Dear
American 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
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 ......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, the
vanishing access to
health care he ensures, the environmental 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
-
being the voting choice of terrorists - 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." |