Disney Forbidding Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush Pt II

[Oblivion437]

You're right...

I'm thinking of some of the bashing he'd done on the news, I believe it was in 2003.

Point rescinded.

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by Oblivion437: quote: Anyway discussing this with you is becoming quite circular and unproductive, so I am taking my leave.

When you're unwilling to clarify or actually stand on your assertions, of course that's going to happen. If I build the empire state building, you can claim to build a taller building, or tear mine down, but until you can...

The last word does not mean the correct word. So don't take my probable ignoring of your future posts on the topic of BFC as an admission that you have finally scored the ultimate 'gotcha' which has left me unable to reply.

Of course, but you've not actually defended any assertions on Hardy's dissertation with a specific point of any kind, much less a reasonable claim, so this reads more like a cop-out than anything else. I'm not attacking you, this is how it looks. I don't think ill of you in either case (cop-out or tire of the circle) and I don't have any intention to attack your character with this statement. [/QUOTE]Cheers, mate. Your opinion's been noted. Just wanted to comment that it's not about winning or losing, or saving face or losing face, it's about people putting their 2c in, and I'd like to add that I won't think ill of ANYBODY who decides to withdraw from a discussion, circular or otherwise, for WHATEVER reason. Likewise, people can continue to participate in discussions, circular or otherwise, for as long as they want, as long as they have the time to do so, keep their cool and not promote discord. And of course, individual members can all think what they like about people, nobody can stop that. As long as we keep any negative feelings off the board we won't have any problems.

Anyway, just my 2c.

[ 07-03-2004, 03:21 PM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

[Oblivion437]

Just so long as I'm understood.

[Grojlach]

Seems like some religious nut decided to publish Moore's home address.

From an online blog:

According to the blog Non Prophet, James Dobson’s socially conservative activist group, Focus on the Family, has included Michael Moore’s home address in their daily email to supporters. What legitimate purpose could this possibly serve? What have Moore’s neighbors, wife and daughter done to merit the danger that FOTF have foolishly put them in? Simply disgusting. UPDATE: Several commentors have noted that this hasn’t been independently confirmed, which is fair. I’m calling Focus on the Family this morning to see if they can confirm or deny it; stay tuned. ANOTHER UPDATE: This is for real. I’ve just spoken to a representative of Focus on the Family who has confirmed that Focus on the Family did, indeed, give out Moore’s home address. The person that I spoke to didn’t want to be quoted. I’ve asked the media relations department to see if they have any comment that they are willing to make, and I’ll update with any comment that they have.

More info: http://www.0xdeadbeef.org/blog/non_p...es/005330.html

For what it's worth, someone over at the Somethingawful forums called Focus on the Family (800-232-6459), who confirmed the story. You could call them yourself, I suppose; not going to check the number myself, living overseas and all.
The e-mail in question:

========================= EDITOR'S NOTE: Write Michael Moore -- at Home -- with Your Opinions of "Fahrenheit 9/11" Filmmaker Michael Moore, writer/director of the new Bush-bashing documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," has made quite a career out of marketing himself as a man of the people, a populist everyman who fights passionately for the little guy. That's why we wanted to make sure "little guys" could let Moore know exactly what they think about his new movie. So, if you have an opinion about the film -- in which Moore plays fast and loose with the facts to build a case that President Bush is an idiot and the war in Iraq is all about oil profits -- we suggest you send it to the following address: Michael Moore [ADDRESS REMOVED BY N.P.] That's his home -- a condominium this man of the people, so critical of capitalism, spent $4.5 million on seven years ago. And please don't worry that it's wrong to use this address; it's public record, obtained through New York State mortgage records and Federal Election Commission filings. Besides, Moore himself endorses the publication of this kind of information: In "Fahrenheit 9/11," in fact, he projects on screen the private office number of a congressman whose views he opposes -- and urges viewers to call it.

And note that Michael Moore gave out the office number of a senator, which is an item of public record.
More importantly, the senator works for the people of his state. His office number is the way that the people who put him in office can communicate with him. Michael Moore is a movie maker. He doesn't owe you a forum for your opinion, especially at home, because you vote with your dollars.
If the people giving out his address simply wanted their opinion heard, they could've given out the mailing address to Moore's production company. This was meant purely for harassment.

[ 07-05-2004, 04:36 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Oblivion437: Just so long as I'm understood.

For what it's worth, Oblivion, I thought the 3 links you provided earlier were very informative. Hardy did an excellent job at showing exaclty how Moore used the "smoke and mirrors" effect in BfC. He also provided links and sources to back up his claims against the film. In the "controversial" speech by Heston at Denver, he gave a side-by-side comparison of the transcript from the film compared to the transcript of the actual speech. It shows - without any opinion or conjecture - how Moore deliberately took some sentences far out of context and even spliced two separate sentences together to make a completely different statement.

Moore's defense of Hardy's criticism were mostly red herrings or dodges in my opinion. By an example of a "red herring", I point out the scene in the bank when Moore got his gun for buying a CD. Moore "defends" the criticism of that scene, yet Hardy never criticized it. He said certain parts of it were suspect, but that it wasn't a serious enough deception to be included in his major arguments against the film. I noticed that Moore never answered any of the criticism with a direct answer and he did just completely ignore a couple of the most serious claims (serious in Hardy's opinion).

I also noted that Hardy did a good job at rebutting the defenses Moore did offer. All in all, I thought it was an extremely insightful effort on the part of Mr. Hardy and his friends that helped him.

As to the point that Hardy had an "agenda" to discredit Moore's film because he is an NRA member....that may be true. Then again, Moore would have an even more "vested interest" in lying or stretching the truth in an attempt to defend his film. I also find it interesting that - waaaaay back at the beginning of this thread - it was mentioned that Moore was also a member of the NRA and that BfC wasn't meant as an "attack" on that organization. Yet Moore's own words regarding BfC was that he had a huge team of lawyers and researcher go over EVERY scene in BfC to make sure it was accurate because the "NRA would come after him with everything they had if they could because they are mean people that will use any bullying or threatening tactic they can to prevent the "truth" about guns from being told" (paraphrased by me, but the second link in Oblivion's post will give you the exact words Moore says about the NRA. He most certainly is NOT supporting NRA and definitely sounds as if BfC WAS a deliberate attack on them. And - in fact - he does try to make them look like uncaring ogres (a term I used earlier) that have a habit of holding "big gun rallies" in or near towns that just recently suffered a horrific tragedy involving guns. The reasons the NRA couldn't move the Denver meeting have been well documented and the supposed "big gun rally" in Flint, MI has been shown to have occurred months after the tragedy - and also has been shown to have not even been a "gun rally" at all.

But of course, these "opinions" are all from biased sources - so many of them are discounted out of hand. So I offer the criticism given by Roger Ebert - a fan of Michael Moore. He voiced (and confirmed) many of the same criticisms about BfC as the opposition did. He lamented (rightfully so) that Moore had plenty of data and information to work with without deliberately distorting some of the facts and figures used - and also commented that such "creative editing" actually cheapened Moore's argument and cheapened his credibility. He also confirmed that Moore told him and other reporters to "do their job" and NOT say that the crowd at the Acadamey Awards was evenly divided in their support and criticism of his anti-Bush speech. He tried to blame the boo's he received on 5 stagehands, then claimed that the loud chorus of "boo's" which was undeniable to anybody that saw the footage was actually his supporters "booing" the stagehands for "booing" Moore. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] And again, these statements from Moore were confirmed by Roger Ebert - a liberal, friend, and FAN of Michael Moore.

Ah well, in the end it doesn't really matter. Moore is an American and - as such - has every right to his opinion and has every right to make his films as he sees fit. It is then left up to the individuals to decide just how much truth is contained in the films, and how the film's message affects each of us in our beliefs and value systems.

[Oblivion437]

Thank you, Cerek

FWIW Oblivion, I do believe you proved your point better than your opponent, whatever his reason for ducking out. Good Job. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Edit: For the apparent mandatory disclaimer in that this post does not claim to be factual but voices an opion.

[Davros]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: As to the point that Hardy had an "agenda" to discredit Moore's film because he is an NRA member....that may be true.

I also hear that GW Bush may be President, Saddam Hussien may be captured, Greece may have won the European Championships, and we may not have found any WOMD in Iraq. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Still three weeks to go till I get to see the movie - I may be looking forward to it.

[Chewbacca]

I'm good for at least one more post on this topic. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: Hardy did an excellent job at showing exaclty how Moore used the "smoke and mirrors" effect in BfC. He also provided links and sources to back up his claims against the film. In the "controversial" speech by Heston at Denver, he gave a side-by-side comparison of the transcript from the film compared to the transcript of the actual speech. It shows - without any opinion or conjecture - how Moore deliberately took some sentences far out of context and even spliced two separate sentences together to make a completely different statement.

The blue part is conjecture- and heads towards the opinion from Hardy that Moore's editing and use of excerpts were designed to be misleading. This is pure conjecture because intent to decieve cannot be factually proven. The fact of the matter is Moore used excerpts from a speech. That is parts of the speech to make a specific point. Leaving out parts of the speech are hardly damning. The is the whole point of excerpts is to show parts.

As for the claim that two different sentences were spliced together to make a different statement- more conjecture. A few different excerpts were used. The opening narrative of the scnene even had a clip from a totally different speech. [img]tongue.gif[/img] IIRC the scene in question switched around alot from excerpts of Heston's speech to scenes of demonstrators outside and other bits. It is pure conjecture that this part of the film and the use of excerpts from Heston's speech is done as part of a design to mislead.

In general Hardy's work is great for people who may already have negative pre-concieved notions about Moore and BFC. It is also great for these people who have also not even seen the film.

Hardy's excessive use conjecture in a similiar fashion through-out his critisms makes taking him on in a point by point fashion a waste of time for me and dilutes any factual mistakes that are presented.

Even some of these factual mistakes seem born more out of an ignorance or misunderstanding of Moore's satire and a mischaracterization of when Moore is making an opinion. This point it seems can apply to Ebert in his critism of the film as well.

Take out the conjecture, the misunderstanding of satire, and the mischaracterization of Moore's opinions and what is left?

One last point- Cliaming that Moore's rebuttal is designed to specifically counter Hardy's critisms is quite misleading. Moore doesnt name specifically any sources that his rebuttal is aimed towards. His response is evidently meant to be quite general and touches upon some key points.

Case in point:

Moore's defense of Hardy's criticism were mostly red herrings or dodges in my opinion. By an example of a "red herring", I point out the scene in the bank when Moore got his gun for buying a CD. Moore "defends" the criticism of that scene, yet Hardy never criticized it. He said certain parts of it were suspect, but that it wasn't a serious enough deception to be included in his major arguments against the film. I noticed that Moore never answered any of the criticism with a direct answer and he did just completely ignore a couple of the most serious claims (serious in Hardy's opinion).

This appears to be a mis-characterization of Moore's response as it makes it out to seem like Moore was responding directly and specifically to Hardy's critiques and opinions when this is not the case. Hardy is not mention once in Moore's response to the wacko attacks on BFC. The fact that Moore's response is quite a general one is made clear by this part:

So, a whole host of gun lobby groups and individual gun nuts have put up websites where the smears on me range from the pre-adolescent (I'm a "crapweasel," and a "fat f-ing piece of shit") to Orwellian-style venom ("Michael Moore hates America!").

Anyway, it was fun, but I still feel like I am repeating myself and making points made like three threads back on the BFC topic. Hardy's case vs BFC is too lite on fact/heavy on conjecture to be worth tackling point by point. Anyone interested can click the links and decide for themselves.

I would rather discuss F 9/11. It seems once the few 'Moore lies in F-9/11' claims were deflated, no one wanted to discuss it anymore. On this point it turns out that Unocal has denied that Harmid Karzia (Afgan president) was ever a consultant for them. I am still looking into this as it is one factual assertion made as fact in the film ( and in varous media sources before the film) that is yet to be conclusively proven either way. Moore stated on his site that a fact sheet for F-9/11 will be made available soon so we can see sources and such for ourselves.

[Grojlach]

On a related subject... I'm currently reading Stupid White Men, and once you get used to Moore's writing style and look past the obvious bias, he's got some interesting things to say. However, for fairness' sake, I'll let the anti-Moore people here choose one particular site with rebuttals to the things Moore describes in his novel, and I'll promise to read them - or at least attempt to. So, anyone?

[ 07-06-2004, 05:29 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]