Can U.S. schools survive liberalism?

[kyleb]

in response to your first quoted source; the fact is, in the instance in question the splices are arranged to reflect the opinion that our government manipulates society though; the claim that Moore is attempting to trick people into thinking the whole thing was one big Bush-Quayle absolutely absurd. the whole movie is composed of a wide variety of clips from different sources and it would be counter-intuitive to assume the section in question is any different.

as for the second; that is even more of a farce. Moore shows the page to prove that the nra was aware of the tragedy and scheduled the their visit regardless of that fact. in the interview with Heston Moore clearly states that the nra had not even planed to rally in flint until after Kayla Robinson died, which makes it rather obvious that the 48-hour portion of the quote was included simply to demonstrate the time frame in which the nra became aware of the incident.


is there anything in the rest which would actually support your accusations, or is it just more garbage? you should understand that i don't have anything against emotional arguments in general; but if i am to belive in something as a fact i will need more than an emotional argument to back it up.

 

[Legion]

in response to your first quoted source; the fact is, in the instance in question the splices are arranged to reflect the opinion that our government manipulates society though; the claim that Moore is attempting to trick people into thinking the whole thing was one big Bush-Quayle absolutely absurd. the whole movie is composed of a wide variety of clips from different sources and it would be counter-intuitive to assume the section in question is any different.

You think the mere fact that the movie is nothing more than a set of clips has no baring on the context of the material within? I would beg to disagree with you. Take for instance the heston speaches. There is a deliberate attempt to msrepresent what Heston was saying. Moore simply spliced a number of unrelated speaches together to misconstrue the chronology as was as the intent of the speaker.

The authors complaint is valid. This is just another example of Moore inability to be honest. So much so he cencored the information. Moore is deliberately misrepresenting the advertisements. This is lying. I provided you with the definition of "lie" in order to keep you up to task.

as for the second; that is even more of a farce. Moore shows the page to prove that the nra was aware of the tragedy and scheduled the their visit regardless of that fact.

Which has what baring on Moore misrepresenting the NRA speaches? There was nothing wrong with them having their regular meeting. one of the major problems was that Moore wasn't presenting speaches from the event.

in the interview with Heston Moore clearly states that the nra had not even planed to rally in flint until after Kayla Robinson died, which makes it rather obvious that the 48-hour portion of the quote was included simply to demonstrate the time frame in which the nra became aware of the incident.

The chronology is definately in question. Aside from this Moore's accussations against the NRA are yet another example of his reliance on emotion to convey his personal bias in judgement. ANother good example is the Heston interview.

is there anything in the rest which would actually support your accusations, or is it just more garbage?

I would expect you to refer to this as garbage. What i am a bit surprised about is you don't consider Moore's work garbage.

you should understand that i don't have anything against emotional arguments in general;

Of course you don't. If you did you couldn't possibly support Moore's nonsequitors. Emotions alone are not instances of proof. In this case Moore uses only emotional arguments throughout his piece to convince you he knows what he is talking about. Objectively, it is apparent Moore has little to say. Aside from personal attacks he never makes any solid links between his theories and the real world.

Obviously you wish to dismiss the information within my links. You choose essentually to pick and choose what you wish to respond to. While clearly avoiding addressing Moore dishonesty and the misrepresentations in the film you state all objections are garbage. This leaves me to wonder. How can you at judged this with any sense of objectivity? How can you suggest these objects are irrelevant and support Moore at the same time? Does he at any point in his mockumentary provide evidence for his claims? No of course not. hE provides the suggestion. His logic is circuituos in nature.

but if i am to belive in something as a fact i will need more than an emotional argument to back it up.

You clearly aren't reading all of my links. You are picking and choosing what to address and refuse to igknowledge Moore's dishonesty. The bank incident compiled with all other incidents purely depicts the lack of credibility Moore has.

Moore's work is trash. He doesn't substantiate his farcical claims. Why you choose to provide props to Moore's nonsequitors is rather telling.

 

[kyleb]

i am too reading your links and quotes, and the ones i did not read i clearly made note of.

you think the mere fact that the movie is nothing more than a set of clips has no baring on the context of the material within? I would beg to disagree with you.

asi stated above, the argument you presented is wrong on the face. simply put, there was no need for Moore to reveal that "the ad being shown was not in fact a Bush-Quayle ad" because the portion of the film in question was never presented as an ad in the first place, but rather a collection of various images intended to reinforce Moore's position.

Take for instance the heston speeches. There is a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what Heston was saying. Moore simply spliced a number of unrelated speaches together to misconstrue the chronology as was as the intent of the speaker.

you must have missed the full transcript as well as the clip from the film which together prove your argument to be complete a fabrication. so again, if you have any valid evedence to back up your claim i want to hear about it, but gathering up all the bs arguments in the world is not going to change the fact that they are bs and i surly not going to keep wadeing in it just because you think it smells like flowers.

 

[Legion]

i am too reading your links and quotes, and the ones i did not read i clearly made note of.

Of course. You said they were all garbage

asi stated above, the argument you presented is wrong on the face. simply put, there was no need for Moore to reveal that "the ad being shown was not in fact a Bush-Quayle ad" because the portion of the film in question was never presented as an ad in the first place, but rather a collection of various images intended to reinforce Moore's position.

Well then there is no need for him to be honest at all. If he were only producing this to convince himself why show it at all? What exactly was he reinforncing? What did he reinforce through the whole movie? Nothing.

you must have missed the full transcript as well as the clip from the film which together prove your argument to be complete a fabrication. so again, if you have any valid evedence to back up your claim i want to hear about it, but gathering up all the bs arguments in the world is not going to change the fact that they are bs and i surly not going to keep wadeing in it just because you think it smells like flowers.

Of course i didn't miss them. They just don't address any of the accussations. Moore lead Heston on making him believe that this was a friendly get together with Moore. Only Moore sprung his true intentions on heston and heston left. What Moore did was both childish and dishonest. Read over the transcript of the speach. he clearly interrupts and eggs heston on in order to get a rise out of him. He was trying to catch Heston saying something he could use against him.

infact the full transcript doesn't prove anything to be a fabrication at all. It doesn't address the cutting and pasting of different footage.

Here is a piece from your link:

I want to welcome you to this abbreviated annual gathering of the National Rifle Association. Thank you for coming and thank you for supporting your organization. I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today. Of course, you have a right to be here.

As you know, we've canceled the festivities and fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. I apologize for that. But it's fitting and proper that we should do this ... because NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity

Wellington Webb, the mayor of Denver, sent me a message: "Don't come here. We don't want you here, "

I say to the Mayor, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I've run small errands for my country from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you could say the same. But the Mayor said, "Don't come."

I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for the newspaper ads saying the same thing. "Don't come here." This is our country. As Americans we are free to travel wherever we wish in our broad land.

They say we'll create a media distraction. But we were preceded here by hundreds of intrusive news crews. They say we'll create political distraction. But it has not been the NRA pressing for political advantage, calling press conferences to propose vast packages of new legislation.

They say, "Don't come here." I guess what saddens me most is how it suggests complicity. It implies that you and I and eighty million honest gun owners are somehow to blame, that we don't care as much as they, or that we don't deserve to be as shocked and horrified as every other soul in America mourning for the people of Littleton.

"Don't come here." That's offensive. It's also absurd, because we live here.

There are thousands of NRA members in Denver and tens upon tens of thousands in the state of Colorado. NRA members labor in Denver's factories, populate Denver's faculties, run Denver corporations, play on Colorado sports teams, work in media across the front range, parent and teach and coach Denver's children, attend Denver's churches, and proudly represent Denver in uniform on the world's oceans and in the skies over Kosovo at this very moment.

NRA members are in City Hall, Fort Carson, NORAD, the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center. And yes, NRA members are surely among the police and fire and SWAT team heroes who risked their lives to rescue the students of Columbine from evil, mindless executioners.

"Don't come here?" We are already here. This community is our home. Every community in America is our home. We are a 128-year-old fixture of mainstream America. The Second Amendment ethic of lawful, responsible firearm ownership spans the broadest cross-section of American life imaginable.

So we have the same right as all other citizens to be here ... to help shoulder the grief... to share our sorrow ... and to offer our respectful, reasoned voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy

One more thing. Our words and our behavior will be scrutinized more than ever this morning. Those who are hostile toward us will lie in wait to seize on a soundbite out of context, ever searching for an embarrassing moment to ridicule us. So let us be mindful ... the eyes of the nation are upon us today.

Here is what one of my links was addressing:

The portrayal is one of an arrogant protest in response to the deaths -- or, as one reviewer put it, "it seemed that Charlton Heston and others rushed to Littleton to hold rallies and demonstrations directly after the tragedy." The portrayal is in fact false.


Fact: The Denver event was not a demonstration relating to Columbine, but an annual meeting (see links below), whose place and date had been fixed years in advance.


Fact: At Denver, the NRA canceled all events (normally several days of committee meetings, sporting events, dinners, and rallies) save the annual members' meeting; that could not be cancelled because corporate law required that it be held. [No way to change location, since you have to give advance notice of that to the members, and there were upwards of 4,000,000 members.]


Fact: Heston's "cold dead hands" speech, which leads off Moore's depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver after Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was his gesture of gratitude upon his being given a handmade musket, at that annual meeting.

Fact: When Bowling continues on to the speech which Heston did give in Denver, it carefully edits it to change its theme.

Moore's fabrication here cannot be described by any polite term. It is a lie, a fraud, and a few other things. Carrying it out required a LOT of editing to mislead the viewer, as I will show below. I transcribed Heston's speech as Moore has it, and compared it to a news agency's transcript, color coding the passages. CLICK HERE for the comparison, with links to the original transcript.

Moore has actually taken audio of seven sentences, from five different parts of the speech, and a section given in a different speech entirely, and spliced them together. Each edit is cleverly covered by inserting a still or video footage for a few seconds.

First, right after the weeping victims, Moore puts on Heston's "I have only five words for you . . . cold dead hands" statement, making it seem directed at them. As noted above, it's actually a thank-you speech given a year later in North Carolina.

Moore then has an interlude -- a visual of a billboard and his narration. This is vital. He can't go directly to Heston's real Denver speech. If he did that, you might ask why Heston in mid-speech changed from a purple tie and lavender shirt to a white shirt and red tie, and the background draperies went from maroon to blue. Moore has to separate the two segments.

Moore's second edit (covered by splicing in a pan shot of the crowd) deletes Heston's announcement that NRA has in fact cancelled most of its meeting:

"As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that."

Moore then cuts to Heston noting that Denver's mayor asked NRA not to come, and shows Heston replying "I said to the Mayor: As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. Don't come here? We're already here!" as if in defiance.

Actually, Moore put an edit right in the middle of the first sentence, and another at its end! Heston really said (with reference his own WWII vet status) "I said to the mayor, well, my reply to the mayor is, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I've run small errands for my country, from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you here in this room could say the same thing."

Moore cuts it after "I said to the Mayor" and attaches a sentence from the end of the next paragraph: "As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land." He hides the deletion by cutting to footage of protestors and a photo of the Mayor before going back and showing Heston.

Moore has Heston then triumphantly announce "Don't come here? We're already here!" Actually, that sentence is clipped from a segment five paragraphs farther on in the speech. Again, Moore uses an editing trick to cover the doctoring, switching to a pan shot of the audience as Heston's (edited) voice continues.

What Heston said there was:

"NRA members are in city hall, Fort Carson, NORAD, the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center. And yes, NRA members are surely among the police and fire and SWAT team heroes who risked their lives to rescue the students at Columbine.

Don't come here? We're already here. This community is our home. Every community in America is our home. We are a 128-year-old fixture of mainstream America. The Second Amendment ethic of lawful, responsible firearm ownership spans the broadest cross section of American life imaginable.

So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy."


The video you posted backs everything the author of critique says Kylab. Stop skimming and read. If you don't want to have a legitimate debate say so and i will stop responding to your posts but please do not state my pages have said something they haven't.

I recently discovered that Moore has set up a new webpage to respond to a chosen few points of criticism, one of which is his, er, creative editing of Heston's speech. Click here for a link to his page, and for my response to his attempted defense of what he did. Basically, Moore contends that he didn't mean for the viewer to get the impression that "cold dead hands" was spoken at Denver -- that just "appears as Heston is being introduced in narration." As for the rest, well, "Far from deliberately editing the film to make Heston look worse, I chose to leave most of this out and not make Heston look as evil as he actually was." Sure. That's why he left out:

"As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings."

"So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy."

"NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity."

As you can see Moore again doesn't address the issues. He merely dodges them and allows people like your self to spread the false information.

I am still confused....exactly what was your reference to the full transcript trying to prove? That a denver meeting was held? Are you simply parroting Moore's webpage? Care to address my rebuttle of his claims i made earlier about Lockheed Martin? As you can see Moore, even in your link? Moore yet again refuses to provide physical proof for his libel.

Its pretty clear Kyleb you are just going to continue to deny any critiques of Moore's work. Its rather obvious none of his work substantiates his claims. He has to rely on trickery and emotion to convey what he wants you to believe. If not for the emotion and the selective wording of the articles among other misrepresentations (remember the definition of "lie") no one could follow the reasoning from point A to B. THere simply isn't any sound reasoning supporting the fear concept as a motivator. SUch is a circuituos argument. Moore is simply putting effect before cause while avoiding answer major questions: why if fear is a motivator as if racism do african americans committ disprotionately higher crimes then whites, latinos, asians etc? Why if you compared caucasian ethnicity of america to that of Europe would the murder rates be practically even? Nothing more presents provides evidence for his claim. He just rest his argumentation on a comparison of cultures who lock their doors .

Links to the speach and meeting:

Fact: Heston's "cold dead hands" speech, which leads off Moore's depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver after Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was his gesture of gratitude upon his being given a handmade musket, at that annual meeting.

http://www.sipl.addr.com/nraheston.html

Fact: At Denver, the NRA canceled all events (normally several days of committee meetings, sporting events, dinners, and rallies) save the annual members' meeting; that could not be cancelled because corporate law required that it be held. [No way to change location, since you have to give advance notice of that to the members, and there were upwards of 4,000,000 members.

http://www.centeronline.org/knowledge/article.cfm?ID=992&
http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/0422nra3.shtml

 

[kyleb]

you must have missed the full transcript as well as the clip from the film which together prove your argument to be complete a fabrication. so again, if you have any valid evedence to back up your claim i want to hear about it, but gathering up all the bs arguments in the world is not going to change the fact that they are bs and i surly not going to keep wadeing in it just because you think it smells like flowers.

Of course i didn't miss them. They just don't address any of the accussations.

none of your accusations except for this right here:

Take for instance the heston speeches. There is a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what Heston was saying. Moore simply spliced a number of unrelated speaches together to misconstrue the chronology as was as the intent of the speaker.

when comparing the transcript to the video it is clear that all the words spoken were from the speech in question and although it has been edited for time the chronological order of the statements is preserved.



oh and this here is real gem from you Legion:

Read over the transcript of the speach. he clearly interrupts and eggs heston on in order to get a rise out of him. He was trying to catch Heston saying something he could use against him.

it seems you are suffering from an inability to grasp rational thought. there is no way the transcript of the speech can back any of your accusations as to Moore's conduct in the interview; because it is a transcript of the speech gave and not the interview! mabey you should take a break and collect yourself?

 

[Legion]

when comparing the transcript to the video it is clear that all the words spoken were from the speech in question and although it has been edited for time the chronological order of the statements is preserved.

However the clip is not complete. It doesn't follow the full run time of the video. Infact it leaves out quite a bit of information with a number of sites have listed. No unless they are all lying Kylab Moore has some serious explaining to do. Moore obviously left out much from that speach.

Kylab are you really suggesting all these webpages made up a whole scene that really wasn't in the movie? Do you really believe that? Read over the critiques they seem to follow the chain of events quite thuroughly.

I say we should email the owners of these webpages the information you have sited and lets see what they have to say. They provide their emails for anyone's use.

it seems you are suffering from an inability to grasp rational thought.

No i just don't agree with your bias towards Moore. Please, enough of the personal attacks. If you can't address the bulk of the argumentations against Moore, which you haven't there is plent of rebuttles i have given you and you refuse to address them. Not to metion Moore himself refuses even in his suppose webpage rebuttle. You parrot his webpages as if they had something of value in them for use in refutation however all of the authors of the critiques seem to be aware of this. They have all stood firm and asked for Moore to provide them with physical evidence for his claims. He has not done this. Infact his so called refutation was more of a silly character assasination then a serious discussion.

there is no way the transcript of the speech can back any of your accusations as to Moore's conduct in the interview;

It in no way backs yours. infact it doesn't at all address the critiques' arguments. You simply posted what Heston's speach was and a partial clip and stated it some how refuted the author's critiques. Are you sure you are not the one who is logic deficient?

because it is a transcript of the speech gave and not the interview! mabey you should take a break and collect yourself?

Kylab are you sure you know what you are arguing about? Do you not realize the time issue had nothing to do with speach Kylab? do you not realize there was speach and an interview? Just curious.

Kylab this is really pointless. You just keep responding with very little to say. You aren't addressing the major problem of Moore's mockumentary. It has flaws, major ones. its clear you simply want to believe what moore has to say evidence be damned. Nothing Moore presents backs his claims nor do you even bother to address my rebuttle of his claims. You still continue to dodge my previous rebuttles all the while telling me my links are garbage. Stop parroting Moore Kylab. You are wasting our time. It is becoming more clear you chose to believe everything Moore tells you simply because you have preference to his conclusions. You yourself have admitted to his arguments being based in emotion. There simply isn't any physical evidence for his conclusions that would suggest fear is alone the soul motivator of violence. With that said the rest of Moore's mockumenotry is purely rank emotional filler for his diatribe.

 

[epicstruggle]

legion your mispelling kyleb's handle its kyleb not kylab.

later,
epic

 

[Legion]

legion your mispelling kyleb's handle its kyleb not kylab.

later,
epic

i am aware of that.

 

[Humus]

OT:

epic, just noticed your sig, and I can't make any sense out of that bias meter.

Republic [X - - - - | - - - - ] Democracy

You can't really compare the two. To me it makes as much sense as:

Banana [X - - - - | - - - - ] Yellow


Being in favor of one doesn't mean you can't be in favor of the other. I'm in favor of both, I want a democratic republic. Looking at your bias meter it kinda looks like you don't want democracy, and thus perhaps is interested in a dictatorship.
I suppose it means you are more in favor of the republican party rather than the democrats (silly party names really when you think of it).

 

[kyleb]

Legion, or however i should spell your name at this point, have misconstrued my position. i have do "choose to believe everything Moore" tells me any more than i do for anyone else and that includes you. you have called him a liar but you have only show that you disagree with his opinions the way he presents them; you have yet to show one lie. L233 presented a good example of proof to back such a claim earlier:

In a public school in St. Louis, a teacher spotted the suspect, fourth-grader Raymond Raines, bowing his head in prayer before lunch. The teacher stormed to Raymond's table, ordered him to stop immediately and sent him to the principal's office. The principal informed the young malefactor that praying was not allowed in school. When Raymond was again caught praying before meals on three separate occasions, he was segregated from other students, ridiculed in front of his classmates, and finally sentenced to a week's detention.

What really happened:

Superintendent David Mahan responds, however, that the boy "was disciplined for some matters that were totally independent of silent praying. We did a very thorough investigation. We talked to teachers, administrators, and also to some students, and we could not find any evidence of the allegations that the parent and the student made." Rev. Earl E. Nance Jr, a member and former chairman of the St. Louis school board, adds "I don't think the child was prevented from praying over lunch. I think the child was probably instructed in another matter and mistook that for understanding he couldn't pray over his lunch, and went home and told his parents." Nance is the pastor of Greater Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church. He characterized the lawsuit as simply "frivolous."

if you could provide evidence such as that to support your claim agaisnt Moore then i would be obliged to agree with you. but sense you told me a transcript of a speech to back up your arguments about the interview, i highly doubt you even understand the concept of conclusive evidence anyway.

 

[Legion]

Kayleb there is no evidence in the world that will prove to you that Moore is dishonest. You seem to stick by him with undying furvor. Why i have no idea.

His dishonesty, as a side note, only begins to explain Moore as he is; simply a character. His points remain unsupported regardless of the accuracy of his assertions against the NRA or Heston. Why you can not accept his long list of obvious inaccuracies is beyond me. You still haven't responded to numerous counter claims against Moore. You just keep repeating the same rhetoric; you just aren't convinced he is a liar. I have shown you he is infact a liar. You have never refuted that. What i have posted more than satisfies any valid request for evidence.

if you could provide evidence such as that to support your claim agaisnt Moore then i would be obliged to agree with you. but sense you told me a transcript of a speech to back up your arguments about the interview, i highly doubt you even understand the concept of conclusive evidence anyway.

I am rather confused by your lack of reasoning. I have infact shown you how he has misrepresented information, set people up to take the fall (Heston, NRA, Bank Teller), completely fabricated incidents (the bank rifle scene, Lockheed Martin WMD/laser gun bs ), fabricated figures (Moore was well aware the murder figure he posted was not ~11,100 for the said year it was ~8,300). If you choose to deny Moore is a liar then you automatically accept all these things to be true. If that is so you can not be of clear mind or judgement. Do you honestly believe that Lockheed plant launches Titan IV missles into space with laser weapons on them ? That Moore infact seems to be aware of a nuclear weapon store house in littletown that the rest of the US seems completely oblivious to ? Moore has all the answers doesn't he? All perhaps one: how does fear, a typical emotional reaction, beget murder in an endless cycle of progressing violence when fear is the result of violence? If he actually bothered to substantiate his claim within B4C many wouldn't be left asking this question among others.

What accounts for the continuing increase of violence in african american culture? Why do african american males who make up less than 10% of the US population committ nearly 50% of all violent crime? Moore never bothers to answer these and other difficult questions. Instead he proports that fear is the leading cause of violence. What evidence has he for this? That america has many guns? Canada has just as many if not more. Some americans lock their doors when they are home? A rather ludicrous suggestion. Who is he to argue over their intent? Many people around the world lock their doors at home. Do they all live in a culture of fear and violence? Nonsense. Moore suggests the media fuels people's fears ergo an increase of violence. Apparently Moore failed logic 101 as correlation doesn't equate causation. What proof has he that the media's increasing fear mongering has a thing to do with american violence? Well, none. He merely makes the claim and then uses emotion, not reason, logic or facts to progress his diatribe.

i have done a great deal more than show you i disagree with Moore's statements. I have shown you deliberate mirespresentations. You merely choose to disagree one the basis of your definition of the word "lie".

lie2 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (l)
n.
A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.

How is it possible you could disagree with Moore having lied? Do you choose to believe that Moore was some how ignorant of the truth? If so i must say that is a rather naive position to take in his defense. If he was some how ignorant of the facts point to point he is still a liar for taking his version of truth rather then what infact was truth and presenting his opinion as fact.

Here are some more links for you:


please compare the actual video and the speach transcript:
http://hardylaw.net/Bowlingtranscript.html
http://www.sipl.addr.com/nraheston.html

Quote
Fact: At Denver, the NRA canceled all events (normally several days of committee meetings, sporting events, dinners, and rallies) save the annual members' meeting; that could not be cancelled because corporate law required that it be held. [No way to change location, since you have to give advance notice of that to the members, and there were upwards of 4,000,000 members.

http://www.centeronline.org/knowledge/article.cfm?ID=992&
http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/0422nra3.shtml

Here is a quote from the linked speach your provide

I want to welcome you to this abbreviated annual gathering of the National Rifle Association. Thank you for coming and thank you for supporting your organization. I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today. Of course, you have a right to be here.

As you know, we've canceled the festivities and fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. I apologize for that. But it's fitting and proper that we should do this ... because NRA members are, above all, Americans.

Here is what Moore suggested in his video:

Cut to Charleton Heston holding a musket over his head and happily proclaiming "I have only five words for you: 'from my cold, dead, hands'" to a cheering NRA crowd.

Cut to billboard advertising the meeting, while Moore in voiceover intones: "Just ten days after the Columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charleton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association." [But for this break, the viewer would spot that two different speeches are being merged, since Heston has lavender shirt and tie in the above speech, and white shirt and red tie in the one below.]

Heston (supposedly) continues speech...

"Good Morning. Thank you all for coming, and thank you for supporting your organization. I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today." [Footage of protest outside] "I have a message from the Mayor, Mr. Wellington Webb, the Mayor of Denver. [picture of Webb, then back to Heston] He sent me this, and said 'don't come here. We don't want you here.' I said to the Mayor this is our country, as Americans we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. [cut to crowd cheering, then back to Heston] Don't come here? We're already here."

Heston's actual speach:
www.freedaily.com/articles/990504n1.html

From http://hardylaw.net/Bowlingtranscript.html

"Cold dead hands" is nowhere in speech. It is actually from a speech given by Heston in Charlotte, N.C., a year later. By swapping in the billboard and his narration, Moore covers the splice.

N.C. speach:
http://www.sipl.addr.com/nraheston.html

One of Moore's claims:

"Just ten days after the Columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charleton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association."

what Heston's speach said:

As you know, we've canceled the festivities and fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. I apologize for that. But it's fitting and proper that we should do this ... because NRA members are, above all, Americans.

http://www.centeronline.org/knowledge/article.cfm?ID=992&
http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/0422nra3.shtml

Moore's reponse to criticisms and Hardy' rebuttle:

http://hardylaw.net/MoorereplyHeston.html

Moore's reply:

"The Truth: Heston took his NRA show to Denver "

Now, now, Mike. As pointed out on the main webpage, the NRA "show" was canceled. All that was held was the voting members' meeting, which was required by NY nonprofit corporation law. And you cut Heston's words making that announcement out of his speech -- "As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings.". Why did you cut that out?

"and did and said exactly what we recounted."

Okay, let's see it. . . .

"From the end of my narration setting up Heston's speech in Denver, with my words, "a big pro-gun rally,"

Ah, Mike. Think we wouldn't notice that those words come after the first edit, where you plug in Heston's speech, not from Denver, but from North Carolina a year later? So your defense amounts to 'except for the segment that wasn't from Denver, my footage was from Denver."

"every word out of Charlton Heston's mouth was uttered right there in Denver, just 10 days after the Columbine tragedy. But don't take my word ­ read the transcript of his whole speech. Heston devotes the entire speech to challenging the Denver mayor and mocking the mayor's pleas that the NRA "don't come here." Far from deliberately editing the film to make Heston look worse, I chose to leave most of this out and not make Heston look as evil as he actually was."

Yep. Go and read the original speech. Either on Mike's page or in my side-by-side comparison.

Sure, Mike, you took out "So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy," because that made Heston sound too evil for your taste? Or was it "NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity" that appalled you? Or "shocked and horrified as every other soul in America mourning for the people of Littleton."?

"Why are these gun nuts upset that their brave NRA leader's words are in my film? You'd think they would be proud of the things he said. Except, when intercut with the words of a grieving father (whose son died at Columbine and happened to be speaking in a protest that same weekend Heston was at the convention center), suddenly Charlton Heston doesn't look so good does he? Especially to the people of Denver (and, the following year, to the people of Flint) who were still in shock over the tragedies when Heston showed up."

Pity that Mike doesn't respond to my point that in Flint, Heston actually was attending an election event, ten months after the shooting, and unrelated to it. (Moore's own candidate, Nader, was speaking in Flint the same day).

"As for the clip preceding the Denver speech, when Heston proclaims "from my cold dead hands," this appears as Heston is being introduced in narration."

As I said, Moore deals in impressions rather than words. He has Heston speaking, then cuts away to a billboard (to let you forget that Heston's shirt and tie are changed in the next shot), telling you Heston came to Denver, then goes back to Heston speaking. Here's he's lamely covering what he did ... 'Uh ... I thought everybody understood 'cold dead hands' wasn't from Denver, it was just to introduce Heston.'

"It is Heston's most well-recognized NRA image ­ hoisting the rifle overhead as he makes his proclamation, as he has done at virtually every political appearance on behalf of the NRA (before and since Columbine)."

Wrong-o. I can find no record of Heston saying that prior to his being given the presentation rifle in North Carolina, a year after Columbine. Since then, he used the sentence (but not at "virtually every political appearance"), but never before then.

 

[kyleb]

more conjecture and opinionated arguments, and piles of it i that you should know that i have grown tired of refuteing. while it is obvious that you dissagre with the man's views you have done nothing to prove him a liar.

 

[Legion]

if you could provide evidence such as that to support your claim agaisnt Moore then i would be obliged to agree with you. but sense you told me a transcript of a speech to back up your arguments about the interview, i highly doubt you even understand the concept of conclusive evidence anyway.

Reading comprehension is a necessity Kylab. Remember this discussion is about the collective of Moore's lies as such pretains to Moore's works. My reason for providing such resources is demonstrate Moore's use of fiction, not fact, to support his claims. Do to this and other offenses he is a liar.

Are you refusing to read my links? I am a bit concerned. I have posted the Moore's interview with the Heston several times now. Shall i do it again? How many times will i be required to post information for you before you will read it? WHen will you address some of my previous rebuttles to your assertions?

Here again are the links:

http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/bowlingforcolumbine/scenes/hestoninterview.htm

** This is perhaps the most distorted, dirty and sickening scene in Bowling For Columbine. On this page I will show you - line for line - how Michael Moore tricked his audience into making think Charlton Heston is a fool.

In sharp contrast to Bowling for Columbine's sycophantic and boot-licking interview of Marilyn Manson, the climactic interview finishing off the movie with then National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston is a sham. But what is so sickening about this sham is that it is the smoothest in the film, and possibly the most effective. At the end of the segment, the audience is left thinking that Moore is a genuine concerned crusader, and that Charlton Heston is ignorant and apathetic.

Anyone fooled by this disgraceful display has fallen victim to a deliberate trap, carefully laid out by Michael Moore. The impression of a crushed and foolish Heston is the result of a very intricate set-up that relies on previous preparation and fabrication. It is an illusion that Moore has set up beforehand and like a magician, is all in the presentation. So lets walk through the scene and see if there isn't more than what we see face value. Let us examine why exactly Heston looks so bad in this interview in BFC and reveal how Michael Moore stacked the deck against Charlton Heston.

At the Toronto international film festival, Moore said:

"I was really just too shocked to challenge him on what he said at the time, which I probably should have," said Moore. "But I wasn't even really there to debate the gun control issue with him, but to ask him why Americans are so different than Canadians," added Moore in explanation."

Unsurprisingly, Moore is deceptive from the beginning. He engages in some deceptive small talk with Heston designed to make him believe that Moore is not anti-gun, which he is. Moore shows him his NRA lifetime member card. Chuck couldn't be nicer. Makes time to see Michael through the informal process of his gate intercom and invites him into his home.

The 'because I can' trap

Remember that Heston thinks he's talking to a fellow NRA member doing a favorable piece on firearms. He is not on the defensive. He has different presuppositions than Moore does. Therefore when Moore asks Heston why he has firearms in the house, Heston answers that it is his right to. It is easy for the viewer to forget that Heston does not know he is being challenged, let alone set up, and thus does not take the question as an argument.

'I Agree with Handguns' LIE

Michael Moore has to lie to Heston to solidify the fabrication that he is not there to ambush him and make him look stupid. So when Heston says yes, he does have guns in his house, Moore says he "totally agrees" the Second Amendment gives Heston this right.

But again, this is just Moore lies. Earlier in BFC, we see Moore interviewing and ridiculing a pro-gun supporter of the Second Amendment. Moore makes clear that he supports gun ownership only for hunting and not for self defense like he just agreed to Heston about. Moore also said on his website and even to Phil Donahue that yes, he's for a ban on the sale of handguns because "we don't need handguns." (1)

The comfort factor

Moore asks why Chuck keeps his guns loaded in his house.

- TAPE CUT -



The 'bloody history' trap

Moore tricks Heston into looking foolish over the 'bloody history' trap when asks why America is the only country that has this so called gun epidemic. He says that

(Moore): "Many people say, they don't have guns around, ya know, it's hard to get a gun in Britain or Germany or whatever...But we went to Canada, and they have 7 million guns in 10 million homes."

"Canada is a nation of hunters, they have millions of guns, and yet they just had a few murders last year." Moore gives away his deception and contradiction here as he's talking about hunters, who use rifles.

Heston: I think American history has a lot of blood on its hands

Moore: oh, and German history doesn't, British history!?"

Heston: I don't think as much

Moore: (surprised) Oh, Germans don't have as much?? Of blood on their hands?

Heston: Ah, they do, yes.

Moore: The Brits? They ruled the world for 300 years at the barrel of a gun. They're all violent people. They have bad guys, they have crime, they have lots of guns

The Race Card trap

This is a very important point to notice, observe and understand in the interview. In this part of the scene, Moore sneakily sets the trap of making Heston support his thesis of the ignorant white man being afraid of the scary racial minority.

Moore: But you don't have any opinion as to why we're the unique country, the only country that does this? That kills each other at this level with guns.

Heston: Well, we have, probably a more mixed ethnicity, than other countries, some other countries

Moore: ...So you think it's an ethnic thing?

(Moore effectively projects his own racism onto the viewer, making Heston's response appear as a retraction.)

Heston: Well, I don't think it's - I wouldn't go as far as to say that - We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning

Again, Moore is making it look like Heston is going back on what he just said when he is actually clarifying. By the follow up question, Moore made it look like Heston said "it's an ethnic thing" and then when Moore pressed him on it he said "well, no, it's not an ethnic thing."

But reread what happened. Moore's question was "why are we the ONLY one's that do this?" Heston simply said he doesn't think that we ARE the only ones. Being a vocal civil rights activist - one who marched with Martin Luther King and made public comments and statements on the matter long before it was popular, Charlton Heston is one who is inclined to know that America is the melting pot of the world. The most diverse country there is. Remember that Moore just seconds ago said about these other countries that "They're all violent people. They have bad guys, they have crime, they have lots of guns." So take a percentage of all those groups who in turn have a percentage within them of violent, gun wielding bad guys, and mix them all together. That's America. If you concede that all other countries have a percentage of violent gun deaths, as Moore did,, it is only honest to acknowledge that taking parts of those countries and adding them together, the simple math will result in a number of gun deaths itself.

The racially divisive Michael Moore presses on -

Moore: Well whadda you think - when you say it's a mixed ethnicity - I don't understand

Heston: You said that how is it that--

Moore: --that we're unique--

Heston: --that so many Americans kill each other. I don't know that that's true.

Hit the nail right on the head, and actually debunked the major thesis of Bowling for Columbine in one swift stroke. We just don't see it this way because we don't understand what he's really saying and Moore doesn't let us. This is largely in part that Moore keeps pursuing the point under his own assumptions instead of actually listening and responding to what Mr. Heston really told him, as well as the fact that we've watched 1 hour & 57 minutes of propaganda telling us that gun nuts are racists and blame ethnic minorities. But the trick on the audience works perfectly. Just take this quote from poppolitics.com that assesses the general audience perception-misconception about this part of the interview:

"Moore pushes on, pressing Heston to come up with possible reasons for the States' inordinate rates of gun violence, Heston hems and haws, suggests "historical" proclivities (until Moore points out that Germany and Japan have violent histories and remarkably low gun violence stats), then finally blurts that it must be bound up in American "mixed ethnicity." Moore doesn't wait, but repeats the phrase back to Heston, who blanches when he hears his own words come back at him."

Totally false account of what happened. Yet completely in tune with the general perception of the scene.

Heston: The only answer I can give you is the one I already gave you.

Moore: Which is...?

Heston: Which is that we have a...history, of violence. Perhaps more than, most countries.

The answer is accurate by all accounts.

The 'I Hate Kayla Rolland'/Get out and Vote, Flint Rally

Moore says that "after that happened, you came to flint and had a big rally." Heston says "so did the vice President." Another point that refutes Moore's dishonest claim - but we don't know it because earlier in the movie we were told that Heston's rally in flint was a big 'pro-gun rally' and were made to think it was insensitive to gun attacks. As I detail on another page, the reality was that it was that it was a 'get out to vote rally' that yes, the likes of vice president Al Gore & Michael Moore himself even attended.

Heston's memory of the Flint event is foggy (he says it was a morning event; in fact the rally was at 6 - 7:30 PM.). Heston's lack of recall is not surprising; it was one rally in a nine-stop tour of three States in three days.

But Moore, who has been preparing information and details on this for months (compared to Hestons off the cuff recollection), continues the false impression he has created, asking Heston questions such as: "After that happened you came to Flint to hold a big rally and, you know, I just, did you feel it was being at all insensitive to the fact that this community had just gone through this tragedy?" Moore continues, "you think you'd like to apologize to the people in Flint for coming and doing that at that time?"

Moore knows the real sequence, and knows that Heston does not. Moore takes full advantage.

The Final Attack

Then as Heston politely thanks Moore for the interview, shakes his hand and steps up to walk away, Moore drops another attack. He asks Heston: Don't you think it was "insensitive" to come to Flint and hold a big rally after this murder? Heston says that he was not aware of this murder when this rally was held. But Moore ignores it. "But, wouldn't you like to apologize to the people of Flint because you did this", Moore asks. Heston, now appearing to realize he's being had in this interview, replies, with contempt: "You want me to apologi- ME, to apologize to the people in Flint?" He doesn't. He has no reason to.

But Moore continues, asking Heston: "And wouldn't you also like to apologize to the people of Columbine for coming to their community after their horrible tragedy? Why do you go to places after they have these horrible tragedies?" Which Moore knows to be a false statement, thus being a baited question equal to me asking Moore "why do you starve yourself all the time?" Obviously making fun of his fattness, it is unlikely Moore would dignify my question with an answer or argument - and Heston takes the same route. The audience unfortunately doesn't understand this however because they've been indoctrinated to think Heston is the devil.

Heston leaves - Moore badgers

Heston says nothing, gets up out of his chair and walks slowly away from the interview as the camera follows him. Realizing Moore deceived him to make a subversive attack, Heston holds his dignity and leaves the trap he walked into. But that's not what we see in Bowling. Since the entire movie is set up to make Heston look like a buffoon, the impression in the film is that of a lost battle. The camera follows Heston walking away as a wounded opponent.

But that's not enough for Moore. He lets Heston leave for dramatic effect, as I said, following him with the camera, and THEN follows Heston outside in the most ridiculous thing I've seen since I saw stock footage of a monkey blowing bubbles on a tricycle. Moore holds up a picture of the murdered Kayla Rolland, says to him as he walks away: "Um, Mr. Heston. Just, one more thing. This is who she is. Or was." Heston turns and

"Mr. Heston please don't go. Please, take a look at her. This is the girl"

This bit closes with Moore leaving the little girl's photo propped up against a pillar in the Heston home.

The secrets behind Moore's trickery

But to some, it is not necessary to interpret or explain what Moore did to Heston. Some people know something is disgusting when they see it, but unfortunately far to many are either too stuck in a hateful ideology, or they are deceived by this crafty trick and come out of the experience with blatantly false notions that they think are obvious observations. This page is here for those interested in the truth.

http://hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

8. Race. Moore does not directly state that Heston is a racist--he is the master of creating the false impression --but reviewers come away saying "Heston looks like an idiot, and a racist one at that" Source. "BTW, one thing the Heston interview did clear up, that man is shockingly racist." Source.

The remarks stem from Heston's answer (after Moore keeps pressing for why the US has more violence than other countries) that it might be due to the US "having a more mixed ethnicity" than other nations, and "We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning." A viewer who accepts Moore's theme that gun ownership is driven by racial fears might conclude that Heston is blaming blacks and the civil rights movement.

But if you look at some history missing from Bowling, you get exactly the opposite picture. Heston is talking, not about race, but about racism. In the early 1960s, the civil rights movement was fighting for acceptance. Civil rights workers were being murdered. The Kennedy Administration, trying to hold together a Democratic coalition that ranged from liberals to fire-eater segregationists such as George Wallace and Lester Maddox, found the issue too hot to touch, and offered little support.

Heston got involved. He picketed discriminating restaurants. He worked with Martin Luther King, and helped King break Hollywood's color barrier (yes, there was one.). He led the actors' component of King's 1963 march in Washington, which set the stage for the key civil rights legislation in 1964.

Here's Heston's comments at the 2001 Congress on Racial Equality Martin Luther King dinner (presided over by NRA director, and CORE President, Roy Innes). More on Heston.

Most of the viewers were born long after the events Heston is recalling. To them, the civil rights struggle consists of Martin Luther King speaking, people singing "We Shall Overcome," and everyone coming to their senses. Heston remembers what it was really like.

If Heston fails to explain this in Bowling, we've got to note that Moore (despite his claim that he left the interview almost unedited) cut a lot of the interview out. Watch closely and you'll see a clock on the wall near Moore's head. When it's first seen, the time is about 5:47. When Heston finally walks out, it reads about 6:10. That's 23 minutes. I clocked the Heston interview in Bowling at 5 1/4 minutes. About three-quarters of what Heston did say was trimmed out. [Why the clock indicates six o'clock, when Moore is specific that he showed up for the interview at 8:30 AM, will have to await another investigation!]

** This is perhaps the most distorted, dirty and sickening scene in Bowling For Columbine. On this page I will show you - line for line - how Michael Moore tricked his audience into making think Charlton Heston is a fool.

In sharp contrast to Bowling for Columbine's sycophantic and boot-licking interview of Marilyn Manson, the climactic interview finishing off the movie with then National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston is a sham. But what is so sickening about this sham is that it is the smoothest in the film, and possibly the most effective. At the end of the segment, the audience is left thinking that Moore is a genuine concerned crusader, and that Charlton Heston is ignorant and apathetic.

Anyone fooled by this disgraceful display has fallen victim to a deliberate trap, carefully laid out by Michael Moore. The impression of a crushed and foolish Heston is the result of a very intricate set-up that relies on previous preparation and fabrication. It is an illusion that Moore has set up beforehand and like a magician, is all in the presentation. So lets walk through the scene and see if there isn't more than what we see face value. Let us examine why exactly Heston looks so bad in this interview in BFC and reveal how Michael Moore stacked the deck against Charlton Heston.

At the Toronto international film festival, Moore said:

"I was really just too shocked to challenge him on what he said at the time, which I probably should have," said Moore. "But I wasn't even really there to debate the gun control issue with him, but to ask him why Americans are so different than Canadians," added Moore in explanation."

Unsurprisingly, Moore is deceptive from the beginning. He engages in some deceptive small talk with Heston designed to make him believe that Moore is not anti-gun, which he is. Moore shows him his NRA lifetime member card. Chuck couldn't be nicer. Makes time to see Michael through the informal process of his gate intercom and invites him into his home.

The 'because I can' trap

Remember that Heston thinks he's talking to a fellow NRA member doing a favorable piece on firearms. He is not on the defensive. He has different presuppositions than Moore does. Therefore when Moore asks Heston why he has firearms in the house, Heston answers that it is his right to. It is easy for the viewer to forget that Heston does not know he is being challenged, let alone set up, and thus does not take the question as an argument.

'I Agree with Handguns' LIE

Michael Moore has to lie to Heston to solidify the fabrication that he is not there to ambush him and make him look stupid. So when Heston says yes, he does have guns in his house, Moore says he "totally agrees" the Second Amendment gives Heston this right.

But again, this is just Moore lies. Earlier in BFC, we see Moore interviewing and ridiculing a pro-gun supporter of the Second Amendment. Moore makes clear that he supports gun ownership only for hunting and not for self defense like he just agreed to Heston about. Moore also said on his website and even to Phil Donahue that yes, he's for a ban on the sale of handguns because "we don't need handguns." (1)

The comfort factor

Moore asks why Chuck keeps his guns loaded in his house.

- TAPE CUT -



The 'bloody history' trap

Moore tricks Heston into looking foolish over the 'bloody history' trap when asks why America is the only country that has this so called gun epidemic. He says that

(Moore): "Many people say, they don't have guns around, ya know, it's hard to get a gun in Britain or Germany or whatever...But we went to Canada, and they have 7 million guns in 10 million homes."

"Canada is a nation of hunters, they have millions of guns, and yet they just had a few murders last year." Moore gives away his deception and contradiction here as he's talking about hunters, who use rifles.

Heston: I think American history has a lot of blood on its hands

Moore: oh, and German history doesn't, British history!?"

Heston: I don't think as much

Moore: (surprised) Oh, Germans don't have as much?? Of blood on their hands?

Heston: Ah, they do, yes.

Moore: The Brits? They ruled the world for 300 years at the barrel of a gun. They're all violent people. They have bad guys, they have crime, they have lots of guns

The Race Card trap

This is a very important point to notice, observe and understand in the interview. In this part of the scene, Moore sneakily sets the trap of making Heston support his thesis of the ignorant white man being afraid of the scary racial minority.

Moore: But you don't have any opinion as to why we're the unique country, the only country that does this? That kills each other at this level with guns.

Heston: Well, we have, probably a more mixed ethnicity, than other countries, some other countries

Moore: ...So you think it's an ethnic thing?

(Moore effectively projects his own racism onto the viewer, making Heston's response appear as a retraction.)

Heston: Well, I don't think it's - I wouldn't go as far as to say that - We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning

Again, Moore is making it look like Heston is going back on what he just said when he is actually clarifying. By the follow up question, Moore made it look like Heston said "it's an ethnic thing" and then when Moore pressed him on it he said "well, no, it's not an ethnic thing."

But reread what happened. Moore's question was "why are we the ONLY one's that do this?" Heston simply said he doesn't think that we ARE the only ones. Being a vocal civil rights activist - one who marched with Martin Luther King and made public comments and statements on the matter long before it was popular, Charlton Heston is one who is inclined to know that America is the melting pot of the world. The most diverse country there is. Remember that Moore just seconds ago said about these other countries that "They're all violent people. They have bad guys, they have crime, they have lots of guns." So take a percentage of all those groups who in turn have a percentage within them of violent, gun wielding bad guys, and mix them all together. That's America. If you concede that all other countries have a percentage of violent gun deaths, as Moore did,, it is only honest to acknowledge that taking parts of those countries and adding them together, the simple math will result in a number of gun deaths itself.

The racially divisive Michael Moore presses on -

Moore: Well whadda you think - when you say it's a mixed ethnicity - I don't understand

Heston: You said that how is it that--

Moore: --that we're unique--

Heston: --that so many Americans kill each other. I don't know that that's true.

Hit the nail right on the head, and actually debunked the major thesis of Bowling for Columbine in one swift stroke. We just don't see it this way because we don't understand what he's really saying and Moore doesn't let us. This is largely in part that Moore keeps pursuing the point under his own assumptions instead of actually listening and responding to what Mr. Heston really told him, as well as the fact that we've watched 1 hour & 57 minutes of propaganda telling us that gun nuts are racists and blame ethnic minorities. But the trick on the audience works perfectly. Just take this quote from poppolitics.com that assesses the general audience perception-misconception about this part of the interview:

"Moore pushes on, pressing Heston to come up with possible reasons for the States' inordinate rates of gun violence, Heston hems and haws, suggests "historical" proclivities (until Moore points out that Germany and Japan have violent histories and remarkably low gun violence stats), then finally blurts that it must be bound up in American "mixed ethnicity." Moore doesn't wait, but repeats the phrase back to Heston, who blanches when he hears his own words come back at him."

Totally false account of what happened. Yet completely in tune with the general perception of the scene.

Heston: The only answer I can give you is the one I already gave you.

Moore: Which is...?

Heston: Which is that we have a...history, of violence. Perhaps more than, most countries.

The answer is accurate by all accounts.

The 'I Hate Kayla Rolland'/Get out and Vote, Flint Rally

Moore says that "after that happened, you came to flint and had a big rally." Heston says "so did the vice President." Another point that refutes Moore's dishonest claim - but we don't know it because earlier in the movie we were told that Heston's rally in flint was a big 'pro-gun rally' and were made to think it was insensitive to gun attacks. As I detail on another page, the reality was that it was that it was a 'get out to vote rally' that yes, the likes of vice president Al Gore & Michael Moore himself even attended.

Heston's memory of the Flint event is foggy (he says it was a morning event; in fact the rally was at 6 - 7:30 PM.). Heston's lack of recall is not surprising; it was one rally in a nine-stop tour of three States in three days.

But Moore, who has been preparing information and details on this for months (compared to Hestons off the cuff recollection), continues the false impression he has created, asking Heston questions such as: "After that happened you came to Flint to hold a big rally and, you know, I just, did you feel it was being at all insensitive to the fact that this community had just gone through this tragedy?" Moore continues, "you think you'd like to apologize to the people in Flint for coming and doing that at that time?"

Moore knows the real sequence, and knows that Heston does not. Moore takes full advantage.

The Final Attack

Then as Heston politely thanks Moore for the interview, shakes his hand and steps up to walk away, Moore drops another attack. He asks Heston: Don't you think it was "insensitive" to come to Flint and hold a big rally after this murder? Heston says that he was not aware of this murder when this rally was held. But Moore ignores it. "But, wouldn't you like to apologize to the people of Flint because you did this", Moore asks. Heston, now appearing to realize he's being had in this interview, replies, with contempt: "You want me to apologi- ME, to apologize to the people in Flint?" He doesn't. He has no reason to.

But Moore continues, asking Heston: "And wouldn't you also like to apologize to the people of Columbine for coming to their community after their horrible tragedy? Why do you go to places after they have these horrible tragedies?" Which Moore knows to be a false statement, thus being a baited question equal to me asking Moore "why do you starve yourself all the time?" Obviously making fun of his fattness, it is unlikely Moore would dignify my question with an answer or argument - and Heston takes the same route. The audience unfortunately doesn't understand this however because they've been indoctrinated to think Heston is the devil.

Heston leaves - Moore badgers

Heston says nothing, gets up out of his chair and walks slowly away from the interview as the camera follows him. Realizing Moore deceived him to make a subversive attack, Heston holds his dignity and leaves the trap he walked into. But that's not what we see in Bowling. Since the entire movie is set up to make Heston look like a buffoon, the impression in the film is that of a lost battle. The camera follows Heston walking away as a wounded opponent.

But that's not enough for Moore. He lets Heston leave for dramatic effect, as I said, following him with the camera, and THEN follows Heston outside in the most ridiculous thing I've seen since I saw stock footage of a monkey blowing bubbles on a tricycle. Moore holds up a picture of the murdered Kayla Rolland, says to him as he walks away: "Um, Mr. Heston. Just, one more thing. This is who she is. Or was." Heston turns and

"Mr. Heston please don't go. Please, take a look at her. This is the girl"

This bit closes with Moore leaving the little girl's photo propped up against a pillar in the Heston home.

The secrets behind Moore's trickery

But to some, it is not necessary to interpret or explain what Moore did to Heston. Some people know something is disgusting when they see it, but unfortunately far to many are either too stuck in a hateful ideology, or they are deceived by this crafty trick and come out of the experience with blatantly false notions that they think are obvious observations. This page is here for those interested in the truth.

Speculations:

http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/bowlingforcolumbine/scenes/flint_protest_faked.htm

Flint Rally Faked

While it's not possible to say with certainty, this segment of the movie may have been completely invented. It shows a group of Million Moms March protestors, apparently protesting Heston's appearance in Flint on October 17, 2000. One of them says precisely what Moore wants to hear -- that they wonder why Heston is coming here, how could NRA come here, I'm "shocked and appalled," it's as if the rub their faces in the tragedy.

I can't claim certainty, but there are several anomalous things about the footage of the protest.

1. Although the protestor is given prominent treatment, her name is not given. Moore is generally good about showing or speaking a person's name. He shows, for instance, the name of the speaker at the Columbine/Denver protest, and the names of individual bank clerks in the bank scene.

2. When Moore shows stock footage from newscast teams, he follows the usual requirement of attributing it to its source. He does this in the Flint segment, when he shows Heston's answering a reporter's questions after the rally. He doesn't attribute his own footage, of course.

No attribution is given for the interview of the protestor, suggesting that Moore filmed it himself. But as I note on the main page most of Moore's filming appears to be around summer 2001. I've seen no indication he'd begun filming by October 2000.

3. The protestor says just what Moore would want someone to say, although they are rather strange statements when we understand what was really going on in Flint, as opposed to the impression Moore wants to create.

It's an election rally for Bush, height of the campaign season in a key state with voting only a few weeks away, Gore and Bush both giving speeches and holding rallies in the Flint area. Why would a protestor wonder why Heston is coming here? Why would they have come to protest the rally without knowing its obvious purpose? Why would they guess at an answer, and then say he must be doing it to rub their faces in the tragedy, when that was eight months before? The interview sounds all to much like something created in 2001, perhaps when Moore felt he needed an additional touch here to create the impression he desired.

4. Heston's rally at Flint was from 6 to 7:30 PM. Sunset on October 17, 2000 was at 6:50. Yet the filming is in broad daylight, and does not seem to be toward sundown.

5. The protestor interviewed is wearing a T shirt without jacket or sweater. Behind them can be seen someone in short sleeves. But on October 17, 2000, Flint had a. low of 43, a high of 63. At 5:53 PM it was 59 (same source).

6. While the filming is so arranged as to allow little view of the background, you can see leafy trees, and they're not pines. This is late October in Michigan?

While I'm not certain, I am quite suspicious that this is not a real interview of a protestor, but that Moore simply lined up a few actors or friends in Million Moms t-shirts, posed them in a parking lot, and told them what he wanted said.

http://www.hardylaw.net/flint.html

While it's not possible to say with certainty, this segment of the movie may have been completely invented. It shows a group of Million Moms March protestors, apparently protesting Heston's appearance in Flint on October 17, 2000. One of them says precisely what Moore wants to hear -- that they wonder why Heston is coming here, how could NRA come here, I'm "shocked and appalled," it's as if the rub their faces in the tragedy.

I can't claim certainty, but there are several anomalous things about the footage of the protest.

1. Although the protestor is given prominent treatment, her name is not given. Moore is generally good about showing or speaking a person's name. He shows, for instance, the name of the speaker at the Columbine/Denver protest, and the names of individual bank clerks in the bank scene.

2. When Moore shows stock footage from newscast teams, he follows the usual requirement of attributing it to its source. He does this in the Flint segment, when he shows Heston's answering a reporter's questions after the rally. He doesn't attribute his own footage, of course.

No attribution is given for the interview of the protestor, suggesting that Moore filmed it himself. But as I note on the main page most of Moore's filming appears to be around summer 2001. I've seen no indication he'd begun filming by October 2000.

3. The protestor says just what Moore would want someone to say, although they are rather strange statements when we understand what was really going on in Flint, as opposed to the impression Moore wants to create.

It's an election rally for Bush, height of the campaign season in a key state with voting only a few weeks away, Gore and Bush both giving speeches and holding rallies in the Flint area. Why would a protestor wonder why Heston is coming here? Why would they have come to protest the rally without knowing its obvious purpose? Why would they guess at an answer, and then say he must be doing it to rub their faces in the tragedy, when that was eight months before? The interview sounds all to much like something created in 2001, perhaps when Moore felt he needed an additional touch here to create the impression he desired.

4. Heston's rally at Flint was from 6 to 7:30 PM. Sunset on October 17, 2000 was at 6:50. Yet the filming is in broad daylight, and does not seem to be toward sundown.

5. The protestor interviewed is wearing a T shirt without jacket or sweater. Behind them can be seen someone in short sleeves. But on October 17, 2000, Flint had a. low of 43, a high of 63. At 5:53 PM it was 59 (same source).

6. While the filming is so arranged as to allow little view of the background, you can see leafy trees, and they're not pines. This is late October in Michigan?

While I'm not certain, I am quite suspicious that this is not a real interview of a protestor, but that Moore simply lined up a few actors or friends in Million Moms t-shirts, posed them in a parking lot, and told them what he wanted said.

Heston Confrontation Faked:

http://www.chud.com/news/oct02/oct11moore.php3
http://www.hardylaw.net/hestonfilming.html

Is the end of the Heston interview itself faked?

From an October 2002 interviewwww.chud.com link above)

Question: When you tried to hand him the picture, was that something you had to go back and do?

Michael Moore: No, we had a second camera.


The interviewer knows filming, and Moore is sensitive to what question would come next. The Heston matter ends with Heston walking away and Moore standing at the top of a flight of outdoor stairs calling to him to look at the picture of the deceased girl. But the scene flashes back and forth between two angles. In one, the camera is behind Moore, catching his back and Heston walking away. In the other, the camera is in front of Moore, as he stares past the camera, supposedly at Heston.

If you have only one camera, there's only one way to do this. With camera behind you, film Heston walking away. Then, after he's gone, move the camera to a position in front of you, while you "re-enact" what happened. Then splice the footage together to hop from back view to front view as if they were both filmed simultaneously.

Moore doesn't want to concede this, however. The interviewer might then ask some awkward questions about the ethics of filming yourself calling to a person who isn't even there.

So Moore claims he had two cameras at the shoot ... so that one cameraman could be in front of him, the other behind him, and film both views simultaneously.

There are a problem with Moore's version. First, the "back camera" peering past his left shoulder down the stairs doesn't show any cameraman in front of him, and the "front camera" doesn't show a camera peering past his left shoulder.



No camera over left shoulder. And this footage is taken from Moore's left front, about level with his chest. From the angle, the cameraman must have stood on the stairs, maybe two steps down.



No "front cameraman" is there. (To hide, he'd have to be prone on the steps, and then he'd be filming from below Moore's shoelaces -- you couldn't get the angle of the above shot.)

Reviewing the footage yet again, I'm left with a strong impression that the fakery here is even greater than it appears. Moore's voice never rises above the conversational level -- i.e., what we use when the other person is two or three feet away and facing us. In fact, it's rather low for conversation: he wants to sound like a very polite, nice, guy. Look at the distances involved. Could Heston even have heard Moore, speaking in that way at that distance? Heston hears something, because at one point he turns around. But is it the words, and in the conversational level, that we hear in the film?

Now, filming twice, there are two sound tracks. One, the rear camera, catches what really was spoken; the other in front catches the "re-enactment." It's apparent that the front camera soundtrack was used, and overlaid on both tapes. Moore's mouth is visible on the front camera tape, and matches the words, and the same words flow smoothly onto the back camera footage. So what we're hearing is the "re-enactment," not the actual event.

The point: the entire scene of Moore dramatically showing the girl's picture to Heston may have been invented (or "greatly improved upon") in the editing booth. For all we can tell, Moore could have shouted "Hey!" to make Heston turn around and then remained silent as Heston left... then moved the camera to the front to film his re-enactment of showing the girl's picture and asking Heston about it.



How did the Heston interview come about?

Moore's first version has it that it was completely unplanned, he was opposed to the idea, and it was proposed by his film crew over his objection:

EW How'd you get that interview?

MOORE I had been trying for two years. I'd gone to his agent. I'd gone through the NRA. I'd shown up at places where he was and couldn't get in. I had given up on trying to get him. So we're in L.A. and the crew sees a star-maps sign and says, "Let's find Heston's house!" And I said, nah. And the whole van starts chanting "We want a star map! We want a star map!" So just to shut them up I say okay. And I'm thinking, No way, right?


Moore's second version of events forgets about the film crew and makes it part of his plan:

"The reason we were in L.A. was because we went out to the gun manufacturer that made the Saturday Night Special that killed the little girl in Flint. So, I wanted to trace the gun back to where it was originally made. It was one of the ideas for the film that didn't end up in the film, but that's why we were out here shooting. And I had got that gun, the exact model and everything and I wanted to present the gun to him as a present. I don't want to threaten him with a gun because I don't want him to think he's got a gun pointed at him, so I'm just holding up in a paper bag and said, 'Mr. Heston, I also want to give you the gun, the same kind of gun that killed this little girl.' In the editing room, I just thought, 'That's harsh.' It's rough enough just watching what I'm already doing.

Actually, Moore has a third version, disagreeing with the second in claiming the California trip was to film the South Central LA segment:

"Getting Heston, I tried for two years to get him and I'd given up. We'd been in Los Angeles to film those parts in South Central and we'd checked out of the hotel and were on our way to the airport and passed by one of those star map signs. One of the people in the crew van said, "Hey let's get a star map and see if we can find Heston." I said, "No, let's just get to the airport; I just want to get to my seat."

The second version is more than a bit questionable -- no California gun manufacturer would transfer a handgun to a Michigan or New York recipient. Transfer of a handgun to a non-resident of the seller's state (other than to another licensed dealer) is a federal felony. A manufacturer has to keep detailed records of each sale, and the records are audited by federal agents. It'd be the equivalent of mailing a signed confession to the federal agents, on an offense that carries a five-year prison term and termination of the manufacturer's license. (In fact, if this occurred Moore himself committed the felony of receiving a handgun from a nonresident of his own state).

The second version has other problems. When during the interview could that have occurred? At the outset of the interview, Heston is friendly, which he hardly would have been had Moore pulled the stunt. Heston is still friendly, albeit somewhat nervous, when the final sequence begins; between that and Heston walking out there are no signs of an edit. There's just no place for confrontation with the handgun to fit in.

In my opinion, the evidence suggests that the second version is a tall tale, invented for no better reason than to impress one interviewer. He omits mention of the camera crew's coming up with the idea, claims the idea was his own (indeed, he had obtained the handgun just for it), adds in the claim he confronted Heston with the bagged gun, and then makes himself sound decent by claiming he omitted the footage after all.

 

[Legion]

more conjecture and opinionated arguments, and piles of it i that you should know that i have grown tired of refuteing. while it is obvious that you dissagre with the man's views you have done nothing to prove him a liar.

Cut to Charleton Heston holding a musket over his head and happily proclaiming "I have only five words for you: 'from my cold, dead, hands'" to a cheering NRA crowd.

Cut to billboard advertising the meeting, while Moore in voiceover intones: "Just ten days after the Columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charleton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association." [But for this break, the viewer would spot that two different speeches are being merged, since Heston has lavender shirt and tie in the above speech, and white shirt and red tie in the one below.]

Provided from Moore's link to the speach:

http://www.freedaily.com/articles/990504n1.html

I want to welcome you to this abbreviated annual gathering of the National Rifle Association. Thank you for coming and thank you for supporting your organization. I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today. Of course, you have a right to be here.

As you know, we've canceled the festivities and fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. I apologize for that. But it's fitting and proper that we should do this ... because NRA members are, above all, Americans.

http://hardylaw.net/Bowlingtranscript.html
http://hardylaw.net/MoorereplyHeston.html

From Video:

Cut to Charleton Heston holding a musket over his head and happily proclaiming "I have only five words for you: 'from my cold, dead, hands'" to a cheering NRA crowd.

Cut to billboard advertising the meeting, while Moore in voiceover intones: "Just ten days after the Columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charleton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association." [But for this break, the viewer would spot that two different speeches are being merged, since Heston has lavender shirt and tie in the above speech, and white shirt and red tie in the one below.]

Heston's speach:

http://www.freedaily.com/articles/990504n1.html

Moore's rendition of the speach:

Heston's speech as actually given [link is to www.freedaily.com/articles/990504n1.html]

In the transcript below, the portions used by Moore are italicized. Note how they come from entirely different parts of the speech. Moore takes video and audio of seven sentences and assembles them into a speech which was never given. He covers the audio edits by breaking to images of the crowd and of protestors. This is not slipshod; this is the creation of a lie.

["Cold dead hands" is nowhere in speech. It is actually from a speech given by Heston in Charlotte, N.C., a year later. By swapping in the billboard and his narration, Moore covers the splice.]

Thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning. I am very happy to welcome you to this abbreviated annual gathering of the National Rifle Association. Thank you all for coming and thank you for supporting your organization.

I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today. Or course, you have a right to be here. As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that.

But it's fitting and proper that we should do this. Because NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity.

I have a message from the mayor, Mr. Wellington Webb, the mayor of Denver. He sent me this and said don't come here, we don't want you here. I said to the mayor, well, my reply to the mayor is, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I've run small errands for my country, from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you here in this room could say the same thing. But the mayor said don't come.

I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for the newspaper ads saying the same thing, don't come here. This is our country. As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land.

They say we'll create a media distraction, but we were preceded here by hundreds of intrusive news crews. They say we'll create political distraction, but it's not been the NRA pressing for political advantage, calling press conferences to propose vast packages of new legislation.

Still they say don't come here. I guess what saddens me the most is how that suggests complicity. It implies that you and I and 80 million honest gun owners are somehow to blame, that we don't care. We don't care as much as they do, or that we don't deserve to be as shocked and horrified as every other soul in America mourning for the people of Littleton.

Don't come here. That's offensive. It's also absurd because we live here. There are thousands of NRA members in Denver, and tens upon tens of thousands in the state of Colorado.

NRA members labor in Denver's factories, they populate Denver's faculties, run Denver corporations, play on Colorado sports teams, work in media across the Front Range, parent and teach and coach Denver's children, attend Denver's churches and proudly represent Denver in uniform on the world's oceans and in the skies over Kosovo at this very moment.

NRA members are in city hall, Fort Carson, NORAD, the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center. And yes, NRA members are surely among the police and fire and SWAT team heroes who risked their lives to rescue the students at Columbine.

Don't come here? We're already here. This community is our home. Every community in America is our home. We are a 128-year-old fixture of mainstream America. The Second Amendment ethic of lawful, responsible firearm ownership spans the broadest cross section of American life imaginable.

So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy.

One more thing. Our words and our behavior will be scrutinized more than ever this morning. Those who are hostile towards us will lie in wait to seize on a soundbite out of context, ever searching for an embarrassing moment to ridicule us. So, let us be mindful. The eyes of the nation are upon us today.

Moore's excuses and rebuttles of moore:

http://hardylaw.net/MoorereplyHeston.html

Moore's reply:

"The Truth: Heston took his NRA show to Denver "

Now, now, Mike. As pointed out on the main webpage, the NRA "show" was canceled. All that was held was the voting members' meeting, which was required by NY nonprofit corporation law. And you cut Heston's words making that announcement out of his speech -- "As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings.". Why did you cut that out?

"and did and said exactly what we recounted."

Okay, let's see it. . . .

"From the end of my narration setting up Heston's speech in Denver, with my words, "a big pro-gun rally,"

Ah, Mike. Think we wouldn't notice that those words come after the first edit, where you plug in Heston's speech, not from Denver, but from North Carolina a year later? So your defense amounts to 'except for the segment that wasn't from Denver, my footage was from Denver."

"every word out of Charlton Heston's mouth was uttered right there in Denver, just 10 days after the Columbine tragedy. But don't take my word ­ read the transcript of his whole speech. Heston devotes the entire speech to challenging the Denver mayor and mocking the mayor's pleas that the NRA "don't come here." Far from deliberately editing the film to make Heston look worse, I chose to leave most of this out and not make Heston look as evil as he actually was."

Yep. Go and read the original speech. Either on Mike's page or in my side-by-side comparison.

Sure, Mike, you took out "So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy," because that made Heston sound too evil for your taste? Or was it "NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity" that appalled you? Or "shocked and horrified as every other soul in America mourning for the people of Littleton."?

"Why are these gun nuts upset that their brave NRA leader's words are in my film? You'd think they would be proud of the things he said. Except, when intercut with the words of a grieving father (whose son died at Columbine and happened to be speaking in a protest that same weekend Heston was at the convention center), suddenly Charlton Heston doesn't look so good does he? Especially to the people of Denver (and, the following year, to the people of Flint) who were still in shock over the tragedies when Heston showed up."

Pity that Mike doesn't respond to my point that in Flint, Heston actually was attending an election event, ten months after the shooting, and unrelated to it. (Moore's own candidate, Nader, was speaking in Flint the same day).

"As for the clip preceding the Denver speech, when Heston proclaims "from my cold dead hands," this appears as Heston is being introduced in narration."

As I said, Moore deals in impressions rather than words. He has Heston speaking, then cuts away to a billboard (to let you forget that Heston's shirt and tie are changed in the next shot), telling you Heston came to Denver, then goes back to Heston speaking. Here's he's lamely covering what he did ... 'Uh ... I thought everybody understood 'cold dead hands' wasn't from Denver, it was just to introduce Heston.'

"It is Heston's most well-recognized NRA image ­ hoisting the rifle overhead as he makes his proclamation, as he has done at virtually every political appearance on behalf of the NRA (before and since Columbine)."

Wrong-o. I can find no record of Heston saying that prior to his being given the presentation rifle in North Carolina, a year after Columbine. Since then, he used the sentence (but not at "virtually every political appearance"), but never before then.

 

[Legion]

Moore Lies:

. Mt. Morris shooting/ Flint rally. Bowling continues by juxtaposing another Heston speech with a school shooting of Kayla Rolland at Mt. Morris, MI, just north of Flint. Moore makes the claim that "Just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally."


Fact: Heston's speech was given at a "get out the vote" rally in Flint, which was held when elections rolled by some eight months after the shooting ( Feb. 29 vs Oct. 17, 2000).

Fact: Bush and Gore were then both in the Flint area, trying to gather votes. Moore himself had been hosting rallies for Green Party candidate Nader in Flint a few weeks before.

Moore creates the impression that one event was right after the other so smoothly that I didn't spot his technique. It was picked up by Richard Rockley, who sent me an email.

Moore works by depriving you of context and guiding your mind to fill the vacuum -- with completely false ideas. It is brilliantly, if unethically, done,. Let's deconstruct his method.

The entire sequence takes barely 40 seconds. Images are flying by so rapidly that you cannot really think about them, you just form impressions.

Shot of Moore comforting Kayla's school principal after she discusses Kayla's murder. As they turn away, we hear Heston's voice: "From my cold, dead hands." [Moore is again attibuting it to a speech where it was not uttered.]

When Heston becomes visible, he's telling a group that freedom needs you now, more than ever, to come to its defense. Your impression: Heston is responding to something urgent, presumably the controversy caused by her death. And he's speaking about it like a fool.

Moore: "Just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally."

Moore continues on to say that before he came to Flint, Heston had been interviewed by the Georgetown Hoya about Kayla's death... Why would this be important?

Image of Hoya (a student paper) appears on screen, with highlighting on words of reporter mentioning Kayla Rolland's name, and highlighting on Heston's name (only his name, not his reply) as he answers. Image is on screen only a few seconds.

Ah, you think you spot the relevance: he obviously was alerted to the case, and that's why be came.

And, Moore continues, the case was discussed on Heston's "own NRA" webpage... Again, your mind seeks relevance....

Image of a webpage for America's First Freedom (a website for NRA, not for Heston) with text "48 hours after Kayla Rolland was prounced dead" highlighted and zoomed in on.

Your impression: Heston did something 48 hours after she died. Why else would "his" webpage note this event, whatever it is? What would Heston's action have been? It must have been to go to Flint and hold the rally.

Scene cuts to protestors, including a woman with a Million Moms March t-shirt, who asks how Heston could come here, she's shocked and appalled, "it's like he's rubbing our face in it." (This speaker and the protest may be faked, but let's assume for the moment they're real.). This caps your impression. She's shocked by Heston coming there, 48 hours after the death. He'd hardly be rubbing faces in it if he came there much later, on a purpose unrelated to the death.

The viewer thinks he or she understands ....

One reviewer: Heston "held another NRA rally in Flint, Michigan, just 48 hours after a 6 year old shot and killed a classmate in that same town."

Another:"What was Heston thinking going to into Colorado and Michigan immediately after the massacres of innocent children?"

Let's look at the facts behind the presentation:

Heston's speech, with its sense of urgency, freedom needs you now more than ever before. As noted above, it's actually an election rally, held weeks before the closest election in American history.

Moore: "Just as at Columbine, Heston showed up in Flint to have a large pro-gun rally." As noted above, it was an election rally actually held eight months later.

Georgetown Hoya interview, with highlighting on reporter mentioning Kayla and on Heston's name where he responds.

What is not highlighted, and impossible to read except by repeating the scene, is that the reporter asks about Kayla and about the Columbine shooters, and Heston replies only as to the Columbine shooters. There is no indication that he recognized Kayla Rolland's case. It flashes past in the movie: click here to see it frozen.

"His NRA webpage" with highlighted reference to "48 hours after Kayla Robinson is pronounced dead." Here's where it gets interesting. Moore zooms in on that phrase so quickly that it blots out the rest of the sentence, and then takes the image off screen before you can read anything else.

(It's clearer in the movie). The page is long gone, but I finally found an archived version and also a June 2000 usenet posting usenet posting. Guess what the page really said happened? Not a Heston trip to Flint, but: "48-hours after Kayla Rolland is pronounced dead, Bill Clinton is on The Today Show telling a sympathetic Katie Couric, "Maybe this tragic death will help."" Nothing to do with Heston. Incidentally, if you have the DVD version and the right player, you can freeze frame this sequence and see it yourself. Then go back and freeze frame the rally, and you'll make out various Bush election posters and tags.

Yep, Moore had a reason for zooming in on the 48 hours. The zooming starts instantly, and moves sideways to block out the rest of the sentence before even the quickest viewer could read it.

If this is artistic talent, it's not the type that merits an Oscar.

3. Animated sequence equating NRA with KKK. In an animated history send-up, with the narrator talking rapidly, Bowling equates the NRA with the Klan, suggesting NRA was founded in 1871, "the same year that the Klan became an illegal terrorist organization." Bowling goes on to depict Klansmen becoming the NRA and an NRA character helping to light a burning cross.

This sequence is intended to create the impression either that NRA and the Klan were parallel groups or that when the Klan was outlawed its members formed the NRA.

Both impressions are not merely false, but directly opposed to the real facts.

Fact: The NRA was founded in 1871 -- by act of the New York Legislature, at request of former Union officers. The Klan was founded in 1866, and quickly became a terrorist organization. One might claim that while it was an organization and a terrorist one, it technically became an "illegal" such with passage of the federal Ku Klux Klan Act and Enforcement Act in 1871. These criminalized interference with civil rights, and empowered the President to use troops to suppress the Klan. (Although we'd have to acknowledge that murder, terror and arson were illegal long before that time -- the Klan hadn't been operating legally until 1871, it was operating illegally with the connivance of law enforcement.)

Fact: The Klan Act and Enforcement Act were signed into law by President Ulysess S. Grant. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus and deploying troops; under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made and the Klan was dealt a serious (if all too short-lived) blow.

Fact: Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan earned him unpopularity among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him, and an associate of Douglass wrote that African-Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

Fact: After Grant left the White House, the NRA elected him as its eighth president.

Fact: After Grant's term, the NRA elected General Philip Sheridan, who had removed the governors of Texas and Lousiana for failure to suppress the KKK.

Fact: The affinity of NRA for enemies of the Klan is hardly surprising. The NRA was founded by former Union officers, and eight of its first ten presidents were Union veterans.

Fact: During the 1950s and 1960s, groups of blacks organized as NRA chapters in order to obtain surplus military rifles to fight off Klansmen.

Shooting at Buell Elementary School in Michigan. Bowling depicts the juvenile shooter who killed Kayla Rolland as a sympathetic youngster, from a struggling family, who just found a gun in his uncle's house and took it to school. "No one knew why the little boy wanted to shoot the little girl."

Fact: The little boy was the class thug, already suspended from school for stabbing another kid with a pencil, and had fought with Kayla the day before. Since the incident, he has stabbed another child with a knife.

Fact: The uncle's house was the family business -- the neighborhood crack-house. The gun was stolen and was purchased by the uncle in exchange for drugs.The shooter's father was already serving a prison term for theft and drug offenses. A few weeks later police busted the shooter's grandmother and aunt for narcotics sales. After police hauled the family away, the neighbors applauded the officers. This was not a nice but misunderstood family.

http://www.freep.com/news/metro/beech28_20010228.htm
http://www.freep.com/news/kayla/charge3_20000303.htm
http://crime.about.com/library/blfiles/blfirstgrade.htm
http://www.vpc.org/studies/wgun000229.htm
http://www.freep.com/news/kayla/fia3_20000303.htm
http://www.jlc.org/Resources/externals/dfp.03.02.00.htm
http://www.freep.com/news/kayla/fia6_20000306.htm
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/apr2000/welf-a28.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/03/07/60II/main168970.shtml
http://www.courttv.com/news/2001/1005/motherson_ap.html

The Taliban and American Aid. In discussing military assistance to various countries, Bowling asserts that the U.S. gave $245 million in aid to the Taliban government of Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001.


Fact: The aid in question was humanitarian assistance, given through UN and nongovernmental organizations, to relieve famine in Afghanistan. [Various numbers are given for the amount of the aid, and some say several million went for clearing landmines.]

6. International Comparisons. To pound home its point, Bowling flashes a dramatic count of gun homicides in various countries: Canada 165, Germany 381, Australia 65, Japan 39, US 11,127. Now that's raw numbers, not rates -- Here's why he doesn't talk rates.

Verifying the figures was difficult, since Moore does not give a year for them. A lot of Moore's numbers didn't check out for any period I could find. As a last effort at checking, I did a Google search for each number and the word "gun" or words "gun homicides" Many traced -- only back to webpages repeating Bowling's figures. Moore is the only one using these numbers.

Germany: Bowling says 381: 1995 figures put homicides at 1,476, about four times what Bowling claims, and gun homicides at 168, about half what it claims: it's either far too high or far too low.

Australia: Bowling says 65. This is very close, albeit picking the year to get the data desired. Between 1980-1995, firearm homicides varied from 64-123, although never exactly 65. In 2000, it was 64, which was proudly proclaimed as the lowest number in the country's history.

US: Bowling says 11,127. FBI figures put it a lot lower. They report gun homicides were 8,719 in 2001, 8,661 in 2000, 8,480 in 1999. (2001 UCR, p. 23). Here's the table:

[You can download the entire report, in .pdf format, by clicking here; look for pt. 2 at p.23.] To be utterly fair, this is a count of the 13,752 homicides for which police submitted supplemental data (including weapon used): the total homicide count was 15,980. But what weapon, if any, was used in the other homicide is unknown to us, and was unknown to Moore.
After an email tip, I finally found a way to compute precisely 11,127. Ignore the FBI, use Nat'l Center for Health Statistics figures. These are based on doctors' death certificates rather than police investigation.

Then -- to their gun homicide figures, add the figure for legally-justified homicides: self-defense and police use against criminals. Presto, you have exactly Moore's 11,127. I can see no other way for him to get it.

Since Moore appears to use police figures for the other countries, it's hardly a valid comparison. More to the point, it's misleading since it includes self-defense and police: when we talk of a gun homicide problem we hardly have in mind a woman defending against a rapist, or a cop taking out an armed robber.

Canada: Moore's number is correct for 1999, a low point, but he ignores some obvious differences.

Bias. I wanted to talk about fabrication, not about bias, but I've gotten emails asking why I didn't mention that Switzerland requires almost all adult males to have guns, but has a lower homicide rate than Great Britain, or that Japanese-Americans, with the same proximity to guns as other Americans, have homicide rates half that of Japan itself. Okay, they're mentioned, now back to our regularly scheduled program.

 

[Legion]

Canada: A Culture of Fear

http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/bowlingforcolumbine/scenes/canada.htm

OH, CANADA!
After over an hour spent on the horrors of the United States, Moore switches to the peaceful utopian poppy field and candy cane society of Canada. He begins by arguing that Canada and the United States are very similar — except that Canada has a generous welfare state, and no culture of fear.

It is quite apparent to anyone that Canada is a fairly decent and safe place to live (especially if you like to pay 60% of your income in taxes). It's true that Canada does have a lot of guns compared to England or Japan, but Canada's per-capita gun ownership rate is about a third of the American level.




Race in Canada

Moore says there are lots of black people in Canada and to prove it - he shows us!:



Yes, Moore shows 3 ethnic minority women walking down the street with the caption 'Toronto Canada' as if to say "SEE! I told you they're here!"

Moore then tells the audience that 13 percent of the Canadian population is minority ethnic, the same as in the U.S. Well, actually, it's about 31 percent in the U.S., (but maybe he just got the number backwards by accident). More significantly, blacks and Hispanics, who are involved in well over 50 percent of American homicides (both as victims and as perpetrators) make up about 2.5 percent of the Canadian population. In the United States, each group makes up about one-eighth of the U.S. population.

Comparing U.S. gun-death totals with Canada's, Moore offers a U.S. total that includes death by legal intervention (e.g., a violent felon being shot by a police officer) while omitting this same category from the Canadian total.

Unlocked doors

We see Moore, in Toronto, expressing his amazement that people in this city don't lock their doors. He even goes to a few doors, tries them, and, sure enough, they are not locked. But if Moore wanted to find places where you can leave the door unlocked, he didn't need to leave the U.S. I do that now. David Hardy in his own dissection of BFC says he does as well and did so when he lived in the Washington DC metropolitan area, at a time when it was the homicide capital of the U.S. Hardy says "I lived in a suburb where crime was close to unknown, and locking the doors when you were home was just an obstacle to going outside. And, no, it wasn't a fancy gated community populated by millionaires. A Hispanic family lived across the street, a fellow government worker next to me, a Navy vet diagonally across from me."

But the point is that we see here that Toronto is a safe haven. Only problem is that it isn't

An article in the London Free Press (11/2/02) refers to "Bloody Sunday" in Toronto in which there were, recently, "four frightening fatal shootings.... four shocking murders" in one night. Did I just say shootings?! Yep, these murders were committed with guns.

An article in Canada's National Post (11/28/02) says:

"Toronto's recent wave of street murders -- more than 40 since the beginning of 2001 -- debunks the claim that Ottawa's gun registry is making Canadians safer from crime.... Nearly all of the Toronto murders have been committed with handguns. Yet the guns have been subject to registration since 1934. In fact, registration has done nothing to stem the use of handguns in murder: In the past 15 years, the proportion of all firearm murders committed with handguns has nearly doubled in Canada from just over one-third to nearly two-thirds."

Moreover, by all measures, it appears that Canada's handgun registry is a dismal failure in solving crimes. As in the States, cops find guns used in crime when they find the criminals.

Wrong on poverty

Moore dismisses typical liberal concerns about poverty creating crime, noting that,

"Liberals contend [gun violence is a result of] all the poverty we have here. But the unemployment rate in Canada is twice what we have here."

By every measure of international comparison, though, Canada's poverty rate is significantly lower than that of the U.S., thanks to the generous social insurance programs that he repeatedly praises in the film.

Wrong on Crime in Canada

In BFC Michael Moore would have you believe that Canada is a crime free utopia. Larry Pratt from Gunowners.org looks at a shot where Moore asks a policeman in Windsor, Ontario, if he's ever heard of anyone shot in Windsor? Answer: "No." Any murders-by-gun? Answer: "Fifteen to 20 years ago." Says Moore: Therefore, there are "no Canadians shooting other Canadians" in the Windsor area which has about 400,000 people.

But, as Pratt details on his website, once again, this is wrong. The Canadian Press Newswire (3/17/2000), datelined Windsor, Ontario, reports two convictions for murder and one for attempted murder. The weapon used in these murders and attempted murder on December 4, 1997, was "a silver revolver."

But perhaps that's a little nit-picky. Mr. Pratt's research just proves that policeman didn't remember that incident. With all reasonability, Moore's generalization is essentially correct. However, the generalized representation is either very dishonest or very uninformed. The conversation and comment is about guns, but the argument of the scene is that Canadians aren't killing each other - not that they aren't shooting each other. Moore illustrates this in the unlocked doors sequence and makes it clear when he says the reasons Americans kill each other is because they are pumped with fear from the media and Canadians aren't (what he really means is 'the news' not 'the media' because of course he admits that Canadians watch our movies, listen to our music and play our same video games).

But reality in Canada is a little different than Moore's fictitious portrayal. Indeed There have been other horrible crimes of violence in Windsor besides this 1997 shooting, but Moore doesn't count or mention them, because they did not involve guns - which, as I said, is a very dishonest manipulation since his thesis here is really on violence in general; guns just being an example. In another Canadian Press Newswire story (3/2/2000), also datelined Windsor, Ontario, we're told of a woman who killed her abusive husband by plunging a 7.5 centimetre paring knife into his chest.

And in yet another Canadian Press Newswire story (2/2/01), datelined Windsor, Ontario, we're told of a man convicted of second degree murder for torturing and killing a co-worker who he beat, hog-tied and nearly decapitated with a serrated knife - yikes.

 

[kyleb]

 

[Legion]

lie2 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (l)
n.
A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.

de·ceive ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-sv)
v. de·ceived, de·ceiv·ing, de·ceives
v. tr.
To cause to believe what is not true; mislead.
Archaic. To catch by guile; ensnare.

v. intr.
To practice deceit.
To give a false impression: appearances can deceive.

fic·tion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fkshn)
n.

An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.
The act of inventing such a creation or pretense.
A lie.

A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact.
The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories.
Law. Something untrue that is intentionally represented as true by the narrator.

our discussion is over. You have nothing to add to this debate nor can you refute the allegations. You simply deny them.

 

[RussSchultz]

You simply deny them.

No he doesn't.*

Brought to you by Monty Python's argument clinic. http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/sketch.htm

 

[Legion]

You simply deny them.

No he doesn't.*

Brought to you by Monty Python's argument clinic. http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/sketch.htm

then what does he? Yes he does.*

brought to you by Who's On First!