High Noon in the U.S.A.

An email from Michael Moore:

"Tomorrow, the bankers and corporate chiefs are planning an historic victory party. With the election of Mitt Romney, their takeover of American democracy would be complete.

They thought they had accomplished that four years ago when they backed Barack Obama. He got more money from Wall Street than McCain -- Goldman Sachs was his #1 private contributor.

And even though he never put a single major corporate outlaw in jail and never signed a bill that would stop out-of-control greed; even though he put Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers in charge of the Treasury and economic policy and let them use our money to pay lavish bonuses to the Wall Streeters who wrecked our economy; even though he rejected a single-payer health care system and made sure "Obamacare" took it easy on insurance companies; even though he let them keep their Bush tax cut for another four years; it still wasn't enough for the wealthiest 1%.

So they decided to toss him to the curb and literally buy an election. Why? Because he enacted a little "reform." Because he wants them to pay just a tiny bit more in taxes. Because, deep down, they know what we know – that Barack Obama, if given a second term, is going to put the brakes on them. They know that he will appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn Citizens United. And they know that next time they crash our economy, some of them will probably go to jail.

They believe they can stop him by bamboozling enough of those '47%' moochers to vote for one of their own: Mitt Romney, a man who, like them, pays next to nothing in taxes; a man who has destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of working Americans; a man who hides his money in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands and won't show us his tax returns for the past decade.

This is who Wall Street wants elected president tomorrow – and if this happens, its goal of complete corporate control of the three branches of government will be complete. Trust me, if the plan succeeds, we may never get it back.

There were two things in the news these past couple weeks that unfortunately got little attention. But these two stories say it all about the America we will have unless these people are stopped.

One was a story in The Nation that exposed how Romney, while publicly opposing the auto company bailout, secretly got in on the action with his Wall Street donors and made over $15 million, a 4,000% ROI (hidden in a blind trust in his wife's name) by buying up the Delphi auto parts company, the former Delco/AC Spark Plug division of GM where my dad worked.

He then – get this – grabbed billions in bailout cash to "transform" Delphi from a bankrupt into a 'viable business' -- by slashing retiree pensions, shutting down 24 U.S. factories, and shipping every one of its 25,200 union jobs to China.

You'd think he'd keep quiet about Delphi – but no, he's got his supporters running ads in Ohio blaming Barack Obama for terminating the Delphi pensions – I kid you not. (When I opposed the Iraq War, Republicans called me a 'traitor'; when Romney betrays his country by sending what were formerly good American union jobs to China, his reward, in addition to the millions he pocketed, may be the presidency.)

The other story was a bill passed by the Pennsylvania legislature that would let businesses keep the money they withhold from their employees' paychecks. That's right. The taxes that Pennsylvanians pay to the state won't go to the state anymore – they'll go right into the bosses' pockets.

I was stunned to find out that other states are already doing this as an "incentive" to lure or keep businesses in their states. This is the New Feudalism:  the final merger between the corporate and political power structures, making the worker-serfs pay tribute to their employer-overlords.

So it's High Noon in the USA tomorrow, a literal showdown on the Main Streets of America between the rich and the rest of us. The 1% believe they can defeat the 99%. As the conservative commentator Stephen Moore (a member of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board) said, "Capitalism is a lot more important than democracy. I'm not even a big believer in democracy."

Citibank, in an internal memo, said the only thing standing in the way of the plutocrats is, well, elections: '[T]he rising wealth gap between the rich and poor will probably at some point lead to a political backlash...Whilst the rich are getting a greater share of the wealth, and the poor a lesser share, political enfranchisement remains as was – one person, one vote…[W]e are keeping a close eye on developments.'

We have the chance tomorrow to defeat them. They're counting on us not even showing up. The line in the sand has been drawn. Please do whatever you can today and tomorrow to get everyone you know to the polls – especially any relatives or friends in swing states. Even if you don't live in a swing state, you need to make a loud statement that you won't let this happen. And you need to take the House away from the Republicans so some work in Washington can get done.

To volunteer to walk precincts and get out the vote near where you live, go here. Or make calls to swing state voters. And don't forget that I need each of you to convince just one non-voter to vote tomorrow so that we can deliver the million-vote margin that could make all the difference.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Now go act as if your democracy depended on it – because it does"