To Michael Moore: Don't give up?

2004-01-21

Dear Michael Moore,

Your "advice" to the backers of Howard Dean to not give up is, frankly, a sickeningly shameful final coup de grace in your attempt to put an end to the Dean effort to take back our country from the corporate interests.

Why did you, of all people, let yourself be influenced by the media's campaign of the "unelectability" of Dean? -- when from the very beginning of his campaign Dean appeared as the ONLY candidate out of the spineless group of Dem. candidates to have the credibility and moral fiber to attract the voiceless millions of electorate to come out and vote -- the ONLY candidate to defeat Bush. And you yourself in your "advice" mentioned all of the reasons for his attractiveness.

In your earlier message you gave your reasons for backing Clark -- listing several of the planks in his agenda that you find wonderful and intriguing. I find your acceptance of the word of Clark on what he will do if elected to be naive, at best. This military man -- who openly supported the Vietnam war when it was being fought, who worked in the office of Cheney during the Reagan era, who NOW, even as he campaigned, recently defended from the platform the murderous School For the Americas (whatever its new name is) -- how can you just accept his newly-found radical stance against Bush as coming from deeply held beliefs? -- when it is obvious that all of these positions are newly-minted, as are the suddenly strong stands of the other two major contenders. Are you really that naive? It's hard to believe that.

And you admit that Dean is the one who changed the content and tenor of the debate, who brought the whole question of Preemptive war into the discussion, who raised the level of the discourse -- when none of the other major candidates announcing their campaigns would, which is what brought Dean early on his amazing numbers of supporters. (There is, indeed, a nobility in what he is trying to do.)

As George Soros said, it's not enough to just remove Bush; WE ALSO NEED A NEW DIRECTION. Clark, Kerri and Edwards are beholden to the same vested corporate interests who control the direction of this country. Do you really believe they can do anything more than moderate slightly America's militaristic underpinnings? Do you believe they could, even if they wanted to? Dean is the only one who, so far, is free of that outrageous connection.

Did you consider what that means before you made your rash decision?