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Michael
Moore Här är en "kolumn" från Michael Moore. Där han vill uppmana alla krigsmotståndare inom landet att fortsätta, att våga och även visa att man t ex både han och Dixi Chicks klarar sig - rentav sålt bättre - fastän de sagt vad de tyckte. "returning home alive and all of us need to reach out and let their families know that." My
Oscar "Backlash": "Stupid White Men" Back At #1,
"Bowling" Breaks New Records! April
7, 2003 Dear
friends, It
appears that the Bush administration will have succeeded in colonizing Iraq
sometime in the next few days. This is a blunder of such magnitude -- and we
will pay for it for years to come. It was not worth the life of one single
American kid in uniform, let alone the thousands of Iraqis who have died, and my
condolences and prayers go out to all of them. So,
where are all those weapons of mass destruction that were the pretense for this
war? Ha! There is so much to say about all this, but I will save it for later. What
I am most concerned about right now is that all of you -- the majority of
Americans who did not support this war in the first place -- not go silent or be
intimidated by what will be touted as some great military victory. Now, more
than ever, the voices of peace and truth must be heard. I have received a lot of
mail from people who are feeling a profound sense of despair and believe that
their voices have been drowned out by the drums and bombs of false patriotism.
Some are afraid of retaliation at work or at school or in their neighborhoods
because they have been vocal proponents of peace. They have been told over and
over that it is not "appropriate" to protest once the country is at
war, and that your only duty now is to "support the troops." Can
I share with you what it's been like for me since I used my time on the Oscar
stage two weeks ago to speak out against Bush and this war? I hope that, in
reading what I'm about to tell you, you'll feel a bit more emboldened to make
your voice heard in whatever way or forum that is open to you. When
"Bowling for Columbine" was announced as the Oscar winner for Best
Documentary at the Academy Awards, the audience rose to its feet. It was a great
moment, one that I will always cherish. They were standing and cheering for a
film that says we Americans are a uniquely violent people, using our massive
stash of guns to kill each other and to use them against many countries around
the world. They were applauding a film that shows George W. Bush using
fictitious fears to frighten the public into giving him whatever he wants. And
they were honoring a film that states the following: The first Gulf War was an
attempt to reinstall the dictator of Kuwait; Saddam Hussein was armed with
weapons from the United States; and the American government is responsible for
the deaths of a half-million children in Iraq over the past decade through its
sanctions and bombing. That was the movie they were cheering, that was the movie
they voted for, and so I decided that is what I should acknowledge in my speech. And,
thus, I said the following from the Oscar stage: "On
behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan (from Canada), I
would like to thank the Academy for this award. I have invited the other
Documentary nominees on stage with me. They are here in solidarity because we
like non-fiction. We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious times. We
live in a time where fictitious election results give us a fictitious president.
We are now fighting a war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of
duct tape or the fictitious 'Orange Alerts,' we are against this war, Mr. Bush.
Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And, whenever you've got the Pope and the
Dixie Chicks against you, you're time is up." Halfway
through my remarks, some in the audience started to cheer. That immediately set
off a group of people in the balcony who started to boo. Then those supporting
my remarks started to shout down the booers. The L. A. Times reported that the
director of the show started screaming at the orchestra "Music!
Music!" in order to cut me off, so the band dutifully struck up a tune and
my time was up. (For more on why I said what I said, you can read the op-ed I
wrote for the L.A. Times, plus other reaction from around the country at my
website www.michaelmoore.com) The
next day -- and in the two weeks since -- the right-wing pundits and radio shock
jocks have been calling for my head. So, has all this ruckus hurt me? Have they
succeeded in "silencing" me? Well,
take a look at my Oscar "backlash": --
On the day after I criticized Bush and the war at the Academy Awards, attendance
at "Bowling for Columbine" in theaters around the country went up 110%
(source: Daily Variety/BoxOfficeMojo.com). The following weekend, the box office
gross was up a whopping 73% (Variety). It is now the longest-running consecutive
commercial release in America, 26 weeks in a row and still thriving. The number
of theaters showing the film since the Oscars has INCREASED, and it has now
bested the previous box office record for a documentary by nearly 300%. --
Yesterday (April 6), "Stupid White Men" shot back to #1 on the New
York Times bestseller list. This is my book's 50th week on the list, 8 of them
at number one, and this marks its fourth return to the top position, something
that virtually never happens. --
In the week after the Oscars, my website was getting 10-20 million hits A DAY (one
day we even got more hits than the White House!). The mail has been
overwhelmingly positive and supportive (and the hate mail has been hilarious!). --
In the two days following the Oscars, more people pre-ordered the video for
"Bowling for Columbine" on Amazon.com than the video for the Oscar
winner for Best Picture, "Chicago". --
In the past week, I have obtained funding for my next documentary, and I have
been offered a slot back on television to do an updated version of "TV
Nation"/ "The Awful Truth." I
tell you all of this because I want to counteract a message that is told to us
all the time -- that, if you take a chance to speak out politically, you will
live to regret it. It will hurt you in some way, usually financially. You could
lose your job. Others may not hire you. You will lose friends. And on and on and
on. Take
the Dixie Chicks. I'm sure you've all heard by now that, because their lead
singer mentioned how she was ashamed that Bush was from her home state of Texas,
their record sales have "plummeted" and country stations are
boycotting their music. The truth is that their sales are NOT down. This week,
after all the attacks, their album is still at #1 on the Billboard country
charts and, according to Entertainment Weekly, on the pop charts during all the
brouhaha, they ROSE from #6 to #4. In the New York Times, Frank Rich reports
that he tried to find a ticket to ANY of the Dixie Chicks' upcoming concerts but
he couldn't because they were all sold out. (To read Rich's column from
yesterday's Times, "Bowling for Kennebunkport," go here: http://www.michaelmoore.com/articles/index.php?article=20030406-nytime s.
He does a pretty good job of laying it all out and talks about my next film and
the impact it could potentially have.) Their song, "Travelin' Soldier"
(a beautiful anti-war ballad) was the most requested song on the internet last
week. They have not been hurt at all -- but that is not what the media would
have you believe. Why is that? Because there is nothing more important now than
to keep the voices of dissent -- and those who would dare to ask a question --
SILENT. And what better way than to try and take a few well-known entertainers
down with a pack of lies so that the average Joe or Jane gets the message loud
and clear: "Wow, if they would do that to the Dixie Chicks or Michael
Moore, what would they do to little ol' me?" In other words, shut the f---
up. And
that, my friends, is the real point of this film that I just got an Oscar for --
how those in charge use FEAR to manipulate the public into doing whatever they
are told. Well,
the good news -- if there can be any good news this week -- is that not only
have neither I nor others been silenced, we have been joined by millions of
Americans who think the same way we do. Don't let the false patriots intimidate
you by setting the agenda or the terms of the debate. Don't be defeated by polls
that show 70% of the public in favor of the war. Remember that these Americans
being polled are the same Americans whose kids (or neighbor's kids) have been
sent over to Iraq. They are scared for the troops and they are being cowed
into supporting a war they did not want -- and they want even less to see their
friends, family, and neighbors come home dead. Everyone supports the troops
returning home alive and all of us need to reach out and let their families know
that. Unfortunately,
Bush and Co. are not through yet. This invasion and conquest will encourage them
to do it again elsewhere. The real purpose of this war was to say to the rest of
the world, "Don't Mess with Texas - If You Got What We Want, We're Coming
to Get It!" This is not the time for the majority of us who believe in a
peaceful America to be quiet. Make your voices heard. Despite what they have
pulled off, it is still our country. Yours, Michael
Moore |