The American Thinker‘s Peter Barry Chowka, though a little wordy and adjectival, nevertheless does a good job thinking out Michael Moore’s SiCKO stunt. He writes:
From start to end, SiCKO, the latest “documentary” from notorious writer and filmmaker Michael Moore, is a stunning example of the Big Lie. Almost shockingly devoid of fact and context, it’s instead based on highly selective, emotionally-driven, and deeply flawed anecdotes, strung together by writer-director-producer Moore’s trademark folksy, soft-spoken, whimsical personal narrative. SiCKO (the unusual capitalization is Moore’s conceit) is not a documentary at all, but a naked propaganda exercise on behalf of full-bore socialism. A better title for it would be Pinko.
The intent is to mislead rather than to inform or enlighten. SiCKO strikes me as even worse than Moore’s previous, problematic long form works, the anti-gun Bowling for Columbine and the rabidly anti-Bush Fahrenheit 9/11.
And it just gets better. Read the whole thing here.
Michael Moore, who is on record at being a great admirer and apologist of the dictatorship in Cuba, has come out with another propaganda movie, Sicko. In it, he expresses admiration for the healthcare system in that country. Let me just briefly say that the greatly praised health system works great for foreigners, especially those foreigners who will go on to sing the regime’s praises. As for the Cuban themselves, well, that’s another story. (I have a cousin in Havana to whom I have to periodically send vitamins because she occasionally coppases due to viatmin deficiency, due to chronic malnutrition. Vitamins! Yes, that’s right, vitamins!)
And, of course, the American media has just overflowed in, once again, praising the fat bastard; they have promoted the movie as only they can (Gasp! You mean that there’s a biased liberal media?) One can hear the rumble of hooves as American liberals trip over themselves in a mad stampede to go see the movie. Just like they’ll do when the new Communist propaganda film on Che Guevara comes out. Just like they do every time that Hanoi Jane comes out with a movie.
As for the Cuban-Americans in this country, their reaction is that they just bitch and moan in their typically ineffective style.
Now contrast the American liberals patronage with that of Cuban-Americans. It is a widely known fact that for years, Hollywood has cranked out Communist propaganda when it comes to Cuba. Every film that has come out on the subject has portrayed the Communists as wonderful humanitarians and the Cuban-Americans as the scum of the earth (see the book, Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant). Finally, ONE film comes out, put together by Andy Garcia from a screenplay by none other than Guillermo Cabrera Infante. (Garcia had trouble getting a distributor and the film was shown in only 56 theaters in the entire country)Do the Cuban-Americans patronize the movie? Do they attend in droves? No, they do not. They stay at home, picking their noses and bitching and moaning. The film loses millions of dollars. Had every Cuban-American, instead, gone out and seen the movie, it would have been a financial success. But they didn’t.
This past May, I staged a satire that I wrote, entitled INFIDEL, at the Orlando International Fringes Festival with my own money. The surrealistic plot was a comedy about a Caribbean dictator who is dead but who refuses to be buried by his countrymen. It was a scathing satire on Cuba’s Fidel Castro, really caustic. I begged, I mean I BEGGED, Diario las Americas to just mention it, have a blurb in their newspaper. Nothing. No-thing. I begged, I mean I BEGGED, the Cuban-American National Foundation to include an announcement about the performance in their monthly newsletter. I even offered to pay for it out of my own pocket. Nothing. No-thing. I personally went to the May 20 celebration at the Asociacion Cubana de Orlando and begged, I mean BEGGED, them to attend the performance. Nothing. No-thing. The flyers I left behind were thrown in the trash. And out of the entire city of Orlando, Florida, only TWO Cuban-Americans showed up. Two!
There are several conclusions that one can come to from this. I’ll let you draw your own.