Posted on 07/14/2004 4:39:38 AM PDT by kristinn
Michael Moore’s latest documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” suggests the entire war in Iraq is a smoke screen for a devious political agenda.
His logic points to corruption in the Bush administration that ties the American government—inexorably and financially—to Saudi Arabia. And sold-out theatres across the United States are indicating Americans are furious and fed up.
“I’m really mad,” Terry Sabbe, a resident of International Falls, said after seeing the two-hour film last Friday. “The war in Iraq was based on a lie. I think it’s all about oil.”
Sabbe said he will be voting for John Kerry in November’s presidential election—a decision that was cemented by seeing “Fahrenheit 9/11.” And he is not alone.
“Fahrenheit 9/11” is casting doubt in the minds of even the staunchest Bush supporters despite the White House’s continual denial of the allegations.
But Moore stands by his film, which recently won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in France and in its opening weekend became the highest-grossing documentary of all time.
With a team of people, including three teams of lawyers and fact-checkers from “The New Yorker,” Moore has compiled a very thorough, well-researched documentary of the Bush administration and the reasons behind the war in—or, rather, liberation of—Iraq.
“I applaud Michael Moore for standing up for the little guy, standing against corporate media, and exposing this war for the sham it is,” said Lutheran pastor Tom Aitken of International Falls.
“I think you almost need something this arresting to awaken people from this sort of slumber they’re in about world politics,” he added.
As with anything that sparks so much controversy, indignant voices are racing to be heard as truth.
The right-wing website Freerepublic.com conducted a small poll, asking the question, “What kind of effect do you think the documentary film, ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ will have on public opinion toward the Bush administration?”
Seventy-six percent (6,309 of 8,210) voted for the option that read “Positive—this film and its director, Michael Moore, will do more damage to their own side with their distorted propaganda.”
But last week, the voices of the people outside Cine 5 in International Falls were not echoing that sentiment.
“The Vietnam war was based on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which never took place,” said Mary Ojala. “It was a lie, it was a fraud, and so are the reasons for this war.
“I don’t think Bush should be president of the U.S.” The outraged opinions in the film are undoubtedly Moore’s, which he makes very clear. He does not claim to be objective in his pursuit of a Democratic overhaul of America.
He simply poses questions to get the American people—and people everywhere—thinking.
“For one thing, it kind of made me realize a couple of things,” said Matt Sabbe, Terry’s son, who is now 21 and can vote for the first time this year. “It was hard to see the United States president not leave the photo op when he found out [about the World Trade Center attack].
“That bugged me a lot.”
He was referring to a scene in the movie that shows Bush sitting in an elementary school classroom, reading with the children, when he is told of the attack on the twin towers.
He continued to sit there—staring blankly—as the situation escalated and the clock on the camera ticked slowly forward.
“I don’t want to vote for George,” added the younger Sabbe, looking as though he just had the wind knocked out of him. “I don’t like him anymore.”
The White House did not return calls by the Times for comment, but recently, on “Ask the White House,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage responded to a question that asked the White House’s response to the part of the film that shows permission given to members of the bin Laden family to fly out of the country just after Sept. 11, 2001 while the rest of the continent was still grounded.
“I did not see the film so I can’t comment on it,” was Armitage’s response.
“There were certain people from Saudi Arabia who left after 9/11, and my understanding is that the bi-partisan commission who is investigating 9/11 found nothing untoward in this departure,” he added.
Bush and his administration have been doing what they can to discredit Moore while delicately avoiding a direct answer.
Moore has suggested that perhaps the White House is hoping “Fahrenheit 9/11” will sink underneath the box office heavyweight
“Spiderman2”—or perhaps they’re hoping that the less attention they draw to the film, the better.
But as the days tick towards November’s election, the momentum is showing no signs of slowing and the coverage of the film certainly is not dwindling.
Mark Twain once said to never pick a fight with someone who buys his ink by the barrel, and it certainly has been the voice of Moore and the leftists that have been ringing most clearly since the opening of the film.
There was no one at Friday night’s screening of the movie willing to speak in support of the Bush administration.
How many of those youngsters will even make it to the polls come november?
And the Fort Francis Times will not write a follow-up article to show how their reporter Jessica A. Wilson has been proven wrong.
He'd have you believe that he was a potential Bush vote prior to seeing the propaganda piece. Yeah, right.
People stupid enough to believe this garbage (in Moore's movie) aer either already voting Democrat or have no business voting in the first place.
I won't be surprised if many who originally see the film and get mad at Pres Bush, may come around and get REALLY pissed at Moore for making them feel like idiots with their friends who knew better... as moore and moore of the film's lies and distortions come to light.
Speaking to anyon coming out of a Michael moore movie is like speaking to the monkey in their cage at the zoo.Dont expect a coherent answer.
Did you see actor Ron Silver on OReilly last night? He's a democrat who doesn't sound too happy with the far left takeover of the democratic party.
What a steaming pile, Michael Moore, the movie, and the author.
Whenever anyone asks me I will say, "I was going to vote for John Kerry until I saw him being pushed away as he tried to kiss his wife."
No, but I remember him speaking at the Citizens United rally for the troops in April, 2003. Any sane Democrat left in that party has got to be alarmed at their embrace of loons like Michael Moore.
I think there are a lot of democrats out there who are afraid of whats happening to their party. Unfortunately they've been effectively silenced.
I think you've got a good point. Moore released the movie too far from the election to let it stand unrefuted. The Kool-Aid drinkers won't change their minds, but the curious who came away believing Moore's lies will learn the truth in the coming months.
Hopefully they'll follow Zell Miller's lead.
"I'm going to vote for John Kerry before I vote against him."
Was this written by an eighth grader? The lack of ability to develop coherent arguments based on evidence and logic indicates a pre-pubescent mind.
Why not take exit polls of the Bush re-election campaign staff?
Talk about a skewed sample!
Anyone who attends a 9/11 screening should be screened for rabies.
Ron Silver has spoken up on earlier occatsions as well.
I have a dedicated liberal sister who saw the movie the other night and sent me a blistering e-mail telling me, among other things, that Bill Clinton simply lied about a blow job from an intern, whereas George Bush lied about a war that has killed thousands of men, women and children, and that I should break from my traditional feelings, go see the movie with an open mind, and think about what I am seeing.
I cannot respond to her message. I have told her before that we should not talk politics because neither one of us will ever change the other's mind, and at the time, she did agree that we should take politics off the table, but nevertheless, she has to constantly let me know how much she despises George Bush. She says she will do everything she can to remove George Bush from office. According to her he is a dangerous man.
Thankfully, I have two other sisters who think as I do. Both of them also received the same scathing e-mail. They are not going to respond to it either.
So, we are four sisters, we live in various area across the country, we see each other one or two times a year. Three conservatives to one liberal. We all love each other, and we always have a good time when we get together. But its probably a good thing that the miles separate us.
I was gonna do the same thing.
Send her Pete Townshend's statement on Michael Moore.
You need to be with your sister on Election night and the following day. She is going to become very depressed.
Liberals have told me that I am insane or stupid because i won't go see the movie before voting.
Yes, like they'd go see some conservative-made, anti-liberal movie like "The Clinton Chronicles" that was apparently as dishonest as F-9/11. Or do you think they'd read that new book "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Liar" or something similar? Just ask them for the major points Moore makes in the film. Then tell them that EVERY ONE!! of them has been refuted...by Bush-hating liberals like Richard Cohen !!! Liberals do have a lot of nerve. "Please go and watch this biased, lying, anti-Bush flick before you vote giving one of the worst anti-American traitors we have (MM) more money to slam the country that has made him wealthy." Yes indeed.
International Fals, MN
Population (year 2000): 6,703, Est. population in July 2002: 6,467 (-3.6% change)
Males: 3,196 (47.7%), Females: 3,507 (52.3%)
Median resident age: 40.5 years
Median household income: $29,908 (year 2000)
Median house value: $57,200 (year 2000)
Races in International Falls:
White Non-Hispanic (94.8%)
American Indian (3.7%)
Two or more races (1.5%)
Hispanic (0.7%)
Ancestries: Norwegian (23.2%), German (20.0%), Swedish (15.1%), Irish (11.4%), French (7.4%), English (6.9%).
Scandahoovian and French socialists. Nuf said
A great response on the site.
In life, decisions must start from a premise.
The premise of President Bush is that radical Muslims, supported by the Taliban in Afghanistan, conducted the attacks on the Pentagon, the World Trade Centre, and the American people.
Bush took them out decisively, unlike Clinton who did nothing at all in his entire presidency, despite the first attempt at destroying the World Trade Center in 1993 (the first year of HIS office), by the same radical Muslims. Bush also learned a lesson from 9/11:
Threats from rogue regimes are too dangerous to allow to happen.
He looked at the Iraq regime's history of aggression, documented use of Weapons of Mass Destruction, defying of the United Nations, threats against America, pursuit of nuclear weapons, financial support of terrorism, torturing and murdering of his own people, harbouring of known terrorists including Al Qaeda, and he gave Saddam one last chance to join the civilized world.
When he refused, Bush took him out pre-emptively to save the free world from Saddam's wrath.
Saddam, and the world, could not believe the resolve and determination of Bush to eliminate terrorism.
Al Qaeda is on the run and being decimated round the world.
Welcome to reality, Jessica. Moore is a traitor to his country, and a danger to the free world.
Everytime I saw a quote in that article i couldn't help but think about the photos from The Onion. These people are truly idiots.
If the Rats have their strategy in place by then, dogs and cats will be voting...
Quick! Someone bring the microscope and the calipers. This may be a world record for smallest brain in what is apparently a human being.
Get your sister a copy of "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man" now, in the mail FedEX.
Also people we have got to get that movie "Michael Moore Hates America" in the theaters now!
Bush and his administration have been doing what they can to discredit Moore
Does the author have a single shred of evidence to support this claim?
Or does he, like Moore, just make it up as he goes along?
I agree, and I think it's time to start a grass-roots project to re-legitimize the Democrat Party. This could be done first by each person working among his fellow residents to assure that conservative Democrats (and yes, they exist) are nominated and elected to local offices. Some of those would over time migrate on up to state and federal positions.
If this could be accomplished over the next 30-40 years, it would not only solve the problem of the left-wingnuts, but it would force the Republican Party to become more conservative as well.
The late Bob Bullock (D-TX) was conservative, as is Zell Miller (D-GA). The Democrat Party needs more people like them, and I believe this forum is a great launching pad for such a project.
Just an idea, but is anyone else thinking along these lines?
"“Fahrenheit 9/11” is casting doubt in the minds of even the staunchest Bush supporters despite the White House’s continual denial of the allegations."
And yet, the author of this puff piece didn't seem to be able to get a quote from a single one. She simply states what she thinks and believes without an iota of fact. This demonstrates that the audiences are packed with MoveOn morons, and other liberal rumpswabs trying to make the film look like it is popular.
And who gives a flying fig if Canadians like Bush or not?
You can imagine the interviews one would get here in Amherst, MA. Based on such an interview, ol' biased Jessica could make it look like the coutry dispised the President.
Just another example of piss poor "journalism."
Regretably, I have personally viewed the tripe put forth by Mike Reifenshtal, er, Moore. The 'packed' theater had about a dozen people in it, out of 200 seats. EVERY other person in that theater were leftists, and acted accordingly. They BOOED our troops on the screen. They catcalled every time our President appeared on the screen. They raised the roof every time Mikey made one of his "Bush lied" points. They, however, did not appreciate my running commentary on the half-truths, misperceptions, and outright fictions that this movie is made of. Only one thought himself large enough or skilled enough to object forcefully. He was mistaken, and found that out in short order. The usher backed me up on it, too. She wasn't happy at being assigned to that screen. The left literally stinks. Unwashed, you see. But then, we FReepers knew that already.
All this movie did was prove the left hates the President. As if we didn't know this already....
For a moment, I thought I was reading a post from me or my youngest sister. That is, until you said "we are four sisters...." I have 3 sisters. One a raving left-wing lunatic, and the other two conservative. However, I am their brother. :-)
or, simply is full of hate. self-hate, hate for America, hate for what is good and right, hate, hate, hate. :-(
The ELCA probably helped fund the movie...they probably have made it mandatory for all ELCA pastors to view the movie as well. Most of their assemblies consist of Bush/war bashing anyways.
png
This is where our young writer's own "logic" falls apart.
That is right out of the MoveOn.org playbook! MoveOn has sread that message: Tell them what you must, but get them to see the movie!, because it's too powerful for them to exercise critical thinking, and they will go against Bush!
NEVER patronize PROPAGANDISTS!!
This is the liberal way. Several Freepers and others I know have observed it for a long time.
My husband's brother is liberal and never fails to pontificate or express his views (I often tell of how he arrived at the family Christmas dinner wearing a Dennis Kucinich t-shrt), but still I and others say nothing.
That is until at Easter when he started in at the dinner table about how "we" had killed all of these innocent Iraqis. I'd had quite enough and spoke up. He was stunned that someone confronted him and left the table. Oh well.
I usually tell such people as your brother-in-law that I do nt discuss poitics with them because I simply do not value their opinion. I am not interested in hearing their opinion, and do not want to waste mine on them. In other words, I politely tell them I don't discuss politics with people who IMO have excrement for brains.
What better way to tell the world "I'm a fricking idiot!"
ex 98C MI Dude: You've the right stuff.
F911 is garbage and lies. And it is absolutely disgusting the bias in this article ... doubt about its veracity is treated as partisan:
" despite the White House’s continual denial of the allegations. "
While Moore's claims that are surely as phony as his documentaries are treated as 'true' without a whit of consideration of who *told them* of this "team of people' etc. (Moore did!) " With a team of people, including three teams of lawyers and fact-checkers from “The New Yorker,” Moore has compiled a very thorough, well-researched documentary of the Bush administration and the reasons behind the war in—or, rather, liberation of—Iraq. "
The effect? THIS IS NOTHING MORE THAN A MOORE PUFF PIECE. It may been written on his website and just cut-n-pasted in this 'newspaper'.
Did he really create a 'well-researched documentary'? NO HE HASNT. He has concocted a very biased and ill-informed hit-piece chock full of contradictory and inflammatory conspiracy-mongering and innuendo.
See:
http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_freedomstruth_archive.html#108957722874771168
This propaganda movie, Farenheit 911, got a Cannes Palme D'Or with about as much justification as Arafat got a Nobel Peace Prize, and now is on to boffo box office for a documentary. Begs a question - Is it worth it? As a film, it serves the same purpose as a previous French film award winner, the Nazi film, "Triumph of the Will": Propaganda for a particular viewpoint. (This link about the Leni Reifenstal film says that in 1937, it won the Grand Prix in Paris. So much for the movie standards of the French.) The point is not to cast F911 as a nazi flick (although someone has pegged Michael Moore as the Democrats' David Duke) but to point out the obvious: that a 'documentary' or a political propaganda film should be judged a bit differently than a fictional Hollywood movie. Standards of truth and purpose need to apply.
On that score, Hitchens finds him wanting saying "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." The LA Times media critic asks Truth teller or story stretcher? and clearly shows Moore tapdancing around truth and facts multiple times. This article btw notes that There are now websites devoted to debunking Michael Moore, and of course a Book out debunking Moore's career. A British paper debunks Moore so thoroughly, he describes it as "not even wrong" saying: "Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 is so distanced from the constraints of fact that his claims roam into the realms of fantasy. They need to be challenged."
...
Reply to them that it is as fictional as Spiderman-2. Must they see Spiderman-2 before voting?
(Actually it is worse than that, since it is making them believe in lies.)
Point them to aq debunking of Moore's movie and *then* ask them how they feel about things:
http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_freedomstruth_archive.html#108957722874771168
As we all know, a man can be known by his enemies—and with enemies like Woody Allen, Whoopi G. and Michael Moore, Bush is standing as tall as Texas! :o)
Also...big FR Bump!!!
This movie, outside of being a lie, is no big deal at the box office... It made the same amount so far as "Mean Girls", "Scooby-Do", and less than Dodge-Ball... For a movie with all of the hype in the world, and so many rabid libs seeing it (many more than once), the overall take so far, $88 million, is really pretty pathetic, if you ask me http://boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/?sortdate=2004-07-13&p=.htm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.