As much as I'd I looked forward to seeing Sicko, I didn't expect it to bowl me over as much as it did. Moore really captures a sense of how sick we are as a nation compared to others, raising the question
Why?
The best hypothesis I can manage is that Europeans went through horrible war-time trauma as a nation, and Canada was settled by people who lived through that experience. Somehow, perhaps, this shared misery dissolved some of the mean-spirited classism that characterized much of Europe prior to WWII. Cuban solidarity has been forged, of course, by it's embattled relationship to the U.S. The fact that no nation was more founded on Calvinist principles than ours must be a contributing factor as well.
In any case, Sicko is just too good for Power to ignore. CNN exemplifies how the press lies nowadays -- or tries to, only too many syncophantic journalists kiss-ass when they aren't even supposed to. Truth is told most of the time so that the crucial lie can succeed by association. CNN and the NYTimes are pretty good at this.
But not this time.
The film left me more deeply aware of our pathology than I think I've ever been, in a way that causes me to feel even more sad than angry. As if seeing my homeland from a distant place.
I don't know if it will affect others as it has me, but I can't imagine anyone failing to find value in it.