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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (58392)	11/22/2002 7:47:26 PM
From: Condor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I understand that Canada has a role in that. I haven't seen it but heard about it. Canadas role...?????? +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++= Review: Bowling for Columbine A Film by Michael Moore Reviewed by Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com> 7 October 2002 Last week I had the opportunity to attend a special advanced screening of Bowling for Columbine, the latest documentary by Michigan filmmaker and provocateur Michael Moore. Although I've experienced first-hand Moore's propensity for exaggeration, I was still looking forward to seeing Flint's greatest (or loudest, at least) son doing his thing. This film won a special award at Cannes this year, and has been showing in Canada lately. The screening was in a small theatre built into some combination living/workout/shopping complex in Hillcrest, the heart of San Diego's gay district. I got there early and spent some time strolling the streets, taking pictures and browsing used book stores. A trio of young people on the street asked me for change; I had none, but I did have a dollar. "Hey thanks," said one. "You can take our picture." And I did, before making my way to the theatre to pick up my complimentary movie pass. The audience's politics definitely skewed to the left, just as my own personal politics do. Many you could sense their progressive bent just by looking at them, whether it's the choice of clothing or the prominent "No War in Iraq" stickers stuck to their shirts. I wore my usual attire, a loud Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, and carried a blueberry iBook in a blueberry bag, and I had no problems fitting in. Scary. The political leanings of the more conseratively dressed members of the audience became apparent once the movie started. We laughed at all the right "liberal" places. We were terrified by the self-contradicting and paranoid justifications by James Nichols, brother of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols. We booed and hissed when the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld flashed on the screen. This was the audience that would react best to Moore's latest effort; the same people who bought Stupid White Men even though it didn't tell us anything we didn't know already, but we loved it none the less. Bowling for Columbine is the story of guns in America. It's not a pretty story, and at times you'll wince and look away. We dive into the very homeland which our government has sworn to protect, and find a current of violence and fear at the heart of the country. Moore is our bumbling, affable guide, always asking questions and never accepting the easy answers. America's violent fascination with guns is examined in stories of the National Rifle Association, the Michigan militia, the defense industry, and the title tragedy, the murders at Columbine High School. The movie's name references Klebold and Harris's early morning bowling alley visit, the morning of the shootings. Moore takes us behind the symbolic icon that the name "Columbine" has come to represent, drawing us into the violence itself through security cameras and 9-1-1 calls. He speaks to many people on the periphery of the awful incident; amazingly, the one who speaks with the greatest wisdom is much-maligned rocker Marilyn Manson. At times the film wanders off into diversions, such as an animated short by Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park fame illustrating the history of guns, racism, the KKK, and the NRA. Stone is also interviewed in the movie, and it's hard to avoid wondering why either pieces were included as the animation and the interview had little to say. Other distractions involve a side-trip to Canada that has Moore barging into strangers' homes, and a bank giving away guns for free with new accounts. Some of Moore's crusading also seems hopelessly transparent; he takes teenage victims of Columbine to confront K-Mart executives with the bullets (still embedded in the victims' bodies) bought from K-Mart. Moore seems shocked and amazed that they don't immediately greet him with open arms. C'mon, Mike -- if they did that, you wouldn't have much of a movie, would you? But Moore's at his best when he returns to Flint, his Michigan hometown and the subject of his lauded Roger and Me documentary. A little boy took a gun to school and shot a little girl; they were six years old. How could such a thing happen? Moore's investigation is insightful, not grandstanding; sensitive, not sensational. More than the rest of the movie -- where he rails against the vacuousness of Bush or the media's obsession with fearmongering -- you can feel Michael Moore's heart coming through when he asks why this had to happen in Flint. Or anywhere in America. That question is the core of this movie. "How could this happen?" Moore asks this in any number of ways, going off on his entertaining little diversions and meeting a cast of dozens of colorful, real people along the way. But he keeps coming back to the question and asking it over and over again. The real genius of this flick is that he doesn't answer the question. Moore doesn't tell the audience what's wrong, or how to fix it. No one man, especially an entertaining quasi-journalist with a propensity for exaggeration, is going to sit down and fix what's wrong with America by making a movie. For us to start solving the problems, we need to keep asking the right questions. And Moore is great at that; he's the loyal opposition to the establishment's pat answers. The value in this movie is in reminding us to ask questions and in helping us to see the problems before things get even worse. Please see this movie, regardless of your views on guns, and start asking questions. Kynn Bartlett is an author and Web developer living in Lake Elsinore, California; his Web site is kynn.com. "Bowling for Columbine" opens in theatres this week.

To: Ilaine who wrote (58392)	11/22/2002 8:01:18 PM
From: Condor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

although apparently one of the Canadian muckety-mucks called Bush a moron, which isn't very polite. Putting things in perspective, do you think any Americans have called Bush a moron? Of course it was not acceptible and shouldn't have been said. You can now appreciate the uproar the Buchanan remarks caused. Canadian Aide Said to Insult Bush By TOM COHEN 11/22/2002 17:35:56 EST TORONTO (AP) - A private comment that became very public was the talk of Canada on Friday, with newspaper and broadcast reports detailing how an aide to Prime Minister Jean Chretien called President Bush a moron. Political foes demanded the ouster of Francoise Ducros for what she said Wednesday at the NATO summit in Prague. Ducros offered her resignation Friday, but Chretien refused to accept it. "What a moron," is the quote attributed to Ducros, Chretien's communications director, during what she called a private conversation with a reporter that was overhead by other reporters who wrote about it. "If I made comments in the context of what I understood to be a private conversation, I regret that they have attracted so much media attention," Ducros said in a statement. "I accept full responsibility for them and I sincerely apologize." Chretien, at his closing news conference Friday in Prague, said he turned down Ducros' offer to resign. Ducros told him she was unsure if she made the remark but acknowledged she uses the word "moron" frequently, Chretien said. "She may have used that word against me a few times and I am sure she used it against you many times," he told journalists, adding that "we don't live in as civilized a world as we used to, where private conversations are private." Back in Canada, the opposition Canadian Alliance hammered the issue in Parliament, saying the comment showed the anti-American bent of Chretien's governing Liberal Party. "Isn't it a fact that this anti-American attitude hurts our relationship with the United States, our biggest trade partner?" Grant Hill of the Alliance asked during daily question period. Not so, said Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham, who described relations between the North American neighbors who share the world's largest trade relationship as sound, despite occasional problems. Chretien also denied the incident harmed relations with Washington, saying he received no official complaints from U.S. officials at the summit. On Thursday, when first asked about the reported comment, he said Bush was "not a moron at all, he's a friend. My personal relations with the president are extremely good." White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told American reporters Thursday: "I just dismiss it as something from someone who doesn't speak for the Canadian government." Despite their military ties and common democratic values, Canada has traditionally adopted more liberal social policies. Examples include diplomatic ties with Cuba, a ban on capital punishment and more lenient immigration policies. Increased disputes between Ottawa and Washington were expected when the conservative Bush was elected in 2000 to succeed Bill Clinton, whose administration had closer ideological ties with Chretien's Liberal Party. Since Bush's election, the United States has imposed punitive duties on softwood lumber imported from Canada and is investigating possible penalties on Canadian wheat. Nevertheless, Canada took in flights diverted from U.S. air space after the Sept. 11 attacks and contributed troops, ships and reconnaissance planes to the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan. Chretien said Canada also would take part in a U.N.-authorized attack on Iraq.