yeah, i'm going to respond

what i'm knitting ~ my beanie visor
what i'm reading ~ To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush by Michael Moore
what i'm writing ~ my response

This came to my attention because a member of one of my Yahoo groups posted it. I only mention it because i feel obligated to respond. I try not to pay attention to Michael Moore, though i would like to see Fahrenheit 9/11 some time so i can judge it for myself. His words will be in italics, mine not.

To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That's right. Horse shows.

I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

How do i feel? Do i truly feel safe because of what the government has done since 9/11? Of course not! I know i will never feel safe again. America will never be completely safe and never really was, we just felt that way. Any sense of security we have ever had was false. But we grew up, and if we want to go back to a time where we felt safe (like a child feels safe in the company of their parents) we will only be burying our heads in the sand. The federal government is not your parents! I'm an adult, i face the facts. The 9/11 Commission didn't do anything productive. Our borders are still open and if we close them completely and don't allow anyone to come in we lose part of what makes America great. And i'm not stupid enough to expect the president to come help me if i'm rendered homeless by any catastrophe.

I don't know anything about Brown, but i imagine that overseeing a large horse show is pretty complicated. He shouldn't have been expected to save the people of New Orleans.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

This is just moronic. Those labels are who i am. If i put them aside i cease to be myself and will become a closed-minded Democrat/liberal/lost/communist/cigar-mouth/left-winger. If you want to be that it's your perrogative, we're all free to believe or say whatever we want (thanks to the Constitution), but taking off those labels won't give us common ground, it would be equivalent to him brainwashing me.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

The threat was there. I remember CNN reporting that Iraqi troops were dumping chemical weapons into the rivers as they fled. Last time i checked, chemical weapons are considered to be a Weapon of Mass Destruction and Saddam Hussein was not supposed to have any. Maybe he couldn't have attacked us yet, but he wanted to, and he wanted us to think he could. Get that through your skull already.

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Yes.

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

I don't expect FEMA to save me (i don't believe that is the federal government's purpose) and Clinton was the one cutting funding to the military (which i do believe was bad).

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Yes, they are a good idea. I'm a conservative, so i know that it's better for citizens to make donations than the government to pay for it (oh, that's us, too, only i don't have the money right now to pay for it, which is why i'm not making donations, as much as i'd like to).

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That's not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the window at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read "My Pet Goat" to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying "Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you're doing a heck of a job!"

Ugh, this is pathetic. Take a look around and what do you see? Everyone is helping the victims, in all 50 states there are refugees. People are taking refugees into their homes, helping them find jobs, feeding and clothing them, and helping them start over: We the People, not the government.

McCain is not on the same side as Bush, in case you haven't noticed. He's batting for the other team.

President Bush wasn't really on vacation in Texas, he was still working. He told the governor and mayor to evacuate (as the plan told them to) and they ignored him... How is that his fault? And my memory may be wrong, but i seem to remember him promising aid to the victims of this hurricane before it even hit.

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

It doesn't bother me to be laughed at. I've always been a social outcast, but i'd rather face the truth and be true to who i am--who God made me--than conform. And those 3,000 died because madmen killed them, because Clinton didn't act when he had the chance, and that has nothing to do with Bush or Katrina.

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

We are vulnerable because welfare keeps people in poverty (which, btw, their poverty is positively rich compared to most of the world). I do not accept education, because public education doesn't work and i don't think there's a thing the federal government can do about it. Health coverage is not the responsibility of the government, but the empoyers, who often cannot afford to provide it because of frivolous lawsuits and high taxes and the raise of minimum wage (as in certain areas of CA).

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I feel safe because i know i have the Constitutional right to own a firearm and defend myself. I feel safe because i can think for myself. I feel safe because the military is taking down tyrants.

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn't a horse show.

Yours,

Michael Moore

Yes, i do know better than to believe your b.s. I voted for Bush; it was better than the alternative. Bush surrounds himself with people who are more experienced than him, one bad apple out of hundreds doesn't change that. Bush did not wave a magic wand and cause Katrina to hit New Orleans.

I know he's not perfect. His failure is perpetuating big government as much as he has. What do i propose? I propose we limit the power of the politicians and put it back in the hands of the People where it belongs. I don't know if i'm more Republican or more Libertarian to believe that, but that's my solution. I don't want Michael Moore's ideas, they're stupid.