"Palme D'Or" for Mike Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11&

[D-Dave]

...empowering the Iraqi people to rebuild their own country. Why not build Iraqi responsibility, administration, instrastructure, and "pride in workmanship" all at the same time. Sort of an "Iraq First" program where even the raw materials if possible should be "Built in Iraq".

I have to agree with that last post of you very much as the past has shown it is exactly this method that works. Anyone remeber the "Marshall-Plan" right after WW2?

On another Issue I strongly disagree with you and this is the "necessity" for the Iraq-War.
I still stand up for what I wrote ages ago:

Why I do think this way? [Note: Going to war is a bad idea] Well, the result of the UN-Inspections backed by a military threat was an Iraq under control. Let me repeat this Iraq was under control, weapons were destroyed (no, I'm not naive enough to believe that there are not plenty of weapons left) and Inspectors made at least some sort of progress.
The Result of war so far: dozends of US and British Troops killed, hundreds of Iraqi soldiers killed, plenty of civilian victims, destabilizing influence on the whole Region and worst of all creating symphathy for Hussein within the neighbour countrys which before did clearly support disarmament of Iraq.
Taken from my post here

Secondly, You stated before that other Countrys also thought that Iraq was producing WMDs. Among those you name Germany and that is absolutely untrue...but an understandable misperception.
For example the Information about those "Mobile Production Facilitys" (Chem- / Bio-Production Facilitys on Trucks) presented to the UN as "proof" of WMD capability, opriginaly came from the BND (German intelligence service) but for some strange reason (maybe the communication got interfered somehow) the german Report stated that Saddam Hussein had outfitted Trucks with communcations equipment and means to have mobile command posts...

IMHO a perfect example of the way Information was, let's say "filtered", to match the Administrations desiered tone. (just listen to all those former FBI and CIA employees that are talking of how they were instructed what information to look for and what information to hold back)

But this is a Michael Moore Film Thread so lets get back to the point:

-about the NRA-Meeting after the shooting:
while there may be Laws that forced the NRA to hold that Meeting, my perception was more a criticism was mainly towards Mr. Hestons Speech and not towards the meeting itself; (the "from my dead cold hands" and "don't come here? We are already here" quotes)

-about the "Guns are evil" theme:
While I may be mistaken or I may have seen a different movie, I realized a strong tendency towards Gun control (for exampel the victim's Father quote " A Tech 9 is not used for killing deer") but not a single sign of demonization of guns on a general Basis (else the whole deal of showing how gun-loving Canadians are, but how few gun-murders there are would have been pointless)
Downsizing the whole "Bowling for Columbine" Movie to it's core it is the Question why there are so many more Gun-Killings in the US then anywhere else in the world.

Interestingly enough of all the things that I read about the Movie I have never ever read a single line about what imho is the most distressing quote in the film. It is this female militia member stating that one calls the police because they have guns and something of cutting off the middleman and taking care of it (intruders) oneself. Is it just me being ignorant or isn't it the police's role to protect the innocent AND uphold the law? After all the above statement sounds an awefull lot like a propaganda slogan for self-justice to me.


-about Fahrenheit 9/11
For me it is a little hard to understand those people that bash on the movie saying it is too biased, it is too negative on Bush.
Come on, that President was not elected by the majority of the people but empowered by a court's decision to stop the recount in Florida, he did nothing (!) on the Security Briefing that stated that Osama Bin Laden was planning to Attack America by hijacking Airplanes (August 6, 2001), he evacuated all Bin Laden's Family from the US after the 9/11 Attacks, he disrespected human rights and the Geneva Convention by mistreting prisoners in Gitmo, he misled the US population by presenting speculations as facts, he send Soldiers into war without having a solid plan for the time after, etc.
Is the movie too negative on Bush?

I'd say no...but what do I know...I am probably too simple minded, as I don't even understand why President Bush is happily in office and there is not even an official examination of all of the above and on the other hand President Clinton almost had to resign because of having Sex with a person that agreed to it.

But wait, after having said the above....maybe I should not travel to the US for the next decade or two as customs will probably arrest me for being a potential Terrorist and lock me up and I better close by pleaing to Mr. Bush not to invade Germany as it harbours such potentialy dangerous Persons as myself...

edit: @Munkay When asked about patriotism I like to quote Oscar Wilde: "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious."