Michael Moore is a GENIUS and SiCKO is his best yet

[BillBennett]

Toninole,

You are a very bright and intelligent lady. I also served in the Navy as an "Airdale" during Vietnam. I never went there, thank God. I would have, if called to do so, althought I disagreed with our reasons for being there.

My last duty assignment was VA-83 out of Cecil Field, Jacksonville, with detachment to the (new at that time) aircraft Carrier USS John F. Kennedy. I am very proud of my military service, and support our troops fully. I just wish they were deployed in the "correct" locations to get the job done and over with.

Thanks, Bill

[Toninole]

Originally Posted by rd2007

I think the reason I assumed typical officers wife was because they would be the only civilian to question anything miiltary (except civilian leaders of the military of course). I again apologize for ASSuming and I was quite confident you didn't send the neg rep. There's always someone wanting to play intraweb cop on the sidelines too afraid to join the actual fight. You're obviously not that type of person.. matter of fact, after this I'll give you positive rep for me being wrong about you and you holding your line against me.. seems this worked out fairly good in the end..
I think the reason I assumed that and you didn't understand it was we grew up in different worlds as far as the Navy. I grew up around aviation with my first assignment being an aircraft carrier (USS America) and second assignment being NAS Oceana. Hell, my first school was at NAS Pensacoloa, home of An Officer and a Gentlemen.. The women that marry aviators tend to wear their husbands rank on their collar and want everyone to treat them like the LT, LCDR, CAPT etc.. that their husband is.. or maybe I was just stationed at places that were chock full of them, but there were a lot. They tended to bankrupt their husbands too by living very lavish lifestyles.. I usually thought of them as gold diggers.
I've also been on two LA class boats and the submariner world is DIFFERENT. I never met any of their wives, but I'm sure it's safe to assume the wives are also unique.. I knew your husband was in the nuke field, but didn't know if he was sub or SWO, so knowing he was sub would've helped.. I realize it's bad to stereotype and I personally hate it when people do it to me, but in the military I guess we do it all the time and it's usually pretty easy. You could put a sailor, airman, soldier and marine in front of me in civilian clothes and I will pretty much guarantee you I can tell which is which..
so anyhow, we'll close that chapter and people can get back to arguing the value of the pig..

BTW, I have said this before and I'll say it again, I do believe the healthcare system sucks and it does need to be fixed. The only point of my last 20 or so posts was to say that people can do anything they want. A lame excuse of why they failed is usually just a coverup for them being lazy.. and this country was not built on the backs of the lazy. Those same lazy people seem to be bringing it down though..

WOW - reading that brought an actual tear to my eye. It is very rare, on this forum, to find a person who is big enough to actually apologize for misjudging someone. I understand that it is a very easy trap to fall into as all of us who come here to discuss our views tend to be VERY opinionated and most of us think we are right. A recipe for disaster at times...

It takes a very strong man/person to write such an eloquent and expansive apology and I want you to know that I really appreciate it.

I understand the stereotype and work every day to live it down. I was terrified when my husband transitioned between enlisted and officer that I wouldn't have anything in common with the O wives. I was pleasantly surprised to find MANY such prior enlisted wives in our wardrooms and we share a bond and an understanding that some of the other wives can't appreciate. By and large, the O wives I've met have been shining examples of a military spouse in that they wholly support their husbands and go out of their way to support each other. Our husbands are typically gone between 3-6 months of the year and sometimes longer even in times of peace and tranquility. We have to be strong for each other and we don't make a distinction between officer/enlisted functions. Everything we do is all hands because we're all in the same boat (pun intended). You're right though, submarine guys ARE different (who could live in a tin can for up to 6 months?), and maybe their wives are as well.

I know the "target" (surface ship for you non-Navy folks) community is different than subs, but I'm sure there are many well meaning O wives there, too :-) At least I sure hope there are.

As for wearing rank - you would find that many wives on our boat have no idea what my husband does. I introduce myself and as I kept my maiden name - they don't immediately associate me with him. When they ask I tell them he works in *blank* department and they just assume he's enlisted. Puts them at ease that they can speak freely around me and I wouldn't have it any other way.

As a prior enlisted wife, I can tell you that I was seriously offended to hear about a new show on cable called Army Wives in which many enlisted wives are portrayed as cheaters, liars, lazy, etc. I've lived in enough Navy towns to understand that the civilian population has a tendancy to lump us all together with different negative attributes - I just hope enough of them meet enough of us to dispel those thoughts. We tend to just be average women who fall in love with sailors and follow them around the world giving up career opportunities, family and friend connections, and strive to raise our children as best we can without our husbands around all the time.

Thanks again and I agree with you the system needs to be fixed. I don't know if I support a similar system to Canada or England or France. I'd actually like to have a health care system where people could purchase health insurance privately if they wished, but could get it through higher taxes if preferred. THose who pay for it privately wouldn't be taxed on it. Seems logical to me. We'll see how that works out.

[Toninole]

Originally Posted by BillBennett

Toninole,

You are a very bright and intelligent lady. I also served in the Navy as an "Airdale" during Vietnam. I never went there, thank God. I would have, if called to do so, althought I disagreed with our reasons for being there.

My last duty assignment was VA-83 out of Cecil Field, Jacksonville, with detachment to the (new at that time) aircraft Carrier USS John F. Kennedy. I am very proud of my military service, and support our troops fully. I just wish they were deployed in the "correct" locations to get the job done and over with.

Thanks, Bill

Thank you Bill and thank you for your service.

We were recently stationed above Jax in Kingsbay, GA before moving out here to Bangor, WA. We're moving again to MacDill AFB this summer so my husband can report to Central Command. We're from the Tampa area originally so this should be interesting to say the least.

I feel exactly the same about my husband's service. I'm so proud of him. I used to worry that my political activities would somehow hamper his career because pretty much everyone that meets me finds out really quick what my views are (no surprise there). I have bumper stickers on the car and wear campaign buttons that give it away even if I weren't so mouthy. However, we've been pleasantly surprised to see him advance despite some dire warnings in the beginning. I guess all of those letters to the editor, volunteering and leading certain campaigns, and me being Chair of the Dems in our most recent duty station (and webmaster) haven't had a negative impact on his career. Whew.

I've attended and even led a few protests against the war in Iraq. I also have led funding drives and supply drives to send care packages over to soldiers in Iraq and Afganistan. I do support them and I fear for them daily. I just wish they had never been put there.

[rd2007]

so he rides Tridents? I always wanted to go on one of them and I'm sure they're much more comfortable than a 688..

and yes, an enlisted guy going to the dark side can bring on much hate.. It depends on the person though, as long as they try to stay Joe or Bob or whatever their name is then it's usually smooth.. It's when they tell you to call them sir that things get ugly... Any good officer knows that their future depends on the people under them though and I'm sure your husband will attest to that. We had one CO on the America that was a real jerk and he paid the price. It's usually normal to put on a star after a tour as CO of a carrier, but he didn't.. I saw him a couple years later pumping gas in his car and still wearing a bird on his collar. he didn't look very happy either..

[Nirvana-Guy]

Originally Posted by Toninole

My daughter and I just got back from Seattle and seeing SiCKO. It was wonderful and awful at the same time.

Ohhhh boy... you believe that propaganda movie???

Well, your little profile name thing does say you are a "rabid Liberal"... makes sense you will buy lies like Cuba's healthcare is wonderful and one of his 9/11 rescue workers "slipped out in the middle of the night and got the same healthcare on a Cuban clinic down the street.."... ha ha.... It is funny how people believe Moore's propaganda.

Michael Moore is a fraud. So is his movie. This guy needs to be sent to a psych ward and locked up for life. This delusional dude says no terrorists exist, that 9/11 were not planes despite thousands of videos showing planes blowing up the WTC.... Moore even fabricates "evidence" in his video.

Maybe Moore is a crack smoker, that is why he gets all these whacky ideas in his head??

[Nirvana-Guy]

Medical Profession Distorted in Emotionalist Diatribe
by Scott Holleran

Moore covers health care like Fox News covers religion and the war in Iraq—without providing essential facts. He starts with the claim that 18,000 people die each year from a lack of health insurance, an idiotic assertion. People die. They die of cancer, heart disease and other causes. Individuals have a right to choose not to buy insurance (an idea governors Mitt Romney, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ed Rendell reject)—and that means they choose to live without securing a means of paying for catastrophic illness.

Taking personal responsibility is not among Moore's values. Neither is disclosing whether he met with communist dictator Fidel Castro or Cuba's Communist Party officials to obtain special treatment for those Americans he illegally brought to the island dictatorship for medical treatment, a low act of depravity, even for Moore, who tacks on a singularly offensive display of communist propaganda. How many enslaved Cubans died so that his pre-selected participants could get cheaper drugs and a new set of teeth? This is a country where kids are stripped of their milk ration at the age of six.

That the dishonest Cuba portion—morally repugnant to anyone who recognizes man's rights—provides Sicko's climax ought to tip the movie's theme that a society ruled by force is acceptable; the ends justify the means. That there is no right to speech, travel or association in Cuba, let alone the right to make—or see—a movie, is lost on Moore and his sick bunch.

Tracked by overbearing music, emotionalist pitches—a diseased couple with six kids is shocked they can't afford health care in their elder years yet we never learn about how they chose to spend their money and what treatment decisions they've made—and a moral premise that health care is a right, Sicko grates on and on, neither making an argument or an especially interesting or amusing point.

Key assertions are false. For example, when Moore blasts Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs)—a term created by a leftist college professor, which Moore does not disclose—using the Nixon administration's HMO Act, he conceals that the bill's primary sponsor was a liberal Democrat: Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. That's right: the leftist intellectuals railing against HMOs are the bastards who created them—by force, requiring that American businesses include HMOs in employee health coverage.

You'd never know that from Sicko, which also fails to mention that every world leader from King Hussein to Boris Yeltsin sought medical treatment in the world's most productive nation with the best quality health care: the United States of America.

Moore is no more interested in exploring morality than are the conservatives who shoved Medicare drug subsidies down our throats (emptying our wallets), leaving Sicko holding up one of L.A.'s worst hospitals—the dreaded government-run King/Drew medical center—as a model, harming his subjects with invasive camera crews and praising the idea that, in Moore's words, "one guy changes everyone's mind." We've seen that type of political system, dictatorship, in countries like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, where medicine was controlled by the state, everyone supposedly had health care—and no one had rights.

Movie Review: Sicko

[Toninole]

Originally Posted by rd2007

so he rides Tridents? I always wanted to go on one of them and I'm sure they're much more comfortable than a 688..

and yes, an enlisted guy going to the dark side can bring on much hate.. It depends on the person though, as long as they try to stay Joe or Bob or whatever their name is then it's usually smooth.. It's when they tell you to call them sir that things get ugly... Any good officer knows that their future depends on the people under them though and I'm sure your husband will attest to that. We had one CO on the America that was a real jerk and he paid the price. It's usually normal to put on a star after a tour as CO of a carrier, but he didn't.. I saw him a couple years later pumping gas in his car and still wearing a bird on his collar. he didn't look very happy either..

Yep, but he rode 688i's before this. They are roomier, but also very boring.

I guess the major difference must be the community because guys on a sub tend to have much more respect for an officer who has been enlisted before. Any butt head will be disliked, but I have to say that my husband, when he was enlisted, NEVER expected to be able to call an officer by his first name. Ever. The respect is never for the GUY, but for the position he holds.

[rd2007]

well, since we've hijacked this thread anyhow.. The boredom would kill me. With the 688's when we were onboard it was for a specop, so that automatically makes it a little more exciting. I think I was on the best and worst boats ever. Worst was the SLC because they had just had an incident and pretty much the whole chain was fired. 4 hour drills every day except Sunday and two 4 hour field days every week. I worked mids 18-06 (we had to work two shifts because we were two people) and never got any sleep. Couldn't really sleep anyhow because I was lucky enough to be on top of a Tomahawk in the torpedo room where they never turned the lights off, ever.. worst 42 days of my life...
Best boat was the NYC because she was going to get decommisioned and didn't care about anything. We seriously burned the core scooting across the Pacific at full flank for almost a week and then did our thing. The wild part was the CO and Nav came to me asking me what I wanted them to do.. that pretty much never happens
It was a Hawaii boat too and the two boats out of there that I've rode were the best. The other was a DDG (I know, target..) called the Fletcher

This will make absolutely no sense to anyone that isn't in the sub world...

[dolo104]

I saw the movie,Sicko, as it premiered in Indianapolis.
You are soooooo right, the person's whom miss the most for NOT seeing this Michael Moore "original" will be those who will be the most surprised , if and when they are in a position to "need" their insurance policies for which they gave great consessions in money and relenquished other important valuable assets for these benefits ............By the way , I was there in that particular audience , as a grandparent with personal knowledge of the failure of our "medical caretakers" of this country, with the heartache looming in my heart and mind, for the recent death of my beautiful 20 yr. old Indiana University Pre-Med student died at the hands of her caretakers, whom was trusted for their knowledge, education and procedures...............

Real Scary when you know the "real inside truth".............Michael Moore ,as weird and unconventional as he can be ..............is RIGHT ON THE MONEY !!I PRAY IN MEMORY OF THOUSANDS WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVES AS INNOCENT VICTIMS AT THE HANDS OF THE UNEDUCATED AND DECEITS OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL MOGULS. HOPE, MM GETS ALL THE AWARDS FOR HIS SPEAKING THE TRUTH, "ABOUT THE GOLIATHS " WHO CONTROL OUR DESTINY OF HEALTH AND WELL BEING IN THIS GREAT COUNTRY.

Do not sit still and allow your own apathy and ignorance to have you stick your head in the sand, thus sealing your coffin with the "nails of deceit".......

I did not dream it..........I lived it ! I AM NOT A VICTIM NOW.......BUT A CONVICTED PROFESSIONAL ADVOCATE .

Regarding the truth,

DM