Reason 1,347 Why I Love Michael Moore
?You’ve got the Bush Administration using [the events of 9/11] in such a disrespectful and immoral way,” he adds. “Using the deaths of those people to try and shred our civil liberties, change our Constitution, round people up. That’s not how you honor them, by using them to change our way of life as a free country.?
-Michael Moore on ’60 Minutes’ tonight
When is the last time anyone had the simple courage to just say that publicly? That the administration and their cronies are using the dead of 9/11 to advance their political agenda? We are so cowed, so afraid, that even that basic fact goes unsaid in public debate.
Go Mike.
It’s not entirely quiet out there: Rep. Barney Frank, for example, just gave an interview in which he said, “And [Bush]?s using [September 11th] as cover for a series of very right-wing domestic issues ?- there?s no question about it.” Of course, he also said, “Any president in power on September 11th would have done ?- well, I?d do what he did.” Not exactly the same as Mr. Moore, but certainly not silence on the political use of 9/11.
Then again, Robert Byrd and Bob Graham have been spouting off for quite a while, and “the public” tosses their opinions aside like Pinocchio to Jiminy Cricket.
This week when the 9/11 commission report was published, instead we got pictures of Saddam’s dead sons and a homecoming for Pfc. Jessica Lynch. Timing is everything.
Go career politicians. Go corporate media conglomerates. Go apathetic and willfully ignorant people in a representative democracy.
Blech.
____________
I go now.
When you’re forced to open a person’s mouth, insert food, open and close their mouth to simulate mastication and then massage their throats until they swallow (clearing the airway as necessary), it’s either time to consider euthanasia or accept the fact that they’re brain-dead. People who don’t have an inkling that this war has been waged under false pretenses and that the lies and betrayals are very much still in play simply don’t want to know. There are still people who say we won the Vietnam war. Well, Vietnam is still a communist country, minus several thousand.
We’ve stuck Iraq with an arrow. Will it do more damage to pull the arrow back out, or to draw it through the other side?
I think people *do* know that this war has been waged under false pretenses. I think people *do* know that 9/11 is being used as a promotional tool. But I think they’re afraid to say it out loud.
You’ve been saying it. I’ve been saying it. Lots of people have been saying it. No one has told me they’re afraid to say it. Goes to show how much freedom we still have.
The people who aren’t saying it either don’t believe it or don’t want to.
Expecting most politicians or media to say it is another thing. Why would they say something that is detrimental to their own aims? And celebrities… the majority of them make a living from being pretty in pictures. With few exceptions, their analysis of current events isn’t going to be profound.
I think the general public is afraid that they were terribly, terribly wrong by voting for dubya, or by supporting his drive to war. It’s hard to admit when you’re wrong, even harder when patriotism and politics are mixed in, even harder when the damage done to America and the world by one’s mistake is so profound.
We need a leader who can make people feel good about fixing their mistakes. I brainstormed on what a leader should might say.
I’ll come out and say it (brave soul that I am):
I was terribly wrong voting for W. There! Ah…
Consolation: I voted in PB County Fla, so maybe my chad hung and didn’t get counted.
Side note: The 2000 ballot was on display at the local science museum in the “brain teasers” exhibit.
Roger & Me was cool. I was at the video store for like a hour one night trying to find a copy of “Stupid White Men”, proving the book’s title.