Psyche, Science, and Society

Letter to My Fellow Michiganders …from Michael Moore

Micheal Moore send this letter on the horrors being imposed upon his home state of Michigan by a new governor who apparently wants to compete with Scott Walker. BTW, I will be speaking at the MoveOn Defend the American Dream rally in Boston tomorrow. Please come if you’re in the Boston area, or locate a local rally here and attend.

Letter to My Fellow Michiganders …from Michael Moore

Monday, March 14th, 2011

Fellow Michiganders (and honorary Michiganders around the world):

The call has gone out and I’m asking everyone who can to take Wednesday off and head to the State Capitol in Lansing to protest the cruel and downright frightening legislation currently being jammed down our throats.

What is most shocking to many is that the new governor, who ran against the Tea Party and defeated the right wing of his party in the primaries — and then ran in the general election as “just a nerd from Ann Arbor” who was a moderate, not an ideologue — has pulled off one of the biggest Jekyll and Hyde ruses I’ve ever seen in electoral politics.

Governor Snyder, once elected, yanked off his nice-guy mask to reveal that he is in fact a multi-millionaire hell-bent on destroying our state and turning it over to his buddies from Wall Street.

In just 8 short weeks he has:

* Gotten the House and Senate to pass bills giving him “Emergency Management” powers such as the ability to appoint a corporation or a CEO who could literally dissolve town governments or school boards, fire the elected officials, nullify any local law and run your local governmental entity. That company then would have the power to immediately declare all collective bargaining contracts null and void.

* Proposed giving business a whopping 86% tax cut while raising personal taxes by 31%! And much of that tax hike he believes should be shouldered by — I kid you not — senior citizens and the poor! He says these two groups have not been “sharing the sacrifice” the rest of us have been burdened with. So his budget proposes a $1.8 billion tax CUT for business and a $1.75 billion tax INCREASE for the rest of us, much of it from the poor, seniors and working people — even though the top 1% in Michigan ALREADY pay a lower state tax rate than everyone else does!

* Together with the legislature, introduced over 40 anti-labor bills in just the first two months of this session! They have wasted no time and have caught most people off guard. Much of this is being rushed through right now before you have a chance to raise your voice in objection.

These actions are breathtaking when you realize they will drive our already battered state straight into the ground. What we needed right now was an inspiring leader to help us reinvent Michigan and to find creative ways to create new jobs and lift us out of our economic depression. The rest of the country may call what they’re experiencing the “Great Recession,” but few argue that Michigan is suffering a “one-state Depression.”

I know many of you are filled with a great sense of despair and a justifiable loss of hope these days in Michigan. But you must not let things get even worse. You must stand up against these Draconian measures and this outrageous attempt to rip our democratic rights from us by turning our state over to well-paid hacks from Wall Street and corporate America. They see our state as one big fire sale — and they are licking their chops to get their hands on what is still a state rich in natural resources and industrial infrastructure.

Please show up at noon on Wednesday for our first mega-rally against this insanity. Hundreds of groups are already organizing car pools and buses. You can right now just declare yourself an organizer and get your friends and neighbors committed to being in Lansing. If ever there were a day to call in sick, Wednesday is it (because this IS sick). Students, if ever there were a day to cut class and become a participant in your democracy, Wednesday is it. This event needs to be HUGE — and I believe it will be if you will simply be there and take a stand.

Much attention has been paid to Wisconsin in recent weeks. Well, they got nothing on what’s going on here in Michigan. Rick Snyder is Scott Walker on steroids. There’s never been what even the AARP calls “an all-out attack” like this on us. Trust me, you will rue the day you sat home and did nothing while thieves posing as politicians stole your Great Lakes State from you.

Don’t let it happen. Be at the Capitol by noon on Wednesday for the largest demonstration the state has ever seen.

Go Spartans! Go Wolverines! Go Everyone Else In Between!

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

March 14th, 2011

Reaction to Crowley firing

Glenn Greenwald summarizes the reaction among Obama supporters to P. J. Crowley’s firing for the crime of objecting to prisoner abuse:

Denunciations of the President from his own supporters are as intensive and pervasive here as they have been for any other prior incident, if not more so.  Matt Yglesias wrote that “to hold a person without trial in solitary confinement under degrading conditions is a perversion of justice” and thatit’s a ”sad statement about America that P.J. Crowley is the one being forced to resign over Bradley Manning.”  Andrew Sullivan — writing under the headline ”Obama Owns the Treatment of Manning Now” — said that Crowley was forced out “for the offense of protesting against the sadistic military treatment of Bradley Manning,” that “the president has now put his personal weight behind prisoner abuse,” and that “Obama is directly responsible for the inhumane treatment of an American citizen.”  Meanwhile,Ezra Klein previews his denunciation of the President’s treatment of Manning and Crowley by announcing that it’s his first ever lede “that isn’t about economic or domestic policy” but rather is ”about right and wrong,” and then questions “whether the Obama administration is keeping sight of its values now that it holds power.”  Those strong words are all from supporters of the President.

Elsewhere, The Philadelphia Daily News‘ progressive columnist Will Bunch accuses Obama of “lying” during the campaign by firing Crowley and endorsing “the bizarre and immoral treatment of the alleged Wikileaks leaker.”  In The Guardian, Obama voter Daniel Ellsberg condemns “this shameful abuse of Bradley Manning,” arguing that it “amounts to torture” and “makes me feel ashamed for the [Marine] Corps,” in which Ellsberg served three years, including nine months at Quantico.  Baltimore Sun columnist Ron Smith asks:  ”Why is the U.S. torturing Private Manning?,” while UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman — who only last yearhailed Obama as “the greatest moral leader of our lifetime” and eagerly suggested on Friday (before Obama’s Press Conference) that Crowley was speaking for Obama – mocked Obama’s defense of the Manning treatmentas “clueless on the Bush level” and now says of Crowley’s firing:  ”The Torturers Win One,” while lamenting Obama’s overt support for a policy that he calls “unconscionable and un-American and borderline criminal.”

Greenwald then points to the support Obama’s policies are now getting from those who supported the Bush torture policies. Alas, Obama has chosen his side and it is firmly with human rights abusers.

March 14th, 2011