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 the media warned us that Universal Health Care was merely socialized medicine and THAT kind of health care was the stuff of Communist countries where such 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--Communism, and the S-word--Socialism--and country associated with either word. In my lifetime, however, we have feared communism and communists the most.
Throughout history, governments have successfully 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, reality is we will believe anything we are told. Being told what to do is actually more convenient than figuring out what to do on our own. Churches are filled weekly with people just sitting there waiting to be told what to believe and how. Living rooms across America are nightly filled with folks just waiting to be told who our next enemy is. Today's pacifists may tomorrow be declared America's new enemy combatants.
I guess we might even turn in Jesus Christ if he walked among us today, because he was a "pacifist" in a time when war and its inevitable toll was the accepted means to end for active empires. Ironically, 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 as means to an end. 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 or care who the Federal Reserve or IRS really is (are) and how they operate, they do not realize that ALL insurance companies, be it health or homeowners' or automobile, exist solely to make money--not to pay your claims. (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. Try reading this book for more info: http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=1882.)
And we, like the proverbial frogs about to boil in the pot, agree that the (hot) water here is nice and cozy? La la la-la lala-lala-la-aaaaaaah.
That is most of what Mr. Moore has been trying to tell us for some time. For if he were to tell us the WHOLE truth, he'd be crucified.