A Letter by documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, exhorting Americans to resist intimidation and censorship and speak out against war

(Michael Moore won Oscar for his film ‘Bowling for Columbine’, and his Oscar acceptance speech was an indictment of Bush’s war on Iraq)

April 7, 2003

Dear friends,
It appears that the Bush administration will have succeeded in colonizing Iraq sometime in the next few days. This is a blunder of such magnitude - and we will pay for it for years to come. It was not worth the life of one single American kid in uniform, let alone the thousands of Iraqis who have died, and my condolences and prayers go out to all of them.
So, where are all those weapons of mass destruction that were the pretence for this war? Ha! There is so much to say about all this, but I will save it for later.
What I am most concerned about right now is that all of you - the majority of Americans who did not support this war in the first place - not go silent or be intimidated by what will be touted as some great military victory. Now, more than ever, the voices of peace and truth must be heard. …
When Bowling for Columbine was announced as the Oscar winner for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards, the audience rose to its feet. It was a great moment, one that I will always cherish. They were standing and cheering for a film that says we Americans are a uniquely violent people, using our massive stash of guns to kill each other and to use them against many countries around the world. They were applauding a film that shows George W. Bush using fictitious fears to frighten the public into giving him whatever he wants. And they were honoring a film that states the following: The first Gulf War was an attempt to reinstall the dictator of Kuwait; Saddam Hussein was armed with weapons from the United States; and the American government is responsible for the deaths of a half-million children in Iraq over the past decade through its sanctions and bombing. That was the movie they were cheering, that was the movie they voted for, and so I decided that is what I should acknowledge in my speech.
And, thus, I said the following from the Oscar stage:
“On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan (from Canada), I would like to thank the Academy for this award. I have invited the other Documentary nominees on stage with me. They are here in solidarity because we like non-fiction. We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where fictitious election results give us a fictitious president. We are now fighting a war for fictitious reasons. Whether it’s the fiction of duct tape or the fictitious ‘Orange Alerts’, we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And, whenever you’ve got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.” …
The next day - and in the two weeks since - the right-wing pundits and radio shock jocks have been calling for my head. So, has all this ruckus hurt me? Have they succeeded in “silencing” me?
Well, take a look at my Oscar “backlash”:
-- On the day after I criticized Bush and the war at the Academy Awards, attendance at Bowling for Columbine in theaters around the country went up 110%. It is now the longest-running consecutive commercial release in America, 26 weeks in a row and still thriving. …
I tell you all of this because I want to counteract a message that is told to us all the time - that, if you take a chance to speak out politically, you will live to regret it…. And that, my friends, is the real point of this film that I just got an Oscar for - how those in charge use FEAR to manipulate the public into doing whatever they are told.
Well, the good news - if there can be any good news this week - is that not only have neither I, nor others been silenced, we have been joined by millions of Americans who think the same way we do. Don’t let the false patriots intimidate you by setting the agenda or the terms of the debate. Don’t be defeated by polls that show 70% of the public in favour of the war. …
Unfortunately, Bush and Co. are not through yet. This invasion and conquest will encourage them to do it again elsewhere. The real purpose of this war was to say to the rest of the world, “Don’t Mess with Texas - If You Got What We Want, We’re Coming to Get It!” This is not the time for the majority of us who believe in a peaceful America to be quiet. Make your voices heard. Despite what they have pulled off, it is still our country.

Yours,
Michael Moore