The truth about Cuban health care exposed on Hannity & Colmes - UPDATED

On October 10th, Hannity & Colmes ran an amazing piece about the REAL health care that REAL Cubans receive in their own country. It is a disturbing video that shows the real life hospital conditions that average Cubans must endure in order to obtain even the most basic health care. For the first time on American television the ugliness, despair, and abject poverty of the Cuban health care system has been shown for what it truly is. It is a direct rebuttal to everything that Michael Moore portrayed in “Sicko” and further validates the arguments I made against him in my articles about the Cuban dissident writer Reinaldo Arenas, in particular my summation to the series in Part 4. Watch it and see the truth about real Cuban health care for yourself:

If that isn’t disturbing enough for you, there’s more. Cuban Truth has quite a few additional videos that fully demonstrate the horror of living under the thumb of Castro and the abject horrors of Cuban health care. These videos are quite disturbing, so please be warned if you follow that link and choose to view them.

After watching this piece that Hannity & Colmes ran I have only one thing to say. Michael Moore, you have purposely deceived the world with your portrayal of Cuba in “Sicko”. You have turned your back on the suffering of the Cuban people in order to further your own personal agenda without a thought of what damage your actions might have on a nation of desperate and impoverished people. And, worst of all, you have collaborated with Castro and his regime in order to do it. You have proven yourself to be a liar and a collaberator and I hope that now America can see you for what you truly are. Shame on you, Michael Moore. Eternal shame on you for what you have tried to do to the people of Cuba.

I would like to give a hat tip to Val Prieto and Babalu Blog for letting us here at Moorewatch know about this broadcast. I would also like to personally thank Mr. Prieto and everyone at Babalu for the outstanding work they have done and continue to do to expose the truth about Cuba and for doing everything they can to aid the Cuban cause. Mr. Prieto, I salute you, sir.

UPDATE: Val Prieto has put up the second part of the Hannity & Colmes piece on Babalu Blog along with some commentary. Here is the second half of the Hannity & Colmes piece:

Promises Promises

Never had a doubt
In the beginning
Never a doubt
Trusted too true
In the beginning
I loved you right through
Arm in arm we laughed like kids
At all the silly things we did

You made me promises, promises
You knew you’d never keep
Promises, promises
Why do I believe

Remember when the Democrats were going to clean up Congress?

Yeah, neither do they.

*Moorewatch bonus content*

Dear Michael Moore,

You made a promise once.

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

Do you ever, in all your days, intend to keep it?  Are you the liar that we’ve said you are, or are you truly concerned with improving this nation and not just your personal financial standing?  Will you ever, just one time, keep your word and go after these corrupt Democrats the way you (admittedly, sort of haphazardly) go after Republicans?

Just wondering if your word means anything,

The World

Two great articles fisking Sicko

I’ve just come across two quite thorough articles that take on Michael Moore’s claims about the superior health care received in foreign countries.

A minor nit to pick regarding Social Security, plus Moore’s “patriotism”

In the middle of a conversation we were having with my in-laws about how they receive their SS payments, something occurred to me: Moore has told another little lie, and keeps telling it over and over again.

Fact: 80% of the people who receive Social Security do so via Direct Deposit.  80% of the people that receive Social Security do not receive checks every month, but rather automated wire transfers.  Using that example to prove that a single-payer healthcare system is easy to run in America is absolutely ludicrous.

Supplemental Fact: Those same 80% never see a piece of mail that “arrives on the same day every month.” Of the 20% who do get a physical check mailed to them, you can find hundreds - if not thousands - of examples of checks arriving late, for the wrong amounts, etc.

Sure, it’s a small detail, but one Moore has been relying on heavily to “prove” that Special Free Super Cheap Universal Health Magic For All can be done, done well and done by our federal machine exclusively.  He’s using a half-truth and a small lie to try to convince America to enact the largest socialist program in the history of the nation.

By the way...the next time you hear Moore say he loves America, here’s some proof, by his own words, that he’s lying.  Mikey took part in a Q&A (heavy on the Q, very very light on the A) over at Crooks & Liars.  Here’s what he wrote that, in my opinion, proves he has never and will never love the United States of America as it was founded and exists today.  First, when asked about his next project, he said:

If you look at the other films in order, you can see a theme and pattern, but much more I can’t tell you yet.

Later, in response to someone asking him to clarify, he wrote:

The theme i referred to that exists in all my films is the economic system that we live under. It’s unfair, unjust, and not democratic.

And there you have it.  Moore believes that our entire economic system is wrong.  Of course, it’s the reason we exist as a separate nation - we wanted a free market, and we were sick and tired of our market being controlled by one dottering old madman thousands of miles away.  We fought a war to establish, among other things, our right to have a free market economy.  It’s one of the cornerstones of this great country, and Michael abhors it.

His desire has always been to see socialism established in the U.S. in any way possible.  It’s the central theme to every film and most of his television and written projects as well.  It’s why he overlooks Castro’s horrible abuses and murderous past to champion him as a man of the people.  In Moore’s mind, human rights can only be abused by those of a right-wing persuasion.  Anything to the left is inherently good, and the further left you go the better.  Unions should be able to bankrupt a company.  Guns belong only in the hands of the state.  Government should dole out your healthcare.  F911 was the aberration, and that was about capturing lightning in a bottle.  The radical hatred of Bush wasn’t going to be marketable for very long.

Moore wants to literally destroy one of the cornerstones of the United States of America.  It’s not just about healthcare.  He wants the government - or rather, a far left government - in charge of everything. I do not believe Moore loves the United States of America.  I believe he’s in love with the idea of turning it into the People’s Republic of America.

Moore on Opie & Anthony

Much thanks to reader Mike, who not only grabbed the audio but gave us an outline which you will find after the jump.

Audio file is a 12.5MB MP3.Get it here.

My personal highlights are Moore talking about the “me” versus “we” society and right/left coming together.  We know he’s not telling the truth about both of those concepts; we have it from his own lips.  Of course credit where it is due, it’s nice that he re-stated that I did thank him.  It helps tone down the crazy emails, and I’m grateful for that.

Trouble in Paradise

Could it be that Cuba is not the egalitarian utopia that Michael Moore portrays?  Perhaps we should ask El Presidente himself.

The Gupta Chronicles

If you’re not familiar with the Dr. Gupta/Moore issue, first read this post.  Moore clearly shows himself to be the self-righteous narcissistic sociopath that we have known him to be for quite some time.  Basically Sanjay Gupta, a Harvard-trained neurosurgeon and CNN’s senior medical correspondent, offered a “reality check” on Moore’s claims.  Rather than being a hit piece on Moore, Gupta simply offers a general refutation of the main themes of Moore’s film.  Here’s the video, see for yourself.

In return, Moore (sociopathic narcissist) goes off on a ruddy-faced spittle-flying tirade.  He can dish it out, but the fat fuck sure can’t take it, can he?  I wonder, if Michael Moore was to get so angry that be burst a blood vessel in his head, would he go to the local hospital for treatment, or would be go to the medical paradise of Canada?

There’s the video for yourself.  Listen to what Gupta says, then watch Moore go apoplectic.  Gupta is a neurosurgeon, Moore is a professional multimillionaire socialist Castro worshipper.  Which of these two men is in a better position to state the truth about American healthcare?

Now This Is Compassion

And this is what Michael Moore wants for America.

No thank you, Mikey.  Oh, for what it’s worth, on Wednesday I went to the doctor, and he told me he wanted me to have an MRI of my head.  I have to get prior approval from my insurance company, which usually takes a day.  I didn’t hear from the doctor yesterday so I called this morning.  Apparently there’s been some kind of a clerical error, because the department at the insurance company couldn’t find my record.  So the delay in this case is a common paperwork error.  I would imagine that I will be approved for the MRI today, and should have it sometime early next week.

The poor bastard in the film is in Canada.  Guess how long he had to wait?

Update: As it turned out I didn’t need a precertification from my insurance company at all.  They said, “No, you’re all set. Just call the MRI place and make an appointment.” Right now it’s 4:30pm on Friday.  My MRI is at 8:30am on Monday.

I feel so bad.  I’d much rather live in a compassionate society like Canada, where I have to wait six months to get my MRI, than here in the eeeeeevil kapitalist USA, where I can get damn near same-day treatment.

The French Connection

With the volumes of hate mail we’ve been receiving lately I’m glad this one didn’t slip through the cracks.  Here’s what a French guy living in America noticed about the “average” French family portrayed by Moore in Sicko.

Europe’s Beleaguered Drug Companies

Cleaning out my folder

I have all these links that I keep meaning to post...so to get them out, I’m just going to throw them all in one post...after the jump.

In this post by Artmonkey, he mentioned that Moore said anyone who claimed he spoke to Roger Smith was a “fucking liar.” Moore tried to downplay the conversation we can prove he had as not useful, but you can judge that for yourself.  The folks at Premiere sent me this link that contains a transcript of the conversation Mike had with Roger.  As you can plainly read for yourself, Moore asked some serious, detailed questions and received real, serious answers in return.  This was absolutely essential to Roger & Me, and yet is was left out.

One has to ask why.

Next, it’s Free Market Cure Their “mission statement” sounds right to me.

Free Market Cure is dedicated to correctly diagnosing the problems with the U.S. health care system and promoting solutions which preserve and extend individual liberty.

Now, I see which way the wind blows.  I know we will get some kind of “universal” coverage, and probably before whoever wins in 2008 is out of the White House.  But.  BUT.  I want whatever we get to be the plan that costs the least, helps the most and gives us as much freedom and liberty as is possible while still improving the general health of the population.  Places like Free Market Cure (and Moorewatch) will help to hash out ideas and keep the system honest.  We hope.

Moving on...Want to see absolute evidence that Moore is glorifying Castro, Cuban health care as a system and at the same time demanding single-payer ONLY in America?  Look no further One of the highlights:

It’s a very poor country, as you know. And I was very impressed. And, you know, with what little they have to use with their healthcare system, they end up living longer than we do. They have a better infant mortality rate than we do. On a number of issues, they’re the same or better than us.

Yeah.  Castro sure worked Moore good, didn’t he?  I can almost see Fidel’s hand up Mike’s ass, moving the lips.

Speaking of murderous Cubans from history that are glorified by the American left, take a small peek into Che Guevara’s past.  Note also that while Moore did not in any way use Che directly to bolster any point in the film, he did use Che’s daughter, which as we all know, will get you instant street cred in Berkeley and San Francisco and any other place where the far, radical left runs the streets wearing communist dictator tee shirts and flashing peace symbols, completely unaware of the contradiction.

Why note that she’s Che’s daughter?  How does that improve the content of what she’s saying?  Can her credentials not stand on their own?  Why use the name of a mass murderer?  I’ll tell you why: because as I said, it gives him cred on the loony end of the left, but most people wouldn’t even notice it flash by.  In fact, neither DonnaK nor Lee saw it when they watched Sicko.

Lastly, don’t forget to read this post by DonnaK about Moore lying when he says he never intended to go to “Cuba proper.” We’ve been productive here at MW lately and I didn’t want that one to scroll away and be forgotten.

That’s it for now.  At least the “Blog this at Moorewatch!” folder is empty now.  :)

Less...

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?

The Real Cuba

Watching Sicko you might come away thinking that Cuba was a healthcare paradise, where all medication costs five cents.  Didn’t you see those doctors?  How attentive, and calming, telling the patient over and over that everything was going to be okay.  (This despite the fact that the woman clearly spoke fluent Spanish.  Gee, it’s almost like that reassurance was for the viewer at home.  But I digress.) So, is this typical Cuban medical care, or is it the type of care that Castro’s propaganda factory doles out when a willing stooge like Moore comes along with his cameras?  Via Reason we see The Awful Truth.

[T]hese pictures, published in the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, … were taken at a nursing home in the Cuban province of Pinar del Río in June 2004.

This is the real Cuba.  You fans of Sicko:  MICHAEL MOORE IS LYING TO YOU.  If you want to see more photographic evidence of the wool he is pulling over your eyes, click here.

Indicative, Not Exceptional

An article in Reason, on a subject completely unrelated to Moore or healthcare, contains the following line.

This would seem to be Shalit’s modus operandi: Choose an unusually sexually progressive pocket of American culture, declare it indicative rather than exceptional, and launch a heroically irrelevant crusade for change.

I can’t think of a better description of Michael Moore’s tactics.  I mean, you guys should read some of the hate mail we get from foreigners whose impressions of the US healthcare system are coming solely from Moore’s film.  Here’s one example.

i recently saw michael moore’s SICKO. and was really shocked as to the state of your dictatorship insurance health care system. as i live in the UK. which has its problems health care wise. my father passed away 3 years ago due to MEDICAL PROBLEMS. but i have to say americas health care is now hot topic worldwide. THANKS TO MOORE. i was aware of your site way back when. you have some valid points some of the time. yes michael does skirt some issues. but if you’ve ever noticed, its usually for the greater good. and the fact is that his three features were right. GUNS WRONG, BUSH A LIAR, AND CRIMINAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.

Here you go.  Someone who has probably never set foot in this country has declared our healthcare system to be a criminal dictatorship, all because of the way it is portrayed in Moore’s film.  And why?  Because Moore chose the worst examples he could find of the flaws in our system, portrayed them as indicative rather than exceptional, and then launched his crusade.  Interestingly he did the inverse with Europe:  he portrayed all the positives, did not mention a single negative, and then portrayed Cuba as a healthcare paradise where all drugs cost five cents.

Remember this, gentle reader:  Nobody floats on an inner tube through shark infested waters to get away from 5¢ medication.

The Awful Truth About Sicko

Michael Moynihan’s link-rich review of Sicko in Reason is oh-so worth reading.  Here’s a taste.

Take the case of four-year-old Elias Dillner. In 2004, Dillner’s parents were told by doctors that their son too would benefit from cochlear implants. After being fitted with the first implant, Dillner’s insurance provider said the second operation could not be “prioritized.” The family would have to wait. “We will do anything,” Elias’s mother told reporters, “even if it means that we have to take out a loan for the operation.” Without insurance, the second procedure would likely cost $40,000.

But Dillner’s truculent insurance provider was not Aetna or Kaiser, but the notoriously generous Swedish welfare state, where health care is “free.” And because there is no private clinic in Sweden that could perform the operation, Elias will sit in a queue, hoping, in lieu of privatization, for prioritization. Swedish legislator Robert Uitto said that the Dillner case was unfortunate, but “People shouldn’t, on principle, be allowed to purchase care in the public system.”

Sicko also introduces us to Diane, whose brain tumor operation was initially denied by Horizon BlueCross because it didn’t consider her condition “life threatening.” She eventually received treatment, but “not without battling the insurance companies,” Moore says.

Jack Szmyt found himself in a similar situation. After waiting two months for his initial diagnosis—he too had a brain tumor—Szmyt was told that it would be another month until doctors could start the necessary treatment. Rather than wait in a queue, he borrowed $30,000 from a friend, and flew to a private clinic in Germany. Had he not sought private treatment abroad, his German doctor said, he would likely have died. When contacted by the media, his insurer, again the Swedish government, said it didn’t consider the assigned waiting period “unreasonable.”

But wait, there’s more!

Viewers are taken to London’s Hammersmith Hospital, held up as a shining example of socialized care, where doctors are well-paid and patients well looked after. Moore ambles through the corridors interviewing patients that acclaim the NHS’s ‘free care,’ and express horror at the barbarism of the American system. Indeed, the facility’s “cashier” exists to give money to patients—for travel reimbursements—rather than taking it from them. But as is often the case with Moore’s films, the reality is more complex.

In 2005, London’s Evening Standard reported that Hammersmith Hospital would slash hundreds of jobs; the hospital, the most debt-ridden in Britain, was hemorrhaging money and desperately needed to cut costs. And while the hospital was “downsizing”, Hammersmith’s CEO—yes, even the NHS has an executive class—collected a year-end bonus of close to $20,000. Small beer by American standards, but enough to provoke tabloid headlines in Britain.

Much like the American hospitals Moore excoriates, Hammersmith Hospital, the Evening Standard reported, faced pressure from administrators to limit the number of patients treated in order to cut spending. In a country where the government promises to winnow down queues to 18 weeks, this isn’t an anomalous problem. A recent BBC documentary accused the NHS of using dangerously high doses of radiation on patients “to save time and money.”

After the critical reaction to his previous films, Moore opts for elision over outright falsehood. So when he marvels that a doctor working in the NHS owns an Audi and “million dollar home,” it is hardly in his interest to point out, as The Independent did in January, that “soaring salary levels of doctors are worsening the NHS cash crisis.” And while bitterly lamenting the U.S. system of “wage slavery"—American students, Moore says, are saddled with debt and, thus, “won’t cause [employers] any trouble"—he ignores a recent report from the British Medical Association suggesting that, by their fifth year of medical school, British students “have accumulated an average debt of” $39,000.

None of this will make the slightest difference to Moore’s fans, of course.  They’re not called Moore-ons for nothing.

News updates?  Plus: Pirates

Michael assured us that the government was going to come after him for going to Cuba in violation of the law.  He allegedly put a copy of the film “in a safe location” overseas, implying the government was going to try to steal the negative or prevent it from airing.  He also made the seemingly unbelievable assertion that the government was going to prosecute the people he dragged into Cuba.

Anyone heard anything on any of these topics?  Because the Moore-ons all over the blogosphere are still posting all of these items like they are facts.

They used to say that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can get it’s shoes on.  Only in today’s networked world, the lie gets around three or four times before the truth even knows it’s in a race.

In other news that is bound to get me in trouble, The Pirate Bay has a copy of Sicko up in torrent form.  It’s an MPEG-4 in an AVI wrapper, if you need to, you can install the FFDShow codec and it will play in virtually any media player on Windows.  It should work on a Mac through Quicktime, or you can convert it for iTunes.  if none of that makes sense to you, just ignore this part of the post.  :)

ATTENTION HARVEY WEINSTEIN AND ANY OTHER IDIOT WHO WANTS TO THREATEN TO SUE ME: I am not hosting the movie.  I’m not even hosting the torrent file.  I’m linking to The Pirate Bay, who is hosting the torrent file.  Good luck fighting with them, they tell entire governments to go fuck themselves.  Literally.

Culture of Corruption

Dear Michael Moore,

You asked us to act as the loyal opposition.  You asked us to bring to your attention corrupt Democrats and you vowed that you would lead a charge to go after them first.  We have done so time and time again, and your response has been absolute and complete silence.  Are you never going to keep your promise?  In case you’ve forgotten your own words, you said this:

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

In today’s news, Rep. Jefferson Indicted In Bribery Case

Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, money-laundering and soliciting more than $400,000 in bribes in connection with years of trying to broker business deals in Africa.

The indictment in federal court in Alexandria, Va., lists 16 alleged violations of federal law with prison terms totaling as much as 235 years. Jefferson is charged with racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.

He is the first sitting congressman to face charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits corporate bribery overseas.

The indictment claims Jefferson bribed Nigerian officials to pave the way for U.S. businesses — deals in telecommunications, oil fields, sugar, fertilizer and waste recycling plants, reports CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. In return, he demanded monthly payments, profit shares and stock for his family-owned businesses.

The scheme was complicated, and Jefferson set up a front company to hide the money, prosecutors said.

“But the essence of the charges are really very simple: Mr. Jefferson corruptly traded on his good office and on the Congress,” said Chuck Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney for eastern Virginia.

In August 2005, investigators raided Jefferson’s home in Washington and found $90,000 in cash stuffed in a box in his freezer.

The 63-year-old Jefferson, whose Louisiana district includes New Orleans, has said little about the case publicly but has maintained his innocence. He was re-elected last year despite the investigation.

They filmed him taking the marked money, then they found the marked money n the freezer in his home at a later date.  There is absolutely no question whatsoever as to this man’s guilt on at least one charge of bribery.

We’re waiting, Michael.  Any time you’d like to keep your word, we’d be proud to join you in the fight against corruption in Congress.

Jefferson Win Poses Dilemma for Party, Loudmouths Who Make Promises They Don’t Intend To Keep

Bribe-taking scumbag re-elected, Louisiana gets the government it deserves.

Voters gave the Louisiana Democrat an emphatic reelection victory over state Rep. Karen Carter, even though his campaign had been weighted with revelations that federal authorities had videotaped him taking $100,000 in alleged bribe money, and that $90,000 of it had been found inside a freezer in his apartment in the District. The investigation led House colleagues to dump him from a key committee, donors abandoned him and the state Democratic Party switched its allegiance to his opponent.

But before cheering supporters at a hotel room on election night, Jefferson called his win “a great moment” and said, “I thank almighty God for making it possible.”

He declined to discuss the probe.

Let me just reiterate, for those who may have already forgotten:

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

Still waiting, Mikey.

Oppression is for Cool Kids

Here we see the latest victim in the eeeeeevil fascist Bush’s war against dissent in his never-ending quest to implement a fascist state.

It rocketed across the Internet a week ago, a startling newspaper report that agents from the US Department of Homeland Security had visited a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth at his New Bedford home simply because he had tried to borrow Mao Tse-Tung’s ‘’Little Red Book” for a history seminar on totalitarian goverments.

The story, first reported in last Saturday’s New Bedford Standard-Times, was picked up by other news organizations, prompted diatribes on left-wing and right-wing blogs, and even turned up in an op-ed piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the Globe.

Wow, that’s pretty bad, huh?  I mean, I have a copy of the Little Red Book, and even a statue of Chairman Mao, on display on a bookshelf in my apartment.  This concerns me greatly.  Are Bush’s fascist stormtroopers going to be kicking down my front door soon?

But yesterday, the student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter.

The professor, Brian Glyn Williams, said he went to his former student’s house and asked about inconsistencies in his story. The 22-year-old student admitted it was a hoax, Williams said.

‘’I made it up,” the professor recalled him saying. ‘’I’m sorry. . . . I’m so relieved that it’s over.”

What?  A left-winger lying about being oppressed?  What… what… what the hell is the world coming to?

Williams said the student gave no explanation. But Williams, who praised the student as hard-working and likeable, said he was shaken by the deception.

‘’I feel as if I was lied to, and I have no idea why,” said Williams, an associate professor of Islamic history. He said the possibility the government was scrutinizing books borrowed by his students ‘’disturbed me tremendously.”

I’ll tell you exactly why he did it, because this is a point I have made repeatedly for years.  The left views the world in terms of two groups, oppressors and the oppressed.  There is no middle ground, you are one or the other.  If you’re a middle class working Joe, you’re still an oppressor, because you buy products at Wal-Mart and other stores, and they’re made in Guatemalan sweatshops, where peasant labor is used.  Thus, by being a middle class consumer, you are unwittingly an oppressor.  The only people who aren’t viewed as oppressors are the very people who make this accusation, the radical lefties. 

So, if you are not an oppressor, you are therefore oppressed.  And who does the oppressing?  The powerful, the elite, the capitalists, the fascists, the government.  If your self-image and self-esteem depend on your identity as a member of the oppressed class, especially if you’re a radical lefty fighting against these classes, then the more oppressed you are the more important you inherently appear.  In other words, the more the powerful elites try to silence you, the more righteous your cause seems, because after all, why would the powerful elite try to silence someone unless they were speaking the truth?

This is a technique Michael Moore has turned into an art form, and his followers lap it up like cream.  (Well, organically-grown soy cream.  Anyone who drinks real cream is an oppressor of our animal equals.) Note the manufactured controversy when Disney refused to distribute his film.  Mikey claimed that the corporate elites at Disney were trying to “silence” his message in an election year, when the truth of the matter was that they had told him a year prior that they weren’t going to distribute it.  But the plan worked, and the false controversy made the front page of the New York Times, thus drumming up immeasurable levels of publicity. 

So why did this student lie?  Because, by doing so, he immediately elevated his status in the eyes of his professor and his peers.  In previous generations this student might have lied about the number of girls he slept with or how fast his car went or how high his GPA was or some other generally accepted measure of status.  But today, in the halls of left wing academia, it’s all about oppression.  The more you’re oppressed the more important you are.  Remember that black college professor who spray-painted racial slurs all over her own car, then claimed victim status?  Same dynamic at work.  When you’re a victim you’re oppressed, and when you’re oppressed you’re important and righteous.

The problem is that, despite the rhetoric we hear so often from the left, America is one of the least oppressive places in the world.  Without this actual oppression the left begins to collectively wonder what’s going on.  Aren’t we important?  Isn’t our message threatening to the fascist elite?  So they manufacture it, because the truth should always be subjugated to the higher moral purpose of increasing the status of the message and its messengers.

It’s worthwhile to note that this subjugation of the truth has been the hallmark of every totalitarian dictatorship in the history of mankind.  But somehow I doubt the lefties will be intellectually honest enough to admit that.

Mikey and the Stocks

The following originally appeared at Front Page Magazine.

How the Grinch Stole Michael Moore
by Peter Schweizer

In a recent speech broadcast on C-SPAN, Michael Moore complains that a “crazy person” (that would be me) has been spreading lies about him, including the story that he owns stock in a number of evil vicious multinational corporations, including Halliburton. “Michael Moore own Halliburton stock?” the anti-corporate activist told his supporters at the Paul Wellstone Memorial Dinner. “See, that’s like a great comedy line. I know it’s not true - I mean, I’ve never owned a share of stock in my life.” He went on: “Anybody who knows me knows that, you know - who’s gonna believe that? Just crazy people are going to believe it - crazy people who tune-in to the Fox News Channel.” (Looks like this crazy person is in good company.)

On the back cover of my book, I include part of Michael Moore’s 990PF that he files with the IRS for a tax shelter he and his wife set up and control. The form clearly shows that Moore bought and sold shares in Halliburton and a number of other vicious, evil corporations. Look through the tax forms from 1998 to the present, and you will find more of the same.

How is it possible for Michael Moore to say he doesn’t own any stock while his tax forms say otherwise? Since Michael Moore simply never lies, this must be a case of identity theft.