The Right's Worst Nightmare I didn't understand why the right got so worked up about the release of Fahrenheit 9/11. I thought that their censorious behavior was bizarre, irrational and potentially self-defeating. Now I think I know why they acted as they did, and oddly enough, I found the answer in the entertainment section of The Blade our sedate local paper.
Movies push a point of view: Activist group quickly organizes showings of 40-plus documentaries
This is an amazing story. In just three weeks a group called the Media Decompression Collective organized the "Take Democracy Back" film festival--three months of weekly, lefty documentaries that run right up to the Thursday before the election (also, free. Free is very big in Toledo). The line-up of documentaries is amazing, including one on problems with electronic ballots, irregularities in 2000 Florida vote, depleted uranium, an examination of the Carlyle Group, and much more (note to Toledoans: all free)
This is amazing, because this stuff just doesn't happen in Toledo. Really, it NEVER happens. Ann Arbor and Oberlin, sure, but not here. Voters here are reliably democratic, but the town is still conservative--in the 80s, Toledo was home to legions of "Reagan Democrats". Even the student population at the university is moderate-to-conservative, and mostly unpolitical. Documentaries almost never show here--everyone that I know was flabergasted when the The Fog of War showed up the mall cinema. (Every first-run theater in town is owned by National Amusements, so if Sumner Redstone doesn't like a movie, we can't see it)
When I left Fahrenheit 9/11, I loved the current of anger and excitement running through the crowd, but I was sure that it would dissipate by election day. That may not be the case if this festival is even a moderate success, maybe that F 9/11 crowd will stay angry and energized right through to November.
And that could be huge for everyone. The easiest way for the Democrats to carry Ohio is to have big turnouts in the industrial regions in the North to neutralize the conservative areas in the rest of the state. If the "Take Democracy Back" festival keeps Toledoans fired up and involved, then every Democrat in the country might owe the MDC a damn big "thank you".
7:04:01 PM 
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