Re: marketing the military
 

Wow. It's views like this that have really set us back as a culture. If it's not these *adults'* fault, who is it? The media? Their parents? Oh, I get it, they are victims of society.

It's B.S. that people do not want to take responsibility for their own actions and decisions these days. It's even worse when people back them up and make excuses for them. Military forces throughout history have advertised themselves being the glorious thing to do for Kind and Country -- these campaigns have worked well. Why should we change what has worked to recruit young men into the military for thousands of years? Nothing has really changed about military service. Typically, the job of a soldier is to kill or be killed. I don't see how that's complicated, and I don't really feel sorry for these guys when they complain that they just "didn't know". Too bad, so sad.

These kids just need to take responsibility for their decisions and back them up with action. I guess a concept like honor is a little outmoded for some, isn't it?

Re: Re: Re: marketing the military
 

What does that have to do with what I said? I just don't buy that excuse of not knowing what you got into when you enlisted. How is it that most enlisted personnel know there is a possibility of going to war and some supposedly don't? But, to answer your question...no.

ktsnake worded what I meant better.

Re: Re: Re: Re: marketing the military
 

It has to do with a lot of things. If you aren't enlisted then you probably have little to no clue of what it's like to be a soldier. Much less a solider being sent to war. Yes history books tell us things as well as T.V. but they don't give us the entire picture. It's actually more like a slideshow for us.

I understand what ktsnake said and I agree to a certain extent but there is a picture Moore was trying to draw with Fahrenheit 9/11.

People like ktsnake and myself and you have other options besides enlisting in the military. (Well I should say it's easier in many aspects and it is if you think about it.) We go to college and we sometimes go on to complete higher levels of education (such as kt going to law school in which I'll be following in a year). It's not as easy for other people. Some people that aren't as lucky or as advantaged as individuals like soem of us on GC sometimes enlist in the army just to get away from their surroundings in the hopes that they get away but in the same aspect that they never have to go to war. (Yet, many go no matter their feelings, no?)

It goes along with Moore following two Marine recruiters that recruit around the lower class areas of town "because they have trouble recruting in other places."

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: marketing the military
 

None of that is specific to Iraq. That is part of any war, no?

In that case, I guess we should just collapse the army and give up on any war because even if America was attacked, then it would still be these kids who don't have better options...no?

-Rudey

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: marketing the military
 

I was more or less trying to pinpoint the poor vs. elite debate that moore was "trying" to present. I do however understand that the U.S. must have a strong military and I believe strongly in military spending.

But I don't feel America was attacked by Iraq and if we were in danger of this is still up for much debate.

If we are talking about 9/11 and being attacked we should have gone after the Saudis but that's an entirely different thread.

But I digress because I don't have it in me to debate, I have the funerals of two close friends to attend today and tomorrow.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: marketing the military
 

Hey I didn't ask if Iraq was a good war or not. I said soldiers die for any war, regardless of good or bad. And in our military, there are more poor than rich so in any war more poor than rich soldiers die.

That's why I see nothing too specific to Iraq by talking about the hardship of soldiers.

-Rudey
--I hope you're ok

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I have to agree with you there...

As for being ok man, I just don't know anymore, it's a jacked up world we live in.

slight hijack/

If anyone could, send a prayer out to many affected families in my hometown...

Story

Blaine

Blaine, you have my deepest sympathy. I'm so sorry for your loss.

that sucks man, my condolences. That story sounds eerily familiar to the people who live around here.

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The ease of recruiting in depressed regions isn't related to only America... the ranks of most militaries in the developed world are filled with recruits from finacially poor regions. However it isn't as simple as Moore makes it out to be... yes it is easier to recruit someone from a poor neighbourhood, just as it is harder to recruit someone from a affluent neighbourhood. It is a product of the economic opportunities of the individual in these neighbourhood's... after all someone from an affluent background has substantially more options available to them, whereas the military may be one of very few options available to someone from a poorer neighbourhood.

When you do recruiting (which I did for 6 months) you have to tailor you approach to the market, and it is much easier to sell someone on the financial benifits if money is a primary motivator....

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Blaine,
I am so sorry to hear about your loss. You said two funerals, did the older brother also die? I will keep you and the family and friends of these men in my thoughts and prayers.

Kelly

Wow. I guess the reason why I read The New Republic even though it's liberal and a Democrat magazine, is that they are smart and fair.

Here is a review of a review also picking apart the movie:

WILLIAM RASPBERRY AND MICHAEL MOORE
Be Like Mike
by Andrew Sullivan

Only at TNR Online | Post date 06.29.04 E-mail this article

Reactions to Michael Moore's new movie have--predictably--been mixed. Most film reviewers were positive, but few excused its factual sloppiness or determination to ignore any evidence that undermined its message that George W. Bush is unfit to be President of the United States. But the oddest response has come from liberals who concede that the movie is dishonest, but still endorse it. Here's a column by William Raspberry from yesterday's Washington Post, which indicates, I think, the ethical bankruptcy of some of Moore's supporters. My comments are interspersed.


Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" is everything you've heard. It is a searing indictment of the Bush administration's war on terror. It is an eye-opening expose of a president whose inexperience and limited intelligence make him tragically unsuited for the job. It is a masterful job of connecting the dots between Saudi money and the business interests of the president and his friends. And it is an overwrought piece of propaganda--a 110-minute hatchet job that doesn't even bother to pretend to be fair.

Hold on. How can a movie be all these things? Take one argument here: that the documentary does a "masterful job" of "connecting the dots" between Saudi money and the president's former business interests. But when you see the movie, you see no new evidence of this--merely a rehash of existing reports that among billions invested in energy companies in the U.S., some Saudi money ended up in some Bush oil ventures. Moore has no actual evidence that this corrupted any political decisions at all--or how it might do so. Is the U.S. too close to the Saudi government? Almost certainly yes. Have all recent administrations been guilty? Of course. Could our dependence on Saudi oil help explain this proximity? Undoubtedly. But is there some secret alliance between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family to protect the mass murderers of Al Qaeda so that the president can make money? The movie doesn't even come close to proving this. But it does imply it. If Raspberry is a journalist, how can he call this a "masterful job"? It's a smear job.


That last may be a part of its appeal: There is no hidden agenda, no subliminal message. Moore thinks George W. Bush is dumb, devious and dangerous, and needs to be voted out of office. He doesn't have that much good to say about the Democrats or John Kerry, their presumptive candidate. But it's mostly about how bad Bush is.

It's easy enough to see why Republicans hated the movie before they ever saw it, why they used their influence to try to stop its production and distribution, and why, having failed at that, they are calling on theater owners not to show it.

I'm aware of only a handful of fringe Republicans who tried to prevent screening of this movie. The only real threats to it were Miramax, a liberal Hollywood outfit that passed on distribution over a year ago; and the McCain-Feingold law, which might affect its anti-Bush promotional ads. Sorry, Mr. Raspberry, this particular conspiracy of yours is about as valid as any one of Michael Moore's.


But why did the mostly liberal crowd at last week's Washington premiere--people who like to think of themselves as thoughtful and fair-minded--applaud so unrestrainedly?

They applauded, I suspect, for much the same reason so many members of the black Christian middle-class applaud the harangues of Black Muslim minister Louis Farrakhan. Some of his facts may be wrong and some of his connections strained, but his attitude is right. What's more, he'll say in plain language what nice, educated people cannot bring themselves to say: The man is a devil.

This is an astonishing assertion. What matters is not veracity, good faith, cinematic excellence, but attitude. And Raspberry even invokes anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan as the model! And who exactly is the "devil" in Farrakhan's "discourse"? The Jews! And this, according to Raspberry, is a valid model for Michael Moore to follow. Hello?

And notice the point of this attitude: not that Bush has been wrong in his judgments; not that he has botched a war; not that he has ruined the economy; not that he has pursued any particular policy with which a reasonable person might disagree. The point is that Bush "is a devil." A devil? Like, er, Satan? And this is what nice, educated people believe but "cannot bring themselves to say"? This is not an argument. It's literal demonization--a defense of losing one's sense of fairness and rationality.


I thought from the beginning that the Bush administration was wrong to launch its unprovoked war on Iraq. "Fahrenheit" makes it easier to believe that the war was not simply a horrible mistake based on over-extrapolation from slim evidence.

Notice this weasel formulation: "easier to believe." What can that possibly mean? That Moore so lards up his movie with emotional manipulation, crude editing, and stupid background music that one's critical faculties are instantly suspended? And this is a good thing? What exactly in the movie makes this "easier to believe"? Just a series of non-sequiturs, misleading associations, and the odd outright lie (that "most of Al Qaeda" was left intact by the Bush administration, for example). If you flashed pictures of President Bush interspersed with scenes of rape and murder, it might make it "easier to believe" that Bush was, indeed, a rapist and murderer--but only because of propagandistic and emotional manipulation of an audience that has decided to suspend all skepticism and rational scrutiny, as, apparently, has Raspberry himself.


I've long had my doubts about the president's intellectual gifts. Moore tempts me to doubt his basic competency.

There is that Sept. 11 scene at a Florida elementary school where the president is reading to a group of children when an aide whispers in his ear that an airliner has crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. He blanches at the horrible news but then returns to his reading: "My Pet Goat." What should he have done? Was he well-advised not to show panic? I don't know, and Moore doesn't tell us. He is content to give us the impression of a man who has no idea what to do unless there is someone there to give him instructions.

And Raspberry's point? He knows that showing up-close the president's responses immediately upon hearing of the 9/11 disaster tells us absolutely nothing. There is no way to know what was going on in his head as he absorbed that information in public in front of the television cameras. And Moore doesn't merely "give us the impression" that Bush is clueless without advisers. He tells us in a narrative overlay--in case we might be interpreting the president's shocked responses as, say, horror, or an attempt to portray calm, or a sign that he's desperately scanning his mind and memory for what this might mean. Nope. It means that he cannot function "unless there is someone there to give him instructions." Raspberry laps it up. He is putty in Moore's propagandistic hands.


Or of a man who only pretends to care about terrorism. There is the vacationing President Bush making a grim-faced denunciation of some terrorist action, then turning back to his golf game with: "Now watch this drive." You can tell how bad that looks--but should he have bagged his clubs after delivering that TV message? To what purpose? The movie is full of such slyness--and if Moore is afraid it's too subtle for you, he'll spell it out in one of his numerous voice-overs.

Raspberry is smart enough to see the cheapest of cheap shots here. But he endorses it! My favorite example of Moore's technique is showing various administration officials getting their hair and make-up done before going on television. It is impossible for anyone captured in this pose for minutes not to look somewhat awkward, phony, and even sinister. So Moore deploys this device remorselessly. All it achieves is the deepening of hatred and contempt for the people involved. It is done mainly in silence. That's how propaganda works. Hate needs no words. It just needs an object.


But it's not all slyness. The most powerful story in the film is that of Lila Lipscomb, from Moore's hometown of Flint, Mich., who, when we meet her, is boasting of her family's military service. A daughter served in the Gulf War and a son is serving in Iraq. Later, after the son is killed, she reads, on camera, his last letter home; in it he tells her how pointless and wrong and destructive the war seems to him.

And now this woman, who "used to hate those [Vietnam War] protesters," is a peculiarly effective war protester herself.

This story is, indeed, a saving grace of the film--the one thing that doesn't seem dishonestly framed and packaged for effect. But it is still emotional manipulation of the crudest kind. Using a grieving mother of a fallen soldier to make your case against a war must rank as one of the lowest forms of emotive devices. It's as ancient as it is effective. But it can only tell a partial truth, and needs context to understand in full. That context, in Moore's crude work, is drained of any sense that the war might have been justified, that it has done some good, that the casualty rate has, in fact, been remarkably low, and so on. There are moments when Moore senses that the audience might end up dreaming of these alternative scenarios. So he either rushes to pre-empt them or moves briskly along. Would it make a difference for the audience to realize that it was Moore's antiwar hero, Richard Clarke, who allowed many bin Laden relatives to leave the U.S. after 9/11? Or that Baghdad before the war was not a scene from Mary Poppins but a terrifying police state with 300,000 mass graves in its foundations? Or that every independent survey found that George W. Bush did indeed win Florida by a minuscule margin? You could have conceded all this and still made your point about Lila Lipscomb. But that would not have succeeded in making the president out to be "a devil."

The rest is at The New Republic

-Rudey

I think it's hilarious that people who didn't like the film - or refuse to go see it - keep posting negative reviews from random columnists. People that liked it - or endorse it - don't need to post clips from reviewers to get our point across.

Hey put a knife through your neck...how do you know you won't like it if you've never tried it?

I think it's hilarious that you're trying to make me look bad when obviously I'm the smartest person EVER.

I think it's hilarious that you can't talk about certain posts so instead you call them random columnists. Funny how the publication is liberal and the publication is incredibly intelligent. Funny are you the latter or just the former?

-Rudey
--Who said don't like it? All I remember is you saying don't post reviews...

Now THAT is worth laughing at.
Nice personal attack...I give it a 4.5 ;)

So you can't respond is what you'd like to reiterate?

Personal attack? Me saying I'm the smartest is a personal attack?

-Rudey
--Well let's just hope anyone else that watches the movie can read as well.

For the record, I posted a negative review then I saw it and posted another slam all my own. It was an interesting movie but deeply flawed.

Please don't tell me that it never occured to some of you that President Bush used the momentum of 9/11 and the fear of Americans to launch an attack on Iraq despite the fact that no link between the two has been established. Have you guys been asleep for the last couple of years?

Anyway, I always love the Onion movie reviews. Here's what they had to say:
Fahrenheit 9/11
Director: Michael Moore (R, 116 min.)
Documentary


As much as the jurors at this year's Cannes Film Festival insisted that the Palme D'Or was awarded to the best film in competition, it was a sign of the times that they chose to honor Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, marking a clear and decisive victory for ideology over aesthetics. A Bush apologia made with the same mixture of speculation and low blows wouldn't even have warranted an invitation to Cannes, but the jurors can be forgiven for getting caught up in the excitement. A free-ranging dirty bomb of a movie, Fahrenheit 9/11 argues for a regime change, and it forwards whatever half-realized or marginally persuasive arguments it'll take to get the job done. Sloppy as cinema and dubious as journalism, the film nonetheless seethes with such anger and urgency that it feels like a historic provocation, one that could popularize truths that have been soft-pedaled by an acquiescent media.

Spiked with signature pranks and snarky pop-music montages, Fahrenheit 9/11 closely resembles Moore's last film, Bowling For Columbine, in form—it forsakes some overall cohesiveness in order to cover lots of ground. Starting with George W. Bush's non-election in Florida, Moore claims that before Sept. 11, Bush was an illegitimate, incompetent, and widely disfavored leader, given to bungling malapropisms and long vacations (cue The Go-Gos). After Sept. 11, Bush came into his own as a self-proclaimed "War President," fighting terrorism by stoking the electorate's fears and antagonizing the Middle East, first in Afghanistan and later in Iraq, where he justified invasion with trumped-up allegations that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and conspiring with al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but that country got a free pass, which Moore attributes to deep connections between the Bush family and its oil-rich friends in the House Of Saud.

For Bush's failures in leadership, Moore submits footage of the president on the morning of Sept. 11, placidly reading a book called My Pet Goat to Florida schoolchildren seven minutes after being told that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. It's a powerful ploy, but it's also deeply unfair: How could anyone be expected to process the news before witnessing its magnitude? Moore also swings and misses on the Saudi front: Special favors were clearly granted, but the ties binding Bush, his National Guard buddy James Bath, and the bin Laden clan make for a vague case of guilt by association.

But Moore gains momentum when he turns his attention to the war in Iraq, which has been waged on a much sturdier foundation of untruths. Fahrenheit 9/11 earned an R rating for showing carnage deemed unfit for cable, but it goes far in belying boasts of precision bombing campaigns and American TV's whitewashed depictions of war. In talking with soldiers and families, Moore also reminds viewers that these battles are fought not by the sons and daughters of politicians, but by the poor and disenfranchised, who currently languish in indefinite deployment. By the time Fahrenheit 9/11 ends, it's abundantly clear that arrogant, neo-con pipe dreams have real human costs. —Scott Tobias

Remember the Anthrax attacks that followed 9-11? It dominated the media, and we all learned that only three nations had that capability; America, Russia, and (drum roll please) Iraq. No one in the Bush administration ever tried to pin it on Iraq. In the political climate of that time, the Bush administration probably could have gotten a full blown declaration of war against Iraq.

They didn't. Conspiracies do exist, but not here. Sorry. Try again.

The CIA report is thus far unable to conclusively link Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The main justification given for the invasion of Iraq was WMD which of course don't exist. How are we subtely implying that they are the most likely suspects for the Anthrax and yet not using that as at least some justification? Can you have it both ways.

How do you know the WMD don't exist?

Just wondering. The CIA would like to know.

I'm not implying that they were behind the Anthrax. I'm saying that an excuse to invade Iraq was handed to the Bush administration, and they didn't bite.

As far as the WMD, we don't know how much exists, but they do. And that's a fact. Remember the recent road side bombing that used a shell with gas?

What report?

-Rudey

Okay, maybe not the CIA though I thought I read that somewhere. Just the commision report. Link here:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...11.commission/

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...&postid=772793

If you would like to cite something in the future, perhaps read it or at least read of it.

-Rudey

Please explain how that proves that there were no WMD.

The CIA is still wondering how you came to this conclusion.

Rudey, I'm sorry my readings on the subject were not as in depth as yours. However, I saw little there to rebuke the assertion that they don't have the missing link ... at least not yet.

I'm still waiting for you to provide evidence to back your statement up that "The main justification given for the invasion of Iraq was WMD which of course don't exist."

Well, me and the CIA that is.

Saddam's alleged possession of WMD's was cited repeatedly by Bush and administration figures in the buildup to the war, but no such weapons have been found since the regime was toppled.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/28/bush.blair/


Uhhhmmmm.. when the heck did this become an attack on everything I say? I hardly think that was a new or bold statement.

It says none have been found. Read the statement before you quote it. An absence of evidence for something doesn't mean it didn't happen. And in this case, there's quite a bit of evidence that the WMD's do exist -- at least moreso than to say that they don't.

Unless you're keen on taking Saddam at his word.

ETA:

This issue comes down to two major viewpoints. There is one that says that there are no WMD, never were and we were unprovoked agressors.

The other says that there are WMD, we simply haven't found them yet.

One of these is pure conjecture that ignores a vast amount of evidence to the contrary, the other takes that evidence into account and makes a sound conclusion.

One view is the truth, the other is a lie. It shouldn't take a real smart person to figure out which is which so long as they are intellectually honest. If you still believe there were no WMD's, you are either intellectually dishonest or you are not smart.

Wow that is one bold and dictating statement to make. Clearly you are implying that you are intellectually honest and smart since you believe that there are WMD's (not that intelligence has ANYTHING to do with believing if they exist or not). First off if you are so smart maybe proofread your sentences so they make sense but more importantly since you seem to know so much on this subject matter, why don't you contribute your intelligence to the US government and help us find the WMD's.

It is bold and dictating.

Intelligence has to do with being able to process the information that has been presented to you. If you believe what the U.N. believes -- which was Iraq's own accounting of its WMD's, then assuming you are an intelligent person who's being intellectually honest, you'd have to know that things don't simply disappear.

If you believe there were no WMD's though, then you do believe that these WMD's simpy disappeared leaving no trace. I didn't say anything about where they were specifically. I did refer to the fact that there is a vast amount of evidence that says they do exist. If you're going to assume that they didn't exist, you're taking an awful lot of unlikely information to be for granted.

If they didn't exist when we invaded, what happened to them? They did exist at one time (and if you want to deny that, you'll be disagreeing with even the French and Russians who had huge financial stakes in Saddam and the oil for food program staying in place). If Saddam didn't want his country invaded, why did he not just show the world where the destroyed weapons were so that he could show he complied with the resolution? Too many question marks there.

I'm simply asking someone who says there were no WMD's to please let me know how they came to that conclusion so that I might inform the CIA. They'd like to know.

To the best of my (admittedly vast) knowledge, Iraq is the last nation to have used biological weapons (still classified as "WMD" if I'm correct), when they gassed Kurds in the northern region of the country.

How can anti-right activists miss this key point? Or is it somehow made invalid? I don't get it.

-RC
--Don't come back at me w/ anything involving "UN" either, that's the most corrupt group on earth . . . just don't. Please.

It was actually chemical weapons, hence the name "Chemical Ali" Hassan Al Majid... and WMD include Nukes, Chemical, and Biological weapons.

As for the UN's corruption.... what's the point of arguing, it's hard to fight the flood of anti-UN sentiment in the US...

This bitter old man still in college never presents facts or anything. He can't even understand basic arguments. It's wonderful.

-Rudey

ahh, sorry, in my mind I had envisioned a bacterial attack, when I knew full well that it was mustard gas (wasn't it?). My bad. (btw - the video from that attack? insane - it's simply awful.)

Now, there's no need to argue the point re: corruption; the NY Times has done all the arguing for me, and it's hard to topple primary-source evidence. Does it invalidate the goals of the UN? Possibly - that's something each person must examine on their own, as the idyllic goals of the UN are intangible, so you may argue either way w/ some success. Does it call into question specific decisions by UN subcommittees and member nations? Definitely, 100%, unilaterally it does. Corruption has that pernicious influence, and generally this is a Good Thing (c). Now, decisions by other member nations and their respective committees must come under fire, not just those of the US (sorry if that comes off as a potshot, and yes it's 'homerism' for the US, but it's a generally valid point, I feel). The concept behind the UN is beautiful, but it has given way to utter garbage - it is closer to an international mafia in many ways, and the US becoming somewhat rogue when compared to UN policy does not trouble me in the least.

Especially in Iraq. Will anyone even argue that Iraq (and Iraqis) would be better off w/ Saddam Hussein in power? Moore would - and hence my distrust of his use of his (considerable) cinematic talents to create a 'documentary' that does nothing more than document his narrow viewpoint using double-speak, shaded truth, emotional arguments, and convenient omission to create a powerful, but flawed, image for the viewers - many of whom lack the depth of understanding of the topic to see through his 'facts' and create a fair understanding.

Make sense?

OK, y'all, you are way off topic. This is a forum for the discussion of the movie "Faranheit 9/11", not "What is your political opinion concerning Bush's foreign policy and its relationship to CIA research". I'll give you another chance, but if you continue to chat off topic, I will lock the thread.

There's no need for this to degenerate into another political bashing-over-the-head. Discuss the points of the movie like the intelligent people you are.

Alright I agree that there is corruption, waste, graft, and exploitation at the UN, but I'd also agrue that you'll find that in any political system really.... but the problem is that with the UN is that they are responsible for their own oversight... and when the political system is composed of around 200 political agendas it is hard for anything do be done because of the massive amounts of red-tape that the system generates... so the system is open to exploitation. However that being realised, doesn't mean that any country should give up on the UN, because then it weakens the system further; afterall it is much easier to enact change from within a system without destroying it...

As for Moore's views on Iraq... I don't agree with them, but in defend my views (to myself at the least) tends to force me to re-examine them, or provoke further thought. As for whether the Iraqis/Iraq are or more importantly will be better off with Sadam gone... I'll reserve judgement for awhile as this mess will take a long time to sort out... and the lessons of history are filled with examples from both sides of the arguement. Basically I'll let you know in ten years :)

PS> Oh and yes I have seen footage of the chemical attacks in northern Iraq... and on the Iran-Iraq border during that war... all part of NBCD (Nuclear Biological Chemical Defense) training.

Um, Bush's foreign policy (specifically w/ re: to Iraq) is a central point of the movie.


Just saying.

So, what did everyone think of the lighting techniques used in this movie?

Be careful, she might edit your post.

haha how were the lighting techniques?

In the Last Samurai the movie sucked, in my opinion, but the lens effects were great.

-Rudey