Political Activist Michael Moore
Nov. 7, 2000 -- Filmmaker and political activist Michael Moore didn’t want you to vote for Al Gore. While he said he thinks Gore is “a decent guy,” he also took the vice president to task in an open letter: “I have spent the last eight years doing what I could, in my own small way, to try and stop the hemorrhaging that your administration caused.”
And Michael Moore really didn't want you to vote for George W. Bush. He told the Texas Governor, “Your possible victory on Tuesday is a threat to our national security.” He went even further, calling Bush “a banal, despicable, and corrupt human being.”
While Moore would have preferred that you vote for Ralph Nader, whose presidential bid he ardently supported, he suggested that almost anyone was a better choice than the major-party candidates in this year’s election. The point, he said, was having a choice — in Congressional races where a single candidate is running unopposed, he urged voters to cast write-in votes for house plants instead of allowing an uncontested victory. “Our whole campaign slogan here with the ficus is ‘Vote ficus. It can’t get any worse,’” he said. “A potted plant will not send us to war.” Michael Moore discussed the choices this year’s voters have — and why some feel disenfranchised — in an online chat on Election Night. A transcript of the chat follows.
Moderator
Michael Moore joins us now in a live, online discussion. Welcome, and thanks for being here!
Michael Moore
Thank you for having me.
Moderator
You say on your web site that a Bush presidency would be "a threat to our national security." What do you mean?
Michael Moore
Number one, he is the one who told us about a year agothat he has not committed any felonies in the last 25 years.It implies that he committed one more than 25 years ago,and if that is true,we must not have someone sitting in the Oval Office who can be blackmailedif someone finds out this deep dark secret he is hiding.Then he becomes a risk to our national security,be it from a foreign enemy such as Saddam Husseinor a domestic one like Exxon Mobil.
Houstonian asks:
How can the process be reasonably changed so that people have more of a say in who is chosen to represent the parties? Who picked these guys? Some choice.
Michael Moore
Exactly!Out of 275 million Americans, it's embarrassing that these are the two best people the system has come up with.Number one, we need a system of proportional representationlike they have in a couple of cities and states here in the United States. We need to abolish the Electoral College.We need to remove private money from these campaignsand have them publicly funded,with campaigns over a short time, not a two-year period.These are changes I would propose.With this many people in America,it's silly to assume that two political partieswould represent the political thought of 275 million Americans.
Moderator
You've accused Al Gore and the New Democrats of betraying poor and working-class Americans. But wouldn't a Gore presidency be preferable to a progressive voter than a Bush presidency?
Michael Moore
Well, I see nothing during the Clinton-Gore years to say this is true.For example, in my hometown of Flint, Michigan,we lost 27,000 jobs.Under 8 years of Clinton-Gore, we've lost an additional 32,000 auto jobs.But having said that, I believe Al Gore has a conscience and a heart,and it would be my hope that, if he is elected tonight, he would come to the aid of those who have been passed byduring this economic recovery.
wolffe 12 asks:
With issues like a woman's right to choose on the ballot, how can Ralph Nader, in good faith, argue there is no real difference between the two major-party candidates?
Michael Moore
Al Gore voted in the Senate to put Antonin Scalia in the Supreme Court. Democrats voted to put Clarence Thomas in the Supreme Court, giving him his narrow margin of victory. The Democrats are culpable if Roe vs. Wade is ever overturned by putting these reactionary justices in the Court. Nobody has the right to point a finger at Ralph Nader if Roe vs. Wade is overturned. Also, during the Clinton-Gore years, the anti-abortionists have been so effective in their assassinations and threats that a woman can get an abortion in only 14 percent of the counties in the United States. That is the issue-- the fact that this legal right cannot be exercised because a pro-choice Attorney General has not aggressively gone after the anti-abortion terrorists.
efarseth asks:
What are you planning to do once the elections are over to ensure that all the gains made by Nader's candidacy are not squandered, once the Greens no longer have Ralph Nader as a figurehead?
Michael Moore
I've seen this movement across the country firsthand during the last six weeks,and it's not a movement about a celebrity figurehead, Ralph Nader.This is a movement of literally hundreds of thousands of young and working peopleand, beginning tomorrow morning,I know many if not most of these people will be committed to keeping the movement going.We'll need that movement regardless of who is President.
bbetters asks:
Is it realistic to believe that the country, our social structure, our economy is ready now or will be in the near future for [third-party] leadership?
Michael Moore
That's a good question,because I believe that millions of Americans are not only ready, but are even desperate for a new leadership.I saw a poll that said the majority of Americans thought it was a good idea to have a third party.My complaint is that the two major parties are so similar in so many ways,(Bush and Gore said "I agree with you" 32 times during the debate!),that what we need is not a third party but a second one! If the Democrats and Republicans were honest, they'd merge into one partyand represent the top ten percent, which they do now with the people who give them campaign donations.These top ten percent deserve representation,but why do they get two political parties, and the rest of us don't get any?It's wrong.
Johnegan asks:
Don't you think the Greens have a better chance at the local level? Why not divest the Democratic Party of two of its core constituencies --African-Americans and Labor?
Michael Moore
That's a good point.In fact, I'm not a member of the Green Party,and I'm not sure the Green Party, as a party, is the way to go as our system is structured.I think we should act locally; go in there, and try to take over your local Democratic Party.It wouldn't be that hard to do.For instance, if you go to the monthly meeting of your local Democratic Party next month,in most towns there won't be more than a dozen people there.If you took a couple of dozen of your friends to the local meeting,you could take over that local party.It's a lot easier than trying to form a third party. The Democrats already have a place on every ballot,they have a nice building in Washington DC,a nice logo, and stationery printed up.So I'm always for the path of least resistance,and that would be to work on a local levelwith good people taking over the Democratic Party.
Senator asks:
Mr. Moore. I appreciate your work and thank you for taking this question. If Bush is victorious, I predict that George the Junior will hand over the reins of our government to Big Military, Big Police, and Big Bidness. I think that Gore would have done the same thing, except in the name of "the little guy." My question is: didn't you really secretly vote for Gore today?
Michael Moore
I vote in New York State, where Gore is ahead by fifteen points.Al Gore has proposed spending twice as much on the Pentagon as George Bush.Al Gore has proposed expanding the drug war and adding more police than George Bush,so I disagree with the premise of the question.And by pretending to do it for the little guy,it makes it harder to fight Gore.At least with Bush, you know what you're getting.That is not an endorsement of Bush, by the way.I hope he doesn't win tonight. At some point, we'll have to get back to the concepts we learned in school--that when you vote, you should vote for the candidate you think is best.If you vote against your conscience,sooner or later you can't find your conscience,and you also deplete the political gene poolbecause we keep settling for less and less. On Mount Rushmore, we have carved in stone the faces of four presidentswe hold in high esteem.It's ironic that each of these four presidents rejected the two-party system.Lincoln was a third-party candidate.Jefferson won a close three-party race.George Washington didn't belong to a party, or belive in them.Roosevelt decided he wanted nothing more to do with his corrupt party,and ran in a third party, beating the Republican Party.These are the presidents we revere.Why do we no longer aspire to the things they aspired to? Don't see voting as a strategic or "Hollywood Squares" type of game.We'll only make the country better by being active participants in our democracy.The majority no longer participates,not because they're apathetic, but because they know there's no real choice on the ballot.This is a fundamental problem, and has to change. Good luck Ralph Nader!God bless, Al Gore.And God help us if George W. Bush is elected President of the United States.Should that happen, every American can wake up tomorrow morningand say something he/she has never said before --"I'm smarter than the President of the United States!!!!"
Moderator
Michael, thanks for your time this evening!