CANNES, France (Reuters) - Director Michael Moore says the U.S. health care system is driven by greed in his new documentary "SiCKO," and asks of Americans in general, "Where is our soul?"A question I've often asked here.
He also said he could go to jail for taking a group of volunteers suffering ill health after helping in the September 11, 2001 rescue efforts on an unauthorized trip to Cuba, where they received exemplary treatment at virtually no cost.[...]
In "SiCKO" he turns his attention to health, asking why 50 million Americans, 9 million of them children, live without cover, while those that are insured are often driven to poverty by spiraling costs or wrongly refused treatment at all.
But the movie, which has taken Cannes by storm, goes further by portraying a country where the government is more interested in personal profit and protecting big business than caring for its citizens, many of whom cannot afford health insurance.
Michael Moore gets painted as a radical Commie bastard by the right wing, perhaps because he's not afraid to question the underlying system of this nation, not just its institutions. The true message of Fahrenheit 9-11 wasn't an expose of the Bush administration, but a condemnation of a country whose citizens take their freedoms for granted and don't even bother to ask why things are the way they are, right up to the people who legislate for us.
Which is likely why so many right wingers got pissed about that film: after all they thought they had the monopoly on outrage and libertarianism-- "lower taxes, and keep the damned government out of my business!"-- when in fact, they were pawns along with the rest of the sheeple.
And he does this, as always, with his trademark sardonism, making for what appears by all accounts to be another blockbuster of a movie.
I'll be in line, I'm sure, opening day.
UPDATE Apparently, some on the right wing are a little, um, ungrateful...
Filmmaker Michael Moore has come to the rescue of his harshest critic.Yea. So Moore makes an anonymous donation to help him out, you know, milk of human kindness kind of stuff, tries to keep his name out of it, tries to make an honest, Maimonides-approved gift to someone in need, and this sicko, literally, has to hunt down his benefactor and "expose" his...charity???
For several years now, Jim Kenefick has been railing against the Oscar-winning director on Moorewatch.com. Recently, Kenefick wrote about the difficulty he was having paying his wife's medical bills. Fellow conservatives guided him toward a cheaper health insurer, but Kenefick said he still had trouble making payments.
"Someone e-mailed me and asked if an 'anonymous' benefactor could offer to pay my first year's premiums - $12,000," Kenefick wrote on his site.
He was skeptical when the check arrived. "I opened a whole new account at my bank, waited for it to clear, checked twice with bank personnel to make sure it wasn't a scam, and waited a full 60 days before spending the money. At that time, I started drawing on it and paying the monthly premiums until it was gone."
We can now confirm to Kenefick that his secret benefactor is none other than the dreaded, detestable, loathsome Michael Moore.
Moore didn't contact us. We heard it on our own. Yesterday, his reps said they couldn't reach the director, who is in France getting ready for tomorrow's screening at Cannes of his new movie, "Sicko."
One friend of Moore's did say, "We sure are happy Jim's wife received the care she needed."
Kenefick admitted the $12,000 "was like manna from heaven at that time. ... My business was almost dead, my wife was very, very ill, and I was racking up a few little health problems of my own. That money made it possible for us to begin to turn our lives around."
Still, he doesn't sound especially grateful.
Having suspected Moore might be his secret patron, he contends that his bete noir made the gift just to publicize "Sicko," which takes aim at America's health-care system and, we've heard, touches upon Moore's covert generosity.
"I knew he was using me," said Kenefick. "Moore is going to try to make me into one of his little puppets."
Kenefick wants it known that "I'm not an idiot. I know when to say yes to something, even if the string attached is obvious. What kind of moron turns down a free 12 grand?"
That kind of criticism may we all get!
Better he should have thanked the "anonymous donor" and then let it drop, instead of cashing the check and then slapping the hand that helped him.
Personally, I would have refused the check, if it had come from, say Ann Coulter, but I guess greed got the better of Kenefick, and then he got embarassed for himself, and his needy whining little welfare-statist self.
(h/t MissCellania)
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