The Usenet, that free-for-all haven of digital pirates, is an interesting place to observe grassroots political opinion. Generally, any new movie is uploaded (made available, illegally that is) for only a week or two around its release date, but “Fahrenheit 9/11” has been uploaded over and over again for months. Michael Moore has said that he wants the widest possible audience to see it, so presumably he doesn’t mind – though his distributors may feel differently.
Lesser-known films in a similar vein are also repeatedly uploaded, with titles like “A Colossal Mistake – Iraq, the Whole Truth Uncovered.” And some conspiracy thing about how Bush was actually responsible for 9/11 (I have not seen either of these, and can’t comment on how silly they may or may not be).
For the opposition, we have: “In Memorian [sic] 9/11 – an event that John Kerry, Michael Moore and the Dumocrats FORGET!”
People from both sides of the political spectrum have been posting clips from the conventions, and other items of more or less weird political rantery.
The audiobooks groups feature books from Maureen Dowd (of the New York Times – this is probably good), Jim Hightower, and Molly Ivins (these last two are Texas liberals – yes, there actually are Texas liberals, in large numbers even; they mostly seek refuge in and around Austin).
