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Michael Moore's Action Plan
Author Charles Brown
Date 09/10/24/07:35
Hit Count 788

Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now
By Michael Moore, MichaelMoore.com
www.alternet.org

Friends,

It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie:
"OK -- so now what can I do?!"

You want something to do? Well, you've come to the right place! 'Cause
I got 15 things you and I can do right now to fight back and try to
fix this very broken system.

Here they are:

FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family
should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their
monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are
now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated
by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.

2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All
Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care
system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of
bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end
this misery. The bill to make this happen is called H.R. 3200 (but
only with Rep. Anthony Weiner's amendment). You must call AND write
your members of Congress and demand its passage, no compromises
allowed.

3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected
officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very
members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from
wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and
legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support
campaign finance bill H.R.1826.

4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like
they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict
pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms,
insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been
savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical
companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to
make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by --
and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must
always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some
info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)

5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources
above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just
like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few
decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of
the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we
will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to
burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the
internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation
companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit
(clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars
that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a
proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto
chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to
turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For
Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected)
these damn things in the first place!!

FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:

1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to
make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414), one to
your Congressperson (202-224-3121) and one to each of your two
Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here.
Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you
expect them to vote on a particular issue. Let them know you will have
no hesitation voting for a primary opponent -- or even a candidate
from another party -- if they don't do our bidding. Trust me, they
will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them
each an email. And if you really want to drop an anvil on them, send
them a snail mail letter!

2. Take over your local Democratic Party. Remember how much fun you
had with all those friends and neighbors working together to get
Barack Obama elected? YOU DID THE IMPOSSIBLE. It's time to re-up! Get
everyone back together and go to the monthly meeting of your town or
county Democratic Party -- and become the majority that runs it! There
will not be many in attendance and they will either be happy or in
shock that you and the Obama Revolution have entered the room looking
like you mean business. President Obama's agenda will never happen
without mass grass roots action -- and he won't feel encouraged to do
the right thing if no one has his back, whether it's to stand with
him, or push him in the right direction. When you all become the local
Democratic Party, send me a photo of the group and I'll post it on my
website.

3. Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local
elections next year -- or, better yet, consider running for office
yourself! You don't have to settle for the incumbent who always
expects to win. You can be our next representative! Don't believe it
can happen? Check out these examples of regular citizens who got
elected: State Senator Deb Simpson, California State Assemblyman
Isadore Hall, Tempe, Arizona City Councilman Corey Woods, Wisconsin
State Assemblyman Chris Danou, and Washington State Representative
Larry Seaquist. The list goes on and on -- and you should be on it!

4. Show up. Picket the local branch of a big bank that took the
bailout money. Hold vigils and marches. Consider civil disobedience.
Those town hall meetings are open to you, too (and there's more of us
than there are of them!). Make some noise, have some fun, get on the
local news. Place "Capitalism Did This" signs on empty foreclosed
homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools and infrastructure.
(You can download them from my website.)

5. Start your own media. You. Just you (or you and a couple friends).
The mainstream media is owned by corporate America and, with few
exceptions, it will never tell the whole truth -- so you have to do
it! Start a blog! Start a website of real local news (here's an
example: The Michigan Messenger). Tweet your friends and use Facebook
to let them know what they need to do politically. The daily papers
are dying. If you don't fill that void, who will?

FIVE THINGS WE SHOULD DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR LOVED ONES UNTIL
WE GET THROUGH THIS MESS:

1. Take your money out of your bank if it took bailout money and place
it in a locally-owned bank or, preferably, a credit union.

2. Get rid of all your credit cards but one -- the kind where you have
to pay up at the end of the month or you lose your card.

3. Do not invest in the stock market. If you have any extra cash, put
it away in a savings account or, if you can, pay down on your mortgage
so you can own your home as soon as possible. You can also buy very
safe government savings bonds or T-bills. Or just buy your mother some
flowers.

4. Unionize your workplace so that you and your coworkers have a say
in how your business is run. Here's how to do it (more info here).
Nothing is more American than democracy, and democracy shouldn't be
checked at the door when you enter your workplace. Another way to
Americanize your workplace is to turn your business into a
worker-owned cooperative. You are not a wage slave. You are a free
person, and you giving up eight hours of your life every day to
someone else is to be properly compensated and respected.

5. Take care of yourself and your family. Sorry to go all Oprah on
you, but she's right: Find a place of peace in your life and make the
choice to be around people who are not full of negativity and
cynicism. Look for those who nurture and love. Turn off the TV and the
Blackberry and go for a 30-minute walk every day. Eat fruits and
vegetables and cut down on anything that has sugar, high fructose corn
syrup, white flour or too much sodium (salt) in it (and, as Michael
Pollan says, "Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants"). Get
seven hours of sleep each night and take the time to read a book a
month. I know this sounds like I've turned into your grandma, but,
dammit, take a good hard look at Granny -- she's fit, she's rested and
she knows the names of both of her U.S. Senators without having to
Google them. We might do well to listen to her. If we don't put our
own "oxygen mask" on first (as they say on the airplane), we will be
of no use to the rest of the nation in enacting any of this action
plan!

I'm sure there are many other ideas you can come up with on how we can
build this movement. Get creative. Think outside the politics-as-usual
box. BE SUBVERSIVE! Think of that local action no one else has tried.
Behave as if your life depended on it. Be bold! Try doing something
with reckless abandon. It may just liberate you and your community and
your nation.

And when you act, send me your stories, your photos and your video --
and be sure to post your ideas in the comments beneath this letter on
my site so they can be shared with millions.

C'mon people -- we can do this! I expect nothing less of all of you,
my true and trusted fellow travelers!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

Michael Moore is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and author. He
directed and produced Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit
9/11, and Sicko. He has also written seven books, most recently,
Mike’s Election Guide 2008

© 2009 MichaelMoore.com

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