Filmmaker and author Michael Moore, while in Denver promoting his new book about his life, "Here Comes Trouble," made a stop at Occupy Denver Thursday and gave a passionate and supportive speech to a cheering crowd of approximately 1,000 protesters, according to The Denver Post.
Moore's appearance at the park occurred about an hour later than originally planned, Fox31 reports. His Occupy Denver visit came between appearances at both University of Colorado Denver and the Tattered Cover.
"Those in power are scared shitless about what you are doing here," Moore said to the protesters who cheered throughout various segments of his 20 minute speech at Civic Center park around 6 p.m.
Moore, who has been involved in the Occupy movement since it's early days in September when there was only an Occupy Wall Street in New York, was enthusiastic about the early popularity of the movement. He cited a recent National Journal poll saying, "59 percent of the American public supports the goals and the aims of the Occupy Wall Street movement. 59 percent. This movement is only six weeks old. Those of you that are my age and older, if you remember the other movements -- when the civil rights movement was six weeks old it did not have 59 percent of the American people behind it."
He also voiced support for many of the agenda items of Occupy Wall Street including the Nov. 5 National Bank Transfer Day, a day that occupiers and citizens alike have gotten behind that promotes the transferring of accounts from a traditional bank into a credit union. Moore, said to a cheering crowd, "This Saturday, people who have their checking accounts at Chase or Citibank or Bank of America, we're moving them into credit unions." But, Moore was careful to echo the sentiments of the movement which has prided itself on being leaderless, "I am not a spokesperson for this movement, everybody here is a spokesperson."
There were some laughs too, occupiers occasionally shouted out questions or statements to Moore, one of which was, "When is your occupy movie coming out?" Moore responded with, "I'm not making an occupy movie. Is it okay to say that I've been making occupy movies for twenty years?"
But it wasn't all good feelings when Moore left the Denver occupation, however the tension did not come from those involved in the Occupy Denver movement -- instead it stemmed from a confrontation by CBSDenver's Evrod Cassimy who challenged Moore about how much money he has ($50 million, Cassimy claimed) and asked if Moore was actually a part of the one percent, during which Moore, visibly annoyed, said:
You're just punk media is all you are. You lie. You lie to people. Stop lying to people. Stop lying.
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