Lad din stemme blive hørt i USA!


Kære danske venner

Aldrig før har vi ønsket så meget at vi kunne stemme med i USA om verdens mest magtfulde post på et så afgørende tidspunkt i historien.
Men kan vi ikke få lidt indflydelse på valget alligevel? Jo, send dit eget "bekymrede" valgindlæg som en e-mail til dine amerikanske venner og du vil blive forbavset over hvor meget de klikker det rundt til deres mere reaktionære eller apolitiske venner og familie. Herunder er mit forslag, som du er velkommen til at låne eller skrive om i din egen stil. (Brug især argumenterne fra mit udvalg af Bush-kritiske amerikanske avisartikler hvis du har svært ved at formulere dig på engelsk). Se til allersidst hvorfor det nytter og hvad responsen var på min mail.

Kærlig hilsen Jacob Holdt 

 

 

Dear Americans friends


I have been bombarded the whole year with election mails from many of you. Below I have selected the most thoughtful or entertaining and put them on my website in case you missed them. Take a look at them and click them around to your friends. You need flash, a fast connection and the sound on. Behind the fun is a serious reality which I will get back to further down in this mail. But first take a look at:

www.american-pictures.com/gives/thanks

www.american-pictures.com/gives/Moore/thanks

www.american-pictures.com/gives/pizza
.....served with HOME SECURED "Freedom Fries " !

www.american-pictures.com/
gives/help/finding/the/PLANE/truth

www.american-pictures.com/gives/you/the/blues

www.american-pictures/gives/liberation

www.american-pictures.com/gives/Bush/a/human/face

www.american-pictures.com/
gives/billionaires/for/Bush/a/free/rap

And finally, isn't it time to join the world again? :
www.american-pictures.com/
gives/the/world/vote/on/Bush/and/Kerry

But most important are the informative background stories here:
www.american-pictures.com/gives/alternative/news
 



So you are about to elect a world leader and we Europeans feel terrible about the fact that we cannot participate in this - for the world - most important election we can recall. The other day Danish TV shocked most Danes by finding and interviewing a Dane who actually is in favor of Bush. This says something about the mood over here in a country which like Britain is your closest ally in the worsening war in Iraq. 

But here is a more disturbing thing. Countless people I have talked to over here admit that in their deeper subconscious thinking they feel some strange relief or even joy whenever they hear about another American war casualty in Iraq - even people on the right who support our own soldiers in Iraq. They don't like to admit that they harbor such emotions, but feel that those American deaths might be the only way to get Americans to wake up and see how Bush has betrayed the world, betrayed Iraq and sadly, yes, betrayed his own troops.

When so many of us have violence/terrorism in our own hearts we can't possibly win a war for "peace" and "democracy".  And if we Europeans entertain such negative thinking, just imagine what the Arab world feels! My belief is that much of the violence we now witness in Iraq might somehow be caused by our own violent thinking.

As a person of dual loyalties - both toward my new country America and my old country Denmark - I thus feel deeply troubled by the explosion of anti-American feelings which Bush has managed to stir up in such a short time all over the world - negative emotional reservoirs which are virtual breeding grounds for terrorism and which I have not seen so strong since the Vietnam war. It is so sad to think of when we recall all the good will and pro-American sentiments almost the whole world entertained in the Clinton era under a president who made everybody "feel" he was listening to the problems of the world. Could you imagine Bush like Clinton thrusting himself into the angry masses of the Gaza strip?

So if you have not yet made up your mind of whom to vote for, remember that we in the rest of the world think very highly of Kerry ......like most statesmen in the world at least he had a passport before he ran for president - unlike his opponent!

So here is my voting advice for you. If you are normally a Democrat you should perhaps vote Republican this time. And if you are a Republican you should vote Democratic. Why? Well, I read a deep analysis the other day - I think it was in New York Times (I will put it on the web if I find it) - which compared the disastrous mistakes the Republicans have made under Bush with the mistakes the Conservatives did in England. These mistakes literally destroyed the Tories after years of rule and plowed the way for Labor under Blair to have virtual monopoly of the political scene. So if you hate the Republicans - New York Times concluded - you should allow Republicans to have four more years under Bush after which all the accumulated hostility of the world and the explosion of terrorism he inspires, the gigantic deficit gap he leaves for our children to pay, the reckless gap between rich and poor he creates (just look at my own family's situation), the inexplicable cruelty of the killer judges he appoints to rule for the next 30-40 years!!!, the vanishing access to health care he ensures, the environmental global destruction etc. - all of that will ensure that Americans for years to come will not trust Republicans to run their country again!!! Just read here how fast their greed robbed Iraq - and robbed Iraqis and Arabs of any goodwill towards Americans after their "liberation".


My personal reasons for writing this?  Well, like most of us these days I feel totally powerless witnessing the destructive course the world has taken under Bush. I don't like feeling powerless, so when I sat here on the road in Jutland on a rainy day - killing time between one of my American Pictures presentations and my aunts funeral - I had fun trying also to kill time for Bush making these web pages. After all - not everything should be sad under Bush! So enjoy them!

To my many Republican friends: I enjoyed our many discussions in the past. I hope you will see this mail as just another good dialogue between us - while you ponder - with most of the world now being against Bush - if he - the man terrorists would vote for - really is working for your long term Republican interests!

With love

Jacob Holdt

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."  The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude."

She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met but, somehow, now it's my fault."

 

 

Hvorfor det nytter:

 

Kære danske venner igen

Vi føler os let magtesløse overfor et så stort land som USA, men faktisk kan vi støtte Kerrys anklager om at størstedelen af verden er imod Bush - noget de fleste amerikanere som sædvanlig intet ved om - ved at lade vores stemme blive hørt. Skønt jeg tydeligt husker hvordan vores kæmpedemonstrationer under Vietnam-krigen aldrig blev rapporteret i USA, er det min erfaring at amerikanerne lytter til os når det foregår gennem personlig nærkontakt. Og eftersom de er så utroligt misinformerede af deres massemedier - selv mine sorte og frisindede venner ser jeg nu sidde fastnaglede til det xenofobiske Bush-glorificerende Fox-Tv - er de langt lettere at påvirke end vi forestiller os hvis vi konfronterer dem med alternative sandheder.

Selv om jeres personlige venner måske er demokrater, kan I være sikre på at de klikker jeres "bekymrede" valgindlæg videre til deres republikanske venner og familie. Hvor langt en af mine tidligere bunke-emails (om den danske velfærdsstat og hvor meget den sparer os i skat i forhold til amerikanerne) vandrede rundt, opdagede jeg et halvt år senere da en tilfældig gæst under et middagsselskab i New York pludselig sad og underholdt mig om dens indhold - uden at vide at det var mig der havde skrevet den eller at jeg var dansker. Og en "long term conservative republican" skrev efter at have fået den at det var første gang i hans liv han politisk var bragt til at tvivle over sin egen holdning. Det er tvivlerne i valget vi skal nå og glem ikke hvor få stemmer der skal flyttes i svingstater som Ohio, Pennsylvania og Florida for at få regimeskifte. Så lad endelig DIN danske stemme blive hørt!

Brug hvad I synes om fra ovenstående mail eller skriv det I selv har på hjerte om Bush. Jeg har lavet den blå-hvid-rød-kantede mail uden grafik for at den skal gå gennem alle spam-filtrene. Til gengæld bruger jeg rigeligt med underholdende og bloddryppende grafik på mine tilhørende hjemmesider for at de straks skal fange opmærksomheden og få folk til at klikke mailen videre. Amerikanerne får jo næsten alle deres informationer fra visuelle medier, men ideen er selvfølgelig at de skal få appetit på at læse de tankevækkende artikler, jeg har samlet fra Washington Post, New York Times og andre Bush-fjendtlige aviser. De blodige billeder fra Irak tager jeg med fordi sådanne billeder fra krigen totalt censureres ud af amerikanske medier. Jeg husker hvor bitter, jeg var, over at sådanne billeder aldrig blev vist fra Vietnam. Hvis krigens ofre dengang havde været vist i USA, ville amerikanerne ALDRIG have tilladt den gradvise ophobning af 3 millioner vietnamesiske lig!!!

Mit råd inden I skriver: husk at indlede med "our strong ties to America", "we are your closest allies in Iraq", "....in the war against terrorism" o.lign. (Ingen amerikanere har nogensinde hørt om at vi danskere kæmper sammen med dem i Irak, så fortæl dem endelig dette). Jeg ved fra mine egne foredrag i USA hvor utrolig meget kritik overfor amerikanske forhold man kan slippe godt fra hvis blot de føler at den udspringer af en dyb kærlighed til landet. Og da hovedårsagen til  Bush's store opbakning ligger i folks angst for terrorisme synes jeg I skal slå særligt meget på hvordan Bush rent faktisk SKABER mere terrorisme - omskriv f.eks. ordene om dette i mine udvalgte artikler fra New York Times her og her og her til jeres egne ord. 

Har du selv fundet endnu bedre artikler end dem jeg har lagt op på www.american-pictures.com/gives/alternative/news er du velkommen til at sende dem og jeg vil lægge dem op "på Internettene" ........som Bush naivt kaldte det i sin sidste duel med Kerry :-)

Her er et par reaktioner på min egen mail for oven:

Hi Jacob,
  Your message was forwarded to me from one of your friends. Great work! Thanks for REACHING OUT to Americans with some words and information that will move and inspire folks....as you know there is a lot of mobilization here - and it looks like there are certain to be delays in the vote count...but this time many people will be watching. Martha

Jacob. We are a real mess over here and scared the elections may be stolen again. I wish the EU would stand up to Bush. We are protesting and doing e-mail activism and doing our best to get rid of Bush. Kerry isn't the best, but better. I am worried about our country and what it is doing to the whole world, us citizens included. I have forwarded your mail to everyone I know. O'Neill

Skynd dig nu og skriv til dine egne amerikanske venner. Som i 2000 skal der sandsynligvis også denne gang kun flyttes 200-300 stemmer for at modparten vinder. Slet disse danske ord og brug evt. min farvede ramme til dine egne ord. Hvis du ikke modtog denne e-mail som html kan du kopiere den herfra: 

www.holdt.us/from/election/disaster

og klistre den ind i dit email-program (CTRL A + CTRL C og CTRL V .....dersom nogle af jer stadig befinder jer på Bush's Internet niveau :-)
Husk at lægge alle jeres adresser i BCC-feltet for at beskytte jeres venners privatliv. Send gerne mig en Blind Carbon Copy.

Held og lykke med det som jo også er VORES valg!

De kærligste hilsner

Jacob Holdt
Gernersgade 63
1319 København K
Jacob@Holdt.us