Open letter to Michael Moore, his friends and supporters

Mr. Moore,

My name is Chris Lowel and I'm pretty much a nobody in every sense of the word, but the few folks who bother reading anything at Moorewatch might know me by the endless rants I've posted there under the handle "biafra".

Moorewatch is where I'd been forever - what's the word - spewing the vilest, bitter, woefully hate-filled monologues against all and any (primarily non-American) visitor who's ever offered any (world)views deviating even mildly from the white, hetero, Xtian, right-wing, hardline American Way, that is, until even the most die-hard Bush drones in charge there had had enough and decided to ban me from their site, Rightfully and even cosmically so, I've come to realize.

Relegated to silently sulking around online, I actually read your open letters to the people posted there, along with the usual snide responses and derision they invariably drew. Lastly, I took a look into the recently released "Slacker Uprising", which documents your past efforts to swing the vote.

During this time of "inaction", as it were, I've come around to thinking that you do perhaps indeed have God's ear - good karma, whatever the magic is called. Its on record that you saved the life(style) of a major detractor of yours, and then I, too, was recently stricken with a serious illness whilst eagerly adhering to his anti-welfare stance. I'm alive, but $50,000+ in debt.

Thing is, after their taking the helm, constantly encouraging me to take it easy and rest, praise the Lord, read the Bible and "just get some credit cards already" several people I'd long considered my closest friends and allies eventually abandoned me for greener pastures - literally. Four months of second-hand hardship in the form of my fretting over mounting debt exacerbated by unnecessary "conveniences" that amounted to nothing more than late fees and daily runs to Starbucks, was too much for some to bear. They "fixed" my books for me, and then booked.

Case in point: The neurosurgeon who saved my life gets all of $50/month for his efforts while that monthly Amex finance charge swallows $56/month. Oh, and that unused LA Fitness membership? A measly $42/month. I fixed that and other boondoggles, but its not enough to stave off bankruptcy. I've heard that once I'm in the "system", it won't get any better. The operation was successful, but this patient is dead.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/18/223744/567

Either way, Moore has done it again. And there's a larger point. A society that's not constantly fretting about how to pay for medical bills is a BETTER SOCIETY, and the "magic benefactor" can easily be a single-payer system that would cost less than we pay for health care now, and provide better quality service. Moore is a genius at finding real-world ways to illustrate his point of view. This is an excellent example.

Praise the Lord, indeed: I've come up with a simple idea to clearly illustrate what universal health care - truly caring for your neighbor - is all about.

"Slacker Uprising" has successfully created pre-election buzz, and to keep the ball rolling I suggest you add another dimension of punch to, repeat: demonstrate how free health care, and by extension, caring for your neighbor, works.

Race, creed, color, political leanings, religious beliefs - whoever the person in need, true humanists will always put all and any differences aside, step up and deliver. The haves must always come to the aid of the have-nots; until their vote makes it law, the good people will do so voluntarily and without reserve.

In these, the last few weeks leading to the most important election in modern times, I say post an online donation drive for me at www.michaelmoore.com, set up a counter to show the amount of donations made, the number of donators, and perhaps even a (voluntary) tally of which side of the fence they stand on.

Let's show those voters still on the fence how a new and improved nation will deliver on its promises, and how many are willing to lead by example, not just spout empty platitudes.

I have little use for opulence, living large, and, least of all, waste of any kind, so what I don't need to cover my bills I could, in turn, eventually pass on to the next person in need - hey, starting with the folks at Moorewatch.

What say you? Yeah, or HELL, YEAH!!

biafra

I just found out that under my new prescription plan my brand name pills will cost around $150. I called my provider and found out that generics are available for $9 for the same 3 month amount. WTF?

If we want to socialize something I'd certainly prefer that it be medical care instead of financier's follies.

There IS a way to lower the cost of medical care, but nobody (who has a chance of making a difference)is even trying.

Yup, other posters are right, you can say goodbye to a national health care program, maybe even goodbye to Medicaid/Medicare and social security before long. Can't you see it now? They'll say that they have to use that money to avert the next catastrophe...all that money paid over all those years will amount to a big tax with no return. With the 401ks decimated, well work until we perish, and that will be our retirement. Like most 3rd world countries, children will be living with and taking care of their parents. The US is in for some dramatic changes. None of this is necessary, but our economy may well follow Brazil's, where you have the uber rich and the dirt poor. Though I doubt it will be a peaceful transition, and many will not be able to adapt.

I called my two senators yesterday, one of whom did not vote (Kennedy's still recovering). Despite his absence, I am sure he was working on the bailout in some sort of way. After I expressed my concerns his staffer said "Is that all?" I was appalled.

As the sophmoric clown Michael Moore pointed out brilliantly in his movie "Sicko",
by making Insurance companies, HMO's, and big pharma the gate keepers of who gets which healthcare we have gauranteed that healthcare will be conducted on a "for profit" basis only.

Except for single payer healthcare like that proposed by John Conyers in HR 476, ALL OTHER HEALTHCARE PROPOSALS are nothing more than business regulation bills--primarily intended to protect the monopoly enjoyed by the for profit healthcare industry in this country.

There are only two ways that insurance companies can keep making increased profits (which is their real purpose for existance): they either must raise premiums or deny coverage. It's that simple. That is why insurance companies will always have grand and impressive home offices as well as layer upon layer of executive heirarchy while threatening to disolve if they are not paid ever more extravagantly for providing their "service".
Poet

Donna, I'm with you on the health care issues, honest. And I have had similar thoughts: how's come we have money to bailout wall street but not care for the sick?

But I read your biographical line below your column, Donna. How do you work as a community organizer for California Nurses but seem to be a resident of Illinois (you suggest Obama and Durbin are your Senators)?

HUH?

Hey, it's not true that you won't ever be able to own a home or get a credit card again. It takes a long time but you can repair your credit. The ruling elite want you to believe you will never be able to have credit again but it just aint true. Life comes back after forest fires and credit comes back after bankruptcy. Hang in there.

Plus you don't need credit cards. And owning a home is really just a way to delude ourselves into thinking we are safe. None of us are safe. As you learned, Donna, forces can sweep into our lives and change them overnight. Cancer, hurricanes, economic catastrophe. But then we all get up the next day and keep going.

And say. . . do research on Obama. He does not support universal health care. His program for health care looks way sucky to me. I'm gonna vote for him but Hilary Clinton had a much better health care plan and I hope Obama changes his thinking on health care once he's in office.

I feel really sad for Donna having had to declare bankruptcy. In my mid-60's I've been living with cancer for 10 years and the cost of my IV drug alone is $15,000 per annum. This year my wife was diagnosed with melanoma, which was metastatic to a single lymph node. Fortunately the subsequent dissection of a 15 node bundle was entirely negative.

We're lucky to be Canadian or we would have had to severely crimp our lifestyle. Frankly most Canadians just shake their heads as to why you alone of the Western democracies put up with this nonsense.

I'm sorry, Donna, but the only 'Progressive Democrat' is one that leaves the Democratic Party far behind.

I posted this for other article today:

Why not separate the bad mortgages by the reason why people are in
bad situation. If I remember correctly medical expenses are
#1: bail out the people with foreclosures caused by medical bills
( at least they are not reckless ). And in future
create separate medical loans and never allow to put the on your house.

The next big problem will be health care bust: big pharma &
bad food causing the illnesses.

Wonderful article. But why throw this in?
"I can only hope that the polite and respectful response from Obama's staff will reflect how I will be treated under a President Obama."

Look, he's already made his health care proposals. Under his administration you will be politely and respectfully told where to shove your desire for Single-Payer.

The republicans have done the deregulation game on the economy for decades, now, and this is the result. They have played the "national defense" game on us to make sure that we were so in fear of a batch of turban wearing radicals that want to kill us all that we would sell our futures and our souls to be "safe". They stole the surplus that WE paid for and gave it to the rich, doling out just enough to each of us so that we thought we were getting something, too. It sure wasn't our share.

Your odds of being hit by a terrorist bomb are in the hundreds of thousands. Your chances of getting some very serious condition that needs medical attention are about 1 in 3. But rather than deal with the 1 in 3 chances of health issues, they want to keep us spending more than every country in the world COMBINED for "national security". This was all very deliberate on their parts. THEY are the ones who make money on bombs, guns, planes, tanks, and all those high tech weapons that have never shown themselves to be worth using in a war against small terrorist organizations. They are still gearing up to fight the Soviet Union, even though the USSR hasn't been a country for nearly 20 years, now.

We are being run by those people who think that Gov't is theirs to profit from. They don't want to learn the basic rule that gov't is NOT a business. Gov't is NOT supposed to turn a profit, and they refuse to live for anything BUT profit. Cheney is one of the worst offenders in the bunch, with Feinstien and her husband being high on the list, too. The problems are on both sides, and that is the real issue.

Every other industrialized country in the world has some form of natinalized health care. We are the ONLY one who doesn't. And it puts our citizens at a huge disadvantage to have to pay for it at a profit that runs up our health care by a full 30%. We pay twice what Canada, the next highest paying country, does and while their positive outcomes are in the top 10, we are below Jamaica. Think about that. We pay TWICE what the next highest country pays, and our positive outcomes are in the mid 30's of ALL countries. Our infant mortality rates are higher than several third world countries. That is shameful, and pathetic.

And don't forget that the man who runs United HealthCare, the largest heatlh insurance company in the country, made $1.6 BILLION last year. And he got that by cheating his "clients" out of actual health care. No other country rewards it's health care industry for NOT giving out health care. ONLY we do. It's time to stop this foolishness. Our people deserve a break for a change.

Single payer healthcare is great. Unfortuntely, in TX it's still badmouthed as "Hillarycare". We need to bring back our troops from Iraq away from those innocent civilians and train them to SHOOT WALLSTREET DOWN !

And while at it, ALL OF US ON MAIN STREET MUST ARM OURSELVES WITH GUNS AND BULLETS AND GET READY TO TARGET THE POLS AND WALLSTREET !!

DON'T GET DEPRESSED !! GET UP AND FIGHT LIKE SOLDIERS !!

Thanks to the oligarchy, we have our tv's, computers, cellphones, booze, junk food, mortgages, trucks, guns, flags and bibles. What more do we need? And if we get sick, we go to the emergency room for free.

Apparently Nader is over 6% in the polls now. Could this be the "Great Awakening" in the making?
Democrats had a chance to put someone in who wasn't a corporate stooge (such as Dennis Kucinich) but the corporate media got to them. Now we're told that it's Obama or McCain. Well Americans still have a month left to figure it out where the blame lies (corporate America) and actually vote for a difference this November.
In a country like South Korea, political polls are illegal. The result is voters have to vote on candidates based on their own perceptions of a candidates political positions.
If that were the case in America, Nader would win hands down especially witnessing the current theft of the public trough.
Most foreclosures were a result of ordinary Americans losing everything due to illness (such as the author above), yet the offical corporate line is "some bad loans were made to people who couldn't really afford a house". Yeah, right.
We must get out in the streets, on the phones and via the internet in the coming days and energize everyone we come in contact with to vote for anyone except the Dems and Repubs. Anything less will be a complete capitulation to the moneyed interests.

"...they argued with me about the benefits for me of the bail-out."

I got the same thing from Jim McDermott's office this morning. His email has be "unavailable" since he voted for that piece of crap giveaway... and all I got was a ringing phone until this morning.

When I described the NO! message and bracketed it with outrage... the office staff started arguing with me... couldn't believe it. I finally had to resort to yelling at her make her stop.

Although I have supported his office for decades, I will be working to defeat this "Democrat". Cowards and Traitors.

For you spinmasters who want us to believe that the Democratic Party kowtowing to CheneyOilCo was a well-planned Pelosi tactic, I'm here to tell you that you are full of it... they want Wall Street criminals to have at the Treasury. They are despicable.

The sheer hypocrisy of Americas ruling class, and their servants in the Government is mind boggling.

What surprises me is not these people in power who have a vested interest in supporting the Corporations, it is the inability of the American electorate as a whole to recognize that they are getting screwed by the same.

How can people continually support someone who is kicking them when they are down? The American voter is like the beaten wife who stays with her husband.

At least some people get it and their rage and sense of betrayal evident but will that be enough to turn things around?

One would not think so when watching FOX news listening to Rush Limbaugh or CNN who continue to advance the notion that it all for you rown good.

pk

I'm sorry to say it looks like we can forget about single payer healthcare which we need or any serious debate about healthcare for the next few years. The economy has killed it.

We would allready have single payer health care if we had abandoned the Democratic party years ago. It is our own fault for not moving forward a progressive agenda by letting go of our fantasies about Democrats. Seriously, what would it take for people to WAKE UP??