A touching letter about 9/11 and our country

[Squirt]

To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That's right. Horse shows.

I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That's not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read "My Pet Goat" to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying "Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you're doing a heck of a job!"

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn't a horse show.

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com

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How do you guys feel about this? Forget your political affiliation, as an American, how do you feel about being an American today? And to any Non Americans, how do you feel about this?

[basschick]

although everything michael moore says is true, he says it in a way guaranteed to piss off the conservatives. is there an advantage to making people too mad to listen to what you have to say? is making someone feel defensive so that they will defend themselves without thought going to help anything?

on the other hand, so far the heavy duty conservatives don't seem to be very listening people, so maybe it doesn't matter

[Squirt]

although everything michael moore says is true, he says it in a way guaranteed to piss off the conservatives. is there an advantage to making people too mad to listen to what you have to say? is making someone feel defensive so that they will defend themselves without thought going to help anything?

on the other hand, so far the heavy duty conservatives don't seem to be very listening people, so maybe it doesn't matter

Maybe it was 9/11, maybe it was the "war on porn" but my eyes have been opened to what governments are capable of doing since 2001.

I have no idea why our president doesn't have to answer for what he does.

Maybe people feel that the Bush administration has God on its side? Maybe people feel that a man elected by religious people couldn't be that bad? I honestly don't know.

I've had Fox news rammed down my throat here for 3 years. It's a necessary evil. I can honestly tell you that if someone doesn't report following a strictly conservative agenda, they are literally cut short on their reporting. If someone has a concern about the country and wants something to change, no matter what their political affiliation, they will be attacked. I don't remember seeing that on news before, where someone was attacked for simply wanting change. I always saw things as open discussion.

I think out of fear, people have stayed with Bush because of the "war on terror" and are putting unreasonable, unchecked, faith in a man that is incompetent. Out of fear and wanting to "stick together" to fight the bad guys, we've had instilled a "you're with us, or against us" mentality that has caused people to NOT listen to reason out of wanting to support the country. This has been to our demise.

I think we're at the point where things MUST change for the survival of our country, or the Bush administration will be remembered as the one that brought America to its knees. Why aren't people protesting out in masses? I don't get it. I am half way round the world, so I'm sure there are things I'm missing that I would understand if living back home.

It's sad that I have a better standard of living in another country then I do in my own.

[basschick]

the people i know who still support bush are mostly - not all, but mostly - for him because of he goes to church and they feel he is moral. it appears that people in our country think whether girls should have premarital sex and whether same sex marriage should happen is more important than war, the economy or emergency aid.

[Squirt]

the people i know who still support bush are mostly - not all, but mostly - for him because of he goes to church and they feel he is moral. it appears that people in our country think whether girls should have premarital sex and whether same sex marriage should happen is more important than war, the economy or emergency aid.

Right like taking agents off of cases to convict known child predators, in order to enforce 2257?

With the religious right, it's always about control. I am superior because I believe in a (fill in the blank) God, therefore you must do what God is leading me to do. I may act just like everyone else, but that's sinning and I ask my God for forgiveness, and I am then cleansed and righteous again.

Don't forget, before we had government, the church taxed the people. The church also killed those who said the earth was round and the sun was the center of the universe. To this day religious beliefs are killing people. An example would be the pope telling catholics not to use condoms to stop the AIDS virus as the virus can fit through the fibers in the condom.

Churches may not be charging taxes, but they are exempt from taxation. Strange isn't it?

I agree with you. When morals take precedence over humanity, we have a problem. To suppress and dominate people, the world, because you think you're better then others is a crime that organized religion perpetrates on humanity to this day, this very moment.

[Doctor Dre]

Micheal Moore put facts together in a way that makes it brainwashing ... he makes up a good stories with facts ... but most of the time, it isn't exactly the reality.