posted on June 23, 2003 08:26:02 AM new
Tonight, after seeing the Rightly Recognised Academy Award Wining Documentary,
Bowling For Columbine, even though my words will fail to comfort, I wish to convey to those who occupy America, my deepest condolences for the obscene circumstances that perpetuate the killing and hatred rampant within your society today.
I choose my words carefully, because in no way do I wish to offend you, although knowing that I undoubtedly will offend some.
My condolences are to you the people of America because as the documentary makes abundantly clear; you the people are the victims of, as is any culture, the dominant ideological paradigm.
Ideologies advanced by persons such as: the representative of an organisation which was founded the very same year which the terrorist organisation KKK was proclaimed illegal and saw many of it’s constituents form an organisation known today as the NRA. Fronted by persons like Charlton Heston, who defend these ideologies staunchly because they were handed down by
“those wise old dead WHITE guys”.
Who defend the belief that America’s “high mixed ethnicity” is at fault for the high incidence of murder.
Ideologies perpetuated by arms and weapons manufacturers through economic influences in domestic social policies. Breading fear and distrust and hatred within your community, for clear economic gain, and doing so with deadly results.
My heart felt sympathies to all those who have experience any close personal loss as a result of the gross hatred perpetuated by certain influential members of your hierarchy.
Rest assured, if there his a God, they will be smite by his own hand.
If you are an American, you must see this documentary.
"The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they will sleep at night." Otto van Bismark
posted on June 23, 2003 08:42:46 AM new
"If you are an American, you must see this documentary."
Wrong answer! Here in America we can choose to see it or not to see. I will never see it.
I heard over the weekend about how the pirated Lord of the Rings movies in Russia are promoting communism, among other things. I am very glad I live in America.
posted on June 23, 2003 08:58:33 AM new
I meant the word ‘must’ to be taken as it is meant when one says ‘a must see movie’.
Let me rephrase that.
If you are an American, you need to see this documentary.
If you want to see an idiot, you should see how he played Charlton Heston like a sucker.
BTW. The cold war is meant to be over.
As Michael Moore explained, and you so aptly demonstrated and perpetuated, the fixation with an enemy, eg. the Red peril, is one major cause of the killings.
posted on June 23, 2003 09:48:57 AM new
Excellent observation, austbounty!
I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us. They're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction, yet we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape, or the fiction of orange alerts. We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much." - Miichael Moore
posted on June 23, 2003 11:19:33 AM new
Not Trolling,
I think it's a topic that all true patriots or if you like, lovers of liberty and justice, need to to be fully understanding of.
Or did you mean that you are trolling?
posted on June 23, 2003 11:28:09 AM new
I agree Austbounty. Although I didn't see the whole thing, I did see the Charlton Heston part and it looked good to see him cornered. Michael Moore vs Moses!
posted on June 23, 2003 11:32:47 AM new
It was an interesting movie. Journalistically, I had some problems with it. He used a lot of the tricks the right-wingers have perfected, like taking stuff out of context and playing it over and over again.
On the other hand, I have been to a gun show myself. I found the glimpse into gun culture very disturbing.
------------------- We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.
------------The Talmud
posted on June 23, 2003 02:15:47 PM new
He was invited for an interview, so if asking tough questions is viewed as cornering, then we need more interviewers like him.
posted on June 23, 2003 06:52:55 PM new
"I shall give a propagandist cause for starting the war. Never mind whether it is plausible or not. In starting and waging a war, it is not Right that matters but Victory. Have no pity. Adopt a brutal attitude . . . Right is on the side of the strongest." Adolf Hitler
posted on June 23, 2003 06:58:57 PM new
With lies you may go ahead in the world, but you can never go back. Russian Proverb
I would have made a good Pope. Richard Nixon
A lie never lives to be old. Sophocles
It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement. The Rev. Jerry Falwell, The Moral Majority.
"Diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either alone would fail." --John F. Kennedy
[ edited by bear1949 on Jun 23, 2003 08:18 PM ]
posted on June 23, 2003 08:34:04 PM new
Austbounty
One of your sillier "assessments". If you have read absolutely anything about this "documentary", you would know that it is a manufactured thing in which footage is spliced together from bits and pieces and made to represent singular events. What people "say" was never uttered.
The various chunks and distortions pieced together are itemized here:
posted on June 23, 2003 09:35:49 PM new
It goes without saying that this documentary was obviously edited, as all are, for effect.
The purpose of it is to attempt to expose the 'cause' of the mindset prevailing in your society.
“those wise old dead WHITE guys”.
This 'critique' makes much of a defence of Charlton Heston, when as I think that the above quote alone is much evidence of his true racism.
Debating minor differences of murder figures quoted, as this critique does, falls far from explaining the great incongruity that exists between the various national figures and the US's.
"After Bowling was released ********someone******* checked and found that the Lockheed-Martin plant does not build weapons-type missiles; it makes rockets for launching satellites."
Hmmm!!!???
Items Of Mass Creation
It seems that some on the 'right' here have already formed a judgement, even though they have proclaimed that they will never watch this documentary.
Perhaps they would have us believe that the underlying cause of the Columbine Shootings, is bowling, as the documentary points out that the 2 boys responsible were avid bowlers and in fact went bowling on the early morning before the shootings.
I give up,
How does one make this image come up.
Can one of you on the consistenly helpfull 'left' please show me.
[ edited by austbounty on Jun 23, 2003 10:05 PM ]
Thanks KD
May the flowers of prosperity bloom upon you.
[ edited by austbounty on Jun 23, 2003 11:38 PM ]
posted on June 24, 2003 05:41:32 AM new
Austbounty:
Please keep in mind, the NRA is powerful and very vocal. But it does not represent all gun owners in the US. Many here own and use guns and are disgusted with the way the NRA has been coopted by the right. I quit it 20 years ago, when I could see it changing from an organization dedicated to safe gun usage into a political lobby. Not all gun owners here subscribe to it's extremist stance. What makes me sad about "Bowling" is that Moore didn't need to use the deceptive tactics he employed to make his point. It cheapened his argument.
___________________________________
What luck for the leaders that men do not think. - Adolph Hitler
posted on June 24, 2003 10:19:15 AM new
“Moore didn't need to use the deceptive tactics he employed to make his point. It cheapened his argument.”
Prof I somewhat empathise with that sentiment.
It was after all meant to be a venture in pursuit of truth.
One would assume that, the pursuit of truth would be compromised by anything short of the highest ethical restraints.
Having said that though, I still believe that the information presented did give an understanding of the truth.
Primarily; fear is perpetuated by those who have an immediate financial interest in weapons.
That they further the promotion of their ‘vested interest’ by painting ‘others’ as villains, thereby legitimating a need for a defensive, or as we have recently seen, an offensive stance, against an identifiable enemy..
That the weapons available today are far more potent than one could possibly need.
That an exploited society is a disgruntled society.
The program did not give me the feeling that all guns should be outlawed, it didn’t actually say that or imply that.
I do not think, for example, that it put hunters in a sinister light, and neither do I view them in such a way.
Interesting to note in the documentary that, in the case of the 6y.o. boy that shot the similar aged girl, M Moore showed footage of a local official (I think he was) that expressed surprise in the alleged high incidence of ‘right’ wing groups demanding that extreme action be taken against the boy.
I found that very easy to believe, after having seen similar responses by those on the right here in a recent chat when we discussed the case of a 12y.o. boy that was shot in the back by police.
I think that your ‘right to bear arms’ may have once served you nation well as a means to defence. But your nation now has a large police force and military and the original intended purpose of your 2nd amendment serves little use to your society in this age of modern war.
Hunting aside, and perhaps a weapon or 2 if you desire.
The portrayal of an arsenal of weapons pulled out by the schoolboy in an ‘alleged’ security company commercial was a joke. From memory, several large semi automatic colt-45-like pistols, 2 or 3 revolvers, a couple of smaller semi automatics a shotgun and what looked like an ‘oozie’ (don’t know if that’s how you spell it).
I think that if Americans today are truly justified in having such little trust in each other that they feel the need for arsenals at home, then perhaps the whole world should be similarly concerned and that we should direct much distrust your way too.
It seems that many of the more extreme ’right’ would rather see guns pried from many a ‘cold hand’ rather than see a safe and healthy society.
They feel that the reduction of arms in their homes is too high a price to pay for a ‘chance’ at peace for their country.
They refuse to even consider that the 2nd amendment ‘just may be’ an anachronism, or at least misunderstood.
It is just one of the laws they don’t want to touched, claiming that would be ‘unpatriotic’ but push for open season on many others.
“Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto. “
- Thomas Jefferson
Hmmm???
“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. “
- Justice Learned Hand
posted on June 25, 2003 09:37:37 AM new
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.
- Thomas Jefferson
