Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: da Michael Moore a Namib su Hillary Clinton :)

Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from Michael Moore
Friends, 
A new year has begun. And before we've had a chance to break our New
Year's resolutions, we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours
before the good people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace the
man who now occupies three countries and a white house. 
Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice we
have failed. Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been lost,
the world left in upheaval against us... and yet now, today, we hope
against hope that our moment has finally arrived, that the amazingly
powerful force of the Republican Party will somehow be halted. But we know
that the Democrats are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of
victory, and if there's a way to blow this election, they will find it and
do it with gusto. 
Do you feel the same as me? That the Democratic front-runners are a
less-than-stellar group of candidates, and that none of them are the "slam
dunk" we wish they were? Of course, there are wonderful things about each
of them. Any one of them would be infinitely better than what we have now.
Personally, Congressman Kucinich, more than any other candidate, shares
the same positions that I have on the issues (although the UFO that picked
ME up would only take me as far as Kalamazoo). But let's not waste time
talking about Dennis. Even he is resigned to losing, with statements like
the one he made yesterday to his supporters in Iowa to throw their support
to Senator Obama as their "second choice." 
So, it's Hillary, Obama, Edwards -- now what do we do? 
Two months ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked me to do a cover story where
I would ask the hard questions that no one was asking in one-on-one
interviews with Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards. "The Top Democrats
Face Off with Michael Moore." The deal was that all three candidates had
to agree to let me interview them or there was no story. Obama and Edwards
agreed. Mrs. Clinton said no, and the cover story was thus killed. 
Why would the love of my life, Hillary Clinton, not sit down to talk with
me? What was she afraid of? 
Those of you who are longtime readers of mine may remember that 11 years
ago I wrote a chapter (in my first book) entitled, "My Forbidden Love for
Hillary." I was fed up with the treatment she was getting, most of it
boringly sexist, and I thought somebody should stand up for her. I later
met her and she thanked me for referring to her as "one hot s***kicking
feminist babe." I supported and contributed to her run for the U.S.
Senate. I think she is a decent and smart person who loves this country,
cares deeply about kids, and has put up with more crap than anyone I know
of (other than me) from the Crazy Right. Her inauguration would be a
thrilling sight, ending 218 years of white male rule in a country where
51% of its citizens are female and 64% are either female or people of
color. 
And yet, I am sad to say, nothing has disappointed me more than the
disastrous, premeditated vote by Senator Hillary Clinton to send us to war
in Iraq. I'm not only talking about her first vote that gave Mr. Bush his
"authorization" to invade -- I'm talking about every single OTHER vote she
then cast for the next four years, backing and funding Bush's illegal war,
and doing so with verve. She never met a request from the White House for
war authorization that she didn't like. Unlike the Kerrys and the Bidens
who initially voted for authorization but later came to realize the folly
of their decision, Mrs. Clinton continued to cast numerous votes for the
war until last March -- four long years of pro-war votes, even after 70%
of the American public had turned against the war. She has steadfastly
refused to say that she was wrong about any of this, and she will not
apologize for her culpability in America's worst-ever foreign policy
disaster. All she can bring herself to say is that she was "misled" by
"faulty intelligence." 
Let's assume that's true. Do you want a President who is so easily misled?
I wasn't "misled," and millions of others who took to the streets in
February of 2003 weren't "misled" either. It was simply amazing that we
knew the war was wrong when none of us had been briefed by the CIA, none
of us were national security experts, and none of us had gone on a weapons
inspection tour of Iraq. And yet... we knew we were being lied to! Let me
ask those of you reading this letter: Were YOU "misled" -- or did you
figure it out sometime between October of 2002 and March of 2007 that
George W. Bush was up to something rotten? Twenty-three other senators
were smart enough to figure it out and vote against the war from the
get-go. Why wasn't Senator Clinton? 
I have a theory: Hillary knows the sexist country we still live in and
that one of the reasons the public, in the past, would never consider a
woman as president is because she would also be commander in chief. The
majority of Americans were concerned that a woman would not be as likely
to go to war as a man (horror of horrors!). So, in order to placate that
mindset, perhaps she believed she had to be as "tough" as a man, she had
to be willing to push The Button if necessary, and give the generals
whatever they wanted. If this is, in fact, what has motivated her pro-war
votes, then this would truly make her a scary first-term president. If the
U.S. is faced with some unforeseen threat in her first years, she knows
that in order to get re-elected she'd better be ready to go all Maggie
Thatcher on whoever sneezes in our direction. Do we want to risk this,
hoping the world makes it in one piece to her second term? 
I have not even touched on her other numerous -- and horrendous -- votes
in the Senate, especially those that have made the middle class suffer
even more (she voted for Bush's first bankruptcy bill, and she is now the
leading recipient of payoff money -- I mean campaign contributions -- from
the health care industry). I know a lot of you want to see her elected,
and there is a very good chance that will happen. There will be plenty of
time to vote for her in the general election if all the pollsters are
correct. But in the primaries and caucuses, isn't this the time to vote
for the person who most reflects the values and politics you hold dear?
Can you, in good conscience, vote for someone who so energetically voted
over and over and over again for the war in Iraq? Please give this serious
consideration. 
Now, on to the two candidates who did agree to do the interview with me... 
Barack Obama is a good and inspiring man. What a breath of fresh air!
There's no doubting his sincerity or his commitment to trying to
straighten things out in this country. But who is he? I mean, other than a
guy who gives a great speech? How much do any of us really know about him?
I know he was against the war. How do I know that? He gave a speech before
the war started. But since he joined the senate, he has voted for the
funds for the war, while at the same time saying we should get out. He
says he's for the little guy, but then he votes for a corporate-backed
bill to make it harder for the little guy to file a class action suit when
his kid swallows lead paint from a Chinese-made toy. In fact, Obama
doesn't think Wall Street is a bad place. He wants the insurance companies
to help us develop a new health care plan -- the same companies who have
created the mess in the first place. He's such a feel-good kinda guy, I
get the sense that, if elected, the Republicans will eat him for
breakfast. He won't even have time to make a good speech about it. 
But this may be a bit harsh. Senator Obama has a big heart, and that heart
is in the right place. Is he electable? Will more than 50% of America vote
for him? We'd like to believe they would. We'd like to believe America has
changed, wouldn't we? Obama lets us feel better about ourselves -- and as
we look out the window at the guy snowplowing his driveway across the
street, we want to believe he's changed, too. But are we dreaming? 
And then there's John Edwards. 
It's hard to get past the hair, isn't it? But once you do -- and recently
I have chosen to try -- you find a man who is out to take on the wealthy
and powerful who have made life so miserable for so many. A candidate who
says things like this: "I absolutely believe to my soul that this
corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our
democracy." Whoa. We haven't heard anyone talk like that in a while, at
least not anyone who is near the top of the polls. I suspect this is why
Edwards is doing so well in Iowa, even though he has nowhere near the
stash of cash the other two have. He won't take the big checks from the
corporate PACs, and he is alone among the top three candidates in agreeing
to limit his spending and be publicly funded. He has said, point-blank,
that he's going after the drug companies and the oil companies and anyone
else who is messing with the American worker. The media clearly find him
to be a threat, probably because he will go after their monopolistic
power, too. This is Roosevelt/Truman kind of talk. That's why it's
resonating with people in Iowa, even though he doesn't get the attention
Obama and Hillary get -- and that lack of coverage may cost him the first
place spot tomorrow night. After all, he is one of those white guys who's
been running things for far too long. 
And he voted for the war. But unlike Senator Clinton, he has stated quite
forcefully that he was wrong. And he has remorse. Should he be forgiven?
Did he learn his lesson? Like Hillary and Obama, he refused to promise in
a September debate that there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of
his first term in 2013. But this week in Iowa, he changed his mind. He
went further than Clinton and Obama and said he'd have all the troops home
in less than a year. 
Edwards is the only one of the three front-runners who has a universal
health care plan that will lead to the single-payer kind all other
civilized countries have. His plan doesn't go as fast as I would like, but
he is the only one who has correctly pointed out that the health insurance
companies are the enemy and should not have a seat at the table. 
I am not endorsing anyone at this point. This is simply how I feel in the
first week of the process to replace George W. Bush. For months I've been
wanting to ask the question, "Where are you, Al Gore?" You can only polish
that Oscar for so long. And the Nobel was decided by Scandinavians! I
don't blame you for not wanting to enter the viper pit again after you
already won. But getting us to change out our incandescent light bulbs for
some irritating fluorescent ones isn't going to save the world. All it's
going to do is make us more agitated and jumpy and feeling like once we
get home we haven't really left the office. 
On second thought, would you even be willing to utter the words, "I
absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate
power has an ironclad hold on our democracy?" 'Cause the candidate who
understands that, and who sees it as the root of all evil -- including the
root of global warming -- is the President who may lead us to a place of
sanity, justice and peace. 
Yours, 
Michael Moore (not an Iowa voter, but appreciative of any state that has a
town named after a sofa)
MMF...@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com 
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