Michael Moore speaking at the Capitol, with Dennis Kucinich (l) in attendance.
Dateline: July 14, 2007 2:49:24 AM PDT

Dear CNN,

Well, the week is over — and still no apology, no retraction, no correction of your glaring mistakes.

I bet you thought my dust-up with Wolf Blitzer was just a cool ratings coup, that you really wouldn’t have to correct the false statements you made about “Sicko.” I bet you thought I was just going to go quietly away.

Think again. I’m about to become your worst nightmare. ‘Cause I ain’t ever going away. Not until you set the record straight, and apologize to your viewers. “The Most Trusted Name in News?” I think it’s safe to say you can retire that slogan. Read the rest of this entry »

Dateline: 11 Jul 2007
At a distance, with their military-style helmets and flak jackets, many journalists now look like the combatants they are supposedly covering.

World Press Freedom in the Eyes & Ears of the Beholder
by Trish Schuh May 26, 2007

UNITED NATIONS- On the 14th Anniversary of World Press Freedom Day celebrated in May, UNESCO hosted an event for journalists called “Press Freedom, Safety of Journalists and Impunity.” Under Article 1 of its Constitution, UNESCO is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom. Read the rest of this entry »

BY PAUL KRUGMAN | Dateline: July 09, 2007

Paul Krugman discusses how the “medical-industrial complex and its political allies have used scare tactics” to prevent Americans from making health care available to all:

EDITORS’ NOTE: Cyrano was founded to expose and correct the misinformation and topical omissions pouring out of the corporate media, and, back in 1982, when Cyrano appeared, it was The New York Times, the dean of the American press, that provided some of the classical and most skillful examples. This continues to be the case, although the most sensational examples naturally come from the Rupert Murdoch-dominated media, and lately from CNN itself. We reproduce here Krugman’s column to underscore the fact that the establishment is breaking ranks over the health issue, as powerful sectors of capital—especially manufacturing (i.e., autos) and most of their small business popular base are unhappy with an status quo that has long benefited financial institutions (insurance) at the expense of the other sectors. It is that crack in the establishment’s unity that explains the appearance of progressive arguments such as Krugman’s.

Another possibility for Krugman’s relatively outspoken article is the radicalizing effect of any quality radical action. When you see how warmly a piece of cinema such as SiCKO is received, it prompts the timid to come out from behind the usual mealy-mouthed flim-flam. [Webster’s definition: Mealy-mouthed—Using soft words; not straightforward; plausible; affectedly or timidly delicate of speech; speaking deviously; unwilling to tell the truth in plain language. Opposite of frank or blunt.]

The lesson is important: both courage and fear are contagious. American social activists need to start shedding the crippling fears they have carried for far too many years.

These days terrorism is the first refuge of scoundrels. So when British authorities announced that a ring of Muslim doctors working for the National Health Service was behind the recent failed bomb plot, we should have known what was coming. Read the rest of this entry »

BY PAUL KRUGMAN | Dateline: July 06, 2007

Paul Krugman looks at who has sacrificed for the Iraq war:

On this Fourth of July, President Bush … called for “more patience, more courage and more sacrifice.” Unfortunately, … nobody asked the obvious question: “What sacrifices have you and your friends made, Mr. President?”…

You see, the Iraq war, although Mr. Bush insists that it’s part of a Global War on Terror™, a fight to the death between good and evil, isn’t like America’s other great wars — wars in which the wealthy shared the financial burden through higher taxes and many members of the elite fought for their country. Read the rest of this entry »

Disbelieving Michael Moore interviews British physician.

BY PATRICE GREANVILLE
COMMENT AND OPINION BY THE EDITOR

Well, judging from what we are beginning to see, it didn’t take too long for the mainstream media to regain its footing, atone for its earlier honest hoorays for Moore’s film, and figure an angle from which it might preserve the remnants of its tattered honor while still fulfilling the dirty job its corporate masters demanded it to do, which was to badmouth Michael Moore’s brave documentary, SiCKO, into complete ineffectiveness. The spectacle makes me sick.

Just a few days ago CNN’s Anderson Cooper offered on his program 360 a glimpse of the subtle and not so subtle maneuvers being frantically worked out by the elites as they scramble to repair the huge breach on their disinformation wall created by Moore’s near irrefutable expose of the American healthcare system, an industry whose cynicism and callousness should have been exposed by the “professional media” in the same manner eons ago. Read the rest of this entry »

NOTICE TO OUR READERS: THE EDITORS WILL BE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO A SPECIAL MESSAGE AT THE END OF THIS FEATURE. THANK YOU. WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY SiCKO by clicking here. Broadband required.

We know what the diagnosis is and what needs to be done. Now the question is whether the American public has what it takes to drive the con men and other crooks from the corridors of power.

Three reviews of this important film published in The Nation magazine.

SiCKO Is Boffo
by David Corn
Dateline: 6.21.07

In 1971, Edgar Kaiser, the son of the founder of Kaiser Permanente, one of the first big HMOs, went to see John Ehrlichman, a top aide to President Nixon, to lobby the Nixon White House to pass legislation that would expand the market for health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Ehrlichman reported this conversation to Nixon on February 17, 1971. The discussion, which was taped, went like this:

Ehrlichman: I had Edgar Kaiser come in…talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make.

President Nixon: Fine.

The next day, Nixon publicly announced he would be pushing legislation that would provide Americans “the finest health care in the world.” Read the rest of this entry »

In almost any country in the world this charming couple would be classified as simply “mainstream liberals,” centrists, but in America many insist on calling them leftists. The confusion—seeded in great measure by the zealots of the right—contributes a great deal to the troubles ordinary Americans have in sorting out what’s what on the political spectrum.

BY E.J. DIONNE Jr. | Dateline: JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Friday, June 22, 2007

Why can’t the left get any respect?

Whenever you use the word “left” in American politics, you feel almost compelled to add quotation marks. Today’s left is not talking about nationalizing industry, abolishing capitalism or destroying the rich. What passes for “left” in American politics is quite moderate by historical standards. Read the rest of this entry »

THE GREAT DEMOCRATIC PARTY IMPLOSION AS A RESULT OF GROSS BETRAYAL

BY PHIL ROCKSTROH | Dateline: 6/21/07

Why did the Democratic Congress betray the voting public? Betrayal is often a consequence of wishful thinking. It’s the world’s way of delivering the life lesson that it’s time to shed the vanity of one’s innocence and grow-the-hell-up. Apropos, here’s lesson number one for political innocents: Power serves the perpetuation of power. In an era of runaway corporate capitalism, the political elite exist to serve the corporate elite. It’s that simple.

Why do the elites lie so brazenly? Ironically, because they believe they’re entitled to, by virtue of their superior sense of morality. How did they come to this arrogant conclusion? Because they think they’re better than us. If they believe in anything at all, it is this: They view us as a reeking collection of wretched, baseborn rabble, who are, on an individual level, a few billion neurons short of being governable by honest means. Read the rest of this entry »

Eli Lilly CEO Sydney Taurel received a 5-year $37-million compensation package for heading a company whose ethical standards are indistinguishable from those of a common criminal.

BY WILL HALL | Originally at ADBUSTERS MAGAZINE

For pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, death and injury are just a cost of doing business. When Zyprexa, Lilly’s drug to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, hit the marketplace in 1996, it was hailed as an “atypical” – a “safe, gentle psychotropic,” more effective than older drugs like Thorazine and Trilafon, without the dangerous side effects. Sales skyrocketed. The hype soon gave way to reality, as Lilly faced waves of lawsuits by patients suffering from diabetes, massive weight gain, pancreatitis and cardiac problems. Lilly responded with the cozy arrangement that worked with Prozac, another blockbuster plagued with problems: quietly settle suits out of court, with proceedings sealed and secret under a gag order. Anything embarrassing – or illegal – that Lilly is doing behind closed doors would remain hidden from public view. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Matthews, inside or outside the Beltway, one of the most accomplished asskissers in recent memory.

ANNALS OF MEDIA WHOREDOM
BY JAMISON FOSER
Dateline: June 1, 2007 - Media Matters
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The media whores are ganging up on Edwards because they don’t like his stirring up the pot of “class warfare” in America…

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Imagine how the media would react if a multimillionaire, East Coast, big-city, thrice-married presidential candidate who was a progressive Democrat said his most recent music purchase was opera, his favorite fitness activity, golf, and added that he doesn’t drive — he navigates.

Or if a progressive Democratic candidate who had launched his political career by marrying into a wealthy and politically connected family, then promptly running for Congress, revealed that he has pet turtles named “Cuff” and “Link.”

Or if a progressive Democratic candidate who was the son of a governor, who has a net worth of around $200 million, whose own campaign staff was concerned he is seen as not tough enough and that his hair looks too perfect … imagine if such a candidate said that if he weren’t running for office, he’d probably be chief executive of an auto company and whose staff boasted that the difference between him and the president is “intelligence.” Read the rest of this entry »