13 Deceptions of Fahrenheit 911

2004-7-8 06:18:00

My Friends,

As you know I do not mind a fair fight between two people of opposing views, but one thing that really outrages me is when certain people have no regard for fair play and are willing to deceive and hit below the belt to further their agenda.

One such case is the new movie Fahrenheit 911. The conscious deception here is so bad that no disciple should be expected to hold his tongue.

13 Deceptions of Fahrenheit 911
It is interesting that when the devil appeared to tempt Jesus, his most powerful weapon was not lustful images or unholy degradation. Instead of showing himself to be an obvious enemy of all that is true and decent he used that which was most pure and holy to deceive the Son of God. What was that?

He quoted the scriptures and in turn Jesus quoted them back.

What was the difference between the two entities quoting that which was accepted as truth?

The difference was that, even though the words the crafty devil quoted was recognized as true the intent was not to reveal truth, but carefully spoken out of context to deceive. Jesus, on the other hand, had the intent and effect to reveal the real truth.

Today we have as our modern day devil, Michael Moore, who takes pride in saying that his film clips and sound bytes are all true, yet, just like the crafty devil, he has arranged this true information to unabashedly deceive. Then, other times, he is just flat out in literal error.

A simple example of blatant, mean-spirited deception in Fahrenheit 911 is found in Moore's accusation that Representative Peter Goss does not have an 800 number for the public to report problems with the Patriot Act. This gives the definite impression that no toll free number is available even though Goss insisted there is one. Moore makes Goss look like a liar.

The Truth: Toll free numbers beginning with "800" are no longer available so Goss's office had to get the toll free "877" number which is the same thing as an 800 number and Moore knows this. Instead he chose a cheap deception using the literal truth that his office had no 800 number. This is the same thing as telling the lie that there is no toll free number when there is one.

Critics have found over 50 flat out deceptions in the movie Fahrenheit 911. Since most people do not have the patience to read through so much detail let us cover thirteen obvious ones.

Here is a second deception: The movie craftily opens with Al Gore having a victory celebration in Florida, apparently because he thought he won Florida and the election. The narrator says "It was election night 2000 and everything seemed to be going as planned."

Truth: Al Gore never had any celebration in Florida on election night, but was in Tennessee. There was no celebration by either Bush or Gore on election night. The clip of Gore celebrating was from another time and place.

Third Deception: All the media were declaring Gore as the winner until the evil Fox news "called the election for the other guy." The narrator then says: "All of a sudden the other networks said, 'Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.'"

Truth: It was CBS, not Fox that first called Florida for Bush at 10 PM. Fox did not follow the tide until four hours later. Moore twisted the facts to make it look as if Fox was conspiring with Bush by calling the election for him.

Fourth Deception: Moore quotes CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin as saying that if the recount continued, "under every scenario Gore won the election."

Truth: Moore found a media person voicing a mistaken opinion and used it as the gospel truth. A six-month study in 2001 by news organizations including The New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN found that even if the Supreme Court had not stopped a statewide recount, or if a more limited recount of four heavily Democratic counties had taken place, Bush still would have won Florida and the election.

Fifth Deception: Moore insinuates that there was some type of Bush conspiracy that caused the state to hire "a company that's gonna knock voters off the roles who aren't likely to vote for you. You can usually tell 'em by the color of their skin." He implies that these purged voters altered the course of the election.

Truth: The voters in question are convicted felons which, not Bush, but the state legislature, directed to be cut from the voting rolls - for a felon cannot legally vote in Florida. There were several mistakes in purging the felons. If the felon was named John Smith there were cases where a non-felon with the same name was eliminated by accident. There were also a few felons from other states who were legally allowed to vote who were purged. Each voter purged was notified and given an opportunity to appeal.

As any child can see this had absolutely nothing to do with race. It is deceptive and mean-spirited to suggest otherwise. It is estimated that the purged voters were fairly evenly divided among Republicans and Democrats, so even if no mistakes were made there would have been little change.

What Moore leaves out is this important point. Election officials in 20 Florida counties ignored the purge list and allowed illegal felons to vote. Since 69% of felons vote democratic this means that Gore may have received thousands of illegal votes in his favor giving Gore the far majority of the benefit of the situation that Moore deceptively tells us benefited Bush.

Sixth Deception: Bush spent 42% of his presidency before 9/11 on vacation.

Truth: Moore includes weekends here which few people count as vacation time. The rest of the time is that which Bush spent away from the White house such as at Camp David or his ranch. Bush still worked when he was away from the White House just as other presidents have in the past. In fact, Democrats think he worked too much on the tax cut. It is doubtful that any president, Republican or Democratic, gets a full day off on any regular basis.

Seventh Deception: The narrator of the movie states: "It turns out that the White House approved planes to pick up the bin Ladens and numerous other Saudis. At least six private jets and nearly two dozen commercial plans carried the Saudis and the bin Ladens out of the U.S. after September 13th. In all, 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country."

Truth: This was deceitfully presented in the context that the White House was involved in some conspiracy concerning 9/11 and was secretly protecting the guilty. Moore tossed in the September 13th date in insinuate the bin Laden family members were rushed out before anyone could question them while even Ricky Martin was stranded.

The truth is that all of the bin Ladin group were carefully screened and 23 were interviewed by the FBI and did not leave for some time, not until Sept 20th when it was felt by authorities that they had no useful knowledge. The 142 Saudis were also carefully checked.

The White House did not approve the flights, but it was Moore's hero, Richard Clarke who had authority for final approval. Clarke said he made the right decision and would do it again.

The 911 Commission also looked into this and found no reason why these people should have been detained longer than they were.

Deception Eight: Moore implies further conspiracy in the fact that he found the secret service to be guarding the Saudi foreign embassy.

Truth: The U.S. provides secret service protection for foreign diplomatic missions and embassies of all nations who request it. This is nothing unusual, especially for Moslem diplomats who may have felt threatened after 911.

One needs to ask here that if Bush is so bent on protecting Saudi interests why did he invade Iraq which in turn would free up a powerful competitive oil supply which could hurt the Saudis?

Deception Nine: Moore tries to imply that Bush was friends with the Taliban before 911 and invaded Afghanistan to secure a pipeline deal. He tells us that in 1997 the Taliban visited Unical in Houston "while Bush was Governor" and arranged a pipeline deal. What he leaves out is that this visit had nothing to do with Bush, but the company in question happened to be in Texas and it was Clinton Administration who had supported the project. By the time Bush became president the pipeline deal with Unical no longer existed.

Moore said Afghan president Karsai was a Unical consultant. This is false.

Deception Ten: One of the most outrageous deceptions that even those who do not pay attention to the news was the film's portrayal of pre-war Iraq as a happy tranquil place with happy children (with no worries of losing their parents to false imprisonment and death), happy women (with no concern about rape rooms) and happy fathers (with no concern of being tortured, dipped in acid or ground up like hamburger).

For the truth merely check out surveys of current Iraqis of whom the vast majority are happy to be free from Saddam's tyranny.

Deception Eleven: Moore makes it sound like Bush coldly shut down veterans hospitals and cut military pay.

Truth: Some outdated ones were shut down, but what Moore does not tell you is that new, updated ones in better locations are planned. In 2003 Military pay had an average increase of 3.7% and Bush is spending $22 billion overall to increase veterans retirement benefits.

Deception Twelve: Moore insinuates that members of Congress are hypocritical in that they are willing to send other people's children to Iraq, but not their own.

Truth: Members of Congress have had a higher percentage serve in Iraq than the general population. In addition John Ashcroft, the Attorney General, has a son on active duty.

A particularly mean-spirited distortion occurs in the film when Moore approaches Republican Congressman Michael Castle insinuating that he would not send his children to Iraq. The problem of which the viewers are ignorant is that Castle has no children.

Deception Thirteen: Moore does not reveal that he stole his title idea from a Ray Bradbury book called Fahrenheit 451. Because the book is a well-known classic, this theft gives Moore millions of dollars worth of free unearned advertising.

Truth: Bradbury is angry as a hornet, especially since plans are in the works for a new movie version of his book. Many young people will think that Bradbury stole from Moore rather than Moore from Bradbury.

Bradbury said, "Michael Moore is a screwed asshole, that is what I think about that case. He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission.... He is a horrible human being. Horrible human!"

When asked if he wanted money, he replied that he did not. He just wanted his title back. Bradbury has made repeated attempts to contact Moore or his agents from about six months before the film was released and was repeatedly told that something would be worked out, but Moore has blatantly gone ahead with stealing the title over Bradbury's objections. It looks like Bradbury's only recourse may be legal action. If Bradbury succeeds in reacquiring what is morally his, maybe a year or two from now the film will be named something like "911 Moore Lies."

Note: There are numerous web pages listing Moore's deceptions. The best one I have found so far is "Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 911" By Dave Kopel

This presents a more detailed account of the distortions of the film and the interesting thing is that the author is a Ralph Nader supporter rather than a Bush admirer.

The web address is: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/06/21/140000.php

The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them. Samuel McChord Crothers, The Gentle Reader