DBear, you'll want to clean up your language if you're going to keep posting. I haven't been following this thread and someone just alerted me to the above, so I want to take the opportunity to remind everyone to keep it family friendly.

[ 05-07-2004, 04:29 PM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

Right behind you on this one! [img]smile.gif[/img]

And Khazad, the if is the whole point. The American right doesn't read Chomsky or anything similar because of this automatic disdain for the liberal. Yet we cannot ignore that whilst some of their points are just as daft as those coming from the far right, people like Chomsky still have important points to make, whether you agree with them or not.
It's the failure to even consider alternative points of view as having merit that is largely responsible for America's foreign policy performance.

[ 05-07-2004, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

It goes well beyond the mere failure of consideration with regards to alternative veiwpoints.

What we have is people in power who rarely take account for their own blunders and, without a doubt, seek to destroy any internal dissent by just about any means neccessary.

We have seen a CIA operative's cover blown because her husband had the ballz to blow the whistle with regards to the African uranium intel error.

We have a long line of public servants including: Generals, counter-terror experts, leading economists, and others who have endured character assassination ranging from their very loyalty to country being questioned to petty name-calling for questioning the wisdom of the current administration's various policies.

What we have seen in the last four years is the death of compromise, moderation, and centristism in favor of blind, narrow ideaology. This has only fed the polarized partisan system that is not only prone to error due to the rigid adherence to party ideaology, but is divisive in a way I can only consider "unAmerican".

In my opinion, It will be a while before our political system recovers from this schism that is a long time brewwing. We may not even be past the worst. But I shall remain steadfastly optimistic for the day when bipartisanship, compromise, moderation, and mere basic honorability is restored in the halls of the White House and on the floor's of the leglislators.

[ 05-07-2004, 03:25 PM: Message edited by: Chewbacca ]

But Shamrock we have been trying some of the loony things the left wants to force on us. Like Johnson's idiotic war on poverty. Trillions were spent on it, yet we still have poverty.

And by the way, it turns out this whole Disney thing is just another lie cooked up by Moore to get publicity for his latest piece of junk. He's known for a year that Disney was not going to distribute it.

Sounds a lot like the right's idiotic war on drugs.

Sounds a lot like the right's idiotic war on drugs. </font>[/QUOTE]Yeah, true. And I'm wondering, is that terrorism thing still around? I thought some folks said they could get rid of that...

Hmm...i'm not sure a war on poverty is an idiotic thing to try however...

I remember a French minister giving a rebuttal to the criticism by an American one over the new EU working time directive (which limits the number of hours per week somebody can work) and he said (roughly, my memory fails me) "in Europe, we judge the success of our economies not by how close it is to a capitalist ideal but by the amount that somebody has to work to have a good standard of living". (One of the most sensible things i've heard coming out of a French minister for a while that!). Thus we largely avoid the issues that are discussed in the 'working poor' thread.

Sure, our productivity may be slightly lower than the US, but it's the price we pay for supporting those who can't support themselves. As long as there are decent measures in place to prevent benefit fraud I cannot see what any 'decent' human being (please don't think i'm passing judgement, just my opinion) can have against it.

Linking to Chewie's post, perhaps it is the polarization (for want of a better word) between left and right in the US that means things like the above are almost taboo. In the UK for example, our left-wing parties have some right-wing policies and vice versa - this (asides from being a pain at election time) seems to be a very sensible system, because both parties are free to adopt the best policies for a given situation. In the US that doesn't seem to happen to the same extent.

That's why when if i ever end up arguing with American's in a right-wing forum over foreign policy for example, i'll be labelled a bleeding-heart liberal, even though I would consider myself standing to the right of centre. There's no flexibility in the American system, so everybody who criticises one aspect of a right-wing government automatically gets associated with the extreme left-wing. It's like Israel branding people anti-semitic for criticising their activities in Palestine and not understanding that it's perfectly possible for one to be anti-zionist without being anti-semitic. In order to solve America's poverty problem, the whole country needs to understand that you don't have to be a liberal in order to worry about a welfare state and bring some compassion to a capitalist system.

Edited and added for clarity

[ 05-07-2004, 04:56 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

Heh, yeah i just read that. He is a nutter sometimes. I certainly don't like him as a person, and i don't agree with a lot of his views, but I would challenge anybody to say that America wasn't better off following the release of Bowling for Columbine for example.

Whether you believe it all or not, if it makes just one person in America sit up and think, maybe do some research about all the instances about the US overthrowing democracy for example, then it's worth it.

You never know, that one person might have been the next Rumsfeld.

And how has he been producing the film then? Did Miramax just give him an "Okay we're gonna make the movie, but you'll have to know that we won't distribute it. Please take it elsewhere when it actually starts to make money"
Sources please!
There may be a logical explanation to why Moore knew that Disney would turn him down and still stayed with Miramax. Please post a link so we can read it.

From my POV it looks like a pretty stupid move from Disney, because this issue is doing a great deal of publicity for a film which won't make THEM any money when it's finally released by someone.