Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [90]
I know this will come as a shock to many of you. “Mike, how could you be for a general?!”
Well, first of all, as I write this, I’m not endorsing anyone (except Oprah. Run, Oprah, Run!). This is how I see it. I had four years to help build a Green Party or some other independent alternative. I didn’t do it. No one did it. Sure, I made my contributions, but it wasn’t enough. As I sit here typing these words, the Green Party still is not on a majority of ballots in the country. And now we have an even greater task in front of us—stopping George W. Bush from totally dismantling our Constitution and the freedoms we so dearly cherish. We’re stuck in a dilemma, and sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.
If it takes a pro-choice, pro-environment general who believes in universal health care and who thinks war is never the first answer to a conflict, if that is what it takes to remove these bastards and do the job the Democrats should have done in 2000—then that is what I am prepared to do. This involves a huge compromise on my part—will the losers who run the Democratic Party be willing to admit their mistakes and meet the millions like me halfway? Whether it’s Kucinich or Dean, Oprah or Hanks, or the Good General, I’m ready for a win.
Who wants to join me?
We cannot leave this election to the Democrats to screw it up again. It will require the active participation of all of us to get out there and snatch our country back. I am writing this as best I can, as personally as I can, to each of you who read Stupid White Men (more than 2 million Americans), each of you who saw Bowling for Columbine (over 30 million of you) and all of you who have come to my Web site (over a million a day). That’s enough for a small army, and so I once again want to call out Mike’s Militia to rise up and beat back the Invasion of the Bushies. True, we don’t have the money and the media outlets they have—but we’ve got something better: We’ve got the people on our side. And unless they declare martial law or suspend the elections, unless they’ve got Katherine Harris sucking chads in all fifty states, then there is no good reason why we shouldn’t be able to beat them.
As your commander in chief, I hereby instruct you to engage in “Operation 10-Minute Oil Change.” By doing something for just ten minutes each day, we will be able to remove the oil slick of Bush and his oil buddies who now sit in the White House. I ask each of you to perform the following guerrilla activities between now and November 2004. They will take only ten minutes each day:
1. Talk to anyone and everyone who will listen about every which way Bush has been bad for the country and bad for them. This election, like all elections with incumbents, is more a referendum on the incumbent than on the opponent. If the electorate comes to believe that the incumbent has hurt the country or the pocketbook of the average citizen, then the voters will usually vote for whoever is running against him. So the first focus must be to convince people you know that a change is in order.
2. Join the campaign of the person you believe has the best chance of beating Bush. Join more than one if you can’t make up your mind right now.
3. Download a poster from your candidate’s Web site and stick it in your window or your yard. Order a bumper sticker and put it on your car.
4. Sign up to run for precinct delegate (if there’s still time for the 2004 caucuses and primaries. If not, see if you can attend the caucus meetings or the county convention). You must find a way to get in on the ground floor with those who will ultimately pick the candidate at the national convention.
5. There is still time for YOU to run for local office in the upcoming election. Why not YOU? It’s not like there’s a great brain trust lining up to be on the village council. Just do it!
6. Buy a few copies of the following books and pass them around to your friends and family and your conservative brothers-in-law: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy; Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace; Bushwhacked!;