August292009
Important message from the RNC
Hello, America. It’s your old friends over at the RNC. I won’t explain what the letters mean, because I assume you know. I also won’t explain the letters because acronyms look cool. I know this because I too am cool. I am down with the youths, as they say. That is what they say, right? Or you, I mean. That is what you say, right? Regardless, I’m down with you and yours. I’m down with your kind. Anyway, I’m really just reaching out extended-Tweet style to deliver a very important message to you, the future of America.
DROP FUCKING DEAD.
-RNC.
P.S. - Not kidding about that whole “drop dead” thing. It will save us all a lot of time. A revolution’s a lot of hard work. Being down with the youths, I know you and your kind don’t like hard work. And, frankly, the idea of every American having access to quality healthcare and thus becoming a healthier, thriving, longer-lasting people; well, that doesn’t sit well with me. At all. So, just skip all that nonsense and die early. Die young. While you still can.
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July112009
"I had a terrific office in a high-rise building in Philadelphia..."
(full interview at Bill Moyers Journal)
Daily Kos also has a nice breakdown
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From Michael Moore’s website:
This interview
“…will expose for the first time the health insurance industry’s secret campaign against Michael Moore and his film, “Sicko.” It contains a stunning revelation and admission by a top health insurance executive — the former head of publicity for CIGNA, one of the top health insurance companies in the country — that the disinformation and attacks on Michael and the film were extensive and well-planned. Their job was to stop the movie from reaching a wide audience (and, more importantly, from having the widespread political impact the industry feared “Sicko” would have). Wendell Potter, former Head of Corporate Communications at CIGNA (which provides health insurance to nearly 70 percent of the Fortune 100 companies) admits that, in fact, “Sicko” “hit the nail on the head” and told the real truth about how much better people in other countries have it when it comes to their health care…”
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If, by chance, you’ve never seen “Sicko,” then go ahead and Netflix it, Amazon it, or even just watch it for free.
NOTE: Please share these links and videos with everyone you know.
Tags: /Trace William Cowen /tracewilliamcowen /and more /American Why /America /Health care /health care reform /healthcare reform /healthcare /Sicko /Michael Moore /Bill Moyers /Wendell Potter /Disgusted /Disgusting
June292009
an excerpt.
“I say we show up on their porch with the Klan and a couple baseball bats,” he said through chipped, scattered teeth yellowed with nicotine and coffee. Clinched tight enough to hold the personal truths a man of his creed holds so dear, clinging to its ringing, empty static. The sheer comfort of falsehood. The fact that I found such a choking hatred in the hall of a church had ceased to surprise me. As he continued, he wrapped his hands tightly around an imaginary bat, dropping his bible as he formed large fists around its theoretical rubber grip. He bounced with a slight, understated confidence. But casual enough to suggest a locked World Series. Swing, batter batter. Swing. The fact that he was the pastor had ceased to surprise me.
“Knock, knock.” He smiled, even mustering the audacity to coat his display with a playful, good-ole-boy innocence. Or stalled ignorance. I could no longer tell. The fact that this was Alabama had ceased to surprise me. But the fact that this was my America, crushed me. I guess somewhere between the Bible and his South, he completely found himself. A righteous man no longer. But a blissful bigot with God’s stage for play, forevermore. Swing, batter batter. Swing. I imagined the cool, metal bat cracking against skull. The flood of teeth pouring onto pavement. Perhaps a child watching as his mother withered beneath the weight of an unfortunate history. A south so deep you would surely drown. But mostly, I felt the pop of that bat. I wanted my teeth dotted, sprinkled on the pavement. My head caved with eyes swollen shut. Spitting thick clumps of blood with each failed word, each abandoned sentence. Oh, the silenced. The halted. The stifled and crippled. How the muted fall, with a crashing grace.
“Could you get that for me?” He was pointing, albeit lazily, toward the Bible sprawled helplessly against the carpet, as if atop filthy butcher paper and ready for incision. For a brief moment, I considered punting it toward the door – hoping he’d catch on quickly and join me for an impromptu game of tag football. That seemed to make as much sense as everything else here. I took to my knees and retrieved his literature. His shield. “Thanks, bud.” He flashed those flaming yellow fangs again, like two desolate rows of Chiclet-sized toilets brimming with the urine of dehydration. Bad teeth. “This back ain’t what it used to be.” He gave me a quick pat, too lengthy and much too enthusiastic, and continued down the hall, taking the slight left leading to his office and – eventually, Wednesdays at 6 and Sundays at 11 & 5 – the church itself. I’m sure he found justification in those steps, those last few paces before grazing the choir and taking a pew with his wife and son. But I found nothing worth fighting for. I found nothing to call my own, but everything from which to flee.
This building – a sanctuary of weakened wood paneling, walls that echo a tuneless if impassioned hymn, the collective scent of Christmas casseroles gone by – this is not my church. He is not my pastor. Though tumbling hills and greenest grass, drunk with fall and a desperate plea for winter, the humming dischord of football fields and marching bands…this is not my Alabama. These cracked concrete trails, winding loosely through forest and metropolitan all the same, with faded yellow lines to divide us along the way – these roads guide me not through my country, but an illusion. This is not my America.
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