American History that most Americans don't know

[Man of 1951]

1953: U.S. overthrows Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran. U.S. installs Shah as dictator.

1954: U.S. overthrows democratically-elected President Arbenz of Guatemala. 200,000 civilians killed.


1963: U.S. backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.

1963-1975: American military kills 4 million civilians in Southeast Asia.


September 11, 1973: U.S. stages coup in Chile. Democratically elected president Salvador Allende assassinated. Dictator Augusto Pinochet installed. 5,000 Chileans murdered.

1977: U.S. backs military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans and four American nuns killed.


1980's: U.S. trains Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets. CIA gives them $3 billion.

1980's: US gave money to the Contra's in Nicaragua, money which they recieved from Iran after illegally selling arms to them.

July 1983: CIA trained the death squad, Battalion 316, who were trained to commit vast amounts of human rights abuses in Honduras

1981: Reagan administration trains and funds "contras". 30,000 Nicaraguans die.

1982: U.S. provides billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians.

1983: White House secretly gives Iran weapons to help them kill Iraqis.

1989: CIA agent Manuel Noriega (also serving as President of Panama) disobeys orders from Washington. U.S. invades Panama and removes Noriega. 3,000 Panamanian civilian casualties


1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from U.S.

1991: U.S. enters Iraq. Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait.

1998: Clinton bombs "weapons factory" in Sudan. Factory turns out to be making aspirin.

1991 to present: American planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis. U.N. estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions.

September 11, 2001: Osama Bin Laden uses his expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people.


Thoughts?

 

[eric]

What's your point?

 

[NightTrain]

Where's your sources? Some of these points are really glossed over & are highly suspect.

 

[Man of 1951]

"Without apologizing, Albright also acknowledged past American meddling in Iran, including:

• "Significant" U.S. involvement in the 1953 overthrow of leftist Iranian premier Mohammed Mossadegh

• Support for Shah Reza Pahlavi's "brutal repression" of political dissent

• Washington's "shortsighted" support of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. "

http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/03/17/us.iran.02/index.html

Guatamala: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/cia-guatemala5_a.html

"The U.S. initially supported President Diem but six years later architected a coup d'etat
using General Duong Van Minh, Mai Huu Xuan, Ton That Dinh, and others ... ).
General Mai ordered the murder of President Diem, Advisor Nhu, Colonel Le Quang Tung,
Colonel Ho Tan Quyen, LTC Le Quang Trieu and other Vietnamese Special Forces Staff.

To cover up the blunder, US press reported that President Diem was corrupted.
When he was assasinated, he owned only one very small and simple home."

http://ngothelinh.web1000.com/NgoDinhDiem.html

Vietnam: vietnam war...plenty of info on that

Chile: "The violent overthrow of the democratically-elected Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende changed the course of the country that Chilean poet Pablo Neruda described as "a long petal of sea, wine and snow"; because of CIA covert intervention in Chile, and the repressive character of General Pinochet's rule, the coup became the most notorious military takeover in the annals of Latin American history."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm

El Salvador: "For many years, repression, torture and murder were carried on in El Salvador by dictators installed and supported by our government, a matter of no interest here. The story was virtually never covered. By the late 1970s, however, the US government began to be concerned about a couple of things.

One was that Somoza, the dictator of Nicaragua, was losing control. The US was losing a major base for its exercise of force in the region. A second danger was even more threatening. In El Salvador in the 1970s, there was a growth of what were called "popular organizations" -- peasant associations, cooperatives, unions, Church-based Bible study groups that evolved into self-help groups, etc. That raised the threat of democracy.

In February 1980, the Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, sent a letter to President Carter in which he begged him not to send military aid to the junta that ran the country. He said such aid would be used to "sharpen injustice and repression against the people's organizations" which were struggling "for respect for their most basic human rights" (hardly news to Washington, needless to say).

A few weeks later, Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying a mass."

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-2-02.html

Bin Laden: "[Bin Laden] Trained by the U.S. war experts to fight the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s, bin Laden now trains and finances terrorist groups, an accusation he denies but refuses to surrender himself for a trial."

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/1/3/214858.shtml

Contra's Nicaragua: "In what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair, US President Ronald Reagan's administration secretly sold arms to Iran, which was engaged in a bloody war with its neighbor Iraq from 1980 to 1988 (see Iran-Iraq War), and diverted the proceeds to the Contra rebels fighting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua."

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair

Death Squads: http://www.serendipity.li/cia/death_squads.htm

"Now, there is compelling evidence to show that for over 30 years, members
of the US military and the CIA have helped organize, train, and fund death
squad activity in El Salvador.

In the past eight years, six Salvadoran military deserters have publicly
acknowledged their participation in the death squads. Their stories are
notable because they not only confirm suspicions that the death squads are made
up of members of the Salvadoran military, but also because each one implicates
US personnel in death squad activity.

The term "death squad," while appropriately vivid, can be misleading
because it obscures their fundamental identity. Evidence shows that "death
squads" are primarily military or paramilitary units carrying out political
assassinations and intimidation as part of the Salvadoran government's
counterinsurgency strategy. Civilian death squads do exist but have often been
comprised of off-duty soldiers financed by wealthy Salvadoran businessmen.

It is important to point out that the use of death squads has been a
strategy of US counterinsurgency doctrine. For example, the CIA's "Phoenix
Program" was responsible for the "neutralization" of over 40,000 Vietnamese
suspected of working with the National Liberation Front. [2]"

http://www.skepticfiles.org/socialis/usdeaths.htm

"In 1982, Alvarez was promoted to general and named commander of the army. That same year Battalion 316, a secret army intelligence unit in Honduras trained and supported by the CIA, came into existence. Battalion 316 became notorious for committing human rights abuses."

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1997_rpt/soarpt.htm

US-Iraq: According to a 1994 Senate report, private American suppliers, licensed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, exported a witch's brew of biological and chemical materials to Iraq from 1985 through 1989. Among the biological materials, which often produce slow, agonizing death, were:

* Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.


* Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.


* Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord, and heart.


* Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.


* Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness.


* Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.

Also on the list: Escherichia coli (E. coli), genetic materials, human and bacterial DNA, and dozens of other pathogenic biological agents. "These biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction," the Senate report stated. "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program."

http://www.progressive.org/0901/anth0498.html

Noriega: "Then as now, the villain of the moment was an old ally. In 1984, the U.S. government welcomed the electoral fraud that gave Noriega’s military dictatorship a veneer of "democracy." That’s because Noriega was allowing the use of Panamanian planes and airfields to aid the U.S.-backed contras in their dirty war against the democratically elected government in Nicaragua--a war that took the lives of more than 30,000 people.

But when Noriega--a longtime CIA "asset"--outlived his usefulness, his former backers turned on him.

Noriega’s connections to drugs --which the U.S. had known about for years--was the pretext for a December 1989 invasion. During the operation, U.S. tanks leveled the poor neighborhood of El Chorrillo in Panama City, leaving 15,000 homeless, killing thousands and wounding 3,000 more."

http://www.socialistworker.org/2001/380/380_06_RogueState.shtml

Sudan Factory: "On Aug. 20, President Clinton personally ordered the leveling of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant on the outskirts of Khartoum."

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/09/23news.html

Iraq Sanctions Deaths: "According to Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, 4,000 more children under five are dying every month in Iraq than would have died before Western sanctions were imposed. Over the eight years that these sanctions have been in place, 500,000 extra children under five are estimated to have died."

http://www.zmag.org/edwinthalliday.htm

Sept. 11....i dont think i'll have to give info on that.

There is a lot of info about these things on the net, just search "death sqauds" or something like that and a lot of info will pop up.

Michael Moore's site is good too, it provides good links to some of them. http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/library/wonderful/index.php

 

[Man of 1951]

Originally posted by eric
What's your point?

My point is that while America continues to intervene with countries without support of the UN, the information you recieve from your media wouldn't always reflect the truth. Time and time again, the US has shown that it doesn't always stand for peace and democracy, but instead death and authoritarian governments. If you go back to the time period that these things occurred, nobody would know anything of the topic (sometimes), because the real information is always revealed after several decades. My point is, with America in Iraq, supporting Israel and in Afghanistan, Americans aren't always told the truth of whats happening. Who knows, maybe several decades from now, the truth will be revealed, and the truth won't necessarily be pretty. My point is to show people america's history, and why americans are hated around the world. America is hated not because they 'stand for democracy' or because they are 'peace loving', as much as Bush wants you to think, but because of America's history of intervening in countries and destroying any hope for peace and stability. Im not saying that this is the case all the time, but america's history of interferring with the affairs of other countries is filled with blood and anger. This anger has thus turned into hatred towards America. So, while Bush calls the people involved with sept. 11, terrorists (which they are), America too should acknowledge the fact that they too are terrorists for having done and doing so many unspeakable acts. So this war on terrorism shouldn't be a war to kill all terrorists, but a war to end reasons why terrorists exist. These reasons include desperate living conditions (palestine), oppression (palestine, currently iraq), intervening with countries (read my first post), supporting 'good' regimes, only to call them evil when the regime isn't beneficial to them (iraq, and many others check my first post), and lies lies and more lies (afghanistan......where's the democracy????). If america continues to solve the problem of terrorism with war (which is a form of terrorism), the real problem will never be solved.

 

[Bry]

these are some fantastic posts, Man. I've been working up something similar, but you beat me to it. The fact is, the US has supplied more arms and more backing for more terrorists organizations than any other country on the planet, and that includes Mr. bin Laden. I just referenced another article in the Pre-emptive strike thread which gives alot of the details on the Iran-Iraq war, and I'll put that here again if you're interested.

http://www.counterpunch.org/boyle1214.html

As I said in the other post, this article is very tedious. Counterpunch, like the nation, is a great source for those of us who spin to the left.

 

[Spirit_Soul]

It is true that U.S.A has been a trouble maker and has been protecting its 'interests'
Now, when we are bombed we cry. However, the poster missed a very important point. Two wrongs does not make it right.

The whole world has been a mess and it is time that it starts to reform and reorganize itself before everything destroys everything.

The best way to do it is through a diplomatic approach, more war would only mean more death.

 

[Bry]

Well said, Spirit Soul.

two points:
1. I'm not convinced that the administration to set it right is one which has several members of the old cabinents that did so much to make it wrong. I'm not buyin' it NT!
2. Both sides are thinkin, wouldn't it be great if we could make the world a better place AND get the last laugh?

Diplomacy, as far as I'm concerned, would have been far preferable to plastering a starving and under equiped Iraqi army. It's just that we've caused so many problems, it's hard to talk our way out of them now...

 

[eric]

Spirit is right, two wrong do not make a right. What I would like to know is why America is held to a different standard than the rest of the world? Please do not even try to tell me that all world powers do not have a closet full of skeletons. Now I'll be the first to admit that America is no saint and has slept with many brutal regimes. I do not think though, that you or I are qualified to judge the necessity of such actions and none of the links accurately reflect the mindset or thinking behind the them. It is easy to sit and judge the past with knowledge of the present but it may not have been so easy to make decisions at the time.

 

[Bry]

QUOTE]Originally posted by eric
Spirit is right, two wrong do not make a right. What I would like to know is why America is held to a different standard than the rest of the world? Please do not even try to tell me that all world powers do not have a closet full of skeletons. Now I'll be the first to admit that America is no saint and has slept with many brutal regimes. I do not think though, that you or I are qualified to judge the necessity of such actions and none of the links accurately reflect the mindset or thinking behind the them. It is easy to sit and judge the past with knowledge of the present but it may not have been so easy to make decisions at the time. [/QUOTE]

And so saying, all conversation ends.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that my understanding does not encompass the intentions and machinations of the US Government. But, being a big man myself, I've learned to walk carefully so as not to step on any feet. That I slip or grow careless on occasion is not the concern, but that I use my advantage to procure privelege, that is the danger. It is the obligation of power to be aware of the gift and not hurt others through carelessness or intent. These links are an indication that somewhere along the way, we have forgotten the obligations of greatness, and have replaced them with willfullness and conceit. We have trusted too much in our leaders and they have led us astray.

We are citizens of a democracy, or something like it. In a country in which the people are hypothetically empowered to make that all-important decision of electing a leader, that people must take part in the dialogue. They must strive to make their understanding as perfect as their reason permits. It is not my fault our government sees fit to hide their motives as a dog hides it's bones. It may be that we are nothing but bone collectors condemned to pick up fragments and chips and piece them together as we may, yet that is our obligation, and I intend to fulfill it.

And finally, I prefer to miss by being overly critical, than to miss by being overly accepting. It is the function of the critic to always complain, that we may always be on the road to something better.



How's that for a piece of self-important condescending crap? Oh well. It's what I believe, as surely as jeff believes in God.

 

[NightTrain]

I'm not convinced that the administration to set it right is one which has several members of the old cabinents that did so much to make it wrong. I'm not buyin' it NT!

LOL! Roger, point noted. To be honest, I want you to know, Bry, that I don't believe that anyone in our government is blameless - they've all had their own failures and shortcomings. It's a very human trait.

That being said, I don't believe for a minute that the current Administration is the great evil that many run around saying it is. I believe they're trying their best to fix massive problems that came crashing down on 9/11.

1951, again, I have to question your sources! Come on, man! 'The Socialist Worker'?? Micheal Moore? A little more digging and you could have come up with something from CommunistBee.com and StalinRules.com.

At the risk of offending you, I just want to point out that your posts would be greatly enhanced by finding legitimate news agencies or solid sources. There are far too many small sites with their own agenda trying to pass themselves off as objective, when they're anything but. When I'm researching something, I always check to see if the source of the info is reputable.

Have you seen me refer to Rush Limbaugh? G. Gordon Liddy? Micheal Savage? No, and while they have some excellent articles (well, Mike can get pretty extreme, even for me), I don't use them because they aren't considered to be objective and I don't want my argument dismissed out of hand because of my supporting information. I hope don't take all of this the wrong way, 1951... I just thought I'd point this out.

Anyway... getting to the post.

I think everyone can agree that there have been mistakes made in the past with regard to the USA's meddling in other country's affairs.

I think what gets overlooked is that the vast majority of these were done during the Cold War. There were reasons why it was felt it was justified at the time, and those reasons are probably locked in a top secret archive. Perhaps we'll never know. But there were many, many plots and counter plots implemented between the KGB and CIA. It was a continual struggle.

The KGB attempted to subvert countries to Communism and bring them into the Soviet Empire, and the CIA did everything it could to prevent that from happening and hindered the Soviet's efforts at every opportunity. More than once the chess game brought the world to the brink.

The Korean War, Vietnam and Afghanistan are perfect examples of the struggle between Communism and Democracy. We won the Afghanistan conflict, they won the Vietnam conflict, and a tie was the result of Korea. The Middle East was the playground that both countries needed, and it's a wonder that no major war developed there during the Cold War.

The fact is, the US has supplied more arms and more backing for more terrorists organizations than any other country on the planet, and that includes Mr. bin Laden.

I can't prove it, I doubt anyone can, but I believe the Soviets were by far and away the leading supplier of arms & technology to terrorists. When you see any terrorists or 3rd world nut cases, 9 times out of 10 you'll see them brandishing an AK. RPGs are another Soviet gift to the world, and any terrorist worth his salt doesn't leave home without it.

• Washington's "shortsighted" support of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

(I'm glad you posted that link, Bry - I stand corrected in my previous post on this issue. We sold them some helos and 4 small jets. Thanks!)

This was covered in another thread, I think with Spillmind (hey, whatever happened to him, anyway?) but I'll revisit this.

What happened there was Iraq was losing the war. Ayatollah Khomeni was a rabid dictator of the first order, fighting another swell guy, Saddam. No one wanted either one of those two nut jobs doubling their influence and power, so we provided assistance to Iraq in the form of intelligence - pictures of the front, locations of troops, convoys, helpful tips on where to hit Iran to hurt them, etc.

The war finally ground to a halt, with neither side making massive gains. The strategy worked. Bloody? Yep, but that war wasn't started because of the USA, our goal was to preserve the balance of power in the region.

America too should acknowledge the fact that they too are terrorists for having done and doing so many unspeakable acts.

I just saw that idiotic fucking statement, that just blows me out of the water!

What a COMPLETELY dumbass thing to say! Who the fuck are you? We're out saving the world while dickheads like you sit back and call us terrorists? How many Americans have you seen hijacking an airliner? Slitting stewardesses' throats with boxcutters? Sending impressionable youth into a bus filled with civilians with dynamite strapped around their waist? Deliberately blowing up civilians? Executed people simply because they don't subscribe to a particular religion?

I see now where you're coming from, and I'm pissed off that I spent time trying to put together a rebuttal. Take your socialist / communist fucked up views and shove them right up your ass beside your head!

My apologies for trying to take you seriously.

:finger:

 

[Man of 1951]

What a COMPLETELY dumbass thing to say! Who the fuck are you? We're out saving the world while dickheads like you sit back and call us terrorists? How many Americans have you seen hijacking an airliner? Slitting stewardesses' throats with boxcutters? Sending impressionable youth into a bus filled with civilians with dynamite strapped around their waist? Deliberately blowing up civilians? Executed people simply because they don't subscribe to a particular religion?

Well, thats some point you got there. By any chance did you read what I said above? The Death Squads trained by the CIA? Just search for death squads, and you'll see what US did while 'saving the world'. And no i have to admit, Americans haven't done those things. Instead, they save themselves and hull thousands of bombs and missles to cities, where INNOCENTS DIE. It doesn't matter if they try to 'minimize' the death counts. They die because of these bombs. As an anology, if i was to see someone robbing a bank, and I fortunately had a machine gun with me. If i start shooting the robbers/murders and accidently kill 3 other ppl in the room, does that make me 'saving the world'?? Tell that to the families of those who died. Secondly, what about those good ol' cluster bombs? How good are they for creating land mines?? Read some stuff, learn something, these cluster bombs have resulted in hundreds and hundreds of deaths and people losing their limbs. Tell them 'sorry we were saving the world'? What about the wedding that was bombed in afghanistan? huh? tell them sorry for bombing the shit out of them.

As for the sources, the sources regarding which event are you questioning? Seconday, if we go back before Albrieght mentions US involvement in the overthrow of Mossedeq, where do you think articles regarding the overthrow were written? I can tell you for sure that your precious sources at CNN didn't write aobut them. So, considering these things, that the big good sources are always controlled corporately and politically, how can we trust those? Also, Michael Moore is not an idiot, his books don't go number 1 for no reason, same with his movie. Most if not all of the things i posted were on his site. And his site also provides many links to other sources as well, you should check those out as well buddy, before accusing me of giving bad sources.

Tell me, what is a terrorist huh?? If you say killing innocents intentionally, US have done that again the death squads. If you say inflict terror, the US has definitly done that. And this thing called "shock and awe"...what is that?? dont you think sept. 11 itself was 'shock and awe'??
Also, more innocents have died in afghanistan and iraq than sept. 11........many many many more innocents. So don't say america is a saint and is 'saving the world' because they aren't.

No one wanted either one of those two nut jobs doubling their influence and power, so we provided assistance to Iraq in the form of intelligence - pictures of the front, locations of troops, convoys, helpful tips on where to hit Iran to hurt them, etc.

You just contradicted youself.

(I'm glad you posted that link, Bry - I stand corrected in my previous post on this issue. We sold them some helos and 4 small jets. Thanks!)

You proved yourself wrong, we didn't just give them 'pictures' we gave them a shit load of things, including weapons and biological and chemical weapons.

I NEVER SAID AMERICANS are terrorists. I'm saying actions commited by the AMERICAN GOVERNMENT are the actions of terrorists. I feel sorry for all the american civilians, american soldiers and all human civilians who died as a result of the decisions made in the American Government.

Executed people simply because they don't subscribe to a particular religion?

Perhaps not, but America has executed ppl who protested against US involvement in their country. Read about the Honduras and Guatamala, and Nicargua. READ AND LEARN, because there are a lot of things you seem to have missed.

 

[Bry]

I think this is a solid post, Man. You're not just arguing against arguments, you're arguing against pride. This is a difficult thing to do, and I should know because I've had the same debate raging within my own head for years. I remember precisely the day I started to discover this information you're posting. I was already not the prideful American of my youth, but I simply hadn't yet confronted the evidence. It was during the bombardment of Kosovo and Serbia, and I was convinced the bombardment was justified. I was taking part in a news discussion group, much like this, and someone put up a short piece by Chomsky on the board. That post, in very real ways, changed my life. I'm not saying that mine is the logical conclusion, I'm just saying perhaps that there is still a part of my psyche that wants to tell you to go to hell just for sharing those analysis. For my two cents, keep it coming.

-Bry

 

[NightTrain]

Before I get back to the post, here's some food for thought regarding your hero Micheal Moore :

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE

Documentary or Fiction?

-David T. Hardy-

Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" won the Oscar for best documentary. Unfortunately, it is not a documentary, by the Academy's own definition.

The injustice here is not so much to the viewer, as to the independent producers of real documentaries. These struggle in a field which receives but a fraction of the recognition and financing of the "entertainment industry." They are protected by Academy rules limiting the documentary competition to nonfiction.

Bowling is fiction. It makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer. Statements are made which are false. Moore leads the reader to draw inferences which he must have known were wrong. Indeed, even speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker's voice, but which were not sentences he uttered. Bowling uses deception as its primary tool of persuasion and effect.

A film which does this may be a commercial success. It may be entertaining. But it is not a documentary. One need only consult Rule 12 of the rules for the Academy Award: a documentary is a non-fictional movie.

The point is not that Bowling is biased. No, the point is that Bowling is deliberately, seriously, and consistently deceptive.

1. Willie Horton. The first edition of the webpage had a section on falsification of the election ad regarding Willie Horton (the convict, not the baseball star). This was one of the earliest criticisms of Bowling--Ben Fritz caught it back in November, 2002.

To illustrate politicians' (and especially Republican politicians') willingness to play the "race card," Bowling shows what purports to be a television ad run by George Bush, Sr., in his race against Governor Dukakis. For those who weren't around back then -- Massachusetts had a "prison furlough" program where prisoners could be given short releases from the clink. Unfortunately, some of them never came back. Dukakis vetoed legislation which would have forbidden furlough to persons with "life without parole" sentences for murder, and authorities thereafter furloughed a number of murderers. Horton, in prison for a brutal stabbing murder, got a furlough, never returned, and then attacked a couple, assaulting both and raping the woman. His opponents in the presidental race took advantage of the the veto.

The ad as shown by Moore begins with a "revolving door" of justice, progresses to a picture of Willie Horton (who is black), and ends with dramatic subtitle: "Willie Horton released. Then kills again."

Fact: Bowling splices together two different election ads, one run by the Bush campaign (featuring a revolving door, and not even mentioning Horton) and another run by an independent expenditure campaign (naming Horton, and showing footage from which it can be seen that he is black). At the end, the ad ala' Moore has the customary note that it was paid for by the Bush-Quayle campaign. Moore intones "whether you're a psychotic killer or running for president of the United States, the one thing you can always count on is white America's fear of the black man." There is nothing to reveal that most of the ad just seen (and all of it that was relevant to Moore's claim) was not the Bush-Quayle ad, which didn't even name Horton.

Fact: Apparently unsatisfied with splicing the ads, Bowling's editors added a subtitle "Willie Horton released. Then kills again."

Fact: Ben Fitz also noted that Bowling's editors didn't bother to research the events before doctoring the ads. Horton's second arrest was not for murder. (The second set of charges were aggravated assault and rape).


I originally deleted this from the main webpage, because in the VHS version of Bowling Moore had the decency to remove the misleading footage. But as Brendan Nyhan recently wrote in Spinsanity, he put it back in in the DVD version! He did make one minor change, switching his edited-in caption to "Willie Horton released. Then rapes a woman." Obviously Moore had been informed of the Spinsanity criticism. He responded by correcting his own typo, not by removing the edited in caption, nor by revealing that the ad being shown was not in fact a Bush-Quayle ad.

2. NRA and the Reaction To Tragedy. A major theme in Bowling is that NRA is callous toward slayings. In order to make this theme fit the facts, however, Bowling repeatedly distorts the evidence.

A. Columbine Shooting/Denver NRA Meeting. Bowling portrays this with the following sequence:

Weeping children outside Columbine;

Cut to Charlton Heston holding a musket and proclaiming "I have only five words for you: 'from my cold, dead, hands'";

Cut to billboard advertising the meeting, while Moore intones "Just ten days after the Columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charlton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association;"

Cut to Heston (supposedly) continuing speech... "I have a message from the Mayor, Mr. Wellington Webb, the Mayor of Denver. He sent me this; it says 'don't come here. We don't want you here.' I say to the Mayor this is our country, as Americans we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. Don't come here? We're already here!"

The portrayal is one of an arrogant protest in response to the deaths -- or, as one reviewer put it, "it seemed that Charlton Heston and others rushed to Littleton to hold rallies and demonstrations directly after the tragedy." The portrayal is in fact false.


Fact: The Denver event was not a demonstration relating to Columbine, but an annual meeting (see links below), whose place and date had been fixed years in advance.


Fact: At Denver, the NRA canceled all events (normally several days of committee meetings, sporting events, dinners, and rallies) save the annual members' meeting; that could not be cancelled because corporate law required that it be held. [No way to change location, since you have to give advance notice of that to the members, and there were upwards of 4,000,000 members.]


Fact: Heston's "cold dead hands" speech, which leads off Moore's depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver after Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was his gesture of gratitude upon his being given a handmade musket, at that annual meeting.

Fact: When Bowling continues on to the speech which Heston did give in Denver, it carefully edits it to change its theme.

Moore's fabrication here cannot be described by any polite term. It is a lie, a fraud, and a few other things. Carrying it out required a LOT of editing to mislead the viewer, as I will show below. I transcribed Heston's speech as Moore has it, and compared it to a news agency's transcript, color coding the passages. CLICK HERE for the comparison, with links to the original transcript.

Moore has actually taken audio of seven sentences, from five different parts of the speech, and a section given in a different speech entirely, and spliced them together. Each edit is cleverly covered by inserting a still or video footage for a few seconds.

First, right after the weeping victims, Moore puts on Heston's "I have only five words for you . . . cold dead hands" statement, making it seem directed at them. As noted above, it's actually a thank-you speech given a year later in North Carolina.

Moore then has an interlude -- a visual of a billboard and his narration. This is vital. He can't go directly to Heston's real Denver speech. If he did that, you might ask why Heston in mid-speech changed from a purple tie and lavender shirt to a white shirt and red tie, and the background draperies went from maroon to blue. Moore has to separate the two segments.



Moore's second edit (covered by splicing in a pan shot of the crowd) deletes Heston's announcement that NRA has in fact cancelled most of its meeting:

"As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that."

Moore then cuts to Heston noting that Denver's mayor asked NRA not to come, and shows Heston replying "I said to the Mayor: As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. Don't come here? We're already here!" as if in defiance.

Actually, Moore put an edit right in the middle of the first sentence, and another at its end! Heston really said (with reference his own WWII vet status) "I said to the mayor, well, my reply to the mayor is, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I've run small errands for my country, from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you here in this room could say the same thing."

Moore cuts it after "I said to the Mayor" and attaches a sentence from the end of the next paragraph: "As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land." He hides the deletion by cutting to footage of protestors and a photo of the Mayor before going back and showing Heston.

Moore has Heston then triumphantly announce "Don't come here? We're already here!" Actually, that sentence is clipped from a segment five paragraphs farther on in the speech. Again, Moore uses an editing trick to cover the doctoring, switching to a pan shot of the audience as Heston's (edited) voice continues.

What Heston said there was:

"NRA members are in city hall, Fort Carson, NORAD, the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center. And yes, NRA members are surely among the police and fire and SWAT team heroes who risked their lives to rescue the students at Columbine.

Don't come here? We're already here. This community is our home. Every community in America is our home. We are a 128-year-old fixture of mainstream America. The Second Amendment ethic of lawful, responsible firearm ownership spans the broadest cross section of American life imaginable.

So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy."



I recently discovered that Moore has set up a new webpage to respond to a chosen few points of criticism, one of which is his, er, creative editing of Heston's speech. Click here for a link to his page, and for my response to his attempted defense of what he did. Basically, Moore contends that he didn't mean for the viewer to get the impression that "cold dead hands" was spoken at Denver -- that just "appears as Heston is being introduced in narration." As for the rest, well, "Far from deliberately editing the film to make Heston look worse, I chose to leave most of this out and not make Heston look as evil as he actually was." Sure. That's why he left out:

"As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings."

"So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy."

"NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity."

B. Mt. Morris shooting/ Flint rally. Bowling continues by juxtaposing another Heston speech with a school shooting of Kayla Rolland at Mt. Morris, MI, just north of Flint. Moore makes the claim that "Just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally."


Fact: Heston's speech was given at a "get out the vote" rally in Flint, which was held when elections rolled by some eight months after the shooting ( Feb. 29 vs Oct. 17, 2000).

Fact: Bush and Gore were then both in the Flint area, trying to gather votes. Moore himself had been hosting rallies for Green Party candidate Nader in Flint a few weeks before.

Moore creates the impression that one event was right after the other so smoothly that I didn't spot his technique. It was picked up by Richard Rockley, who sent me an email.

Moore works by depriving you of context and guiding your mind to fill the vacuum -- with completely false ideas. It is brilliantly, if unethically, done,. Let's deconstruct his method.

The entire sequence takes barely 40 seconds. Images are flying by so rapidly that you cannot really think about them, you just form impressions.

Shot of Moore comforting Kayla's school principal after she discusses Kayla's murder. As they turn away, we hear Heston's voice: "From my cold, dead hands." [Moore is again attibuting it to a speech where it was not uttered.]

When Heston becomes visible, he's telling a group that freedom needs you now, more than ever, to come to its defense. Your impression: Heston is responding to something urgent, presumably the controversy caused by her death. And he's speaking about it like a fool.

Moore: "Just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally."

Moore continues on to say that before he came to Flint, Heston had been interviewed by the Georgetown Hoya about Kayla's death... Why would this be important?

Image of Hoya (a student paper) appears on screen, with highlighting on words of reporter mentioning Kayla Rolland's name, and highlighting on Heston's name (only his name, not his reply) as he answers. Image is on screen only a few seconds.

Ah, you think you spot the relevance: he obviously was alerted to the case, and that's why be came.

And, Moore continues, the case was discussed on Heston's "own NRA" webpage... Again, your mind seeks relevance....

*** Continued ***

 

[NightTrain]

Image of a webpage for America's First Freedom (a website for NRA, not for Heston) with text "48 hours after Kayla Rolland was prounced dead" highlighted and zoomed in on.

Your impression: Heston did something 48 hours after she died. Why else would "his" webpage note this event, whatever it is? What would Heston's action have been? It must have been to go to Flint and hold the rally.

Scene cuts to protestors, including a woman with a Million Moms March t-shirt, who asks how Heston could come here, she's shocked and appalled, "it's like he's rubbing our face in it." (This speaker and the protest may be faked, but let's assume for the moment they're real.). This caps your impression. She's shocked by Heston coming there, 48 hours after the death. He'd hardly be rubbing faces in it if he came there much later, on a purpose unrelated to the death.

The viewer thinks he or she understands ....

One reviewer: Heston "held another NRA rally in Flint, Michigan, just 48 hours after a 6 year old shot and killed a classmate in that same town."

Another:"What was Heston thinking going to into Colorado and Michigan immediately after the massacres of innocent children?"

Let's look at the facts behind the presentation:

Heston's speech, with its sense of urgency, freedom needs you now more than ever before. As noted above, it's actually an election rally, held weeks before the closest election in American history.

Moore: "Just as at Columbine, Heston showed up in Flint to have a large pro-gun rally." As noted above, it was an election rally actually held eight months later.



Georgetown Hoya interview, with highlighting on reporter mentioning Kayla and on Heston's name where he responds.

What is not highlighted, and impossible to read except by repeating the scene, is that the reporter asks about Kayla and about the Columbine shooters, and Heston replies only as to the Columbine shooters. There is no indication that he recognized Kayla Rolland's case. It flashes past in the movie: click here to see it frozen.

"His NRA webpage" with highlighted reference to "48 hours after Kayla Robinson is pronounced dead." Here's where it gets interesting. Moore zooms in on that phrase so quickly that it blots out the rest of the sentence, and then takes the image off screen before you can read anything else.



(It's clearer in the movie). The page is long gone, but I finally found an archived version and also a June 2000 usenet posting usenet posting. Guess what the page really said happened? Not a Heston trip to Flint, but: "48-hours after Kayla Rolland is pronounced dead, Bill Clinton is on The Today Show telling a sympathetic Katie Couric, "Maybe this tragic death will help."" Nothing to do with Heston. Incidentally, if you have the DVD version and the right player, you can freeze frame this sequence and see it yourself. Then go back and freeze frame the rally, and you'll make out various Bush election posters and tags.

Yep, Moore had a reason for zooming in on the 48 hours. The zooming starts instantly, and moves sideways to block out the rest of the sentence before even the quickest viewer could read it.

If this is artistic talent, it's not the type that merits an Oscar.

C. Heston Interview. Having created the desired impression, Moore follows with his Heston interview. Heston's memory of the Flint event is foggy (he says it was an early morning event, and that they then went on to the next rally; in fact the rally was at 6 - 7:30 PM. and the last event of the day.). Heston's lack of recall is not surprising; it was one rally in a nine-stop tour of three States in three days.

Moore, who had plenty of time to prepare, continues the impression he has created, asking Heston misleading questions such as: "After that happened you came to Flint to hold a big rally and, you know, I just, did you feel it was being at all insensitive to the fact that this community had just gone through this tragedy?" Moore continues, "you think you'd like to apologize to the people in Flint for coming and doing that at that time?"

Moore knows the real sequence, and knows that Heston does not. Moore takes full advantage.

As noted above, Moore's deception works on reviewers. In fact, when Heston says he did not know about Kayla's shooting when he went to Flint, viewers see Heston as an inept liar:

"Then, he [Heston] and his ilk held ANOTHER gun-rally shortly after another child/gun tragedy in Flint, MI where a 6-year old child shot and killed a 6-year old classmate (Heston claims in the final interview of the film that he didn't know this had just happened when he appeared)." [Click here for original]

Bowling persuaded these viewers by deceiving them. Moore's creative skills are used to convince the viewer that things happened which did not and that a truthful man is a liar when he denies them.

A further question: is the end of the Heston interview faked?

3. Animated sequence equating NRA with KKK. In an animated history send-up, with the narrator talking rapidly, Bowling equates the NRA with the Klan, suggesting NRA was founded in 1871, "the same year that the Klan became an illegal terrorist organization." Bowling goes on to depict Klansmen becoming the NRA and an NRA character helping to light a burning cross.



This sequence is intended to create the impression either that NRA and the Klan were parallel groups or that when the Klan was outlawed its members formed the NRA.

Both impressions are not merely false, but directly opposed to the real facts.


Fact: The NRA was founded in 1871 -- by act of the New York Legislature, at request of former Union officers. The Klan was founded in 1866, and quickly became a terrorist organization. One might claim that while it was an organization and a terrorist one, it technically became an "illegal" such with passage of the federal Ku Klux Klan Act and Enforcement Act in 1871. These criminalized interference with civil rights, and empowered the President to use troops to suppress the Klan. (Although we'd have to acknowledge that murder, terror and arson were illegal long before that time -- the Klan hadn't been operating legally until 1871, it was operating illegally with the connivance of law enforcement.)


Fact: The Klan Act and Enforcement Act were signed into law by President Ulysess S. Grant. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus and deploying troops; under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made and the Klan was dealt a serious (if all too short-lived) blow.

Fact: Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan earned him unpopularity among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him, and an associate of Douglass wrote that African-Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

Fact: After Grant left the White House, the NRA elected him as its eighth president.

Fact: After Grant's term, the NRA elected General Philip Sheridan, who had removed the governors of Texas and Lousiana for failure to suppress the KKK.

Fact: The affinity of NRA for enemies of the Klan is hardly surprising. The NRA was founded by former Union officers, and eight of its first ten presidents were Union veterans.

Fact: During the 1950s and 1960s, groups of blacks organized as NRA chapters in order to obtain surplus military rifles to fight off Klansmen.

.4. Shooting at Buell Elementary School in Michigan. Bowling depicts the juvenile shooter who killed Kayla Rolland as a sympathetic youngster, from a struggling family, who just found a gun in his uncle's house and took it to school. "No one knew why the little boy wanted to shoot the little girl."


Fact: The little boy was the class thug, already suspended from school for stabbing another kid with a pencil, and had fought with Kayla the day before. Since the incident, he has stabbed another child with a knife.


Fact: The uncle's house was the family business -- the neighborhood crack-house. The gun was stolen and was purchased by the uncle in exchange for drugs.The shooter's father was already serving a prison term for theft and drug offenses. A few weeks later police busted the shooter's grandmother and aunt for narcotics sales. After police hauled the family away, the neighbors applauded the officers. This was not a nice but misunderstood family.


Links:1., 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,

5. The Taliban and American Aid. In discussing military assistance to various countries, Bowling asserts that the U.S. gave $245 million in aid to the Taliban government of Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001.


Fact: The aid in question was humanitarian assistance, given through UN and nongovernmental organizations, to relieve famine in Afghanistan. [Various numbers are given for the amount of the aid, and some say several million went for clearing landmines.]

6. International Comparisons. To pound home its point, Bowling flashes a dramatic count of gun homicides in various countries: Canada 165, Germany 381, Australia 65, Japan 39, US 11,127. Now that's raw numbers, not rates -- Here's why he doesn't talk rates.

Verifying the figures was difficult, since Moore does not give a year for them. A lot of Moore's numbers didn't check out for any period I could find. As a last effort at checking, I did a Google search for each number and the word "gun" or words "gun homicides" Many traced -- only back to webpages repeating Bowling's figures. Moore is the only one using these numbers.

Germany: Bowling says 381: 1995 figures put homicides at 1,476, about four times what Bowling claims, and gun homicides at 168, about half what it claims: it's either far too high or far too low.

Australia: Bowling says 65. This is very close, albeit picking the year to get the data desired. Between 1980-1995, firearm homicides varied from 64-123, although never exactly 65. In 2000, it was 64, which was proudly proclaimed as the lowest number in the country's history.

US: Bowling says 11,127. FBI figures put it a lot lower. They report gun homicides were 8,719 in 2001, 8,661 in 2000, 8,480 in 1999. (2001 UCR, p. 23). Here's the table:



[You can download the entire report, in .pdf format, by clicking here; look for pt. 2 at p.23.] To be utterly fair, this is a count of the 13,752 homicides for which police submitted supplemental data (including weapon used): the total homicide count was 15,980. But what weapon, if any, was used in the other homicide is unknown to us, and was unknown to Moore.
After an email tip, I finally found a way to compute precisely 11,127. Ignore the FBI, use Nat'l Center for Health Statistics figures. These are based on doctors' death certificates rather than police investigation.

Then -- to their gun homicide figures, add the figure for legally-justified homicides: self-defense and police use against criminals. Presto, you have exactly Moore's 11,127. I can see no other way for him to get it.

Since Moore appears to use police figures for the other countries, it's hardly a valid comparison. More to the point, it's misleading since it includes self-defense and police: when we talk of a gun homicide problem we hardly have in mind a woman defending against a rapist, or a cop taking out an armed robber.

Canada: Moore's number is correct for 1999, a low point, but he ignores some obvious differences.

Bias. I wanted to talk about fabrication, not about bias, but I've gotten emails asking why I didn't mention that Switzerland requires almost all adult males to have guns, but has a lower homicide rate than Great Britain, or that Japanese-Americans, with the same proximity to guns as other Americans, have homicide rates half that of Japan itself. Okay, they're mentioned, now back to our regularly scheduled program.

 

[NightTrain]

7. Miscellaneous. Even the Canadian government is jumping in. Bowling shows Moore casually buying ammunition at an Ontario Walmart. He asks us to "look at what I, a foreign citizen, was able to do at a local Canadian Wal-Mart." He buys several boxes of ammunition without a question being raised. "That's right. I could buy as much ammunition as I wanted, in Canada."

Canadian officials have pointed out that the buy is faked or illegal: Canadian law has since, 1998, required ammunition buyers to present proper identification. Since Jan. 1, 2001, it has required non-Canadians to present a firearms borrowing or importation license, too. (Bowling appears to have been filmed in mid and late 2001).

While we're at it: Bowling shows footage of a B-52 on display at the Air Force Academy, while Moore scornfully intones that the plaque under it "proudly proclaims that the plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972."

The plaque actually reads that "Flying out of Utapao Royal Thai Naval Airfield in southeast Thailand, the crew of 'Diamond Lil' shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi during 'Linebacker II' action on Christmas eve 1972." This is pretty mild compared to the rest of Bowling, but the viewer can't even trust Moore to honestly read a monument.

(As Spinsanity notes, Moore goes even farther in his add-on DVD. There, he tells us, "And they've got a plaque on there proudly proclaiming that this bomber, this B-52, killed thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese -- innocent civilians.")
8. Race. Moore does not directly state that Heston is a racist--he is the master of creating the false impression --but reviewers come away saying "Heston looks like an idiot, and a racist one at that" Source. "BTW, one thing the Heston interview did clear up, that man is shockingly racist." Source.

The remarks stem from Heston's answer (after Moore keeps pressing for why the US has more violence than other countries) that it might be due to the US "having a more mixed ethnicity" than other nations, and "We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning." A viewer who accepts Moore's theme that gun ownership is driven by racial fears might conclude that Heston is blaming blacks and the civil rights movement.

But if you look at some history missing from Bowling, you get exactly the opposite picture. Heston is talking, not about race, but about racism. In the early 1960s, the civil rights movement was fighting for acceptance. Civil rights workers were being murdered. The Kennedy Administration, trying to hold together a Democratic coalition that ranged from liberals to fire-eater segregationists such as George Wallace and Lester Maddox, found the issue too hot to touch, and offered little support.

Heston got involved. He picketed discriminating restaurants. He worked with Martin Luther King, and helped King break Hollywood's color barrier (yes, there was one.). He led the actors' component of King's 1963 march in Washington, which set the stage for the key civil rights legislation in 1964.

Here's Heston's comments at the 2001 Congress on Racial Equality Martin Luther King dinner (presided over by NRA director, and CORE President, Roy Innes). More on Heston.

Most of the viewers were born long after the events Heston is recalling. To them, the civil rights struggle consists of Martin Luther King speaking, people singing "We Shall Overcome," and everyone coming to their senses. Heston remembers what it was really like.

If Heston fails to explain this in Bowling, we've got to note that Moore (despite his claim that he left the interview almost unedited) cut a lot of the interview out. Watch closely and you'll see a clock on the wall near Moore's head. When it's first seen, the time is about 5:47. When Heston finally walks out, it reads about 6:10. That's 23 minutes. I clocked the Heston interview in Bowling at 5 1/4 minutes. About three-quarters of what Heston did say was trimmed out. [Why the clock indicates six o'clock, when Moore is specific that he showed up for the interview at 8:30 AM, will have to await another investigation!]

9. Fear. Bowling probably has a good point when it suggests that the media feeds off fear in a search for the fast buck. Bowling cites some examples: the razor blades in Halloween apples scare, the flesh-eating bacteria scare, etc. The examples are taken straight from Barry Glassner's excellent book on the subject, "The Culture of Fear," and Moore interviews Glassner on-camera for the point.

Then Moore does exactly what he condemns in the media.

Given the prominence of schoolyard killings as a theme in Bowling for Columbine, Moore must have asked Glassner about that subject. Whatever Glassner said is, however, left on the cutting-room floor. That's because Glassner lists schoolyard shootings as one of the mythical fears. He points out that "More than three times as many people are killed by lightning as by violence at schools."

I suppose we might go farther, and ask if Moore's film is not illustrative of what it condemns. Moore argues that the media (a) distorts reality, and (b) hypes fear of other Americans, because (c) fear is good for a fast buck. Moore distorts reality, hypes fear of other Americans ("are we nation of gun nuts, or just nuts?") and, well, made several million fast bucks.
10. Guns (supposedly the point of the film). A point worth making (although not strictly on theme here): Bowling's theme is, rather curiously, not opposed to firearms ownership.

After making out Canada to be a haven of nonviolence, Moore asks why. He proclaims that Canada has "a tremendous amount of gun ownership," somewhat under one gun per household. He visits Canadian shooting ranges, gun stores, and in the end proclaims "Canada is a gun loving, gun toting, gun crazy country!"

Or as he put it elsewhere, "then I learned that Canada has 7 million guns but they don't kill each other like we do. I thought, gosh, that's uncomfortably close to the NRA position: Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Bowling concludes that Canada isn't peaceful because it lacks guns and gun nuts -- it has lots of those -- but because the Canadian mass media isn't into constant hyping of fear and loathing, and the American media is. (One problem).

Which leaves us to wonder why the Brady Campaign/Million Moms issued a press release. congratulating Moore on his Oscar nomination.

Or does Bowling have a hidden punch line, and in the end the joke is on them?

One possible explanation: did Bowling begin as one movie, and end up as another?

Incidentally, Moore has issued a webpage responding to criticism. In so doing, he actually admits that much of the above criticism is accurate. He did splice the Willie Horton ad, and Heston's "cold dead hands" was never spoken at Denver, and his statistics do stem from those of the Center for Disease Control, which include self-defense and police shootings of perps. As far as the rest of the criticisms above -- strange, but Moore doesn't have an answer. Here's my response.

Conclusion

The point is not that Bowling is unfair, or lacking in objectivity. The point is far more fundamental: Bowling for Columbine is dishonest. It is fraudulent. To trash Heston, it even uses the audio/video editor to assemble a Heston speech that Heston did not give, and sequences images and carefully highlighted text to spin the viewer's mind to a wrong conclusion. If there is art in this movie, it is a dishonest art. Moore does not inform his readers: he plays them like a violin.

A further thought, on a topic far broader (no pun intended) than Moore. Moore's film is unquestionably popular. He's attracted an almost-cult following. And judging from the emails I've received, plenty of his followers don't care a bit about whether they were misled. Can broader lessons be learned from this?

Suppose for a moment that Moore's behavior can be explained as a product of Narcisstic Personality Disorder, that he fits the clinical symptoms to a T, that indeed Bowling is a grand acting out of this character disorder. Does its popularity suggest something of far greater concern than one more narcissist in Hollywood? And does that in turn hold a key to mass slayings?Click here for some thoughts on that score.

David T. Hardy [an amateur who has for the last year been working on a serious bill of rights documentary], to include the Second Amendment.

dthardy at mindspring.com ["at" instead of "@" used to confuse those blasted spam robots]

P.S.: I don't have Moore's $4 million budget (and just got a $233 bill from my ISP for exceeding download limits -- this page has had 502,000 hits in six months), but if you could see the way to contribute ten or twenty dollars to this research, and to preparing a real documentary, please click below.

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

 

[Bry]

agreed. no data should be taken unchecked from anything Mr. Moore is associated with. And that's coming from a fan. Personally, I enjoy his work, but at the same time I find it misleading and exaggerated, and in the end he does more damage to his cause than good.

 

[NightTrain]

Also, Michael Moore is not an idiot, his books don't go number 1 for no reason, same with his movie. Most if not all of the things i posted were on his site. And his site also provides many links to other sources as well, you should check those out as well buddy, before accusing me of giving bad sources.

I sincerely hope you're appalled by your Hero's methods with my preceding three posts. The hyperlinks didn't make the jump, feel free to check out the backup helpfully provided on that site if you have the slightest doubt as to the authenticity.

Micheal Moore is a liar and a scumbag. Now do you see why you should pull your socialist information from reputable sources?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No one wanted either one of those two nut jobs doubling their influence and power, so we provided assistance to Iraq in the form of intelligence - pictures of the front, locations of troops, convoys, helpful tips on where to hit Iran to hurt them, etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



You just contradicted youself.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(I'm glad you posted that link, Bry - I stand corrected in my previous post on this issue. We sold them some helos and 4 small jets. Thanks!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wrong again, Speedy. I corrected myself and acknowledged Bry's article. Do your own debunking, if you are capable.

You proved yourself wrong, we didn't just give them 'pictures' we gave them a shit load of things, including weapons and biological and chemical weapons.

Did we? I want reputable sources outlining how we gave Iraq Bio & Chem weapons, and conventional weapons. Remember - REPUTABLE.

I NEVER SAID AMERICANS are terrorists. I'm saying actions commited by the AMERICAN GOVERNMENT are the actions of terrorists. I feel sorry for all the american civilians, american soldiers and all human civilians who died as a result of the decisions made in the American Government.

Wait a minute - you didn't? Let's turn back the Hands of Time and investigate, shall we?

So, while Bush calls the people involved with sept. 11, terrorists (which they are), America too should acknowledge the fact that they too are terrorists for having done and doing so many unspeakable acts.

Seems pretty clear to me. How do you explain it? Did Vyxen type that part up for you?

Perhaps not, but America has executed ppl who protested against US involvement in their country. Read about the Honduras and Guatamala, and Nicargua. READ AND LEARN, because there are a lot of things you seem to have missed.

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. You made the claim, the burden of proof is upon you to back up your assinine claims. Reputable sources only, please.

 

[MtnBiker]

Perhaps Moore should have recieved an Oscar for editing not for a documentary.

 

[Man of 1951]

I'll allow Michael Moore to speak for himself:

Michael Moore's words
How to Deal with the Lies and the Lying Liars When They Lie about "Bowling for Columbine"
by Michael Moore

One thing you get used to when you're in what's called "the public eye" is reading the humorous fiction that others like to write about you. For instance, I have read in quite respectable and trustworthy publications that a) I'm a college graduate (I'm not), b) I was a factory worker (I quit the first day), and c) I have two brothers (I have none). Newsweek wrote that I live in a penthouse on Central Park West (I live above a Baby Gap store, and not on any park), and the Internet Movie Database once listed me as the director of the Elvis movie, "Blue Hawaii" ( I was 6 at the time the film was made, but I was quite skilled in directing my sisters in building me a snowman). Lately, my favorite mistake is the one many reviewers made crediting the cartoon in "Bowling for Columbine" as being the work of the "South Park" creators. It isn't. I wrote it and my buddy Harold Moss's animation studio drew it.

I've enjoyed reading these inventions/mistakes about this "Michael Moore." I mean, who wouldn't want to fantasize about living in penthouses roughhousing with brothers you never had. But lately I've begun to see so many things about me or my work that aren't true. It's become so easy to spread these fictions through the internet (thanks mostly to lazy reporters or web junkies who do all their research by typing in "key words" and then just repeat the same mistakes). And so I wonder that if I don't correct the record, then all of the people who don't know better may just end up being filled with a bunch of stuff that isn't true.

Of course, it would take a lot of my time to contact all these sites and media outlets to correct their errors and I think it's more important I spend my time on my next book or movie so I just let it ride. But is that fair to you, the reader, who has now been told something that isn't true?

With the unexpected and overwhelming success of "Bowling for Columbine" and "Stupid White Men," the fiction that has been written or spoken about me and my work has reached a whole new level of storytelling. It's no longer about making some simple errors or calling me "Roger" Moore. It is now about organized groups going full blast trying to discredit me by knowingly making up lies and repeating them over and over in the hopes that people will believe them – and, then, stop listening to me.

Oh, that it would be so easy!

Fortunately, they are so wound up in their anger and hatred that they have ended up discrediting themselves.

Look, I accept the fact that, if I go after the Thief-in-Chief – and more people buy my book than any other nonfiction book last year – then that is naturally going to send a few of his henchmen after me. Fine. That's okay. I knew that before I got into this and I ain't whining about it now.

I also realize that you just don't go after the NRA and its supporters and then not expect them to come back at you with both barrels (so to speak). These are not nice people and they don't play nice – that's how they got to be so powerful.

So, a whole host of gun lobby groups and individual gun nuts have put up websites where the smears on me range from the pre-adolescent (I'm a "crapweasel," and a "fat fucking piece of shit") to Orwellian-style venom ("Michael Moore hates America!").

I have mostly ignored this silliness. But a few weeks ago, this lunatic crap hit the mainstream fan. CNN actually put some guy on a show saying that my film contains "so many falsehoods, one after the other, after the other, after the other." They introduced him as a "critic" and "research director" of the "Independence Institute." He seemed mighty impressive.

Except they failed to tell their viewers who he really was: a contributing editor of Gun Week Magazine.

CNN saw no need to inform the viewers that their "expert"-- who has made a career out of opposing any form of gun control–has a vested interest in convincing the public that "Bowling for Columbine" is a horribly rotten movie.

So, what do you do when the nutcases succeed in getting on CNN? Do you just keep ignoring them? How do you handle people who say the Holocaust never happened or that monkeys fly? Ignore them and they'll go away? If you give them any attention, all the nuts will come out of the woodwork.

And that's what happened. I saw another one of these lunatics, this time on MSNBC. A guy named John Lofton. He went on and on about how my movie is all made up. The anchor on MSNBC never challenged him on his lies and never told the viewers who he really was – a right wing crazy who believes Bush is too liberal. He was once an advisor to Pat Buchanan's Presidential campaign, and was a direct-mail writer for Jesse Helms. Writing in opposition to Hate Crime bills in the conservative Washington Times (where he was a columnist from '83 to '89), Lofton explained:

Take, for example, this business of so-called "anti-gay violence." This bill will be used to go after only those who commit crimes against people because they are homosexuals. But this is not the most pernicious form of "anti-gay violence." Not by a long shot.
The most violent - indeed fatal 100 percent of the time - form of "anti-gay violence" has been committed not by so-called "homophobes" who bash homosexuals - but by male homosexuals and bisexuals against other male bisexuals and homosexuals.
To date, tens of thousands of male bisexual and homosexual men are dead in our country because of AIDS, because they engaged in high-risk homosexual sex.
Is this not "anti-gay violence" which numbers its victims far beyond anything any "homophobes" have done?
Well, I figured I better deal with this because the nutters were now being turned into "respectable critics" by a media that either had an agenda or were just plain lazy.

So, how crazy are the things they've said about "Bowling for Columbine?" Here are my favorites:

"That scene where you got the gun in the bank was staged!"
Well of course it was staged! It's a movie! We built the "bank" as a set and then I hired actors to play the bank tellers and the manager and we got a toy gun from the prop department and then I wrote some really cool dialogue for me and them to say! Pretty neat, huh?

Or...

The Truth: In the spring of 2001, I saw a real ad in a real newspaper in Michigan announcing a real promotion that this real bank had where they would give you a gun (as your up-front interest) for opening up a Certificate of Deposit account. They promoted this in publications all over the country – "More Bang for Your Buck!"

There was news coverage of this bank giving away guns, long before I even shot the scene there. The Chicago Sun Times wrote about how the bank would "hand you a gun" with the purchase of a CD. Those are the precise words used by a bank employee in the film.

When you see me going in to the bank and walking out with my new gun in "Bowling for Columbine" – that is exactly as it happened. Nothing was done out of the ordinary other than to phone ahead and ask permission to let me bring a camera in to film me opening up my account. I walked into that bank in northern Michigan for the first time ever on that day in June 2001, and, with cameras rolling, gave the bank teller $1,000 – and opened up a 20-year CD account. After you see me filling out the required federal forms ("How do you spell Caucasian?") – which I am filling out here for the first time – the bank manager faxed it to the bank's main office for them to do the background check. The bank is a licensed federal arms dealer and thus can have guns on the premises and do the instant background checks (the ATF's Federal Firearms database—which includes all federally approved gun dealers—lists North Country Bank with Federal Firearms License #4-38-153-01-5C-39922).

Within 10 minutes, the "OK" came through from the firearms background check agency and, 5 minutes later, just as you see it in the film, they handed me a Weatherby Mark V Magnum rifle (If you'd like to see the outtakes, click here).

And it is that very gun that I still own to this day. I have decided the best thing to do with this gun is to melt it down into a bust of John Ashcroft and auction it off on E-Bay (more details on that later). All the proceeds will go to The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence to fight all these lying gun nuts who have attacked my film and make it possible on a daily basis for America's gun epidemic to rage on.

Here's another whopper I've had to listen to from the pro-gun groups:

"The Lockheed factory in Littleton, Colorado, has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction!"
That's right! That big honkin' rocket sitting behind the Lockheed spokesman in "Bowling for Columbine"-- the one with "US AIRFORCE" written on it in BIG ASS letters – well, I admit it, I snuck in and painted that on that Titan IV rocket when Lockheed wasn't looking! After all, those rockets were only being used for the Weather Channel! Ha Ha Ha! I sure fooled everyone!!

Or....

The Truth: Lockheed Martin is the largest weapons-maker in the world. The Littleton facility has been manufacturing missiles, missile components, and other weapons systems for almost half a century. In the 50s, workers at the Littleton facility constructed the first Titan intercontinental ballistic missile, designed to unleash a nuclear warhead on the Soviet Union; in the mid-80s, they were partially assembling MX missiles, instruments for the minuteman ICBM, a space laser weapon called Zenith Star, and a Star Wars program known as Brilliant Pebbles.

In the full, unedited interview I did with the Lockheed spokesman, he told me that Lockheed started building nuclear missiles in Littleton and "played a role in the development of Peacekeeper MX Missiles."

As for what's currently manufactured in Littleton, McCollum told me, "They (the rockets sitting behind him) carry mainly very large national security satellites, some we can't talk about." (see him say it here)

Since that interview, the Titan IV rockets manufactured in Littleton have been critical to the war effort in both Afghanistan and Iraq. These rockets launched advanced satellites that were "instrumental in providing command-and-control operations over Iraq...for the rapid targeting of Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles involved in Iraqi strikes and clandestine communications with Special Operations Forces." (view source here).

That Lockheed lets the occasional weather or TV satellite hitch a ride on one of its rockets should not distract anyone from Lockheed's main mission and moneymaker in Littleton: to make instruments that help kill people. That two of Littleton's children decided to engineer their own mass killing is what these guys and the Internet crazies don't want to discuss.

The oddest of all the smears thrown at "Bowling for Columbine" is this one:

"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."
Um, yeah, that's right! I made it up! Heston never went there! He never said those things!

Or....

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