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"Slacker," by Michael Moore

By Kate Loving Shenk

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 30Sep2008 Word count: 673 Viewed: 561 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

I predict that Michael Moore's new movie, "Slacker," will lay the groundwork for an Obama/Biden Presidency.

I am a great fan of Michael Moore.

The movie, "SiCKO" changed my life. It did this by inspiring me to become a Community Activist/Organizer for Single Payer in Pennsylvania.

Michael Moore does not disappoint with this film. His film making genius shines. His legendary sense of humor mixes with pathos when he handed out clean underwear and Ramen noodles to those who never voted before. When the Republican Party charged Moore with bribing kids to vote, he told the press that he intended to charge the Republican Party with the theft of their own sense of humor.

Watching this on the film truly looked as silly as Moore intended it to look.

Underneath it all lies the true theft: of the 2000 and 2004 election by the Bush administration.

The Democrats contributed to this unbelievable theft by caving in to the powers that be, the corporate media and the corporate powers in Washington.

"Without an informed electorate, Democracy ceases to exist," said Michael Moore. But without the courage of elected leaders to stand up for their constituents, our Democracy doesn't have a chance.

We must have the courage to speak our truth with compassion, perhaps mixed with a good dose of outrage, but also balanced with respect for all people.

We defend Domocracy by living it, said a mother in the film whose son was killed in Iraq while fulfilling (the failed) mission of finding Weapons Of Mass Destruction, which many of us knew never existed.

Without dissent, Democracy is a sham.

The issue of what I have always called "True Christianity" is raised in this film.

Jesus said: "We will be judged by how we treat the least among us."

Jesus said: "Turn the other cheek."

Jesus said: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

He did not say: "Bomb Iraq, Iran and Aphganistan or feed the coffers of the very rich (with these wars) as we allow the least among us to starve and live on the streets."

As we perform more acts of of Community Activism and Organization, we must not become hardened to the suffering that has gone before. I was reminded of this when Moore took his Slacker Uprising to Kent State University, the site of a student massacre in May of 1970. The students were protesting the invasion of Combodia by the American Government during the Nixon administration.

Having just emerged from all the assassinations of the 1960's, the student murders were, for many of us, the last straw. Some retreated to alcoholism, drug addiction, and a general alienation from society.

I believe we can rethink the numbing of our emotional (pain) bodies and awaken to a new perspective.

This is the theme of the many activist performances in Moore's Slacker film.

We are in a time of great awakening.

The economic collapse in America and the world gives us the opportunity to begin again.

The failure of eight years of a Bush Presidency gives us the opportunity to breathe new life into our Democracy.

It's the end of our life as we know it, as the song goes in the movie.

The memory of the Civil Right's Movement of the 1960's, of which my family was intensely involved, comes to mind as Moore discussed the voter registration drive in Selma Alabama.

My patient last night, a woman of color, never voted before.

She has a voter registration card but no photo ID. She was confused as to how to proceed. And without a photo ID, she will be turned away at the polls.

So we told her where to go and she was grateful for the encouragement.

This time around, we do acts that when put together with what others are doing: speaking one to one with a person, going door to door, and making calls urging people to vote, add up to a regime change in Washington.

And let go of outcome.

And ask the Angels to help us all.

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