Michael Moore, making 'em squirm with Sicko

By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

TUCSON -- Michael Moore's "Sicko" riveted moviegoers here, who applauded Moore's exposure of the broken health care system in the U.S. and the advantages of free health care in Canada, England, France and Cuba.
There were cheers for Moore for revealing how insurance denials for health care result in death. But in Sicko, the most provocative indictment of the U.S. health care system comes as Moore demonstrates, step by step, how alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are receiving better health care than the EMTs and those recovering human remains at the Towers in New York, after Sept. 11, 2001.
An entire second film could be made about the sinister lobbying of Congress and funding of presidential candidates by the pharmaceutical companies. The profiteering pushes up your cost for medicine and places you in danger because of favoritism.
In Tucson, nurses and health care providers came out by the dozens at El Con Theater, wearing orange tee-shirts. They urged people to see the film and change the health care system in America.
The film is funny, too.
As for Michael Moore, congratulations. One person can change the world. One thing has already changed for many moviegoers: the myths and misconceptions about our neighbors to the north and south, and fellow human beings in France.
As for those who didn't know already, the movie makes it clear: the uninsured and the sick in America have been had.
On a personal note, my mind raced back to the news story I wrote just before I was fired in 2006. After being told to write about bird flu, my research led me to the fact that Donald Rumsfeld was profiteering, making millions, off the the sale of the medicine Tamiflu as U.S. states were being told to stockpile Tamiflu.
The article printed, with my name on it, in Indian Country Today is not the one I wrote. It was censored and rewritten by the editors. The references to Rumsfeld's profiteering were deleted, as was some of the information about drug manufacturers attempting to profiteer from the sale of ribavirin on the Navajo Nation, after Navajo deaths from hantavirus in the mid-1990s.
When I complained about this, I was fired. The uncensored article is at:
http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/
One can only wonder, what's next for Michael Moore.


Counter Spin

'by Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

As everyone who watched "Wag the Dog," knows, there's a quick spin to counter anything that exposes the truth in America.
After Sicko's premiere nationwide in theaters last night, here's the Counter Spin, carried by scores of newspapers. The AP writers who were quick to come to the defense of the sick U.S. health care system:

Sicko' Film Gives Accused Little Say
By KEVIN FREKING and LINDA A. JOHNSON

The Associated Press

Saturday, June 30, 2007; 1:03 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/30/AR2007063000293.htm

Google wants to protect you from Michael Moore:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=5549

UPDATE: Google apologizes
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_6310943

MTV's Counter Spin:
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1563758/story.jhtml

Here's all the breaking news reviews, good and bad:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1117466940&scoring=n

Here' more from nurses about Sicko:
OAKLAND, Calif., June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Registered nurses, doctors, and healthcare and community activists -- part of a broad, national coalition -- will be out in force in America's theaters this weekend as Michael Moore's "SiCKO," a riveting indictment of the healthcare industry, opens across the nation. More than 20,000 RNs have already volunteered to participate, part of an effort to also get one million nurses to see the film.
From coast to coast, the caregivers and community leaders will be inviting moviegoers to see the film and then fix our healthcare system by urging our legislators and political candidates to support reforms that guarantee universal healthcare for all -- while getting the insurance companies who systematically deny needed medical care out of the way.
Among the scores of cities where filmgoers can expect to see the volunteers are New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Albany (NY), Atlanta, Austin, Bethesda (MD), Boise, Boston, Cherry Hill (NJ), Cleveland, Clifton (NJ), Dallas, Denver, Fresno, Houston, Huntington (NY), Indianapolis, Long Beach, Louisville, Madison (WI), Memphis, Montpelier (VT), Nashville, New Brunswick (NJ), New Orleans, Oakland, Orange (CA), Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland (ME), Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, Seattle, St. Louis, South Orange (NJ), Stockton (CA), and Tucson, Raleigh, and Cary (NC), (partial list).
Many of those on hand will be RNs in red "Scrubs for SiCKO" who will be enlisting the audiences to move "from SiCKO to sanity" and help pass HR 676 in Congress, which would establish a publicly-administered single-payer healthcare system in the form of improved Medicare for all. Several states have similar bills, such as SB 840 in California.
Among the many participating organizations are the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Physicians for a National Health Program, New York State Nurses Association, Massachusetts Nurses Association, Health Professionals and Allied Employees (AFT), United Steelworkers (USW) Health Care Workers Council, Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, United Nurses and Allied Professionals (Rhode Island), Communications Workers of America, the New England Nurses Association, and others. California Nurses Association
CONTACT: Shum Preston, +1-510-273-2276, or Charles Idelson,+1-510-273-2246, both of CNA and NNOC