Michael Moore's messages to the crestfallen

Michael Moore's messages to the crestfallen - Printable Version

+- PunBB (https://punbb.in)
+-- Forum: General Discussion - Hipbase.com (https://punbb.in/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Non Tragically Hip Discussion (https://punbb.in/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Thread: Michael Moore's messages to the crestfallen (/showthread.php?tid=4306)

Pages: 1 2 3 4

- thipfan73 - 11-08-2004

direwolf74 Wrote:Oh man, that's great! You can always count on Moore for a little humor to lighten things up. It's been a week already and I'm still as pissed off as I was on November 3rd...but reading this makes me feel a bit better. Thanks for posting!

:thumb:

I'm still in denial myself!!!!! Confused

cratch: :x :rambo:

- tommygunn - 11-09-2004

prz Wrote:I believe Bush was the first president since 1988 to get over 50 percent of the vote. There is a number good old Michael Moore forgot to include.

There was really no viable 3rd candidate this year receiving votes.
When there are only two candidates basically receiving votes, the winner will inevitably get over 50% of the vote. It's not quite the feat as some people are saying it is.

- grooveless touque - 11-09-2004

That's what I've been thinking every time Bush and his supporters go after that whole "mandate" thing. Back when Clinton trounced Dole, the only reason he didn't get more than 50% of the vote was third-party candidates. Perot took a big chunk out of both of the major two parties in the nineties. Proportionally, Clinton beat his opponents by a wider margin than Bush beat Kerry. edit: Looks like Clinton beat Dole 49-41. That's an 8 percent margin, or proportionally (normalized to 100%), a SEVENTEEN percent margin for Clinton (41 being only 83% of 49).

Incidentally, I am thrilled no third party candidate played a role this time. It will be far easier to revisit the Democratic Party knowing they lost fair and square. If this had been another sour election that left doubt and shadows on Bush for another four years, it would have been infinitely worse. If nothing else, it would have allowed Democrats to think they did nothing wrong and got robbed by outside influences - just as happened in 2000.

- tragicallymike - 11-09-2004

The Darkest Canuck Wrote:
tragicallymike Wrote:but over 50% of Americans are Idiots. And they all voted for Bush.

hmmm, something i agree with Mike on...how strange...maybe he's not so bad after all...

for a Buffalite

:lol:

:thumb: im a good guy sometimes

- Stephen Dame - 11-09-2004

I thought for sure this would have something to with cheap wine and Krispy Kreme's... LOTS of Krispy Kreme's.

- grooveless touque - 11-09-2004

Stephen Dame Wrote:I thought for sure this would have something to with cheap wine and Krispy Kreme's... LOTS of Krispy Kreme's.

Ha ha ha...no kidding. I bet every Democrat who ever tried to quit smoking, drinking or binge-eating has just suffered a relapse!

By the way...this is this board's FIFTY THOUSANDTH post. I'm not going to start my own thread to herald this, but how could I not mention it. 50,000 is a great milestone for this community! And to think, only 40,000 posts are mine... :roll:

- MikeS - 11-09-2004

Not trying to stir the pot, but I offer this up strictly as food for thought, in light of the latest round of "Bush-bashing"...from the youth section (I.D.) of today's Toronto Star (a decidedly Liberal newspaper)...I apologise in advance for the length, but it's a subscription website, so I can't just post the link...

Quote:Nov. 9, 2004. 06:59 AM

So liberal, it hurts
Liberals need to open their minds, instead of alienating everyone who doesn't agree with them

SAN GREWAL

"We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still."

John Stuart Mill, 19th-century liberal scholar

Two e-mails circulated last week offered further proof that liberals today are out of touch with their classic values.

One of the mass mailings was a list of the 50 U.S. states, ranked in order of highest average IQ. The top part of the list included all the states that swung in favour of Democratic senator John Kerry. The states with the lowest IQ voted for President George W. Bush.

The other shows a map of Canada and the U.S, separated by two colours, one that covers Canada, the West coast down to California and the northeastern states — this region, shaped like a fat horseshoe, is referred to as The United States of Canada. The rest of the map, covering the American South and Midwest, is called Jesusland.

The message behind the two postings is clear: The values shared by the enlightened folks living in traditional liberal areas are not shared by bible-thumping rednecks who live elsewhere.

And, worse, if you're not a liberal democrat, you're stupid.

Were he alive, liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill would probably suggest the opposite: That the arrogance of liberals today, who assume they are always right and their counterparts always wrong, is a product of the dimmest of bulbs.

In the last half-year this sort of attitude saw the federal Liberals in Canada reduced from a strong majority to a flimsy minority — even after a fear-based campaign directed at proving, "The other side is evil," as one Liberal party insider was quoted in a national newspaper after the election was over.

Canadians evidently, still blindly embrace liberal ideology, too often celebrating all attacks against anyone who disagrees with them.

However, in the U.S., regardless of what any acerbic e-mails suggest, the numbers don't lie — close to 60 million American voters rejected the liberal platform of the Democratic party.

The modern liberal is quickly accomplishing what conservatives on the far right have long hoped would happen: The distortion of classical liberal values into a brand of elitism that renders contemporary liberalism irrelevant to much of the North American mainstream.

Liberals have become an aristocracy, often out of reach and reason of the average individual.

Consider some content from the <a class="postlink" href="http://www.turnleft.com">http://www.turnleft.com</a> website, "The Home of Liberalism on the Web" which has been particularly popular among university students. It includes a list of "Friendly cities" (such as Berkeley, California) and "Unfriendly cities" (like Charlotte, North Carolina).

Here's a quote from the site: "You know you are a conservative if you believe ... The most persecuted group of people in all history are white, Christian males and it is about time they started to fight back against their oppressors ... Your AK-47 is the only thing keeping a tyrannical government from imprisoning millions of your fellow citizens in secret concentration camps ... Any woman who wants equal pay, control over her own body or thinks for herself is a wacko feminist ..."

None of this unbelievable exaggeration actually helps the liberal cause — all it does is alienate.

At its root, classical liberalism stands for the protection of individual freedoms. And it's this value that pits so many young liberal-minded Canadians and Americans against conservative forces, which advocate restriction such as no same-sex marriages.

But, more than any other issue, what many young liberals fear is the threat to their unique brand of cultural liberalism.

In a tone intended (unsuccessfully) to avoid any obvious snobbery or elitism, young liberals often veer into discussions about those "other" people who don't live in urban centres.

They comment on how those people dress — usually in earthtones — their bewildering acceptance of religion and remark how a lack of cosmopolitan cultural sophistication that makes these people rubes and rednecks.

Somehow, family life lived outside large urban centres, devoid of artistic/creative/intellectual refinement, narrowed by the detail to financial security and future success — and often guided morally by religion or spiritualism — cannot ever be reconciled with liberal values that place individual freedom and choice above all else.

For such liberals, anyone who disagrees with them is either a fool, a conservative or, usually, both.

Even old-guard liberals like``Halfmast Trousers," who posted the following on Fark (<a class="postlink" href="http://www.fark.com">http://www.fark.com</a>), are growing weary:

"I guess the biggest pill to swallow is the whole `Bush Stole the Election' thing. Well, no more. He won this one, no argument. For myself, I am liberal on almost all issues, and never voted Republican in 20 years, but I ended up voting for Bush simply because of people like Michael Moore, the whole Hollywood contingent, the insane protesters in black masks that I have seen, the reckless Fark posters ... the anti-Bush ignoramuses I hang out with at the cafe, the Portland, Seattle, San Fran contingents, etc."

The sort of urban liberals Mr. Trousers laments continue to lump their unenlightened counterparts into broad groups of people who listen to mainstream top-40 music (or country), or worse — shop at big-box chain stores.

By contrast, the cultural liberalism young people have adopted is a licence of sorts, to conduct oneself in a free-spirited way, as long as no harm is done to others.

It encourages individuals to pursue freedom not as a means to an end, but simply because they can.

This form of liberalism runs contrary to the beliefs of many classical theorists. People such as Mill, Adam Smith and David Hume expressed a profound respect for the embeddedness of individuals in families, religious communities and small social networks.

The classical brand of liberalism they defended recognized the need to protect individual freedoms: To guarantee the material opportunities everyone should enjoy equally and, perhaps more importantly, to help preserve the moral conventions that help condition people.

Many young people today have turned this definition on its head.

For example, freedom of religious expression — a foundation of traditional liberalism in this country — is now often viewed in a contradictory manner.

Even though evangelical Christians have chosen their path, liberals offer up patronizing explanations of how these churchgoers have been brainwashed into adopting specific views about a range of moral issues.

Many young "liberal-minded" people today seem ill-equipped to reconcile the hypocrisy of the brand of liberalism they've been sold.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't agree with the Christian right's position on moral and social issues.

But I always thought it was a liberal position to accept and respect differences of opinions.

So, when Bush's victory last week came with news of the emerging force of the evangelical movement and the power of a mobilized Christian right, many of the liberal opinions expressed in Canada seemed misguided.

These religious constituencies are now described in a similar way that Islamic extremists have been: Somehow these people are unable to make individual choices due to the overwhelming and fanatical influence of religion in their lives.

If a new generation of young urban liberals can drop this sort of moral arrogance and accept the khaki pants and Gap shirts that their SUV-driving conservative counterparts in the suburbs seem so fond of, they might be able to push liberal values back into respectability.

If not, the liberal culture snobs in this country and those south of the border will have to continue to find solace from other members of their exclusive club, as they shake their heads at the growing number of people who just don't seem to think the way they do.

- prz - 11-09-2004

Here is a letter to the editor that was printed in the Economist a week after the magazine endorsed Kerry. I think its interesting.

SIR – You should not be shy of voicing your opinion on the American election. Indeed, in 1944, with your newly acquired sensitivities, your argument could have run like this. Roosevelt deserves praise for his reaction to Pearl Harbour but has made some mistakes. He lost the battle of the Kasserine Pass in 1943. On D-Day he lost over 3,000 men in what his opponent called the “wrong invasion at the wrong time and in the wrong place”. Afterwards, Roosevelt, in battles that he outsourced to an ally, let 40,000 Germans escape from Falaise and another 80,000 from Walcheren. His biggest mistake, though, was the internment of thousands of people of Japanese ancestry, whether innocent or guilty, without trial. And he did not dismiss Chester Nimitz after Admiral Yamamoto was shot down without a trial and Japanese merchant vessels were sunk in blatant disregard of Geneva conventions.

If Roosevelt had made progress elsewhere in the world, it might have outweighed such mistakes. But “liberated” France is in disarray and China remains under occupation. Only the overthrow of Mussolini is clear progress.

Michal Odyniec
El Cerrito, California

- The Horrible Esthete - 11-09-2004

MikeS Wrote:Not trying to stir the pot, but I offer this up strictly as food for thought, in light of the latest round of "Bush-bashing"...from the youth section (I.D.) of today's Toronto Star (a decidedly Liberal newspaper)...I apologise in advance for the length, but it's a subscription website, so I can't just post the link...

MikeS:

I thank you so very much for posting that article. I think Grewal's words strike close to the truth of the bipartisan phenomenon in this country, yet we Americans are rarely exposed to astute commentaries such as this, presumably due to the real (sorry, but it's not 'mythical') liberal media bias.

Quote:The message behind the two postings is clear: The values shared by the enlightened folks living in traditional liberal areas are not shared by bible-thumping rednecks who live elsewhere.

And, worse, if you're not a liberal democrat, you're stupid.

Hmm - I get the same impression from many of the comments that circulate on this board...

Quote:However, in the U.S., regardless of what any acerbic e-mails suggest, the numbers don't lie — close to 60 million American voters rejected the liberal platform of the Democratic party.

This is perhaps the most important point relevant to the predominant discussion in this thread.....

Quote:The modern liberal is quickly accomplishing what conservatives on the far right have long hoped would happen: The distortion of classical liberal values into a brand of elitism that renders contemporary liberalism irrelevant to much of the North American mainstream.

Liberals have become an aristocracy, often out of reach and reason of the average individual.

Couldn't be any clearer, IMO as well....

Quote:But, more than any other issue, what many young liberals fear is the threat to their unique brand of cultural liberalism.

In a tone intended (unsuccessfully) to avoid any obvious snobbery or elitism, young liberals often veer into discussions about those "other" people who don't live in urban centres.

They comment on how those people dress — usually in earthtones — their bewildering acceptance of religion and remark how a lack of cosmopolitan cultural sophistication that makes these people rubes and rednecks.

Somehow, family life lived outside large urban centres, devoid of artistic/creative/intellectual refinement, narrowed by the detail to financial security and future success — and often guided morally by religion or spiritualism — cannot ever be reconciled with liberal values that place individual freedom and choice above all else.

For such liberals, anyone who disagrees with them is either a fool, a conservative or, usually, both.

Again, Grewal's observations pinpoint attitudes that run rampant in this forum.

Quote:Even though evangelical Christians have chosen their path, liberals offer up patronizing explanations of how these churchgoers have been brainwashed into adopting specific views about a range of moral issues.

Many young "liberal-minded" people today seem ill-equipped to reconcile the hypocrisy of the brand of liberalism they've been sold.

Does this sound familiar? I'm looking at you, Touque! Tongue

Quote:Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't agree with the Christian right's position on moral and social issues.

But I always thought it was a liberal position to accept and respect differences of opinions.

You and me both, Sam!

- KittieKatFish - 11-09-2004

DVD worth purchasing: FAHRENHYPE 9/11

- cferneyh - 11-09-2004

Quote:Were he alive, liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill would probably suggest the opposite: That the arrogance of liberals today, who assume they are always right and their counterparts always wrong, is a product of the dimmest of bulbs.

Hmmmm, sounds familiar.

- skippy the wonder dog - 11-09-2004

In truth, Esthete, this knife cuts both ways. If you don't think that conservative rhetoric directed towards the left has been particularly vicious, you aren't reading much. Part of that rhetoric, incidentally, is the continual characterization of liberalism as an "elite" point of view.

Instead of focusing on ideology, character, intelligence, and so on, perhaps debate could actually focus on fact and argument, i.e. on the issues themselves?

Too much to ask, perhaps....

- The Horrible Esthete - 11-09-2004

skippy the wonder dog Wrote:Instead of focusing on ideology, character, intelligence, and so on, perhaps debate could actually focus on fact and argument, i.e. on the issues themselves?

I would answer by saying that what's chiefly responsible for the reluctance to focus on the facts of the issues themselves is clearly outlined in Gewal's editorial....

- stanslow12 - 11-09-2004

The REAL liberal media? Come on Esthete.

Yes, I do consider myself liberal, but always attempt to see both sides of the argument and as for this issue I believe you are in as much denial as the people described in that article.

I will not go as far as saying the media is conservative, for this is false as well, besides of course Fox. If you get a chance, check out the documentary "Outfoxed", it supports the Fox theory in true documentary form, not glamoured up and skewed like a Michael Moore doc.

I happen to agree with Moore on many issues but his decision to only present 97.3% of the facts and make little attempt to present the opposing argument does little to persuade outside the choir. However, the fact that every one of his falsehoods are brought out in the media should be at least a subtle reminder that liberals don't have complete control.

Media is a business in this country, and they are going to present whatever sells, this may be conservative or liberal at times, depending on how you view it.

But hey, who doesn't want to know what Martha Stewart had for lunch today?

- skippy the wonder dog - 11-09-2004

The Horrible Esthete Wrote:
skippy the wonder dog Wrote:Instead of focusing on ideology, character, intelligence, and so on, perhaps debate could actually focus on fact and argument, i.e. on the issues themselves?

I would answer by saying that what's chiefly responsible for the reluctance to focus on the facts of the issues themselves is clearly outlined in Gewal's editorial....

My suggestion is that instead of ideologically based finger-pointing, public debate should get back to fact and argument.

But if you'd rather focus on who you think is the root cause of the problem, go ahead. But I don't think that'll actually put any focus on issues themselves....