YES WE CAN! SI SE PUEDE!
My Vote’s for Obama (if I could vote) …by Michael Moore

April 21st, 2008

Friends,

I don’t get to vote for President this primary season. I live
in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.)
couldn’t get their act together, and thus our votes will not
be counted.

So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will
you please cast my vote — and yours — on Tuesday for Senator
Barack Obama?

I haven’t spoken publicly ’til now as to who I would vote for,
primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most
people I know) don’t give a rat’s ass whose name is on the
ballot in November, as long as there’s a picture of JFK and
FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word
“Democratic” next to the candidate’s name.

Seriously, I know so many people who don’t care if the name
under the Big “D” is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It
can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two
months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone
from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I
guess the debate last week was the final straw. I’ve watched
Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to
the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she
hurled the name “Farrakhan” out of nowhere, well that’s when
the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the “F”
word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama
has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator
Clinton, Obama’s pastor does — AND the “church bulletin” once
included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas!
No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained
the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if
Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the
Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth,
that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Yes, Senator Clinton, that’s how you sounded. Like you were
nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity.
How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you.
You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And
now to throw it all away for an office you can’t win unless
you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry
“Uncle (Tom)” and give it all to you.

But that can’t happen. You cast your die when you voted to
start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses
who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited
from entering the Promised Land.

How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman
elected to the White House. That day will come — but it won’t
be you. We’ll have to wait for the current Democratic governor
of Kansas to run in 2016 (you read it here first!).

There are those who say Obama isn’t ready, or he’s voted wrong
on this or that. But that’s looking at the trees and not the
forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a
profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement
is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.

That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man.
But what’s going on is bigger than him at this point, and
that’s a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in
November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert
and active. Corporate America is not going to give up their
hold on our government just because we say so. President Obama
is going to need a nation of millions to stand behind him.

I know some of you will say, ‘Mike, what have the Democrats
done to deserve our vote?’ That’s a damn good question. In
November of ‘06, the country loudly sent a message that we
wanted the war to end. Yet the Democrats have done nothing. So
why should we be so eager to line up happily behind them?

I’ll tell you why. Because I can’t stand one more friggin’
minute of this administration and the permanent, irreversible
damage it has done to our people and to this world. I’m almost
at the point where I don’t care if the Democrats don’t have a
backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little
heads. Just as long as their name ain’t “Bush” and the word
“Republican” is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that’s
good enough for me.

I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled
senseless for 8 long years. That’s why I will join millions of
citizens and stagger into the voting booth come November, like
a boxer in the 12th round, all bloodied and bruised with one
eye swollen shut, looking for the only thing that matters –
that big “D” on the ballot.

Don’t get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time
ago.

It’s foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer
version of a party that exists to do the bidding of the
corporate elite in this country. Any endorsement of a Democrat
must be done with this acknowledgement and a hope that one day
we will have a party that’ll represent the people first, and
laws that allow that party an equal voice.

Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have
seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev.
Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking
the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout
at the TV, “Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband
were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky,
who did she and Bill bring to the White House for ’spiritual
counseling?’ THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!”

But no, Obama won’t throw that at her. It wouldn’t be right.
It wouldn’t be decent. She’s been through enough hurt. And so
he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.

That’s why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That’s
why he’ll take us down a more decent path. That’s why I would
vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election.

But the question I keep hearing is… ‘can he win? Can he win
in November?’ In the distance we hear the siren of the death
train called the Straight Talk Express. We know it’s possible
to hear the words “President McCain” on January 20th. We know
there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black
man. Hillary knows it, too. She’s counting on it.

Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country,
has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to
shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written
there. In that Constitution, they wrote that a black man or
woman was only “three fifths” human. On Tuesday, the good
people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com

Then Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had accompanied him to his fathers funeral. But now that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers became afraid. Now Joseph will pay us back for all the evil we did to him, they said. But as Joseph told them, don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, to judge and punish you. As far as I am concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil. Genesis 50: 14-15, 19

What a rich scripture this is, I first read it days ago but I was not ready to embrace it at that point and attempt to decipher what it meant to me. I am so amazed by the grace of Joseph that I do not know where to begin. His faith is so strong, how often are we faced with people who attempt to sabotage our very existence? Whether this be at work, school, your love life; far too often people’s actions can have a great impact on us and for a short time negatively affect our lives. Since a child my mother has always told me “vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord”! Listen to Joseph, “Am I God, to judge and punish you”. We have no right nor do we need to judge those who trespass against us, their own conscience does it for them. Look at the fear of Joseph’s brothers, they are afraid because they know that they have wronged him. By not judging, by not taking these situations into our own hands we are sowing good seeds into the earth. If we followed the eye for an eye rule; a. we would all be blind, but more importantly we would sow bad seeds of karma into the earth for ourselves. We are responsible for our actions so even though we were wronged; by retaliating we only restart the cycle of wrongdoing. Making ourselves vulnerable to yet another attack and this time a rightfully deserved attack.

His faith amazes me, because he has set his faith in our creator and took the hardships that he was presented with and now sees them as good. The rough road that you are traveling may seem rough now as it did for Joseph but one day we will look up from the mountaintop and remember when we were down in the valley. We will stand tall from the balcony of a skyscraper and remember when we walked amongst the streets, confused and angry at the situations life had presented. We will stand and be thankful because the evil that others had tried to bestow upon us; that bewildered us for a time will be made good. Because we endured and believed in our Creator we will be able to look back at those blemishes and be thankful for that journey. We are not the judge, so let us let go of the ill harbored feelings that we have towards those who wrong us, their own conscience is eating them up already. Let us get deeper in our faith and understand that we are being blessed, we will be blessed and that God will turn our hard times to the most joyous occasions we have ever experienced. Peace and Grace be unto you!

Reputation is the shell a man discards when he leaves life of immortality. His character he takes with him.