OT: Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from

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Here is the letter that has sent out to many and also is on his

website. I just love this guy. Darlene Link below:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=220

" maillist@... " <maillist@...> wrote: From:

" maillist@... " <maillist@...>

darlenesb2000@...

Subject: Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from

Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 07:14:51 -0500

Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from

January 2, 2008

Friends,

A new year has begun. And before we've had a chance to break our New Year's

resolutions, we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours before the good

people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace the man who now occupies

three countries and a white house.

Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice we have

failed. Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been lost, the world

left in upheaval against us... and yet now, today, we hope against hope that our

moment has finally arrived, that the amazingly powerful force of the Republican

Party will somehow be halted. But we know that the Democrats are experts at

snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and if there's a way to blow this

election, they will find it and do it with gusto.

Do you feel the same as me? That the Democratic front-runners are a

less-than-stellar group of candidates, and that none of them are the " slam dunk "

we wish they were? Of course, there are wonderful things about each of them. Any

one of them would be infinitely better than what we have now. Personally,

Congressman Kucinich, more than any other candidate, shares the same positions

that I have on the issues (although the UFO that picked ME up would only take me

as far as Kalamazoo). But let's not waste time talking about Dennis. Even he is

resigned to losing, with statements like the one he made yesterday to his

supporters in Iowa to throw their support to Senator Obama as their " second

choice. "

So, it's Hillary, Obama, -- now what do we do?

Two months ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked me to do a cover story where I

would ask the hard questions that no one was asking in one-on-one interviews

with Senators Clinton, Obama and . " The Top Democrats Face Off with

. " The deal was that all three candidates had to agree to let me

interview them or there was no story. Obama and agreed. Mrs. Clinton

said no, and the cover story was thus killed.

Why would the love of my life, Hillary Clinton, not sit down to talk with me?

What was she afraid of?

Those of you who are longtime readers of mine may remember that 11 years ago I

wrote a chapter (in my first book) entitled, " My Forbidden Love for Hillary. " I

was fed up with the treatment she was getting, most of it boringly sexist, and I

thought somebody should stand up for her. I later met her and she thanked me for

referring to her as " one hot s***kicking feminist babe. " I supported and

contributed to her run for the U.S. Senate. I think she is a decent and smart

person who loves this country, cares deeply about kids, and has put up with more

crap than anyone I know of (other than me) from the Crazy Right. Her

inauguration would be a thrilling sight, ending 218 years of white male rule in

a country where 51% of its citizens are female and 64% are either female or

people of color.

And yet, I am sad to say, nothing has disappointed me more than the

disastrous, premeditated vote by Senator Hillary Clinton to send us to war in

Iraq. I'm not only talking about her first vote that gave Mr. Bush his

" authorization " to invade -- I'm talking about every single OTHER vote she then

cast for the next four years, backing and funding Bush's illegal war, and doing

so with verve. She never met a request from the White House for war

authorization that she didn't like. Unlike the Kerrys and the Bidens who

initially voted for authorization but later came to realize the folly of their

decision, Mrs. Clinton continued to cast numerous votes for the war until last

March -- four long years of pro-war votes, even after 70% of the American public

had turned against the war. She has steadfastly refused to say that she was

wrong about any of this, and she will not apologize for her culpability in

America's worst-ever foreign policy disaster. All she can bring herself to say

is that she was " misled " by " faulty intelligence. "

Let's assume that's true. Do you want a President who is so easily misled? I

wasn't " misled, " and millions of others who took to the streets in February of

2003 weren't " misled " either. It was simply amazing that we knew the war was

wrong when none of us had been briefed by the CIA, none of us were national

security experts, and none of us had gone on a weapons inspection tour of Iraq.

And yet... we knew we were being lied to! Let me ask those of you reading this

letter: Were YOU " misled " -- or did you figure it out sometime between October

of 2002 and March of 2007 that W. Bush was up to something rotten?

Twenty-three other senators were smart enough to figure it out and vote against

the war from the get-go. Why wasn't Senator Clinton?

I have a theory: Hillary knows the sexist country we still live in and that

one of the reasons the public, in the past, would never consider a woman as

president is because she would also be commander in chief. The majority of

Americans were concerned that a woman would not be as likely to go to war as a

man (horror of horrors!). So, in order to placate that mindset, perhaps she

believed she had to be as " tough " as a man, she had to be willing to push The

Button if necessary, and give the generals whatever they wanted. If this is, in

fact, what has motivated her pro-war votes, then this would truly make her a

scary first-term president. If the U.S. is faced with some unforeseen threat in

her first years, she knows that in order to get re-elected she'd better be ready

to go all Maggie Thatcher on whoever sneezes in our direction. Do we want to

risk this, hoping the world makes it in one piece to her second term?

I have not even touched on her other numerous -- and horrendous -- votes in

the Senate, especially those that have made the middle class suffer even more

(she voted for Bush's first bankruptcy bill, and she is now the leading

recipient of payoff money -- I mean campaign contributions -- from the health

care industry). I know a lot of you want to see her elected, and there is a very

good chance that will happen. There will be plenty of time to vote for her in

the general election if all the pollsters are correct. But in the primaries and

caucuses, isn't this the time to vote for the person who most reflects the

values and politics you hold dear? Can you, in good conscience, vote for someone

who so energetically voted over and over and over again for the war in Iraq?

Please give this serious consideration.

Now, on to the two candidates who did agree to do the interview with me...

Barack Obama is a good and inspiring man. What a breath of fresh air! There's

no doubting his sincerity or his commitment to trying to straighten things out

in this country. But who is he? I mean, other than a guy who gives a great

speech? How much do any of us really know about him? I know he was against the

war. How do I know that? He gave a speech before the war started. But since he

joined the senate, he has voted for the funds for the war, while at the same

time saying we should get out. He says he's for the little guy, but then he

votes for a corporate-backed bill to make it harder for the little guy to file a

class action suit when his kid swallows lead paint from a Chinese-made toy. In

fact, Obama doesn't think Wall Street is a bad place. He wants the insurance

companies to help us develop a new health care plan -- the same companies who

have created the mess in the first place. He's such a feel-good kinda guy, I get

the sense that, if elected, the Republicans

will eat him for breakfast. He won't even have time to make a good speech about

it.

But this may be a bit harsh. Senator Obama has a big heart, and that heart is

in the right place. Is he electable? Will more than 50% of America vote for him?

We'd like to believe they would. We'd like to believe America has changed,

wouldn't we? Obama lets us feel better about ourselves -- and as we look out the

window at the guy snowplowing his driveway across the street, we want to believe

he's changed, too. But are we dreaming?

And then there's .

It's hard to get past the hair, isn't it? But once you do -- and recently I

have chosen to try -- you find a man who is out to take on the wealthy and

powerful who have made life so miserable for so many. A candidate who says

things like this: " I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and

corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy. " Whoa. We haven't heard

anyone talk like that in a while, at least not anyone who is near the top of the

polls. I suspect this is why is doing so well in Iowa, even though he

has nowhere near the stash of cash the other two have. He won't take the big

checks from the corporate PACs, and he is alone among the top three candidates

in agreeing to limit his spending and be publicly funded. He has said,

point-blank, that he's going after the drug companies and the oil companies and

anyone else who is messing with the American worker. The media clearly find him

to be a threat, probably because he will go after

their monopolistic power, too. This is Roosevelt/Truman kind of talk. That's

why it's resonating with people in Iowa, even though he doesn't get the

attention Obama and Hillary get -- and that lack of coverage may cost him the

first place spot tomorrow night. After all, he is one of those white guys who's

been running things for far too long.

And he voted for the war. But unlike Senator Clinton, he has stated quite

forcefully that he was wrong. And he has remorse. Should he be forgiven? Did he

learn his lesson? Like Hillary and Obama, he refused to promise in a September

debate that there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of his first term in

2013. But this week in Iowa, he changed his mind. He went further than Clinton

and Obama and said he'd have all the troops home in less than a year.

is the only one of the three front-runners who has a universal health

care plan that will lead to the single-payer kind all other civilized countries

have. His plan doesn't go as fast as I would like, but he is the only one who

has correctly pointed out that the health insurance companies are the enemy and

should not have a seat at the table.

I am not endorsing anyone at this point. This is simply how I feel in the

first week of the process to replace W. Bush. For months I've been

wanting to ask the question, " Where are you, Al Gore? " You can only polish that

for so long. And the Nobel was decided by Scandinavians! I don't blame you

for not wanting to enter the viper pit again after you already won. But getting

us to change out our incandescent light bulbs for some irritating fluorescent

ones isn't going to save the world. All it's going to do is make us more

agitated and jumpy and feeling like once we get home we haven't really left the

office.

On second thought, would you even be willing to utter the words, " I absolutely

believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad

hold on our democracy? " 'Cause the candidate who understands that, and who sees

it as the root of all evil -- including the root of global warming -- is the

President who may lead us to a place of sanity, justice and peace.

Yours,

(not an Iowa voter, but appreciative of any state that has a

town named after a sofa)

MMFlint@...

.com

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