AFP photo
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, Big Brother's Goldstein, photographed above in 2006, is under investigation by Big Brother for having gone where Big Brother told him he couldn't.
So fucking much for Freedom™
Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is being investigated by the feds for having traveled to Cuba for his latest film, "Sicko," about the American wealth care -- er, health care -- industry, which is slated to be released next month, The Associated Press reports.
Americans love to toss around the word Freedom™, yet it is illegal for Americans to travel to Cuba without first getting a permission slip from Big Brother.
I’m having a hard time wrapping my moonbat brain around why any American citizen, supposedly possessing so much fucking Freedom™, can’t travel anywhere whatsofuckingever on the globe he or she would like to travel, as long as the citizens of that spot on the globe are OK with having American citizens visit.
The only restrictions on international travel that seem reasonable for the federal government to be able to make would be travel to highly dangerous places, such as Baghdad (wingnut president wannabe John McCain's claims about the safety of Baghdad notwithstanding).
And who are the biggest proponents of the ban on American citizens traveling to Cuba?
That would be the Repugnican Party – you know, the party that invented and trademarked Freedom™ – because Cuban leader Fidel Castro cast out the capitalist swine from Cuba and the Repugnicans are all about protecting and advancing the interests of capitalist swine while fucking the common man up the ass without lubrication and because the bitter Cuban exiles and their progeny in Florida are mostly Repugnicans.
I’m also having a hard time wrapping my moonbat brain around why a small group of disaffected people in Florida get to dictate American foreign policy (I mean, who do they think they are, Jews?), including even dictating where Americans may and may not travel. Oh, yeah – they vote Repugnican, and Florida is a must-win (that is, must-election-steal) state for the ’Pugs.
And what do the pro-capitalist, anti-Castro Cuban exiles and their supporters want for the people of Cuba? They want them to be wage slaves for the likes of Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, because that’s what Freedom™ is all about: the freedom to be exploited by capitalist overlords and to be told that your exploitation isn’t really exploitation, but actually is Freedom™.
Hey, maybe they could turn the entire island of Cuba over to the capitalist overlords – the island could be turned into one huge fucking theme park, Disneyland Cuba™. The people of Cuba would have great jobs in the theme park, such as picking up trash after stupid rich white people and trying to stave off jock itch and heatstroke in the Disney character costumes while entertaining the stupid rich white people’s spoiled spawn.
No, wait, I have an even better idea. We can rename Cuba as Freedom Island™! Seriously. We can bomb every building on the island to smithereens (at U.S. taxpayers' expense, of course) so that Dick Cheney’s Halliburton can rebuild Cuba – er, Freedom Island™ -- at U.S. taxpayers’ expense. U.S. megacorporations can rush into Freedom Island™ like it's the Gold Rush and make their obscene private profits that the U.S. taxpayers made it possible for them to make, just as is the case with the Vietraq War.
Freedom™ rocks! Go, capitalism!
But back to Michael Moore. Why was he in Cuba?
He was trying to obtain health care for 9/11 rescue workers who couldn’t get it in the United States.
Reports The Associated Press:
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary "Sicko," The Associated Press has learned.
The investigation provides another contentious lead-in for a provocative film by Moore, a fierce critic of President Bush. In the past, Moore's adversaries have fanned publicity that helped the filmmaker create a new brand of opinionated blockbuster documentary.
"Sicko" promises to take the health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted America's passion for guns in "Bowling for Columbine" and skewered Bush over his handling of Sept. 11 in "Fahrenheit 9/11."
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday by the AP.
"This office has no record that a specific license was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba," Dale Thompson, OFAC chief of general investigations and field operations, wrote in the letter to Moore.
In February, Moore took about 10 ailing workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort in Manhattan for treatment in Cuba, said a person working with the filmmaker on the release of "Sicko." The person requested anonymity because Moore's attorneys had not yet determined how to respond.
Moore, who scolded Bush over the Iraq war during the 2003 Oscar telecast, received the letter Monday, the person said. "Sicko" premieres May 19 at the Cannes Film Festival and debuts in U.S. theaters June 29.
Moore declined to comment, said spokeswoman Lisa Cohen.
After receiving the letter, Moore arranged to place a copy of the film in a "safe house" outside the country to protect it from government interference, said the person working on the release of the film.
Treasury officials declined to answer questions about the letter. "We don't comment on enforcement actions," said department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise.
The letter noted that Moore applied Oct. 12, 2006, for permission to go to Cuba "but no determination had been made by OFAC." Moore sought permission to travel there under a provision for full-time journalists, the letter said.
According to the letter, Moore was given 20 business days to provide OFAC with such information as the date of travel and point of departure; the reason for the Cuba trip and his itinerary there; and the names and addresses of those who accompanied him, along with their reasons for going.
Potential penalties for violating the embargo were not indicated. In 2003, the New York Yankees paid the government $75,000 to settle a dispute that it conducted business in Cuba in violation of the embargo. No specifics were released about that case.
"Sicko" is Moore's followup to 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11," a $100 million hit criticizing the Bush administration over Sept. 11. Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" won the 2002 Oscar for best documentary.
A dissection of the U.S. health-care system, "Sicko" was inspired by a segment on Moore's TV show "The Awful Truth," in which he staged a mock funeral outside a health-maintenance organization that had declined a pancreas transplant for a diabetic man. The HMO later relented.
At last September's Toronto International Film Festival, Moore previewed footage shot for "Sicko," presenting stories of personal health-care nightmares. One scene showed a woman who was denied payment for an ambulance ride after a head-on collision because it was not pre-approved….
The timing of the investigation [into Moore’s trip to Cuba] is reminiscent of the firestorm that preceded the Cannes debut of "Fahrenheit 9/11," which won the festival's top prize in 2004. The Walt Disney Co. refused to let subsidiary Miramax release the film because of its political content, prompting Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein to release "Fahrenheit 9/11" on their own.
The Weinsteins later left Miramax to form the Weinstein Co., which is releasing "Sicko." They declined to comment on the Treasury investigation, said company spokeswoman Sarah Levinson Rothman.
Yeah, that Fidel Castro is such a bad man – for guaranteeing the Cuban people health care!
If people can't afford health care, they should suffer (or even die) -- that's the American way! Survival of the fittest! (Oh, wait -- we Americans don't believe in Darwin... Well, except when it comes to social Darwinism...)
The ban on travel to Cuba must end. We, the American people, are supposed to tell our government what to do and what it may not do -- not vice-versa. Death to Big Brother!
About the Cuban travel ban in the United States, all I can ask – besides Um, what about the Freedom™ that you won’t shut the fuck up about? – is: What are the capitalists so fucking afraid of?
That Americans traveling to Cuba might demand such God-awfully horrible, anti-American and anti-Christian things as no- or low-cost adequate health care and education for all? Gasp! That Americans might demand that billions and billions of their tax dollars -- which would pay for adequate health care and education for all -- are no longer siphoned by the likes of Dick Cheney's Halliburton and the other war-profiteering subsidiaries of BushCheneyCorp via bogus wars?
Horrors!
6:36:44 AM 
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