Disinformation » Michael Moore

Michael Moore: ‘Bin Laden Wasn’t Killed, He Was Executed’

majestic — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:19:47 +0000

Michael Moore. Photo: nicolas genin (CC)

Michael Moore gives his take on the Osama affair exclusively to TheWrap:

Osama bin Laden wasn’t killed by a Navy SEAL team, he was straight up executed, Michael Moore told TheWrap on Wednesday,

The “Fahrenheit 9/11” director has been setting Twitter aflame Wednesday afternoon urging the Obama administration to come clean about the circumstances surrounding the terrorist leader’s death — particularly in light of the White House’s shifting account of last weekend’s firefight in Abbottabad.

The Oscar-winning director has been tweeting about his belief that Bin Laden should have received a trial, and his theory that Pakistan was keeping the Al Qaeda head under house arrest. TheWrap grilled Moore about his controversial views.

Is Obama lying about how Bin Laden died?

Common sense tells you he was executed. That was the plan all along. Just tell us that and quit treating us like children.

I have a lot of faith in Obama, but we’ve received three different stories in three days. We heard, “There was a firefight.” “He used a woman as a shield.” Now it turns out none of these things were true. He wasn’t armed.

Does it matter if he was executed? Do you think he deserved a trial?

I am a Catholic, and the position of the Catholic Church and the Pope is that we are 100 percent against the death penalty unless it is in self-defense. Look at the Nuremberg Trials. We didn’t just pop a bullet in the heads of the worst scum in history. We thought it was important to put them on trial and expose their evil. In a democracy we believe in a system of justice and we believe in a judicial system that gives people a day in court…and then we hung them.

It doesn’t mean we can’t hang them afterward…

[continues at TheWrap]

Michael Moore Says ‘America Is Not Broke’

majestic — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 14:11:24 +0000

In retrospect, it’s taken progressive celebrity Michael Moore an awfully long time to insert himself into the political shenanigans taking place in Wisconsin, but now that the millionaire moviemaker has found the time to reach Madison, he’s making himself heard amidst all the union-busting noise, as reported by the Wisconsin State Journal:

Protesters in Madison have “aroused a sleeping giant” in the national fight for workers’ rights, filmmaker Michael Moore told thousands at the Capitol Square on Saturday, as rallies opposing Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposals wrapped up their third week.

“Right now the Earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge,” said Moore, the Oscar-winning maker of “Bowling for Columbine,” whose documentaries also include “Fahrenheit 911″ and “Capitalism: A Love Story.”

“America is not broke … Wisconsin is not broke,” Moore said. “The only thing that’s broke is the moral compass of the rulers.”

Police estimated the crowd at 30,000 to 40,000, less than the past two Saturdays. Moore urged those gathered not to retreat. “You are not alone,” he said. “America is with you.”

As people inside and outside of the Capitol continued to speak out against Walker’s plan to eliminate most collective bargaining rights for most public employees, their messages took on a broader scope in response to last week’s release of the governor’s budget for the next two years.

Walker says major changes are needed to close a $137 million gap in this year’s budget and a $3.6 billion deficit over the next two years.

Librarians, nurses and artists drew attention to proposed cuts in the biennial budget that could affect them…

[continues in the Wisconsin State Journal]

Michael Moore: Why I’m Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange

ralph — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:25:37 +0000

Michael Moore writes on his blog:

Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.

Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars.

We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.

So why is WikiLeaks, after performing such an important public service, under such vicious attack? Because they have outed and embarrassed those who have covered up the truth. The assault on them has been over the top…

Michael Moore Talks Wall Street Crime with Bill Maher on ‘Real Time’

ralph — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:03:13 +0000

Michael Moore returns to the scene of the crime of our time, interviewed in front of the Goldman Sachs offices in New York City on the March, 5, 2010 episode of Real Time With Bill Maher. The Moore interview begins at around 2:20 in this clip:

Moyers, Moore and Maddow: Alternet Ranks the Most Influential Progressives

ralph — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:28:35 +0000

Interesting survey from our friends at Alternet. Congratulations to Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films for landing in the top 15, as many of you know, Disinformation has distributed several of his documentaries over the years, starting with Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War back in 2004 up to his latest Rethink Afghanistan. The Disinformation Podcast crew recently interviewed Greenwald about his latest film (Listen here).

Don Hazen writes on Alternet:

The three M’s — Bill Moyers, Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow — scored highest in a recent AlterNet survey* asking more than 5,000 readers to rate the most influential progressive media figures. Moyers, who scored 67.5, and Moore, with a 66.2 score, were very close. Maddow was a tad behind at 63.5.

It’s no surprise that Moyers, the moral sage, and Moore, the rabble-rouser, are ranked at the top. They have been popular with AlterNet readers for years. Moyers’ current show, “Bill Moyers’ Journal,” gets at the heart of our many social ills with long-form exploration and probing interviews. Recently, Moyers spent an episode on the Lyndon Johnson Vietnam tapes, drawing a connection to Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan. The show was a television masterpiece.

Moore built his popularity with the astoundingly successful 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which remains the highest-grossing documentary of all time, taking in over $200 million worldwide, including U.S. box office revenue of almost $120 million. Bowling for Columbine, released in 2002, took in more than $58 million while Sicko (2007) brought in $36 million. The $14 mill pulled in by Moore’s most recent film, Capitalism: A Love Story, is a large drop-off, and must be seen as a disappointment.

Moore also had the highest recognition score in the survey at 98.4 percent — quite a feat for the former editor of the Flint, Michigan alternative weekly The Flint Voice. Moyers was next at 96.4, followed by Arianna Huffington at 95.6.

But the big story in the survey is Rachel Maddow. For her to leapfrog legends like Noam Chomsky, Arianna Huffington and Amy Goodman — longtime media mainstays — is a huge accomplishment. Maddow’s success demonstrates that brains and savvy have a place on cable TV, amidst the name-calling that sometimes passes for dialogue. And it indicates that progressives will follow the right talent to corporate media, which may encourage mainstream media outlets to hire more progressives.

Michael Moore and Sen. Sanders, Outrage Over Greed and Capitalism

majestic — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:56:32 +0000

Michael Moore asks Sen. Sanders “what is wrong with American capitalism these days?” on Bernie’s latest “Senator Sanders Unfiltered” show produced by our friends at Brave New Films.

Michael Moore’s On-Air Spanking Of CNN

JacobSloan — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:29:48 +0000

Michael Moore maybe is a blowhard, but he’s alright with me if he can make Wolf Blitzer look like this much of a douche. Mike went on Blitzer’s show to discuss his new Wall Street documentary Capitalism: A Love Story and the grey-haired host went for the jugular, accusing Moore of being a socialist and a hypocrite (for acting concerned about the fate of poor people, despite not being poor himself). Watch Moore rip him to shreds.