Moore's 'Bowling' hits mostly spares

Last Weekend's showing of Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine at the International Film Series on campus. Though it recently won an Academy Award for Best Documentary, this film is a work of fiction, or as Michael Moore might say, is fictitious. Moore's claim that the United States has the world's highest murder rate is fictitious: South Africa's murder rate is twelve times as high. Also fictitious is his claim that the Lockheed Martin plant makes nuclear missiles: it manufactures rockets for launching satellites.

With clever film editing, insinuation, and outright falsehoods, Moore's film leads its audience to conclude that the NRA has roots with the KKK and schedules rallies in response to tragic school shootings, and that its current president Charlton Heston is a racist. A true documentary would, dare I say, "document" that Heston led the actors' component of MLK's 1963 March on Washington, that the NRA has had presidents who enacted legislation against the KKK and that during the 1950s and 1960s, groups of blacks organized as NRA chapters in order to obtain surplus military rifles to fight off Klansmen.

For more information on the facts and fictions behind this "documentary", read "Bowling for Columbine: Documentary or Fiction?" at home.sprynet.com/~owl1/bowling.htm by CU Professor Michael Huemer.

Brian Schwartz

CU Campus Libertarians

April 9, 2003

Moore made mistakes...so what?

OK, OK... I looked at the website that Brian Schwartz recommended. So there were errors in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. So if it really bugs you so much, call it a semi-documentary. But whatever label you want to annoit it with, and whatever detail quibbles you have with the movie, you can't deny the truth of the film: the US powers that be are artificially creating a climate of fear to manipulate the people. And you can't deny that this is the only film around stating that truth.

So Brian Schwartz is like a person who is taken to the Grand Canyon and told to look at it, and instead spends the time looking at his toes and telling us how small it looks.

Dentini Tapas, Boulder

April 15, 2003

Re: Michael Moore's fraud

According to the film's official web site, Bowling for Columbine has been hailed by many critics as the best documentary of 2002, and by documentary filmmakers as the best documentary of all time. Given Michael Moore's record with reporting facts, this may not be true; but it did win the Academy Award for best documentary. Instead, it should have won the award for Most Successful Fraud of 2002.

From an intellectual standpoint, the film has many flaws that would make the label "documentary" dubious and "best documentary" laughable. In addition to the extreme bias of the film (which, for those who have seen it, needs no elaboration), there is Moore's stunning indifference to facts or evidence concerning what he is allegedly studying. For example, while pretending to seek an explanation for America's (supposed) high violent crime rates, Moore interviews Charlton Heston and Marilyn Manson - rather than interviewing, say, criminologists and psychologists who have studied violence.

Moore presents virtually no evidence for his implausible thesis that our murder rate is caused mainly by the government's foreign policy and Americans' general fearfulness, and he ignores the dozens of factors that can affect crime rates.

Still, none of this makes the film fraudulent. What makes it fraudulent is the numerous intentional deceptions that Moore perpetrates on the audience (see www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html), such as his fib about the 'nuclear weapons' factory in Columbine, or the one about the NRA holding a pro-gun rally in a town just after the shooting death of a little girl there.

But what is most shocking is not Michael Moore's dishonesty, but the reaction of critics and viewers - such as Dentini Tapas ("Moore made mistakes...so what?", Colorado Daily, 4-9-03), who recently expressed his opinion that Moore's 'mistakes' are a minor and irrelevant issue. To be clear: Moore did not make mistakes. He lied. Now, judging by the film's reception, many critics and viewers no longer see the point of worrying about either objectivity or basic honesty, so it seems that I need to explain why this is a problem.

First: when people's attitudes are cynically manipulated using disinformation, they make poor decisions. Moore's film is the sort of thing that will prevent America from genuinely addressing the problem of violence. Second: by using this sort of deception, one undermines one's own credibility. Viewers familiar with the facts about "Bowling" can never believe anything Moore says, in that film or elsewhere. Third: this sort of dishonesty undermines our ability to rely on information presented in films or the media in general. Because we can't be sure who is reporting honestly without researching the issues ourselves, documentary films become useless to the rational viewer.

For a documentary filmmaker, no value can come before the facts. Moore is not a documentary filmmaker; he is a demagogue, peddling his personal ideology by means of any trick available.

Michael Huemer

Boulder

April 20, 2003

Anti Michael Moore letter reveals dim perspective

Concerning Michael Huemer's anti-Moore letter, he also is someone you take to the Grand Canyon to see the view, and he spends the time looking at his toes and telling you how small everything looks. I can only conclude that these pro-NRA guys spend so much time staring at their toes because they're scared of shooting them off.

I forced myself to look at the hardylaw.net website mentioned, and I encourage everyone to hold their nose and look at the website. Take a look at the kind of person advocating Michael H.'s position. Then look at the Columbine section. All quibbles about parts of the movies (quibble example: "Pentagon payloads" means only military payloads). But what about the larger Truth of the movie? The NRA, our government, right-wingers are controlling the populace by promoting fear. That's important for people to realize.

Michael H. is upset about the movie's "...extreme bias..." and that Moore interviewed Heston and Marilyn Manson rather than "...criminologists and psychologists...". So what? If Michael H. wants to make his own movie, then call up the NRA, get the funds and do so. What is bias to Michael H. is a breath of fresh air to those of us not all twisted up with our guns.

All I can say to Michael Moore is keep it up, Buddy. You have the courage to say what nobody else dares to say. And all I can say to Michael Huemer is, keep watching those toes of yours. Wouldn't want to lose another one, would you?

Dentini Tapas

Boulder

April 23, 2003

Who is really manipulating the media?

Dentini Tapas has been so blinded by the "Truth" of Michael Moore's "documentary" Bowling for Columbine that in response letters pointing out its lies and deceptions, she resorts to impugning the character of whistle-blowers instead of addressing the issue. Such ad hominem rhetoric are tools of a true-believer who lacks the skills and knowledge to engage in rational discourse based on facts and principles. She writes: "[W]hatever detail quibbles you have with the movie, you can't deny the truth of the film." The lies and deceptions are not "quibbles;" they are fundamental to Michael Moore's thesis. If the arguments supporting a thesis are flawed, only a dogmatic ideologue will continue believing it. Michael Moore did prove one thing: someone *is* manipulating Americans into being fearful. But it is not the NRA; it is dishonest filmmakers and news media.

Brian Schwartz, Boulder