| Author | Message | ||
     Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Some of us knew he was from several films back, but here's more proof http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc3x0XRuWzE | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.81.183 |
I've never believed he really ever cared about any of the subjects he raised. He manipulates human emotion to fill his pockets. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.194.158 |
He's despicable. It would be nice if he were to find himself suddenly transported, Twilight Zone style, into the centre of a hurricane-ravaged area - I bet the little bastard wouldn't be so full of it then. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.81.183 |
He should be forced to go forward in time and eat his future self. Then be forced back to the present and be forced to wait for his future self to arrive from the past and then be eaten by him. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
I can't see you tube. Who is it and what's he doing? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.56 |
Fat bastard. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Thank you Hubert - same to you. Please, Youtube is blocked from these PCs. Who's in the clip and what's he doing? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.81.183 |
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080830000004.aspx | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.2.100 |
Albie's cannibal-fantasia =  | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.81.183 |
Imagine eating yourself, knowing that each bite will be inflicted upon you later, by you. I suppose you could prepare yourself, knowing where the next bite will be. Or will that be worse? Would you try to eat the neck first, as quickly and brutally as possible to speed up your own future death at the hands of your own teeth? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I once had a dream where I was trapped in a glass coffin in some kind of futuristic research lab, with zombies breaking in. Rather than suffer death at their hands (or mouths), I started trying to kill myself by biting my wrists. It was horrible - I was unable to die and just kept biting. Blood and shredded flesh everywhere. Nasty. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.81.183 |
Which mirrors your life exactly. | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Weber, it's Michael Moore they're talking about. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
Um, wasn't he joking? I thought he was being sarcastic. I don't think Moore is perfect but he's not that bad. This isn't even a full interview. As if he'd do such a thing. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
No longer a shit: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=229 I don't really like him, but he's not evil... | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.81.183 |
Still, he should be forced to eat himself. It's how he would want to go. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
It's ok grumbling about folk when they deserve it but it doesn't feel well intended when it's done in such a rush and without bothering to look properly. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.81.183 |
Nothing gets in the way of people eating themselves. Not even logic. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.81.183 |
"And Moore couldn't be more tickled. He told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, "I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven. To just have it planned at the same time, that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for Day One of the Republican convention, up in the Twin Cities, at the top of the Mississippi River.” .” " http://gawker.com/5043880/michael-moore-hurricane-gustav-is-gift-from-god He hasn't just had the letter on his site. He's been going around saying it. So it's not a misquote. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
But his tongue is in his cheek. He doesn't want folk dead as much as he really means this means he believe in God. Ak! It's the road 'thataway' again! The one where no-one can understand anyone, or won't.  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.17.13.200 |
Tony, I agree with you completely, in principle. Here's the thing: someone as smart as Michael Moore knows he's going to be flayed alive by such comments, but he seems to love the attention, negative or otherwise... so it comes off as publicity-stunt - which is what I personally hate, phoney-ness. So though I forgive him the bad joke... the self-serving thirst for attention is repulsive. You know, I had a friend float the idea that the David Duchovney story was a publicity stunt for his show "Californication," which is about to start its new season. I'm quite cynical... but even I can't believe an actor would sink to those depths of publicty-seeking... there's a certain level of repulsiveness I just don't believe anyone would sink to, not even an actor.... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Never mind him. The people of New Orleans have suffered more than 'God': http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/10/19/a-disposable-workforce-in-new-orleans-after-ka trina | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
>>You know, I had a friend float the idea that the David Duchovney story was a publicity stunt for his show "Californication," You'd've thought he'd've been better doing it for the X-FIELS movie, which needed more help, saying he'd got kidnapped by space aliens or something. As for Moore, well, I can't see the YouTube clip, but at a guess I'd imagine he was joking. Context though: it's in bad taste. But wasn't the original notion that New Orleans got it first time cos it was full of sin a rapture Christian notion? | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.187.162 |
It was in bad taste, Moore is a slimy, incorrigible manipulator, and I have no idea why people are defending him. The people of New Orleans have suffered enough without having to put up with cheap jibes from a blubbery, dim-witted opportunist like him. Even if it was said partly with tongue-in-cheek, it still shows him up for the insensitive slob that he is. Did I mention that I don't like him? ;-) | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I didn't describe Moore as evil. That dignifies him too much. Look at the title of the thread. For me the first two words sum up his work. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
For the record, my friends who have elected to stay in New Orleans - Poppy and Chris - seem to have no time to appreciate Moore's wit and irony. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
I read his letter and he doesn't want folk dead. Where did it say that? He's angry at people who didn't help those who suffered last time, which if you read his letter closely is something he did himself when the disaster happened; he got actual help down there quicker than his country. Some of you folk seem to just like knocking others for the sake of it, come on all holier-than-thou, and it's frankly embarrassing. Any of you actually go over and help? He's making remarks at the expense of the REPUBLICANS for Christ's sake, laughing at the timing. Ok, so you never said he was 'dignifiedly' Evil, which for some reason is more acceptable than daft, but he is at least trying to get up off his ass and try and do something, even if it is misguided on occasion. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
But like I said, this will probably go on and on without anyone trying to meet half-way. It's how we are. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.190.253 |
I don't think anyone said he was 'evil' or 'wanted folk dead', Tony, merely that he is an opportunistic little shit. That he makes asinine remarks like this shows what an insensitive slob he is, given the fact that so many suffer each year from these natural disasters. As someone who lives in an area constantly battered by typhoons and earthquakes, experiencing firsthand the destruction and misery they bring, I find it offensive (and yes, for what it's worth I have taken part in disaster aid - actual 'hands-on' rescue work, as well as donations - going back more than 25 years). It's just not something one should joke about, especially the way he did, on national television: attention-craving, and for his own amusement. Yes, he was using it as a way of attacking the Republicans - but he was also trivialising the suffering (and potential suffering from Gustav) of a great many people, in my opinion. I don't see why it's necessary to always 'meet halfway' in a discussion. We're all entitled to our opinions, whether you like or agree with them or not. I don't see why it would be desirable to compromise our views for the sake of arriving at some sort of happy consensus; that's what individual opinion is all about, surely, and what makes message board discussion so stimulating. It doesn't bother me when others disagree with me, and I don't see why it should bother you either. Personally, I think Moore is a self-serving buffoon. If you don't think that the many senseless remarks he's made (such as this one), or his opportunism are reprehensible, then hey, I can live with that, because that's your right. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.90.30 |
Look, does he step into the time machine with a knife, fork and a bib or not? if you think about it, there'd be three Michael Moores at the feast. Because the one in the future has alredy eaten the Michael Moore...in the future...the past...so when the one from the present...will have to eat two Michael Moores' because his meal will have a Michael Moore in his belly. So when he returns to the present to await being eaten, he'll be three Michael Moores. Himself and two in his belly. I've decided to side with Tony on this. It's just less confusing. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
I met Michael moore when he did a tour with "Stupid white Men" He slagged off every political paty in Britain and then said we were fools in Britain for voting in Blair. this was after calling the tories a load of unelectable idiots and the Liberals insignifant nomarks. I did wonder who he though we should have voted in but because the Q&A section was with pre-selected questions there was no way of asking him. Having said that, some of his detractors make him look good in comparison. There's a book called "Why Michael moore is a stupid fat white man". I flicked through it in a book shop and the first point I read trying to refute one of MM's arguments was that someone MM had claimed was a convited murderer released from prison early to reoffend was actually a convicted multiple rapist. I thought that if that was the quality of the argumets, there wasn't much point reading further. I don't know about you but I'd have more sympathy with a murderer than a multiple rapist - it's possible to have valid motive for murder. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.90.30 |
 | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
As much as Moore is a fool, I hate the Neo Cons much much more. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
But Ramsey is right that he is opportunistic and often vulgar. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.201.119 |
"I don't know about you but I'd have more sympathy with a murderer than a multiple rapist - it's possible to have valid motive for murder." Eh? is the only response I can muster. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
No, I know what Weber means. I'm gathering my thoughts on Moore – need a chance to watch the YouTube clip at home. I've been impressed by his recent full-length films. Tony, I appreciate what you're saying about Moore, but also agree with Huw that outright disagreement can be perfectly healthy. Ramsey and I are not going to agree on Moore any more than on Argento or Loach, so we've not tried to negotiate a settlement. The RCMB is not a coalition (fortunately). | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
In point of fact it's a benign dictatorship. Very benign.  | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.201.119 |
I may be wrong, but I don't think Tony is lamenting the fact that peoples' opinions differ but that they don't seem open to persuasion. It's debate as pugilism rather than as a genuine attempt to understand each other's point of view and learn from it. | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Opportunistic Moore may be - which makes him not significantly different from many other people out there with something to promote - and he can be accused of vulgarity and bad taste and bad timing with some of his remarks, but in that he doesn't differ from a lot of comedians and late night talk show hosts, whose caustic witticisms that are retold with glee around countless water coolers are often at the expense of people who probably feel said remarks are vulgar and in bad taste. Are his documentaries completely balanced and even-handed? Of course not; show me a documentary that is. Does he fudge facts to make a point? Yes; again, show me a documentary that doesn't. Or watch Fox News any given day of the week. On the other hand, does Moore give voice to points of view and attitudes and issues that the network news shows and current events programmes in America are unlikely to cover in such depth? Yes. After Columbine, Marilyn Manson and his music were being blamed by some for having a part in influencing the murderers. Moore gave Manson a chance to put his point of view, and Manson came across as articulate, thoughtful, and intelligent; certainly not the demon that many people were painting him as. Like or dislike Moore, he's raising issues that a lot of people in America would prefer not to see raised, in such a way that at least people get talking about these issues, which aren't likely to be raised in many other places in Dubya's U.S. of A. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
"I don't know about you but I'd have more sympathy with a murderer than a multiple rapist - it's possible to have valid motive for murder." If you were told you were going to meet one of two people, the only thing you knew about them was that one was a convicted murderer, and the other was a convicted multiple rapist, which one would you prefer to meet. The one who MAY have some kind of mitigating circumstance. I'd be far more willing to listen to the reason why a murderer committed a single murder than the other guy trying to justify himself. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.193.202 |
Ok, your criterion is recidivism. That, I can understand. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.90.30 |
Look guys. Moore eating his future self wouldn't be considered as murder, more assisted suicide. Certainly not rape. Unless once on top of himself he couldn't help himself. So I don't know where this discussion is going. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.226.229 |
Are his documentaries completely balanced and even-handed? Of course not; show me a documentary that is. Does he fudge facts to make a point? Yes; again, show me a documentary that doesn't. Or watch Fox News any given day of the week.... So are you then cool with Fox News, Barbara?... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
On my observation Moore is happy to misrepresent footage in his films. He'll do anything for an effect or to appear to make a point, it seems to me. Some of the points may be valid and indeed be validly made, but too many aren't. Of course all documentaries select and shape their material. That isn't the point. Moore isn't Errol Morris or Robert Flaherty or John Grierson or Lindsay Anderson or Chris Marker - he isn't in the league of any of them. He seems to me to be a manipulative cynic and a bad representative of the left. I'm keeping my temper over the comments about "some of you folk". | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
>>>On my observation Moore is happy to misrepresent footage in his films. I suppose it's dignifying Moore with too much savvy to suggest he's fighting fire with fire. I mean, Media Lens's expose of even liberal media reporting shows how subtly selective that is. Isn't exaggeration a strategy used to get attention. I think I once read that the radical feminists deliberately argued from extreme positions simply to acquire the level of notoriety necessary to be heard. I don't know. Maybe Moore *is* just a self-serving asshole. Anyway, there are far better film-makers in this field who should be commanding our attention: John Pilger, Naomi Klein, et al. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.90.30 |
Actually, any documentary maker that manipulates with selective editing is a pronk. So I do take issue with Fox News. They also will be eating their future selves. I don't think FOX get SO high on their HIGH horse as Moore. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.90.30 |
>>Some of you folk seem to just like knocking others for the sake of it, come on all holier-than-thou, and it's frankly embarrassing. Any of you actually go over and help? He's making remarks at the expense of the REPUBLICANS for Christ's sake, laughing at the timing. He was using a disaster to poke his tongue out at McCain. Imagine if I said this "Hey, that 9/11 was proof that god hates Bush." If that is not a definite sign how shallow Moore's grief over the hurricanes in New Orleans then I'm a Dutch man. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.90.30 |
Probably no more sensitive then AIDS jokes. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Dead Ringers did a fantastic take on Michael Moore - trying to do a documentary about himself... "So here I'll show footage of a child being hit by a car and superimpose an unrelated shot of me laughing... Now I'll ambush myself while I'm in a hurry and ask an outrageously stupid question while all i want to do is catch my train and I've got to ignore myself so that makes me look rude and ignorant." | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
>>On my observation Moore is happy to misrepresent footage in his films. He's been accused of something similar in his books. For example, in STUPID WHITE MEN he alleged some Senator (I believe it was) didn't understand the Greek reference he was making when questioned about it later; an allegation the Senator was quick to refute, pointing out he'd studied Greek myth at university and knew exactly what he was talking about. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Doesn't he live in a millionaires' neighbourhood and send his kids to private school? And demand massive speaking fees? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
I think that's Tony Blair, mate. (I'm reading Robert Harris's THE GHOST right now, you know. It's not about Blair. Oh no. Nope. He says so.) | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.154.242.64 |
Let us know what you think of THE GHOST, Mark - I love Harris's work but haven't read this'un yet. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.182.75 |
"I may be wrong, but I don't think Tony is lamenting the fact that peoples' opinions differ but that they don't seem open to persuasion. It's debate as pugilism rather than as a genuine attempt to understand each other's point of view and learn from it." Proto, why is it 'pugilism' to be open about disagreeing with someone? Should I pretend that I've somehow learned something from Tony's post, when I haven't? I'm perfectly willing to learn from other people's viewpoints and change mine if I feel the argument holds water, but I'm not going to pretend to do so in an attempt to mollify others and create some kind of feel-good atmosphere in which we all end up saying we agree on everything. No offense to you or Tony, of course - and I don't think I should even need to say that, as we're surely all good friends here by now and should be able to cope with others having differing viewpoints. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
Huw - it's not so much anyone has to pretend, it's just that we - and I include myself - are incapable. To me, Micheal Moore is on Ramsey and Pippin's side, but they can't see it at all because they disagreed with Moore at some time in the past, and people find grudges very difficult to drop. Really, it's nigh impossible for many. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
I think there is one truth in every argument, but that some can never see it because of the content of their lives thus far. There are those that see it and those that think they see it. Sadly it's painful for the recognition to happen, and this is an occasion. Moore is questionable, certainly, but that for me does not affect what I think he intended on this occasion. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.224.209 |
I think in the end, if one wanted to go down this specific metaphorical path that Moore laid out... you'd have to argue again that God favors the Republicans: He sent Gustav, which ended up being not nearly so disastrous as anyone wanted it to be, and it provided blessed cover for two potential Republican embarrassments: 1) it allowed McCain to "fact dump" everything potentially damaging about Sarah Palin in the middle of an all-hurricane news cycle; 2) much more serendipitous, it allowed Bush and Cheney cover to escape (physically) their presence at the convention: they couldn't choose to stay away, and actually going would have been not a great thing... there was no way around it... but now, they're safely separated (that translates symbolically: McCain is not Bush's twin - he's "there," McCain's "here"), the hurricane providing perfect "cover"... cover, I might add, supplied ultimately/originally by the radical Left: who attacked Bush mercilessly when he didn't respond as they wanted him to during Katrina. And, an added bonus, it rendered Moore once more the bloated piñata for the red-meat Right he so resembles. Best advice: the next time Moore opens his mouth to speak, he should instead insert his fist down his gut-hole, pull his balls up from the inside, and slink away.... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.83.163 |
Proto, why is it 'pugilism' to be open about disagreeing with someone? Huw, If you read what I said again, you'll see I clearly said that I don't think the problem lies in disagreeing with one another. It's more about being open-minded. But then I'm only guessing as to what Tony is thinking. I could be massively wrong. | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
No, not at all; merely pointing out that fudging, being selective, lying, manipulating, whatever you want to call it, goes on everywhere: in documentaries, in news shows, in talk shows, everywhere. Those opposed to Moore point out that he fudges facts as if he's the only one out there who does so. I actually have more of a problem with Fox *NEWS* fudging facts. A documentary is, at the end of the day, the work of one person or a small group of people with a certain point of view. News shows are supposed - I thought - to present a certain level of objectivity and even-handedness. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.0.101 |
News shows are supposed - I thought - to present a certain level of objectivity and even-handedness.... None of the major American news outlets - CNN, Fox, NBC/+C/+MS, PBS, NPR, etc. - have complete objectivity: most lean Left, Fox leans Right... you sift through the muck the best you can. It's a fallen world, after all. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Barbara's right. The media's shot through with this kind of thing, and not just the soft targets. Anyone who doubts that should read Edwards and Cromwell's Guardians of Power. Most revealing and worrying... It isn't a 'conspiracy' of deliberate manipulation; it's far more insidious and subtle than that. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.108.4.154 |
Friends of mine in the USA consistently inform me there are three voices in US news and current affairs coverage: right-wing, very right-wing and incredibly right-wing. The first of these is presumably what you mean by 'left', Craig. When did you last hear a Marxist or Communist perspective given sympathetic coverage? Tony... I broadly agree with your substantive claims about Moore. Much of what annoys his more honest critics is his attitude, presentation style and sense of humour, which is surely the main topic at issue here. It's dangerous – and will invariably give offence – to personalise disagreements. The goal of emotional sharing is an honourable one, but it needs to be addressed in its own context, not in the context of a discussion on external issues. If I want my views to be related to my emotional issues, I'll talk to my family. You don't need my emotions and, trust me, you wouldn't want them either. Barbara... yes, exactly. I've posted here about SICKO! in the past. Moore's cinema films have impressed me as vivid, hard-hitting attempts to counter the tidal wave of right-wing propaganda emanating from the US media. They may sometimes be gauche, but their anger and clarity is a breath of fresh air. His humour does less for me, and he needs to edit his own journalism heavily. Chomsky (or Pilger) he is not. But the left needs its brash and crude heroes as well as its subtle and quiet ones. That's how I see it, but others may disagree on perfectly valid grounds... It's interesting to compare him with our own Mark Thomas, whose approach is lower-profile and more closely linked to grass-roots activism. His humour can also be tasteless, but he has wisely downplayed that part of his repertoire in recent years. Also, his relative lack of fame has given him wonderful opportunities to tackle all kinds of people who don't recognise his face. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.108.4.154 |
Craig, just to give an example of the impression of the USA gained by an English friend of mine who lived there for several years in the 1990s: "The Bible Belt extends from the Canadian border to the Mexican border." | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
>>>But the left needs its brash and crude heroes as well as its subtle and quiet ones. That's how I see it, but others may disagree on perfectly valid grounds... Even the dyed-in-the-wool US apologist Thomas Friedman claims that the only way to challenge the system to play it at its own game. In The Lexus and the Olive Tree he cites many examples of how the left has exploited corporate America by adopting its own strategies and forcing them look at themselves. Might Moore be simply using the techniques of manipulative editing to make his points? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47 |
Of course, Joel's totally correct about the USA news reportage being right-wing. If there is a left-right divide in the American media it's that (broadly speaking) the left control the fictional programming and the right control the factual, though even that may be changing -- I've never watched it, but I hear that the hero of 24 condones torture. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
My view of Moore is that he's just another fat middle class American who makes a fortune by pretending to care. Nice work if you can get it. But, like a lot of these charmless self-serving media characters, he serves a purpose and gets people talking about issues. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47 |
It's an awful thing to say, but the sense that America is waning is palpable. You can easily see it slipping back into 2nd, 3rd or 4th place on the world stage. Because of the US agreement with Saudi Arabia that the latter will preferentially sell oil for dollars, the USA can simply print more $ when they feel like it. If that agreement fails, they're in massive trouble. I do feel sorry for the ordinary good people of the USA. If it collapses (probably into its constituent states) it'll be very, very nasty. For all its problems, I'd still much prefer to be a subject live in an American empire than a Chinese one. Europe has a bright future, though. The French are starting up the first commercial fusion reactor very soon -- clean, reliable, sustainable power forever. How much more stable would the world be if everyone had a fusion reactor? What would happen? Would we find something else to fight about? I don't think so, necessarily. If we can get rid of the status anxiety that capitalism causes, if everyone could just relax and stop panicing, we could really have a Star Trek future. One pattern that emerges from the classics is that it was always perceived that 1) there was a golden age in the past, 2) we're in dark, troubled times today and 3) it's going to get a whole lot worse in the future. This seems to be part of the human way of thinking about the world. Question it. It's nicely romantic and dramatic, and makes for a great backdrop for heroic tales, but it's not necessarily true. Look at the EU: it going ahead and co-operating and making things incrementally better in an astonishingly boring way. If you ask for politics to be exciting, you get Berlusconi. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I'd much rather live in a European empire than an American or Chinese one. Particularly if I got to live in Normandy under the new regime. ;-) You're right, Proto - there is a sense of America waning. Gradually winding down as a super power. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47 |
Oh yeah, a European empire would be the best. I'd put up with the crap pop music in exchange for decades of peace, harmony, co-operation and good art. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
The older I get the more I realise than the English have nothing in common with Americans. We share no common ground other than a language (well, almost) and our leaders' lust for global capitalism. We have more in common with the French (who everyone but me seems to hate) or the Germans. Or the Canadians. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47 |
I think so. A puritan attitude took root at Plymouth rock and hasn't let the country go. It's a pity because there are so many good things about America and its people -- so much great art and innovation of the 20th century came from there. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.56 |
I certainly have nothing against America. Visited the country five times in the nineties and was always courteously treated and received. Generally speaking I'd say life is easier there than in Europe, especially in the big cities. Food prices aren't exorbitant, either, and you CAN eat there very well indeed, if you know where to go. True, you have to have money to move freely in American society, but name me a country where that isn't so. This pro-Americanism doesn't imply any pro-Washingtonism, of course. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Oh, I have nothing against America or the Americans - I'm sinply stating that they have nothing in common with the English. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"To me, Micheal Moore is on Ramsey and Pippin's side, but they can't see it at all because they disagreed with Moore at some time in the past, and people find grudges very difficult to drop." I have no grudge against him. Why on earth should I have? And equally on earth, who's Pippin? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Merry's hobbit sidekick, if I remember rightly. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47 |
This is the quote on A Word a Day today. Seems apposite: Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than virtue. -Robert Wright, author and journalist (b. 1957) | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.195.169 |
Proto, by that quote, I assume you mean that Moore is more concerned with getting his own message across, and isn't necessarily concerned about the truth, and that he'll use any means at his disposal to do so? If so, I agree with you there. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
Seems to me it counts for everyone! When I read Moore's letter I took it at face value; he was siding with the Lousianians (is that a word?), wanting them justice. Some poeple, because of their attitude to/feelings about Moore's past (and genuine) daftnesses, seem like they want him to have meant it cruelly. I really don't think he did. Um, Pippin was Poppy Z B. It just came out wrong... | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Something that appears to rub people the wrong way about Moore is his self-aggrandisement, the fact that he himself is front and centre in his own work, and that his off-screen persona is loud and brash and 'Look at me!' While I can see how this would be anathema to a lot of Brits and Canadians - brought up as we are, or at least were at one time, to consider modesty a virtue, and blowing one's own horn incredibly crass and vulgar - I'd have thought a good many Americans would lap it up, given that country's history of celebrating the self-made man, the person of humble birth made good, and its seeming love of the loud and the vulgar. I'm also a bit surprised to hear that American news skews more left than right; that's not my impression at all, from what I've heard and seen of it (and here in Canada we hear and see a lot of it, unfortunately, whether we want to or not). It was my impression that American news skews pretty much to the right in varying degrees, apart from PBS, which barely anyone watches. I must admit that I avoid watching American news when I can, as I find it unbearably fluffy and shallow; even the flagship network newscasts are little better than those local news shows which think that reporting on the fact that the parking lot at the local mall is crowded on the last shopping day before Christmas is worth the second or third lead in the show. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.90.30 |
You are only judging the letter? What about his interview? He words them both very differntly. That's why nobody knew what you meant when you posted a link to the letter. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.195.169 |
Tony, I was responding to (and agreeing with) Ramsey's post at the start of the thread, and his contention regarding Moore's brazen opportunism. It's easy for things to get muddled and seem confusing when other things are introduced and assumptions are made (such as the ones about people thinking that Moore is "evil" or "wants people dead" - nobody ever said that, as far as I can see; I certainly didn't) or the thing about Ramsey: a. being on Moore's side, and b. having a grudge against him. I don't know what led you to either assumption, but if you go back to the beginning of the thread, you'll see that neither of those things was the point being made. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.195.169 |
Pippin Z. Brite - I actually quite like the sound of that, ;-) Barbara, I too was under the impression the most US news veers more to the right. Isn't that what Joel said initially? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
I still think he was being just sarcastic. It seemed to me Ramsey was saying he didn't like Moore, and I took it that 'some of us thought this for a while' felt like a running dislike. Moore, for me, is good and bad, which is sometimes harder to take than just bad. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
And I had this great theory about 'Pippin' being an old RCMB gag that I'd missed. Pippin and Merry = Zed and Gary. Oh well. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.252.215 |
Joel: Good or bad, societies have their own monolithic span of values - good or bad, culled over long periods of time - that they use to sift through various political/social/ethical views, and stamp "Acceptable" or "Unacceptable." These values change: for many years, homosexuals were considered "Unacceptable"; over time, that value-judgment has (thankfully) changed - so much so, that now that gay-marriage finally, naturally, steps forward, the Right scrambles like rats backed up into a cage: everyone's changed their value system, and the blind-sided, the patronizing, the hold-outs, all bleat at the consequences. "Marxist" and "Communist" values have never ever crossed over, in America, from "Unacceptable" to "Acceptable" (just like "sympathetic coverage" of Nazism would not be found now in England or Europe); even though most of the planks in the Communist Manifesto are unquestioned norms in America. Well, written in the mid-1850's, I guess you'd have to figure out who was mostly copying whom.... The hypocrisy is what I find extends from sea to shining sea. The U.S. should legalize marijuana and prostitution tomorrow, because it's pathetic the double-standard that here alone exists... also, because I'm busy today, and tomorrow should have more free time....  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
>>>Something that appears to rub people the wrong way about Moore is his self-aggrandisement, Interestingly, there was recently a similar debacle from a right perspective when that ego-maniac Martin Amis made a similarly insensitive comment about Muslims. Maybe we just don't like celebs to lecture us? | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.195.169 |
I actually agree with some of Moore's sentiments, but that wasn't the point of the thread (and neither was any of the other peripheral stuff thrown in later), as I understand it. Ramsey said Moore was an opportunistic shit - I and several others agreed. Again, nobody said anything about him being evil, just opportunistic. Not sure how much more clearly I can put it... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.231.231 |
I'm also a bit surprised to hear that American news skews more left than right; that's not my impression at all... All the "right-wing"ers complain about the media skewing left, and all the "left-wing"ers complain about it skewing right. The right has Fox they don't talk about; the left has MSNBC they don't talk about. It's true, I've heard them all moan and bitch. Perspectives are ineluctably subjective, alas. Christ, if I could make myself more objective at times - I'd be such a better writer.... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.151.24 |
But the opportunism was seen as bad, I thought. But is it not right to sieze on chance if you think it serves a purpose? A person trying to do good (and I'm not saying I think Moore is here or not) should, should they not? Perhaps he should have curtailed his jokey approach, it's true; jokes can quite often be taken the wrong way (something *especially* true of satire). | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
>>We have more in common with the French (who everyone but me seems to hate) I like the French. I like their secularism. I see the new Republican vice-Presidential candidate is a creationist. Jesus. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
1987: the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine, a law which obligated the US media to report objectively. In place since 1929 as a voluntary principle, but was eventually inscribed in law. Now it's gone, and the media is free to be partisan. Wonder why... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.23.229.250 |
(that's why I was snappy!; I felt subconsciously herded, and balked at it, even if i might have agreed with the point. Agree with the topic of this thread and all is well; disagree and meet with potential anger. That doesn't quite feel fair. Have I put my foot in it again? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
Moore's giving his new movie away for free to folk in North America for three weeks, via the net. Should anyone be interested. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.5.25 |
 How DARE you disagree, Tony! How dare you even defend yourself! You will now allow me to grab this iron skillet and apply fierce blows about your face and mouth. Once your nose is mashed to a fine goo, with two or three teeth dislodged in the process, I will feel adequately compensated for your rank insolence. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
I wish you'd all stop arguing. I feel like the United Nations. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.191.50 |
Lol! at Craig's post. Tony, you've every right to speak your mind, just like the rest of us. I don't think you need to be worried about being met with anger (there's none on my part, I assure you), as long as you don't herd people into categories yourself (saying people are acting 'holier-than-thou' and 'embarrassing' for example, is bound to raise hackles). It all boils down to personal opinions, surely, and that's fine as long as it's kept civil. Now I'm starting to sound like the UN - better shut up or GF will think I'm after his job. ;-) |