One million sales of
Dude, Where's My Country? in three weeks

Letter from Michael Moore

I'm back home after visiting 39 cities in 23 days on my book 
tour and I want to thank everyone who came by to see me. It was 
our biggest tour yet, with five to ten thousand people a night 
filling basketball arenas and county fair grounds across the 
country. In many cities there were thousands more of you who 
couldn't get in (4000 people pounding on the door in Baltimore 
was quite a sight!). Next time we do the football stadiums!

The book went immediately to No 1 on the New York Times 
bestseller list. And it is still at No 1 after three weeks! It is 
also No 1 in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San 
Francisco Chronicle and most other lists in the country.

It took one year for Stupid White Men to sell a million 
copies in the United States. It took Dude, Where's My Country? 
just three weeks. That should give you some indication of the 
level of concern/frustration/anger in the country right now over 
what the Bush administration is up to.

All over America, this is what I saw on the tour: Tens of 
thousands of average Americans who don't like their commander-in-
chief lying to them in order to start a war. Not a night went by 
where I didn't have parents or siblings of soldiers in Iraq 
coming up to me, many of them in tears, pleading with me to "do 
something" to help bring their loved ones home from this war 
without end.

It was heart-wrenching, and I never knew quite what to say except 
to tell them that they were not alone and that all of us are 
doing our best to get rid of George W Bush. But that's a year 
away.

How many more of our children will be sent to their deaths for 
another no-bid multi-billion dollar Halliburton contract in the 
next 12 months?

What was amazing to me on this tour was that some of the biggest 
and most enthusiastic crowds were in hard-core Republican areas 
like Stockton, California and Wooster, Ohio. I get it when 13,000 
show up and try to squeeze in as they did at Berkeley's Greek 
Theatre. But when five or six thousand show up in places like 
Pullman, Washington (on the Idaho border) or Ypsilanti, Michigan, 
I'm convinced that there has been a shift, a real shift, in 
public opinion, and the only question now is what are WE going to 
do?

This week the Senate gave Bush the $87 billion he was looking for 
to continue the debacle in Iraq. But the Republicans knew that 
voting for this might come back to haunt them, so they asked the 
Democrats if they could just have a "voice vote" so no one's name 
would have to be recorded as having voted in favour of sending 
the nation into permanent debt (a debt that may not be paid off 
in our lifetime).

The Democrats, afraid of appearing "Unpatriotic", agreed to the 
deal. This was actually a compliment to all of YOU, as both 
parties know that the people are simmering and the only way they 
can get away with continuing this war is to do so in hiding (like 
the way they hide the body bags from public view as they return 
home).

What they don't get is that we are not going to let them off the 
hook so easily, and we will force them to take a stand sooner or 
later. How many more deaths will it take?

Not many, if what I saw this past month on the road across 
America is any indication. I have many stories to tell you about 
the people I encountered, the things I saw and heard, and the 
strange hope and optimism I now have that we can turn things 
around. I'm sorry I couldn't keep the diary I wanted to on my web 
site, but we were travelling to two cities on most days and I was 
lucky to find time for a few hours sleep.

Fortunately, our webmaster has been able to put up lots of good 
stuff each day and I hope you have a chance to visit it from time 
to time.

I'm off to Europe tomorrow for the book's release in the UK, 
Ireland, Germany and Austria. If you live there, come on by to 
one of the events. In the middle of all this I've been shooting 
my next movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, and I'm happy to report 
that it's looking good and is on schedule for release late next 
summer.

Thanks for granting me the privilege of, once again, having the 
No 1 book in the country. I am grateful for the support and I am 
buoyed by how large — and how deep into mainstream America — 
our little "community" has grown.

Don't despair — we will stop this war, we will create a better 
life for those who struggle every day, and we will reclaim our 
White House. Not a bad to-do list for the next 12 months!