See the Movie, Start the Revolution ...a letter from Michael Moore

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Friends,

I am overwhelmed by the response to "Sicko." And I'm not just talking about all the wonderful, heart-felt letters you've sent me and the stories you've shared with me about the abuse you've suffered from our health care system.

No, I'm talking about how thousands of you are taking matters into your own hands and using the movie to do something. From Seattle to New England, each day I learn of numerous groups holding meetings or dinners after the movie to discuss it and to plot a course for action. A church in Plano, TX took its weekly bible study group to see "SiCKO." 70 people crammed into a Wisconsin coffee shop's back room. Groups are plotting over pancakes in Illinois and microbrew in Missouri. E-mail addresses are being exchanged in theater lobbies. A Connecticut group is inviting legislators to see "Sicko" and keeping a tally on their website. Local groups have been buying out theaters to have special screenings for their members. Information tables are set up, literature is distributed, action groups are formed.

It's all an amazing sight. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to see the impact a movie can have. For all of you who have written me to ask, "What can I do," well, read more about what others have done, and then try these simple steps:

1. Call or write you member of Congress right now (I'll wait) and tell him or her that you insist they become a co-sponsor of H.R. 676 -- "The United States National Health Insurance Act." It's sponsored currently by Rep. John Conyers and 76 other members of Congress. Insist that your congressperson be one of those co-sponsors. I want to see 100 co-sponsors by Thanksgiving. Will you help make that happen?

2. Call and write to each of the candidates running for President. Tell them you expect them to back H.R. 676, and to take the Senator Brown pledge. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio refuses to accept his free, government-run health insurance until EVERY American is covered.

3. Organize your own local HealthCare-Now! coalition. You can do it in your own neighborhood. It has to start somewhere. Everyday people have to make this happen. Don't wait for someone else to do this. Ask yourself, "if not me, who?"

4. Call your local media and tell them about your health care horror story. Many papers and TV stations have been running these since "Sicko" arrived in theaters. They like the local angle. Tell them you saw the movie and that there's a "Sicko" story happening right here in (fill in the blank). Tell them you are passing it on to me.

Well, that's a start. Here's what I'm going to do. Because last weekend's "Win a Trip to a Universal Healthcare Country" was so successful (the winner will be announced next week), this weekend we're going to try something different: it's "Take a Republican to 'Sicko!'" C'mon, we all have a conservative in the family! They mean well. It's just that they believe what they've been told about that scary "socialized medicine." Treat them to the movie this weekend and tell them to send me their ticket stub and entry form. I will hold a drawing and the lucky winner will get to have me come to their home and do their laundry -- just like in France! Now, what would make a Republican happier than to see me working away in their laundry room?!

I truly believe that the health care issue is one where we can find some common ground with those who may hold different opinions than us. After all, they're getting the shaft by the same insurance and pharmaceutical companies we are. And sooner or later, they're not going to take it any more, either.

Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. I will be on Jay Leno (The Tonight Show on NBC) tonight (Thursday) at 11:35pm ET/PT. I will be making a special announcement on the show.

Posted by ak7666 at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

options

Posted by ak7666 at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

options

"Sicko" in Top 5 Grossing Docs of All Time -- This Weekend it's "'Sicko' Night in America!"... from Michael Moore

Thursday, July 19th, 2007

Friends,

Good news! "Sicko," after less than three weeks in national release, has become one of the top five grossing documentaries of all time! So, this coming weekend, the distributor is expanding the movie by opening it in nearly 500 new theaters in small cities all over the country (for a total of nearly 1,200 screens nationwide)! From Rapid City to Carson City, from Gettysburg to Pearl Harbor, from Juneau to Battle Creek -- they're all getting "Sicko" tomorrow (Friday). Scores of cities that never have a documentary come to their local theater will now be able to see this one. It's happening all thanks to you who live in the larger cities and have supported "Sicko" so strongly. It's led the studio to say, "Let's make more prints and ship them to Oshkosh (and Beaverton and Brattleboro and Sault Ste. Marie and...)." The entire country goes "Sicko" in less than 48 hours! (Check here for the complete list of theaters showing "Sicko" in North America.)

So, friends, this is it. This is the weekend to go see "Sicko" if you haven't seen it. I get a lot of letters from people saying they plan to "get around" to seeing it "soon." Well, soon is here! Trying to get theaters to give us screens when we are up against huge summer blockbusters is an almost impossible task. "Sicko" won't be around forever. And if you're waiting for the DVD, ask anyone who's seen "Sicko" -- this is a movie you want to see with a crowd of people in a theater.

So let's pack the movie houses this weekend! Send an email to everyone you know, call your friends and tell them, "It's 'Sicko' Night in America!"

And, to show my thanks to all of you who'll go see "Sicko" this weekend, I'm going to send one of you and a guest on a free weekend to the universal health care country of your choice! That's right. You'll get to pick one of the three industrialized countries featured in the movie where, if you get sick, you get help for free, no matter who you are. All you have to do is send us your ticket stub (make sure it says "Sicko" on it and has the name of the theater and this weekend's date on it -- Friday, Saturday or Sunday - July 20th, 21st, 22nd). Attach the stub to a piece of paper with your name, address, phone number and email and send it to: 'Sicko' Night in America, 888c 8th Avenue, Suite 443, New York, NY 10019. (Yes, you have to use that old 18th century device called the U.S. Postal Service, and it has to be postmarked on or by Tuesday, July 24th). First prize is a weekend in the city of your choice: Paris, London or Toronto. This includes airfare, hotel, meals and, most exciting, a representative from their fine universal health care system who will give you a personal tour so you can see how they treat their fellow citizens. You'll meet people who pay nothing for college and citizens who are in the fourth week of their six-week paid vacation. Oh, and you'll have time to see the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben or whatever they have in Toronto that is old and tall. (If you don't have a passport, we'll pay for that, too!)

Canadians who are reading this -- you're probably thinking, "Hey, what about us? Where do we get to go?" Quit complaining! You're already there! But just to make it up to you -- and to prove we don't hold it against you for smugly walking out of a hospital with the same amount of money in your wallet that you went in with -- we'll let you participate in the drawing, too.

Thanks again to everyone who has gone to see "Sicko." Take a friend or two this weekend and celebrate "'Sicko' Night in America."

Yours,

Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

P.S. I'll be on "The Colbert Report" tonight (Thursday) on Comedy Central. On a sadder note, my appearance on CNN with Wolf Blitzer has been moved to a later date. Wolf just called to say he had a death in his family and that we would have to re-schedule. Our condolences to him and his family.

Posted by ak7666 at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

options

Tonight I went to see the new movie by Michael Moore called 'Sicko'.

He is now my hero even more so since 911 and Columbine.

The things he said about this country in comparison to other countries mirrored my views of many years, especially his take on Cuba and Castro.  

I believe in a Socialist or even a Communist Society if it means that we care for our fellow man. No person should be without health care, food, shelter and an education. All those things should be provided for free, it should be our right as a human not a privilege of the rich.  And not just for us Americans, but for all throughout the world.

This USA is not the place that I am proud of at this moment, it seems as tho our motivation is only money and more money. We don't seem to care about anything else. It is the people with money that dictate how we should live and how we shall die. So many of us have already died in Iraq and other places just to protect their money. That is all that its about, just their money. 

 If we spend the same amount for the military feeding the poor we would not need a military. 911 was a message that we have done something wrong in our treatment of our fellow man. Whether it was our doing or someone else, it (911) was clear that something terrible happened on how we are viewed by the rest of the world.

Go see Sicko and then find someone that will change our way of life and vote for them.

Leonard 

Posted by ak7666 at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

options

Chávez is no enemy of free speech

Hugo Chávez let Radio Caracas Televisión continue to air for five years after the station supported a coup attempt.

Page 1 of 2

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's refusal to renew the license of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) might seem to justify fears that Mr. Chávez is crushing free speech and eliminating any voices critical of him. Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; the Committee to Protect Journalists; and members of the European Parliament, the US Senate, and even Chile's Congress have denounced the closure of RCTV, Venezuela's oldest private television network. Chávez's detractors got more ammunition last week when the president included another opposition network, Globovisión, among the "enemies of the homeland."

But the case of RCTV – like most things involving Chávez – has been caught up in a web of misinformation. While one side of the story is getting headlines around the world, the other is barely heard. The demise of RCTV is indeed a sad event in some ways for Venezuelans. Founded in 1953, it was an institution in the country, having produced the long-running political satire program "Radio Rochela" and the blisteringly realistic nighttime soap opera "Por Estas Calles." It was RCTV that broadcast the first live-from-satellite images in Venezuela when it showed Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969.

But after Chávez was elected president in 1998, RCTV shifted to another endeavor: ousting a democratically elected leader from office. Controlled by members of the country's fabulously wealthy oligarchy, including RCTV chief Marcel Granier, it saw Chávez and his "Bolivarian Revolution" on behalf of Venezuela's majority poor as a threat.

RCTV's most infamous effort to topple Chávez came during the April 11, 2002, coup attempt against him. For two days before the putsch, RCTV preempted regular programming and ran wall-to-wall coverage of a general strike aimed at ousting Chávez. A stream of commentators spewed vitriolic attacks against him – while permitting no response from the government.

Then RCTV ran ads encouraging people to attend a march on April 11 aimed at toppling Chávez and broadcast blanket coverage of the event. When the march ended in violence, RCTV and Globovisión ran manipulated video blaming Chávez supporters for scores of deaths and injuries.

After military rebels overthrew Chávez and he disappeared from public view for two days, RCTV's biased coverage edged fully into sedition. Thousands of Chávez supporters took to the streets to demand his return, but none of that appeared on RCTV or other television stations. RCTV News Director Andrés Izarra later testified at National Assembly hearings on the coup attempt that he received an order from superiors at the station: "Zero pro-Chávez, nothing related to Chávez or his supporters…. The idea was to create a climate of transition and to start to promote the dawn of a new country." While the streets of Caracas burned with rage, RCTV ran cartoons, soap operas, and old movies. On April 13, 2002, Mr. Granier and other media moguls met in the Miraflores palace to pledge support to the country's coup-installed dictator, Pedro Carmona, who had eliminated the Supreme Court, the National Assembly, and the Constitution.

Would a network that aided and abetted a coup against the government be allowed to operate in the United States? The US government probably would have shut down RCTV within five minutes after a failed coup attempt – and thrown its owners in jail. Chávez's government allowed it to continue operating for five years and then declined to renew its 20-year license to use the public airwaves. It can still broadcast on cable or via satellite dish.

Granier and others should not be seen as free-speech martyrs. Radio, TV, and newspapers remain uncensored and unthreatened by the government. Most Venezuelan media are still controlled by the old oligarchy and are staunchly anti-Chávez. If Granier had not decided to try to oust the country's president, Venezuelans might still be able to look forward to more broadcasts of "Radio Rochela."

• Bart Jones spent eight years in Venezuela, mainly as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press and is the author of the forthcoming book "Hugo! The Hugo Chávez Story, From Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution." ©2007 Los Angeles Times Syndicate.l

Posted by ak7666 at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

options