I was really addressing some of the other posters in this thread, and DVDTalkers in general, who simultaneously say "I don't care what Ebert has to say" yet post a furious message every time he doesn't give a four-star review to the latest fanboy jizz-fest.

If you guys are that pissed at Ebert, you must despise Jeffrey Welles. He's been about the most vocal critic against the Rings films, even writing entire columns about how it would be a travesty if any of them won Best Picture.

Groucho,

I don't think the film is perfect. It's just great entertainment. Ebert thinks otherwise, and seems to get way too deep into understanding Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, and Humans.

Ok, let's breakdown Ebert's amazing review:

The second film was inconclusive, and lost its way in the midst of spectacle

No shit. It's a trilogy for god sakes, and won't have a conclusion until the third installment.

The story is just a little too silly to carry the emotional weight of a masterpiece. It is a melancholy fact that while the visionaries of a generation ago, like Coppola with "Apocalypse Now," tried frankly to make films of great consequence, an equally ambitious director like Peter Jackson is aiming more for popular success

Comparing the psychological discovery and torture of a man in Vietnam with a Hobbit who must carry the ring, is a bit stretching it, and should have used a better example. Two very different directors, aiming at a totally different audience.

The epic fantasy has displaced real contemporary concerns, and audiences are much more interested in Middle Earth than in the world they inhabit

Again, no shit. It's called entertainment. Peter Jackson wasn't going for a film that was going to be a multi-dimensional and layered trilogy, where one needed to possess a doctorate in psychology, to understand. Does Ebert even realize what the intended audience is? Does he even have a clue?

There is little enough psychological depth anywhere in the films, actually, and they exist mostly as surface, gesture, archetype and spectacle

Now, I have to disagree here. Does the film need to point out EVERY SINGLE PSYCHOLOGICAL CUE in order to make a statement or point? Does Ebert need to held by the hand and pointed out about underlying elements in the movie?

and while we applaud the achievement, the trilogy is more a work for adolescents (of all ages) than for those hungering for truthful emotion thoughtfully paid for.

Truthful emotion? Huh? Again, the movie is not about deep psychological statements. It is about entertainment, and touching on the major points of each character.

If Ebert wants a 200-hour version of LOTR, he can ask PJ for it, so he can get to understand the characters better.

Tolkien's story is so sweeping and Jackson includes so much of it that only devoted students of the Ring can be sure they understand every character, relationship and plot point

Ahhh, so here Ebert contradicts himself. What happened to the simplistic psychological aspects of the movie which were for "adolescents of all ages".

1) i didnt mean that the film is INTENTIONALLY similar to the war on terrorism... it just turned out that way. Sorta how star wars was compared to the cold war sometimes... but the parallels in LotR are much easier to make IMO. Not saying its a good thing or a bad thing, just that these parellels seem pretty easy to draw.

2) anyone "reviled" by the US actions have absolutely no sense of history. If we were worthy of being "reviled" and were evil we would have made our play to take over the world already... we've had several opportunities to do so and unlike 99% of the "big empires" in human history we haven't tried to do so. From the Greeks to the communists, each one has taken their shot to dominate all... but we haven't. The europeans have absolutely no solid ground to stand on to tell us how to do things... they are the ones that started the 2 world wars (and COUNTLESS others)... the results of their nation building can be seen in africa and the middle east (good job there guys!). Lastly, the old 'the whole world hates us' propaganda is bogus... we have over 60 nations in our iraq coalition and a great many people are just indifferent/dont care about the US. People who truly "hate" the US are a very small minority. Some may disagree with our views, but thats ok we dont always agree with how they run their countries either... so what?

3) "normal allies" = countries we saved and rebuilt after the germans fawked up europe...who have since forgot what we did for them and are now opposing us because they want a) to seem like a real world player who is important, b) to get the oil contracts they had signed with saddam, and c) are trying to grab the leadership role in the new EU and doing so by "showing up" the US at the UN etc. Sadly, a) they arent really relevant and havent been for some time, b) they arent getting no stinking contracts with saddam or anyone else in iraq.

4) no, you cant compare the US to sauron... and that much is obvious. If the US were sauron, we would have nuked the rest of man kind off the face of the earth or something. remember, the forces of evil fight with suicidal abandon... they feel no pain and have no fear. I dunno where people get the impression that the US likes to go attack people... if it were up to us, the rest of the world would have zero wars/problems... and we could just sit here at home with our 2.5 kids and white picket fences, eat to much, get fat and watch reality tv shows. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is pretty fawked up, so we have to send our young men to fight/die to stop everything from going to hell in a handbasket.

5) if the US is "imperialist", please explain why we havent conquered mexico or canada yet.... or any country in the western hemisphere for that matter. They are close, have resources we could use, and are militarily incredibly weak. Considering this, if we are so imperialist, why not just take them over? answer... DUH, we aint even close to imperialist and havent been for a long time.

ok, im done now.

j

I remember in 1979 how Siskel & Ebert gave thumbs-down to Apocalypse Now--and then a few months later put in their top ten for the entire decade! Ebert has critic's disease: when you're watching a film or two every day of your life, you don't have time to really think about them. Your impressions are superficial.

Regarding LOTR, it's obvious from Ebert's review of TTT that he is adversely comparing the films to the "whimsical" book he dimly remembers. He suggests the "gentle" Tolkien would be "startled" by the violence at Helm's Deep. Ebert has obviously forgotten how grim and terrifying the battle scenes in the book really are. The heads being catapulted over the walls of Minis Tirith is right out of the book, for example. Theoden's men "sing as they slay, full of the joy of battle." Ebert's suggestion that the film goes to dark places the book didn't are simply wrong.

If you want to compare the films to the book, you should at least have read the book recently. Ebert didn't do that.

Just to play Devil's (Ebert's?) Advocate here to DVD Polizei...

The second film was inconclusive, and lost its way in the midst of spectacle

No shit. It's a trilogy for god sakes, and won't have a conclusion until the third installment.

Taken out of context, Ebert's statement is silly. But in the actual paragraph used it makes perfect sense.

It's an obvious statement, sure, but I believe he used it more to praise RotK and the overall series, not so much to damn TTT.

The story is just a little too silly to carry the emotional weight of a masterpiece. It is a melancholy fact that while the visionaries of a generation ago, like Coppola with "Apocalypse Now," tried frankly to make films of great consequence, an equally ambitious director like Peter Jackson is aiming more for popular success

Comparing the psychological discovery and torture of a man in Vietnam with a Hobbit who must carry the ring, is a bit stretching it, and should have used a better example. Two very different directors, aiming at a totally different audience.

You're saying the EXACT same thing as Ebert here... that one film is aimed at those who want a certain level of worldly emotional connection or insight into the human condition (Ebert) and the other those who want great, non-'audience pandering' entertainment (you, and much of the public). I think you're taking too much offense at Roger's choice of words... I think he uses words like 'silly' to refer to the fact that it ISN'T about a deeply pressing world issue affecting mankind (even if paraellels do exist), which is in line with your comments here:

Again, no shit. It's called entertainment. Peter Jackson wasn't going for a film that was going to be a multi-dimensional and layered trilogy, where one needed to possess a doctorate in psychology, to understand. Does Ebert even realize what the intended audience is? Does he even have a clue?

referring to:

The epic fantasy has displaced real contemporary concerns, and audiences are much more interested in Middle Earth than in the world they inhabit

Also, about this, it seems like this comment is more of a casual (and true) observation about today's general audience tastes than a slam on LotR. 'Heavy' movies generally did better mainstream business in the 70s than they do now.

Tolkien's story is so sweeping and Jackson includes so much of it that only devoted students of the Ring can be sure they understand every character, relationship and plot point

Ahhh, so here Ebert contradicts himself. What happened to the simplistic psychological aspects of the movie which were for "adolescents of all ages".

He's talking about scope vs depth... he's saying there are too many characters and relationships, but not enough depth to adequately cover these elements within the confines of the films. To which I have to agree to an extent, at least when referring to the theatrical cuts. The very fact that the Extended Editions clear so much up is telling, but I know this is a far cry than the depth I've heard lies in the books. There was no way PJ could have fit it all in, and he had to make some difficult choices. Try to be complete as realistically possible to appease longtime fans, or cut out/pare down everything that isn't *crucial* to the main storyline to make the film more accessible to more people? PJ took a gamble and chose to please the fans, which turned out to be a smart move. Most casual viewers have either been willing to put up with with the stuff they didn't get, or seek out the answers by reading the books or asking those who have. A movie that stuck with Frodo 90% of the time would have allowed even deeper character depth, to be sure, but wouldn't have been nearly as good (and the Frodo/Gollum/Samwise scenes are easily my favorite part of the series). But keep in mind that Ebert LOVES movies that do a *deep* focus on a few characters in detail. He makes odd exceptions every once in awhile (Minority Report), but usually his favorite movies are things like Monster or Monster's Ball.

Just my interpretation of the review, but only Ebert could really answer.

I'll buy that argument, except that Star Wars was made after the height of the Cold War. You can draw parallels to just about anything you want, it's just hard to justify them if the event a movie parallels only occurred after the film had been made.

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2) anyone "reviled" by the US actions have absolutely no sense of history. If we were worthy of being "reviled" and were evil we would have made our play to take over the world already... we've had several opportunities to do so and unlike 99% of the "big empires" in human history we haven't tried to do so. From the Greeks to the communists, each one has taken their shot to dominate all... but we haven't. The europeans have absolutely no solid ground to stand on to tell us how to do things... they are the ones that started the 2 world wars (and COUNTLESS others)... the results of their nation building can be seen in africa and the middle east (good job there guys!). Lastly, the old 'the whole world hates us' propaganda is bogus... we have over 60 nations in our iraq coalition and a great many people are just indifferent/dont care about the US. People who truly "hate" the US are a very small minority. Some may disagree with our views, but thats ok we dont always agree with how they run their countries either... so what?

Stop looking at things in such a black and white way. There are very few people or things in this world that are PURELY good or PURELY evil. But, obviously in your mind, since the U.S. isn't PURELY evil, it must be PURELY good. To debate some of your other points. "The Greeks" didn't exist in ancient Greece. What you're talking about is the attempt by the Athenians to control the Delian League, which does not amount to taking over the world. "The Communists" is also not a country. Communism, as written in the manifesto by Marx, is an international movement, but it is not a country that can take over the world. The USSR didn't even try to take over the world. They just took most of Eastern Europe. The only people who made a concentrated effort to rule most of the known world were Alexander The Great and The Romans, who are both very highly esteemed in world history.

As for the Europeans, they have every right to tell the U.S. if they think their foreign policy is wrong. I don't care if the U.S. helped turn the tide in both world wars, they were wrong to sit out and wait for so long while their allies took the brunt of the fighting. And the first world war did not occur because of empire building, it happened because of a series of secret treaties. World War II didn't happen because of empire building, it happened because the whole world held Germany financially responsible for World War I, because the Hungarian Empire collapsed. The group that actively hates the U.S. may be small, but as it is, we have the single dumbest world leader today. Around the world, the name "Bush" is synonymous with complete idiocy.

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3) "normal allies" = countries we saved and rebuilt after the germans fawked up europe...who have since forgot what we did for them and are now opposing us because they want a) to seem like a real world player who is important, b) to get the oil contracts they had signed with saddam, and c) are trying to grab the leadership role in the new EU and doing so by "showing up" the US at the UN etc. Sadly, a) they arent really relevant and havent been for some time, b) they arent getting no stinking contracts with saddam or anyone else in iraq.

Once again, why do you expect the Europeans to do everything we say, because we helped them out in WWII? If the U.S. had come in sooner, perhaps the whole thing could have stopped when Hitler invaded Poland, instead of when he had control of France. Secondly, why do you think WE went to war? For oil, for power, to protect the interests of the power elite in the U.S. When they still can't find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and when reports of bad intelligence abound, I can't see this as a humanitarian effort on Bush's part. This doesn't have to do with the European Union so much as it does Bush acting like a total buffoon.

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4) no, you cant compare the US to sauron... and that much is obvious. If the US were sauron, we would have nuked the rest of man kind off the face of the earth or something. remember, the forces of evil fight with suicidal abandon... they feel no pain and have no fear. I dunno where people get the impression that the US likes to go attack people... if it were up to us, the rest of the world would have zero wars/problems... and we could just sit here at home with our 2.5 kids and white picket fences, eat to much, get fat and watch reality tv shows. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is pretty fawked up, so we have to send our young men to fight/die to stop everything from going to hell in a handbasket.

5) if the US is "imperialist", please explain why we havent conquered mexico or canada yet.... or any country in the western hemisphere for that matter. They are close, have resources we could use, and are militarily incredibly weak. Considering this, if we are so imperialist, why not just take them over? answer... DUH, we aint even close to imperialist and havent been for a long time.

ok, im done now.

j

The U.S. is like Sauron in that we're a gargantuan power that throws our weight around wherever we want, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks. And the U.S. isn't imperialist in the way Britain was, instead we're culturally and financially imperialist. We go around the world, implanting McDonald's and Starbucks everywhere, promoting our way of life at the expense of others. We send people to die needlessly in Iraq for oil and so Bush can look good when he says he's captured Saddam. Or we try to replace dictators in South American countries with our own dictators, so they're our puppets. Then we try to dipose them when they rebel against us. In fact, if it weren't for Reagan, we wouldn't have had a September 11th, because the Muslim fundamentalists wouldn't have had military training to learn how to hijack planes, and they wouldn't have weapons supplied to them by the U.S. government. The U.S. may not want to cover the world with orcs, but it's certainly not as nice as you make it sound. You sound like WWII propaganda, actually. "Love America, for all it's done for you, for all it's done for the world! A perfect nation, with perfect people, fighting against an evil world!" Give me a break.

Sorry for the political debate, I don't like to throw threads so off topic. My only point was that any parallels between LOTR and the war on terror are tenuous at best.

The original Star Wars movie came out in 1977. The Cold War was still going strong then and did not end until the late 80s.

^^^
i was about to say this.

I didnt know the Cold War ended in 1976.

all three original SW films were made DURING the Cold War.

One of the metaphors that we can draw from LOTR is that: war is not always unjust. sometimes, they must be fought.

I meant after the height of the Cold War, which was undoubtedly the 50's.

The height of the Cold War was undoubtedly around the mid-60's, what with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the events happening in Vietnam.

By the mid-60's, the issues surrounding Vietnam in America had nothing to do with Cold War tensions. The Cuban Missile Crisis was an intense moment, I will admit, but the Cold War was at its most sustained, paranoid pitch in the 50's. By 1960 people had broken the blacklist. It's those kind of things that made the 50's so synonymous with the Cold War. And regardless, neither the 50's OR the 60's took place in 1977.

i never said the US was "purely good", terrorists can clearly be shown to be purely evil in deed if not in the entirety of their existance. I know evil when I see it, and terrorist attacks are it. If you dont think so, thats fine, you can think whatever you want.

a) you know exactly what I meant when I said "greeks" and b) what was alexander doing on the boarders of India if all he was trying to do was secure control over a neighboring greek city state?!

I assume you have read the manifesto, as I have... remember the part where it says that communism will come to power by "the forcible overthrow of all existing orders"... now what exactly does that mean to you? Also, the USSR/east bloc didnt have 50,000 tanks in eastern europe for a defense... the intent was always to take the rest of europe as soon as was feasible. They had wherehouses full of street signs (for western european cities, in russin to help their guys navigate in an offensive) and lots of other stuff that was clearly not defensive. russian also took control of MANY nations that were not theirs after the commies took over, the baltic republics, the "stans" etc. Not to mention the invasion of afghanistan.

i guess the mongols were just spreading holiday cheer? how about the nazis? how about the English? what was their empire and domination of half the world about?

of course they do, and we have the right to say "you guys dont know crap."

if we were wrong for "sitting" the WWs out, they are wrong for sitting the current war out. IMO they arent comparable. the WWs were euro-fawk ups... the war on terrorism is radical islamic guys against ANYONE who is "western" the US is just the big target right now, if we fell, they would be next.

thats the famous european diplomacy we here so much about. worked well didnt it?

translation: more euro fawk ups...

on the foreign policy front i see no problems with anything bush has done. IMO hes to lenient on syria, iran, and saudi, but thats just mu opinion. As to bush's intelligence... he has degrees from yale and harvard and he got to be the president of the USA, thats more qualifications than I have, so I wont talk any smack. In spite of what some people say, its impossible for a real "idiot" to reach that level of power.

of course not, I understand the euros... i dont expect them to do chit, they never do. Like the famous quote goes... "europeans... always around when they need you". hits the nail on the head.

or maybe we should have just let the germans have the whole thing, they have been better allies than the french have since then. the WWs were both the result of euro screw ups, why are we obligated to solve all of euro-lands problems? the euros sure as chit see no obligation to help us...

if you cant see the liberation of 30 million people as a good thing, maybe you need to live in captivity for a while. maybe if u had a family member fed feet first through a plastic shredder you'd think differently.

your arguement holds no watter, so you call names. game, set, and match.

so we should do what france says? why, they dont do what we say.

investing in foriegn states improved their way of life. i guess we COULD say "fawk em all", but we dont. You also forget to mention that the US is the most charitable country in the history of man kind, its a proven fact. deal.

1) we havent taken a drop of oil from iraq, nice try.

2) i guess u like dictators.

dumbest. comment. ever.

j

And every one of your arguments, designed to show the inadequacy of my arguments, have at least as many holes as you claim mine do. And I don't see how someone who can reduce so much history to "Euro fawk-ups" and several hundred years of complex Greek history to nothing can call MY comments the "dumbest comments ever". And I have no idea what you seem to have against Europe. It's not like the landmass itself is a breeding ground for bad decisions. Certain people make bad decisions no matter where they're from. Also, the Americans agreed just as much as the Europeans that Germany should be stuck with the bill for WWI, so I don't see how you can blame the Europeans and then say the Americans are always so right and generous. It's obvious you like to make wide, sweeping comments with broad generalizations, flying in the face of actual facts. To that end, I hereby end this argument and will not respond to anything you say, because it's completely unwinnable, and, furthermore, has very little to do with Roger Ebert or The Lord of the Rings. I'll admit I was partially responsible for the amount of time this thread has spent on off-topic things, and I apologize to everyone else who came in here wanting to read about the things listed on the topic page. I stand by my statements and that's that.

if there are holes, feel free to point them out. I have no problems debating the details of any of the points I made.

did someone outside of europe start world war 1 or 2? are all the history books wrong or did I just miss something? I'm not saying that the US has never done anything wrong, faaaar from it... what I am saying is that europeans have VERY little on their resume that qualifies them to speak well about diplomacy or facing down evil dictators. Its like if some guy who had been in 8937574358 car accidents told you how to drive. He has a right to voice what he thinks is best... but why exactly would you listen to him? and how dumb would you be for casting aside what you think is right to follow his advice? Because of the US, the millions of people in afghanistan and iraq are free... with someone like you in charge they would still be being murdered/tortured etc. Now they have hope for a better life. Did we kill some innocent iraqis/afghans when we deposed said nations leaders? of course we did, and its a sad fact. The number of civy casualities though was miniscule campared to the #s killed by the dictators themselves. I mean, saddam probably would have killed as many as we did in the war in any single month of his regime... is it not worth that to end the suffering of an entire people? If not, we should have just let the germans have france... wouldnt want to kill any innocent frenchy people with all those B-17 raids would we? lastly, i think its funny that people against the war in iraq are, on the one hand, PISSED OFF if we inadvertantly killed a few civilians... and on the other hand, when saddam was intentionally killing a lot more innocent iraqis for years and years, they dont give a crap. Hello Captain Contradition! I salute you!

my family was european... most of them bavarians or prussians. I have no problem with them per se, but at the same time I don't believe they know what they're talking about when it comes to facing dictators. They have never done it very well, their diplomacy is almost always taken advantage of or given from a position of weakness etc. They can't even take care of their own back yard by themselves (kosovo) and when they do nation-building its generally an abysmal failure. They get an "A for effort", but they just arent very good at it. This is nothing to be ashamed of if your are european really, there are countless other things a society or nation might be excellant at doing and europeans are world leaders in some of those things. Americans arent good at everything, we get smoked in soccer at ever world cup, if we even qualify.

no, it isnt, but some doosies have certainly been made there. I mean when a "bad decision" gets 40-50 million people killed, some of us tend to remember.

actually, that is not entirely accurate. After WWI, in addition to reparations, the english maintained their naval blockade on germany AFTER the treaty of versai (sp, i know, Im not french) was signed... for a year or so. If you know international treaty law, you know this is a clear violation of the treaty and an act of war, by the English. At any rate, the result was up to a million germans starved to death. American political pressure finally got the english to end the blockade. Reperations being as steep as they were was amost entirely a French idea. So bitter were the french after that war they fully supported the English blockage and sure as heck werent sending food aid to the starving german civilians. The US on the other hand, DID send food aid to help said civilians.

this from the guy that said 9-11 was regan's fault? lol.

of course it is, for you.

j

Wow, so I'm now supposed to believe that the US is the model to follow when dealing with dictators? The "disposable dictator" policy has been in effect for decades. I'm sure you are familiar with the term "state sponsored terrorism" now are you? People only bring up the ruthless dictator argument when said dictator stops being useful. So please spare me the "we liberated the poor Iraqis" nonsense.
I'm also sure you are aware that over 10 years of UN sanctions, the application of which was largely controlled by the US (96% of shipments blocked were blocked by the US who claimed dual use for things like generators for water treatment plants, hospital equipment and medical supplies, etc) killed over 1.5 million Iraqis including 500,000 children under the age of 5. But of course, I assume you jekbrown will say that this was all evil Saddam's fault.

Who hijacked my thread!?

eXcentris,

Yes, we know the US is more evil than Saddam could ever hope to be. We frequently gas our citizens, kill children who write "anti-government propagana" on city streets, and I could go on, but I'm sure you know firsthand of the atrocities the US performs on its people.

Oh. We also slaughtered millions of turkeys for the holidays. I forgot that one. I'm heading to Saudia Arabia, where they know how to treat their men and women equally, and have more freedoms than the US constitution could ever afford them.

Please... Nobody here ever said such a thing and you know it. But to claim that the US is the model to follow when dealing with dictators is just ludicrous. A cursory look at history will shoot that argument down in about 10 sec. And to believe that the US (or any government) bases it's foreign policy on humanitarian reasons is also silly and naive. "Saddam gasses his own people" is an argument used to sell the war to the masses, it has little to no bearing on the real reasons this war was undertaken which are mainly geo-political. So again, give me a break with the "we liberated the poor Iraqis from evil Saddam" nonsense, this ain't LOTR fantasy land.

And for the record, I don't have a problem with Ebert's review of ROTK.

I forget the name of the boat but didn't the U.S. turn away a boatful of Jews right when the Holocaust was gaining full force? Some of those people were then sent to concentration camps and killed.

I agree that the U.S. sometimes doens't get involved in a war until properly motivated (oil, politics, etc).

our record is clearly superior to anyone elses. Is it without flaw? of course not. Have we used petty dictators to offset other dictators/regimes on occassion? sure, usually when all out nuclear war or massive invasion is the other alternative. I'll take whats behind door #1 bob. Sometimes there is no perfect magic bullet solution, if there was, there would never be any wars/problems in this world in the first place.

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People only bring up the ruthless dictator argument when said dictator stops being useful. So please spare me the "we liberated the poor Iraqis" nonsense.

its only nonsense if you either a) dont give a crap about other human beings or b) have never seen people whos lives/souls have been crushed by dictatorship. I have never said that the reason the US went into iraq was to free iraqis... just that it was a result.. and a GOOD one. Sorta like the cold war, the purpose of it may have never been to free the people of eastern europe from russian domination, but that was the result, and it was good. BTW, at what point were Hitler, Stalin, Mao "useful"? Your arguement only seems applicable with small-time wanna be dictators.

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I'm also sure you are aware that over 10 years of UN sanctions, the application of which was largely controlled by the US (96% of shipments blocked were blocked by the US who claimed dual use for things like generators for water treatment plants, hospital equipment and medical supplies, etc) killed over 1.5 million Iraqis including 500,000 children under the age of 5. But of course, I assume you jekbrown will say that this was all evil Saddam's fault.

wow, you can read that fax from the DNC like a champ. The real truth of the matter is that the UN allowed enough food for every single man/woman/child in iraq to receive a healthy diet... but that said food never got to the poor people of iraq because saddam made sure it didn't. Between the 1st and 2nd gulf war he controlled how food was distributed in his country. The UN build scores of "food distribution points" and saddam had his minions collect food from them while threatening death on poor starving people who got in his way. Just like the warlords of somalia, saddam used food as a weapon and a commodity to buy allegiance. Its an old story, and will probably happen again. At any rate, the idea that iraqis had plenty of food and the evil US came and stole it all from them because we dont like saddam is a complete lie. Your arguement reminds me of people who blame the malnourishment of the jews in the WW2 concentration camps on allied blockades and not german guards who had orders not to feed them.

on top of all of this, the US are the ones who help feed the world and come when people are in great need. Where was (insert any country you want here) when the berliners needed an airlift? where were they when somalian warlords starved who knows how many? how about in afghanistan, who brought food aid there? Who sends disaster relief porfessionals around the world when someone else is in trouble... even people who HATE us? (big quake in iran, our people have already volunteered to help). Who gives more charity to 3rd world countries than the US? who donates more of their time in 3rd world countries? on and on and ON. Im sick and tired of rabid anti-american yahoos who just dont know chit. They nick-pick every little decision and mistake as if anyone has/can do it better, and whine and cry alot but when it comes right down to it its clear the US is the most generous country in the world and absolutely vital to worldwide stability. Have we solved every problem in the world? no, but we try to help even when no one else will and to me, that says a lot about who americans have become, late and post 20th century.

j

jekbrown: God Bless! and well said

I agree with you 100%!

Jason

Wow - Ebert is thinking a lot of strange things.

LOL SEEKER!

"Our record is clearly superior to anyone elses". This is clearly a matter of opinion. Should we start with the history of South and Central America for the past 40 years? Oh, I forgot, "petty dictators" don't count. So how many people must a dictator kill for him to receive consideration? Once again, it is absurd to believe that ANY country's foreign policy is based on noble humanitarian reasons. Saddam is no different. You used him, and then you dumped him when he was no longer useful. Is the end result a good thing for the world and for the Iraqis? Yes, but nobody would have given a shit about the poor Iraqis if Iraq hadn't been in a geo-politically important region. Terrorism, WMD's, blah... Saddam was just a convenient scapegoat.

Wow, and apparently you can't read at all. I made no mention of the oil for food program which was only implemented in 1996. Newsflash, Iraqis weren't dying of starvation, they were dying because of contaminated water supplies and lack of medical supplies. Over 10 years of sanctions brought Iraq to it's knees and whether you like it or not the US, because it kept using it's veto to block shipments, is largely responsible for this. Who do you think insisted in keeping the sanctions in place despite the fact that it was apparent very early on that they had no impact on Saddam himself and only served to kill Iraqis?

You accuse me of not caring about the lives of the Iraqis and when I mention the death of 1.5 million of them you speak of little decisions and small mistakes? Brilliant.

But of course, anyone who doesn't see the world in black and white like you do and dares to criticize the US is "a yahoo that doesn't know chit". The US is vital to worldwide stability but it often acts like an immature child with a bull in a china shop mentality. The US does do a lot of good around the world, and it is often put in situations where it has to do the "policing" because nobody else (especially Europeans) have had the will, means, or desire, to even take care of their own problems. But it still has a long ways to go in terms of maturity and wisdom.

Now believe it or not, I'm no anti-American yahoo. In fact I often defend the US against what I call "primary anti-Americanism" which tends to blame the US for all the world's problem. But I'm not some brainwashed yahoo who just goes around saying "woooooo! the US is #1!"... Here's the deal, you are the only Superpower, the #1 US of A, and every one of your actions will be scrutinized. Criticism comes with the territory. You don't like it, move to Canada. But something tells me this won't go over too good with someone who stated that "I have no problem with the Bush admin foreign policy"...

Blah, I'm outta here.