Posted on 10/20/2004 1:42:13 PM PDT by hipaatwo
In a performance equal parts pep rally, revival meeting and comedy shtick, filmmaker Michael Moore told 4,000 political partisans in Eugene on Monday they must do everything they can to boot President George W. Bush from the White House. The president and his cohorts "are radicals out to undo our government, unfund it and tear up our Bill of Rights. That is their agenda - and we have to stop them," he said to rousing applause.
Eugene was the 31st city in Moore's 60-city "Slacker Uprising" tour, a get-out-the-vote campaign in 20 battleground states that began in late September and will continue through Election Day. Moore also spoke Monday night at Willamette University in Salem, and will speak today at noon at Portland State University.
Moore, maker of the anti-Bush "Fahrenheit 9/11" movie, addressed a sellout crowd at the Lane Events Center. The University of Oregon Cultural Forum sponsored the event, though students - including UO students arriving on Lane Transit District shuttle buses - appeared to make up less than half the crowd.
Wearing his trademark jeans, black jacket and tennis shoes - plus a lightning-yellow Oregon Ducks cap - Moore aimed his rhetorical guns at the media and Ralph Nader supporters, as well as the president. He urged Oregon voters to support Ballot Measure 34, which would increase preservation in two state forests, and to oppose Ballot Measure 36, which would ban same-sex marriages in the state.
His appearance attracted little protest - unless you count the "Billionaires for Bush" contingent pretending to support the president. "We're here to block the vote - it's not in billionaires' best interests for people to do that," said a joking Erin Ely of Eugene.
Michael Moore urges a crowd at the Lane Events Center to vote for Democrat John Kerry. Moore brought his "Slacker Uprising" tour to Eugene.
Sporting an Oregon Ducks cap, Michael Moore reacts to a question posing the possibility of the president's re-election.
Photos: Brian Davies / The Register-Guard
A fenced "free speech area" outside the events center stood empty before and during Moore's 90-minute talk, though some motorists found fliers advertising an anti-John Kerry documentary on their windshields after the event. When Moore at one point asked if there were any Republicans in the house, no one answered.
The only hecklers were a handful of supporters of independent presidential candidate Nader, whose name will be on most states' ballots but not Oregon's. Moore said he voted for Nader twice but that the stakes are too high to do so again.
"One of the traits of a great leader is the ability to listen," Moore said. "Ralph, you're not listening to the people this year - your own party does not want you to run this year."
Moore feigned the sexual ecstasy that he said Nader supporters feel when voting for their "pure" candidate in the privacy of the voting booth. Then came his punchline:
"Didn't your parents tell you when you were 14 years old that five minutes of feeling good has lifelong implications?"
The hecklers were asked to leave and did so, with no citations issued or arrests made, said Eugene police spokeswoman Kerry Delf.
Moore said Kerry may not be perfect, but is far superior to former Vice President Al Gore and this year's other Democratic presidential hopefuls. "There's a reason that they're saying Kerry is the No. 1 liberal in the Senate," said Moore. "It's because he is the No. 1 liberal in the Senate."
Moore saved some of his venom - and language not suitable for a family newspaper - for the national media, which he said failed to demand evidence when President Bush justified going to war by claiming that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Reporters didn't raise a fuss, he said, "because they were too excited about going on a ride in a tank in the desert wearing those little helmets. ... Democracy can't survive if people are left in the dark. There is blood on the hands of our media."
In a lighter moment, Moore showed some 30-second commercial spots he said Bush was free to use at no cost. One showed Kerry as a young man, then as an older man. The script: "John Kerry used to have long hair. Then he had shorter hair. Two words: Flip flop. Vote Bush."
Moore also read from an oversized version of "My Pet Goat," the children's book that President Bush, in Moore's documentary, is shown reading with Florida schoolchildren for several minutes after being informed that a second plane has struck the World Trade Center. Moore did not mention or seem aware that the book was written by UO education professor Siegfried Engelmann.
In a question-and-answer period, Eugene family therapist Sara Rich told Moore that her daughter, Suzanne, is a military police officer in Iraq who has managed to share a bootleg copy of "Fahrenheit 9/11" with her entire platoon.
"Thank you and your daughter for her service," Moore replied, "and we're going to get her home as soon as possible."
Moore said he's intent on showing his movie on TV on the eve of the Nov. 2 election, but isn't sure where or how. A pay-per-view cable company in New York, he said, has backed out from showing it under pressure from Republican critics. And yet the Sinclair Broadcasting Group still plans to air an anti-Kerry documentary on the public airwaves just before the election, with no opportunity for equal time, he said.
Moore said he will not submit his movie for an Academy Awards Oscar, because to do so would prevent him from airing it on TV this fall. "The Oscars for all of us is Nov. 2, right?" he said.
He said an army of poll-watchers and amateur video camera operators will be on hand in Florida and other states to make sure no one is wrongly disenfranchised from voting. He said people should ignore the media polls, which don't reflect all those who've never voted before, and focus instead on voting and getting their friends to do the same.
Moore concluded by asking everyone who was old enough to vote in 2000, but didn't, to stand. He asked them to pledge to vote this time - and then distributed his trademark "slacker" prizes: Top Ramen noodles for females, clean underwear for males.
"Sleep till noon, drink beer, vote for Kerry Nov. 2," he shouted. "That's the slacker motto."
I'm telling you guys right now.. these young and new Dems that have been registered are not going to wait 30-45 minutes in a line to vote.. It's just not going to happen..
That's what the absentee ballots are for.
There are no longer any lines. Oregon is a 100% vote by mail state.
Absentee ballots have tougher requirements than "early voting" at polls.
Here in Texas you have to prove that you are incapacitated or unable to make it. ANYONE can go to the polls early.
His appearance attracted little protest - unless you count the "Billionaires for Bush" contingent pretending to support the president. "We're here to block the vote - it's not in billionaires' best interests for people to do that," said a joking Erin Ely of Eugene.
< smirk smirk >
The Brownshirts for Kerry did their best to hide the moneytrail from BILLIONAIRES like George Soros. BTW, Tereesa Kerry is a billionaire who only paid 15.45% on $5.1million in declared income last year (taxable and tax exempt). How many millions did her estate draw in on that sizeable balance?
F. Democrats. They are F-ing the nation.
BTTT!
This is important...
"Thank you and your daughter for her service," Moore replied, "and we're going to get her home as soon as possible."
Huh? As if he gives a shiite about her "service"! Who in the heck is "we"? "..get her home as soon as possible." Is he claiming god-like powers, or saying that he will be a member of the 'Kerry administration'?
THIS IS NOT THE COUNTRY I GREW UP IN!! SOMEONE HAS STOLEN MY COUNTRY!!
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