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Begin forwarded message:
From: "Michael Moore" <maill...@michaelmoore.com>
Date: 10. Oktober 2009 14:53:17 GMT-07:00
To: j...@monochrom.at
Subject: Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore
Reply-To: maill...@michaelmoore.com
Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore
Saturday, October 10th, 2009
Friends,
Last night my wife asked me if I thought I was a little too hard on
Obama in my letter yesterday congratulating him on his Nobel Prize.
"No, I don't think so," I replied. I thought it was important to
remind him he's now conducting the two wars he's inherited. "Yeah,"
she said, "but to tell him, 'Now earn it!'? Give the guy a break --
this is a great day for him and for all of us."
I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far
too long yesterday to the right wing hate machine who did what they
could to crap all over Barack's big day. Did I -- and others on the
left -- do the same?
We are weary, weary of war. The trillions that will have gone to
these two wars have helped to bankrupt us as a nation -- financially
and morally. To think of all the good we could have done with all
that money! Two months of the War in Iraq would pay for all the
wells that need to be dug in the Third World for drinking water!
Obama is moving too slow for most of us -- but he needs to know we
are with him and we stand beside him as he attempts to turn eight
years of sheer madness around. Who could do that in nine months?
Superman? Thor? Mitch McConnell?
Instead of waiting to see what the president is going to do, we all
need to be pro-active and push the agenda that we want to see
enacted. What keeps us from forming the same local groups we put
together to get out the vote last November? C'mon! We're the
majority now -- the majority by a significant margin! We call the
shots -- and we need to tell this wimpy Congress to get busy and do
what we say -- or else.
All I ask of those who voted for Obama is to not pile on him too
quickly. Yes, make your voice heard (his phone number is
202-456-1414). But don't abandon the best hope we've had in our
lifetime for change. And for God's sake, don't head to bummerville
if he says or does something we don't like. Do you ever see
Republicans behave that way? I mean, the Right had 20 years of
Republican presidents and they still couldn't get prayer in the
public schools, or outlaw abortion, or initiate a flat tax or put
our Social Security into the stock market. They did a lot of damage,
no doubt about that, but on the key issues that the Christian Right
fought for, they came up nearly empty handed. No wonder they've been
driven crazy lately. They'll never have it as good again as they've
had it since Reagan took office.
But -- do you ever see them looking all gloomy and defeated? No!
They keep on fighting! Every day. Our side? At the first sign of
wavering, we just pack up our toys and go home.
So, at least for this weekend, let us celebrate what people
elsewhere are celebrating -- that America now has a sane and smart
man in the White House, a man who truly wants a world at peace for
his two daughters.
Many, for the past couple days (yes, myself included), have
grumbled, "What has he done to earn this prize?" How 'bout this:
The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be
the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years
were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man -- a man who opposed
the War in Iraq from the beginning -- offered to end the insanity.
The world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as
they watched the descendants of Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson
light the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the
nations on this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to
melt eight more years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two
nations that didn't attack us, failed to find the real terrorists
and, in effect, ignited our own wave of terror. People all over the
world wondered if we had gone mad.
And if all that wasn't enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the
worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression.
So, yeah, at precisely 11:00pm ET on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama
won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the 66 million people who voted for
him won it, too. By the time he took the stage at midnight ET in the
Grant Park Historic Hippie Battlefield in downtown Chicago, billions
of people around the globe were already breathing a huge sigh of
relief. It was as if, in that instant, one man did bring the promise
of peace to the world -- and most were ready to go wherever he
wanted to go to achieve that end. Never before had the election of
one man made every other nation feel like they had won, too. When
you've got billions of people ready, willing and able to join a
cause like this, well, a prize in Oslo is the least that you deserve.
One other thought. The Peace Prize historically has been given to
those who have worked to throw off the yoke of racial discrimination
and segregation (Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu). I think the
Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the
fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was
founded on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back
for a hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can
still be found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk
radio). The fact that this one man could cause this seismic
historical event to occur -- and to do so with such grace and
humility, never succumbing to the bait, but still not backing down
(yes, he asked to be sworn in as "Barack Hussein Obama"!) -- is more
than reason enough he should be in Oslo to meet the King on December
10. Maybe he could take us along with him. 'Cause I also suspect the
Nobel committee was tipping its hat to all of us -- we, the American
people, had conquered some of our racism and did the truly
unexpected. After seeing searing images of our black fellow citizens
left to drown in New Orleans -- and poor whites seeing their own
treated no better than the black man they had been raised to hate --
we had all seen enough. It was time for change.
Thank you, Barack Obama, for giving us the opportunity to redeem
ourselves. Now for the tasks ahead. We need you to do all that you
promised to do. We need it. The world needs it.
My prediction for the future? You become the first *two-time* winner
of the Nobel Peace Prize! Yeah!
Fred (that's Norwegian for "Peace"),
Michael Moore
mmfl...@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
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