"Your Children Are Not Safe." Yes, Indeed.

Mike's Letter

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October 23rd, 2002 12:00 AM

"Your Children Are Not Safe." Yes, Indeed.

Dear friends,

The note from the sniper could not have been more clear: "Your children are not safe, anywhere at anytime." How did snipers get to be so smart? Have truer words amidst such madness been spoken before? "Your children are not safe."

And so the parents of the DC area are now in a state of holy terror. The news media is at full throttle: "Keep your children home! Your child could be next! The sniper is everywhere!"

And this morning, for the first time, there is talk that perhaps election day in the Capital area should be postponed -- or at, the very least, the polls must be manned by armed troops. Fear reigns. The democratic process can wait. Our children are not safe.

Yes, our children ARE not safe. They have not been safe for some time. Every single day in America, at least 8 children (19 yrs. old and younger) are killed by gun violence in the United States. EVERY SINGLE DAY in America between 30 and 40 people are murdered by someone using a gun. EVERY SINGLE DAY in America another 40 to 50 people use a gun to kill themselves. None of this has created a panic. These 80+ deaths a day by gunfire do not lead off the evening news. We have, sitting in our homes, a quarter-BILLION guns. And, yet, not one of those guns would have saved anyone shot by the sniper. The sniper knows -- "Your children are not safe."

But it is not just because of his actions or the actions of those who collaborate each day in his -- and our -- carnage that makes our children unsafe.

Your children are not safe because we live in a country where we value bombs and missiles more than we do textbooks and teachers.

Your children are not safe because we still will not provide them with the most basic of human rights, one that nearly every other country on earth has: that ALL children have a right to free health care should they get sick.

Your children are not safe because we stuff them full of McDonald's and Ritalin and then wonder why they have diabetes at 13 or shoot up the school a week before graduation.

Your children are not safe because they saw us adults allow a man to steal the White House, and then we did nothing about it. They learned that lying and stealing are OK, but "one person, one vote" is a sham.

Your children are not safe because one in six of them live in poverty, while Bush's friends and business partners make off with loot from the pension funds and the stock market.

Yes, the sniper has got it figured out. The children have been targets for some time, and the "snipers" who take their lives, ruin their lives, run loose.

If you want to do something to make our children's lives a bit safer, one thing you can do is to participate in one of the various demonstrations taking place this Saturday around the country protesting Bush's war against Iraq (check out my website, www.michaelmoore.com, for details). Nearly a half-million Iraqi kids have died already in the last decade, thanks to our sanctions which have starved them and our bombs which have killed them.

Now Bush the Sniper has a new message to the Iraqi people: "Your children are not safe, anywhere at anytime."

Death in DC, death from DC. It is all too much, and it all has to stop. If Bush and his NRA buddies hadn't prevented the formation of a national database for ballistics fingerprinting, the police would have been able to trace the sniper's bullets to the actual gun that he is using. He might have been caught by now. But no -- we must protect the rights of the sniper to make sure that his constitutionally-protected assault weapon is not registered or on any kind of list anywhere, anytime.

I am sick and tired of the children not being safe. I want this insanity ended now. Remove the Republicans and Republican-wannabes on November 5th, pack the rallies this Saturday, and tell your children that we are sorry that this is the world we have created for them and that we will now do whatever we can to make it a safer place.

Yours,

Michael Moore

www.michaelmoore.com

mmflint@aol.com

PS. Sniper Porn -- a.k.a. nonstop news coverage that tells you nothing new but titillates and scares the bejeepers out of you -- pre-empted the hour-long Donahue show from Flint on Monday night. I've been told it may air this Thursday night (Oct. 24) at 8pm/11pm ET/PT on MSNBC. It's a great show, live from the Flint premiere of my film, with Phil and 300 mostly Flint-area residents speaking their minds. The film continues to set records and, on Monday night, it became the #1 film in the country in per screen average at the box office! Thanks to everyone who has seen it. It arrives in more cities this Friday.

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