Re: testing... again -- Book Discussion for: "Terror and Liberalism" by Paul Berman

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Date Posted: 20:12:24 09/20/03 Sat
Author: chas
Subject: Re: testing... again
In reply to: chas 's message, "Re: testing..." on 01:56:57 09/10/03 Wed

Again again again. And how about this:

Yesterday when I was at Blockbuster Video, they had several TV screens showing advertising trailers for various movies that have just come out on video and CD. I witnessed the Bowling for Columbine trailer by United Artists, played several times while I was there. I was horrified.

Footage of Charlton Heston was shown, supposedly giving an insensitive speech in Denver only days after the Columbine shooting. Moore actually spliced together fragments of speeches of Heston's that were made months apart, even before the Columbine shootings. But in this trailer, Moores editing isn't questioned, and the result is presented as fact. We are then shown Moore confronting a confused Charleton Heston as his home. This is presented as "funny", because Heston is confused. There is no mention that Heston has retired from public life because he is suffering from Alzheimers; he's just presented as a confused fool, that we are encouraged to laugh at.

The rest of the trailer is snippets of the most outrageous parts of Moore's film, which the trailer's narration informs us, is very entertaining and amusing. We are then told how this wonderful DOCUMENTARY is an award winning film, not only endorsed by the Motion Picture Academy with an oscar, but by scores of other institutions as well.

Each time this trailer played, sandwitched between trailers for other "entertaining" films, it seemed even more sickening. Leftwing propaganda, not only presented as TRUTH, but as ENTERTAINMENT as well.

In college, I wrote a paper for a course called "Propaganda and Public Opinion". The paper was about the cynical use of film as Nazi propaganda in Hitler's Third Reich. Moore's efforts in Bowling for Columbine are as worthy as any Nazi propagandists efforts, in it's gross and deliberate misrepresention of facts and outright lies.

I have been appauled at how many supporters of this film have refused to discuss Moore's manipulation of facts by "creative" editing and ommission. They inform me that even if Moore isn't factually correct, it doesn't matter, because the MESSAGE of his film is more important, and that I should not be concerning myself about wether the film is factual or not, because that isn't important, but rather, I should be concerned about WHO is critisizing the film, and why. And it is so AMUSING. Where is the harm? They say with a smile.

They say that the truth doesn't matter, and think that's ok. I find that appalling.

The people who say this believe themselves to be totally unbiased, unpredjudiced, and completely non-judgemental; unlike those who disagree with them, of course.

I find this totalitarian trend among the American left very disturbing. It reminds me of the Faurist Socialists in France, who in their desire to avoid war with Hitler's Germany, rationalized Nazism to the point where they went from being liberal, freedom loving social democrats, to supporters of one of histories most terrifiying totalitarian regeims. (This was described perfectly in Paul Berman's book, "Terror and Liberalism", in the chapter called "Wishful Thinking".)

When people don't question even obvious lies, because those lies further their agenda, we are opening the door to untold horrors. When that door was opened in Germany, no one could close it, untill... history speaks for itself. Are we doomed to repeat it again and again? If we start to believe that perpetuating lies is ok as long as the agenda we are furthering is desirable, we begin our decent down the slippery slope of wishful thinking, which is the seed of every pathological mass movement that history has witnessed. Such pathology has always been the enemy of liberalism, and the friend of totalitarianism, and the horrors it always brings.

- chas

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The Forum/Blog idea. -- Scott T., 06:44:07 11/07/03 Fri