Michael moores New Book - "Dude, wheres my Country"

²°°³webkev²°°³

Due for Release Next October in the states

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60748

I eventually read his last book, which was mostly boring bunkum in my honest opinion, with a lot of misinformation

Indeed Further to that he has recently been caught out with inaccuracies and misinformation in Bowling for Columbine.

In the newly-released DVD version of his Academy Award-winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine," filmmaker Michael Moore has altered a caption that he inserted into a 1988 Bush-Quayle campaign commercial -- one of a number of misstatements and deceptive arguments we criticized when the film was released last year. Ironically, on the same day the DVD was released, Moore issued a libel threat against his critics on MSNBC's "Buchanan & Press," saying, "Every fact in the film is true. Absolutely every fact in the film is true. And anybody who says otherwise is committing an act of libel."
While we were among the first to call Moore on the inaccuracies in his film, most notably the alteration of the Bush-Quayle ad and his misleading presentation of US aid to Afghanistan in a timeline sequence, we were far from the only ones.

Dan Lyons of Forbes Magazine also revealed several important lies or distortions, including the fact that the scene during which Moore receives a gun at a bank was staged. And David Hardy, an Arizona lawyer specializing in gun issues who has worked for the National Rifle Association, has compiled a voluminous list of allegations, including Moore's heavy and misleading editing of NRA President Charlton Heston's speech in Denver after the Columbine massacre.

mm

Meh

"Every fact in the film is true. Absolutely every fact in the film is true."

I wonder was the tautology intentional...

²°°³webkev²°°³

oh wow.. NRA lawyers are trying to smeer his name..
You cant denounce a film as inaccurate because of a few cutaways and staged scenes, all documenatries do that..

and all Facts and Figures are very correct

as for his last book..found it boring? thats a shame

i found it quite eye opening (even funny in parts).. and so did the millions of others who have read the book and made it the biggest selling non fiction book of the year..

dahamsta

Thank christ someone's taken Ann Coulter to task on something. Michael Moore twists the truth a little which I'll concede is pretty silly, Coulter's just a plain down-home lying sack of sh1t.

adam

Originally posted by ²°°³webkev²°°³

and all Facts and Figures are very correct

Apparently not so! Moore spins at a pace that would make Campbell look like a novice:

In a discussion of Pentagon spending, he refers to the "$250 billion the Pentagon plans to spend in 2001 to build 2800 new Joint Strike Fighter planes" and states that "the proposed increase in monies for the Pentagon over the next four years is $1.6 trillion." To back this up, he refers to the Web site of the peace activist group Council for a Livable World. CLW's own analysis of the 2001 budget, however, shows that $250 billion is the total multiyear cost of the Joint Strike Fighter program, not the amount spent in one year. $1.6 trillion, meanwhile, was the total amount of money requested by the Pentagon at the time for 2001-2005. It covers five years, not four, and is a total budget request, not a "proposed increase" over previously requested budget levels. It shouldn't even take this much research, however, to determine that out of the total defense budget request of $305.4 billion in 2001, $250 billion was never intended to go toward one type of plane, nor that an increase of $400 billion per year in military spending was never proposed.

whats the point in being so slipshod??
It waters down the necessary critisism of the events surrounding the 2000 election.
And damages the total credibility of what Moore tries to do.
That is a shame, and whats worse helps the cause against his agenda rather than hinder it.

mm

how could people not laugh, however, when he said this to the crowd of Northerners:

"You, the State, representing the people, put down your guns, leave this island, let the people have free, peaceful, open elections. Let them decide their own fate!"

I agree with some of his views, however he can get very nit-picky which is NOT good. Also he should stop talking about N.I.

mike65

Michael Moore is a good case of someone who used to play the fool to some effect but who then realised he wanted to play Hamlet....Now no issue is so good that it can't be distorted to serve his own ends.

Mike.

DapperGent

I enjoyed Bowling For Columbine up to a point, it was funny and interesting but also one-sided and spun.

Stupid White Men and Downsize This are utter trash, he should stick to documenatries he clearly doesn't have the moxy for the written word.

Plus he could stand to lose a few pounds.

Spacedog

Does any other media not spin and exadurate facts? All media is mearly a point of view and is biased to the writer's beliefs. If some of Mr. Moore's facts are slightly off the points he makes remain. If his statistic about donations for bush by corperations in actuality refer to doantions to his political party, it is a descrapency, but the exact concern remains!

To me Moore definatly makes sense. I'd sooner believe a point but across by him, than what Fox News poison the airwaves with.

Man clearly you don't believe everything you are told, what do you make of the issues made in stupid white men and Bowling For Colombine? Do you think the right to bare arms is sacred? that Maralon Manson is responsable for the shootings? You know he's has a point, maybe you or I would would express this diffrently, but this is the way Moore chooses to do so.

If these books and films were never made would we even be discussing the issues they raise? Or mearly accept them as the reality we are presented with?

dahamsta

I enjoyed Bowling For Columbine up to a point, it was funny and interesting but also one-sided and spun.

An eye for an eye. Dubya's entire presidency - his entire life even - has been one-sided and spun. Perhaps Moore feels he needs to play to their rules. If I was in his position I certainly would -- they're not playing fair, why should I?

Stupid White Men and Downsize This are utter trash, he should stick to documenatries he clearly doesn't have the moxy for the written word.

I don't think they were brilliant books but I wouldn't call them trash either. There's a difference between writing trash and writing to your audience. Although Moore certainly aims at the "liberal intelligentsia" (I say that in the same way a neocon says Moore's name), particularly in Europe, I feel that the people he really wants to read his books are the ordinary Americans that have been hurt so badly by the outsourcing and theft he talks about; the people whose jobs have disappeared and whose lives have been turned upside-down.

It seems to me that he's writing to these people by avoiding long, extended tirades and (pseudo-)intellectual arguments; by intentionally breaking things down into easy-to-manage chunks and bullet points, to make sure they understand fully what he's trying to say. Some might see this as talking down, but many Americans prefer this type of writing, and again it strikes me that it's exactly these Americans that he's trying to address. I'm not just making this up by the way, one of my clients has websites targetted at the American market and he has to write his websites this way.

Plus he could stand to lose a few pounds.

Well that's just a troll or pure ignorance.

adam

DapperGent

Originally posted by dahamsta
An eye for an eye. Dubya's entire presidency - his entire life even - has been one-sided and spun. Perhaps Moore feels he needs to play to their rules. If I was in his position I certainly would -- they're not playing fair, why should I?

I'm no fan of George W's either but the fact that his is a presidency of spin doesn't excuse Michael Moore's aberrations. What's the point of decrying another's moral turpitude if in doing so you stoop to the same level? And also where's the moral high ground in lambasting the moral sink that is the Welfare to Work programme and then hoodwinking and humilating a Stupid Old Man? Or indeed using a half-mad hillbilly for cheap laughs?

Originally posted by dahamsta
I don't think they were brilliant books but I wouldn't call them trash either. There's a difference between writing trash and writing to your audience. Although Moore certainly aims at the "liberal intelligentsia" (I say that in the same way a neocon says Moore's name), particularly in Europe, I feel that the people he really wants to read his books are the ordinary Americans that have been hurt so badly by the outsourcing and theft he talks about; the people whose jobs have disappeared and whose lives have been turned upside-down.

It seems to me that he's writing to these people by avoiding long, extended tirades and (pseudo-)intellectual arguments; by intentionally breaking things down into easy-to-manage chunks and bullet points, to make sure they understand fully what he's trying to say. Some might see this as talking down, but many Americans prefer this type of writing, and again it strikes me that it's exactly these Americans that he's trying to address. I'm not just making this up by the way, one of my clients has websites targetted at the American market and he has to write his websites this way.

That Michael Moore feels he needs to dumb-down for the average american is no concern of mine, nor for that matter is the CBS Evening News's decision to do the same. I just switch one off and resolve never again to read the other.

From bad science and scare-mongering about BSE to idiotic posturing on the troubles in Northern Ireland and conflicts just about everywhere else, on to a cancerously egotiscal aside about how if they'd listened to him George Dubya would never be in the White House, he just makes my brain bleed.

I'm sorry trash.

Originally posted by dahamsta
Well that's just a troll or pure ignorance.

Well it's not a troll so....

bonkey

Originally posted by Spacedog
Does any other media not spin and exadurate facts?

There is a difference between spin and trying to pass falsehood off as truth.

If some of Mr. Moore's facts are slightly off the points he makes remain.

Yes and no. His points only exist because he has highlighted them with facts. If he made up all of the facts, we wouldn't consider that the point remains. That he has clearly made up (or poorly researched) at least some of the facts means that - at best - we should wonder whether or not there are points to be considered here that are worth doing some additional research on to find out what the facts really are.

To me Moore definatly makes sense. I'd sooner believe a point but across by him, than what Fox News poison the airwaves with.

Despite knowing that he's a man who will deliberately lie to make his point, and then do everything in his power to convince you that he only ever told the truth?

Personally, I'd rather believe neither him nor Fox, but use either/both of them as indicators of what might be worth learning about from more varied, and less one-sided research.

Man clearly you don't believe everything you are told, what do you make of the issues made in stupid white men and Bowling For Colombine? Do you think the right to bare arms is sacred? that Maralon Manson is responsable for the shootings? You know he's has a point, maybe you or I would would express this diffrently, but this is the way Moore chooses to do so.

If these books and films were never made would we even be discussing the issues they raise?

Some of us were doing so before he wrote them, yes.

Or mearly accept them as the reality we are presented with?

I don't accept his writings as reality any more than I do the image presented by the mainstream media.

jc

dahamsta

Originally posted by DapperGent
Well it's not a troll so....

That opens and closes your argument for me. Welcome to my ignore list.

adam

dahamsta

Bonkey, I've read the refutations. A half dozen or a dozen points have been disproven, when the entire book was made up of thousands of bite-sized points. Yes, it was stupid of Moore to exaggerate and obfuscate, yes, Moore made a complate tit of himself at the Oscars, but let's put this in perpective.

adam

Spacedog

diverging from the point so I started a new thread here...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115001

Spacedog

back on topic... looking foreward to the new book. Anyone recomend other books/authors that deal with the type of issues that moore raises?

How do you compare:

Fast Food Nation,
No Logo,
Culture of Fear.

to Michael Moore's books?

dahamsta

Dunno about the other two, haven't read them, but I don't think there's much of a comparison between Klein and Moore. Klein goes into enormous detail and tackles subjects from all angles, whereas Moore (as I've said) breaks things down into bite-size chunks. Moore also tends to offer up occasional solutions to problems (run for office, write to such-and-such) whereas Klein expects us to figure out the answers (where to shop, what to drive) on our own. This is a weakness of Klein in my view, but I suppose she believes the weight of the book alone will result in an audience that should be able to figure it out. (I can't a lot of the time.)

adam

sovtek

Originally posted by utility_
Also he should stop talking about N.I.

Not to suggest that Moore hasn't made innacurate statements before but....

I hear so much about Moore's "rubbish" statements about N.I. but no one every really states what they are. Can someone please, like I'm a 5 yo, do so?

TIA

sovtek

Originally posted by dahamsta
whereas Klein expects us to figure out the answers (where to shop, what to drive) on our own. This is a weakness of Klein in my view, but I suppose she believes the weight of the book alone will result in an audience that should be able to figure it out. (I can't a lot of the time.)

adam

She does go into what some people are doing about "it" though.

sovtek

Originally posted by Man
Apparently not so! Moore spins at a pace that would make Campbell look like a novice:



whats the point in being so slipshod??
It waters down the necessary critisism of the events surrounding the 2000 election.
And damages the total credibility of what Moore tries to do.
That is a shame, and whats worse helps the cause against his agenda rather than hinder it.

mm

I find that the are more worthy pundits of ridicule for intentional inaccuracy than Moore.
You can hardly compare Moore to Campbell. Your article doesn't have anything to do with BFC but SWM.
As well it makes some assertions that can be refuted.
I'll admit he isn't always accurate, yet I've seen no one argue that they actually refute the points he makes.
Meanwhile his inaccuracies in SWM about South Africa (that Mandela brought down Apartheid through peacefule means is an inaccurate but widely held view in America as well as Europe) actually do go against his assertion that peaceful movements are the only way. I've seen no one bring that up though.

Typedef

There's something deeply suspicious about a "Liberal for the little guy" who makes millions out of selling his 'message'.......
I mean, his books.

Originally posted by sovtek

Your article doesn't have anything to do with BFC but SWM.
As well it makes some assertions that can be refuted.

Can I refer you back to the second post in which I linked to an article from the same foundation detailing inaccuracies and spins in BFC.

I've also stated here that i don't have a problem with {most} of Moores agenda, just the slipshod way he goes about it.

mm

sovtek

Originally posted by Man
Can I refer you back to the second post in which I linked to an article from the same foundation detailing inaccuracies and spins in BFC.

Fair enough, but the post I quoted was in regards to "Bowling" and your link was to an article about SWM.
I'll concede as I did miss your second post.

I've also stated here that i don't have a problem with {most} of Moores agenda, just the slipshod way he goes about it.

mm

I have yet to see a pundit that wasn't slipshod.
I'd say that most inaccuracies put out by the likes of Limbaugh and Coulter DO undermine the majority of their points though.

dahamsta

Originally posted by sovtek
She does go into what some people are doing about "it" though.

True I suppose. She just isn't as direct as Moore about it.

adam

DapperGent

Originally posted by dahamsta
That opens and closes your argument for me. Welcome to my ignore list.

I wish I could do the same but I find your posts a little too interesting to deprive myself of them.

²°°³webkev²°°³

the new cover is really funny

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0446532231/ref=lib_dp_TFCV/102-1776962-6515348?v=glance&s=books&vi=reader#reader-link

(he was on a 3 month diet with no sugar or flour, and has lost most of the weight.. thats one more thing crazy right wing nuts cant put him down for.. he has now the two most sucessful documentaries in history, and the highest selling non fiction 2002.. i hope the new book and film are just as successful,

DadaKopf

Consider, for instance, his claim that "two-thirds of [the over $190 million President Bush raised during the presidential campaign] came from just over seven hundred individuals." Given the $2,000 federal limit on individual donations, this claim is obviously false.

from http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20020403.html

Now... tell me if I'm wrong, but aren't there different rules about dontations that come from individuals and from corporations? Individual donations may be topped at $2,000 but corporate donation limits are higher (and then there's under-the-table donations). So there's a shady area around what exactly Moore meant by 'individuals' and the article challenging Moore's book could fall under its own criticism. I don't think either passages were well cited.

Anywho... I found SWM tedious. I didn't finish it. I particularly disliked his misinterpretation of the Troubles and peace process even if he was being sarcastic - it just sent alarm bells off in my head about exactly how far he goes to simplify US politics and social issues. Sometimes I felt in his writing that he was hiding behind a veil of humour to make up for his loose grip on facts. His chapter on the Bush election was excellent, though.

Thing about Moore is he was once the editor of Mother Jones (a really good leftie-liberal political magazine) so he's obviously smart and able with facts and the like. He's obviously making salient points in a way that's clearly attempting draw in the average Joe Illiterate and make them think. It's still no excuse for getting facts completely wrong. You just can't afford it in that business.

DapperGent

Originally posted by ²°°³webkev²°°³
he was on a 3 month diet with no sugar or flour, and has lost most of the weight..

Looks like he reckoned he could stand to lose a few pounds too.

bloggs

I have read both 'Downsize This' and 'Stupid White Men', and found both to be big long rants. The just uses the books to insult people he doesn't like, and bowling for columbine (which was presented as fact) was later debunked.

Has some interesting stuff http://www.revoketheoscar.com/

shotamoose

Originally posted by bloggs
Has some interesting stuff http://www.revoketheoscar.com/

Quote from that page:

It doesn't matter where in the world you are, the same disgusting vermin, the dregs of humanity, can be found protesting for the left.

Doesn't really inspire confidence in their objectivity.