www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko -> www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/
For instance, I have read in quite respectable and trustworthy publications that a Im a college graduate Im not, b I was a factory worker I quit the first day, and c I have two brothers I have none. Lately, my favorite mistake is the one many reviewers made crediting the cartoon in Bowling for Columbine as being the work of the South Park creators. Ive enjoyed reading these inventions/mistakes about this Michael Moore. I mean, who wouldnt want to fantasize about living in penthouses roughhousing with brothers you never had. But lately Ive begun to see so many things about me or my work that arent true. Its become so easy to spread these fictions through the internet thanks mostly to lazy reporters or web junkies who do all their research by typing in key words and then just repeat the same mistakes. And so I wonder that if I dont correct the record, then all of the people who dont know better may just end up being filled with a bunch of stuff that isnt true. Of course, it would take a lot of my time to contact all these sites and media outlets to correct their errors and I think its more important I spend my time on my next book or movie so I just let it ride. But is that fair to you, the reader, who has now been told something that isnt true? With the unexpected and overwhelming success of Bowling for Columbine and Stupid White Men, the fiction that has been written or spoken about me and my work has reached a whole new level of storytelling. Its no longer about making some simple errors or calling me Roger Moore. It is now about organized groups going full blast trying to discredit me by knowingly making up lies and repeating them over and over in the hopes that people will believe them and, then, stop listening to me. Fortunately, they are so wound up in their anger and hatred that they have ended up discrediting themselves. Look, I accept the fact that, if I go after the Thief-in-Chief and more people buy my book than any other nonfiction book last year then that is naturally going to send a few of his henchmen after me. I knew that before I got into this and I aint whining about it now. I also realize that you just dont go after the NRA and its supporters and then not expect them to come back at you with both barrels so to speak. These are not nice people and they dont play nice thats how they got to be so powerful.
CNN actually put some guy on a show saying that my film contains so many falsehoods, one after the other, after the other, after the other. They introduced him as a critic and research director of the Independence Institute. Except they failed to tell their viewers who he really was: a contributing editor of Gun Week Magazine . CNN saw no need to inform the viewers that their expert- who has made a career out of opposing any form of gun controlhas a vested interest in convincing the public that Bowling for Columbine is a horribly rotten movie. How do you handle people who say the Holocaust never happened or that monkeys fly? If you give them any attention, all the nuts will come out of the woodwork. The anchor on MSNBC never challenged him on his lies and never told the viewers who he really was a right wing crazy who believes Bush is too liberal. He was once an advisor to Pat Buchanans Presidential campaign, and was a direct-mail writer for Jesse Helms. Writing in opposition to Hate Crime bills in the conservative Washington Times where he was a columnist from 83 to 89, Lofton explained: Take, for example, this business of so-called anti-gay violence. This bill will be used to go after only those who commit crimes against people because they are homosexuals. The most violent - indeed fatal 100 percent of the time - form of anti-gay violence has been committed not by so-called homophobes who bash homosexuals - but by male homosexuals and bisexuals against other male bisexuals and homosexuals. To date, tens of thousands of male bisexual and homosexual men are dead in our country because of AIDS, because they engaged in high-risk homosexual sex. Is this not anti-gay violence which numbers its victims far beyond anything any homophobes have done? Well, I figured I better deal with this because the nutters were now being turned into respectable critics by a media that either had an agenda or were just plain lazy. So, how crazy are the things theyve said about Bowling for Columbine? Here are my favorites: That scene where you got the gun in the bank was staged! We built the bank as a set and then I hired actors to play the bank tellers and the manager and we got a toy gun from the prop department and then I wrote some really cool dialogue for me and them to say!
The bank is a licensed federal arms dealer and thus can have guns on the premises and do the instant background checks the ATFs Federal Firearms databasewhich includes all federally approved gun dealerslists North Country Bank with Federal Firearms License 4-38-153-01-5C-39922. Within 10 minutes , the OK came through from the firearms background check agency and, 5 minutes later, just as you see it in the film, they handed me a Weatherby Mark V Magnum rifle If youd like to see the outtakes, click here . I have decided the best thing to do with this gun is to melt it down into a bust of John Ashcroft and auction it off on E-Bay more details on that later. All the proceeds will go to The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence to fight all these lying gun nuts who have attacked my film and make it possible on a daily basis for Americas gun epidemic to rage on. Heres another whopper Ive had to listen to from the pro-gun groups: The Lockheed factory in Littleton, Colorado, has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction! That big honkin rocket sitting behind the Lockheed spokesman in Bowling for Columbine- the one with US AIRFORCE written on it in BIG ASS letters well, I admit it, I snuck in and painted that on that Titan IV rocket when Lockheed wasnt looking! After all, those rockets were only being used for the Weather Channel!
The Truth: Heston took his NRA show to Denver and did and said exactly what we recounted . From the end of my narration setting up Hestons speech in Denver, with my words, a big pro-gun rally, every word out of Charlton Hestons mouth was uttered right there in Denver, just 10 days after the Columbine tragedy. Heston devotes the entire speech to challenging the Denver mayor and mocking the mayors pleas that the NRA dont 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. Why are these gun nuts upset that their brave NRA leaders words are in my film? 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 doesnt 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. 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. It is Hestons 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.
Are they now embarrassed by this sick, repulsive image and the words that accompany it? Ive also been accused of making up the gun homicide counts in the United States and various countries around the world. Here are the facts, right from the sources: The United States figure of 11,127 gun deaths comes from a report from the Center for Disease Control . Japans gun deaths of 39 was provided by the National Police Agency of Japan; Canada: 165 gun deaths from Statistics Canada, the governmental statistics agency; United Kingdom: 68 gun deaths, from the Centre for Crime and Justice studies in Britain; Australia: 65 gun deaths from the Australian Institute of Criminology; France: 255 gun deaths, from the International Journal of Epidemiology. Finally, Ive even been...
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