Sicko

[The NZA]

 

90% at rottentomatoes so far; praise from cannes, fox and NYT alike - as well as, of course, controversy. It premeirs, uh, soon? But some hondonains made the trip to the screening, not to mention 2T's rampant piracy. Most reviews say Moore let the material do the talking more than him, and such - those who've seen it, impressions? Those who havent, excited? Talk!

[alive she cried]

I can't stand the guy, this explains why

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE

 

Documentary or Fiction?

 

-David T. Hardy-

 

Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" won the Oscar for best documentary. Unfortunately, it is not a documentary, by the Academy's own definition.

 

The injustice here is not so much to the viewer, as to the independent producers of real documentaries. These struggle in a field which receives but a fraction of the recognition and financing of the "entertainment industry." They are protected by Academy rules limiting the documentary competition to nonfiction.

 

Bowling is fiction. It makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer. Statements are made which are false. Moore leads the reader to draw inferences which he must have known were wrong. Indeed, even speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker's voice, but which were not sentences he uttered. Bowling uses deception as its primary tool of persuasion and effect.

 

A film which does this may be a commercial success. It may be entertaining. But it is not a documentary. One need only consult Rule 12 of the rules for the Academy Award: a documentary is a non-fictional movie.

 

The point is not that Bowling is biased. No, the point is that Bowling is deliberately, seriously, and consistently deceptive.

 

1. Willie Horton. The first edition of the webpage had a section on falsification of the election ad regarding Willie Horton (the convict, not the baseball star). This was one of the earliest criticisms of Bowling--Ben Fritz caught it back in November, 2002.

 

To illustrate politicians' (and especially Republican politicians') willingness to play the "race card," Bowling shows what purports to be a television ad run by George Bush, Sr., in his race against Governor Dukakis. For those who weren't around back then -- Massachusetts had a "prison furlough" program where prisoners could be given short releases from the clink. Unfortunately, some of them never came back. Dukakis vetoed legislation which would have forbidden furlough to persons with "life without parole" sentences for murder, and authorities thereafter furloughed a number of murderers. Horton, in prison for a brutal stabbing murder, got a furlough, never returned, and then attacked a couple, assaulting both and raping the woman. His opponents in the presidential race took advantage of the veto.

 

The ad as shown by Moore begins with a "revolving door" of justice, progresses to a picture of Willie Horton (who is black), and ends with dramatic subtitle: "Willie Horton released. Then kills again."

 

Fact: Bowling splices together two different election ads, one run by the Bush campaign (featuring a revolving door, and not even mentioning Horton) and another run by an independent expenditure campaign (naming Horton, and showing footage from which it can be seen that he is black). At the end, the ad ala' Moore has the customary note that it was paid for by the Bush-Quayle campaign. Moore intones "whether you're a psychotic killer or running for president of the United States, the one thing you can always count on is white America's fear of the black man." There is nothing to reveal that most of the ad just seen (and all of it that was relevant to Moore's claim) was not the Bush-Quayle ad, which didn't even name Horton.

 

Fact: Apparently unsatisfied with splicing the ads, Bowling's editors added a subtitle "Willie Horton released. Then kills again."

 

Fact: Ben Fitz also noted that Bowling's editors didn't bother to research the events before doctoring the ads. Horton's second arrest was not for murder. (The second set of charges were aggravated assault and rape).

 

I originally deleted this from the main webpage, because in the VHS version of Bowling Moore had the decency to remove the misleading footage. But as Brendan Nyhan recently wrote in Spinsanity, he put it back in in the DVD version! He did make one minor change, switching his edited-in caption to "Willie Horton released. Then rapes a woman." Obviously Moore had been informed of the Spinsanity criticism. He responded by correcting his own typo, not by removing the edited in caption, nor by revealing that the ad being shown was not in fact a Bush-Quayle ad.

 

2. NRA and the Reaction To Tragedy. A major theme in Bowling is that NRA is callous toward slayings. In order to make this theme fit the facts, however, Bowling repeatedly distorts the evidence.

 

A. Columbine Shooting/Denver NRA Meeting. Bowling portrays this with the following sequence:

 

Weeping children outside Columbine;

 

Cut to Charlton Heston holding a musket and proclaiming "I have only five words for you: 'from my cold, dead, hands'";

 

Cut to billboard advertising the meeting, while Moore intones "Just ten days after the Columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charlton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association;"

 

Cut to Heston (supposedly) continuing speech... "I have a message from the Mayor, Mr. Wellington Webb, the Mayor of Denver. He sent me this; it says 'don't come here. We don't want you here.' I say to the Mayor this is our country, as Americans we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. Don't come here? We're already here!"

 

The portrayal is one of an arrogant protest in response to the deaths -- or, as one reviewer put it, "it seemed that Charlton Heston and others rushed to Littleton to hold rallies and demonstrations directly after the tragedy." The portrayal is in fact false.

 

 

Fact: The Denver event was not a demonstration relating to Columbine, but an annual meeting (see links below), whose place and date had been fixed years in advance.

 

 

Fact: At Denver, the NRA cancelled all events (normally several days of committee meetings, sporting events, dinners, and rallies) save the annual members' voting meeting -- that could not be cancelled because the state law governing nonprofits required that it be held. [No way to change location, since under NY law you have to give 10 days' advance notice of that to the members, there were upwards of 4,000,000 members -- and Columbine happened 11 days before the scheduled meeting.] As a newspaper reported:

 

In a letter to NRA members Wednesday, President Charlton Heston and the group's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, said all seminars, workshops, luncheons, exhibits by gun makers and other vendors, and festivities are canceled.

 

All that's left is a members' reception with Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., and the annual meeting, set for 10 a.m. May 1 in the Colorado Convention Center.

 

Under its bylaws and New York state law, the NRA must hold an annual meeting.

 

The NRA convention April 30-May 2 was expected to draw 22,000 members and give the city a $17.9 million economic boost.

 

"But the tragedy in Littleton last Tuesday calls upon us to take steps, along with dozens of other planned public events, to modify our schedule to show our profound sympathy and respect for the families and communities in the Denver area in their time of great loss," Heston and LaPierre wrote.

 

 

Fact: Heston's "cold dead hands" speech, which leads off Moore's depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver after Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was his gesture of gratitude upon his being given a handmade musket, at that annual meeting.

 

Fact: When Bowling continues on to the speech which Heston did give in Denver, it carefully edits it to change its theme.

 

Moore's fabrication here cannot be described by any polite term. It is a lie, a fraud, and a few other things. Carrying it out required a LOT of editing to mislead the viewer, as I will show below. I transcribed Heston's speech as Moore has it, and compared it to a news agency's transcript, color coding the passages. CLICK HERE for the comparison, with links to the original transcript.

 

Moore has actually taken audio of seven sentences, from five different parts of the speech, and a section given in a different speech entirely, and spliced them together. Each edit is cleverly covered by inserting a still or video footage for a few seconds.

 

First, right after the weeping victims, Moore puts on Heston's "I have only five words for you . . . cold dead hands" statement, making it seem directed at them. As noted above, it's actually a thank-you speech given a year later in North Carolina.

 

Moore then has an interlude -- a visual of a billboard and his narration. This is vital. He can't go directly to Heston's real Denver speech. If he did that, you might ask why Heston in mid-speech changed from a purple tie and lavender shirt to a white shirt and red tie, and the background draperies went from maroon to blue. Moore has to separate the two segments.

 

Moore's second edit (covered by splicing in a pan shot of the crowd) deletes Heston's announcement that NRA has in fact cancelled most of its meeting:

 

"As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that."

 

Moore then cuts to Heston noting that Denver's mayor asked NRA not to come, and shows Heston replying "I said to the Mayor: As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. Don't come here? We're already here!" as if in defiance.

 

Actually, Moore put an edit right in the middle of the first sentence, and another at its end! Heston really said (with reference his own WWII vet status) "I said to the mayor, well, my reply to the mayor is, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I've run small errands for my country, from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you here in this room could say the same thing."

 

Moore cuts it after "I said to the Mayor" and attaches a sentence from the end of the next paragraph: "As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land." He hides the deletion by cutting to footage of protestors and a photo of the Mayor before going back and showing Heston.

 

Moore has Heston then triumphantly announce "Don't come here? We're already here!" Actually, that sentence is clipped from a segment five paragraphs farther on in the speech. Again, Moore uses an editing trick to cover the doctoring, switching to a pan shot of the audience as Heston's (edited) voice continues.

 

What Heston said there was:

 

"NRA members are in city hall, Fort Carson, NORAD, the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center. And yes, NRA members are surely among the police and fire and SWAT team heroes who risked their lives to rescue the students at Columbine.

 

Don't come here? We're already here. This community is our home. Every community in America is our home. We are a 128-year-old fixture of mainstream America. The Second Amendment ethic of lawful, responsible firearm ownership spans the broadest cross section of American life imaginable.

 

So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy."

 

"NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity."

 

I recently discovered that Moore has set up a new webpage to respond to a chosen few points of criticism, one of which is his, er, creative editing of Heston's speech. Click here for a link to his page, and for my response to his attempted defense of what he did. Basically, Moore contends that he didn't mean for the viewer to get the impression that "cold dead hands" was spoken at Denver -- that just "appears as Heston is being introduced in narration."

 

B. Mt. Morris shooting/ Flint rally. Bowling continues by juxtaposing another Heston speech with a school shooting of Kayla Rolland at Mt. Morris, MI, just north of Flint. Moore makes the claim that "Just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally."

 

 

Fact: Heston's speech was given at a "get out the vote" rally in Flint, which was held when elections rolled by some eight months after the shooting ( Feb. 29 vs Oct. 17, 2000).

 

Fact: Bush and Gore were then both in the Flint area, trying to gather votes. Moore himself had been hosting rallies for Green Party candidate Nader in Flint a few weeks before.

 

Here's the real setting, as reported in the Detroit Free Press one day after Heston's speech:

 

What do Al Gore, Charlton Heston, Jesse Jackson, Lee Iacocca, and George W., Laura and Barbara Bush all agree upon?

 

That Michigan is a really big deal right now. The candidates, their wives, mothers, and pals are here this week, as post-debate spin control ebbs and political ground control overtakes Michigan with 20 days left to Election Day.....Democratic nominee Gore is to campaign in Flint tonight; Texas Gov. Bush is to visit a Macomb County factory Thursday. . . . . For Republicans, other surrogates include former auto executive Lee Iacocca touting Bush at a luncheon today in Troy, and Tuesday's visit by National Rifle Association President and movie-Moses Charlton Heston.

 

For the Democrats, the Rev. Jesse Jackson is seeking to mobilize black voters for the Gore ticket Thursday at Detroit's King High School, and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson will do the same at an Arab-American Chamber of Commerce dinner Friday in Livonia.

 

How does Moore trick the viewer into believing that this speech, given in this context, was actually a defiant response to a shooting in a nearby town months before?

 

Moore creates the impression that one event was right after the other so smoothly that I didn't spot his technique. It was picked up by Richard Rockley, who sent me an email.

 

Moore works by depriving you of context and guiding your mind to fill the vacuum -- with completely false ideas. It is brilliantly, if unethically, done,. Let's deconstruct his method.

 

The entire sequence takes barely 40 seconds. Images are flying by so rapidly that you cannot really think about them, you just form impressions.

 

Shot of Moore comforting Kayla's school principal after she discusses Kayla's murder. As they turn away, we hear Heston's voice: "From my cold, dead hands." [Moore is again attibuting it to a speech where it was not uttered.]

 

When Heston becomes visible, he's telling a group that freedom needs you now, more than ever, to come to its defense. Your impression: Heston is responding to something urgent, presumably the controversy caused by her death. And he's speaking about it like a fool.

 

Moore: "Just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally."

 

Moore continues on to say that before he came to Flint, Heston had been interviewed by the Georgetown Hoya about Kayla's death... Why would this be important?

 

Image of Hoya (a student paper) appears on screen, with highlighting on words of reporter mentioning Kayla Rolland's name, and highlighting on Heston's name (only his name, not his reply) as he answers. Image is on screen only a few seconds.

 

Ah, you think you spot the relevance: he obviously was alerted to the case, and that's why be came.

 

And, Moore continues, the case was discussed on Heston's "own NRA" webpage... Again, your mind seeks relevance....

 

Image of a webpage for America's First Freedom (a website for NRA, not for Heston) with text "48 hours after Kayla Rolland was prounced dead" highlighted and zoomed in on.

 

Your impression: Heston did something 48 hours after she died. Why else would "his" webpage note this event, whatever it is? What would Heston's action have been? It must have been to go to Flint and hold the rally.

 

Scene cuts to protestors, including a woman with a Million Moms March t-shirt, who asks how Heston could come here, she's shocked and appalled, "it's like he's rubbing our face in it." (This speaker and the protest may be faked, but let's assume for the moment they're real.). This caps your impression. She's shocked by Heston coming there, 48 hours after the death. He'd hardly be rubbing faces in it if he came there much later, on a purpose unrelated to the death.

 

The viewer thinks he or she understands ....

 

One reviewer: Heston "held another NRA rally in Flint, Michigan, just 48 hours after a 6 year old shot and killed a classmate in that same town."

 

Another:"What was Heston thinking going to into Colorado and Michigan immediately after the massacres of innocent children?"

 

Let's look at the facts behind the presentation:

 

Heston's speech, with its sense of urgency, freedom needs you now more than ever before. As noted above, it's actually an election rally, held weeks before the closest election in American history.

 

Moore: "Just as at Columbine, Heston showed up in Flint to have a large pro-gun rally." As noted above, it was an election rally actually held eight months later.

 

Georgetown Hoya interview, with highlighting on reporter mentioning Kayla and on Heston's name where he responds.

 

What is not highlighted, and impossible to read except by repeating the scene, is that the reporter asks about Kayla and about the Columbine shooters, and Heston replies only as to the Columbine shooters. There is no indication that he recognized Kayla Rolland's case. It flashes past in the movie: click here to see it frozen.

 

"His NRA webpage" with highlighted reference to "48 hours after Kayla Robinson is pronounced dead." Here's where it gets interesting. Moore zooms in on that phrase so quickly that it blots out the rest of the sentence, and then takes the image off screen before you can read anything else.

 

(It's clearer in the movie). The page is long gone, but I finally found an archived version and also a June 2000 usenet posting usenet posting. Guess what the page really said happened? Not a Heston trip to Flint, but: "48-hours after Kayla Rolland is pronounced dead, Bill Clinton is on The Today Show telling a sympathetic Katie Couric, "Maybe this tragic death will help."" Nothing to do with Heston. Incidentally, if you have the DVD version and the right player, you can freeze frame this sequence and see it yourself. Then go back and freeze frame the rally, and you'll make out various Bush election posters and tags.

 

Yep, Moore had a reason for zooming in on the 48 hours. The zooming starts instantly, and moves sideways to block out the rest of the sentence before even the quickest viewer could read it.

 

By the way, when interviewed by a reporter for the Times of London, Moore had to admit the point: "When I spoke to Moore last week, he confirmed Hardy's point about the date of the speech, but angrily denied the allegation that he had misled viewers." Link to Times webpage (charge for download).

 

If this is artistic talent, it's not the type that merits an Oscar.

 

C. Heston Interview. Having created the desired impression, Moore follows with his Heston interview. Heston's memory of the Flint event is foggy (he says it was an early morning event, and that they then went on to the next rally; in fact the rally was at 6 - 7:30 PM. and the last event of the day.). Heston's lack of recall is not surprising; it was one rally in a nine-stop tour of three States in three days.

 

Moore, who had plenty of time to prepare, continues the impression he has created, asking Heston misleading questions such as: "After that happened you came to Flint to hold a big rally and, you know, I just, did you feel it was being at all insensitive to the fact that this community had just gone through this tragedy?" Moore continues, "you think you'd like to apologize to the people in Flint for coming and doing that at that time?"

 

Moore knows the real sequence, and knows that Heston does not. Moore takes full advantage.

 

As noted above, Moore's deception works on reviewers. In fact, when Heston says he did not know about Kayla's shooting when he went to Flint, viewers see Heston as an inept liar:

 

"Then, he [Heston] and his ilk held ANOTHER gun-rally shortly after another child/gun tragedy in Flint, MI where a 6-year old child shot and killed a 6-year old classmate (Heston claims in the final interview of the film that he didn't know this had just happened when he appeared)." [Click here for original]

 

Bowling persuaded these viewers by deceiving them. Moore's creative skills are used to convince the viewer that things happened which did not and that a truthful man is a liar when he denies them.

 

A further question: is the end of the Heston interview faked?

 

3. Animated sequence equating NRA with KKK. In an animated history send-up, with the narrator talking rapidly, Bowling equates the NRA with the Klan, suggesting NRA was founded in 1871, "the same year that the Klan became an illegal terrorist organization." Bowling goes on to depict Klansmen becoming the NRA and an NRA character helping to light a burning cross.

 

This sequence is intended to create the impression either that NRA and the Klan were parallel groups or that when the Klan was outlawed its members formed the NRA.

 

Both impressions are not merely false, but directly opposed to the real facts.

 

 

Fact: The NRA was founded in 1871 -- by act of the New York Legislature, at request of former Union officers. The Klan was founded in 1866, and quickly became a terrorist organization. One might claim that while it was an organization and a terrorist one, it technically became an "illegal" such with passage of the federal Ku Klux Klan Act and Enforcement Act in 1871. These criminalized interference with civil rights, and empowered the President to use troops to suppress the Klan. (Although we'd have to acknowledge that murder, terror and arson were illegal long before that time -- the Klan hadn't been operating legally until 1871, it was operating illegally with the connivance of law enforcement.)

 

 

Fact: The Klan Act and Enforcement Act were signed into law by President Ulysess S. Grant. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus and deploying troops; under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made and the Klan was dealt a serious (if all too short-lived) blow.

 

Fact: Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan earned him unpopularity among many whites, but Frederick Douglass praised him, and an associate of Douglass wrote that African-Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

 

Fact: After Grant left the White House, the NRA elected him as its eighth president.

 

Fact: After Grant's term, the NRA elected General Philip Sheridan, who had removed the governors of Texas and Lousiana for failure to suppress the KKK.

 

Fact: The affinity of NRA for enemies of the Klan is hardly surprising. The NRA was founded by former Union officers, and eight of its first ten presidents were Union veterans.

 

Fact: During the 1950s and 1960s, groups of blacks organized as NRA chapters in order to obtain surplus military rifles to fight off Klansmen.

 

.4. Shooting at Buell Elementary School in Michigan. Bowling depicts the juvenile shooter who killed Kayla Rolland as a sympathetic youngster, from a struggling family, who just found a gun in his uncle's house and took it to school. "No one knew why the little boy wanted to shoot the little girl."

 

 

Fact: The little boy was the class thug, already suspended from school for stabbing another kid with a pencil, and had fought with Kayla the day before. Since the incident, he has stabbed another child with a knife.

 

 

Fact: The uncle's house was the family business -- the neighborhood crack-house. The gun was stolen and was purchased by the uncle in exchange for drugs.The shooter's father was already serving a prison term for theft and drug offenses. A few weeks later police busted the shooter's grandmother and aunt for narcotics sales. After police hauled the family away, the neighbors applauded the officers. This was not a nice but misunderstood family.

 

 

Links:1., 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,

 

5. The Taliban and American Aid. In discussing military assistance to various countries, Bowling asserts that the U.S. gave $245 million in aid to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001.

 

 

Fact: The aid in question was humanitarian assistance, given through UN and nongovernmental organizations, to relieve famine in Afghanistan. [Various numbers are given for the amount of the aid, and some say several million went for clearing landmines.]

 

6. International Comparisons. To pound home its point, Bowling flashes a dramatic count of gun homicides in various countries: Canada 165, Germany 381, Australia 65, Japan 39, US 11,127. Now that's raw numbers, not rates -- Here's why he doesn't talk rates.

 

Verifying the figures was difficult, since Moore does not give a year for them. A lot of Moore's numbers didn't check out for any period I could find. As a last effort at checking, I did a Google search for each number and the word "gun" or words "gun homicides" Many traced -- only back to webpages repeating Bowling's figures. Moore is the only one using these numbers.

 

Germany: Bowling says 381: 1995 figures put homicides at 1,476, about four times what Bowling claims, and gun homicides at 168, about half what it claims: it's either far too high or far too low. ( Jörg Altmeppen has emailed me a link to a German site putting the figure at Moore's 381, in 1998 -- I have to depend upon his translation here, as German is one of the languages in which I can only curse.).

 

Australia: Bowling says 65. This is very close, albeit picking the year to get the data desired. Between 1980-1995, firearm homicides varied from 64-123, although never exactly 65. In 2000, it was 64, which was proudly proclaimed as the lowest number in the country's history.

 

US: Bowling says 11,127. FBI figures put it a lot lower. They report gun homicides were 8,719 in 2001, 8,661 in 2000, 8,480 in 1999. (2001 UCR, p. 23). Here's the table:

 

[You can download the entire report, in .pdf format, by clicking here; look for pt. 2 at p.23.] To be utterly fair, this is a count of the 13,752 homicides for which police submitted supplemental data (including weapon used): the total homicide count was 15,980. But what weapon, if any, was used in the other homicide is unknown to us, and was unknown to Moore.

 

After an email tip, I finally found a way to compute precisely 11,127. Ignore the FBI, use Nat'l Center for Health Statistics figures. These are based on doctors' death certificates rather than police investigation.

 

Then -- to their gun homicide figures, add the figure for legally-justified homicides: self-defense and police use against criminals. Presto, you have exactly Moore's 11,127. I can see no other way for him to get it.

 

Since Moore appears to use police figures for the other countries, it's hardly a valid comparison. More to the point, it's misleading since it includes self-defense and police: when we talk of a gun homicide problem we hardly have in mind a woman defending against a rapist, or a cop taking out an armed robber.

 

Canada: Moore's number is correct for 1999, a low point, but he ignores some obvious differences.

 

Bias. I wanted to talk about fabrication, not about bias, but I've gotten emails asking why I didn't mention that Switzerland requires almost all adult males to have guns, but has a lower homicide rate than Great Britain, or that Japanese-Americans, with the same proximity to guns as other Americans, have homicide rates half that of Japan itself. (And, after posting this, got an email saying that Switzerland doesn't require all adult males to own guns -- not everyone is in the national militia. Here's an encyclopedia reference to their system. 36% of entire population is enrolled in the militia -- which must mean a very great part of the adult male population, " All of Swiss society celebrates shooting, and skill with the rifle. For example, each year Zurich shuts down a whole day for its "Boys' Shooting Festival."" Sounds like a plan to me.)

 

And, oh, yes, there is an extremely interesting paper by Canadian criminologist Gary Mauser, presented at a colloquium in, appropriately enough, the Tower of London, and addressing international comparisons of firearms laws and firearm crime rates. I highly recommend reading, if you're interested in serious research rather than Moore's flashing numbers. Okay, they're mentioned, now back to our regularly scheduled program.

 

Actually, international comparisons lead to some interesting points. Here's a webpage which gives worldwide homicide rates. The U.S. comes in at 23rd place. It only made the list by edging out Armenia and Bulgaria. Its former rival as a superpower, the states of the former Soviet Union, absolutely flatten it in this competition. Russia has four times the US rate. Ukraine and Estonia have twice its rate. Even Poland ranks higher. South Africa's showing is ten times the US rate! Hmm-- another point from a different section of that site. In rape rates per 1000 population, the US ranks ninth, at .32, just ahead of Iceland and Papua New Guinea. Canada is fifth, at .75, over double the US rate, and Australia is third with .80.

 

7. Miscellaneous. Even the Canadian government is jumping in. Bowling shows Moore casually buying ammunition at an Ontario Walmart. He asks us to "look at what I, a foreign citizen, was able to do at a local Canadian Wal-Mart." He buys several boxes of ammunition without a question being raised. "That's right. I could buy as much ammunition as I wanted, in Canada."

 

Canadian officials have pointed out that the buy is faked or illegal: Canadian law has since, 1998, required ammunition buyers to present proper identification. Since Jan. 1, 2001, (sorry--link broke--it was a Canadian government info site) it has required non-Canadians to present a firearms borrowing or importation license, too. (Bowling appears to have been filmed in mid and late 2001).

 

While we're at it: Bowling shows footage of a B-52 on display at the Air Force Academy, while Moore scornfully intones that the plaque under it "proudly proclaims that the plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972."

 

The plaque actually reads that "Flying out of Utapao Royal Thai Naval Airfield in southeast Thailand, the crew of 'Diamond Lil' shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi during 'Linebacker II' action on Christmas eve 1972." This is pretty mild compared to the rest of Bowling, but the viewer can't even trust Moore to honestly read a monument.

 

(As Spinsanity notes, Moore goes even farther in his add-on DVD. There, he tells us, "And they've got a plaque on there proudly proclaiming that this bomber, this B-52, killed thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese -- innocent civilians.")

 

8. Race. Moore does not directly state that Heston is a racist--he is the master of creating the false impression --but reviewers come away saying "Heston looks like an idiot, and a racist one at that" Source. "BTW, one thing the Heston interview did clear up, that man is shockingly racist." Source.

 

The remarks stem from Heston's answer (after Moore keeps pressing for why the US has more violence than other countries) that it might be due to the US "having a more mixed ethnicity" than other nations, and "We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning." A viewer who accepts Moore's theme that gun ownership is driven by racial fears might conclude that Heston is blaming blacks and the civil rights movement.

 

But if you look at some history missing from Bowling, you get exactly the opposite picture. Heston is talking, not about race, but about racism. In the early 1960s, the civil rights movement was fighting for acceptance. Civil rights workers were being murdered. The Kennedy Administration, trying to hold together a Democratic coalition that ranged from liberals to fire-eater segregationists such as George Wallace and Lester Maddox, found the issue too hot to touch, and offered little support.

 

Heston got involved. He picketed discriminating restaurants. He worked with Martin Luther King, and helped King break Hollywood's color barrier (yes, there was one.). He led the actors' component of King's 1963 march in Washington, which set the stage for the key civil rights legislation in 1964.

 

Here's Heston's comments at the 2001 Congress on Racial Equality Martin Luther King dinner (presided over by NRA director, and CORE President, Roy Innes). More on Heston.

 

Most of the viewers were born long after the events Heston is recalling. To them, the civil rights struggle consists of Martin Luther King speaking, people singing "We Shall Overcome," and everyone coming to their senses. Heston remembers what it was really like.

 

If Heston fails to explain this in Bowling, we've got to note that Moore (despite his claim that he left the interview almost unedited) cut a lot of the interview out. Watch closely and you'll see a clock on the wall near Moore's head. When it's first seen, the time is about 5:47. When Heston finally walks out, it reads about 6:10. That's 23 minutes. I clocked the Heston interview in Bowling at 5 1/4 minutes. About three-quarters of what Heston did say was trimmed out. [Why the clock indicates six o'clock, when Moore is specific that he showed up for the interview at 8:30 AM, will have to await another investigation!]

 

9. Fear. Bowling probably has a good point when it suggests that the media feeds off fear in a search for the fast buck. For an interesting analysis of this, showing how crime news skyrocketed (largely displacing international coverage) even as crime fell, click here.

 

Bowling cites some examples: the razor blades in Halloween apples scare, the flesh-eating bacteria scare, etc. The examples are taken straight from Barry Glassner's excellent book on the subject, "The Culture of Fear," and Moore interviews Glassner on-camera for the point.

 

Then Moore does exactly what he condemns in the media.

 

Given the prominence of schoolyard killings as a theme in Bowling for Columbine, Moore must have asked Glassner about that subject. Whatever Glassner said is, however, left on the cutting-room floor. That's because Glassner lists schoolyard shootings as one of the mythical fears. He points out that "More than three times as many people are killed by lightning as by violence at schools."

 

This is as close as Moore comes to having a thesis, an explanation for homicide rate differences. But here he falls flat on his face. As one of his interviewees notes, over a period when homicide rates were falling, media coverage of murder increased by 600%. Okay, flip it around. When media coverage of homicides increased 600%, homicide rates fell. So much for Moore's explanation. In fact, so much for all of his attempted explanations. During the 1990s, homicide rates in the US went into their steepest decline in decades, with handgun homicides leading the way. That was the same period that saw the welfare reform laws, the bombing in Serbia, several million firearms sold each year -- everything, in short, that Moore condemns. (For one source, just go back up the page to the FBI statistics: between 1997 and 2001, firearm homicides fell from 10,729 to 8,719, and 1997 was after the biggest drop had occured.

 

I suppose we might go farther, and ask if Moore's film is not illustrative of what it condemns. Moore argues that the media (a) distorts reality, and (b) hypes fear of other Americans, because © fear is good for a fast buck. Moore distorts reality, hypes fear of other Americans ("are we nation of gun nuts, or just nuts?") and, well, made several million fast bucks.

 

10. Guns (supposedly the point of the film). A point worth making (although not strictly on theme here): Bowling's theme is, rather curiously, not opposed to firearms ownership.

 

After making out Canada to be a haven of nonviolence, Moore asks why. He proclaims that Canada has "a tremendous amount of gun ownership," somewhat under one gun per household. He visits Canadian shooting ranges, gun stores, and in the end proclaims "Canada is a gun loving, gun toting, gun crazy country!"

 

Or as he put it elsewhere, "then I learned that Canada has 7 million guns but they don't kill each other like we do. I thought, gosh, that's uncomfortably close to the NRA position: Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

 

Bowling concludes that Canada isn't peaceful because it lacks guns and gun nuts -- it has lots of those -- but because the Canadian mass media isn't into constant hyping of fear and loathing, and the American media is. (One problem).

 

Which leaves us to wonder why the Brady Campaign/Million Moms issued a press release. congratulating Moore on his Oscar nomination.

 

Or does Bowling have a hidden punch line, and in the end the joke is on them?

 

One possible explanation: did Bowling begin as one movie, and end up as another?

 

Incidentally, Moore has issued a webpage responding to criticism. In so doing, he actually admits that much of the above criticism is accurate. He did splice the Willie Horton ad, and Heston's "cold dead hands" was never spoken at Denver, and his statistics do stem from those of the Center for Disease Control, which include self-defense and police shootings of perps. As far as the rest of the criticisms above -- strange, but Moore doesn't have an answer. Here's my response.

 

Conclusion

 

The point is not that Bowling is unfair, or lacking in objectivity. The point is far more fundamental: Bowling for Columbine is dishonest. It is fraudulent. To trash Heston, it even uses the audio/video editor to assemble a Heston speech that Heston did not give, and sequences images and carefully highlighted text to spin the viewer's mind to a wrong conclusion. If there is art in this movie, it is a dishonest art. Moore does not inform his readers: he plays them like a violin.

 

A further thought, on a topic far broader (no pun intended) than Moore. Moore's film is unquestionably popular. He's attracted an almost-cult following. And judging from the emails I've received, plenty of his followers don't care a bit about whether they were misled. Can broader lessons be learned from this?

 

Suppose for a moment that Moore's behavior can be explained as a product of Narcisstic Personality Disorder, that he fits the clinical symptoms to a T, that indeed Bowling is a grand acting out of this character disorder. Does its popularity suggest something of far greater concern than one more narcissist in Hollywood? And does that in turn hold a key to mass slayings?Click here for some thoughts on that score.

 

David T. Hardy [an amateur who has for the last year been working on a serious bill of rights documentary], to include the Second Amendment.

 

dthardy at mindspring.com ["at" instead of "@" used to confuse those blasted spam robots]

 

P.S.: I don't have Moore's $4 million budget (and wound up paying over a thousand in bandwidth overruns, before I found a new host), but if you could see the way to contribute ten or twenty dollars to this research, and to preparing a real documentary, please click below.

 

 

 

 

 

A few additions:

 

Links to other Moore & Bowling sites.

 

Some criticisms not given on this page.

 

Did Moore appropriate large portions from a webpage?

 

Equal time: emails critical of this page.

 

A brief reply to two responses I've received:

 

Objectivity: (sample email): "Your entire article is retarded. We're talking about making FILM. ALL film is subjective. Have you not even taken an entry level course in film before?"

 

Response: The point is not that Bowling is non-objective, or biased. The point is that it is intentionally deceptive.

 

Nothing is real: The camera changes everything, etc., so in video there can be no truth or falsity. Sample: "tv and movies, newspapers or even documentaries *are* constructions, not "the truth" ("truth" is subjective personal opinion/experience, which would be impossible to commit to videotape or celluloid)."

 

Response: This certainly has given me some insight into how some in the media view things! Can we agree upon one core premise: to deliberately deceive a viewer is wrong?

 

Talk basic ethics. Is that what you teach your kids? Truth and lies are ultimately the same, all that matters is whether you're good at it?

 

And don't give me the claim that filmmaking is somehow different, all filming departs from reality, so truth and lies exist for written media and not for film. All communication is symbolic; the use of verbal and written symbols to convey ideas. If anything, a documentary film purports to be less symbolic and more real: the viewer is shown things, and assumes he is himself seeing reality, rather than hearing a speaker's description, possibly unfair or deceptive, of it. If anything, this should imply a greater duty to avoid conscious deception than would apply to the written and spoken word.

 

Equally to the point: Moore himself repudiates these defenses, insisting that every iota of his film is objectively true. "I can guarantee to you, without equivocation, that every fact in my movie is true. Three teams of fact-checkers and two groups of lawyers went through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure that every statement of fact is indeed an indisputable fact.... [F]aced with a thoroughly truthful and honest film, those who object to the film's political points are left with the choice of debating us on the issues in the film or resorting to character assassination." Source.

 

Moore makes people think. This at least has some merit to it. But deception is not the way to inspire clear thinking. For that matter ... if the purpose is to inspire thought, how about giving some data? Homicide, firearm homicide, and gun use in self-defense have been extensively studied for forty years now. Kleck, Zimring, Bordua -- there is no shortage of experts here. And there is a lot of data on other matters, such as relationship of media coverage to crime. Yet the viewer hears none of this: in terms of substance, Bowling is thin as an oil slick. The viewer is left with Moore the criminologist looking at a TV screen and proclaiming TV news just has to be the answer -- and not stopping long enough to reflect that if homicide rates fell when news coverage of them went up 600%, this is a most peculiar answer.

i'm not gonna' watch sicko, you just can't trust anything he says

[The NZA]

what the...?

i ask about this movie, you post a book about qualms with an earlier one? that was...odd.

[alive she cried]

i'm just sayin' that after the shit he pulled with bowling for columbine, he can't be trusted to just deliver the facts and therefore i won't be watchin' the movie

[The NZA]

i guess, you coulda said that with a lot less....he caught a lot more talk over here for Farenheit, doesnt make this film look any less interesting to me in & of itself, tho.

[alive she cried]

i guess, you coulda said that with a lot less....he caught a lot more talk over here for Farenheit, doesnt make this film look any less interesting to me in & of itself, tho.

i don't know what's the famous quote from that great man again?

oh yeah "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

[The NZA]

its true. i already read that he never went to miami, he just put tents up in hialeah.

 

please allow my friend, darkie mcblacknight, to share my reply.

 

 

alright, no more out of ASC or anyone else who's already made up their mind before watching it; for you, sir, there are only tatoo removers. for everyone else: how was it?

[alive she cried]

so it's come to this, banning me from a thread. where's the hondo's i knew and loved gone?

[The NZA]

dont make me call mr. mcblackdark back over here.

[Reverend Jax]

I read as much of the article as I could, but it's complaints seem to me mostly like the nit-picking of someone who doesn't like Moore's conclusions, despite that they are very much in line with studies of social scientists. Documentaries aren't supposed to be manipulative for the sake of being entertaining? So if a documentary has a musical score and is not a documentary about the musical score, is that not a documentary? The fist complaint completely forgets that they mentioned a few seconds before the campaign ad splice they mentioned the case of the mother that killed her child and claimed it was a black guy, hence her using America's fear of black males to her advantage. She was the psychotic killer taking advantage of the fear, not Bush/Quayle. It was clear in the movie, and if anyone got confused, it wasn't Moore's fault people got confused.

 

Anyway, Sicko was a roller coaster ride of seriously intense emotions. It was haunting and very scarey to think of falling into this kind of situation, because it became very clear that unless you have the money to pay for any kind of medical procedure you might ever need (aka are worth in the ten million dollar and up range), you cannot feel sure your insurance company will be there for you. It makes you feel very vulnerable and sick to your stomach at the thought of people who have paid into an insurance program and are literally told they will die in three weeks because their insurance company is deliberately trying to find a way to not have to pay for the treatment.

 

I think that this film will be a tipping point in America.

[MetalHeart]

Anyway, Sicko was a roller coaster ride of seriously intense emotions. It was haunting and very scarey to think of falling into this kind of situation, because it became very clear that unless you have the money to pay for any kind of medical procedure you might ever need (aka are worth in the ten million dollar and up range), you cannot feel sure your insurance company will be there for you. It makes you feel very vulnerable and sick to your stomach at the thought of people who have paid into an insurance program and are literally told they will die in three weeks because their insurance company is deliberately trying to find a way to not have to pay for the treatment.

I think that this film will be a tipping point in America.

 

Not to mention that some people/hospitals seem to be refusing service because they aren't a provider for that insurance or they don't have the money to pay right away.

 

 

 

 

I understand people not wanting to watch this, but regardless of whether you like Moore or not, I urge people to. While I've never worked in a hospital, I have had to deal with vision insurance for 3+ years at the optometrist office, and even then it was underhanded dealing with them and misleading. They would feed us and the patient any old BS to not give us our payment, or refuse to pay for services offered. and we're not even talking about medical insurance or a hospital or specialist, here... I think this is a good topic to shed light on and get our citizens involved. When we have have to start going over the border to get the much needed medical attention we need, and to be able to count on a doctor to treat us for our problems and not for their paycheck, then we have a big problem. It seems to give the impression we don't give a shit about our citizens, which you would think would be able to considering we're such a wealthy nation.

 

Sorry if all of that seemed jarbled.

[Senshik]

After this movie, I further hate the US healthcare system. I'm a college student who works part time and has no healthcare insurance, and the one that was offered by the agency I work for, it seemed like I would pay more than I would get help from. Luckily, FIU has a pretty descent wellness center for women which provides good service and pharmacy real cheap, AND NO CO-PAYMENTS ARE DUE, (since it's covered in tuition). I appreciate the 40 some dollars deducted each semester for healthcare fees because essentailly, I like knowing that if I'm sick I can go to the clinic and get good assistance.

 

If this was turned around into the real world - If I was taxed for Universal Healthcare in case needing some sort of medical attention, I know I'm being covered - no questions aksed, just go and get checked.

I'm sure that despite being taxed for this benefit, I will live comfortably.

I'm curious to know, Can anyone from a country with universal healthcare disagree with this? Are you heavily taxed in a way that you can not afford to live off?

 

Fuck it. I'm moving to Britain or France or Austrailia or yes, EVEN CUBA, somewhere that provides UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE!

[alive she cried]

I read as much of the article as I could, but it's complaints seem to me mostly like the nit-picking of someone who doesn't like Moore's conclusions,

are you serious? you call editing together two different speeches of charlton heston together and showing them completely out of context is nit picking?

Heston's "cold dead hands" speech, which leads off Moore's depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver after Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was his gesture of gratitude upon his being given a handmade musket, at that annual meeting.

how can you trust a man that would do this?

So if a documentary has a musical score and is not a documentary about the musical score, is that not a documentary?

you're taking the piss here surely

The fist complaint completely forgets that they mentioned a few seconds before the campaign ad splice they mentioned the case of the mother that killed her child and claimed it was a black guy, hence her using America's fear of black males to her advantage. She was the psychotic killer taking advantage of the fear, not Bush/Quayle. It was clear in the movie, and if anyone got confused, it wasn't Moore's fault people got confused.

i'll give you that, but what about the rest of the article?

 

I understand that this is an important issue to a lot of people and i will truely be happy if this film in anyway helps improve ye're health care. But if i was to watch this movie, i'd have to try verify everything said in it before i'd believe it.

you should'nt have to do this with a respected documentary maker

[Jont]

I think its relevant to the discussion whether or not we can trust the film maker we're discussing, though there is a Bowling for Columbine thread with a lot more chatter on the subject that could be revived.

 

I'll undoubtedly see Sicko at some point or another, but I think I may just prefer to see if there's any debunking or the film's statements before I do.

 

I used to like Michael Moore a lot more in the days of TV Nation and The Awful Truth, maybe it was only a few notches above a regular prank show, but at least it made you think instead of telling you what to think.

[Reverend Jax]

you're taking the piss here surely

 

i'll give you that, but what about the rest of the article?

I' not "taking the piss". He makes op-ed documentaries, and he insights emotion, because these are issues (outsourcing, gun control, pre-emptive war, healthcare) we should be feeling as well as thinking about. Are we not supposed to feel emotional about Columbine? Are we not supposed to care? To what extent is it ok to represent things outside of a emotional context when you're trying to win hearts?

 

He introduced Charlton Heston using a cliched quote from different speech, but I did not get the impression he said that at that event because he talked about the NRA coming to Littleton AFTER using the footage. But he was not fabricating that the NRA did not have any events scheduled for that area and decided to schedule an event immediately after then shooting to take place within a week. It doesn't matter what Heston said, it was callous and deliberately insensitive of the mourning.

 

Regarding the rest of the article, like I said, I only read the first few points, but with an article that long, any GOOD op-ed writer would open with their strongest points, because if they open with weak ones, readers will lose interest. I read the first two points and both seemed like a mix of nit-picking and reaching for straws, and furthermore, the tone was of someone who disagreed with Moore's conclusions (more maybe just doesn't like Moore in general) and was looking for something that wasn't really there. I was not going to spend three hours looking for a good point buried in the article (I am dyslexic and a very slow reader, three hours is probably not an exaggeration).

 

The movie is good. Download it if you refuse to support Moore financially by purchasing a ticket. It'll really open your eyes to what health care is like in America. I live in America and I am a real cynic, and this movie caught me off guard in it's depiction of the extent to which the system is broken.

[archangel]

a few things here on the person.

 

Michael Moore is a liar. He twists and skews things to the point where they are no longer real. He'll get actual footage of something, then spin it into something else. Jax and others will point and say 'but the message is important', and I'll say sure: but there are better and more entertaining ways of doing it instead of lying to us.

 

He's very good at shit talking, but if anyone else does it, he has a cow. he's a despicable human being on par with Phelps, in my opinion.

 

That being said:

 

The American Health Care System is not good. It isn't even passable. But before people start clamoring for Universal Health Care, I'd like to point out that as bad as our system is, it's better than anyone else's I've seen (with the possible exception of the Swiss). We could do alot by fixing our system, but Socialized Healthcare is a Disaster waiting to happen.

 

My biggest problem with this film, before I've even seen it? Why take these people to Cuba of all places? So they can be taken to a tourist hotel where they'll be getting treatment that Castro gets, but no one else on the Island does? That's the kind of shit I take issue with with Moore. He's a schmuck.

 

I'll download the movie and watch it, and ONLY because I can only truly comment on the movie once I've seen it. But no dime of mine is going to that commie fuck.

[Lottie]

ASC; you reserve the right to win the Award for Longest Post till 2023. That's when i turn forty and go on a rant about how the internet ruined my generation.

 

It's interesting to see exactly what is and what isn't factual in 'documentaries' like this, but i think not taking things at face value is a rule for life. His movies are meant to entertain as well as inform and, like any good entertainer, there's plenty of embellishment. If for no other reason it's worth watching films like this for an opinion - like Jax says, these are emotional topics and deserve both emotional and objective responses. I'm sure all his qualms are based on truth, even if his sources are at times misrepresented.

 

I enjoy his movies, but...he is damned annoying. I'd watch this, if only to make us all appreciate the poor old NHS a little more. Everyone's always picking on it...like a well meaning but clumsy surgeon, people only see the bad points.

[archangel]

I disagree. He tries to peddle his crap as a documentary, when it is anything but.

 

Mockumentary is probably a better word to describe it. Me? i'll just go with 'bullshit'.

[alive she cried]

i agree documentaries should be emotive, but i don't think that an innocent person should be conveyed as a villain to do this.

i and a lot of other people had an unjustly very bad opinion of charlton heston after watching columbine. this is'nt right.

[Lottie]

I disagree. He tries to peddle his crap as a documentary, when it is anything but.

 

Mockumentary is probably a better word to describe it. Me? i'll just go with 'bullshit'.

Mockumentary makes me smile. But you can't dispute that his films, however full of it they may be, have some value. Any review of any of his movies stating they should be heralded for accuracy and truthfulness aren't worth the paper they're printed on, but as a subjective and - for all the wrong reasons - thought provoking bunch of commie criticisms, they aren't bad movies. It may not be because of 9/11 we should question the government, or Columbine that gun laws need review, but issues like this should be raised. I don't know a damned thing about US health care, but if it's crappy, things need to be done. And what better way to stir up public opinion than with an empathetic, emotional and totally biased dissection of it?

[Reverend Jax]

Arch, I know it is worth nothing to you that there are a handful of 9/11 rescue workers that would still be at death's foot door if not for Moore taking them to Cuba, but the point of taking them to Cuba was to make a point. Our system isn't just bad compared to France, or the UK, or Canada. It's bad compared to Cuba.

 

I am not a Castro supporter, and I am not a communist. But I will not take de facto positions regarding Cuba based on ideology. Just about everything is wrong in Cuba today, but health care is not one of them. To say that health care in Cuba is bad, especially if you say it's bad relative to the wealthiness of the country, is to look at Cuba through shit-colored glasses. If you look at Cuba through clear glasses, you made see alot of shit, but health care is not one of them. I'm sorry, but having read quite a bit on Cuba, and talked to many Cubans, this is the conclusion I have drawn. I am certainly not without my own biases, but I think the conclusions you've drawn about Cuba's health care system are more biased than mine.

 

I happen to think a socialized health care system in the mold of the UK or Canada would be the best thing for the US, but there are many things that could do alot to fix the big problems. Essentially, I think the big problem isn't profit-driven medicine, but profit-driven medical insurance. It is the rotten malignant tumor of the system and it has spread and effectively poisoned everything else in the system.

 

Again, download the movie (or buy a ticket to some other movie and sneak in to watch this one) and come back with your opinions.

 

I will be the first to admit that Moore's picture of Cuba in the movie was less than balanced, but I think the point he makes about the difference between the US system and Cuba's system are relevant.

[La Lindsay]

correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't he originally go to cuba to get medical assistance for the people he brought with him at guantanamo bay (US territory) since they give the prisoners there very good health care, but they wouldn't let him in so they went to havana to seek treatment instead?

 

anyway, i would be really interested to hear what some of the u.k. hondonians think of the way he portrayed their healthcare system. every system has its faults, but which has the least...i don't think it's ours by any means. my dad had a heart attack about a year and a half ago and they called the cardiologist on call that day who performed an immediate heart catherization and because the cardiologist wasn't on my dad's plan, blue cross/blue shield charged him $25,000. i think my parents had to fight it for about a year and BCBS didn't want to let it go but eventually they did. i know there are people out there that wouldn't fight that cost, unfortunately. then there was that time, i got drugged in a club and was unconscious so a cop decided he would call me an ambulence, even though i was with friends who said they would take me home and i ended up with a $2000 medical bill because i had gotten kicked off of my parent's insurance when i turned 22, 4 months earlier. also, the $2000 was only for the ambulence ride ($600 to take me 2 miles) and lab fees ($1200). that was all, and i'm still paying for it, 3 years later. i also had a lot of medical issues that i had put off for about 2 years while i was uninsured...so yeah, if i would rather go undiagnosed and die from possibly having breast cancer (or anything else for that matter) than to be in an enormous amount of debt, then there is something massively wrong with the healthcare system in this country for me. and the movie makes my issues pale in comparison. pale.

[archangel]

Our system isn't just bad compared to France, or the UK, or Canada. It's bad compared to Cuba.

any point you might have had has been nullified by this statement.

 

You're out of your fucking mind here, Jax.

[Reverend Jax]

In America, a child can have a seizure, be taken to a hospital and be turned away because that hopsital doesn't accept that child's parent's insurance, and that child would die on the way to a hospital that does, THAT is a fucked up system! That kinda of bureaucratic shit makes America's health care system worse than Cuba's. The fact that insured people can't afford their medicine because the deductibles are in the thousands of dollars. I say it because we have a higher infant mortality rate and a lower life expectancy.

 

You're suffering from "Cuba is the greatest evil in the world and AN Y hint that they might do anything that is acceptable is heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, and sacrilege." I will not subscribe to any romanticized vision of Cuba, but I'm not close my eyes to reality because it does not suit my view of the world. If you think for a moment that I like saying that Cuba's health care system is better than ours today, you are very wrong. It makes me ashamed.

[archangel]

No, I'm merely capable of understanding you don't compare apples to oranges.

 

 

Do you want to see the system which Moore lauds so heavily? I could show you pictures that would turn your stomach: no medicine, rat infested, shoddy structures where patients are literally left to urinate and defecate on the floors, and even THAT isn't cleaned up for days, if at all.

 

I'm not saying our system is great, I'm not even saying our system is good, but don't be an idiot, either. Any hospital here will, at the very least, stabilize you. They also are required to give you medicine to the point of keeping you stable and healthy enough to be discharged, and they must do this BY LAW. if they don't, they're shut down.

 

Any person can walk into emergency at Jackson, without insurance or any form of payment, and receive the treatment or medication they need, such as insulin, and the hospital HAS to give it to them. this is why we see hospitals who always go in the red and have to charge patience with insurance 70 dollars for two pills of Tylenol 3 to make up the difference and stay afloat enough to operate and pay their personnel, forget making a profit.

 

So no, while our system is anything but perfect, comparing it to Cuba is like comparing Auschwitz to jail.

 

You're saying 'Cuba's health care is better than ours' and I'm saying that's a bold faced LIE.