SwiftVets.com

[Mother]

Am I wasting space? Or does it matter what " Perhaps 10 million or more" people read. If that figure is fact, many believe it's also fact that we've sent a bunch of Lt. Calley's to Iraq and that we're domestic abusers, isn't this war far from over?

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-12-13
Monday, December 13th, 2004
It's Time to Stop Being Hit...a letter from Michael Moore


Dear Friends,

It is no surprise that the Republicans are sore winners. They have spent the better part of the past month beating their chests, threatening to send to Siberia any Republican who doesn’t toe the line (poor Arlen Specter), and promising everything short of martial law if the Democrats don’t do what they are told.

What’s worse is to watch the pathetic sight of the DLC (the conservative, pro-corporate group of Democrats) apologizing for being Democrats and promising to “purge” the party of the likes of, well, all of US! Their comments are so hilarious and really not even worth recognizing but the media is paying so much attention to them, I thought it might be worth doing a little reality check.

The most people the DLC is able to get out to an event of theirs is about 200 at their annual dinner (where you have to pay thousands of dollars to get in).

Contrast this with the following:

*Total members of Move On: More than 2,000,000
*Total Attendance at Vote for Change Concerts: An estimated 280,000
*Total Union Members in U.S.: Around 16,000,000
*Total Number of People Who Have Seen “Fahrenheit 9/11”: Over 50 million
*Total number of you reading this: Perhaps 10 million or more

The days of trying to move the Democratic Party to the right are over. We lost a very close election (a one-state difference) by running the #1 liberal in the Senate. Not bad. The country is shifting in our direction, not to the right. But the country was attacked and people were scared. They were manipulated with fear. And America has never thrown a sitting president out during wartime. That’s the facts. Oh, and our candidate could have run a better campaign (but we’ll have that discussion another day).

In the meantime, while we reflect on what went wrong, I would like to pass on to you an essay that a friend who works with abuse victims sent to me. It was written by a woman who has spent years working as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse and she sees many parallels between her work and the reaction of many Democrats to last month’s election. Her name is Mel Giles and here is what she had to say…


Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the ‘new’ language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"

And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.

They will tell you: Every single day.

The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence.

As victims we can't stop asking ourselves what we did wrong. We can't seem to grasp that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating.

Listen to George Bush say that the will of God excuses his behavior. Listen, as he refuses to take responsibility, or express remorse, or even once, admit a mistake. Watch him strut, and tell us that he will only work with those who agree with him, and that each of us is only allowed one question (soon, it will be none at all; abusers hit hard when questioned; the press corps can tell you that). See him surround himself with only those who pledge oaths of allegiance. Hear him tell us that if we will only listen and do as he says and agree with his every utterance, all will go well for us (it won't; we will never be worthy).

And watch the Democratic Party leadership walk on eggshells, try to meet him, please him, wash the windows better, get out that spot, distance themselves from gays and civil rights. See the Democrats cry for the attention and affection and approval of the President and his followers. Watch us squirm. Watch us descend into a world of crazy-making, where logic does not work and the other side tells us we are nuts when we rely on facts. A world where, worst of all, we begin to believe we are crazy.

How to break free? Again, the answer is quite simple.

First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don't do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don't do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring its over faster and hurts less if you don't resist and fight back.

Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 57 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you've learned, and that you aren't going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 57 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it's better than the abuse.

We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered. We are 57 million strong. We are building from the bottom up. We are meeting, on the net, in church basements, at work, in small groups, and right now, we are crying, because we are trying to break free and we don't know how.

Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: Stop responding to the abuser.

Don't let him dictate the terms or frame the debate (he'll win, not because he's right, but because force works). Sure, we can build a better grassroots campaign, cultivate and raise up better leaders, reform the election system to make it fail-proof, stick to our message, learn from the strategy of the other side. But we absolutely must dispense with the notion that we are weak, godless, cowardly, disorganized, crazy, too liberal, naive, amoral, "loose,” irrelevant, outmoded, stupid and soon to be extinct. We have the mandate of the world to back us, and the legacy of oppressed people throughout history.

Even if you do everything right, they'll hit you anyway. Look at the poor souls who voted for this nonsense. They are working for six dollars an hour if they are working at all, their children are dying overseas and suffering from lack of health care and a depleted environment and a shoddy education.

And they don't even know they are being hit.


How true. And that is our challenge over the next couple of years; to hold out our hand to those being hit the hardest and help them leave behind a party that only seeks to keep beating them, their children, and the kid next door who’s on his way to Iraq.

Yours,

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

[GenrXr]

Hmpf, I am confused. Does anyone have a evil left rantings decoder ring?
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy

[tony54]

*****Nice try MM.*****
But even the radical left doesn't want any advice fom a
"BIG-FaT-UGLY-GuRLY-MaN"

Go eat a couple dozen donuts and take a long nap!
Its about all your good for.

[noc]

I hope they follow this path. It is a path toward permanent minority party status.

[scotty61]

Well, this a view that I've never seen before, although it still has it's root in the democrats good-repuplicans bad mind set. The republicans garner more votes in a free election and that makes them "abusers" and the democrats "victims". To support that view takes a tremendous amount of self-delusion.

I find the "first admit you're a victim" bit hilarious. Like all the democrats need is a 12 step program to cure all their ills. What's next, Al Franken morphing back into his Stuart Smalley charactor and having Kerry saying into a mirror "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it, people like me!"

Of course this rationalizes being able to heap more vitriol on republicans for the unpardonable sin of getting more votes. But if they think this is going to help them with swing voters, they've totally misread their target audience. "Join us, we got beat and it's unfair!" That's the kind of confidence people want in their leaders, yeah.

These people seem bent on taking a bad situation and making it worse for themselves. I say let them go, encourage them if you can. Implosion can be a beautiful thing.
_________________
John Kerry. A Neville Chamberlain for our times.

[PhantomSgt]

Contrast with the following Michael and WAKE UP:

*Total members of Move On: More than 2,000,000

**Voters who were not members of Move On: 118,000,000

*Total Attendance at Vote for Change Concerts: An estimated 280,000

**Concertgoers who were there for the free concert and left before the candidates came on: An estimated 270,000

*Total Union Members in U.S.: Around 16,000,000

**Union leadership supported Kerry, many in the rank and file did not.

*Total Number of People Who Have Seen “Fahrenheit 9/11”: Over 50 million

**Congratulations Michael I give you this one, you did find 50 million people stupid enough to watch your movie. How many of those were children and comps or other non-voters? I’m sure many of the 50M were out of the 58M plus Kerry voters. It is hard to find a Democrat with class or taste (prime example you). Congratulations to the 8M plus Kerry voters who did not see the film and the Democrats, Union Members and others who quietly voted for George W. Bush and showed some taste and class.

*Total number of you reading this: Perhaps 10 million or more

**But Michael, how many of the 10M will actually believe this inane argument? Just one Michael, You.

Time to get off the Cat Nip Michael and WAKE UP.



_________________
Retired AF E-8

Independent that leans right of center.

[scotty61]

MM listed some stats and anybody who knows anything about him doesn't trust his figures. Consider the 50 million who he claims have seen his movie. This would be based on ticket sales, problem is some see a movie more than once. Let's assume that 33% have seen it more than once and it breaks down like this;

4 or more times 5%
3 times 8%
2 times 15%

total 33%

Now let's do the math;

5% = 2.5 million x 4 viewings = 10 million viewings
8% = 4 milllion x 3 viewings = 12 " "
15% = 7.5 million x 2 viewings = 15 " "
Total
33% = 14 million = 37 million viewings

This means 14 million people viewed it 37 million times and 13 million viewed it once for a total of 27 million viewers instead 50 million. Since this was not a standard movie but a highly partisan one, I may be under estimating the multiple viewers rather than over estimating.

Just something to keep in mind next time MM gives out "facts".
_________________
John Kerry. A Neville Chamberlain for our times.

[Slednfool]

On the title of your topic "US shifting to the Left", I saw an interesting story on Fox News today that said, out of the top 100 fastest growing counties, Bush won 97 of them. Sounds like the US is shifting to the right to me.

[MrJapan]

is this supposed to be a parady?

MJ

[PhantomSgt]

[Uisguex Jack]

This is Michel Moore preying on Americas most Vulnerable.

Playing and Preying on fear. Transplanting in the mind of any family member of a Battered wife...that the evil of the spouse..... with the inherent evil of George Bush, he is why your sister was beaten by her husband.

Nice little bit of Brain washing. If you got no facts, illusion comes in handy. Maybe he can get Pen and Teller to help him write his next bit of lovely rhetoric.

.................................................................................

[JimRobson]

Don't worry about them getting recovered. They might take the first step:
1. We admitted we were powerless over Republicans, that our lives had become unmanageble.

but they will never get past 2 and 3:

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Let them think of themselves as victims. There are no victims, only volunteers.

And whats more, victims are losers.

I'm not saying that there are not victims in our society, but the victim mentality doesn't end until the victim realizes that the abuser has no power over them and does something to change the status quo.

Doesn't seem like Mr. Moore is ready to change. He wants to be a bigger fatter victim and the whole Democratic party to follow him.
_________________
ETN2 PTF2 (Littlecreek Underwater Demolition Unit 2 1963)

http://www.thewebplace.com/

[GM Strong]

Total Union Membership 16,000,000 most of whom the majority are Gummint drones(not All Govt are drones), NEA and such. Private Sector Union membership declines steadily. Is Moveon a union?? HMMM!
_________________
8th Army Korea 68-69

[MarineBrat]