Michael Moores Oscar acceptance speech

ratio of boos/cheers apparently the subject of some debate, it seems to depend on what you're most expecting/wanting to hear

FWIW, Moore pretty much said on the way in the door that he would do something like he did, were he to win.

As I said there, I think the fiction/non-fiction distinction is specious. America has always been a "fiction" - that's what the Constitution is.

As for expecting boos or cheers, I thought Hollywood supported Moore and the lady who announced he had won (forgot her name) was smiling as if to say, "Alright, attaboy!" I was looking forward to something like this, and yet all I heard were boos. I didn't hear any cheers, unless they were the old Arsenio Hall dog woof sort of cheers, but I doubt that.

I thought Adrain Brody's (sp?) acceptance speech and denouncement of war was a bit more graceful.

funny how they let the actors ramble on and they interupted moore
after a minute.

the fiction/non-fiction distinction is specious. America has always been a "fiction" - that's what the Constitution is.

This is where I differ from Moore: 'We like non-fiction and we live in fictitious times'. Now I have no problem with various 'fictions' -- the US constitution, JFK's pledge to put a man on the moon, etc. Imagination can and must be a factor in the formulation of policy. But at a certain moment -- what Bush calls 'the moment of truth' -- you turn fiction into fact. People die for ideas.

And at that point literary criticism is called for. Was this a good fiction, one worth dying for (and there are fictions worth dying for), or was it a poor, shoddy, mean-spirited, selfish, lowbrow fiction, a penny dreadful? And there can be no doubt that stuff like 'The Project For The New American Century' is not Twain, or Shakespeare, or Marx. It's, at best, an editorial in 'Jane's Defence Weekly' crossed with a Jack Chick comic.

Goodness me, who's ever said that? He is an evil bastard with vast power. Some dreamer.

it's a figure of speech for Christ's sake sez I who does not believe in the divinity of Christ ;)

The problem with a written constitution is that it presupposes that it need not ever change. I think that Mr. Moore's Oscar winning documentary might demonstrate the issues with this type of constitution. Sure, people might be more aware of their rights if they have a document that can be read, but then this document becomes untouchable, regardless of the reality of time and change.

It would seem to me (apologies in advance for pretentious wankery) that the US exists as a modernist entity. Modernism, by suggesting at around the turn of the century that, although old ideologies don't function, new ones can be established. These new ones would be completely workable. Frankly, I think the US was ahead of its time--it is really a modernist state--a state created from a new sense of what statehood is--a state with a new constitution--a state with a new form of goverment--a state quite satisfied that it will function well. Unfortunately, the modernist state that is the US doesn't seem to work because it is not subject to the reality of dynamic change (I could use the word postmodern here, but I'll hold myself back--I've been out of grad school long enough to know that using postmodern as a descriptor can be quite annoying). Thus, we end up with a sense of the US as unquestionable--the consitution is unquestionable, the foreign policy is unquestionable, and the country is unquestionable even in the face of profound objections from the rest of the world.

Anyhow, I apologize once again. It's early and I'm suffering from an overdose of the BBC World Service.

'American Primacy' is less an experiment than a Testament. It decrees a future without doubt.

And why is that?

Correct. I don't see what's so "needlessly effete" about that.

I think anyone who voted for him was out of order, in one way or another. I don't usually call them 'dupes'.

Something about the idea of a 'smarter understanding' doesn't convince me. That could be because there are so many things I don't understand.

I think the Nipper should be needlessly effete in all circumstances.

I initially read this as "neat ubermousian idea" which amused the hell out me

I'm not one to defend Momus, who I think is so blinded by the glamor of postmodernism that he ends up sidestepping most/all of what's interesting about the very questions he himself raises, but I must do so here: drawing strands from disparate elements into one slightly (playfully) perverse idea is Momus's schtick -- not "schtick" in a derogatory sense at all: it's what he does, right, and in fairness to him I don't think he's claiming (I hope he's not claiming) to have discovered The Great Big Insight into the things he talks about. I view it as more, "Y'all know how I do things: here's what happens when how I do things intersects with [insert the present object of his scrutiny's affection]."

And now Nick please back away from the postmodernism-posing-as-modernism table, that stuff's been dead for at least eight years ;)

I doubt it. At a talk last February he was asked how things would be different in Al Gore was in change, and he said "They wouldn't. He do the same things because he wouldn't want to be seen as a wimp."

yeah, it'd prolly be easier for him to get around on that scooter thingy.

Yes - I think it may have died at about 5:40pm on the Thursday before Wake Up Boo! came out.

Right, forget the Red Cross, what the people of Iraq need now is Northrop Frye.
I'm sorry, Momus, I think I see your point, but I also think it's, uh, a bit naive and self-absorbed.

What I've been saying! Hurrah for Mr. Moore.

My God, John...are you never NOT on here? I mean, do you have nothing better to do than to cyber-stalk me and make sure that I end all my posts with...

you pieces of shit.

There's even still that bizarre unconfirmed story that Osama has to have dialysis, and had them at a U.S. Army hospital in Dubaï on July 14th, 2001.

If Osama needs dialysis, why isn't that mentioned anymore?

yeah the amt. of time I've been spending on here is truly unhealthy, it's just that I haven't been home for this many days in a row since mid-January and the luxury of just melding with the computer chair hasn't worn off yet

also, that "you pieces of shit" thing makes me laugh so God damned hard I can still hardly stand it

I seriously do believe that if the US public -- or the Supreme Court -- had better powers of critical discimination in 2000, we would not be needing the Red Cross in Iraq right now. And yes, I do mean something as 'effete' as literary criticism, because what is democratic politics but rhetoric leading to power?

One reason Bush is in power is because 23% of voting-age Americans (44 million voters) are functionally illiterate, ie unable to decipher a voting slip. There's nothing postmodern about that point. Politics is fiction, and 44 million can't read or write.

Nick, what do the U.S. Supreme Court's "powers of critical discimination [sic]" have to do with it? Assuming you are passingly familiar with the critical legal response to Bush v. Gore, you should be aware that it is the most mocked SCOTUS opinion in thirty years! The Supreme Court's action had nothing to do with their critical faculties and everything to do with ideology, and criticism can be wielded in favor of backward ideologies as well as forward ones.

Gore would probably have gone after Bin Laden as President; it's not like he had many dealings with him and his family in the commercial sphere previous to thattime, unlike his creepy opponent.

Any more of this silliness and I'm recording an offensive reggae version of "The Sadness of Things" and posting it on here.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/kidney.htm

(Applies critical skills) Surely you mean exclusive? See, I might have elected you president if I weren't so literate.

The Supreme Court's action had nothing to do with their critical faculties and everything to do with ideology, and criticism can be wielded in favor of backward ideologies as well as forward ones.

I don't see any serious critics arguing that John Grisham is great literature, even lawers! Good critics cannot endorse shoddy literature. (Try calling me a postmodernist now, you pieces of shit!)

ypoc (in a rush, sorry, John)

ypoc

Calling everything a "fiction" and assessing whether it's a good story or not makes no practical difference whatsoever.

Try some "real" theory:

THE IRAQ WAR: WHERE IS THE TRUE DANGER?
by Slavoj Zizek

We all remember the old joke about the borrowed kettle which Freud
quotes in order to render the strange logic of dreams, namely the
enumeration of mutually exclusive answers to a reproach (that I
returned to a friend a broken kettle): (1) I never borrowed a
kettle from you; (2) I returned it to you unbroken; (3) the kettle
was already broken when I got it from you. For Freud, such an
enumeration of inconsistent arguments of course confirms per
negationem what it endeavors to deny - that I returned you a
broken kettle... Do we not encounter the same inconsistency when
high US officials try to justify the attack on Iraq? (1) There is
a link between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda, so Saddam should be
punished as part of the revenge for 9/11; (2) even if there was no
link between Iraqi regime and al Qaeda, they are united in their
hatred of the US - Saddam's regime is a really bad one, a threat
not only to the US, but also to its neighbors, and we should
liberate the Iraqi people; (3) the change of regime in Iraq will
create the conditions for the resolution of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The problem is that there are TOO
MANY reasons for the attack... Furthermore, one is almost tempted
to claim that, within the space of this reference to the Freudian
logic of dreams, the Iraqi oil supplies function as the famous
"umbilical cord" of the US justification(s) - almost tempted,
since it would perhaps be more reasonable to claim that there are
also three REAL reasons for the attack: (1) the control of the
Iraqi oil reserves; (2) the urge to brutally assert and signal the
unconditional US hegemony; (3) the "sincere" ideological belief
that the US are bringing to other nations democracy and
prosperity. And it seems as if these three "real" reasons are the
"truth" of the three official reasons: (1) is the truth of the
urge to liberate Iraqis; (2) is the truth of the claim the attack
on Iraq will help to resolve the Middle East conflict; (3) is the
truth of the claim that there is a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
- And, incidentally, opponents of the war seem to repeat the same
inconsistent logic: (1) Saddam is really bad, we also want to see
him toppled, but we should give inspectors more time, since
inspectors are more efficient; (2) it is all really about the
control of oil and American hegemony - the true rogue state which
terrorizes others are the US themselves; (3) even if successful,
the attack on Iraq will give a big boost to a new wave of the
anti-American terrorism; (4) Saddam is a murderer and torturer,
his regime a criminal catastrophe, but the attack on Iraq destined
to overthrow Saddam will cost too much...
The one good argument for war is the one recently evoked by
Christopher Hitchens: one should not forget that the majority of
Iraqis effectively are Saddam's victims, and they would be really
glad to get rid of them. He was such a catastrophe for his country
that an American occupation in WHATEVER form may seem a much
brighter prospect to them with regard to daily survival and much
lower level of fear. We are not talking here of "bringing Western
democracy to Iraq," but just of getting rid of the nightmare
called Saddam. To this majority, the caution expressed by Western
liberals cannot but appear deeply hypocritical - do they really
care about how the Iraqi people feel?

One can make even a more general point here: what about pro-Castro
Western Leftists who despise what Cubans themselves call "gusanos
/worms/," those who emigrated - but, with all sympathy for the
Cuban revolution, what right does a typical middle class Western
Leftist have to despise a Cuban who decided to leave Cuba not only
because of political disenchantment, but also because of poverty
which goes up to simple hunger? In the same vein, I myself
remember from the early 1990s dozens of Western Leftists who
proudly threw in my face how for them, Yugoslavia still exists,
and reproached me for betraying the unique chance of maintaining
Yugoslavia - to which I always answered that I am not yet ready to
lead my life so that it will not disappoint Western Leftist
dreams... There are effectively few things more worthy of
contempt, few attitudes more ideological (if this word has any
meaning today, it should be applied here) than a tenured Western
academic Leftist arrogantly dismissing (or, even worse,
"understanding" in a patronizing way) an Eastern European from a
Communist country who longs for Western liberal democracy and some
consumerist goods... However, it is all too easy to slip from this
fact to the notion that "under their skin, Iraqis are also like
us, and really want the same as we do." The old story will repeat
itself: America brings to the people new hope and democracy, but,
instead of hailing the US army, the ungrateful people do want it,
they suspect a gift in the gift, and America then reacts as a
child with hurt feelings because of the ingratitude of those it
selflessly helped.
The underlying presupposition is the old one: under our skin, if
we scratch the surface, we are all Americans, that is our true
desire - so all is needed is just to give people a chance,
liberate them from their imposed constraints, and they will join
us in our ideological dream... No wonder that, in February 2003,
an American representative used the word "capitalist revolution"
to describe what Americans are now doing: exporting their
revolution all around the world. No wonder they moved from
"containing" the enemy to a more aggressive stance. It is the US
which is now, as the defunct USSR was decades ago, the subversive
agent of a world revolution. When Bush recently said "Freedom is
not America's gift to other nations, it is god's gift to
humanity," this apparent modesty nonetheless, in the best
totalitarian fashion, conceals its opposite: yes, BUT it is
nonetheless the US which perceives itself as the chosen instrument
of distributing this gift to all the nations of the world!

The idea to "repeat Japan in 1945," to bring democracy to Iraq,
which will then serve as model for the entire Arab world, enabling
people to get rid of the corrupt regimes, immediately faces an
insurmountable obstacle: what about Saudi Arabia where it is in
the vital US interest that the country does NOT turn into
democracy? The result of democracy in Saudi Arabia would have been
either the repetition of Iran in 1953 (a populist regime with an
anti-imperialist twist) or of Algeria a couple of years ago, when
the "fundamentalists" WON the free elections.
There is nonetheless a grain of truth in Rumsfeld's ironic pun
against the "old Europe." The French-German united stand against
the US policy apropos Iraq should be read against the background
of the French-German summit a month ago in which Chirac and
Schroeder basically proposed a kind of dual Franco-German hegemony
over the European Community. So no wonder that anti-Americanism is
at its strongest in "big" European nations, especially France and
Germany: it is part of their resistance to globalization. One
often hears the complaint that the recent trend of globalization
threatens the sovereignty of the Nation-States; here, however, one
should qualify this statement: WHICH states are most exposed to
this threat? It is not the small states, but the second-rate
(ex-)world powers, countries like United Kingdom, Germany and
France: what they fear is that, once fully immersed in the newly
emerging global Empire, they will be reduced at the same level as,
say, Austria, Belgium or even Luxembourg. The refusal of
"Americanization" in France, shared by many Leftists and Rightist
nationalists, is thus ultimately the refusal to accept the fact
that France itself is losing its hegemonic role in Europe. The
leveling of weight between larger and smaller Nation-States should
thus be counted among the beneficial effects of globalization:
beneath the contemptuous deriding of the new Eastern European
post-Communist states, it is easy to discern the contours of the
wounded Narcissism of the European "great nations." And this
great-state-nationalism is not just a feature external to the
(failure of) the present opposition; it affects the very way
France and Germany articulated this opposition. Instead of doing,
even more actively, precisely what Americans are doing -
MOBILIZING the "new European" states on their own
politico-military platform, ORGANIZING the common new front -,
France and Germany arrogantly acted alone.
In the recent French resistance against the war on Iraq, there
definitely is a clear echo of the "old decadent" Europe: escape
the problem by non-acting, by new resolutions upon resolutions -
all this reminiscent of the inactivity of the League of Nations
against Germany in the 1930s. And the pacifist call "let the
inspectors do their work" clearly IS hypocritical: they are only
allowed to do the work because there is a credible threat of
military intervention. Not to mention the French neocolonialism in
Africa (from Congo-Brazzaville to the dark French role in the
Rwanda crisis and massacres)? And about the French role in the
Bosnian war? Furthermore, as it was made clear a couple of months
ago, is it not clear that France and Germany worry about their own
hegemony in Europe?

Is the war on Iraq not the moment of truth when the "official"
political distinctions are blurred? Generally, we live in a
topsy-turvy world in which Republicans freely spend money,
creating record budget deficits, while Democrats practice budget
balance; in which Republicans, who thunder against big government
and preach devolution of power to states and local communities,
are in the process of creating the strongest state mechanism of
control in the entire history of humanity. And the same applies to
post-Communist countries. Symptomatic is here the case of Poland:
the most ardent supporter of the US politics in Poland is the
ex-Communist president Kwasniewski (who is even mentioned as the
future secretary of NATO, after George Robertson), while the main
opposition to the participation of Poland in the anti-Iraq
coalition comes from the Rightist parties. Towards the end of
January 2003, the Polish bishops also demanded from the government
that it should add to the contract which regulates the membership
of Poland in the EU a special paragraph guaranteeing that Poland
will "retain the right to keep its fundamental values as they are
formulated in its constitution" - by which, of course, are meant
the prohibition of abortion, of euthanasia and of the same-sex
marriages.

The very ex-Communist countries which are the most ardent
supporters of the US "war on terror" deeply worry that their
cultural identity, their very survival as nations, is threatened
by the onslaught of cultural "americanization" as the price for
the immersion into global capitalism - we thus witness the paradox
of pro-Bushist anti-Americanism. In Slovenia, my own country,
there is a similar inconsistency: the Rightist nationalist
reproach the ruling Center-Left coalition that, although it is
publicly for joining NATO and supporting the US anti-terrorist
campaign, it is secretly sabotaging it, participating in it for
opportunist reasons, not out of conviction. At the same time,
however, it is reproaching the ruling coalition that it wants to
undermine Slovene national identity by advocating full Slovene
integration into the Westernized global capitalism and thus
drowning Slovenes into contemporary Americanized pop-culture. The
idea is that the ruling coalition sustains pop culture, stupid TV
amusement, mindless consumption, etc., in order to turn Slovenes
into an easily manipulated crowd unable of serious reflection and
firm ethical posture... In short, the underlying motif is that the
ruling coalition stands for the "liberal-Communist plot" :
ruthless unconstrained immersion in global capitalism is perceived
as the latest dark plot of ex-Communists enabling them to retain
their secret hold on power.
The almost tragic misunderstanding is that the nationalists, on
the one hand, unconditionally support NATO (under the US command),
reproaching the ruling coalition with secretly supporting
antiglobalists and anti-American pacifists, while, on the other
hand, they worry about the fate of Slovene identity in the process
of globalization, claiming that the ruling coalition wants to
throw Slovenia into the global whirlpool, not worrying about the
Slovene national identity. Ironically, the new emerging
socio-ideological order these nationalist conservatives are
bemoaning reads like the old New Left description of the
"repressive tolerance" and capitalist freedom as the mode of
appearance of unfreedom. Here, the example of Italy is crucial,
with Berlusconi as prime minister: the staunchest supporter of the
US AND the agent of the TV-idiotizing of the public opinion,
turning politics into a media show and running a large
advertisement and media company.

Where, then, do we stand with reasons pro et contra? Abstract
pacifism is intellectually stupid and morally wrong - one has to
stand up against a threat. Of course the fall of Saddam would have
been a relief to a large majority of the Iraqi people. Even more,
of course the militant Islam is a horrifying anti-feminist etc.
ideology. Of course there is something of a hypocrisy in all the
reasons against: the revolt should come from Iraqi people
themselves; we should not impose our values on them; war is never
a solution; etc. BUT, although all this is true, the attack is
wrong - it is WHO DOES IT that makes it wrong. The reproach is:
WHO ARE YOU TO DO THIS? It is not war or peace, it is the correct
"gut feeling" that there is something terribly wrong with THIS
war, that something will irretrievably change with it.
One of Jacques Lacan's outrageous statements is that, even if what
a jealous husband claims about his wife (that she sleeps around
with other men) is all true, his jealousy is still pathological;
along the same lines, one could say that, even of most of the Nazi
claims about the Jews were true (they exploit Germans, they seduce
German girls...), their anti-Semitism would still be (and was)
pathological - because it represses the true reason WHY the Nazis
NEEDED anti-Semitism in order to sustain their ideological
position. And the same should be said today, apropos of the US
claim "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction!" - even if this
claim is true (and it probably is, at least to some degree), it is
still false with regard to the position from which it is
enunciated.

Everyone fears the catastrophic outcome of the US attack on Iraq:
an ecological catastrophe of gigantic proportions, high US
casualties, a terrorist attack in the West... In this way, we
already accept the US standpoint - and it is easy to imagine how,
if the war will be over soon, in a kind of repetition of the 1990
Gulf War, if Saddam's regime will disintegrate fast, there will be
a universal sigh of relief even among many present critics of the
US policy. One is even tempted to consider the hypothesis that the
US are on purpose fomenting this fear of an impending catastrophe,
counting on the universal relief when the catastrophe will NOT
occur... This, however, is arguably the greatest true danger. That
is to say, one should gather the courage to proclaim the opposite:
perhaps, the bad military turn for the US would be the best thing
that can happen, a sobering piece of bad news which would compel
all the participants to rethink their position.

On 9/11 2001, the Twin Towers were hit; twelve years earlier, on
11/9 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. 11/9 announced the "happy 90s,"
the Francis Fukuyama dream of the "end of history," the belief
that liberal democracy has in principle won, that the search is
over, that the advent of a global liberal world community lurks
round the corner, that the obstacles to this ultra-Hollywood happy
ending are just empirical and contingent, local pockets of
resistance where the leaders did not yet grasp that their time is
over; in contrast to it, 9/11 is the main symbol of the end of the
Clintonite happy 90s, of the forthcoming era in which new walls
are emerging everywhere, between Israel and the West Bank, around
the European Union, on the US-Mexican border. The prospect of a
new global crisis is looming: economic collapses, military and
other catastrophes, emergency states...

And when politicians start to directly justify their decisions in
ethical terms, one can be sure that ethics is mobilized to cover
up such dark threatening horizons. It is the very inflation of
abstract ethical rhetorics in George W. Bush's recent public
statements (of the "Does the world have the courage to act against
the Evil or not?" type) which manifests the utter ETHICAL misery
of the US position - the function of ethical reference is here
purely mystifying, it merely serves to mask the true political
stakes, which are not difficult to discern. In their recent The
War Over Iraq, William Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan wrote: "The
mission begins in Baghdad, but it does not end there. /.../ We
stand at the cusp of a new historical era. /.../ This is a
decisive moment. /.../ It is so clearly about more than Iraq. It
is about more even than the future of the Middle East and the war
on terror. It is about what sort of role the United States intends
to play in the twenty-first century." One cannot but agree with
it: it is effectively the future of international community which
is at stake now - the new rules which will regulate it, what the
new world order will be. What is going on now is the next logical
step of the US dismissal of the Hague court.

The first permanent global war crimes court started to work on
July 1, 2002 in The Hague, with the power to tackle genocide,
crimes against humanity and war crimes. Anyone, from a head of
state to an ordinary citizen, will be liable to ICC prosecution
for human rights violations, including systematic murder, torture,
rape and sexual slavery, or, as Kofi Annan put it: "There must be
a recognition that we are all members of one human family. We have
to create new institutions. This is one of them. This is another
step forward in humanity's slow march toward civilization."
However, while human rights groups have hailed the court's
creation as the biggest milestone for international justice since
top Nazis were tried by an international military tribunal in
Nuremberg after World War Two, the court faces stiff opposition
from the United States, Russia and China. The United States says
the court would infringe on national sovereignty and could lead to
politically motivated prosecutions of its officials or soldiers
working outside U.S. borders, and the U.S. Congress is even
weighing legislation authorizing U.S. forces to invade The Hague
where the court will be based, in the event prosecutors grab a
U.S. national. The noteworthy paradox here is that the US thus
rejected the jurisdiction of a tribunal which was constituted with
the full support (and votes) of the US themselves! Why, then,
should Milosevic, who now sits in the Hague, not be given the
right to claim that, since the US reject the legality of the
international jurisdiction of the Hague tribunal, the same
argumentation should hold also for him? And the same goes for
Croatia: the US are now exerting tremendous pressure onto the
Croat government to deliver to the Hague court a couple of its
generals accused of war crimes during the struggles in Bosnia -
the reaction is, of course, how can they ask this of US when THEY
do not recognize the legitimacy of the Hague court? Or are the US
citizens effectively "more equal than others"? If one simply
universalizes the underlying principles of the Bush-doctrine, does
India not have a full right to attack Pakistan? It does directly
support and harbor anti-Indian terror in Kashmir, and it possesses
(nuclear) weapons of mass destruction. Not to mention the right of
China to attack Taiwan, and so on, with unpredictable
consequences...
Are we aware that we are in the midst of a "silent revolution," in
the course of which the unwritten rules which determine the most
elementary international logic are changing? The US scold Gerhardt
Schroeder, a democratically elected leader, for maintaining a
stance supported by a large majority of the population, plus,
according to the polls in the mid-February, around 59% of the US
population itself (who oppose strike against Iraq without the UN
support). In Turkey, according to opinion polls, 94% of the people
are opposed to allowing the US troops' presence for the war
against Iraq - where is democracy here? Every old Leftist
remembers Marx's reply, in The Communist Manifesto, to the critics
who reproached the Communists that they aim at undermining family,
property, etc.: it is the capitalist order itself whose economic
dynamics is destroying the traditional family order (incidentally,
a fact more true today than in Marx's time), as well as
expropriating the large majority of the population. In the same
vein, is it not that precisely those who pose today as global
defenders of democracy are effectively undermining it? In a
perverse rhetorical twist, when the pro-war leaders are confronted
with the brutal fact that their politics is out of tune with the
majority of their population, they take recourse to the
commonplace wisdom that "a true leader leads, he does not follow"
- and this from leaders otherwise obsessed with opinion polls...
The true dangers are the long-term ones. In what resides perhaps
the greatest danger of the prospect of the American occupation of
Iraq? The present regime in Iraq is ultimately a secular
nationalist one, out of touch with the Muslim fundamentalist
populism - it is obvious that Saddam only superficially flirts
with the pan-Arab Muslim sentiment. As his past clearly
demonstrates, he is a pragmatic ruler striving for power, and
shifting alliances when it fits his purposes - first against Iran
to grab their oil fields, then against Kuwait for the same reason,
bringing against himself a pan-Arab coalition allied to the US -
what Saddam is not is a fundamentalist obsessed with the "big
Satan," ready to blow the world apart just to get him. However,
what can emerge as the result of the US occupation is precisely a
truly fundamentalist Muslim anti-American movement, directly
linked to such movements in other Arab countries or countries with
Muslim presence.
One can surmise that the US are well aware that the era of Saddam
and his non-fundamentalist regime is coming to an end in Iraq, and
that the attack on Iraq is probably conceived as a much more
radical preemptive strike - not against Saddam, but against the
main contender for Saddam's political successor, a truly
fundamentalist Islamic regime. Yes in this way, the vicious cycle
of the American intervention gets only more complex: the danger is
that the very American intervention will contribute to the
emergence of what America most fears, a large united anti-American
Muslim front. It is the first case of the direct American
occupation of a large and key Arab country - how could this not
generate universal hatred in reaction? One can already imagine
thousands of young people dreaming of becoming suicide bombers,
and how that will force the US government to impose a permanent
high alert emergency state... However, at this point, one cannot
resist a slightly paranoid temptation: what if the people around
Bush KNOW this, what if this "collateral damage" is the true aim
of the entire operation? What if the TRUE target of the "war on
terror" is the American society itself, i.e., the disciplining of
its emancipatory excesses?
On March 5 2003, on "Buchanan & Press" news show on NBC, they
showed on the TV screen the photo of the recently captured Khalid
Shakh Mohammed, the "third man of al-Qaeda" - a mean face with
moustaches, in an unspecified nightgown prison-dress, half opened
and with something like bruises half-discernible (hints that he
was already tortured?) -, while Pat Buchanan's fast voice was
asking: "Should this man who knows all the names all the detailed
plans for the future terrorist attacks on the US, be tortured, so
that we get all this out of him?" The horror of it was that the
photo, with its details, already suggested the answer - no wonder
the response of other commentators and viewers' calls was an
overwhelming "Yes!" - which makes one nostalgic of the good old
days of the colonial war in Algeria when the torture practiced by
the French Army was a dirty secret... Effectively, was this not a
pretty close realization of what Orwell imagined in 1984, in his
vision of "hate sessions," where the citizens are shown photos of
the traitors and supposed to boo and yell at them. And the story
goes on: a day later, on another Fox TV show, a commentator
claimed that one is allowed to do with this prisoner whatever, not
only deprive him of sleep, but break his fingers, etc.etc.,
because he is "a piece of human garbage with no rights
whatsoever." THIS is the true catastrophe: that such public
statements are today possible.
We should therefore be very attentive not to fight false battles:
the debates on how bad Saddam is, even on how much the war will
cost, etc., are false debates. The focus should be on what
effectively goes on in our societies, on what kind of society is
emerging HERE as the result of the "war on terror." Instead of
talking about hidden conspirative agendas, one should shift the
focus onto what is going on, onto what kind of changes are taking
place here and now. The ultimate result of the war will be a
change in OUR political order.
The true danger can be best exemplified by the actual role of the
populist Right in Europe: to introduce certain topics (the foreign
threat, the necessity to limit immigration, etc.) which were then
silently taken over not only by the conservative parties, but even
by the de facto politics of the "Socialist" governments. Today,
the need to "regulate" the status of immigrants, etc., is part of
the mainstream consensus: as the story goes, le Pen did address
and exploit real problems which bother people. One is almost
tempted to say that, if there were no le Pen in France, he should
have been invented: he is a perfect person whom one loves to hate,
the hatred for whom guarantees the wide liberal "democratic pact,"
the pathetic identification with democratic values of tolerance
and respect for diversity - however, after shouting "Horrible! How
dark and uncivilized! Wholly unacceptable! A threat to our basic
democratic values!", the outraged liberals proceed to act like "le
Pen with a human face," to do the same thing in a more "civilized"
way, along the lines of "But the racist populists are manipulating
legitimate worries of ordinary people, so we do have to take some
measures!"...
We do have here a kind of perverted Hegelian "negation of
negation": in a first negation, the populist Right disturbs the
aseptic liberal consensus by giving voice to passionate dissent,
clearly arguing against the "foreign threat"; in a second
negation, the "decent" democratic center, in the very gesture of
pathetically rejecting this populist Right, integrates its message
in a "civilized" way - in-between, the ENTIRE FIELD of background
"unwritten rules" has already changed so much that no one even
notices it and everyone is just relieved that the anti-democratic
threat is over. And the true danger is that something similar will
happen with the "war on terror": "extremists" like John Ashcroft
will be discarded, but their legacy will remain, imperceptibly
interwoven into the invisible ethical fabric of our societies.
Their defeat will be their ultimate triumph: they will no longer
be needed, since their message will be incorporated into the
mainstream.

What you're saying and the Zizek you paste are completely at odds, Fiddling. Zizek is talking about 'jokes' and 'unwritten rules' and the 'talking cure' of psychoanalysis -- surely all prime candidates for deconstruction with literary tools.

Also, how is litcrit a useless metaphor in the context of a thread about MM's explicit -- and rather effective -- use of this metaphor at the Oscars, a ceremony watched by millions and designed to award prizes to the best fictions of the year?

I'm all for the study and criticism of rhetoric, and there have been great examples of this upthread. I should just note that literature-qua-literature and political rhetoric have different purposes, and should be criticized with that in mind.

No offense Nick, but despite the fact that I think Justice Antonin Scalia is an often an outcome-driven, intellectually dishonest, ideological judge, his "powers of critical disc[r]imination" are far better than mine, or I suspect yours.

Scalia's "powers of critical disc[r]imination" are far better than mine, or I suspect yours.

I beg to differ. He may be better at passing off his subjectivity as objectivity, or his opinion as 'considered legal judgement'. That just makes him a smoother criminal. I'm sure he could beat me at chess, though.

***JtN: I was mostly bothered by Moore's roping in the other nominees, presuming he spoke for them. He's a big bully and I've never really liked him. I'm willing to believe that Bowling has some interesting and important things to say to people who might not otherwise hear them, but I haven't seen a movie of his since Roger and Me and I don't expect to in the future.***

"We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you."

Yup, pretty hifalutin.

ypos

Momus as much as I am feelin' yr groove on this thread it's always helpful to cite sources beyond oneself

his mass email last week said something to the effect of "i am now utterly convinced that NOBODY in the country wants to go to war" which is of course just patently absurd (one need only to look at toby keith placing at #1 on billboard with his own war prop.) and calls into question whether moore's circles of public fraternization have instinctively veered in upon his token audience without his realizing

really, we should be wary of anyone who claims to speak for the american people

given who he is and how he's made his name, such an outburst seemed almost mandatory

i mean, that pulpit hung there like a ripe plum and i'm sure as a self-assigned crusader he felt duty-bound to take a bit juicy bite
but that's the problem right there - being duty-bound leads to self-righteousness, and self-righteousness leads to all sorts of uncreative thinking, ostensibly the stuff he's trying to poke through

it's not like he stepped out or anything

'Weber viewed the future as one where rational-legal types of authority would become more dominant. While a charismatic leader or movement might emerge, the dominant tendency was for organizations to become more routinized, rational and bureaucratic. It is in this sense that legal authority can be interpreted. In modern societies, authority is in large part exercised on the basis of bureaucracies.'

This is, of course, what 'policy wonk' Gore would have been working towards, and what the European Union is all about. Bush and co, however, represent a shift back to the 'charismatic' -- the 'faith based initiatives' thing, the whole reconstruction of the political landscape as a place where Bush Jnr battles Osama and Saddam, and backs out of all the international legislation he can.

The trouble is, the emperor is naked. Bush is only considered 'charismatic' in the US and Israel, where percentages of national support for him are in the 60s. In every other country he is seen as, at best, a rogue statesman. Now, what kind of world are we reversing into if we follow this drift to the 'charismatic'? Will some sort of Billy Graham character be the next president? Will the Constitution be scrapped?

And what is the weakness of the US that allows their democratic system to be so easily undermined? Surely it's things like the uncharacteristically high levels of religiosity and low levels of literacy (adult illiteracy in US, 44%, in Vietnam, 6%).

If we'd been wary, Bush Jr. wouldn't have been elected in the first place, would he?

being duty-bound leads to self-righteousness, and self-righteousness leads to all sorts of uncreative thinking, ostensibly the stuff he's trying to poke through

Which is the problem: he clearly doesn't see himself as being self-righteous, leaving it to his audience to point it out.

I generally agree with Moore's viewpoints but I agree with mark and fritz: the more he continues, the more he ceases to actually engage critically and the more it becomes about him. While Bowling for Columbine definitely gave out a viewpoint that needed to be out there, it also did so in an amazingly smug and one-sided way, and he could easily have been far less biased and still easily made his point. Example: the statistics he gave in the film on the number of gun-related deaths were just numbers on the screen without context or per capita correction, which make the US numbers look far worse than they actually were...even if he had corrected for overall population, they still would have been far worse than other countries; they were ten times worse than Canada's numbers when they were corrected for the population/incident ratio. And yet he went for the more shocking number instead of the number that more reflected reality. He also gave a very unrealistic portrait of life in Canada when he did the unlocked doors segment--almost everyone I know locks their doors when they're home. And there are also a lot of murders in Canada, many incidents of gunplay, and there are (contrary to what he showed in the film) areas of Canada that look far more dangerous than the "slum" he showed on-camera. But since that didn't serve his purpose he ignored reality.

Some could say that he's using the one-sided biased type of reportage that most news networks use as a matter of course day in and day out, which would probably be fair but also misses the point: he could easily make his points even taking reality into account. It leads me to believe that he's isolating himself more and more, as mark says, within circles that are entirely sympathetic to his viewpoint. For now he's still speaking (mostly) to viewpoints that I can get behind, but I can definitely see him going off the rails if he keeps following this blinkered view of reality.

''It's like, he always seems to have a good point, but it's hiding deep down behind a horribly phrased adolescent rantkabob.''

I liked the reactionary stuff. I like the contrast.

I have only seen a bit of it and it was funny but its nothing really. It's all entertainment folks. it was an awards show, nothing more.

Salon did a very nice interview with Moore which was supposed to call him on flaws with the movie but instead painted him in a very humble and self critical light. The guy is all heart which he would have to be in order to keep doing what he does.

they're so obviously terrified of dissent, and they seemed to be sending little messages of control for the entire night. like how they reined sarandon in by inviting her and then giving her the dead people gig. smart.

anyway martin's monologue joke about everyone being liberals got a huge laugh

Fat Bastard Harvey Weinstein to thread!

"passing off subjectivity as objectivity" = the process of judging
"smooth criminal" = good judge

There were several times when you could tell something was happening that they weren't going to share with the world. A streaker, maybe?

'Generally, we live in a topsy-turvy world in which Republicans freely spend money,
creating record budget deficits, while Democrats practice budget balance; in which Republicans, who thunder against big government and preach devolution of power to states and local communities, are in the process of creating the strongest state mechanism of control in the entire history of humanity.'

Now he could have called these phenomena, instead of 'topsy-turvey', 'Alice in Wonderland'. He could even have said, referencing Alanis or Northrop Frye, 'isn't it ironic'. Or he could have rummaged around in the intellectual toolbox left us by Karl Marx and pointed out that the problem for the left is still, as it ever was, to make sure
that a 'class in itself' (say the 90% not benefitted in any way by Bush tax cuts) becomes a 'class for itself' (in other words says 'Hey, wait a minute, the guy I'm giving my vote is not giving me and people like me any direct help at all. Let's vote according to what actually helps us.')

These are problems of perception. And this is where we get back to the theme of realities versus fictions. There is urgent, pressing work to be done in the US to undermine various fictions which seem to be drifting further and further from any verifiable reality. The fiction that Democrats manage the economy badly and Republicans are the party of big business. The fiction that Osama and Saddam are in league, which apparently 39% of Americans believe. The corporate fiction represented by Enron's accounting scams. The fiction that the current war will make the world safer. The fiction that Bush will wave a wand over Israel when this is done and 'solve' the Arab-Israeli dispute. The fiction that God (though apparently not the Pope) is on America's side.

John Cage once said that, faced with the enormous task of accounting for and fairly distributing the world's resources, we shouldn't give up, but should just quietly get to work on some small helpful thing; work towards a universal voltage for all the world's electrical appliances, or a universal telephone plug. In the same way, we can start to attack the 'lying buttresses' that prop up Bush and his ilk by chipping away at them one myth at a time. For instance, make a point of telling everyone you meet 'The stock market does better under the Democrats, you know'. Destroy all the little fictions one by one. And always carry a lightbulb.

Moore is doing his bit, chipping towards the tipping point.

ypos

We do have here a kind of perverted Hegelian "negation of
negation": in a first negation, the populist Right disturbs the
aseptic liberal consensus by giving voice to passionate dissent,
clearly arguing against the "foreign threat"; in a second
negation, the "decent" democratic center, in the very gesture of
pathetically rejecting this populist Right, integrates its message
in a "civilized" way - in-between, the ENTIRE FIELD of background
"unwritten rules" has already changed so much that no one even
notices it and everyone is just relieved that the anti-democratic
threat is over.

While I personally enjoy Moore, it's possible that one reason so many people who agree with Moore cringe at his methods is that he seems to embody another aspect of the dialectical trap described above. He's crafted an image for himself as the Rush Limbaugh of the left -- an entertaining kook who has passionate political convictions that he's unafraid to share by mocking his opponents, but one who sometimes has trouble playing straight with the facts. This image makes him easy to dismiss by those who are so inclined, and renders his political message insular and less effective, and causes "the 'decent' democratic center" to disown him and move to the right.

i liked watching the way the front 3 rows at the oscars looked terrified when anyone spoke out - worried that if they didn't seem to agree they'd be labelled bush-lovers/murderers and if they did they might find themselves a little further away from the stage in following years.

It's ironic that the guy won an Oscar for a work of supposed non fiction--all through "Bowling" he rejiggered speeches and timelines to create a piece of propaganda that only impresses the people who take this guy seriously. His editing work was a masterpiece of misused context and if he were operating in an arena where truth and fairness were prized, he would have been laughed out of the room upon submission of his film to this category. His work is just as fictionalized as everything he rails about in the Bush Administration.

The film is entertaining and, if put in the hands of a prudent non-egotist, might even be able to make a coherent, reasonable argument. But instead, "Bowling For Columbine" is a pandering fit of intolerance with almost no substance. It's really a shame, because a guy like Moore--he actually is a midly entertaining personality, I think--could change some minds if he wasn't so set on making himself the story.

It's saddening, because in the end it's guys like Moore who are in a position to actually change people's mind about war or Bush and instead of seizing that moment to create something inspirational or thought provoking, he inspires everyone opposed to him to further entrench. He has once again turned his intellect and judgement into a laughingstock.

I'll see if I can't find a more thorough and fair assessment of Moore's fact-sliding.

But read these links and then tell me that Moore isn't a liar.

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

http://www.galun.com/misc/seasonal/2002/12/17-Moore.html

http://www.moorewatch.com/

http://timblair.blogspot.com/2002_12_01_timblair_archive.html#85345233

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html

http://www.rachellucas.com/archives/000165.html#000165

On 'the negation of the negation', Zizek says:

We do have here a kind of perverted Hegelian "negation of
negation": in a first negation, the populist Right disturbs the
aseptic liberal consensus by giving voice to passionate dissent,
clearly arguing against the "foreign threat";

Well, let's try that against reality. For instance, Le Pen in France did exactly that. Let's take him.

in a second negation, the "decent" democratic center, in the very gesture of
pathetically rejecting this populist Right, integrates its message
in a "civilized" way

There were signs of this in France, as Chirac and others tried to pander slightly to the racist concerns of potential Le Pen voters. BUT Chirac quickly repositioned himself between the first and second presidential votes as the candidate of anti-racism. His position swung considerably to the left of where it had been before the Le Pen threat loomed.

in-between, the ENTIRE FIELD of background "unwritten rules" has already changed so much that no one even notices it and everyone is just relieved that the anti-democratic threat is over.

This is not the case at all. The massive mandate Chirac got emboldened him. After standing up to Le Pen, he was able to stand up to Bush and became, on a global level, an icon for the left. He and Schroeder found a new momentum they could use in their old cause of European unification: the revulsion against the Bush regime.

Zizek would need to explain to me further why he calls this 'perverted Hegelian'. It's clearly not 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis', the classic Hegelian dialectic. Although it's true that the rules are rewritten when you negate a negation -- the agenda is set by the right wing populist interloper (Le Pen, Bush, Pim Fortuyn) -- the classic Hegelian dialectic would predict a 'synthesis', a halfway meeting between the left and the right. But instead social democrats can be given a subversive impetus. They can suddenly find a mission far to the left of where they would have expected to be (Chirac). And this is more than just a 'negation of the negation'. They discover more than a new role (protector of Europe etc), they discover a new electorate which requires a new politics of them, and can, by its wishes, transform them and make them its instrument.

Also, I'd object that the dialectic can be extended back as far as you like. The right wing populist interlopers are themselves reacting to a liberal negation of a previous conservative orthodoxy, and so on. It's not only the right who set the agenda. Every negation contains new creative elements. The negations are 'overdetermined' -- they are more than just responses to the status quo. They contain imagination, innovation, and, yes, fiction (for instance, Fortuyn's new 'gay' fascism, with its odd argument that the muslims had to go because they could never understand Holland's liberal traditions).

Your illiteracy numbers are highly fictious.

As for linking to right wing or left wing sites--no intention in that, nor does it at all reflect places I normally would visit.

That's a bit of a sweeping generalization. If this were in fact true, his book and film would not have done so well.

FWIW, when I saw him talk in Boston last year, he was more than willing to throw big lazy crowd pleasers (it not being the toughest audience in the world), but was clearly well informed and on the side of the angels. I don't know if the American left _needs_ him, but Jesus Christ, they need _someone_ who can talk to people.

Yes, I wrote 44% of US adults when I meant 44 million adults, which is 23%. But the Vietnam figure of 6% is about right.

- J

No. However, when a phrase like "That's why most people are turned off by him" is used in a diatribe about a personal dislike of the man, you have to wonder if it's just projection. Any real evidence to back it up?

I can only attest to my personal interaction with Moore as far as him being a jerk, but you can search around the net or Lexis and find that other people agree with me. His reputation definitely precedes him. But whatever, that's secondary to the fact that he flies loose with the facts, which is my beef with him as much as anything.

Also, his television career was met with dismal ratings, so let's not presume that people like the guy just because his book and movie did well.

To use a Bushism, there's no clear blue sky at all between your points on this and mine (especially since we agree about the 'smooth criminal' bit)!

Whoa, whoa there buddy! Does Hegel define synthesis as "halfway meeting between the left and the right"? What I remember from my dances with Hegel is it's best to slow way the hell down before offering any neat summarizations of what he means.

Which is why you need -- and, I believe, will shortly find -- an American Chirac!

Y'all need to read this , especially the first few paragraphs.

Thesis: an idea, opinion, position;
Antithesis:the opposite idea, opinion or position;
Synthesis: the bringing together of thesis and antithesis to bring about the wanted change.

(For example: Thesis: Charlton Heston. Antithesis: Michael Moore. Synthesis: Kiss kiss bang bang)

"he's misread by people" - this is kind of a liability if you are de facto "entertaining spokesperson for the left"!!

i thought the oscars were a crystalline example of everything that's wrong with michael moore's approach - he's preaching to the goddamn choir here, soft-liberal democrats in the audience EVERY ONE, and he still gets booed! why? he hadn't earned it. his movie is about guns and the culture of fear, not election results. why whine about the fucking election? GET OVER IT!! his inability to stick to the message here at least as much as his inability to just pause for a moment and act like he had an OUNCE of GRATITUDE or HUMILITY for this HUGE personal approbation is what did him in.

a clever one-liner right before leaving would've slayed em - he forgot to be funny until it was too late

Yes, but other people!=most people

I think people are holding him to a ridiculous standard. I just can't believe the puritanical reaction people have toward his personality. For a lot of people, he is one of our own, dammit, and he is understood.

In contrast to the prevailing assumption among white middle class people that a tone of rational, polite discussion is correct, Crystal's assumption is that passionate advocacy is not about ego but is actually the most effective way of testing the merits and discovering the truth.

Yes, but isn't it interesting that the author is arguing in favor or "passionate advocacy" by way of "rational, polite discussion"?

That's in the 'bang bang'! One 'bang' cancels the other.

the unity of opposites

That's in the 'kiss kiss'.

and sublation.

Damn, I knew I missed something.

Honestly, the overreaction to what he said is just baffling. Baffling and, to me, depressing and alienating. A 40-second Oscar speech just does not warrant this sort of hysteria.

'When I e-mailed an esteemed colleague my thoughts about Moore earlier today, he wrote back with a reasonable defense: Why should a progressive like Moore have to be all gentle and NPR-nuanced when there are so many Limbaughs and O'Reillys out there? The reason: More people in America identify as conservative than liberal, like it or not. So lefties who want to accomplish anything outside Santa Monica and Manhattan need moderate support even more than their righty analogues do.'

Mark S to thread!

Moore's not all that "moderate", though. I would argue that his detractors are far more lacking in one critical (and much older) component of the left agenda.

'He disagreed with us. What a scumbag. How dare he!!!!'

All that stuff about appropriate forums and ingratitude and his appalling lack of manners and all the other nit-picking is 100% proof pure humbug. He expresses views divergent from yours and it really In This Time Of Crisis shouldn't be allowed.

How many of Moore's critics are first off the mark to whinge about 'political correctness' when the boot is on the other foot?

(Take the above rant from 'Hagar the Horrible' for example)

The stance also reminds me of Monty Python's "This is a sketch about Aaaarrrrchitects. It's called the 'Aaaarrrrchitects Sketch'".

Moore was outta line. I mean, I appreciate the anarchist in anyone, but his obnoxious manner (you know, that being his trademark and all) and hypocritical content were embarassing. Notice how when he won the award, the choir er loudly cheered, but when he pulled his little high school stunt the reaction was much different. I'm really not convinced his bringing up the other nominees was heartfelt as much as it was an move to, once again, validate his own ego and rectify his internal feelings of guilt for being rich.

Again I say: with a worldwide audience of millions and millions, this maroon went onstage and alienated a lot of people who might have been willing to actually consider another point of view. Brody's speech was essentially just as vain and self serving, but damn, at least he tried to matter.

And to you Kerry: the reason Moore seems egotistical, overbearing, etc. to me (and this is aside from my personal experiences with the guy) is because at the end of the day, Moore's projects are essentially about HIM and not the issues he posits. In that, Moore has sort of figured out how to be successful: his personality is much more compelling than the argument he's actually trying to make. Thus, it really doesn't matter all that much if he's shoddy with facts, reconstructs timelines or speeches, or wishes aloud that Bush voters die when their plane crashes into the WTC. It only matters if his fat-dude-in-bad-threads-and-farm-hat-from-the-wrong-side-of-Flint persona can be entertaining.

This to me is disappointing. Moore's everyman physicality is continually minimized by his inflammatory rhetoric, and if he'd only get his facts straight more often he might be a lot more effective. His technique is compelling but he relies on propaganda-styled deception rather than a reasonable foundation of facts.

And for fuck's sake, who on this thread has any reason to care about Oscar night protocol?!?!

This pattern is found in films which advocate liberal causes as well as those celebrating conservative values. The emphasis is always on individualism. An example of a use of this meta-narrative was in the film 'Mississippi Burning', something that must have caused great offence to those who had struggled collectively in the civil rights movement and who were committed to the value of non violence.

I know of no other national cinema in which a naive belief in the redemptive value of violence is so prevalent. Perhaps George Bush sees himself as the hero of his own Hollywood film. Michael Moore has more than a touch of this story incorporated into the way he behaves. Playing fast and loose with the facts is his form of rule-breaking whereas Bush disregards international law and international bureaucracies like the United Nations.

People get frustrated with Moore because when he gets an opportunity to relate his political philosophy he frequently undermines credibility (?) with hyperbole and inattention to detail (the facts that should buttress his argument or perspective) Rather than validate the anti-war or anti-Bush left, he instead chose to act like a buffoon on a significant television broadcast--when people like Janine Garofalo wonder why actors get no respect and heavy criticism for spouting off their political views, one need only point to Michael Moore as an example.

FWIW, lefties reach millions on a weekly basis--um, Oprah herself is a prominent one, since you mention her. Celebrities are nearly monochromatically lefties, and they get an abundance of PR for their causes all the time. Other than Limbaugh and a handful of commentators on TV, it's hard to find such a monopoly of political perspective in the entertainment business. To accept Moore's actions simply because he had the stage and it was his right to do so is to ignore the way he squandered an opportunity.

Sorry Amarga, that is too much even for me. If anybody (Bush or Moore or anybody in between) lies/fudges/misuses facts, their supporters may be able to rationalise that away, and most do that by invoking dodgy situational ethics or whining that 'the other side does it too'. It's all a bit pathetic but it may (for those whose opinion matters) excuse the telling of the lie.

But excusing or forgiving the lie doesn't make it into anything other than a lie. It remains a false statement, which therefore remains useless. We shouldn't act, or argue, as though it is otherwise. If Moore plays that sort of game, Amarga, he is shooting himself in the foot, especially as someone who bases his appeal to his audience on being seen as a seeker and exposer of truth.

I take your point, but I don't quite see how you can make a case for criticisms of Moore also being criticisms of the left except on a case-by-case basis. I don't think Limbaugh necessarily harms the right; they've hardly suffered politically since he lost much of his popularity. And as someone else pointed out, Moore exaggerates, Limbaugh lies. Playing loose with the facts in Bowling for Columbine doesn't negate the argument that there is a severe problem with gun violence in America, while it's easy to contradict wholly many of the "facts" Rush comes up with.

Moore lies. There are many, many examples. If Moore had a daily radio show, he'd lie just as much as Limbaugh. Don't let your politics see through that fact. There is no excuse for playing loose with the fact in Moore's situation. None. There is no reason for a documentarian to undermine credible arguments in the manner Moore does. And in Columbine it was more than just loosey-goosey fact fudging: it was moving timelines, it was changing the context of situations, it was rearranging speeches in order to make his point. I'm not sure if he had to do that, but when someone cares that little or thinks I'm that stupid, then I'm not inclined to give a lot of trust in return. So I really don't buy into accusations of "ficticious" from a guy who more or less tries to pass off his work in the same form of propaganda that he allegedly despises.

When we're talking about the quality and usefulness of information, whatever distinctions we may make between lying, fudging, telling half-truths, or just slack researching are not relevant. What matters is that the information is unsound.

That said, they are both excellent propagandists in their own right. EG ignoring certain facts and emphasizing others to such extremes as to make themselves seem absolutely, unassailably correct in every arena. Fuck that. That's garbage thinking.

And finally, this thread makes me fundamentally ill, since I have apparently sworn to throw down my very existence in defense of a fictitious document (as declared by many people who have not the first fucking half clue what that means) and the very idea that anything out of either Moore's or Bush's mouth is deserving of nearly so much smart discussion is an affront to rational thought all over the fucking globe. Welcome to the cult of celebrity, I suppose. Here's the red carpet. Now have a USELESS FUCKING ARGUMENT.

But how can you say he's not converting or convincing others? He seems to have gained most in popularity during a time when Republicans were succeeding politically. He's a best-selling author, made a high-grossing and Oscar-winning documentary, and has all sorts of public forums available to speak his mind in (which he's expected to do, since it's his schtick). "Preaching to the converted", umm, ok, where were these converted masses when TV Nation was struggling to stay on the air?

As I said above, I don't read him or watch his movies. I agree: he's dishonest, sensational, egotistical. But very few people are raising the issues - whatever the deficiencies in their arguments - he is at the level he is: not Oprah, not Hollywood, and not most Democrats. Would it be nice if he could be a pillar of honesty and sell twice as many books? Sure, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that kind of argument to be rewarded on a massive popcult level.

FWIW, I spoke to my Mod-Repub-McCain-supporting-Gore-voting parents tonight. They both oppose the war. My mom loved Moore's speech (she's been a fan since he was on Oprah); my dad hated it and thought he made a fool of himself. Neither had their opinion on the war affected one way or another.

Haha this isn't exactly convincing is it? What I meant was there seem to be an increasing number of people who are dissatisfied with Republican policies, who might previously have been just apathetic or status quo or whatever, and who are now turning to Moore - as a readily available outlet - to explore an alternative.

Don Weiner says: Moore's everyman physicality is continually minimized by his inflammatory rhetoric. I presume he means that Moore is fat, but that this winning fact (in the eyes of spreading-middle America) is undermined by the fact that he has radical opinions (ah, you'll never learn, back to the Upper West Side with you!)

Time again: 'More people in America identify as conservative than liberal, like it or not. So lefties who want to accomplish anything outside Santa Monica and Manhattan need moderate support.' But what is the point in having a left ideology if you have to woo the 'moderates' and dilute it? People who advocate this are really saying 'We don't want to hear your views. Stay in Santa Monica.' But they're passing this off as practical advice about how to win friends and influence people.

What Time doesn't say: 'More people in America identify as conservative than liberal, like it or not. So lefties who want to accomplish anything outside Santa Monica and Manhattan need to change perceptions about where the real interests of the people lie.'

'The contrast between the way that British politics and public opinion have responded to the Iraq crisis contrasts very favourably with the response on the other side of the Atlantic. Here, the debate has been intense and detailed, and it has shifted in line with events. In America, the absence of healthy debate has been a real disservice to the world's leading democracy. While the House of Commons has regularly debated the twists and turns of the crisis - and did so again yesterday - the US Congress has barely debated Iraq in any serious way since the autumn. It says little for American public life that there is more debate about the war at the Oscar ceremonies than there is in the nation's representative institutions. It says something much healthier about our own public life that the debate here is real, raw, difficult - and continuous.'

"After September 11 a lot of people thought that us film-makers should think twice about making certain kinds of movie - you know, the escapist flicks with unimaginable explosions, devastated cities, uncomplicated heroes and baddies. And some of those people were members of our own government - who went very public about their conviction that us Hollywood liberals should be more responsible. Well, this is pretty ironic, because this is exactly the kind of film they're staging for us on primetime every night, on every station in every home. The producers of this film believe that as a nation we're scared - and that the best way to deal with our fear, the best way to make us feel more secure, is the spectacle of our boys taking out the bad guys, taking out anyone who might threaten us.

Well, I think the government has a point - we are a scared nation. You see, I'm a kind of film-maker too, and in my job I get to talk to lots of different people. And I hear a lot about fear - but it's mostly the fear that people are going to lose their jobs because their company relocates its set-up to take advantage of cheap labour in India, the fear that they might work their whole life to find that their pension is worth nothing, the fear that the whole economy is a tower of cards piled up by card sharks. And I don't think any amount of movies with high production values in distant desert kingdoms and moral certainty are going to go very far to answering that kind of fear, Mr President. We've had enough escapism - give us some hope."

"Of course we saw a film set in a fictitious Middle East with such moral certainties last year. It was called The Scorpion King, But at least in that fantasy I could smell what The Rock was cooking, which is preferable to not being able to escape the smell of what The Bush is talking."

Sorry, I said good didn't I.

Also, I did not insinuate that "everyman physicality" equates with fat, Momus. Moore's physicality is not only his size but his general physical demeanor--the farmer's cap, the unshaven, slightly slovenly look, sloopy gait, and Midwestern adenoidal whine. Again, as I've posted multiple times in this thread--it's not that Moore's politics that are so unnerving (or even as you say, all that radical). It's his method of delivery that turns people off. I spent 20 years in Middle America, still have lots of relatives there, and feel very comfortable saying that no one likes an asshole, irregardless of his political views.

It is curious to see the continued marginalization of openly liberal views in America, but I didn't notice that much complaining about Bill Clinton when he was steering his party to the right and everyone was laughing all the way to the bank.

"Irregardless"
(which probably arose as a blend of "irrespective" and "regardless";
it was first recorded in western Indiana in 1912), means the same as
"regardless", but is not considered acceptable.

I don't really like rhetoric that pleads to the enemy ('Mr President / give us some hope'). GWB is never going to give us any hope. What is going on is a level of violence and crime to which I fear your dream doesn't really respond.

is this really the only thing that Bush's presence at the UN might mean? It isn't the first thing that comes to mind

I like this binary of education though. You could just have one question in your school finishing exam:

1: Which of these is a correct use of the word "irregardless" ?

a) To mean regardless
b) To mean the opposite of regardless
c) As the plural of irregarles
d) IT IS NOT A REAL WORD AND REDUNDANT AND THE FACT THAT PEOPLE KNOW WHAT IT MEANS AND IT DOES NOT HURT PEOPLE MORTALLY WHEN IT IS USED SHOULD NEVERTHELESS NOT BE A REASON FOR NOT STERILISING ANYONE WHO EVER DARES UTTER IT IN PUBLIC.

An analysis of U.N. 1441 in light of current events should reveal that the Bush Administration never had any intention of abiding by it. To be fair, neither did France. But hey, that's the nature of compromise-diplomacy-legislating-etc.--neither side gets all of what they want.

The US went to the UN grudgingly--whatever the motive, who even cares at this juncture. But to say that there has not been much public and private debate about Iraqi policy in the past 18 months is simply untrue, whether born of ignorance or not. There has been assloads of debate. The problem for the anti-war contingent is that their side lost it.

Please. You have no proof of this.

There does seem to be a witch hunt against this guy. There have been a number of patronizing attacks on him from the left establishment (read: white boys club), basically saying that the left needs to "disown" him and that he makes "us" look bad. First of all, referring to the left as a monolithic "us" is really offensive. Michael Moore does not "belong" to a lot of people on the left, while he does belong to a lot of people who never thought of themselves as "left". And calls for people to "disown" him are quasi-Stalinist.

Daniel Radosh started it by writing a bunch of unsubstantiated bullshit about Moore. Daniel Radosh is, of course, Ronald Radosh's (noted conservative & braggart of sexual exploits) son. There are a lot of behind-the-scenes politics going on here.

This "egomaniac" stuff is nothing but projection from a bunch of guys who don't realize how patronizing, arrogant and snooty they appear to a lot of people. I just do not see it from him at all. I tried to explain why his cultural background (Catholic, working-class) influences him, but I guess people just don't give enough of a shit about that demographic to try to understand it. A lot of these Catholic activists believe in stuff like "conviction" - which gets misinterpreted by others as "self-righteous" or egomaniacal.

I wonder if he's pissed people off simply because he refused to put up with the snooty bullshit that annoys a lot of us. The people he rubs the wrong way are the people who want to call the shots, the people who only want "their" people contributing, and in the "appropriate" manner.

If you really want to know what arrogance and egomania are, ask a woman. We're experts at recognizing that crap. It's not coming from Michael Moore. It's coming from people who pretend to "own" a movement and who think that all of the "others" out there are dumber than they really are.

And this defeatist "what will the neighbors think" mentality on the left has really got to stop. It's controlling and patronizing. It's as if people don't recognize or respect the idea of "conviction" anymore.

Who exactly is the "white boys club" anyway?

As for the witch hunt after Moore, well, it seems pretty similar to the witch hunts that Moore himself has perpetrated over the years. But as I've said previously, the guy does seem to have enemies--I guess we'll just have to disagree as to the origins of them. I say a loose handle on facts makes you an easy target...just ask Limbaugh about that one. This thread is nearly exactly like every single one I've ever seen on Limbaugh, in fact.

This "arrogant" projection of Moore for me actually results from personally dealing with the guy and is inflamed when watching his ego-driven publicity stunts. The problem with your presumptions regarding some sort of "working class" (which is opposed to what, the "non working" class?) Catholic cultural sector is something that I'm intimately familiar with and do not find to be a credible explanation of his rude behavior. It's degrading to my own family and friends who have emerged or reside in that area of society without resorting to political bullying that Moore seems so fond of. That cultural background borderlines on a bigoted stereotype that I'd rather not perpetuate any farther.

Your arrogance of the female gender is also a little unsettling, as if your biological component gives you some sort of intellectual or emotional superiority over those of us who were born with different chromasomes. I agree that the controlling, patronizing nature of political discourse is limiting overall, but your conclusions regarding your gender are specious and patronizing in their own right.

Finally, I rather like the anarchist in Michael Moore. Class warfare is always exciting, and I'd be the first to admit that he's pretty funny. I just wish he'd think before opening his mouth a little more often.

Sigh. It's depressing that someone who claims to be from the left says this. It's even more depressing that you don't seem to find this the least bit problematic. And yet you're worried about Michael Moore alienating the left? It's attitudes like these that have alienated the majority of this country - which is what the working-class is.

Catholic cultural sector is something that I'm intimately familiar with and do not find to be a credible explanation of his rude behavior

Who is he being rude to? Who is he bullying? How is trying to get past security to engage in a civil (yes, he is civil) discussion with people who hide in their offices or behind gates "rude"? He's trying to engage people who obviously don't want to be engaged, and he's exposing the mechanisms by which they shield themselves. If you think that's "rude", I can't imagine what you must think of the people who would like to do a hell of a lot more to Roger Smith. I'm supposed to feel sorry for these people? Why are people so quick to identify with the poor community-destroying CEO who gets confronted with the consequences of his actions? Why am I expected to do the same?

First, I have never ever in my life claimed to be from the left. Not only do I resent you putting words into my posts, I don't appreciate being prescribed to a group I have little in common with. I'm a Libertarian, if you're so anxious to frame my political views with the context of this discussion.

Second, your references to "the working class" are oblique and ultimately, rhetorical.

Third, I've not been worried about Moore alientating the left--in the sense that he turns lefties away from the cause. I'm worried that he is reinforcing negative stereotypes of the left--he being yet another mouthy celebrity who arrogantly projects his point of view as superior to others--that ultimately weaken the message the left has to offer. As for the "poor community-destroying CEO" that Moore went after, well, there are two sides of that story and you will only ever care about Moore's. But I will say that it is human nature to assume that any CEO would not be so inherently evil that he/she would maliciously destroy any community, so I would imagine that that is why people might identify with Roger Smith. Then again, plenty of people think that CEOs are the root of all evil, so I'm not quite sure why you assume that people are more likely to identify with a CEO than you would.

Oh and Kerry, if you think that arrogance can't come from underdogs then you have a lot of living to do.

Don - you're a libertarian. No wonder you pissed him off.

arrogantly projects his point of view as superior to others

In other words, he thinks he's right. How dare he.

Of course he thinks he's right. I've no problems with that. Not a lot of people around here have a problem with his message--indeed, you made the assumption that I was a leftie since I never attacked his political views for what they are. I and others challenge his method, that's it. And then somehow it all wandered off into sexist comments regarding arrogance/egomania, Catholic "working class" stereotypes, and other hyperbole.

The attacks on his public persona--Bowling For Columbine, since this all relates to the Oscars--are in fact substantiated. His statements at the Oscars accused the times we live in and the election as being "ficticious," when his very own film was constructed entirely to propogate his political perspective as opposed to an accurate portrayal of events as they actually happened. What exactly does Moore mean by ficticious? And more importantly, why should I trust a person's opinion on the definition of "ficticious" when the standard seems to be a sliding one?

But the problem with Limbaugh isn't that he's rude and rough and kicks ass. The problem isn't even the veritable miasma of self-satisfaction that emanates from his every pore. The problem is that he's a demagogue who elides, misrepresents, and otherwise distorts the truth to make his political points -- and that he encourages an atmosphere of screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs debate, delivered in the kind of rhetoric that obscures, rather than illuminates.

Is Moore damaging to the Left? I don't know, but I know how betrayed I felt when, as a teenager, I found out that there were substantial fabrications and distortions in Roger and Me, a movie which galvanized me with righteous anger when I first saw it. It was an experience for which I am in a way grateful, because it taught me one of the more important lessons in my life -- namely, that if anything, you have to be more rigorous, more skeptical, when confronted with polemics whose political point you agree with. And it also taught me to be deeply suspicious of anyone, from any political persuasion, whose arguments conjure the existence of an Evil Other. When I'm listening to an argument and assessing a person's credibility and intelligence, one of my main benchmarks is the speaker's ability to argue the other side's case in a convincing way -- to present both sides of the story, as it were -- and then to demonstrate why his/her own point of view is a more truthful one. I've never seen Moore do anything of the kind, and while that may make him an effective advocate in the eyes of some, it also means that he's little more than a cheerleader: he may convince the kind of people who are swayed by bumper stickers, slogans, and propaganda, but for those of us who need to be genuinely persuaded with thoughtful argument, he has nothing to offer.

A lot of the arguments in defense of Moore seem to come down to "B-b-but he's on MY TEAM!" -- in other words, they're partisan arguments ("he's fighting for my cause and can do no wrong!"), rather than reasoned ones ("all in all, he deserves your trust/support, and this is why"). The former kind of argument is of no interest to me; the latter is. I would love to see a point-by-point debate of the alleged distortions and half-truths in Moore's films -- one that would present the evidence and let me make up my own mind as to whether this is a man whom I want to support, or one whom I can't trust to be a credible advocate for the things I believe in. And let there be no mistake, if a political point of view acquires a spokesperson whose behavior is sufficiently toxic, it most certainly can damage that point of view -- in much the same way as an articulate, honest spokesperson, whose tactics are fair and whose arguments are lucid, can help a cause immeasurably. If Moore is not honest -- whether in his representation of the facts, or in the argumentation he makes about them -- then I can't support him, even if I agree with his political goals: his work would then be akin to a house with a rotten foundation.

I have to say that I find Kerry's tactics in this thread rather distasteful, and emblematic of exactly the kind of thing that embitters me and makes me not want to bother with politics at all. Playing the race, class, and gender cards, all within a few posts, is a sign of a person whose aim is to shout her opponents down with ad hominem attacks, rather than genuinely engage their arguments. The link you posted, Kerry -- which has some interesting ideas, and some very poor ones too -- says that "The most popular form of dirty fighting is to attack the person rather than her or his point of view...Activists can learn to fight, and to fight fair." Well, you're not fighting fair, and frankly, you should know better.

reason i ask is i've read a few long articles about how very minor mistakes or discrepansies in the film were taken and blown up into into a whole story of 'lies and distortions' completely out of proportion to what was on screen. I found those articles quite convincing so I'm wondering whether the accuations are based on those R&m era stories or something else entirely.

A bit one-sided in your critique, eh?

What bugs me is your certainty that *you* are free from bias, or that it is possible to be so.

"He's fighting for my cause and can do no wrong" - is reductivist and a misrepresentation of what I said. "The existence of an Evil Other" is also your interpretation, something that can't be objectively quantified.

There were very few arguments made here, Phil - just dismissals of Moore with little to no substantiation.

You're not the final arbiter of what is or isn't persuasive. Which is exactly the sort of "I can afford to be above-it-all" arrogance that drives me up the wall. It takes nothing into account like, say, sensitivity to things that are important to lots of people. Who are you to think that I care whether I've persuaded you or not? I don't.

I think I have every right, on the other hand, to say what I find persuasive, or convincing, or truthful: in my post above, I said (1) Michael Moore's mode of discourse doesn't work for me, and (2) I suspect that, for people who want what I want out of someone like Moore, it won't work them either. What's so hard to understand about that?

Your last paragraph doesn't even make any sense -- that, or it's espousing a viewpoint so alien to mine I can't even begin to fathom it: are you saying that whether or not Moore tells the truth is unimportant compared to, say, whether or not he is "sensitive" to the needs of some unnamed "lots of people"? Oh, that's right, "he's one of our own" -- so questions about whether or not he tells the truth aren't important, since anyone who impugns him must be a rich white male "righty" with a hidden agenda, yes? Sigh...

The one thing that can be talked about with some degree of objectivity here -- and I never said that the question of whether or not he was a "jerk" could be -- are the allegations about Moore's misrepresentations. I want to know what both sides have to say about these issues -- particularly the allegation that Moore added text to a Bush ad, which seems like a clear-cut binary: did he, or didn't he? And if he did, has he explained why? If you've got something to say about these questions -- something more substantial than "the only people saying bad things about Moore are right-wingers, so they must be full of shit" -- then I'd love to hear it, because if there's one thing I've been trying to harp on in these two posts, it's that there are (at least!) two sides to every story, and I'm sure the truth isn't as simple as Moore or the likes of Andrew Sullivan would like to portray it as being.

MM's public persona and primary TV tactic is prankishness intended to wrongfoot and embarrass his targets*: somewhat bogus facts undermine this far less than they would (say) Ralph Nader, bcz the purpose is to get the target scrambling around on the defensive for once. (LBJ aide: "You can't say our opponent's a pigfucker!" LBJ: "I wanna hear the sumbitch deny it..." => LBJ is the main architect of Civil Rights as established US constitional fact...)

(*Like any spectacle-based political tactic its effectiveness is intensely seasonal, and this year's trend = next year's overchewed gum...)

In fact, I've extensively commented on primarily one issue: that Moore's tactics often obscure his message. I see Moore's tactics as often self-aggrandizing, but Kerry thinks I need objective proof before I can credibly allege arrogance. That's her position and I accept it, even if it seems a little specious to go on. Personally, I really don't think that Moore's joking about Bush voters dying in 9-11 is anything less than asshole-ness, but perhaps that only goes to show that an asshole is different for everyone. Or something like that.

The crux of my criticism--other than my feeling that he is an asshole in both public and private--is that Moore has a history of playing loose with the facts. This includes, most ironically, a non-fiction documentary film that just won an Oscar on Sunday night. As I've noted several times, Moore deliberately reconstructed timelines and other elements of fact in order to support the thesis of his narrative, yet never once lets the audience know about it. Those are substantial issues that question the credibilty of the filmmaker in my opinon, but I guess I'm alone in that.

what exactly do you mean by "text"

*ducks*

Also I don't agree that "Outrageous polemical claims made in the heat of the moment — deliberately or unknowingly — are part of what keep your opponents honest": the lessons of the McCarthy era -- set off as it was by exactly such an outrageous polemical (and categorically false) claim -- do not seem, to me, to correlate with your assertion.

I still stand by the notion that deeds done in Aslan's name, but with Tash's tactics, belong to Tash: if the Left doesn't fight fair, and with honesty, then it loses an important piece of what makes it worth fighting for in the first place.

btw I haven't seen Moore at the Oscars; my immediate reaction was that, while I wasn't thrilled that it was he who did it, I was glad that someone made some kind of a statement. Unlike Kerry, I don't think that people who are fond of Moore are unimportant people with whom I wouldn't care to associate (am I the only one who finds this a remarkably icky thing to say?), and I can certainly understand why they admire his willingness to doggedly persist in fighting his particular fight -- I could even call it courage, perhaps. But I'm deeply troubled by his methods, and by the repeated question marks about his integrity as a filmmaker. And so, despite having spent just about all of my 26 years on earth well below the poverty line, no, Michael Moore does not speak for me, or to me -- for at this point, I don't feel that I can trust him, and that to me is far more relevant to being "one of us" than...well, than just about anything. But if history proves me wrong, and Moore accomplishes great things that help the poor and oppressed, then I will gladly acknowledge those accomplishments. I just fear that the concerns I have described will, if nothing else, keep him from accomplishing those things.

There have been instances when Moore has obviously been contradictory, and I think it's quite deliberate, like when he says that the majority of American people don't want war on the one hand, and acknowledging that Bush's approval ratings would go through the roof once it started. He knows exactly what he's doing when he says he speaks for the majority - do you really think he's that dumb? He's wrong and yet he's also right - Americans support progressive causes such as greater social spending in large numbers when questioned in surveys about it.

I have my own internalized prejudices about my own people, and I must say I'm continually surprised by the intelligence in his juxtapositions, observations and deliberate contractadictions -
he knows he's not perfect (his audience knows it, too), and he plays this up to avoid being falling into the Messiah trap. Still doesn't protect him from death threats, though.

And what are the papers saying about him this morning? That he's fat, that his tux didn't fit him, that he has no class, and - most appallingly - that he doesn't give a damn about the troops because he insulted George Bush.

The Bush administration, regarding Congress the same way it regards the UN and the American people themselves (ie troublesome insofar as their right to vote might block hawk will) actually struggled for months to avoid any congressional debate on Iraq. They argued that they already had authorisation for Gulf War II because of the continuing validity of congressional authorisation for Gulf War I, even though this legislation talked only about Iraq's threat to Kuwait. Read this or this.

It's perfectly reasonable to want to avoid the kind of bullshit-infested political egoism and pandering that accompanies any formal debate in Congress. To suggest that the Administration didn't debate this issue openly (or privately, where the press widely reported the battles within the administration's highest ranks) or stifled the discussion on all sides of the issue is not supported by facts. At all.

I like Michael Moore, he understands the power of film and how it can be used and he works an audience very well. He's a clever, well-read man and his speech at the Oscars was great. I thought that Adrien Brody played it safe, his speech was 'controverst for cretins' really. 'Let's all hope for peace' (cue: standing ovation from those too scared of being blacklisted for cheering Moore) oh how radical - and care to share any opinion whatsoever on the war?

Martin Scorsese WAS about to applaud before they cut away. Scorsese is no one's bitch, he's the the greatest filmmaker since Kurosawa and Hitchcock for fuckssake, and the man who made 'The Last Temptation of Christ'. Good for Marty! I would suspect that Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins were applauding - I guess Martin Sheen and Sean Penn weren't invited. But, hey, why not have actors and directors passing comment on this fiasco that's going on? I believe that cinema is a great art (at its best obviously, summer blockbusters notwithstanding).

Getting back to the point. What fucks me off about this war is the two faces of America - holding prisoners of war in Cuba for over a year now and then screaming 'Geneva Convention' when their POWs look malnourished. Bush saying: 'Saddam is evil cos he kills his own people'... well, no doubt, but then Bush sent how many under-18s and innocent people to the electric chair whilst guv'nor of Texas? And with a record number of rich to poor how the fuck can America play world bully and start talking morals? Fuck Bush, he's a twat and fuck Blair as well.

John Carpenter is better.