Sicko is meeting with "full spectrum approval" from far right Fox News to the far left Socialist Worker. When too many witnesses agree too strongly, the smart juror smells collusion. What's going on? Why isn't Michael Moore standing in front of a right wing firing squad? This article attempts to explain the Sicko phenomenon. The it steps outside mainstream approved dialogs to make some predictions.

::::::::

When too many witnesses agree too strongly, the smart juror smells collusion.

In this article, the term "health care" is given the broadest possible application, including the medical industry itself and all systems that support and finance it. The point is to include the entire unfolding phenomenon of Michael Moore's new film, Sicko.[0] The focus here is not just the movie and its message but the soil in which that message is planted and the extent to which that message may modify our future.

Full spectrum approval.

"Filmmaker Michael Moore's brilliant and uplifting new documentary, Sicko, deals with the failings of the U.S. healthcare system, both real and perceived. But this time around, the controversial documentarian seems to be letting the subject matter do the talking, and in the process shows a new maturity."[1]

Believe it or not, that was the far Right Fox News speaking -- the same Fox News that accused Michael Moore of treason in the Autumn of 2004 when he released Fahrenheit 9-11. As Sicko opens across the nation, it is being heralded by a political spectrum broader than anyone could have imagined. What accounts for this? Brandon Judell, in a review for Rotten Tomatoes, seems to know:

"Sicko is about health, the great leveler. Even right-wing, homophobic, praying-for-the-Apocalypse, Southern-belle demagogues don't like being ill. Whether it's gastritis, lumbago, carpal tunnel syndrome, or fibrosarcoma, disease can make the red states and the blue states purple."[2]

Even the far, far Left concurs. The Socialist Worker, known to deliver a Marxian knock-out blow at every opportunity, followed the crowd by not even throwing a punch at the large, slow-moving target of Michael Moore.[3]

If Sicko were a puff piece, the film's stunning popularity would only be a passing curiosity, just a news-cycle away from obscurity. But such is not the case. Already there is clear evidence that it has injected new life into the entire health care reform movement. Furthermore, the film's central thesis is remarkably radical: the profit motive must be removed from health care -- categorically, uncompromisingly removed. To capitalists these are egregious fighting words.

So where's the fight? We certainly have not seen it yet, not in proportion to the tidal wave of support Sicko is getting. Am I the only one who's suspicious. I'm not sure what's going on. I can hardly begin to explain it to my own satisfaction. It seems to me that everyone is getting caught up in the texture of the Sicko phenomenon and not standing back to observe the contours. I will go on to offer some suggestions, based on my own theories, but before doing that I want to draw everyone's attention to the primary thesis here -- that something remarkable is happening, that an alert and skeptical juror should be suspicious, that the Sicko phenomenon needs explaining. Why has Sicko experienced such smooth sledding? Why isn't Michael Moore standing in front of a rightwing firing squad? That is the important issue.

Fog. By any overt measure, the Bush administration is the stupidest bunch to ever occupy the administrative branch of the perennially dim USA. And now it crumbles before our eyes. How stupid can it get? Stupid enough to threaten all life on the entire planet. That's how stupid. The dissolution of the Bush administration may be causing the thickest cognitive fog of all time to settle on the inhabitants of planet Earth. This is a factor that cannot be overlooked as Sicko is released in the Summer of 2007. Also, the wars that drag on in the Middle East are another fog-thickener. And let's not forget that the long, coma-inducing campaign for the presidency has begun.

Möbius circuit psychosis. A collective psychosis fell upon the traditionally unenguaged center of U.S. Americans in 2003. It made the mass- murder of Iraqis the moral, sporting thing to do and support of the Bush administration a patriotic duty. Now that the Iraq adventure has come to calamitous ruin that same psychosis has twisted into hatred of the Bush administration for failing to accomplish clear victory and failing to deliver the sweet taste of revenge. In the group-mind, Michael Moore was negatively association with resistance to the once popular cause. By a simple twist of fortune Michael Moore is now tolerable due to the same disease that made him intolerable a couple years ago. In other words, inside the diseased collective mind, strident oppositon to Michael Moore might be construed as support for the brutal occupation of Iraq. So, a large part of the acceptance of Sicko is purely circumstantial, and won't last.

Hope. The Left is showing signs of life. From Cuba to Venezuela to Mexico, most of South and Central America have discovered that they can potentially fly on their own. As the USA hosts its first social forum, in Atlanta Georgia, right in the racist stench following Katrina, even the world's cruelest plutocracy may get caught up in the dream.

Greed full-filled. The US oligarchy, that class of ascendant capitalists, and their institutions of global parasitic wealth have just swallowed a very large meal in the form of neoliberal restructuring abroad and egregious tax breaks at home. Excuse me, but there is no pleasant way to describe this. I encourage everyone with a strong stomach to watch the YouTube video of the Anaconda (biggest snake in the world) trying to keep down a baby hippo after swallowing it whole.[4] Such is the condition of the oligarchy at this moment -- do they keep down this monstrously delicious meal at the price of becoming groggy and vulnerable, or do they puke it up to stay leaner and meaner and more likely to survive to gorge anew tomorrow? The rich f#ckers have a dilemma. No wonder they hesitate, even as Sicko threatens their power. After all dammit!, can't a bunch of despicable creeps enjoy their gluttony in peace without a horde of lower life forms harassing them!?

A cognitive fog has descended upon the administrators of power while a dream-like sense of hope is gripping the active edge of civil society. Simultaneously, the truly powerful have a severe case of postprandial torpor to deal with. The nation is simply not as sensitized as it was a couple years ago. Sicko will bloom. It could not have asked to be planted in better soil. As Brandon Judell stated (above), health care is "the great leveler" that grabs everyone where they live. But Judell merely states the obvious. The real question (as belabored here) is, "Why didn't the capitalists see it coming? Why weren't they ready to do battle with Sicko as it left the starting gate? How could they let it capture so much positive attention?" I'm not completely satisfied with the answer I offered, but a collective lull in their and our attention begins explain it.

Will the oligarchy barf up the baby hippo? Yes, I think so. Partially. Like I said, there just isn't a way to speak pleasantly about parasitic wealth. They play defense well. They know how to bend without breaking. They know how to prevent those big breakaway plays. The oligarchy will allow their tax breaks to be rolled back. It won't be enough and it won't begin to address Sicko's central demand (remove the profit motive from health care), but they will allow it. Why? Because, the medical-pharmaceutical-insurance-crime syndicate is the biggest hippo ever.[5] Health care in the U.S. is thoroughly corrupt, utterly perverse, and the crowning achievement of gangsters. It is inconceivable that they will loosen their grip.

Sicko may have its detractors, but their rhetoric seems to be rolling out on retreads. The mindless rightwing rants grow wearisome. Michael Moore and his plans for a health care revolution can only be labeled "socialist" so many times. The rhetoric gets worse as Satan and Bill Clinton are offered as the real brains behind the movie. But a coherent, powerful counterattack on Sicko is not to be seen. Could it be the oligarchy has no worries because they have no cause to worry.

Regardless, the forecast is grim. They are confident that the legislative branch of the U.S. government has been rendered dysfunctional.[6] The judicial branch (that gang of five plus four) has been bought and paid for.[7] And, lest we forget, though the oligarchy won't, it must be mentioned that the death-grid for activism is still firmly in place and growing stronger. I'm referring to over 120 years of corporate-state settled law that resounds with the prerogatives of a profit motive in health care. It cannot be pushed back without fundamental constitutional changes.[8] There is no chance that any serious movement toward socialized medicine could happen in the next ten years. For the remainder of this presidential term and the coming two full terms, the executives and the legislators, whomever they may be, can annihilate each other over the health care issue, or not. Corruption is so deep in the U.S. and health care is at the heart of it. No capitalist, not even one with heavy investments in the health care industries, has a thing to worry about.

With Sicko Michael Moore lays down a well-reasoned case for changing health care. But he naively places it at the doorstep of UNreason. Reason, especially when rooted in human decency, has no currency in the corridors of global corporate power. No significant change can happen. Not in the U.S. Not now. And the oligarchy knows it.

In closing, that question raised at the start can be considered: How sick is Sicko?. Perfectly. It can be seen as the product of dark cultural engineering -- an effort designed to fail. A defense for this madcap statement can only be sketched here. How do you make a movement fail? You begin by erecting a hero who is especially vulnerable to ad hominem attacks, then you associate her or him with that movement. Then you put the corporate media to work directing yet another American hero cycles where the hero is raised up high only to come crashing down. You make sure that the movement is fueled from the start with raw emotion (Sicko excels at this) so that the proper ground work is never tended to before rushing toward the prize. You place the prize high and far away. Eyes on the prize, those in the movement don't take the terrain at their feet seriously.

The game is fixed. The playing field is tilted, with the oligarchy holding the high ground. This is not metaphoric. The tilt to the playing field is in more than a century of settle law, it's in a corrupt congress, it's in a duplicitous executive. With high aspirations fueled by high emotions the movement goes running up hill toward the prize not noticing the terrain underfoot. Anarchists can tell us what happens when you rush off in such inorganic, rational ways. You will trip. You will end up face down in shit.[9]

That is one posture in which liberals and progressive can learn, maybe. What they need to do is peel back several layers of denial and acknowledge the central role of organized neocrime. That is the first required step in formulating the beginning of a viable revolution in health care. But it is the zone where leftwing gate keepers like Michael Moore do not tread.

---

[0] It can be argued, for example, that this essay does not acknowledge that Sicko is more an indictment of the insurance industry than medicine. There is merit to this line of reasoning, but it falls outside the bounds of this particular effort.

[1] Fox News, Sunday, May 20, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273875,00.html

[2] Rotten Tomatoes, Sicko (2007), movie review by Brandon Judell, New York Theatre Wire, June 27, 2007
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/author-1033/reviews.php?rid=1643083

[3] Socialist Worker, Who’s killing health care in America?, June 22, 2007
http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/636/636_04_Killing.shtml
Will Sicko spark a movement? http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/637/637_04_Movement.shtml

[4] Not a hoax, and remarkably grotesque.
YouTube, snake eats a hippo
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SJCM-sdfB0w

[5] By my reckoning, total health care spending is considerably more than twice the 0.6 trillion the U.S. hemorrhages for military spending annually. (expert advise on this point is welcome.)

[6] Look no further than Congress. Impeachment is off the table. Rhetoric says "end the war" while policy says "fund it."

[7] The twenty-year freak show of right wing extremist judges has just begun.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/29/1419252

[8] "Over 120 years" comes by counting from 1886 (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company) when corporations (juristic persons) were given protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. For more on corporate-state law see
Is "Rights-Based" Organizing a Future Strategy for Environmental Activism? and The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF)

[9] The last line is a reference to a band the anarchist group CrimethInc likes. (Dis)Orgs like CrimethInc might possibly help convince the ossified Left that an assault on tyrannical power cannot be made on the basis of reason alone and certainly cannot be done with conventional dignity.

Submitter: