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BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE

Yesterday I went and saw Michael Moore’s new documentary “BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE”, and was once again blown away by the man’s talent. He is superb at making his point while at the same time looking at an issue from all sides. As he is not trying to be an objective reporter, he of course gives extra weight to his view on things, but he gives the other side a chance to express their views.

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE is about, for the most part, the issue of gun violence in America, particularly gun violence in schools. He discusses the fact that the difference in the number of gun murders in America and in other countries is staggering, and tries to look into possible reasons for the difference. One thing that they pointed out that was, in my opinion, very valid was the fact that the media in America shows murder and crime all the time. “Cops” has been on the air for over ten years, you almost can’t turn on the news without seeing a murder case being covered, the same goes for newspapers. On the other hand, while we see murders on TV in Japan, they don’t take up the majority of the news hour. You can argue that a large reason for the difference here is that guns are hard to get, but they are readily available in Canada, and it isn’t the same. The news reports a lot of murders because there are a lot of murders, and because there are a lot of murders on the news, people are frightened; because people are frightened they get guns, and because frightened, emotional people have guns and have gun violence at the front of their minds, there are more gun murders. It is a vicious cycle, and I don’t know how to end it, but I think a good start would be reducing the sensationalism in the reporting of these stories in the popular press. Make the story into something sad and unacceptable rather than a big highly emotionally charged press circus.

One of the best parts of the movie for me was that Moore went and talked to some victims of the violence in Columbine High School. One boy was in a wheelchair, and the other was barely able to walk again after multiple surgeries. Both of them still had bullets lodged in their bodies. The kids that carried out the attacks had bought the bullets at a nearby K-Mart, so Moore and the kids went to the K-Mart headquarters, and tried to speak with the CEO of K-Mart. They never got to speak to the CEO, but did obtain a promise from K-Mart to stop selling handgun ammunition within 90 days. That was great publicity for K-Mart I think, and I was happy to see it take place. I am actually not against gun ownership, but I think Americans need to take it more seriously. I grew up with guns in my home, but they were never within my reach, they were never loaded until we were ready to use them, and we were ALWAYS taught that guns are dangerous and to be respected. I think that is what is really wrong in America is that respect is lacking, not only respect for guns, but respect for human life. The other thing that is missing is responsibility. People tend to not take responsibility for their own actions, and blame it on their upbringing or situation or whatever. True some people are disadvantaged, but that doesn’t excuse you not trying to improve it. If we could get a grip on those two things, we could get a grip on many of society’s problems.

I’m sorry, this sounds like an elementary book report, but I just can’t seem to write eloquently tonight (not that I ever can). I would recommend this movie to anyone, and it is still playing in Japan. It has won 22 awards so far, and is nominated for an Oscar for best documentary film. I really think it should be required viewing for Americans, but that would be propaganda and indoctrination wouldn’t it?

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And speaking of Bush

This kind of stuff doesn’t happen as an accident. Making mistakes in speeches and minor mistakes like that are understandable and happen to the best of us. Citing economic forecasts that don’t exist to push one’s economic plan is fraudulent, and shows a great lack of respect for the intelligence of the American people:

Bush Touts Economic Plan in Georgia This would all be fine if it weren’t for one simple thing:

Editor: Bush Cited Report That Doesn’t Exist

Bush talks about how it is wrong to double tax income, and wants to cut taxes on earnings from dividends to avoid that money being taxed.

What about all the salaries that people receive that are double taxed? If you really want to help the average American and not just the rich, reduce taxes on income rather than eliminating the tax on dividends. I am not biased in this matter. #1 I don’t live in the U.S. now. #2 I run my own (sole proprietorship) company, and therefore do not receive a salary from a company. I would be more likely to be taxed on capital gains or dividends.

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Ok, here we go…

Ok, here we get into some territory where Johnny and I definitely disagree. I am actually quite busy right now with a couple of projects, and trying to reorganize the office to cut down on distractions; but I’ll try to take a few minutes to rebut Johnny’s attack on my statement with sources cited.

First in regards to the stole our throne comment. I do not deny that there is controversy surrounding the topic, but Johnny saying that the count came in and Bush won is, as far as I know not a very accurate statement. To get a detailed and well told review of the election controversy from an, in my opinion, liberal but very fair source, I recommend that you pick up Michael Moore’s “Stupid White Men”, much of my material is gleaned from that source.

I would first like to point out some things that the Bush camp did before Election Day.

“In the summer of 1999 Katherine Harris, an honorary Stupid White Man who was both George W Bush’s presidential campaign chairwoman and the Florida secretary of state in charge of elections, paid $4 million to Database Technologies to go through Florida’s voter rolls and remove anyone “suspected” of being a former felon. She did so with the blessing of the governor of Florida, George W.’s brother Jeb Bush-whose own wife was caught by immigration officials trying to sneak $19,000 worth of jewelry into the country without declaring and paying tax on it…a felony in its own right. But hey, this is America. We don’t prosecute felons if they’re rich or married to a governing Bush.”

Since 31% of all black men in Florida have a felony on their record, and over 90% of black voters (that were allowed to vote) voted for gore, this took away a large number of potential votes from Gore. This is however, the law in Florida, and I’m not here to debate that. I do however find this information disturbing:

“In what appears to be a mass fraud committed by the state of Florida, Bush, Harris, and company not only removed thousands of black felons from the rolls, they also removed thousands of black citizens who had never committed a crime in their livesalong with thousands of eligible voters who had committed only misdemeanors.”

There are a lot more details that can be discussed about this, but I didn’t write the book, and I can’t and don’t want to quote the whole story, but consider this:

“George W. Bush would officially be credited with receiving 537 more votes than Al Gore in Florida. Is it safe to assume that the thousands of registered black and Hispanic voters barred from the polls might have made the difference if they had been allowed to vote-and cost Bush the election? Without a doubt. ”

Before the counting of votes had been completed, an executive of Fox decided to call the election in favor of bush. The other networks, the Associated Press a notable exception, followed suit, fearing being scooped. Who was it that made the call to declare Bush the winner before the masses? John Ellis, a first cousin of George W. and Jeb Bush.

“Once Ellis made the call and everyone followed suit, there was no going back-and nothing was more psychologically devastating for Gore’s chances of winning than the sudden perception that HE was being the spoiler by asking for recounts, withdrawing his concession of defeat, tying up the courts with lawyers and lawsuits. The truth is that during all of this, Gore actually was aheadhe had the most votes-but that was never how the media played it. ”

The book goes on and on about this issue, but I’ll finish this point up with this:

“All the pressure worked on the wimpy, spineless Democrats. They choked. While appearing on Meet the Press, vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman argued that the Democrats should stop creating a fuss and not be bothered that hundreds of military ballots were being counted, just because they weren’t “postmarked.”

Lieberman, like so many others among this new breed of Democrats, should have fought for principle instead of worrying about image. Why? Well, as the New York Times found out:

• 344 ballots had no evidence that they were cast on or before Election Day
• 183 ballots were postmarked in the United States
• 96 ballots lacked appropriate witness information
• 196 ballots came from unregistered voters, had envelopes that weren’t signed properly, or came from people who hadn’t requested a ballot
• 5 ballots came after the November 17 deadline
• 19 overseas voters voted on two ballots—and had both counted

All of these ballots violated Florida law, yet they were all counted. Can I say this any louder? Bush didn’t win! Gore did. It has nothing to do with chads, or even the blatant repression of Florida’s African-American community and their right to vote. It was a simple matter of breaking the law, all documented, all the evidence sitting there in Tallahassee, clearly marked without question—and all done purposefully to throw the election to Bush. ”

As for Bush’s approval ratings Johnny, you are flat wrong. Bush has seen his approval rating steadily decline (we are not talking ups and downs here, we are talking a steady decline) from a rating of over 80% immediately after 9-11 to (from three different sources, take your pick:) 58%, 55%, or 52%. I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure that Clinton compared favorably to this rating most of the time. Let me know if I am mistaken. At any rate, I don’t think 55% can be considered “pretty dang high”.

About whom I prefer between Gore and Bush? I really think it was a vote between the lesser of two evils, however if those were my only two choices, I would have voted for Gore. I really don’t think Gore is better in very many regards. I think that he would be raping the environment and catering to big business just like Bush is. The difference there is that Gore wouldn’t have been so damned offensive while doing it. I also don’t think that we would be looking at imminent war with Iraq if Gore was in the White House.

Finally your comment about the UN… I don’t necessarily think that the U.S. is wrong because members of the U.N. disagree with it. However, if it were just France disagreeing with the U.S. you’d have a lot stronger case. The fact is that even after seeing the evidence that Bush has presented; some of which we are not party to, thus my looks to world leaders as a weathervane for the value of this evidence; most world leaders are against the war. I see very few diplomatic efforts from the White House, and I don’t support using our military to revenge George’s old man. Give me some real evidence that we should be there, and that war is the only recourse, and I’ll support it.