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Americans, read this.

Taken without permission from MichaelMoore.com:

MichaelMoore.com

Mike's Letter

Sunday, September 11th, 2005
A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush from Michael Moore

To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

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

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

That's right. Horse shows.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com

Dream

12:52pm JST Monday 12 September 2005

In a classroom with a roller coaster, I rode the roller coaster and was in the very last car, but no one had taken the time to make sure I my seat belt had been fastened. I nonchalantly asked "which ride is this?" just out of curiosity and they were like "the blab blah blah" and I knew it had loops so I fastened my own seatbelt. We went up and down and whooshed and I really leaned into the curves and dips and found I could touch the ground and the glass cabinets in the classroom with my hands and feet. I took note of what parts of the coaster would need to be changed to make it safe for the kids and finished the ride and walked up to the teacher, who was scrubbing the insided of a locker clean before the first day of school.

In my mind, I was preparing to say something like "I normally try to take on too much responsibility, but I don't have time right now, so I'll just tell you what I found about the roller coaster.."

But she preempted me like, "can you do me a favor?" and told me where some meat loaf mix was and asked if I'd put together some meat loaf for baking later. She used the word backed instead of baked as a jock (*) and I was like "??" and she assured me she did it on purpose. I realized could write an emal to Erika and say "right bake at you!" and she would get it, because she's the one who made the joke first.

(*) I wrote jock unintentionally when I intended to write joke.

Incredible timing

2:09pm JST Monday 12 September 2005

I just found out about the Bring Them Home Now Tour, a three-legged bus tour from Crawford, Texas to Washington DC, which started on 31 August, and will arrive on 24 September in DC for the anti-war conference in DC I wanted to go to. I had blown off the possibility of going to Texas and the conference, but now I see there was a perfect way to do it...

It's a challenge for me to trust I am doing my own right thing by transcribing my journal entries... I do know, at least, since I have made this choice, I should do it now, but just wanted to note that I'm beginning to see examples of the universe supporting anything I request.

More incredible timing

9:14pm JST Monday 12 September 2005

Wow. Okay, Jesse told me I could use his supafast internet overnight tonight, so I got clean and got my stuff together and headed to the bus stop. I realized I had forgotten to bring cassette tapes to continue transcribing, so I flipped my chapstick tube to see if I should go back. It said yes, but I knew consciously which way it landed, so I flipped it again, with a bit mor spin. It said yes again, so I went back and grabbed two tapes and headed back to the bus stop. The bus arrived about 12 seconds after I did. Really.

9:26pm

Ah crap. The bus went to a different station than what I expected. Even though it's the same bus number, (01), it went to Miyamaedaira station instead of Kajigaya station . I don't understand what difference I was supposed to note n the bus. Why would the same bus stop have busses with the same number go to different final destinations?

Fortunately, it dropped me off on the same tran line that I wanted (just two stations back), so all is not wasted. And I have a seat on the train, so I can write this rant whle it's hot in my brain. But man, it sure is strange to wonder what the difference may have been.

late

2am JST Tuesday 13 September 2005

Been hanging out with Jesse and Michael tonight. I am here for their supafast internet access. We have played darts (I won, actually) and watched some episodes of Futurama, Season 4. Good times.

Jesse gave me a present: a bus ticket he found with credit still on it. Awesome!

I'm going to stay up for a bit until this data transfer process is finished.