Hello! I'm blogging from Cannes today. Things are pretty crazy around here.
The response to "SiCKO" has been overwhelming. I wanted to take this opportunity to say thanks for all the support I received last Friday when I posted my letter to Secretary Paulson here, regarding his attempt to go after me for shooting a scene from "SiCKO" in Cuba. Leave it to those knuckleheads in the Bush administration to once again use our government agencies for political purposes.
Anyway, I promised I would be back to chat, so here I am.
Okay, here we go!
Before we begin, I would like to comment on some recent developments that have occurred regarding the Bush Administration’s investigation of ‘SiCKO.’
I offer these thoughts more in sadness than in anger.
Yesterday, the New York Post indicated that the Bush Administration is now investigating the individual 9/11 workers featured in ‘SiCKO’ for getting medical attention.
While I have known since receiving the Bush administration’s document stating that they had opened up an investigation of the movie and me – the New York Post’s story is the first time we have been made aware that the Bush Administration is investigating the 9/11 workers.
If what the New York Post reported is accurate – the Bush administration's investigation of these 9/11 heroes for being treated for serious injuries incurred at Ground Zero after the Bush administration had abandoned these very same workers – this is astounding and unacceptable.
It is one thing to target me or my movie
It is quite another thing to target these heroes for getting treatment for health care injuries received while at Ground Zero – especially when al-Qaeda terrorists involved with 9/11 are getting cared for by the U.S. government and paid for by taxpayers.
These 9/11 workers who traveled to Cuba were an essential component of the ‘SiCKO’ documentary film making process.
‘SiCKO,’ at its core, is a call to action for all Americans – regardless of their political affiliation -- to come together to break the death grip that health care industry has on all of us. The Bush Administration clearly seems a lot more interested in campaign contributions than care – to the degree that they are looking to investigate some of the heroes of 9/11 whom they once trumpeted but now abandoned in their time of need.
It is unconscionable. It is shameful. And it is dishonorable.