In the Rainmaker, Matt Damon plays a lawyer with a conscience. He takes on a case where a man stricken with leukemia is dying because of an insurance company’s refusal to pay for a bone marrow transplant. The man dies and a case ensues. After refusing several offers to settle, the court battle rages and the jury awards the plaintiff, Damon’s client, $50,000,000. Of course the insurance company files for bankruptcy and that’s pretty much the end of the story.
During closing arguments before the verdict, John Voigt, playing the defense lead counsel, argued that if the initial suit of $10,000,000 was awarded to the plaintiff, it would lead to government sponsorship of the healthcare industry. Damon’s closing argument listed all the evils of a healthcare for profit system, including how much coin insurance companies spent/spend on lawyers and lobbyists, etc.
Okay, it’s a movie and Damon was playing a role, but one has to wonder, and my wife and I sure do, how he can now sidle up to support a candidate for President who takes the same coin from the same insurance companies. Now, Damon is a terrific actor, no doubt, and he probably has more of a conscience than his affiliation and support for Hillary Clinton suggests, but most of us, certainly my wife and myself, so wanted to believe he was a true progressive; the kind of progressive who actually did speak for the public at large rather than the establishment. We hoped he was more like Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, but we were so disappointed to learn otherwise.
We felt the same way when we learned how George Clooney opened his house to a $350,000+ a plate fundraiser for the same presidential candidate who takes big coin from the insurance industry. The same apparently goes for Ben Afleck and so many others. It’s difficult not to think less of these great actors down the road. I admit that it’s our problem for feeling that way, but it is how we feel.
Understand, this isn’t the lesser of two evils choice they have made in their support of Hillary Clinton. That argument comes after the DNC secures her nomination, not before. Right now there’s still an actual progressive running for president, but they’ve somehow looked beyond Bernie Sanders to the establishment machine that has represented the status quo, those same insurance companies, big Pharma, Wall Street banks, fossil fuels, private prisons, etc.
It just doesn’t sit well, not with us.
On the other hand, an actual political activist also plays a role in the movie, a substitute judge after the original judge died of a heart attack. Danny Glover is the substitute judge. Mr. Glover has been arrested countless times in his political activism, and he makes no qualms about supporting Bernie Sanders … and make no mistake, we love him for it. And Danny DeVito is also a Bernie supporter and he, as usual, was brilliant in the movie as well. We love Danny too.
For an idea of how much coin the Clinton campaign has taken from such private interests and lobbyists, while Hillary Clinton insists she’s going to fight them, you can always do the research she insists young voters should do. It's pretty alarming.
—Knucks
As for Bernie’s failure to nail her on the question from CNN regarding (paraphrasing) the one time she changed her view due to Wall Street donations to her campaigns … well, here’s Elizabeth Warren …
Want another clue as to what Mr. Damon, Clooney and Afleck apparently support? Make sure you see this movie, if you haven’t yet. The Big Short … it’s what Bernie has been fighting his entire life.
