Rumble #24

old news but still an important perspective...

RUMBLE #23

Michael is joined by comedian and writer Katie Halper. They discuss the Senate impeachment trial, Fiddler on the Roof, the weaponization of identity politics, colonoscopies and the dangers of anti-Semitism.

RUMBLE # 10 with RALPH NADER

Michael Moore and Ralph Nader have a complicated relationship. So during his trip to D.C. to witness the impeachment of Donald Trump, Michael was surprised when he bumped into Ralph while visiting the office of Flint's representative in Congress. They ended up having their first real conversation in nearly 20 years. Ralph agreed to let Michael record it for this podcast.

*****************

Ralph Nader and Mark Green's new book "Fake President" is here:
https://www.indiebound.org/book/97815...

Read more about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact here:
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

Follow Ralph here:
https://twitter.com/RalphNader

Happy New Year?

Let's start with Michael Moore's podcast....

This started about three weeks ago, but every night I will post the next episode until we are up to the day.

It's a great weekly series that so far has been almost daily as he's getting his bearings, I think it's always an incredible listen.

A Brief History of [GUNS in] The United States of America

Sunday Sermon:Michael Moore’s to do list for a Revolution: An Intervention for Liberals

from Boing Boing

We have a new leader in America. Known for his distinct regional accent and often seen wearing a baseball cap at rallies, he starred in a show on NBC, and holds strong opinions about guns and the NRA. He may not be the leader you saw coming, but you're going to see a lot more of him: Michael Moore. The documentary filmmaker shuns the activist label he is often given. In a recent LA Times interview Moore asserted, "I'm not an activist, I'm a citizen. It's redundant to say I'm an activist. We all should be active." Moore has been very active, and has made films that take on some of America's most complex and controversial topics -- globalization, gun violence, 9/11, our healthcare system, the economy, war, and most recently, Donald Trump, someone he did see coming. Unlike the Democrats. 

Moore tried to warn the left in July, when he wrote a piece titled simply "5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win. In it, he did not mince words: "Go ahead and say the words, 'cause you'll be saying them for the next four years: 'PRESIDENT TRUMP.' Never in my life have I wanted to be proven wrong more than I do right now." With his midwestern directness and efficiency, Moore then proceeded to list how and why Donald Trump was going to win. 

Liberals feel aimless and powerless, falling all over each other trying to figure out what happened. Like teenagers at a party that went off the rails, some are locked in the bathroom crying, some are fighting amongst themselves, others are telling everyone it's going to be fine, and some are standing on the kitchen table yelling, trying to restore order in futility. The left needs a designated driver, and Michael Moore is already in the driveway with the car warmed up, waiting for Democrats to pull themselves together and get in. 

After the election, Moore posted another 5-point list, this time, a" Morning After To-Do List." Item number one? "Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people. They have failed us miserably." It might sound like pointing fingers, or running for office, but it's not. It was statement of tough love telling us what was necessary to lay the groundwork for an effective movement against Trump. Two days later, in an interview with LA Times reporter Steven Zeitchik, he said he that he wanted to head that movement: 

You live in a country where a majority of its citizens have said they believe there's climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, the don't want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage, and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed. We live in a country where the majority agree with the "liberal" position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen. 

Hillary Clinton won the widest margin of the popular vote in the history of presidential election defeats, but lost in electoral votes -- and her supporters are still losing their minds. Also, on the 100th anniversary of a woman's right to vote, electing the first female president seemed like it was meant to be. Now, Twitter reads like a manic-depressive's drunken journal, riddled with earnest hashtags desperately trying to unify the bloodied left, and gloating trolls on the right who were all absent from gym class the day the other kids learned what sportsmanship was. 

After appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" along with Rudy Giuliani and Paul Ryan yesterday morning, the in-demand Moore took time to answer questions from Boing Boing: 

***

Maureen Herman: Do you see yourself as a leader or what role do you see yourself in now?

Michael Moore: I am doing my part to help lead the opposition, and will work with others to do so. Less meetings, more action. I tried to warn people about Trump winning -- I now have a responsibility to stop him from doing any harm. At least now people are listening to me.

***

He was right when he said Trump would win, but his article did not go particularly viral at the time, considering Moore's general popularity. It didn't get re-posted, re-tweeted, or shared the way the left, myself included, spread around self-soothing articles on our preferred candidate or editorials painting Trump as an impossible joke. Maybe Moore's perspective was not taken seriously, or it was ignored out of fear of facing the reality we are in now. Maybe we thought that embracing the possibility of a Trump presidency would jinx the election. Whatever the reason, we didn't listen, and we also didn't listen when he said back in 2015 that Trump was going to be the Republican Party's nominee. 

"That doesn't make me feel good, the fact that I was right. I never wanted to be more wrong," the outspoken liberal director said in an LA Times interview. "I just don't live in the bubble of New York and L.A. and I was worried with what I was witnessing in the Midwest, the Rust Belt, what I call the 'Brexit' states." 

Moore does not make his predictions based on algorithms, polls, and self-satisfied soothsaying. He pays attention to the root causes, he sees how systemic problems play out in individual lives -- it's what he has always done in his films. Michael Moore is as woke as they get. He kept his eye on the ball while the rest of us looked away, assuming it would land in our glove. Well, it got dropped and we lost the game. 

There's no Red Cross for losing an election, but that's the kind of thing people are looking for. Sure, there are existing Democratic organizations, and nonprofits that work for liberal concerns, like the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and NAACP, and donations are coming in. People want to do something. But they need to do something different. Well, yesterday, Michael Moore posted a handy to do list on Twitter: 

#1. A massive nationwide opposition movement has exploded. It must continue. I am part of this. You are, too.

Must quickly and decisively form an opposition movement, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the 1960s. I will do my part to help lead this, as I'm sure many others (Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, MoveOn, the hip-hop community, DFA, etc.) will, too. The core of this opposition force will be fueled by young people who, as with Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, don't tolerate B.S. and are relentless in their resistance to authority. They have no interest in compromising with racists and misogynists. 

#2. Prepare for Trump's Impeachment now. Narcissism and greed and the fact he's a sociopath will lead to him breaking the law. 

Prepare to impeach Trump. Just as the Republicans were already planning to do with President Hillary from Day One, we must organize the apparatus that will bring charges against him when he violates his oath and breaks the law -- and then we must remove him from office. 

#3. Plan now to join millions in civil disobedience when Trump nominates his first Supreme Court Justice.

Must commit right now to a vigorous fight (including civil disobedience, if necessary) which will block any and all Donald Trump Supreme Court nominees who do not meet our approval. We demand the Democrats in the Senate aggressively filibuster any nominees who support Citizens United or who oppose the rights of women, immigrants and the poor. This is non-negotiable. 

#4. The DNC must apologize to Bernie Sanders for trying to rig the fight against him, for defaming him, for cheating.

Demand the DNC apologize to Bernie Sanders for trying to fix the primaries against him, for spinning the press to ignore his historic campaign, for giving Clinton the questions in advance at the Flint debate, for its latent ageism and anti-Semitism in trying to turn voters against him because of his age or religious beliefs, and for its anti-democracy system of "super-delegates" who are elected by no one. We all know now had Bernie been given a fair shot, he probably would have been the nominee and he -- as the true outsider and "change" candidate -- would have inspired and fired up the base and soundly defeated Donald Trump. If no apology is soon forthcoming from the DNC, that's ok -- when we take over the Democratic Party (see yesterday's To-Do List, #1), we will issue the apology in person. 

#5. Obama must appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the FBI Director's illegal interference in the election.

Demand that President Obama establish a Special Prosecutor to investigate who and what was behind FBI Director James Comey's illegal interference into the Presidential election 11 days before the vote was held. 

#6. Abolish electoral college and electronic voting; Election Day held on the weekend, restore voting rights of former prisoners

Begin a national push while it's fresh in everyone's mind for a constitutional amendment to fix our broken electoral system: 1. Eliminate the Electoral College -- popular vote only. 2. Paper ballots only -- no electronic voting. 3. Election Day must be made a holiday for all -- or held on a weekend so more people vote. 4. All citizens, regardless of any run-ins with the criminal "justice" system, must have the right to vote. (In swing states like Florida and Virginia, 30-40% of all Black men are prohibited by law from voting.) 

#7. President Obama: send the Army Corps of Engineers to Flint to replace the water pipes. The water is still unusable.

Convince President Obama to immediately do what he should have done a year ago: Send in the Army Corps of Engineers to Flint to dig up and replace all the poisoned pipes. NOTHING HAS CHANGED; the water in Flint is still unusable. 

Will try to get these done by sundown. More To-Do tomorrow... 

--Michael Moore 

It is not just Moore's accurate political predictions or successful films that make him the right person to lead the left out of the darkness, and it's not his common presence on major talk shows that inspired me to write this article. It was my personal experience with Michael Moore during the 2000 presidential campaign that revealed the kind of guy he was, his core values, and what he thought was possible for America. Sustained, passionate and authentic concern for the welfare of others is hard to find, and even harder to fake. That is what I learned that Michael was all about. 

We met the night of the 2000 MTV Video Awards, when a video he directed for Rage Against the Machine was nominated for Best Video. I became friendly with him and his wife, was invited to see him speak at a Ralph Nader for President rally, and a few weeks later, out to dinner. It was at dinner that he spoke eloquently and personally about his hopes and dreams for America, always peppering his points with the stories and struggles of real people. He was so full of belief in the promise of real change, and most importantly, in the ability of everyday people to come together to make it happen. He was supporting Nader's campaign with gusto, and in fact, that nights, he inspired me to vote third party for the first time. Moore left New York not long afterwards to work on what would become the Oscar-winning documentary, Bowling for Columbine. We all know what happened in the 2000 election, when votes for Ralph Nader ate up Al Gore's margin and won George Bush the presidency. I plead guilty. 

For as right as he's been, Moore is just as able to admit past mistakes, which he demonstrated famously on Bill Maher's Real Time, when he and Maher literally begged Ralph Nader not to run for president again in 2004. It was not a stunt. He learned the hard way something very profound and critical from the 2000 election: that real change only happens from the bottom up. In a 2010 interview with Amy Goodman for Democracy Now, Moore reflected on his changed stance about third parties: 

I have this basic position about Ralph. I've known him for many, many years. He has done so much good for this country. I also believe that he doesn't really have a handle on what the proper strategy is to get this country in our hands. I don't see him ever working with the grassroots or with the people or being in touch with the people in any way, shape or form. if we really want to try and get this power in our hands, in the people's hands, in the hands of the working people of this country, then we should, on a very grassroots level, from the bottom up, be doing things -- whether it's running for local office, or taking over the local Democratic Party." 

The game is rigged in America when it comes to third parties. There's no way that that's ever going to work. And so, then how, instead of letting the game, I guess, rig us, what can we do to the game itself? And if the game is, well, we have these two political parties which are really very much like one party, why don't we make sure that one of those parties actually is a second party and start locally and do that? And that's what I encourage people to do. That's my approach." 

If earnest optimism and the belief in significant change were Moore's greatest flaws in 2000, they are now an asset that over a half of the country desperately needs. What he learned from that election and every one since, is reflected in his to do list. This is not just wild revolutionary posturing. This came from being in the trenches. It came from losing and understanding what it takes to win. It came from seeing the impact of an election on the working folks who have inspired his life's work, and wanting sincerely to stop the suffering. 

So the morning after the 2016 election, when MSNBC's Rachel Maddow very accurately posted the very real impact of third party votes, it echoed the frustration of 2000. So if anyone was wondering why Moore and others who initially supported Bernie Sanders didn't go "Bernie or Bust," like our younger counterparts, it comes from what voters like myself experienced firsthand, having lived through eight years of a Bush presidency. 

Moore is not afraid to call the Democratic party out on its mistake with Bernie Sanders, and the role that played in the election, and he makes that clear on his to do list. He doesn't blame third party voters for Trump -- He holds the Democratic party responsible for leading them there. He knows there are other factors, like the impact of prisoners without voting rights -- people who are subject to punishment under the law, but not allowed to participate in the system of government. He recognizes that even if Hillary had won, things are still very broken, just by virtue of what happened to Sanders. Moore's razor sharp focus is on changing, the Democratic party from the inside. 

Moore is also careful not to blame racism for the election results. He is very aware of and concerned about the racial tension in the country, but he stresses that it should not keep us from looking at the very real economic issues that put Trump in the White House, as he told the LA Times: 

The Democratic Party doesn't seem to get it. Working people that are both African American and white -- don't make it a racial thing -- have suffered at the hands of both Republicans and Democrats," Moore said. He grew more fiery. "The DNC has to resign. They all have to resign." 

***

Maureen Herman: People would love to see Trump ousted from office, but most think it's unrealistic. What do you say to that?

Michael Moore: We must work every path that leads to stopping Trump -- legal, popular opinion, mass protest, forcing elected officials to obstruct his every negative move. 

***

In his "Morning After" list, Moore warned that Democrats in Congress who were not ready to fight "must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that's about to begin." In the LA Times interview, Moore doubled down on the goal of removing Trump. "I don't believe anyone in the media who says we're going to have four years of Trump. This is a man who doesn't have any ideology; the only thing he believes in is Donald Trump. And that's usually a one-way ticket out of office." 

***

Maureen Herman: What can people do immediately to get involved with this movement? 

Michael Moore: Find the protests in your area and show up. If there are none, start one. Post photos and video on social media. Stay aware of other things going on and get involved! 

***

Another documentary filmmaker, comedian Bobcat Goldthwait, posted a text message to his daughter, in answer to her asking how he was doing after the election. It sums up where a lot of us are, or need to be right now: 

Numb, but it's just put the fire back in me. It's time for me to make a big noise. Protect your rights, protect the gays, protect minorities. This will wake up the strength and good people. I know it sounds crazy, but a lot of good will come from this. Too many good people just got a huge wake up call. It's OK to be sad and scared, but love, the real beautiful kind of love, comes out of times like these. We're the new 60s. Time to love and kick ass, and stand up to sexism and racism.

So all hands on deck. Get in the car with Uncle Mike. And yes, we can stop at Denny's on the way home. You're going to need your energy. 

With additional reporting by Katie Schwartz

Michael Moore's five-step program for Dems to get over the election

from Michael Moore's Facebook page

Morning After To-Do List:

1. Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people. They have failed us miserably.

2. Fire all pundits, predictors, pollsters and anyone else in the media who had a narrative they wouldn't let go of and refused to listen to or acknowledge what was really going on. Those same bloviators will now tell us we must "heal the divide" and "come together." They will pull more hooey like that out of their ass in the days to come. Turn them off.

3. Any Democratic member of Congress who didn't wake up this morning ready to fight, resist and obstruct in the way Republicans did against President Obama every day for eight full years must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that's about to begin.

4. Everyone must stop saying they are "stunned" and "shocked". What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren't paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all "You're fired!" Trump's victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that.

5. You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: "HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!" The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don't. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he's president is because of an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we'll continue to have presidents we didn't elect and didn't want. You live in a country where a majority of its citizens have said they believe there's climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, they don't want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed. We live in a country where the majority agree with the "liberal" position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen (see: #1 above).
Let's try to get this all done by noon today.

-- Michael Moore

Michael Moore's new film Attacks US government's state of 'infinite war'

from The Guardian

Where to Invade Next, made in secret because of surveillance concerns, satirises ‘constant need to have an enemy to keep the military-industrial complex alive’


Moore and myself at St. Marks Books some years back.

Michael Moore’s new film, Where to Invade Next, explores how the US government maintains a state of “infinite war”, according to the Oscar-winning documentary film-maker.

Moore revealed rough details of the project, which he has been making “in secret” since 2009, in his first Periscope broadcast. He answered questions from fans posted on Twitter and started by saying he’d like to “say ‘Hello!’ to my NSA friends that are watching right now”. He’s been a vocal critic of the agency’s mass surveillance practices – revealed by the Guardian in 2013 – and called whistleblower Edward Snowden “the hero of the year”.

Here's the 6-min video from the Periscope I just did regarding my new film, WHERE TO INVADE NEXT. #W2IN #TIFF15 https://t.co/lKhLhTPUpn

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) July 28, 2015

He said Where to Invade Next, which was filmed across three continents, was “epic in nature”, but made quietly with a small crew. “There’s usually someone chasing us,” he said. It seems the film, which premieres at the Toronto film festival in September, will cover some of the same ground as his Palme d’Or-winning Fahrenheit 9/11, a critique of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” detailing the various dictatorships that have been supported by the US administration in the interests of maintaining conflicts that profited America. Fahrenheit 9/11 is the highest-grossing documentary of all time, taking close to $120m (£75m) at the US box office.

“The issue of the United States at infinite war is something that has concerned me for quite some time, and provides the necessary satire for this film,” said Moore in the Periscope broadcast.

“[There’s] this constant need it seems to always have an enemy – where’s the next enemy so we can keep this whole military industrial complex alive, and keep the companies that make a lot of money from this in business. I’ve always been a little bothered by that, so that’s where the comedy comes from.”

The blurb on the the Toronto festival website for Where to Invade Next suggests Moore will again use prank-based journalism to satirise US foreign policy. “Moore tells the Pentagon to ‘stand down’ – he will do the invading for America from now on,” it says.

When asked by a Twitter user if he thought it was more important to make people laugh or deliver a message, Moore said “both”.

“Humour is a great vehicle to make social commentary about things that are going on these days,” he said, echoing a speech he gave at Toronto last year in which he told documentary film-makers to be more entertaining.

“People don’t want medicine, they want popcorn,” he told a crowd of industry guests. “Entertainment is the big dirty word of documentary. ‘Oh no! I’ve entertained someone. I’ve cheapened my movie!’”

“People want to go home and have sex after your movie,” he said. “Don’t make them feel ‘Urggggghhhh’. Don’t do that to your fellow sexually active people.”

Michael Moore Read HERE COMES TROUBLE if you like the man or not.

In my opinion Michael Moore is a great American hero, without any doubt to me. Wether you like him or not this book and his story is incredible, A MUST READ! I bought it back when St. Marks Books was doing a fund raiser and Michael came down to this OG East Village outpost, and offered to sign books to bring attention to their plight. I bought a few copies and had a few words with the man, but never got to finish the book 'til yesterday, it's great and I highly recommend it to you to read.



try and buy it here at St Marks.

at your local book store

or at Amazon if you must.

An Open Letter to President ObamaBy Michael Moore

Dear President Obama:

Good luck on your journeys overseas this week, and congratulations on decisively winning your second term as our president! The first time you won four years ago, most of us couldn't contain our joy and found ourselves literally in tears over your victory.

This time, it was more like breathing a huge sigh of relief. But, like the smooth guy you are, you scored the highest percentage of the vote of any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson, and you racked up the most votes for a Democratic president in the history of the United States (the only one to receive more votes than you was ... you, in '08! ). You are the first Democrat to get more than 50% of the vote twice in a row since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This was truly another historic election and I would like to take a few minutes of your time to respectfully ask that your second term not resemble your first term.

It's not that you didn't get anything done. You got A LOT done. But there are some very huge issues that have been left unresolved and, dammit, we need you to get some fight in you. Wall Street and the uber-rich have been conducting a bloody class war for over 30 years and it's about time they were stopped.

I know it is not in your nature to be aggressive or confrontational. But, please, Barack – DO NOT listen to the pundits who are telling you to make the "grand compromise" or move to the "center" (FYI – you're already there). Your fellow citizens have spoken and we have rejected the crazed ideology of this Republican Party and we insist that you forcefully proceed in bringing about profound change that will improve the lives of the 99%. We're done hoping. We want real change. And, if we can't get it in the second term of a great and good man like you, then really – what's the use? Why are we even bothering? Yes, we're that discouraged and disenchanted.

At your first post-election press conference last Wednesday you were on fire. The way you went all "Taxi Driver" on McCain and company ("You talkin' to me?") was so brilliant and breathtaking I had to play it back a dozen times just to maintain the contact high. Jesus, that look – for a second I thought laser beams would be shooting out of your eyes! MORE OF THAT!! PLEASE!!

In the weeks after your first election you celebrated by hiring the Goldman Sachs boys and Wall Street darlings to run our economy. Talk about a buzzkill that I never fully recovered from. Please – not this time. This time take a stand for all the rest of us – and if you do, tens of millions of us will not only have your back, we will swoop down on Congress in a force so large they won't know what hit them (that's right, McConnell – you're on the retirement list we've put together for 2014).

BUT – first you have to do the job we elected you to do. You have to take your massive 126-electoral vote margin and just go for it.

Here are my suggestions:

1. DRIVE THE RICH RIGHT OFF THEIR FISCAL CLIFF. The "fiscal cliff" is a ruse, an invention by the Right and the rich, to try and keep their huge tax breaks. On December 31, let ALL the tax cuts expire. Then, on January 1, put forth a bill that restores the tax cuts for 98% of the public. I dare the Republicans to vote against that! They can't and they won't. As for the spending cuts, the 2011 agreement states that, for every domestic program dollar the Republicans want to cut, a Pentagon dollar must also be cut. See, you are a genius! No way will the Right vote against the masters of war. And if by some chance they do, you can immediately put forth legislation to restore all the programs we, the majority, approve of. And for God's sake, man – declare Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid untouchable. They're not bankrupt or anywhere near it. If the rich paid the same percentage of Social Security tax on their entire income – the same exact rate everyone else pays – then there will suddenly be enough money in Social Security to last til at least the year 2080!

2. END ALL THE WARS NOW. Do not continue the war in Afghanistan (a thoroughly losing proposition if ever there was one) for two full more years! Why should one single more person have to die FOR NO REASON? Stop it. You know it's wrong. Bin Laden's dead, al Qaeda is decimated and the Afghans have to work out their own problems. Also, end the drone strikes and other covert military activities you are conducting in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Colombia, and God knows where else. You think history is going to remember the United States as a great democracy? No, they're going to think of us as a nation that became addicted to war. They'll call us warlords. They'll say that in the 21st century America was so in need of oil that we'd kill anyone to get it. You know that's where this is going. This has to stop. Now.

3. END THE DRUG WAR. It is not only an abysmal failure, it has returned us to the days of slavery. We have locked up millions of African-Americans and Latinos and now fund a private prison-industrial complex that makes billions for a few lucky rich people. There are other ways to deal with the drugs that do cause harm – ways built around a sense of decency and compassion. We look like a bunch of sadistic racists. Stop it.

4. DECLARE A MORATORIUM ON HOME FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS. Millions of people are facing homelessness because of a crooked system enacted by the major banks and Wall Street firms. Put a pause on this and take 12 months to work out a different way (like, restructuring families' mortgages to reflect the true worth of their homes).

5. GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS. You already know this one. The public is sick of it. Now's the time to act.

6. EXPAND OBAMACARE. Your health care law doesn't cover everyone. It is a cash cow for the insurance industry. Push for a single-payer system – Medicare for All – and include dentistry and mental health. This is the single biggest thing you could do to reduce the country's deficit.

7. RESTORE GLASS-STEAGALL. You must put back all the rigid controls on Wall Street that Reagan, Clinton and the Bushes removed – or else we face the possibility of another, much worse, crash. If they break the law, prosecute them the way you currently go after whistleblowers and medical marijuana dispensaries.

8. REDUCE STUDENT LOAN DEBT. No 22-year-old should have to enter the real world already in a virtual debtors' prison. This is cruel and no other democracy does this like we do. You were right to eliminate the banks as the profit-gouging lenders, but now you have to bring us back to the days when you and I were of college age and a good education cost us little or next to nothing. A few less wars would go a long to way to being able to afford this.

9. FREE BRADLEY MANNING. End the persecution and prosecution of an American hero. Bush and Cheney lied to a nation to convince us to go to war. Manning allegedly hacked the war criminals' files and then shared them with the American public (and the world) so that we could learn the truth about Iraq and Afghanistan. Our history is full of such people who "break the law" for the greater good of humanity. Army Specialist Bradley Manning deserves a medal, not prison.

10. ASK US TO DO SOMETHING. One thing is clear: none of the above is going to happen if you don't immediately mobilize the 63,500,000 who voted for you (and the other 40 million who are for you but didn't vote). You can't go this alone. You need an army of everyday Americans who will fight alongside you to make this a more just and peaceful nation. In your 2008 campaign, you were a pioneer in using social media to win the election. Over 15 million of us gave you our cell numbers or email addresses so you could send us texts and emails telling us what needed to be done to win the election. Then, as soon as you won, it was as if you hit the delete button. We never heard from you again (until this past year when you kept texting us to send you $25. Inspiring.) Whoever your internet and social media people were should have been given their own office in the West Wing – and we should have heard from you. Constantly. Need a bill passed? Text us and we will mobilize! The Republicans are filibustering? We can stop them! They won't approve your choice for Secretary of State? We'll see about that! You say you were a community organizer. Please – start acting like one.

The next four years can be one of those presidential terms that changed the course of America. I'm sure you will want to be judged on how you stood up for us, restored the middle class, ended the s***ting on the poor and made us a friend to the rest of the world instead of a threat. You can do this. We can do it with you. All that stands in the way is your understandable desire to sing "Kumbaya" with the Republicans. Don't waste your breath. Their professed love of America is negated by their profound hatred of you. Don't waste a minute on them. Fix the sad mess we're in. Go back and read this month's election results. We're with you.

P.S. President Obama – my cell number to text me at is 810-522-8398 and my email is MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com. I await my first assignment!

Bowling For Columbine (2002) Sunday Sermon - must watch

Thanks Michael Moore

Michael Moore: "I was the most hated man in America"

from The Guardian UK

In his 2003 Oscar acceptance speech, Michael Moore denounced President Bush and the invasion of Iraq. Overnight he became the most hated man in America. In an exclusive extract from his new book, Here Comes Trouble, he tells of the bomb threats, bodyguards and how he fought back

'I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it … No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out [of him]. Is this wrong? I stopped wearing my 'What Would Jesus Do?' band, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, 'Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore', and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realise, 'Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death.' And you know, well, I'm not sure."

Glenn Beck, live on the Glenn Beck show, 17 May 2005

Wishes for my early demise seemed to be everywhere. They were certainly on the mind of CNN's Bill Hemmer one sunny July morning in 2004. Holding a microphone in front of my face on the floor of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, live on CNN, he asked me what I thought about how the American people were feeling about Michael Moore: "I've heard people say they wish Michael Moore were dead." Hemmer said it like he was simply stating the obvious, like, "of course they want to kill you!" He just assumed his audience already understood this truism, as surely as they accept that the sun rises in the east and corn comes on a cob.

To be fair to Hemmer, I was not unaware that my movies had made a lot of people mad. It was not unusual for fans to randomly come up and hug me and say, "I'm so happy you're still here!" They didn't mean in the building.

Why was I still alive? For more than a year there had been threats, intimidation, harassment and even assaults in broad daylight. It was the first year of the Iraq war, and I was told by a top security expert (who is often used by the federal government for assassination prevention) that "there is no one in America other than President Bush who is in more danger than you".

How on earth did this happen? Had I brought this on myself? Of course I had. And I remember the moment it all began.

It was the night of 23 March 2003. Four nights earlier, George Bush had invaded Iraq. This was an illegal, immoral, stupid invasion – but that was not how Americans saw it. More than 70% of the public backed the war. And on the fourth night of this very popular war, my film Bowling for Columbine was up for an Academy Award. I went to the ceremony but was not allowed, along with any of the nominees, to talk to the press while walking down the red carpet into Hollywood's Kodak Theatre. There was the fear that someone might say something – and in wartime we need everyone behind the war effort and on the same page.

The actress Diane Lane came on to the stage and read the list of nominees for best documentary. The envelope was opened, and she announced with unbridled glee that I had won the Oscar. The main floor, filled with the Oscar-nominated actors, directors and writers, leapt to its feet and gave me a very long standing ovation. I had asked the nominees from the other documentary films to join me on the stage in case I won, and they did. The ovation finally ended, and then I spoke: "I've invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us. They are here in solidarity with me because we like non-fiction. We like non-fiction, yet we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts: we are against this war, Mr Bush. Shame on you, Mr Bush. Shame on you! And anytime you've got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up! Thank you very much."

About halfway through these remarks, all hell broke loose. There were boos, very loud boos, from the upper floors and from backstage. (A few – Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep – tried to cheer me on from their seats, but they were no match.) The producer of the show ordered the orchestra to start playing to drown me out. The microphone started to descend into the floor. A giant screen with huge red letters began flashing in front of me: "YOUR TIME IS UP!" It was pandemonium, to say the least, and I was whisked off the stage.

A little known fact: the first two words every Oscar winner hears right after you win the Oscar and leave the stage come from two attractive young people in evening wear hired by the Academy to immediately greet you behind the curtain. So while calamity and chaos raged on in the Kodak, this young woman in her designer gown stood there, unaware of the danger she was in, and said the following word to me: "Champagne?" And she held out a flute of champagne.

The young man in his smart tuxedo standing next to her then immediately followed up with this: "Breathmint?" And he held out a breathmint.

Champagne and breathmint are the first two words all Oscar winners hear. But, lucky me, I got to hear a third. An angry stagehand came right up to the side of my head, screaming as loud as he could in my ear: "ASSHOLE!"

Other burly, pissed-off stagehands started toward me. I clutched my Oscar like a weapon, holding it like a lone man trapped and surrounded in the woods, his only hope being the torch he is swinging madly at the approaching vampires. All I felt at that moment was alone, that I was nothing more than a profound and total disappointment.

That night I couldn't sleep, so I got up and turned on the TV. For the next hour I watched the local TV stations do their Oscar night wrap-up shows – and as I flipped between the channels, I listened to one pundit after another question my sanity, criticise my speech and say, over and over, in essence: "I don't know what got into him!"

"He sure won't have an easy time in this town after that stunt!" "Who does he think will make another movie with him now?" "Talk about career suicide!" After an hour of this, I turned off the TV and went online, where there was more of the same, only worse – from all over America. I began to get sick. I could see the writing on the wall – it was curtains for me as a film-maker. I turned off the computer and I turned off the lights and I sat there in the chair in the dark, going over and over what I had done. Good job, Mike. And good riddance.

Bombarded with hatred

When we got back to our home in northern Michigan, the local beautification committee had dumped three truckloads of horse manure waist-high in our driveway so that we wouldn't be able to enter our property – a property which, by the way, was freshly decorated with a dozen or so signs nailed to our trees: GET OUT! MOVE TO CUBA! COMMIE SCUM! TRAITOR! LEAVE NOW OR ELSE!

I had no intention of leaving.

The hate mail after the Oscar speech was so voluminous, it almost seemed as if Hallmark had opened a new division where greeting card writers were assigned the task of penning odes to my passing. ("For a Special Motherfucker …" "Get Well Soon from Your Mysterious Car Accident!" "Here's to a Happy Stroke!")

The phone calls to my house were actually creepier. It's a whole different fright machine when a human voice is attached to the madness and you think: "This person literally risked arrest to say this over a phone line!" You had to admire the balls – or insanity – of that.

But the worst moments were when people came on to our property. These individuals would just walk down the driveway, always looking like rejects from the cast of Night of the Living Dead, never moving very fast, but always advancing with singleminded purposefulness. Few were actual haters; most were just crazy. We kept the sheriff's deputies busy until they finally suggested we might want to get our own security, or perhaps our own police force. Which we did.

We met with the head of the top security agency in the country, an elite outfit that did not hire ex-cops, nor any "tough guys" or bouncer-types. They preferred to use only Navy Seals and other ex–Special Forces. Guys who had a cool head and who could take you out with a piece of dental floss in a matter of nanoseconds. By the end of the year, due to the alarming increase of threats and attempts on me, I had nine ex-Seals surrounding me, round-the-clock.

Fahrenheit 9/11: the fightback

After the Oscar riot and the resulting persona-non-grata status I held as the most hated man in America, I decided to do what anyone in my position would do: make a movie suggesting the president of the United States is a war criminal.

I mean, why take the easy road? It was already over for me, anyway. The studio that had promised to fund my next film had called up after the Oscar speech and said that they were backing out of their signed contract with me – if I didn't like it, I could go fuck myself. Fortunately, another studio picked up the deal but cautioned that perhaps I should be careful not to piss off the ticket-buying public. The owner of the studio had backed the invasion of Iraq. I told him I had already pissed off the ticket-buying public, so why don't we just make the best movie possible, straight from the heart – and, well, if nobody liked that, there was always straight-to-video.

In the midst of all this turmoil I began shooting Fahrenheit 9/11. I told everyone on my crew to operate as if this was going to be the last job we were ever going to have in the movie business. This wasn't meant to be an inspirational speech – I really believed that this was going to be it. And so we spent the next 11 months putting together our cinematic indictment of an administration and a country gone mad.

The release of the film in 2004, just a little more than a year after the start of the war, came at a time when the vast majority of Americans still backed the war. We premiered it at the Cannes film festival, where we were awarded the top prize, the Palme d'Or, by an international jury headed by Quentin Tarantino. It was the first time in nearly 50 years a documentary had won the prize.

This initial overwhelming response to Fahrenheit 9/11 spooked the Bush White House, convincing those in charge of his re-election campaign that a movie could be the tipping point that might bring them down. They hired a pollster to find out the effect the film would have on voters. After screening the movie with three different audiences in three separate cities, the news Karl Rove received was not good. The movie was not only giving a much-needed boost to the Democratic base (who were wild about the film), it was, oddly, having a distinct effect also on female Republican voters.

The studio's own polling had already confirmed that an amazing one-third of Republican voters – after watching the movie – said they would recommend the film to other people. But the White House pollster reported something even more dangerous – 10% of Republican females said that after watching Fahrenheit 9/11, they had decided to either vote for John Kerry or to just stay home. In an election that could be decided by only a few percentage points, this was devastating news.

The movie would go on to open at No 1 all across North America. And, to make matters worse for the White House, it opened at No 1 in all 50 states, even in the deep south. It opened at No 1 in military towns such as Fort Bragg. Soldiers and their families were going to see it and, by many accounts, it became the top bootleg watched by the troops in Iraq. It broke the box office record long held by the Star Wars film Return of the Jedi for the largest opening weekend ever for a film that opened on 1,000 screens or less. It was, in the verbiage of Variety, major boffo, a juggernaut.

And in doing all of that, it had made me a target.

The attacks on me that followed were like mad works of fiction, crazy, madeup stuff that I refused to respond to because I didn't want to dignify the noise. On TV, on the radio, in op-eds, on the internet – everywhere – it was suggested that Michael Moore hates America, he's a liar, a conspiracy nut and a croissant-eater. The campaign against me was meant to stop too many Republicans from seeing the film.

And it worked. Of course, it also didn't help that Kerry was a lousy candidate. Bush won by one state, Ohio.

There was a residual damage from all the hate speech generated toward me by the Republican pundits. It had the sad and tragic side-effect of unhinging the already slightly unglued. And so my life went from receiving scribbly little hate notes to fullout attempted physical assaults – and worse.

Living with bodyguards

The ex–Navy Seals moved in with us. When I walked down a public sidewalk they would have to form a circle around me. At night they wore night-vision goggles and other special equipment that I'm convinced few people outside CIA headquarters have ever seen.

The agency protecting me had a threat assessment division. Their job was to investigate anyone who had made a credible threat against me. One day, I asked to see the file. The man in charge began reading me the list of names and the threats they had made and the level of threat that the agency believed each one posed. After he went through the first dozen, he stopped and asked: "Do you really want to keep going? There are 429 more."

I could no longer go out in public without an incident happening. It started with small stuff, such as people in a restaurant asking to be moved to a different table when I was seated next to them, or a taxi driver who would stop his cab in mid-traffic to scream at me. The verbal abuse soon turned physical, and the Seals were now on high alert. For security reasons, I will not go into too much detail here, partly on the advice of the agency and partly because I don't want to give these criminals any more of the attention they were seeking:

• In Nashville, a man with a knife leapt up on the stage and started coming toward me. The Seal grabbed him from behind by his belt loop and collar and slung him off the front of the stage to the cement floor below. Someone had to mop up the blood after the Seals took him away.

• In Fort Lauderdale, a man in a nice suit saw me on the sidewalk and went crazy. He took the lid off his hot, scalding coffee and threw it at my face. The Seal saw this happening but did not have the extra half-second needed to grab the guy, so he put his own face in front of mine and took the hit. The coffee burned his face so badly, we had to take him to the hospital (he had second-degree burns) – but not before the Seal took the man face down to the pavement, placing his knee painfully in the man's back, and putting him in cuffs.

• In New York City, while I was holding a press conference outside one of the cinemas showing Fahrenheit 9/11, a man walking by saw me, became inflamed, and pulled the only weapon he had on him out of his pocket – a very sharp and pointed graphite pencil. As he lunged to stab me with it, the Seal saw him and, in the last split second, put his hand up between me and the oncoming pencil. The pencil went right into the Seal's hand. You ever see a Navy Seal get stabbed? The look on their face is the one we have when we discover we're out of shampoo. The pencil-stabber probably became a convert to the paperless society that day, once the Seal was done with him and his 16th-century writing device.

The lone bomber

And then there was Lee James Headley. Sitting alone at home in Ohio, Lee had big plans. The world, according to his diary, was dominated and being ruined by liberals. His comments read like the talking points of any given day's episode of The Rush Limbaugh Show. And so Lee made a list. It was a short list of the people who had to go. At the top of the list was his No1 target: "Michael Moore". Beside my name he wrote, "MARKED" (as in "marked for death", he would later explain).

Throughout the spring of 2004, Headley accumulated a huge amount of assault weapons, a cache of thousands of rounds of ammunition, and various bomb-making materials. He bought The Anarchist's Cookbook and the race-war novel The Turner Diaries. His notebooks contained diagrams of rocket launchers and bombs, and he would write over and over: "Fight, fight, fight, kill, kill, kill!"

But one night in 2004, he accidentally fired off a round inside his home from one of his AK-47s. A neighbour heard the shot and called the police. The cops arrived and found the treasure trove of weapons, ammo and bomb-making materials. And his hit list.

I got the call some days later from the security agency.

"We need to tell you that the police have in custody a man who was planning to blow up your house. You're in no danger now."

I got very quiet. I tried to process what I just heard: I'm … in … no … danger … now. For me, it was the final straw. I broke down. My wife was already in her own state of despair over the loss of the life we used to have. I asked myself again: what had I done to deserve this? Made a movie? A movie led someone to want to blow up my home? What happened to writing a letter to the editor?

As the months wore on, even after Bush's re-election, the constant drumbeat against me only intensified. When Glenn Beck said that he was thinking of killing me, he was neither fined by the broadcasting regulator nor arrested by the NYPD. He was, essentially, making a call to have me killed, and no one in the media at that time reported it.

And then a man trespassed on our property and left something outside our bedroom window when I wasn't home. It terrorised my wife. He even videotaped himself doing this.

When the police investigated, he said he was making a "documentary". He called it Shooting Michael Moore. And when you went to his website, and the words Shooting Michael Moore came on the screen, the sound of a gunshot went off. The media ate it up, and he was asked to appear on many TV shows (such as Fox News host Sean Hannity's). "Coming up next – he's giving Michael Moore a taste of his own medicine! Moore now has somebody after him!" (Cue SFX: KA-BOOM!) He then provided video and maps of how to illegally get on to our property.

I will not share with you the impact this had, at that time, on my personal life, but suffice it to say I would not wish this on anyone. More than once I have asked myself if all this work was really worth it. And, if I had it to do over again, would I? If I could take back that Oscar speech and just walk up on the stage and thank my agent and tuxedo designer and get off without another word, would I? If it meant that my family would not have to worry about their safety and that I would not be living in constant danger – well, I ask you, what would you do? You know what you would do.

President Bush to the rescue

For the next two and a half years, I didn't leave the house much. From January 2005 to May 2007, I did not appear on a single TV show. I stopped going on college tours. I just took myself off the map. The previous year I had spoken at more than 50 campuses. For the two years following that, I spoke at only one. I stayed close to home and worked on some local town projects in Michigan where I lived. And then to my rescue rode President Bush. He said something that helped snap me out of it. I had heard him say it before, but this time when I heard him, I felt like he was speaking directly to me. He said: "If we give in to the terrorists, the terrorists win." And he was right. His terrorists were winning! Against me! What was I doing sitting inside the house? I opened up the blinds, folded up my pity party, and went back to work. I made three films in three years, threw myself into getting Barack Obama elected, and helped toss two Republican congressmen from Michigan out of office. I set up a popular website, and I was elected to the board of governors of the same Academy Awards that had booed me.

I chose not to give up. I wanted to give up, badly. Instead I got fit. If you take a punch at me now, I can assure you three things will happen: 1) You will break your hand. That's the beauty of spending just a half hour a day on your muscular-skeletal structure – it turns into kryptonite; 2) I will fall on you. I'm still working on my core and balance issues, so after you slug me I will tip over and crush you; 3) My Seals will spray mace or their own homemade concoction of jalapeño spider spray directly into your eye sockets while you are on the ground. As a pacifist, please accept my apologies in advance – and never, ever use violence against me or anyone else again.

Eventually I found myself back on The Tonight Show for the first time in a while. As I was leaving the stage, the guy who was operating the boom microphone approached me.

"You probably don't remember me," he said nervously. "I never thought I would ever see you again or get the chance to talk to you. I can't believe I get to do this."

Do what? I thought. I braced myself for the man's soon-to-be-broken hand.

"I never thought I'd get to apologise to you," he said, as a few tears started to come into his eyes. "I'm the guy who ruined your Oscar night. I'm the guy who yelled 'ASSHOLE' into your ear right after you came off the stage. I … I … [he tried to compose himself]. I thought you were attacking the president – but you were right. He did lie to us. And I've had to carry this with me now all these years, and I'm so sorry …"

By now he was starting to fall apart, and all I could think to do was to reach out and give him a huge hug.

"It's OK, man," I said, a big smile on my face. "I accept your apology. But you do not need to apologise to me. You believed your president! You're supposed to believe your president! If we can't expect that as just the minimum from whoever's in office, then, shit, we're doomed."

"Thank you," he said, relieved. "Thank you for understanding."

"Understanding?" I said. "This isn't about understanding. I've told this funny story for years now, about the first two words you hear when you're an Oscar winner – and how I got to hear a bonus word! Man, don't take that story away from me! People love it!" He laughed, and I laughed.

"Yeah," he said, "there aren't many good stories like that."

Extracted from Here Comes Trouble: Stories From My Life by Michael Moore, to be published by Allen Lane on 19 September at £20. To order a copy for £16 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846. Moore will be performing live dates in the UK and Ireland from 16-25 October. See www.michaelmoorelive.com for details.

A real American Hero

30 Years Ago Today: The Day the Middle Class Died ...a letter from Michael Moore‏

from Michael Moore's mailing list:

Friday, August 5th, 2011



Friends,

From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.

Young people have heard of this mythical time -- but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, "When did this all end?", I say, "It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981."

Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to "go for it" -- to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.

And they've succeeded.

On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.

It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?

Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started -- a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women.

Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over. America, from now on, would be run this way:

* The super-rich will make more, much much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left.

* Everyone must work! Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house! Dad, you work a second job! Kids, here's your latch-key! Your parents might be home in time to put you to bed.

* 50 million of you must go without health insurance! And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help -- or not.

* Unions are evil! You will not belong to a union! You do not need an advocate! Shut up and get back to work! No, you can't leave now, we're not done. Your kids can make their own dinner.

* You want to go to college? No problem -- just sign here and be in hock to a bank for the next 20 years!

* What's "a raise"? Get back to work and shut up!

And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help:

The AFL-CIO.

The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that's just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers -- they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.

Reagan and Wall Street could not believe their eyes! Hundreds of thousands of working people and union members endorsing the firing of fellow union members. It was Christmas in August for Corporate America.

And that was the beginning of the end. Reagan and the Republicans knew they could get away with anything -- and they did. They slashed taxes on the rich. They made it harder for you to start a union at your workplace. They eliminated safety regulations on the job. They ignored the monopoly laws and allowed thousands of companies to merge or be bought out and closed down. Corporations froze wages and threatened to move overseas if the workers didn't accept lower pay and less benefits. And when the workers agreed to work for less, they moved the jobs overseas anyway.

And at every step along the way, the majority of Americans went along with this. There was little opposition or fight-back. The "masses" did not rise up and protect their jobs, their homes, their schools (which used to be the best in the world). They just accepted their fate and took the beating.

I have often wondered what would have happened had we all just stopped flying, period, back in 1981. What if all the unions had said to Reagan, "Give those controllers their jobs back or we're shutting the country down!"? You know what would have happened. The corporate elite and their boy Reagan would have buckled.

But we didn't do it. And so, bit by bit, piece by piece, in the ensuing 30 years, those in power have destroyed the middle class of our country and, in turn, have wrecked the future for our young people. Wages have remained stagnant for 30 years. Take a look at the statistics and you can see that every decline we're now suffering with had its beginning in 1981 (here's a little scene to illustrate that from my last movie).

It all began on this day, 30 years ago. One of the darkest days in American history. And we let it happen to us. Yes, they had the money, and the media and the cops. But we had 200 million of us. Ever wonder what it would look like if 200 million got truly upset and wanted their country, their life, their job, their weekend, their time with their kids back?

Have we all just given up? What are we waiting for? Forget about the 20% who support the Tea Party -- we are the other 80%! This decline will only end when we demand it. And not through an online petition or a tweet. We are going to have to turn the TV and the computer and the video games off and get out in the streets (like they've done in Wisconsin). Some of you need to run for local office next year. We need to demand that the Democrats either get a spine and stop taking corporate money -- or step aside.

When is enough, enough? The middle class dream will not just magically reappear. Wall Street's plan is clear: America is to be a nation of Haves and Have Nothings. Is that OK for you?

Why not use today to pause and think about the little steps you can take to turn this around in your neighborhood, at your workplace, in your school? Is there any better day to start than today?

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Here are a few places you can connect with to get the ball rolling:

Showdown in America
Democracy Convention
Occupy Wall Street
October 2011
How to Join a Union, from the AFL-CIO (They've learned their lesson and have a good president now) or UE
Change to Win
MoveOn
High School Newspaper (Just because you're under 18 doesn't mean you can't do anything!)

"Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden" from Michael Moore

"The Nazis killed tens of MILLIONS. They got a trial. Why? Because we're not like them. We're Americans. We roll different." – Michael Moore in an interview last week

Last week, President Obama fulfilled a campaign promise and killed Osama bin Laden. Well he didn't actually do the killing himself. It was carried out by a very brave and excellent team of Navy SEALs. Not only does Mr. Obama have the overwhelming support of the country, I think there are millions who gladly wish it could have been their finger on the gun that took out bin Laden.

When I heard the news a week ago Sunday, I immediately felt great. I felt relief. I thought of those who lost a loved one on 9/11. And I was glad we finally had a President who got something done. This is what I had to say on Twitter and elsewhere on the internet in that first hour or two:

I want to point out that Barack Obama took two years to do what Bush couldn't do in over seven. That's the difference between STUPID in charge and SMART in charge. STUPID pursues two reckless wars, lets OBL escape from Tora Bora, keeps looking for him in caves and invades the wrong country. He bankrupts us to the tune of $1.2 trillion for the Iraq War (it will eventually actually be over $3 trillion), and worse, he cost us the lives of almost 5,000 of our troops, not to mention hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan – and, after all that, he STILL couldn't bring the perp to justice. In fact, in 2005, Bush closed down the CIA station that was devoted to looking for bin Laden! What does SMART do? He sends in a small elite strike force, no troops are killed, and the perpetrator is stopped for good.

I was thrilled that the Osama bin Laden era was over. There was now an end to the madness.

Being near Ground Zero that night, I decided to head over there and join with others who saw this event as a chance to have some closure. On 9/11, Bill Weems, a good and decent man I knew and worked with (we had just recently completed a shoot together in Boston), was on the plane that was flown into the Twin Towers. I dedicated 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' in part, to him.

But before leaving to go to the former World Trade Center site, I turned on the TV, and what I saw down at Ground Zero was not quiet relief and gratification that the culprit had been caught. Rather, I witnessed a frat boy-style party going on, complete with the shaking and spraying of champagne bottles over the crowd. I can completely understand people wanting to celebrate – like I said, I, too, was happy – but something didn't feel right. It's one thing to be happy that a criminal has been captured and dealt with. It's another thing to throw a kegger celebrating his death at the site where the remains of his victims are still occasionally found. Is that who we are? Is that what Jesus would do? Is that what Jefferson would do? I was reminded of the tale told to me as a kid, of God's angels singing with glee as the Red Sea came crashing back down on the Egyptians chasing the Israelites, drowning all of them. God rebuked them, saying, "The work of My hands is drowning in that sea – and you want to friggin' sing?" (or something like that).

I remember my parents telling me how, on the day it was announced that Hitler was dead, there was no rejoicing in the streets, just private relief and satisfaction. The real celebration came six days later at the announcement that the war in Europe was over. THAT'S what the people wanted to hear – not just the demise of one evil madman, but the end to all the killing.

When the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, people didn't pour into the streets to whoop it up. Yes, people were happy that it might help end the war, but there was not a public display of "Yippee! A hundred thousand Japs have been fried!" If they had done that, well, who could have blamed them after so many tens of thousands of their sons and fathers had been lost in the war (including my uncle, a paratrooper, killed by a sniper near Manila). But the sailor kissing the girl in Times Square was on August 14th, 1945, when the Japanese surrendered and the war was officially over. That's when America went crazy with joy – not over a killing, but over an announcement of peace.

We are a different people now, aren't we? Well, sorta. There was no bloodlust euphoria on the day Timothy McVeigh was executed. We were silent. The families of the Oklahoma City dead were silent, relieved. What is the difference between McVeigh and bin Laden, other than the number they slaughtered? I wonder. I think we know the answer.

Though bin Laden is dead, we are told that Orwell's Permanent War – the "War on Terror" – must continue! Not allowed to have our V-J day and run into Times Square with exhilaration! No, there could be terrorists there. So all we're left with is to cheer the death of one evil man, and that is supposed to make us feel powerful and good. There can be no celebration for the end of the Afghanistan War because the war isn't ending. The war must continue! Even though our own CIA tells us there are no more than a few dozen al Qaeda left in Afghanistan. We still have 100,000 troops there fighting a few dozen crazies? We say we're fighting the Taliban, too, but the Taliban are Afghan citizens, not an invading force, and, for better or worse, they seem to enjoy the support of many of the common people throughout Afghanistan. (If you don't believe that, ask any soldier who has served there and seen it. Every day is like Apocalypse Now. Poppies, anyone?)

Meanwhile, we – me, included – get lost in the weeds of how this one madman was killed. The official story from the Pentagon changed four times in the first four days! It went from OBL firing on the troops with one hand and using his wife as a human shield with the other, to, by the fourth day, not single person in the main house, including bin Laden, being armed when killed. Instantly, this created a lot of suspicion about what really happened, which itself was a distraction.

Here's my take: I know a number of Navy SEALs. In fact (and this is something I don't like to talk about publicly, for all the obvious reasons), I hire only ex-SEALs and ex-Special Forces guys to handle my own security (I'll let you pause a moment to appreciate that irony). These SEALs are trained to follow orders. I don't know what their orders were that night in Abbottabad, but it certainly looks like a job (and this is backed up in a piece in the Atlantic) where they were told to not bring bin Laden back alive. The SEALs are pros at what they do and they instantly took out every adult male (every potential threat) within a few minutes – but they also took care to not harm a single one of the nine children who were present. Pretty amazing. This wasn't some Rambo-style operation where they just went in guns blazing, spraying bullets. They acted swiftly and with expert precision. I'm telling you, these guys are so smart and so lethal, they could take you out with a piece of dental floss. (And in fact, one of my ex-SEAL guys showed me how to do that one night. Whoa.)

In a perfect world (yes, I would like to reside there someday, or at least next door to it, in Slightly Imperfect World), I would like the evildoers to be forced to stand trial in front of that world. I know a lot of people see no need for a trial for these bad guys (just hang 'em from the nearest tree!), and think trials are for sissies. "They're guilty, off with their heads!" Well, you see, that is the exact description of the Taliban/al Qaeda/Nazi justice system. I don't like their system. I like ours. And I don't want to be like them. In fact, the reason I like a good trial is that I like to show these bastards this is how it's done in a free country that believes in civilized justice. It's good for the rest of the world to see that, too. Sets a good example.

The other thing a trial does is, it establishes a very public and permanent historic record of the crimes against humanity. This is why we put the Nazis on trial in Nuremberg. We didn't do it for them. We did it for ourselves and for our grandchildren so that they would never forget these horrors and how they were committed. And we did it for the German people so they could see the evidence of what their elected leaders had done. Very helpful. Very necessary. Very powerful.

And for those who wanted blood back then – well, the majority of the Nazis all hanged in the end. So, it doesn't mean the bad guys get away – they still swing from the highest tree.

My own spiritual beliefs do not allow for capital punishment, and I was raised in the state (Michigan) that in the 1840s was the first government in the English-speaking world to outlaw it. So, I'm just not inclined that way. I don't believe in "an eye for an eye." I know the old book said that, but I like its sequel better (a rare case in which the sequel – like Godfather II, Star Trek II, Terminator II – is better than the original). If you don't believe the way I believe (it's also the official position of the Catholic Church, for whatever that's worth these days), then that's your right, and I understand.

Perhaps there was no way to bring him back alive – I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in that dark house trying to make that snap decision. But if the execution was ordered in advance, then I say we should be told that now, and we can like it or not like it.

For nine years I wrote and I said that Osama bin Laden was not hiding in a cave. I'm not a cave expert, I was just using my common sense. He was a multimillionaire crime boss (using religion as his cover), and those guys just don't live in caves. He had people killed under the guise of religion, and not many in the media bothered to explain that every time Osama referenced Islam, he wasn't really quoting Islam. Just because Osama said he was a "Muslim" didn't make it so. Yet he was called a Muslim by everyone. If a crazy person started running around mass-killing people, and he did so while wearing a Wal-Mart blazer and praising Wal-Mart, we wouldn't automatically call him a Wal-Mart leader or say that Wal-Mart was the philosophy behind his killings, would we?

Yet, we began to fear Muslims and round them up. We profiled people from Muslim nations at airports. We didn't profile multi-millionaires (in fact, they now have their own fast-track line to easily get through security, an oddity considering every murderer on 9/11 flew in first class). We didn't run headlines that said "Multi-Millionaire Behind the Mass Murder of 3,000" (although every word in that headline is true). You can say his wealth had nothing to do with 9/11, but the truth is, there is no way he could have kept Al Qaeda in business without having the millions he had.

Some believe that this was a "war" we were in with al Qaeda – and you don't do trials during war. It's thinking like this that makes me fear that, while bin Laden may be dead, he may have "won" the bigger battle. Let's be clear: There is no "war with al Qaeda." Wars are between nations. Al Qaeda was an organization of fanatics who committed crimes. That we elevated them to nation status – they loved it! It was great for their recruiting drive.

We did exactly what bin Laden said he wanted us to do: Give up our freedoms (like the freedom to be assumed innocent until proven guilty), engage our military in Muslim countries so that we will be hated by Muslims, and wipe ourselves out financially in doing so. Done, done and done, Osama. You had our number. You somehow knew we would eagerly give up our constitutional rights and become more like the authoritarian state you dreamed of. You knew we would exhaust our military and willingly go into more debt in eight years than we had accumulated in the previous 200 years combined.

Maybe you knew us so well because you were once one of our mercenaries, funded and armed by us via our friends in Pakistan to fight the other Evil Empire in the last battle of the Cold War. Only, when the killing stopped, the trained killer, our "Frankenstein," couldn't. The monster, you, would soon turn on us.

If we really want to send bin Laden not just to his death, but also to his defeat, may I suggest that we reverse all of that right now. End the wars, bring the troops home, make the rich pay for this mess, and restore our privacy and due process rights that used to distinguish us from any other country. Right now, our democracy looks like Singapore and our economy has gone desperately Greek.

I know it will be hard to turn the clock back to before 9/11 when all we had to worry about were candidates stealing elections. A multi-billion dollar industry has grown up around "homeland security" and the terror wars. These war profiteers will not want to give up their booty so easily. They will want to keep us in fear so they can keep raking it in. We will have to stop them. But first we must stop believing them.

Hideki Tojo killed my uncle and millions of Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos and a hundred thousand other Americans. He was the head of Japan, the Emperor's henchman, the man who was the architect of Pearl Harbor. When the American soldiers went to arrest him, he tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the chest. The soldiers immediately worked on stopping his bleeding and rushed him to an army hospital where he was saved by our army doctors. He then had his day in court. It was a powerful exercise for the world to see. And on December 23, 1948, after he was found guilty, we hanged him. A killer of millions was forced to stand trial. A killer of 4,000 (counting the African embassies and USS Cole bombings) got double-tapped in his pajamas. Assuming it was possible to take him alive, I think his victims, the future, and the restoration of the American Way deserved better. That's all I'm saying.

Good riddance Osama.

Come back to your ways, my good ol' USA.

from michaelmoore.com