The nature of deception
The tagline of Moorewatch.com has always been “Watching Michael Moore’s every move”. As of late more people, perhaps more than ever before in this site’s history, have stepped forward and demanded to know why we all feel Michael Moore should be watched. What is it about Michael Moore that needs to be watched, observed, critiqued and analyzed for errors and mistakes? It’s simple, really. Michael Moore’s work is designed to provoke a reaction and stimulate discussion about particular topics. In order to enjoin you to his cause de jour, Moore employs the medium of the documentary to deliver information and reasons why you should think and believe as he does, or, at the very least, consider the topics at hand in the light he creates by his work.
The problem lies in Moore’s delivery of said information. A journalistic endeavor built on half-truths and deceptions is as stable as a castle built on sand. It has no real foundation upon which to stand and its sturdiness is illusory at best, disastrous at worst. Counteracting Moore’s falsehoods with honestly gotten facts creates a stable platform for the issues upon which Moore expounds. And given that, more often than not, the issues Moore raises are ones that could use good, honest debate and discussion, injecting as much honesty as possible into the discourse can only serve to help the problems Moore raises. Given all that, one must wonder why Michael Moore would be dishonest at all? Many, of course, think that Moore does not employ falsehoods in his arsenal, but I believe that the track record of Moorewatch of ferreting out and displaying the fabrications in Moore’s work speaks for itself.
Once more, in promoting his newest work Sicko, Moore’s dishonesty rears its ugly head. In a NewsBusters article about Sicko, Moore is shown to have been less than honest about his trip to Cuba:
The most significant untruth in this article was Moore’s carefully vague and misleading claim that he didn’t intend to go to Cuba “in the first place,” and only after being turned away from his real destination, the Guantanamo Bay detention center, by that heartless US military, did he go to communist Cuba (bold mine throughout):
Moore dismissed the controversy surround his visit to Cuba with a group of 9/11 responders seeking medical treatment, documented in his new film. He said he had not intended to go to Cuba in the first place. “I didn’t go to Cuba. We left Miami to go to Guantanamo Bay — to American soil.” Only after being ignored at the mouth of Guantanamo Bay did he instead dock and disembark on Cuban soil. Since then, he says, he has been harassed by the U.S. government. “The Bush Administration sent me a certified letter 10 days before the Cannes Film Festival that I was under investigation for criminal and civil penalties,” Moore said.That’s just fantasy. Other sources have revealed that Moore planned to go to Cuba from the beginning. The Smoking Gun website obtained a letter to Moore from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) which stated that before filming even began, Goldflat Productions, which included Moore, applied to OFAC on October 12, 2006 for permission to travel to Cuba—not “to American soil” at Gitmo, but Castro’s Cuba.
Also, statements by several 9/11 responders that were made to the New York Post confirmed that this promotional stunt to treat the responders with Cuban healthcare was planned by Moore and his film company before they left the US:
Responders were told Cuban doctors had developed new techniques for treating lung cancer and other respiratory illness, and that health care in the communist country was free, according to those offered the two-week February trip.
Indeed, a quick look at The Smoking Gun and The New York Post bear out NewsBuster’s assertions. Moore indeed lied when he said he never intended to go to Cuba proper. From the documents presented, it is clear that Moore had always intended to travel to Cuba. The fact that Moore lied about this is unquestionable. So the question now becomes why did Michael Moore lie about Cuba? Why not simply admit he planned the trip all along? Why build his house on sand instead of facts? The only tenable or understandable reason Moore would have to lie about such a fact would be if the deception somehow bolstered his argument or lent his facts some credence. The perplexing thing about this particular falsehood is that lying about intending to travel to Cuba does *not* bolster Michael Moore’s case in the slightest. If anything, this falsehood only serves to damage his credibility, thus tarnishing the issue as a whole. In the end, this lie gains him nothing and does not serve his argument in any reasonable or tenable way.
Given all of this, we wind up back in the same place we began. Why would Michael Moore lie in such a fashion? What does it gain him? And, perhaps most importantly, what do we as an audience and a people have to gain by allowing him to do so unchecked and unanswered?
Comments
Another point . . . Americans don’t just up and boat over to Cuba without permission. Cuba doesn’t welcome drop-in company from the U.S.
Moore is insulting everyone’s intelligence about this.
I can tell you exactly why. The answer is in the post immediately preceding this one.
Everyone knows the truth about Castro. Moore goes to great lengths in the movie to make it seem like America’s “fears” about Castro are overblown, ridiculing the idea that there is anything nefarious or worrisome about communism or the Castro regime. If he had gotten permission beforehand, his critics (i.e. us, and any journalist with a shred of integrity) would have raked him over the coals about the propaganda piece that Castro set up for him. The only way that his “expose” of the Cuban hospital system can hope to have any credibility is if it is ostensibly unscheduled. Like, “Oh look, we just popped in, and look at the service we got!”
Of course, the truth can be seen in the photos of men with gangrenous amputations living in pools of their own excrement. That is the real Cuba. Moore had to invent one.
Let me give you an analogy. Think of it like a date. You might be a complete and total slob in real life, but if there’s a girl coming over to your apartment you clean up, vacuum, clean the tub, wash your clothes, and so on. Why? Because you want to create a good impression. If she walked in the door you wouldn’t turn to her and say, “Yeah, I’m usually a disgusting pig. Just a few hours ago there was a plate of moldy spaghetti on the couch right where you’re sitting.” The illusion only works if it appears to be unscripted or unrehearsed. Conversely, if your girlfriend does an uninvited pop-in and your apartment is clean and tidy, she will know that you are in fact a clean and tidy person. If she pops in and there’s shit all over the place, she’ll know the true you.
Michael Moore had to hide the “true” Cuba so he could make his point. And the only way he could make his point is if his trip to Cuba was an uninvoted pop-in.
“Wow, look how great this place is! We just showed up completely uninvited and LOOK at the level of care! Wow, this is awesome These doctors all look like Latino soap opera stars. And this hospital, look how spotless and professional! See how caring they are, all speaking English and telling the patients over and over that everything will be okay. And five cents for drugs! Man, what a paradise! And your government has been telling you for years that communism doesn’t work. Well look, here’s the proof that you’ve been lied to all these years.”
He loses the entire force of that argument if it is known that the entire thing was a staged propaganda event. Plus, by making the trip a “surprise” he gets to show that the eeeeeeeevil US government wouldn’t help 9/11 heroes but poor, misunderstood Fidel would bend over backwards to help out.
I don’t call him Tubby Riefenstahl for nothing.
Let me be the first to respond as such:
“He’s making an important point that I agree with; it doesn’t matter if it’s not the truth because ultimately it’s for the good of the little guy...”
I agree with Lee in this case, it’s to create a Cuba that doesn’t exist, but at this stage of his life, how much of moore’s lying is purely pathological?
The lying and half-truths ultimately destroy the debate, because those who engage themselves on the basis of Moore’s information are working from those misrepresentations, and unable to clearly discuss the facts.
It strikes me as incredibly short sighted of Moore to say something other than what actually happened in order to create the image of a socialist paradise, when he knows that information countering his claims can be produced.
He has had it too easy in the media, because they will not use critical questions when interviewing him, but the advent of the internet has made it possible for those with the ability to think critically to research his claims and poke holes in them.
Is he therefore just playing to his market of fans in the hopes that none of them will wake up, despite any evidence of his mendacity? To his fans in the US and around the world, it seems as though he could tell them that he jogs 6 miles a day and they would believe him despite the evidence in front of their eyes.
I can only see this play by Moore as an attempt to stroke his own ego by seeing what the fan base actually can swallow without choking to death.
By the way JimK, your better half is a keeper. You’ve struck the jackpot! Her postings are great!
Americans need permission to go to Cuba?
Land of the free my ass.
Yes, and unless you are Cuban, you need permission to go to Cuba.
Americans on the other hand, must have permission from both the Cuban government and our government to go there.
On the other hand Cubans can’t go anywhere without permission . . . unless they can swim 89 miles of open water.
By the way JimK, your better half is a keeper. You’ve struck the jackpot! Her postings are great!
She’s got a great rack, too. Trust me, Jim won the fucking lottery with Donna. :)
"Michael Moore is trying to affect positive change, and thats all that matters”
“Michael Moore is trying to affect positive change, and thats all that matters”
How does putting bad facts help at all? Think of it this way, if he put out truthful honest arguements, wouldn’t that mean the issue itself would get addressed first, and not have this stage of being bogged down in trying to figure out what he said is reliable and what isn’t?
Moore lied because he knows that your average American will not check the facts, especially if they are one of his loyal fans.
I do believe that Moore is trying to affect positive change, but in order to do so one needs to tell both sides of the story and not just the one that makes his point.
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This reminds me very much of the Pantagraph situation. It gives his detractors solid ammunition with which to discredit him, it is in fact simply a lie, and maybe worst of all it just doesn’t help make his point...and yet he does it anyway.
There’s just no reason to tell this lie. None whatsoever. Especially since it is so easily proved to be a lie.
I’d love to know why.