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Christopher Hitchens on Michael Moore...


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and here?

 

Blind, Or A Coward?

 

Did you actually read the story you linked?? It seems to make my case that Moore is nothing but a wind-bag propagandist. Ill paste it below so you can more readily read what you post:

 

 

Blind, Or A Coward?

June 30, 2004

 

One of the first things I did when I got back from vacation was to go see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. It’s a brilliant piece of propaganda, entertaining and funny, and it skewers the president deliciously. But am I the only one to notice that in one critically important way, it entirely misses the boat and gets nearly everything wrong? Maybe this has been said before—I’ve hardly read all of the criticism of Moore—but if so, I haven’t seen it. Moore totally avoids the question of Israel.

 

Not only that, but the opening polemic of the movie ties President Bush and company mightily to Saudi Arabia. In one sequence, what seems like several dozen images flash by showing Bush and his advisers shaking hands and chumming it up with leading members of the Saudi royal family. Moore says outright that while Bush is paid $400,000 by U.S. taxpayers in salary, Saudi Arabia has supported Bush and his family with more than $1 billion in business-related subsidies. (That amount, it seems to me, is ridiculously inflated and must be nonsense.) The stated implication is that Bush is more loyal to the Saudis than he is to America.

 

Huh? Here are some questions for Moore: If Bush is so “in the pocket” of Saudi Arabia, why is he Ariel Sharon’s strongest backer? Why, when he had Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah down at the Texas ranch a few years ago, did he flip off the Saudi’s peace plan? And most important, why did he invade Iraq—since Saudi Arabia was strongly opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq? Why did he launch his Iraqi adventure over Saudi objections, with many of his advisers chortling that Saudi Arabia would be “next”? Why did he stock his administration with militant neocon crusaders who see Saudi Arabia as the main enemy? Why, Michael?

 

I have to conclude the Michael Moore is either blind, or a coward. Blind, if he can’t see Bush’s craven ties to Israel, driven by the neocons and the Christian Zionists and Bible-thumping fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell, who consider Israel Jesus’ next stop and see Saudi Arabia as Satanic. Or cowardly, because he knows it and decided not to mention it. Is that because attacking Israel is too hard? Moore’s photo-montage of Saudi princes borders on the racist, showing Bush & Co. clinging to grinning, Semitic-looking Arabs in flowing white robes one after another. Would we stand for a similar, racist-leaning montage of Bush palling around with grinning, Semitic-looking Jews in skullcaps? 'Course not. More important, Moore completely misses the political boat. Perhaps that’s because he relies so heavily on Craig Unger and his book, House of Bush, House of Saud , which makes the same “error.”

 

And more for Moore. Yes, Bush 41 and his advisers—the Carlyle Group-linked James Baker, et al.—were (and are) connected to Saudi Arabia. Did Moore notice that Baker, along with Brent Scowcroft, and other former advisers to Bush 41 (including Colin Powell) were against the Iraq adventure? And that there were reports that Bush 41 himself thought it was a stupid idea? I can’t believe that Moore can be so stupid. So I can only conclude that he produced this movie the way he did on purpose. Then I read that he didn’t bother inviting Ralph Nader to the Washington, D.C., premiere of the film, and (according to The Washington Post ), Nader called Moore “fat.” Well. Moore is fatheaded.

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Piss or coils, you decide:

 

Chris Hitchens, pulled an absolute kneecap job on Michael Moore yesterday with an article entitled Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore. In it, he wrote all manner of allegation about Moore's new film, peeing on it from a great height, calling it "crap",

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Atlanta Journal Constitution

 

Dominant emotion in theater? Fear

 

At a screening of "Fahrenheit 9/11," armed police officers took our ticket stubs. When I asked why they were there, they said they are present at every sold-out show -- but I have never seen them there.

 

At the end, as the credits were beginning to roll, the film was stopped and replaced by advertisements. Also, the theater manager was infuriated that people were passing out voter registration forms and had the police stop them.

 

To me, the atmosphere in the theater reeked of fear. Fear of a majority, fear of people expressing their opinions -- fears that we, as Americans, should not have to deal with.

 

MAX MARTIN

Decatur

 

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Why won't Moore do interviews???

 

I wouldn't do interviews either. You want to know what Moore has to say, then go watch his movies. He's neither a celebrity nor a politician. He's a filmmaker. Duh. rolleyes.gif

 

That is, unless by "interview" you mean actually mean trial, i.e. you want him to answer for his horrible leftist slander... hahaha.gif

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Christopher Hitchens defines himself as a contrarian, rather than a liberal. He left his long standing column at The Nation over his disgust that no one else at the magazine would agree with his unconditional support for going to war in Iraq. Hitchens, who I think is a fabulous and entertaining writer, once referred to Lady Diana and Mother Teresa as "a simpering Bambi narcissist and a thieving, fanatical Albanian dwarf." Hows that for spray? His graphic for his column in The Nation was a guy on a horse with a lance and a windmill in the background. Like any writer, he has his own bias and agenda, and he's not about to admit that attacking Iraq was anything less than the right thing to do. Besides, I think Hitchens starches his shirts, and I'm sure he finds Michael Moore's fashion sense repulsive.

 

Anyway, my point is that Hitchens is not a recent convert turned off by Moore's film, but has been in the pro-Iraq war camp since the very beginning.

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His graphic for his column in The Nation was a guy on a horse with a lance and a windmill in the background.
index-es.html

Damn.. I'll never figure out how to post damn pictures off the web! confused.gif If I can't figure that out, I probably shouldn't try arguing politic. blush.gif

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In any case, I'm having a hard time getting my feelings hurt by the fact that the left isn't marching in lockstep behind Moore. Despite the increasingly open disdain for it expressed by right wingers these days, dissent is a good and crucial thing.

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His graphic for his column in The Nation was a guy on a horse with a lance and a windmill in the background.
index-es.html

Damn.. I'll never figure out how to post damn pictures off the web! confused.gif If I can't figure that out, I probably shouldn't try arguing politic. blush.gif

 

You tried to post an .html as an image. You have to give the actual file adress of the image itself. Right-click, go to properties or "copy image location" (in Netscape I think) copy the url that ends in .jpg or .gif then paste that between the image tags.

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In any case, I'm having a hard time getting my feelings hurt by the fact that the left isn't marching in lockstep behind Moore. Despite the increasingly open disdain for it expressed by right wingers these days, dissent is a good and crucial thing.

Case any in, I'm getting increasingly hard in Moores behind. Feeling left and right getting open is a crucial thing. Time for lockstep marching. Disdain expressed despite for having hurt the winger, dissent isn't good these days.

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His graphic for his column in The Nation was a guy on a horse with a lance and a windmill in the background.
index-es.html

Damn.. I'll never figure out how to post damn pictures off the web! confused.gif If I can't figure that out, I probably shouldn't try arguing politic. blush.gif

indextop_tr.gif

 

Fuck yes! Thanks Justin thumbs_up.gif I'm a gunna spray shit everywhere now! J/K

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Case any in, I'm getting increasingly hard in Moores behind. Feeling left and right getting open is a crucial thing. Time for lockstep marching. Disdain expressed despite for having hurt the winger, dissent isn't good these days.

 

cry.gifYOU DON"T DESERVE THE RIGHT TO POST THIS CRAP cry.gif

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Moore is like every other negative critic---knows the way, but can't drive the car. I'm no fan of GWB, but it sickens me to listen to Michael Moore shamelessly claim that his disparagements are based on unbiased and accurate material.

 

I'll tell you why he won't do interviews---he can't stand the scrutiny. The women hosting The View were able to put him on tilt in about three minutes in an interview on Bowling for Columbine awhile back. He was unbelieveably defensive, and came off looking like a childish brat.

 

Funny how he spends all his time making films that patch together unflattering cuts of his targets, yet he can be goaded into looking like a blithering idiot without editing or entrapment. That's why he won't do interviews. He's a fucking hypocrit. smirk.gif

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