Text 549, 233 rader
Skriven 2004-08-03 10:56:34 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
Ärende: 59 Deceits - Pt 12
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   ----- 59deceits-p12.txt begins -----

Lila Lipscomb and Military Casualties 
Misleading 
 
Fahrenheit spends a much time on the grief of Lila Lipscomb, the mother of Sgt.
Michael Pederson, who died in Iraq in April 2003. (He enlisted in the military
in 1996, and was 26 years old when he was killed.) There is no room in
Fahrenheit for bereaved families who feel different from Mrs. Lipscomb. Not
even room for the widow Sgt. Michael Pederson, who believes that "Hating
President Bush is not going to bring Michael back." Ben Schmitt, "Flint woman
spotlighted in Moore's latest movie," Detroit Free Press, May 29, 2004. (The
widow was separate from Sgt. Pederson, and their child was living with the
widow at the time of his death.)
 
Mrs. Lipscomb reads for the camera an angry letter which Sgt. Pederson wrote
castigating President Bush. Not shown on camera is the fact that Pederson
apologized for the letter shortly afterward. 
 
Moore films Mrs. Lipscomb in Washington, D.C., where she tearfully walks to the
White House, where she will, in her words, "put all my pain and all my anger
and to release it." On the way, Fahrenheit shows Mrs. Lipscomb arguing with a
passerby who says that the whole thing is staged. What Fahrenheit does not show
is that the passerby talked with Mrs. Lipscomb, heard her side of the story,
and apologized on the spot.
 
Fahrenheit wallows in pity for Mrs. Lipscomb. "I was tired of seeing people
like Mrs. Lipscomb suffer," Moore claims. Yet Moore’s website is not quite so
sympathetic: 

     I’m sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began
and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood
has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive
us in the end. 

Michael Moore, "Heads Up... from Michael Moore," MichaelMoore.com, April 14,
2004.
 
Fahrenheit is correct in pointing out that people who enlist in the military
are less likely to be college graduates and more likely to be black than is the
general U.S. population. However, Moore's portrayal of the socioeconomics of
the U.S. military is false is several respects. First, people who are at the
lowest end of the economic spectrum--people who have failed to graduate from
high school or to obtain a G.E.D.--are not over-represented in the military.
Like college graduates, they are under-represented. In the case of high school
drop-outs, the reason is that the all-volunteer military can be selective, and
generally prefers not to enlist high-school drop-outs.
 
Although blacks are about twice as likely to serve in the military as is the
general U.S. population, black people do not suffer disproportionate casualties
in Iraq. Official casualty statistics for Operation Iraqi Freedom report
that--as of June 26, 2004--blacks suffered 111 of the 850 U.S. fatalities
(13%). The Census Bureau estimates that blacks comprise 12.3% of the U.S.
population. The reason that black enlistment is disproportionate but black
fatalities are not is that many blacks in
the military serve in support roles (such as providing supplies) which are
unlikely to suffer high rates of casualties. Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., "The
Fallen: A profile of U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan," GovExec.com,
May 28, 2004. 
 
Flint
Deceit 57
 
Mrs. Lipscomb is from Flint, Michigan, which Moore calls "my hometown." In
fact, Moore grew up in Davison, Michigan, a suburb of Flint. Davison is much
wealthier than Flint. According to the Census Bureau, 6 percent of children in
the Davison public schools are from families living in poverty, whereas in
Flint, 31 percent of children are. Calling Flint your "hometown" when you
really grew up in Davison is like calling the Bronx "my hometown" when you
really grew up in Westchester County. 

     Flint is working class, industrial, down-at-heel, where the majority of
the population is black or Latino. It's where the factories are.

     Davison, where Moore grew up and attended Davison High School, is
comfortable middle class, suburban, and white. Overwhelmingly white. It's where
the managers and professionals live. While many of the children of Flint go on
to work at the factories...the normal trajectory for the children of Davison is
university. Michael Moore went to university (though didn't stick long).
Unusually, he also went to Flint and tried his hand on the blue-collar front
line with a job on the Buick assembly line for General Motors. He found the
conditions under which the working class actually worked so appalling he quit
the job after one day.

"Less is Moore," Sydney Morning Herald, July 10, 2004.

Discussing unemployment rates, Mrs. Lipscomb states, "But you have to take into
account as well that when your unemployment runs out you're no longer counted."
(Presumably she means that when your "unemployment insurance benefits" run out,
you're no longer counted.) There is no reason to doubt her sincerity, but she
is incorrect in this regard. The Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment rate
counts all "Persons 16 years and over who had no employment during the
reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had
made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period
ending with the reference week." The rate has nothing do with whether the
person is receiving unemployment insurance payments. (For more, see the
detailed BLS explanation of how unemployment rates are calculated.) 
 
A curious reader of this article wrote to the Michigan Dept. of Labor &
Economic Growth/Bureau of Labor Market Information & Strategic Initiatives. An
official with the Michigan Bureau sent back a document (which is apparently not
on the Internet) titled "Labor Force, Employment, Unemployment, Unemployment
Rate Estimates For States And Local Areas." The document explains how
unemployment rates are calculated. In particular, the document explains the
calculated rate specifically includes people who have exhausted their
unemployment insurance benefits, but who are still unemployed. The unemployment
rate includes:

     An estimate of the number of individuals who have used up all of their
unemployment benefits, but are determined, through estimation, to be still
unemployed. A formula that utilizes the parallel relationship between the rate
of unemployment and the duration of unemployment spells, and a quarterly
Current Population Survey average state duration average, yields a survival
rate for a particular area depending on that area's current labor market
condition. Thus an area with high unemployment will have a larger percentage of
its unemployment claims exhaustees included into its jobless total. 

(Italics in original.) The Michigan official's letter explained, "In the
official statistics we produce (in cooperation with the BLS) for the number of
unemployed for the state and local areas, current unemployment claimants
account for about 30 to 40 percent of the total unemployed." 
 
[Moore response: Does not attempt to explain why he calls Flint "my hometown."
No defense of the misstatement about how unemployment rates are calculated. 
 
In a previous draft, I had cited data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
reporting that Flint's unemployment rate in January 2004 was 10 percent, and
said that Fahrenheit's claim about a 17 percent rate was incorrect. Moore's
response cited the Michigan Dept. of Labor & Economic Growth for a 17 percent
rate. The BLS figure (10 percent) is labeled "Flint," but actually includes all
of Genesee Country. The Michigan DLEG figure (17 percent) is for the city of
Flint only. So Moore was correct, and I was incorrect.]
 
Moore’s Pro-Saddam Source
Bonus Deceit
 
Washington Representative Jim McDermott appears in several segments.

        McDermott was one of three Congressmen who went on Saddam’s propaganda
tour of Iraq in Fall 2002. The trip was funded by Life for Relief and
Development (LRD), a "charity" which laundered money to terrorist group Hamas’
Jordanian operation. LRD is funded in part by Shakir Al-Khafaji, a man who did
about $70 million in business with Saddam through his Falcon Trading Group
company (based in South Africa). LRD’s Iraqi offices were raided by US troops
last week, and the Detroit-area "charity" is suspected of funding uprisings,
such as the one in Fallujah. Its officials bragged of doing so at a recent
private US fundraiser.

Schlussel.
 
The McDermott quotes are, obviously, not like the deceitful quote of
Condoleezza Rice, in which her words were chopped to mean the opposite of what
she really said. McDermott is apparently quite sincere, and there is no
indication that anything he said was taken out of context. However, McDermott's
quotes about the alleged motivations of the Bush administration are supported
by no evidence, and amount to nothing more than the speculative ravings of one
of the very few pro-Saddam members of Congress--who also worries that bin Laden
has already been captured, and will be brought out at an opportune time before
the election. To rely on McDermott to explain the Bush administration's alleged
secret intentions is akin to relying on a bitter atheist to describe an alleged
secret conspiracy in the Vatican.
 
In any case, he does make one plain misstatement. McDermott claims, "Well you
make them afraid by creating an aura of endless threat. They played us like an
organ. They raised the le[vel], the orange up to red than they they dropped it
back to orange." To the contrary, the threat level has never been raised above
orange (high risk). It takes a highly paranoid mind to conclude that because
changes were made in the announced threat levels, the changes must have been
for the purpose of psychological warfare on the American people.
 
[Moore response: None.]
 
Tom Daschle
Mistaken Identity
 
Michael Moore told Time magazine that at the Washington premiere of Fahrenheit,
Tom Daschle "gave me a hug and said he felt bad and that we were all gonna
fight from now on. I thanked him for being a good sport." Senate Minority
Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) told the Rapid City Journal that he has never even
met Moore. Later, an Washington lawyer who looks like Tom Daschle said that he
was the hugee, and that Moore had sincerely but mistakenly thought the lawyer
was Tom Daschle.
 
[Moore response: None. Speaking to the Washington Post, Moore has stuck by his
claim about Daschle.]
 
Moore Supports Terrorists
Deceit 58
 
In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore claims to support our troops. But in fact, he
supports the enemy in Iraq—the coalition of Saddam loyalists, al Qaeda
operatives, and terrorists controlled by Iran or Syria—who are united in their
desire to murder Iraqis, and to destroy any possibility of democracy in Iraq.
Here is what Moore says about the forces who are killing Americans and trying
to impose totalitarian rule on Iraq:

     The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents"
or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and
their numbers will grow -- and they will win. 

Michael Moore, "Heads Up... from Michael Moore," MichaelMoore.com, April 14,
2004. Of course if you believe that the people who are perpetrating suicide
bombings against Iraqi civilians and American soldiers for the purpose of
forcing a totalitarian boot onto Iraq are the moral equivalent of the American
Founders, then Moore's claim about the Iraqi insurgents could be valid. But
even if that claim were valid (and I do not believe that any reasonable person
can equate people fighting for totalitarianism with people fighting for
constitutional democracy), then Moore is still being dishonest in Fahrenheit
when he pronounces his concern for American troops. To the contrary, he is
cheering for the forces which are killing our troops, as he equates the killers
with freedom-fighters. And if you think that the people who are slaughtering
American soldiers, American civilians, Iraqi soldiers, and Iraqi civilians are
terrorists rather than "minutemen," then it is true that Moore
supports terrorists. By the way, the number of Iraqi victims of Moore's
"minutemen" outnumbers American victims by about 10:1.
 
There are some sincere opponents of the Iraq War who want to "support our
troops" by bringing them home, and thereby getting them out danger. But it's
deceptive to say that you support the troops if (besides lobbying for troop
withdrawal) you are actively recruiting enemy fighters to kill our troops.
Moore is doing so, as the
next item details.
 
[Moore response: None.]
   ----- 59deceits-p12.txt ends -----

John 

America:  First, Last, and Always!
Go to www.madgorilla.us for all your Domain Name Services at the lowest rates.

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