Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Michael Moore and Oliver Stone Defend Julian Assange

Michael Moore and Oliver Stone team up in today in a New York Times editorial to defend WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. They write:
Since WikiLeaks’ founding, it has revealed the “Collateral Murder” footage that shows the seemingly indiscriminate killing of Baghdad civilians by a United States Apache attack helicopter; further fine-grained detail about the true face of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; United States collusion with Yemen’s dictatorship to conceal our responsibility for bombing strikes there; the Obama administration’s pressure on other nations not to prosecute Bush-era officials for torture; and much more. 
Predictably, the response from those who would prefer that Americans remain in the dark has been ferocious. Top elected leaders from both parties have called Mr. Assange a “high-tech terrorist.” And Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who leads the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has demanded that he be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Most Americans, Britons and Swedes are unaware that Sweden has not formally charged Mr. Assange with any crime. Rather, it has issued a warrant for his arrest to question him about allegations of sexual assault in 2010.


10 comments:

  1. Birds of a feather flock together.

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  2. When is Michaeal Moore going to bring something positive to Flint like he has for Traverse City? People around there are in awe of him, and won't say anything negative because he has actually brought consumers and business to the area. Michael Moore is pro-business? Hmmmm. What am I missing here?

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  3. Regarding the need for state secrets, I fear that the Bush era policies became Obama policies, much to my disappointment. The policies can be summarized as "Keep them frightened, and keep them consuming." The world is a big dangerous place and everyone with dark skin hates the US. So go shopping, and leave the security to the professionals.

    I am so disappointed that we're still in Afghanistan, that Obama has increased drone attacks (including against US citizens), that the defense budget is so huge, that the banks were bailed out...and so on.

    These policies were not exclusively US-Europe played its part.

    Wikileaks shed light on the crime, hipocracy and injustice of government practices in the West. The 'leaders' simply cannot have this truth out there. Assange has made many powerful enemies.

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  4. Michael Moore did bring something positive to Flint. It's called the truth. What GM actively did to the city, and what dim-witted city "leaders" did while trying to help the city, needed to be exposed. Moore did that. And it seems like a lot of Flint has never forgiven him for doing it.

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  5. Well, Michael's spin on the truth has resulted in people nationwide viewing Flint as a bad place to do business. I'm convinced that things would be better in Flint now had he not made the movie "Roger and Me". But on the other hand, in his adopted home of Traverse City, he has actually brought some prosperity, which I find ironic.

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  6. I'm with you. I'm sure Roger and Me hurt Flint, even if that wasn't Moore's intention. Perception often equals reality, and the documentary made Flint look like a very unappealing place. But it's not Moore's job to be a PR flak for Flint. Not to get all esoteric, but his job was to ferret out some essential truth about Flint and America. He did that. But like any family member who airs dirty laundry with outsiders (in this case the whole world) he's been rejected by many Flint people.

    Then again, if we're being honest, what company in their right mind would start a business in Flint? Seriously, it's not like companies were flocking to Flint, then they saw Roger and Me, and called the whole thing off.

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  7. I once made a joke about Michael Moore to a couple of Traverse City business people who live about a mile from where the late Roger Smith had a retreat, thinking they would surely side with Roger. I got a stone cold silent response. I asked them about it recently. The explanation I got was that Traverse City business people have a love hate relationship with Michael Moore. They hate his politics, but love the business that the Film Festival brings to Traverse City.

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  8. Hey, MM's a filmmaker and a social and political critic. It's not his job to be lovable and liked by all. But that's what he's supposed to be. What's so hard about Traverse people liking one aspect of him and not another and being ok with that? There are parts of my friends I don't like, but they're still my friends. I'm continually dismayed by a political climate that demands total rejection of anyone who doesn't agree with you 100 percent. Remember Gov. Milikan in Michigan? Lots of people disagreed with him to some degree, yet as a moderate Republican he got a lot of support in Michigan because, overall, people accepted him. He wouldn't even make it out of the Republican primary today. Most Americans are moderates.

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  9. Speaking as someone who has actually done business with this evil person; and I'm no saint by a long shot". I really believe he is still only worried about lining his own pockets and using the poor and downtrodden as a front; just as he did back in 1977 when I was in cahoots with him. Back then Moore and his sidekick Cunningham were two peas in pod. Personally I have only met one other person in my life that had the devious mindset to use charitable organizations as a front to make money. As I have stated; I was in it up to my neck also" but I was little Enos and he was Big Enos.I have seen all his films, because you keep your friends close and your enemy's closer; as the Godfather stated. If your reading this Mike, "some of us know the real you". Say hello to your buddy Bill Maher. After I seen Maher say he would like you to run for President and you two put on your spectacle begging my candidate Ralph Nader to drop out in the last election; it actually scared me. "Good job". You don't have the guts to run for president because of all the skeletons in your closet.

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  10. There are many people who pretend to protect the downtrodden while lining their pockets. Certain high profile attorneys come to mind.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.