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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.

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He attacked Obama after Super Tuesday, saying he wasn't prepared enough to be commander in chief.

Moore warned that if Bush was re-elected in '04, he would definitely introduce the draft.

Anyone to the right of Fidel Castro gets shit on here at babble.

That's why its less and less relevant to anything.

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Originally posted by jeff house:

By the way, who did Robert Mugabe endorse?

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Nobody's criticizing the man on orders from Havana, Beijing or Pyongyang.

I myself support Obama knowing he has limitations, but believing that his victory offers space for progressive organization that doesn't exist now and wouldn't if McCain Hillary Clinton were elected.

And to those who ask why Michael Moore endorsed Clark last time, the answer is, from what I could gather, that Moore believed that Clark's military background would insulate him from RW attack on national security issues, and his belief that Clark was more or less progressive domestically.

Some of us felt that if Clark had run on Kucinich's platform, he'd have been unstoppable.

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Originally posted by jeff house:
Anyone to the right of Fidel Castro gets shit on here at babble.

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The democratizers screwed up with endorsing a drug-dealing mafia government in Havana, Jeff. Fidel looked to Nixon and Eisenhower for recognition, but redistribing land, and handing freedom not to be used and abused by big sugar and United Fruit to ordinary Cubans wasn't on Warshington's agenda then. Bay of Pigs was another problem for them and the worms.

Here on babble some people seem to spend hours of their lives each day thinking of sardonic 'witticisms' attempting to insult anyone who isn't as far left as they are. Unfortumatley in Canada with the media so biased to the right, even a democratic socialist party like the mainstream NDP is to the left of majority opinion in the country.

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Originally posted by Banjo:
As was said above, how can Babble be relevent if it merely represents the several thousand people in Canada who are on the far left?

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Originally posted by Banjo:
We do have opinion polling which does show more accurately how people think, (even if admittedly it is biased by our first past the post system) and we know that there is little support for any ideas which are to the left of the NDP.

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Yes, and we won't hear much from the two old line parties directly of their plans to privatize health care here or privatize the most successful socialist program in U.S. history, social security.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Nobody's criticizing the man on orders from Havana, Beijing or Pyongyang.

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Originally posted by jeff house:
Snipe, snipe.

Anyone to the right of Fidel Castro gets shit on here at babble.

That's why its less and less relevant to anything.

By the way, who did Robert Mugabe endorse?

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The only person sniping in this thread, Jeff, is you. You were the first person to introduce a hostile tone, and the first person to insult others.

If you hate it here so much, why are you here?

[ 21 April 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

[ 21 April 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

I had also written a long screed about Jeff's initial post (with a disclaimer stating it had zero to do with him being a war resister from the US, on the contrary that is honourable and a great contribution of progressives to the Canadian state) before realising that it was a quote.

I was reacting to "the country"... I have absolutely nothing to do with that country - hell, I can't even visit there.

It is so important not to get caught up in their media. That is another country. I have practically no first-hand contact with North American news media in English - it is in French if I go to the shops here, unless it is in Italian or Spanish - and if I do look at anglophone news other than RoC online it is the Guardian.

[ 21 April 2008: Message edited by: lagatta ]

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Originally posted by jeff house:
Snipe, snipe.

Anyone to the right of Fidel Castro gets shit on here at babble.

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Hi jeff. How are things going? The weather here is just great. Probably not so nice where you are, and yeah I know, that can affect one's mood.

But I thought I'd let you in on a little secret. Promise you won't tell other babblers. Here goes:

Obama is a Stalino/Maoist. As a teenager, he was a card-carrying member of the shadowy fringe group "Americans Against Free Elections", which had a lot of trouble recruiting because of its off-putting name. Obama, however, who spent those years in a bit of a daze, joined up because he felt that Democracy was so Important that one should be prepared to pay the Ultimate Price - hence, no free elections.

Dumb as a bag of hammers, but whaddya want.

Anyhoo, they got him. Every database, FBI, Interpol, you name it, they were onto him. And it didn't help when he was named Deputy Commissar for the Red Proletarian Revolutionary People's Republic of Illinois.

Long story short, it took years of deception, diversion, even a few targeted hits, to cover those Bolshie tracks, as you might imagine. But he did it - motivated, throughout, by that great Dream, the Dream of racial harmony, of Change, of Hope, of America where racism was not endemic but rather a godless alien force to be extirpated through a judicious blend of Denial and Deity. He came out clean, washed in the blood, etc. and you know the rest.

Except for one small hiccup: The internet. The World Wide Web of Deceit.

What I have just said, above, will be picked up, bit by bit, with deterministic inevitability, by Google and every other search engine known to geekery. And before you can say "Sputter sputter but he's the lesser of evils, vote for him, please!" - the true story of his Stalinist treachery will become legend, linked and hyperlinked throughout cyberspace.

His election chances - dead, buried, gone.

[ 21 April 2008: Message edited by: Lord Palmerston ]

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OUR leaders?

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[ 22 April 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

Moore is not relevant to the majority of dems in the usa.

Does Moore have a constituency yes. Is it a movement no.

All this shows is that 2nd tier celebs are making decisions.

The way Moore is shit on in the States and in Canada, shows that Canadians can be assholes too. That oh-so-progressive couple who made the film about him, twisting the title of Chomsky's book Manufacturing Consent to attack Moore, right when he was launching Sicko, was really sickening.

Moore does have a strong fandom. That's why the media has been at him, especially since Fahrenheit 9/11. Whom the media seeks to destroy is where you will find real dissent.

Moore was also suggesting that voters in Pennsylvania vote for Obama. The health care plans of all three candidates (including Edwards) are awful, but really, after what we've seen of Hillary in the past couple of weeks, Obama needs all the support he can get fighting her machine.

Moore is not a party loyalist, but trying to figure out a path for progressive politics in the US. It's not easy, and the left shatters into many different perspectives which keeps it marginalized. But I will never doubt Moore's sincerity, compassion, or love of his country.

[ 23 April 2008: Message edited by: ceti ]

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The Conservatives are just like the Republicans.

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after what we've seen of Hillary in the past couple of weeks, Obama needs all the support he can get fighting her machine.

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Why? Has he Obama taken a stand against the Zionist lobby? Is he encouraging conservation as a method of dealing with the coming oil crisis?has he stated unequivocally that he will not engage in a military campaign against Venezuela?

[ 23 April 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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The way Moore is shit on in the States and in Canada, shows that Canadians can be assholes too. That oh-so-progressive couple who made the film about him, twisting the title of Chomsky's book Manufacturing Consent to attack Moore, right when he was launching Sicko, was really sickening.

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Actually the only thing i thought was sickening was how Moore himself turned out to be such a hypocrit in refusing the ever talk to the film-makers - who were actually trying to make that was favourable to him - until they saw what a jerk he was.

Moore made a whole movie "Roger and Me" that was ostensibly about how he spent a year without success trying to talk to Roger Smith the President of GM - but in reality Smith met with and talked to Moore on numerous occasions!

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Actually the only thing i thought was sickening was how Moore himself turned out to be such a hypocrit in refusing the ever talk to the film-makers - who were actually trying to make that was favourable to him - until they saw what a jerk he was.

Moore made a whole movie "Roger and Me" that was ostensibly about how he spent a year without success trying to talk to Roger Smith the President of GM - but in reality Smith met with and talked to Moore on numerous occasions!

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

Why? Has he Obama taken a stand against the Zionist lobby? Is he encouraging conservation as a method of dealing with the coming oil crisis?has he stated unequivocally that he will not engage in a military campaign against Venezuela?

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Originally posted by lagatta:
I have absolutely nothing to do with that country - It is so important not to get caught up in their media.

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I was astonished at the political vacuity of this declaration--even knowing that Moore, since 2004, has proudly brandished the Air-America-Nation-magazine- Progressive-Democrats-of-America-DNC seal of approval. I sent Moore the following open letter....

Mr. Moore:

I just read your long and impassioned plea of support for Barack Obama. I am open to hearing convincing reasons that voting for Obama--whether in the primaries or the general election--is the right thing to do. But I am troubled by several aspects of your letter:

1. First and foremost, it does not mention a single political issue....

2. You do hint at a political point--you claim that there is a "movement" behind Obama....

3. You state that you just want to see any candidate of the Democratic Party installed in the White House. But we had eight years during Clinton time to weigh the "benefits" of this kind of Donkey-symbol regime for the nation, and what we got was welfare "reform," rampant deregulation, WTO/NAFTA, 500,000 Iraqi children starved from sanctions, etc., etc.--an essentially Republican record so repugnant that you were impelled to disown it in your support for the Green Party and Ralph Nader in the 2000 election....

Curiously enough, when you make a film, you slash away brilliantly at the issues; but when you talk about whom to vote for, you suddenly turn into an apolitical spinmeister for the sexiest Democrat du jour. The many admirers of your work and your history of progressive activism can and should expect better of you.

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It worked so well last time.

The only problem I have with Kaufman's letter is the euphoric praise for Moore's films at the end. Other than "Roger and Me", which I found sort of poignant, I have never got the point. I keep telling myself that they are dumbed down for U.S. audiences, but even that doesn't explain stuff like "exposing" the links between the Bushes and the Bin Ladens...

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Last night on the Larry King Show, you made disparaging remarks about Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign. May I remind you that Ralph Nader is the only high-profile candidate that supports the single-payer health plan – H.R. 676 – which your acclaimed film Sicko and your website emphasizes is “the right of all Americans.”

You encourage support of any candidate with a “D” (Democrat) - either Clinton or Obama – two potential presidents who will keep health care under the corrupt jurisdiction of insurance and pharmaceutical companies! Would you like to borrow my DVD of Sicko – did you even view your own film?

Thanks to your method of voting, forty-seven million Americans have no health insurance and health costs are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States, among other facts which I learned from watching…..Sicko!

No Michael, the worst of the Democrats are not better than any Republican.

And with regard to your upcoming movie on the 2004 presidential election, had your Democrat candidate, John Kerry, adopted just one of Ralph Nader’s platforms on health care, ballot reform, cracking down on corporate crime including the savings and loan/mortgage shenanigans, or the atrocity of Iraq – Kerry would have land-slided Bush. Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that have been lost because of this “lesser of two evils” methodology.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
If you hate it here so much, why are you here?

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Another Open Letter to Michael Moore:

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