Archive for the 'Healthcare Piracy' Category

Jul 16 2007

Sicko 2: Moore vs. Gupta

Published by cyrano2 under Corporate Perfidy, Capitalism, Corporate Media Lies, Manipulation, Propaganda, Corporatism, Healthcare Piracy, Obfuscation

Cyrano’s Journal Online, Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop are initiating a weekly email which will include links to both the most recent offerings and to timeless classics available on our very diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

cnn

by Andrew S. Taylor

7/16/07

Michael Moore recently went head-to-head with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, over a short, pseudo-journalistic hit-piece crafted by the latter in which Moore is charged with “fudging the facts” in Sicko, his new film about the woeful inadequacy of American health care. Their heated debate on Larry King Live provided little illumination, as both quibbled over figures and source citations. Moore did his best, over the course of five minutes, to refute what amounted to a cheap, underhanded assault on his journalistic credibility, but viewers could easily have come away from the exchange with little appreciation for just how sleazy and manipulative Dr. Gupta’s attack on Moore actually was.

What we never got to see was the much-needed debunking of Gupta’s piece, which was essentially a series of astonishing non sequiturs unified only by an emotional arc of patronizing cautionary tones. Judging from the strategy taken in this piece - very much in line with what I’ve seen elsewhere this past week in The New York Times and other publications known for their elitist air of dignified skepticism - the corporate media’s spin-strategy regarding Sicko is going to be to 1) admit that the most damning facts are true, and 2) convince the public that the price of correcting them is more than we as Americans would want to pay.

Let’s observe how Gupta’s short piece, which can be seen here along with the subsequent “debate”, accomplishes this. The film begins with a straight-up admission that the U.S. does indeed rank a low #37 in the World Health Organization’s world-wide survey for quality of health care. He then continues to show France as #1, Italy at #2, Spain at #7, and the U.K. at #18. But then he “reveals” that Cuba rates a #39, two points below the U.S., as if this fact was somehow concealed in Moore’s film (it was, in fact, quite visible on screen). Moore never concealed this fact, nor did he claim that the United States should emulate Cuba except in one noteworthy respect - of “reaching out to our enemies.” But right off the bat, we can see that Dr. Gupta is setting up Moore as someone whose sympathies have blinded his capacity for objectivity.

Continue Reading »

11 responses so far

Jul 10 2007

Michael Moore Slams CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and the Corporate Media

Published by cyrano2 under Mainstream Media Propagandists, Media Whoredom, Depraved Aristocracy, Capitalism, Plutocracy, Videos that liberate, Healthcare Piracy

BY PATRICE GREANVILLE
sicko

“Just apologize to the American people and to the families of the troops for not doing your job four years ago. We wouldn’t be in this war if you had done your job. Come on. Just admit it. Just apologize to the American people.” — Michael Moore, live on The Situation Room (7/9/07)

That was the discomfiting challenge thrown repeatedly at the feet of Wolf Blitzer by Michael Moore last night, 9 July 2007, in what will likely go down in the pathetic annals of American mass communications as a moment of rare candor and truth.

In a truly unprecedented, unscripted interview, Michael Moore ripped into Wolf Blitzer’s and CNN’s facade of evenhanded professionalism in connection with the developing national debate on healthcare. Visibly filled with righteous anger, Moore insisted, as he has all along, that health is one area where there ought to be no disagreement about the inapropriateness of having for-profit insurers and the sleazy Big Pharma cartel regulate access to treatment and medications. Socialized medicine is the solution, argued Moore, and even fellow capitalist nations have recognized that much. This, of course is a bit too much for the corporate media, accustomed not only to shill for a rotten status quo, but profiting handsomely from the big advertising and p.r. dollars spent by insurance companies and the drug companies to promote their wares and legitimacy. Still, if this is a harbinger, the day of recknoning may be finally approaching. (Moore was obviously wise to the media’s charming game of recording full interviews and later cutting anything “controversial” or “offensive” to their commercial sponsors. And man, did he also slam that big suckass, the “grateful immigrant doctor” Sanjay Gupta, that CNN is constantly trotting out, for all his sneaky service to the Empire.)

Watch Moore’s tirade here on Cyrano’s Journal CJTV:

https://bestcyrano.org/moore.CNN7907.htm

After watching the videos, be sure to check out Michael Moore’s “SiCKO Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight”

Reaction in other sites

The effect of the interview was electrifying and soon the net was pulsing with excited commentary. Besides our own CJtv, ALTERNET was among the first to offer the video online, along with YouTube and other video archives. Under the headline, Michael Moore Rips Wolf Blitzer on CNN: “Why Don’t You Tell the American People the Truth”, Adam Howard, PEEK’s editor, proceeded to sum up the multifarious media distortions in their treatment of Moore’s work. Said Howard, “We all love to see Wolf Blitzer (who tirelessly defends CNN medical ‘expert’ Sanjay Gupta) taken down a peg, but the video [posted on the site] is really about the whole mainstream media getting called out on their bullshit, which makes it so much more satisfying. Naturally smug bigots like Lou Dobbs act amused by what they consider Moore’s ‘act’. Little do they know, they’re the ones making asses out of themselves day in and day out.”

Howard certainly captured the growing combative mood among the public, not just the left, after decades—eons—of cynical indifference, constant lies and exploitation. Except for the deranged legions on the right, Moore’s broadside has received wide acclaim in practically all sensible quarters. Lest we forget, SiCKO once again reminds us of the sheer power of the audiovisual medium—cinema and television—a medium which, in 2007, still remains almost totally in the hands of antisocial corporate hands. The corporate media retain the power to induce people to accept, endorse, re-evaluate or reject specific notions—many to their own detriment. Anyone can imagine what a different world, as Moore keeps saying, this would be if these media people—especially the heavily career-minded top ranks, not to mention the media tycoons themselves—had been merely doing their duty, instead of shilling for the corporate elites who profit handsomely from their prostitution. As Che once intoned, to bring the empire to its knees we need one heroic Vietnam, two Vietnams, three Vietnams…in our immediate turf we might say, “One Moore, two Moores, many Moores” to finally start changing the course of this nation toward authentic democracy.

Patrice Greanville is Cyrano’s Journal’s editor in chief.
For a complete rebuttal of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s take on SiCKO and healthcare, check this factsheet at Michael Moore’s web: ‘SiCKO’ Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight’ (http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article_10017.php)

RELATED MATERIAL: COMMENTING ON THE COMMENTARIES, a worthwhile overview of the debate.

NOTE: Moore is supposed to do a second interview with Blitzer on July 10. We hope to be able to feature that segment as soon as it becomes available.

20 responses so far