Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

I rented a DVD of Micheal Moore's documentary film "Sicko."

The film described how terrible the U.S. medical system is. 50 million of Americans don't have health insurance. Even if you have one, the insurance company wouldn't pay for your treatment by making up technical problems.

Once you get a serious disease, you might bankrupt. Insurance companies and the government don't want to provide national health insurance like Canada, England and France. Of course, in my country Japan does. You government prioritizes money over human lives of the poor people. They say national health insurance is socialist idea that restricts individual freedom.

My opinion for the realities presented in the movie was that America is no longer role model for the world. Such scary society. Spending so much money on invasion of Iraq and other parts of the world, killing innocent civilians outside the country and leaving sick people die inside. Pathetic!

Well, I wouldn't say my country is best nor other country in Europe. But USA is trush. I know nice Americans personally but where they come from is sick land.

Recently I've been regretting that I tried to imitate as many things from USA as possible in the past. There are things I should learn from them but they have things I never want to learn from.  

Overall, the country is arrogant, corrupt, and undemocratic society. Who wants to live?

President Bush was assacinated in Chicago. Who killed him?

Of course, this is the fiction. Janre of mockdocumentary, but it looked very real.

After the assacination, the U.S. government used this fear to justify amendment of Patriot Act, tightening the freedom of citizens. Muslim man was arrested but there was not enough supporting evidence to convict him but he was convicted by the jurors.  

Why? This is the same old fashioned rhetoric. Once awful thing happened, no one can have objective view.

It was well-made documentary although it was a fiction.

But I wasn't very impressed. I am kind of tired of such anti-Bush propaganda films such as Micheal Moore's "Fahrenheit 911."

Yes, Bush was wrong. He did the wrong things. So did other politicians in the world. It is just easy to criticize the politicians but what are behind the actions they make? Think about it.

Even Gore was elected as President of the U.S., he might have dispatched troops to Iraq. Accusing just one politician for all the wrong things in the world doesn't actually change the world better.  

I rented the DVD of Morgan Spurlock's reality program titled "30 Days." People in the program experience different worlds including film producer Spurlock himself. He is tall and looks like cock bird.

I first know him by the film "Supersize me." The show described his experience of eating only McDonald's hamburgers for 30 days. He described the obessity issue of America. How McDonald made Americans so fat and unhealthy.

After the success of this film, he then made the documentary programs with the same rule, that is people experience different worlds for 30 days.

There are 3 programs I liked.

1. Morgan and his girlfriend decided to live their lives by minimum wage. They learned minimum wage cannot support standard level of lives and the law should be amended to increase the minimum wage level. If you would be so poor that you cannot even afford to see a doctor.

2.  An atheist woman lived in dedicated Christian family's home. There are not so many atheists in America, whereas in my country most people are. Dedicated Buhdists, Christians and other believers are minority and sometimes regarded as weird. In the U.S. Chrisitanity has strong influence in life. Christians cannot understand atheist way of living. Atheists feel oppressed in America. Kind of surprising to us, because America is a new country, why is it so religious?

3. The most impressive program, Cuban immigrant American who came to the U.S. legally when he was a child lived with illegal immigrants family. The Cuban man hates illegal immigrants and supports the governments tougher measure on the illegal immigrants. The family was just normal and happy loving people. The oldest girl was brilliant and thinking about going to the college. It was a big surprise to know that illegal immigrant girl could go to high school and got good grades and participate in golf tournament. Her school teacher supported her goals to achieve. She applied for Princeton and local college.

When I was in California, during 1990's, there was a referendum named Proposition 187, that bans providing services to illegal immigrants. There was a big anti-immigrants movement going on. I kind of understood people's anger towards illegal immigrants. They did not come to the U.S. legally. I never consider them good citizens.

In the program, the Cuban man went to Mexico to meet the relatives of the illegal immigrants family. Where they used to live was like rubble, I could understand why millions of Mexicans crossed the border just like the Cuban man did.

Blaming them cannot really solve this problem. This is the issue of global economy.

The program may include some kind of set-ups just like other documentary shows. But you can learn the importance of learning different worlds by real experiences.

Thank you, Morgan.

The film describes how danger our planet is in. The carbon dioxide rate in the air is highest in last 650,000 years. The ice in North Pole will disappear in 40 years. Manhattan will be under water by rise of sealevel. There is greater threat than terrorism. That is "Global Climate Crisis."

The most of what Al Gore presented was what I have already known. I learned those things from Professor Glenn Fieldman's class at San Francisco State University. The title of the course was "World Eco Crisis." That was one of the courses of my major, International Relations.

 Professor Fieldman was a liberal type of scholar, which you can easily find in San Francisco. She was expert for environmental issues. Al Gore reminds me of her so well.

Al Gore not only talked about the critical situation we are in. He also noted that there is political factors that drove the situation worse. That is journalism and the political and economic entities behind. The environmental crisis issues have been reported for many years and in many media outlets but there are many that deny such facts. So people have to wonder if the environmental crisis really exists. That was what Ms. Fieldman emphasized. News media are sponsored by large corporations. They can't critisize their major ad clients and shareholders. NBC is owned by General Electronics, that is why they can't critisize Nuclear Power Plant management.

Al Gore says Bush administration is backed by oil business tycoons. That is why Bush withdrew from Kyoto Protocol. It seemed Al Gore really wants to strike down his opponent who unfairly took away his "President" title.

But there are very important things that are missing in the film which Ms. Fieldman most strongly emphasized. That is gap between the rich and poor countries. That may be a major causes for current global eco-crisis. The rich countries have exploited poor countries, and made them poorer. People in those countries have to exploit their natural resources to live on.

This is what Al Gore could not mention because he is a man who drives a Mercedes-Benz, very luxurous and high emission car, and who lives in a mansion that consumes so much electricity which is worth 30,000 US dollars every year. 20 times as much as average household in U.S.

After all, politicians are hypocrats.