[Vision2020] Fwd: They Said They Would Push Me "Off a Cliff" ...a letter from Michael Moore

Dave tiedye at turbonet.com
Wed Nov 17 12:53:24 PST 2010



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[Spam 4.10] They Said They Would Push Me "Off a Cliff" ...a 
letter from Michael Moore
Date: 	Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:19:08 -0500
From: 	Michael Moore <maillist at michaelmoore.com>
Reply-To: 	maillist at michaelmoore.com
To: 	tiedye at turbonet.com



They Said They Would Push Me "Off a Cliff" ...a letter from Michael Moore

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Friends,

Yesterday, on the TV and radio show "Democracy Now" hosted by Amy 
Goodman, the former Vice President of CIGNA, one of the nation's largest 
health insurance companies, revealed 
<http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-in-the-news/push-michael-moore-off-cliff> 
that CIGNA met with the other big health insurers to hatch a plan to 
"push" yours truly "off a cliff."

The interview contains new revelations about just how frightened the 
health industry was that "Sicko" 
<http://michaelmoore.com/books-films/sicko> might ignite a public wave 
of support for "socialized medicine." So the large health insurance 
companies came together over a common cause: Stop the American people 
from going to see "Sicko" -- and the way to do that was to cause some 
form of harm to me (either personally, professionally or...physically?).

Take a look at this stunning section of the interview with Wendell Potter:

*WENDELL POTTER [former executive, CIGNA]:* ...We were concerned that 
the movie ["Sicko"] would be as successful as "Fahrenheit 9/11" had 
been. And we knew that if it were, it really would change public opinion 
about our health care system in ways that would be harmful to the 
profits of health insurers. So, it was very important for this [attack] 
campaign to succeed. At one point during a strategy meeting, one of the 
people from [the insurance companies' public relations firm] APCO said 
that if our efforts, our initial efforts, were not successful, then we'd 
have to move to an element of the campaign to push Michael Moore off a 
cliff. And not meaning to do that literally, but to?

*AMY GOODMAN: *Are you sure?

*WENDELL POTTER: *Well, I'm not sure. To tell you the truth, when I 
started doing what I'm doing [as a whistleblower], I was concerned about 
my own health and well-being, maybe just from paranoia. But these 
companies play to win. And we're talking about some big bucks at stake 
here?billions and billions and billions of dollars.

*AMY GOODMAN: *So what were they talking about when they said, "If this 
doesn't work, we're going to push him off the cliff"?

*WENDELL POTTER: *Well, it would be just an incredibly intense PR 
effort, if necessary, to spend more premium dollars to defame Michael 
Moore, to discredit him even more as a filmmaker.

*AMY GOODMAN: *So, were you doing research on him?

*WENDELL POTTER: *Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

*AMY GOODMAN: *You were going?personally?

*WENDELL POTTER: *Well, I was a part of the effort. I didn't?that was 
part of the reason for hiring APCO and to work with a trade association, 
is that it relieved me of the responsibility of doing that kind of work. 
You paid for it to be done by people who were experts in doing that kind 
of research.

*AMY GOODMAN: *But they were doing an investigation into him personally?

*WENDELL POTTER: *Well, absolutely. We knew as much about him probably 
as he knows about himself.

*AMY GOODMAN: *About his wife, about his kid, about?

*WENDELL POTTER: *Oh, yeah. You know, it's important to know everything 
that you might be able to use in some kind of a campaign against 
someone, to discredit them professionally and often personally.

*AMY GOODMAN: *And did you use that?

*WENDELL POTTER:* You use it if necessary.

The interview goes on as Potter reveals how his front group was able to 
get its talking points and smears into stories in the New York Times and 
CNN. It is a chilling look inside how easy it is to manipulate our 
mainstream media -- and just how worried the health insurance companies 
were that the American people might demand a true universal health care 
system.

In particular, Potter talks about how they may have succeeded in 
influencing CNN to run a factually untrue story about "Sicko" by its 
reporter, Sanjay Gupta (which led to my infamous encounter 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpKoN40K7mA> with Wolf Blitzer and 
later, an apology 
<http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/cnn-throws-in-towel-admits-to-two-errors-and-states-that-all-sicko-facts-are-true-to-their-source-or-something-like-that> 
from CNN for getting their facts wrong).

Potter believes his work to defame "Sicko" succeeded, as the film didn't 
end up posting "Fahrenheit 9/11" grosses. To be clear, "Sicko" went on 
to become the 3rd largest grossing documentary of all time at that 
point. And as the release of "Sicko" in June of 2007 was the first time 
since the defeat of Hillary Clinton's healthcare bill in 1994 that the 
issue of health insurance was brought to the forefront of the national 
media, I believe it helped to reignite the issue during the 2008 
election year by exposing millions of Americans to the truth about the 
health insurance industry. More than one person on Capitol Hill will 
admit that "Sicko" was a big help in rallying public support for the 
compromise bill that eventually passed earlier this year. But I agree, 
their smear campaign was effective and did create the dent they were 
hoping for -- single payer and the public option never even made it into 
the real discussion on the floor of Congress.

(There was really only one reason "Sicko" didn't sell as many tickets as 
"Fahrenheit" and that was because of a felony that was committed -- a 
felony that I will discuss for the first time on this site in the coming 
weeks or months ahead. Stay tuned.)

Please read or watch the entire interview 
<http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-in-the-news/push-michael-moore-off-cliff> 
with Wendell Potter. It's a fascinating peek behind the curtain of how 
corporate America really runs this country. And how if any of us get in 
their way, then those people must be stopped. It begs the question: 
Seeing how there's more of us than there are of them, how long will we 
let their takeover of our democracy continue?

God Bless the Ruling Class,
Michael Moore
MMFlint at aol.com <mailto:mmflint at aol.com>
MichaelMoore.com <http://www.MichaelMoore.com>

P.S. Over the next few days I will continue this examination of the 
Wendell Potter revelations on "Democracy Now" and in his new book. 
Please check in to my website <http://www.michaelmoore.com>.


Join Mike's Mailing List 
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<http://www.myspace.com/mmflint>

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