Sick 'em, O Mikey!

Michael Moore speaks out against the press on CNN, July 9, 2007
SEE THE Whole CNN VIDEO HERE!
(scroll to the bottom of the page for the video, and wait)

A friend and I watched "Sicko" on Sunday. It has taken two days for me to process what I observed. To get over my rage. I am still getting over it.....and believe me when I say I have done an extensive amount of research into the "state of (our) union." So none of what was posited by Mr. Moore in his documentary should have been a revelation. And while I am too old old and far too informed to be surprised by anything anymore, I am still able to be distressed and discouraged with each new revelation.

Moore's latest documentary concerns the despicable state of our American health care system(s).

You see, Richard Nixon sealed our fate and the deal with Kaiser Permanente less than one week after the birth of my first child--February 19, 1971. By the time I went to work in nursing in 1974, the state of medical care in the USA had undergone a transformation; health care was in process of becoming thoroughly managed; that is, thoroughly corporatized. Before that, only the wealthier citizens could afford health insurance. Average or middle class citizens paid as they went. The poor either got no medical care at all or looked toward charity--Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

No, Nixon did not "make health coverage available for all Americans", as he promised. Instead, what Nixon and all his successors, culminating in George Bush 2, actually did was to "insure" the ultimate and eternal wealth of insurance (investment) companies by legalizing their ultimate domain over us--collecting and slowly raising premiums and gradually decreasing the amount of service companies would provide for their "insured."

This all happened really slowly and imperceptibly over thirty years. And we, like the proverbial "Frogs Cooking in the Pot", distracted by "life, liberty, and the (relentless) pursuit of happiness", never noticed a thing.

Meanwhile we were being warned that Universal Health Care was merely socialized medicine and THAT was the stuff of Communist countries, where quality of medical care was repeatedly portrayed to Americans as nothing short of medieval.

So, throughout Viet Nam and its aftermath until Desert Storm and 9/11 and Sadam Hussein, we feared the C-word, and the S-word (Socialism), and any one or any country associated with either word.

In my lifetime, however, we have feared communism and communists the most.

Throughout history, governments have manufactured many "-ism's" for us to fear and fight. Can you name a few?

Now we are fighting "terrorism". We no longer hunt for communists under every bed, but now daily sift our airports and neighborhoods, vigilantly, for terrorists. And in like manner "pacif-ism" is being equated to "terror-ism", and both are America's (and freedom and democracy's) latest enemies.

Well, the truth is we will believe anything we are told.

Truth is, being told what to do is far easier and more convenient than figuring out what to do. Churches are filled weekly with people just sitting there waiting to be told what to do. Living rooms across America are nightly filled with folks just waiting to be told who our next enemy is. Even if it is those people who may be seated next to them who are against war, even if it is members of our own family who live right there among us--pacifists--tomorrow's new enemy combatants.

I guess we would likewise report Jesus Christ if He walked among us today, because he was a "pacifist". Though once angrily disrupting money-changers in the temple courtyard (the only part of the Jerusalem temple where foreigners were permitted to worship YHVH, the God of the Israelites.The outer court of the temple was called the court of the Gentiles. In there was a large bazaar for the sale of sacrificial animals and birds, and also a money-exchange for changing foreign coins for the Jewish half-shekels. Jesus did not condemn the sale of what was necessary for sacrifices, but the place where the sale was held--the Temple, the house of prayer. On the day Jesus overturned the money-changers, the Court of the Gentiles was so crowded with $ business there was no room for "a house of prayer" for all nations.), Jesus more often constrained his disciples from outright insurrection against a thoroughly oppressive government (Rome). He was not called "Man of Peace" for His advocacy of violence or swordplay. And Jesus today would simply be locked up (as an enemy combatant) far from legal counsel and due process (Guantanamo) and then never given a fair trail by a jury of His peers (h-mmmm....) , and ultimately (unfairly) pronounced "guilty" (of pacifism and/or terrorism) and subsequently sentenced to death via an international military tribunal (Rome and the Sanhedrin) in order to make an example of Him to the others.

Oh, but wait, didn't we already do that....

And just as the American people do not understand who the Federal Reserve really is (are) or how they operate, they do not today know that ALL insurance companies, be it health or homeowners or automobile, exist solely to make money--not to help you. (I just threw the Fed in there because you really DON'T know who they are--or who you actually pay taxes to, or what for. Trust me. Get this book for more info: http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=1882.)

And don't we all, just like the proverbial Frogs about to boil in the Pot, believe the (hot) water we are now in is nice and cozy?

La la la-la lala-lala-la-aaaaaaah.

That what Mr. Moore has been trying to tell us for some time. But if he were to tell us the WHOLE truth, he'd be a marked man.

My question? Why do we always shoot the messenger...