MICHAEL MOORE

Lifted off of Eschaton comments:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Politics grabbed center stage at the Academy Awards on Sunday as the winner for best documentary, director Michael Moore, charged President Bush with waging a "fictitious war." Wagging his finger from the stage as he was both applauded and booed by the assembled celebrities, Moore said, "We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you." Moore won for "Bowling for Columbine," a provocative film on the roots of gun violence in America, whose title refers to the Colorado high school where two students massacred 13 people before killing themselves in 1999. Moore, who received a standing ovation from the assembled celebrities, invited the other nominees for best documentary film to join him onstage in solidarity against the war against Iraq. "We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results, that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons," Moore said.

Here is a transcript of the speech also lifted from Eschaton comments, but originally from Smirking Chimp:

Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to ? they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much.

My senior year in high school, I was the class president. Our class would assemble in the auditorium once a month or so to discuss senior business such as the class picture, fundraising for the prom, senior breakfast, and other odds and ends. Usually, during the last five minutes or so of the class meetings, the senior principal would offer me the microphone to discuss any important class officer business that needed to be addressed. Generally, it was a rather dry affair: yadda this, yadda that (although the class meeting where we got to decide the class song was kind of fun).

Many high schools have a "senior skip day" tradition--seniors skip school en masse, in defiance of school authority. School authorities have little luck preventing this, but some years they try harder than others. Kingwood High School was no different the spring that our appointed skip day was approaching. Rumors had been flying that the administration was going to take draconian disciplinary measures against all students who skipped. Some seniors were unsure of whether they should participate. When the senior principal handed me the microphone at the end of a senior meeting in April, I really didn't intend to say anything about it; it just popped into my head. "I've been hearing a lot of rumors about severe punishments for participating in senior skip day. I don't really know if they're true or not. But all I have to say is, see you at the beach!!!!!" The whole place erupted in a sustained applause, with whistling and shouting.

The senior principal and faculty members just kind of stared with dumbfounded looks on their faces. It was really one of my most pleasing moments in high school.

Even though he got a few boos (and a reader on Eschaton comments said that he heard "that a BBC reporter said the media pool were doing the booing"), tonight, Michael Moore essentially said, "See you at the beach!!!!!" in front of a dumbfounded, pro-war, corporate-dominated establishment.

HA! In yer face!

God bless Michael Moore.

Thanks to my buddy, Kevin, for calling me up and telling me about the cool moment at the Oscars. (Even though I am an actor, I never watch the Oscars. But that's another story...)

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