Three Easy Pieces for Any Decent American (from Michael Moore)


There are many otherwise decent Americans who are either still on the fence about George W. Bush or they actually profess to like the man. They are the ones who make up the 58% approval ratings and the 64% who say they still believe the war was a good idea. You know these people well. They work next to you, or they sit in the classroom next to you, or they may even be sitting at your kitchen table right now!

I think that we need to hold out a hand to them, not in a partisan sort of way, and not with any condescension. I think that if we share with them a few pieces of information, and do it with common sense instead of politics, there is a chance we just might break through and turn things around. Perhaps it's my foolish optimism in the goodness that is in every person, and in their ability to ultimately know right from wrong.

I would like to give you three little vignettes to share with them. They are so simple and so shocking in their very content that, if you pass them around the office, the school, the neighborhood or the bedroom, it may just do the trick. Here they are:

1. GEORGE AND LAURA ON 9/11 -- A BARREL OF LAUGHS!

The following is an interview with the First Couple from the current issue of one of my favorite magazines, Ladies Home Journal (Oct. '0. They are asked about what September 11, 2001, was like for them personally, and, although over 3,000 people had just perished, George W. was able to find some humor by the end of that day:

Peggy Noonan (the interviewer): You were separated on September 11th. What was it like when you saw each other again?

Laura Bush: Well, we just hugged. I think there was a certain amount of security in being with each other than being apart.

George W. Bush: But the day ended on a relatively humorous note. The agents said, "you'll be sleeping downstairs. Washington's still a dangerous place." And I said no, I can't sleep down there, the bed didn't look comfortable. I was really tired, Laura was tired, we like our own bed. We like our own routine. You know, kind of a nester. I knew I had to deal with the issue the next day and provide strength and comfort to the country, and so I needed rest in order to be mentally prepared. So I told the agent we're going upstairs, and he reluctantly said okay. Laura wears contacts, and she was sound asleep. Barney was there. And the agent comes running up and says, "We're under attack. We need you downstairs," and so there we go. I'm in my running shorts and my T-shirt, and I'm barefooted. Got the dog in one hand, Laura had a cat, I'm holding Laura --

Laura Bush: I don't have my contacts in , and I'm in my fuzzy house slippers --

George W. Bush: And this guy's out of breath, and we're heading straight down to the basement because there's an incoming unidentified airplane, which is coming toward the White House. Then the guy says it's a friendly airplane. And we hustle all the way back up stairs and go to bed.

Mrs. Bush: [LAUGHS] And we just lay there thinking about the way we must have looked.

Peggy Noonan (interviewer): So the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers.

George W. Bush: THAT'S RIGHT-- WE GOT A LAUGH OUT OF IT!

(end)

Although America had just suffered the worst attack ever on our own soil, somehow this man was able to end his day on a funny note. I wonder how many of the 3,000 families who lost someone earlier that day had a funny ending before they went to sleep? Please read the above exchange aloud to anyone who will listen. It speaks volumes.

2. WE HAVE JUST WRECKED OUR KIDS' FUTURE.

The first paragraph in yesterday's New York Times story on how Bush has taken a record surplus and demolished it into a record deficit was one of the best lead paragraphs I have ever read in a newspaper article.

Here's how it went:

"When President Bush informed the nation last Sunday night that remaining in Iraq next year will cost another $87 billion, many of those who will actually pay that bill were unable to watch. They had already been put to bed by their parents."

Bingo. Gee, I hope the kids thank us some day!

Here's the next paragraph (my emphasis added):

"Administration officials acknowledged the next day that every dollar of that cost will be BORROWED, a loan that economists say will be repaid by the NEXT generation of taxpayers AND THE GENERATION AFTER THAT. The $166 BILLION cost of the work SO FAR in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has stunned many in Washington, will be added to what was already the largest budget deficit the nation has ever known."

Every conservative friend of yours should weep when they read that, and then you should hug them and tell them that it'll be okay, once we all do what we need to do.

3. WHAT WOULD $87 BILLION BUY?

If you can't get through this list without wanting to throw up, I'll understand. But pass it around anyway. This is the nail in the Iraq War's coffin for any sane, thinking individual, regardless of their political stripe (thanks to TomPaine.com and the Center for American Progress)...

To get some perspective, here are some real-life comparisons about what $87 billion means:

$87 Billion Is More Than The Combined Total Of All State Budget Deficits In The United States.

The Bush administration proposed absolutely zero funds to help states deal with these deficits, despite the fact that their tax cuts drove down state revenues. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]

$87 Billion Is Enough To Pay The 3.3 Million People Who Have Lost Jobs Under George W. Bush $26,363 Each!

The unemployment benefits extension passed by Congress at the beginning of this year provides zero benefits to "workers who exhausted their regular, state unemployment benefits and cannot find work." All told, two-thirds of unemployed workers have exhausted their benefits. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]

$87 Billion Is More Than DOUBLE The Total Amount The Government Spends On Homeland Security.

The U.S. spends about $36 billion on homeland security. Yet, Sen. Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) wrote "America will fall approximately $98.4 billion short of meeting critical emergency responder needs" for homeland security without a funding increase. [Source: Council on Foreign Relations]

$87 Billion Is 87 Times The Amount The Federal Government Spends On After School Programs.

George W. Bush proposed a budget that reduces the $1 billion for after-school programs to $600 million -- cutting off about 475,000 children from the program. [Source: The Republican-dominated House Appropriations Committee]

$87 Billion Is More Than 10 Times What The Government Spends On All Environmental Protection.

The Bush administration requested just $7.6 billion for the entire Environmental Protection Agency. This included a 32 percent cut to water quality grants, a 6 percent reduction in enforcement staff, and a 50 percent cut to land acquisition and conservation. [Source: Natural Resources Defense Council]

There you go. In black and white. A few million of you will receive this letter. Please share the above with at least a half-dozen people today and tomorrow. I, like you, do not want to see another approval rating over 50%.

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
moorelist@aol.com

PS. Thanks for the astounding response to the Wesley Clark letter (and for your kind comments to me). Over 95% of the thousands of letters received favored the General tossing his helmet in the ring. All were passed on to his organization. More to come on the road to removing Bush...

Michael Moore? As if he could be called 'decent'.
He produces editorial films and calls them documenataries. Basically fantasy films for leftist consumption.

This article, we read of the president having laughed about looking goofy after having rushed to a bomb shelter due to a false alarm. Essentially a guy just trying to maintain some normalcy despite the efforts of the hijackers to create terror. Laughter is a defense mechanism.
That Michael Moore tries to make it out like the president was laughing at the WTC attacks is just goes to show how desperate he is to smear the president. It just goes to show the hatred in Michale Moore.

What is this really about? An opposition to our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. These Libs can't stand it that we are taking war to the enemy. Why? It's because many of these liberals, like Rachael Corrie, see the Islamic terrorists as the good guys and the USA as the bad guys.

$87 billion is a lot of cash, no doubt.. bailing out state governments budgets isn't the business of the federal government. The states need to cut their spending.

Same for all of the times he talks about other federal programs. It *should* be more than we spend on after school programs. IT SHOULD BE CLOSER TO 87 BILLION TIMES THE AMOUNT THEY SPEND ON AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAMS, SINCE THAT AIN'T THE BUSINESS OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!!!

As for it being twice the amount of homeland security, as far as I'm concerned, *IT IS* homeland security. Better that we attack the muslim militants in their homelands than to have them attack US on our homeland.

On the same note Bush is a right wing wet dream. Everything he says is a fantasy, and a nigthmare at the same time.

Laughing at how ridiculous you look when 3000 people have just died shows how little concern the Bush's have for their own people.

For someone who seems to have so much love for their country, why do you allow Bush to terrorise it. If the US could butt out of other countries business, then perhaps terrorists wouldn't attack you.

Do you know how retarded this is, if Bush wasn't cutting taxes then spending up big, the states might be able to make enough to pay off their debts, but they are forced to borrow more and more to pay for essential services because Bush has cut their income. Bush is slitting America's throat, he is the WORST terrorist to ever touch American soil.

The federal government is in charge of responsible and sensible planning for the future of the nation, if the next generation isn't the future of a nation, I don't know what is. The only future Bush is going to leave is a nuclear wasteland.

You think Bush is "right wing"?

Only to a far left socialist would Bush appear to be 'right wing". Maybe we should elect Pat Buchanin so that you guys will learn what it is to be right wing.

Bush was laughing at himself for looking goofy and was not laughing at others misfortune. This is a common reaction to control fear, in this case to not let the terrorists get their way in creating a climate of fear. So you and Moore are way off base here.

This is either ignorance or revisionist history here.

By "butting in" to other countries, do you refer to Bill Clinton's so called 'peace keeping' and cruise missles foriegn policy? Remember that Bush was barely settled into office when the 911 attacks came. They attacked US and now we are taking the war to these Islamic Jihadi's.

Now alot of the peaceniks have been very open in their support for the PLO cause. Thus they wish to undermine the US war effort. You apparently agree with them that the US deserved the 911 attacks for supporting Israel.




The only thing that is retarded is your knowledge of how our government is set up.

Technically, the federal government isn't responsible for bailing the states out. The US is a Federal Republic (which many people don't know), where the intent of the Federal government was only to protect the federation as a whole. Its supposed to be up to the individual states to NOT run themselves into the ground, which is why they have their OWN governments, starting with a governor.

The $87 billion is federal money and has no bearing on individual states nor should it be seen as "bail out" funds being taken away from them. Pennsylvania should be looking at its OWN government to find out why they are having a problem, not to the federal government to bail them out.

Of course all this is something that 'certain' government officials don't want you to know....they push socialist agendas, and that the federal government is there as a cash cow, which was NOT the way it was meant to be. Each state is supposed to be responsible for ITSELF.

Six, I am quite distrubed that your willing to excuse Rachel's killer's (the IDF) of the responsiblity for her Conscious Murder, or in other words, a War crime

You support this action, as you term her to be a "terrorist" supporter.

Yet history escapes your memory...
'those that fought for American independence from England along with those that stood and died in the Alamo were also considered terrorists by their enemies.'

Actually anxiety attack is the common response to fear, not laughter. Laughter is the response to embarassment, deprecation, amusement or happiness. If how they looked was the foremost thing in their minds at the time, then the Bush's shoudl nto be in the White House.



I believe that the US does not have right to push its politics onto other countries. If in pushing its politics onto others the US gets attacked, then it is their own fault.


But you obviously don't get it that if Bush pushes taxes down the states lose revenue. If it is not the business of the federal government to bail out the states, then it is not its business to be causing the debt in the first place. Bush is causing the debt, he should have to pay for it.

87 billion could pay for the debts...

That lie has already been debunked. Do try to keep up.

Again, it is not for the Fed to bail out the states. Why can't you understand that?

I guess you don't grasp the concept that the United States is plural rather than singular? That the states have their own budgets? their own source of revenues?

Are you a US citizen? If not then such ignorance can be excused.

I would say they had alot of things going through their minds. Right then it was how they looked goofy because the terrorists had them in such a state. Reading the article, you will know that they did not want the terrorists to have that control over them.
To laugh was to minimize the climate of fear that the terrorists sought to achieve.

Now we get to the real reason why you don't like Bush. You hate him for making war on Islamic Terrorism. YOU REALLY DO THINK THE US HAD IT COMING ON 911!

You peaceniks are like Rachael Corrie, a bunch of shills for the PLO.

"Conscious Murder"? This was the idiot that thought it was smart to jump around in front of a bulldozer? She wasn't deliberately killed, it was an accident caused primarily by her stupidity. Doing stupid things like jumping around in front of bulldozers to support her Hamas friends is an accident waiting to happen.

And guess what, folks in the US working on constructions sites get killed by heavy equipment running over them fairly often. Construction workers learn not to do stupid things around large earth movers. She didn't learn that lesson.

I understand exactly, but Bush taking money from the states and then telling them to solve their own problems is a clear reflection of his complete lack of intelligence. Any economist will tell you that it is slitting the country's throat to lower taxes then spend up.

I would say that very little was going through their minds, it is easy to see there isn't much grey matter between Bush's ears.

I think that the US was bound to receive some form of attack at some point, the embassy bombings that have been going on for years are a clear indication that Islamics believe the US should not try and take sides. Whether or not it was even Islamics who attacked the US, and not your own government, is still not clear.

Think about it realistically, how does the US respond when people tell them what to do? The US says "fuck off we'll do what we want, it's our country"(Kioto Environmental Protocol). What do you think other countries learn from this? That others don't have the right to tell one country what to do, even when they are potentially harming others. Then the US tries to tell a country what to do(becoming hypoocritical), and the other nation models the US and says "fuck off we'll do what we want, it's our country", then the US goes to war. It is no surprise that nations who are being oppressed are attacking the US.

Oh and I don't support either the Jews or Palestinians, they are both are as bad as each other, if it wasn't for the large population of Jews in the US(and their money), I doubt the government would give a fuck about Israel, since there aren't really any significant natural resources there for the US to exploit. Chances are the US would be openly supporting/exploiting both sides by selling weapons to each, instead of just openly supporting the Jews, although it is US weapons that the Palestinians are getting from Arab neighbours.

You know nothing at all about Kyoto. It was a scheme to harm the US, pure and simple. It had nothing to do with the environment. You've simply read the title and failed to evaluate it. Bush was smart to nix it.

This is completely wrong, and although the "oppressed Third World peasant striking back at his capitalist oppressors" makes for great cant and is a premier Leftist shibboleth -- it's false. Osama Bin Laden is/was a multi-millionaire, a scion of wealth and privilege. The 9/11 hijackers were all educated.

The people oppressing the Middle Eastern Arabs are exclusively their own governments -- despicable dictatorships all.

Sephiroth,

Taxes? The economy has been picking up since the tax cuts went into effect. Watch the revenues go up with the recovering economy.
Next time you should try talking to some economists. It would surprise you to know that president John F. Kennedy cut taxes to help the economy grow when he was president.

It is business rather than government that creates a strong economy. Tax cuts help business, thus business grows and creates more jobs. Stronger economy = more money.


Kyoto? ddg9 pretty much summed it up well.





Now where have we heard this line before?

Lets see. The US federal government does not take funds from the states. They might withhold federal grants, but thats usually the result of a choice by the state government. The state governments are responsible for their own taxes and spending. WA state is an example of out of control spending. It went from something like a $16B annual budget (with a surplus), to a $23B budget and they were squeeling about lack of funds, over a period of 6-7 years. (all approximate numbers).

I still haven't seen anyone show me that Bush is dumb. I'd really like to see some evidence of that.

The Kyoto agreement was a bad deal. Kind of like all your neighbours deciding that YOU need to tear your house down and rebuild it at your cost, and no cost to them. The Kyoto agreement requires fines for the methane released by farting cows for heaven's sake... Every country has the right to agree to, or to decide to not to agree to follow the agreement. Its their choice.

Your comments about Israel show a great ignorance of the history there. Israel is the only real democracy in the region, and they are being attacked on a regular basis by terrorists determined to destroy Israel. Is Israel "mistreating" the palestinians? Actually they are using kid gloves when compared to how countries like Jordan, and Syria treat them. Palestinians have more rights in Israel than they do in Jordan and Syria.

Actually, Kyoto was designed to stop countries that can operate more efficiently from operating inefficiently, seems you know shit about it, get a clue. Sure countries like India with a popoulationof one billion are allowed to produce a heap of methnae and other gases, but they are only a second world nation, the US on the other hand is a first world nation. Learn something before you try to tell me what I know.