The best movie of the year... I still can't believe it...

It pisses me off to no end that Moore has to pummel Clinton for some jokers to believe that he has "finally" put out a worthwhile film.

Moore has always been about bringing to light the negligent, the bloated, the avaricious.

I'm still amazed that more people here don't give the guy credit for having been prescient about Porgie's fictitious war. Amazed.

 

Here we go.
Things the US government does well (Partial list).

1) The GI Bill of Rights -- Created the modern American middle class.
2) The Tennesee Valley Authority -- Provided electricity to millions of people in the rural Southm, thereby helping give us the Grand Old Opry.
3) Social Security -- Virtually eliminated elderly poverty in America (look it up), and is still so effective that Republicans - and some Democrats -- feel the need to lie about it every couple of years.
4) The USPS.
5) The Pure Food and Drug Act, the Clean Water Act, the EPA.

Of course, if you hand the government over to bunglers dedicated to having it NOT work, you get what you vote -- or not vote -- for.

 

About 30 minutes into the film he starts going on and on about Hillary and what she tried to do during her husband's first term. As this lovefest started I could feel the eyes in the room begin to roll, but he then pointed out how she is every much in the back pocket of the health care companies as every other politician because of the amount of money she's received in campaign contributions... I don't think he bashes Hillary, I just think he exposed her as the same as all the others...

Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine are brilliant films. I'm not sure I would call Fahrenheit 9/11 "A Bunch of Lies" but it was incredibly one-sided and biased...

Sicko is neither of those things...

 

Which is why all the bloviating about HRC and "socialized medicine" is nonsense.
Her entire plan was HMO's on steroids.

 

He was ripping the rationale for invading Iraq when Shrub had an 85-percent approval.

It may have been one-sided. ... correct-sided.

Bunch of lies? That would be the GOP concoctions that ended up with a re-election in 2004.

Murderous lies, those.

 

If those are the choices, I'd take what I have now.
Frankly, I still prefer to put hospitals into the free-market system. Goodness sakes, the entire city of Pittsburgh now belongs to UPMC, which is an alleged not-for-profit corporation. You can't buy what they've bought unless you're minting money, and that money has to be coming from somebody's pocket, and yet they don't pay a nickel of tax. That's a messed-up system.

 

You're right, Ragu. That was interesting and very applicable. Some of the links it contained were just as interesting.

 

Longwinded and not terribly enlightening, and when you come across stuff like this you start questioning the entire diatribe:

"The central idea of "Bowling for Columbine," for instance—that the killers were subconsciously driven to their actions by the presence of a weapons manufacturing plant in Littleton---turned out to be not only conceptually insane but literally untrue"

The central idea? Huh?

And further on he refers to "Sicko" as a "fiction film". A what? Is that like a "fiction novel"?

And I would suggest that if you want to really learn about the problems in Canada's health care system, I'd take Canadian health care expert Dr. Michael Rachlis's opinions over the David Frum inspired Dr. Gratzer.

And once again, it's not the role of a documentary to offer solutions.

 

Ragu, I find it interesting that you selected this piece and called it interesting. On the basis of your arguments against Moore, you previously claimed that you didn't like his miss-use of facts and figures. Yet, in the very piece you post, you have a rather grotesque discoloration of one interesting statistic.

Interesting. From this piece, I would presume that 85% of France doesn't like the country's direction, but most importantly, they don't like the country's direction because of their healthcare. I note that it must be due to the country's healthcare because why else would the author include it in the piece.

Interestingly enough, Kyle Smith makes a mention of 2003 and France's death toll in relation to healthcare. This must also be brought up because, you would presume, that people in France would become increasingly unhappy with the healthcare after "five times 9/11’s toll" died.

Low and behold, a Harris Interactive poll shows on July 29, 2004:

Wait. I thought only 9% of France thought the country was moving in the right direction in regards to healthcare. Why would the author use a statistic that wasn't related to healthcare? Or did 60% of France, in 3-years, decide that they no longer liked their healthcare?

Before this blatant misrepresentation of realities, Kyle Smith writes this

According to Mr. Smith, it seems that France will cut back on government healthcare. However, in Yahoo.com article on the reforms that are being implemented, it says:

So the new government is looking to switch where the financing of the French health care comes from but not actually change the healthcare system? That is intersting because it doesn't seem that Mr. Smith was saying that.

I also found it intersting that when he says that the population of France is demanding change in their healthcare, they are electing more socialists in favor of their current healthcare system to the National Assembly. Wouldn't this go against the argument that the citizens don't like their healthcare system?

It certainly seems to me that Kyle Smith started out with the idea that he wasn't going to like the movie and then hunted down facts that would support his theory. I guess Mr. Smith said it best when he wrote:

 

The fact that Moore's most vocal critics engage in the same rhetorical devices and logical tactics as he does -- and often much worse, while attempting to discredit him with same and completely without irony -- has never stopped Ragu from being "interested" in them in the past.

Talk about intellectual dishonesty.

 

You better go on, because your list pretty much stinks. The Interstate system is a crowning achievement in creating suburban sprawl, killing our cities and public transportation, and forcing the vast majority of people to have the most environmentally destructive personal possession ever (the car) whether they really want one or not. The USPS? Not that I'll knock the job they do, but who gives a damn? Private enterprise could do just as well (or better) with something so benign. And tell the f-ing people of New Orleans what a great job the Corps did there. Not that the Corps is all to blame, mind you, but they aren't blameless either.

FB's list is better, although I could quibble with some of his nominations as well.