Michael Moore: We Need Different Priorities

Here's another interesting house - this one is on the beach near the center of The Pines.

Michael Moore's "Sicko" has opened to big crowds and good reviews. There's no movie theater out here in Cherry Grove. Therefore, I'll have to wait to see it until I begin spending more time off island in the Fall. Here's a great quote from Michael about the public's reaction to the film:

"British MP, Tony Benn, says, "If we have the money to kill people (with
war), we've got the money to help people." That line always gets the loudest
applause in the theater. It is estimated that, before Bush's War is over, we
will have spent two trillion dollars on it. Let me say this: I NEVER want to
hear again from ANY politician that we "don't have the money" to fix our
schools, to take care of the poor, to provide health care for every American.
Clearly, the money IS there when we want to illegally invade another country and
then prolong a disastrous occupation. From now on, we have to demand that our
tax dollars be there for the things we need, not the things that make us one of
the most detested countries on earth."

That's right on target. One of the rationales used by the conservative justices on the Supreme Court for basically overturning or gutting the historic "Brown vs. Board Of Education" desegregation decision this past week was that we need to fix all our schools. That's right of course, but the justices didn't mandate that, they just threw out Brown. As Michael Moore says, we do have the money to fix our schools, but we're squandering it in Iraq. He's right: we have to demand a change in our country's priorities.

Jim

Andrew Sullivan: No Problem WIth The Wealthy Getting Better Health Care

Gay conservative Andrew Sullivan, in discussing Michael Moore's movie "Sicko," writes on his blog:

I see no problem with the wealthy having access to better care than the
less wealthy...It seems to me that this is equivalent to saying: I see no
problem with living in a free society.

Now, let's see how many other items will fit nicely into this warped
formulation:

1. I see no problem with child labor, it seems to me that this is equivalent
to saying: I see no problem with living in a free
society.

2. I see no problem with workers having to earn their livelihood
toiling under unsafeworking conditions, it seems to me...,
etc.

3. I see no problem with workers not being able to organize or strike for better wages and working conditions, it seems to me...etc.

etc., etc., Again, Sullivan's warped conservative view that liberty always totally trumps equality is symptomatic of the skewed conservative philosophy that is preoccupied with liberty and unconcerned with justice. It is indicative of a case of arrested philosophical development, a fixation on Hobbsian/Lockeian self-interest as the sole driving force of human endeavor, without regard to the possibility of Humeian benevolence. For conservatives, the liberty/equality equation is zero sum, which is a reaction to the demise of the feudal state that gave rise to Hobbsian thought. The correct formulation is sum sum. We can have both liberty and a just society that addresses inequality, as formulated in the writings of John Rawls. I do see a problem with the wealthy having better access to health care than the less wealthy. It offends my sense of justice. Apparently, Sullivan has no sense of justice.

Jim