Under an increasingly warm midday sun, thousands of UCLA
students gathered Tuesday to hear Michael Moore’s impassioned
call to oust President Bush in the Nov. 2 election.
Sporting his trademark baseball cap, Moore took to the stage and
pulled out his partisan politics as he lashed out at Bush and his
handling of the war in Iraq. Moore spoke, shouted and sang for over
an hour as a crowd of over 2,000 students and staff in the Los
Angeles Tennis Center literally sweated it out.
The controversial liberal author and filmmaker has come to
expect protests everywhere he goes, but the crowd that greeted him
Tuesday was largely supportive.
“He did make some good points,” said Nick Forman, a
third-year political science and philosophy student. “It was
a productive event (and) it was a hell of a turnout.”
But a contingent of about 20 protesters holding signs with
phrases like “Give war as many chances as it needs” and
“No Moore lies!” greeted students entering the tennis
center.
One of the protesters, Nicholas Louw, the vice chairman of the
Bruin Republicans, said they were not against his right of free
speech, but Louw and his group would not “passively absorb
(Moore’s) vitriolic disdain for America’s
policies.” He said he wanted a “comparable
conservative” to speak on campus, like Sean Hannity or Ann
Coulter.
Inside the tennis center, Moore started his speech by
criticizing Bush’s performance in the first two presidential
debates and then explained why he believes the country has
“shifted to a liberal position.”
“The majority of Americans,” he said, “do not
believe assault weapons should be available on the street.”
He added that most Americans also support stronger environmental
protection laws, higher pay for women and abortion rights.
Moore also said the United States needs to take responsibility
for arms Saddam Hussein had before he was removed from power by
U.S. forces. “(Hussein) is the monster we helped to
create,” Moore said. “We funded him, we armed
him.”
Moore lightened the mood with a throwback to past
generations’ protest movements when he brought out his
previously unannounced guest, folk-rock singer Joan Baez.
“Thirty years ago it was the musicians who were the folk
heroes,” Baez said. But today she believes filmmakers like
Moore have taken over that role. Baez sang two songs before Moore
joined her for a rendition of “America the
Beautiful.”
After the music faded, Moore returned to encourage the crowd to
get out the vote in nearby battleground states like Arizona and
Nevada.
When asked about his upcoming projects, Moore said he is working
on a documentary on HMOs and medical companies. He then read a memo
he obtained from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer advising its
employees to avoid talking to Moore.
Moore called out to all of the students in the crowd who did not
plan on voting to do so in this election. He said he sympathized
with those who felt like Democratic nominee John Kerry was not a
great candidate, but said he was still preferable to Bush.
Moore said he is more against the current president than he is
against the entire Republican Party.
“Another Republican would be better than Bush,”
Moore admitted. He added that Bush has a “cowboy
mentality” in the way he had the United States invade Iraq
without a plan to clean it up.
Moore expressed problems with the Democratic Party as well.
“Both parties kind of suck,” he said.
“I’ve voted for Ralph (Nader) in the past,”
Moore said. But he added that he wished Nader was not running for
president this year because “the stakes are too
high.”
Amid the partisan rancor, Moore interspersed humor throughout
his speech. When he first came out on stage, he commented on the
heat, at which point a crowd member yelled, “Take your shirt
off!”
Moore responded, “That’s something you’d never
recover from.”