michael moore's documentaries
Michael Moore, is in the business of producing movies that some, including the Academy Awards, mistakenly label 'documentaries'.  The problem is, these disingenuous works of fiction are just that.  Documentaries, by definition, deal in the truth, including facts, figures, and occurrences. Michael Moore's documentaries would fit that definition, if it weren't for the ubiquitous skeleton of fabrication that their big screen skin conceals.

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FAHRENHEIT 9-11

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE

SICKO (coming soon)

FAHRENHEIT 9-11 | Check Us > Full Movie Transcript
Fahrenheit is riddled with fabrications, inconsistencies, and, as expected in Moore 'films', lies.  This is a vicious and disingenuous film that includes quite a bit of crap.  Bear with us as we wade through it.

FACT: Like all the other networks, Fox mistakenly said that Gore had won in Florida. The first network to retract the Florida mistake was CBS, not Fox.

FACT: A 6-month study by a consortium of major newspapers shows that Bush would have won the Florida recount under any of the terms which Gore sought in his lawsuits.  For those that paid close attention, this was reported in the double-digit numbered pages of most of these papers.

FACT: Investigation by the Palm Beach Post and others shows that race was not a reason why election officials mistakenly disqualified some voters because they were incorrectly thought to have felony convictions.  The Palm Beach Post was, in short, less than supportive of Gov. Bush's candidacy.  The PBP endorsed Gore in 2000.

FACT: Bush’s Presidency before 9/11 was not in serious trouble. No commentator said that he looked like a lame-duck president. Congress had passed his #1 bill (the tax cut) and was on the way to passing his #2 bill (the education bill). The scene at the end of the movie in which Bush tells a rich audience “I call you my base,” was from an October 2000 charity fund-raiser. Both Gore and Bush spoke at the fund-raiser and, as is the custom at the fund-raiser, made fun of themselves.

FACT: “In his first eight months in office before September
11th, George W.Bush was on vacation, according to the
Washington Post, forty-two percent of the time." As the
Washington Post reported, the figure includes weekends, and includes time in “vacation locations ”such as Camp David, where Bush was working as when he met with Tony Blair and many other world leaders.  Newsweek's Michael Isokoff also debunked this ridiculous twisting of facts in a scathing article.  Michael Moore made the interesting and ironic mistake of attacking Newsweek's coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom - claiming that Newsweek showed preferential treatment to the Bush administration in their reporting.  Mike, have you ever... uh, READ Newsweek?

FACT: In the golf course scene (about the middle of the movie), Bush had just heard about a terrorist attack on Israel. He called the press together to make a quick statement condemning the terrorism against Israel. At the time, and quite unfortunately, Israel was experiencing almost daily terrorist attacks. He was not speaking about attacks on the United States, as Michael Moore was disingenuously trying to insinuate.

FACT: The Briefing did not say “said that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America by hijacking airplanes. It said that the FBI has “not been able to corroborate” such a threat.  According to Richard Clarke and the September 11 Commission, Clarke personally approved the Saudi departures.  By Clarke's own admission, the decision went "no higher" than Clarke in the chain of command.

FACT: Moore lied to a TV reporter in claiming that Fahrenheit discloses Clarke’s decision to the audience. Having authored his own anti-Bush book, even Clarke himself called the Saudi exit material in Fahrenheit a “mistake" by Moore.  We'd like to go a step further and call it a "lie".

FACT: Contrary to what Fahrenheit claims, the September 11 Commission found that many Saudis were asked “detailed questions" before being allowed to leave.  The Saudis were thoroughly vetted by law enforcement, not wisked out of the country on Bush's word, as "mistakenly" portrayed by Moore.

FACT: Prince Bandar has way too much influence on the U.S. government, as Fahrenheit shows, but American coddling of the Saudi tyranny is a long-standing bi-partisan tradition, not a Bush invention.  Details of the tight Saudi-Clinton administration ties are conveniently absent from the movie.

FACT: Harken Energy: Bush only sold the stock after company lawyers approved the sale and told him it was OK.

FACT: The reason that Bush “beat the rap" was because there was no evidence he had engaged in insider trading.

FACT: The Carlyle Group is not a Bush playground.  Many Bush opponents are investors in Carlyle, including billionaire atheist and left-wing activist George Soros.

FACT: The Bush administration dealt Carlyle a huge financial blow by canceling the Crusader missile, one of the few weapons cancellations in the Bush administration.

FACT: The bin Ladens dropped out of Carlyle before the stock sale. Of the 1.4 billion that the Saudis invested in companies that happened to have Bush connections, the vast majority of the money was invested in Carlyle before George H.W.Bush joined the firm.

FACT: The Saudi embassy does not receive special protection. It is not the only foreign embassy which is guarded by the U.S. Secret Service.  An international treaty signed by the U.S. requires the U.S. to protect any embassy which asks for protection.

FACT: Moore’s insinuation that Bush runs U.S. foreign policy according to Saudi instructions is contradicted by the Afghanistan invasion (which toppled the Taliban regime which the Saudis strongly supported), and by the Iraq War
(which the Saudis opposed, in part because Iraqi oil will compete with Saudi oil).  Bush's foreign policy, in many cases, including these major events, has been anathema to Saudi interests.

FACT: As Governor of Texas, Bush never met with Taliban representatives.

FACT: The proposed Unocal pipeline was supported by the
Clinton administration, but Unocal abandoned the pipeline
idea in 1998.

FACT: Construction has not begun on the new pipeline.  Although Moore claims that “Enron stood to benefit” from the pipeline, Enron has never had any participation in either pipeline.

FACT: The Bush administration did not “welcome" Taliban diplomats in March 2001, but instead condemned them for failing to hand over Osama bin Laden.

FACT: Despite Moore’s pose in the movie, he opposed the
Afghanistan War, and - in December 2002 - infamously claimed that Osama bin Laden might be innocent.

FACT: In claiming that the Afghanistan invasion was a mere ruse to protect the Saudis, Moore omits the results of liberation in Afghanistan: destruction of al Qaeda training camps, the creation and holding of free elections, previously unimaginable degrees of freedom for women, and the homecoming of 1.5 million refugees from the ruthless Taliban regime.

FACT: Moore say Saddam’s Iraq “had never murdered a single American citizen.” In fact, Saddam paid for terrorist bombers in Israel who murdered Americans, along with Jewish and Gentile children, and many people of other nationalities. Saddam also sheltered the American-killing terrorist Abu Nidal,and the bomb-maker for the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.  Moore paints a disturbingly rosy picture of a bloodthirsty dictator.

FACT: In addition, Saddam ordered assassination attempts
against former President Bush and against U.S.diplomats in the Philippines.  We have to wonder, in retrospect, if a successful assassination of an American President, and a Bush no less, would have concerned Moore to any extent.

FACT: Moore claims that the Saddam regime “never threatened to attack the United States. ”In fact, in 1997, the regime publicly ordered: “American and British interests, embassies, and naval ships in the Arab region should be the targets of military operations and commando attacks by Arab political forces.” On the first anniversary of September 11, Saddam's regime called for suicide attacks on Americans.

FACT: Moore claims that there was no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. In fact, there is an extensive record of collaboration and connection with al Gaeda, although - as the September 11 Commission announced - there is no proof that Saddam participated beforehand in al Qaeda attacks on America.

FACT: Fahrenheit shows Condoleezza Rice saying, “Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11.” The audience laughs derisively. Here is what Rice really said on Nov.28, 2003:
"Oh,indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened
on 9/11. It ’s not that Saddam Hussein was somehow him-
self and his regime involved in 9/11, but,if you think about
what caused 9/11, it is the rise of ideologies of hatred that
lead people to drive airplanes into buildings in New York.
This is a great terrorist, international terrorist network that
is determined to defeat freedom. It has perverted Islam
from a peaceful religion into one in which they call on it
for violence. And they ’re all linked. And Iraq is a central
front because, if and when, and we will, we change the
nature of Iraq to a place that is peaceful and democratic
and prosperous in the heart of the Middle East, you will
begin to change the Middle East...."  If it doesn't serve his agenda, Moore conveniently omits it.  Only those blind to the truth, or in stubborn denial of it, trust Moore's rendition of ... anything.

FACT: Moore portrays pre-liberation Iraq as a happy nation
of kite-flying and weddings. In fact, a sixth of the popula-
tion had fled Saddam’s tyranny. The United Nations and
Amnesty International condemned “the systematic, wide-
spread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the Government of
Iraq, resulting in an all-pervasive repression and oppression
sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror.’’  Michael Moore's portrayal of pre-war Iraq is  enough on its own, in our book, to discredit this entire movie.

FACT: A humorous sequence making fun of tiny countries in the Iraq liberation Coalition does not even mention the major countries in the Coalition, such as the U.K., Australia, Italy, and Japan.  This is interesting considering Moore's continuous contention that the U.S.'s "standing in the world" has been denegraded.  More than a few countries, including France, Germany, and Russia would have negated their best interests in joining the Coalition.  As it's since been proven, these countries were sleeping with Saddam in the embargo-breaking oil-for-food scandal bed.

FACT: Not a deceit, but mean-spirited and exploitive: The footage of the funeral of U.S. Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone at Arlington National Cemetery appears without his family's
permission, and over their vehement objection. Major Stone
strongly believed in and supported the Iraq mission, as does his family.  The footage of Massachusetts National Guardsman Peter Damon, who is undergoing therapy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is also used without his permission.

FACT: Despite Moore’s claims, American media have not been mindlessly supportive of the Iraq war. For example, Peter Jennings has been extremely critical. The evidence that Moore offers to portray Jennings as a war supporter is a clip of Jennings reporting in April 2003 that Saddam ’s army had collapsed - which was true.

FACT: Not surprisingly, Fahrenheit deceptively cut the footage of Rep.Mark Kennedy to make it look like Kennedy rebuffed Moore’s request to help enlist Congressional children. In fact, Kennedy said it was a good idea, and offered to help.

FACT: Based on Census Bureau data, Congressional families are more likely than other families to have children serving in Iraq.

FACT: In Fahrenheit, Moore pretends to support our troops.
But in fact, he supports the enemy in Iraq - the coalition of
Saddam loyalists, al Qaeda operatives, and terrorists con-
trolled by Iran or Syria - who are united in their desire to
murder Iraqis, and to destroy any possibility of democracy in Iraq. Here is what Moore said on April 14, 2004, about the forces who are killing Americans and trying to impose totalitarian rule on Iraq: “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents ’or ‘terrorists ’or ‘The Enemy.’ They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win. ”Do you really think that someone who wants Iraq to be ruled by Islamist or Ba’athist tyranny, and who deliberately kills innocent civilians with car bombs, is like the American Minutemen?  This comfort, encouragement, and support was given to the enemy - all while our troops were in the thick of post-war insurgent combat.

FACT: As reported in the trade journal Screen Daily, affiliates of the Iranian and Syrian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah are promoting Fahrenheit 9/11,and Moore’s Middle East distributor, Front Row, is accepting the terrorist assistance: “In terms of marketing the film, Front Row is getting a boost from organizations related to Hezbollah which have rung up from Lebanon to ask if there is anything they can do to support the film. And although [Front Row ’s Managing Director Giancarlo] Chacra says he and his company feel strongly that Fahrenheit is not anti-American, but anti-Bush, ‘we can’t go against these organizations as they could strongly boycott the film in Lebanon and Syria.’” (Nancy Tartaglione, “Fahrenheit to be first doc released theatrically in Middle East, ”Screen Daily.com, June 9,2004. The story is discussed in Samantha Ellis, “Fahrenheit 9/11 gets help offer from Hezbollah, ”The Guardian (London), June 17,2004.)

These facts come, in part, from the Independence Institute,a think-tank in Colorado which is founded on the principles of the Declaration of Independence (www.independenceinstitute.org). The original author, Dave Kopel, is a life-long Democrat who endorsed and voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. He supports some but not all aspects of the current war on terror. Prevent Truth Decay's comments have been added to his original framework. You can find his full report here.

After watching Fahrenheit, if you must, make sure to see FAHRENHYPE 9/11 - You Knew It Was a Lie... Now You Know Why.  I hope we helped clear things up.

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE
The message in Blowharding for Columbine is, for the most part, Canada rocks... the U.S. sucks.  I'm not sure how else to put it.  This movie is one of Moore's masterpieces of manipulation.  As well, it's the movie that removed the last shred of credibity held by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.

LIE: The Lockheed-Martin facility depicted in the film is presented as a manufacturer of weapons of mass destruction.
TRUTH: the facility produces rockets for launching satellites.

LIE: The NRA is callous to gun slayings.
TRUTH: the evidence distorted to reach this infactual end is expansive. The sequence in Bowling in which Charlton Heston gives a defiant pro-gun speech in Denver is edited to unbelievable distortion. The fiery "cold dead hands" statement was not even made in Denver, but a YEAR after the Denver (annual NRA members' meeting) in Charlotte, North Carolina. Compare Bowling's version of the Heston speech in Denver to REALITY.

LIE: The impression is given in Bowling that the NRA and the KKK were (are?) parallel groups - or more likely, that when the Klan was outlawed, the NRA filled its shoes. TRUTH: Charlton Heston is NOT a racist, as alleged in Bowling. Heston involved himself in the civil rights movement in the early 60's while the issue was still too hot for Hollywooders concerned about their careers. He also helped Martin Luther King break the Hollywood color barrier that existed at that time. After its founding in New York by two Union Officers, the NRA itself has a long and comprehensive history of aligning itself in diametrical opposition to racism and the KKK.

LIE: Moore sympathizes with the "little boy" at Buell Elementary in Michigan who just found a gun in his uncle's house and took it to school to kill a girl. Moore says "No one knew why the little boy wanted to shoot the little girl". TRUTH: The "little boy" was the class bully and was already suspended for stabbing another child with a pencil. Since that incident, the "little boy" also stabbed another kid with a knife. Also- the "uncle's house" was a neighborhood crack house. The uncle and the "little boy's" father were, at the time, serving time for theft and cocaine possession. His aunt earned her living from drug dealing. The gun was stolen by one of the uncle's customers and purchased by him in exchange for drugs.

LIE: Bowling makes note of $245 million that the U.S. gave to the Taliban government of Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001 and then proceeds to illustrate the alleged "result" by showing planes hitting the twin towers.
TRUTH: The $245 million in aid was given through the U.N. and non-governmental organizations to relieve the famine that existed in Afghanistan at that time.

LIE: Bowling showcases a dramatic comparison of gun homicide stats from various countries.
TRUTH: The numbers don't add up - click here.

LIE: In Bowling, Moore enters a WalMart in Ontario, Canada to purchase, with ease and without being identified, several boxes of ammunition.
TRUTH: Canadian officials have indicated that the purchase, as depicted in the movie, is either fake or illegal

LIE: Moore shows footage of a B-52 on display at the Air Force Academy, and sadly announces that the plaque under it "proudly proclaims that the plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972." Interestingly enough, Moore's camera only lets you see the plaque from a distance sufficient enough to render the plaque impossible to read.
TRUTH: The inscription on the plaque is: "Dedicated to the men and women of the Strategic Air Command who flew and maintained the B-52D throughout its 26 year history in the command. Aircraft 55,003, with over 15,000 flying hours, is one of two B-52's credited with a confirmed MIG kill during the Vietnam conflict. 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."

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