Monday, April 21, 2008

Michael Moore endorses Obama...

On his website, Moore asks Pennsylvanians to vote for Obama:

Monday, April 21st, 2008
My Vote's for Obama (if I could vote) ...by Michael Moore

Friends,

I don't get to vote for President this primary season. I live in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn't get their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted.

So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you please cast my vote -- and yours -- on Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama?

I haven't spoken publicly 'til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don't give a rat's ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there's a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word "Democratic" next to the candidate's name.

Seriously, I know so many people who don't care if the name under the Big "D" is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I've watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name "Farrakhan" out of nowhere, well that's when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the "F" word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama's pastor does -- AND the "church bulletin" once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Yes, Senator Clinton, that's how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can't win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry "Uncle (Tom)" and give it all to you.

But that can't happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land.

How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come -- but it won't be you. We'll have to wait for the current Democratic governor of Kansas to run in 2016 (you read it here first!).

There are those who say Obama isn't ready, or he's voted wrong on this or that. But that's looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.

That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But what's going on is bigger than him at this point, and that's a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert and active. Corporate America is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we say so. President Obama is going to need a nation of millions to stand behind him.

I know some of you will say, 'Mike, what have the Democrats done to deserve our vote?' That's a damn good question. In November of '06, the country loudly sent a message that we wanted the war to end. Yet the Democrats have done nothing. So why should we be so eager to line up happily behind them?

I'll tell you why. Because I can't stand one more friggin' minute of this administration and the permanent, irreversible damage it has done to our people and to this world. I'm almost at the point where I don't care if the Democrats don't have a backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain't "Bush" and the word "Republican" is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that's good enough for me.

I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled senseless for 8 long years. That's why I will join millions of citizens and stagger into the voting booth come November, like a boxer in the 12th round, all bloodied and bruised with one eye swollen shut, looking for the only thing that matters -- that big "D" on the ballot.

Don't get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago.

It's foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer version of a party that exists to do the bidding of the corporate elite in this country. Any endorsement of a Democrat must be done with this acknowledgement and a hope that one day we will have a party that'll represent the people first, and laws that allow that party an equal voice.

Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, "Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for 'spiritual counseling?' THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!"

But no, Obama won't throw that at her. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be decent. She's been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.

That's why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That's why he'll take us down a more decent path. That's why I would vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election.

But the question I keep hearing is... 'can he win? Can he win in November?' In the distance we hear the siren of the death train called the Straight Talk Express. We know it's possible to hear the words "President McCain" on January 20th. We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She's counting on it.

Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there. In that Constitution, they wrote that a black man or woman was only "three fifths" human. On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption.

Yours,
Michael Moore


(Full Article)

Source: HuffPo

2 comments:

libhom said...

Michael Moore Rocks!

I've admired him and loved his work ever since TV Nation.

David Drissel said...

Thanks for posting Michael Moore's endorsement. That was a great post, with lots of important points.

McCarthyism has made an unexpected comeback in the guise of repeated questions ad nauseum about Barrack Obama's "patriotism" and related "guilt by association" with various figures such as his ex-pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright and former Weather Underground member, William Ayers.

For weeks, we've heard this kind of paranoid chauvinistic drivel especially from the conservative media – Sean Hannity of Fox News in particular. But at the last debate, sponsored by ABC News, such neo-McCarthy-style tactics reached a new low in the guise of moderators Charley Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.

The entire first half of the debate revolved around whether or not Obama was sufficiently patriotic and "loved America" as much or more than other people such as his former pastor. Nothing Obama said seemed to be enough to satisfy the inquisitorial moderators.

Sadly, Hillary Clinton only piled on Obama even more, taking her extremist-cues from former Clinton Administration official-turned-TV "journalist" – Stephanopoulos. She then decided to bring up an even more distant secondary association - Louis Farrakhan – who she claimed was mentioned in Obama's church bulletin! Wow, talk about McCarthy-style "guilt by association" of the worst kind.

You know, this has got to be the most disgusting display of "political" discourse I've ever seen in my life. These New McCarthyites –including Hillary Clinton - can't seem to get enough of such non-issues. Since when does whether or not one wears a flag-pin matter? Patriotism is in the heart, not on the sleeve (or lapel). Besides, I didn't see Hillary wearing a flag-pin. Why did the "unbiased" moderators not ask a question about her patriotism too?

Since when does a person's ex-pastor become newsworthy? So what if Obama went to this church for twenty years? All of the objectionable comments (five minutes worth at most) made by Wright which played endlessly on cable TV news, were videotaped within the past six or seven years. That was the period in which Obama was not even around Chicago all that much. Besides, Obama clearly stated that he disagreed with Wright's objectionable comments and was not in the church at the time when those comments were made. That should have been the end of the story, but Fox's Hannity and now ABC News' resident neo-McCarthyites just wanted to keep the story alive for as long as possible.

This whole line of "debate" about William Ayers was even worse and really brought politics to a new chauvinistic low. So what if Obama served on the same board with this guy? You know, I've served on boards with all kinds of people in my life. Am I supposed to run a background check on everyone in which I come into contact? This guy Ayers was never even convicted of anything, for crying out loud. This is the worst kind of McCarthy-style tactics: To insinuate or even say flatly that a person who has met an "undesirable" (fill in the blank) is somehow "corrupted" or "infected" by that association.

It's instructive to remember that the critics of Dr. Martin Luther King attempted the use very similar McCarthy-style tactics to destroy him. They accused of him of being a "communist" (or "pinko") simply because he had associated with a few communists in the civil rights movement. Of course, that was a ridiculous charge. King was never a communist or communist sympathizer. But just because he had brief associations with a few communists, the reactionary far-right race-baiting crowd automatically deemed him suspect of "anti-Americanism."

Personally, I'm a whole lot more concerned about Presidential candidates who imagine and apparently lie about surviving "sniper fire" when they actually haven't. Do we really want someone to be our commander in chief that can't tell fantasy from reality on the battlefield? It makes one wonder what other kind of military attacks or maneuvers that Hillary might "imagine" if she somehow scratches her way back into the White House.

Hillary's increasingly negative fear-mongering attacks on Obama are right out of the Republican playbook once again. You know, I actually used to like and respect Hillary. But now I see her as just so incredibly desperate to win that's she's willing to resort to McCarthy-style tactics and destroy the Democratic Party's chances to win in the general election.

It's time to return to the issues that really matter to average Americans. Let's hope that Hillary ends her neo-McCarthyite campaign soon, before she completely ruins the Democratic party's chances in the fall.