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Interesting read about Moore's "deceits". I finally saw the movie this weekend so I can finally go through them and see what they are complaining about. I have to say they make some good points, I think it is clear that while Moore never quite lies, per se, he sure plays fast and loose with which truths he gives you and which he leaves out. And he certainly is not above giving you the wrong impression about something by playing with the context of it, which is kind of scummy.


I read this particular critique twice.

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I think Deceit 1 is a good example of that. On a cursorary examination of "56 Deceits", and one which I did not attempt to do any research on the validity of any of the points, I have to say that it appears half of them make good points, a quarter of them are nitpicking and mostly irrelevant, and a quarter of them are just wrong or are just criticizing


I would not go far as to say that half of them made good points, but would say that enough made points that I would decrease my esteem for Moore by 10 percent. (Actually my esteem for Moore is not very high. He is a propagandist, and I am glad he has the freedom to make movies like F9/11, but I don't hold him to the same standards as a journalist like Hersh).

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Moore instead of actually addressing the issue. Needless to say that is still too much; I hate being propagandized, by either side.


I hate being propagandized when the propagandists try to make like they aren't propagandizing -- like on the Nightly News. I don't trust Moore a lot, but there was enough of F9/11 that resonated with me as to make it ....enjoyable?

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I have other issues with the movie too, in that it was disjointed and seemingly lacked purpose at times, frequently did not make its case well or convincingly, left out several things that would have made their case better, and got caught up too often in sentimentality, which while very moving is also irrelevant to the films larger themes. I am not a huge fan of Moore coming in (hated Bowling for Columbine) and this movie did not give me that much of a higher impression that I had before.


Yes, I didn't really tust Moore's playing on the tragedy of mothers without sons, but I couldn't dismiss it, either. We're up to, what, 900 poor bastards killed so far and maybe 5000 poor bastards with various important bits blown off, not to mention X,000 Iraqui dead and XX,000 wounded...so I'll allow Moore a little excess when it comes to the tragedy department.

When I re-read this Kopel's "59 deceits" and took some care to follow the links, I found that he did not take so much care to correct the inaccuracies in his own analyses such as this .
Anyhow, the more I looked at Kopel's analysis, and the more I looked at Kopel's background, the more I concluded that Kopel is a throughlly pissed gun nut who is trying to avenge Bowling for Columbine (which I have yet to see). Spend some time wandering around http://www.davekopel.com/ to see if you see what I mean.
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Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.