Michael Moore Responds to BFC Critics

[Dancing David]

Try here. I think the most damning thing he did was altering a Bush/Quayle campaign commercial about furloughs. He added text specifically referring to Willie Horton to the commercial, making it appear that the Bush/Quayle campaign had run the commercial with the text. The text, by the way, falsely asserts that Horton 'killed again' while on furlough.

Moore apparently thinks that his alteration is fairly damning as well, considering that he has further changed it for the DVD release. He know has changed the caption to correctly state that Horton raped a woman and stabbed her boyfriend. The caption still appears to be a part of the campaign commercial, though it never was.

He staged the scene at the bank:




I recommend all of Spinsanity's research, from Moore and Scheer and Rall to Limbaugh and Coulter and O'Reilley.

Thanks, thats about what i figured from reading around on the web, but trusting those conservatives opinion spinners, about as much as I would truest Moore.

Thanks again!

 

[Dancing David]

Personally, I do believe that having enforced gun registration would save some lives (a small number of people would secure their guns better, report them stolen, etc.) However, you have to look at the relative costs. A registration program will cost money to set up, and the government doesn't have unlimited cash; decisions have to be made. If the goal is to save lives, instead of spending money on a gun registry (that not everyone will bother with; certainly not criminals), better results might be obtained by putting the money into better policing, education, or health care.

Here in Canada, we have had much stricter gun laws for a while. Recently, the government started a program to register all firearms (including rifles). They originally said it would cost $35 million, then upgraded that to $200 million. Now that they've actually started implementing it, the costs have already reached $1 billion, and the process is nowhere near complete. In fact, its been a disaster. There have also been far too many problems; people sending in their applications, and either getting 2 registrations, or none at all, misassignments, etc.

Now, you have to wonder... what could you have done with $1 billion? How many free vaccinations could be given? How many new MRI machines could be set up (reducing the wait for medical tests). How many police could be hired to crack down on real crime?

My goal would have to be to decrease the illegal trade in arms, not that vehicle registration stops auto theft.

And for the cost, we spent much more than that firing off Tomahawk and other cruise missles this year.

I never claim to be right just what i think.

Thank you for your post.

Canada always has sounded like a great if cold place! (My step-son is a Newfie.)

 

[Wolverine]

Thanks, thats about what i figured from reading around on the web, but trusting those conservatives opinion spinners, about as much as I would truest Moore.

In regard to the NCB scene, I stumbled across this bit from a writer who doesn't appear to delve into matters political:

One of the segments of the movie that gets the most airplay on TV takes place at the very beginning. There's a bank in Northern Michigan that will give you a free gun if you open an account. Moore is shown walking into the bank and asking to open "the account where you get the free gun." He's led to an office where he fills out a couple of forms, answers a couple of questions, a quick background check is completed (Moore comments about the speed and ease of the process) and presto: he exits the bank, proudly raising his new Weatherby rifle in the air.

So I called the bank, North Country Bank & Trust. The spokesperson who processed Moore's free gun in the film doesn't work there any more, but I spoke to one of the gun program's customer-service reps. It turns out that it's impossible to duplicate Moore's experience.

Here's the procedure for the gun program, as it was explained to me:

1) You walk into the bank and ask for "the account where you get the free gun."

2) You're shown a catalogue of available products. They're famous for their guns, but you can also choose a set of golf clubs, a grandfather clock, or other expensive bric-a-brac. You pick out an item.

3) The gun isn't actually "free"; you're buying a Certificate of Deposit and the bank is paying you all of the interest from the account in advance, in the form of fabulous prizes. The bank employee knows what each item costs and calculates how much money you'll have to desposit and how long you'll have to keep it in there to pay off the gun. For instance, I was told that to get the Mark 5 Stainless Weatherby, I'd have to deposit $5697 and keep it there for three years.

4) You fill out paperwork. Two sets, actually. One is the usual paperwork for opening a CD, the second is information for the required firearms background check.

5) You go home and wait. The bank processes your paperwork, both to make sure that no other bank has ever lost money doing business with you, and to make sure that they can legally sell you a firearm. I asked the rep how long the bank took to approve a customer and get him his gun, but she was uncomfortable with giving me an actual number.

"Well, are we talking hours? Days?" I asked.

"Oh, days, definitely." Later in the conversation, she described it as "Like, two weeks' worth of days."

6) When the bank is satisfied that it's safe to issue you a CD and a gun, they notify you. You have the option of picking up the weapon at a local gun dealer or right at the bank but in either case, the weapon has to be shipped there from a different location. No gun inventory is kept at the bank; the only firearms they have on hand are display models so you can fondle the merchandise before you make a selection.

So there are obviously some major disconnects between the experience Moore presents and the experience a customer would have if they didn't appear with a film crew. Again, this is preliminary stuff: it's possible that the process was indeed just that simple when Moore came to film. But it's also possible that the bank agreed to streamline it for the purposes of filming. Unfortunately, the woman who actually chairs the program (and perhaps can speak more authoritatively) was on vacation when I called, but I've got her return-date circled on the calendar. Stay tuned.

 

[Dancing David]

You're very pursuasive. Where's the woman?

I take it your looking for a transexual?


For the others;
I am supporter of registration but i am a shooter, never fired a BAR but hope to some day, an AK-47 was way fun, as was a WW-2 10mm mauser and my favorite, a Springfield M-1 Garand. .22 are okay but I like the bigger rounds for target practise, they just make bigger holes in the Bibles .

 

[BTox]

I think NJ where I live does handle this issue pretty well. I had to get finger-printed, FBI check and wait a month or so to get a permit to buy a handgun. And you need a firearms ID card to buy ammo.

 

[Dancing David]

Wolverine: Thanks, that was what i had heard and it was what i figured when I watched the movie. the Brady Bill and the state would have required at least a background check.(Say, I guess Mr. Moore was never hospitalizaed for a major mental illness!)


truely the worst part of the movie was the stunt he pulled with the two kids who were shot at Columbine, it was clearly exploitative, had he called in advance those kids would have gotten much better treatment and lots of cool publicity. Even as a bed wetting liberal I thought that scene was sickening!

 

[ImpyTimpy]

I think NJ where I live does handle this issue pretty well. I had to get finger-printed, FBI check and wait a month or so to get a permit to buy a handgun. And you need a firearms ID card to buy ammo.

That's the most reasonable gun control measure ever. Just make people have special permits to buy ammunition. Guns don't kill people, bullets do

 

[Skeptic]

It is just you. I am not an angry man. I just do not like reading about how it is wrong to own firearms. I do not like giving an inch, because then they will want a whole mile.

Actually, I agree with you. I was writing tongue-in-cheek... it was just the escalating arms race in the post that made me chuckle.

 

[a_unique_person]

Looks like half the web is having a go at Mike. I just watched it, and half the criticism is not about his facts, but about the fact he has to edit a film. For example, Aerocontrols first link. What do they want, a clip that shows the whole meeting of the NRA?

Everything in that clip was true. It was filmed there, and has not been denied. He just left out the bits that didn't support his case. And the actual procedural bits.....

Unmoored From Reality
An ideological con artist is the favorite for an Oscar.

lets start with the ad homs.

With Hollywood in a fever pitch against the war in Iraq, Michael Moore is likely to win the Oscar for Best Documentary at Sunday's Academy Awards. "Bowling for Columbine," Mr. Moore's work of anti-American propaganda, has grossed over $15 million, an amazing sum for a film billed as a documentary. But the film, a merry dissection of America's "culture of fear" and love of guns, is filled with so many inaccuracies and distortions that it ought to be classed as a work of fiction.

Mr. Moore is naturally a big hit among the French. The jury at the Cannes Film Festival created a special, one-time only award to honor his film and then gave it a 13-minute standing ovation. "Not since Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer have we seen such a successful export of anti-Americanism," observes Andrew Sullivan in London's Sunday Times.

Anti Americanism? There are plenty of good Americans. MM is American. He just doesn't like the wacky aspects of it's culture, which seem to include teenagers and younger going to school and shooting other students. This happens in other countries, too, but nowhere near the rate at which it happens in the US.

Mr. Moore plays into all of the worst stereotypes and distortions about America. "Bowling for Columbine" attempts to explain interventions by the U.S. military as rooted in an inherently violent domestic culture. "I agree with the National Rifle Association when they say, 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people,' " he told NBC's "Today" show. "Except I would alter that to say, 'Guns don't kill people, Americans kill people.' We're the only country that does this, and we do it on an personal level in our neighborhoods and within our families and our schools, and we do it on a global level. The American attitude is that we believe we have a right to just go in and bomb another country. This is where Bush is going right now, right?"

To make this strained connection, Mr. Moore tries to make us believe that the two mentally disturbed high school students who massacred their fellow students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., grew up in a community that has a sinister connection to the military-industrial complex. A Lockheed Martin factory in Littleton manufactures "weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Moore claims. The factory actually makes rockets that carry TV satellites into space. And the very title of Mr. Moore's film is based on a deception. It refers to the bowling class that the Columbine killers supposedly took the morning they committed their murders. The only problem is that they actually cut the class.

He appears to have believed that they went there. It was their regular activity at on those days.

It is one of the theories he postulates about why this all happened. He goes through several. He does not say that any one theory is wholly correct. One thing that cannot be denied, which is his main contention, is that the US is a much more violent and paranoid country than other similar countries, including Canada, just across the border.

Forbes reports that an early scene in "Bowling" in which Mr. Moore tries to demonstrate how easy it is to obtain guns in America was staged. He goes to a small bank in Traverse City, Mich., that offers various inducements to open an account and claims "I put $1,000 in a long-term account, they did the background check, and, within an hour, I walked out with my new Weatherby," a rifle.

But Jan Jacobson, the bank employee who worked with Mr. Moore on his account, says that only happened because Mr. Moore's film company had worked for a month to stage the scene. "What happened at the bank was a prearranged thing," she says. The gun was brought from a gun dealer in another city, where it would normally have to be picked up. "Typically, you're looking at a week to 10 days waiting period," she says. Ms. Jacobson feels used: "He just portrayed us as backward hicks."

This appears to be a matter of opinion that differs between the Bank and Michael. Either way, they said they have hundreds of guns in their bank vault for just that purpose. They hand out guns for new accounts. They advertise this fact. They are a registered arms dealer. They hand out guns in the bank.

Mr. Moore makes the preposterous claim that a Michigan program by which welfare recipients were required to work was responsible for an incident in which a six-year-old Flint boy shot a girl to death at school. Mr. Moore doesn't mention that the boy's mother had sent him to live in a crack house where her brother and a friend kept both drugs and guns--a frequently lethal combination.

Preposterous? Debatable at worst. The rebuttal does not dispute that single mothers have to work in places that take half a day to get to and back from. They cannot leave a child alone for that length of time. They leave for work before the child even wakes in the morning. Maybe she should have put him into paid child care. Yeah, right. The jobs she was on were strictly "working poor" type.

Some of the fact-bending and omissions of "Bowling for Columbine" could charitably be chalked up to really sloppy research. (I called the chief archivist for Mr. Moore's film, Carl Deal, yesterday, but he hasn't called back.) Others show a willful aversion to the truth. Mr. Moore repeats the canard that the United States gave the Taliban $245 million in aid in 2000 and 2001, somehow implying we were in cahoots with them. But that money actually went to U.N.-affiliated humanitarian organizations that were completely independent of the Taliban.

Yet the UN is still owed millions in fees from the US. Once again, the US is able to cough up the money for selective causes. It will use the UN when it suits, and ignore it other times. This author also ignores the other aid that was given to fight the USSR in Afghanistan in one of many proxy wars. The fact is, Afghanistan was better under Russia than the Taliban.

David Hardy, a former Interior Department lawyer who delights in debunking government officials and pompous celebrities, has uncovered even more evidence of Mr. Moore's distortions. The film depicts NRA president Charlton Heston giving a speech near Columbine; he actually gave it a year later and 900 miles away. The speech he did give is edited to make conciliatory statements sound like rudeness. Another speech is described as being given immediately after the Flint shooting . In reality, it was made almost a year later. All of these and more inaccuracies can be found at Mr. Hardy's comprehensive Web site.

So, when is he going to have a go at Heston?

This is a distortion itself. For me, it was pretty easy to tell the difference between Charlton Heston the sendup "From my cold dead hands", and Chuck at the NRA meeting.

Ben Fritz ofSpinsanity.org also notes that Mr. Moore has "apparently altered footage of an ad run by the Bush/Quayle campaign in 1988" to buttress his claim that racial symbolism is frequently misused in American politics. His leading example is the case of Willie Horton, a murderer who became a major issue in the 1988 presidential campaign. Mr. Moore shows the Bush ad that generically attacked a prison furlough program in Michael Dukakis's Massachusetts . Superimposed over the footage of prisoners entering and exiting a prison are the words "Willie Horton released. Then kills again." While the caption appears to be part of the original ad, Mr. Moore actually inserted it; the ad made no mention of Horton. (Another ad, sponsored by the National Security Political Action Committee, a conservative group independent of the Bush campaign, did mention Horton; it aired only briefly in a few cable markets.) The phony Moore caption also is inaccurate; Horton brutalized a Maryland couple and raped the wife, but didn't kill anybody while on furlough.

The intent of the ad, and the actual imprisonment rates, speak for themselves. The US, for a Western, Democratic country, has a remarkably high prison population. Blacks are held in contempt by many conservatives. Ref: Our own Hammy. I have seen that "revolving prison" ad. It is a massive distortion in it's own right.

Once again, nit picking. The basic thrust of Moores work is spot on. The US is a remarkably violent and paranoid country. My children watched the documentary and were amazed at the material standard of the school that the two boys went to. It is much more luxurious than their own. But at ours, any hint of a weapon is swiftly dealt with, any bullying ditto.

You get the same thing on this board. The constant paranoia about having to look after yourself and your family with weapons. For all the paraonia, how many JREF members have actually ever had to use a weapon in such a situation. That is, there are constant references to needing a gun, the desire for one is almost palpable. Compare that to the actual use of one.

In fact, the real problem appears to be that majority of deaths are young males, often black. These are people who definitely don't need guns. The white poseurs, who insist on having them, almost never use them for their stated needs. It is just an ego boost.

 

[Ranb]

I think NJ where I live does handle this issue pretty well. I had to get finger-printed, FBI check and wait a month or so to get a permit to buy a handgun. And you need a firearms ID card to buy ammo.

Do they also control ammo components such as powder, brass, primers, and bullets? Reloading equipment controlled at all? Are records kept on ammo purchases?

A month is a long time to wait, I thought it sucked waiting for 14 days when I lived in Hawaii.

Ranb

 

[Questioninggeller]

His lies have already been proven, there is nothing he can say that will make his lying come true.

I hope you can say the same about Bush's lies...

 

[sickstan]

My problem with BfC is that Michael Moore is not a social scientist and fails to bring up many issues that science has implicated in youth violence. I would have liked to see a discussion of:

1. Increased neurological injury scores seen among violent youth.
2. Unwanted pregancy rates.
3. Availability of mental health care.
4. Types of guns in US vs. other countries.

and others I can't think of off the top of my head. I think the problem many people had with BfCis that at various points, Moore seems to stop and point the finger at one particular factor. That would be oversimplifying the problem of gun violence. A good example is Britain. In Britain, it is illegal for civilians to own firearms, and YET there are 67 (69?) deaths from gun violence. That should be remarkable. I'd bet that outside of firing squad executions, Singapore has no gun deaths. Contradictions abound. I think we need to stop comparing and confusing with other countries and begin examining varied communities within the US for factors that contribute to gun violence among the young.

 

[Tony]

I hope you can say the same about Bush's lies...

Take your baggage somewhere else.

 

[jimlintott]

Bowling for Columbine completely changed my opinion on this subject. Before seeing it I would have banned every firearm in existence. I hated guns (still do to a lesser extent).

I felt that he said fear is the problem. Fear of everything. Fear of burglars, fear of neighbors, fear of the paper boy. Fear is rampant. I'm sure many people own guns because they are scared. That is what was important about the scenes in Canada. We're not scared of each other. Even the people who had been victims of crime weren't scared. Heston, who admitted that he had never been a victim of crime, kept a loaded gun for protection. What is he so scared of?

I know people who own firearms. I can't imagine any of them claiming that it is for anything but hunting or pest control. Personal protection just doesn't come up.

I own no firearms. I frequently go to bed at night without locking my door. I'm not scared. I'm not even the slightest bit worried. I live in a city of 35,000 and we just had our fifth murder of the year.

I think Bowling for Columbine may be very close to the truth, many are just scared to admit it.

 

[GroundStrength]

My problem with BfC is that Michael Moore is not a social scientist and fails to bring up many issues that science has implicated in youth violence

Yes, because you can never have too many social scientists.

 

[Ranb]

Bowling for Columbine completely changed my opinion on this subject. Before seeing it I would have banned every firearm in existence. I hated guns (still do to a lesser extent). ..........

.............Heston, who admitted that he had never been a victim of crime, kept a loaded gun for protection. What is he so scared of?

If you do not mind me asking, why did you hate guns and why do you still hate them to a lessor extent?

I can say that some people who carry concealed or keep a loaded gun in the house for protection are not actually frightened. It is just another precaution like locking the door, having a dog, or an alarm system. I sometimes carry in the state of WA just because I can. I am much more likely to flee a dangerous situation than to use or threaten to use deadly force. But I have the option if need be.

Ranb

 

[sickstan]

Yes, because you can never have too many social scientists.

I didn't say "lawyer".

My point is that his approach is visceral and unscientific. It purports to examine the question, but fails to take into account data already collected regarding violence by kids.

The viscerality (is that a word?) of the movie was its strong point but also its hubris. Without the authority of science behind it, the moral of this tale is confusing and desultory.

My personal belief is that solving any one issue presented by the movie will not solve gun violence in the US. It remains a fascinating multifactorial phenomenon.

 

[Luke T.]

I don't speak hardly ever on the gun control issue, so I hope you guys take some time to read something from someone new. I know this topic comes up a lot, and I imagine a lot of the same people say the same stuff over and over. Maybe I have something new to say, I don't know. I haven't even read the gun control topics that keep coming up on here, and only skimmed the first page of this one. Kinda hypocritical of me to ask you to read my entire long post, eh?

I have no idea where I stand on gun control or bans. I don't see much difference between "control" and "ban," though.

I find it strange that one of the arguments against people owning fully automatic, powerful rifles is that they don't have any practical use for hunting or whatever, so why would anyone need one, blah, blah, blah, except for something nefarious.

Well, if there is one weapon that has no other purpose than to shoot human beings, it is a pistol. A "hand"gun.

So it seem to me if you are going to ban automatic weapons because they only have one evil purpose, it isn't that much of a step to make the exact same argument for handguns.

Because of this, it seems to me that people who are for gun control are only going to get themselves confused and end up making bans that make no sense at all. Some weapons will be allowed, while others that appear to serve the same function won't be. And they will go round and round trying to make sense out of nonsense. They will finally have to admit they want to ban all firearms of every type or none at all.

Now, before you think I am against gun control, let me address the issue of registration.

I have heard that some people want every gun to be ballistic tested and a record kept so that if that gun was ever used in a crime, it would be simple to look up the ballistics of the bullet and trace it back to the gun/owner.

I am no expert, but I can believe those who say that after so many firings, the ballistics "fingerprints" of a gun change.

Even so, I wonder how many times the average gun is fired. I just don't think the "only outlaws will have guns" kind of outlaw is running around firing his gun that often, as murderous as he might be. The only people I can think of who fire a gun that often are target shooters, and we really don't need to worry that much about them, do we?

(Edited to add: ) After all, the human fingerprint system is even easier to override with a pair gloves, isn't it? Yet we wouldn't dream of eliminating the fingerprint system.

So getting a fingerprint of a gun doesn't sound all that ridiculous to me.

But then we have the most common arguments against registration, and that is the cost. All I can say to that is it is a good thing we didn't have people like that arguing against fingerprinting people. I can't imagine what that costs, but it sure does pay off.

The only difference I can see between fingerprinting people and fingerprinting guns, and it is a significant one, is that you only fingerprint people when they have committed a crime or are going to be doing a sensitive job, whereas you would be fingerprinting a gun prior to its use by anyone.

Fingerprinting of humans is considered an invasion of their privacy. I would think fingerprinting their gun might be, too, except a gun is an object and not a part of their person. That make the whole issue a gray one.

Proud gun owners have a certain paranoia about who knows they have a gun. I remember back in the days of the Cold War that it was argued if the commies invaded the good old USA, they would go down to the local Town Hall and get the records of all the registered guns and round them up. I think the dregs of that paranoia has remained. Maybe even a certain paranoia that Uncle Sam might one day repeal the second amendment and come round up all the guns.

Here is the truth. Despite all the efforts of the gun control lobby, criminals still get guns. Nothing can stop them from doing so except a complete change in the American way of life, and that isn't going to happen.

A lot of the arguments in favor of legalizing drugs could be made for giving up trying to ban guns, but that would make my post even longer.

 

[a_unique_person]

Proud gun owners have a certain paranoia about who knows they have a gun. I remember back in the days of the Cold War that it was argued if the commies invaded the good old USA, they would go down to the local Town Hall and get the records of all the registered guns and round them up. I think the dregs of that paranoia has remained. Maybe even a certain paranoia that Uncle Sam might one day repeal the second amendment and come round up all the guns.

Good old "Red Dawn". The most interesting part of that film was left out. How did the commies get to parachute into the middle of the US undetected and unharmed?

Here is the truth. Despite all the efforts of the gun control lobby, criminals still get guns. Nothing can stop them from doing so except a complete change in the American way of life, and that isn't going to happen.

If you want to go on the empirical evidence, look at other countries like Australia with hand gun bans. The crime and murder rate is still low. The only recent mass murder was with a legally owned hand gun in the state of Victoria, where I live. (He was a member of a gun club).

This has resulted in a crackdown on handgun owndership even more.

There is a series of murders being committed, but this is a war between drug gangs. When only criminals are armed, criminals shoot criminals.

A lot of the arguments in favor of legalizing drugs could be made for giving up trying to ban guns, but that would make my post even longer.

Gun bans do work, although not perfectly. What they do is drive the price of guns up. The most desperate and reckless criminals, who are the ones most likely to kill, cannot afford the guns. Even professional criminals who have access to guns find them expensive to obtain.

 

[Luke T.]

Good old "Red Dawn". The most interesting part of that film was left out. How did the commies get to parachute into the middle of the US undetected and unharmed?

"Red Dawn" merely played on the paranoia I mentioned. Those lines in the movie were inspired by it, not the other way around.

And there were a lot of silly problems with "Red Dawn" beside the parachutists.

If you want to go on the empirical evidence, look at other countries like Australia with hand gun bans. The crime and murder rate is still low. The only recent mass murder was with a legally owned hand gun in the state of Victoria, where I live. (He was a member of a gun club).

I don't know much about Australia. Did they have an equivalent to the second amendment? Did they have a gun culture like ours with a gazillion guns about? If so, how did they get all the guns back without a revolution?

There is a series of murders being committed, but this is a war between drug gangs. When only criminals are armed, criminals shoot criminals.

No innocent people get held up or murdered by criminals with guns? Amazing!

Gun bans do work, although not perfectly. What they do is drive the price of guns up. The most desperate and reckless criminals, who are the ones most likely to kill, cannot afford the guns. Even professional criminals who have access to guns find them expensive to obtain.

That kind of fits in with what I was saying in my last post. You either have to have a complete and total ban on every type of guns or nothing. And Americans will never go for a complete and total ban.