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 ackno
wledge 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: Daily Variety/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 "TV Nation"/ "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 have pulled off,
it is still our country.
Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mailing/unsubscribe.php