Wednesday, July 21, 2004

F911 Deceits 3 thru 7

Deception #3: Bush won florida cuz Katherine Harris (the Secretary of state in FA and "Bush's campaign chairperson in Florida" and "the vote count lady" made it so Bush would win. Furthermore, the Florida Supreme Court's recount was halted by "his dad's buddies in the Supreme Court." By any scenario of recounts, Gore would have won Florida and thus the Presidency.

Facts: First of all, every time a Republican is aided by another Republican, the conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork and scream bloody murder. Yes, some Supreme Court Justices were appointed by Republican Presidents. Does that mean that they are merely servants of the GOP? Ah, no! Consider this: If the Supreme Court were in Bush's pocket, as Moore suggests, why not use this to reverse some court decisions that go against Bush's ideals and opinions. Why not repeal Roe vs. Wade (the decision that made abortion legal)?

Katherine Harris was no the Florida chairperson, she was the co-chairperson. She was not the "vote count lady" either. Her job was to certify the vote counting that individual Florida counties carried out.

Had Gore gotten the recount he and the Florida Supreme Court wanted, Bush would have won. This is according to CNN, The NY Times, and The Washington Post who came together to attempt to resolve the recount situation. Here are their findings summarized in USA Today:

Who would have won if Al Gore had gotten manual counts he requested in four counties? Answer: George W. Bush."

"Who would have won if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stopped the hand recount of undervotes, which are ballots that registered no machine-readable vote for president? Answer: Bush, under three of four standards."

"Who would have won if all disputed ballots — including those rejected by machines because they had more than one vote for president — had been recounted by hand? Answer: Bush, under the two most widely used standards; Gore, under the two least used."

The article summarized in the NY Post: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/27166.htm

You can even make up your own rules to see who would have won Florida at this site:
http://www.nytimes.com/images/2001/11/12/politics/recount/
There are 24 different scenarios and unlike Moore asserts, Gore doesn't win in all of them. And as mentioned above, the Florida Supreme Court's reocunt plan would have resulted in a win for Bush.

Adding to this, Moore flashes a number of newspaper headlines, one of which is a letter to the editor and not a news headline at all.

Conclusion: Moore continues to distort facts and present only his side of the story. He uses clever editing tricks to make people look like they've said things that they don't really need.

Deception #4: Moore claims that Florida's conservatives purposely removed black people off the voter eligibility rolls in an effort to reduce the number of Democratic votes.

Facts: Conservatives who controlled the government in Florida did hire the company that was supposed to clean up Florida's voting rolls of felons and dead people (makes sense seeing as neither can vote under Florida law) and the company fucked up. In the 1998 Miami Mayoral election, dead people and felons had voted. The fact of the matter is that blacks are disproportionately more likely to be felons than whites. Florida laws allow felons from other states to vote but some of these felons, disproportionally black, were accidently whiped off the voter list. In fact, the company never even used race as a discerning characteristic between people!

Conclusion: Were people wrongly turned away from polls? Yes. But there was no malice or racist intent on the part of Florida's government or the company they hired to purge the rolls of people who could not vote. Too many elections in US history have been marred with controversy due to overvoting, dead people voting, and otherwise inelligble voters voting. If more blacks were turned away from the voting booth than whites would this have made a difference? Moore seems to think so. It is true that blacks are a key constituency for the Democratic Party, however, isn't it racial profiling to predict that black people will vote for Democrats simply because they're black? As a matter of fact, it is.

Deception #5: Bush was welcomed to the White House with a barrage of eggs. His Presidency was stagnant before 9/11. His approval rating went down, and the Senate became Democrtatic.

Facts: Bush's limo was pelted by one egg which is such a constructive act. I'm sure the thrower of that egg will convince alot of people that Bush lost Florida in prison. It is true the Senate switched from Republican to Democratic when one Senator changed parties. Moore makes it seem as if an election was held in between January of 2001 and September of 2001 and the Democrats won Senate seats.

Conclusion: Of course Bush was going to have trouble passing every law he wanted to pass. With people like Moore running around the country screaming conspiracy theories and Gore's refusal to accept defeat until the highest court in the land forced him to, the President had very little mandate. With a hostile Senate and people voting on party lines, it was very difficult to get things through Capitol Hill. Moore doesn't come to the conclusion that Washington is a political place where party memebers toe the party line, he instead tries to make it seem as if NO-ONE beleived Bush was President.

Deception #6: Bush was on vacation for nearly half of his days before September 11.

Facts: Ummm, the internet! I remember last year I took all of my tests and quizzes for one class and never had to leave my dorm room! In fact, I took one quiz in while Massachusetts and my school is in New York! Phones, cable modems, fax machines, webcams, they all allow us to connect to each other without being in the same room, town, or even state! Moore portrays Bush as a backwoods farmer type who would rather chop some firewood than worry about the problems of the world. I'd like to see how Moore would deal with the stress of being President. I know I couldn't survive unless I had time off. If you have a good eye and a photographic memory (most people do not especially at the movie theater) you may remember about a 1/2 second shot of Bush tlaking with Tony Blair. Blair isn't his hunting pal, he is the Prime Minister of our most important ally. but I guess they were talking about football or the other football.

Conclusion: Presidents go on vacation. They spend time outside of the White House. People like Moore are hypocritcal if you ask me. In one instance, they portray Bush as a dadd'y's boy who never had to do a hard day of work in his life, then they portray him as a hick who enjoys working on his ranch (which is his only privately own residence, unlike Kerry's set of dwellings across the country).

Deception #7: Bush cares more about golf than terrorism.

Facts: The now famous incident of Bush tlaking about terrorism and then playing some golf has been burnt into my retinas. The fact of the matter is that he was talking about Palestinian terrorists and not Al-quaida and according to Moore, Palestinian terrorists never attacked us so we sohuldn't care that they kill innocent people seemingly on a daily basis.

Conclusion: Doesn't Moore claim that we should all just live our lives like normal? That worrying about terrorists is just as dangerous as a terrorist attack? So why shouldn't the President enjoy a round of golf? The first thing I thought of when I saw this clip in commercials is the picture of JFK chipping on the putting green he built on the White House lawn during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That's it for now. I'm pissed and obsessed. Hehe.

Monday, July 19, 2004

Mike Moore and the 56 Lies

That's supposed to be funny cuz it's supposed to be like Ali Babba and the 40 Thieves. I know it isn't funny. Anyhoo, this site I just found is fantastic. It painstakingly and deliberately itemizes 59 misleading and/or false things in Fahrenheit 9/11. Here's the address: http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in- Fahrenheit-911.htm The site is very long and I don't recommend reading it in one day so once and awhile I'll summarize a deception or two in Moore's new movie.
 
Deception #1: In the opening scene of the movie, Gore is celebrating his electoral victory in Florida with celebrities thus assuring his Presidential victory.
 
Facts: The rally did take place on Election Day 2000 however it took place before the sun rose in the early morning. It was Gore's last campaign stop before returning to his home state of Tennessee to observe the results of the election. This article proves this to be the case: http://www.evote.com/News/EV11072000E.html (Since when is Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian from Star Wars) a celebrity?)
 
Conclusion: Moore seems to flat out lie when it comes to things that aren't that important to the point of the movie. Is the fact that he misleads the viewer about when the rally took place by narrating as if it was a post-election party all that important? Not really, but it isn't a good way to start a documentary if you ask me.
 
Deception #2: Continuing with the Election 2000 portion of F 9/11, Moore states that news stations across the country called Florida for Gore, then Fox News called Florida for Bush thus inducing every other station to call Florida for Bush
 
Facts: NBC called Florida for Gore at 7:49 and CBS followed shorty thereafter. Fox called Florida for Gore at 7:52 and ABC called it for Gore at 8:02. Moore fails to mention that Fox News (the most conservative or least liberal station, in my opinion) even called Florida for Gore. He also fails to mention that EVERY station uses the same data to "call" states. At about 10 PM CBS and CNN were the first stations that retracted Florida for Gore and "called" it as undecided. Fox did not take Florida from Gore until 2 AM, 4 hours after CBS and CNN. Fox then called Florida for Bush at 2:16 followed by the other networks who all called Florida for Bush by 2:20.
 
Moore asserts that all the other news stations followed Fox because they were Fox. This despite the fact that all stations had different owners all of which are big competitors in the world of multimedia (Viacom, Disney, NewsCorp, AOL Time Warner, General Electric). Furthermore, Fox was 4th to call Florida for Gore, 3rd to retract Florida and then 1st to give Florida to Bush. So how come the networks followed Fox only one times out of three? Because they didn't follow Fox!
 
Another fact that is ignored in the whole Florida fiasco is that every station but ABC called Florida for Gore before Florida's polls had even closed! If anyone at Fox, CNN, NBC, or CBS had bothered to pay attention in geography class, they'd know that Florida's panhandle is in the Central time zone. Whereas most of Florida's polls closed at 7 EST, some remained open until 8 EST. Compounding this, stations declared that Florida's polls had been closed!
 
Florida's panhandle is very conservative (and also very close to Texas) and the ratio of conservatives to liberals is about 2:1. The effect of news stations declaring Florida for Gore and proclaiming Florida's polls to be closed may have cost Bush a net gain of 5,000 votes as this site claims: http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/050301_Perrin.htm Such a massive swing negates the so-called hundreds of disenfranchised in the now infamous recounts in southern Florida's counties.
 
Conclusion: Moore never out and out lies in this segment of the movie, but he does pass over many facts that contradict his arguments. The fact that Fox was 4th then 3rd and then 1st (and wound up retracting Florida from Bush shortly after CBS eventually did) is neve rmentioned, just Fox's first in one of the many "calls" made on election night. Moore asserts a conservative conspiracy behind Fox deciding to change its call but even if this absurd Vast Right Wing conspiracy did exist, what effect would one news station changing a call at 2:16 AM do to swing the balance of power? Would that affect voting like the voting in Florida's panhandle was affected? I doubt it. Anyways, it should be intereting to see what happens in Florida in the upcoming election. If Kerry wins, then everyone on the left will say that Gore must have won Florida in 2000. If Bush wins, then the left will cry bloody murder and create claims of conspiracies once again. Remember folks, if a conservative does something that helps another conservative(s), then there MUST be a conspiracy. There's no other explanation.
 
The next few Deceits have to do with the 2000 Election and the continue throughout the movie.

Saturday, July 17, 2004

Documentary?

Rule 12 for a documentary to be viewed as a documentary by the Academy Awards is that it must be a work of non-fiction. A non-fictional piece of work contains facts and opinions based on facts so long as it is clear that they are opinions (For example: A documentarian might say that President Lincoln thought slavery was wrong and if he can prove this it is fine).
 
Now here's a question that can be debated forever. Can one lie even if one never strays from the truth? The instinctive answer to this question is "no, of course not!" But think for a moment. Is it not dishonest to omit pertinant facts? If I said, for example, that a person was shot on the street you might ask me who the murderer was. What I didn't tell you was that the person shot himself on the street. It is a fact that this theoretical person was shot on a street but the full story is that he shot himself. So even though I told nothing but the truth, I was dishonest and therefore lying.
 
I could also tell you that the NRA was founded the same exact year that the KKK was essentially outlawed as a terrorist organization. Micheal Moore states this fact in Bowling For Columbine. This is, indeed a fact. However, Moore doesn't go into this very deeply. All he does is show us a cartoon Klansman giving a hood to a cartoon NRA member thus showing us that the NRA was founded in response to the laws passed against the KKK in 1871. Moore comes to this conclusion based on one fact and one fact alone. The NRA was founded the same year laws were passed specifically to surpress the KKK's actions. However here are some facts that muck up Moore's conclusion that the NRA and KKK are linked together:
 
1. The KKK was founded (as we all leanred in Forrest Gump by Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate calvary commander in the Civil War
 
2. The KKK focused on the southern states in an effort to prevent blacks from receiving the full benefits of being American citizens, specifically the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
 
3. The actions of the KKK (murder, violence, arson) had been against US law since the founding of the country
 
4. The man who signed and enforced the laws against the KKK was former Union General Ulysses S. Grant
 
5. Grant deployed troops against the KKK and under his presidency 5,000 Klansmen were arrested
 
6. The National Rifle Association was founded by Union officers in New York in 1871
 
7. Eight of the first ten NRA President's were Union officers
 
8. Grant was elected the 8th NRA President
 
9. Grant was followed by General Sheridan who removed the governors of Texas and Louisianna for their failure to inforce Reconstruction laws.
 
These are facts. Does Moore mention the fact that the KKK was founded by Confederates and the NRA by Union soldiers? Or that the NRA continued to be run by Union officers after it was founded? Or that murder has always been illegal in the USA? Nope. He just simply mentions the fact that the NRA was founded the same year that laws were passed against the KKK. I wonder what else happened in 1871 that might have come about from the laws passed against the KKK. In England, the Rugby Football Union was started, I guess it was made up mostly of Klansmen too. The German Empire was established uniting Germany as one country, I guess that was made mostly of former Klansmen like the NRA. Moore's argument is as follows:
 
1. The NRA was founded in 1871
2. There were laws passed in 1871 that focused on the halting of illegal KKK activities
 
Conclusion: The NRA was founded in order to provide a safe haven for KKK members to meet and carry out their racist agendas
 
Unfortunately, this argument makes no sense unless a third premise is added to the original two, it is as follows:
 
3. If an organisation ends in a year any organisation that begins in that year was started because of the ending of the first organisation
 
Unfortunately for Mr. Moore, this is not true at all. Although there are examples of organisations that end and then are reborn in a different form (Example: sports teams move to a new city, play under a new name, and play in a different stadium). However, examples of organisations taking on different forms but retaining the same basic characteristics do not prove anything. As stated above, the nation of Germany was unified in 1871 and it had nothing to do with the KKK nor did England's Rugby Union.
 
Anyhoo, this was inspired by this site:
 
http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

Friday, July 16, 2004

Fantastic Article on F911

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723
 
Its lengthy but it is very well-written and the writer is a liberal which I think gives him a unique objectivism to Michael Moore. He is also a documentarian with class unlike Moore. He makes some really good points.
The purpose of this blog will be to give me an outlet to express my disgust at a certain American citizen and film maker (who I unfortunately share a resemblance to) who was born in Flint, Michigan and currently resides on the island of Manhattan. This man's particular genre of film making is the documentary. Unlike other documentarians like Ken Burns and countless others whose names are known only to a few, this documentarian dabbles in stretching of the truth, ignoring facts, manipulating statistics and flat out lies. Had this man been born in Munich in 1890 or so, he would have rivalled Joseph Goebbels for the position of Nazi Propaganda Minster. His movies are that convincing and that manipulative. The man I speak of is one Michael Moore.
 
I was just looking through some websites on Michael Moore and was prompted to start this blog by one quote. Former mayor of New York, Ed Koch (a Democrat) was about to appear on a panel show on the BBC with none other than Michael Moore about a year after the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and perhaps a third target.  Moore told the former mayor of the city which lost so much in one terrible day:
 
“I don’t know why we are making so much of an act of terror. It is three times more likely that you will be struck by lightning than die from an act of terror." (quote taken from http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm)
 
All I can say is WOW! First of all, fighting lightning is a difficult thing to do and the next time there's a T-storm, I'll give it a shot and report on my success.  Secondly, lightning does not attack as terrorists do, it is a natural phenomenon that is the result of many forces. Thirdly, lightning does not kill thousands in a single day.
 
To continue on Moore's comparison between lightning strikes and terrorist attacks, do people not take precautions against lighning? It is indeed a rare occurance that someone is struck by lighning but I know that tall structures have lighning rods, people don't go swimming during thunder storms, EVERYONE knows that a car is the safest place to be in a storm and NO-ONE (except the Bishop from Caddy Shack) goes golfing in a storm. Yet people like Moore criticise the government warning people about possible terror strikes. It makes me wonder if maybe Moore doesn't criticise because he beleives that people are wrong, he criticises because he wants to criticise. That's all for now.

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