Will Ferrell and America Coming Together (aka. Act)

I came across this wonderful parody of George Bush's campaign ad done by Will Ferrell on Adrants today. While I always enjoy Will Farrell, especially his ad parodys what I found most interesting was the backing, a NFP called America Coming Together (aka. ACT).

There is a great overview of ACT on Disinfopedia. They are fully committed to swaying the vote in swing states through very targeted grass roots activism which include concerts, canvassing, and phone campaigns.

The Vote for Change Tour (October 1-10) includes Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, Bonnie Raitt, Dave Matthews Band, Dixie Chicks, Jackson Brown, John Mellencamp, Ben Harper, Kenny 'Babyface' Edmonds, Pearl Jam, R.E.M and others.

ACT's financial backing brings us to George Soros (Disinfopedia.org) who is very interesting character. He has donated five million dollars to ACT thus far. He was born in Hungary in 1930, survived the Nazi occupation and left communist Hungary in 1947 for England where he studied economics and started to pursue his philanthropic interests. In 1956 he moved to the United States and accumulated his fortune by managing very successful investment funds. He has been involved in world wide philanthropy since 1979 and is currently the chairman of the Open Society Institute.

The Open Society Institute (Disinfopedia.org) is a NFP (Not for Profit) founded by Soros. The Soros foundation's goals are as follows.

"The goal of the Soros foundations network throughout the world is to transform closed societies into open ones and to protect and expand the values of existing open societies. The concept of open society is, at its most fundamental level, based on the recognition that people act on imperfect knowledge and that no one is in possession of the ultimate truth. In practice, an open society is characterized by the rule of law; respect for human rights, minorities, and minority opinions; democratically elected governments; a market economy in which business and government are separate; and a thriving civil society."

"...The Soros network supports efforts in civil society, education, media, public health, and human and women's rights, as well as social, legal, and economic reform."

More Links:

Will Farrell in the 2003 MTV Music Awards Matrix Parody (24mb, Win Media Player format) via Milk and Cookies.com

Actforvictory.org — Act's Website complete with blog.