Not a fan

At first I enjoyed Moore's films, kind of like I enjoy a good chocolate bar, but after the initial pleasure I always found I had a bit of a "hangover". I had that hangover because I knew that, for every valid point that Moore made, he made another that was fatuous. My impression is that a lot of people on the left take his work with a grain of salt now -- but I could be wrong.

and

These folks just can't help throwing in a few sanctimonious sideswipes at the people on the left who are out there doing the hard work. Who isn't pointing out the distortions of the right-wing propagandists?
So the Democrats have been out of power because they haven't been "serious with the truth"? Remember that many of these liberals who are attacking the left are those whose seriousness with the truth helped get America into the Iraq debacle. They've been covering their asses ever since.

Personally, I'd like to see a book about the craziness of the war liberals.

Yes, but

Michael Moore is a left-wing polemicist; Anne Coulter is a right-wing polemicist. They each serve their constituencies by creating a discourse that motivates political debate and activism. And yes, it's highly polarizing, commercialized, and of dubious service to a functional democratic society. It's interesting to note, however, that Coulter has regular invitations on television programs and is treated as a serious pundit by the far right of the mainstream press. Moore, however, gets much less media exposure. In fact, it's well documented that right-wing blowhards are much more exposed than left-wing ones in US media.

Anyway, who really thinks the US is a functional democracy anymore? It may never have been, given that only in the 1960s were Blacks enfranchised and have continued to struggle to protect their civil rights. It has TWO parties to represent 300 million people. Only 50% of people even bother to vote. And the US Senate is an extremely unrepresentative legislative body populated by millionaires--you have to be able to finance your own election to that august body. Maybe it's time for Moore, given his fortune, to mount a campaign for Senate. You certainly don't have to be dedicated to the truth for that job.

My Take

The guy is an entertainer. I watched Columbine and 9/11 and i'll probably watch his next flick.

I knew nothing about Michael Moore before I saw Columbine. I watched the first half and thought he was a genious. He made his points effectively, and it appeared accurately. The second half, is where he started to get insulting and appeared intolerant. I found it disgusting that he ambushed Charlton Heston the way he did. It is fine to disagree with the man. However, he was an old guy dying of Alzheimers - never committed a crime his life. He was a spokesman, but he was entirely unable to defend himself.

9/11 is where he truly went AWOL. He mashed Bush's speaches to make it appear as if though it was one speach. The different colour ties gave it away. You could tell it was political propaganda, far from a documentary. It wasn't even all that well done.

Columbine was a far better flick. Though, in the end, I believe he alientes more Americans than he enlightens. His unpolite, unreasoned, arrogant way of communicating things doesn't sit well with the tempered, down-to-earth Middle American.

I believe he spurs Americans to defend themselves as opposed to chastize themselves.

I always chuckled

Michael Moore talks about how people view his country.....I always found it ironic.

People view Americans as fat, lazy, pompus, arrogant and uninformed....it is almost comical isn't it...

In the end, he is making a fortune. Though, I truly believe this isn't entirely an act. I believe he really cares. I don't think this is all about making money.

He is a bitter, confused and unhappy man. He believes what he is communicating is fact. Though, it is hard to document this on camera...so he simply misleads and mistruths to get him there.

response to this essay was written 3 years ago

http://www.exile.ru/2004-July-08/feature_story.html

"Just just when you thought [conservatives] were down, there's good news for the American Right. Help is on the way. There's a white knight on the horizon ready to ride in and slay the bad ol' Michael Moore. That white knight -- or rather, that vigilante posse of white knights -- is none other than the American Left."

....

"...Moore was savaged in Dissent, the 60's-Left magazine. After grudgingly admitting, "People who have never read Dissent have probably seen Moore on prime-time television (Fox, NBC, or Bravo) or in a movie cineplex (Bowling for Columbine most recently) or maybe purchased one of his best-selling books. Moore has busted through, as the saying goes, reaching a broad audience," and from here the article argues that Moore's over-reliance on revealing the truth about corruption in both political parties is "cynical" and therefore "counter-productive." [Dissent] also calls Moore's mixing of entertainment and radical politics "dangerous." As an example, he cites the wrenching scene in Bowling for Columbine where Moore appears at K-Mart's headquarters with victims of the Columbine massacre, and demands, successfully, that K-Mart stop selling bullets.

"The author of this article, Kevin Mattson, is an American academic, a left-wing Ohio University professor, so you can imagine that his life is excruciatingly dull, his impact on his frat-jock students somewhere between nil and negative-nil, and he doesn't want to think that somehow, this late in the game, he's the one who's gone about it all wrong. Moore makes Mattson and his type look like chumps and frauds - in fact, he threatens their pat jobs as much as the Right because he might flush them out of their campus offices. Mattson even admits so much: "Moore's defenders will claim I'm jealous because I lack a camera and large audience and my views are consigned to small magazines. I grant the point...I am not against humor (ask my friends). But I am worried about what happens to the vision of the left when it plays on the grounds of the sound-bite society." Yeah, if we all just set up more committees and publish more obscure articles in more obscure magazines, the Revolution will finally come. Just ask Mattson's friends, they'll tell ya."

Truth?

"Always the plucky one, Moore then used his severance money to make hard-hitting documentaries, most notably Fahrenheit 9-11, which outperformed even Columbine, grossing $200 million and winning the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the first documentary to do so in a half-century."

Moore used his severence money from more than a decade earlier to make Fahrenheit 9/11? Prove that Glavin! Did I use my allowance from when I was ten years old to buy my house? Funny how this article does some of the same things Moore is accused of doing.

Why is this on the Tyee?

I am astounded to be reading yet another right wing piece from Terry Glavin on the Tyee! The conservative viewpoint is SO WELL represented that all one has to do is open the Vancouver Sun or the Province of Fox News or CNN to hear the same defence monopoly capitalism; a defence of the status quo; and ridicule for anyone who stands up to the oligarchy. Now, the Tyee has Mr. Glavin parroting these same sentiments. What a disappointment.

Well, yeah, but.

I'm a fan of the Dissent column, and its progenitor, Fighting Words by Chris Hitchens in Slate.com. It does tend to create a lot of interesting feedback. There's no sense parrotting the standard line to the believers; it's good to examine the other side.

The other side of this article is that MM fights fire with fire, or "truthiness." If he verges into the grey areas, well, he seems to have survived any legal challenges, I don't recall him getting pinned with libel or slander or spreading false news. He's allowed to spin, we all are. Moreover, he spins for good reasons. His work embraces the values of the left: compassion, antiviolence, transparency (via muckraking).

Fans of his movies come out not just comforted, but more critical, more empowered, more enraged, and therefore more conscious and active. An intellectually alive populace is both the goal and raw material of functional democracy. MM is a public treasure.

Chris H

You beat me to the punch Chris. Terry Glavin is criticizing Moore for the same things that those of us now used to his writing, criticize Glavin for.

If there's one writer for the Tyee that skirts the truth and erects straw men more than Glavin I'm at a loss to say who it could possibly be.

Perhaps Glavin is just upset that he and Moore use the same tactics but Moore is successful at it?

Pots and kettles

Yes Moore is a polemicist who uses selective use of the facts, and oversimplifications, as he did with Canada in Columbine, to get his symbolic message across. He shines light on aspects of American culture and history that are rarely acknowledged by corporate media. It makes people uncomfortable, even amongst progressives, because the myth of American exceptionalism is so strong.

It is interesting though, that the only "progressives" like Laurner, Melnyk and Caine, who are lauded by reactionaries like Glavin are those who critique other progressives. Money and attention magically appear for them.

But what I do find wonderfully ironic about this article is just how perfect an example it is of the pot calling the kettle black. We have someone like Glavin, who seems utterly incapable of even a smidgen of fairness in any of his writing, condemning Moore for the same thing. Glavin's article itself is replete with oversimplifications, half-truths and lies.

And? Is that like growing up in Surrey, but saying you're from Vancouver? OMG what a dastardly misrepresentation Moore made of himself.

Hmmm... now you did fact check this one right Terry ol' buddy? Or did the fact that it was the financial managers of a non-profit foundation Moore set-up who were the ones who purchased and sold the stock seem not worthy of mention? Ah right, you were just practicing oversimplification and selective reporting of the facts to get your point across.

Handguns aren't banned in Canada you retard. They far more heavily regulated than in the US, but they are not banned. Please try to do at least a tiny modicum of fact checking.

Terry Glavin you are an example par excellence of the tactics you criticize throughout the above article. Your hypocrisy reeks, and frankly, time and time again, you prove yourself to be little more than a long winded and rather poor polemicist.

Pot kettle black

And here is Glavin writing about pseudo-intellectuals.....

Wrong subject

Interesting to blast the Left by using an entertainer like Moore. Why not look into the writings of Chomsky, Monbiot, and a host of others that have far more important things to say than Moore?
Thanks James Burns. Great response. By the way, was Moore ALL wrong? Or does what he got wrong a useful tool to cover up what he got right.
Considering, of course, that Ann Coulter gets nothing right, makes money on lies and stupidity, and people still listen to HER.
However, I am going to say that those who want to create equality, justice, fairness etc. in society ought to be very careful who they throw their weight behind. When a conservative lies, it's just a tiny blimp, when a lefty lies, well the whole cause goes down with a crash.
We need balance here people.

Glavin's Crusade

I was a big fan of Terry Glavin after reading The Last Great Sea. I purchased a number of volumes of this excellent book and distributed them to people I respected. When I heard he was going to write for the Tyee, I was pleased. Almost immediately however his writings revealed a tone of intolerance.

EDITED FOR LIBEL. MR. GLAVIN HAS STRONG VIEWS ABOUT THE ACTIONS OF CERTAIN POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS BUT HAS NOT PUBLISHED ANYTHING BIGOTED OR INTOLERANT ABOUT MUSLIMS, NON-CHRISTIANS OR ANY OTHER GROUP. YOU ARE FREE TO DISAGREE WITH HIS ARGUMENTS OR POINTS, BUT FALSE LABELING THAT DEMEANS THE CHARACTER OF TYEE WRITERS IS NOT ALLOWED. TYEE EDITOR

For a recent example of this see the following link:

http://www.stoptheism.com/Default.asp?M=1&T=269

This is a most unfortunate situation for the Tyee and I do hope they can see their way clear to encourage Mr. Glavin to publish his angry views elsewhere. Otherwise, this will have a direct impact on the readership of this fabulous independant news source.

Another great article by

Another great article by Glavin. It's always nice to see a article on the tyee that's not just a cheerleading piece for the left.

Yup, way to much spin in the world

First off, there is nothing wrong with The Tyee publishing a different viewpoint. It only shows an effort to be balanced. Too bad all media doesn’t show an effort to present different views in a balanced fashion.

I like watching Moore’s movies, but I take most of what he says with a grain of salt. Not sure if he explicitly lies or just omits some important truths but either way it annoys me because he is so critical of others for spin and misrepresentation of facts. I think if the Michael Moores, Ann Coutlers and Rachel Marsdens of the world started practicing what they preached, we’d all be better off. Bill O’Reilly should just stop preaching all together.

If you watched Fahrenheit 9/11, you may want to take a peek as FahrenHYPE 9/11. It is as slanted as Moore’s film, but if you watch them both you probably get a better idea of what is actually going on.

canada

Come on, be serious. the loony Right hates Canada, in part, because of what Michael Moore says? If you are going to critique Moore for making a few specious arguments, try practicing what you preach.

The right-wing dislike of Canada (which is shared by our own Prime Minister) is due to us being a largely samll "l" liberal country that doesn't always fall in line with what the American government demands. They imagine that Canada, one of the oldest capitalist economies in existence, is a "socialist" country, presumably because we have universal health care.

There is nothing wrong with criticizing the left, but this article does not raise the level of debate.

“This is a most

“This is a most unfortunate situation for the Tyee and I do hope they can see their way clear to encourage Mr. Glavin to publish his angry views elsewhere. Otherwise, this will have a direct impact on the readership of this fabulous independant news source.”

Did you mean you want Glavin to start producing more left wing propaganda? If he had more cheerleading pieces would he be allowed to write for the “independent” tyee? That’s funny, actually hilarious.

Glavin basically called that shot with, “It's all perfectly democratic, of course, and tailor-made for the marketplace. You get to pick the propaganda you want.” I guess that why many of you, like Jeffrey, have picked the tyee.

Disingenuous critics

What is disingenuous about most critics of Moore is that they are the ones who overstate his case. He points out aspects of American culture and foreign policy that absolutely do not match the myth-making of the corporate media there. disingenuous

But it is his critics, not Moore, who claim that Moore is asserting the ONLY reason for the Iraq War was for oil. Control of oil in the region in order to more effectively dominate the major source of world energy certainly was the primary motivation for the Iraq War. Anyone who suggests otherwise is naive. But yes, the pretense of WMD, and human rights, and deposing a dictator, making buckets of money for military industry corporations, etc. etc. were all part of the motivation to go to war. They just weren't the primary one.

The US is a gun obsessed culture (we had a horrible example of that in Virgina yesterday), and it is still largely a racist culture, particularly toward blacks (you only have to look at income discrepancies and things like the difference in public schooling quality in black as opposed to white communities to see that). It is also ever more increasingly racist toward muslims

EDITED TO REMOVE LIBEL.

That doesn't mean that all Americans are gun nuts, nor does it mean all Americans are racist, and those who take the time to watch or listen to Moore realize he makes that point in his movies and commentary.

In fact, an excellent example of Moore trying to create some balance, and to humanize those he opposes, was an episode of TV Nation where he got a number of gun nut militant American survivalist types together, sang songs with them, and went on carnival rides with them.

That approach is not one shared by reactionary dorks like Glavin, or Ann Coulter, or Limbaugh, or any of the other examples of extreme nut bars out there on the political fringes. They cannot bear to present anything they oppose in any form of a positive light.

As for progressives critical of Moore for his tactics. Sorry, but Moore IS effective, and he does get accurate tropes about the United States into the culture. They get people taking, and Moore's audience often then takes the time to understand a fuller picture of what is really going on. What I find ironic in these progressives' criticism is how they really are the ones doing most of the work for the reactionaries they disagree with. They are doing what they accuse Moore of doing. Instead of a fair criticism of the rhetorical tactics of everyone across the political spectrum who engages in polemic, they focus on Moore. Why? Well as I said earlier. Money and attention magically appear when you softball corporate media in favor of attacking its critics. Corporate media laps it up.

Haha

I forgot about that. Personally, I don't know anyone that leaves their door unlocked, especially in Vancouver or Surrey with the 2nd highest rates of property theft in the US/Canada.....

The bottom line is that people like David Suzuki and Anderson Cooper give credit to the left. Anderson Cooper is balanced, truthful, professional and clearly socialistic. David Suzuki is the same way. He doesn't force things down people throats. He educates, provides insight and speaks the truth.

Michael Moore, George "Loonie" and Al Gore, with his recent political flick undermine the left. Michael Moore is BAD for you people. He either preaches to the chior - or alienates people.

I saw Dale Earnhardt Jr. interviewed - tremendous guy by the way. Active in so many senses and is looking to bring a hip voice from the stereotypical right. He was asked about Michael Moore and responded simply that he appreciated his viewpoints. He said he watches his movies. He doesn't agree with everything, and he knows what Moore is trying to accomplish.

If people watched more Anderson Cooper and less Michael Moore, they'd be more touched. Millions out the need our help and we should be there.

I don't agree with the left's means of getting there. Let's create a good, vibrant economy with good jobs - let's provide the tools where able minded and bodied people can suceed. Then, lets take care of those who can't.

This tax and spend, you can't, you can - take from the rich and waste away - method of government doesn't work...

Hold on about the racism

EDITED TO AVOID REPEATING OF LIBEL -- TYEE EDITOR

I dunno about that JB. Maybe you have a particular example in mind, but my assessment of Glavin is that he is in the tradition of normatively leftist writers like Hitchens who have dared to extend their distaste for cultural and theological oppression beyond that for Christianity. Soldarity with writers like Salman Rushdie, Ibn Warraq and Irshad Manji is an honorable and natural response for a leftist. It's not racist to point out that a particular religion punishes apostasy with death, effectively limiting freedom of conscience and speech. It's not racist to call for reform or to have a sincere debate about common values. Religion isn't a colour.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox...

truth+lies=money$$$$$$$$$$$$

the way we rearrange the truth can be called many things...mostly tho,as kurt vonnegut liked to say"it's how i make my living"

moore is only trying to stay alive in an industry that does not support his kind of truth(documentaries)(REAL OR IMAGINED)

it's called SELF PRESERVATION and in a world of UNCARING politicians who do nothing but fleece the flocks...MOORE IS RIGHT IN ASSUMING...ANYTHING GOES !!!!!!!

hey ! LOOK ! MIKEY,LIKES IT !

James Burns - Shame on you....

You have ZERO clue about what you're talking about here. I spend a good amount of time in the Southern States - from Texas to Louisiana, Georgia and North Carolina. An element of old-school racism exists, though you are completely off-base.

In 1970, 75% of Blacks lived below the poverty line. Today, less than 20% do. (not sure the exact figures, but close). America is the country of Affirmative Action. It is easier for African Americans to get into colleges, good and bad.

The line that exists is due to 200 years of oppression. Though, African Americans have been climbing out of the hole they were put it. Opportunities are endless. It isn't perfect, but Whites want to see Blacks succeed. You are completely WRONG.

You need to stop watching so much Michael Moore my friend. Get to know a couple of Americans. Get to work with them. Very fine people.

vultures

"there's an unmistakable whiff of carrion about Moore now"

and the vultures are circling, even here.

www.exile.ru/2004-July-08/fea

www.exile.ru/2004-July-08/feature_story.html

Great link. Great story. Cogent review by Glavin. Ralph Nader is fat. Fat in the head.

Gesturalism is always loaded with affect. Look at Bonehead -- I mean Bono. No, don't.

I heard Bill Good interview Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine recently. They pointed out that the Left has a greater responsibility than the Right to tell the truth precisely because it is the Left which has always pointed out the hypocrisy of the Right. When the Left paints itself with the same brush that it uses to paint the Right it loses whatever credibility it might have had.

I despise rank hypocrisy. Muslim hypocrisy, Christian hypocrisy, Jewish hypocrisy, left-wing hypocrisy, right-wing hypocrisy. There is no excuse for it, and there is even less excuse for defending it. In fact, the defense of hypocrisy is worse than the hypocrisy itself. Hypocrisy breeds cynicism, and cynicism breeds apathy (not the reverse).

Moore and his ilk are manipulators, not truth-tellers. They use the same tactics that Bush and his cronies use with even less justification. It is preaching to the converted without ever being able to convert anyone else because it says nothing. In order to have an impact, it is necessary to say something new or formulate a better argument. Saying inappropriate or incorrect things will detract from the overall effort as well as damage the speaker's own credibility.

Examples

It is racism if you limit your attacks to particular ethnic groups. It is if you only depict those groups, their religious beliefs, and their culture in monolithic and caricatured forms, while failing to point out the vast majority of moderates, or the horrible behaviors of other groups they are in conflict with, that are just as much a cause of ongoing violence.

A recent example is Glavin's article on Samson as a suicide bomber here on the Tyee. Glavin failed to mention the horrors routinely inflicted on Palestinians by the IDF, which is far more effective a recruitment tool for suicide bombers than radical islam alone could ever be. In every article I've seen written by Glavin that deals with conflict in the Middle East he never mentions the criminal behavior of Israel or the United States or any other western power either in the history or currently in the conflict of the region. He chalks up everything to the evils of a particular religious ethnicity. Hell he can't even bring himself to mention religious extremists of the christian and jewish variety who have at least as nasty an impact on the ongoing conflict as radical islamists. That lack of fairness is either due to utter stupidity, or it is an intentional oversight rooted in a hateful bias. Admittedly, as the above article on Moore demonstrates, Glavin is exceptionally lazy where facts are concerned, so perhaps he is just stupid, or perhaps just a dangerous mix of dumb and biased. But it is just as inexcusable.

lastly

The Democrats just made a comeback, in case the author didn't notice. The comeback was not achieved by supporting the policies that the war liberals supported, it was achieved by opposing those policies. The message finally got through to middle-America that the Bush administration was lying and the Iraq policy was a sham. Michael Moore, for all his faults, can take some of the credit for increasing the skeptical attitude toward Bush. Though I have quibbles about some of what he said in Fahrenheit 9/11, most of what he said was on target.

The policies of the war liberals were simply wrong, they were repudiated at the ballot box. They can't deal with it, and they are trying to re-frame the debate, 650,000 dead Iraqis later.

Sigh

Glavin once again expresses a smug one-sidedness that adds little to what is an important debate.

Moore is a symptom, not a disease. His persona and his works arise from the binary culture of the US, and are correctly identified by Glavin as giving little but a sense of righteousness to liberals, like that which Limbaugh and Coulter offer to the Right. Moore gives us, no doubt unintentionally, a fine parody of right-wing commentary and artifice so common in the US today. Funny that we notice it so much when it's a left-winger doing it, eh?

But Terry, being Terry, is constrained to go on to offer us muck like this:

"The American left [has been] crippled by its retreat into identity politics, and the postmodernist acceptance of a world where there is no universal truth, where facts don't matter, everything is relative, and all reality is contingent and constructed. Just like a Michael Moore documentary."

Glavin doesn't know much about postmodernism, or he wouldn't talk about it and essentialist, reductionist and fundamentally reactionary identity politics in the same breath, but no matter. (I leave Spivak's "strategic essentialism" aside, because I don't think this is what Glavin had in mind.) It's not a little ironic, though, that his denunciation of Moore's caricatured "reality" would have been unnecessary had mainstream American culture developed along postmodern lines, dropping absolute notions of "reality" and "universal truth" altogether.

Ownership of the latter is claimed, of course, by polemicists of whatever stripe, each one of whom has somehow managed to open up a privileged channel to the "objective" and the "factual." But all of them, including Glavin, produce only caricatures as a result.

Where does this leave journalists? Hopefully a little humbled. There is a myriad of observations that appear every moment to the sensorium, out of which they are constrained to pick and choose and construct narratives. There is, perforce, an aspect of arbitrariness to the activity. I'm not arguing for an end to journalism--I have no problem with tests of empirical adequacy and so on--but for an end to the common assumption that, if they're halfway professional about it, journalists report something called "reality," shorn of interpretation, values, beliefs and assumptions.

Postmodernism--and this is lost on Glavin--offers a powerful critique of traditional Leftism, its assumptions, dogmas and binarism. As noted, though, he really doesn't know very much about it: it's just another snarl-word in the dull vocabulary of an intellectually dishonest poser.

Mr moore/glavin

This article reads a lot like a Moore 'documentary'.... is this then 'journalism'?

trashy fodder for the anti-left... and old news to boot.

Moore works in propaganda... what a revelation.. this is the only thing many people react to... maybe you've noticed?

I think he has done a good job of planting the "wtf is really going on?" question in a few heads....

Cappy

Zero? Really? You know so much about my experiences of racism in the US do you? Do you spend a lot of time in poor inner city black neighborhoods in the US? Do you have experience with a cross section of blacks in the US from different economic backgrounds who you've asked about their experiences of racism? Where did you get your stats on poverty? Did you pull them out of your ass, as you do so many stats you like to cite?

More than 24% of blacks live below the poverty line, more than double the poverty rate for whites. But just as important, there is significant controversy over how poverty is officially measured by the US government, as successive revisions to how the statistics are gathered continue to significantly under-report poverty in the US. Go to the US census bureau for the latest stats, or take a few seconds to look it up on wikipedia.

Shame on you for routinely lying with your misrepresentations of statistics and asserting that some utterly vague notion of merely spending time in the US makes you an expert on the existence or lack there of of racism in the US.

Quote:"The problem for

Bluenose reminded me of this quote in the article. I think it speaks volumes about a lot of the “political activism” we see today. People want take on causes, but don’t always want it to affect their lives. I remember talking with people who considered themselves to be environmentalists, yet they drove almost 2 hours to work and then drove another 2 hours back home after work. The same can be said about people who oppose child labour yet still buy chocolate and coffee that is produced by Third World kids (something I am definitely guilty of). Buying Red products to support HIV/AIDS research is another example. Wouldn’t it be more effective to not buy stuff you don’t need and give all the money to AIDS research?

I think it is becoming trendy to be political without actually being too political or making changes. Many people seem to criticise things, but take no steps to solve the problem through their own actions. I think that might be what drives me nuts about Moore, he complains about political rhetoric, yet embodies it at the same time. Something to think about.

James B

Says: "It is racism if you limit your attacks to particular ethnic groups. It is if you only depict those groups, their religious beliefs, and their culture in monolithic and caricatured forms, while failing to point out the vast majority of moderates, or the horrible behaviors of other groups they are in conflict with, that are just as much a cause of ongoing violence."

I agree that context is necessary in order to make a criticism stronger and less readily countered.

But I don't know how much balance is the right proportion. Or if it always matters. When writing a book about a given topic, then, sure. But in a short format, it doesn't. If Hugo Chavez is only criticizing Bush's torture-mongering without simultaneously addressing, say, Putin's, are his remarks invalid? No. One has to deal with the content of the criticism more than its context.

And even if the writing is not balanced, that's a long long way to go before you can successfully hang "racism" on a guy, IMO.

Burns

Ok. This sounds like a reasonable number. However, this is 1/3 of what it was 30 years ago. This is major progress.

Do I have experience in the inner cities - no. Though, I do have experience dealing with White enterprisers, the very people YOU called racist.

I've had tremendous discussions with them on this issue, and they are not racist. They want too see the Blacks achieve. Sure, they stereotype some. Though, it is far from the land of Bigotry you so simply claim.

The opportunities are there, and aside from a few small towns in Mississippi and South Carolina, they are endless. Large companies, professional firms have diversity initiatives, etc. etc.

The tools are in place and change is in progress. You are completely wrong in calling Americans racist, especially as wrecklessly as you've done.

comparisons

Please watch the comparisons. Moore can be called a "polemicist", as can Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Coulter, but that doesn't mean there is an equivalence between them. Coulter is crazy as a loon, and the other two are almost as nuts as she is, and certainly as vicious. Moore is certainly not down at their level.

yammer

So you see nothing wrong with demonizing one side of a conflict and ignoring the horrible behavior of the other side of the very same conflict? Are you really trying to equate that with Chavez attacking Bush and not Putin?

I've already pointed out that what Glavin does is intentionally misrepresent a particular religious ethnic group. He caricatures them, and utterly and consistently fails to embed the current conflict in any accurate context. That is a complete distortion of reality.

EDITED - YOU ARE WELCOME TO DISAGREE WITH TYEE WRITERS BUT TERMING THEM 'RACIST' OR 'PATHOLOGICAL' CROSSES THE LINE INTO LIBEL. -- TYEE EDITOR

Americans?

We've had Americans on here before usually spreading the gospel and their version of tolerance. Seems an element of this type is loitering here again. They defend themselves with being patriotic, or doing Gods work. Muslims are terrorists, gays are deviant, abortion is wrong and generally swallow everything their church and government tells them to. I wish we would see more Michael Moores and Tim Robbins coming out and speaking up for their first amendment rights. The right to question the government and hold it accountable. Not have democracy ripped away like a rug beneath you. Wise up America!

'I wish we would see more

'I wish we would see more Michael Moores and Tim Robbins coming out and speaking up for their first amendment rights.' which right is that club? the right to lie or the right to manipulate and decieve? no problem if it suits your fancy eh lefties?

Snagged a sucker fish....

Back into the swamp you go little fella...

clubofrome you got flashed

the little fella in the hat and old overcoat just gave you the flash club..now he`s back to the swamp

Hit and run

I feel so violated! Damn trolls...

so where is the point

so where is the point Glavin?
MM does a good job of telling people about things that the media tries to cover up, is that so bad?
If he uses the same kind of journalism that everyone else is doing, is that so bad? We all know that the truth is somewhere down there amongst all the fancy footwork done to make a film a bestseller!
If he truly made a strictly documentary and refrained from any commentary, would anyone ever get to see it?
This is merely a reflection of our society where everything needs to be overstated in order to get any notice.
We live in a society where every product is overstated in its claims, where we take it for granted that anything worth knowing is repeated at least three times in every ad!
MM speaks on that level and he is correct that the average citizen needs that "fiction" before he/she begins to think on his/her own!

remember

Lest we start feeling too superior to the Americans, remember who our Prime Minister is, and our BC Premier. They were both elected by Canadians. Bush (at least the first time) wasn't elected.

Truth hurts

Though I have some disagreements with Mr Glavin
Nothing he said(on Moore) is real that controversial.
Mr Moore is not the "left" the only ones who might be dismayed by this article are those that believe in fair tales.
Any cursory reading or understanding of politics can only lead one to the conclusion that Moore is trading in myths and half truths.
He might be a nice guy his heart might be in the right place.....

evil and club are cracking

evil and club are cracking us all up. keep your day jobs guys.

So Micheal Moron is in the

So Micheal Moron is in the entertainment business. What a revelation! The fact is that people love lies and lies sell big time for big money. And if Glavin could ever sell as many lies as Moore, he'd be a household name too.

So Micheal Moron is in the

So Micheal Moron is in the entertainment business. What a revelation! The fact is that people love lies and lies sell big time for big money. And if Glavin could ever sell as many lies as Moore, he'd be a household name too.

So Micheal Moron is in the

So Micheal Moron is in the entertainment business. What a revelation! The fact is that people love lies and lies sell big time for big money. And if Glavin could ever sell as many lies as Moore, he'd be a household name too.

OK James

Let's here your balanced view of it. All Mr. Glavin says is that it is Israel under attack and for the left to stop trying to victimize the PLO, a terrorist organization, Taliban, etc.

Israel only acts to protect itself. The land was provided to the Jews after world war 2. After this, conflict arose. Partly because Israel is a Jewish State, partly because some claim stake to its land, etc.

Israel has been under attack by bombs, guns and suicide missions. They have merely secured their borders and fought back. They have never initiated any conflict - only reacted.

So, you tell us about balance.

So Micheal Moron is in the

So Micheal Moron is in the entertainment business. What a revelation! The fact is that people love lies and lies sell big time for big money. And if Glavin could ever sell as many lies as Moore, he'd be a household name too.

Yikes! I'm Caught in a loop.

Yikes! I'm Caught in a loop.

PS - James

Let's talk about how Israel, Clinton and the UN were betrayed during the peace talks. It goes on and on.

Gone Fishin

Sometimes when you hang up that sign you get a few nibbles, sometimes you hook a big fish... No keepers today, just suckers and carp who can't spell. Thought I saw pickerel, or was it a walleye?

Fictitious Glavin?

I'm glad Mr. Burns and I can agree on things on occasion.
"Pot calling the kettle black" is the phrase that ran through mind too as I read Glavin.

Another dubious claim by Glavin, about Canadians "owning more guns than Americans".
Funny, I just came across an international statistical table yesterday comparing percentages of households owning guns, as well as gun deaths, and general homicide rates, and it doesn't support Glavin.
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html
It says 29.1% of Canadian households own guns vs. 39.0% of U.S. households.So, 34% more U.S. households own guns than Canadian households.
The total homicide rate in the U.S. is shown as 5.7 per 100,000 people vs. 2.16 in Canada.

The stats of many countries, as shown in the table,suggest a correlation between rates of gun ownership and rates of homicide.
Compared to most western European nations,Canada has a higher rate of gun ownership and homicide. England has much lower gun ownership and homicide rates.

More guns = more deaths

I too was wondering about Glavin's claim about Moore's stock holdings. as Burns suggests, Glavin makes it sound as if Moore phoned up a broker one day and said "load me up on Halliburton stock, Jim!", instead of the more plausible explanation (if there is truth to it), that Moore owned some kind of managed retirement or other fund, and the fund manager happened to trade into Halliburton at some point or other.

Fictitious Glavin, maybe?

bob999 wrote... Quote:I too

bob999 wrote...

Isn't Glavin painting the same picture in this article as he claims Moore is/was doing?
Exaggeration - thou art soooo effective!!!

You can't handle balance cappy

Cappy your ignorance of the history of the Middle East, and of the Israeli Palestinian conflict in particular has been pointed out before on other threads, AND you've been given links to resources that could provide you with accurate information that would help you with that problem. If you'd bother to get your head out of your ass and actually read some of that material then you might begin to understand some of the complexities of the conflict. But you clearly haven't bothered, because all you repeatedly do is parrot the tired refrain of neoconservatives on this issue. It's like your sole source of information is American cable news. It's simply pathetic.

Forget balance, simply providing an accurate representation of the current depredations of the IDF in the Occupied Territories would be enough to condemn much of the dastardly behavior of the Israeli military and political establishment toward the Palestinians. That behavior in no way excuses or justifies suicide bombings, but it goes a long way to explaining what drives the radicalization that leads to suicide bombers.

Arab Poem

A poem by the most well known and beautiful Palestinian poets Mahmoud Darwish.

I am an Arab
And my identity card is number fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the nineth is coming after a summer
Will you be angry?

Record!
I am an Arab
Employed with fellow workers at a quarry
I have eight children
I get them bread
Garments and books
from the rocks..
I do not supplicate charity at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?

Record!
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew

My father.. descends from the family of the plow
Not from a privileged class
And my grandfather..was a farmer
Neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Teaches me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me how to read
And my house is like a watchman's hut
Made of branches and cane
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name without a title!

Record!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks..
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!

Therefore!
Record on the top of the first page:
I do not hate poeple
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper's flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger!

by Mahmoud Darwish
1964

Glavin yuck!

Reading this was like making a bad choice at a 'Fifty Flavours' ice-cream parlour - fake little hard bits throughout, ugly aftertaste, could have had the spumoni - won't make that mistake twice.

I'm all for diversity of opinion, but I don't check in at The Tyee for this kind of bitter slam-piece. It somehow manages to be insulting by its suggestion that we were all deceived, filled to the brim with falsity (empty vessels that we all were) by that mean Mr. Moore.

Moore's features resonated at Cannes, in bookstores and at the box-office because he articulated much of what many people were seeing and feeling, but not finding discussed elsewhere in media.

poem by nahida, exiled Palestinian

nahida: I want to go home

I want to go home

Home is the warmth of Jerusalem summer sky
Shining over silver green olive trees

Home is a warm blanket
That hugged a little girl
During an air raid

Home is a defiant stone
In a child’s hand
Aiming at a tank, a soldier
Or even an apache helicopter

Home is a large rustic key
Hanging on a jagged wall
In a refugee camp
Or adorning grandma’s chest
Sitting proudly next to her heart
Waiting desperately to be reused

Home is a tear drop in an old man’s eyes
A broken lantern in a burned cottage
A sad melody in a bird’s song

Home is the warmth of Jerusalem summer sky
Shining over silver green olive trees

Home is a sacred word
Rooted in a glorious yesterday
It’s broken, dignified branches
Patiently hanging on
Despite all horrors of today
Blooming into the sky
Of a magnificent tomorrow

Home is the sweet scent of love
The delicious taste of passion
The magnificent colour of the joy
The tender touch of the beloved

Home is the warmth of Jerusalem summer sky
Shining over silver green olive trees

I want to go home

How ironic

How ironic that I should read this article today... I'm a huge fan of Michael Moore- BECAUSE he is so annoying and sloppy-looking and in-your-face extreme left wing. I love his documentaries but I have to say I absolutely burst out laughing in Columbine when he paints Canada (Windsor, wasn't it?) as a place where people "don't lock their doors"... see, us "lefties" are able to laugh at our self-righteousness.

Just today my 70-yr old parents in their safe, small town of Brantford, Ontario were robbed (yes, they had locked their front door)... my dad walked into the house and was confronted by the guy. Ever the hero, he grabbed the man's arm and was shoved out of the way while the guy made his escape. My first reaction? "Dad- he could have had a knife!" Everyone I've told the story to so far? "He could have had a knife or a screw driver!" Funny how not one person has said "He could have had a GUN!" If it is true, as Glavin says, that we once had a worse gun problem here and did something about it, well, WE DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT!! Given the horrific events of yesterday's shooting at Virginia State, Michael Moore's persistent demand that the gun laws be made stricter are something to commend.

what's the point?

As a curious consumer of alternative media I was immediately drawn to this article. I quickly found myself wondering what this piece was doing on the Tyee but pressed on and was ultimately rewarded by reading the thoughtful and intelligent letters from certain posters who were able to articulate Terry Glavins lack of intellectual honesty in his poorly written hack job on Michael Moore.

The overlooked fact in all the agonizing over left/right divisions in North America is that few people in either camp want to admit that the US government,enabled by their lap dogs in Canada, Australia and the UK, have permanently poisoned the Mid East with nuclear waste (DU) in what will eventually be recognized as the most evil act of genocide the world has ever known. As a Canadian I am more than a little concerned about our governments role in this. Anyone who actually bothers to study history already knows that the US and the UK have the blood of tens of millions of innocents on their hands. Why should we join that sleasy club? It should also be obvious that, as in South America, the oligarchy here have created liberal and conservative parties to sucker the "peasants" into thinking they had democracy. Wow..how gullible can you get?

I salute Moore for having the guts to go up against this empire of evil and if you think that is just over the top hyperbole then consider for a moment what gives the Canada and the US the right, with only 5% of the worlds population, to consume close to 30% of its resources? What gives us the right to carpet bomb and poison in the mid east and Vietnam and destroy the environment so we can drive our bloated bodies in gas guzzlers to eat hamburgers?

Michael Moore is only trying to point out these massive hypocrisies in a way that thoroughly brainwashed people can understand. Personally, as a rather shrewd and well educated person, I've written off our chances of surviving the results of our mostly unmitigated greed. Up until recently I thought we could turn it all around but I have only to look at people on the left arguing about how to "be effective without appearing extreme" to know that we don't stand a chance..it's too bloody late.

You want an honest spokesperson locally? Look no further than Kevin Potvin. It's time to say we're pissed off and won't take it any more but that would mean a lot of belt tightening is in order and I just don't see the will to cut consumerism off at the knees to save the planet when most of those who would form the bulk of a grass roots revolution are too wrapped up in materialistic binging and/or are under the impression that the USA isn't really all that evil.

Just like CanWest

"When will the left and liberals realized that they have been exquisitely used and played like a violin by Moore?"

It reminds me of the right of center being played by CanWest Global. The difference is that Moore doesn't pretend.

Why is this right-wing slop

Why is this right-wing slop in the Tyee?

michael moore is a shameless

michael moore is a shameless liar and a fat slob. but the left love him b/c he advances their 'cause'. what a joke!

Boris Moris is not alone ...

You are not alone thinking the way you do. I do and and many people on this list do too. We are not alone. You are right that Michael Moore --consciously or not-- uses sometimes demagoguery. Considering the greedy, extremists of the right use atom bombs, propaganda techniques that would make Hitler salivate, can he --we-- "afford" to use reason anymore? Sometimes you have to use fire with fire! Sometimes! I think, however, that Mr. Glavin should be allowed to write and express himself to remind ourselves that there are people who think like he does and expose their delusions ... of haters with grandeur, patience, understanding, compassion, sometimes! The rest of the times, let's use the same dirty, old techniques they use to abuse this earth and sensible people.

Hey ...Capitalism ...

Yes ... the land was given to Israel after the war ... And, before that, nothing happened? Let's just wipe thousands of years of history. How convenient! I think you should leave this country because,... before Cartier, well, you know,... people who don't look like you lived here. Oh! Sorry! Perhaps this is not relevant to you? And, BTW, left-wing people are not pro-extremists. There are Palestinians just like they are Israelis who believe in peace and compromise. There are many organisations on both sides of the border who would rather compromise, but would the war salesman compromise on a good sale to buy his Armani suit, his BMW/Lexus/Benz to show off his friends? Who cares if this means killing a few hundred people. And, most people on the left condemn extremism and religious extremism of all kind (Jews and Palestinians) who are not reasonable people too, although when you had your child killed it is the toughest thing to be and those bastards know it. Shame on those people! Shame on the war salesmen and the ones who profit from those sales! Shame on the religious leader who use this for political gain!

You guys just don't get it

You guys just don't get it do you? Obviously, Glavin has to be just another right-winger slagging the Lefties, Right?

Post-modernist historical revisionism is perfectly OK if it favours the Left, Right? And "the end justifies the means" (our cause being soooo pure) allows us to lie through our teeth if it promotes "the cause". Right?

And so "truth" becomes just another of those irrelevant words in a world dominated by the Neocon media, Right? Obviously, Glavin's only purpose is to spread dissention among the True Believers, and the Tyee should ban him.

Since all this is so glaringly evident, why can't the Left elect even a dogcatcher in the US? Even in Canada the NDP is becoming irrelevant, despite Canada being a country in which socialistic policies still find favour among the electorate. In the next election it is possible the Greens will get more votes than the NDP.

When I was a young man, Even if Lefties were hated, nobody accused them of lying. Not so today, with the Lefty's acceptance of RealPolitik and the New Morality, so convincingly displayed by so many posters on this thread.

So keep fishing in the swamps, boys, those catfish are plenty good enough for you. And if anybody comes along and suggests there might be a better way to fish, you just keep telling him "Nossir, we don't need your kind around here"

Handguns banned??

With a spot on rebut, James Burns said: Handguns aren't banned in Canada you retard. They far more heavily regulated than in the US, but they are not banned. Please try to do at least a tiny modicum of fact checking.

Man oh man Glavin, like James Burns said, handguns are NOT banned in Canada... Do you do your homework at all?? Pathetic.

I have mixed feelings about Michael Moore. I believe he set out to do a good thing. He, like Gore, and others, MADE PEOPLE THINK! I like this, because in a democracy (albeit compromised as such), people HAVE to assume a sense of responsibility, in order to maintain the health of this type of government. I think today, they are starting to do that.

I do split off easily on the concept of Gun's Bad. The reason for this is it is proven in other countries that No guns equal Big bombs... Violence is a social problem not a gun problem. A sick mind or a sick society WILL find a way to act it out, this is for sure... We need to deal with the underlying issues imo.

Peace,

Bear

Reality / James

Piss off James. Usually I don't get angry, but you are indicative of the big problem in our society. You are an apologist for these people. These people are islamic fundamentalists. Everything they do is in the name of God, much of it is hatred directed towards the Jews.

Israel, rightly or wrongly was given to the Jews after World War 2. It was primarily unoccupied land.

What do you suggest happens James - give it back!?!?! They've now given up most of West Bank.

You guys are shameful.

Some facts to back it up, Glavin?

Mr Glavin, would you mind explaining to interested readers where you got your statistic that Canadians "own more guns than Americans do"?

Whether per-capita, or in aggregate, I find this difficult to believe.

Please elaborate, if you happen to read this.

Cappy you are spectacularly ignorant

You clearly have no concept of what an apologist is, and all you're interested in doing is maintaining your ostrich-like behavior by burying your head in the sand. As I said you are pathetic.

Even your last little post is chock full of lies and misinformation, like "Israel was given to the Jews after World War 2. It was primarily unoccupied land." and "They've now given up most of the West Bank." What kind of a fool are you anyway? Your statements are utterly untrue. You clearly know nothing of the history of the region if you can make statements like that. Hell, even Israelis would disagree with the assertion that Israel was "given" to them, or that they gave up the West Bank. Your ignorance is colossal.

Time and time again you display the sad habit of pulling utterly incorrect information out of your ass, asserting it as truth. Time and time again the depth of your ignorance and misinformation gets pointed out to you, yet you ignore it. Don't your repeated displays of stupidity and ignorance embarrass you?

More Guns = More Killings

Right to Bear said:

How is it then that the biggest bombs are produced by the USA which also has the biggest, most powerful and most numerous guns? A death-fetishist nation.

The int'l stats table here
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvintl.html
shows a strong, if not perfect correlation between gun ownership rates and overall homicide rates, suggesting MORE GUNS = MORE HOMICIDES.

"A sick mind...will find a way to act it out"
-Do you honestly think if the Virginia shooter didn't have easy access to handguns and high capacity ammo clips, that he'd have been able to kill 32 people? If he had only a knife for instance, don't you think he would have been neutralized long before 32 were killed?

The US appears to have the highest domestic rate of rampage mass killings of any country among western democracies. The US also happens to have the highest per capita gun ownership in the west.

Canada has had it's share of such massacres,
fewer than the US, but many more than in European countries. Canada has fewer per capita guns than the US but has many more guns than most European nations.

More guns correlates with more mass killing incidents.

More guns/more deaths.

The higher the prevalence of guns in a society, the more killings sick minds actually carry out.

To the Tyee: dump Glavin

"You get to pick the propaganda you want."

Of course I do!

This article is a piece of rubbish. It has so many problems with it (many of them addresses by the other respondents) - that to prepare a proper critique would seem completely unpractical. Who has time for this?

But briefly - this kind of propaganda belongs to the right wing trash media - in fact the National Post published a very similar editorial not so long ago also trashing Moore. Why Moore? Why now?

"But the American left had been crippled by something else as well -- its persistent humiliation and betrayal."

It is YOU (and other like you) who are the whiners and rabble rousers that continuously sell an image of "the left" as weak, divided, humiliated, defeated, etc.

You are completely out of touch with the powerful currents and movements of hope, optimism, grassroots organizing work and change for the better - radical sometimes - brewing and fighting everywhere.

To the editors of the Tyee: why is Glavin here? for this kind of crap we have Can West Global and the rest of the right wing corporate (and trash commercial aka Georgia Straight) media universe.

I thought the Tyee was an alternative? Am I wrong?

I want the Tyee to give me the propaganda I need:

- An optimistic, intelligent, thoughtful perspective from the progressive side - especially on relevant issues not covered (or under reported) in the corporate media.

"You'll find demagogues like Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly down one aisle, and the equally fatuous and shrill Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell down the other aisle. Take your pick."

I certainly will (and do) take my pick - yet all of these have something in common: they are successful and have connected with their respective audiences for a reason - something that sets them apart from the bitter ex-leftist that is Glavin.

it's fair enough that you

it's fair enough that you want only the view of the 'progressive' left from the tyee, but in that case none of you have a right to complain about canwest being too far right. i say the tyee gains credibility and legitimacy by showing both sides of a story.

Keep Glavin

Hell, no. Keep this miserable excuse for a journalist around. He makes Murray Dobbin look even better than he already is. :)

Vote Splitting

When you're concerned more with symbols than with the real world, you don't have to be accountable for the real-world consequences of your actions. It's that irresponsibility that persists in Ralph Nader campaigners, Moore among them, whose vote-splitting is the reason Al Gore lost and George W. Bush got elected to the White House in the first place, back in 2000.

In this paragraph, Terry Glavin is basically doing some Canadian Liberal politics by proxy. The idea here is to indoctrinate people with the highly questionable idea that "vote splitting" elected Bush, and then in a Canadian election transfer that kind of thinking to Harper's win in 2006.

The next step is to blame it on Layton and the NDP for "Naderizing" poor Paul Martin and his valiant Sponsors, ... er, ... Liberals!

Tyee vs. Canwest

An important difference between the Tyee and Canwest, is that Canwest has a dominant media
presence, especially in B.C., owning the 3
largest B.C. daily papers, including both Vancouver major dailies, plus a national paper,plus many smaller and regional players,plus TV and radio network stations.

The problem with CanWest to many people is not that they are right wing, but that they dominate many media markets while simultaneously stifling opinion that diverges from the Asper party line.

CanWest vs. The Tyee: CanWest in B.C. is a huge ravenous shark in a small pond, vs. a spring salmon over 30 lbs. (the definition of a tyee)!

Tyee vs. Canwest

The difference between the Tyee and Canwest is that Canwest controls Canada's Middle East foreign policy; how else to explain the fact that Canada has a free trade agreement with a stinking torture state like Israel.

Hi Bobb999...

Bobb999, we are often on the same side of an issue, hummmm, please allow me to explain.

I wasn't as clear as I would have liked to have been my friend. I think I should have said pipe bombs or other types of bombs could also have been used to get a significant effect by the killer in Virginia or other similar mass killings that have happened in the past. It may have been less, but it may have been more dead people at the end of the day with home made bombs. I apologize, as I did not wish to suggest the use of nuclear bombs....

I don't know Bobb999, but as I said, if someone wants to kill one or many people, the gun is not the only way to do it….unfortunately :-( Otherwise, it would be easy…Ban the Gun, and initiate programs to help the people dealing with a violent tendency.

I suggest that violence in society is a social problem, NOT a gun problem. When you think about it, after the banning of the gun, what is next, banning knives, sticks, fists, or legs because they are used for kicking someone?? Weapons have been around as long as humans, you can't blame a weapon for the intent of the heart, as weapons are simply an extension of the intent of the heart.

Really, Bobb999, it is a little like banning cars because they have been used to kill people standing around at a bus-stop...It doesn't make sense.

Here is some thoughts…If someone wants a gun, we need to ensure that they receive a significant level of training, and perhaps even qualify every few years at a qualified range. We also, as a FA community, need to turn in people we have a concern with, and NOT hesitate to do so... These are the responsibilities which are and need to even more, be put on people who choose to have a FA, and the FA community that they are then now a member of.

We need to impose better social programs to deal with suicides, depression and mental illness, in an effort to prevent a potentially sad situation, such as in Virginia, from showing up again. Obviously, from what I am hearing, there were many warning signs that the Virginia Tech killer gave out, and yet it seems no one took them seriously enough... I am sure we will hear more as time goes on. It is now an opportunity to learn and adjust in order to work towards the prevention of another horrendous tragedy such as the Virginia killings. My view.

Peace Bobb999,

Bear

cappy you and your so called

cappy you and your so called know-it-all bunch are the reson this great country is under attack within, GREED, MONEYMONGERS Bottom feeders but you will be last in the short run as the $$bubble bursts!
Bottomline shareholders "Wealth Without Work" is killing people and you will answer one day for your greed! Capitalism great handle, not

Quote:Piss off James.

So, Cappy, you married a Canadian, eh?

Republican by chance, Cappy?

Everything James Burns is saying about you is dead on. I would say it... differently, but not really any better and you're better off hearing it from James.

Its like this, Capitalism. You're ignorant. In fact, you're so ignorant, you have no clue as to how ignorant you really are. And the readers have to put up with it!

When you learn, Cappy, what the difference is between, truth, half truth, fallacies and finally, lies, you'll have a chance at seening reality for what it is.

Until then, you'll be like Glavin. Seeing the world with blinders on and what you think you see as being real is illusion.

And as for Glavin, aint he militant? I guess he didn't like Bowling for Columbine, or 911. Terry Glavin, if you are reading this, shape up. Everyone can write a few bad stinkers... and this is one of them.

Michael Moore has faults, not surprising!

Michael Moore is like everyone else...he has some faults. Fortunately, there are people like Michael Moore who will stand up and expose government and multinational corporations for what they are...liars and crooks. Unlike other loud mouths like Ann Coulter, he has definitely received a lot of abuse from the American Networks and no recognition for his accomplishments. Has anyone seen any Michael Moore movies on the American or Canadian Networks? The CBC would be the only one willing to air his programming since they are not controlled by the right wing. But that won't last long; Steven Harper is trying hard to put an end to the CBC which will put an end to left wing television networks in this country.

a fly in my milkshake...

Capitalism, your way off talking about James Burns like you did. His assessment of you was right on.

...my view, you’re like a fly in a really good milkshake...

Get a life,

Bear

He's not perfect

O.K.....maybe Micheal Moore is not perfect. Maybe he now lives in a fancy house but over the years he certainly has opened my eyes to many injustices in the world.

Would "An Inconvenient Truth" or "Who Killed The Electric Car" been made..... without "Bowling For Columbine" and Farenheit 911" coming first? I don't think so.

Now how about "Manufacturing Dissent"? A documentary critical of Michael Moore. Would the filmmakers ever find the funding for this without Michael Moore proving that there is an audience out there for documentaries outside of a few film festivals. Ironic.

"Symbolic truth..."

Hello -

It's curious that no one here is offering a defence of Michael Moore based on facts...

Someone far back wrote that while Michael Moore was admittedly a liar, his misuse of facts was telling a "symbolic" truth - ie. what is true, but what the writer would like it to be...

The fact is, if Michael Moore presented an actually factually-based film, his whole narrative would fall apart...

Someone else said that if propaganda such as `Bowling for Columbine' (ie. Making Money off the Death of Teenagers) or `Propaganda 9/11' (ie. Making Really Big Money off the Deaths of Many More Teenagers, Women and Men) then we wouldn't have even more propaganda such as `Convenient (for Al Gore) Lies' or `The Electric Car is a Piece of Crap, Which is Why No One Bought One'...

Yes, unfortunately, yes...

thanks

Reactionary lies

That is incorrect. Moore, as does everyone, makes selective use of facts. Issues arise over questions of fairness and accuracy. In Moore's case, the issues center on whether he is fairly representing attitudes in the US (Columbine), or in the Bush Administration (9/11). In the case of Glavin's article, is Glavin fairly representing Moore? As was shown Glavin's article was terribly flawed with inaccuracy for a piece about manufactured fictions.

It's where material presented as fact, such as the Bush Administration's lies about WMD in Iraq that led to the war and the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people; that you have a real problems.

Moore and those who created the other documentaries structure them using facts, but they don't give equal time to those who disagree with them. Reactionaries don't like their messages, not because of a lack of facts, that lack certainly didn't bother most of them when the Bush Administration lied, but because the filmmakers present truths that are at odds with reactionary myths (really their lies) about a pure and good capitalist America.

Hi cousin Mr Burns

Yes, Moore makes "selective" use of the facts, as you say - which is the definition of propaganda - not lies, but the half-truth, quarter-truth, ten-percent-of-the-truth all wrapped up in an emotionally provocative package to inhibit reasoned judgement.

If ChimpyMcHuliburton&Co does this as well, what have you got against them when you defend this same behaviour from Michael (Lenny) Moore?

Moore is a serial liar, and that's what he is. If Chimpy is too, that doesn't make Moore any less of a liar.

thanks

a guy also named Burns

R.T.B.

I guess I misunderstood what you meant by "big bombs".
I agree with you to an extent that, beyond gun issues, there are lots of underlying social issues, including mental health ones, and that these need to be better addressed in order to prevent violence, such as occurred in Virginia.

But I think the stats are pretty compelling, and you seem to be ignoring those. If you check out the chart at that link I posted earlier you'll see there's a pretty strong correlation between
per capita gun ownership and homicide rates.

So,not surprisingly, of western nations. the US has the most guns per capita AND the most homicides, Canada has fewer guns and fewer homicides, England has one of the lowest gun ownership rates, and one of the lowest homicide rates, etc.

And, generally, countries with few lone gunman massacres, don't appear to have more lone mad bomber incidents instead.(the bombings in England and Spain were conspiracies by Islamists, and such bombings haven't occurred elsewhere in Europe).

I'd say cars don't compare well to guns.
Handguns (ones more powerful than pellet guns) are designed specifically to kill people. Cars are designed as transportation, not as weapons, and rarely
does anyone actually use a car deliberately as a weapon to mow people down.

A large # of gun killings in the US are
domestic killings. If a domestic argument ensues, and there's a gun lying conveniently on the table, don't you think someone is more likely to get killed, than if there was no gun? And guns are quicker and easier to use than knives. Just point and pull.You don't have to move from your couch.It's too lethally easy. Lots of children get killed accidentally too where there are handguns in a home. You can say better gun storage is the answer, but realistically we know there will always be many people with sloppy, irresponsible habits, and therefore there will always be lots of needless gun deaths in homes with guns, especially handguns.

Despite what the NRA likes to claim,
MORE GUNS = MORE DEATHS, and the stats substantiate this.

******************************************

On Moore and Glavin: My prior posts weren't
intended primarily as a defense of Moore. They were a criticism of Glavin's distortions, some of which are glaringly obvious.
I accept that Moore has engaged in hyperbole
and "selective editing" at times to put across his message. Personally, I wish Moore had been more attentive to being strictly factual, as I wish Glavin would be.

you play the game you bitch about

Moore didn't lie as far as I know from what has been presented about his documentaries. A lot of his critics certainly change the subject with accusations about where he was raised, what stock he may have held, etc. But actual lies are not something you can point to like the utter fabrications of the Bush Administration to provide justification for the Iraq War. Moore also didn't use his films to justify or advocate and engage in murder. There is a big difference between just calling a group of people assholes, and then going further to use that accusation as justification for murdering them and their families.

What Moore did was excoriate cherished American myths. He did it in an entertaining and engaging fashion. In fact, in order to engage his audience he HAD to present the material in the way he did. Detailed caveats for every fact would have made his films ineffective. And yes he made a lot of money doing it. That Moore was able to entertain and make money appears to piss his critics off far more than concern over facts. For example, you arbg make use of the tactics you accuse Moore of, by equating his films with merely an effort to make money off the suffering of others, and your references to Bush as Chimpy. Rather ironic behavior for someone concerned with propaganda. Then again I'm rarely suprised just how quickly self-righteous hypocrites are ready to throw stones.

james burns yes, terry glavin no.

James Burns-thanks for your comments, they were informative and well reasoned as usual.

Terry Glavin-were did you get the "facts" on Moore's investments?
How dare you call Cindy Sheehan "shrill". She lost her son in that horrible unnecessary war, has bravely opposed Bush and been a rallying point to many opposed to the war. If that's "shrill" to you, then to me-you are no journalist.

Bobb999...

Thanks Bobb999 for your reply.

Indeed the social issues need to be addressed in a big way, more than they are dealt with at this time. This is a changing world, and not everyone can keep up with the pressures and life stresses. We are living in a time where fear is promoted, and the weak are vulnerable… I appreciate that you agree that these people require attention.

You know Bobb, I did read the stats, and indeed there is no doubt in my head that the US is still a more fear-based society then Canada, but the more we involve ourselves in the Bush wars, the more this gap is closing. How this “fear” plays out in the minds of citizens has got to be indeed promoting mental and social instability me thinks. No science here, just a consideration… Really though Bobb999, the “facts” are the “facts” depending on whose “facts” they are…

Bobb999 said:

I disagree Bob, I think they do. They are a chunk of metal. Their use depends on the spirit of intent of the person using them.

Bobb999 said:

.

cont...

cont...

Bobb999, obviously I support proper storage of FA’s. If a person fails to do this, accidents can happen. Everyone I know does this, and it is simply a standard amongst the FA’s community, but where there is humans, sadly, there is mistakes. This is not really different than leaving a toddler in a hot car. What are we suppose to do, penalize ALL the people who are careful, and mindful in order to not risk the life of their child in a hot car, because of some other persons incompetence. Why do we find this SAD for the parent of the child who died in the hot car, and BAD for the parent of a child who accidentally got shot… Why the difference?? Media Brainwashing maybe…??

Anything is “lethally easy” if someone is lethally minded. You asked, “Do I think that someone is more likely to be killed, than if there was no gun”? More likely to not get killed by a gun if there is no gun, but what else is available?? Vase, knife, hands, pillow…. Come on Bobb999, there is way more to killing someone than for a person to get caught up and concerned about their choice of “weapon”. What is a weapon, it is the “tool” used to kill someone period.

To demonize the “gun”, is a red-herring. It takes the blame and focus away from the deeper social problems in society and our responsibility toward this... It is easier to change the gun laws than to change people. Instead of being victims to “the gun”, perhaps if we addressed the underlying issues promoting violent behavior in our society, we could make a good difference in the future… Anything less is such a waste of energy imo.

Sorry about the not perfectly on topic rant, but thanks for the time,

Peace,

Bear

vote-splitting?

So that's why Bush was elected?
Give me a break!!!

more drivel

Glavin quotes Jesse Larner like Christ. Wonder how Christ feels?

Jesse Larner also writes in the same book:

Excuse me? Moore's "failure to offer a stable and effective pole of attraction in American politics?" In a nation where the biggest mouth or the fattest wallet gets to set the tone of discourse, this is hardly an uncommon failing.

I went to watch Moore to be entertained and to laugh at some of the more hilarious American shibboleths as they blew up in the faces of those what spoke 'em. I didn't go to have Moore set my political compass for me. I can do that fine by myself, as can anybody who takes the time to read a little history or discourse, even as poorly written as most of ours is, these days.

If I want discourse on the American body politic, I'll take Kucinich or Dean, or maybe Obama. If I want discourse on the BC environment, I'll take Stephen Hume or maybe Glavin if the issue isn't too political. If I want to watch American (or North American, better still, we're not immune!) contradiction bite itself in the ass, I'll take Moore over most of what passes for comedy these days. Or Jon Stewart. Definitely Jon Stewart.

Larner not only missed the mark, he screwed up his credentials as an "intellectual" by claiming such a thing in the first place. If some poor Atlanta factory worker who can't find Canada on a map with a guide dog and a GPS laughs along with Moore's film, that doesn't make the factory worker a political ally, or Moore a genius. It's just humour.

I didn't buy the "free checking account gun" in Columbine, and I didn't buy Toronto's unlocked doors either.

Glavin's right about one thing. The American Left has to start calling a spade a spade. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is NOT the American Left. How he mixed the two up, I'll never know.

Hey cuz...

"Detailed caveats would have made his propaganda ineffective..."

Indeed. They would be ineffective because his "facts" are, as I said, the half-truth, quarter-truth, fifth-truth, 10%-truth, 1%-truth all wrapped up in an emotionally provocative package which militates against reasoned judgement...

That is the definition of propaganda.

I'm not pissed off that Michael Moore has made his millions - I actually believe in the capitalist system. I mean, if Michael Moore can fool millions of people, why shouldn't he make millions of dollars? I am only dishonest enough to fool my wife and kid sometimes, which is why I'm poor (damn those skillfull con artists!)

What puzzles me is that people (ahem, ahem cousin James Burns) who scream about "lies"
sit there and eat up his crap like its crepe.

thanks
Roundhead

just self-righteous distraction

Your definition of propaganda is incorrect. What's more, emotion is necessary for reasoned judgment.

Moore's material uses emotion to provoke questioning about cherished American myths. Far from militating against reasoned judgment, he designs his material to question those myths, to shock Americans out of their complacency, and he does it in an entertaining fashion. That gets them thinking, it doesn't shut thinking down. It is part of starting a process of taking apart the fabric of lies Americans tell themselves about their society. It starts a very important discussion. Of course some of the audience, particularly people like you, don't like your lies questioned, but that's fine, it's a part of the debate.

In fact, the debate about Moore proves my point.

What puzzles me about people like you arbg, is your inability to distinguish between what Moore does, and what the Bush Administration does. You scream about Moore's tactics, but show no outrage over the tactics of a war criminal like Bush. You nit-pick over certain details of Moore's messages precisely to avoid talking about the implications of what he says.

Jacks You really believe

Jacks You really believe bushco got in by popular vote and has nothing to do with the "Dibold" voter machines?
I bet you voted for gordo?
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Korten/WhenCorpsRuleWorld_Korten.html
read this evil murderous group,
http://www.bilderberg.org/
http://www.bilderberg.org/2006.htm#VIP
http://www.bilderberg.org/land/diggers.htm

Bear

Yes, there are lots of contributing factors that impel greater or smaller #s of people in different countries to commit violence.

Cultural attitudes, social inclusion/exclusion, mental health policies,
social and crime problems, proper training/education of gun users,etc., are some of the factors. We can agree there.

But how can one accept all those things as being factors ,
but claim that prevalence of guns and laxness of laws is completely irrelevant, and not a contributing factor whatsoever??!

How can one say, only the other factors are relevant, everything EXCEPT gun ownership?
Sounds like serious denial.

I still say stats say
MORE GUNS = MORE VIOLENCE.
That's not to say "more guns" is the only factor, but to completely deny
that it's at least a factor is serious denial, IMO.

-I'm recalling a routine some stand up comic
did years ago:

"There's a group of protesters with signs, chanting outside the art gallery today. They're upset over the recent order to close the convenient located retail kiosk that for years operated unmolested next door to the gallery.
Yes, authorities have inexplicably and unfairly shut down the popular hydrochloric acid stand!

Some signs and chants we're hearing today:
"It's our right to buy hydrochloric acid before we visit the gallery, if we so choose!"
And "Acid doesn't destroy paintings. People destroy paintings!"

**********************************
By the way, I've mentioned on a few prior threads about the Number 23 apparently and uncannily appearing in many more disaster news stories than sheer chance should allow for. Jungian synchronicity, or-? William Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson wrote about it, and Jim Carrey recently explored the 23 Enigma in his movie, "The Number 23".

I don't report this with enthusiasm, but the
Virginia mass murderer was 23 years old and murdered 32 (23 reversed) innocent people. Should we be surprised the worst mass murder by guns in the U.S. should have 23s associated with it?

ain't it a shame when cousins fight?

"Moore's material uses emotion to provoke questioning about cherished American myths..."

which myths are those:
-that the KKK started the NRA?
-that people leave their doors unlocked in Toronto at all times?
-that Lenny Riefenstahl was desperately looking to interview Ford CEO Roger Daltry when he'd interviewed him twice already?
-that prior to 2003 all people did in Iraq was get haircuts and fly kites?
-that Lenny is just a working-class guy from Flint?
-that Charles Heston came to Littleton immediately after Columbine for an NRA convention?
-that the factories that some parents of those murdered at Columbine produced weapons for the terror-bombing of Kosovo?

those myths - or rather: lies? They were the ones that need punctured?

I wanted to take up your point about Lenny Riefenstahl's lies being OK because "he's just making entertainment" (to that effect), whereas Chimpy McCheney's lies are to be condemned because they cost lives.

The idiot-pundits on Cox News or whatever are of course highly entertaining (so far as I remember them - I haven't subscribed to cable in ten years).

It is their intention to be entertainment - not to debate anything real or substantive. I would presume however, that you view right-wing pundits' lies as dangerous because they lead to real-world consequences.

Lenny is highly entertaining, I will say. I quite enjoyed `Roger Daltry and Me' back when I was young and stupid (and left-wing). `Propaganda 451' was entertaining, too, but it had an explicit purpose: to defeat Chimpy McHaliburton&Co. In other words, Lenny's lies were intented to have real-world consequences.

He is, by your rights, as morally indefensibible as Tucker Charon, Ann Robot or whatever...

yet, you go on defending this piece of crap. Amazing

later cuz

[ps: "your definition of prop. wrong": you obviously don't know much about propaganda]

Cuz, I forgot I was supposed to "scream"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Myth of the American Dream

Keep that golden carrot just out of reach and fools like you part with your money in exchange for shiney beads and other such trinkets.

Hi Bobb...

Hi Bobb,

I am glad we can agree on some important things here, and I indeed appreciate your position... I also know we are a still a wee off topic, but I must say, I am always interested in moving my goal-posts and learning more on most subjects...Thanks for the time.

Bobb999 said:

I still say stats say
MORE GUNS = MORE VIOLENCE.
That's not to say "more guns" is the only factor, but to completely deny
that it's at least a factor is serious denial, IMO.

First I will start off by denying my denial. :-)

IMO guns should ONLY belong to those who have gone through the intense training and testing necessary to qualify for ownership of one or more FA's. But it doesn't stop there, as then they need to re-qualify every 2-4 years or what-ever is deemed appropriate by the “appropriate deemers”.

Also, generally it seems without purpose to ban certain types of FA's. We are dealing with the heart of the issue here...THE GUN OWNER, and who they are. If we can not comfortably give a semi-auto to a person, then we are not comfortable with this individual. This being the case, they should NOT have ANY FA in their possession imo.

(One exception imo is with auto's; Although semi-auto’s are quickly converted in auto’s and therefore banning them would not actually be that helpful, I still do not support auto's in the market, as imo they are too reactive for human process).

The laws imo Bobb, need to adjust and reflect this in totality...

------------------------------------------

Bobb999 said:

I love your fascination with this number... It is very interesting. Have you studied numerology before Bobb999, or is this a new concept for you?? Wow, it is interesting though... :-)

Cheers,

Bear

Good on Moore...

I abhor the NRA... They fly in the face of all that is good and ethical imo. Moore showed their true colors.

Peace,

Bear

Ah yes bring in the nazis

You know a thread is getting too long when shrill fools start dragging in Hitler, Nazis, or Leni Riefenstahl as the case may be.

Arbg you have to resort to misrepresentation, and as I pointed out earlier, you are being a hypocrite attacking Moore for behavior you engage in. It is wonderfully ironic that Moore's harshest critics resort exclusively to rhetorical tactics they attack him for, overstating, selectively quoting and misrepresenting the information he provides.

The precise difference between Moore and right-wing pundits, is that Moore wants to debate substantive issues, and he uses his movies as a platform to get people thinking about those issues. Columbine was about America's culture of violence. Fahrenheit 9/11 was about the lies and corruption of the Bush Administration. He helped push those issues into the mainstream. That clearly pisses you off so much that all you can do is rage at him.

As for propaganda, it is an attempt to influence the behavior and opinions of others. Simple as that. What techniques you use to do it depend on you.

7mm Manlicher

I had that fine weapon for a while: 5 shot clip, bolt action, quite accurate for the short barrel.
I gave it up because:
I did not trust myself with such a weapon.
Need I say that I do not trust any other human to behave sensibly with equivalent (or much more powerful modern weapons)?

No one has the judgement (or the right) to intervene at distance. That is: any rifle can influence events up to a few hundred yards and hand guns can be useful for a more limited distance.

The problem is: nobody (except Clint Eastwood) is qualified to know exactly where his bullet should go to effect an happy outcome

Good work Glavin

Terry did a great jobe here, too bad so many profess faith Moore, a proven liar.

Bobb and Doggone...

Bobb999 said:

.
Hi Bobb,

Just a comment on your previous post my friend, other contributing factors could also be job stress, marriage breakdowns, and excessive alcohol use... but Bobb, that doesn't mean we ban alcohol and divorces. We simply put the offender or potential offender, in to counseling or in the case of alcohol, we put them into an alcohol dependency program like AA… right??

Dealing with the "heart of the issue" is the only thing that matters here bud...

------------------------------------------

Hi Doggone,

Right on, and I am sure you made the right decision for you at that time friend. I was wondering if you are o.k. with Government employees having FA's ie police, and military and so on??? Do you trust them because of their training??

The other thing that comes to mind here is just how many people do not want FA's until they wished they had them. What I mean by this is I do not care if I knew how to defend myself or my loved ones until I needed to defend myself or my loved ones right?? Just a thought...

Peace,

Bear

Hambone...

Hi Hambone,

Lets not split hairs here...What really matters is the broad-strokes. IMO Moore opened up the minds of many non-thinkers in our society and caused them to think... In a healthy democracy this is absolutely essential.

Cheers,

Bear

Bear: I was wondering from

Bear:
I was wondering from your early posts here that maybe you were basically supporting NRA arguments.So, I'm glad to see that you yourself support placing some controls on access to firearms: such as a ban on automatic weapons, and that you support mandatory training. Where we differ is, I think handguns should be banned, and probably semis too. In my ideal world, civilians would not own guns at all, but I realize that's completely unrealistic, particularly because a large number of rural communities rely on hunting as an important food source.
So, I'm not in favour of banning all guns.

doggone's sobering confession about not trusting himself with the gun he once owned
is enlightening commentary.
If people have handguns lying around, their minds are likely to picture what it's like to use them against others. Even quite normal people's imaginations can run wild. If another person has greatly angered someone who owns a gun, they might intently imagine themselves picking up their gun, and finding and shooting that person! Of course, 99.999999999% of the time, such imaginings do not lead to murder, but in some cases I'm sure they do.

I see that you place guns in the same general category as cars, alcohol, and other
things which have negative consequences for many people, but which our society accepts, because it's perceived that their benefits outweigh their negative consequences.

I, on the other hand, place handguns, and auto and semi-auto guns in a similar category as trans fats in foods, pesticides
for cosmetic yard use, etc. IMO, these have no justifiable place in our society, because the harm they can do vastly outweighs their possible benefits.

Come to think of it, it's likely that trans fats and pesticides are even greater threats to public safety than handguns! But they are
sneakier and subtler than guns, 'cause their effects, in the form of large #s of cardio-vascular disease deaths, cancer deaths, and other diseases, are not as immediately obvious to the eye as are bullet riddled, blood covered bodies!

When the U.S. has 8X the gun ownership per capita compared to England, and 4X the
homicide rate, with 29,000+ Americans dying each year from guns, that seems too steep a price Americans are paying in order to "enjoy" their tolerant laws and gun-fetishist culture.

For me, it comes down to public safety vs.
societal benefits, and what the trade offs are. IMO, some things, such as handguns, are too much of a threat to public safety for their claimed benefits to justify their presence.

Bear - About #s...

On #23 - Actually, I don't study numerology, but I found myself strongly impressed
with the mysterious prevalence of the #23 I noticed in disaster news items, over decades.

As I say, R.A.W., and W.B., tipped me off 30 years ago to the strange phenomenon of the #23 enigma in their writings. And sure enough, I've been witnessing it's manifestations ever since!

When Jim Carrey's movie The Number 23 came out recently (Carrey himself has for years believed #23 has mysterious manifestations), I was even inspired to put together a blog all about #23
http://blog.myspace.com/86201106
in case you're curious!

I agree Bobb...

Hi Bobb999,

So glad we had this visit. Yes, we are closer in theory than one would have thought...

Bobb said:

I, on the other hand, place handguns and auto and semi-auto guns in a similar category as trans-fats in foods, pesticides
for cosmetic yard use, etc. IMO, these have no justifiable place in our society, because the harm they can do vastly outweighs their possible benefits".

Very interesting comparison :-) I strangely am with you on the pesticide and trans-fat issue there Bobb. There is no doubt these products have to be banned; they are killing the earth and all that lives on her. I see many poor people eating cheap, fast, food which is stock full of disease-promoting toxins and killing these people slowly. These companies should not be making money off killing people period...It is no different than war really. I myself am a consumer of only organic, vegetarian food, except for some small fish (sardines and some sock-eyed salmon)... Not perfect but the best I can do today. So I agree with you here bud :-)

The difference here is, FA's are not the killer product, but a sick society which promotes sick humans are...FA's again, are not the problem at hand, but deludes where our focus needs to be. Interesting comparisons though bud... Thanks for the mind stretch :-)
-------------------------------------------

Number 23 hummmmmmmmmm Yes, very interesting. I will continue to pay attention to this blog. Hey Bobb999, how did you choose your handle if you don't mind me asking. I guess mine is pretty obvious as I believe in most FA's in society. Too, I believe subsistence hunting is acceptable (more humane than commercial situations and cleaner food for meat-eaters), but in saying this, like a cancer in the hunting community is the allowance of trophy hunting. This I ethically disagree with. I am also not supportive of the manipulation of predators for the population enhancement of prey animals. This is about as anthropocentric as one can get... Anywhooo, thus the handle :-)

Peace Bobb999 :-)

Bear

Bears...

Oh yeah Bobb...and I love bears!!
Cheers,
Bear

Another shovel yet Terry????

Terry Glavin said on his blog site:

From the Canadian FA’s Safety Course:

Terry, when you wear that shovel out dude, I'll pass you another... This is a load of crap and you know it. Your comments are your way of digging yourself out and keeping what is left of your credibility intacked after spouting an uninformed comment to people who are also uninformed. But guess what, it didn’t get you out of trouble from people who know. Who the heck cares about the banning of the wee little snubbies in Canada, as they are NOT the issue, and they NEVER make the news except in a gun collector’s magazine duhhhh...

Handguns ARE legal in Canada, and that includes the same handgun as that the RCMP or any other city police are issued. Shots are limited with citizens, but large clips can be still be legally bought at gun-shows. Semi-automatic’s such as 9 mm,40 caliber, 357 or 44 magnum, all sizes of revolvers such as 38’s, or 45 including an 8 shot revolver by Smith and Wesson, are all available to the public today. If they have been grandfathered or in special circumstances, AR15's and M16s (which in a few minutes can be converted into a full-automatic FA), are also legally owned by citizens. And Terry, there is more, just ask, but for now, I will stop here. All these and more ARE to this date, legal in Canada.

Sooooooooooo "retard", get your facts straight if your going to be talking to people about something you know nothing about. Misleading the public like this is inexcusable...

Grow up dude,

Bear

Bear

I should say, the facts you just posted above on the current legal state of handguns in Canada today, frighten me!

Good job on exposing Glavin's obfuscating
after his attempt to rationalize his "handguns are banned" claim. It's a small man indeed, who cannot admit it when he knows he's wrong. Glavin's often not very careful with his facts, is he? He's big on spewing hot air, but not on citing solid facts.

Are you a rural dweller, by chance?
I wonder, 'cause I believe your view on guns is held by many more rural Canadians than urban ones. Did you grow up among gun users?

Turns out we agree on eliminating harmful environmental chemicals, and even on diet philosophy. Like you, I'm nearly vegetarian, buy much organic produce, and eat small amounts of herring and salmon as my only "meat".

Oh, my handle isn't overly meaningful.
When I was new to computers, I had to choose a user name for access to some site or other. I tried my name + my surname initial Bobb (-already taken), then Bobb9, for no special reason (taken), etc., till I got to Bobb999, which worked. Just for convenience, I've kept it as a user name for many sites. Only later did I notice, or have it pointed out, unintended things like it's 666 reversed, or that b9, sounds like "benign", etc.!

I too think trophy, sport, and cull hunting
is pretty obscene. For me, "live and let live" applies to animals as well as people!

Live and Let Live...

Bobb999 said: "

Right on, and of course, I agree bud.

On the FA\Glavin issue, thanks Bobb... Indeed, I have found many things to call Glavin on, trust me. If we want to waste our time reading his drivel, we had best cross-reference it to be sure...

Yeah, handles kinda tend to simply "evolve" at times eh?

Oh, I am a country gal, indeed I was raised rual. Actually, my dad shot gophers when I was young and I blamed the 22 rifle he used. I hid it everywhere around the house, until I realized the persecution of these little critters was NOT caused by the FA itself, but by my dear ol' dad. That was my first reality check on the subject. In fact, I still stand up for prairie dogs and under dogs, but I talk to the people involved about it :-)

We clearly agree on many issues Bobb999, thanks for the time my friend...!! And I promise to never call you “B9”, ‘cause you are not at all… :-)

Peace dude,

Bear

Hi Bear

I've wondered if one of Glavin's prime motivations is not to elucidate and enlighten (himself or others), but rather, to get rises out of people, aggravate readers for aggravation's sake, be contrary for contrariness' and controvery's sake, and not think twice about using distortion, hyperbole, and dubious facts in the process!
Personally, I hope The Tyee will eventually
come to consider Glavin "a failed experiment" for the site.

When you mentioned the gophers and your Dad, it made me think of a few things.
Imagine (just hypothetically) if your Dad didn't have any access to a rifle, probably more gophers would have survived, and you wouldn't have had to try hard to hide his rifle!

I have regrets that as a young teenager spending months with my young cousins at their family's Ontario farm in summer, we had pellet guns, and creatures like sparrows, and many other birds were viewed as expendable "vermin".

Now I feed my neighborhood birds birdseed, as partial penance for the disrespect for life I demonstrated as a bird shooting teen.
I don't recall us shooting many furry animals, except for barn bats a few times, and a few squirrels probably got shot at.
I recall our local library in Toronto even
had books in the childrens section, such as "Come Shooting With Me", written by an Englishman about the fun times he'd had taking his young nephew and other boys shooting "vermin" on the farm! I like to think such books no longer are on children's library shelves.

The only deadly guns I ever shot were
12 gauge and 410 gauge shotguns to see what
it was like to shoot them (but not aiming at
animals), and my brother's 22 rifle.
Even at the time,I didn't feel so comfortable shooting weapons that could potentially kill people. I felt some trepidation at their inherent danger.

Well, I'm glad to hear you're still standing up for the rights of animals!

Cheers.

Happy Earth Day...

Hey Bobb,

Yeah, no kiddin', Glavin is indeed, an aggravation here at the Tyee. At the least, he is sorta like a fly in a really good milkshake :-\ But at the worst, is also is passing inaccurate information out... This is quite serious. If he stays here, we will have to cross-reference his material for sure...

Bobb999 said:

Yeah sure Bobb, imagine (just hypothetically) the amounts of 10-70 or strychnine he would have used then to get rid of the "dog-town" around his gardens and in his pastures. And hey, he might even have strapped a bunch of bombs on one live gopher and sent him down to take out his whole family... (kidding) :-) Anyways, no Bobb, where there is a will to kill, there is always a way. Unfortunately it is not about eliminating chosen tools, as there are always more tools where they came from, but instead once again I suggest, effectively dealing with those that use them through in this case, perhaps education...

I think you're right, in some ways we are improving when it comes to providing an understanding to our children of an ethical and humane approach to caring for our Earth and her creatures. I think love fits in there somewhere as well. We need to relay the message to the youth that we are not separate from these creatures or the Earth, but the same… I sense you know this though Bobb :-)

Nice visit again Bobb, and Yes, I will always stand up for what is right, and that of course includes what is right for the wonderful critters we share this earth with... We definitely meet on this one too bud.

Peace, and Happy Earth Day Bobb,

Bear

pathetic...

i'd subscribed to the tyee feed b/c i'd read a good article here a couple of months ago, and now i come here to hear right-wing radio spin? blah.

late!

what cousin James was doing April 20...

(typing in wikipedia: Lenny Riefenstahl? Riefenstahl? Wha? What! why youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu................!!! How dare you bring in Nazis!!!!????? that's only something the left can deploy against THEIR opponents!!!! Arghghghghghgghghghgg arbg!!!!)

"...As for propaganda, it is an attempt to influence the behavior and opinions of others. Simple as that. What techniques you use to do it depend on you..."

So, if someone makes a speech at a debating society, this is propaganda to you? If someone writes a column, this is propaganda? If Michael Moore makes a movie, that's propaganda? Everything is propaganda? sheesh, cuz, you need to get some education.

thanks

what was this?

it started out looking like a book review but then degenerated into, basically, a rant.
if he had taken the time to balance out his criticism of moore by finding a few examples of how moore's craft has actually encouraged some people to stand up and become more active as citizens, then his negative criticisms may have been easier to take.
in the end, it just ends up looking like he didn't even try to appear to be fair.

No fair! wawawa!!!!

"...just ends up looking like he didn't even try to appear to be fair..."

Jeez, you'd think this Terry Glavin is Michael Moore or something...

Thanks Bear

You're my favourite pro-gun person! -
not 'cause you're pro-gun, mind you, but 'cause you're not a right wing Republican type, like so many gun apologists are.

And I'm glad there are lots of things we can agree on.

...How to help instil love in children, as well as respect for the natural world...
there's important questions I wish I had answers to. Maybe just immersing kids for a time in the natural world at an early age, can help create a bond with the natural world.
Hey, it worked for me, at least (even if I did get off track for a few years with my pellet gun, etc.)!

Revealing my own biases: in my ideal world (it may not be so practical),
children would be encouraged to learn certain yogic-like exercises, such as ones to open the heart center. I like to think
this could help create a more compassionate world.

Thanks Bobb... :-)

Hi Bobb,

"Thanks" back to you... I appreciate our visit my friend.

The introduction into the natural world was for me, as you say, when I was very young, and I did the same with my boys. Animal and earth lovers both of them :-) There is something to be said about that window of opportunity when it comes to the youth...can't miss it.

Bobb said:

Having gratitude for our many lessons learned allows for a peaceful spirit me thinks :-) It all works to the good for those who love the earth. Oh, I love yoga too...

Peace Bobb999,

Bear

Michael Moore

I think Terry Glavin is missing the point in two ways: One: Michael Moore has never been some kind of quasi-objective documentary film maker. He has always used satire, ridicule and other tools of the guerilla theatre. On the other hand, he has gotten many things right.

But the more important point: the reason so many liberal commentators have come down hard on him is their own guilty consciences: he said very early what they should have been saying. He pronounced the crooked election of George W. Bush and the subsequent takeover of the country by a group of neo-cons - leading to the disastrous Iraq adventure - a disgrace. He said what the liberal columnists were afraid to say. They are right to be embarrassed. And of course they blame him, take solace in the flaws in his films and books. But he did us all a great favour: he stepped in when they all were off sucking up to a disgusting regime.

Bear

There is something to be said about that window of opportunity when it comes to the youth...can't miss it , said Bear.
Well, put.

Hey, thanks for the enjoyable chat.

...Now, back to my (complicated) taxes. Monday deadline's fast approaching!

Cheers.

Bobb

peACe brother...