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Last Thoughts Before the Turkey Comes Calling
Friends,
As I head off for Thanksgiving, I wanted to share a final thought with you about this past week's news regarding the health care executives who sat around that table in Philadelphia four years ago and decided on a course of action to, if need be, "push Michael Moore off a cliff."
Having spent the week reading all their secret documents (and the book "Deadly Spin"), it's clear that there was something far more scary to these companies than me.
They were, in fact, scared of you. They were afraid YOU would end up pushing them over their own greedy cliff.
Yes, they spied on me and my family in the hopes of finding something with which to smear me and my film, "Sicko." Finding nothing (sorry, guys, I live a pretty boring life), they then resorted to the old chestnuts that have been hurled at me by General Motors, the Bush White House, the National Rifle Association and others since my first film 20 years ago, and they essentially boil down to this:
"Don't listen to him! He hates America! He hates our way of life! He's not telling you the truth! He plays fast and loose with it! Patriots, don't waste your good money to see his movie!"
And it's that last message that's at the epicenter of their biggest fear. Back in 2007, these health insurance companies believed that if you strolled inside a theater showing "Sicko", their golden goose would be cooked.
They knew, according to former health care exec and whistleblower Wendell Potter, that the truth was up there on that screen -- and the LAST thing they wanted was for millions of Americans to be exposed to it.
Why? Well, we need look no further than the document containing their own secret directive on how they should deal with the movie:
"[We Must] Prepare for the Worst Case...SiCKO evolves into a sustained populist movement."
There it is. Their biggest fear. Their "worst case" scenario. That YOU, the American public, would rise up against them. I wasn't their worst nightmare -- you were. Their own research and private polling showed that you were getting fed up with how they were screwing you, gouging you, ripping you off, denying you coverage and flat out just kicking you off the insurance. They knew, according to Potter, that they were killing 45,000 of you every year simply by denying you coverage.
We Americans don't like people who kill us. We're the kind of people who will throw billions of dollars and the mightiest military on earth at just one guy because he killed just 2,977 people. What would we do if we discovered who's killing 45,000 of us every year? How fast would we act to sever the head of that beast?
You don't need to answer that question because the executives of the country's health insurance conglomerates already know it -- it's their big "What If", followed by an even bigger "Holy Shit." "What If the millions of average Joes and Janes ever got it together enough to bring us all down, to end our profiting off the misery of others? What If the citizenry one day begin electing representatives who couldn't be bought and who would end our for-profit health insurance racket?" Holy shit, indeed.
Yes, they feared that day more than anything else, and a movie coming out before a big election year with two popular Democrats pushing for some vague version of universal heath care was all that was needed to get Big Insurance to spend millions of dollars to attack me. These corporate kingpins knew they had pushed their luck too far and now they were worried that a movie -- a movie! -- could ignite a "populist movement."
All that money spent smearing me because they thought you would get up from your theater seat and start a revolution.
It's a great compliment to you. They fear the power you have. But that's 'cause they're good at math. They know there will always be more of us than there are of them. And unless they can repeal "one person, one vote," they know they are doomed. In the meantime they will try to maintain the power they have by buying off politicians, dumbing us down, distracting us with Dancing/Ice Skating/Drinking with the Stars and getting us so scared we'll acquiesce to having naked pictures taken of us at airports this Thanksgiving weekend. Over the river and through the body scan, to grandmother's house we go...
So let us give thanks today that the richest 1% begrudgingly know that we are still, on paper at least, in charge. It is, I believe, a glimmer of hope of what we could possibly accomplish in the coming new year.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
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193 Comments so far
Show AllFor the sake of clarity, people can disagree if they like, but let's not misrepresent other people's positions. Moore is wrong on the Democratic party. He is right about Labor. I consider a person's position on the second to be a thousand times more important then their position on the first. The first is mostly an opinion about strategy - supporting the Democratic party is a lousy strategy, and Moore is wrong about that. The position on the second tells us which side a person is on in the struggle. Of the two, if we are going to use one or the other to determine who is a friend and who is an enemy, I say the second is the one to use. It is the one I use, the only one. The rich unambiguously and relentlessly and single-mindedly promote their agenda, they know what the battle is about and where the battle lines are drawn. If we did, we would fare a lot better. Class is the basis upon which we are being attacked, and it must therefore be the basis upon which we fight back. Positions on various issues - let alone positions on various tactics and strategies - must take a back seat to that.
The debate here is between people looking through two different ends of the telescope. Through one end, Moore and his position on the Democratic party loom very large. Through the other end of the telescope, they are quite small and part of a much bigger picture.
If one believes that partisan electoral politics can cause social and political change, believes that replacing the Democratic party with a third party choice is the most powerful thing we can do, believes that we can do that, believes that the mass media must be captured to get the message out, and believes that what celebrities say is important in that effort, than yes of course Moore would seem to be a terrible enemy of the cause. I don't happen to accept any of those premises, however.
Apparently quite a lot makes you puke. A substitute for thought and action perhaps?
ZeroPointField,
I am happy for you. Jobs are hard to find anywhere. Oregon is indeed a very beautiful States. In the seventies we used to come up here and drove around the States especially around Mount Rainier. Maybe, we should have moved here. Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas.
For decades I maintained a second home in Oregon. West of Eugene and rather isolated,at the headwaters of the Siuslaw River in fact. I had planned to retire there one day. I post only to confirm that Oregon is a lovely place, the constant rainfall notwithstanding, at least where I resided.
I lost the property to the Govt. some years ago in a case of a crooked accountant and an unyielding bureaucracy. I hope you will put down roots there and lead a happy and productive life. Happy Holiday.
You remind me of the usual American conservative arguing that taxpayers shouldn't be paying for someone else's health care. I find it hard to believe that you and your husband would pay a huge fee of 2300 euros (3044.97 dollars) just for supplementary care. Your refusal on medical exams is astonishing. I hear that they don't cost much and that they get done quickly and rather well compared to the bloody USA which can't get a damn thing right on medical anything. Trash the health care system in France as you wish but from what I heard about the doctors in France, my wife would have been alive if she had been to a French doctor instead of an unqualified "doctor" in the USA !
"Yup, I just don't know how Moi can stand living there."
"Moi" said she was the wife of a (former?) ambassador to France but that she chooses to live abroad and trash France while defend a racist and poor deep southern state such as Louisiana is disturbing. My niece, JenniferBedingfield, told me that while there may be a few lurking Reaganite wannabees in France, none of them are this silly. "Moi" must be having some conflict of interest unknown to us. It is possible that "Moi" could be working in relation with Big Phrma shill Billy Tauzin or another corporatist rogue from Louisiana such as Bob Livingston or John Breaux. I don't blame Jennifer for angrily choosing to pursue a long term vacation out of this nation for a few months which included visiting her relatives and friends in France and getting a taste of what life in France is actually like as a regular French citizen. It was only two weeks in France for her but enough to understand the basics of living there I suppose.
Chelsey, Jennifer shared the same thoughts when she told me what she thought about "Moi".
Ahhh, the famous uncle. Nice to make your acquaintance. Hope you and your niece had a happy holiday.
One curse of this media is the uncertain motives of some who post here.
I was just afraid that someone might get curious as to how I could communicate with JB outside of CD. Hence, I let my relation be known to cut down on confusion. Thank you for the wishes and the same to you as well.