Because I could not stop, for death, he kindly stopped for me, the carriage held, but just ourselves, and immortality and immortality.

We slowly draw, in you no haste, and I, I had put away my labor and my leisure too, for his civility, for his civility.

We passed to school, where children played, their lessons, guessfully done, we passed through fields of gazing grain.

We passed the setting sun, we passed the setting sun.

This is Michael Moore. This is my podcast.

The song was Natalie Merchant, along with Susan McHillin and the chanting house singing their riff on the Emily Dickinson poem, because I could not stop for death.

He kindly stopped for me, sort of a mournful, soulful tune to play today, appropriate for what we're going to do on this episode of my podcast.

For now, over three weeks, I, like many of you, have felt deep despair.

I felt it actually for a much longer than these three weeks. I first visited Gaza, almost 30, 39 years ago.

That's how long this little strip of land, three to five pounds wide, about 25 pounds long.

One of the most god-awful sights imaginable, and when I first saw it, I never recovered from it.

39 years ago, this has been with me, and I went back to Gaza.

I wasn't prepared for what I saw, and it's been like this now for, for me at least, for what, almost four decades of beat on witness, and lucky me.

All I have to do is suffer through what I observe and see and experience, but I don't have to be Palestinian.

And to wake up all these years later in the morning of October 7th, and to learn that there are over 1,400 dead, slaughtered Jewish brothers and sisters in the streets, in their homes.

I want to live in a world where we don't slaughter anybody, where we don't harm or take hostages or put anybody in an outdoor prison for 17 years.

I don't want to live in that kind of world, but I'm alive. I'm alive, and I'm a witness, and I'm a citizen of this, of this world.

And I just can't turn away. I can't ignore what's going on.

And you've heard me, those of you who've been fans of mine for a long time, say that I will not stand for anti-Semitism, I will not stand for any kind of bigotry racism.

I will not stand for anybody who wants to harm the Jews of this world.

And I've talked in the past about what I've done throughout my life since I was a teenager to stand up against the haters, to stand up and say with other non-Jews, with Gentiles that we will never let what happened in the 20th century ever happen again, never again, never again.

But that promise, that pledge, if you're a Jewish and you hear a non-Jew like me say, I will never let this happen to you again, I will stand, I will have your back, I will not allow harm to you.

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