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Bert,
Two prominent anti-Bush journalists have reviewed the movie, they can be seen here

The real problem with the film, the really offensive thing about it, is that in Fahrenheit 9/11, we — Americans from the President on down — are portrayed at the bad guys. If there’s something wrong about bin Laden it’s that his estranged family has ties with — cue the uh-oh music — the Bush family. Saddam? Nothing wrong with him. No mention of torture and terror and tyranny. Moore shows scenes of Baghdad before the invasion (read: liberation) and in his weltanschauung, it’s a place filled with nothing but happy, smiling, giggly, overjoyed Baghdadis. No pain and suffering there. No rape, murder, gassing, imprisoning, silencing of the citizens in these scenes. When he exploits and lingers on the tears of a mother who lost her soldier-son in Iraq, and she wails, “Why did yo have to take him?” Moore does not cut to images of the murderers/terrorists (pardon me, “insurgents”) in Iraq or killed him — or even to God; he cuts to George Bush. When the soldier’s father says the young man died and “for what?”, Moore doesn’t show liberated Iraqis to reply, he cuts instead to an image of Halliburton. To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery.

One odd thing I’ve noticed is that when people attack Michael Moore, they attack not what he says, but what he doesn’t say.

If I understand correctly, Moore’s premise is that the United States has lost itself. The behavior of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are irrelevant to that claim. Why should Moore devote time to irrelevancies?

Roger said, “You can take any president and soundclip and video them into idiots.”

Quite true, Roger, but Bush makes the process vitually effortless.

Daniel said, “One odd thing I’ve noticed is that when people attack Michael Moore, they attack not what he says, but what he doesn’t say.”

Now that you mention it, Daniel… thanks.

I saw the movie last night also. It is not a commercial for Democrats! Actually the Democrats get skewered for rolling over and playing dead when the GOP does anything outrageous. One of the most powerful scenes in the film is when Al Gore, as President of the Senate, is certifying the electoral college vote. A series of Black congressmen/women come up to protest the results, and Al Gore is banging on his gavel telling them they can’t talk because they don’t have the support of a senator. They (and by extension Moore) eloquently point out that not one of their Democratic colleagues in the Senate would support their complaint.

Having read Christopher Hitchens’ review, I think that he distorted the movie.(By the why, to call Hitchens “anti-Bush” is a stretch, considering that he strongly supports the most significant act of Bush’s presidency.) I doubt that Hitchens was willfully lying, but he distorted some things to fit his agenda. For example, I quote

Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American.

Sorry Hitch, but those weren’t his words. I was listening carefully, and was he said was that Hussein hadn’t “threatened America”. This is an important distortion. Moore’s criticism of the war all along was that Hussein wasn’t a threat to us, and it looks like he was right! Pardon my armchair psychology, but I suspect that Hitchen’s beef against Moore isn’t telling lies, but telling inconvenient truths. By the way, Hitchens swore on his children not to twist anyone’s words. Should I e-mail him and call his bluff?

Hitchens also rapped Moore for setting up a rapid-response team and threatening to sue people. I understand why he did this, because people were telling outright lies about Bowling for Columbine. You can’t blame him for defending himself. (One of the darkly funniest scenes for me was when Moore is standing near the White House with the mother of a dead soldier and a woman runs up and yells “This is staged! This is staged!” She had obviously read the anti-Moore propaganda. The mother of course put her in her place.)

One criticism that I will grant - it is not a documentary. It is more like an opinionary, one that everyone should see before they attack it.

I don’t think it’s really fair to call Jeff Jarvis and Christopher Hitchens “anti-Bush”. Both are critical of the President, but both were equally critical of Clinton and both are still equally critical of the Democrats.

They are both public intellectuals and neither of them are conservative fundamentalist Christians, so it’s understandable why in the American simple polarized view they might be superficially described as anti-Bush.

-Cf

By the way, Hitchens has been much more critical of Kerry than of Bush. A few months ago he wrote a rather vicious piece attacking Kerry for being “fooled” into fighting in Vietnam and then getting fooled by Bush into voting to go to war in Iraq. (Of course, Hitchens was “fooled” too, but you would have to read it…)

I wonder if Moore has any of his own quotes in there:

“They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet … in thrall to conniving, thieving smug [pieces of the human anatomy],” Moore intoned. “We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don’t know about anything that’s happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing.” -nytimes

But I guess he’s trying to educate us as best he can.

I just saw the film and took two friends. I hope everyone in America.

Moore made several points in his film in his usual artistic and clear way. (He truly is a great film maker and story teller)

He didn’t discuss the evils of Sadam or Osama. That wasn’t his point. We won’t have the opportunity to vote for or against them this fall.
Mr Hitchens is more than a little off point.

To those who didn’t get it, the film is titled Fahrenheit 9/11. It is about manipulation of the American under classes by the rich and powerful. It is what Roger and Me was about. I think it is a general thesis for Mr Moore.

It brings this home with stark and disturbing images juxtaposed with the frivolity and detachment of the Upper Class. It isn’t about making Bush look stupid. The stupid ones are dead.

Michael doesn’t talk down to his audeince and with all due respect to Mr. Hutchins, I can’t say the same about him. This isn’t a documentary. It’s a story with a moral, just like Roger and Me.

He does put facts in a context to reinforce his point. That’s what story tellers do. Good ones do anyway.

Moore’s films should be required viewing in High School Civics classes. Perhaps the electorate will begin to behave less like sheep, if they were,

Well, apparently leftist thugs are lying in wait outside of movie theaters to intimidate and beat up
anybody who doesn’t agree with Moore’s point of view. And Gore calls Republicans brownshirts!

Just imagine if it were conservatives assaulting people in the streets like this. CNN BREAKING NEWS!!!!! Front page of the New York Times for months. Essays by Paul Krugman, Susan Sontag and Maureen Dowd saying that America has lost its soul and breathlessly asking how far up did the scandal go (all the way to the President?). A congressional committee would follow.

Of course since it’s the left doing it, everybody will shrug and go on with their business of making up fictions to attack Bush.

Martin, the incident you link to sounds like just another one of tens of thousands of stupid little incidents that happen around the country every day. The fact that this story made the news at all is a sign of right-wing media bias, if it is a sign of bias at all.

-Cf

Fahrenheit 9/11 is now the #1 film in America.

-Cf

Come on now Martin…

Well, apparently leftist thugs are lying in wait outside of movie theaters to intimidate and beat up
anybody who doesn’t agree with Moore’s point of view. And Gore calls Republicans brownshirts!

If you read the article, it was a heated verbal exchange that resulted in a scuffle. I’d bet the same happened previously at a number of gay marriage rallies across the country, but were never reported. A pretty hysterical read!

By the way, I am a card-carrying member of MoveOn.org. Does that make me a ‘Leftist Thug’? Uh, don’t answer that!

Roger,

The ‘review’ you site would get my vote as the most effectively crafted distortion to be expected from the Right.

Yes, Bush is portrayed as the ‘bad guy’, but us Americans are portrayed as duped enablers (as reflected by disillusioned soldiers, in the movie). You ask, where are the scenes of Saddam’s torture? Where are the stock piles of WMDs’? The sole reason we gave Bush the go ahead!

I complied, read the link you supplied and made my assessment. Do me the favor and hit the link to the Progress Report’s analysis of the film, and guage how truthful they think Moore’s film is!

Christopher; “Martin, the incident you link to sounds like just another one of tens of thousands of stupid little incidents that happen around the country every day.”

Was Abu Ghraib was just a stupid little incident because things just like it happen elsewhere? Is that really an excuse? Smashing people’s heads on the concrete because they disagree with you politically is okay so long as the victim is a conservative? The victim of this atrocity didn’t even sound like a conservative, actually. He became the victim of a hate crime for simply saying he felt Kerry was no better than Bush.

You may think that it’s a small number of Moveon leftist types who are resorting to brownshirt tactics and attacking people on the streets, but that misses the larger point.

If even a small number of people do something wrong, don’t we have to ask what created the climate of violence and dehumanization that permitted it to happen? Hasn’t that been the left’s day in and day out position on Abu Ghraib?

Even a small number of guilty people means that somebody higher up must be responsible for creating a climate of intolerance, right? So who is it? Al Gore? John Kerry? Michael Moore?

Well, let’s see if the left will be consistent in their arguments now that elements on their side have brought literal violence to the very streets of America.

Martin, you are painting this normal everyday street fight as if it represented the emergence of armies of left-wing brownshirts crawling the streets beating up concervatives and their sympathizer friends (and getting a free ride from the media)! And you accuse Moore of crazy conspiracy theories!

That Abu Ghraib analogy is pathetic and desperate and you know it. You just whipped it up to cover up the weakness of your original premise.

For every left-wing kid who beats up somebody in front of a Fahrenheit 9/11 there are tens of thousands of right-wing haters of homosexuals (and who gain significant - indeed pivotal - moral support from the Republican party right on up to the words of President Bush himself) who intimidate, taunt, pelt, beat up, and kill people just for being gay. All the while being similarly unaware that their targets may, in fact, be conservative Republicans!

The previous paragraph was pretty ridiculous, but only a minute fraction as ridiculous as your implication that the left is a fountain of anti-conservative violence.

This is the left you’re talking about! The sissy weakling non-violent pacifist spineless liberal left. Gimme a break.

-Cf

Actually, Christopher, I think it would be interesting to go beyond the stereotypes and find out which party is actually the most anti-gay.

I have a sneaking suspicion that a greater number of virulently anti-gay individuals are to be found—today—in the Democratic ranks. If you tally up the base constituents on both sides, this seems highly probable.

Yes, metropolitan left-leaning areas on both coasts tend to be very gay-friendly. But the net-savvy, tofu-eating, incense-burning stereotypical urban liberal (who posts anti-Bush messages on blogs while listening to the cd of whale-song he got for donating $50 to Greenpeace), is actually a slender minority of the Democratic base.

Republicans have an intolerance problem with a segment of the religous right—but things are no better, and perhaps much worse, among the religious left. The Republicans I know are for the most part very tolerant, highly educated, and very knowledgable about political issues (not to mention clever, good-looking, and of impeccable character and personal hygiene).

Not at all like the left, which is apparently one step away from forming angry howling mobs of pitch-fork carrying Move-on types (probaby wearing overalls) who roam the streets in search of somebody, anybody, who disagrees with Michael Moore.

Martin,

Assault is no laughing matter, and anyone guilty of it should be charged prosecuted and punished.

But, aren’t you being a little hyperbolic? One assault by a moron does not a mob make.

Extremism in the defense of anything is still extremism…to malign Barry Goldwater a ‘lil

No, I am not being hyperbolic in the least. Someone was criminally assaulted because of a climate of hate and intolerance nurtured and perputuated by Move-on and Michael Moore. This can’t just be swept under the rug.

And now we have this—a Move-on fundraiser
involving mock criminal assaults against conservatives.

You can punch a Republican for a nominal fee! This is exactly the kind of thing that created the environment which led to that criminal assault of a moviegoer by a gang of rabid leftists, and will likely lead to more.

Here’s the key quote:

“And, Just for Fun, Bash Bush - Literally

If you’ve ever wanted to punch out a President, here’s your chance. For a small donation, attendees can “Give George What-For in ‘04” by punching an inflatable likeness of President Bush. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to take politics into your own hands. Other games and kids’ stuff include politically-themed face painting and temporary tattoos, and you’ll want to warm up your pitching arm for the “Asses of Evil” dunking booth featuring volunteers masked to resemble “W,” Dick Cheney, & Co.”

Could you imagine a Republican fundraiser that involved, say, bashing a homosexual or kicking an African-American? All fun and games, you say? I don’t think so. Michael Moore and the Democrats are playing with fire, and all of us are going to get burned.

Martin look-out!!!! Incoming Evian bottle!!!

Leftist Brown-shirts roaming the streets, wow, your right Martin, no one likes to get kicked in the face with a Berkenstock, that is so wrong!

This sounds to me like an isolated incident that has been turned into a rallying cry by some right-wing publication. Can you tell me where you got this story. If an unbiased news agency I’d be shocked but this sounds like perhaps Fox, Drudge or Rush Limbaugh turning it into a news story.

If this incident was in NY city hey seriously that’s just NY city, really, so I would appreciate some details on this as it doesn’t sound like citywide havoc exactly. And myself not a huge fan of Moore either although glad to have him on the team, so to speak.

Another thing is that alot of what he addresses here are things democrats all across the net have been talking about for nearly three years now. This information has been on democratic sites and shouldn’t surprise anyone other than those who aren’t online or surfing around democratic sites. It may in some respects be vindication of sorts to those who were once deemed crackpots as now the evidence has emerged from online pages to the form of a film. So as we now can discuss it, also now it isn’t shut out by notions of network and cable news as being the only arbiter of documented evidentiary facts.

The press does seem scared of this though and there are talking heads on MSNBC and CNN trying to downgrade the film as though not worth seeing. Why’s that do you suppose? There’s media deregulation on the table should Bush get a second term but same token they can’t seem biased as not to lose viewership or advertisers? Is that it? I don’t know but they want Moore to go away.

Liberal media my ass, and this should prove it, eh Martin.(Seriously we need more conservatives on this site)

Martin,

During the Clinton years the republicans had long-nose Clinton watches and dartboards with Clinton’s face amongst other things. “Clinton doesn’t inhale, Clinton blows” T-shits etcetera ofcourse prior to Monica. Although no cons were clever enough to figure out that Bill Clinton’s first two innitials are actually B.J. or it would have never ceased.

Now it’s funny you should claim that race and sexual orientation are the same as a political viewpoint, instead of saying ‘Democrats’ being beaten, you point to gays and blacks, hmmm odd.

The holocaust of the neo conservative, hardly. Insult of the neo-conservative absolutely, that’s just par for the course of politics post 1995 after the Gingrich revolution. You remember the paraphernalia, yes you do.

gifs of elephants stomping a donkey or the baby face crying with the word ‘Gore 2000’ underneath it. And who can forget the man bent over spewing excrement out of his posterior with the title “Liberal agenda” underneath it. That’s not hateful? Prior to 1995 there were few of these images and none from the left at all. So who started this type of exchange? Before we just ribbed each other now it’s an assault of ugly sentiments post 1995 and we didn’t really start producing this stuff until after 2000. Republicans said fair game and there soon after we started swinging back, now it’s of apocalyptic proportions?

Okay Martin my bad I caught your link.

The story sounds a bit askewed in the sense that he was assaulted on the phone while calling police. Was he really assaulted before then? Were the protesters arrested or charged? IS HE PLANNING TO SUE Move-on.org?? Sounds fishy to me.

I’ve never known a dem to try to beat someone up for taking part in democracy and having and espousing one’s own opinion.

“…Then bam!” There’s more to this story and it’s one for the police department of Las Vegas and perhaps lawyers.

Martin,

I know I am testing the boundaries of the personal criticism guidelines here, but, have you lost your f%&*#$g mind?

Are you in the midst of a Dick Cheney-like meltdown? Or, felled by the Wacky World of Wolfowitz fever? Maybe swooning from the feminine wiles of a reckless Ann Coulter?

First, you’re trying to blow up that minor scuffle in Vegas into the second Rodney King riot, then morph MoveOn.org into a neo-Liberal Black Panther Movement, and outta left field, insist a band of Democratic Homophobes have infiltrated the party, ironically, in the exact same manner that members of the White Citizens Council have now enconsed themselves in the GOP!

Martin, you’re in the wrong party if you’re looking for non-violent, non-angry people. People used to walk around America with t-Shirts blatantly displaying images of Clinton with bullet holes in his head and a gun-target on his face. Not only were they not arrested, they weren’t even made to feel guilty by their peers or the media. (Today high-school students get expelled for refusing to paint pro-Bush posters for their school!)

Clinton was regularly portrayed as a terrorist enemy, as someone who should be killed, or at least pissed on.

Even after he left office (and again, with total public impunity), conservative Americans blatantly paint Bill Clinton as “Osama Bin Clinton”.

It’s arguable that the Democrats lost the 2000 election because we weren’t able to organize violent protests to intimidate recount officials like the Republicans were able to do with blinding speed - and with the praise of the Wall Street Journal.

Finally, let us not forget the Republicans have the guns!

-Cf

What concerns me here is that no one—-not Bert, not Double Jeopardy and not Christopher, have yet said that what allegedly happened is wrong. They have immediately jumped to a defense, denial, or minimalization of the incident, all the while NOT saying it was wrong.

Is Martin overstating the ramifications of this? Yes, I would say so. But to see the righteous indignation of the “left” (here represented by Bert, Chris, and DJ) is silly. Were it the other way around, these three would be bleating about loss of civil rights, the right wing Gestapo tactics etc.

You three should be ashamed of yourselves for not decrying the incident first, and then and ONLY then stating that one incident does not make a movement…..yet. At least Greg had the courage to say that the assualt itself was wrong. None of the other three of you showed that level of maturity.

Martin, the incident you link to sounds like just another one of tens of thousands of stupid little incidents that happen around the country every day.

Martin, you are painting this normal everyday street fight as if it represented the emergence of armies of left-wing brownshirts…

If you read the article, it was a heated verbal exchange that resulted in a scuffle. I’d bet the same happened previously at a number of gay marriage rallies across the country, but were never reported. A pretty hysterical read!

…you’re trying to blow up that minor scuffle in Vegas into the second Rodney King riot…

Assault is no laughing matter, and anyone guilty of it should be charged prosecuted and punished….But, aren’t you being a little hyperbolic? One assault by a moron does not a mob make.

This sounds to me like an isolated incident that has been turned into a rallying cry by some right-wing publication…. The story sounds a bit askewed in the sense that he was assaulted on the phone while calling police. Was he really assaulted before then? Were the protesters arrested or charged? IS HE PLANNING TO SUE Move-on.org?? Sounds fishy to me.

Re the previous entry….the quotes are from Christopher, Bert, Greg and Double Jeopardy. My attempt at referencing them properly failed…my apologies.

Joe

Oh, come on Joe, don’t be such a hypocrite: I don’t see where you’ve decried the incident. Martin didn’t decry the incident either! He just skipped right to the “blame the left” part.

I was hoping that we could just assume that we WatchBloggers all absolutely detest the incident. But I guess you are now requiring me to decry it because, after all, I am responsible for it. Is that it? Or is it that in right-wing circles it’s theoretically possible to talk about “beat down” incidents that are not deserving of condemnation? Because where I come from the wrongness of street fighting is pretty much a given.

-Cf

CF:

What I pointed out was that everyone, including you, tried to gloss over the incident. YOU dont know if its a trend that is in its infancy, nor does Martin know if its only an isolated one-time event. The point is that you immediately tried to downplay it. Lets take that logic elsewhere….Matthew Shepard was just one kid who was gay-bashed, and Rodney King was just one black man who was beaten by cops. Lets treat those as “stupid little incidents” or as “a heated verbal exchange that resulted in a scuffle.”

The point here, CF, is to notice that you immediately took the position most advantageous to your political bent. YOu showed your obvious lack of any empathy or sympathy for the victim, simply reducing his situation to a laughable trite little occurrence. Had it been the other way around, you KNOW (and so do we all) that you have taken up the sword and shield on behalf of your brethren to fight to good fight. How silly that you cant even admit it.

The movie is not powerful is not a frontline episode with a surgical eye for facts, conspiracies and legal issues. What it is, rather, is a sort of alarm bell, which challenges audience by revealing facts and connections that are not common knowledge.

It does not give all sides equal play time. It is not objective. But it is persuasive. So much so that a audience of Texans, typically a conservative people, applauded for it. It’s event movies that get that kind of reaction. Lord of the Rings. Star Wars.

Not leftist documentaries. But then, describing it as leftist is misleading. Such a label neglects how Moore gets his reactions, how he presents information that looks bad across the political spectrum.

The best word to describe this movie is Jarring. You will see soldiers hurt, Iraqi civilians dead and wounded, a mother’s grief, actual victims of the PATRIOT act’s excesses, and much more that will not do much to shore up a person’s complacency about the war.

I think the Republicans rightly fear what this film will do to their candidate’s chances of reelection. And I think many overestimate the effect that several months of campaigning will do to erase people’s questions. If Bush can satisfactorally answer the charges, and deal with the problems his connections have caused for him, then he may be able to defuse this issue. Otherwise, he may just end up alienating those who have seen the film and become legitimately concerned.

A number of things should be cleared up. First, the scene in which Mrs. Lipscomb encounters the dittohead is at this sort of ramshackle protest thing this one foreign woman has set up. The foreign woman is protesting some sort of atrocity, and this dittohead woman comes up and says this is all staged. Lipscomb then enters into a heated exchange with the dittohead, where she asserts that indeed, her son’s death was not staged at all, but very real.

Some have claimed that Moore intrudes on her grief, that he exploits it. Given the woman’s attitude, and what I know about show-business law, that’s a fairly false charge. It falls under privacy laws. Every person has a right to determine how their image and likeness will be brought to the public.

Lipscomb most likely had some sort of dealings along these lines, as a major presence in the Documentary. She had to give Moore permission for him to use her image. She had the right to object to any footage he put up on screen. She could have sued him if she felt misrepresented by what he put onscreen.

But there the footage remains. Is invasive? Invasion requires coercion. And you know what? I think this woman wanted to be onscreen, wanted those personal moments brought to the world. If you see the film, you will understand this woman’s anger, and this woman’s wish not to have this happen to somebody else’s son.

Indeed, this film only seems invasive to those who deem those thoughts and feelings that this woman expresses taboo, or that Moore’s public presentation of them is harmful.

And there’s the real issue, one that I think motivates much of what Moore does. This is the stuff that our television media didn’t report, that the Bush administration didn’t want people to know, stuff that would really be familiar only to this sites demographic, newshounds, and history majors like my brother.

As much as we may not be suprised by much of this, I have the feeling that many Smericans will find themselves astonished at what they find out. And that’s critical. It’s been my observation that surprise value is of great importance in creating phenomenal audience response. My theory, and I do have one, is that the emotional and visceral effectiveness of a work depends on that kind of surprise value. With all the uncomfortable facts that the average american will encounter for the first time in Moore’s work, I think this movie will have great persuasive power across the political spectrum. I think this will literally turn out to be the movie George Bush does not want you to see. As for Citizens United, the Genie is out of the bottle, and any victory they have with the FEC will be a hollow one.

One last thought: Why doesn’t Moore Spend time bashing the insurgents, Saddam, and Osama?

This is a complicated question. As far as Saddam goes, I think one could argue that there is little need to take a baseball bat to a person whose image has never been all that spectacular in recent times. Moore may have simply thought it unnecessary to point those things out. It would also be counterproductive, considering he was arguing a case for Saddam being the worse choice of the two targets Bush could have chosen. in terms of the other two, Osama certainly figures as a bad guy in this work, and the one Moore argues is the justified target. As for the insurgents, Moore shows you the reasons so many Iraqis hate, but he also shows, unvarnished, what happened to the bodies of the contractors. So, Moore’s position is a more nuanced one, but justifiably so, he would probably argue, if we are to understand why we are in the difficult situation we are.

Joe, Isn’t it alleged assault? or are you the judge, hury and executioner?

The Supreme Court today even had enough backbone to tell Bush he wasn’t quite God yet.

I haven’t seen the movie yet.

but I heard he critizes Bush for free-speech issues, then in real life sues people who disagree with him. Anyonw know anything about that?

Tom, just what are the circumstances of the suit? Is the person merely disagreeing with him, or is he saying things about Moore that Moore would judge to be defamatory of his character? False allegations meant to defame people are not legally protected speech. There’s a difference between giving an opinion and inflicting harm on a person’s reputation through falsehood.

Joe, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. I never made light of the incident nor did I ever “gloss over the incident”. I never displayed a “obvious lack of any empathy or sympathy for the victim” any more than you or Martin did.

I wasn’t “downplaying” the incident, I was downplaying Martin’s kooky theory.

And you know full well that that was what I was doing, Joe. Your attempt to portray me as some kind of evil monster is pathetic and desperate. How dare you accuse me of being insensitive to the suffering of people beat up on the street? How dare you?

The speed with which you will assume that I am a monster truly disgusts me, Joe. I’m not kidding about this. You are starting to resort to some seriously personal insults and outright slander here and it’s dragging down the level of civility of this Blog.

> Had it been the other way around, you KNOW
> (and so do we all) that you have taken up
> the sword and shield on behalf of your
> brethren to fight to good fight. How silly
> that you cant even admit it.

You don’t know jack about how I feel about this, Joe. How silly that you are resorting to making up lies about me to make yourself feel righteous. You should be ashamed of yourself.

-Cf

Greg:

I called it an “alleged” assault. Here is my quote: “What concerns me here is that no one—-not Bert, not Double Jeopardy and not Christopher, have yet said that what allegedly happened is wrong.

Chris:

First, your own words betray you. You likened the alleged assault to a “stupid little incident”
(“Martin, the incident you link to sounds like just another one of tens of thousands of stupid little incidents that happen around the country every day.”) If that isnt glossing over or minimizing it, then perhaps you should rethink your own words.

Second, you are attempting a well known debate tactic, but one that I am well aware of. The tactic is to search for pity when someone takes you to task for your own words. I never called you a monster, an evil monster nor any other name (though you called me a hypocrite). That you choose to try to claim that I hurt you or offended you is simply, in my opinion, a cheap scheme to garner sympathy.

Nor have I said any “lies” about you. I have stated my opinion of your actions, and I based my assessment of your actions by reading what you wrote. They are opinions only, and therefore cannot be qualified as lies.

The bottom line is that if an assault occurred in the manner that Martin claimed, that is a heinous action on behalf of the perpetrators. As I stated before, that single act does not allow us to condemn the entire “left”, but it certainly does allow us to condemn the alleged perpetrators completely. I noted that you, among others, neglected to do that. It’s interesting to note the reaction to that finding.

Joe:

1) Do you not also think that the crime was “stupid”? Whenever I see someone hit someone else, I immediately assume that at least one of the parties is stupid. What is wrong with me calling the incident stupid?

2) You never actually used the word “monster”, but to me a person who has an “obvious lack of any empathy or sympathy for the victim” is a monster. Hence, you called me a monster.

3) The aforementioned charge that I lack empathy or sympathy for the victim is a lie — it may or may not surprise you to hear that I’ve been assaulted several times and I have never assaulted another person. Your accusation that I would have acted or discussed the incident differently if the political bent of the participants were different was a lie. You may call them mere “opinions”, but they were expressed as statements about my ethics and my morality. To me, those statements were lies. That’s just my opinion, of course.

4) Finally, neither you, nor Martin, have condemned the incident either!! You condemn me for a crime that you are completely guilty of yourself — you haven’t even so much as referred to the incident as “stupid”. You accuse me of glossing over the heinousness of the crime just to get to the part where I score political points, when this is exactly what you and Martin have been doing the whole time! What better definition of hypocrite is there?

-Cf

Chris:

You are welcome to your opinions, as well as your defense of your earlier words. Your valiant effort and your hard work at that defense is laudable. I am utterly impressed at the fervor with which you try to defend your statements.

I based my comments solely on your words. You seem to take such great indignation at that. There are probably many reasons why that is so, though to speculate on the sources of your indignation would most certainly prove to be fruitless, and only lead to more angst on your part. I’ll choose not to do that.

As for your final point (seemingly an attempt to change the focal point of the discussion away from you and onto me), please read the following sentence from one of my previous posts:

“The bottom line is that if an assault occurred in the manner that Martin claimed, that is a heinous action on behalf of the perpetrators.”

Note that I havent rushed to judgement. I’ve simply stated clearly that if it happened as Martin claimed, then we can indeed condemn the instigators.

Chris, I’m not sure how you could read my comment as anything other than a condemnation, but I’m sure you will follow up with a post that explains your position in depth.

> As for your final point (seemingly an attempt
> to change the focal point of the discussion
> away from you and onto me),

No! Absolutely not! The point was to show that condemning the incident is something that NONE OF US should feel any need to do, and that you are incorrect in asserting that I have any obligation to condemn the event. I was pointing out that both you and Martin launched right into scoring political points using the indicent without taking a moment to condemn the incident, and that THAT’S OKAY! I was assuming that we were all decent human beings here and that the heinousness of the incident is something that both you and Martin also thought was obvious enough that you didn’t need to mention it. Just like me.

> please read the following sentence from one
> of my previous posts:

You make it sound like you had been saying this all along, when in fact you wrote this several posts after launching your initial hypocritical condemnation of me, and in fact you only wrote it after I twice pointed out the hypocrisy of the accusation.

I apologize for missing your last minute condemnation. I guess I missed it because I was too busy examining the three previous posts in which you condemned me instead of the perpetrators. (I don’t doubt the heartfelt authenticity of your condemnation of the incident, by the way, nor have I ever implied, as you have of me, that you didn’t in your heart condemn the incident.)

You can righteously claim that you are basing your comments on my exact words as much as you want, but to me public discussion is more than just dissecting your opponents statements to find evidence that they are evil. If you can’t give me the benefit of the doubt and assume that I am a decent human being who condemns street violence and political intimidation, then I obviously must cease to afford you the same dignity as well. You have apparently chosen to disregard even the most basic level of personal human respect from this discussion. I will now read all of your posts with the same “guilty until proven innocent” attitude you have been displaying (although I hope I will not stoop to insinuating your guilt to score political points). I also will no longer defend myself from this kind of preposterous, desperate, and pedantic personal charges.

-Cf

By the way, I am also defending Bert, Greg and Double Jeopardy here. I am certain that they both also condemn street violence and political intimidation. I ought not to expect Bert, Greg, Double Jeopardy, Martin, Joe, or anyone else on this list (who hasn’t overtly advocated such things) to have to bend over backwards just to prove that they posess a basic level of human decency.

-Cf

Chris:

“If you can’t give me the benefit of the doubt and assume that I am a decent human being who condemns street violence and political intimidation, then I obviously must cease to afford you the same dignity as well.”

Regarding this statement, I’d suggest reading Stephen Daugherty’s comments about how other people’s actions should not unduly influence our own. Perhaps you might reach a different conclusion after reading Stephen’s post.

Secondly, I did not originally discuss the incident itself, but rather your response to it. So I made no statement about the actual incident itself. I merely pointed out that by calling it a “stupid little incident”, you glossed over it.

Thirdly, I have no doubt you are a decent human being. I’ve not concluded otherwise. I have contained my comments to this single issue, and have not used them to extrapolate an assumption of your entire being.

Lastly, in the words of Jim Rome, who I find audaciously abrasive, yet sometimes funny, I would say that you need to “sack up, man!!” To allow a simple weblog to get under your skin so deeply is not healthy. Were we to meet at a cocktail party and discuss issues, I think we would find areas of agreement and disagreement, but most likely would end up finding each other worthy of further conversation.

I agree with your last comment, including the part about me needing to relax! I also think that, were we to meet at a cocktail party, you would not be so quick to suggest that I was insensitive to suffering. The internet is pretty crazy like that.

-Cf

Chris:
Perhaps this is instructive in a way. Politics often gets rather impersonal—-Democrats calling Republicans names and vice versa. But, as evidenced by McCain’s friendship with Kerry, even people with vastly different political ideologies can respect each other, and even become friends.

Once the friendship happens, they are less likely to attack each other rampantly. But anonymity, or even looking at people as a member of a group rather than as an individual, allows us the ability to say things we wouldnt ordinarily say.

My original intent was not to paint you as an evil monster, but rather to show how easy it is to focus on the political impact of an event as opposed to the actual event.

Of course, my sarcastic nature got hold and my later posts were intended as scathing sarcastic ironies, though nothing personal. If I crossed the line into personal, then my apologies for that. I do enjoy witty ripostes, and I expect we shall have more in the future, until the day that you finally succumb to my vast wisdom and agree with me on everything, at which point I will be forced to take on your current mindset.

Regards

Joe

It’s too bad Moore doesn’t devote as much time to his appearance as he does bashing Bush. There are so many problems with his “documentary” that I don’t know where to begin. However, there are those on the far left that eat this kind of stuff up and like Moore, to them there is no greater evil in the world than the United States.

I really can’t believe you all have devoted 20+ (probably more because I didn’t count) posts to arguing over this stupid assult. It’s nearly irrelevant. No one condones it, no one here fostered it. Stop bickering. Stop calling the kettle black, pot.

With that said and done, I thought it was a really powerful film. Very articulate. While it was Anti-Bush, I also wouldn’t say that Bush bashing was the main point of the movie. It definitely had more of an Orwellian theme, as evidenced by the direct quote at the end.

Dave—-

No one was arguing about the assault. It was a much more Orwellian argument about the decency or laxck thereof of mankind.

You see how dumb that sounded? I can’t beleive you dont see the Moore film as Bush bashing. Some may agree with it and others will disagree with it based on its content, but even Moore has said that his intent is to defeat Bush. If that doesnt convince you of Bush bashing, then what possibly ever could. Sheeeeeesh!

The main theme was exactly what you said, the indecency of mankind. Lucky for Moore, it is well demonstrated by the current administration. The main point was to bring this indecency to light and bush was just the channel through which it was done. Dems aren’t exactly painted as being saints either, you know.

Aldaron wrote:

There are so many problems with his “documentary” that I don’t know where to begin.

Next time you visit, maybe you can articulate a couple of those ‘problems’, as it would contribute to this respectful discourse on the film’s merits.

Second (and this goes for Joe, as well), I thought the trite ‘Bush-bashing’ mantra was fading from Conservative jargon faster than the words ‘Ahmed Chalabi’, so I dug up this brief personal weblog post:

Make no mistake, my friends! To be called a ‘Bush-hater’ is an evasive ploy very popular among Conservatives, these days. It is a concerted effort to shut down and avoid serious debate on George Bush’s policies and failed presidency. Why? Because, it is an increasingly difficult, if not futile position to defend in open and fair political discourse.

Besides, I do not ‘hate’ George Bush – I just strongly disagree with his policies.

I ‘hate’ Ann Coulter.