United States Losing Influence in Latin America

And now, straight from the cover of DUUUHHH!!! Magazine: the United States has been exerting less and less influence in Latin America. Oh My God, No!! After all we've done for those dark-skinned funny-talking furriners, and they're turning against us?!?!?

Well, true, we did engineer a coup in Chile that resulted in thousands of citizens being tortured and/or executed. And twenty years earlier we did the same thing in Guatemala. And we tried (unsuccessfully) to do the same thing in Venezuela a few years ago. And we've been trying (again unsuccessfully) for almost fifty years to do the same thing in Cuba. Goddamnit, won't that stubborn Communist ever die??

Oh, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega — we even got help from our second worst enemy in the world in trying to overthrow that #$%$#!$&!! — is now back in power. And some of those South American countries are still growing coca leaves, even though we've pleaded and pleaded with them to crack down on it because we have a bunch of wealthy teenagers in our own country who keep getting themselves addicted to a byproduct of coca leaves. But those damn governments keep whining at us, something about coca leaves being the only livelihood of thousands of dirt-poor farmers, or something. WhatEVer!

And now we’re losing influence among these people. But, but, Why???

Good News: The Government Will Be Examining Our Health Care Crisis

Finally, there's some good news about our health care crisis. The publicity from Michael Moore’s next movie — Sicko, about the crisis in America’s health coverage — has gotten a response from the government.

Let’s give credit where it’s due. Sometimes the system works. Sometimes the American government listens and responds to a public outcry. Just when we thought America’s health care would always be at the mercy of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, we get a heartwarming story like this.

Part of Moore’s movie deals with some 9/11 rescue workers who went to Cuba to get medical treatment that wasn’t available in the U.S. It seems that even some of the most cut-throat HMOs were moved by this revelation, and now finally we’re — uuhhh…hmmm…wait, this can't be right…WTF???

OOPS. No, the government isn't investigating the lack of health coverage. Nope. They're investigating the injured 9/11 workers themselves. These rescue workers had the nerve to travel to Cuba seeking medical treatment that wasn’t available here, and now they might be prosecuted for violating our Cuban embargo.

Talk about “sicko.” How low have we sunk?

Michael Moore: He's Baaack!

It’s time for the Far Right to start foaming at the mouth again. Michael Moore is coming out with another blockbuster this summer. The Right still hasn’t forgiven him for Fahrenheit 911 and Bowling For Columbine. Now they’ll have to gear up for another mass hissyfit.

Most wingnuts probably aren’t aware of this (or didn’t grasp it), but in Bowling For Columbine, Moore concludes that guns are NOT the root of America’s crime and violence. He decides this after interviewing some Canadians and finding out that Canada has about the same number of guns, per capita, as the U.S. So Michael Moore has pretty much the same stance on guns as the rightwads who hate him. How’s that for irony?

His newest movie — coming out this summer — is called Sicko. It'll be a dark comedy (what else?) about America’s ailing health care system. The film will have a segment about some 9/11 rescue workers who had to go to Cuba to get medical treatments that weren’t available in America. Damn those Commies!

It’s hard to tell which will be funnier — the movie itself or the hysterical splutterings of all the rightwing pundits and bloggers who will be ordered to vilify the movie.