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Mikey Goes Off the Deep End

Michael Moore has come out with another of his letters that is so incoherent, so all over the map and so self-contradicting that fisking it is like shooting fish in a barrel.  Dead fish.  In a tiny barrel.  With a bazooka,

Still, that’s what we do here at Moorewatch.

Every story on the front page of Monday’s New York Times told the story of the Age of Greed during which a system known as capitalism is slowly, but surely, killing us:

Michael doesn’t link to any of these stories for fear that his shallow readers might learn something.  So we’ll just take a look at the stories he’s complaining about.  As you’ll see, Mike didn’t actually read them.  He just glanced at the headlines and drew his own conclusions (gee, we haven’t seen that before in his movies (search for Tobin)).

Insurance company greed: “Millions Spent to Sway Democrats on Health Care”

Here is the story.  It’s actually not about insurance companies but about a group if interests, headed by the Chamber of Commerce, who are trying to persuade key Democrats to vote against the legislation.  it also goes into something Mike would rather you not know about—the enormous amount of money organized labor and pharmaceutical companies—yes, Evil Big Pharma—are putting into supporting the legislation.  I don’t know what people like Moore expect when the government tries to transform one sixth of the economy.  Or what they expect to continue to happen as the sector become more and more controlled by politics.

It once again illustrates a pattern from Moore: special interest groups Mike agrees with are principled; ones he disagrees with are evil.

War profiteers: “Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants”

Here is the story and it is actually alarming.  But, of course, this is happening under a Democratic President overseen by a Democratic Congress.  So much for change.

There’s no profit in repairing our infrastructure: “Repair Costs Daunting as Water Lines Crumble”

Here is the story.  The problem is that it has nothing to do with capitalistic greed and everything do with incompetent city governments that have been run for decades by Democrats. While they’ve found plenty of money to build stadium for sports teams (or to fund social programs), they can’t seem to find the money to keep up their infrastructure.  And efforts to raise water rates have been met with fierce opposition, particularly from the Left.  This isn’t capitalism gone wrong.  This is bad governing.

Ironically, there are good reasons to believe that the problem here is that water is a public monopoly with no privatization.  This makes simply maintaining the system heavily political and expensive.  I’m not completely sold on the idea of water privatization.  I fear it will end up as the politicized statist mess that California’s energy “privatization” effort did.  But can it be worse than the mess we have now?

China, the bank: “China Uses Rules on Global Trade to Its Advantage”

Here is the story.  I disagree with their conclusion, which is about China manipulating currency and trade rules to their advantage.  But the irony here is so thick you could slice it.  China is exactly the all-controlling, all-powerful government that Michael favors.  And, moreover, China’s leverage on these issues would be far smaller if it weren’t for the massive debts we are accumulating, especially under the current President and in liberal Democrat-controlled states like California.

You mean NAFTA didn’t improve life in Mexico: “Two Drug Slayings in Mexico Rock US Consulate”

Now we’re just getting stupid.  This story has nothing to do with NAFTA.  Nothing whatsoever.  The article doesn’t mention NAFTA once.  Mexico’s massive wave of drug violence is the result of an ill-advised ramp up in the War on Drugs, not NAFTA.

What happens when Big Food profits from hurting kids: “Forget Goofing Around: Recess Has New Boss”

Michael clearly didn’t read this story at all. It’s about schools hiring recess coaches to get kids playing again, rather than just lazing around.  It has NOTHING, nothing to do with Big Food.  Mike pulls the connection completety and totally out of his ass. (A good take on this story can be found at Lenore Skenazy’s outstanding Free Range Kids blog.  Skenazy, unlike Moore, actually bothers to read stories before she comments on them.)

There’s now a daily parade of news like this—well, not really “news,” more like the media division of large corporations shoving your face into the dirt that is your life. You already know the schools are a disaster and the war is a boon for the Halliburtons and a bust for you. You don’t need a newspaper to tell you the roads and electrical lines and the local sewage plant is in miserable disrepair.

No, Mike. This is reporting on incompetent and ineffective government.  And this is you shoving dirt in people’s face, taking a positive story about recess and turning into a whine about Big Food; taking a story about the War on Drugs and turning into an indictment of NAFTA.  This is you taking the front page of the New York Times and trying to shoehorn every headline into your ignorant, far Left, eternally whining point of view.

Mike then finally gets to his point—I think—which is bashing the Democrats’ health care bill.  On this, we agree:

Within days, the House of Representatives will vote to pass the Senate health care “reform” bill. This bill is a joke. It has NOTHING to do with “health care reform.” It has EVERYTHING to do with lining the pockets of the health insurance industry. It forces, by law, every American who isn’t old or destitute to buy health insurance if their boss doesn’t provide it. What company wouldn’t love the government forcing the public to buy that company’s product?! Imagine a bill that ordered every citizen to buy the extended warranty on all their appliances? Imagine a law that made it illegal not to own an iPhone? Or how ‘bout I get a law passed that makes it compulsory for every American to go see my next movie? Woo-hoo! Who wouldn’t love a sweet set-up like this windfall?

Exactly.  It’s a good thing we’re united in our ... oh.

Please, Democrats—just say that—then pass this poor excuse of a bill. Pass it because, if President Obama takes a fall on this one, I don’t know if he’ll be able to get back up. And then NOTHING will get done. We can’t have that.

Yes let’s pass this turd of a bill to support a presidency that is cow-towing to every special interest out there.  OK.

(Mike goes on a long rant, which I’ve left out, about how insurance companies want to kill children by denying them care.  Completely ignored in his rant is the existence of S-CHIP, a program created by the evil Republican Congress that now guarantees coverage for the children of people making up to 400% of the poverty level.  For a family of four, that’s $88,000 per year.)

But then it gets really fun:

On the front page of yesterday’s New York Times, the dateline was, sadly, once again, “Flint, Michigan.” The story was about how doctors are no longer accepting Medicaid patients. Which means tens of thousands of poor can no longer go to the doctor. Last year, the State of Michigan also prohibited doctors from accepting Medicaid patients who had anything wrong with their vision, their hearing, their feet or their teeth. In a 16-county area northwest of Flint, there will soon be not one single hospital that will allow you to give birth there if you’re on Medicaid. The official unemployment rate in Flint is 27% (unofficially, closer to 40%).

This is an American tragedy. And, as I’ve warned you for years, this tsunami is heading your way—if it’s not there already.

Jumping Jesus Christ.  Medicaid is a government program.  And like all government healthcare programs, it’s keeping costs down by denying care and underpaying doctors.  Medicare also has problems with doctors refusing to take it.  And with $60 trillion in unfunded liability, it’s only a matter of time before it begins denying care.

Moreover, Mike is an advocate of “Medicare for all” which really means “Medicaid for all”.  He’s (apparently) taken a good look at the bankrupt system that is denying care, driving doctors out and said, “That’s what America needs”.  I guess it’s OK for him, since he’ll have enough money to get real care.  But the intellectual dishonesty is jaw-dropping, Mike advocates for a system, then blames the massive failure of that system on some nebulous entity called “capitalism”.

Whatever it takes.

But friends, it gets even better.  After showing he can’t read a web page and openly advocating for a government healthcare system he admits is a disaster, he just starts rambling.

I’ve just turned on my new iPhone and it informs me that it has “apps” it would like to suggest I buy. One is called “Scanner.” It will allow me to listen in on police scanners anywhere across the country. I buy the app. I see that the Flint police scanner is part of this. I turn it on out of curiosity. And this is what I hear, at one in the morning: A woman is being beaten by her husband… A home invasion is taking place ("16-year-old black male, wearing a white skull cap")… A child has been missing since noon today… Another woman is being beaten by her boyfriend… A diabetic, obese man is having trouble breathing and needs to be rushed to the hospital (there will be three more of these obese diabetics in the hours to come; the entire town is ill)… One more woman calling, screaming for help, “officers urged to use caution...”

...And on and on and on. This is what I have listened to before going to bed. I am filled with despair and helplessness as I hear my former neighbors crying out for help. I hate it. I have to turn it off. I start to cry. Thank you, iPhone. Thank you, Democrats. I’ll sleep better knowing that you’re looking out for all of us.

What.  The. Hell.  An incident of criminality, health problems of the obese (their obesity, of course, being the fault of Republicans), a beating.  What the hell is the point here?  Are Democrats supposed to prevent this?  Is Barack Obama supposed to magically leap between an abusive husband and his wife?

I think his point is that Flint (which, I should remind you, is about 200 miles from where Mike actually lives) is in a bad state.  And that misery is a creation of vile capitalism.  But do the liberal Democrats who have long controlled Michigan and driven it to financial ruin bear no responsibility for what’s going on?  What about their willingness to cut essential services, like police and hospitals, rather than tamper with unionized payrolls, benefits and pensions?  Flint didn’t just happen by accident.  It was made.  And the men who made are not evil capitalists, but liberal politicians who have no idea of how the world works.

(By coincidence, Reason.com is running a wonderful series of videos this week on how to save Cleveland, a city that has suffered a similar fate to Flint.  It is absolutely worth your time.  You will learn far more about big city failures than you will from Mike’s last movie.  And, unlike Mike, they don’t just whine and cover their eyes and hope for a merciful Democratic Messiah to do something, please.  They actually propose solutions to Cleveland’s woes.  Real solutions that empower the citizens of Cleveland, not the unions and their Democratic puppets.)

Guys, I’m scratching my head here.  How does something like this get written?  Michael usually is at least semi-coherent.  This reads more like something one of his fans wrote on Democratic Underground. While high.

In other Mike News, he was on Olbermann, saying that the healthcare bill that he wants passed is “death sentence” to tens of thousands of people.  Never mind that the evidence that lack of insurance kills is ambiguous at worst and massively exaggerated at best.  Here is Mike’s take on it.

“Their only crime – for dying – their only crime that they would have committed was they were a citizen in the United States of America,” Moore said of the uninsured. “If they were a few hundred miles north of us here, they wouldn’t die. Pure and simple, that’s the only difference – they hold an American passport instead of a Canadian passport.”

Yeah.  In Canada, they would never be denied care because clinics are running out of money.  They would never be unable to get the most advance procedures because the socialized system won’t pay for it.  They would never have to go onto a waiting list for care.

Tell me, Mike.  Are millions of Americans moving to Canada to enjoy their free healthcare?  Or are Canadians coming here to get care they are denied by their wonderful socialist system.  Don’t think too hard.

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