Tuesday, February 14, 2006

FREE SPEECH: 101



As you may or may not know, I made a documentary film entitled THIS DIVIDED STATE. The film chronicles Michael Moore's controversial visit to Utah Valley State College 2 weeks before the 2004 presidential election. Protests, bribery, and death threats descended upon the school in a fanatical effort to cancel Moore's speech. One of the key players of the documentary was Joe Vogel. Joe was the Student Body Vice President and was ultimately responsible for inviting Michael Moore. In the end, Joe was forced to resign from his office and lost a scholarship because of his involvement in the Moore fiasco. As facts began to emerge about Joe's resignation, it became clear that it was because of a "tell all" book that Joe was writing that caused many people in the college administration and Utah legislator to get all pissed off and punish Joe. You see, Joe had been present in many secret meetings and had heard first hand the corruption that lied under the surface of the quiet Utah town of Orem. Now, that book, full of explosive facts and extremely frightening accounts is hitting book shelves nationwide. Joe has called it FREE SPEECH 101. Not only does it talk about the Moore controversy, but expounds on the growing trend of colleges and universites becoming corporations owned and controled by those with money, power, and agendas. A very important book...

Check out Joe's BLOG here.

Check out the website for FREE SPEECH 101 and ORDER AN ADVANCE COPY.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds really interesting. I can't wait to read it.

Anonymous said...

Joe Vogel got what he deserved. As if inviting Michael Moore wasn't stupid enough, he then writes a book while still in office. Tell me how is that representing the students or the community.

... said...

Oh, snap.

Anonymous said...

Why would I want to post my name on your lame liberal website? The fact is Vogel just wanted to create controversy. He knew inviting Moore would upset the community and hurt the college. This has nothing to do with me John, so don't make it personal. Just admit that inviting Moore, a known anti-American propagandist during a time of war, is about as stupid as inviting Jane Fonda during Vietnam. What good came of it for UVSC? All we did is lose millions in donations and support from the lesislature. Oh snap that!

Unknown said...

Ummm... I would argue the fact that Michael Moore is pro-American. Anti-Bush administration perhaps, possibly anti-establishment, but not anti-American. In fact, I would call him one of the most patriotic documentary filmmakers since Frank Capra.

Anonymous said...

He sure doesn't have a lot of good things to say about America, but anyone who's seen his films knows he'll wax poetic about Canada.

But it can't be that good in Canada, otherwise he'd move there. So maybe he is a patriot, if only by default.

John said...

Whatever, dude.

Unknown said...

He has plenty of good things to say about america and americans, it's policies of america that he really has the problem with. And that's a good thing.

I don't like comparing him to Thomas Paine, but he's sort of like that.