Michael Moore's Call To Alms


Dear Michael (Paul Revere) Moore,

I don't know if you got my email broadcast advocating your consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize with president Obama. Nevertheless, I suggested your name for next year's list of potential nominees. And just when I thought it was safe to submit your name, you came up with 15 great points in a magnificent call to alms. Mike, you're making my case for your eligibility.

I say call to alms because our energy should be focused in putting our nation and the world back on the path toward genuine peace and democracy. It's well past time we beat our guns into plow shares. And we should be in the business of building the Global Village with charity (alms), not blowing it up with bombs. We are a generous people who should be about helping, not hurting or murdering, fellow human beings.

Your call to alms, or universal charity, should include the following:

1. There's nothing more important than breaking up the global mega-monopolies. I've said for some time now Obama may not be the one we're waiting for (besides ourselves). The 45th president will probably be in the best position to start this process. If any business is too big too fail, then it's too big to exist. Obama is the FDR of our generation. The next president should be like TR, a trust buster.

2. War should be declared obsolete by universal decree in the UN. The US and UK are the only nations with external military conflicts. That's right. We're the only ones. And these aren't even wars. They're invasions and occupations of sovereign Muslim lands. None of these interventions are legal or moral. We either live by the rules of peace and democracy we champion or the hypocrisy will continue to erode our credibility. We'll become completely irrelevant to the rest of the world. Nations everywhere are opting us out of new economic and political agreements. This isn't an accident. We made our evil bed of bombs and bullets. It's time we stopped sleeping on it. We should make a softer, gentler one.

3. We must remove US troops from stations inside more than 130 countries worldwide. There's absolutely no legitimate reason for these forward bases, except to pad the Pentagon's budget.

4. We must pass a law requiring every penny spent by congress be accounted for and disclosed. Most of the CIA and growing slices of the Pentagon budgets are held in complete secrecy. In the 21st century, this is a dangerous policy. We must know what our military and intelligence assets are doing and what they're spending our money on. The president and congress must sanction each action being done in our name if real democracy is to return to America.

5. The Pentagon budget should be halved over the next decade. There's simply no excuse for spending a trillion dollars a year to fight no one. Terrorism, by definition, is an act perpetrated by very small groups of people. So, why are we fighting it with our military? Only the US and UK are using martial tactics to fight a handful of "bad guys." This is supremely wasteful and absurd. None of the alleged 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. So, why are we killing these people? And why don't we go and get the alleged perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks, if we know where he is? Sanity must return to our foreign policy decisions.

6. A Department of Peace must be established by law with half of the Pentagon's floor space dedicated to housing it.

7. Universal health care is a right, not a privilege. And it should be non-profit, like it once was.

8. There should be a national conference held each year to determine where we are economically, politically and socially. Then, we should develop plans to meet our national needs. A State of the Union Address by the president is insufficient. Does this mean we should have a federal perspective on where we should invest our resources to match private influence on our collective destiny? The answer is: YES!

9. The UN, NATO and many other international organizations are useless, cold war relics. It's time to close them down and erect a single global meeting place. The UN structure in New York City is old. We should replace not only the building but also what it should be used for. Presently, the UN is nothing but a tool for espionage and defeating virtually every initiative enacted for peace and prosperity. It's time to construct a genuine forum for peace, justice and democracy. Redundancy must be eliminated, including special privileges (Security Council?) for large donor nations. The constant bullying of the UN by the US for selfish, political reasons must end.

10. The vast funds spent on war and rumors of war are wasted every year. While there are few wars going on between nations, there are dozens of civil wars and other kinds of internal conflicts raging around the world. It's time for the five permanent members of the UN security council to declare a serious, global moratorium on small arms sales which stoke these acts of mass murder. It's time humanity got out of the death business and into the life business. If the developed world refuses to lead on these issues, then we should get out of the way and let some other nation do so. In fact, China is quietly assuming this role.

Well, Mike, these are the suggestions which came to mind. They were inspired by your call to alms. The future of humanity must be built on charity for all and violence toward none. I hope these points have been of some help.

Franklin L. Johnson
starhelix@aol.com