Home > It’s Time to Stop Being Hit...a letter from Michael Moore

It’s Time to Stop Being Hit...a letter from Michael Moore

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 15 December 2004
16 comments

Edito Movement Elections-Elected USA


by Michael Moore

Dear Friends,

It is no surprise that the Republicans are sore winners. They have spent the better part of the past month beating their chests, threatening to send to Siberia any Republican who doesn’t toe the line (poor Arlen Specter), and promising everything short of martial law if the Democrats don’t do what they are told.

What’s worse is to watch the pathetic sight of the DLC (the conservative, pro-corporate group of Democrats) apologizing for being Democrats and promising to “purge” the party of the likes of, well, all of US! Their comments are so hilarious and really not even worth recognizing but the media is paying so much attention to them, I thought it might be worth doing a little reality check.

The most people the DLC is able to get out to an event of theirs is about 200 at their annual dinner (where you have to pay thousands of dollars to get in).

Contrast this with the following:

– Total members of Move On: More than 2,000,000
– Total Attendance at Vote for Change Concerts: An estimated 280,000
– Total Union Members in U.S.: Around 16,000,000
– Total Number of People Who Have Seen “Fahrenheit 9/11”: Over 50 million
– Total number of you reading this: Perhaps 10 million or more

The days of trying to move the Democratic Party to the right are over. We lost a very close election (a one-state difference) by running the #1 liberal in the Senate. Not bad. The country is shifting in our direction, not to the right. But the country was attacked and people were scared. They were manipulated with fear. And America has never thrown a sitting president out during wartime. That’s the facts. Oh, and our candidate could have run a better campaign (but we’ll have that discussion another day).

In the meantime, while we reflect on what went wrong, I would like to pass on to you an essay that a friend who works with abuse victims sent to me. It was written by a woman who has spent years working as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse and she sees many parallels between her work and the reaction of many Democrats to last month’s election. Her name is Mel Giles and here is what she had to say...

Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the ‘new’ language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"

And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.

They will tell you: Every single day.

The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence.

As victims we can’t stop asking ourselves what we did wrong. We can’t seem to grasp that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating.

Listen to George Bush say that the will of God excuses his behavior. Listen, as he refuses to take responsibility, or express remorse, or even once, admit a mistake. Watch him strut, and tell us that he will only work with those who agree with him, and that each of us is only allowed one question (soon, it will be none at all; abusers hit hard when questioned; the press corps can tell you that). See him surround himself with only those who pledge oaths of allegiance. Hear him tell us that if we will only listen and do as he says and agree with his every utterance, all will go well for us (it won’t; we will never be worthy).

And watch the Democratic Party leadership walk on eggshells, try to meet him, please him, wash the windows better, get out that spot, distance themselves from gays and civil rights. See the Democrats cry for the attention and affection and approval of the President and his followers. Watch us squirm. Watch us descend into a world of crazy-making, where logic does not work and the other side tells us we are nuts when we rely on facts. A world where, worst of all, we begin to believe we are crazy.

How to break free? Again, the answer is quite simple.

First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don’t do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don’t do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring its over faster and hurts less if you don’t resist and fight back.

Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 57 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you’ve learned, and that you aren’t going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 57 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it’s better than the abuse.

We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered. We are 57 million strong. We are building from the bottom up. We are meeting, on the net, in church basements, at work, in small groups, and right now, we are crying, because we are trying to break free and we don’t know how.

Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: Stop responding to the abuser.

Don’t let him dictate the terms or frame the debate (he’ll win, not because he’s right, but because force works). Sure, we can build a better grassroots campaign, cultivate and raise up better leaders, reform the election system to make it fail-proof, stick to our message, learn from the strategy of the other side. But we absolutely must dispense with the notion that we are weak, godless, cowardly, disorganized, crazy, too liberal, naive, amoral, "loose,” irrelevant, outmoded, stupid and soon to be extinct. We have the mandate of the world to back us, and the legacy of oppressed people throughout history.

Even if you do everything right, they’ll hit you anyway. Look at the poor souls who voted for this nonsense. They are working for six dollars an hour if they are working at all, their children are dying overseas and suffering from lack of health care and a depleted environment and a shoddy education.

And they don’t even know they are being hit.

How true. And that is our challenge over the next couple of years; to hold out our hand to those being hit the hardest and help them leave behind a party that only seeks to keep beating them, their children, and the kid next door who’s on his way to Iraq.

Yours,

Michael Moore

www.michaelmoore.com

MMFlint@aol.com

– http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/m...

Forum posts

  • It’s so nice to hear some sanity for a change.

    I agree with Michael Moore, we need to be much more ourselves.

    Kow-towing to these people will get you nowhere fast.

    • Sanity and Michael Moore can’t be used in the same context.

      Agreeing with Moore means you’re incapable of thinking for yourself.

      Kowtowing to the likes of Moore already means you’re going backwards, since there’s nothing "progressive" about his agenda except to promote his narcissism and nihilism.

      Moore’s lying about the chest-thumping and gloating going on, then again when has he EVER been honest about anything?

      (deafening silence)

      Yeah right, Mikey - the neocon cabal is out to destroy you Demo leftys who refuse to toe the line. You’ve gone from being a pompous, lying shitsack to being a paranoid conspiracy therorist, seemingly overnight.

      Mikey, don’t waste your time trying to figure out what went wrong, because it’s patently obvious - Kerry was hopelessly out of touch with the majority of voters, and ran a negative campaign against an incumbent. I’m now thoroughly convinced that you are as stupid as you are fat.

    • To Rush, Bill, or Sean,

      I’m just trying to ascertain which one of you pompous lying shitsacks wrote this drivel and why you consistently cannot connect legitimate facts with your arguments, but must rely on adolescent name-calling.

    • To Al Franken, Paul Krugman or Arianna Huffington,

      I’m also trying to ascertain which one one of you leftist cumguzzling fuckweasels took time from their busy day to read this. Apparently, ad hominems aren’t above you, either. What good does legitimate "facts" do for someone, such as yourself, since you’ve historically choose to discard them because your minds have been made up?

    • Only in USA you will see the president make a movie with his dog,lol. He should save the tax payers money for either duct tape or Hummer repair in Irak. Get a life, stop living like sheeps.

      I feel sorry for you guys.

      Joe Dirt

    • Are you trying to say that agreeing with George W. Bush is sane?

      Further do you feel that you are capable of thinking for yourself? Kowtowing? Narcissism and nihilism?

      It seems this site is organized for world reform and the search for truth. Since you are so thrilled with your illegitimate president why bother to be here? Are you disturbed that more than half the American population hasn’t "kowtowed" to Dubya? Perhaps you are more disturbed that you have.

      Bush has shit on the heads of the American people and some of you think it’s a hot fudge sundae.

  • Congratulations, jackass. You’ve just managed to prove Moore’s point about abusers. Leave it to a fascist, right-wing dickhead to show the world that he has nothing to offer but the party line of his illegal, bullshit president.

    • Dear Shitstain,

      Exactly what are you offering? Defending Moore’s depraved analogy illustrates a mental image of you I’d rather not describe.

      Perhaps you’d earn more credibility if you didn’t use the new addition to your ordinarily monosyllabic vernacular like fascist as often. Furthermore, ad hominems further detract from your ability to compile a convincing rebuttal and detract from your credibility. Of course, you probably flunked out of or skipped debate class in high school...

      Kindly reinsert your cranium back to your alimentary canal and waddle away. The oxygen deprivation shouldn’t affect that malignant lump inside your cranium, since its condition passed tertiary stage and has now atrophied.

    • Shitstain? A subject upon which you prove your expertise as here you offer up a mouthful of vacant bullshit coming from a pompous ass.

  • Kind of funny, but also creepy. Basically Kerry lost on abortion. How does the abuser analogy address that?

    p.s. The only sector that increased its GOP vote from 2000 was white women, who swung the election. Go figure.

    • Kerry didn’t loose.

      The election was stolen.

      Not that I voted for Kerry,.

      Not that I would ever vote for him.

      But he did win, because there are more who believe what is happening in the world somehow just does not feel right, and Kerry seemed the only choice.

      Of course, that was already taken care of. The election manipulated by the few, those some that Bev Harris speaks briefly about, the ones who have worked themselves into the real positions, where the seen and unseen is manipulated, the few who do not have the nation’s peoples interest at heart.

      This is where fiction become reality folks.

      And the reality-based folks, well don’t forget that those who write the fiction, do give us messages,
      and portents.

      So we are here now, alone.

      Don’t be alone.

      Get together in your small groups, and go from there.

      It is going to be a hard, chilling, and life-rewarding struggle.

      But what choice do we have?

    • i’ll never say what i’ve seen at the dawns early light,cuz this land is still our land and lands not left or right

  • What about this comming year stop making our tax deductions, by law you are not obligated to pay taxes every month, not until the end of the year....lets all stop accepting tax deductions from our paychecks....lets leave bush without any money to spend!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    I want to see putting us all in jail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    susie

  • America is a one party system. Michael Moore has wasted his voice and his credibility by supporting Kerry.

    • Totally agree, Michael Moore can be a bit naive with his Kerry fawning, but then it’s the ’’anyone but Bush syndrome’’ The corporates pick their candidates to create the ILLUSION of CHOICE so we think WOW this is Democracy!! Will he win or will he win? Oh its so close...I think... FUCKING NO!!! There IS NO CHOICE. There IS NO CHOICE.

      ’’Oh shall we be fucked by the Shaggy lookalike out of Scooby Do or the Human /Chimp crossbreed ??? Which multi millionaire shall we pick that isn’t GOING TO MAKE THE SLIGHTEST DIFFERENCE TO OUR LIVES ??

      ’’Well I want ANYONE but BUSH’’

      Tough shit you’re gonna have BUSH again, and we fixed it but we’re so arrogant we’ll even give you a sniff that it was fraud. That’ll take your minds off the FACT that YOU HAVE NO REAL CHOICE, BUT.. BUT YOU FEEL CHEATED because you wanted KERRY.

    • No administration in U.S. history has attacked our environment so completely, enthusiastically, and quietly. Much of the damage Bush is doing, sadly, will not be fixable. Not only is he attacking "public" land for corporate greed but he is working on taking public comment out of the process and changing laws so that we the people will not even be able to address environmental problems at the local level. He also has no problem allowing corporations to dump poison into our land, air, and water. How do Bush supporter’s feel about cancer? Even if an appreciation and respect for our beautiful planet and natural world has somehow escaped you, surely, you don’t consider poison to be positive. If you are not aware of the environmental damage being done, you should educate yourself. It is massive!
      I agree, the choices are very limited and I have wanted to do away with a two party system for years, however, Bush has proved himself to be evil and the puppet of evil doers. At least Kerry supports maintaining some controls over the capitalization of our hijacked media.
      Unfortuneately, the election was stolden and Kerry did not stand up for justice as he should have. Very disappointing and perhaps fuel for your point (no real choice). However, Bush is the worst possible choice!

      I’d also like to speak to the abusive nature of some of the comments made by anti-Moore people. You kind of made his point for him.