The following arrived in my inbox this morning, and I agree with it enough to it here.
It's a letter to Dubya from film-maker Michael Moore.
Let me preface this letter by saying that I'm not interested in hearing from anyone, telling me how Michael is so wrong. If you have an issue with Michael Moore, go tell him. Better yet, wake up, get a clue, and (just for once in your insular little lives) consider someone else's opinion:
Monday, March 17th, 2003Posted by Max at March 17, 2003 01:24 PM | TrackbackGeorge W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DCDear Governor Bush:
So today is what you call "the moment of truth," the day that "France and the rest of world have to show their cards on the table." I'm glad to hear that this day has finally arrived. Because, I gotta tell ya, having survived 440 days of your lying and conniving, I wasn't sure if I could take much more. So I'm glad to hear that today is Truth Day, 'cause I got a few truths I would like to share with you:
1. There is virtually NO ONE in America (talk radio nutters and Fox News aside) who is gung-ho to go to war. Trust me on this one. Walk out of the White House and on to any street in America and try to find five people who are PASSIONATE about wanting to kill Iraqis. YOU WON'T FIND THEM! Why? 'Cause NO Iraqis have ever come here and killed any of us! No Iraqi has even threatened to do that. You see, this is how we average Americans think: If a certain so-and-so is not perceived as a threat to our lives, then, believe it or not, we don't want to kill him! Funny how that works!
2. The majority of Americans -- the ones who never elected you -- are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction. We know what the real issues are that affect our daily lives -- and none of them begin with I or end in Q. Here's what threatens us: two and a half million jobs lost since you took office, the stock market having become a cruel joke, no one knowing if their retirement funds are going to be there, gas now costs two dollars a gallon -- the list goes on and on. Bombing Iraq will not make any of this go away. Only you need to go away for things to improve.
3. As Bill Maher said last week, how bad do you have to suck to lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein? The whole world is against you, Mr. Bush. Count your fellow Americans among them.
4. The Pope has said this war is wrong, that it is a SIN. The Pope! But even worse, the Dixie Chicks have now come out against you! How bad does it have to get before you realize that you are an army of one on this war? Of course, this is a war you personally won't have to fight. Just like when you went AWOL while the poor were shipped to Vietnam in your place.
5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! If you really want to stand up for America, please send your twin daughters over to Kuwait right now and let them don their chemical warfare suits. And let's see every member of Congress with a child of military age also sacrifice their kids for this war effort. What's that you say? You don't THINK so? Well, hey, guess what -- we don't think so either!
6. Finally, we love France. Yes, they have pulled some royal screw-ups. Yes, some of them can be pretty damn annoying. But have you forgotten we wouldn't even have this country known as America if it weren't for the French? That it was their help in the Revolutionary War that won it for us? That it was France who gave us our Statue of Liberty, a Frenchman who built the Chevrolet, and a pair of French brothers who invented the movies? And now they are doing what only a good friend can do -- tell you the truth about yourself, straight, no b.s. Quit pissing on the French and thank them for getting it right for once. You know, you really should have traveled more (like once) before you took over. Your ignorance of the world has not only made you look stupid, it has painted you into a corner you can't get out of.
Well, cheer up -- there IS good news. If you do go through with this war, more than likely it will be over soon because I'm guessing there aren't a lot of Iraqis willing to lay down their lives to protect Saddam Hussein. After you "win" the war, you will enjoy a huge bump in the popularity polls as everyone loves a winner -- and who doesn't like to see a good ass-whoopin' every now and then (especially when it 's some third world ass!). And just like with Afghanistan, we'll forget about what happens to a country after we bomb it 'cause that is just too complex! So try your best to ride this victory all the way to next year's election. Of course, that's still a long ways away, so we'll all get to have a good hardy-har-har while we watch the economy sink even further down the toilet!
But, hey, who knows -- maybe you'll find Osama a few days before the election! See, start thinking like THAT! Keep hope alive! Kill Iraqis -- they got our oil!!
Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
There are few people who can, facts in hand, school a "president" quite the way Michael Moore can.
Posted by: hayneyz on March 17, 2003 06:04 PMAw, c'mon, Michael's not just "so" wrong, he's "very" wrong too. :)
1. I've yet to see Bush say he is gung-ho for war. I'm not sure how so many months of pandering to the UN counts as being gung-ho, but ok.
2. It's my understanding that neither candidate got over 50% of the popular vote, so there's really no point in saying they didn't elect Bush. The same could have been said for Gore, and most certainly for the other candidates.
Also, did Moore watch the markets today? They boomed on news that war may come because the market hates uncertainty. And I tire of people complaining about the economy and the President - government tweaking is always too little or too much, and always too late.
3. I don't recall seeing the popularity contest in question. I do recall, for example, the French saying they would never authorize force, no matter what.
4. An army of one? There are a number of countries in support of disarming Iraq, by force if necessary - and the polls I've seen have put American support between 50 and 70%.
5. We have an all volunteer military - when you sign up, you know you may have to fight. If we had conscription, Moore might have a point.
6. French acts in the past, and our liberating them in WW2, are irrelevant to the matter. The French government is doing nothing but making a power play in the EU, which is backfiring as England, Spain, Portugal, and eastern European countries ally themselves with us and scorn the French position. I'm tired of both sides using the past as justification for this war either way.
Have we forgotten Afghanistan? It's my understanding that US forces are still in place helping to secure the country and train local forces to regulate it as well. The rumors about Afghanistan aid not being in the budget were false as well.
Moore is along the same lines as Ann Coulter - a vapid moron with little if anything original or insightful to add to public discourse.
I apologize if you didn't want to hear that. :)
Posted by: andy on March 17, 2003 09:48 PMA war blog now !
I wont bother you with my opinions on the war (yes, I have opinions on the subject too...)
I'd just say I'm always amazed by the bush election issue. Wouldn't be nice if a majority of voters had actually bothered to vote in the first place ? Neither candidate would have a real legitimacy with such a participation rate. That's the real issue IMO.
Max - I recommend reading the book "Bush At War" by Bob Woodward for a better view of the motives behind war with Iraq. Claiming it's "just about oil" makes no sense - we've fought to keep their oil off of the market except in controlled amounts for 12 years, we could have laid claim to the oil the first time around, and there are plenty of other providers out there to keep oil prices reasonable without Iraq being invaded (you'll notice gas prices have been pretty reasonable the last 12 years).
I would also suggest that Michael Moore read the article on today's BBC website, entitled "War Move Hits Oil Price." From the article: "The prospect of an imminent war has sent the price of oil crashing to its lowest level for three months."
Well, so much for that.
I think the Germans are more interested in being the economic engine of the EU, while France wants to be the political power - to accomplish this, they need each other. I also believe that they are worried that when we topple Saddam, we'll find out that they've been up to no good (we already have evidence of French companies trading illegally with his regime in weapons parts). Additionally, the French are the ones who said they would not consider force a last resort for disarmament at all - yet, it was US and UK threats of force that got the inspections started again!
North Korea is not as big a threat, even if they have a bomb - they are on the verge of self-implosion, with a democratic neighbor to the South, and Japan and the US willing to step in as well should trouble occur. North Korea won't be supplying weapons to Islamic terrorists - it serves no purpose for them, it does for Saddam. Iraq is surrounded by neighbors like Iran who would love a power vacuum to open up should Saddam get offed - Iraq has motives to provide weapons to terrorists (as evidenced by Saddam's vow to take the fight anywhere in the world - sounds like terrorism to me!). Iraq, currently, is the larger threat.
Anyway, it's not that I don't think anti-war folks have anything of value to add to the debate; I just don't think that many of them do when they refer to platitudes like "no blood for oil!" and "finishing daddy's job!" - that's not the hallmark of an educated mind assessing information. It's no different than people like Jen at the Greatest Jeneration who consider anyone from the left to be an idiot incapable of thought.
If you don't want discussion on an issue, then close the comments - but I've always thought the man in the public square barking his views without wanting feedback was a little loopy. :)
Posted by: andy on March 18, 2003 07:29 AMOh, and Bob Woodward is liberal, so he's not writing with an inherent pro-Bush agenda like, say, Rush Limbaugh would.
Posted by: andy on March 18, 2003 07:30 AM>If you don't want discussion on an issue, then close the
>comments - but I've always thought the man in the
>public square barking his views without wanting feedback
>was a little loopy. :)
I kept the comments open, almost as a dare to see if you could resist commenting ;-)
I wasn't barking my views. I was reprinting Moore's letter, because I thought it made a good read. That's why I didn't want to get into a political debate, because it wasn't my lettter. I left Moore's URL on it, so people would know here to go, to complain!
Posted by: Max on March 18, 2003 09:02 AMOh, and:
1) Whether or not Bob Woodward is a liberal, neither he nor any other members of the Washington press corps bothered to throw any really awkward questions at the Pres.
And Dubya didn't even answer the questions that were even mildly challenging him.
2) Whatever the French have been up to, other countries oppose Bush's war. Other European allies. How come no-ones dissing them?
3) If the French have been selling illegally to the Iraqi's, why hasn't this been in the mainstream news?
Posted by: Max on March 18, 2003 09:09 AMMax - I wasn't saying you were barking your views. I was saying that people who close comments when people disagree with them are the ones barking their views. I knew you'd stand up to the challenge of having the evil libertarian respond. :)
As for responding to Moore personally, all that will do is get me on some goddamn liberal mailing list, just like my dissection of Ann Coulter via e-mail got me on dumb David Horowitz's war room mailing list.
I think everyone is in agreement that the previous Bush press conference was not well planned and served no real purpose. Certainly not his best performance.
No one is dissing other countries because the French are the only ones who have said they would veto force at all turns. No matter how many countries on the Security Council we lined up, the French could shoot it down with their one vote. This situation is probably (hopefully) going to hasten the demise of the EU as a political force in the world, as the UK, Spain, Portugal, and much of the former Eastern Bloc ally themselves with the US.
The French sale of parts to Iraq was covered here:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-3-2003_pg4_3
And in the Washington Times (a more questionable source)
Posted by: andy on March 18, 2003 12:36 PMOh, and Racel Lucas had something to say about Moore's letter as well. :)
http://www.rachellucas.com/archives/000442.html#000442
Posted by: andy on March 18, 2003 07:32 PMAndy, should we really be taking someone lke Rachel Lucas seriously, considering that her rhetoric consists primarily of namecalling ("asshat," "moron," "Tom Daschle is a weasely, wussy, flip-flopping, hypocritical, manipulative, creepy, nasty little man," "little liberal Susie [Sarandon] is an arrogant bitch") and little to no hard, proven facts to back up her arguments? All I'm seeing on her site is a bunch of knee-jerk, narrowminded childishness.
Posted by: melanie on March 18, 2003 08:55 PMWhile I don't agree with some of Rachel's more extreme right stances, her take down of Moore is good and refutes all the nonsense that Moore was spewing. I suppose she could have linked to each and every news article refuting what he said, but Google is simple enough for that.
I'm simply saying that using Moore as a rep for the left is as misguided as the right using Ann Coulter. They're both - as Rachel might say - asshats. :)
Posted by: andy on March 18, 2003 10:13 PM