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Michael Moore Letter to those who voted for Bush

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candice Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 11:41 AM
Original message
Michael Moore Letter to those who voted for Bush
To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That's right. Horse shows.

I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That's not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read "My Pet Goat" to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying "Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you're doing a heck of a job!"

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn't a horse show.

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.co
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Nightwing Donating Member (489 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 11:47 AM
Response to Original message
1. Kick!!
Thanks for sharing that great piece from Michael Moore.

:kick: :toast:
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Enraged_Ape Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 12:14 PM
Response to Original message
2. Kick again
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Enraged_Ape Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 12:14 PM
Response to Original message
3. Kick again
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BlueIris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 12:14 PM
Response to Original message
4. I haven't exactly been in love with Moore lately, but this is good.
I have found the entries on his website of late to be vapid, flippant and insensitive, even while feigning support for people like Cindy Sheenan. But this is a good essay. Reminds me of the "old" Mike. Let's hope he can stay in that place.
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astonamous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 12:33 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. Love him or hate him, this is right on! / EOM
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tridim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 12:36 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Well, to be fair Mike's job isn't to maintain a political website
He's a movie maker.
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BlueIris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 12:54 PM
Response to Reply #6
10. Oh, I don't have a problem with the site as a whole,
just his attitude in his blog entries, which has been kind of insensitivie and even callous in my eyes at times.
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Upfront Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 12:38 PM
Response to Original message
7. Kick Again.
Tell it to the brain dead!
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AntiCoup2K4 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 02:49 PM
Response to Reply #7
14. Speaking of brain dead...
I wonder if the DLC will bash Moore again for nailing the Bush bastards?
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Bucky Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 12:39 PM
Response to Original message
8. Some people can't be convinced. But I sure like to hear them get told off!
Rants are better than arguments some days. Like today for instance. They'll never vote for Democrats, and most will never read this essay, but in their hearts some of them have got to know now how wrong they've been to support this crew of idiots.
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mtnsnake Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 12:44 PM
Response to Original message
9. It's great for us to read, but any Republicans who read it will consider
it to be too confrontational in its tone.

While Michael's in the mood for holding people accountable, I'd like to see him blister our own silent, lackadaisical Democratic leaders with a juicy letter to them, too.
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SayitAintSo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 01:54 PM
Response to Original message
11. Mister Nail ... Meet Mister Head .....
Where have you been Mickael Moore ... "GD"... you are good with words sweetie !

:bounce:
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DarkTirade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 02:00 PM
Response to Original message
12. Y'know, he may be
a bit abrasive, kind of a blowhard, and tends to pull things out of his ass now and then...
but damned if he doesn't hit that nail right on the head every now and then. :)
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 02:09 PM
Response to Original message
13. BREATH-TAKING!!! Michael Moore just takes my breath away.
Dear Lord, he's a national treasure!

I think thoughts like this myself, every time I see a bush/cheney sticker or one of those ridiculous little "w04" stickers on somebody's car.

Think I'll print this out and make some copies. It's a good leaflet to leave on the windshields of some of those cars if I see 'em when they're parked.

Anybody who has to have one of those conversations with some as-yet-unsaved soul, read this and remember it, or at least some of it. GREAT comments to bring into the discussion.

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NJCher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 03:10 PM
Response to Reply #13
16. yeah, it is damn good
I'd print it out for my r-w parents except they already turned on bush about a year ago.

One time my dad asked me what I thought of Michael Moore and without skipping a beat, I said, "Highest form of life."

Oh man, the look on his face.




Cher
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renie408 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 02:59 PM
Response to Original message
15. Hey, horse shows are really hard to organize...
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tridim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 03:21 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. Probably.. Just like any large event is difficult to organize
Brown was fired because he couldn't handle the job.
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ProudDad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 03:30 PM
Response to Original message
18. Kick
and recommended.

C'mon folks, MM didn't have anything to do with Kerry losing last year... :)
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ProudDad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 03:32 PM
Response to Original message
19. MM did have one thing wrong though
Edited on Sun Sep-11-05 03:33 PM by ProudDad
unfortunately.

mr. brown DIDN'T organize horse shows. He supervised the officials and because of his incompetence doing that was forced down.

http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=100857

" Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado.
``We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records,'' explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner's office. ``This was his full-time job . . . for 11 years,'' she added.
Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures. "


(Edit: You KNOW the right-wing spin machine is going to latch onto this one little error!)
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ocean girl Donating Member (488 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 09:02 PM
Response to Original message
20. I'm taking a copy to the office tomorrow
to give to my Repub co-worker. We kid around about what a loser Bush is, but I told him last week that I can no longer laugh about genocide.

Hope Michael Moore's rant gets through to him.

Thanks for the link!
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lynne Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 10:10 PM
Response to Original message
21. Call me silly but -
- I imagine the number of people who voted for George Bush who also read Michael Moore is probably hovering somewhere around ZERO.



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KerryRules Donating Member (1 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 10:34 PM
Response to Reply #21
22. Moore makes me laugh, but....
...he's not really helping the cause.



- I imagine the number of people who voted for George Bush who also read Michael Moore is probably hovering somewhere around ZERO.


lynne,

Your point is dead on. In fact, the only reason any Bush supporter reads Moore is to get recreationally irritated and use that energy to reinforce their already held beliefs.

Moore is counter-productive to the cause of progressives because he alienates some of the few remaining voter blocks that could actually be swung over to the DNC if they were handled more correctly.

If you tell someone they're an idiot for holding a certain belief. The likelihood of them changing that belief is slim because you've just put them into defensive mode. Moore loves to put people into defensive mode. Why not? It's made him rich, and it's drawn him a cult following which I'm sure does wonders for his ego and sense of self-esteem.

But he is not getting votes for the DNC, quite the opposite actually. He is driving votes away and causing marginally right of center moderates to completely tune out from a message that has some merit.

Just because pissing people off makes one feel good once in a while doesn't make it a good strategy for winning elections. And if the Democrats don't start winning more elections soon, then all branches of government will be firmly controlled by the GOP by the end of the decade.
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RandomKoolzip Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Sep-11-05 11:18 PM
Response to Reply #22
23. This is exactly what the old right said about Rush Limbaugh
back in the late eighties.

Oh, and the GOP already HAS all the branches of government, AND the media.
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Iowa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-12-05 02:03 PM
Response to Reply #22
24. Nah...
I don't buy that. Just tromp right over these idiots. C'mon... you aren't going to win converts from the remaining Bush supporters with the same approach that would appeal to real thinkers. These geniuses view the world in a fundamentally different way. They're largely a low class bunch whose only left leaning tendencies can be found on the IQ bell curve. Hell, they'd probably be more likely to follow if you give them a good ass chewing - at least that's something they understand. At the very least it may help to shut them the f*** up. If you're nice to them they'll question your motives; they won't be able to think it all the way through, of course, but you'll almost certainly scare them off if you pretend to respect them. It'd be like waving a voodoo doll in their faces - they'll turn and run back into the arms of the party that abuses them. They understand abuse. They trust it. It makes sense to them.

Ultimately, they'll do what they're told by whoever displays the most confidence and the most ruthlessness. That's what they understand, it's exactly what they're doing now, and its precisely what the dim-witted among us have done throughout history.
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Bridget Burke Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-12-05 02:11 PM
Response to Reply #22
26. Great first post.
Usually people wait a bit until they start telling us what we're doing wrong.

Michael Moore has the gift of making certain oinkers squeal like stuck pigs.
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genius Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-12-05 02:08 PM
Response to Original message
25. kick
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