Three cheers for Michael Moore!
Moore has penned an open letter to President Obama, begging him not to send more troops to Afghanistan. And just in time — with all the talk about Lou Dobbs and the rest, the heartland was beginning to forget that the left bows to no one in its willingness to anoint an ignorant loudmouth as its beloved champion. Here’s some of my favorite passages from Moore’s letter:
Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can’t take it anymore. We can’t take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of “landslide victory” don’t you understand?…
What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that’s what they’d do.
Cue the violins. And if you think that Michael should be argued with instead of teased, read Jazz’s post.
Cross-posted at Conventional Folly
23 Responses to “Three cheers for Michael Moore!”
King Ignorant Loudmouth Rush Limbaugh would agree with you David. Now that science has cataloged more ignorant media loudmouths on the right than there are grains of sand, the left can rest assured it's beach has finally begun to grow.
For the first time in years, the Democrats in Congress have made no serious effort to cut funding for the War in Iraq, thus making it clear that the biggest concern they had with the war was that it was being conducted by a Republican. Unlike his predecessor, President Obama will not have to worry about the opposition party actively undermining the war effort while there are troops in the field.
As to Afghanistan, this was the war Obama and most of the Democratic Party claimed we should have been fighting. We shall soon see whether that was just a cheap ploy to gain office or an actual statement of principle.
What Michael Moore has to say is not very important. What the Congress and the President has to say is crucial.
“What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do?”
What did Nixon do? For the youngsters, I am snipping in a fair description of what Nixon said and did during and after the 1968 election from Wikipedia. This all sounds and looks eerily familiar.
“In the 1968 Presidential campaign, Richard Nixon stated that “new leadership will end the war” in Vietnam. He never used the phrase “secret plan”, which originated with a reporter looking for a lead to a story summarizing the Republican candidate's (hazy) promise to end the war without losing. When pressed for details, Nixon retreated to the position that to tip his hand would interfere with the negotiations that had begun in Paris. Nixon never disavowed the term.[1] In his own memoirs, Nixon stated he never claimed to have such a plan. [2][3] Nevertheless, Nixon's critics have continued to accuse him of campaigning on a “secret plan” to end the war.”
“Nixon told Michigan Republican congressman Donald Riegle that the war would be over within six months of his assumption of office.
As this six month deadline approached, in May 1969, Henry Kissinger asked a group of Quakers to give the administration six more months. “Give us six months, and if we haven't ended the war by then, you can come back and tear down the White House fence.”[6]“
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_promise
Sure, Moore can be loudmouth, and his methods are often non-user friendly, but he can also make points that cut to the chase – albeit with an absence of subtlety that grinds on some folks. He's been around along time though and isn't about to be sidelined by reactionaries just because they can't stand him or his politics. In this instance it is clear he is urging the prez to not let the military industrial complex and it's associated “support network” overide his conscience, which to me is not such bad advice.
When the King didn't kill him, he sometimes listened to the Court Jester.
DaMav Please supply a link or two showing any bill or debate where the Demonocrats stopped the war funding. The link doesn't show any such move by my Defeatocrats:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Congressio…
Where is the cutoff of funding?
DaMav – These two non-Code Pink sights deny your Repug meme.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/12344/#p6
http://mae.pennnet.com/display_article/280481/3…
And that would be a good comparison if he were to escalate Iraq, but instead he is escalating exactly what he said he would in the campaign. Unlike Nixon he did not play both sides of the fence on Afgh, instead he came out and ran as an Afgh/Paki hawk and not only won on that platform seems to be about to keep his campaign promise about it. We will never know what he would have done with Iraq because a treatise was in place before he got into office that locked us in a security roll. I railed against Bush for ignoring the geneva conventions but I also would rail against Obama if he voided the treatise with Iraq. Comparing this to Nam I take no issue with, acting like Obama has changed his tune or lied on the issue is propaganda.
I'm only looking at Afghanistan.
I don't think that Nixon was lying when he said, “new leadership will end the war” and I don't think that Kissinger was lying when he said, “Give us six months, and if we haven't ended the war by then, you can come back and tear down the White House fence.”
I think they both thought they knew what they were doing and that they were “exceptional.” After all, Laird was a lot smarter than McNamara, wasn't he?
That's the point I was trying to make. It's a shame I had to use an example where people automatically equate “Nixon = Lying, but I can't think of a better example where a President had to assume a war like this.
I should have used a different word, you are correct he did not lie. Instead we would have an “honorable” peace if memory serves. He did not lie to us about it until we were invading other nations and pulling them in, he did on the other hand lie to the NVA and tell them via Kissinger that they would get a better deal negotiating with them than LBJ and that action cost a great many US lives in fact everyone of them you spoke of. They did not lie about that to the US public, they just failed to tell anyone. But yea Nixon comparisons are tricky. I see many or would have seen similarities with Iraq but I am an Afgh/Paki hawk so I feel differently on that issue.
And on my third comment I finally explain myself, sorry Vey9. I have an issue with the Nam comparison mostly because I consider Nam a war of choice. In fact the last war I support from our history is WWII but I strongly support the Afgh/Paki fight only because first we were attacked second the pottery barn rule and third, Paki is currently in a killing fields situation and unless we fix it this time they will have nukes which is pretty upsetting to me. Every war is a stupid war but some of them are hoisted upon us and I put this one in that category.
First, if the US had gone in there, snatched the responsible parties and left, things would have been better for us. Second, rather than doing that we made a deal with the devilish war lords, so we could do it on the cheap. I am certain that Bush was certain this would all be over in 6 months, two years on the outside. We restored the devils and STILL we didn't leave. Third, we poured money into Paki, enough to destabilize it, that money was and is still being sent to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
You think, like LBJ did, that escalation will solve this? That the stinking Karzai government is better than that endless parade installed in S. Viet? All the other side has to do is what Ali did to Foreman — rope-a-dope.
Voluntary or involuntary, wars are wars. The way WWII was won was the entire country was mobilized in less than a year. No “measured response” there. Now, GM says it takes them 5 years to get a car to market.
I agree with almost everything you said but I do not think we are there for Afgh but to find a way to stabilize Paki to the best of our ability. Afgh is just where the pressure release valve is and you are correct if we would have done it right we would now be done but of course doofus did a bad job. I do not think escalation alone will resolve anything but a non-flailing(this is what Bush did and also Russia and why they failed against the Islamist threat) approach could work. I would like to say we are doing this for the Afghans but of course as you said unless something changes the wrong people are in control. At this point I think our best hope is to re-stabilize Paki and make Afgh secure at least within its own borders and region and then we should leave and I believe this is not only possible but probable. Rope-a-dope works only against flailers and Obama's entire political strategy is based off of it so I hope that he see's it for the danger that it is.
First, if the US had gone in there, snatched the responsible parties and left, things would have been better for us.
Agreed, but I don't think Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the warlords *wanted* just to snatch the responsible parties and leave. Maybe that's why Osama bin Laden got away. Then the war would have been over, and the warlords did not want it to be over.
That sounds a little paranoid. Should I check my Cheerios box for military industrial spy microphones.
That sounds a little paranoid.
Why?
Kathy, let's clear up any potential confusion. Are you saying you think Bush & Cheney did not actually want to catch Bin Laden? Is the presumed motive that they wanted to invade Iraq and expand the defense budget?
Sorry, I should not have used a medical term, I am not a shrink. Please consult your yellow pages.
You think that “non-flailing” will work. Maybe you are right, but I am not sure I know what non-flailing means. Every door kicked in at 4 AM is a flail and it creates 10 enemies, but if the door isn't kicked in, then enemies may hiding behind it, enemies which may attack later that week and they will attack from a “safe” angle.
My wife was shaken the other day when she heard a story about some American soldiers that stopped a farmer and his teen-age children. If the soldiers let them go, they might tell the Taliban their location. Yet the soldiers had no basis to hold them. So maybe the soldiers should kill them since there would be nobody to complain?
In the end, the man in charge of the soldiers let them loose. Less than an hour later the soldiers were attacked and all were killed except the man that made the decision to let the farmer and his kids go. That's a nice note to carry the rest of his life, don't you think.
Obviously, that farmer didn't want us there, just like he didn't want the Russians there.
Have you studied why and how the Russians carried on their campaign? I have and I will be happy to discuss it with you. It is NOT as the popular American media portrays it. The stinger missile didn't win that war.
Michael Moore protests. Alec Baldwin may well quit acting now. (Will he leave the country next?) So far, we haven't heard Moore or Noam Chomsky call Obama a neocon. I'm still waiting for the Militant and the World Socialist Web Site, Global Research, etc, to call Obama a warmonger and an imperialist. And all that's missing is not only for Joan Baez to compose and sing a song protesting the Afghan war (someone else can do a song about the poor, mistreated, victim Taliban, too), but for Obama's next many campaign-swing PR appearances to be subjected to protest by — Cindy Sheehan.
Oh, and where's Shaun Mullen, disparaging this lowlier-than-any-previous-low-life, Obama, in the “grand,” “great,” “honorable” tradition of protesting and rising up against “another Vietnam”?
Actually I do know since I am rather a Russian history buff. They were bleed dry, slowly. This is also why I had a major issue with how the war was being conducted. I also have an issue with open ended commitments for that reason, if we are seen as occupiers or that perception cannot be shaken we will lose and lose big. I think the plan laid down by Obama is a sound one in this stage of the game and I will give him the same chance I gave the last guy that did not have a strategy that I thought was a good one. We owe it to the people of Afgh for some of the reasons you stated as well as needing it for our security. Flailing means what we have been doing, indefinite time tables and large armies just sitting like targets for small cells to pepper with enough attacks to continue the battle and bleed the invader financially and emotionally.
“if we are seen as occupiers or that perception cannot be shaken we will lose and lose big.”
Too late. You are about 6-7 years too late. After eight years of futzing around what would you think if you were them? Just like when the Russians held Kubul, but nothing else and we hold Kubul, but nothing else, it's over folks.
DLS All those Lefties you mention never claimed W wasn't a US citizen. Obama is doing a Nixonian peace with honor, lets hope the casualties and the wars don't follow the Nixon model…