Just read this
Times article , which signals the emergence of this issue into main stream British debate.
Extract:
Quote:
At first sight, much of the coverage seems merely the kind of abusive satire that Moore enjoys inflicting on his own victims. A cheerfully disrespectful website called moorewatch.com has sprung up alongside moorelies.com. And in the weeks since he carried off his Academy Award, a new site, revoketheoscar.com, has begun urging malcontents to support a campaign to have the accolade withdrawn on the grounds that Bowling for Columbine contains errors and distortions.
Is this yet more evidence of a deranged right-wing conspiracy? Moore’s many admirers will certainly think so. The internet is, after all, the perfect place to dress up rumour and gossip as hard facts. But there is a serious undercurrent to all this dissent.
The studiously non-partisan political fact-checkers at Spinsanity.org have lambasted the reliability of the big man in the baseball cap. (Spinsanity also points out that Moore ran into similar trouble over his first hit documentary, Roger and Me.) Doubts have surfaced here and there in the print media as well. At the highly respected New Republic magazine — certainly no friend of Dubya’s — the staff rarely miss an opportunity to question Moore’s veracity. Another liberal journal, The American Prospect (one of the “must-read” journals recommended on Moore’s own website, michaelmoore.com), pointed out that his analysis of US gun crime is highly misleading because it underplays the appallingly high level of black-on-black violence: “There is a point at which an effort not to perpetuate offensive stereotypes turns into an impoverishing erasure of the facts.”
...
Fund, meanwhile, believes that much of the cultural establishment has given Moore gentler treatment than he deserves, because his left-wing views reflect their own. “Mr Moore’s allies have basically defended him with silence,” Fund told me. “He is getting a pass because he’s frankly indefensible. I’m not saying he’s not funny, but he’s irresponsible with the facts.”
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I myself first saw Moore on TV Nation and thought he was great.
Then I went and saw his London show at the Roundhouse and was quite shocked by the simplicity and flimsiness of his material.
After this I thought I had better read
Stupid White Men to see what all the best-selling fuss was about. Having seen him live I wasn't surprised by the child-like humour, but I was shocked at some of the 'facts' he was throwing out. I decided to check up on a few of them (e.g. his gun crime statistics) and found them to be shockingly misleading or just plain wrong.
Finally I looked at a few of the critical web reports on his documentaries and books (see Spinsanity.org). By now it came as no suprise to find that there was a mountain of evicence to show that Moore had waved goodbye to factual journalism some time ago, if indeed he had ever been familiar with the concept.
So why the rant?
Well I am pretty left-wing.
Thanks to a different thread I now have the credentials to prove it:
Quote:
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No offense, but 4thTimeLucky amazes me. I never thought that with my views, I would ever run into someone I can honestly consider to be "too liberal". I certainly stand corrected.
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And so it annoys the hell out of me when there are hundreds of great left-wing cases to be made and many great writers and comedians (I recommend
Mark Thomas ) championing them, and Moore is out there undermining all of them with his selfish desire to put showmanship before truthfulness.
If anyone else (of whatever political persuasion) would like to join my campaign to tell Moore to STFU then please do add your thoughts.
I am also open to hearing anyone who thinks that Moore will, in the long run, do more good than harm to the causes he professes to support.
/end rant