Woo Hoo! I Got Me a Tax Cut

A Liberal Paradise

How to Talk to Your Conservative Brother-in-Law

excerpted from the book

Dude, where's my country?

by Michael Moore

Warner Books, 2003, hardcover

Woo Hoo! I Got Me a Tax Cut

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Bush's tax cut

While the poor schmucks in the bottom half of the income bracket will keep about $100 a year, the richest 5 percent will be banking a whopping 50 percent of your tax cut.

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Perhaps the genius move in this most recent tax cut is how you were able to tell the American public, "We're helping families with children who will receive immediate relief." The only problem was, you and the Republicans saw to it that the bill excluded 12 million children whose parents make between $10,000 and $26,000 a year-including one million children in military families. Those who needed the money the most were the ones who got the shaft. But, after all, how much did those low-income people contribute to the Bush campaign?

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How will I spend my tax cut?

George, I'm going to spend it all to get rid of you!

That's right. Every last dime from my tax cut is going to trickle down on your pointy little head in the hopes that, come election night, you will join the ranks of the unemployed and be sent packing back to the ranch. I will give the maximum legal amount to the candidate who has the best chance of defeating you. I will give the maximum legal amount to any congressional candidate who has a chance of helping to take back the House or Senate from the Republicans. I will write check after check after check after check until there is no more of my tax cut left to spend. I will ask the readers of this book to send me their ideas on how to best spend my tax cut, including which candidates in their area would be the best to support. I have established a Web site, www.SpendMikesTaxCut.com, and I will ask people to visit it and help me spend the thousands of dollars you have given me to toss you out of office. I will ask others who can do without their tax cuts to join me and use their bonus money to get our country back from those who seek to undermine all that we have stood for.

A Liberal Paradise

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There is a country I would like to tell you about. It is a country like no other on the planet. Many of you, I am certain, would love to live there.

It is a very, very liberal, liberated, and free-thinking country.

Its people hate the thought of going to war. The vast majority of its men have never served in any kind of military and they aren't rushing to sign up now. They abhor guns and support any and all efforts to restrict the usage of personal firearms.

Its citizens are strong supporters of labor unions and workers' rights. They believe that corporations are up to no good and should not be trusted.

The majority of its residents strongly believe in equal rights for women and oppose any attempt by the government or religious groups who would seek to control their reproductive organs.

In overwhelming numbers, the people of this country I speak of believe that gay and lesbian people should have the same opportunities as straight people and they should not be discriminated against m any way.

In this country nearly everyone wants to have the strongest protections necessary to ensure a clean environment. And they take personal responsibility by doing a number of things every single day to cut down on pollution and waste.

This country is so far to the left that 80 percent of its people believe in universal health care and racial diversity on college campuses.

This country I know of is so hippy-dippy-free-love and all that jazz that only a quarter of its people believe that drug users should go straight to jail-perhaps because, as their president has, 41 percent of the citizens have admitted to using illegal drugs themselves! And when it comes to holy matrimony, the number of people who live together and don't get married is up 72 percent in the past decade, and 43 percent of them have children.

I'm telling you, this country is so commie-pinko-weirdo, its conservative party can never get more than 25 percent of its recurring voters to join it, while the vast majority of its citizens define themselves as either members of the liberal party, or worse-independent or anarchist (the latter just simply refusing ever to vote!).

So, where is this utopia I write about, this land of liberal-lefty, peacenik tree-huggers (and how soon can you and I move there)?

Is it Sweden?

Tibet?

The Moon?

No! You don't have to go to the moon because . . . you're already there! This Land O' Left paradise I speak of is none other than . . . the United States of America!

Surprised? Don't believe it? Finally convinced my last screw has come loose? I don't blame you. It's hard to think of the U.S. of A. as anything but a country that is ruled by a conservative majority, a nation whose moral agenda seems set by the Christian Coalition,

a people who appear to be cut from the cloth of their Puritan ancestors. After all, look who's in charge at the White House! And look at the approval ratings he gets!

But the cold bitter truth-and the best kept political secret of our time-is that Americans are more liberal than ever when it comes to both the lifestyles they lead and the positions they take on the great social and political issues of the day. And you don't have to take my word for it-it's all there in the polls, just the facts and nothing but.

Now, say this to any liberal and they won't just snicker (liberals stopped laughing a long time ago, which is part of the problem), they'll shake their heads and repeat the mantra they've learned from a media with a vested interest in making them believe they're on the losing side every miserable day of their lives: "America has gone conservative!" Ask any liberal-leaning person to describe this country and you'll hear a series of invectives about how we live in a nation of pickup trucks and gun racks and flags flying everywhere. They will speak with a tone of defeat about how much worse things are going to get, and resign themselves to four more years of whatever crap we've been eating for the last four (or fourteen or forty) years.

The right must rejoice every time they hear this surrender-and then they reinforce it with whatever sledgehammer they can grab. Yes! America supports the war! Yes! America loves its Leader! Yes! All of America was watching The Bachelorette last night! So, if you are not part of All-of-America, then just shut the fuck up and go crawl into that phone booth with the Noam Chomsky fan club, you miserable loser!

The reason the right is so aggressive in trying to squash any and all dissent is because they're in on the dirty little secret the left doesn't get: that more Americans agree with the left than the right. The right knows this because they look at the numbers, they read the reports, and they live in the real world that has become increasingly liberal in the last decade or so. And they hate it. So, in the tradition of all propagandists, they lie. They create an opposite truth: AMERICA IS CONSERVATIVE. Then they pound away with that false message so hard and so often that even their political opponents come to believe that it's true.

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Fifty-seven percent of the American public believes that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

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A whopping 86 percent of the American public say they "agree with the goals of the Civil Rights movement." Four out of five Americans say "it is important for colleges to have racially diverse student bodies."

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Eighty-three percent of Americans say they are in agreement with the goals of the environmental movement.

p171
Ninety-four percent of the American public want federal safety regulations enacted on the manufacture and use of all handguns- and 86 percent want this even if it makes guns more expensive!

p171
In the 2000 election, The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was able to defeat nine of the twelve candidates on their "Dangerous Dozen" list of elected officials who were deep in the pocket of the gun lobby. The NRA spent more than $20 million that year, focusing most of it on two of the largest hunting states in the country-Michigan and Pennsylvania-in the hopes of electing pro-gun governors and defeating Al Gore. What happened? Gore won both states, and the people of Michigan and Pennsylvania elected governors whom the NRA labeled as "anti-gun." This came two years after the NRA-backed Republican incumbent in Michigan, U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham, was defeated by anti-gun forces. The NRA is so out of touch with even their own members, that, when NRA members in Michigan were polled, this is what the Lansing-based market-research company EPIC-MRA found out:

* 64 percent of NRA members favored mandatory reporting of private handgun sales;

* 59 percent favored regulations requiring that guns be stored unloaded;

* 68 percent supported creating uniform safety standards for domestic and imported guns;

* 56 percent supported a law requiring a five-day waiting period before purchasing a gun; 55 percent were in favor of banning high-capacity magazines that hold the ammo.

p172
Eight in ten Americans believe that health insurance should be provided equally to everyone in the country. And 52 percent say they would be willing to pay more in taxes or insurance premiums to see that happen. It's not surprising we want national health insurance since, per capita, we spend $4,200 a year on it already, while countries with universal health care pay far less: $2,400 in Germany; $2,300 in Canada; and $1,400 in the United Kingdom.

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Sixty-two percent of the people you share this country with support changing current laws so that fewer nonviolent offenders are sent to prison.

p173
Eighty-five percent of Americans support equal opportunity in the workplace for gays and lesbians.

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According to a 2002 Gallup Poll, 58 percent thought labor unions were a good idea.

p174
As you can see, we live in a nation of people who believe in racial equality, women's rights, labor unions, a clean environment, and fair treatment for gays and lesbians. Even on the one issue where Americans skew conservative-the death penalty-support for capital punishment has dropped dramatically in the past five years (thanks, in part, to the work of those students at Northwestern University who found at least eleven innocent people on death row in Illinois). While over 80 percent of the public used to believe in the death penalty, that number has dropped to 64 percent. When

asked how they felt about capital punishment if it was guaranteed that a first-degree murderer received a sentence that would never let him out of prison, support for the death penalty drops to only 46 percent. This is a stunning drop in support of one of our nation's weirdest and cruelest activities, one that is practiced by no other Western industrialized country on this planet. In fact, a recent CNN poll found that 60 percent of Americans now support a nationwide moratorium on executions while a commission studies whether the death penalty is applied fairly.

p175
Conservatives know this is the real America - and it drives them crazy to live in such a liberal nation. You can hear t em any day o the week on talk radio or the Fox News Channel; screaming, foaming-at-the-mouth right-wingers. Have you ever wondered why they're all so angry? I mean, listen to them. They spend all day, every day, just spewing so much bile about traitors, liberals, faggots, liberals, weasels, liberals, the French, liberals-I sometimes worry that they are going to choke on their own venom and then someone is going to have to invent a Heimlich maneuver for hate. Here are a few examples from our sacred airwaves:

"OH, YOU'RE ONE OF THE SODOMITES. YOU SHOULD ONLY GET AIDS AND DIE, YOU PIG. HOW'S THAT? WHY DON'T YOU SEE IF YOU CAN SUE ME, YOU PIG. YOU GOT NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN PUT ME DOWN, YOU PIECE OF GARBAGE? YOU HAVE GOT NOTHING TO DO TODAY, GO EAT A SAUSAGE AND CHOKE ON IT."

-Michael Savage

"ANYTHING [liberals] CAN DO TO BRING DOWN CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM IS GOOD FOR THEM. BECAUSE THEIR MINDS ARE WARPED, BECAUSE LIBERALISM IS NOT A PHILOSOPHY, LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER."

-Michael Savage

"GOD SAYS, 'EARTH IS YOURS. TAKE IT. RAPE IT. IT'S YOURS."'

-Ann Coulter

"WE NEED TO EXECUTE PEOPLE LIKE JOHN WALKER IN ORDER TO PHYSICALLY INTIMIDATE LIBERALS, BY MAKING THEM REALIZE THAT THEY CAN BE KILLED, TOO. OTHERWISE THEY WILL TURN OUT TO BE OUTRIGHT TRAITORS!"

-Ann Coulter

"WE SHOULD INVADE THEIR COUNTRIES, KILL THEIR LEADERS AND CONVERT THEM TO CHRISTIANITY! "

-Ann Coulter (on September 11 terrorists)

"I WILL TELL YOU, WHEN MICHAEL MOORE SAYS THAT THIS PRESIDENT IS AN ILLEGITIMATE PRESIDENT HE CROSSES THE LINE, HE CROSSES THE LINE . . . HE CROSSES THE LINE INTO ANARCHY ALL RIGHT. "

-Bill O'Reilly

"IT IS TRUE THAT IF YOU ARE POOR AND CAN'T

AFFORD A GOOD LAWYER, YOUR ODDS OF GOING TO PRISON SKYROCKET. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT? TOUGH! "

-Bill O'Reilly

"FEMINISM WAS ESTABLISHED SO AS TO ALLOW UNATTRACTIVE WOMEN EASIER ACCESS TO THE MAINSTREAM OF SOCIETY!"

-Rush Limbaugh

"YOU GUYS ON THE LEFT, YOU WEREN'T THERE IN THE COLD WAR, YOU'RE NOT HERE NOW. IF WE EVER LISTEN TO YOU, WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE BOWING AT THE FEET OF SOME DICTATOR SOMEPLACE ELSE!"

-Sean Hannity

"THEY'RE A BUNCH OF GUTLESS, SPINELESS COWARDS! "

-Sean Hannity (on Hollywood leftists)

"CANADA IS A LEFT-WING, SOCIALIST BASKET CASE. WHAT KIND OF FRIENDS ARE THEY?"

-Sean Hannity

p177
One day, I was talking to the actor Tim Robbins-often an object of the right's bellicose babbling-and he said, "Why is it that [right-wing pundits] are so mad and angry all the time when they already control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, Wall Street, all of talk radio, and three of the four cable news channels? They got their war, they got their tax cut, and their commander in chief has a 70 percent approval rating! You'd think they'd be happy, but they're not."

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The right wing is so upset precisely because they know they are in the minority. They know Americans, in their hearts, do not really agree with their side, and they never will. Americans, like most humans, don't want to be around people who are filled with hate and meanness of spirit. And that is why they are so angry, because they know they are a dying species. They know the chicks and spics and the fags are taking over and so they are trying to get as much damage done as possible before their political breed becomes extinct. They howl the howl of a dying dog and they wail as the dinosaurs must have in their final days. Instead of fighting them, we should pity them.

Of course, most Americans would never describe themselves as "liberal." In the last two decades, it has become the dirtiest word in American politics. All a Republican has to do is brand an opponent "a liberal," and that's supposed to be the end of that loser. It hasn't helped that liberals have played right into their hands, first by stopping their own use of the word and then by acting as minimally liberal as possible. Liberals have acted and voted conservatively so often that they have redefined the term "wimp."

This is why Americans usually hate to vote for liberals. A "liberal leader" is often an oxymoron-liberals don't lead, they follow. Conservatives are real leaders. They have the courage of their convictions. They don't bend, they don't break, and they never give in. They are relentless in pursuit of their ideals. They are fearless and they take shit from no one. In other words, they actually believe in something. When's the last time you ran into a liberal or a Democrat who stuck to a principle just because it was right?

That is why most Americans don't trust liberals. You never know which way they will bend. At least with Republicans and conservatives, what you see is what you get, and in these scary times, that r~ assurance is comforting to millions.

... But Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines the word liberal this way: "Not narrow or contracted in mind; not selfish" and "not bound by orthodox tenets or established forms in political or religious philosophy; independent in opinion; not conservative; friendly to great freedom in the institution or administration of government...." Liberal is also defined as generous, "and implies largeness of spirit in giving, judging, acting, etc."

p180
The small group of right-wingers who now control most facets of our lives are the No Sense-or nonsense-Minority. They do not represent the vast bulk of this country.

You may be thinking, "Yeah, well, if that's true, then why does Bush have such high approval ratings?"

To me, the answer is simple. America was attacked. More than 3,000 people died. It's basic human nature that if you have been attacked, you will rally behind your leader-no matter who that leader is. The high ratings for Bush are not an endorsement of his policies. Rather, it is the response of a frightened country that has no choice but to back the man charged with protecting them. America has not fallen in love with Bush-it's more like "love the one you're (stuck) with."

How to Talk to Your Conservative Brother-in-Law

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[Right-wing reactionaries] are afraid because, ultimately, they are ignorant. They are ignorant of much of the world that exists outside their own. They haven't a clue what it's like to be black or hopelessly poor or wishing to kiss someone of their own gender. This basic ignorance leads to their overwhelming and permanent state of fear. The fear quickly manifests itself into hate, which eventually leads to a very dark place. They become consumed with a desire to actually harm others, if not by their own hands (they are usually too afraid to do it themselves), then by having the state act in their stead: "TAKE AWAY THEIR FUNDING! ELIMINATE THEIR JOBS! EXECUTE THE BASTARDS!"

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Here's my theory: I don't believe these people really are Republicans. They are just using a word they heard because the word was associated with tradition, common sense, and saving money. So they stuck the label on themselves. After all, who was the first Republican you heard about in history class? Honest Abe Lincoln-the guy good enough to be on the penny AND the five dollar bill! Plus, he got you a day off from school.

These people are, in truth, Republican In Name Only-RINOs. Ask them a series of questions: Do you want a clean environment? Would you live in a neighborhood with black people? Do you believe in going to war to resolve our differences with others? Most of the time they will not give the standard Republican answers. I have a friend who refers to herself as a Republican, but when I ask her if women should be paid as much as men, she responds, "We should be paid more!" When I ask her if people should be allowed to dump waste into the lake where she lives, she reminds me that she sits on the board of the local nature preserve. When I ask her how her mutual fund is doing since she was able to get rid of "That Liar Clinton," she says, "Don't ask."

So, I say to her, if Bush has driven the economy into the ground and cost you untold thousands of dollars, if the Republicans want to make it easier for people to dump shit into your lake, and if you think you should have the same rights as men-then why on earth do you call yourself a Republican?!

"Because the Democrats will raise my taxes," she responds, without missing a beat.

That is the RINO mantra. Even though these "Republicans" clearly do not believe in much of the Republican platform, and they know the Republicans will make many parts of their lives

more miserable, they hold on to that Republican label because of just one thing: They think the Democrats are out to steal their hard-earned money.

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What you will encounter in the conservative mind is fear. . Fear of crime. Fear of enemies. Fear of change. Fear of people not exactly like them. And, of course, fear of losing any money on anything. If they can't see it (interracial couples don't live in their neighborhood), they are afraid of it. If they can't touch it (300 years of slavery that happened long ago), then they can't understand why things are the way they are. If they can't smell it (no industrial incinerators in their part of town), then they think the planet is in good shape.

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NEVER make the "moral" argument about why the Pentagon should get less money or why a sick child deserves to see a doctor. We have tried those arguments for ages and they don't work with conservatives. So save your breath and keep in mind that it's all about THEM. Begin every point with this one sentence: "I want you to make more MONEY!"

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Try these statistics on for size: 40 percent of the U.S. prison population is functionally illiterate... From 1980 to 2000, states' expenditures on education went up 32 percent. In that same period of time, states' spending on prisons went up 189 percent.

p198
Seventy-five percent of welfare recipients are illiterate.

p199
Look, I realize that at one time being a Republican and voting for Republicans seemed like the sure way to becoming wealthy. But that is not the way it works these days. Thirty years ago, if you made the equivalent of $50,000, you were rich. You lived in a big beautiful home. And there were hundreds, if not thousands, like you in every town in America. Roosevelt's New Deal had created a massive middle class and the gaps between rich and poor had actually decreased 7.4 percent from 1947 to 1968. It was not that hard to make the leap from working class to middle class or from middle class to well-to-do. The gap between those groups was not that wide. That's why all it took to be a rich kid back then was to have your dad be a family physician, a dentist, a lawyer, an accountant, a Realtor, the owner of a grocery store, or a mid-level management guy at the auto company. But all that began to crumble starting in the seventies when the income disparity really began to widen.

These days, the chance of you being rich, as I said earlier, is zip. Right now, the 13,000 families that make up the top .01 percent control the equivalent wealth of the poorest twenty million ones. And while those living it up in the top one percent have enjoyed income increases of 157 percent in the past twenty years, the middle class has only gotten a 10 percent increase. Only 10 percent for the mass of people who have powered the explosion in wealth we have seen in the past twenty years! The doctor is barely making ends meet, the lawyer is trying to scrounge up enough divorce cases to pay the bills, and the mid-management guy-well, now he tosses a mean tortilla down at Del Taco.

These very Republicans you say you are one of want nothing to do with you. They have either downsized you, fired you, or they've got you doing the jobs of two or three people. They have taken your money in the stock market and made it vanish. They have pushed through tax bills that truly benefit only that top one percent. You aren't going to see any real savings and, in fact, you are going to end up paying higher local and state taxes and see a noticeable drop in government services just as you start to hit middle age. They are spending your retirement money right now on boondoggle after boondoggle to make their buddies rich.

In short, they are using you like a sucker. They've got you mouthing all their platitudes while they slip their hand in your back pocket and steal you blind. Don't be a dope! The Republicans hate you, despise you, and sure enough never want to make their tent any bigger so that there's room for you. Get a clue!!

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You are being taken for a ride. And you know it. You just can't bring yourself to admit it 'cause you don't want to look stupid. You won't look stupid. No one will blame you. Everyone got snookered. Drop all this "Republican" nonsense, declare yourself an independent, and then go shopping for a party or for people running for office who are going to try to help you make more money. Any representative who delivers on making our schools and libraries a top priority, who sees to it that everyone has health care, who demands that we not live in a society of illiterates, who backs any bill that increases people's wages, and who taxes the wealthy for duping an entire country into bankruptcy-well, that is who you should be working for and voting for, because, in the end, it will all benefit you.

Being "Republican" is suicide.

Dude, where's my country?

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