[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: The Kids Are Alright

Sun Nov 7 17:30:08 PST 2004

Take note of what High School students did in 
Boulder, CO. I didn't hear of this on the
corporate media. May it be the second "shot heard 
around the world."     Pax, Paul Etx

>
>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: 
>"<http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M6609423624616119868255>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 <http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/04/youth_came_through_with_big_turnout/>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: <http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/11/05/turnout_was_strong_but_maintaining_interest_is_key/>51.6%.
>
>Young adult turnout was UP more than 9% higher 
>than the 2000 election 
>("<http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M6609426624616119868255>Big 
>Voter Turnout Seen Among Young People").
>
>4.7 
>million <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/07/MNG5F9NFFP1.DTL>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 <http://www.bouldernews.com/bdc/schools/article/0,1713,BDC_2488_3309723,00.html>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
><http://www.michaelmoore.com/>www.michaelmoore.com
><mailto:MMFlint at aol.com>MMFlint at aol.com (if 
>full, try 
><mailto:mike at michaelmoore.com>mike at michaelmoore.com)
>
>
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand
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