Fahrenheit 9/11

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You said, "If you don't go to the movie and sit on the sidelines reading reviews by others - well, then you are regurgitating other opinions, and haven't offered your own, since you have no experience to base your opinion on. The only way to form an opinion is see the movie."

I respectfully disagree.

By that same logic, no one is qualified to give an opinion on the was in Iraq unless, of course, they've been there - including Michael Moore himself.

By that same logic, no one is qualified to give an opinion on the KKK or NAACP unless, of course, they've been to the meetings.

By that same logic, no one is qualified to give an opinion on any court case unless they were present in the courtroom. (Can you say O.J. Simpson - or Martha Stewart, as the "sentence" is due out today?)

By that same logic, no one is qualified to give an opinion on the "homeless" (whoever they are) unless, of course, they've been homeless themselves.

By that same logic, no one is qualified to give an opinion on President Bush, except ONLY on the speeches they have personally witnessed, or unless they personally know the man.

By that same logic.......on well, I'm sure you get the idea.

Perhaps you overstated that a bit.

Before I consume some folk's time with their writing a correction to me, allow me to offer my apology with respect the my comment on the appropriateness of the subject matter to the forum.

I made a mistake in assuming Farenheight 911 discussion discusson was a part of another technically focused forum.

Again, I offer a sincere apologies to all that might have been taken aback. I may come back and browse through the forum and possibly contribute to the breath of the exchange.

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On the member of Congress segment:

First of all, it chaps my ass when people talk about other people's "kids" going into the military. People NEVER "send their "kids" to the military, but rather grown adults make their own decision to join the military. This "sending our kids" off to battle rhetoric is so far from the truth that it makes me want to throw-up.

And as far as members of Congress and their childrens' "decision" to join the military, Michael Moore was, at best, extremely deceiving.

The editing of the Congressional scenes borders on the fraudulent:

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Congressional Children in War

Deceits 53-56

Early in this segment, Moore states that "out of the 535 members of Congress, only one had an enlisted son in Iraq." The action of the segment consists of Moore accosting Congressmen to try to convince them to have their children enlist in the military. At the end, Moore declares, ?Not a single member of Congress wanted to sacrifice their child for the war in Iraq.?

Moore?s second statement is technically true, but duplicitous. Of course no-one would want to ?sacrifice? his child in any way. But the fact is, Moore's opening ("only one") and his conclusion ("not a single member") are both incorrect. Sergeant Brooks Johnson, the son of South Dakota Democratic Senator Tim Johnson, serves in the 101st Airborne Division and fought in Iraq in 2003. The son of California Republican Representative Duncan Hunter quit his job after September 11, and enlisted in the Marines; his artillery unit was deployed in the heart of insurgent territory in February 2004. Delaware Senator Joseph Biden's son Beau is on active duty; although Beau Biden has no control over where he is deployed, he has not been sent to Iraq, and therefore does not "count" for Moore's purposes. Seven members of Congress have been confirmed to have children in the military.

How about Cabinet members? Fahrenheit never raises the issue, because the answer would not fit Moore?s thesis. Attorney General John Ashcroft?s son is serving on the U.S.S. McFaul in the Persian Gulf.

Why not count Duncan Hunter's son? Note the phrasing: "only one had an enlisted son in Iraq." Although Hunter's son "enlisted" in the Marines, he is a Second Lieutenant, which means that he is above the rank of an "enlisted man." But why hide from the viewers how many Congressmen really have sons serving in the military in Iraq?

The editing of the Congressional scenes borders on the fraudulent:

?.Representative Kennedy (R-MN), one of the lawmakers accosted in Fahrenheit 9/11, was censored by Michael Moore.

According to the [Minneapolis] Star Tribune, Kennedy, when asked if he would be willing to send his son to Iraq, responded by stating that he had a nephew who was en-route to Afghanistan. He went on to inform Moore that his son was thinking about a career in the navy and that two of his nephews had already served in the armed forces. Kennedy?s side of the conversation, however, was cut from the film, leaving him looking bewildered and defensive.

What was Michael?s excuse for trimming the key segment? Kennedy?s remarks didn?t help his thesis: ?He mentioned that he had a nephew that was going over to Afghanistan,? Moore recounted. ?So then I said ?No, no, that?s not our job here today. We want you to send your child to Iraq. Not a nephew.??

Kennedy lambasted Moore as a ?master of the misleading? after viewing the interview in question.

Fahrenheit Fact.

George Stephanopoulos, of ABC News, asked Moore about the selective cuts in the Kennedy footage:

Stephanopoulos: You have a scene when you?re up on Capitol Hill encountering members of Congress, asking them if they would ask their sons and daughters to enlist ? in the military. And one of those members of Congress who appears in the trailer, Mark Kennedy, said you left out what he told you, which is that he has two nephews serving in the military, one in Afghanistan. And he went on to say that, ?Michael Moore doesn?t always give the whole truth. He?s a master of the misleading.?

Moore: Well, at the time, when we interviewed him, he didn?t have any family members in Afghanistan. And when he saw the trailer for this movie, he issued a report to the press saying that he said that he had a kid in?

Stephanopoulos: He said he told you he had two nephews.

Moore:? No, he didn?t. And we released the transcript and we put it on our Web site. This is what I mean by our war room. Any time a guy like this comes along and says, ?I told him I had two nephews and one was going to Iraq and one was going to Afghanistan,? he?s lying. And I?ve got the raw footage and the transcript to prove it. So any time these Republicans come at me like this, this is exactly what they?re going to get. And people can go to my Web site and read the transcript and read the truth. What he just said there, what you just quoted, is not true.

This Week followed up with the office of Rep. Kennedy. He did have two nephews in the military, but neither served in Iraq. Kennedy?s staff agrees that Moore?s Website is accurate but insists the movie version is misleading. In the film, Moore says, ?Congressman, I?m trying to get members of Congress to get their kids to enlist in the Army and go over to Iraq.? But, from the transcript, here?s the rest:

Moore: Is there any way you could help me with that?

Kennedy: How would I help you?

Moore: Pass it out to other members of Congress.

Kennedy: I?d be happy to ? especially those who voted for the war. I have a nephew on his way to Afghanistan.

This Week, ABC News, June 20, 2004.

So while Fahrenheit pretended that Kennedy just stupidly looked at Moore, Kennedy agreed to help Moore.

Notice also how Moore phrased his reply to Stephanopoulos: "Any time a guy like this comes along and says, 'I told him I had two nephews and one was going to Iraq and one was going to Afghanistan,' he?s lying." But Kennedy never claimed that he had a nephew going to Iraq. The insinuation that Kennedy made such a claim is a pure fabrication by Moore.

Fahrenheit shows Moore calling out to Delaware Republican Michael Castle, who is talking on a cell phone and waves Moore off. Castle is presented as one of the Congressmen who would not sacrifice his children. What the film omits is that Rep. Castle does not have any children.

Are Congressional children less likely to serve in Iraq than children from other families? Let?s use Moore?s methodology, and ignore members of extended families (such as nephews) and also ignore service anywhere except Iraq (even though U.S. forces are currently fighting terrorists in many countries). And like Moore, let us also ignore the fact that some families (like Rep. Castle?s) have no children, or no children of military age.

We then see that of 535 Congressional families, there are two with a child who served in Iraq. How does this compare with American families in general? In the summer of 2003, U.S. troop levels in Iraq were raised to 145,000. If we factor in troop rotation, we could estimate that about 300,000 people have served in Iraq at some point. According to the Census Bureau, there were 104,705,000 households in the United States in 2000. (See Table 1 of the Census Report.) So the ratio of ordinary U.S. households to Iraqi service personnel is 104,705,000 to 300,000. This reduces to a ratio of 349:1.

In contrast the ratio of Congressional households to Iraqi service personnel is 535:2. This reduces to a ratio of 268:1.

Stated another way, a Congressional household is about 23 percent more likely than an ordinary household to be closely related to an Iraqi serviceman or servicewoman.

Of course my statistical methodology is very simple. A more sophisticated analysis would look only at Congressional and U.S. households from which at least one child is legally eligible to enlist in the military. Moore, obviously, never attempted such a comparison; instead, he deceived viewers into believing that Congressional families were extremely different from other families in enlistment rates.

Moore ignores the fact that there are 101 veterans currently serving in the House of Representatives and 36 in the Senate. Regardless of whether they have children who could join the military, all of the veterans in Congress have personally put themselves at risk to protect their country.

(Deceits: 1. number of Congressional children in Iraq, 2. Mark Kennedy, 3. Michael Castle, 4. False impression that Congressional families are especially unlikely to serve in Iraq.)

[Moore response: Cites a May 11, 2003 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that only Brooks Johnson had a son who had fought in Iraq. The article was accurate at the time, since Duncan Hunter's son, who had already enlisted, had not yet been sent to Iraq. But Fahrenheit premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2004--two months after it had been reported that Duncan Hunter's son had been sent to Iraq. At the least, Moore could apologize that his claim about "only one" child is inaccurate, and blame the error on his having not noticed the news about Hunter while the movie was in its final production stages. But instead, Moore continues to repeat the "only one" claim, which is indisputably false. Moore offers no defense for the other falsehoods in this section.]

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Source: http://www.davekopel.org/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm#Saddam_Hussein_Never_Murdered_Americans

I'm gonna' go out on a limb here, risking offending some people, and say that anyone who believes anything that Michael Moore says is either a fool or extremely uninformed.

By the way, keep your left nut.

..are still sending their children... because I have yet to hear a parent of any age introduce their offspring as "and these are my adults, Joe and John". Until the day the parents die, those people are their children.

and on a side tangent, if they are grown-up enough to make a decision to fight for their country, why are they not grown-up enough to go to a bar and have a farewell drink with their friends? Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

When I was 17 and enlisted in the marines, I hardly think that I was a grown adult. I honestly don't think I personally hit adulthood until I was about 19 and had my first kid...

That's when real life ran me over like a freakin 18 wheeler...

Is this not posted in the General Discussions Forum?

If it is, that's EXACTLY where these political debates belong.
Did you have another idea or see this posted as something else??