Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Michael Moore" <maillist@...>
> Date: November 8, 2004 7:22:17 AM GMT+08:00
> To: "dungboy@..." <dungboy@...>
> Subject: The Kids Are Alright
> Reply-To: <maillist@...>
>
> November 7th, 2004
>
> Friends,
>
> If there was one group who really came through on Tuesday, it was the
> young people of America. Their turnout was historic and
> record-setting. And few in the media are willing to report this fact.
>
> Unlike 2000 when Gore and Bush almost evenly split the youth vote
> (Gore: 48%, Bush: 46%), this year Kerry won the youth vote in a
> LANDSLIDE, getting a full ten points more than Bush (Kerry: 54%, Bush:
> 44%).
>
> Young people were the ONLY age group that voted for Kerry. In every
> other age group (30-39, 40-49, 50-59, etc.), the majority voted for
> Bush.
>
> In my state of Michigan, observers noted that it was the record youth
> vote that helped to put Kerry over the top in the state (AP: "Young
> Voters Played Big Role in Kerry's Michigan Victory").
>
> Contrary to all predictions and to tradition, MORE young adults
> (18-29) voted in last week's election than in any other since
> 18-year-olds were given the right to vote in 1972.
>
> It was the first time that a MAJORITY of all young adults came out to
> the polls: 51.6%.
>
> Young adult turnout was UP more than 9% higher than the 2000 election
> ("Big Voter Turnout Seen Among Young People").
>
> 4.7 million MORE young adults voted in this election than in the last
> one. All these numbers are likely to go up when the millions of
> provisional ballots (and absentee ballots) are counted later this week
> (it is believed that young people were among the hardest hit in being
> forced to vote provisionally and students away at college make up a
> large bulk of the absentee ballots).
>
> Rock the Vote and MTV's "Choose or Lose" had set the seemingly
> unattainable goal of getting 20 million young people out to vote. In
> the end, nearly 21 million youth voters cast their ballots last
> Tuesday -- A RECORD.
>
> From the beginning, I believed that young adults and "slackers" would
> rise up in this election. As we began our slacker tour in Syracuse's
> football stadium on September 20, we could tell that this election
> would be like no other. It was no longer uncool to talk politics like
> it was five or ten years ago. Now, you were considered a loser if you
> didn't know what was going on in the world.
>
> After speaking to the 10,000 gathered in Syracuse, we went on to hold
> rallies in 63 cities, mostly on campuses. Every night the events were
> packed, with anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 people showing up. We
> registered thousands to vote and got tens of thousands more to sign up
> to volunteer with Move On, ACT, the College Dems and other groups like
> Vote Mob and the League of Pissed Off Voters. We reached perhaps a
> half-million people in person and millions more on local TV and radio
> in those 63 cities (all but three of them in swing states).
>
> To be honest, this tour was a killer and not the easiest thing to do
> for a guy who isn't 18-29. Two (sometimes three) cities a day for over
> a month, crisscrossing the country, is enough to make you want to
> sleep for a year. But I was deeply inspired by what I saw. The level
> of dedication and commitment amongst everyday, average citizens was
> overwhelming. Each night from the stage I could see it in people's
> eyes that they were not going to give up -- and they, too, would not
> rest until Bush was removed from the White House.
>
> In every town, this movement was being fueled and often led by young
> people. I don't ever want to hear another adult talk about how
> apathetic the youth are or how they don't have "it" in them. What you
> are about to see in the coming months is going to shock you. These
> kids aren't going away. They have a resilience that cannot be snuffed
> out by older people's whining and moaning about the state of America.
> THEIR America has yet to be formed as they see it, and this one
> setback is not going to stop them.
>
> Witness the students at Boulder High School in Boulder, Colorado on
> Thursday, two days after the election. These kids can't even vote yet
> but that was not going to get in their way of expressing their outrage
> over what we adults had just done. The high school students took over
> the school by staging a sit-in and would not leave the building. They
> stayed there all Thursday night. They told the media that they were
> protesting the election results and putting Bush on notice that there
> was no way they were going to allow the draft to come back. It was the
> most uplifting moment of the week.
>
> In the day after the election, the pundits were spewing their hot air
> about how the youth vote didn't matter this year. I wonder, even
> though they have the same facts available to them as I do -- the ones
> I've cited above -- do they just chose to ignore them because it
> doesn't fit into their tired old routine they call "conventional
> wisdom." I guess it is easier to simply repeat the same broken down
> clichés than it is to find out what the truth really is.
>
> And it's even more important to kill what smells like teen spirit to
> them. God forbid if young people ever realized their true power and
> used it. Maybe what young adults need to continue to do is keep
> creating their own new media and news sources on the Internet and
> through other new technologies. Just bypass the old farts on Fox and
> CNN and all the rest. One thing's for sure -- by never challenging
> this president on his lies that sent our young off to war, they have
> proven which side they are on and it isn't on the side of the young or
> the future.
>
> Congratulations, 18 to 29-year-olds -- you rocked.
>
> Yours,
>
> Michael Moore
> www.michaelmoore.com
> MMFlint@... (if full, try mike@...)
>
>
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