~OT~...I would highly recommend Michael Moore’s new movie -- “Bowling for Columbine”...Here's a transcript of a recent PHIL DONAHUE interview with Moore...
msnbc.com
*here are some quotes that caught my attention...
<<...DONAHUE: Michael, well, you still have a book on “The New York Times” bestseller list, I should make that clear. And now here you are with one of the most honored cinematic features of expression ever to happen at Cannes. And believe me, they do you no favors at the Cannes Film Festival...>>
<<...MOORE: Yes. I believe our mentality as Americans is to shoot first and ask questions later. We just, we go for the gun in a way that no other country does. We just-we somehow believe we have some sense of entitlement or some manifest destiny, or I don’t know what it is.
Let’s just go for that gun, and that’s how we’re going to resolve our disputes. And I don’t mean that just on a personal level, which is where a lot of the-obviously, the homicides come from. I mean that on a political level and on a global level.
Because, just what we’re dealing with right now with Iraq. The guy who’s sitting in the Oval Office tonight. He wants to bomb. We don’t need any more inspections, let’s just bomb them and we’ll find out later if they have the weapons. That’s the American way. I don’t like that.
I’m an American. I paid for those bombs. And I want it stopped. I want that stopped...>>
<<... DONAHUE: That’s from Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine,” a movie that also has Michael visiting the home and being welcomed into the home of Charlton Heston. You’ve got to see this film.
May I just review, Michael, here are gun deaths in a year. We hear this all the time, but it just-Germany, 381, France, 255 — this is one year. Canada, 165 deaths, United Kingdom, 68, Australia, 65, Japan, 39. The United States of America, 11,127.
I mean, what will shame us? Yet you’re saying that this is not, as you would say, not a gun control movie. Is that so?
MOORE: Right. Because honestly, I don’t think, ultimately, getting rid of the guns will be the answer. I think if we got rid of all our guns in the U.S., we would still have the psyche problem-the problem that says we have a right to resolve our disputes through violence. That’s what separates us from these other countries.
All those countries you just mentioned, Phil, have all banned the death penalty. They believe it’s immoral to execute other human beings. There are so many other things you could go through and point out, about how they structure their societies.
I mean, think about Japan, first of all. One-hundred-and-twenty million people, 39 gun murders a year. That’s almost unfathomable to us. I mean, we can’t even imagine-that would be like us having 89 gun murders a year in the entire country...>>
<<...DONAHUE: We’re in Flint, Michigan, with Michael Moore, who’s responsible for the movie-produced, written, edited, filmed, he did everything. It’s titled “Bowling for Columbine.” It is a look at America’s violent nature. How did we get this way? Why did we kill more than 11,000 people in one year to gun violence? And you think this translates into foreign policy? Do I understand you, Mr. Moore, sir?
MOORE: That’s right. I think that if we’re taught from an early age
that it’s OK to use violence to resolve our problems personally, then it’s
what do our kids think tonight when they look at George W. Bush and he says it’s OK to go bomb Iraq?
I mean, it’s-this isn’t just starting with Bush. I mean, we have lived our lives-ever since I was born in the ’50s, we’ve overthrown democratically elected governments. We’ve staged coups. We sent our boys to die in Vietnam for nothing and killed Vietnamese for nothing. We have this whole sad history of this kind of violence. And it is connected. It doesn’t just happen in a vacuum.
And it’s no surprise to me why people outside this country in other countries look at us and wonder Why? Why do you do this? Why do you want to jump to war right now against Iraq? Of course, we all know it’s not about weapons of mass destruction, it’s weapon of mass distraction, you know, so that Bush can get our minds off the economy and what’s really going on because there’s an election coming up...>>
<<...QUESTION: You didn’t even sign the Kyoto accord, which...
MOORE: We won’t sign any of that stuff...
QUESTION: I mean, that’s our future!
MOORE: ... because of our arrogance and our sense of entitlement. And it, I guarantee you, like the Romans, will be our undoing. We will unravel as a result of that because we didn’t take care of the real threat, 40 million people living in poverty, 50 million people with no health care, 40 million adults who can’t read and write on an adult level. That is what will make our society collapse, not Saddam Hussein, folks! Not Saddam Hussein. No!...>> |
