... a letter from Michael Moore ...

"President Romney" – How to Prevent Those Two Words From Ever Being Spoken ...a letter from Michael Moore

Thursday, September 6th, 2012


Friends,

In two months we Americans will go to the polls once again to decide who the president will be for the next four years. We will not be allowed to vote on those who wield the true power in this country. On November 6th we will not vote for the chairman of ExxonMobil or JPMorgan Chase or Citibank or the Premier of China. That day will come, but not this year.



Now, I know there are a goodly number of you out there who believe there's not a snowball's chance in Kenya that Barack Obama will not be re-elected to the White House. And why would you believe otherwise? After the incredible Democratic convention this week, with the best rock-em-sock-em speeches I've heard from a Democrat's mouth since … since, I don't know when. You can't help but not have a contact high after this past week if you are of the sort who believes in economic justice, peace, and a five-dollar latte. Right now, with the buzz on, you are sitting there thinking that your fellow Americans will turn out in massive numbers, either because they want to continue the Obama era or because they're scared shitless of the barbarians at the gate – or both. You're convinced that the Republicans have blown it with all their talk of the lady parts they want to control even though we now know that they have no idea where those parts are, what they are, or how they work.



Yes, it certainly looks like the voters will reject this obscenely wealthy man called Romney — Romney of Michigan/Massachusetts/New Hampshire/Utah/Zurich/Grand Cayman — this man who will not explain exactly how all his wealth was obtained, where he keeps it, or how much taxes he pays on it. He wants to turn the clock back to the '50s – the 1850s – and he refuses to offer any specific plan about what he'll do about anything. He wants to run the country like a corporation but he can't even control one 82-year-old actor on his own convention stage, a Hollywood legend who, in the matter of ten and a half minutes went from Good (walking onto the stage) to Bad (talking to a chair) and then to Ugly (the chair started … swearing?). It was better than the best cat-flushing-the-toilet video on YouTube and it was a gift to all of us who know that Romney is doomed come November.


Or is he?

Last week, I said on the HuffPost Live webcast that we had all better start practicing how to say "President Romney" because, living in Michigan, I can tell you that there's trouble here on the two peninsulas and it's not just because Romney is a native son or that we like to watch kids from Cranbrook chase down gay kids and chop their hair off. One recent poll here showed Romney leading Obama by four points! How can that be? Didn't Obama save Detroit?



No, he didn't. He saved General Motors and Chrysler. "Detroit" (and Flint and Pontiac and Saginaw) are not defined by the global corporations who suck our towns dry and then split town to make more money elsewhere (except, of course, they continued to design and built crap cars, so eventually they didn't make the money at all). These cities in Michigan are about the people who live here, and in the process of "saving Detroit," Mr. Obama had to fire thousands of these people, and reduce the benefits and pensions of those who were left. There's a lot of pissed off people in Michigan (and Wisconsin and Ohio), people who weren't saved even though the corporation was. I'm just stating a fact, and those of you who don't live here should know this.



The other problem facing us this election (spoiler alert – angry white guys may want to stop reading right now) … is race. We all fear there's probably a good 40% of the country who simply do not want a black man in the Oval Office. In fact, in 2008, Obama lost the white vote. He lost every white age group except young people (18-29). And yet he still won by 10 million votes! The optimistic secret the Obama people know is that only about 70% of the voters in November will be white. So if he can win just 35-40% of them, and then get a massive majority of people of color, he can win re-election. There is no question in my mind that Obama is more popular than Romney and if everyone could vote from their couch like they do for American Idol, Obama would win hands down. As I have said before, we live in a liberal country. The majority of Americans (who do not call themselves "liberal") now support most of the liberal agenda – they're for gay marriage, they're pro-choice, they're anti-war, they believe there's global warming, and they hate Wall Street for what it has done to them and their neighbors. The Republicans know this: that we, the majority, will have sex when we want and with whom we want, will read and watch whatever we want when we want, will use marijuana if we want and if we don't want to then we certainly don't want our friends who do to be throw into prison. We are sick and tired of being poisoned, by chemicals or propaganda, we think the Palestinians have been given a raw deal and we want our friggin' jobs back! The Christian Right (and their Wall Street funders) know this all too well – America has turned, and there's no going back to not loving someone because of the color of their skin or expecting women to cede control of their bodies to a bunch of Neanderthals. So, what's a Rightie to do now that we've turned the joint into Sodom and G? They have to suppress the vote! They have to stop as many liberals from voting as possible. So they've passed many voter suppression laws to make it hard for the poor, the minorities, the disabled and students to vote. They honestly believe they call pull this off – and they just may. The only "positive" thing about this is that their need to have such laws in order to win the election is an admission on the part of the Republicans that they know the U.S. Is a liberal country and that the only way they can now win now is to cheat. Trust me, if they believed that America was a right-wing country they'd be passing laws making it so easy to vote you could do it in the checkout line at Walmart.



But the voting on November 6th will not take place at Walmart or on any potato's couch. It can only happen by going to a polling place – and, not to state the obvious, the side that gets the most people physically out to the polls that day, wins. We know the Republicans are spending tens of millions of dollars to make sure this very thing happens. They have built a colossal get-out-the-vote machine for election day, and the sheer force of their tsunami of hate stands ready to overwhelm us like nothing we've ever seen before. Those of us in the Midwest got a taste of it in 2008. Traditionally Democratic states – all of which voted for Obama – saw our state legislatures and governor seats hijacked by this well-oiled machine. We didn't know what hit us, but these new Republicans wasted no time in dismantling some of the very basic thing we hold dear. Wisconsin fought back – but even that huge grassroots uprising was not enough to stop the governor bought and paid for by the Koch brothers. It was a wake up call, for sure – but have we really woken up?



It's been a great week in Charlotte, and I'm getting ready now to watch Barack Obama give his speech. It's OK for us to take a couple days to high-five each other, but I cannot stress enough to you that unless you and I are doing something every day for the next 60 days to get people out to vote, then there is a chance we will all be saying "President Romney" come January. Don't think it can't happen. Hate, sad to say, at least in America these days, is a far greater motivator than love and feelin' groovy.



For those of us who believe that the history of the Democrats and the Republicans is to do the bidding of the 1% (Obama's #1 private contributor in '08 were the people at Goldman Sachs), and that while the Dems are a kinder/gentler bunch, they are also just as quick to want to take us to war and sell us out to the corporate interests (and, yes, Obamacare is a $$ gift to the insurance companies; only a single-payer system will stop that), this election is a bit of a bitter pill. We were hugely disappointed when President Obama didn't charge out of the gate after his inauguration and undo the damage that had been done (as FDR did in his first hundred days) – and only when Wall Street stopped writing him the big campaign checks this past year did he get his mojo back and start fighting the fight that needs to be fought. He's a good and decent person (when he's not sending in drones to kill Pakistani civilians or prosecuting government whistleblowers), and his election four years ago was a high point of such emotional intensity I just couldn't get over how hopeful I was that this country had changed and we had found our moral footing. Reality set in a few weeks later when he put Tim Geithner and Larry Summers in charge of economic policy and then he changed his mind about closing Gitmo.



OK, so people like me, just once in our lifetime, would like to get our way all the time! Is that too much to ask? Of course, there is a different question that is in the air now — shall we give the country back to the crowd who gave the country to the 1%? I think not. So let's join in with our liberal majority and be fierce and relentless in these next two months. Let's spend this time educating people what we mean when we say things like "single-payer" and "Blackwater." Politics and the fate of the nation (and the world – sorry, world) are on the front burner and those of us who want to wrestle control of our society out of the hands of the few can take healthy advantage of these coming weeks. Don't sit it out. Don't try to convince anyone Obama has magically transformed us – just tell them four years is simply not enough time to undo all the hurt caused by biggest economic crash since the Great Depression and the biggest military blunder/lie in our history.



I'm going to go with my optimistic side here (sorry, cynics, you know I love you) and imagine a Second Term Obama (and a Democratically-controlled Congress) who will go after all the good that our people deserve and put the power of our democracy back in our hands. There's good reason why the Right is terrified of a Second Term Obama because that is exactly what they think he'll do: the real Obama will appear and take us down the road to social justice and tolerance and a leveling of the economic playing field. For once, I'd like to say I agree with the Right – and I sincerely hope their worst nightmare does come true.



Yours,

Michael Moore

MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com

@MMFlint

MichaelMoore.com

... da LeG ...

Settembre, andiamo, è ancora tempo... di rinnovare l'iscrizione a Libertà e Giustizia o, per chi ci segue attraverso le newsletter, di farlo per la prima volta. Quote annuali per i soci studenti da 10 euro. Grazie per il vostro sostegno!


La carta di LeG


Grazie a tutti i soci e amici che, durante il mese d'agosto, ci hanno inviato i loro contributi per compilare le “priorità irrinunciabili” che LeG chiederà alle forze politiche di condividere. Alcuni, la maggioranza, suggeriscono i provvedimenti più urgenti da adottare in vista delle elezioni del 2013; altri propongono punti programmatici per il prossimo governo. Oltre ai commenti che potete leggere sul sito, stiamo elaborando una sintesi quelli arrivati via email. I suggerimenti e le proposte verranno discussi con gli organi direttivi dell’associazione: Comitato dei Garanti, Consiglio di presidenza e di direzione.

E a proposito di priorità, Tommaso, un ragazzo di 16 anni, manda una lettera accorata a Sandra Bonsanti. Sul vuoto politico con cui in particolare le giovani generazioni, comprese quelle dei “giovanissimi”, debbono oggi fare i conti. Ha ragione il presidente Zagrebelsky, scrive Tommaso, a dire che la politica ha perso due, tre generazioni. E, se proprio LeG non potesse presentare una propria lista alle prossime elezioni, che almeno si impegni a stilare una lista di obiettivi che in nome della società civile vengano perseguiti dal nuovo esecutivo. Anche per lui lavoreremo alla nostra carta.

Primarie e legge elettorale

Tutti matti per le primarie? Non proprio. Mentre persino Berlusconi, letti gli ultimi disastrosi sondaggi sulla sua ri-discesa in campo, sta pensando di indire consultazioni per il prossimo candidato premier, in casa Pd si sono accesi i fuochi poco amici contro Matteo Renzi. Eppure, sottolinea nel suo articolo Arturo Meli, ci sarebbe la necessità di una sfida seria, aperta, senza trucchi. C’è la crisi dell’euro. Ci sono le crisi industriali che minacciano migliaia di lavoratori. C’è da governare il mondo della flessibilità, il rischio d’impresa, la precarietà. C’è il grande campo dei diritti civili. Qui dovrebbero misurarsi le diverse opzioni. Il Pd non può rinchiudersi a riccio, in attesa della vittoria elettorale.



Il dibattito tra i partiti sulla legge elettorale, nonostante i continui annunci su svolte positive, è sempre al palo. Ma che almeno, scrive Sergio Romano sul Corriere, se proprio si dovesse tornare a votare con il Porcellum, non ci siano nelle liste persone impresentabili. Come LeG ha già chiesto nel suo comunicato “Nella legge elettorale da subito le norme sulla incandidabilità”.

La scuola di Poppi

Ancora pochissimi posti per la scuola estiva di LeG “Segreto, ipocrisia, menzogna e corruzione. La democrazia vilipesa”. Iscrizioni aperte fino al 9 settembre.


Associazione Libertà e Giustizia

viale Col di Lana 12 - 20136 Milano MI

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... da Pierre ...

Grazie Renè,


naturalmente ho trovato queste tue parole importanti:"... forse potrebbe essere giunto anche per me il momento di iniziare un cammino di avvicinamento ad una fede vissuta con più partecipazione, nel confronto con altri esseri ..." anch'io ti risponderò con più calma ne WE

Pierre
in alto le vele...

... a Pierre ...

... non voglio far passare troppo tempo dal tuo scritto ad una mia prima risposta, e quindi tento una riflessione, che, ahimè, mi appare alquanto povera ed inadeguata:
... in questo periodo la mia mente è dominata da pensieri tristi di rinuncia e rassegnazione, mi sento sconfitto su tutta la linea ed assisto al disfacersi dei miei sogni, dei miei progetti, mi sento come quell'uccello che, con le ali inzaccherate, non riesce a librarsi al di sopra della superficie livida di una palude, ed anzi ad ogni movimento ha la sensazione di sprofondare un po' di più ...
con questi stati d'animo, lo confesso, mi capita di avere dei moti di rabbiosa rivolta nei confronti del nostro massimo Creatore, moti di cui naturalmente mi pento amaramente, riconoscendone l'assoluta follia ...
... forse potrebbe essere giunto anche per me il momento di iniziare un cammino di avvicinamento ad una fede vissuta con più partecipazione, nel confronto con altri esseri ...
... chiudo qui per ora queste poche righe, riservandomi di ritornare sull'argomento, conscio che anche questo tentativo di introspezione potrebbe essermi d'aiuto ...

... da Pierre ...

Renè ti invio una prima riflessione sulla spiritualità, pensaci su e scrivi sul tuo blog cosa ne pensi. Fallo diventare un tuo cammino di riflessione sulla fede.

Merci beaucoup.
Pierre
**********************************************
IL MIO SENSO DI SPIRITUALITA'


Come già detto, in altri scritti, ho una concezione panteistica di Dio, (definita per riflessione), non antropomorfizzata, che non mi da un senso dell’esistere, una sicurezza nell’aldilà e nel giudizio sulle nostre azioni nella vita terrena, non considero che l’Universo abbia un suo scopo.

Con queste concezioni debbo trovare un senso dell’esistere, nel mentre che scrivo mi viene, di nuovo, in mente, e si rafforza, il concetto che una maggiore spiritualità e un senso dell’esistenza si possano trovare nel cambiare la propria vita reale, le proprie azioni e utilizzare le nuove esperienze come ulteriori strumenti di riflessione.

Le nuove azioni della vita, in un ambiente differente, possono portare, anche con le esperienze con altri ad ulteriori riflessioni.

Il nostro concetto di spiritualità deve misurarsi con le azioni della nostra vita.

Come può essere possibile un incontro con altri?

Penso prima di tutto, su di un’alta spiritualità!

Che si sia religiosi, panteisti, agnostici, animisti, feticisti, atei, newage etc…, si dovrebbe avere, sempre secondo me, un grande senso spirituale, che ci avvicina agli altri e al mondo, senza chiusure ne dogmi.

Nel mio caso, e penso anche per altri, il tema è poter trovare una Comunità di Base Aperta, dove si possa vivere in spiritualità, ricercare ed incontrarsi su ciò che unisce.

Tra le fisionomie spirituali, che ho elencato prima, vi sono alcune che credono in entità superiori, seppure in modo differente, una che si pone la domanda, ma non ha ancora formulata una risposta o pensa che non si possa darla, una che pensa, nettamente, che non esista Dio o qualsiasi altra entità superiore.

Ma tutte queste fisionomie possono trovarsi insieme, guardando alla spiritualità, nel rispetto per il prossimo, in un cammino di pace, di rispetto per l’ambiente, in un nuovo ecumenismo, aperto a tutti gli esseri spirituali.

Se non vi sono Comunità di Base aperte a tutti, anche in divenire, si tratta di far un percorso di creazione di questi luoghi e spazi, per una vita in comune, di persone con diverse concezioni della spiritualità, mantenendosi, comunque disponibili al dialogo con le Comunità, strettamente, confessionali.

... contento, Pierre? ...

divertente!! ...

... september ...

... una canzone per iniziare un nuovo mese ... e non dico altro ...