Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.
Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
That’s right, tubby. You’re a multi-millionaire, so you can afford to climb into your private jet and scoot off to the world’s most luxurious fat farms when you want to drop a couple of pounds. But the average working class Joe, who eats the same food you do and puts on a few pounds, well, he doesn’t qualify for healthcare under your socialist medical care utopia. But wait, it gets better.
Fertility treatment and “social” abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.
That’s right, Mikey. Not only is your socialist paradise going to stand by and allow fat fucks like you to drop dead of a heart attack, but they’re also going to prevent pregnant women from terminating their pregnancies, as well as only allowing the infertile rich to have children, since poor people won’t be able to afford to pay for the treatment themselves.
Oh yeah, that free healthcare is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Smokers, fatties, sluts, and the barren, all of them are completely fucked under your socialist healthcare fantasyland.
The findings of a survey conducted by Doctor magazine sparked a fierce row last night, with the British Medical Association and campaign groups describing the recommendations from family and hospital doctors as “out rageous” and “disgraceful”.
About one in 10 hospitals already deny some surgery to obese patients and smokers, with restrictions most common in hospitals battling debt.
Managers defend the policies because of the higher risk of complications on the operating table for unfit patients. But critics believe that patients are being denied care simply to save money.
Of course they’re being denied treatment because of money. Money is a finite resource. In economic terms it is “a scarce resource which has alternate uses.” And when the government provides all the fabulous free healthcare that people could ever hope for, they will quickly run out of money, because the public has no financial incentive NOT to go to the doctor.
But keep pushing for this evil scheme, you fat fuck. Someone can always buy one of your books or DVDs instead of paying for their own medical care, while you hobnob with the rest of the unhealthy socialist millionaires at your $20,000 a day for-profit Swiss health chalet.
School lunchboxes could soon be monitored by dinner ladies to ensure children are eating healthy meals, ministers said.
Under the Government’s obesity strategy, all schools will be expected to design a “healthy lunchbox policy” on what makes a nutritional packed lunch over the next year.
Some parents may even be asked to sign a form agreeing to ban unhealthy foods from their children’s lunches.
If a packed lunch is deemed to contain too much fat and sugar, parents could be sent warning letters or their children’s meals confiscated.
That’s right. The food Nazis are now going to be keeping an Orwellian eye on what British children eat. If they make food choices that Big Brother has determined are not in the public interest, then the Gestapo will ensure you comply. Then, if the kid happens to choose to smoke or turns into a fat kid anyway, well, don’t come crying to the government for fabulous free healthcare.
Hey Michael Moore, we all know that you (or at least one of your low-paid, non-union flunkies) read this site. Do you have the balls at all to comment on this? You claim to oppose government and worship individual freedom, but the very policies you support are going to result in this type of surveillance-state over fucking food. So rather than suck your own cock over your latest Oscar nomination, why don’t you show some integrity and actually send out one of your Mike’s Messages either supporting this type of police state activism or decrying it?
Naah, you’ll just keep sucking your own cock, won’t you? Have fun at the fat farm, Tubby.
Mike was nominated for Sicko. Does he have a shot at winning?
Update by Lee: I don’t think so. First off, Sicko wasn’t that good of a movie. His previous efforts were timely and something a large section of the general public was interested in. And, had Moore treated the subject matter in Sicko with the seriousness it deserves he might have made more of an impact. But, as I’ve said before, Sicko was nothing more than a two-hour infomercial for socialism which used healthcare as a context. Even Hollywood lefties, who would all spout the expected platitudes about how we need to “provide healthcare for everyone” know that government run socialist disasters like the UK and Canada simply don’t work. And I think the Cuba segment, where he portrayed the island as a tropical paradise of egalitarian brotherhood and compassion, was the final nail in the coffin. Castro is an evil bastard, and other than the usual suspects—Moore, Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, etc.—most Hollywood types know it. They all know Moore to be nothing more than a manipulative, self-promoting blowhard, and I doubt they’re going to reward him for this film, which from a cinematic standpoint was nowhere near as entertaining as F9/11 or Bowling for Columbine.
But, these are Hollywood liberals, so ultimately you never really know what the fuck they’re going to do.
When you hear Michael Moore or some other leftist issue their plaintive wails about how we need “more money for education,” despite the highest per-student spending in the world, think back to this story about the abandoned Detroit public school book depository.
Pallet after pallet of mid-1980s Houghton-Mifflin textbooks, still unwrapped in their original packaging, seem more telling of our failures than any vacant edifice. The floor is littered with flash cards, workbooks, art paper, pencils, scissors, maps, deflated footballs and frozen tennis balls, reel-to-reel tapes. Almost anything you can think of used in the education of a child during the 1980s is there, much of it charred or rotted beyond recognition. Mushrooms thrive in the damp ashes of workbooks. Ailanthus altissima, the “ghetto palm” grows in a soil made by thousands of books that have burned, and in the pulp of rotted English Textbooks. Everything of any real value has been looted. All that’s left is an overwhelming sense of knowledge unlearned and untapped potential. It is almost impossible not to see all this and make some connection between the needless waste of all these educational supplies and the needless loss of so many lives in this city to poverty and violence, though the reality of why these supplies were never used is unclear. In some breathtakingly-beautiful expression of hope, an anonymous graffiti artist has painted a phoenix-like book rising from the ashes of the third floor.
Click the link for pictures. This is, yet again, why government is a failure at everything it does.
Yet another dispatch from Britain’s wonderful NHS:
The London Telegraph reported Tuesday that the British government has a “plan to save billions of pounds from the NHS budget.” But it won’t come without enormous pain.
“Instead of going to a hospital or consulting a doctor, patients will be encouraged to carry out ‘self-care’ as the Department of Health tries to meet Treasury targets to curb spending,” the Telegraph explained.
So when is a universal health care system not actually universal? When Britain’s 60-year-old National Health Service can no longer support the weight of its clamoring clientele.
Granted, there should be more self-treatment in developed nations. Emergency rooms and doctors’ offices are often overcrowded with patients who aren’t in need of urgent need but who go anyway because their insurance or government is paying. That type of open access to health care has led to overuse of the system.
The NHS, though, is hoping to cut down on more than frivolous visits. It’s looking for patients with “arthritis, asthma and even heart failure” to treat themselves, the Telegraph said.
Some of the self-care that will be expected of patients includes the monitoring of heart activity, blood pressure and lung
capacity using equipment that has been placed in the home.
Patients will be counted on to relate health information to doctors either by phone or computer link. To manage pain, they will administer their own drugs and other treatments.
This isn’t a completely horrid idea as socialized systems can be over-run by people running to their “free” doctor for every sniffle.
Still, if a private company were encouraging “self care”, don’t you think it would be the basis of a hilarious five minute section of Sicko II: The Re-Sickening?
A very sad and disturbing story ran in the local paper here on the Big Island regarding a Police Officer named Charles Keliipio who suffered brain damage resulting from a car accident which occurred while in the line of duty.
Injured officer fights for treatment
by Erin Miller
West Hawaii Today
[email protected]
Saturday, December 22, 2007 7:12 AM HST
Charles Keliipio has fought for treatment of a traumatic brain injury for more than eight years.
Keliipio had served on the Hawaii County Police Department for 16 years when the vehicle he was driving was rear-ended by another vehicle.
He went home following the collision, only seeking medical treatment at his wife’s urging, Denise Keliipio recalled. A doctor told them the problems might clear up within six months or a year. They never did, Denise Keliipio said, adding that her husband’s condition has worsened in the last six months or so, as opposition to treatment plans increases and the likelihood of his returning to a job he loved diminishes.
“For eight years, they’ve been piecemealing his treatment,” she said. “My husband spends days when he never comes home. All the Police Department and county have done is harass us and put us through hearing after hearing.”
Charles Keliipio, 51, wants to spend at least six months at the Center for Neuro Science in Bakersfield, Calif., a treatment facility more than one physician has recommended. But his employer has balked at the cost, which could reach a minimum of $360,000.
According to documents, including decisions by the Labor and Industrial Relations Board and letters from Deputy Chief Harry Kubojiri, provided by the Keliipios, a representative of the Center for Neuro Science first interviewed Charles Keliipio in 2004, at the Police Department’s request. Denise Keliipio said the center’s representative noted that many of its patients received treatment sooner than her husband had but that the doctors there believe he could recover enough cognitive abilities to hold down some kind of job.
The department, through its workers’ compensation representation at the state level, has denied the treatment repeatedly, attempting to send Charles Keliipio to Big Island therapists. The department also requested a new evaluation earlier this year; that doctor reported Charles Keliipio did not have significant cognitive impairments.
Denise Keliipio said her husband can appear to be functioning normally at times, even for a few days. But he isn’t the same as he once was, and she said their request for treatment is a sign that he’s not faking.
“If it were an act, wouldn’t he ask for a cash settlement?” she said. “Why would anyone ask for treatment in a lockdown facility for six months?”
The state Labor and Industrial Relations Board ruled Nov. 27 that Charles Keliipio was entitled to treatment at the California treatment center. The Police Department appealed that decision.
Police Chief Larry Mahuna referred questions about the workers’ compensation case to a personnel specialist with the department, noting that the case is handled by the state Workers’ Compensation Division.
“I’m sorry he feels that way,” Mahuna said, when asked about Charles Keliipio’s concerns and an apparent abandonment by his former employer. “We’re doing as much as I can. That’s all I can say.”
Amy Miyao, a personnel specialist with the department to whom Mahuna referred comment, said she was unable to discuss the case because Charles Keliipio had filed suit against the county. She said she had not seen the lawsuit, and no record of it is available in the state’s online judiciary Web site. A call left with Corporation Counsel Lincoln Ashida asking about the status or existence of a lawsuit was not returned.
Miyao referred questions about the workers’ compensation case to the Workers’ Compensation Division. A message left there Wednesday morning was not returned. The employee who answered the phone and took the message indicated someone from the Police Department contacted them Wednesday morning, too, providing notice that a reporter would be calling regarding Charles Keliipio’s case.
A message left for State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers President Tenari Maafala was not returned.
Charles Keliipio, a career law enforcement officer, received a letter in November instructing him to go to the Kealakehe Police Station to turn in his gun and his badge. Talking about the situation, his eyes filled with tears. Law enforcement is in his blood, he said, noting that his great-grandfather was sheriff and other family members have served as police officers.
“I’m looking for righteous treatment for myself,” Charles Keliipio said.
Some of his concerns focus on how his former co-workers treat him now; he filed a formal complaint against Mahuna through the Police Commission a few months ago, and even attempted to arrest Mahuna after the meeting.
The couple did seek legal representation early on, but after their lawyer repeatedly missed appeal deadlines, they began battling on their own. The teenage driver who rear-ended Charles Keliipio was driving a relative’s vehicle that had minimum insurance coverage; Denise Keliipio said lawyers encouraged them to seek a lien on the vehicle owner’s home, but she and her husband couldn’t bring themselves to do that. The Police Department’s Records Division had no criminal charges connected to the collision case.
His wife said she can understand why her husband is upset about the treatment. After all, she said, they worked together for years, and he was the State of Hawaii Organization of Police chapter chairman, a position in which he helped other officers.
“He’s never gotten in trouble, never gotten sent home without pay,” she said.
Still, Denise Keliipio is worried about what will happen if treatment is delayed much longer.
“If he can just come back and get a job, be part of the community again,” she said. “Right now, he’s just here, there and everywhere.”
Timeline:
Aug. 8, 1999: Charlie Keliipio is injured when a vehicle rear-ends his vehicle on Kaiminani Drive.
Nov. 28, 2001: Hawaii County Police Department files its first appeal regarding Keliipio’s treatments.
Feb. 25, 2002: The Police Department withdraws its appeal because it wasn’t filed in a timely manner.
March 4, 2004: Dr. Ann Mary Palozzi evaluates Keliipio and recommends he receive a minimum of six months treatment.
April 21, 2004: At the request of the Police Department, the Center for Neuro Science evaluates Keliipio, concluding he would be a good candidate for the treatment program there.
June 14, 2004: Dr. Frank Ferren and Palozzi recommend Keliipio be sent to the Center for Neuro Science as soon as possible.
June 17, 2004: Ferren requests Keliipio work with Dr. Steven Pollard, in Hilo, for cognitive retraining.
June 29, 2004: The Police Department approves treatment with Pollard.
July 12, 2004: Ferren withdraws the request for Keliipio to receive treatment with Pollard. Ferren cites Palozzi’s report that Keliipio needed a “guided and structured therapy program,” and Palozzi’s opinion that Keliipio’s “best chance” would include more focused and more frequent training than the two to three sessions scheduled for Keliipio between July 4, 2004, and Oct. 4, 2004.
July 16, 2004: Ferren requests cognitive retraining for Keliipio at the Center for Neuro Science.
July 26, 2004: The Police Department denies the request.
Aug. 2, 2004: The Police Department responds to Ferren’s assertion that only three sessions were approved with Pollard during a three-month period.
Aug. 30, 2004: The Police Department proposes Keliipio be treated by Pollard for six months, then undergo a progress evaluation. If Keliipio does not show “measurable improvement,” to be determined by Palozzi, they agreed that he could enroll at the Center for Neuro Science.
Sept. 9, 2004: Keliipio and the Police Department create an agreement that determines how progress will be shown.
June 2005: Keliipio begins treatments with Pollard.
Dec. 1, 2005: Palozzi re-examines Keliipio. She notes that Pollard did not create a formal treatment plan with long-term goals and objectives, and therefore could not determine if treatment had been effective. She again recommends treatment with specific goals.
June 20, 2006: The Police Department requests Keliipio meet with officials to discuss his employment status, citing information from Palozzi that Keliipio would be unable to return to work as a police officer. Hearings and meetings on the subject continue through the end of the year.
Feb. 9, 2007: Palozzi reports Keliipio is showing some improvement but notes there are no physicians in Kona to treat Keliipio as a workers’ compensation case. Palozzi’s opinion is Keliipio should attend a “community based” program like the Center for Neuro Science.
Oct. 5, 2007: Dr. Kyle Boone reports on an evaluation of Keliipio, expressing her opinion that he does not require cognitive rehabilitation.
Nov. 27, 2007: Labor and Industrial Relations Board rules in Keliipio’s favor, noting that he is entitled to treatment at the Center for Neuro Science. Subsequently, the decision was appealed.
A couple of things to keep in mind when reading this story:
1. This was a Police Officer who serves the public and is a STATE EMPLOYEE (Government employee);
2. This occurred on the job, while on duty;
3. The Doctors repeatedly said he needed the treatment in California which the state, his employer, continuously refuses to pay for.
Now, consider what would happen if this happened in a place where the government runs the healthcare system. Like say in..oh I don’t know....Canada or Cuba. Would Officer Keliipio even have the option of going to see a specialist for a second opinion? My wife’s grandmother lives in Canada and has told me stories about what happens in cases like this. She went to her doctor with difficulty swallowing and could feel a lump in her neck. The doctor gave her throat lozenges and antibiotics and told her it would go away in a few weeks. Of course it didnt and she went back to the doctor. She had to wait two months before she could see him again and at that point the lump had grown and she began having trouble breathing at night suffering from sleep apnea. When she was able to see the doctor again, he told her that he could refer her for a consult but that it wouldn’t be for another couple of months. So what did she do? She drove down to Washington state, went to an ER, saw a doctor who diagnosed her with a malignant growth in her neck that needed to be removed immediately. She had the procedure and was out in a matter of days. She paid for it all out of her own pocket.
Now, this was an elderly woman with a lump in her neck. When I asked her about the appeal process she just laughed and said, “what appeals? It’s Canada. The doctors basically figure it’s free so who are you going to complain to?”
While Officer Keliipio has a battle before him fighting with the state to secure him the treatment he desperately needs, I can’t help but imagine how much worse it could be if he lived in a place with socialized state run medical care!
Jim summed up Mikey’s screed nicely in the previous post. There is, however, one small section I want to focus on.
Let’s assume that’s true. Do you want a President who is so easily misled? I wasn’t “misled,” and millions of others who took to the streets in February of 2003 weren’t “misled” either. It was simply amazing that we knew the war was wrong when none of us had been briefed by the CIA, none of us were national security experts, and none of us had gone on a weapons inspection tour of Iraq. And yet… we knew we were being lied to!
We’ve all heard the expression that even a broken clock is right twice a day. Michael Moore opposes war. All war. Especially when it could in any way conceivably benefit America. He opposed Afghanistan. He opposed Kosovo, going so far as to make the asinine assertion that it inspired the Columbine killers. He opposed the first Gulf War. He opposed the Cold War. He just opposes ALL WAR.
Now, let’s look at what he wrote. By his own admission he had no inside information. He wasn’t briefed by the CIA. He isn’t an expert on national security. He’d never gone on a weapons tour of Iraq. Yet somehow, mysteriously, he just KNEW he was being lied to. My question is, how did he know?
Imagine, for a second, if I wrote the following. “I didn’t graduate from Harvard medical school. I hadn’t been Chief of Thoracic Surgery at John’s Hopkins for the past ten years. I hadn’t done over 600 heart transplants. But I KNEW that my child didn’t need surgery.” Sounds pretty ignorant, doesn’t it? Even if it turned out that, in the end, the surgery was indeed unnecessary, so what? The doctor was basing his opinion on his education and years of experience, and the parent is basing it on a gut feeling. When it comes to making critical decisions, which do you think is a more prudent course of action? President Bush makes a lot of his decisions based on “gut feeling” and we can all see how well those turned out, can’t we?
So, back to Mikey. Somehow, through some mystical, magical process he just “knew” that this war was bad. I imagine he “knew” this in the same way that a fundamentalist Christian “knows” that fags are going to burn in hell, or that a suicide bomber “knows” that there will be 72 virgins waiting for him in Paradise.
Here we have a guy who just opposes all war, period. Eventually he opposes a war which, guess what, turns out to be a disaster. Then, completely disregarding all the other wars he’s opposed in the past and been wrong about, he hails himself as possessing some kind of mysterious power of prognostication, wherein he “knew” that something was up with this war. This despite the fact that, by his own admission, the very people who had access to all the information and data disagreed with him. But somehow he “knew.”
So, which is more likely. Did he “know” something, or did the broken clock just happen to be right this time?
Mikey put out one of his lengthy, semi-coherent rants again this morning. These days, I’m getting about half my email, but today I seem to have won the blowhard lottery; this and two older, screechy screeds from the AFA crying that Ford wants to *gasp* sell cars to TEH GAYZ. It’s like my inbox is being punished.
After the jump, Mike’s words. After that, my summary. Feel free to skip to that part and then read Mikey’s diatribe afterward to see if I accurately summed it up.
Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from Michael Moore
January 2, 2008
Friends,
A new year has begun. And before we’ve had a chance to break our New Year’s resolutions, we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours before the good people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace the man who now occupies three countries and a white house.
Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice we have failed. Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been lost, the world left in upheaval against us… and yet now, today, we hope against hope that our moment has finally arrived, that the amazingly powerful force of the Republican Party will somehow be halted. But we know that the Democrats are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and if there’s a way to blow this election, they will find it and do it with gusto.
Do you feel the same as me? That the Democratic front-runners are a less-than-stellar group of candidates, and that none of them are the “slam dunk” we wish they were? Of course, there are wonderful things about each of them. Any one of them would be infinitely better than what we have now. Personally, Congressman Kucinich, more than any other candidate, shares the same positions that I have on the issues (although the UFO that picked ME up would only take me as far as Kalamazoo). But let’s not waste time talking about Dennis. Even he is resigned to losing, with statements like the one he made yesterday to his supporters in Iowa to throw their support to Senator Obama as their “second choice.”
So, it’s Hillary, Obama, Edwards—now what do we do?
Two months ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked me to do a cover story where I would ask the hard questions that no one was asking in one-on-one interviews with Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards. “The Top Democrats Face Off with Michael Moore.” The deal was that all three candidates had to agree to let me interview them or there was no story. Obama and Edwards agreed. Mrs. Clinton said no, and the cover story was thus killed.
Why would the love of my life, Hillary Clinton, not sit down to talk with me? What was she afraid of?
Those of you who are longtime readers of mine may remember that 11 years ago I wrote a chapter (in my first book) entitled, “My Forbidden Love for Hillary.” I was fed up with the treatment she was getting, most of it boringly sexist, and I thought somebody should stand up for her. I later met her and she thanked me for referring to her as “one hot s***kicking feminist babe.” I supported and contributed to her run for the U.S. Senate. I think she is a decent and smart person who loves this country, cares deeply about kids, and has put up with more crap than anyone I know of (other than me) from the Crazy Right. Her inauguration would be a thrilling sight, ending 218 years of white male rule in a country where 51% of its citizens are female and 64% are either female or people of color.
And yet, I am sad to say, nothing has disappointed me more than the disastrous, premeditated vote by Senator Hillary Clinton to send us to war in Iraq. I’m not only talking about her first vote that gave Mr. Bush his “authorization” to invade—I’m talking about every single OTHER vote she then cast for the next four years, backing and funding Bush’s illegal war, and doing so with verve. She never met a request from the White House for war authorization that she didn’t like. Unlike the Kerrys and the Bidens who initially voted for authorization but later came to realize the folly of their decision, Mrs. Clinton continued to cast numerous votes for the war until last March—four long years of pro-war votes, even after 70% of the American public had turned against the war. She has steadfastly refused to say that she was wrong about any of this, and she will not apologize for her culpability in America’s worst-ever foreign policy disaster. All she can bring herself to say is that she was “misled” by “faulty intelligence.”
Let’s assume that’s true. Do you want a President who is so easily misled? I wasn’t “misled,” and millions of others who took to the streets in February of 2003 weren’t “misled” either. It was simply amazing that we knew the war was wrong when none of us had been briefed by the CIA, none of us were national security experts, and none of us had gone on a weapons inspection tour of Iraq. And yet… we knew we were being lied to! Let me ask those of you reading this letter: Were YOU “misled”—or did you figure it out sometime between October of 2002 and March of 2007 that George W. Bush was up to something rotten? Twenty-three other senators were smart enough to figure it out and vote against the war from the get-go. Why wasn’t Senator Clinton?
I have a theory: Hillary knows the sexist country we still live in and that one of the reasons the public, in the past, would never consider a woman as president is because she would also be commander in chief. The majority of Americans were concerned that a woman would not be as likely to go to war as a man (horror of horrors!). So, in order to placate that mindset, perhaps she believed she had to be as “tough” as a man, she had to be willing to push The Button if necessary, and give the generals whatever they wanted. If this is, in fact, what has motivated her pro-war votes, then this would truly make her a scary first-term president. If the U.S. is faced with some unforeseen threat in her first years, she knows that in order to get re-elected she’d better be ready to go all Maggie Thatcher on whoever sneezes in our direction. Do we want to risk this, hoping the world makes it in one piece to her second term?
I have not even touched on her other numerous—and horrendous—votes in the Senate, especially those that have made the middle class suffer even more (she voted for Bush’s first bankruptcy bill, and she is now the leading recipient of payoff money—I mean campaign contributions—from the health care industry). I know a lot of you want to see her elected, and there is a very good chance that will happen. There will be plenty of time to vote for her in the general election if all the pollsters are correct. But in the primaries and caucuses, isn’t this the time to vote for the person who most reflects the values and politics you hold dear? Can you, in good conscience, vote for someone who so energetically voted over and over and over again for the war in Iraq? Please give this serious consideration.
Now, on to the two candidates who did agree to do the interview with me…
Barack Obama is a good and inspiring man. What a breath of fresh air! There’s no doubting his sincerity or his commitment to trying to straighten things out in this country. But who is he? I mean, other than a guy who gives a great speech? How much do any of us really know about him? I know he was against the war. How do I know that? He gave a speech before the war started. But since he joined the senate, he has voted for the funds for the war, while at the same time saying we should get out. He says he’s for the little guy, but then he votes for a corporate-backed bill to make it harder for the little guy to file a class action suit when his kid swallows lead paint from a Chinese-made toy. In fact, Obama doesn’t think Wall Street is a bad place. He wants the insurance companies to help us develop a new health care plan—the same companies who have created the mess in the first place. He’s such a feel-good kinda guy, I get the sense that, if elected, the Republicans will eat him for breakfast. He won’t even have time to make a good speech about it.
But this may be a bit harsh. Senator Obama has a big heart, and that heart is in the right place. Is he electable? Will more than 50% of America vote for him? We’d like to believe they would. We’d like to believe America has changed, wouldn’t we? Obama lets us feel better about ourselves—and as we look out the window at the guy snowplowing his driveway across the street, we want to believe he’s changed, too. But are we dreaming?
And then there’s John Edwards.
It’s hard to get past the hair, isn’t it? But once you do—and recently I have chosen to try—you find a man who is out to take on the wealthy and powerful who have made life so miserable for so many. A candidate who says things like this: “I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy.” Whoa. We haven’t heard anyone talk like that in a while, at least not anyone who is near the top of the polls. I suspect this is why Edwards is doing so well in Iowa, even though he has nowhere near the stash of cash the other two have. He won’t take the big checks from the corporate PACs, and he is alone among the top three candidates in agreeing to limit his spending and be publicly funded. He has said, point-blank, that he’s going after the drug companies and the oil companies and anyone else who is messing with the American worker. The media clearly find him to be a threat, probably because he will go after their monopolistic power, too. This is Roosevelt/Truman kind of talk. That’s why it’s resonating with people in Iowa, even though he doesn’t get the attention Obama and Hillary get—and that lack of coverage may cost him the first place spot tomorrow night. After all, he is one of those white guys who’s been running things for far too long.
And he voted for the war. But unlike Senator Clinton, he has stated quite forcefully that he was wrong. And he has remorse. Should he be forgiven? Did he learn his lesson? Like Hillary and Obama, he refused to promise in a September debate that there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of his first term in 2013. But this week in Iowa, he changed his mind. He went further than Clinton and Obama and said he’d have all the troops home in less than a year.
Edwards is the only one of the three front-runners who has a universal health care plan that will lead to the single-payer kind all other civilized countries have. His plan doesn’t go as fast as I would like, but he is the only one who has correctly pointed out that the health insurance companies are the enemy and should not have a seat at the table.
I am not endorsing anyone at this point. This is simply how I feel in the first week of the process to replace George W. Bush. For months I’ve been wanting to ask the question, “Where are you, Al Gore?” You can only polish that Oscar for so long. And the Nobel was decided by Scandinavians! I don’t blame you for not wanting to enter the viper pit again after you already won. But getting us to change out our incandescent light bulbs for some irritating fluorescent ones isn’t going to save the world. All it’s going to do is make us more agitated and jumpy and feeling like once we get home we haven’t really left the office.
On second thought, would you even be willing to utter the words, “I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy?” ‘Cause the candidate who understands that, and who sees it as the root of all evil—including the root of global warming—is the President who may lead us to a place of sanity, justice and peace.
Yours,
Michael Moore (not an Iowa voter, but appreciative of any state that has a town named after a sofa)
[email protected]
MichaelMoore.com
And now, my summary:
“No one has kissed my ass or slipped me money, so I’m not telling you, the faithful, what to do yet. I do like Edwards, since he’s a surface-deep fop who skims off society to make himself fabulously wealthy and then shits all over the same system he exploited. Obviously we have a lot in common. Also, as per usual, the U.S. is evil and all corporations are evil, except mine, of course, even though I treat my people like shit and am personally responsible for every decision made in my company’s name. Wait, ignore that last part. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Republican = automatically evil, Democrat = just a little misguided and prone to losing. There. That’s what I meant. Now which of you filthy little candidate whores will be the first to kiss my ring?
P.S. How great was my amuse bouche about the sofa? I’m so hilarious. God I wish I was Canadian.”
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