Bad American

Michael Moore

Friends,

It would have to happen on Easter Sunday, wouldn’t it, that the 4,000th American soldier would die in Iraq. Play me that crazy preacher again, will you, about how maybe God, in all his infinite wisdom, may not exactly be blessing America these days. Is anyone surprised?

4,000 dead. Unofficial estimates are that there may be up to 100,000 wounded, injured, or mentally ruined by this war. And there could be up to a million Iraqi dead. We will pay the consequences of this for a long, long time. God will keep blessing America.

And where is Darth Vader in all this? A reporter from ABC News this week told Dick Cheney, in regards to Iraq, “two-thirds of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.” Cheney cut her off with a one word answer: “So?”

“So?” As in, “So what?” As in, “F*** you. I could care less.”

I would like every American to see Cheney flip the virtual bird at the them, the American people. Click here and pass it around. Then ask yourself why we haven’t risen up and thrown him and his puppet out of the White House.

Hey Michael Moore, thanks for the letter. I’ll answer your question here.

The reason the American people do nothing is that they have been trained to do nothing. The most patriotic thing any American has been asked to do in the last 50 years (other than put a flag in the window) is to go shopping. Most Americans have no concept whatsoever of self-sacrifice for a cause or any knowledge of organizing such a movement. Most people are too busy trying to save themselves and their families in this failing economy to worry about such things.

The second reason is that the government and their business allies have intimidated them into inaction and silence. Having lost two jobs for speaking out against this criminal behavior, I can attest to that. If you’re in a cozy financial position where you have nothing at risk for speaking out, it’s one thing. But most Americans have to put food on the table and most employers, having money, are conservatives and don’t want your ‘un-patriotic’ political opinions to infect their workplaces. You learn to keep your damn mouth shut because your neighbor might enlighten your boss about your political opinions and, well, there’s this little thing called ‘employment at will’ so you know the drill.

The third reason is that the people know that they are being watched and recorded. The government, through the Patriot Act and other well-publicized news stories about going through library records and infiltrating peace group meetings and such, has made it clear that all dissent will be recorded and used against you at some future date. The no-fly list? No it doesn’t protect us against ‘terrorism.’ It wasn’t meant to. It was a method of social intimidation. People know that the President can send them to Guantanamo where they can be held without charges. Sure, the odds it will happen to you are slim - now. But what if there is some kind of future emergency? We rounded up the ‘potentially disloyal’ Japanese under the benevolent FDR - Americans sure as hell know it can happen again.

So why put a bullseye on your back? Hopefully St. Barack will put everything right again.

No, Americans are not going to do anything until a critical mass of them have little left to lose personally. And we’re still a long way off from that and even then they won’t know what exactly to do anyway. And how many of them would be willing to turn their deer rifles against the Blackwater ninjas?

1776 was a long, long time ago.