Ralph Nader's Letter to Michael Moore

[Kurai Tsuki]

Friday April 16, 2004
Hey Dude Where's My Buddy!!!???
Come Back Home Michael!!!

Ok Michael, you've had your realpolitik fling with ex-General Wesley Clark. Your endorsed Presidential candidate in the Democratic Primaries has withdrawn. It is time for you to come home, to join your buddies and resume your only genuine role which is that of defiance and resistance. Compliance and assistance with the Democrats does not accord with your past, your character, your bold writings and, most memorably, your long corrosive assaults on the Party that betrayed the working classes and plunged our country into corporate globalization. Remember, Michael, you're the flinty man from Flint, Michigan. You've never forgotten your roots. The heady Hollywood, Manhattan scene with the celebrities and Academy Awards have never gotten to your head but rather have gotten into your deserving pockets. How we all recall your standing before one billion people in Los Angeles at the televised Academy Awards in 2003 and, breaking the customary cant of the awardees, throwing the gauntlet down to George W. Bush and his "fictitious" war mongering.

Now the War has become a quagmire, with both Republicans and Democrats complicit (check the votes in Congress). The Draft may be on the way. So what are you doing going on the Al Franken Show very nearly breaking down when Al Gore (he of the pro NAFTA/GATT, anti-worker, regime-change, Iraq-bombing, lethal sanctions on half a million children Administration) called and thought you were apologizing. You have nothing to apologize for, Michael. Gore has a lot to apologize for-blowing the election he won in Florida and the country as a whole and for blowing, with Bill Clinton, the many opportunities the rich-booming Nineties and the collapse of the Soviet Union gave this country to turn a peace dividend into a pro-worker, pro-environment, pro-consumer and anti-poverty resurgence.

Come back and join our Presidential campaign, Michael. Talk to those "Reagan Democrats"-those 35% of union members who still vote Republican and against their own interests-as only you can. Michael, if you go pumping for the Democratic Party this year, just what are you going to say to the unemployed steelworkers near Sparrows Point in Maryland? To the megathousands of laid off textile and furniture workers in North and South Carolina? To the abandoned auto workers waiting and waiting near their empty factories that went to repressive countries? To the millions of blue-collar workers, who fought our wars, only to learn that the two parties won't fight for their company pensions and health insurance? Are you going to tell them how the Democratic Party pushed through the WTO, let their pensions erode or disappear, were too busy collecting checks from the corporate bosses to pay attention to the corporate crime wave that looted and drained trillions of dollars from millions of workers, their retirement and small investments? Will you tell them that the cowardly Democrats, who couldn't win the fewer elections they are now not losing without the labor vote, won't even mount a determined drive to repeal the notorious, union-blocking Taft Hartley Act?

How can you be free to be what you are, or to depress Bush's vote, to jolt into consciousness the moribund Democratic Party?

Hey Dude, join your real buddies! The ones you may be thinking about just don't fit either your message, your vision, or our website VoteNader.org.

Come back home Michael. The workers and the youth of America are looking for you.

Best regards,

Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader

P.S.Will you put this invitation on your website and see how your fans react to Michael Moore returning to the Nader 2004 presidential campaign? Patti Smith will reserve a big singing spot, for you, on the stage for the customary finale, PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER.

Source (http://www.votenader.com/why_ralph/index.php?cid=54)

[Kurai Tsuki]

Another letter from Nader to Moore


Hey, Michael, Where Were Your Friends?

Once upon a time, there was Michael Moore the First. He never forgot his friends. Come time for the Washington, DC premiere of Bowling for Columbine a while back, he invited his old buddies in Washington—gave them good seats and spent the rest of the evening with them. During his other movie's premiere, he affectionately recognized how much those old friends helped him and supported him after he was mistreated and let go by Mother Jones. He was generous with his words and time.

Now there is Michael Moore the Second. Last night he hosted the Washington, DC premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11, and who was there? The Democratic political establishment, the same people whom he took to such mocking task on the road with us in campaign rally after campaign rally in 2000. Who was not there? His old buddies! Not personally invited, not personally hung out with.

A few weeks ago, Michael, I sent you a message: "Hey, Dude, where's my Buddy?" It is attached. It has gone without reply. It simply asked you to come back to your progressive constituency and take on the two-party monopoly of our rigged election system—to challenge the pro-warlike, corporate party with two heads, wearing different makeup when it comes to playing toady for Big Business. These are the giant multinationals who have no allegiance to our country or to communities like Flint except to control, deplete or abandon them. It is not that your views have changed, with an exception or two. It is that your circles have changed. Too much Clinton, not enough Camejo.

Your old friends remain committed to blazing paths for a just society and world. As they helped you years ago, they can help you now. They are also trim and take care of themselves. Girth they avoid. The more you let them see you, the less they will see of you. That could be their greatest gift to Moore the Second—the gift of health. What say you?

Best wishes,

Ralph Nader

<edit> Source (http://www.votenader.com/why_ralph/index.php?cid=83)

[Kurai Tsuki]

And another...

Source (http://www.votenader.com/why_ralph/index.php?cid=89)


Hey Michael, Where’s Your Past?

The saga of Michael the Second continues. From a stalwart collaborator before huge rallies in our 2000 Nader/LaDuke campaign to a puzzling sidelines posture, to an endorsement of Wesley Clark, you have perplexed more than a few of your admirers.

Now you have declared in the June 24, 2004 issue of USA Today that you "hope to have a significant impact on the 4 to 6% who now say they are going to vote for Ralph" to vote for Kerry. Wow&#33; That’s a long way from Michael of Flint and Michael of Washington, DC. You are some traveler.

On "The Charlie Rose Show" last Thursday you repeated the false statement that I promised to avoid the close states in 2000 and therefore you broke away from the campaign in the last month and urged a vote for Gore. Strange – you were berating Democrats before nearly 10,000 people at our MCI Rally on November 5 – two days before the election. If you would like to see a copy of the tape of your speech let me know. And, you campaigned with us in some of those close states. I have called you on this false assertion regarding the close states yet you keep repeating the falsehood. Our 2000 Campaign was a 50 state run, (and I campaigned in all 50 states) from the beginning, a point repeated again and again, even though I spent 28 days in California and only 2 ½ in Florida.

In my last message to Michael the Second I mistakenly believed that your views had not changed, with an exception or two, "It’s that your circles have changed. Too much Clinton, not enough Camejo," I observed. Now on "The Rose Show" you, the great freedom fighter, urged us to withdraw, urged rejection of the opportunity for millions of Americans to vote for a candidacy of their choice and a good agenda for their future.

So the anti-war Michael supports the pro-war Kerry; the anti-Patriot Act Michael supports the pro-Patriot Act Kerry; the pro-tax on corporations Michael supports the low tax on dividends and capital gains Kerry. What ever happened to the great resister?

Do you think any of the corporate lobbies are quaking in anticipation of a Kerry win, e.g. the military industrial complex (to use Eisenhower’s warning phrase), the pharmaceutical, nuclear power, banking, securities, insurance, petrochemical, agribusiness, biotechnology, real estate and fossil fuel industries. The corporate government in Washington is the permanent government – as you well know.

Oh well, we thought we knew ye, Michael. At least while you mingle with the people born to the purple and other nouveau riche, you’ll still wear your working clothes and keep your cap on real tight as you bend to the wind.

Best wishes for future films,

Ralph Nader