their media all over the country.

You would be hard put to find a similar analysis in any European newspaper, especially in Germany.

A key sentence in this analysis is the following:

Even when a fact is beyond dispute, the way it is presented in a film can create a meaning or implication beyond object truth.

Good reading!


Just the facts on `Fahrenheit 9/11`

June 28, 2004

BY TOM McNAMEE STAFF REPORTER
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES


Michael Moore`s powerful new film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," is part documentary and part indictment. It`s a furious, but often funny, attack on President Bush and the war in Iraq. Moore, accused of playing loose with the facts in previous films such as "Bowling for Columbine" and "Roger and Me," says he bent over backward to get the smallest details right this time around. But critics of the film, which opened on Friday in Chicago, are finding plenty to complain about.

In some instances, the critics say Moore unfairly implies much more than he says. In other cases, they say, it`s what Moore leaves out that counts most. Any 116-minute film so full of facts and figures is an easy target. Even when a fact is beyond dispute, the way it is presented in a film can create a meaning or implication beyond object truth. Ultimately, the audience must become the jury. The verdict is up to them. What follows are some of the major disputed points.

Bush family`s Saudi ties

Moore maintains that the Bush family long enjoyed an immensely profitable relationship with the ruling families of Saudi Arabia, including the sprawling bin Laden clan. On camera, Moore interviews Craig Unger, author of the best-selling book House of Bush, House of Saud, who estimated that the Saudis have enriched the Bushes and their Texas oil associates by $1.4 billion.

A key link in this cozy relationship between the Bushes and Saudis, Moore says, was James R. Bath, a friend of George W. Bush since their days together in the Texas Air National Guard. Beginning in 1976, Bath was the bin Laden family`s Texas money manager. In 1981, Bath invested in Bush`s struggling oil company, Arbusto.

Moore`s facts appear solid. The Bush family, like most Texas oil families, had strong ties to the Saudi elite. What early critics of the film question, however, is Moore`s insinuation -- without the smoking gun of hard evidence -- that Bush ducked a fight with his Saudi friends after 9/11 -- even though 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. The Saudi ambassador, in fact, dined with Bush in the White House just two days after 9/11.

In the film, Moore wonders aloud if Bush sometimes wakes up in the morning and wonders "what`s best for the Saudis, not what`s best for you."

Air Bin Ladens

Moore is guilty of a classic game of saying one thing and implying another when he describes how members of the Saudi elite were flown out of the United States shortly after 9/11.

If you listen only to what Moore says during this segment of the movie -- and take careful notes in the dark -- you`ll find he`s got his facts right. He and others in the film state that 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country after Sept. 13.

The date -- Sept. 13 -- is crucial because that is when a national ban on air traffic, for security purposes, was eased.

But nonetheless, many viewers will leave the movie theater with the impression that the Saudis, thanks to special treatment from the White House, were permitted to fly away when all other planes were still grounded. This false impression is created by Moore`s failure, when mentioning Sept. 13, to emphasize that the ban on flights had been eased by then. The false impression is further pushed when Moore shows the singer Ricky Martin walking around an airport and says, "Even Ricky Martin couldn`t fly."


Always interviews the family, right

Moore talks to a former FBI agent who is stunned and angry that the Saudis, especially members of the bin Laden clan, were not vigorously interviewed before being permitted to fly out of the United States. As the agent points out, in a murder investigation -- and 9/11 was nothing more than murder on a massive scale -- the cops always interview the families of the suspects. What would Republicans have thought, Moore asks, if President Bill Clinton had helped the family of Timothy McVeigh leave the country shortly after the Oklahoma City federal building bombing -- without even grilling them first?

But the movie fails to mention that the FBI interviewed about 30 of the Saudis before they left. And the independent 9/11 commission has reported that "each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure."

"Voters prefer the dead guy"

Moore mocks Attorney General John Ashcroft by pointing out that Ashcroft once lost a Senate race in Missouri to a man who had died three weeks earlier. "Voters preferred the dead guy," Moore says, delivering one of the film`s biggest laugh lines.

It`s a cheap shot. When voters in Missouri cast their ballots for the dead man, Mel Carnahan, they knew they were really voting for Carnahan`s very much alive widow, Jean. The Democratic governor of Missouri had vowed to appoint Jean to the job if Mel won.


A Taliban tale

In December 1997, a delegation from Afghanistan`s ruling and ruthless Taliban visited the United States to meet with an oil and gas company that had extensive dealings in Texas. The company, Unocal, was interested in building a natural gas line through Afghanistan. Moore implies that Bush, who was then governor of Texas, met with the delegation.

But, as Gannett News Service points out, Bush did not meet with the Taliban representatives. What`s more, Clinton administration officials did sit down with Taliban officials, and the delegation`s visit was made with the Clinton administration`s permission.

A family affair

Moore points out that John Ellis, a cousin of George W. Bush, was the Fox News employee who made the decision on election night 2000 to report that Bush had won Florida -- when all other TV channels were reporting that Al Gore had won.

"How does someone like Bush get away with this?" Moore asks.

Get away with what? It`s a suspicious coincidence, especially given Fox News` reputation for spinning the news to the right. But only a suspicious coincidence. Moore offers no proof it was anything more.


Frozen seven minutes

Moore is appalled that Bush continued to sit in a Florida classroom reading My Pet Goat to a group of children for seven minutes after being informed that a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. The president did not budge until an aide suggested he do so.

Moore got his facts right, and produces the proof. From the classroom`s teacher, he obtained a videotape showing the full seven minutes. But what of it? As presented by Moore, Bush looks ridiculous, doing nothing when terrorists strike. But the president`s defenders insist it`s all about spin.

"Many are those who say that he should have leaped from his stool, adopted a Russell Crowe stance, and gone to work," commentator Christopher Hitchens writes for the online magazine Slate. "But if he had done any such thing, then . . . half the Michael Moore community would now be calling him a man who went to war on a hectic, crazed impulse. The other half would be saying what they already say --that he knew the attack was coming, was using it to cement himself in power, and couldn`t wait to get on with his coup."

Man of leisure

Moore accuses Bush of not paying enough attention in the summer of 2001 to warnings of an imminent al-Qaida attack on the United States. The president failed to appreciate the importance of an Aug. 6, 2001, CIA terror briefing, Moore scolds, and spent 42 percent of his first eight months as president on vacation.

The first knock on Bush -- that he failed to understand the gravity of a CIA briefing given to him while he was on vacation at his Texas ranch -- has been a matter of raging debate among political pundits for months. Bush`s former chief of counterterrorism, Richard Clarke, originally made the charge.

The second knock -- that Bush loves his vacation time -- came from the Washington Post. Shortly before 9/11, the Post calculated that Bush had spent 42 percent of his presidency at vacation spots or en route, including all or part of 54 days at his ranch. That calculation, however, includes weekends, which Moore failed to mention.

In the film, Bush is shown defending his lengthy vacations, saying he`s busy with his presidential tasks even while down on the ranch. But Moore leaves the impression that he has his doubts and fails to include evidence to the contrary, such as a visit to the ranch by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

[rightnow]

spicault, spicault...was für ein schmalz!!


und wieso bist du auf einmal so antiamerikanisch ???

[spicault]

#61

???????

[bares@nobles]

spicault, du bist ein ideologisch verblendeter Neocon, dem der Sinn für die Realitäten schon lange verloren gegangen sind.

Alleine die Szene, in der Bush die Nachrichten von den Terroranschlägen erhält und daraufhin eine Viertelstunde hilflos, reglos und mit leerem Blick in seinem Stuhl in einem Kindergarten in Florida verharrt, ist symptomatisch für die Unfähigkeit dieses Präsidenten.
Der sinnlose Griff des Präsidenten nach einem Kinderbuch aus dem Regal neben ihm, das er dann die ganze Zeit in der Hand hält, zeigt die ganze Hilflosigkeit dieses Menschen nur noch überdeutlich.



Jeder andere Führer einer Nation wäre in dieser Situation sofort aufgestanden und hätte sich mit seinen Beratern zurückgezogen um die Lage zu beraten und entsprechende Massnahmen zu ergreifen.

Aber dieser Präsident ist eine Farce und das dem Publikum zu vermitteln gelingt Moore in seiner Doku recht gut.
Und dafür hassen ihn die Neocons, weil er ihnen ihr Symbol zerstört.

[rightnow]

der schlüsselsatz aus # 60 (deiner meinung nach):

"...A key sentence in this analysis is the following:

Even when a fact is beyond dispute, the way it is presented in a film can create a meaning or implication beyond object truth.

Good reading! ..."

-----

ich gebe dir nachhilfe:

1. die objektiven wahrheiten:

a) saddam/irak arbeiten mit al..qaida zusammen...

b) irak muss bombardiert werden... wegen 9/11 (=mitschuld)

c) sie haben massenvernichtungswaffen
(objektive wahrheit: urinfläschchen von powell:laugh

d) die irakischen eselskarren sind abschussrampen mit nuklearsprengköpfen...
...
kurzum, es ist bis heute eine besetzung eines fremden landes -ohne kriegsgrund = kriegsverbrechen!

spicault,
was die mehrheit schon lange weiss, incl. der mehrheit der amerikaner, blickst du wahrscheinlich bis heute nicht !

da kannst du noch so viel englisch - artikel reinstellen...

moore zeigt bilder, da manche nicht lesen können, aber vor allem nichts verstehen, dh., nicht die richtigen schlüsse ziehen können.

insofern ist es schade, dass du immer noch falsch liegst.
und sei nicht so neidisch auf das bisschen kleingeld, das moore sich redlich verdient -es ist doch für einen guten
zweck.

sei nicht taurig, das nächste buch heisst:

schurkenstaat...., geschrieben von clyde prekowitz , oder so ähnlich,aber das findest du schon noch selbst.

btw: er ist amerikaner u. republikaner


cu
rightnow

[rightnow]

zur sicherheit, dass du nicht wieder deinen abstrusen fehlfolgerungen unterliegst...

mit schurkenstaat (#61) ist selbstverständlich die usa; insbesondere die bushregierung gemeint.

ich sags halt, man kann ja nie wissen bei den blinden bushisten.

ist zwar ne aussterbende rasse, aber es gibt sie halt noch vereinzelt ...

[rightnow]

und nun noch ein neur artikel in deutsch; vielleicht klappte es dann besser...


der kernsatz heisst: politische !!dokumentation!!
als kassenschlager...!!

----

Ein "Weihnachtsgeschenk" für Bin Laden

Kritiker von US-Präsident George W. Bush stürmen in den USA die Bestseller-Listen und verbuchen Rekorde an der Kinokasse. Schon vor der Veröffentlichung seines Buches "Imperial Hybris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror" ("Imperiale Selbstüberschätzung - Warum der Westen den Krieg gegen den Terrorismus verliert") braucht sich ein Mitarbeiter des US-Geheimdienstes keine Sorgen über den Absatz zu machen. Beim Internet-Versand Amazon steht das Werk bereits an vierter Stelle der Verkaufsliste, obwohl es erst im Juli erscheinen soll. Der anonyme Autor vertritt darin die These, die Regierung Bush habe sich durch ihren militärisch geführten Kampf gegen den internationalen Terrorismus in eine "albtraumhafte" Lage manövriert.


Umfrage in den USA "Irak-Krieg war ein Fehler"
Kritik an Bush USA in der Isolation



USA als "Magnet für Mudschahedin"
Mit dem Irak-Krieg habe die US-Regierung dem mutmaßlichen El-Kaida-Führer Osama bin Laden ein regelrechtes "Weihnachtsgeschenk" gemacht, sagte der Autor am Sonntag dem US-Fernsehsender ABC. Das Land sei ein "Magnet für Mudschahedin" geworden. Zudem reduzierten radikale Islamisten die US-Außenpolitik auf die folgenden Faktoren: Schutz von korrupten moslemischen Regimes, bedingungslose Unterstützung Israels und die Besatzung Iraks und Afghanistans. Er fürchte, dass El Kaida ein Attentat in den USA vorbereite, das noch schlimmer sei als die Anschlagsserie vom 11. September, betont der Autor. Er arbeitete 22 Jahre für die CIA und war zwischen 1996 und 1999 gegen Bin Laden tätig.




Michael Moore ist stolz auf den Erfolg seines neuen Films (Foto: dpa)
Politische Dokumentation als Kassenschlager
Auch der Bush-kritische Filmemacher Michael Moore hat mit seinem neusten Streifen "Fahrenheit 9/11" einen neuen Hit gelandet. Moore ist der erste Regisseur der Filmgeschichte, dem es gelungen ist, einen politischen Dokumentarfilm an die Spitz der amerikanischen Kino-Hitparade zu bringen. Etwa drei Millionen Amerikaner bescherten dem Film, in dem US-Präsident George W. Bush und seine engsten Mitarbeiter als Kriegstreiber hingestellt werden, von Freitag bis Sonntagabend Kasseneinnahmen von umgerechnet 18 Millionen Euro.


Politischer Gegenwind heizte das Interesse an
Moore dankte offiziell seinen politischen Gegnern: Mit Boykottaufrufen und öffentlichen Schmähungen hätten sie das Interesse an dem Streifen erheblich angefacht, sagte er im Gespräch mit Kinobesuchern vor einem Filmtheater in Manhattan. Der Dokumentarfilm, mit dem Moore erklärtermaßen die Wiederwahl Bushs verhindern will, setzte sich gegen Hollywood-Spielfilme durch, die mit der dreifachen Kopienzahl an den Start gingen und dennoch weniger Zuschauer hatten.

----


spicault,
also ich finde den text prima.

cu
rightnow,
(aus: www.t-online.de)

[spicault]

#66

Alles alter Kaffee.

Und das sollte interessant sein?

Klingt wie der üblicher Stuss aus "Der Spiegel" oder "Stern".

[spicault]

[spicault]

#63

In that well-known scene Bush seems to be paralysed at the news of the WTC attacks. However, I have learnt to be mistrustful of appearances, especially when, as in this case, short clips of a person`s behaviour are expoited for propaganda purposes.

We would be in a position to rightfully judge Bush`s seeming irresolution if we knew exactly what he was told by his advisor. How much did he really know? Why didn`t he immediately break off his reading session with the school children to consult with advisors, evolve a plan of action etc? Those are questions that could only be elucidated by a thorough enquiry into the way the presidency functions in moments of crisis, and the exact circumstances surrounding the event on that day.

If it turned out that Bush really did suffer a failure of nerve on that day, it wouldn`t worry me much. This president has displayed plenty of courage, nerve, and resolution in the last few years in prosecuting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is something I would be less confident about in an Al Gore or John Kerry. By all accounts Bush has displayed decisiveness and determination in rallyíng support for the war against terror as well as for his domestic policies.

And remember this. Great presidents have had their failings and foibles. Winston Churchill was a drunkard who drank up to two bottles of whiskey a day. John F. Kennedy was a very ill man who needed to take a huge dosis of drugs each day to stay on his feet.

If you had filmed Wilson Churchill at the height of the Battle Of Britain you might have captured on film a bloated figure swigging whiskey and slurring his words. It didn`t stop him beating Hitler.

[spicault]

[datterich]

# 63

@ bares@nobles,

ich wünsche dir, dass du niemals eine Nachricht bekommst,
die dich erstarren lässt und sprachlos macht.

Nehmen wir mal an, du erfährst, dass deine Frau ermordet
wurde und deine beiden Kinder entführt worden sind ....
dann würdest du natürlich sofort aufstehen und die ent-
sprechenden Maßnahmen ergreifen.

[regierungswechsel]

Wer für diesen Propagandadreck Geld ins Kino trägt, sollte es lieber für Hilfsbedürftige spenden.

Moore ist ein Deutschen-Hasser, nun da ist er ja in bester Gesellschaft, die "Grünen" und viele Linke, hassen auch die eigene Nation.



Ein Film der in die Tonne gehört!


Ich würde Bush wiederwählen!



Servus
der
Regierungswechsel

[bares@nobles]

datterich,
weder sind dem amerikanischen Präsidenten die Frau oder die Kinder gestorben, noch ist ein Angriff persönlich auf ihn erfolgt, sondern ein paar tausend Meilen weiter nördlich.

Reagan hat 1982, nach dem Attentat auf ihn, den Notärzten noch zugeraunt, "hoffentlich seid ihr alle Republikaner".

Ein amerikanischer Präsident, der in einer Konflikt- und Notsituation so hilflos und verdattert reagiert, ist eine Gefahr für die ganze Welt.
Ein Präsidenten, der in dieser Situation erst nach Aufforderung durch seinen chief of staff den Kindergarten verlässt, ist ein Trauerspiel, zumal wenn ihn die eigene Partei als Führungsfigur verkaufen will.

[bummelo]

@bares@nobles

du bist ein trottel

[datterich]

@ bummelo,
das ist zwar sehr unhöflich, aber richtig erkannt.

[bares@nobles]

Meine Güte, was ist das hier für ein Kindergarten!

Der Erste fängt gleich das Weinen an, weil Bush nach dem Terroranschlag auf das WTC so traurig aus der Wäsche schaut und der Zweite kann sich nur mit persönlichen Beleidigungen hervortun.

[spicault]

[SoeinPech]

spicault, #77

sehr schön.

Nicht nur die Karrikatur an sich, die sist brilliant.

Sondern auch der Hinweis, daß es auch noch andere, eben diese Sichtweise gibt, die zur Darstellung kommt.

Und mein irritiertes Gefühl von bitterer Realität trifft.

[spicault]

Jackass, The Documentary
Dishonesty. Tendentiousness. Blubber. Michael Moore`s "Bowling For Columbine" is even worse than what we`ve come to expect from him.
by Matt Labash
10/31/2002 11:20:00 AM

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, journalists are human too. We are not merely hecklers in the human comedy, the suckerfish of tragedy. We have thoughts and feelings. We experience pain and insecurity. We suffer disappointment and sorrow. Sometimes, we just need to be held.

Of all these human emotions, the most acutely-felt is often regret. For though we make it look effortless--often because we don`t exert any effort--it can be a tough racket: being forced to capture in a few-thousand word snapshot all the nuances of people`s lives, being frustrated when you don`t quite nail them. Take me, for instance. Four years ago, I wrote a piece on documentary-filmmaker Michael Moore. Entitled "One-Trick Phony," it was what is known in the trade as a "kneecap job." Even by my own often uncharitable standards, it was a nasty piece of work.

Taking on the self-styled populist avenger, the bra-strap-snapper of corporate America, I went after Moore with a pick-axe. I said his career had been "one, long tiresome impression of a harlequin Reuther brother whistling the song of the working man," while all he really did was ambush mid-level proles in company lobbies. I called him a "Ritz-Carlton revolutionary" and a "high-cholesterol Cassandra" who dressed like "an unemployed lumberjack." After displaying initial comic genius with his General Motors-bashing "Roger & Me"--his critically acclaimed, if factually-compromised first film--Moore had, I suggested, become "a preachy bore . . . whose work has become so sanctimoniously unamusing it could make Cesar Chavez pull for management." Then I quit playing Mr. Nice Guy.

While most Moore critics stop at ridiculing him, since he is, both figuratively and literally, a fat target, I talked to his co-workers, acquaintances, and former employees, nearly all of whom made my editorial pronouncements look like a good-natured game of Slapjack. They called him "paranoid," "mercurial," "demanding," and a "fork-tongued manipulator." Though Moore`s entire shtick is predicated on fighting the jackboot of corporate oppression, they detailed everything from his temper tantrums to his threatening to fire an assistant who sent a yellow cab instead of a limo to fetch him at the airport. They compared working conditions under Moore to "a sweatshop," "indentured servitude," and "a concentration camp." One of his former producers said it was like "working for Idi Amin--without the laughs." Another staffer simply said, "My parents want him dead."

But that was then, and now, it is four years later. With the mellowing brought on by age, I realize that we are all God`s children, doing the best we can, struggling to get by. And so today, outside the heat of battle, in the cool light of day, as I watch Moore`s latest documentary,
"Bowling For Columbine," I can`t help but be haunted by one mammoth regret: that my piece wasn`t nearly mean enough.

For some time now, cultural observers have noticed that being a sparkling left-wing satirist is not a vocation in danger of overpopulation. Now that Mort Sahl is dead (or is he still alive?), you might count Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower, which is hard to do if you`ve actually read them. The Nation`s Katha Pollitt is a sparkling self-parodist, though not much of a satirist. So the field has pretty much been abandoned to Michael Moore, and more`s the pity, since it is hard to imagine the likes of Twain or Swift comparing themselves to Mother Teresa (as Moore has done), while still expecting to be taken seriously as funnymen.

Not that the marketplace has passed a similar judgment. Moore`s latest book, "Stupid White Men" (which isn`t, as the title suggests, an autobiography), has become a New York Times number one best-seller. A collection of union-hall-pamphleteer conspiracies stitched together in the mouth-breathing verbiage of someone who`s quite proud of their GED, the book is useful in that it collects all Moore`s crackpot theories in one place. The media tells us lies. . . . the election was stolen. . . . George W. Bush is an alcoholic. . . . we need Jimmy Carter. . . . on and on it goes.
As for the yuks quotient, a typical line is "I think it was Thomas Aquinas who once observed, `There`s nothing like your own shit to make you realize how much you stink.`" Clever stuff. In a sidebar chart (it`s the kind of book with sidebar charts) Moore offers "Mike`s Fantasy List of Women Presidents" which includes Hillary Clinton ("only if I could get invited for sleepovers") and President Oprah ( "the fireside chats with Dr. Phil would save us all.") Yuck.

Considering that Moore, just days after September 11, wrote "We, the United States of America, are culpable in committing so many acts of terror and bloodshed that we had better get a clue about the culture of violence in which we have been active participants"--it`s small wonder that the New Republic has called Moore "Chomsky for children." But it is precisely his culture-of-violence rap, along with his knee-jerk anti-Americanism, that has seen Moore earn some of his best reviews since "Roger & Me."

Having already won several film-festival awards, "Bowling For Columbine" was such a hit at the Cannes film festival, that it won a 13-minute standing ovation, along with the 55th anniversary Jury Prize. While the French are renowned for lapping up sub-standard American entertainment products, they are less likely to celebrate screechy and preachy moralistic diatribes, of which "Bowling for Columbine" is almost nothing but. But since the film contains heaping spoonfuls of America-bad-everyone-else-good notions, they appear eager to make an exception. As Brandweek reported, since Moore`s film also won the "Cannes Prix Educational National" award, voted on by hundreds of French teachers and students, it will now become part of their national curriculum, shown every year at schools in France.

In fairness to the French, Moore`s version of America gives them plenty to hate. Besides being a slovenly repository of happy meals and Shamrock Shakes, the protagonist (Moore) is a whiny nitwit, at turns deathly earnest and smugly glib--and he`s supposed to be the good guy.

The drama in a Moore film always comes from a cinematic version of the "Tonight Show"`s Jay-Walking segment--the running bit in which Jay Leno hits the streets and asks ordinary Americans to display their ignorance by asking them such stumpers as, "In what year did we fight the War of 1812?" Checking my stopwatch, I clock the film at 1 minute 20 seconds before Moore`s first human sacrifice--a harmless bank teller in Michigan, who sports a sensible hairstyle and a North County Bank golf shirt. As part of a bank promotion, they are giving away free guns, after background checks, when a customer opens a new account.

After the teller asks if Moore`s ever been ruled "mentally defective"--a fair question, considering the customer--Moore asks her, "Do you think it`s a little bit dangerous handing out guns at a bank?" This is, of course, amusing in the way Moore`s films periodically are--in the way cooking ants under a magnifying glass on a hot sidewalk tends to enthrall your average ten-year-old boy. Unfortunately, it is one of his last entertaining moments.

From there, we are off across America to prove we are a nation of militia-joining, bloodthirsty gun nuts, who use the rubric of the second amendment as a fig-leaf excuse to pump lead into each other for sport. The film`s catchy, if non-sequitirish title, "Bowling for Columbine," is a reference to the uber gun-nut Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who happened to go bowling in an elective-class the morning of the massacre.

From the tofu farm of James Nichols, brother of Oklahoma City bomber Terry, to Q&A`s with disenfranchised juvies, sporting bad skin and worse dental work, Moore seems to unearth every anti-government extremist who dreams of black helicopters and blood in the streets, proving that we are a violent nation almost beyond salvation.

Moore himself has said his is not merely an anti-gun film, but a larger film about the culture of fear that fosters our gun culture. "The American media," he told Phil Donahue, "wants to pump you full of fear." He says the media overstate everything from child abductions to the recession, which is a curious statement, coming from the author of so many sky-is-falling manifestoes. Just take a paragraph, almost at random, from "Stupid White Men," and you come up with: "Investors lost millions in the stock market. Crime went up for the first time in a decade. Job losses skyrocketed. American icons like Montgomery Ward and TWA vanished. Suddenly we were 2.5 million barrels short of oil--every day! Israelis started killing Palestinians again, and Palestinians returned the favor. By mid-2001, thirty-seven countries were at war around the world. China became our new enemy--again. . . . In short, all of a sudden everything sucked." It`s enough to make you want to hole up in your basement with canned goods and a weapons cache.

In the film, Moore heads to Littleton, where he visits Lockheed Martin, the weapons maker and Littleton`s biggest employer. Always one to blame societal ills on big corporations and/or the military-industrial complex, Moore interviews a Lockheed flack while his camera pans the factory`s corny successory posters. As Moore nearly pops a hamstring, hyper-extending himself while reaching for a causal factor in the Columbine shootings, he asks the poor flack if he doesn`t "think our kids say to themselves, `Well, gee, dad goes off to the factory every day, and he builds missiles, he builds weapons of mass destruction. What`s the difference between that mass destruction and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?`" (Neither Klebold`s nor Harris`s parents worked for Lockheed, and Klebold`s father has actually been identified as a liberal who favors gun control).

By this point, the flack is as puzzled as we are. He kindly explains that he`s not catching the parallel, and that our missiles are generally built to defend us "from somebody else who was the aggressor against us. We don`t get irritated with somebody and just because we get mad at them, drop a bomb or fire a missile at them." In what is perhaps the most-heavy handed two minutes in any film of the last 30 years, here, Moore cuts to a montage of American atrocities throughout the decades.

Against the strains of Louis Armstrong`s "What a Wonderful World," Moore cuts to a caption and image timeline explaining how we are guilty of everything from propping up tin-pot dictators to killing innocent civilians the world over. As Armstong sings the last words, Moore flashes a visual of the smoking World Trade Center, with the plane flying into tower two as a caption informs "Sept 11, 2001: Osama Bin Laden uses his expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people." Perhaps the likes of Bianca Jagger, Daniel Berrigan or the French would think Moore`s uncorked a real sly piece of satire, but he`s rolling out pretty heavy artillery to explain a school shooting.

The two-fold problem Moore runs into with attempting to fashion some deep polemic out of found material is that: (A) He has no idea what he wants to say, and (B) Neither does anyone that he finds. As he encounters Marilyn Manson backstage, they commiserate about the preposterousness of the Columbine rap nearly getting pinned on Manson by opportunists who said that the killers listened to his violent lyrics. (And they`re right, it is preposterous, but slightly less preposterous than blaming Lockheed Martin). Manson tells Moore that the media are responsible for a "campaign of fear and consumption--keep everyone afraid and they`ll consume." Moore agrees, and adds, apropos of nothing, that on the day of the shootings, the president dropped more bombs on Kosovo than at any other time in that war. This sounds less like a coherent argument, more like a conversation between two late-night dorm-room potheads.

But Moore doesn`t stop there. Following his half-baked culture-of-fear theme, he goes to South Central, to ask a cop, who is, in all likelihood, about to bust some minority down the street, why he doesn`t instead bust the people who are responsible for polluting the air, that makes it impossible to see the "Hollywood" sign from South Central. Later, he meets with a producer of the show "Cops," and suggests that instead of demonizing blacks and Hispanics by showing them getting arrested on television, maybe they could do a show called "Corporate Cops," where Enron-types get arrested. (The producer, tells Moore it wouldn`t make much of a visual, unless they could get the corporate criminal to "take his shirt off, throw his cellular phone at the police as they come through the door, [and to] jump out that window--then we`d have a show.")

The only solution Moore offers to curtail gun violence, isn`t, oddly enough, gun control, but for us to become more like Canada--a country that has it`s fair share of guns, but a tiny fraction of our gun deaths. Why this is so, Moore never adequately explores. In interviews he has made some faint noises about there being less suffering, and thus, less violence in Canada because of their socialized medicine. But for the most part, Moore leaves the viewer at sea, free to suppose that if we could just listen to Anne Murray records, take up curling, eat poutine and add "eh" to the end of our sentences, we too, would be a peace-loving people.

By the end, Moore`s deus ex machina creaks so loudly you`ll need earplugs. Going back to visit Flint, Michigan (Moore`s working class hometown, an antecedent he`s usually fond of mentioning 12 or 13 times per interview), he re-visits the 2000 school shooting in which a six-year old boy found a gun in his uncle`s house, brought it to school, and shot and killed a six-year-old girl. Moore pours it on thick. The media, at the time, were tempted to blame any number of factors for the tragic death. But class-warrior Moore settles on his usual bogeymen--conservative greedheads, multinational corporations, the NRA, all the regulars.

Because of brutally unfair welfare-to-work laws, Tamarla Owens, the boy`s mother, was forced to trek to work 40 miles away everyday to Auburn Hills. She had to drive through rich people`s neighborhoods to work two minimum-wage jobs, one of which was pouring drinks at Dick Clark`s "American Bandstand Grill." Dick Clark, it seems, has blood on his hands. But he has lots of company, since our old friends Lockheed Martin, Moore tells us--his head now spinning so fast that sprockets seem ready to bust loose--have become the number one firm in the country in privatizing state welfare systems.

Because Owens, obviously victimized by the system, was forced to be an absentee mother out of necessity, she had to leave her children with her brother. Largely unsupervised, her youngest found a gun, brought it to school, and iced his first-grade classmate.

It`s a harrowing tale, one which Moore first takes to Dick Clark in an ambush interview (Clark quickly peels away in a minivan, unfortunately missing Moore), and later to NRA president Charlton Heston. Heston, of course, has announced he has symptoms consistent with Alzheimer`s, which is apparent, because when Moore buys a star map and shows up at Heston`s gate unannounced, he lets Moore in for an interview. Starting off slowly, peppering him with chatter about the second amendment, Moore ends up closing in for the kill, asking Heston if he`d apologize for bringing NRA conventions to both Flint and Littleton after their respective shootings. Heston wisely calls it quits, but as he flees his own living room, Moore follows him, hectoring him with a picture of the girl Tamarla Owens`s son shot. "This is her. Please take a look at her, please, this is the girl," Moore says, before propping the photo against Heston`s house.

It is perhaps the single-most shameful moment ever in a Moore project, which is saying something, since Moore authored an entire chapter on how O.J. Simpson couldn`t have killed his wife (because rich people usually hire lowerlings to do their dirty work). Not only did he ambush a doddering old man who had nothing to do with the shooting, but he related the Owens story in a fashion that was dishonest in nearly every way.

For what Moore didn`t tell us about Tamarla Owens and her family could fill several newspaper and magazine articles, and did. The uncle`s house where Owens left her children was, additionally, a crack house, where guns were often traded for drugs. The gun that the boy stole from a shoebox on a mattress in his uncle`s bedroom had been reported stolen once before. And Owens was hardly a model parent, merely getting squeezed by unfortunate circumstances. According to Time magazine, Owens herself was a drug addict (she denied it). Additionally, reported Newhouse News Service, according to a state Family Independence Agency petition, she admitted holding down her oldest boy so he could be beaten with a belt by two male friends, and she also admitted beating the boy with a belt while sitting on him, after first duct-taping his hands, feet and mouth.

In short, Owens and her clan were to responsible gun ownership what Moore is to responsible journalism. To beat Heston up for her problems is itself an act of violence. It is perhaps understandable why Moore attempted to drop himself from the narrative, and put a less-fortunate type like Owens front-and-center. As he recently told one reporter, he has a sign on his editing-room door that says "when in doubt, cut me out." The reason he says, is "First of all, I can`t stand the look of myself. Secondly, a little bit of me goes a long way. . . . because it`s just a bit much. That`s how it feels when I watch it." After watching "Bowling For Columbine," it`s easy to see how he feels.

Matt Labash is senior writer at The Weekly Standard.

[spicault]

Un-Moored from Reality
Fahrenheit 9/11 connects dots that aren`t there.
by Matt Labash

CONSIDERING THAT I`m writing this from inside the bunker of what many regard as the Alliance of Neocon Warmongers, it bears mentioning that Michael Moore and I have one surprising trait in common: We both believe that the war in Iraq was ill-advised, ill-planned, and ill-executed, an apparent failure bordering on unmitigated disaster, that was never in our best national interest. Around our office over the last two years, I`ve made these arguments to colleagues, open-minded types who, after they put me through my water-boarding/naked pyramid sessions, say they`ll take it under advisement. And I make the disclosure now so that readers will not be confused. I do not trash Fahrenheit 9/11 because it`s a piece of antiwar propaganda. I trash Fahrenheit 9/11 because it`s an offal-laden piece of junk.

It is proof, as if we need more, that Moore doesn`t make art, he makes fudge. Since fact-checking his work has become a near full-time cottage industry, it is worth remembering that in his debut film Roger & Me, his indictment of heartless General Motors, he was caught fudging evictions, showing people getting bounced onto the street who`d never been GM workers. In 2002`s antigun screed, Bowling for Columbine, he fudged his tear-jerking closer. While hectoring Alzheimer`s-ravaged NRA mascot Charlton Heston, he related the heart-tugging tale of a mother whose 6-year-old son, largely unsupervised because of oppressive welfare-to-work laws, found a gun in her house and killed one of his classmates. Moore failed to mention that the family member Mom entrusted him to was running a crackhouse out of her home, that the gun had been left on a mattress, and that she`d admitted beating another son while sitting on him after duct-taping his hands, feet, and mouth. Not exactly a model of responsible parenting, gun ownership, or filmmaking.

As has become my custom at Moore screenings, I began by scratching hash marks in my notebook, counting his conspiracy theories. Not only does this train the mind, but it distracts me from laughing inappropriately and disturbing fellow filmgoers. But in Fahrenheit 9/11, I quickly abandoned counting for cackling. By the time the opening credits rolled, Moore had already explained how George W. Bush rigged the 2000 election by stealing votes from black people, as well as fallen back on his shopworn class-war claptrap to imply that Bush was out of touch with the common folk, since on September 10, 2001, he "went to sleep that night in a bed made with fine French linens." (The next day`s terror victims doubtless slept on burlap.)

The intro credits are accompanied by creepy acoustic guitar runs--third-world atrocity music--which play under a montage of our leaders/war criminals sinisterly readying themselves for television appearances. There`s Dick Cheney getting his rake-over fluffed. There`s Tom Ridge diabolically laughing. There`s Paul Wolfowitz smoothing a cowlick with spittle. They smile. They have make-up applied before going on TV. Bastards!

From there, Moore offers a full hour`s worth of Bush-centric conspiracies so seemingly random, disjointed, and pointless that one`s ticket stub should come with a flow-chart and a decoder ring. In my line of work, when you hear this strain of rhetoric, it`s usually from a man in a sandwich board touting the apocalypse or Mumia`s innocence, pushing stacks of literature at you while standing on the wrong side of a police cordon. It doesn`t typically come from someone whose premiere is attended by half of respectable Democratic Washington, and whose film won the coveted Palme d`Or prize at Cannes.

Moore never passes up a chance to make Bush look like a lightweight, smirking chimp. In fairness, Bush provides more than enough source material. There`s Bush, to the strains of the Go-Go`s "Vacation," casting fishing lines and speeding away in golf carts, with Moore informing us that the president spent 42 percent of his first eight months in office on vacation. There`s Bush in a grade school classroom photo op, sitting shifty-eyed and paralyzed for a full seven minutes after being told the second plane smacked into the World Trade Center, while a teacher reads My Pet Goat. (As a friend of mine says, "Maybe he just wanted to see how it ended.")

Moore uses Bush`s momentary inaction as a device to ask what he was thinking, which, to paraphrase Moore`s answer, was how to cover his tracks. This allows us passage into the paranoid labyrinth of Moore`s mind, which is illustrated by news footage and a string of experts (Moore spends less time physically on screen than in any of his other films, a fact which recommends it, comparatively speaking). He never fabricates out of whole cloth. Rather, Moore the filmmaker takes a perfectly reasonable proposition (our government generally, and the Bush family specifically, have been too solicitous of the Saudis), while Moore the fudgemaker throws entire trays at the wall, never overtly making allegations that amount to anything, but crossing his fingers that some of it sticks.

The insinuation is that Bush had to keep us scared, with color-coded alerts and a citizen-terrorizing Patriot Act, to distract the country from his tangle of conflicts of interests and to build sentiment for invading Iraq. Moore mentions that the Taliban visited Texas while Bush was governor, over a possible pipeline deal with Unocal. But Moore doesn`t say that they never actually met with Bush or that the deal went bust in 1998 and had been supported by the Clinton administration.

Moore mentions that Bush`s old National Guard buddy and personal friend James Bath had become the money manager for the bin Laden family, saying, "James Bath himself in turn invested in George W. Bush." The implication is that Bath invested the bin Laden family`s money in Bush`s failed energy company, Arbusto. He doesn`t mention that Bath has said that he had invested his own money, not the bin Ladens`, in Bush`s company.

The family members who had disowned Osama were mainstays of American business, to the point that they were members of the nefarious Carlyle Group, a fact Moore naturally mentions, along with the fact that George`s daddy was a member, too. One of the Carlyle Group`s investments was United Defense, maker of Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Moore says September 11 "guaranteed that United Defense was going to have a very good year." See it all coming together? Moore tells us that when Carlyle took United Defense public, they made a one-day profit of $237 million, but under all the public scrutiny, the bin Laden family eventually had to withdraw (Moore doesn`t tell us that they withdrew before the public offering, not after it).

At their own request, the bin Laden family was quickly shuttled away after 9/11, back to Saudi Arabia. Moore finds it suspicious, as well he should. Who would be stupid enough to let that happen, without working them over for a good couple of weeks? Actually, according to a May interview he gave to The Hill, it was Richard Clarke, Bush`s former counterterrorism adviser and the new patron saint of Bush-bashers. Moore makes use of him in the film, though he manages not to mention Clarke`s role in the departure of the bin Ladens.

Here, if we`re going to play connect-the-dots, a few questions are in order. For starters, are we really supposed to believe that 9/11 and the ensuing wars were a collaborative profiteering scheme between the bin Ladens, the Bushes, and defense contractors? Furthermore, will Moore`s DVD director`s cut elucidate Bush ties to the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, and the Freemasons? Who knows? Who cares? Moore doesn`t seem to, as he speedily moves on, making another tray of fudge.

When Moore takes us to Iraq, on the eve of war, he shows placid scenes of an untroubled land on the brink of imperial annihilation. With all the leisurely strolling and kite-flying, it is unclear if Iraqis are living under a murderous dictatorship or in a Valtrex commercial. In Moore`s telling of the invasion, the shock-and-awe is less high-value-target/smart-bombing, more Dresden/Hiroshima. According to the footage that ensues, our pilots seem to have hit nothing but women and children. If Moore`s documentarian gig were to fall through, he could easily seek employment as an Al Jazeera cameraman.

This is, it nearly goes without saying, his downfall as a storyteller. In his unctuous morality tales, everyone is assigned black and white hats. The white hats mainly belong to the oppressed people of Iraq, subject to our soldiers` midnight raids under the jackboot of occupation, and to other victims of the administration, such as the poor, underemployed people of Flint, Michigan (Moore`s obsessively referenced hometown), who serve as helpless recruiting chum for Bush`s killing machine.

The black hats (administration types) seem to be motivated solely by world domination and the desire to steer no-bid contracts to Halliburton. There is no allowance for moral ambiguity, or what would`ve been even more interesting, misguided moral clarity--the possibility that Bush made a bad judgment call, but did so for the right reasons (security concerns, the elimination of a brutal despot, and the liberation of his people).

One of this film`s only pure moments occurs when Moore spends time with the mother of an American soldier who died in Karbala. The mother is a conservative Democrat from a family with a long military history. She used to rage at war protestors, but since losing her son, she seethes at the administration who sent him to his death, crying almost animally, "I want him to be alive . . . and I can`t make him alive." (But even this is sullied by Moore`s smarmy, gratuitous insistence to her that "yeah, it`s a great country," an obvious inoculation against charges that he hates America.)

Critics have accused Moore of milking her grief until it moos. But on this, he deserves a pass. Anyone wishing to discuss war, either for or against, should also be prepared to seriously consider its tolls, especially the human ones. Moore being Moore, however, steps on his most effective material by following it with yet another cheap stunt: ambushing congressmen to ask if they will enlist their children to go to Iraq, as if anyone can. He finds no takers, then says he can`t blame them, since who would want to give up their child? Nobody, of course. Not the parents of soldiers in Iraq, nor the parents of those who died at Normandy. But few would argue that World War II wasn`t a war worth fighting.

Which is not to say Iraq is in the same class. And it is why real questions should be continuously asked, and skepticism applied. The kind of skepticism that forces leaders to account for whether they`ve taken the right course of action. Not the crank, grab bag of stitched-together conspiracies that encourages Moore`s political opponents to be reflexively dismissive--and causes the leftish reviewer sitting next to me to say, "He infuriates me because he makes my arguments badly."

There is plenty of grist for skeptics of the war to argue that the chances of a shiny, happy democracy`s flowering in Iraq reside somewhere between slim and nil. But those are still better odds than the ones on Moore`s someday making an intellectually honest film.


Matt Labash is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.

[bares@nobles]

Schlangestehen für Fahrenheit 9/11.

Leider wird der Film landesweit nicht von allen Kinos gezeigt, weil rechte Kräfte Kinobesitzer bis zu Todesdrohungen unter Druck setzen, damit diese Fahrenheit 9/11 nicht in ihren Kinos spielen. (sh. hierzu nachfolgende Meldung bzw. auch einen BBC Report zu diesem Thema)

A Republican PR firm has formed a fake grassroots front group called "Move America Forward" to harass and intimidate theater owners into not showing "Fahrenheit 9/11." These are the same people who successfully badgered CBS into canceling the Reagan mini-series a few months ago. And they are spending a ton of money this week to threaten movie theaters who even think about showing our movie.

As of this morning, a little over 500 theaters have agreed to show the movie beginning next Friday, June 25. There are three national/regional theater chains who, as of today, have not booked the movie in their theaters. One theater owner in Illinois has reported receiving death threats.
oder http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3817993.stm

PS. Ob der user spicault von seiner rechten Organisation bereits beauftragt wurde neben seiner Bash und Schmier-Kampagne bei w-o auch Kionobesitzer in Deutschland unter Druck zu setzten Fahrenheit 9/11 nicht zu spielen, konnte bis Redaktionschluss noch nicht geklärt werden.

[spicault]

#81

What a load of crap! The maker of a lying propaganda film and his supporters are now claiming to be victims of suppression and censorship. Nothing like playing the martyr to win people`s sympathy and get publicity!

And it is typical of the paranoid Left, of whom Michael Moore is a representative.

The BBC article to which bares@nobles provides a link states the following:

"Move America Forward has begun a letter-writing campaign, while Citizens United is making TV and internet adverts which criticise Moore."

In other words, they have begun a public information campaign, with the aim of revealing the true nature of Moore`s so-called "documentary".

And this is supposed to be "harrassment", "intimidation" and "censorship". As for the alleged "death threats", this is something that, unfortunately, is bound up with any event of this nature. If the film was right-wing propaganda, you could expect to see some death threats coming from nuts on the Left.

Here is the text of the article:

US groups want Moore film banned

Michael Moore`s documentary film opens across the US next week
US conservative groups have launched a campaign to have Michael Moore`s "misleading and grotesque" film Fahrenheit 9/11 banned from cinemas.
The film alleges connections between President George Bush and top Saudi families, including the Bin Ladens.

Move America Forward has begun a letter-writing campaign, while Citizens United is making TV and internet adverts which criticise Moore

The documentary film will be shown around the US from 25 June.

`Support`

Move America Forward members were behind a letter-writing campaign that led US channel CBS to drop TV movie The Reagans last November, claiming the film distorted history.

The group has received several thousand e-mails of support for its Fahrenheit 9/11 campaign, said executive director Siobhan Guiney, a former Republican Party lobbyist.

"Since we are the customers of the American movie theatres it is important for us to speak up loudly and tell the industry executives that we don`t want this misleading and grotesque movie being shown at our local cinema," the group said on its website, listing contact details for various US cinemas.

Ms Guiney said: "(Moore) is critical of what`s happening right now, and there`s no problem with being critical - but his movie is not a documentary, it`s a piece of propaganda."

Citizens United is headed by former Republican congressional aide David Bossie, who is also targeting George Soros, a billionaire who donated nearly $13m (£7m) to groups seeking to defeat President Bush.

Mr Bossie said: "Look, this guy (Moore) is simply producing and advertising this movie at this time to try to affect the election."

"It seems to be left to us to make sure that the media is educated, as well as the American people are educated, as to just what they`re up to."

Move America Forward members urged CBS to ban The Reagans
Despite the campaign by the two independent groups, US cinema chain Regal Entertainment Group said it intended to go ahead and screen the film as planned.

And US liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org has asked its supporters to write to cinemas on Move America Forward`s list, urging them not to give in to pressure to block the film.

Fahrenheit 9/11`s US distributor Lions Gate Films believes the plan to have the film banned will fail.

"My guess is that their efforts will backfire and only rally support for the film, which will be terrific as far as I`m concerned," said president Tom Ortenberg.

"We need less censorship in this country, not more."

Fahrenheit 9/11 won the Palme d`Or at this year`s Cannes Film Festival, and will be released in the UK on 9 July.

[bares@nobles]

spicault, du und alle Rechtsaussen in den USA regen sich fürchterlich über Moores Film auf, kommen aber bei ihrer Kritik über Phrasendrescherei und persönlicher Diffamierung von Moore nicht hinaus.

Symptomatisch für diese Leute ist dann, dass keiner von ihnen den Film gesehen hat, noch den Willen hat ihn überhaupt anzuschauen. Dafür leeren sie dann Tonnen von Schmutz und Dreck über Fahrenheit 9/11 aus und Todesdrohungen gegen Kionobesitzer, die den Film zeigen wollen, werden plötzlich als alltägliches Vorkommnis bezeichnet.

Schämt euch und schaut euch den Film an, dann kann man über den Inhalt reden. Aber ihr versteckt euch lieber hinter eurer Neo-Con Ideologie und eurem Symbol Bush, anstatt selbst das Denken anzufangen.

[flitztass]

@baresnobles: Ich fühle mich zwar von deinem Posting nicht direkt angesprochen, weil ich bestimmt kein Rechtsaussen der USA bin, aber ich muss dich doch mal was fragen:

Hast Du die Werke von Michael Moore gelesen? Was meinst Du denn zu dem Abschnitt, den ich hier in #36 mal reingestellt habe?? Bis jetzt hat sich kein Moore-Fan dazu geäussert. Würde mich aber wirklich mal interessieren!

Du forderst, dass ich ins Kino gehen soll, und damit einen Filmemacher unterstützen, der die Ermordung deutscher Touristen in Florida gutheisst??

Seit ich diese Passage gelesen habe, bin ich der Meinung, dass kein anständiger Mensch auch nur einen Cent ausgeben sollte, um diesen Michael Moore zu unterstützen.

Der unterscheidet sich nämlich offenbar unwesentlich von den Spinnern auf der anderen Seite, die jetzt Morddrohungen gegen Kinobesitzer loslassen.

[SoeinPech]

83

wenn man vorgibt, sich gegen Diffamierung auszusprechen, und dabei seinen Beitrag beginnt mit:

"Du und alle Rechtsaußen",

dann ist die Sache eigentlich shon erledigt.

Da ist ein Glaubenskrieger am Werke, und man kann sicher sein, daß er seinen Beitrag auch mit einer abfälligen Bemerkung abschließen wird.

[endaxi]

#85 Dir als gerechter unter den gerechten Sep würde nie einfallen jemanden zu diffamieren,zuminderst würde es nicht bemerkt werden.

[DOLCETTO]

hi b@n,

merci für den bbc-link

gerade in u.k. hat "Bowling for Columbine" bereits einen
phetten kultstatus erreicht, die deftige satire aus 9/11
wird die humorige britische seele aufs herzlichste erfreuen

"Sic transit gloria mundi"

greetz

[Joerver]

Letterman`s list of Bush complaints about `Fahrenheit 9/11`


Associated Press
Jun. 30, 2004 08:03 AM

"Top 10 George W. Bush Complaints About "Fahrenheit 9/11"

10. That actor who played the president was totally unconvincing.

9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election.

8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words

7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where I get him deported.

6. Didn`t have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger.

5. Of all Michael Moore`s accusations, only 97% are true.

4. Not sure - I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe.

3. Where the hell was Spiderman?

2. Couldn`t hear most of the movie over Cheney`s foul mouth.

1. I thought this was supposed to be about dodgeball!"

---

Source: "Late Show with David Letterman"

Es braucht sich keiner Sorgen zu machen, die Schlangen vor den Kinos sind noch nicht kürzer geworden.
Die Zahlen für Dienstag:

Daily Box Office (U.S.)
Tue Jun 29, 2004


Rank Title Dist. Gross Cumulative Gross
1***** Fahrenheit 9/11***** LIONS GATE ***** $3,712,000 ****** $32,207,000

http://movies.yahoo.com/boxoffice-daily/today/rank.html

[datterich]

Mein Liebling Michael Moor

Ich wusste gar nicht, dass Karl und Franz Moor noch einen
Bruder hatten.
Schiller auch nicht.

[SoeinPech]

86

aha, mein Wadl- Waldi ist wieder da. Ich kann Dir ja per automatisierter email zukommen lassen, wann ich poste, damit Du keine Gelegenheit verpaßt, Deine Anmerkungen zu setzen. Du kannst Dir das übrigens erleichtern. Da Du ohnehin Dich darauf beschränken mußt, lediglich Deine Beinchen- hebe- Macke" an meinen postings anzubringen, schreibt doch einfach: "Duftmarke" o.ä.

Zu mehr, vor allem inhaltlich mehr hat es bei Dir ja ohnehin bisher nicht gereicht.

So, damit es wenigstens halbwegs lesbar rüberkommt:


#85 Dir, als Gerechter unter den Gerechten, Sep, würde nie einfallen jemanden zu diffamieren. Zumindest würde es nicht bemerkt werden.

Dann noch ein smiley.

So denn, jetzt Du wieder, @endaxi, König der reinen Diffamierung, ohne jeglichen weiteren Anspruch.

SeP

[SoeinPech]

wenn ich mir das reingestelle Bild in #81 richtig betrachte, so beschleicht mich die Ahnung, da stehen allesamt Leute in einer Schlange, die sich nicht informieren,

sondern die etwas, was sie bereits wissen, bestätigt sehen wollen.

Was ja aber auch nichts Verwerfliches ist.

Die abschließende Bemerkung unter #81 wäre einer sofortigen Sperrung würdig. Da sie aber aus der Mitte von derzeit "Volkes Stimme" kommt, mag man so etwas stehen lassen als notwendige Orientierung und Wegweisung.

[bares@nobles]

#84 flitztass, persönlich glaube ich auch nicht, dass man als Deutscher Fahrenheit 9/11 gesehen haben muss, um sich ein Bild von Bush und dessen Politik machen zu können. Aber wenn man den Film schon so stark kritisiert, dann sollte man ihn zumindest auch gesehen haben, damit man weiss wovon man redet.

Der Deutsche ist was politische Ereignisse betrifft grundsätzlich besser informiert als der Amerikaner, der trotz oder gerade wegen der 24-stündigen, inhaltsleeren und spin-freudigen Nachrichtenkanäle wie CNN, Fox, CNBC, MSNBC überhaupt nicht mehr durchblickt, was überhaupt abläuft.

Für den Amerikaner, der Fahrenheit 9/11 anschaut, ergibt sich ein völlig anderes Bild von Bush als das was er von seinen Nachrichtenkanälen und Medien erhält.

Für mich persönlich gab es kaum Neues im Film und manchmal fand ich ihn sogar etwas langatmig, wie z.B. die Szene in der Moore eine verzweifelte Mutter aus seiner Heimatstadt Flint in Michigan, die ihren Sohn im Irak verloren hat und darüber ihre Meinung über Bush und den Irakkrieg geändert hat, lange interviewt und dann noch bis nach Washington vors Weisse Haus begleitet, wo die Frau sich dann in Tränen auflöst.

Ob der Film im cineastischen Sinne die Goldene Palme in Cannes verdient hat, wage ich auch zu bezweifeln, was aber nichts an den Tatsachen ändert, die im Film dargestellt werden.
Die Filmkritiker ziehen sich zwar an ein paar trivialen Ungenauigkeiten im Film hoch, die aber die Gesamtaussage des Films in keinster Weise in Frage stellen.

Manchmal hatte ich sogar den Eindruck Moore geht viel zu sacht an das Thema heran, da es z.B. in dem fast zweistündigen Film nur ein kurzes Bild über ein schwerverletztes irakisches Mädchen gab. Wegen dieses Bildes wurde der Film auch mit einem Rating versehen, der es erst 17 jährigen erlaubt ihn anzuschauen. Welche Verlogenheit, wenn man sich ansonsten die alltägliche Gewalt im amerikanischen Fernsehen anschaut.

Aber wahrscheinlich will Moore seine Landsleute auch nicht als Menschenschlächter und Barbaren abstempeln.
Ausserdem ist der allen Amerikanern gemeinsame Gedanke "support our troops" in der amerikanischen Gesellschaft zu verhaftet, als dass Moore hergehen könnte und viele dieser amerikanischen Rednecks im Irak als Bösewichter darzustellen.

Von den Büchern Moore`s halte ich übrigens wenig, da ich schon seine Art zu Schreiben nicht schätze.

[endaxi]

#90 Sag ich doch,man bemerkt es nicht.

[datterich]

#7 von JoeUp 03.04.03 13:07:48 Beitrag Nr.: 9.071.420 9071420
Dieses Posting: versenden | melden | drucken | historischer Thread
http://www.zyn.de/spiggl_bush_moore

Überraschende Wende:

Bush tritt sein Amt an Michael Moore ab

Entsetzen bei den Republikanern ? Heston tot in seinem Haus aufgefunden ? Selbstmord mit einer 45er.

Washington (win): Heute überraschte der amerikanische Präsident die Weltöffentlichkeit mit der Ankündigung sein Amt als mächtigster Mann der Welt an einen, wie er selber sagte, Vernünftigeren abzutreten. Der Entschluss sei ihm spontan als Eingebung gekommen, nachdem ihn die Mitglieder seines Kabinetts zu einer Vorführung des Moore ? Filmes Bowling for Columbine gedrängt hatten, um diesen wegen proirakischer Tendenzen verbieten zu lassen, offiziell hieß es, er schwäche die amerikanische Kampfmoral und den überlebenswichtigen Patriotismus.

Doch bei der Filmvorführung, so der Präsident, habe er erkannt, dass auch unleugbare Zusammenhänge zwischen dem amerikanischen Waffenfetischismus und der kriegerischen und imperialistischen Haltung der US ? Regierung bestünden. Er sehe ein, dass sein eigenes Verhalten ihn immer stärker an die konspirative Vorgehensweise des Filmimperators Palpatine aus Star ? Wars erinnere, der ja ebenfalls bestehende demokratische Strukturen genutzt hatte, um sie in eine Diktatur umzuwandeln.

Auf die Feststellung, er könne sein Amt nicht so einfach an irgend jemanden abtreten, antwortete Bush resolut, er gäbe es schließlich nicht an irgend jemanden ab, darüber hinaus sei er von den besten Menschen der Welt gewählt worden, damit habe er die Macht, und die würde er nun zugunsten eines Anderen abgeben. Aus. Offensichtlich ein verbaler Rückfall in bekannte Handlungsmuster.

Ebenso unverblümt entließ er die Mitglieder seines Kabinetts und seine Berater. Gefragt, was er denn nun machen würde, wenn er keinen Job mehr habe, sprach er von der Zeit, welche er nutzen wolle, um nachzudenken und einen sinnvollen Berufswunsch in sich reifen zu lassen. Im Gegenteil zu so vielen anderen Arbeitslosen verfüge er ja über ausreichende Rücklagen.

Der Filmemacher und Autor Michael Moore war seit der Ankündigung des Amtgeschenkes nicht auffindbar, so dass sich der weitere Verlauf dieses politischen Richtungswechsels nicht vorhersagen lässt.

Hingegen fand man schon zwei Stunden nach der Ankündigung Charlton Heston, den Schauspieler und Präsidenten der NRO, der Vereinigung der amerikanischen Waffennarren, tot in seinem Hause auf. Er hatte sich mit seiner Lieblings ? 45er namens Lilly in den Kopf geschossen. Neben ihm lag ein eilig verfasster Abschiedsbrief, der wüste Beschimpfungen auf Moore enthielt, eine Forderung, das Stimmrecht in Zukunft proportional zum Waffenbesitz zu verteilen, sowie nicht wiederzugebende Weltuntergangsszenarien, in denen die Menschen beispielsweise von schlingenden Peace ? Blumen erwürgt wurden.

Eine unerwartet schnelle Reaktion erfolgte aus Bagdad. Der irakische Präsident Saddam Hussein trat höchstpersönlich vor die laufenden Kameras der westlichen Presse und sagte mit Tränen in den Augen, was so viele Menschen in der Welt in diesem Moment empfanden: Kriege und Eskalationen, die nur das Wohlergehen einer kleinen Herrscherelite zum Ziele haben, seien keine Lösung, um die schwerwiegenden globalen Probleme der Menschheit zu lösen. Er war dabei in eine amerikanische Flagge gehüllt, die er innig über seinem Herzen zusammenhielt.

Als erstes Zeichen seines guten Willens wolle auch er, Saddam, nicht zurückstehen und kündigte an, seine unzähligen Paläste dem Volke zu stiften und sie vorzugsweise in proamerikanische Kindergärten umzuwandeln, um eine Generation heranzuziehen, deren einziger Berufswunsch darin bestehen soll Waffeninspekteur der UNO zu werden.

Die europäischen Regierungen reagierten einhellig mit Verblüffung, schienen sich aber weniger von der positiven Aura dieser Geschehnisse anstecken zu lassen. Aus dem Bundeskanzleramt verlautbarte, man wolle die Sachverhalte einer eingehenden Prüfung unterziehen, und dann, zu gegebenem Zeitpunkt Entscheidungen treffen. Vor voreiligen Schlüssen und Handlungen wurde gewarnt, schließlich würde auch in dieser gegenwärtigen Lage die Öffentlichkeit nur mit den für sie zuträglichen Informationen versorgt.

Einzig die israelische Regierung misstraute offensichtlich den Begebenheiten: sie warf den GUS, namentlich Putin vor, Bush bei seinem Besuch in St. Petersburg heimlich gegen den russischen Laienschauspieler Laszlo P. ausgetauscht zu haben. Dies erkläre auch, warum Bush nach der Absichtserklärung auf die Frage nach dem Berufswunsch "möglicherweise Schauspieler" geantwortet haben soll.

Wir, die Konsumenten der täglichen Medienwelt, freuen uns nun über das hiermit gebotene Schauspiel, applaudieren den Protagonisten, auch wenn sie die Grenze zwischen Realität und Wahnwitz mal wieder nicht getroffen haben, und hoffen weiterhin darauf, dass alles gut weitergeht, obwohl die Welt von Hohlköppen regiert wird.

[spicault]

#92 bares@nobles

If you had any sense at all, you would realise, after having read the BBC report on "Move America Forward" and the information campaign that is being organized against Moore`s film, that the statement you quoted:

A Republican PR firm has formed a fake grassroots front group called " Move America Forward" to harass and intimidate theater owners into not showing " Fahrenheit 9/11." These are the same people who successfully badgered CBS into canceling the Reagan mini-series a few months ago. And they are spending a ton of money this week to threaten movie theaters who even think about showing our movie.

is absolute rubbish. In other words, you are not capable of distinguishing a reliable source of information from an unreliable one.

If you had an ounce of discernment and common sense, you would realise that German television broadcasts anti-American propaganda by the kilometer. ARD, for example, ran, on two occasions, a "documentary" purporting to show that the US Administration organized the 11/9 attacks. Other "documentaries" have accused the US of fomenting war all around the world for profit (the same accusation that was levelled at the Jews - do you remember? - by the Nazis), invading Iraq to promote the spread of fundamentalist Christianity ("zuerst die Bomben, dann die Bibel"), or to steal Iraq`s oil and plunder its resources.

An independent media research institute in Berlin has found that German television is more anti-American than Al Jazeera, the anti-American Arab channel that provides a platform to Bin Laden and the Islamist terrorists who behead innocent civilians.

Do you actually believe that publications like "Der Spiegel", "Stern", "Focus" etc. provide an accurate picture of America or the war in Iraq?

Do you think that statements like:

"Bei Schwarz, Braun und Gelb wird zuerst geschossen, und erst danach gefragt"

which I heard on Deutschlandfunk recently, is an accurate description of race relations in America?

If I made translations of all the anti-American hogwash I have seen or heard in the German media and showed it to Americans, I am sure it would cause them to roar with laughter.

And you claim that CNN, Fox, CNBC etc are "inhaltsleer" and "spin-freudig"! I suspect that that would be your judgement of all television stations that do not churn out, day in, day out, the mindless anti-American propaganda that is the staple of German television.

Do you really believe that is culture, information, or even entertainment? My God, how degraded European political culture has become.

I have lived 8 years in Germany, and have become convinced, rather against my tendency to be generous in my judgement of my fellow man, that the Germans are inveterate and incurable haters. They need a hate object. Americans have traditionally filled this role. Hatred of the Americans goes back centuries. For a while this hatred was replaced by antisemitism. Now that that Cold War is over, and the Germans no longer need the Americans to protect them, this hatred has been reignited and is quite deliberately fanned by the German media.

On what basis do you claim that the Germans are better informed on world affairs than the Americans? The variety of publications dealing with world affairs is much greater in America, and a wide range of opinions is expressed. In the German media there is only one acceptable view, and that is a rabid anti-Americanism. Everything is seen through an anti-American prism.

To the many arguments against Moore`s films in articles that I have posted above, you have not offered a single counter-argument. The truth content of these films has been seriously questioned, but you and other Moore fans who have posted in this thread pass this over in silence.

Instead you write:

Die Filmkritiker ziehen sich zwar an ein paar trivialen Ungenauigkeiten im Film hoch, die aber die Gesamtaussage des Films in keinster Weise in Frage stellen.

completely ignoring these very convincing and plausible arguments against the film, which can by no means be limited to a critism of some "triviale Ungenauigkeiten".

About the only sensible thing you say in your posting is at the end:

Von den Büchern Moore`s halte ich übrigens wenig, da ich schon seine Art zu Schreiben nicht schätze

I too, judge Moore`s writing style execrable. But in their tendentiousness, their dishonesty, their superficiality, their adolescent humour, their cheap anti-Americanism, I find his books exceedingly boring. Moore is a millionaire peddler of cheap pop literature, along the lines of an Eric von Daniken. Something for the anti-American masses who read comics, are wild about pop or rap or disco or techno or hip-hop, have never read a work of literature in their lives, watch TV on average 6 hours a day, subscribe to "Der Spiegel" or "Stern", are enthralled by the esoteric, Eastern religions, UFO stories, and conspiracy theories, and follow religiously every fashion or craze of the moment.

One last point: I have not seen any of Michael Moore`s films and do not intend to. His books are enough to convince me of his dishonesty and cynicism. I have not yet read or heard any adequate responses to the many serious charges that have been made against his films. I am therefore unwilling to finance with the purchase of a cinema ticket the antics of someone I regard as a charlatan and a rabble-rouser.

[spicault]

A correction to my posting above:

Antisemitism did not replace anti-Americanism in Germany. The two have always been present in varying degrees. They are in fact two sides of the same coin, which is hatred of the Modern.

[spicault]

!

Dieser Beitrag wurde vom System automatisch gesperrt. Bei Fragen wenden Sie sich bitte an [e-mail]

[spicault]

#92 bares@nobles

Die Filmkritiker ziehen sich zwar an ein paar trivialen Ungenauigkeiten im Film hoch, die aber die Gesamtaussage des Films in keinster Weise in Frage stellen.

Hier werden noch ein Paar "triviale Ungenauigkeiten" kritisiert.

Dieser Arikel ist in der Zeitschrift "Newsweek" erschienen.

Das sind die Amerikaner, die von ihren Medien so schlecht informiert sind!


Moore Distortions in Farenheit 9/11

By Michael Isikoff & Mark Hosenball
Newsweek.com | July 2, 2004

In his new movie, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” film-maker Michael Moore makes the eye-popping claim that Saudi Arabian interests “have given” $1.4 billion to firms connected to the family and friends of President George W. Bush. This, Moore suggests, helps explain one of the principal themes of the film: that the Bush White House has shown remarkable solicitude to the Saudi royals, even to the point of compromising the war on terror. When you and your associates get money like that, Moore says at one point in the movie, “who you gonna like? Who’s your Daddy?”

But a cursory examination of the claim reveals some flaws in Moore’s arithmetic — not to mention his logic. Moore derives the $1.4 billion figure from journalist Craig Unger’s book, “House of Bush, House of Saud.” Nearly 90 percent of that amount, $1.18 billion, comes from just one source: contracts in the early to mid-1990’s that the Saudi Arabian government awarded to a U.S. defense contractor, BDM, for training the country’s military and National Guard. What’s the significance of BDM? The firm at the time was owned by the Carlyle Group, the powerhouse private-equity firm whose Asian-affiliate advisory board has included the president’s father, George H.W. Bush.
Leave aside the tenuous six-degrees-of-separation nature of this “connection.” The main problem with this figure, according to Carlyle spokesman Chris Ullman, is that former president Bush didn’t join the Carlyle advisory board until April, 1998—five months after Carlyle had already sold BDM to another defense firm. True enough, the former president was paid for one speech to Carlyle and then made an overseas trip on the firm’s behalf the previous fall, right around the time BDM was sold. But Ullman insists any link between the former president’s relations with Carlyle and the Saudi contracts to BDM that were awarded years earlier is entirely bogus. “The figure is inaccurate and misleading,” said Ullman. “The movie clearly implies that the Saudis gave $1.4 billion to the Bushes and their friends. But most of it went to a Carlyle Group company before Bush even joined the firm. Bush had nothing to do with BDM.”

In light of the extraordinary box office success of “Fahrenheit 9/11,” and its potential political impact, a rigorous analysis of the film’s assertions seems more than warranted. Indeed, Moore himself has invited the scrutiny. He has set up a Web site and “war-room” to defend the claims in the movie—and attack his critics. (The war-room’s overseers are two veteran spin-doctors from the Clinton White House: Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani.) Moore also this week contended that the media was pounding away at him “pretty hard” because “they’re embarrassed. They’ve been outed as people who did not do their job.” Among the media critiques prominently criticized was an article in Newsweek.

In response to inquiries from NEWSWEEK about the Carlyle issue, Lehane shot back this week with a volley of points: There were multiple Bush “connections” to the Carlyle Group throughout the period of the Saudi contracts to BDM, Lehane noted in an e-mail, including the fact that the firm’s principals included James Baker (Secretary of State during the first Bush administration) and Richard Darman (the first Bush’s OMB chief). Moreover, George W. Bush himself had his own Carlyle Group link: between 1990 and 1994, he served on the board of another Carlyle-owned firm, Caterair, a now defunct airline catering firm.
But unmentioned in “Fahrenheit/911,” or in the Lehane responses, is a considerable body of evidence that cuts the other way. The idea that the Carlyle Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of some loosely defined “Bush Inc.” concern seems hard to defend. Like many similar entities, Carlyle boasts a roster of bipartisan Washington power figures. Its founding and still managing partner is David Rubenstein, a former top domestic policy advisor to Jimmy Carter. Among the firm’s senior advisors is Thomas “Mack” McLarty, Bill Clinton’s former White House chief of staff, and Arthur Levitt, Clinton’s former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of its other managing partners is William Kennard, Clinton’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Spokesman Ullman was the Clinton-era spokesman for the SEC.

As for the president’s own Carlyle link, his service on the Caterair board ended when he quit to run for Texas governor — a few months before the first of the Saudi contracts to the unrelated BDM firm was awarded. Moreover, says Ullman, Bush “didn’t invest in the [Caterair] deal and he didn’t profit from it.” (The firm was a big money loser and was even cited by the campaign of Ann Richards, Bush’s 1994 gubernatorial opponent, as evidence of what a lousy businessman he was.)

Most importantly, the movie fails to show any evidence that Bush White House actually has intervened in any way to promote the interests of the Carlyle Group. In fact, the one major Bush administration decision that most directly affected the company’s interest was the cancellation of a $11 billion program for the Crusader rocket artillery system that had been developed for the U.S. Army (during the Clinton administration) — a move that had been foreshadowed by Bush’s own statements during the 2000 campaign saying he wanted a lighter and more mobile military. The Crusader was manufactured by United Defense, which had been wholly owned by Carlyle until it spun the company off in a public offering in October, 2001 (and profited to the tune of $237 million). Carlyle still owned 47 percent of the shares in the defense company at the time that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—in the face of stiff congressional resistance—canceled the Crusader program the following year. These developments, like much else relevant to Carlyle, goes unmentioned in Moore’s movie.

None of this is to suggest that there aren’t legitimate questions that deserve to be asked about the influence that secretive firms like Carlyle have in Washington—not to mention the Saudis themselves (an issue that has been taken up repeatedly in our weekly Terror Watch columns.) Nor are we trying to say that “Fahrenheit 9/11” isn’t a powerful and effective movie that raises a host of legitimate issues about President Bush’s response to the September 11 attacks, the climate of fear engendered by the war on terror and, most importantly, about the wisdom and horrific human toll of the war in Iraq.

But for all the reasonable points he makes, on more than a few occasions in the movie Moore twists and bends the available facts and makes glaring omissions in ways that end up clouding the serious political debate he wants to provoke.

Consider Moore’s handling of another conspiratorial claim: the idea that oil-company interest in building a pipeline through Afghanistan influenced early Bush administration policy regarding the Taliban. Moore raises the issue by stringing together two unrelated events. The first is that a delegation of Taliban leaders flew to Houston, Texas, in 1997 (”while George W. Bush was governor of Texas,” the movie helpfully points out) to meet with executives of Unocal, an oil company that was indeed interested in building a pipeline to carry natural gas from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan.

The second is that another Taliban emissary visited Washington in March, 2001 and got an audience at the State Department, leaving Moore to speculate that the Bush administration had gone soft on the protectors of Osama bin Laden because it was interested in promoting a pipeline deal. "Why on earth would the Bush administration allow a Taliban leader to visit the United States knowing that the Taliban were harboring the man who bombed the USS Cole and our African embassies?" Moore asks at one point.
This, as conspiracy theories go, is more than a stretch. Unocal’s interest in building the Afghan pipeline is well documented. Indeed, according to “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to Sept. 10., 2001,” the critically acclaimed book by Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll, Unocal executives met repeatedly with Clinton administration officials throughout the late 1990s in an effort to promote the project—in part by getting the U.S. government to take a more conciliatory approach to the Taliban. “It was an easy time for an American oil executive to find an audience in the Clinton White House,” Coll writes on page 307 of his book. “At the White House, [Unocal lobbyist Marty Miller] met regularly with Sheila Heslin, the director of energy issues at the National Security Council, whose suite next to the West Wing coursed with visitors from American oil firms. Miller found Heslin…very supportive of Unocal’s agenda in Afghanistan.”

Coll never suggests that the Clintonites’ interest in the Unocal project was because of the corrupting influence of big oil. Clinton National Security Council advisor “Berger, Heslin and their White House colleagues saw themselves engaged in a hardheaded synthesis of American commercial interests and national security goals,” he writes. “They wanted to use the profit-making motives of American oil companies to thwart one of the country’s most determined enemies, Iran, and to contain the longer-term ambitions of a restless Russia.”
Whatever the motive, the Unocal pipeline project was entirely a Clinton-era proposal: By 1998, as the Taliban hardened its positions, the U.S. oil company pulled out of the deal. By the time George W. Bush took office, it was a dead issue—and no longer the subject of any lobbying in Washington. (Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force report in May, 2001, makes no reference to it.) There is no evidence that the Taliban envoy who visited Washington in March, 2001—and met with State Department and National Security Council officials—ever brought up the pipeline. Nor is there any evidence anybody in the Bush administration raised it with him. The envoy brought a letter to Bush offering negotiations to resolve the issue of what should be done with bin Laden. (A few weeks earlier, Taliban leader Mullah Omar had floated the idea of convening a tribunal of Islamic religious scholars to review the evidence against the Al Qaeda leader.) The Taliban offer was promptly shot down. “We have not seen from the Taliban a proposal that would meet the requirements of the U.N. resolution to hand over Osama bin Laden to a country where he can be brought to justice,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at the time.

The use of innuendo is rife through other critical passages of “Fahrenheit 9/11.” The movie makes much of the president’s relationship with James R. Bath, a former member of his Texas Air National Guard who, like Bush, was suspended from flying at one point for failure to take a physical. The movie suggests that the White House blacked out a reference to Bath’s missed physical from his National Guard records not because of legal concerns over the Privacy Act but because it was trying to conceal the Bath connection—a presumed embarrassment because the Houston businessman had once been the U.S. money manager for the bin Laden family. After being hired by the bin Ladens to manager their money in Texas, Bath “in turn,” the movie says, “invested in George W. Bush.”

The investment in question is real: In the late 1970’s, Bath put up $50,000 into Bush’s Arbusto Energy, (one of a string of failed oil ventures by the president), giving Bath a 5 percent interest in the company. The implication seems to be that, years later, because of this link, Bush was somehow not as zealous about his determination to bin Laden.

Leaving aside the fact that the bin Laden family, which runs one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest construction firms, has never been linked to terrorism, the movie—which relied heavily on Unger’s book—fails to note the author’s conclusion about what to make of the supposed Bin Laden-Bath-Bush nexus: that it may not mean anything. The “Bush-Bin Laden ‘relationships’ were indirect—two degrees of separation, perhaps—and at times have been overstated,” Unger writes in his book. While critics have charged that bin Laden money found its way into Arbusto through Bath, Unger notes that “no hard evidence has ever been found to back up that charge” and Bath himself has adamantly denied it. “One hundred percent of those funds (in Arbusto) were mine,” says Bath in a footnote on page 101 of Unger’s book. “It was a purely personal investment.”

The innuendo is greatest, of course, in Moore’s dealings with the matter of the departing Saudis flown out of the United States in the days after the September 11 terror attacks. Much has already been written about these flights, especially the film’s implication that figures with possible knowledge of the terrorist attacks were allowed to leave the country without adequate FBI screening—a notion that has been essentially rejected by the 9/11 commission. The 9/11 commission found that the FBI screened the Saudi passengers, ran their names through federal databases, interviewed 30 of them and asked many of them “detailed questions." “Nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9/11 investigation was allowed to leave the country,” the commission stated. New information about a flight from Tampa, Florida late on Sept. 13 seems mostly a red herring: The flight didn’t take any Saudis out of the United States. It was a domestic flight to Lexington, Kentucky that took place after the Tampa airport had already reopened.(You can read Unger’s letter to Newsweek on this point, as well as our reply, by clicking here.)

It is true that there are still some in the FBI who had questions about the flights-and wish more care had been taken to examine the passengers. But the film’s basic point—that the flights represented perhaps the supreme example of the Saudi government’s influence in the Bush White House-is almost impossible to defend. Why? Because while the film claims—correctly—that the “White House” approved the flights, it fails to note who exactly in the White House did so. It wasn’t the president, or the vice president or anybody else supposedly corrupted by Saudi oil money. It was Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism czar who was a holdover from the Clinton administration and who has since turned into a fierce Bush critic. Clarke has publicly testified that he gave the greenlight—conditioned on FBI clearance.

“I thought the flights were correct,” Clarke told ABC News last week. “The Saudis had reasonable fear that they might be the subject of vigilante attacks in the United States after 9/11. And there is no evidence even to this date that any of the people who left on those flights were people of interest to the FBI.” Like much else relevant to the issues Moore raises, Clarke’s reasons for approving the flights — and his thoughts on them today — won’t be found in “Fahrenheit 9/11,” nor in any of the ample material now being churned out by the film-maker’s “war room” to defend his provocative, if flawed, movie.

[spicault]

#92

Noch mal ein paar "triviale Ungenauigkeiten", bares@nobles, die von einem Film-Kritiker in der "World Tribune" erwähnt werden!

Diese Amerikaner, die haben keine Ahnung! Alles so inhaltsleer und spin-freudig! So schlecht von ihren Medien informiert! Wir in Deutschland sollten dankbar sein, daß wir nur gut-recherchierte, ausgewogene, und objektive Berichte und Kommentare von unseren Medien bekommen!

Michael Moore`s Trashy Movie

By Edward I. Koch
WorldTribune.com | July 2, 2004

It is shocking to me that Americans in a time of war, and we literally are at war with Americans being deliberately killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere by Islamic terrorists, will attack their own country, sapping its strength and making its enemies stronger. I am not a supporter of the xenophobic slogan, "My country right or wrong." But I do believe, when seeking to make it right if it is wrong, that none of us should endanger the country, our military personnel or our fellow citizens.

Disagreeing with America`s foreign policy and seeking to change it, responsibly or irresponsibly, is a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment. Shaming those who do it irresponsibly is our only lawful recourse, and rightly so.

Senator John Kerry in criticizing United States` foreign policy and the incumbent president is acting responsibly, albeit I disagree with many of his views. On the other hand, Michael Moore, writer and director of the film Fahrenheit 9/11, crosses that line regularly. The line is not set forth in the criminal statutes, but it is determined by Americans who know instinctively what actions and statements taken and uttered violate the obligations of responsibility and citizenship they deem applicable in time of war.

David Brooks, in a brilliant New York Times column on June 26, collected some of the statements that Michael Moore has been making in other countries which denigrate the U.S. and, in my opinion, cross the line. Brooks writes:

Before a delighted Cambridge crowd, Moore reflected on the tragedy of human existence: You`re stuck with being connected to this country of mine, which is known for bringing sadness and misery to places around the globe. In Liverpool, he paused to contemplate the epicenters of evil in the modern world: It`s all part of the same ball of wax, right? The oil companies, Israel, Halliburton…We, the United States of America, are culpable in committing so many acts of terror and bloodshed that we had better get a clue about the culture of violence in which we have been active participants...Don`t be like us, he told a crowd in Berlin. You`ve got to stand up, right? You`ve got to be brave. In an open letter to the German people in Die Zeit, Moore asked, Should such an ignorant people lead the world?

In an interview with a Japanese newspaper, Moore helped citizens of that country understand why the United States went to war in Iraq:
"The motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started the war with Iraq in order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do business in other countries. They intend to use cheap labor in those countries, which will make Americans rich. But venality doesn`t come up when he writes about those who are killing Americans in Iraq: The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not `insurgents` or `terrorists` or `The Enemy.` They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win."

Until then, few social observers had made the connection between Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Paul Revere. Undoubtedly, too long a quote, but there is no substitute for the original.

A year after 9/11, I was part of a panel discussion on BBC-TV`s "Question Time" show, which aired live in the United Kingdom. A portion of my commentary at that time follows:

One of the panelists was Michael Moore, writer and director of the award-winning documentary Roger & Me. During the warm-up before the studio audience, Moore said something along the lines of, "I don`t know why we are making so much of an act of terror. It is three times more likely that you will be struck by lightening than die from an act of terror." I was aghast and responded, "I think what you have said is outrageous, particularly when we are today commemorating the deaths of 3,000 people resulting from an act of terror." I mention this exchange because it was not televised, occurring as it did before the show went live. It shows where he was coming from long before he produced Fahrenheit 9/11.

Many in the audience assembled by the BBC included Americans and people from other nations. Their positive responses to Moore on this and other comments he made during the program convinced me that the producers had found a lair of dingbats when looking to fill the studio with an audience. Moore later called President Bush a dummy, denigrating him for having threatened Iraq with consequences including war if it did not comply with the United Nations resolutions to which it agreed when it was defeated in the 1991 Gulf War. Again, I couldn`t contain myself and said, "That`s what you radicals on the Left always do. You don`t debate issues, you denigrate your opponents. You did it with President Reagan, saying he was dumb. After he left office, 600 speeches, many hand-written by him, demonstrated his high intelligence."

In World Wars I and II, the U.S., suffering great casualties to its military personnel, saved the world, particularly in WWII, from occupation by the German Nazi Reich and Japanese empire. We currently are fighting the battle against a minority of fundamentalist Islamists whose objective is to destroy Western civilization. They are willing to use every act of terrorism from suicide bombers to hacking off heads to destroy and terrorize us into surrender. And Michael Moore weakens us before that enemy. How should we respond? With scorn, catcalls, the Bronx cheer and the truth. Of course, we should recognize the outrages and criminal acts committed by Americans in military service and civilians at the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib. We should continue as we have done and take action to punish those involved. But we ought not in the media show again and again the pictures of the atrocities to simply flagellate ourselves and give aid and comfort to our enemies. A good rule of thumb might be to show the pictures of Abu Ghraib as many times as we show the beheadings of Danny Pearl, Nicholas Berg and Paul Johnson.

I am a movie critic, so I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11. The movie is a well-done propaganda piece and screed as has been reported by most critics. It is not a documentary which seeks to present the facts truthfully. The most significant offense that movie commits is to cheapen the political debate by dehumanizing the President and presenting him as a cartoon.

Newsday reported some of Moore`s misstatements as follows: At the start of Fahrenheit 9/11, filmmaker Michael Moore shows a clip of CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin saying that if ballots had been recounted in Florida after the 2000 presidential vote, under every scenario Gore won the election.

What Moore doesn`t show is that a six-month study in 2001 by news organizations including The New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN found just the opposite. Even if the Supreme Court had not stopped a statewide recount, or if a more limited recount of four heavily Democratic counties had taken place, Bush still would have won Florida and the election…Moore suggests Bush`s conflict of interest was manifest shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks when the White House approved planes to pick up the bin Ladens and numerous other Saudis who, fearing reprisals, were flown out of the United States. Embellishing the well-known scenario, Moore interviews a retired FBI agent who says authorities should have first questioned the bin Ladens.

But the bin Ladens were questioned. The commission investigating the attacks reported in April that the FBI interviewed 30 passengers: Nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks. It is clear to me from the tenor of the film`s off-screen commentary by Michael Moore that he would have denounced WWII. Did he support the United States and NATO going into Bosnia to save the Muslims from ethnic cleansing and destruction? Would he agree that we should have attempted to save the Muslim men from death at the hands of the Serbs in Srebrenica? Should we now be going into the Sudan and saving perhaps a million black Christian and Animist Sudanese from Arab marauders who are murdering, raping and starving the blacks and even selling some into slavery? Weren`t we right to go into Iraq on the basis of United Nations Resolution 1441 which stated the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction and that was a cause for war unless they accounted for them and destroyed them, which they refused to do?

Now that no WMDs have yet been found, was the invasion to end the reign of Saddam Hussein, who had killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, still supportable? Moore thinks not. I think, yes.

The movie`s diatribes, sometimes amusing and sometimes manifestly unfair, will not change any views. They will simply cheapen the national debate and reinforce the opinions on both sides

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Die Anzahl der Theater in denen der Film gezeigt wird ist verdoppelt worden. Die Einnahmen sind bis zum 01.07.auf $39,091,000 gestiegen.

FAHRENHEIT" RISING

Distributors Lions Gate Films and IFC Films double the theaters to 1725 on Friday from 868 last weekend when it earned $23.9 million in three days -- more than Moore`s Oscar winner "Bowling for Columbine" did in its entire 2002 run.

Das ist eine Seite mit einigen Ausschnitten aus dem Film:
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Dann hier noch Moores Homepage mit Berichten aus den USA über Aktion und Zuschauerresonanz aus der gesamten USA.
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100

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Moore bleibt weiter im Gespräch, nun auch noch den Time-Titel.

The World According to Michael

Taking aim at George W., a populist agitator makes noise, news and a new kind of political entertainment

By RICHARD CORLISS



Posted Sunday, July 4, 2004
"Was it all just a dream?" Michael Moore poses that question at the start of Fahrenheit 9/11, his docu-tragicomedy about the Bush Administration`s actions before and after Sept. 11, 2001. Moore`s tone isn`t wistful; it`s angry. He`s steamed about the Florida vote wrangle of 2000, the Supreme Court decision to declare George W. Bush President of the United States, the policies of Bush`s advisers and especially what he sees as the deflection of a quick, vigorous search-and-destroy mission against Osama bin Laden into an open-ended war on terrorism—"You can`t declare war on a noun," Moore said last week—that spawned a dubious and costly invasion of Iraq.

Now, after a week in which his film became the highest grossing documentary of all time— and more than that, a nationwide rally point for Bush opponents, a red flag for Bush supporters, a cinematic teach-in for the undecided and a potential factor in the `04 presidential race—Moore may well be asking, "Is this all a dream?" For starters, is this the same film that not long ago was an orphan? In May a controversy-averse Walt Disney Co. ordered its subsidiary Miramax Films to dump the movie. But just weeks later Fahrenheit 9/11 copped the Palme d`Or (first place) at the Cannes Film Festival and eventually found other distributors, an indie coalition of the willing. By that time, the picture`s incendiary charges and Moore`s reputation as a folksy firebrand of the left had already begun to ignite accusations that he had twisted facts to suit his politics. Faster than you can say, "That`s the kind of publicity no amount of money can buy," Fahrenheit 9/11 had become a secular Passion of the Christ and the most hotly debated political film since Oliver Stone`s JFK 13 years ago.

But whereas JFK merely spun conspiracy theories. . .

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`Spider-Man 2` Set to Gross Up to $155M
Sunday July 4 2:56 PM ET

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/ap/20040704/108897816000.html

Last weekend`s top film, Michael Moore`s "Fahrenheit 9/11," held up strongly, taking in an estimated $17 million from Friday to Saturday. Doubling its theater count to 1,725, "Fahrenheit 9/11" pushed its total to $56.1 million and has a good shot at becoming the first documentary to top the $100 million mark.

"I can`t predict, but I think we have a terrific chance," said Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate Films, one of the distributors of "Fahrenheit 9/11," Moore`s assault on President Bush`s actions regarding the Sept. 11 attacks. "Regardless, the picture is an overwhelming success."

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Farragoheit 9/11
Daily Mail, 1 July 2004

In Michael Mooreland, President Bush is a moronic cowboy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were corrupt, there was no threat to America from terrorism, and the only person who can see the truth is… Michael Moore. This film is a half-baked, agitprop conspiracy fantasy.

Let’s be fair. Not all his allegations are totally off the wall. He’s right to point up the disturbing links between the US administration, the Saudi regime and the bin Laden family, as well as the ludicrous bumblings of homeland security.

But after that, the film simply takes off into the higher lunacies of conspiracy theory. You might think the US flattened the Taleban because they had been harbouring al Qaeda. Think again — it was all to put in a puppet government to secure a lucrative contract to lay an oil pipeline to the Caspian Sea.

But hang on — this means that, according to Moore, Bush was both in the pocket of the Saudis and chose to pulverise their Taleban buddies. Some confusion here? Richard Clarke, the former US counter-terrorism expert, is presented as a heroic whistleblower. Yet Clarke actually claimed sole responsibility for escorting the bin Laden clan out of the country after 9/11 —a move Moore uses as a weapon against President Bush. But hey, what are actual facts, let alone consistency, when there’s a roaring prejudice to stoke?

Next, Moore would have you believe that the terrorist threat to America was all invented by President Bush in order to serve his friends’ financial interests. Forget 9/11. Forget all the evidence that persuaded Bush’s predecessor, President Clinton, of the threat from rogue states combining with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Moore believes this threat was entirely fabricated by President Bush, and all those Americans who believed it are made to look stupid.

Indeed, what is so striking is the deep contempt Moore has for his fellow Americans, and the bottomless regard for himself. For Mooreland is populated by the stupid, credulous or corrupt — except, or course, for Michael Moore.

And then we get to Iraq. Here the film’s lies turn disgusting. For pre-invasion Iraq is portrayed as a happy, relaxed place with carefree, smiling people — until the Americans start dropping bombs on it for no good reason. There’s no mention whatever of the terror inflicted on the Iraqi people by Saddam, the hundreds of thousands killed or tortured by his regime.

No mention that, way before George W Bush, the Clinton administration was convinced that Saddam and al Qaeda were linked. Instead, just grisly pictures of the casualties of war, the gross exploitation of the grieving mother of a dead soldier, and the lie that Saddam never killed or threatened any American (presumably the assassination attempt on George W’s father during a visit to Kuwait in April 1993 doesn’t count). And all punctuated by manipulated footage of the current President designed to present him as moronic or malign.

Will such a farrago of paranoid distortions and ideological spite have any effect? You bet. The preview audience, overwhelmingly composed of our fashionable movers and shakers, applauded wildly.

[spicault]

So, jetzt passiert, was zu erwarten war.

MMs Film wird als Propaganda von den Hezbollah-Terroristen verwendet.




Hezbollah`s Hollywood Hero
By Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 6, 2004

Fahrenheit 9/11 has sealed Michael Moore’s status as one of the richest figures of the crackpot Left. Projected to take in $100 million, the Bush-bashing film grossed $21.8 million in its first three days, topping the $21.6 million reaped by his 2002 box-office blast, Bowling for Columbine. But success has come at a price. Former leftie faithful are now less inclined to believe multi-millionaire Moore, with his ritzy spread on New York’s Upper West Side, is the champion of the great unwashed (despite his personal appearance). Thankfully, Moore has found a new audience receptive to his message: terrorists.

News that Fahrenheit 9/11 was coming to the Middle East has triggered delight among the region’s would-be suicide bombers. In fact, Front Row Entertainment, the United Arab Emirates-based distributor of Fahrenheit 9/11, was recently contacted by organizations affiliated with Hezbollah. Hezbollah asked if they could they please help Front Row promote the film? After some initial, short-lived hesitation, Front Row Managing Director Gianluca Chacra greenlighted the idea. “We can’t go against these organizations as they could strongly boycott the film in Lebanon and Syria,” he announced. Apparently, they could not: How could they disappoint all those smiling terrorists?

So how can one explain Moore’s appeal among the bloodthirsty? Moore’s longstanding sympathy for their work is a good place to start. Though it’s largely forgotten today, in the early `90s Moore was workshopping an idea for a movie about the Palestinian Intifada. The project, provisionally titled Yitzhak and Me or West Bank Story, was never made. But John Foren, a reporter for the Flint Journal in Michigan, Moore’s adopted hometown, had no illusions as to what it would look like. “If Michael touches that [the Intifada], you`re going to see the real Michael," Foren told the Washington Times in 1990. "And it`s not something that people are going to love."


Were Moore to make such a film today, all signs indicate it would be a valentine to the Palestinians’ newest terror campaign, the second Intifada. One clue comes from Moore’s book Dude, Where`s My Country?, in which Moore contends that Israelis "know they are wrong, and...would be doing just what the Palestinians are doing if the sandal were on the other foot." (In other words, the world would be flooded with Jewish suicide bombers.) Another clue is Moore’s naked contempt for the Jewish state. As Moore told an audience in Liverpool, Israel is part of his personal axis of evil: “It`s all part of the same ball of wax, right? The oil companies, Israel, Halliburton.”


The terrorist attacks of September 11 only strengthened Moore’s view of the real enemies. Reflecting on the carnage of the day, Moore first denied al-Qaeda’s responsibility: “Am I being asked to believe that this guy who sleeps in a tent in a desert has been training pilots to fly our most modern, sophisticated jumbo jets...?” Then he thundered against the United States: “We abhor terrorism -- unless we’re the ones doing the terrorizing.” Finally, he screamed racism: “Maybe it’s because the Ay-rabs are much better foils. A key ingredient in getting Americans whipped into a frenzy against a new enemy is the all-important race card.” And that was all on September 12.


Which highlights yet another reason terrorists want more of Moore: he also wants Americans to die. “I’m sorry,” he crowed on his site, “but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe—just maybe—God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.” But if he’s hostile to the American cause, Moore’s heart goes out to the mujahedeen. In the killers of Coalition troops and Iraqi civilians, Moore sees true heroes. "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or ‘The Enemy,’” Moore has fumed. “They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow—and they will win.”


Does Moore seriously mean to say that Iraq would be better off under a reign of terror? Well, yes. Indeed, in what is arguably the most execrable of Fahrenheit 9/11’s serial lies, Moore insists Iraq was a far better place with Saddam Hussein running it. In Moore’s Iraqi Utopia, giddy kiddies spent their days flying kites (at least those who didn’t have their hands hacked off). Enter Coalition forces. In Moore`s view, they inflicted a humanitarian disaster that dwarfs Saddam Hussein`s cruelty. Fahrenheit 9/11 thus plays like an advertisement for Saddam and the Ba’athist torture machine, a point Moore happily concedes. As he recently told ABC News, “I`m just trying to present another side of the story.”


That this side of the story bears little relation to reality makes it singularly appropriate for Fahrenheit 9/11. For instance, Moore spends half the film contending that the Bush administration permitted members of the Saudi royal family to escape after September 11, allowing them to leave before U.S. airspace was opened. Unmentioned is this detail: the order to spirit the Saudi royal family from the country was actually given by Moore’s favorite anti-Bush official, Richard Clarke. Instead, Moore interviews an FBI agent who states the Saudis should have been interrogated before being afforded special protection. Moore seems not to know that the FBI did in fact clear members of the bin Laden family, the vast majority of whom happen not to be infidel-smiting fanatics. Clarke, in turn, has defended his decision to green light the flights, telling ABC: “The Saudis had reasonable fear that they might be the subject of vigilante attacks in the United States after 9/11. And there is no evidence even to this date that any of the people who left on those flights were people of interest to the FBI.” Similarly lost on Moore are the findings of the 9/11 Commission, which determined that the Saudis flights did not leave before U.S. airspace was reopened. There is little wonder, then, that Moore’s conspiracy theory never gets off the ground.


Fahrenheit 9/11’s distortions don’t end there. A maestro of the deceitful edit, Moore whittles down a quote from Condoleezza Rice to suggest that the Bush administration is lying when it denies ever having alleged Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Says Rice in the film: “Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11.” Gotcha? Not quite. Here is the uncorrupted version of Rice’s quote: “Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11. It’s not that Saddam Hussein was somehow himself, and his regime, involved in 9/11, but, if you think about what caused 9/11, it is the rise of ideologies of hatred that lead people to drive airplanes into buildings in New York.”


It speaks to the consummate dishonesty of Moore’s approach in Fahrenheit 9/11 that even when he is being technically accurate, he is not telling the truth. Deploying a statistic from a Washington Post article, Moore claims that President Bush spends 42 percent of his time on vacation. What Moore neglects to point out is that this number includes weekends, cutting the more accurate number of vacation time to around 13 percent; or that many of the days he counts are actually working vacations, which Bush spends in the company of foreign and domestic leaders.


With duplicity in such great abundance, it should come as no surprise that Moore is feeling defensive about Fahrenheit 9/11 -- so much so, that he’s assembled a “war room” of experts to beat back any critic who would challenge the film’s accuracy. Plainly aware that the guardians of his credibility would have their work cut out for them, the millionaire filmmaker didn’t skimp on talent. He’s enlisted a team of fact-checkers, captained by a veteran of The New Yorker magazine’s crack fact-checking team; he’s also tapped Chris Lehane, a Democratic Party strategist, to dig up dirt on his critical opposition. Shaken by the barrage of condemnation of Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore’s even taken to consulting with lawyers to lodge defamation suits against anyone who “maligns” his new film or “damages his reputation.” Huffs Moore: “Any attempts to libel me will be met by force. The most important thing we have is truth on our side. If they persist in telling lies, knowingly telling a lie with malice, then I`ll take them to court.”


The attempt to squelch any considered debate over his film is a typical Moore strategy, says Jason Clarke. Co-author (with David T. Hardy) of the recently released Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man and proprietor of Moorelies.com, Clarke notes that Moore’s work regularly raises more questions than the filmmaker wants to answer. “For many years,” explains Clarke, “Michael Moore has been consistently evading and deflecting any and all inquiry and skepticism into his work and his public persona.”


Clarke and Hardy’s book intends to change that. Having marshaled numerous examples of innuendo, wild speculation and flat-out falsehood from Moore’s 15-year career, the authors are determined to spoil Moore’s holiday from criticism. As for Moore’s “war room,” Clarke says: Bring it on. “We know from studying his persona closely that any challenge to Moore must be serious and direct,” observes Clarke, “to demonstrate that we will not be afraid of his attempts to marginalize us into conspiracies or worse.” If Clarke and Hardy have their way, Moore’s fact-free record will soon be public knowledge. Thus raising the question: Dude, do you have enough lawyers?

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Book: `Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man`
NewsMax.com
Thursday, June 24, 2004

A just released book takes on Michael Moore as never before. Its title screams: “Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man.”
And surprisingly, this book has been published by the same publisher who gave us Michael Moore’s own runaway bestseller “Stupid White Men.”

Apparently, more than a few people want to take revenge on Michael Moore and the timing couldn’t be better – with the release this week of his “documentary” attack piece on George Bush - Fahrenheit 9/11.

Moore is so terrified by his detractors he claims that he has already hired a cabal of lawyers. He says he will sue Bush supporters who he thinks may be preparing to slander him.

Moore`s hypocrisy is obvious. Slate editor Jack Shafer says “Moore`s hysterical, empty threats" to sue critics of his latest schlockumentary shows that he "appears to believe in free speech only for himself."

One possible target for Moore’s lawyers may be the publisher of his own book.

Moore’s one time publisher, ReganBooks, is out with a disturbing yet comical book that dismantles every cog of that propaganda machine marketed as Michael Moore.

David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke`s "Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man" begins by unearthing his phony roots and goes right up to his latest "documentary." Check out NewsMax`s Free Offer for this book -- Click Here


Meet the Flint-drone: Everybody knows Moore is a blue-collar guy from Flint, Mich., right? That`s how he always sells himself.

In reality, he was born and raised in the wealthy, lily-white town of Davison, Mich, the authors reveal. No wonder the clown prince of self-loathing developed such a complex about hating rich, stupid white males.


In a letter to Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times last year, Moore still listed his town as Flint. In fact, despite his proclamations that "capitalism is a sin" and "an evil system," he lives in a $1.9 million apartment in Manhattan and enjoys a $1.2 million summer home on Torch Lake in Michigan.


Does not play well with others: Moore can`t get along even with his fellow travelers.

Hardy and Clarke disclose how the radical magazine Mother Jones fired the "arbitrary" and "suspicious" Moore; how he started his feud with his replacement, David Talbot, who later founded Salon; how Ralph Nader`s organization fired Moore; how he attacked Pauline Kael, Harlan Jacobson and other prominent critics who exposed the deceits of his schlockumentaries; how he lost a lawsuit for betraying fellow lefty activist Larry Stecco in "Roger & Me," etc.


Nor can the elitist Moore tolerate those lowly working classes and students he claims to represent.

"Big Fat Stupid White Man" gives details of how he abused the staff during a speaking engagement at London`s Roundhouse Theater; how he castigated a student who dared question his hefty speaking fee; how he attacked a young documentary maker who had the nerve to give him a taste of the "Roger & Me" treatment, and so forth.

And don`t forget his amusingly shrill denunciation of those awful blue-collar crewmen who, unlike his fellow multimillionaires in Hollywood’s left, booed him during his tirade at the Oscars.

The book presents one example after another, alternating between frightening and hilarious, to make a brilliant case for Moore having Narcissistic Personality Disorder.


Then there`s his feud with his former publisher, HarperCollins subsidiary ReganBooks, which gave us his best seller “Stupid White Men” and now brings us “Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man.”

ReganBooks, he claims, tried "to censor me and the things I wanted to say. They insisted I rewrite up to 50 percent of the book and that I remove sections that they found offensive to our leader, Mr. Bush." The company plotted "to `pulp` and recycle all 50,000 copies of my book that were gathering dust in a warehouse," he insists.

However, ReganBooks issued a statement to NewsMax.com contradicting these allegations:

"Originally scheduled for release on September 11, 2001, the book was delayed by mutual agreement between author and publisher after the events of that day. Despite erroneous reports that have appeared in the press, the publisher never attempted to censor the book on partisan grounds, though the publisher and author did discuss replacing the original version of the book with an updated version to address the post-9/11 world. Ultimately, the decision was made to release the book in its original form, and it went on to become a huge success for both the publisher and the author. ReganBooks has since declined to exercise its option to publish another book by Mr. Moore."


After all, Moore and other members of the left-wing thought police can`t bear a commitment to diversity of ideas.

Judith Regan, president and publisher of ReganBooks, noted that her company had produced books by Howard Stern and Moore as well as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.

"As publishers, we have an obligation to publish a wide range of ideas, opinions, and perspectives," she said in a statement issued to NewsMax. "Our job is to publish voices on the left, on the right, and everywhere in between – to provide a broad range of opinion.”

"We agree with Michael Moore that free expression is one of our most important human rights," Regan said, "and publishing widely and freely is the only way to honor that tradition."


Unfortunately, Moore fights his critics` right to free expression, as Slate`s Shafer noted and as Hardy and Clarke document at length.


Howlers in `Columbine`: Some of the distortions and falsehoods that plague the movie "Bowling for Columbine" are already well known, but Hardy and Clarke add details and reveal new whoppers.


Moore claims that National Rifle Association taunted the Denver area and the nation by holding "a large pro-gun rally" only days after the killings at Columbine High School.
In reality, the annual meeting had been planned well in advance, was required by law, could not have been changed in time to another city, and was stripped of all rallies and ceremony in deference to the community.


The movie depicts Charlton Heston as making his famous "cold, dead hands speech" in Denver.
In reality, the remarks came a year later in Charlotte, N.C., and Moore spliced bits of footage from that and another speech for maximum distortion. "It is a lie, a fraud, and a few other things," Hardy and Clarke write.


The fantasy film claims that Heston exploited a school shooting in Mount Morris, Mich., by staging another "big pro-gun rally" in October 2002.
In reality, Heston’s appearance came eight months after the shooting, at a get-out-the-vote event in nearby Flint. Others campaigning in the area around that time included Al Gore, George W. Bush … and Moore himself, touting Ralph Nader.

The authors conclude: "Bowling for Columbine has less documentary value than the average Bugs Bunny cartoon. You see Heston giving a speech – but it`s doctored. You see history – but unconnected facts are given a particular Moorewellian spin. You hear that a factory is making weapons of mass destruction – actually, it`s building satellite launch platforms. You`re led to believe that a rally was a response to a shooting, but it turns out it was eight months later, in anticipation of an election. You watch a Bush-Quayle campaign ad, but in reality it was an ad Moore himself assembled."


`Stupid` is as stupid does: Hardy and Clarke dissect "Stupid White Men" and "Dude, Where’s My Country?" along with the latter`s celluloid ugly stepchild, Fahrenheit 9/11, to delve into the heart of Moore`s pathology. A few highlights:


Moore harps on his portrayal of America as a "nation of idiots" (i.e., people who disagree with him) and illiterates.
In reality, the "statistics" he offers indicating widespread illiteracy include two sizeable groups: immigrants who are often fluent in other languages but not English, and the blind and visually impaired.


Moore, who after all graduated from high school, delights in ridiculing his countrymen’s poor grasp of geography. "The dumbest Brit here is smarter than the smartest American," he snickers to an audience in London.
But Moore chooses not to add an important fact: young adults worldwide performed badly on the National Geographic survey he so selectively cites.


He claims that Florida wrongly disenfranchised thousands of pro-Democrat criminals in the 2000 election. "Thirty-one percent of all black men in Florida" are felons, in his paranoid fantasy world. (No wonder this limousine liberal travels in such exclusive circles.)
In reality, the Miami Herald showed that Democrat-run counties violated state law and let the overwhelmingly Democrat felons vote illegally – more than 2,000 votes, most of which went to Gore.


Most importantly, "Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man" refutes Moore`s wild attempts to implicate the president in 9/11. Every American should read these chapters. They are too detailed to summarize here, but one example will demonstrate this book`s importance.

Moore claims President Bush invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban so he could get an oil pipeline built. You`ve probably heard others parrot this allegation. A master of propaganda knows that if you repeat a lie often enough, people start to believe it.


In reality, Bush had supported Enron`s plan to run pipes under the Caspian Sea and avoid Afghanistan. "Clinton was the one backing the rival Unocal plan to put them through Afghanistan," Hardy and Clarke observe.

Inspiration to terrorists: Moore`s favorite claim: “THERE … IS … NO … TERRORIST … THREAT!" If so, why do terrorists take succor from him?

The most damning indictment of Moore in "Big Fat Stupid White Man": the salute offered by Imam Samudra, leader of the Muslim terrorist bombers who murdered 202 people, mostly Australians and other tourists, two years ago at Paddy`s nightclub in Bali.

"I saw lots of whiteys dancing and lots of whiteys drinking there," Samudra told Indonesian police. The authors note, "It was `Kill Whitey` (to quote a chapter heading in Stupid White Men) with a vengeance."


Samudra`s attorney Qaidar Faisal concluded his defense by praising the Taliban and quoting from "anti-western texts" including Moore`s "Stupid White Men."


Despite all the appalling revelations in "Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man," it`s hard to finish the book without feeling pity for this man.

Had he used his talents to make actual documentaries and write books devoid of distortion and mendacity, he could have offered a useful critique of the Bush administration`s flaws.

Instead, fueled by a narcissism that springs from hatred of self and others, he mangles reality to dupe the uninformed, delight the blame-America-first crowd and even inspire terrorists.

He concentrates his venom on one politician and one party but damages a nation.

"Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man" marks a confident step in undoing his damage.


More on Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11

It`s clear that Michael Moore has gone off the deep end when even Democrats compare him to the Nazis` master of propaganda:


"Hollywood agent and Kerry supporter Tom Baer told me, `Kerry should flee Moore`s movie. It`s Goebbels all over again." This quotation comes not from Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh but from a column in the Washington Post by Tina Brown, a queen of the liberal media establishment.

Christopher Hitchens, a contributor to such partisan publications as New Left Review and The Nation, writes for Slate: "Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of `dissenting` bravery."

Andrew Sullivan, a former editor at the liberal New Republic: "Moore is beneath contempt."

[Joerver]

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Die letzten bekanntgegeben Einnahmen sind $60,100,000 in 1725 Theatern (Stand 05.07.) Dank an @Spicault&Co, weiter so!

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In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the line for "Fahrenheit 9/11" goes around the block.
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[spicault]

[Joerver]

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Wasserstandsmeldungen: 2.Platz, 2.-4.07.: $22,027,125 Gesamt:$61,118,488

[bares@nobles]

Ich weiss nicht, ob Fahrenheit 9/11 schon in deutschen Kions gezeigt wird, aber für die Interessierten gibt es anbei schon mal das Script zum Films.
http://www.redlinerants.com/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=…

Und hier ist ein Auszug von der Szene in der Bush während des Angriffs auf die USA an 9/11 in einer Grundschule in Florida sitzt und in einem Kinderbuch liest und nicht weiss was er tun soll:
-------------------

NARRATOR: As the attack took place, Mr. Bush was on his way to an elementary school in Florida. When informed of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center, where terrorists had struck just eight years prior, Mr. Bush decided to go ahead with this photo opportunity.

(Bush walking in, pictures flashing, he`s smiling)

NARRATOR: When the second plane hit the tower, his Chief of Staff entered the classroom and told Mr. Bush the nation is under attack. (familiar scene of Andy Card leaning in, Bush grimacing, biting his lip) Not knowing what to do, with no one telling him what to do, and no Secret Service rushing in to take him to safety, Mr. Bush just sat there and continued to read `My Pet Goat` with the children. (Bush looks visibly concerned... clock ticks away in the corner of the screen) Nearly seven minutes passed with nobody doing anything. (shot of Ari Fleischer, hangs his head) As Bush sat in that Florida classroom, was he wondering if maybe he should have shown up to work more often? Should he have held at least one meeting since taking office to discuss the threat of terrorism with his head of counter terrorism? (shot of Dick Clarke) Or maybe Mr. Bush was wondering why he had cut terrorism funding from the FBI. (scroll of highlighted document, `Counterterrorism Equipment` highlighted) Or perhaps he just should have read the security briefing that was given to him on August 6, 2001 that said that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America by hijacking airplanes. (shot of Bush at a meeting, date-stamped August 6, 2001) Or maybe he wasn`t worried about the terrorist threat because the title of the report was too vague.

[Joerver]

Fahrenheit 9/11
Dokumentarfilm/Politik - USA 2004
110 Min. - Verleih: Falcom
Start: 29.07.2004

[Joerver]

Meine erste wilde Woche mit ‘Fahrenheit 9/11`
von Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com / ZNet 06.07.2004
Freunde,
wo soll ich anfangen? Die letzte Woche hat mich einfach aus den Socken gehauen. ‘Fahrenheit 9/11` der Nr. 1 Kinohit in Amerika, der größte Dokumentarfilm- Kassenschlager aller Zeiten. Mir dreht sich der Kopf. Ist es nicht erst 8 Wochen her, seit wir unseren Verleih verloren? Sollte es Karl Rove (Wahlkampfmanager Bushs - Anmerkung d. Übersetzerin) tatsächlich nicht geschafft haben, ihn zu stoppen? Packt Bush die Koffer? Von der Presse, die über Hollywood schreibt, trafen letzte Woche Tag für Tag häppchenweise immer neue Informationen ein. Und kaum hatte ich mich von einem Leckerhäppchen erholt, wirbelte mir schon die nächste gute Nachricht um die Ohren:

**’Fahrenheit 9/11` sahen an einem Wochenende mehr Menschen als ‘Bowling for Columbine’ in 9 Monaten.

**’Fahrenheit 9/11` brach den Startwochenende-Kassenrekord von ‘Rocky III’ - und jedes Films, der amerikaweit je in weniger als 1000 Kinos anlief.

**’Fahrenheit 9/11 schlug sogar das Premierenwochenende von ‘Rückkehr der Jedi-Ritter’

**’Fahrenheit 9/11` landete auf Anhieb auf Platz 2 der Kino-Dauercharts. Diese Charts listen die (wide-release) Filme mit der höchsten je erreichten Besucherzahl (berechnet nach der durchschnittlichen Besucherfrequenz pro Kino).

Wie soll ich euch allen, die ihr euch den Film ansaht, nur danken? Diese Rekorde - einfach Wahnsinn. Sie senden Schockwellen nach Hollywood - noch wichtiger, sie senden Schockwellen ins Weiße Haus. Aber das ist noch nicht alles. Die Reaktionen auf den Film erreichten auch die Twilight Zone. Beim Surfen landete ich zufällig beim Sender Fox. Letzten Sonntag wurde dort - live - das NASCAR-Autorennen gezeigt. Millionen Amerikaner saßen vor den Bildschirmen, als die Ansager plötzlich davon sprachen, NASCAR-Champion Dale Earnhardt, Jr. hätte letzten Abend mit seinem Team ‘Fahrenheit 9/11` besucht. Direkt von Earnhardts Lippen leitete Fox-Sportreporter Chris Myers den Kommentar ans amerikanische Kernland weiter: “Er (Earnhardt) sagte, hey, ein schönes Gemeinschaftserlebnis, unabhängig von Ihrer politischen Einstellung. Eine gute Sache für Amerikaner, hinzugehen und es sich anzuschauen”. Whoa! Ihr NASCAR-Fans - tiefer in Bush-Territorium hättet ihr gar nicht vordringen können! STARTET DIE MOTOREN - ihr Möbelwagen des Weißen Hauses!

Roger Friedman von Fox News Channel rezensierte unseren Film absolut euphorisch. “Ein wirklich brillantes Stück Arbeit”, “und ein Film, den die Mitglieder aller politischen Parteien sich anschauen sollten, ausnahmslos”. Richard Goldstein von ‘Village Voice’ erklärt sich das so, dass Rupert Murdoch (Besitzer des Fox News Channel - Anmerkung der Übersetzerin) Bush schon als Schnee von gestern betrachtet und sich anschickt, sich an die kommende Administration ranzuschmeißen. Kann ich nicht beurteilen. Fest steht, Fox hat nie zuvor ein anständiges Wort über mich verloren. Nachdem ich das Bewusstsein wiedererlangt hatte, fragte ich mich, was kommt als Nächstes? Vielleicht eine Liebeserklärung von Sean Hannity (reaktionärer amerikanischer Radio-Host - Anmerkung d. Übersetzerin).

Hier die Letterman Top Ten: ‘Die 10 Dinge, die George W. Bush an ‘Fahrenheit 9/11` am meisten ärgern’:

10. Der Schauspieler, der den Präsidenten mimt, ist absolut unglaubwürdig.

9. Der Film stellt meinen Wahlklau viel zu vereinfacht dar.

8. Es kommen zuviele dieser seltsamen Collegeboy-Wörter vor.

7. Schade, dass Michael Moore nicht noch ein paar Monate gewartet hat. Dann hätte er seine eigene Deportation - durch mich - in den Film reinschneiden können.

6. Im Film kommt kein lustiges Äffchen vor, das Zigaretten raucht und den Leuten den Stinkefinger zeigt.

5. Nur 97% von Michaels Anschuldigungen sind wahr.

4. Muss leider passen - ein Popcornkrümel hatte sich in meiner Luftröhre verhakt, war bewusstlos.

3. Wo zur Hölle ist Spiderman?

2. Habe das meiste vom Film verpasst, Cheney hing mir dauernd in den Ohren.

1. Komisch, dachte, das sei ein Film über Völkerball.

Was mich restlos aus den Socken haute, waren die Reaktionen und Berichte, die aus den Kinos amerikaweit eintrafen. Ein Kinobesitzer nach dem andern rief an und berichtete, der Film ernte (mit zunehmender Anerkennung) stehende Ovationen - in Städten wie Grensboro, NC oder Oklahoma City. Hinterher sei es ein Problem, die Kinosäle wieder leerzubekommen. Manche Leute seien zu geschockt, andere wollten einfach sitzenbleiben und mit ihren Nachbarn über das Gesehene reden. In Trumbull, CT, sei eine Frau nach der Vorführung aufgestanden und habe gerufen: “Machen wir ein Meeting!” In San Francisco hätte ein Mann bei der Schlussszene, in der man Bush sieht, seinen Schuh nach der Leinwand geworfen. In Tulsa besuchten mehrere weibliche Kirchengruppen die Vorstellung und seien hinterher in Tränen ausgebrochen. Vor allem Letzteres widerlegt jene Jammerlappen-Pundits, die vor der Premiere immer behauptet hatten, nur der hardcore “Chor” würde in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11` gehen. Sie hätten sich nicht mehr täuschen können. Ob im tiefsten Süden oder im Mittleren Westen - überall vermeldeten Kinos Besucherrekorde. Soviele Leute hatten sie noch nie in einem ihrer Filme. Selbst Peoria war ausverkauft - ebenso wie die Kinos in Lubbock, Texas und Anchorage, Alaska!

Eine Zeitung nach der andern verfasste Artikel - im Ton atemloser Verblüffung - über Menschen, die sich selbst als ‘Republikaner’ und ‘Unabhängige’ bezeichneten und zitternd und in Tränen aufgelöst aus dem Kino kamen. Nein, sie könnten George W. Bush nicht guten Gewissens wählen. Die New York Times berichtete über eine konservative Republikanerin zwischen 20 und 30 aus Pensacola, Texas, die während des gesamten Films geheult habe: “Das bringt mich wirklich dazu, meine Einstellung zu diesem Präsidenten zu hinterfragen... was sind dessen Motive, frage ich mich”. Newsday berichtet von einem - in seinen eigenen Worten - “leidenschaftlichen Bush- Cheney-Unterstützer”, der sich den Film auf Long Island ansah. Danach sei er sehr still geworden. “Das gab mir wirklich Gelegenheit, innezuhalten und zu überlegen, was hier tatsächlich vor sich geht? Es war zuviel - zuviel, als dass man es vernachlässigen könnte”. Der Mann hat anschließend drei weitere Kinokarten für den Film gekauft. Die Los Angeles Times berichtet von einer Mutter aus Des Peres, Missouri, die “(Bush) vehement unterstützte”. “Als sie aus Michael Moores ‘Fahrenheit 9/11` kam, waren ihre Augen feucht, und Leslie Hanser sagte, jetzt hätte sie endlich kapiert. “Meine Gefühle sind nur...” Sie lief weiter, die Geste ihrer Hand deutete an, wie verwirrt sie war. “Ich habe das Gefühl, vorher haben wir nicht die ganze Wahrheit gesehen”“.

Für das Weiße Haus muss es ein absoluter Nachrichten-Alptraum gewesen sein - das Erwachen an jenem Montagmorgen. Das Weiße Haus war meiner Ansicht nach so geschockt, dass es den Irak, zwei Tage zu früh “zurückgab”, hm, an den Irak. Nachrichtenredaktionen teilten uns mit, sie würden von Mails und Anrufen aus dem Weißen Haus (sprich, von Karl Rove) regelrecht “bombardiert” - ein ‘Spin’, mit dem man versuchte, aus dem ganzen Schlamassel rauszukommen, indem man den Film bzw. mich attackierte. Bush-Sprecher Dan Bartlett sprach gegenüber dem Pressekorps des Weißen Hauses von einem “empörend unrichtigen” Film - wobei er gleichzeitig zugab, ihn nicht gesehen zu haben. Später auf CNN sagte er: “Dies ist ein Film, den man sich nicht tatsächlich anschauen muss, um zu wissen, dass er gespickt ist mit inakkuraten Fakten”. Wenigstens konsequent, diese Leute. Schließlich mussten sie sich auch keine einzige Massenvernichtungswaffe anschauen, um unsere Kinder in den Tod zu schicken. Viele Nachrichten-Shows waren allerdings geradezu versessen, den White-House-Spin zu kaufen. Genau davon handelt ja ein Großteil des Films - von trägen, komplizenhaften Medien, die sämtliche Lügen der Bush-Administration zur angeblichen Notwendigkeit der Irak-Invasion gekauft haben. Sie tranken das vom Weißen Haus dargebotene Kool-Aid (Partygetränk); unsere Medien haben so gut wie nie jene harten Fragen gestellt, die einfach gestellt gehören, bevor man in den Krieg zieht.

Der Film ‘Fahrenheit’ “outet” die Mainstream-Medien hinsichtlich ihres Versagens und ihrer Komplizenschaft mit der Bush-Administration - wer könnte wohl je ihr ständiges, peinliches Cheerleading vergessen, als unsere Soldaten in den Krieg zogen (und die Mainstream-Medien so taten,) als wäre alles nur ein Spiel -, genau aus diesem Grund hatten die Medien nicht vor, mich als Kultphänomen durchgehen zu lassen. Sie haben mich fertiggemacht - Sendung für Sendung - in einer Schärfe, die man sich für jene gewünscht hätte, die Lügen über die angebliche Notwendigkeit des Einmarsches in einen souveränen Staat verbreiteten - ein Staat, der keine Bedrohung für uns darstellte. Aber ich nehme unseren gutbezahlten Starjournalisten nichts übel. In meinem Film stehen sie wie ein Haufen arschküssender Trottel da. Ich denke, ich hätte mich dafür auch gehasst. Aber nachdem all die NASCAR-Fans sich ‘Fahrenheit 9/11` angesehen haben - werden sie wohl je wieder irgendetwas von dem glauben, was sie auf ABC/NBC/CBS News sehen? In einer Woche oder so werde ich die Abenteuer in Medienland, die ich letzten Monat erlebte, Revue passieren lassen (ich richte demnächst auf meiner Website eine volle FAQ ein, die alle relevanten Hintergrundfakten und Belege zum Film enthält - falls Sie gerade in eine heiße Debatten mit Ihrem konservativen Schwager verstrickt sein sollten). Für den Moment muss genügen: Jede einzelne Tatsache, die ich in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11` bringe, ist die absolute, unbestreitbare Wahrheit! Dieser Film ist wahrscheinlich der bestrecherchierteste und abgesichertste Dokumentarfilm unserer Zeit. Nicht weniger als ein dutzend Leute - darunter drei Rechtsanwaltsteams sowie die einzigartigen, verehrungswürdigen Fakten- Checker des New Yorker - gingen ihn mit feinzackigem Kamm durch. Ihr habt unsere Garantie. Widersprechen Sie daher allen, die sagen, dies oder jenes sei eine Lüge. Wer das sagt, ist ein Lügner. Sagen Sie den Leuten aber auch, dass die im Film vertretenen MEINUNGEN meine sind. Jeder hat natürlich das Recht, anderer Meinung zu sein. Auch die Fragen, die ich im Film stelle - basierend auf unbestreitbaren Fakten -, sind meine eigenen Fragen. Ich habe das Recht, sie zu stellen. Und ich werde sie solange stellen, bis sie beantwortet sind.

Abschließend möchte ich noch sagen, die ermutigendsten Reaktionen auf den Film kamen von unseren Soldaten und deren Angehörigen. Kinos in Garnisonsstädten überall im Land vermeldeten gerammeltvolle Säle. Unsere Soldaten kennen die Wahrheit - aus erster Hand, sie haben sie selbst gesehen. Viele konnten es einfach nicht fassen: ein Film, der TATSÄCHLICH auf ihrer Seite steht, ein Film, der will, dass sie lebend nach Hause kommen und nie wieder in die Gefahr entsandt werden, es sei denn, als absolut letzte Option. Nehmen Sie sich bitte einen Moment Zeit, und lesen Sie den wundervollen Bericht aus einer Zeitung in Fayetteville, NC, (Fort Bragg). Beim Lesen ist mir fast das Herz gebrochen, er enthält Reaktionen von Soldatenfamilien sowie den Kommentar der Frau eines Infanteriesoldaten, die meinen Film öffentlich unterstützt - was mich in meiner Bemühung bestärkt, dafür zu sorgen, dass in den nächsten Wochen noch möglichst viele Amerikaner meinen Film sehen können. Euch allen nochmals danke für eure Unterstützung. Gemeinsam haben wir etwas geschaffen, das in die Geschichtsbücher eingehen wird. Sorry, ‘Rückkehr der Jedi-Ritter’. Aber wir machen es wieder wett, indem wir im November ‘Rückkehr des Texaners nach Crawford’ drehen. Möge die Farce mit euch sein - aber nicht mehr lange. Michael Moore: www.michaelmoore.com; E-mail: [e-mail]

P.S.: Auf meiner Seite können Sie Briefe von Menschen aus ganz Amerika nachlesen. Sie berichten über das, was sie in Kinosälen erlebten bzw. über die eigene Reaktion auf den Film.

P.P.S.: Ich starte meinen eigenen Blog! Noch heute Abend! Come on over and check it out.

Anmerkung d. Übersetzerin

In Deutschland startet ‘Fahrenheit 9/11` am 29. Juli.

[Joerver]

Wasserstandsmeldungen: 6.Juli: Fahrenheit 9/11, 2.Platz, $2,809,000 Gesamt:$63,928,000$

[Joerver]

Wasserstandsmeldungen: 9.Juli:

1. Spider-Man*** $9,138,000*** Gesamt:$211,258,000

2.King Arthur**** $3,611,000***Gesamt:***$8,430,000

3.Fahrenheit9/11*$2,291,000***Gesamt:**$69,090,000

Zum Wochenende ist `Fahrenheit9/11` auch mit großem Erfolg in Frankreich angelaufen. Das hat natürlich zu einigen zynischen Kommentaren in der US-Presse geführt.

[xylophon]

ich hab mir gestern "Spiderman 2" angesehen, sicher der bessere Film....

[Joerver]

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[spicault]

One of the basic lessons one learns in English class is how to effectively create a persuasive essay in order to clearly articulate one`s point. When one looks at the work of Michael Moore as an essay, it appears that he never learned that lesson. His films not only lack a clear thesis, but they also rely upon faulty information in order to try and create a picture Moore wants to present. However, in the end, Moore`s films are not works of art. Instead, they are just angry rants like the ones on an internet message board. This was shown with the unclear portrait painted in 2002`s `Bowling for Columbine,` and it is shown again in Moore`s film, `Fahrenheit 9/11.` `Fahrenheit 9/11` is a film not only made up of the already refuted claims of the far left, but it also lacks a clear thesis, only relying on the `evil and incompetent` persona of George W. Bush to tie the film together which results in a poorly made finished product.

Moore`s film touches on several issues the angry left has levied against the Bush administration over the past four years, many with little basis in fact. His technique is to pile these accusations together mixing them in the film, confusing the viewer as how they are linked together. Moore goes from point to point, lacking clear transition and failing to develop a thesis. The points Moore has are these:

1. Bush was falsely elected. 2. Bush did nothing more than vacation before the attacks on September 11th, not preparing at all for the possibility of terrorist attacks. 3. Once the attacks occurred, Bush waited to respond in Afghanistan because he had an army buddy who, back in the 1970s did business with the bin Laden family. In addition to that, Bush`s father, as a private citizen, worked extensively in Saudi Arabia for the Carlyle Group. 4. Bush reacted too soon in Afghanistan because American business interests wanted to build a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan. 5. After the attacks on September 11th, Bush prepared the public too much for the possibility of terrorist attacks. 6. America ended the peaceful regime of President Saddam Hussein in search of more oil for Bush`s buddies. 7. To invade Iraq, Bush turned young, poor Americans looking for easy money and an education into death squads, massacring Iraq`s civilian population.

A well-formed documentary would use such `facts` as puzzle pieces and form a complete picture with them to suit the director`s need. Moore fails to do this. Moore, at the beginning of the film, paints Bush as an incompetent and corrupt man unfit to be president. The rest of the film is just repetitive. He just states his point in different ways with different `facts.` He never completely develops the `facts` he finds. Instead, he just goes into them enough to bash Bush, and then moves on to go after Bush some more.

This was the same problem with `Bowling for Columbine.` I left that film feeling it was randomly put together to show the audience that the problem with gun violence in America is complicated and there are no easy answers. One could blame gun violence on bowling as easily as on rock music or on lax gun control laws. However, after watching `9/11` I realized that the lack of a coherent point is just a common flaw in the work of Moore. In `Columbine,` Moore pointed to a variety of possible causes for gun violence, but he never settled on one. The same is true with `9/11.` What is the effectiveness to show Bush`s distant ties to members of the bin Laden family? Does Moore want to say that bin Laden and Bush were working on September 11th together? Why did Moore discuss a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan? Does he want to say that Bush was counting on bin Laden to bomb the United States so that he would have the justification to invade Afghanistan so US companies could build such a pipeline? These and other points are just left hanging. Moore does not have a thesis other than `Bush is stupid, corrupt, and evil.` This does not work. He needs something more, but he does not have anything else.

Now, if Moore`s `documentary` stated that there was a large scale conspiracy involving the Bush administration, bin Laden, and the oil companies, he would have succeeded in making an untrue, yet a well-made film. Instead, Moore gathers random puzzle pieces filled with half-truths and speculation together and does not make a coherent picture with them. It feels like a half-finished film. Where is Moore going with the film? What is his point? Does he have a developed thesis? It appears that he does not. If this film actually had a thesis, it would be more successful.

The `facts` that Moore presents are based more on speculation than anything else. For example, he often narrates over George W. Bush, telling the viewer what the president is likely thinking. Is he thinking what Moore is saying? Probably not. Only someone as creative as Michael Moore would state that Bush is thinking about a National Guard buddy he had thirty years before who had business ties with the bin Laden family.

For some of the more ludicrous claims, such as the before mentioned ties to Saudi Arabia and the bin Laden family, Moore spends a good portion of time, trying to make the accusation creditable, but only succeeds to criticize Bush for the distant ties to Saudi Arabian royalty and the bin Laden family. Remember, this is at the same time he is condemning the Bush administration for saying there were ties between Iraq and Al Qaida. It is interesting to note that the ties between Saddam and bin Laden are much easier to find than the ties between Bush and Osama.

Another large part of Moore`s film is that the Bush administration has created a `climate of fear` with the American public, constantly warning them about the possibility of further terrorist attacks. As a viewer of this film, I asked, `Now Moore is bashing the Bush administration for warning the public about the possibility of terrorist attacks? Was he not just bashing the Bush administration for not vigilant about the possibility of terrorist attacks? Moore has many such contradictions in his film.

When Moore lacks facts in this film, he turns to personal testimonies. He finds one woman in Flint, Michigan who lost her son in Operation Iraqi Freedom and is now against the war. This woman is seen in four different segments of the film, only twice being identified as the mother of a fallen soldier. In all four of these segments, she is wearing different articles of clothing. To an untrained observer, one might think there are three women. That is just an example of the type of trickery Moore utilizes in this film.

The sad part about this film is all the hatred that Moore directs at Bush. One scene, near the end of the film, shows this very well. The woman mentioned above goes to Washington to go to the White House. She talks to an Iraqi protester who states that Bush has killed his countrymen. She then answers that Bush killed her son, too. That is what Moore is trying to say throughout the film: Bush is responsible for all the deaths since 9/11 due to his greed. However, Moore knows, like everyone knows, that Bush is the wrong target for such accusations. Moore`s film tries to make the target in this war a domestic one. Like many liberals, Moore has been against Bush since before day one. He does not care who succeeds in the War on Terror as long as it is not Bush. This is not the way we need to be in America. We should be able to criticize our leaders, but not to wage battle against them like Moore is doing in this film. Moore needs to turn his attention to the true enemies of September 11, 2001, not attack the man who has the most difficult job in the post-9/11 world.

However, Michael Moore has made a film meant to attack not Osama bin Laden, but President George W. Bush. His film, Fahrenheit 9/11, is trying to convince the public not to reelect George W. Bush. However, it is not complete. It only gathers together speculation and hearsay, never creating a coherent work on why to oppose the reelection of President George W. Bush. There is no guide- no thesis- to show how these puzzle pieces Moore has gathered fit together. I wish that there was a deeper meaning to this film, something that was worth the hype, but there is not. The film is just like a poorly-written essay by a member of the angry left about the past four years. There is nothing in the film that conspiracy theorists have not heard before and that has not already been debunked by others. The film is not only out of date but is also poorly constructed. If this type of propaganda is the best the liberals can produce, I say, `Bring it on.`

Thomas Thompson

[ilk2ooo]

spicault,

ich möchte wirklich mal gerne von Dir wissen ob Du den Film überhaupt schon gesehen hast?

Ich denke die allermeisten, die hier lauthals ihre Meinung kundtun, haben ihn noch nicht gesehen. Nun frage ich mich natürlich, wie kann ich mir überhaupt ein Urteil zu etwas erlauben, dass ich noch nicht kenne?

Ich habe den Film gesehen und war sehr beeindruckt!

spicault und andere Kritiker, galubt ihr denn wirklich, dass wenn das alles erstunken und erlogen ist in dem Film, der liebe George W. den Michel Moore nicht schon längst verklagt und in den Knast gebracht hätte? warum stemmte man sich so vehement gegen die Aufführungen in den US Kinos?

MfG
ILK

[borazon]

ilk2ooo
so eine wie du wäre damals sicher auch sehr beeindruckt gewesen von Werken wie "Jud Süß" usw.

[spicault]

CZECH LEADER LABELS `FAHRENHEIT` WEAK PROPAGANDA
By Nick Holdsworth

KARLOVY VARY, Czech Republic (Hollywood Reporter) - Czech president Vaclav Klaus has dubbed Michael Moore`s controversial documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" as weak Communist-era style propaganda after a festival screening of the film.


Klaus, known for his politically conservative views, was in the audience for Friday`s screening at the Czech spa town, accompanied by his wife Livia.


"The message of this film is very weak and propagandistic," Klaus said. "We were used to such messages in the communist days. Everybody has open eyes and can understand that this is propaganda. It was a weak film that tells us nothing new."


Klaus refused to answer questions on whether he supported President Bush in the war in Iraq, despite the fact that the Czech Republic has supported the war.


Moore`s film played twice to sell-out crowds at the festival.


Reuters/Hollywood Reporter Sunday, July 11, 2004

[Joerver]

!

Dieser Beitrag wurde vom System automatisch gesperrt. Bei Fragen wenden Sie sich bitte an [e-mail]

[xylophon]

I broach koa Fahrenheit ni gucka....

Liba guck i mia 3 Folga "monitoa" oa, des iss genao sso a bleeda Schmorrn aba kost koa Eintritt (net)....

[Joerver]

Vielleicht wäre dieser Film auch eine Alternative zu dem Besuch bei den Macmacs oder Fatmike.
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Super Size Me
Dokumentarfilm/Gesellschaft - USA 2004
FSK: Ohne Altersbeschränkung - 96 Min.
In der Folge eines Prozesses, den zwei übergewichtige US-Teenager gegen den Fast-Food-Konzern mehr
Start: 15.07.2004

[spicault]

CZECH LEADER LABELS `FAHRENHEIT` WEAK PROPAGANDA
By Nick Holdsworth

KARLOVY VARY, Czech Republic (Hollywood Reporter) - Czech president Vaclav Klaus has dubbed Michael Moore`s controversial documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" as weak Communist-era style propaganda after a festival screening of the film.

Klaus, known for his politically conservative views, was in the audience for Friday`s screening at the Czech spa town, accompanied by his wife Livia.

"The message of this film is very weak and propagandistic," Klaus said. "We were used to such messages in the communist days. Everybody has open eyes and can understand that this is propaganda. It was a weak film that tells us nothing new."

Klaus refused to answer questions on whether he supported President Bush in the war in Iraq, despite the fact that the Czech Republic has supported the war.

Moore`s film played twice to sell-out crowds at the festival.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter Sunday, July 11, 2004

[Joerver]

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[Pater_Ralph]

Wie groß ist eigentlich die Wahrscheinlichkeit, daß in einem Land, in dem man keine Möpse im Fernsehen zeigen darf, ein topkritischer Journalist wie Michael Moore einen Oscar bekommt und in seiner Dankesrede den Chief beleidigen darf?
Ist es nicht eher so, daß er den selben Zweck erfüllt wie bspw. Oskar Lafontaine, unser superlinker Reservekanzler, der brav seine BILD-Artikel abliefert und so ein paar Restlinken eine politische Heimat bietet (natürlich trotzdem in der SPD). Moore erzählt ja prinzipiell auch nur, daß alles gut wäre, wenn statt der Ölindustrie die Ketchupindustrie die Macht im Staate hätte.
Man sollte bei Michael Moore Büchern und vielen anderen Bush-Kritikern mit ihren Bilderwitzchen nie Erich Kästner vergessen: Lächerlichkeit tötet nicht. Es sei denn die Lacher.

[Joerver]

Die Rechte hat doch erst Moore zum Star gemacht. Nach dem Motto, der Feind meiner Feinde ist mein Freund, wurde Moore in Europa zum Star. Moore hat gerade in Deutschland(Europa) ein Bedürfnis befriedigt, denn er hat den US-Amerikaner gegeben, der gegen Bush ist und er hat damit unsere Gefühlslage getroffen und uns bestätigt. Aber ohne diese hysterischen Angriffe der US-Rechten hätte das alles nicht funktioniert, dann wäre er das geblieben was er im Grund ist, ein Komödiant. Das war nicht erst jetzt so mit Fahrenheit, auch bei seinen früheren Filmen und Bücher ist er erst ins Gespräch gekommen durch Zensurversuche irgendwelcher rechten Fanatiker. Ein Film dieser Art kann auch nur in der USA für soviel Aufregung sorgen, weil in den Mainstreammedien viele Dinge in den letzten Monaten von der Berichterstattung ausgeschlossen waren. Daher bringt der Film für die US-Bürger manches Neues. Erst in den letzten Monaten wagen die Zeitungen eine realistische Betrachtung der Lage des Irak-Krieges. Obwohl das auch schwierig ist, denn US-Reporter können in Baghad und im gesamten Irak nur in Begleitung von Militärkolonnen durchs Land reisen. Dementsprechend waren auch ihre Berichte, Verlautbarungen der Miltärverwaltung oder aus einem Panzer. Deshalb haben die Zeitungen sich arabische oder arabisch-stämmige Journalisten gesucht, die realistische Berichte aus dem Land bringen, weil sie sich relativ frei im Land bewegen können.

14 July 2004

Cinema of cynicism
by Sandy Starr

How did the irreverent prankster Michael Moore ever become a prominent media figure - much less the left`s new hope for ousting US president George W Bush from power?

Following the Oscar he received for his gun culture documentary Bowling for Columbine, and the Palme D`Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore and his projects have been obsessively followed by the media. He was recently featured on the cover of Time magazine, while every aspect of the wheeling and dealing surrounding the distribution and rating of Fahrenheit 9/11 was documented to death.

When it was recently rumoured that Moore would make a documentary about UK prime minister Tony Blair, and then Moore denied the rumour, and then he suggested that perhaps he would make such a documentary after all, each of these inane developments was reported separately as though it were a significant news story (1).

What has Moore done to deserve this level of attention? There`s no doubt that he`s a smart operator when it comes to self-promotion, but that alone can`t explain it. His critics have noted his tendency to exaggerate the forces that conspire to stop him from getting his message out to the public, for example his claim that the publisher HarperCollins tried to suppress his book Stupid White Men, and his claim that Disney - not to mention Moore`s perennial adversary, `someone connected to the White House` - tried to suppress the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 (2). This kind of conspiratorial hype helps Moore to sustain his radical image, when the truth is that he couldn`t be a more mainstream figure.

The handful of conservative cranks who actually did try to get Fahrenheit 9/11 banned from US cinemas actually played right into Moore`s hands, allowing him to depict himself as the oppressed underdog (3). In fact, Moore expresses a set of increasingly popular attitudes toward politics. In particular, he embodies a vivid strain of contemporary cynicism, with his suspicion of any political or commercial vested interest that fails to justify itself in ethical terms. Naked ambition, more than anything else, is anathema to Moore.

Fahrenheit 9/11 has struck a chord because it provides a narrative of world events since Bush became president in 2000 that chimes with popular political attitudes. This is a dubious achievement, which involves mystification rather than enlightenment, but it is an achievement nonetheless. Anyone who feels estranged from American politics - and who finds it difficult to position themselves in relation to Bush`s presidency, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the subsequent wars on terror, Afghanistan and Iraq - can come out of Fahrenheit 9/11 feeling as though they understand how these things relate to one another, and are justified in feeling angry about them.

The anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation and anti-war movements of recent years have also sprung from popular disaffection with politics. But without any body of substantial ideas that might cohere these causes, they have failed to sustain their momentum and their raison d`être. Exploiting the build-up to the forthcoming US presidential elections in November, Fahrenheit 9/11 cannily repackages the misadventures of the Bush administration to date, so as to provide a fresh outlet for people`s bottled-up resentment.

The film tells us that Bush stole the presidency, that he failed to avert (and possibly colluded in) the 9/11 attacks, and that he concocted his subsequent wars as a means of pursuing commercial interests revolving around oil. It also tells us that in doing all of this, Bush devastated the previously idyllic country of Iraq, and needlessly killed and maimed well-meaning American soldiers - soldiers recruited from the ranks of the hard-working poor under false pretences. Moore`s narrative is ingeniously assembled to give the victims of the 9/11 attacks, the US military, and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, equal victim status - and to cast the Bush administration as the antagonist in relation to all of them. Above all, the film, and in fact Moore`s entire oeuvre, revolves around the consecration of victimhood.

After all, this is a man who hides behind the crippled, the bereaved, and the deceased whenever he tries to make a point. In Bowling for Columbine, he swaggers into WalMart`s head office pushing a wheelchair-bound, bullet-ridden teenager, and demands that the supermarket chain stop selling bullets. Later in the same film, he brandishes a photograph of a deceased child at the veteran actor and National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston, and when Heston walks away from him, Moore nonchalantly props the photograph up in the grounds of Heston`s residence. In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore dwells interminably on the angst of a woman whose son was killed while serving in Iraq, as she weeps in her home, and then weeps again before the White House.

The assumption that underlies Moore`s work is that victims have greater moral authority than anyone else, simply by virtue of their victimhood. This approach does a disservice to those disenfranchised individuals it purports to help, because it casts their predicament in crude emotional terms and thus precludes arriving at a rational understanding of it. Such an approach may appear compassionate, but it is actually about the egotistical display of Moore`s own emotional credentials. This can be seen everywhere in Moore`s work, whether in his patronising habit of hugging and consoling distraught interview subjects on camera, in his account of encountering a homeless man (`I emptied my pockets and gave him everything I had`), or in his proud boast that he positively discriminates when recruiting employees (`five of my last hires have been black`) (4).

A fashionable self-loathing also runs throughout Moore`s work. He has apologised for being white (`you name the problem, the disease, the human suffering, or the abject misery visited upon millions, and I`ll bet you ten bucks I can put a white face on it`); for being a man (`how many women have come up with the idea of exterminating a whole race of people?`); for being a glutton (`if you and I would eat less and drink less, we`d live a lot longer`); and for destroying the environment (`I`m a walking ecological nightmare`). And of course, he never misses an opportunity to rag on America - his response to the UK government`s participation in the Iraq war was: `Your people read! They think! They discuss politics! They know where Iraq is! Did you think you were leading a nation of Americans?` (5)

Moore`s critics tend to replicate his own vices. They resort to ad hominem attacks upon him that are simply a mirror image of his vacuous attacks upon them (see, for example, the new documentary Michael Moore Hates America and the new book Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man). Or they engage in endless `Fisking` - the method of pedantic, point-by-point refutation commonly employed on weblogs (and named after the Independent correspondent Robert Fisk, bête noire of right-wing bloggers) (6).

Moore has already scuppered such vulgar criticism of his already vulgar work, and has gone to great lengths to ensure that Fahrenheit 9/11 is immune to Fisking, boasting that `three teams of lawyers and the venerable one-time fact-checkers from the New Yorker went through this movie with a fine-tooth comb` (7).

Elsewhere, Moore has been accused of being manipulative, and even - ludicrously - of producing the equivalent of Nazi propaganda. Such accusations risk demonising him simply for having a particular point of view. There is nothing wrong with an opinionated individual making opinionated documentaries from a partisan perspective. To suggest that there is something wrong with this betrays contempt for people`s ability to watch something and make up their own mind about it.

Such contempt is discernible in the parallels that critics have drawn between Fahrenheit 9/11 and Mel Gibson`s recent film The Passion of the Christ. These films may well share a crass, bludgeoning approach - but underlying the reaction against both films is a fear that anything with a firm view will initiate some sort of pogrom, whether the fear is that Gibson`s film will foster rabid anti-Semitism, or that Moore`s film will foster rabid anti-Americanism.

The problem with Moore`s work is not that it is partisan, but that it is non-political. He certainly uses his work for political ends, but there is a constant insinuation in his work that political judgement should be suspended, and that the work should be considered in cultural terms instead, as entertainment. On the one hand, Moore explicitly hopes that Fahrenheit 9/11 will `inspire people to get up and vote in November`, and will ultimately oust Bush from power - a political aim if there ever was one (8). At the same time, he insists that he makes his films to be entertaining first and foremost, which is borne out by his juvenile stunts, sarcastic voiceovers, and unsubtle use of dramatic incidental music to underline how he would like you to interpret what you are watching.

This confusion about how to receive Moore`s work has dominated the reaction to Fahrenheit 9/11. When the film won the Palme D`Or at this year`s Cannes film festival, head of the jury Quentin Tarantino told Moore `it was not because of the politics that you won this award`, and told the media that the decision had nothing to do with `all this politics crap`. In a much-quoted review, the Boston Globe`s film critic Ty Burr argued that `Fahrenheit 9/11 is many things, but for pity`s sake let`s not call it a documentary. To do so abuses the word`. When challenged by CNN about `glaring inaccuracies` in Stupid White Men, Moore replied: `This is a book of political humour…. How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?` (9)

This confusion between politics and entertainment has been a hallmark of Moore`s career, ever since he created the satirical TV show TV Nation with his wife Kathleen Glynn in the 1990s. Moore and Glynn revel in the confusion, explaining that `there had never been anything like TV Nation on the air before. Was it news? Was it entertainment?`. Elsewhere, Moore says he agrees with Noam Chomsky that we need `to find a way to make politics as gripping and engaging as sports`. And his advice to anti-Bush protesters is: `Be loud. Be funny. Signs, street theatre, mock trials.` (10) This attitude corresponds with the carnivalesque, performative style of modern demonstrations.

There is an element here of Moore lurking in culture as an evasive tactic, carping at politics without being accountable to its standards. But perhaps the moribund political sphere has itself become superseded by culture, such that a slapdash piece of politically themed entertainment such as Fahrenheit 9/11 has much broader public appeal than any political programme that is currently on offer.

`Is Moore a new kind of politician?`, asks one commentator. `Is he a way forward that conventional politics has not fully grasped?` (11) Unfortunately, it seems that politics is already following Moore`s example, in seeking to cast off the shackles of its formal conventions and relate to the public in the terms of emotion and victimhood. Our challenge is to come up with an alternative to the sorry excuses for politics that are on offer from Michael Moore and George W Bush alike.

Read on:

Fahrenheit 9/11 sparks Bush fires, by Helen Searls

Stupid white self-loathing, by Neil Davenport

spiked-issue: Anti-capitalism

(1) Director Moore to focus on Blair, BBC News, 12 June 2004; Director Moore denies Blair film, BBC News, 13 June 2004; Michael Moore may make Blair film, BBC News, 7 July 2004

(2) White House `tried to block film`, BBC News, 16 May 2004. See Stupid White Men...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!, Michael Moore, Penguin, 2004, pxi, xv-xxiv (buy this book from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA))

(3) US groups want Moore film banned, BBC News, 18 June 2004

(4) Downsize This!: Random Threats from an Unarmed American, Michael Moore, Pan Books, 2002, p6 (buy this book from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA)); Stupid White Men...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!, Michael Moore, Penguin, 2004, p85 (buy this book from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA)).

(5) Stupid White Men...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!, Michael Moore, Penguin, 2004, p61, 147, 158, 121 (buy this book from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA)); Dude, Where`s My Country?, Michael Moore, Penguin, 2004, pxv (buy this book from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA))

(6) See the Michael Moore Hates America, MooreLies, MooreWatch, and Bowling for Truth websites; Gone to the blogs, by Brendan O`Neill. Buy Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, by David T Hardy and Jason Clarke, from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA)

(7) My first wild week with Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore, 4 July 2004

(8) Fahrenheit 9/11 could light fire under Bush, Charlotte Higgins, Guardian, 17 May 2004

(9) Moore film `won Cannes on merit`, BBC News, 23 May 2004; Moore`s anti-Bush outrage fuels his riveting Fahrenheit 9/11, Ty Burr, Boston Globe, 23 June 2004; Lou Dobbs Moneyline, CNN, 12 April 2002

(10) Adventures in a TV Nation, Michael Moore and Kathleen Glynn, Pan Books, 2002, p6 (buy this book from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA)); Stupid White Men...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!, Michael Moore, Penguin, 2004, p88, 28 (buy this book from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA))

(11) The power of laughter, Jackie Ashley, Guardian, 20 May 2004


Reprinted from : http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA5EC.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA5EC.htm

[Pater_Ralph]

Quod licet iovi, non licet bovi:

BILD, Verlierer des Tages (16.07.):

Hollywood-Star Whoopi Goldberg (48) machte bei einer Gala einen schmutzigen Witz mit dem Nachnamen von US-Präsident George W. Bush. Konsequenz: Goldberg darf nicht mehr für das Diät-Unternehmern Slim Fast werben.

[nichtdie]

wenn man den Gedanken von Pater Ralph weiterspinnt und, konform der hier weit verbreiteten Ansicht, die auch der liebe "wahrheitstreue" Moore vertritt, der Meinung ist, daß die "Bushclique" den Irakkrieg einzig und allein in ihrem eigenen Uriteresse als Ölmafia angezettelt hat, so muß man ( und wohl auch ein Moore ) sich fragen , was geschehen könnte, wenn der nächste Mr. President Kerry heißt. Wenn dann wirklich anstatt der Ölmafia die Ketchupmafia ans Ruder kommen sollte, welches Land wird dann unter der Begründung des regime change besetzt? Wer züchtet die meisten Tomaten?
Holland? Italien? Spanien?

[Joerver]

Keine Sorge bei der Tomatenversorgung ist die USA autark!

[DOLCETTO]

#128,
na klar - das die BLÖD-zeitung das so interpretiert

"quot erat demonstrum" - herr pater
"mea cupla, wenns net stabil korrekt in die optik kommen sollte,
hab beim ministrieren immer zuviel messwein g`habt

schätze mal, die gute Whoopi wird`s locker verkraften,
Fast Slimer wär`s, wenn sie den guten joke ausgelassen hätte

ciao

[Joerver]

Ich schätze es muß für die arme Whoopi eine Horrorvorstellung sein, Bush in realiter unterm Rock zu haben.

Eine Demonstration aus der US-Presse:
Whoopi Goldberg Brings Hypocrites from Under Their Rocks

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0716-14.htm

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

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[Joerver]

Posted on Tue, Jul. 27, 2004

Moore invites Bush to hometown screening of `Fahrenheit 9/11`

Associated Press
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/9250539.htm
CRAWFORD, Texas - Filmmaker Michael Moore is bringing his blockbuster documentary to President Bush`s adopted hometown and wants the film`s star to attend.

Moore promised the Crawford Peace House a copy of his film "Fahrenheit 9/11" when it appeared that no movie theater in the president`s home county would show the anti-Bush documentary. The Hollywood Jewel in Waco picked up the movie last week, but Moore later offered to come to Crawford to introduce his movie and discuss it afterward.

Organizers expect about 1,000 people to attend the show at 9 p.m. Wednesday.

Paul McDaniel, a spokesman for Waco Friends of Peace, a partner in the Peace House, said the Crawford group`s telephone was jammed with calls from journalists, including representatives of the White House press corps now covering the president`s vacation at his ranch.

"They`re bored, having to be here in the middle of Texas in July with nothing to do," McDaniel told the Waco Tribune-Herald in Tuesday`s editions. "They`re saying, `Let`s go over and see the movie.` "

Moore, on his Web site, invited Bush to attend, saying he wanted a chance to thank him personally for starring in the film. "And let`s face it, you`ve got some of the funniest lines in the film!" he wrote.

A White House representative did not return a call early Tuesday from The Associated Press.

The Peace House received a permit Monday from the city of Crawford to show the movie at a football stadium parking lot near Tonkawa Falls Park.

Moore`s condemnation of Bush`s actions regarding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks recently became the first documentary to top the $100 million mark domestically. The filmmaker is providing the projector and the movie, said McDaniel. A large screen has been donated by owners of the Alamo Draft House, an Austin business that is creating a new cinema in Waco.

"We`re not saying Michael Moore is right, wrong or indifferent. It just seemed strange to us that within 50 miles, there was no showing of the film," McDaniel said.

Crawford`s police chief, Donnie Tidmore, said some residents of the community 20 miles west of Waco planned to demonstrate against the movie.

"I personally think we`re just a little town, and it`s kind of an invasion in our small town," said Fran Shelton, whose family owns the Crawford Coffee Station. "Everyone`s entitled to their opinion, but I`d be happier if he didn`t bring it to Crawford."

ON THE NET

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

Information from: Waco Tribune-Herald

[Joerver]

Zum morgigen Start in Deutschland. Ein Bericht aus der Zeit.

31/2004
http://zeus.zeit.de/text/2004/31/Fahrenheit
Die Feldzüge des Proleten

Michael Moores Dokumentarfilm »Fahrenheit 9/11« ist ein Riesenerfolg, weil er den Amerikanern Bilder zeigt, die sie sonst nicht zu sehen bekommen

Von Mike Davis

Amerikas berühmtester politischer Satiriker, der deutsch-amerikanische Journalist H. L. Mencken aus Baltimore, sagte es einst voraus: »Eines großen und glorreichen Tages geht endlich der Herzenswunsch der einfachen Leute des Landes in Erfüllung, und ein kompletter Schwachkopf sitzt im Weißen Haus.« Natürlich zielte Menckens böses Wort auf die mittelmäßigen Politiker der zwanziger Jahre des vergangenen Jahrhunderts, aber es ist das Washington der Gegenwart, auf das seine morbide Prophezeiung am besten zuzutreffen scheint. In Fahrenheit 9/11 jedenfalls untersucht Michael Moore, der Mencken sowohl im Körperumfang wie in der rabiaten Sprache nicht nachsteht, welche tragischen Konsequenzen es für die »einfachen Leute« sowohl in Amerika wie im Irak hat, dass jener »große und glorreiche Tag« nun endlich angebrochen ist.

Mit Hilfe von außerordentlichem Bildmaterial, wie es die meisten Amerikaner noch nie gesehen haben, erhebt Moore schonungslos Anklage gegen den 43. Präsidenten der Vereinigten Staaten. Für ihn ist George W. Bush eine groteske, vertrottelte Marionette – an die Macht gelangt durch ein Komplott, regierend mit den Mitteln der Täuschung und der Angst. Der Film endet mit der Anrufung George Orwells und der Warnung, zukünftige Generationen würden niemals die Lügen des George Bush vergeben, aufgrund deren amerikanische Soldaten im Irak in den Tod geschickt wurden.

Das ist Majestätsbeleidigung in ziemlich großem Stil. Kein amtierender amerikanischer Präsident ist jemals in einem Film so frontal angegriffen worden. Es überrascht nicht, dass Michael Moores Kritiker, angeführt vom ehemals linken Schriftsteller und jetzigen Kriegsbefürworter Christopher Hitchens, lautstarken Protest gegen Moores »billigen Spott«, gegen seine »Paranoia«, seine »Einseitigkeit« und seine »schlichten Lügen« erhoben haben. Hitchens schreckt nicht davor zurück, Moore (»einer der großen sinkenden Ballons unserer trostlosen, mittelmäßigen, verrotteten Promikultur«) zum Duell herauszufordern: »Jederzeit, Michael, mein Junge… in jeder Sendung, an jedem Ort, auf jedem Podium. Lass sehen, was du drauf hast.« Vernünftigerweise hat Moore dieses Macho-Gerede einfach ignoriert.

Das Blut und der Dreck des Krieges – und der zensierte Schmerz

Selbst führende Vertreter der Demokratischen Partei (von Moore attackiert wegen ihrer kleinmütigen Hinnahme von Patriot Act und Irak-Krieg) sind angesichts des Anti-Bush-Extremismus des Films zurückgeschreckt. Für die ängstlichen Chefs des Disney-Konzerns, üblicherweise wichtige Unterstützer der Demokratischen Partei, war die Ware Fahrenheit 9/11 zu heiß; als Verleiher agieren wollte Disney lieber nicht. Die offiziellen Filmprüfer wiederum haben den Streifen mit dem Prädikat restricted versehen, »nicht jugendfrei« – vermutlich zum Schutz kleiner Kinder vor den schockierenden Bildern eines moralisch entkleideten Präsidenten. Wie zu erwarten, haben die Hysterie der Verleiher und die klobigen Zensurversuche dem Film erst so richtig Auftrieb gegeben. Bereits eine Woche nach seiner Premiere in den Kinos war Fahrenheit 9/11 der kommerziell erfolgreichste Dokumentarfilm in der amerikanischen Geschichte.

Während die langen Schlangen der Moore-Fans die Multiplexe des Landes belagern, hat sich die Debatte den Gründen für die Beliebtheit des Films zugewandt. Und es geht um die Frage, welchen Einfluss er auf die Wahlen im kommenden November haben wird. Die New York Times hat faszinierende Landkarten veröffentlicht, die zeigen, in welchen Regionen Fahrenheit 9/11 und Mel Gibsons fundamentalistischer Sensationsfilm Die Passion Christi jeweils die meisten Besucher haben. Abgesehen von einem einzigen Kino am New Yorker Times Square, weisen die beiden Filme eine vollständig inverse Beliebtheitsgeografie auf: Moore liegt in den Universitätsstädten sowie den Metropolen an Ost- und Westküste vorn, Gibson erobert den suburbanen Süden und den Bibelgürtel im Landesinneren. Die Landkarten hätten also ebenso gut die Ergebnisse einer Umfrage zu Homo-Ehe oder Waffenbesitz wiedergeben können. Folgerichtig hat sie die New York Times als weiteren Beleg für die These gedeutet, die USA seien hoffnungslos gespalten: zwischen »blauen« Bundesstaaten, in denen die Demokraten dominieren, und »roten« Bundesstaaten, in denen die Republikaner die Nase weit vorn haben. Moore und Gibson erreichten demnach jeweils nur die ohnehin Überzeugten.

Ich lebe in San Diego. Mit ihren ausufernden Militäranlagen und ihren konservativen Vororten ist die Stadt der geradezu klassische Fall einer »roten« Stadt. Umso interessanter erschien es mir, gerade hier die Reaktionen eines Fahrenheit-Publikums von der anderen Seite der großen Trennlinie zu beobachten.

An einem schwülen Abend macht uns vor der Kasse eines Kinos in der Innenstadt Wartende zunächst eine Gruppe von Marinerekruten an – nicht einmal unfreundlich: »Hey, verschwendet euer Geld doch nicht für diesen linken Quatsch!« Doch das kann die in großer Zahl erschienenen Besucher nicht erschüttern. Zu ihnen zählen mehrere Seeleute, viele junge Schwarze und eine entschlossene Clique sehr muskulöser Männer mit kurz geschorenen Haaren. Ihre T-Shirts weisen sie als Mitglieder der Berufsfeuerwehr von San Diego aus.

Ich nehme an, in einem »politisch korrekten« Kino in Berkeley oder Cambridge, Massachusetts, würde das Publikum leidenschaftlicher auf Moores Sarkasmus und charakteristische Mätzchen reagieren – etwa wenn er den Patriot Act per Lautsprecher aus einem Eiswagen heraus verliest oder Kongressabgeordnete anspricht und danach befragt, ob sie Kinder haben, die im Irak ihren Militärdienst leisten. In San Diego dagegen lacht fast niemand. Das Publikum verharrt in andächtiger, fast schmerzhafter Stille angesichts von Szenen, die niemand von uns jemals gesehen hat – von den Großaufnahmen erschütterter New Yorker beim Anblick der einstürzenden Türme bis hin zu unerträglichen Bildern verstümmelter oder toter irakischer Kinder.

Ich sollte betonen, dass viele Einwohner von San Diego (auch ich) einen Fernsehdienst abonniert haben, der sie auf mehr als 200 Kabelkanälen mit Sport und Popmusik, Shopping, Zeichentrickfilmen und Gameshows, rechter Demagogie und softer Pornografie versorgt. Die Möglichkeiten der trivialen Ablenkung sind atemberaubend, aber es gibt keinen einzigen Sender, der uns die menschlichen Opfer der amerikanischen Außenpolitik zeigt. Deshalb glaube ich, dass das deutsche Publikum die dokumentarische Dimension von Fahrenheit weniger schockiert aufnehmen wird – in Deutschland sind die Medien weniger »eingebettet«, und es besteht besserer Zugang zu ungefilterten Nachrichten. Für die Kinobesucher an jenem Abend in San Diego jedoch ist es, als ob uns mit einem Mal der gesamte zensierte Schmerz, der Dreck, das Blut und das Leid des Krieges gegen den Terrorismus um die Ohren flögen.

In Deutschland sollte man bedenken, dass die meisten Amerikaner die wirklich »beunruhigenden« Bilder des 11. September 2001 niemals sehen durften – etwa jene von herabstürzenden Menschen. Erst recht kennt man in Amerika die ständigen Szenen irakischen Leids nicht, denen die arabische Welt Tag für Tag auf al-Dschasira zusieht. Die Regierung Bush hat es sogar für unpatriotisch erklärt, die flaggendrapierten Särge zu zeigen, die aus dem Irak zurückkehren. Und es ist zweifelhaft, ob das Pentagon jemals die wirklichen »Hardcore«-Bilder aus dem Gefängnis von Abu Ghraib zur Veröffentlichung freigeben wird.

Szenen eines überreizten Krieges gegen den Terrorismus

Was immer Michael Moore mit seinem Film noch bewerkstelligt haben mag – dieses Embargo gegen die schlechte Wirklichkeit hat er durchbrochen. Bei ihm erscheint das untröstbare Leid des 11. September Seite an Seite mit den amerikanischen »Kollateralschäden« im Irak (während im Hintergrund Donald Rumsfeld in obszöner Manier von der »Menschlichkeit« der amerikanischen Waffen schwadroniert). Moore bricht das Tabu, das über Amerikas Kriegsverletzte verhängt worden ist, indem er in einem trostlosen Militärhospital irgendwo in den Südstaaten verbitterte und verstümmelte Soldaten interviewt, die sonst stets vor den Blicken der Öffentlichkeit verborgen werden.

Er konfrontiert uns auch mit Apocalypse Now-haften Szenen beängstigender junger Soldaten, die sich wie beiläufigen an mechanischen Blutbädern und sexueller Demütigung von Gefangenen ergötzen. Andere Kämpfer wiederum sprechen über ihre Angst, ein Teil ihrer Seele im irakischen Gemetzel verloren zu haben. Moore macht uns bekannt mit hochrangigen Rekrutierungsoffizieren, die in seiner Heimatstadt Flint in Michigan wie die Geier über arbeitslosen Teenagern kreisen. An der Heimatfront wiederum sammelt er zudem die Vignetten eines überreizten Krieges gegen den Terrorismus. Das ist witzig und gruselig zugleich. Da singt Justizminister John Ashcroft eine selbst komponierte patriotische Hymne (»Lasst den Adler emporsteigen…«). Da infiltrieren in Kalifornien Geheimpolizisten harmlose Gruppen übergewichtiger Pazifisten. Und da verhört das FBI einen sportlichen Rentner, der George W. Bush in seinem Fitnessstudio ein »Arschloch« genannt haben soll.

Bushs Gesicht im Stress: Das eines kleinen, verstörten Jungen

Am aufschlussreichsten wird der Film jedoch, wenn uns Moore zwingt, unseren Kaiser ohne seine Kleider zu betrachten. In San Diego zumindest galt die hörbarste und verquälteste Zuschauerreaktion (»Aghh!« und »Oh, my God!«) jenen Bildern, die die erstaunliche geistige Lähmung des Präsidenten zeigen, nachdem dieser am 11. September 2001 von einem Mitarbeiter erfahren hat, dass gerade ein zweites Flugzeug im World Trade Center eingeschlagen ist. Bush ist an diesem Tag zu Gast in einem Kindergarten in Florida, wo eine Fernsehkamera gnadenlos die leere Angst im Gesicht des Präsidenten aufzeichnet, der fast sieben Minuten lang linkisch dasitzt und sich an einem Kinderbuch mit dem Titel My Pet Goat (»Meine liebste Ziege«) festhält. Bushs Gesicht ist das eines kleinen, verstörten Jungen, der im Gedränge die Hand der Mutter verloren hat und sich nun auch selbst zu verlieren droht (genauso wie sich Bush später im Film geradezu auflöst, als er an dem Versuch scheitert, einen einfachen Witz zu erzählen).

In seiner Tirade gegen Moore räumt zwar selbst Christopher Hitchens ein, dass Bush »geschockt und kläglich« ausgesehen habe. Aber, so gibt er zu bedenken, wenn sich der Präsident »wie Russell Crowe gebärdet hätte, vom Stuhl aufgesprungen und an die Arbeit gegangen wäre«, dann hätte ihn die Linke als kriegslüsternen Fanatiker verdammt. Vielleicht. Und doch bleibt es bei der Wahrnehmung, dass für George W. Bush gilt, was Gertrude Stein einst über die Stadt Oakland sagte: »There is no ›there‹ there« – »Es gibt dort kein ›dort‹«. Das Amt des Präsidenten der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, der mächtigste Posten der Welt, ist anscheinend auf die Größe von Bushs kleinen, nagetierhaften Pupillen zusammengeschrumpft.

Dass er einem Kinopublikum in San Diego zu diesem Augenblick der Wahrheit verhilft, ist Michael Moores Triumph – ein Triumph freilich, der auch mit mehr rhetorischer Ökonomie hätte erreicht werden können. Fahrenheit 9/11 ist weniger ausufernd, dafür schlüssiger als Moores frühere Werke. Doch auch diesen Film kennzeichnet sein grober, fast cartoonhafter Schnitt. Moore brüllt das Publikum mit seinen Pointen an, als wäre es taub. Zugleich ist er überraschend ungeschickt darin, die Punkte in seinem Malbuch richtig miteinander zu verbinden. Wie etliche Kritiker hervorgehoben haben, verwickelt sich Moore bei seinem Versuch, die geheimen Verbindungen zwischen der Bush-Dynastie, der Familie bin Laden, dem Halliburton-Konzern und anderen Eliten zu enthüllen, gleich serienweise in logische und faktische Widersprüche.

Der Hang zur Verschwörungstheorie ist immer die Ursünde der populistischen Tradition in Amerika gewesen, in die sich Moore einreiht. Dabei hängt er einer besonders trivialen Variante des Glaubens an, der Bush-Clan habe Amerika der Silberlinge wegen an die Saudis verraten – eine Erzählung, die unter anderem nicht den Aufstieg der virulent antisaudischen, Likud-freundlichen Neokonservativen in der gegenwärtigen amerikanischen Regierung erklären kann.

Anders gesagt: Es ist schade, dass Michael Moore kein so subtiler Dialektiker ist wie der großartige Marcel Ophüls (Das Haus nebenan) und kein so disziplinierter Dokumentarist wie Jehane Noujaim, der Regisseur von The Control Room. Aber Moore ist, was er ist: ein einzigartiges amerikanisches Phänomen – ein Drittel Mencken, ein Drittel Orson Welles und ein Drittel Prolet aus Flint, Michigan. Seit Fahrenheit 9/11 ist dieser Michael Moore eine weit größere Gefahr für das neue amerikanische Imperium als John Kerry.

Aus dem Englischen von Tobias Dürr

(c) DIE ZEIT 22.07.2004 Nr.31

[Joerver]

Micheal Moore auf dem Parteitag der Demokraten. Er ist kein Mitglied und auch kein Delegierter, er erhält einen Preis`from the Congressional Black Caucus.` Trotzdem er ist ein Star nach Presseaufkommen um ihn: "You`re the rock star of the DNC," a "Good Morning America" producer told him after he met with union supporters in Brookline. "You`re like Springsteen."

THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION
He`s Not One in Name, but Democrats Sure Like Mike
By Anne-Marie O`Connor
Times Staff Writer

July 28, 2004

BOSTON — If Michael Moore was hot before, he`s now on fire.

In his filmmaking career, Moore has evolved from agitator to celebrity. But since the release last month of "Fahrenheit 9/11," his critique of President Bush`s actions before, during and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Moore has adopted a new persona: sought-after political commentator at the Democratic National Convention.

From the moment Moore stepped foot on the convention floor, he was pursued for appearances on ABC`s "Good Morning America" and "Nightline," CNN`s "Larry King Live" and "The O`Reilly Factor" on the Fox News Channel.

His appearances before groups of union members and liberal activists roiled audiences with the fervor of political rallies and rock concerts.

Today, Moore heads into potentially hostile territory, traveling to Crawford, Texas — the closest town to Bush`s 1,600-acre ranch — for a screening of his latest and most controversial film. He has invited the president to attend. The White House said it was unlikely that Bush would do so.

If the Republican Party once dismissed Moore`s cinematic critique of Bush as unlikely to influence the presidential race, "they now realize this is going to be a huge headache for them," Moore said. "This election could very possibly be decided by a very small margin. The movie has already convinced that 3% or 4% to change their minds."

"Democrats who have come up to me at the convention say it has had an enormous impact," Moore said, trudging to an interview with Ted Koppel of "Nightline" in his habitual baggy sweatshirt, jeans and baseball cap.

Whatever the effect of his film — the 9% of the electorate who have seen it are overwhelmingly Democrats, according to the latest Times poll — Moore made it clear that he was focused on influencing the outcome.

"If I can make a small contribution to backing up a U-Haul truck to the White House and moving Bush out, I will feel I have made a contribution," he said.

Moore said he had not planned to attend the convention, and showed up only to accept an award from the Congressional Black Caucus. He said he was not a registered Democrat and had not endorsed — or even spoken to — the party`s presumed nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry, whom he described as "a guy who would never do what George Bush did: start a war without an imminent threat."

Republicans have seized on Moore`s presence in Boston, hoping to tie him to Kerry in their quest to paint Democrats as extreme and out of the mainstream.

"We had Michael Moore in the presidential box," said Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) during a news conference at the temporary Republican headquarters a block from the FleetCenter. "Michael Moore sits with Jimmy Carter in the presidential box. Is that the foreign policy that`s going to come out of the convention?"

When Moore wandered onto the convention floor Monday afternoon, a mob of cameramen and reporters descended on him for 2 1/2 hours, ignoring such party luminaries as Madeleine Albright, secretary of State in the Clinton administration. At an appearance before liberal activists at a hotel in nearby Cambridge, fire marshals had to turn people away.

"You`re the rock star of the DNC," a "Good Morning America" producer told him after he met with union supporters in Brookline. "You`re like Springsteen."

At a news conference after his Brookline appearance, Moore called Bush a "hatriot."

"Anyone who would want to deny to two consenting adults a life of love and companionship, that is an act of hate," he said. "When you cut after-school programs, that is an act of hate. These people have hijacked the word `patriotism.` I want it back, and I think the majority of Americans want it back."

Even people who didn`t agree with everything Moore had to say said they found him provocative.

"He`s a very gutsy guy, and he opens up the dialogue, which is very much needed," said Nancy Wohlforth, an official of an office employees union, after his Cambridge appearance.



Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

[xylophon]

135 lohnt das Lesen. Bestätigt mich allerdings auch, den Film nicht zu sehen.

Das kann ich billiger haben, indem ich mir ein paar Monitor-Sendungen ansehe, ähnlich gestrickte einseitig linke Volksverdummung....

[bares@nobles]

Eine bemerkenswerte Rede Michael Moore, in der er mit der Mainstream Presse Amerikas abrechnet, ist hier auf C-Span im Web zu sehen.
http://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp?Cat=Current_Event&Code=Vo…
sh. RECENT PROGRAMS >>
Michael Moore, ``Fahrenheit 9/11`` Producer & Director (07/28/2004)

Die amerikanischen Medien haben Moore`s Fahrenheit 9/11 verrissen.
Nun fragt Moore umgekehrt die amerikanischen Medien, warum die Leute, die seinen Film gesehen haben, als erstes fragen, warum habe ich das oder das nie im Fernsehen gesehen oder etwas darüber gelesen.
Er klagt die amerikanischen Medien an Cheerleader für die Bush-Adminstration und für den Irakkrieg gewesen zu sein.
Er fordert die Medien auf in Zukunft ihren Job zu machen und die z.B. die richtigen Fragen an die Mächtigen zu stellen und für den amerikanischen Bürger und nicht für die Mächtigen da zu sein.
Auch äussert Moore Verständnis für z.B. den Fernsehsender NBC, der General Electric gehört, der wiederum Verträge über 600 Millionen im Irak hat, dass NBC keine kritsche Berichterstattung über den Irakkrieg zeigen kann. Keine Bilder von den mehr als 900 toten amerikanischen Soldaten oder den 6000 Verletzten, die ihre Glieder in diesem Krieg verloren haben oder über die Mütter und Väter, die ihre Angehörigen im Irakkrieg verloren haben.

Das war dann Moore`s Aufgabe, die er versucht hat in Fahrenheit 9/11 zu lösen, weil die amerikanischen mainstream Medien total versagt haben und wohl auch in Zukunft versagen werden.
Schliesslich hat keiner der berühmten und hochbezahlten anchormen der grossen Fersehgesellschaften seinen Job verloren und die amerikanischen Medien sind schliesslich in der Hand multinationaler Konzerne oder von Medien-Tycoons wie Murdoch.

[Joerver]

`Fahrenheit` Bows Out of Documentary Oscar Race

Tue Sep 7, 4:21 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Filmmaker Michael Moore says he is willing to give up a chance to compete in the Oscar race for best documentary with his anti-Bush movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" in order to have it shown on television before the U.S. presidential election in November.



Under rules established by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , documentaries shown on television within nine months of their theatrical release are ineligible for the documentary Oscar.

In a message posted on Monday on his Web site, Moore said distributors will instead enter "Fahrenheit 9/11" in the Oscar contest for best picture, which does not have the same rules on television showings. No documentary film has ever been nominated for the Academy`s top prize.

But some Oscar watchers have speculated that keeping "Fahrenheit 9/11," a scathing commentary on Bush`s conduct of the war in Iraq , out of the running for best documentary may help its chances to be nominated in the coveted best picture category.

"If there is even the remotest of chances that I can get this film seen by a few million more Americans before election day, then that is more important to me than winning another documentary Oscar," Moore said in a statement.

Moore said that the distributor for his film`s upcoming DVD release, set for Oct. 5, would be unlikely to allow it to be shown on TV, presumably for fear of diminishing its value in the home-video market.

But the filmmaker said he remained determined to arrange for a TV debut of the film before the U.S. presidential election in November in hopes that wider exposure of his blistering critique of President Bush would help defeat him at the polls.

Moore won the Academy Award for best feature documentary in 2003 for his study of gun violence in America, "Bowling for Columbine."

"Fahrenheit" already has grossed more than $116 million at the U.S. box office, making it the most commercially successful regular-format documentary of all time. Only giant-screen Imax documentaries have generated greater ticket sales.

Filmmakers and producers submit their work for Academy Award consideration, but nominations and awards are based on votes of Academy members.

[spicault]

Iranian Citizens Trash Fahrenheit 9/11
By Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 29, 2004


A few weeks ago, Mamoun Fandy, a media analyst, syndicated columnist and former professor of Arab Studies at Georgetown University, was interviewed on the subject of Michael Moore. Fandy stated that Iraqis who were familiar with the film found Moore’s portrayal of them to be exceedingly racist; he went on to say that Moore’s callousness to the plight of the Iraqi people and to the unbelievable human rights devastation in Iraq was outrageous.



And that was only the verdict of the Iraqis.



I have also been asked to express the judgment of a number of Iranians who saw the film in Iran. They sent e-mails, faxes and even phoned me to ask me to report their reviews.



First, other than David Lynch’s film, ‘The Straight Story’, Iranians have not really been exposed to any western films in their cinemas. The Mullahs’ film board forbids the display of women’s uncovered hair and all the other “corruption” Western filmmakers spread. For Iranians, therefore, viewing Michael Moore’s film was a tremendously novel experience.



After 25 years of living in a virtual concentration camp, Iranians have become exceedingly socio-politically savvy. Moore’s anti-American propaganda did not attract anywhere near as many viewers as the Mullahs had hoped for. Tehran’s despots had hoped the film would challenge the Iranian people’s favourable notion of President Bush and promote John Kerry.



But Iranians are too smart.



A group of 12 university students, for example, composed of both men and women who had seen the film, collectively wrote me and signed an e-mail which said: “Wow, this guy complains that Bush lied once. What would this windbag do if he lived here where our president lies to us once an hour?”



Another comment was: “This guy gets to publicly accuse Bush of lying and becomes famous and adored worldwide. We, here, complain about some decrepit and inconsequential government lackey and we not only go to prison but some of us get death sentences. He ought to thank his lucky stars he lives in a country where he’s allowed and even encouraged to be this obnoxious…”



Someone else quipped: “If he thinks that the U.S. is so bad, he’s welcome to trade places with us…since he’s so forgiving of brutal Middle Eastern dictators!”



Another young man said: “They are showing this film to erase from our minds the idea of America being the great liberator; maybe Americans themselves don’t appreciate what they have but we sure do!”



Another comment was: “Outside such pathetic ideological schemes, Moore’s fixation to reprimand and castigate his own society is so great that he is BLIND to the fact that our ancient land and society cannot be regarded and dealt with in the same fashion; therefore he has fallen pray to the Mullahs for whom he is nothing more than a tool to discard when his mission for them is completed.”



My father, Siamak Pourzand, a 75-year-old Iranian journalist, film historian/critic/promoter has been a political prisoner since November of 2001 in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where he has experienced severe torture. During this time, not one member of the self-involved, international film community, to whom I reached out about his plight, responded. When in the fall of 2002 I called Michael Moore’s office, (like I did many other Hollywoodites) I was told: “Sorry, but Mr. Moore is too busy AND just can’t get involved in these types of matters because we can’t be sure who you are and what your agenda is.”



I am sure Moore is a busy guy, but with all the blowhard exposing of “evil” that he proclaims to be doing, I’m sure he could have asked someone on his team to find out who I was and what my so-called “agenda” was. But unfortunately, he cannot even be bothered to contact the brilliant Ray Bradbury to get permission to use Mr. Bradbury´s copyrighted title, let alone contact some random Middle Eastern wretch like me, who’ll challenge his myopia and force him to cast a critical eye outside the little box that he so cozily lives in.



Most intelligent and politically savvy people from my part of the Middle East and the vicinity, with whom I network, believe that Moore is not qualified to address our issues; he is simply not familiar with our cultures, history, mentalities or peoples’ needs; NOR does he have to right to impose his diatribe on our exhausted and abused peoples.



Mr. Moore and his mindless and greedy distributors thought that they could manipulate the Iranian people; but this goes to prove a crucial point: Moore thinks he speaks for his audiences but he does not know them. Otherwise, he would not have agreed to screen his film in a country whose citizens’ collective, real-life experiences drowns the clamor of Moore’s vapid bitching.

[spicault]

[Joerver]

Das ist heute ein Freudentag für xylo und Spicault u.a.
Heute sind in den USA zwei neue Bücher von Michael Moore rausgekommen, aus dem einen Buch Auszüge in dem Artikel aus dem Guardian.
Dann ist heute sein Film Fahrenheit 9/11 auf DVD erschienen.
Darauf kann sich W einen doppelten Gin genehmigen!

Dear Mike, Iraq sucks

Civilian contractors are fleecing taxpayers; US troops don`t have proper equipment; and supposedly liberated Iraqis hate them. After the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore received a flood of letters and emails from disillusioned and angry American soldiers serving in Iraq. Here, in an exclusive extract from his new book, we print a selection
Michael Moore
Tuesday October 5, 2004

The Guardian
From: RH
To: [e-mail]
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2003 4:57 PM
Subject: Iraqi freedom veteran supports you
Dear Mr Moore,
I went to Iraq with thoughts of killing people who I thought were horrible. I was like, "Fuck Iraq, fuck these people, I hope we kill thousands." I believed my president. He was taking care of business and wasn`t going to let al Qaeda push us around. I was with the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry, 3rd Infantry division out of Fort Stewart, Georgia. My unit was one of the first to Baghdad. I was so scared. Didn`t know what to think. Seeing dead bodies for the first time. People blown in half. Little kids with no legs. It was overwhelming, the sights, sounds, fear. I was over there from Jan`03 to Aug`03. I hated every minute. It was a daily battle to keep my spirits up. I hate the army and my job. I am supposed to get out next February but will now be unable to because the asshole in the White House decided that now would be a great time to put a stop-loss in effect for the army. So I get to do a second tour in Iraq and be away from those I love again because some guy has the audacity to put others` lives on the line for his personal war. I thought we were the good guys.
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From: Michael W
Sent: Tuesday July 13 2004 12.28pm
Subject: Dude, Iraq sucks

My name is Michael W and I am a 30-year-old National Guard infantryman serving in southeast Baghdad. I have been in Iraq since March of 04 and will continue to serve here until March of 05.

In the few short months my unit has been in Iraq, we have already lost one man and have had many injured (including me) in combat operations. And for what? At the very least, the government could have made sure that each of our vehicles had the proper armament to protect us soldiers.

In the early morning hours of May 10, one month to the day from my 30th birthday, I and 12 other men were attacked in a well-executed roadside ambush in south-east Baghdad. We were attacked with small-arms fire, a rocket-propelled grenade, and two well-placed roadside bombs. These roadside bombs nearly destroyed one of our Hummers and riddled my friends with shrapnel, almost killing them. They would not have had a scratch if they had the "Up Armour" kits on them. So where was [George] W [Bush] on that one?

It`s just so ridiculous, which leads me to my next point. A Blackwater contractor makes $15,000 [£8,400] a month for doing the same job as my pals and me. I make about $4,000 [£2,240] a month over here. What`s up with that?

Beyond that, the government is calling up more and more troops from the reserves. For what? Man, there is a huge fucking scam going on here! There are civilian contractors crawling all over this country. Blackwater, Kellogg Brown & Root, Halliburton, on and on. These contractors are doing everything you can think of from security to catering lunch!

We are spending money out the ass for this shit, and very few of the projects are going to the Iraqi people. Someone`s back is getting scratched here, and it ain`t the Iraqis`!

My life is left to chance at this point. I just hope I come home alive.

From: Specialist Willy
Sent: Tuesday March 9 2004 1.23pm
Subject: Thank you

Mike, I`d like to thank you for all of the support you`re showing for the soldiers here in Iraq. I am in Baghdad right now, and it`s such a relief to know that people still care about the lemmings who are forced to fight in this conflict.

It`s hard listening to my platoon sergeant saying, "If you decide you want to kill a civilian that looks threatening, shoot him. I`d rather fill out paperwork than get one of my soldiers killed by some raghead." We are taught that if someone even looks threatening we should do something before they do something to us. I wasn`t brought up in fear like that, and it`s going to take some getting used to.

It`s also very hard talking to people here about this war. They don`t like to hear that the reason they are being torn away from their families is bullshit, or that their "president" doesn`t care about them. A few people here have become quite upset with me, and at one point I was going to be discharged for constantly inciting arguments and disrespect to my commander-in-chief (Dubya). It`s very hard to be silenced about this when I see the same 150 people every day just going through the motions, not sure why they are doing it.

[ Willy sent an update in early August ]

People`s perceptions of this war have done a complete 180 since we got here. We had someone die in a mortar attack the first week, and ever since then, things have changed completely. Soldiers are calling their families urging them to support John Kerry. If this is happening elsewhere, it looks as if the overseas military vote that Bush is used to won`t be there this time around.
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From: Kyle Waldman
Sent: Friday February 27 2004 2.35am
Subject: None

As we can all obviously see, Iraq was not and is not an imminent threat to the United States or the rest of the world. My time in Iraq has taught me a little about the Iraqi people and the state of this war-torn, poverty-stricken country.

The illiteracy rate in this country is phenomenal. There were some farmers who didn`t even know there was an Operation Iraqi Freedom. This was when I realised that this war was initiated by the few who would profit from it and not for its people. We, as the coalition forces, did not liberate these people; we drove them even deeper into poverty. I don`t foresee any economic relief coming soon to these people by the way Bush has already diverted its oil revenues to make sure there will be enough oil for our SUVs.

We are here trying to keep peace when all we have been trained for is to destroy. How are 200,000 soldiers supposed to take control of this country? Why didn`t we have an effective plan to rebuild Iraq`s infrastructure? Why aren`t the American people more aware of these atrocities?

My fiancee and I have seriously looked into moving to Canada as political refugees.

From: Anonymous
Sent: Thursday April 15 2004 12.41am
Subject: From KBR truck driver now in Iraq

Mike, I am a truck driver right now in Iraq. Let me give you this one small fact because I am right here at the heart of it: since I started this job several months ago, 100% (that`s right, not 99%) of the workers I am aware of are inflating the hours they claim on their time sheets. There is so much more I could tell you. But the fact is that MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars are being raped from both the American taxpayers and the Iraqi people because of the unbelievable amount of greed and abuse over here. And yes, my conscience does bother me because I am participating in this rip-off.

From: Andrew Balthazor
Sent: Friday August 27 2004 1.53pm
Subject: Iraqi war vet - makes me sound so old

Mr Moore, I am an ex-military intelligence officer who served 10 months in Baghdad; I was the senior intelligence officer for the area of Baghdad that included the UN HQ and Sadr City.

Since Bush exposed my person and my friends, peers, and subordinates to unnecessary danger in a war apparently designed to generate income for a select few in the upper echelon of America, I have become wholeheartedly anti-Bush, to the chagrin of much of my pro-Republican family.

As a "foot soldier" in the "war on terror" I can personally testify that Bush`s administration has failed to effectively fight terrorists or the root causes of terror. The White House and the DoD failed to plan for reconstruction of Iraq. Contracts weren`t tendered until Feb-Mar of 2003, and the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (the original CPA) didn`t even come into existence until January 2003. This failure to plan for the "peace" is a direct cause for the insecurity of Iraq today.

Immediately after the "war" portion of the fighting (which really ended around April 9 2003), we should have been prepared to send in a massive reconstruction effort. Right away we needed engineers to diagnose problems, we needed contractors repairing problems, we needed immediate food, water, shelter, and fuel for the Iraqi people, and we needed more security for all of this to work - which we did not have because we did not have enough troops on the ground, and CPA decided to disband the Iraqi army. The former Iraqi police were engaged far too late; a plan should have existed to bring them into the fold right away.

I`ve left the military. If there is anything I can do to help get Bush out of office, let me know.

From: Anthony Pietsch
Sent: Thursday August 5 2004 6.13pm
Subject: Soldier for sale

Dear Mr Moore, my name is Tony Pietsch, and I am a National Guardsman who has been stationed in Kuwait and Iraq for the past 15 months. Along with so many other guard and reserve units, my unit was put on convoy escorts. We were on gun trucks running from the bottom of Iraq to about two hours above Baghdad.

The Iraqi resistance was insanity. I spent many nights lying awake after mortar rounds had just struck areas nearby, some coming close enough to throw rocks against my tent. I`ve seen roadside bombs go off all over, Iraqis trying to ram the side of our vehicle. Small children giving us the finger and throwing rocks at the soldiers in the turrets. We were once lost in Baghdad and received nothing but dirty looks and angry gestures for hours.

I have personally been afraid for my life more days than I can count. We lost our first man only a few weeks before our tour was over, but it seems that all is for nothing because all we see is hostility and anger over our being there. They are angry over the abuse scandal and the collateral damages that are always occurring.

I don`t know how the rest of my life will turn out, but I truly regret being a 16-year-old kid looking for some extra pocket money and a way to college.
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From: Sean Huze
Sent: Sunday March 28 2004 7.56pm
Subject: "Dude, Where`s My Country?"

I am an LCPL in the US Marine Corps and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mr Moore, please keep pounding away at Bush. I`m not some pussy when it comes to war. However, the position we were put in - fighting an enemy that used women, children, and other civilians as shields; forcing us to choose between firing at "area targets" (nice way of saying firing into crowds) or being killed by the bastards using the crowds for cover - is indescribably horrible.

I saw more than a few dead children littering the streets in Nasiriyah, along with countless other civilians. And through all this, I held on to the belief that it had to be for some greater good.

Months have passed since I`ve been back home and the unfortunate conclusion I`ve come to is that Bush is a lying, manipulative motherfucker who cares nothing for the lives of those of us who serve in uniform. Hell, other than playing dress-up on aircraft carriers, what would he know about serving this nation in uniform?

His silence and refusal to speak under oath to the 9/11 Commission further mocks our country. The Patriot Act violates every principle we fight and die for. And all of this has been during his first term. Can you imagine his policies when he doesn`t have to worry about re-election? We can`t allow that to happen, and there are so many like me in the military who feel this way. We were lied to and used. And there aren`t words to describe the sense of betrayal I feel as a result.

From: Joseph Cherwinski
Sent: Saturday July 3 2004 8.33pm
Subject: "Fahrenheit 9/11"

I am a soldier in the United States army. I was in Iraq with the Fourth Infantry Division.

I was guarding some Iraqi workers one day. Their task was to fill sandbags for our base. The temperature was at least 120. I had to sit there with full gear on and monitor them. I was sitting and drinking water, and I could barely tolerate the heat, so I directed the workers to go to the shade and sit and drink water. I let them rest for about 20 minutes. Then a staff sergeant told me that they didn`t need a break, and that they were to fill sandbags until the cows come home. He told the Iraqis to go back to work.

After 30 minutes, I let them have a break again, thus disobeying orders. If these were soldiers working, in this heat, those soldiers would be bound to a 10-minute work, 50-minute rest cycle, to prevent heat casualties. Again the staff sergeant came and sent the Iraqis back to work and told me I could sit in the shade. I told him no, I had to be out there with them so that when I started to need water, then they would definitely need water. He told me that wasn`t necessary, and that they live here, and that they are used to it.

After he left, I put the Iraqis back into the shade. I could tell that some were very dehydrated; most of them were thin enough to be on an international food aid commercial. I would not treat my fellow soldiers in this manner, so I did not treat the Iraqi workers this way either.

This went on for eight months while I was in Iraq, and going through it told me that we were not there for their freedom, we were not there for WMD. We had no idea what we were fighting for anymore.

Will They Ever Trust Us Again? Letters from the Warzone to Michael Moore by Michael Moore, to be published by Allen Lane on October 7 at £12.99. Copyright © Michael Moore 2004. To order a copy for £12.34 with free UK p&p, call the Guardian Book Service on 0870 836 0875, or go to www.guardian.co.uk/bookshop.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

[Joerver]

SPIEGEL ONLINE - 11. Oktober 2004, 11:10
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,322408,00.html

Briefe vom Krieg

"Kumpel, der Irak ist echt beschissen"

Warum müssen wir hier unten sterben? Warum unsere Beine verlieren? Michael Moore hat die Briefe von US-Soldaten im Irak zusammengetragen. Sie dokumentieren das alltägliche Töten, die bohrende Angst und die Wut auf einen Präsidenten, der sie aus zweifelhaften Motiven in diesen Krieg geschickt hat. SPIEGEL ONLINE bringt Auszüge.
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Michael Moores jüngstes Buch:
Briefe von Soldaten, Veteranen,
Angehörigen
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New York - Es sind Briefe von Menschen, die den Krieg nicht mehr verstehen. Von Soldaten, die ihre besten Freunde haben sterben sehen. Von Müttern, die um ihre Kinder bangen.

Einige der Schreiber sind schon nicht mehr am Leben, sie sind umgekommen in einem zunehmend schmutziger werdenden Krieg. Viele sind enttäuscht von ihrem Präsidenten, der ihnen nicht hinreichend gepanzerte Transporter schickt, der sie zu einem Feldzug gedrängt hat, den etliche als verlogen empfinden.

Der amerikanische Autor Michael Moore hat die Briefe und E-Mails der Verzweiflung in ein Buch gepackt. "Verraten und Verkauft - Briefe von der Front" heißt es, es erschien vergangene Woche in Amerika und kommt heute in Deutschland auf den Markt.

Als Vorwort hat Moore den Brief des jungen Michael Pederson aus dem März 2003 an seine Mutter gewählt - es war der letzte Brief des Soldaten, bevor er im Irak fiel. "Wir glauben nicht, dass in nächster Zeit hier was passiert", heißt es da. "Ich kann es gar nicht erwarten, heimzukommen und wieder ein normales Leben zu führen."

Moore selbst erklärte, er sei "stolz darauf die Truppen zu Wort kommen zu lassen". Autoren sind aktive und ehemalige GIs, ihre Eltern, Brüder, Schwestern, Frauen. SPIEGEL ONLINE präsentiert Auszüge.

VON: Anonym
DATUM: Freitag, 9.Juli 2004, 11.19 Uhr
BETREFF: Sie sind ein wahrer Patriot

Hi Mike,
Vor zwei Tagen hat einer meiner besten Freunde beide Beine verloren, als ein selbstgebauter Sprengsatz unseren Konvoi traf. Er hat vor Beginn unseres Einsatzes geheiratet und hatte nicht mal Zeit für die Flitterwochen. Wir sind alle traurig, nachdem wir ihn gesehen haben und wir begannen uns alle zu fragen: Wie viele müssen noch sterben? Wie viele müssen noch ihre Gliedmaßen verlieren, bevor wir von hier wegkommen?



VON: Al Lorentz
DATUM: Samstag, 22. Mai 2004, 10.32 Uhr
BETREFF: Ein alter Frontsoldat dankt Ihnen

Lieber Mr. Moore,
ich bin eine alter Soldat, der zurzeit im Irak im Felde steht. Ich danke Ihnen und Leuten wie Ihnen, dass sie diese wunderbaren Kids, die im Militär dienen, nicht für einfache Kriegsknechte halten, die man ohne Bedenken ganz nach Laune von ein paar Narren in sinnlose Kriege schicken sollte. Jeder von uns Soldaten schwört einen Eid, die Verfassung der Vereinigten Staaten zu wahren und zu verteidigen. Dieser Krieg hat nichts mit der Wahrung und Verteidigung dieser Verfassung zu tun.
Zweck unseres Militärs ist es, unsere Republik zu verteidigen, und nicht ausländische Diktatoren zu stürzen, in fremden Ländern die "Demokratie" aufzubauen oder die Welt für alle anderen zu einem besseren Ort zu machen. Dies mögen ja noble Ziele sein, aber es ist nicht Aufgabe einer freien und demokratischen Gesellschaft, sie überall durchzusetzen, sonst hört sie auf Republik zu sein, und wird zu einem Imperium.



VON: Django
DATUM: Donnerstag, 27. Mai 2004, 15.07 Uhr
BETREFF: Ein Soldat im Irak

Lieber Mike,
Ich bin ein Soldat, der im Irak stationiert ist. Ich bin schon seit über einem Jahr hier und habe viele Freunde und Kameraden sterben oder Gliedmaßen verlieren sehen. Ich habe ein paar Bedenken, Ihnen zu schreiben, wegen der Bestimmung, nicht negativ über den Präsidenten zu reden, aber eigentlich halte ich ihn ja nicht für den richtigen Präsidenten. Er vertritt nicht die Mehrheit unserer Nation und hat auch niemals in unserer Haut gesteckt. (in der von Soldaten im Krieg, von Arbeitern, gebildeten Leuten usw.)
Wir werden unser Leben für unsere Kameraden opfern, aber ich habe nicht das Gefühl, hier mein Land gegen einen Feind zu verteidigen, der wirklich eine Bedrohung für unsere Nation darstellt.



VON: Kyle Waldman
DATUM: Freitag, 27. Februar 2004. 2.35 Uhr
BETREFF: Keiner

Michael Moore,
meine Zeit im Irak hat mich einiges über das irakische Volk und den Zustand dieses vom Krieg heimgesuchten, bettelarmen Landes gelehrt. Im Rahmen der humanitären Hilfe habe ich ein paar Familien näher kennen gelernt, die in diesen beiden Häusern lebten, und sie sind es, die in Zeiten des Krieges am meisten zu leiden haben, vor allem wenn dessen Ziele so unsinnig waren.
Da gab es ein paar Bauern, die wussten nicht einmal, dass es den ersten Golfkrieg "Desert Storm" oder auch diesen Krieg überhaupt gegeben hat. In diesem Augenblick erkannte ich, dass dieser Krieg von den wenigen veranlasst wurde, die von ihm profitieren würden, und es dabei keineswegs um das Volk ging. Wir Koalitionstruppen haben diese Leute nicht befreit; wir haben sie sogar noch tiefer in die Armut gestürzt. Ich sehe auch in nächster Zukunft keinen wirtschaftlichen Aufschwung für dieses Land voraus, wenn ich sehe, wie Bush dessen Öleinkünfte bereits umgeleitet hat, um sicherzustellen, dass es für unsere Geländewagen immer genug Benzin geben wird.
Wir sollen hier Frieden schaffen, dabei wurden wir nur für Zerstörung ausgebildet. Wie sollen gerade mal 200.000 Soldaten dieses ganze Land kontrollieren?



VON: Michael W.
DATUM: Dienstag, 13. Juli 2004, 12.28 Uhr
BETREFF: Kumpel, der Irak ist echt beschissen

In den wenigen Monaten, die meine Einheit jetzt im Irak stationiert ist, haben wir einen Mann verloren und viele (auch ich) sind bereits bei Kampfhandlungen verwundet worden. Und wofür? Zumindest hätte unsere Regierung dafür sorgen können, dass alle unsere Fahrzeuge eine geeignete und wirksame Schutz Ausrüstung und Panzerung bekommen.
In den frühen Morgenstunden des 10. Mai, auf den Tag genau einen Monat vor meinem 30. Geburtstag, gerieten ich und zwölf andere im südöstlichen Bagdad in einen perfekt angelegten Straßenhinterhalt. Wir wurden mit Handfeuerwaffen, einer raketengetriebenen Granate und zwei am Straßenrand gut getarnten Bomben angegriffen. Diese Bomben zerstörten fast einen unserer "Hummer", durchsiebten meine Freunde mit ihren Splittern und töteten sie beinahe.
Sie hätten keinen Kratzer bekommen, wenn die bereits die neuartige Schutzausrüstung gehabt hätten.
Das Ganze ist einfach zu lächerlich, was mich zu meinem nächsten Punkt bringt. Ein bei Blackwater angestellter Mitarbeiter verdient 15.000 Dollar im Monat, um denselben Job wie meine Kumpel und ich zu erledigen. Ich bekomme hier drüben 4000 Dollar im Monat. Was geht denn hier vor?



VON: Stabsgefreiter Willy
DATUM: Dienstag, 9. März 2004, 13.23 Uhr
BETREFF: Vielen Dank

Mike,
Es ist hart, meinen Oberfeldwebel sagen zu hören: "Wenn Sie sich dazu entschließen, einen bedrohlich aussehenden Zivilisten töten zu wollen, erschießen Sie ihn. Ich fülle lieber einen Haufen Formulare aus, als einen meiner Soldaten von so einem Kopftuchträger totschießen zu lassen."
Selbst wenn jemand nur bedrohlich aussieht, sind wir angewiesen zu handeln, bevor der uns etwas antut. Ich wurde nicht in einer solchen Angst aufgezogen, und es wird seine Zeit brauchen, bis ich mich daran gewöhnt habe.
Die Ansichten der Leute über diesen Krieg haben sich um 180 Grad gedreht, seit wir hier sind. Bereits in der ersten Woche wurde einer von uns bei einem Mörserangriff getötet, und seit dem haben sich die Dinge total verändert. Soldaten rufen ihre Familien an und fordern sie auf, John Kerry zu unterstützen.



VON: Anonym
DATUM: Donnerstag, 15. April 2004, 12.41 Uhr
BETREFF: Von einem KBR-Lastwagenfahrer im Irak

Mike,
Ich bin ein Lastwagenfahrer von Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), einer Tochterfirma von Halliburton, der gerade im Irak arbeitet. Seit ich diesen Job vor einigen Monaten antrat, tragen 100 Prozent (ganz richtig, nicht 99 Prozent) der Arbeiter, die ich hier kenne, viel mehr Stunden in ihren Arbeitszeiterfassungsbogen ein, als sie tatsächlich gearbeitet haben. Da gibt es noch so viel, was ich Ihnen erzählen könnte. Aber Tatsache ist, dass den amerikanischen Steuerzahlern und dem irakischen Volk bereits viele Millionen Dollar durch das unglaubliche Ausmaß von Habgier und Missbrauch geraubt wurden, das hier herrscht.



VON: Anthony Pietsch
DATUM: Donnerstag, 5. August 2004, 18.13
BETREFF: Soldat zu verkaufen

Lieber Mr. Moore,
Ich heiße Tony Pietsch und bin ein Nationalgardist, der die letzten 15 Monate in Kuwait und im Irak stationiert war. Viele Soldaten, mit denen ich sprach, glaubten immer noch and das Militär, aber nicht mehr an den Krieg. Viele waren der Ansicht, das Ganze finde nur statt, weil manche finanziellen Gewinn daraus ziehen, und sie hatten große Schwierigkeiten, den Tod von Freunden und Kameraden zu verkraften, die für solch eine wenig würdige Sache gefallen waren. Ich neigte dazu, ihnen zuzustimmen, obwohl ich das alles nur theoretisch nachvollziehen konnte.
Der irakische Widerstand war der reine Wahnsinn. Ich lag viele Nächte wach, nachdem Mörsergranaten in unmittelbarer Nachbarschaft eingeschlagen hatten, manchmal so nahe, dass dadurch Steine gegen mein Zelt flogen. Ich habe erlebt, wie am Straßenrand versteckte Bomben gezündet wurden und wie Irakis unser Fahrzeug von der Seite rammen wollten. Kleine Kinder zeigten uns den Stinkefinger und warfen Steine auf die Soldaten an den MGs auf den Lastwagen.
Wir haben viele Opfer gebracht; ich hatte an mehr Tagen Angst um mein Leben , als ich zählen kann. Zwar verloren wir unseren ersten Mann erst ein paar Wochen vor Ende unseres Einsatzes, aber es scheint, dass unser ganzer Einsatz völlig nutzlos ist, da wir bei den Einheimischen nur auf Feindschaft und Ablehnung stoßen.



VON: R.H.
DATUM: Montag, 12. Juli 2003, 16.57 Uhr
BETREFF: Ein Teilnehmer des Irakkriegs unterstützt Sie

Lieber Mr. Moore,
Ich kam in den Irak mit der Vorstellung, dass ich dort Leute töten würde, die ich für absolut schrecklich hielt. Ich dachte damals: "Scheiß auf den Irak, scheiß auf diese Leute, hoffentlich killen wir Tausende von denen." Warum um Himmels willen dachte ich so? eigentlich ist das sonst gar nicht meine Art. Ich glaubte eben meinem Präsidenten. Ich dachte, George W. sei einfach großartig. Endlich nahm da einer die Sache in die Hand und ließ sich und unser Land nicht mehr von al-Qaida oder irgendeinem von diesen Terroristen herumschubsen.
Meine Einheit war die 3. Schwadron des 7. Kavallerieregiments der 3. Infanteriedivision, die normalerweise in Fort Stewart in Georgia stationiert ist. Wir waren einer der ersten Verbände, die bis Bagdad vorstießen, und wir bildeten auf dem ganzen Weg durch den Irak praktisch immer die Speerspitze. Ich hatte schreckliche Angst. Ich wusste nicht, was ich denken sollte. Ich sah zum ersten Mal Leichen. Menschen, die es in zwei Teile zerrissen hatte. Kleine Kinder, die dank einiger gut platzierter Kugeln keine Beine mehr hatten. Alles brach über mich herein, was ich sah, was ich hörte, die Angst.



© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2004

[Joerver]

Zum Downloaden nur kurze Zeit, kostenlos:

http://66.90.75.92/suprnova//torrents/2149/Fahrenheit.911.SV…
Es funkt auch bei Windows 98, da der Real-Player eine Zusatzsoftware für DivX-Player anbietet.
Dauert bei DSL1000 gut zwei Stunden, gute Qualität und von Mr.Moore erlaubt.

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Fahrenheit 9/11 the Movie
Der Film über Windows Media Player:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/video1035.htm[/url]
Zum Downloaden nur kurze Zeit:
http://66.90.75.92/suprnova//torrents/2149/Fahrenheit.911.SV…

[Joerver]

Was macht eigentlich Michael Moore?

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

Einige Leute scheint das brennend zu interessieren!

Hier seine Homepage!

[CaptainFutures]

When Punchline Trumps Honesty

There's more McCarthy than Murrow in the work of Michael Moore.

Michael Moore has won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and may win an Oscar for the kind of work that got Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, and Jack Kelly fired.

Trying to track the unproven innuendoes and conspiracies in a Michael Moore film or book is as futile as trying to count the flatulence jokes in one by Adam Sandler. Some journalists and critics have acted as if his wrenching of facts is no more serious than a movie continuity problem, like showing a 1963 Chevy in 1956 Santa Monica.





A documentary film doesn't have to be fair and balanced, to coin a phrase. But it ought to make an attempt to be accurate. It can certainly be pointed and opinionated. But it should not knowingly misrepresent the truth. Much of Michael Moore's films and books, however entertaining to his fans and enraging to his critics, seems to regard facts as mere nuisances to the story he wants to tell.
Back in 1991 that sharpest of film critics, the New Yorker's Pauline Kael, blunted some of the raves for Mr. Moore's "Roger and Me" by pointing out how the film misrepresented many facts about plant closings in Flint, Mich., and caricatured people it purported to feel for. "The film I saw was shallow and facetious," said Kael, "a piece of gonzo demagoguery that made me feel cheap for laughing."

His methods remain unrefined in "Fahrenheit 9/11." Mr. Moore ignores or misrepresents the truth, prefers innuendo to fact, edits with poetic license rather than accuracy, and strips existing news footage of its context to make events and real people say what he wants, even if they don't. As Kael observed back then, Mr. Moore's method is no more high-minded than "the work of a slick ad exec."

The main premise of Mr. Moore's recent work is that both Presidents Bush have been what amounts to Manchurian Candidates of the Saudi royal family. Mr. Moore suggests (he depends so much on innuendo that a simple, declarative verb like "says" is usually impossible) the Saudi government, having soured on their pawns for unstated reasons, launched the attacks of Sept. 11.

"What if these weren't wacko terrorists, but military pilots who signed onto a suicide mission?" Moore asks in the best-selling "Dude, Where's My Country?" "What if they were doing this at the behest of either the Saudi government or certain disgruntled members of the Saudi royal family?" Central to Mr. Moore's indictment of the current President Bush is his charge that the U.S. government secretly assisted the evacuation of bin Laden family members from the U.S. in the hours following the Sept. 11 attacks, when all other flights nationwide were grounded. He supports this with grainy images of indecipherable documents.

But on our show on Saturday, Richard Clarke, the government's former counter-terrorism adviser and no apologist for the Bush administration, told us that he had authorized those flights, but only after air travel had been restored and all the Saudis had been questioned. "I think Moore's making a mountain of a molehill," he said. Moreover, said Mr. Clarke, "He never interviewed me." Instead, Mr. Moore had simply lifted a clip from an ABC interview. Perhaps Mr. Moore just didn't want to get an answer that he didn't want to hear. (See how useful innuendoes can be?)

In what is perhaps the most wrenching scene in the film, an Iraqi woman is shown wailing amid the rubble caused by a bomb that killed members of her family. I do not doubt her account, or her sorrow. I have interviewed Iraqis about U.S. bombs that killed civilians. People who agree to wars should see the human damage bombs can do.

But reporters who were taken around to see the sites of civilian deaths during the bombing of Baghdad also observed that some of those errant bombs were fired by Iraqi anti-aircraft crews. Mr. Moore doesn't let the audience know when and where this bomb was dropped, or otherwise try to identify the culprit of the tragedy.

Mr. Moore tries hard to identify himself with U.S. troops and their concerns. But he spends an awful lot of effort depicting them as dupes and brutes. At one point in "Fahrenheit 9/11," someone off-camera prods a U.S. soldier into singing a favorite hip-hop song with profane lyrics. Mr. Moore then runs the soldier's voice over combat footage, to make it seem as if the soldier were insensitively singing along with the destruction.

In another scene, U.S. soldiers make savage jokes about the awkward effects of rigor mortis on one part of the corpse of an Iraqi soldier. I do not doubt the authenticity of those pictures. But I also have no particular reason to trust it. A few basic details, like where and when the video was shot, are considered traditional reporting techniques (especially after the front-page photos of British soldiers brutalizing Iraqi prisoners turned out to be frauds). A few other basic facts might have informed the audience. Was the Iraqi killed in battle? By a suicide bomb? Moore says the U.S. soldiers are good boys turned coarse in an immoral war. But I have also heard those kind of ugly and anxious jokes about corpses from overstressed emergency room physicians.





In the New York Times, Paul Krugman wrote that, "Viewers may come away from Moore's movie believing some things that probably aren't true," and that he "uses association and innuendo to create false impressions." Try to imagine those phrases on a marquee. But that is his rave review! He lauds "Fahrenheit 9/11" for its "appeal to working-class Americans." Do we really want to believe that only innuendo, untruths, and conspiracy theories can reach working-class Americans?
Governments of both parties have assuaged Saudi interests for more than 50 years. (I wonder if Mr. Moore grasps how much the jobs of auto workers in Flint depended on cheap oil.) Sound questions about the course, costs, and grounds for the war in Iraq have been raised by voices across the political spectrum.

But when 9/11 Commission Chairman Kean has to take a minute at a press conference, as he did last Thursday, to knock down a proven falsehood like the secret flights of the bin Laden family, you wonder if those who urge people to see Moore's film are informing or contaminating the debate. I see more McCarthy than Murrow in the work of Michael Moore. No matter how hot a blowtorch burns, it doesn't shed much light.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110005402

Ja was macht wohl der Herr Moore zurzeit so?

Na klar: Eure Kohle verkloppen, die ihr ihm in den Rachen geworfen habt!

In diesem Sinne:

[Joerver]

Jeder der sich informieren will, kann sich anhand von Pressemeldungen auf der Moore-Homepage über die Fakten informieren, die seinem Film zu Grunde liegt.

Factual Back-Up For Fahrenheit 9/11: Section One

THE FOLLOWING IS THE LINE BY LINE FACTUAL BACKUP FOR 'FAHRENHEIT 9/11'

Section One covers the facts in Fahrenheit 9/11 from the 2000 election to George W. Bush's extended visit to Booker Elementary on the morning of September 11th.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/f911reader/index.php…

Nebenbei bemerkt, ich fand den Film ziemlich langweilig, weil in Europa, die in dem Film erwähnten Dinge garnicht mehr angezweifelt wurden.
Zwischenzeitlich habem auch die meisten US-Bürger die Sachverhalte verstanden, und die in dem Film erwähnten Vorgänge sind von den zu Tage geförderten Beweisen schon längst überholt worden.

Aber es gibt noch einige WSJ-Gläubige.

[PresAbeL]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 20.952.965 von CaptainFutures am 26.03.06 20:15:02

Genau, filthier and dirtier als der Typ geht gar nicht! Seine ganze Existenz (innerlich, aeusserlich, Halliburtontechnisch oder rassistisch) ist ein einziger Schlag in die uninformierte deutsche Gutmenschenfresse!

[PresAbeL]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 20.954.348 von Joerver am 27.03.06 01:03:59

Joerver, ich dachte, Du bist in Rente und planst Deinen Mississippi Sundowner boat trip? Vergiss dieses verlogene AL, von dem sich sogar extrem links ausgelegte NYT Redakteure inzwischen angewidert und embarrassed abwenden ... Ich fand ihn schon immer widerlich! Uebrigens mit Blick auf 08: glaubst Du im Ernst, Democrats haetten auch nur die Spur einer Chance mit ihrer unvermeidlichen Hypollary? Den naechsten Bush habe ich schon laengst ausgemacht: Allen heisst er! America liebt ihn, D wird ihn hassen. Aber: so what? Seit wann muessen die hier Leute waehlen, die von den Deutschen gemocht werden? Das funktioniert ja bis heute noch nicht einmal, wenn es um zugereiste Kandidaten aus felix austria geht ...

[Joerver]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 20.954.473 von PresAbeL am 27.03.06 05:53:16

PresAbel,

Du meinst doch nicht Woody Allen?

Eingebürgerte Österreicher sind in ihrer Wahlheimat aber auch nicht lange der Liebling der Massen.