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)
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. 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 fuck 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