by happysunshine 26 Replies latest social entertainment
well, i thought the movie was brilliant, though i don't know about nra/kkk.
after seeing it i decided i would never watch another dick clark production. i would also boycott charlton heston too, however, that seems to be a moot point right now...
i also want to know if it's true that nobody in toronto locks their doors....amazing. is that true, razorblade?? or anyone else in toronto??
after seeing it i decided i would never watch another dick clark production. i would also boycott charlton heston too, however, that seems to be a moot point right now...
gads, but are you brainwashed or what? Did you ever hear the phrase "there's always two sides to every story"?
To put it another way - is anyone really suggesting that no one in the NRA has any links to the KKK or vice versa? I'd find that hard to believe
Classic conspiracy theorist logic: "You can't prove there is no conspiracy, therefore one exists." If some members of the NRA are secretly KKK, what does that prove, other than that in our Western democracies it is possible for an individual to be a member of several orgs? The NRA isn't founded on the principles of the KKK - surely that should be enough? Or is the old JW logic about association with Satan's system, real or implied, at work here?
As for the esteemed Mr Moore, he's as full of **** as he is ugly (it takes one to know one - see my pic). See this rebuttle of his "documentary":
http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html
I've seen episodes of The Awful Truth, and it doesn't take long for me to realise that this guy is so heavily biased towards one POV that it easy to see that many of his so called "facts" are only half facts, or facts divorced from context.
So you are saying that you would be surprised / shocked / amazed if KKK members were also in the NRA and vice-versa?!?
You know someone has a week argument when "he is ugly" is part of it !
By all accounts, BFC is a fantastic movie which makes some powerful comments about gun ownership & crime in America. Like it or not, admit it or not, it is a big problem and it is not a problem because of having too many guns - it is some problem with the attitude of a lot of people.
I thought MM was cute
I've seen episodes of The Awful Truth, and it doesn't take long for me to realise that this guy is so heavily biased towards one POV
Who says he has to present both sides of the story? Of course he's only going to push one POV, the one he wants to advocate. His shows aren't wildlife documentaries, they are social commentaries.
You know someone has a weak argument when "he is ugly" is part of it !
Have you read the article I linked to, Simon? By someone in a very strong position to know all about the NRA, it is.
Who says he has to present both sides of the story?
He won an Oscar for best documentary, didn't he? A good documentary includes other possibilities, even if it is flogging a certain view. Moore never entertains the possibility of other explanations.
He also so manipulates the facts in his stuff that they end up being something other than "truth". If you read the article I linked to, he deliberately cut and pasted footage of various NRA meetings and speeches to make Heston look like he was saying stuff that he never did. Come on Pris, you've been flamed enough by people who've taken words you've said and twisted them to say something you didn't intend, to know that this is not an approach to be honoured with trust.
Simon and Pris, please read the article I linked to, before answering this post.
Thanks for the comments all! They motivate me to educate myself.
Stephanus: I read the article and most of the related links. Very persuasive. A couple of things that struck me-
First the bad news for BFC: I think everyone walked away feeling like priss- "Charlton Heston is a gun-totting, neo-KKK idiot who walks away under fire." Moore failed to show stuff like Heston's comments at a 2001 Congress on Racial Equality Martin Luther King dinner. Here's a quote from a reporter:
"Heston remembered walking behind him [Martin Luther King] 'in that glorious day of triumph 37 years ago which was one of the great days of my life. He and I and 200,000 people marched on Washington DC. We've come a long way on race relations since that day socially, economically, morally, and in many ways the water cannons and police dogs of Selma and Montgomery are silent now thank God.'"
Additionaly, regarding the NRA/KKK connection (sorry about all the 'screaming', its a cut/past job):
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.
Now I would be interested to know more uptodate info from people in the know, as history could have changed. Also, there may be a history I don't know about. Any amateur historians out there?
OK, now for the good about BFC:
The Moore-critique web site said that BFC cast Lockheed-Martin in an unjust missle-lobing role as manufacturing/transpoting nuclear weapons. In fact, part of what they do is convert Titan nukes into NASA projects and monitore/control satalites. The site rightly shows up Moore's overstatement:
"So you don't think our kids say to themselves, 'Dad goes off to the factory every day, he builds missiles of mass destruction. What's the difference between that mass destruction and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?'"
It's hard to envision a murderer making a moral equation between mass murder and a recon satellite, right?
However, if I'm not mistaken, Lockheed-Martin made those Titan nuclear missiles in the first place. I got this from their homepage:
BACKGROUND - Lockheed Martin built more than 140 Titan ICBMs, once the vanguard of America's nuclear deterrent force, for the Air Force. Titan IIs also were flown as space launch vehicles in NASA's Gemini manned space program in the mid-1960s. Deactivation of the Titan II ICBM system began in July 1982. The last missile was taken from its silo at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, on June 23, 1987. Deactivated missiles are in storage at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, California. Lockheed Martin is responsible for transporting the Titan IIs from California to its facilities in Denver.
In any case, Lockheed-Martin has been responsible for manufacturing a lot of weapons of destruction. Atop pictures of a variety of military aircraft is this pronouncement:
These pictures speak volumes about pride in our past, the excellence of our achievements, and our commitment to the future.
It is here that I can overlook Moore's dogma for the greater point: When violence is used by an authority to 'solve' problems, there is a tendency to see violence as a solution in other contexts. Even if Lockheed-Martin or others don't engage in violence, if their success is based on indirect or past use of force to 'solve' problems, that trickles down. I feel I can totaly understand it if people in that community see violence as an option.
I saw the movie: it was great!
I'm going to see it again, next week.
