The Rise of Slackers

Michael Moore has released his latest documentary “Slackers Uprising” at the right time with US Elections just a few weeks away. You can download the movie legally for free, just follow the link provided by Patrix.

The term Slackers in this movie refers to College Students (So not people like me), who would prefer to be Lazy and Party around (Sounds like me) instead of registering and voting in Elections (Shit! Sounds exactly like me!). I have many reasons myself for not voting in India:

- I wan’t in a single place long enough to catch an election.

- I did have a chance once, I went to the election booth with my Voter’s id only to find that they didn’t have my name listed in the Roll. That was it, I traveled away again and I don’t know when I will be able to vote again in Elections.

Ever since I saw Fahrenheit 9/11, I had become a big fan of his work. His documentaries are all about bringing forward truth with facts. When you watch his documentary you can’t help but notice Truth staring at your face. Slackers Uprising is one such effort by Michael Moore.

Picture: http://www.slackeruprising.com

The movie is about his struggle that he went through in the Fall of 2004 before the US Presidential election, to tour colleges in US and make the students to register and vote. With just 5 weeks left to election in 2004, He toured colleges in 60 cities in that short frame of time. It was amazing to see what one man was capable of doing. At some point I felt Moore must be Gandhi of the West. Sure, he isn’t exactly what Gandhi was, but his belief in fighting the Bush Administration with Truth was remarkably similar to what Gandhi did against the British. Throughout the movie, Moore doesn’t dislike the citizens who are Republicans. In fact he goes to the length of welcoming the folks who disrupt his speech and tells them that if Democrats come to power, whatever beneficial things that are going to happen will happen for them too. This is another place where I saw Gandhi in him.

Winston Churchill did say that if Gandhi fought him with Guns and Canons, He would have crushed him with his weapons. But Gandhi fought him with Truth and Churchill said that there is no weapon to kill Truth. Moore’s agenda was simple and clear throughout the movie:

1. To bring out the Truth in front of the people.

2. To show them their responsibility and what it means for the Young to go out and Vote.

To me Michael Moore is a Modern Gandhi and I wish we had more or atleast one in every country.

There are various issues that one has to consider for this election – Economy, Jobs, Healthcare, Illegal Immigrants, Environment, Rising prices of Energy, Foreign policy. These issues will have to be fought and solved even after the elections. But to put the first step in the right direction for all these issues to be solved, it is very important for every American Citizen to go out and vote. This is exactly what the movie portrays.

The movie begins with showing how John Kerry, who was leading in opinion polls, all of a sudden was steered away due to the Republican Campaign. By the time Kerry and Democrats responded much damage had been done. Moore comes to the rescue, by talking to the young voters who haven’t registered to vote and urges them to Vote. The movie is all about that Journey, the difficulties, the opposition from Republicans preventing him to speak and much more. In the end, Kerry doesn’t win. He loses only by a small margin and if Moore hadn’t done what he did, Kerry would have lost with a wider margin

That is the essence of the movie, To show what difference it will make if each and every eligible citizen in a Democracy (not just USA) goes out to Vote for whom he/she believes in. The key word is Democracy and hence this movie can not only be applied to the US Context but also to all the countries which exercise Democracy. This is exactly why I care about the movie even though I am not a US Citizen.

Why should the rest of world care if Slackers in US Vote or not?

1. US is the No. 1 Economy. If something happens to this big economy the ripples are felt through the entire world. There is no doubt about that.

2. As a leader US has the power to set an example either good or bad, because they are looked upon by the world as the leader. The attitude in most cases is “It worked in US, so we do it” or “It failed in US, so let’s not repeat that” with some exceptions.

3. The Govt. that comes to power in US has the say in Foreign policies and that means a lot to other countries that have ties.

I am not a politically savy person and these are just some reasons I can think of as to why People of the world will care about the US Elections. There could also be other reasons like Technology, Education, Science, Medicine, Business etc. If you know of anymore reasons please feel free to share it with me.

Here is a non-U.S Citizen sincerely hoping that good things will happen in this election and People will cast their vote for carefully thought out reasons and not for reasons that sound like “Sarah Palin is Cute”, “Sarah Palin is Hot”, “Dude, did you see her in Bikini?”, “Palin’s glasses are awesome, it’s a rage”, “Palin’s Daughter is way Cuter than Hillary’s”!