SICKO

Sooner or later a Michael Moore documentary will really cause the change we are all begging for. In a very humble way in his new film SICKO, he shows how his work caused one hospital to decide to give a child soon-to-become deaf the cochlear implant for the OTHER ear, TOO. He draws on the past (mainly through old Hollywood footage and nineteen- forty-ish cartoons) because it has created the present.

BUT not only in the United States of America--this time. He follows the healthcare industry and its history from the post-WWII era in the U.S., Canada, France and England (we're hoping its true for all of Great Britain--even Northern Ireland) and Cuba to this year! The National Health System in England is portrayed as a really well-run, fair, just institution. The same is true of health care systems in France and Canada. Behind Canada and England's national healthcare philosophies are individuals who somehow elicited the natural human emotion of empathy in creating a just healthcare program. France is a place where the state fears the power of the individual. Demonstrations are shown in France to present this point.

Americans live in fear; there is no doubt about this. People, in general, don't like "demonstrators." Those of us who walked all throughout the spring and fall 2003 against the invasion of Iraq did it because we meant it. We still mean it. What happened?