Slacker Uprising! Michael Moore's New Movie Hopes to Get Out the Youth Vote!...And Offers Itself Up Free!

Michael Moore mailed me this morning (of course, along with his entire mailing list,) to offer up his newest movie, Slacker Uprising, as a free download. He is doing this partly as an anniversary gift to his fans, almost 20 years after his first major hit, Roger and Me, but also in the hopes of getting out the youth vote across America. Its also a good publicity stunt and probably wont eat into whatever profits he was gonna make in the first place via this Brave New Films release. Whoever sees movies in theaters does it at this point for the theater experience, and people who buy DVDs to own a physical representation of whatever it is, are gonna do that regardless of a free download. Who he is reaching with this delivery system is probably a population of kids who would find a way to get it free anyway...or not bother. These kids are a group who has to get out and vote, and they may yet be America's best secret weapon and last chance.

Say what you will about Moore, but he is a real activist and his particular form of agitprop theater teaches and motivates fantastically. Call it Moore's little October surprise or whatever you want...we need all the help we can get at this point and the reality of that is pretty stark considering whats happening under our noses every day. People often give up at this point because of the polls and the nightly news hammering how helpless we all are. Hell, I feel helpless, but I'm not going to give in to the propaganda that would have me paralyzed to the point of inaction, and invite another 4 or 8 years of disaster.

So, go here, sign up, and most importantly, put in some emails of slackers or those who know slackers, so that Moore might contact them himself and offer them this movie, a pack of Hanes or some Ramen noodles, and motivate them to head down to their polling places come election day and let their voices be heard in this mess! Its time to grow up and take responsibility for the future that we wont have if we don't get on this now! For the activism alone, heavy handed as it sometimes is, I've gotta be proud to have Michael Moore out there fighting the good fight for our country.



c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

Gustav, God, McCain, W, and Moore....

Love him or hate him, Michael Moore has been speaking out bravely against the total and complete insanity of the past 8 years from the get go. This morning I woke to a letter in my inbox from Mike to God, and...so clearly does it spell out whats happened to us all as Americans, who has hijacked our country, the undercurrent of ideals from nuts implying who and what we are, and how helpless we have been in the face of a construct of fear designed to immobilize us.

This insidious fear , constructed by the Rovian spin machine, has glued us to our couches and demanded that we sit on our hands while our fellow Americans and citizens of the world suffer; go shopping, is the message that we get from our leaders...don't question what is being done in our names because if we do, maybe we are less than patriotic. Even if he is over the top, Moore has bravely spoken out about the truth of this sad situation. He is also someone who immediately took action when Katrina hit, raising money, closing his office, and sending all of his resources there. That is what Americans do in the face of disaster. As the Bush administration is winding down their fiasco, maybe we can start to get back to ourselves. 8 years is a long, long time in the American short term memory, but maybe we need to start expecting a little more of ourselves and eachother.



As of yesterday New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had ordered the evacuation of NOLA and hopefully that is moving along as well as can be expected. There is no wonderful and smooth way to get the old and infirm out of their homes and to ensure pets and property. There is no easy way to then return to destroyed homes and to try to rebuild again. Even with most of the people gone...even with a partially rebuilt infrastructure...there is no way to tell what is going to happen. The same news reports about Louisiana also apply to Florida, Texas and just anbout any Gulf region where this or the next storm could hit. From the AP:



So, direct from Mike's site, here is his letter from this morning...you can read it here or there...and be sure to look at the trailer to the new documentary Trouble the Waters which is playing in limited release right now and should be required viewing as we decide who is going to take over the mantle of Commander in Chief.

Sunday, August 31st, 2008
An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore

Dear God,

The other night, the Rev. James Dobson's ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be canceled.

I see that You have answered Rev. Dobson's prayers -- except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Now, heavenly Father, we all know You have a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. To send a hurricane on the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster AND right at the beginning of the Republican Convention was, at first blush, a stroke of divine irony. I don't blame You, I know You're angry that the Republicans tried to blame YOU for Katrina by calling it an "Act of God" -- when the truth was that the hurricane itself caused few casualties in New Orleans. Over a thousand people died because of the mistakes and neglect caused by humans, not You.

Some of us tried to help after Katrina hit, while Bush ate cake with McCain and twiddled his thumbs. I closed my office in New York and sent my entire staff down to New Orleans to help. I asked people on my website to contribute to the relief effort I organized -- and I ended up sending over two million dollars in donations, food, water, and supplies (collected from thousands of fans) to New Orleans while Bush's FEMA ice trucks were still driving around Maine three weeks later.

But this past Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Republicans had begun making plans to possibly postpone the convention. The AP had reported that there were no shelters set up in New Orleans for this storm, and that the levee repairs have not been adequate. In other words, as the great Ronald Reagan would say, "There you go again!"

So the last thing John McCain and the Republicans needed was to have a split-screen on TVs across America: one side with Bush and McCain partying in St. Paul, and on the other side of the screen, live footage of their Republican administration screwing up once again while New Orleans drowns.

So, yes, You have scared the Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of them, and more than a few million of your followers tip their hats to You.

But now it appears that You haven't been having just a little fun with Bush & Co. It appears that Hurricane Gustav is truly heading to New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We hear You, O Lord, loud and clear, just as we did when Rev. Falwell said You made 9/11 happen because of all those gays and abortions. We beseech You, O Merciful One, not to punish us again as Pat Robertson said You did by giving us Katrina because of America's "wholesale slaughter of unborn children." His sentiments were echoed by other Republicans in 2005.

So this is my plea to you: Don't do this to Louisiana again. The Republicans got your message. They are scrambling and doing the best they can to get planes, trains and buses to New Orleans so that everyone can get out. They haven't sent the entire Louisiana National Guard to Iraq this time -- they are already patrolling the city streets. And, in a nod to I don't know what, Bush's head of FEMA has named a man to help manage the federal government's response. His name is W. Michael Moore. I kid you not, heavenly Father. They have sent a man with both my name AND W's to help save the Gulf Coast.

So please God, let the storm die out at sea. It's done enough damage already. If you do this one favor for me, I promise not to invoke your name again. I'll leave that to the followers of Rev. Dobson and to those gathering this week in St. Paul.

Your faithful servant and former seminarian,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. To all of God's fellow children who are reading this, the city of New Orleans has not yet recovered from Katrina. Please click here for a list of things you can do to help our brothers and sisters on the Gulf Coast. And, if you do live along the Gulf Coast, please take all necessary safety precautions immediately

John Edwards Rocks MTV/MySpace, Thursday at Noon EST; Michael Moore on Oprah at 4 EST

I just got a message from Tom, who was for the longest time, my only friend on MySpace. Now that I've made some virtual pseudo-friends on my chronically neglected site there, I hardly ever hear from Tom anymore. But that Tom, boy does he know me! He sent me a notice out of the blue last night that today at noon EST John Edwards will be appearing in a live forum brought to us by MTV and MySpace, here.
Apparently, users will be able to IM their questions to Edwards live.
I love interactive forums like this, and even though I'll have to skip this one because of prior commitments, it seems like a good thing to have a look at.
I hope that he has a chance to comment on our growing Iran problem.
Joe-the mole-Lieberman has been a busy little bee in helping the republicans lay down the groundwork for any war that Bush may decide to come up with as he exits stage left.
Passing the embarrassing thou-shalt-not-dis-Petraeus Amendment was bad enough, but the Lieberman/Kye Amendment was destructive in allowing any wiggle room at all for these war mongers...and why were either of these pieces necessary?
Its almost as if the dems are tripping over themselves to try to prove that they are tough on the middle east, when polls already show that most Americans believe that they are.

Here is Jim Webb on this mess:


Oprah is doing another big health care show today at 4PM EST, and it features not only Michael Moore, but the DC health insurance lobby. The theme is "Sick in America:It Can Happen to You."

Smackdown!!

Michael Moore is impressing me beyond my awe at him getting up at the Academy Awards and announcing to the world that the war was/is illegal, beyond showing America and the world the hypocrisy that is rampant in this administration, and beyond putting himself on the line over and over again as a clown, a jerk, and an American everyman, to get the story. To watch the establishment, controlled by the powerful force of the drug and insurance lobby, flail pathetically in some attempt to discredit Moore, when too many Americans know the truth from experience, is just a joke. We've all been sick, or we know someone who has been sick, and we all know the truth about the insurance industry. many Americans may be stupid and lazy about learning the issues, but sickness and death are two things that cant be escaped...so, trying to lie to us about this is laughable.
And, man, do I love to hear a smart man put Blitzer in the dust, and call him on his lax interviewing over the past years.

So, onward and upward, Moore sent me an email today talking about his appearance today on Larry King Live with Dr Sanjay Gupta, and part 2 of his smackdown with Wolfie, and also the part of his site that is dedicated to debunking the misleading crap that is trickling out to try to discredit More's message.

Well, get ready, because today I turned on MSNBC and there was Bush himself swaggering his way through a laughable western twanged speech about health care and, hard as it is to understand what he is getting at, it appears that it has something to do with our freedom of medical choice being preserved by funnelling more money to his friends in the insurance industry...or something...I had to turn it off because I started to go into my "I cant believe that this guy is the President of the United States" spiral, and I know that it never leads to a good place...so, I switched over to CNN, where I found that Bush was also!!...So I started scanning and as I went past Fox, it was some airport police action somewhere in the country. I was sort of squinting at the little screen in the corner of the bigger screen here on my computer screen, when they suddenly cut back to Bush, and I jumped back. It was the juxtaposition of the swaggering cowboy right in my face with the swat teams in the grainy helicopter photos that said "BE AFRAID!! BE VERY AFRAID!!"...and I turned to a workman that was here and said, "See? look!! We are supposed to be afraid!"..and he burst out laughing, as only an immigrant who has seen actual reasons to be afraid, can.
As a matter of fact, everyone is laughing at Bush these days....and it would be hilarious if it weren't so bloody tragic.

So, here is Michael Moore telling Wolfie Blitzer the way it is, and asking him about HIS record!
Part 2 will turn up soon and I will post it...and I look forward to watching my DVR of Larry King interview where Moore confronts Gupta!

So, this is Gupta on Sicko...



And, this is Pt 1 of Mike with Wolff:



And Pt 2....



Update ....emails surface...Gupta admits he was wrong...CNN had the correct infomation all along and went with the misleading story anyway! Look here for the emails, and the story. I think that "journalists" who play fast and loose with the truth to try to make for a more dramatic story, regardless of the way it leans, should be fired. I'd like to see Gupta taken off the air. This subject is just too important, and I really think that we have to start demanding accountability from the press (and our doctors, even if they have a big time network job!)

SICKO...

I hope that this blows up in the face of Reaganomics and the deregulation that led to the neocon agenda....Look at this (thanks to PJ of the Morning Seditionists blog) and check the other little clips below it.
Some may say that Michael Moore goes too far into a silly, extreme realm in illustrating his points, but it could be that America needs a little levity and simplicity every once in a while in order to GET what is happening. Who would've believed any of this when the laws were being taken apart in the first place?...Well, the big misunderestimation of how bad and criminal people can be has to be over...
And, I think that Michel Moore is a hero for exposing what he's exposed, and saying what he has said so far....Annoyances aside, this is important material that effects us all...so watch it and weep...and get ready to see some Insurance executives and government lobbyists run for the hills, because it could be that their time is, um, over...




More later...I'm heading down to NYC!!