Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life

"Outstanding…Moore Triumphs! Publishers Weekly

Mike's Letter

October 1st, 2002 12:00 AM

"YOU ARE EITHER WITH US, OR YOU ARE FIRED!"

Dear Friends,

I was going to write you a letter about what a pathetic liar George W, Bush is -- but then I figured, hey, why waste your time telling you something you already know!

You already know that his planned invasion of Iraq is a ruse meant to distract the public from the real issues, those issues being the following:

1. The number of people unemployed since he "took" office has risen by 35%.

2. We had a federal SURPLUS of $281 billion when he was inaugurated; today we have a DEFICIT of $157 billion.

3. TWO MILLION jobs have been eliminated since Bush began his occupation of the Oval Office.

4. The stock market is down 34% since January of 2001.

5. Another 1.4 million people now have NO health insurance, making it a total of over 41 million Americans who can't afford to get sick.

6. Only 13 corporate crooks out of HUNDREDS have been indicted, and none of them have been the close personal friends of Mr. Bush.

THOSE are the real issues facing us, not some phony excuse for a war.

But, like I said, you already know that. You know that Bush is lying through his smirk when he says Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction." He has not offered one shred of evidence to prove this. Not one! You know he is lying when he says that there is a "connection" between Saddam and bin Laden. Even members of his own administration have admitted that is not true. It's just one lie after another, and I applaud those three congressmen who went to Iraq this week and told it like it is -- and demanded that the sanctions which have already killed a half-million Iraqi children be ended. Sen. Trent Lott said "they should come home and keep their mouths shut." I say, we need more damn Democrats with that kind of courage and with mouths like that!

Which brings me to the real point of this letter. The Democrats.

I have never seen a more lame bunch of cowards and appeasers in my life. They are ready to bow down before Bush and give him what he wants to wage war against Iraq. This pathetic excuse of a party is an embarrassment to us all. The fact that they let Robert Torricelli run for re-election in New Jersey, knowing how dirty he was, shows just how capable they are of handing the Senate over to Bush and the Republicans come November. They have blown it over and over again, and lots of good people I know who keep putting their faith in the Democrats are just giving up -- and that is the worst thing to happen in a free society.

What are we going to do? Left to their own devices, the Democrats will not only hand both the House and the Senate to the Republicans in November, they will guarantee that Bush gets his second undeserved term in 2004. We must not let that happen. This year's election was theirs for the taking. Just look at the state of the union Bush gave us: Bush cronies caught stealing from the corporate till, Bush and Cheney caught breaking the law in the '90s, the economy in the toilet, and Bush failing to do the only real job he had to do since 9/11: Get bin Laden! What a disgrace! Yet the Democrats could not even find enough candidates to offer a REAL challenge to the Republicans in nearly 200 House districts for the November 5th elections. What an appalling excuse of a party.

OK, I know, there is not much we can do about this now. But we all need to get busy and ensure that this whole rotten system is rocked by the disgruntled millions come election day 2004. Otherwise, we have no right to complain.

In the meantime, we must stop the Bush attack on Iraq. We must find out now, as W says, "who is wid us and who is agin us." I am asking each of you to please sign the petition I have posted here and on my website informing the Democrats that whoever amongst them votes for this war, we pledge NEVER to vote for them again. I will personally see that your on-line signatures are delivered to every member of Congress. I guarantee your voice will be heard loud and clear.

Go to and sign the petition to the Democrats: "You're Either With Us Or You're Fired."

Then let's figure out together what we can do to turn things around by 2004.

Thanks for taking the time to do this. We have no other choice.

Yours,

Michael Moore

P.S. The wonderful, heartfelt letters sent to me regarding my mom's passing continue to fill my mailbox from so many of you. Thank you very much -- you don't know what it has meant to me. I am sorry I have not been able to be very active or public in the past couple of months, so please accept my apologies and my thanks for your understanding. Next week, I have to get back to work -- it is time for my film to bust its way into theaters across America. I will tell you all about it next Monday...

You must log in to comment.

You must be logged in to leave a comment. Log in | Register

I am outraged that we can't kill people in other counties without them trying to kill us! http://t.co/CaQrq7YEzO http://t.co/IaiXUaUQro

May 23rd
2:14 AM
Retweet This

Major congrats to Tavis Smiley whose 2,000th show will air Friday night. Honored to have participated in one or two or ten of them! #Tavis10

May 22nd
5:47 PM
Retweet This

Disaster Porn. That's what it is. TV, just admit that's what you're doing. This isn't news. It's lazy, it's a distraction & it's fake. Stop.

May 22nd
1:47 AM
Retweet This

More commentary on the efforts to kill "Citizen Koch" by WNET/ITVS: http://t.co/zUMeCBoO46

May 21st
8:54 PM
Retweet This

"Bring Back Ken Starr" And u said Bill Keller couldn't write anything stupider than his column backing the Iraq war: http://t.co/BWvZTqND5U

May 21st
5:49 PM
Retweet This

More on the attempt to suppress my friends' Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's Koch Bros/Citizens United documentary: http://t.co/ZnxporOc7Y

May 21st
12:27 PM
Retweet This

But, thanks to fear of the Koch Bros, YOU may never see it. At least not on PBS. This stuff goes on all the time, u just never hear about it

May 20th
10:30 PM
Retweet This

They worked on BowlingForColumbine & Fahrenheit9/11 & made the Oscar-nom film Trouble the Water. I've seen their KochBros film & it's great!

May 20th
10:23 PM
Retweet This

A stunning NewYorker piece today about my colleagues Tia Lessin & Carl Deal & how their KochBros film is being killed http://t.co/MtLpPoOGlu

May 20th
9:55 PM
Retweet This

Right now on HuffPostLive: Carl Deal & Tia Lessin discuss how the film was killed by Koch Brothers http://t.co/cd8FRDZtuy

May 20th
4:30 PM
Retweet This

Malcolm X's b-day. At 4yrs old, white supremacists in East Lansing, MI set his house on fire. FD, all white, just stood by & watched it burn

May 19th
10:32 PM
Retweet This

RT @wastedsummers: @MMFlint Lots of people assuming Kanye meant new in the sense of recent, he means new in the sense of post-legal America…

May 19th
4:34 AM
Retweet This

"@Myrone07: Yes he did!! They'll be mad once they run the tape again. Watch & see." I agree. West Coast-u will not see(onTV)what we just saw

May 19th
12:56 AM
Retweet This

RT @marionbarryjr: @MMFlint Not "new". The slavery loophole has been active since the passage of 13th amend. We need to take profit out of …

May 19th
12:53 AM
Retweet This

RT @PleasureDanger: @MMFlint except...it's not new....the racist prison industrial complex has been locking up black/brown ppl in dispropor…

May 19th
12:52 AM
Retweet This

Wow. Kanye! Did that just air on TV? Amazing. "We da new slave." #SNL (CCA = Correction Corporation of America - the private prison system)

May 19th
12:48 AM
Retweet This

So it turns out the War on Terror is never going to end: http://t.co/SWMx4HKjmI Why? See Fahrenheit 9/11: http://t.co/3G3PqrrMNo

May 18th
4:06 PM
Retweet This

Great time last night on Bill Maher (& @galifianakisz !). Sat next to good-looking brainiacs S.E Cupp & Andrew Ross Sorkin. May've worn off.

May 18th
4:04 PM
Retweet This

Going on Bill Maher in 20 min! HBO. Live.

May 17th
9:41 PM
Retweet This

Tonight! It's yours truly & Zach Galifianakis on Bill Maher, 10pm ET/PT (rerun at 11:30pm ET/PT) on HBO (corrected times)

May 17th
6:03 PM
Retweet This

Close Guantanamo Full Page Ad To Appear in New York Times ...by Emma Kaplan www.michaelmoore.com An irresistible and irrepressible demand must well up from...

May 23rd
1:29 PM
Read More

Last night on the Colbert Report -- "I guess for a donation of $75 you get the PBS tote bag. And for $23 million, you get PBS's nut sack." May...

May 23rd
9:48 AM
Read More

I signed this ad about the Guatanamo hunger strikers and calling for the prison to be closed that will appear in the New York Times tomorrow: Our Message in...

May 22nd
8:54 PM
Read More

Statement about “A Word From Our Sponsor,” by Carl Deal & Tia Lessin www.citizenkoch.com We decided to go public with our experience hoping that, like the...

May 22nd
12:10 PM
Read More

Problems at PBS, From Rose to Koch www.fair.org It is a fascinating and frightening look at how this kind of pressure works, where a public TV station is so...

May 21st
7:14 PM
Read More

Mass Rally for Bradley Manning! Ft. Meade, MD. June 1 | MichaelMoore.com www.michaelmoore.com Sponsored by the Bradley Manning Support Network and the...

May 21st
9:45 AM
Read More

How Far Did PBS Go To Placate Sponsor? - HuffPost Live live.huffingtonpost.com The Koch brothers are a frequent boogeyman for liberals due to their vast sums...

May 20th
5:20 PM
Read More

Read this blockbuster New Yorker article about how public TV cowardice helped defang one documentary criticizing the Koch Brothers and then defund another...

May 20th
8:21 AM
Read More

Tonight! It's yours truly and Zach Galifianakis on Bill Maher, 10 PM ET/PT (rerun at 11:30 PM ET/PT) on HBO. HBO: Real Time with Bill Maher: Homepage...

May 17th
6:59 PM
Read More

ICYMI -- It's time to re-up our walks! Got the flu in March & that threw off my routine. Decided to get back at it. Join me! We're on twitter at...

May 16th
8:05 AM
Read More

The Deepening Shame of Guantanamo ...by Ray McGovern www.michaelmoore.com We have been spared hearings on how 86 of the remaining 166 prisoners at Guantanamo...

May 16th
8:04 AM
Read More

I just signed this, and hope you will too: Urge NYT Public Editor to Investigate Biased Reporting on Venezuela & Honduras | NYTimes eXaminer...

May 15th
9:19 AM
Read More

My Breasts and My Life Not as Valuable as Angelina's ...by Donna Smith www.michaelmoore.com What of the women like me who do not have insurance or enough...

May 14th
5:38 PM
Read More

Daily Kos: Thomas Friedman, private eye www.dailykos.com Click to embiggen

May 14th
1:01 AM
Read More

The first Mother's Day in 1870, proclaimed by Julia Ward Howe (author of Battle Hymn of the Republic), was a call for peace and disarmament: ...

May 12th
4:43 PM
Read More

The workers of Chicago's Republic Windows & Doors, seen during their 2008 sit down strike in 'Capitalism: A Love Story,' just opened a new...

May 12th
8:49 AM
Read More

It's time to re-up our walks! Got the flu in March & that threw off my routine. Decided to get back at it today. Join me! We're on twitter at...

May 11th
10:04 PM
Read More

Please check out this post from Cathy Youngblood, a housekeeper at the Hyatt Andaz in West Hollywood, and the campaign she's a part of, Hyatt Hurts:
...

May 10th
3:23 PM
Read More

The workers of Chicago's Republic Windows & Doors, seen here during their 2008 sit down strike in 'Capitalism: A Love Story,' are opening a...

May 9th
8:13 AM
Read More

Michael Moore touts Mayor Bloomberg’s gun control campaign: ‘It’s wonderful!’ www.nydailynews.com Michael Moore isn't known for his high praise of...

May 8th
1:46 PM
Read More

Ribbon cut on new downtown movie theater www.amny.com Filmmakers Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock Tuesday welcomed the arrival of an all-documentary theater...

May 8th
12:54 PM
Read More

'And Then There Was One: Imperial Gigantism and the Decline of Planet Earth' ...by Tom Engelhardt www.michaelmoore.com

May 7th
5:16 PM
Read More

Reminder: The U.S. Government Lies About Who Uses Chemical Weapons in the Mideast ...by Jon Schwarz www.michaelmoore.com The State Department guy who lied in...

May 6th
6:22 PM
Read More

From This Modern World: Daily Kos: Threat assessment www.dailykos.com Click to embiggen

May 6th
3:57 PM
Read More

RootsAction | Nominees for Worst Government Official act.rootsaction.org Here come three new Obama nominees, and they could all be nominees in a contest for...

May 6th
2:36 PM
Read More

Donna Smith, seen in 'SiCKO' and a contributor to MichaelMoore.com, has a new blog: Donna SiCKO's Blog donnasicko.blogspot.com

May 5th
2:48 PM
Read More

Bill Maher Slams Hype Over Boston Bombing Case Don't Let Terrorist 'F-ck-Ups' Scare Us www.youtube.com Bill Maher closed out his show tonight...

May 4th
4:13 PM
Read More

Health Care Injustice in America – Painful Reality ...by Donna Smith www.michaelmoore.com So, how did I get myself to the place where I do not have coverage?

May 2nd
7:15 PM
Read More

Top Economist Unloads On Wall Street & White House - HuffPost Live live.huffingtonpost.com Economist and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs...

May 2nd
12:13 PM
Read More

The Pope Called One Of The Foundations Of The Global Capitalism System 'Slavery' www.businessinsider.com Pope Rips Bangladesh Slave Labor

May 2nd
10:58 AM
Read More

Subscribe to Mike's Blog RSS

Click here to suggest an article

Mike's Blog

See More Blogs

Vew the archives

View older articles