This kinda ruined my Father’s Day morning, but I wnat you guys to revel in this as I did:
Moore’s ‘Sicko’ gets nod from Cuba: Cuba health minister says documentary shows Cuba’s ‘human values’
by Andrea Rodriguez (The Associated Press)
Saturday, June 16th 2007, 4:00 AM
HAVANA – Cuba’s health minister said Friday that American filmmaker Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko” highlights the human values of the island’s communist-run government.
Moore flew to Cuba in March to obtain health care for three ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers as part of the documentary, which calls for an overhaul of America’s health care system. The trip has been the subject of a U.S. federal investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba.
Speaking to reporters at a Havana event, Health Minister Jose Ramon Balaguer did not say if he had seen the movie or was simply relying on snippets that have aired on international television. “Sicko” debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May, but does not open in U.S. theaters until June 29.
Still, Balaguer said that in the movie “Moore explained his reasons why those patients were attended to in our country,” adding that Cuba is “always open to cases, that, from a human point of view, need our public health services.”
He said the film does not serve to “promote” Cuban health care, but conceded “there can be no doubt this documentary by a personality like Mr. Michael Moore helps promote the profoundly human principles of Cuban society.”
Most Cubans receive free care and housing and enjoy heavy subsidies on basic food, transportation and utilities. It’s unclear whether “Sicko” will be widely seen in Cuba, however, because the state controls what is shown on television and in theaters.
Moore confronted America’s passion for guns in “Bowling for Columbine,” which won the 2002 Oscar for best documentary, and skewered President Bush over his handling of the Sept. 11 attacks in “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Cuban state TV showed a bootleg version of “Fahrenheit 9/11” shortly after it was released.
Moore claims in his latest film that the American government left the workers he brought to Cuba to fend for themselves with ailments that resulted from their work at ground zero.
Last fall, Moore asked the Treasury Department for permission to go to Cuba under rules permitting travel here. But the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has noted that Moore flew to the island without receiving a response.
In first reporting about the U.S. probe against Moore last month, Cuban state media claimed the filmmaker was the victim of American censorship.
The 100 million victims of Communism the world over, can give a better proof of the great human values of that evil society. Millions of Russians, Cambodians, Chinese, Poles, Hungarians and Cubans, to name just a few nationalities, are testimony with their countless dead, as to the great a humanitarian policies of those pitiless and murderous societies. Their silent dead speak for themselves. No further proof is needed.
Of course, Michael Moore still has not answered the real question — which is whu, if Cuban medicine is so great, Fidel Castro called in a specialist from Spain to do a colostomy?
I bet you Raul won’t let Cubans see that movie. You may be able to stroke the whole would about the Cuban health care lie but not Cubans. They are the victims of it.
If one is more porcine than an actual pig, yet one craves attention and notoriety, as well as at least an illusion of relevance and influence, one could learn a thing or two from Moore. His tactics are as disgusting as he is, but sensationalism and brazen perversion of the truth can definitely achieve what he’s after, and that’s evidently what matters to him.
Plenty of entertainment industry people get what they want by peddling sex, which undeniably sells, but that option is quite out of the question for Moore, so he peddles what he can. Whatever works, apparently.