Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [109]
So yes, WE denied you the White House. WE tossed your ass out of Washington. And WE will do it again. We have over nine hundred campus Green organizations. We have a mailing list of over 200,000 aggressive, active volunteers. We won twenty-two races around the country in the 2000 election and they joined the fifty-three other elected Greens who held various offices across the country. Since last November, the Greens have won another sixteen seats, making a total of ninety-one Greens currently holding elective office in America. Five cities in California are now run by Green Party mayors. And, most significantly, the number of Americans who voted for Nader in 2000 increased by a whopping 500 percent over those who voted for him in 1996.
This is a growing movement. And it’s not just about the Green Party. Heck, I’m not even a member! There are millions of people who have had it with the Democrats and Republicans and who want a real choice. That’s why a professional wrestler won as governor of Minnesota. That’s why Vermont’s only congressman is an Independent (and now so is one of its senators). There will be more Independents in the coming years; it can’t be helped ‘ Actually, that’s not true. It has been helped—greatly—by the actions/inaction of the Democratic-Republican Party.
So run for your lives—I’m coming out of my bunker! I’m sick of just “surviving,” of taking crap from the whiners who will never be there on the front lines for the have-nots, risking arrest, taking a billyclub to the head, giving a few hours of their time each week to be citizens, the highest honor to hold in a democracy.
I want us all to face our fears and stop behaving like our goal in life is to merely survive, “Surviving” is for wimps and game show contestants stranded in the jungle or on a desert island. You are not stranded. You own the store. The bad guys are just a bunch of silly, stupid white men. And there’s a helluva lot more of us than there are of them. Use your power.
You deserve better.
NOTES AND SOURCES
Chapter 1—A Very American Coup
The information about Jeb Bush’s wife and her run-in with US Customs is found in The Hill, “Gov. Jeb Bush: Florida Republican is Younger, Taller, and More Partisan than George W,” Marcia Gelbart, July 30, 2000.
The investigation into the purged voter lists was reported in The Nation, “Florida’s ‘Disappeared Voters’: Disfranchised by the GOP,” Gregory Palast, February 5, 2001; The Nation, “How the GOP Gamed the System in Florida,” John Lantigua, April 30, 2001; Los Angeles Times, “Florida Net Too Wide in Purge of Voter Rolls,” Lisa Getter, May 21, 2001; and Salon.com, “Eliminating Fraud—Or Democrats?,” Anthony York, December 8, 2 000.
Problems with blockades at some polling locations are discussed in the New York Times, “Contesting the Vote: Black Voters; Arriving at Florida Voting Places, Some Blacks Found Frustration,” Mireya Navarro and Somini Sengupta, November 30, 2000; and also in the Washington Post, “Irregularities Cited in Fla. Voting; Blacks Say Faulty Machines, Poll Mistakes Cost Them Their Ballots,” Robert E. Pierre, December 12, 2000.
The House of Representatives held hearings in February on the early calling of election results, as reported in the Washington Post,
“Election Coverage Burned to a Crisp; House Grills Networks’ ‘Beat the Clock’ Approach,” Howard Kurtz, February 15, 2001.
The Bush cousin connection is also documented in the Associated Press, “Fox Executive Spoke Five Times with Cousin Bush on Election Night,” David Bauder, December 12, 2000; and the Washington Post, “Bush Cousin Made Florida Vote Call for Fox News,” Howard Kurtz, November 14, 2000.
A series of articles in the New York Times chronicled the counting of the overseas absentee