"The policies of my opponent [Kerry] are dangerous for world peace," [George W.] Bush said. "If they were implemented, they would make this world not more peaceful, but more dangerous."
Fair enough on your opinion on micheal moore, I'm sure I could quote loads of people who support him.
Anyway, the arguments about Micheal Moore is also the reason I mentioned the book "why do people hate America". I can't remember the authors are off hand, but can look up if you want. But it's alot harder to slag them off. The pages listing American invasions into democratic countries over the last several decades runs for pages..
The western nations are often responsible for installing the above regimes you've mentioned, and we certainly haven't helped as you said. Plus if you looked at it from that point of view, allot of the imigrants etc in America are treated like you've described above, and are pissed off at the living conditions. Depends which way you look at it.
When we bommed Afganistan, the contractors brought in to repare the country made a profit of 20%, the standard in the west is 5%. The west made money from bombing the country. Plus why was Iraq invaded but not Saudi Arabia? Because the american stock market would collapse. Or North Korea, they are a dangerous regime and are developing nuclear weapons? Its not about "liberation" it's about money and power.
To a large extent all you are quoting is American and UK properganda. The middle east won't be ruling it's self. The people put into power, ok so they're iraqis, but they are the ones america want. Ok, so I'm probably just as one sided, but from the other way, but I don't aprove of killing people for political reasons, and these are my views.
I think we'll have to agree to dissagree. Its a simple matter of differing politics. Neither of us is going to persuade the other, as we're both obviously fixed in our views. (Though I did think america was the land of the free until recently, hence doing camp america and visiting relatives, but I've changed my mind.
Anyway feel free to reply, but I'm not going to bother continuing:-) (I'll just get more frustrated!!!*talking to myself* let it go..... ;)
1) It's an opinion based upon fact. But you would expect me to say that anyway :-)
2) I think that "democratic countries" is a misnomer to a degree. Sure America has made mistakes, but it is damned when it does, and damned when it doesn't. And I think a lot of the envy is based upon jealousy to a degree.
3) Yet America is still the no-1 immigrant destination in the world. Plus, if the likes of Schwarzeneger can make it to the Governor of California, then that shows that anyone has a chance there. They built up a country out of nothing in just over 200 years. That's good going.
4) And? I don't think that is a reason not to liberate the country. It's how the free market works. As to why we aren't invading Saudi Arabia (which lets face it, is a horrible and barbaric regime which spreads and sponsors terror and intolerance), there's one reason: we need the oil. Which means the sooner we develop alternatives to oil the better, then we can tell Saudi where to go...
5) I think you're being overly cynical. After all, the biggest killer of muslims over the last few decades was...Saddam Hussein. Almost anyone would be better than Saddam, but the US Government is bound by US law to introduce a full democracy into Iraq.
6) Agreed. I'm in a similar position to you (except I'm right of course :-)). I read the guardian on-line every day and am almost physically sick at some of the views expressed. But I think we all must remember the words of Voltaire and his views about, well, views and holding them... :-)
7) Agrees. I feel the same a lot. Giving myself blood pressure for no good reason.
Well...I'm right because I read the Daily Telegraph and the Times (though the Times is occasionally a bit too New Labour) and I don't like the Mail's "Isolationist Right" viewpoint - I'm more of a Neoconservative. :-)
Fair enough on your opinion on micheal moore, I'm sure I could quote loads of people who support him.
typhonian is the kind of person who cites Samuel P. Huntingdon as an authority - which genuinely puts him in the same class of people as someone who cites David Irving. By contrast, Michael Moore doesn't just do better research, he's even amusing.
I actually found your review quite reasonable...you picked up on some of the dodgy stuff in the film, but there are several things that you missed, offered in the name of constructive criticism and off the top of my head:
1) The Felon Law in Florida has been in existance since 1869. That does not exscuse it but for Gore et al to try and claim it is a conspiracy is for want of a term, a sign of sore loserdom. Especially since every single media recount in Florida has shown that Bush would have won under the proposed Gore recount rules.
2) The whole american politica establishment is wayyy to much in hoc with Saudi Arabia. Moore's blantant lie about members of Bin Laden's familiy getting special treatment to leave the states after 9-11 is just that - a lie. They were passed by the FBI and by Bush arch-critic Richard Clarke.
3) You indeed pick on the proposed pipeline. Which was cancelled by 1998. The whole pipeline idea was a Clinton-Era thing.
4) Oil. This is wrong. The easiest thing is it was for the oil would be to, as the French were doing, drop the sanctions and suck up to Saddam. Hey presto, an alternative source of oil as big as Saudi Arabia. Instead, the US spent tens of billions of dollars to increase the price of oil dramatically. Huh?
And the alternative argument (one I don't share) - and if it was about oil - so whay? Oil is (unfortunately) the lifeblood of western civilisation. Does the continuence of western civilisation demand the location and procurement of new sources of oil?
5) You also miss the absolutely abhorrent bit where he presents Saddam-Era Iraq as a land of flying kites and laughing children. This is absolutely disgusting, but is par for the course for the far left that Moore belongs to.
The Felon Law in Florida has been in existance since 1869. That does not exscuse it but for Gore et al to try and claim it is a conspiracy is for want of a term, a sign of sore loserdom.
Sure. The Felon Law in Florida is an outdated racist POS. Jeb Bush's use of it to eliminate tens of thousands of black voters from the electoral rolls was a conspiracy, though, by any definition of the word. George W. Bush was the sore loser, not Al Gore.
Especially since every single media recount in Florida has shown that Bush would have won under the proposed Gore recount rules.
Sure - Gore slipped. What he should have done was insist that every vote was counted, by hand, according to the usual rule of democratic elections - if the voter's intent is clear, the vote counts. By that rule, Gore won, as a recount completed in October 2001 established. More people in Florida who voted, voted for Gore.
Moore's blantant lie about members of Bin Laden's familiy getting special treatment to leave the states after 9-11 is just that - a lie.
No, it's not. It happened.
You indeed pick on the proposed pipeline. Which was cancelled by 1998.
Of course it was. The unrest in the region made it impossible to continue. Further rebutted here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/yonmei/313252.html?thread=3266724#t3266724).
Oil. This is wrong. The easiest thing is it was for the oil would be to, as the French were doing, drop the sanctions and suck up to Saddam.
You keep repeating this myth about the French. It makes you look very ill-informed. Do we need to go into the details of Halliburton's Saddam-sucking... while Dick Cheney was CEO, no less?
You also miss the absolutely abhorrent bit where he presents Saddam-Era Iraq as a land of flying kites and laughing children.
War is terrible. The situation in Iraq, thanks largely to the effects of the bombing in 1991 and the years of sanctions, was also terrible. But Iraqis on the ground have said that things were, on a day to day basis, better under Saddam Hussein's regime than they are now under US military occupation. Avoiding that point would have been lying propaganda.
1) Such laws are nothing to do with the GOP or Jeb Bush. Is it anyone democrats have got the reputation of being sore losers given their readiness to stoop to nonsensical conspiracy theories to explain their own incompetance (c.f. Theresa Kerry and Bin Landen)
Fearing reprisals against Saudi nationals, the Saudi government asked for help in getting some of its citizens out of the country….we have found that the request came to the attention of Richard Clarke and that each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure.
No commercial planes, including chartered flights, were permitted to fly into, out of, or within the United States until September 13, 2001. After the airspace reopened, six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between September 14 and 24. One flight, the so-called Bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on September 20 with 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Usama Bin Ladin. We have found no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace.
The Saudi flights were screened by law enforcement officials, primarily the FBI, to ensure that people on these flights did not pose a threat to national security, and that nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9/11 investigation was allowed to leave the country. Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were interviewed by the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers and 3 private security guards) on the Bin Ladin flight. Many were asked detailed questions. None of the passengers stated that they had any recent contact with Usama Bin Ladin or knew anything about terrorist activity.
The FBI checked a variety of databases for information on the Bin Ladin flight passengers and searched the aircraft. It is unclear whether the TIPOFF terrorist watchlist was checked. At our request, the Terrorist Screening Center has rechecked the names of individuals on the flight manifests of these six Saudi flights against the current TIPOFF watchlist. There are no matches.
The FBI has concluded that nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks, or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks. To date, we have uncovered no evidence to contradict this conclusion.
3) Pipeline: No, both Unocal and Kazai have denied this.
4) Total Fina Elf had contracts in pending with the Saddam regime for $19 billion dollars. http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/itsall.htm
5) But Iraqis on the ground have said that things were, on a day to day basis, better under Saddam Hussein's regime than they are now under US military occupation.
Should have said we have similar views (not 'the same'), most people have different views about something!:-)
I liked your review of Farenheit 911, though didn't necessarily agree with all the points, but it was definately interesting reading the comments afterwards, especially from an American point of view.
Sorry, Michael Moore does no research what so-ever. He is amusing, as all skilled propagandists are, but he is a, for want of a better term, complete lying sack of shit.
Sorry, Michael Moore does no research what so-ever.
Now that's just your bias showing, because it's patently untrue.
He is amusing, as all skilled propagandists are, but he is a, for want of a better term, complete lying sack of shit.
I know that's what people who don't like his politics say about him. As they tend to say the same thing about Greg Palast or about Paul Krugman, I never take such accusations seriously, nor, indeed, the people who make them. The moment you claimed "Moore does no research what so-ever" you ceased to be anyone worth taking seriously.
I think you have just summed up why it is completely useless to have any sort of further dialogue with you. "don't bother me with the facts, my mind is already made up" seems to be the order of the day alas.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 06:06 (UTC)Anyway, the arguments about Micheal Moore is also the reason I mentioned the book "why do people hate America". I can't remember the authors are off hand, but can look up if you want. But it's alot harder to slag them off. The pages listing American invasions into democratic countries over the last several decades runs for pages..
The western nations are often responsible for installing the above regimes you've mentioned, and we certainly haven't helped as you said. Plus if you looked at it from that point of view, allot of the imigrants etc in America are treated like you've described above, and are pissed off at the living conditions. Depends which way you look at it.
When we bommed Afganistan, the contractors brought in to repare the country made a profit of 20%, the standard in the west is 5%. The west made money from bombing the country. Plus why was Iraq invaded but not Saudi Arabia? Because the american stock market would collapse. Or North Korea, they are a dangerous regime and are developing nuclear weapons? Its not about "liberation" it's about money and power.
To a large extent all you are quoting is American and UK properganda. The middle east won't be ruling it's self. The people put into power, ok so they're iraqis, but they are the ones america want. Ok, so I'm probably just as one sided, but from the other way, but I don't aprove of killing people for political reasons, and these are my views.
I think we'll have to agree to dissagree. Its a simple matter of differing politics. Neither of us is going to persuade the other, as we're both obviously fixed in our views. (Though I did think america was the land of the free until recently, hence doing camp america and visiting relatives, but I've changed my mind.
Anyway feel free to reply, but I'm not going to bother continuing:-) (I'll just get more frustrated!!!*talking to myself* let it go..... ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 07:02 (UTC)1) It's an opinion based upon fact. But you would expect me to say that anyway :-)
2) I think that "democratic countries" is a misnomer to a degree. Sure America has made mistakes, but it is damned when it does, and damned when it doesn't. And I think a lot of the envy is based upon jealousy to a degree.
3) Yet America is still the no-1 immigrant destination in the world. Plus, if the likes of Schwarzeneger can make it to the Governor of California, then that shows that anyone has a chance there. They built up a country out of nothing in just over 200 years. That's good going.
4) And? I don't think that is a reason not to liberate the country. It's how the free market works. As to why we aren't invading Saudi Arabia (which lets face it, is a horrible and barbaric regime which spreads and sponsors terror and intolerance), there's one reason: we need the oil. Which means the sooner we develop alternatives to oil the better, then we can tell Saudi where to go...
5) I think you're being overly cynical. After all, the biggest killer of muslims over the last few decades was...Saddam Hussein. Almost anyone would be better than Saddam, but the US Government is bound by US law to introduce a full democracy into Iraq.
6) Agreed. I'm in a similar position to you (except I'm right of course :-)). I read the guardian on-line every day and am almost physically sick at some of the views expressed. But I think we all must remember the words of Voltaire and his views about, well, views and holding them... :-)
7) Agrees. I feel the same a lot. Giving myself blood pressure for no good reason.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 07:19 (UTC)Just cos you admit to reading the guardian doesn't mean you're right!!;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 07:44 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 08:41 (UTC)Thats a lot of paper!!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 09:16 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 07:57 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 08:39 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 08:50 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 09:04 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 09:28 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 09:53 (UTC)1) The Felon Law in Florida has been in existance since 1869. That does not exscuse it but for Gore et al to try and claim it is a conspiracy is for want of a term, a sign of sore loserdom. Especially since every single media recount in Florida has shown that Bush would have won under the proposed Gore recount rules.
2) The whole american politica establishment is wayyy to much in hoc with Saudi Arabia. Moore's blantant lie about members of Bin Laden's familiy getting special treatment to leave the states after 9-11 is just that - a lie. They were passed by the FBI and by Bush arch-critic Richard Clarke.
3) You indeed pick on the proposed pipeline. Which was cancelled by 1998. The whole pipeline idea was a Clinton-Era thing.
4) Oil. This is wrong. The easiest thing is it was for the oil would be to, as the French were doing, drop the sanctions and suck up to Saddam. Hey presto, an alternative source of oil as big as Saudi Arabia. Instead, the US spent tens of billions of dollars to increase the price of oil dramatically. Huh?
And the alternative argument (one I don't share) - and if it was about oil - so whay? Oil is (unfortunately) the lifeblood of western civilisation. Does the continuence of western civilisation demand the location and procurement of new sources of oil?
5) You also miss the absolutely abhorrent bit where he presents Saddam-Era Iraq as a land of flying kites and laughing children. This is absolutely disgusting, but is par for the course for the far left that Moore belongs to.
Anyway, those are a few of my brief thoughts.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 10:59 (UTC)Sure. The Felon Law in Florida is an outdated racist POS. Jeb Bush's use of it to eliminate tens of thousands of black voters from the electoral rolls was a conspiracy, though, by any definition of the word. George W. Bush was the sore loser, not Al Gore.
Especially since every single media recount in Florida has shown that Bush would have won under the proposed Gore recount rules.
Sure - Gore slipped. What he should have done was insist that every vote was counted, by hand, according to the usual rule of democratic elections - if the voter's intent is clear, the vote counts. By that rule, Gore won, as a recount completed in October 2001 established. More people in Florida who voted, voted for Gore.
Moore's blantant lie about members of Bin Laden's familiy getting special treatment to leave the states after 9-11 is just that - a lie.
No, it's not. It happened.
You indeed pick on the proposed pipeline. Which was cancelled by 1998.
Of course it was. The unrest in the region made it impossible to continue. Further rebutted here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/yonmei/313252.html?thread=3266724#t3266724).
Oil. This is wrong. The easiest thing is it was for the oil would be to, as the French were doing, drop the sanctions and suck up to Saddam.
You keep repeating this myth about the French. It makes you look very ill-informed. Do we need to go into the details of Halliburton's Saddam-sucking... while Dick Cheney was CEO, no less?
You also miss the absolutely abhorrent bit where he presents Saddam-Era Iraq as a land of flying kites and laughing children.
War is terrible. The situation in Iraq, thanks largely to the effects of the bombing in 1991 and the years of sanctions, was also terrible. But Iraqis on the ground have said that things were, on a day to day basis, better under Saddam Hussein's regime than they are now under US military occupation. Avoiding that point would have been lying propaganda.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 12:01 (UTC)http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/samples200404080851.asp
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kirsanow200401080830.asp
Perhaps we can mention the Democrat's attempts to illegally deny thousands of military voters votes in Florida?
2) Bin Laden and family: Moore was flat-out wrong:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing10/staff_statement_10.pdf
Fearing reprisals against Saudi nationals, the Saudi government asked for help in getting some of its citizens out of the country….we have found that the request came to the attention of Richard Clarke and that each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure.
No commercial planes, including chartered flights, were permitted to fly into, out of, or within the United States until September 13, 2001. After the airspace reopened, six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between September 14 and 24. One flight, the so-called Bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on September 20 with 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Usama Bin Ladin. We have found no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace.
The Saudi flights were screened by law enforcement officials, primarily the FBI, to ensure that people on these flights did not pose a threat to national security, and that nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9/11 investigation was allowed to leave the country. Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were interviewed by the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers and 3 private security guards) on the Bin Ladin flight. Many were asked detailed questions. None of the passengers stated that they had any recent contact with Usama Bin Ladin or knew anything about terrorist activity.
The FBI checked a variety of databases for information on the Bin Ladin flight passengers and searched the aircraft. It is unclear whether the TIPOFF terrorist watchlist was checked. At our request, the Terrorist Screening Center has rechecked the names of individuals on the flight manifests of these six Saudi flights against the current TIPOFF watchlist. There are no matches.
The FBI has concluded that nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks, or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks. To date, we have uncovered no evidence to contradict this conclusion.
3) Pipeline: No, both Unocal and Kazai have denied this.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Hamid-Karzai
4) Total Fina Elf had contracts in pending with the Saddam regime for $19 billion dollars. http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/itsall.htm
5) But Iraqis on the ground have said that things were, on a day to day basis, better under Saddam Hussein's regime than they are now under US military occupation.
Cite?
no subject
Date: 2004-10-07 02:05 (UTC)I liked your review of Farenheit 911, though didn't necessarily agree with all the points, but it was definately interesting reading the comments afterwards, especially from an American point of view.
Giving up on this conversation now! ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-07 02:18 (UTC)Fair enough!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-07 02:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 09:42 (UTC)http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm
http://www.bowlingfortruth.com
www.moorelies.com
www.moorewatch.com
www.mooreexposed.com
and so on
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 10:49 (UTC)Now that's just your bias showing, because it's patently untrue.
He is amusing, as all skilled propagandists are, but he is a, for want of a better term, complete lying sack of shit.
I know that's what people who don't like his politics say about him. As they tend to say the same thing about Greg Palast or about Paul Krugman, I never take such accusations seriously, nor, indeed, the people who make them. The moment you claimed "Moore does no research what so-ever" you ceased to be anyone worth taking seriously.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 12:04 (UTC)I think you have just summed up why it is completely useless to have any sort of further dialogue with you. "don't bother me with the facts, my mind is already made up" seems to be the order of the day alas.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 14:11 (UTC)Indeed it does. If you're not bothered with the facts because your mind is made up, why did you bother to try engaging in dialogue at all?