[Posting this because some of my friends have been asking me what I think. Michael Moore and I see many things similar, and he talks better than I do. My own feeling about John Edwards is that he just wants to be the NATION’s ambulance chaser instead of just North Carolina… but would he do the things he says?]\n<\/p>\n
\nJanuary 2, 2008\n<\/p>\n
\nFriends,\n<\/p>\n
\nA new year has begun. And before we’ve had a chance to break our New
\nYear’s resolutions, we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours
\nbefore the good people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace
\nthe man who now occupies three countries and a white house.\n<\/p>\n
Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice
\nwe have failed. Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been
\nlost, the world left in upheaval against us… and yet now, today, we
\nhope against hope that our moment has finally arrived, that the
\namazingly powerful force of the Republican Party will somehow be
\nhalted. But we know that the Democrats are experts at snatching defeat
\nfrom the jaws of victory, and if there’s a way to blow this election,
\nthey will find it and do it with gusto.\n<\/p>\n
Do you feel the same as me? That the Democratic front-runners are a
\nless-than-stellar group of candidates, and that none of them are the
\n“slam dunk” we wish they were? Of course, there are wonderful things
\nabout each of them. Any one of them would be infinitely better than
\nwhat we have now. Personally, Congressman Kucinich, more than any other
\ncandidate, shares the same positions that I have on the issues
\n(although the UFO that picked ME up would only take me as far as
\nKalamazoo). But let’s not waste time talking about Dennis. Even he is
\nresigned to losing, with statements like the one he made yesterday to
\nhis supporters in Iowa to throw their support to Senator Obama as their
\n“second choice.”\n<\/p>\n
\nSo, it’s Hillary, Obama, Edwards — now what do we do?\n<\/p>\n
Two months ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked me to do a cover story
\nwhere I would ask the hard questions that no one was asking in
\none-on-one interviews with Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards. “The
\nTop Democrats Face Off with Michael Moore.” The deal was that all three
\ncandidates had to agree to let me interview them or there was no story.
\nObama and Edwards agreed. Mrs. Clinton said no, and the cover story was
\nthus killed.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhy would the love of my life, Hillary Clinton, not sit down to talk with me? What was she afraid of?\n<\/p>\n
Those of you who are longtime readers of mine may remember that 11
\nyears ago I wrote a chapter (in my first book) entitled, “My Forbidden
\nLove for Hillary.” I was fed up with the treatment she was getting,
\nmost of it boringly sexist, and I thought somebody should stand up for
\nher. I later met her and she thanked me for referring to her as “one
\nhot s***kicking feminist babe.” I supported and contributed to her run
\nfor the U.S. Senate. I think she is a decent and smart person who loves
\nthis country, cares deeply about kids, and has put up with more crap
\nthan anyone I know of (other than me) from the Crazy Right. Her
\ninauguration would be a thrilling sight, ending 218 years of white male
\nrule in a country where 51% of its citizens are female and 64% are
\neither female or people of color.\n<\/p>\n
And yet, I am sad to say, nothing has disappointed me more than the
\ndisastrous, premeditated vote by Senator Hillary Clinton to send us to
\nwar in Iraq. I’m not only talking about her first vote that gave Mr.
\nBush his “authorization” to invade — I’m talking about every single
\nOTHER vote she then cast for the next four years, backing and funding
\nBush’s illegal war, and doing so with verve. She never met a request
\nfrom the White House for war authorization that she didn’t like. Unlike
\nthe Kerrys and the Bidens who initially voted for authorization but
\nlater came to realize the folly of their decision, Mrs. Clinton
\ncontinued to cast numerous votes for the war until last March — four
\nlong years of pro-war votes, even after 70% of the American public had
\nturned against the war. She has steadfastly refused to say that she was
\nwrong about any of this, and she will not apologize for her culpability
\nin America’s worst-ever foreign policy disaster. All she can bring
\nherself to say is that she was “misled” by “faulty intelligence.” <\/p>\n
\nLet’s assume that’s true. Do you want a President who is so easily
\nmisled? I wasn’t “misled,” and millions of others who took to the
\nstreets in February of 2003 weren’t “misled” either. It was simply
\namazing that we knew the war was wrong when none of us had been briefed
\nby the CIA, none of us were national security experts, and none of us
\nhad gone on a weapons inspection tour of Iraq. And yet… we knew we
\nwere being lied to! Let me ask those of you reading this letter: Were
\nYOU “misled” — or did you figure it out sometime between October of
\n2002 and March of 2007 that George W. Bush was up to something rotten?
\nTwenty-three other senators were smart enough to figure it out and vote
\nagainst the war from the get-go. Why wasn’t Senator Clinton? <\/p>\n
\nI have a theory: Hillary knows the sexist country we still live in and
\nthat one of the reasons the public, in the past, would never consider a
\nwoman as president is because she would also be commander in chief. The
\nmajority of Americans were concerned that a woman would not be as
\nlikely to go to war as a man (horror of horrors!). So, in order to
\nplacate that mindset, perhaps she believed she had to be as “tough” as
\na man, she had to be willing to push The Button if necessary, and give
\nthe generals whatever they wanted. If this is, in fact, what has
\nmotivated her pro-war votes, then this would truly make her a scary
\nfirst-term president. If the U.S. is faced with some unforeseen threat
\nin her first years, she knows that in order to get re-elected she’d
\nbetter be ready to go all Maggie Thatcher on whoever sneezes in our
\ndirection. Do we want to risk this, hoping the world makes it in one
\npiece to her second term?\n<\/p>\n
I have not even touched on her other numerous — and horrendous —
\nvotes in the Senate, especially those that have made the middle class
\nsuffer even more (she voted for Bush’s first bankruptcy bill, and she
\nis now the leading recipient of payoff money — I mean campaign
\ncontributions — from the health care industry). I know a lot of you
\nwant to see her elected, and there is a very good chance that will
\nhappen. There will be plenty of time to vote for her in the general
\nelection if all the pollsters are correct. But in the primaries and
\ncaucuses, isn’t this the time to vote for the person who most reflects
\nthe values and politics you hold dear? Can you, in good conscience,
\nvote for someone who so energetically voted over and over and over
\nagain for the war in Iraq? Please give this serious consideration.\n<\/p>\n
\nNow, on to the two candidates who did agree to do the interview with me…\n<\/p>\n
Barack Obama is a good and inspiring man. What a breath of fresh
\nair! There’s no doubting his sincerity or his commitment to trying to
\nstraighten things out in this country. But who is he? I mean, other
\nthan a guy who gives a great speech? How much do any of us really know
\nabout him? I know he was against the war. How do I know that? He gave a
\nspeech before the war started. But since he joined the senate, he has
\nvoted for the funds for the war, while at the same time saying we
\nshould get out. He says he’s for the little guy, but then he votes for
\na corporate-backed bill to make it harder for the little guy to file a
\nclass action suit when his kid swallows lead paint from a Chinese-made
\ntoy. In fact, Obama doesn’t think Wall Street is a bad place. He wants
\nthe insurance companies to help us develop a new health care plan —
\nthe same companies who have created the mess in the first place. He’s
\nsuch a feel-good kinda guy, I get the sense that, if elected, the
\nRepublicans will eat him for breakfast. He won’t even have time to make
\na good speech about it.\n<\/p>\n
But this may be a bit harsh. Senator Obama has a big heart, and that
\nheart is in the right place. Is he electable? Will more than 50% of
\nAmerica vote for him? We’d like to believe they would. We’d like to
\nbelieve America has changed, wouldn’t we? Obama lets us feel better
\nabout ourselves — and as we look out the window at the guy snowplowing
\nhis driveway across the street, we want to believe he’s changed, too.
\nBut are we dreaming?\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd then there’s John Edwards.\n<\/p>\n
It’s hard to get past the hair, isn’t it? But once you do — and
\nrecently I have chosen to try — you find a man who is out to take on
\nthe wealthy and powerful who have made life so miserable for so many. A
\ncandidate who says things like this: “I absolutely believe to my soul
\nthat this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on
\nour democracy.” Whoa. We haven’t heard anyone talk like that in a
\nwhile, at least not anyone who is near the top of the polls. I suspect
\nthis is why Edwards is doing so well in Iowa, even though he has
\nnowhere near the stash of cash the other two have. He won’t take the
\nbig checks from the corporate PACs, and he is alone among the top three
\ncandidates in agreeing to limit his spending and be publicly funded. He
\nhas said, point-blank, that he’s going after the drug companies and the
\noil companies and anyone else who is messing with the American worker.
\nThe media clearly find him to be a threat, probably because he will go
\nafter their monopolistic power, too. This is Roosevelt\/Truman kind of
\ntalk. That’s why it’s resonating with people in Iowa, even though he
\ndoesn’t get the attention Obama and Hillary get — and that lack of
\ncoverage may cost him the first place spot tomorrow night. After all,
\nhe is one of those white guys who’s been running things for far too
\nlong.\n<\/p>\n
And he voted for the war. But unlike Senator Clinton, he has stated
\nquite forcefully that he was wrong. And he has remorse. Should he be
\nforgiven? Did he learn his lesson? Like Hillary and Obama, he refused
\nto promise in a September debate that there will be no U.S. troops in
\nIraq by the end of his first term in 2013. But this week in Iowa, he
\nchanged his mind. He went further than Clinton and Obama and said he’d
\nhave all the troops home in less than a year. <\/p>\n
\nEdwards is the only one of the three front-runners who has a universal
\nhealth care plan that will lead to the single-payer kind all other
\ncivilized countries have. His plan doesn’t go as fast as I would like,
\nbut he is the only one who has correctly pointed out that the health
\ninsurance companies are the enemy and should not have a seat at the
\ntable.\n<\/p>\n
I am not endorsing anyone at this point. This is simply how I feel
\nin the first week of the process to replace George W. Bush. For months
\nI’ve been wanting to ask the question, “Where are you, Al Gore?” You
\ncan only polish that Oscar for so long. And the Nobel was decided by
\nScandinavians! I don’t blame you for not wanting to enter the viper pit
\nagain after you already won. But getting us to change out our
\nincandescent light bulbs for some irritating fluorescent ones isn’t
\ngoing to save the world. All it’s going to do is make us more agitated
\nand jumpy and feeling like once we get home we haven’t really left the
\noffice.\n<\/p>\n
On second thought, would you even be willing to utter the words, “I
\nabsolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate
\npower has an ironclad hold on our democracy?” ‘Cause the candidate who
\nunderstands that, and who sees it as the root of all evil — including
\nthe root of global warming — is the President who may lead us to a
\nplace of sanity, justice and peace.\n<\/p>\n
\nYours,\n<\/p>\n
\nMichael Moore (not an Iowa voter, but appreciative of any state that has a town named after a sofa) [Posting this because some of my friends have been asking me what I think. Michael Moore and I see many things similar, and he talks better than I do. My own feeling about John Edwards is that he just wants to be the NATION’s ambulance chaser instead of just North Carolina… but would he do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMMFlint@aol.com<\/a>
\nMichaelMoore.com<\/a>\n<\/p>\n
<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"