April 7, 2003
Dear friends,
It appears that the Bush administration will have succeeded in colonizing Iraq
sometime in the next few days. This is a blunder of such magnitude -- and we
will pay for it for years to come. It was not worth the life of one single
American kid in uniform, let alone the thousands of Iraqis who have died, and
my condolences and prayers go out to all of them.
So, where are all those weapons of mass destruction that were the pretense for
this war? Ha! There is so much to say about all this, but I will save it for
later.
What I am most concerned about right now
is that all of you -- the majority of Americans who did not support this war in
the first place -- not go silent or be intimidated by what will be touted as
some great military victory. Now, more than ever, the voices of peace and truth
must be heard.
I have received a lot of mail from people who are feeling a profound sense of
despair and believe that their voices have been drowned out by the drums and
bombs of false patriotism.
Some are afraid of retaliation at work or at school or in their neighborhoods
because they have been vocal proponents of peace. They have been told over and
over that it is not "appropriate" to protest once the country is at
war, and that your only duty now is to "support the troops."
Can I share with you what it's been like for me since I used my time on the
Oscar stage two weeks ago to speak out against Bush and this war? I hope that,
in reading what I'm about to tell you, you'll feel a bit more emboldened to
make your voice heard in whatever way or forum that is open to you.
When "Bowling for Columbine" was announced as the Oscar winner for
Best Documentary at the Academy Awards, the audience rose to its feet. It was a
great moment, one that I will always cherish. They were standing and
> cheering for a film that says we Americans are a uniquely violent people,
using our massive stash of guns to kill each other and to use them against many
countries around the world. They were applauding a film that shows George W.
Bush using fictitious fears to frighten the public into giving him whatever he
wants. And they were honoring a film that states the following: The first Gulf
War was an attempt to reinstall the dictator of Kuwait; Saddam Hussein was
armed with weapons from the United States; and the American government is
responsible for the deaths of a half-million children in Iraq over the past
decade through its sanctions and bombing.
That was the movie they were cheering, that was the movie they voted for, and
so I decided that is what I should acknowledge in my speech.
And, thus, I said the following from the Oscar stage:
"On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan (from
Canada), I would like to thank the Academy for this award. I have invited the
other Documentary nominees on stage with me. They are here in solidarity
because we like non-fiction. We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious
times. We live in a time where fictitious election results give us a fictitious
president.
We are now fighting a war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of
duct tape or the fictitious 'Orange Alerts,' we are against this war, Mr. Bush.
Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And, whenever you've got the Pope and the
Dixie Chicks against you, you're time is up."
Halfway through my remarks, some in the
audience started to cheer. That immediately set off a group of people in the
balcony who started to boo. Then those supporting my remarks started to shout
down the booers. The L. A. Times reported that the director of the show started
screaming at the orchestra "Music! Music!" in order to cut me off, so
the band dutifully struck up a tune and my time was up. (For more on why I said
what I said, you can read the op-ed I wrote for the L.A. Times, plus other
reaction from around the country at my website www.michaelmoore.com
The next day -- and in the two weeks since -- the right-wing pundits and radio
shock jocks have been calling for my head. So, has all this ruckus hurt me?
Have they succeeded in "silencing" me?
Well, take a look at my Oscar
"backlash": On the day after I criticized Bush and the war at the
Academy Awards, attendance at "Bowling for Columbine" in theaters
around the country went up 110% (source:DailyVariety/BoxOfficeMojo.com). The
following weekend,
the box office gross was up a whopping 73% (Variety). It is now the
longest-running consecutive commercial release in America, 26 weeks in a row
and still thriving. The number of theaters showing the film since the Oscars
has INCREASED, and it has now bested the previous box office record for a
documentary by nearly 300%.
Yesterday (April 6), "Stupid White Men" shot back to 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. This is my book's 50th week on the list, 8 of them at number one, and this marks its fourth return to the top position, something that virtually never happens.
In the week after the Oscars, my website was getting 10-20
million hits A DAY (one day we even got more hits than the White House!). The
mail has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive (and the hate mail has
been hilarious!).
In the two days following the Oscars, more people pre-ordered the video for
"Bowling for Columbine" on Amazon.com than the video for the Oscar
winner for Best Picture, "Chicago".
In the past week, I have obtained funding for my next documentary, and I have
been offered a slot back on television to do an updated version of
"TVNation"/"The Awful Truth."
I tell you all of this because I want to counteract a message that is told to
us all the time -- that, if you take a chance to speak out politically, you
will live to regret it. It will hurt you in some way, usually financially. You
could lose your job. Others may not hire you. You will lose friends. And on and
on and on.
Take the Dixie Chicks. I'm sure you've all heard by now that, because their
lead singer mentioned how she was ashamed that Bush was from her home state of
Texas, their record sales have "plummeted" and country stations are
boycotting their music. The truth is that their sales are NOT down. This week,
after all the attacks, their album is still at 1 on the Billboard country
charts and, according to Entertainment Weekly, on the pop charts during all the
brouhaha, they ROSE from 6 to 4. In the New York Times, Frank Rich reports that
he tried to find a ticket to ANY of the Dixie Chicks' upcoming concerts but he
couldn't because they were all sold out.
(To read Rich's column from yesterday's Times, "Bowling
for Kennebunkport," go here: http://www.michaelmoore.com/articles/index.php?article=20030406-nytimes.
He does a pretty good job of laying it all out and talks about my next film and
the impact it could potentially have.) Their song, "Travelin'
Soldier" (a beautiful anti-war ballad) was the most requested song on the
internet last week. They have not been hurt at all -- but that is not what the
media would have you believe. Why is that? Because there is nothing more
important now than to keep the voices of dissent -- and those who would dare to
ask a question -- SILENT. And what better way than to try and take a few
well-known entertainers down with a pack of lies so that the average Joe or
Jane gets the message loud and clear: "Wow, if they would do that to the
Dixie Chicks or Michael Moore, what would they do to little ol' me?"
In other words, shut the f--- up.
And that, my friends, is the real point of this film that I just got an Oscar for -- how those in charge use FEAR to manipulate the public into doing whatever they are told.
Well, the good news -- if there can be any good news this week -- is that not
only have neither I nor others been silenced, we have been joined by millions
of Americans who think the same way we do. Don't let the false patriots
intimidate you by setting the agenda or the terms of the debate. Don't be
defeated by polls that show 70% of the public in favor of the war.Remember that
these Americans being polled are the same Americans whose kids (or neighbor's
kids) have been sent over to Iraq. They are scared for the troops and they are
being cowed into supporting a war they did not want -- and they want even less
to see their friends, family, and neighbors come home dead. Everyone supports
the troops returning home alive and all of us need to reach out and let their
families know that. Unfortunately, Bush and Co. are not through yet. This
invasion and conquest will encourage them to do it again elsewhere. The real
purpose of this war was to say to the rest of the world, "Don't Mess with
Texas - If You Got What We Want, We're Coming to Get It!" This is not the
time for the majority of us who believe in a peaceful America to be quiet. Make
your voices heard. Despite what they ave pulled off, it is still our country.
Yours,
Michael Moore
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