Current Cultural Issues | December 18, 2010 | 55 comments

Michael Moore's SICKO banned in Cuba--because it's FALSE

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/17/wikileaks-cuba-banned-sicko

Image
curtisreed
Ain't this rich? And how many fools on this site ate up Sicko with a spoon, claimed it was true, and it was so false it couldn't even make it past the Cuban propaganda wing...you idiots are laughable.

"Cuba banned Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a "mythically" favourable picture of Cuba's healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a "popular backlash", according to US diplomats in Havana.
The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks , is surprising, given that the film attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system.

But the memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so "disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room".

Castro's government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it "knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them." "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/17/wikileaks-cuba-banned-sicko

Now, all you Current socialists, explain that to me, would you?!
  1. groups:
    Current Cultural Issues,   Cuba
  2. tags:
    Cuba,  Michael Moore,  Banned,  Sicko
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55 comments // Michael Moore's SICKO banned in Cuba--because it's FALSE

  • sandokan0
    • 0
      sandokan0  

    • Moore’s response on his site includes this information:
      'Sicko' had just been playing in Cuban theaters. Then the entire nation of Cuba was shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008!
      “Or, how ’bout this little April 25, 2008 notice from CubaSi.Cu (translation by Google):

      Sicko premiere in Cuba
      25/04/2008
      The documentary Sicko, the U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore, which deals about the deplorable state of American health care system will be released today at 5:50 pm, for the space Cubavision Roundtable and the Education Channel.

      The story speaks of the April 25 TV showing as a “premiere in Cuba.” It doesn’t mention any theater released previous to the TV showing.
      In the Internet Movie Database worldwide release dates for Sicko, Cuba was not listed among the release dates for many countries and film festivals. Google searches of “Sicko” with release date in Cuba did not return any other information.

      Can somebody provide reliable sources of the theatrical showing in Cuba of Sicko prior to the State department cable dated January 01, 2008?

    • 1 year ago
  • congoboy
    • -1
      congoboy  
    • Image

    • Should a 400 lb man advise us on the evils of over-consumption?
      Should the resident of a million-dollar apartment claim to be a poster boy of the working class?
      Should a person who thought that Enron was a great investment, that Ralph Nader, Wesley Clark and John Kerry would win, and that North Korea's Kim Jong was changing for the better, advise us on ANYTHING?

      Michael Moore is a paradox. A millionaire who boasts of wealth as proving his value -- "I'm a millionaire, I'm a multi-millionaire. I'm filthy rich. You know why I'm a multi-millionaire? 'Cause multi-millions like what I do. That's pretty good, isn't it?"

      He lives in a million-dollar apartment, and boasts of that as well. "I walk among them. I live on the island of Manhattan, a three-mile-wide strip of land that is luxury home and corporate suite to America's elite..... Those who run your life live in my neighborhood. I walk in the streets with them each day" (Michael Moore, Stupid White Men, p. 51). For vacations, he keeps another million-dollar beachfront house in Michigan.He sends his child to a private school -- no sense associating with the working class -- and has some trouble associating with them himself. The New York Post reported on a tantrum he threw in London: "Then, on his second-to-last night, [Michael Moore] raged against everyone connected with the Roundhouse and complained that he was being paid a measly $750 a night. 'He completely lost the plot,' a member of the stage crew told the London Evening Standard. 'He stormed around all day screaming at everyone, even the 5 pound-an-hour bar staff, telling them how we were all con men and useless. Then he went on stage and did it in public.' At his last appearance, staffers refused to work or even open the theater's doors." NY Post, Jan. 8, 2003.http://www.mooreexposed.com/

    • 1 year ago
  • sandokan0
    • 0
      sandokan0  

    • In his rebuttal Michael Moore said: “American diplomats made up a story that Cuba banned Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko, in an attempt to discredit the film which painted an unflattering picture of the US healthcare system”

      The leaked cable quotes an unidentified source stating that “Cuban authorities have banned Michael Moore's documentary, ‘Sicko,’ as being subversive.” It doesn’t show that Cuban officials banned Moore's documentary, or that American diplomats hoped to discredit Moore by inventing a story that Cuban authorities banned the film.

      The Real Cuba Website host, George Utset found out the source of the “banned” documentary: “I remember what Dr. Darsi Ferrer said back in July of 2007 when I was helping a producer for ABC 20/20, who was preparing a program to contradict much of what Michael Moore had portrayed on ‘Sicko.’

      I was on the line with the producer, who didn't speak Spanish, and Darsi in Cuba and we were telling him what was shown on the part of the documentary that was filmed in Cuba about how wonderful health care was in the island and how, according to Michael Moore, all Cubans had access to the hospital and the medical services that his American guests received at Hospital Hermanos Ameijeiras in Havana.

      When he heard what we said, Darsi's immediate response was: "That documentary will never be shown in Cuba."

      The ABC producer was surprised! "Why wouldn't it be shown if it was complementary about Cuba's health care?"

      "Because here everyone knows that is a lie and it would be considered counter revolutionary to show regular Cubans the medical services that only foreigners can receive," was Darsi's response.”

      Moore’s attempted rebuttal falls short. The State department cable was dated 1 January, and Moore’s claimed showing of the film to have been 28 April. So even if Moore’s claim is legitimate, it still does not refute the State Department cable.

    • 1 year ago
  • sandokan0
    • 0
      sandokan0  

    • If Moore and his supporters claim that this report isn’t accurate, where does that leave us face to face Wikileaks? If the Wikileaks documents support your cause they are the definitive truth but if they don’t support the cause it’s more evidence of government dishonesty. Michael Moore, it is worth pointing out, pledged money to Assange’s bail efforts. What a shock.

    • 1 year ago
  • congoboy
  • congoboy
    • -1
      congoboy  
    • Image

    • The Myth of Cuban Health Care...M ICHAEL MOORE has made another piece of pure propaganda. This film, called Sicko, attacks the American health-care system. You will agree that there is a lot to attack. But Moore glorifies socialist systems, which have problems all their own. And perhaps his worst offense is to glorify Fidel Castro’s system, as has been done endlessly for as long as most people can remember.

      Moore hit on an inspired idea: He took a group of sick Amer¬icans to Cuba, to seek health care. Not only are these unfortunate people Americans: They are 9/11 rescue workers, heroes. They have been denied the care they need in America (or so the film alleges), and must get it elsewhere.

      As the group is heading to Havana, we hear a song: “I’m on my way to Cuba . . . where all is happy; Cuba, where all is gay.” And it appears exactly this way in Moore’s film. You may remember that, in his previous film, Fahrenheit 9/11, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was portrayed as a nation of happy kite-fliers. The same artistry is applied to Sicko.

      The Left has always had a deep psychological need to believe in the myth of Cuban health care. On that island, as everywhere else, Communism has turned out to be a disaster: economic, physical, and moral. Not only have persecution, torture, and murder been routine, there is nothing material to show for it. The Leninist rationalization was, “You have to break some eggs to make an omelet.” Orwell memorably replied, “Where’s the omelet?” There is never an omelet.

      But Castro’s apologists have tried to create one. Their hopes rest on three lies, principally: that Castro cares for the sick; that he is responsible for almost universal literacy; and that he has been a boon to blacks. Castroite propaganda has been extraordinarily effective, reaching even to people who should know better. Among the most disgraceful words ever uttered by a secretary of state were uttered by Colin Powell in 2001, when he said, “He’s done some good things for his people.” The “he,” of course, was Cuba’s dictator.

      It was hard to know which was worse: the “his people,” which is certainly how Castro thinks of Cubans. Or the imagined omelet, the “good things.”

      The myth of Cuban health care has been debunked in article after article, for the last several decades. (Remember that Castro took power in 1959.) But Michael Moore has given the myth fresh legs, necessitating another round of such articles. If I had a nickel for every article I’ve read entitled “The Myth of Cuban Health Care” . . . But here is another one.

      SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL
      To be sure, there is excellent health care on Cuba — just not for ordinary Cubans. Dr. Jaime Suchlicki of the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies explains that there is not just one system, or even two: There are three. The first is for foreigners who come to Cuba specifically for medical care. This is known as “medical tourism.” The tourists pay in hard currency, which provides oxygen to the regime. And the facilities in which they are treated are First World: clean, well supplied, state-of-the-art.

      The foreigners-only facilities do a big business in what you might call vanity treatments: Botox, liposuction, and breast implants. Remember, too, that there are many separate, or segregated, facilities on Cuba. People speak of “tourism apartheid.” For example, there are separate hotels, separate beaches, separate restaurants — separate everything. As you can well imagine, this causes widespread resentment in the general population.

      The second health-care system is for Cuban elites — the Party, the military, official artists and writers, and so on. In the Soviet Union, these people were called the “nomenklatura.” And their system, like the one for medical tourists, is top-notch.

      Then there is the real Cuban system, the one that ordinary people must use — and it is wretched. Testimony and documentation on the subject are vast. Hospitals and clinics are crumbling. Conditions are so unsanitary, patients may be better off at home, whatever home is. If they do have to go to the hospital, they must bring their own bedsheets, soap, towels, food, light bulbs — even toilet paper. And basic medications are scarce. In Sicko, even sophisticated medications are plentiful and cheap. In the real Cuba, finding an aspirin can be a chore. And an antibiotic will fetch a fortune on the black market.

      A nurse spoke to Isabel Vincent of Canada’s National Post. “We have nothing,” said the nurse. “I haven’t seen aspirin in a Cuban store here for more than a year. If you have any pills in your purse, I’ll take them. Even if they have passed their expiry date.”

      The equipment that doctors have to work with is either antiquated or nonexistent. Doctors have been known to reuse latex gloves — there is no choice. When they travel to the island, on errands of mercy, American doctors make sure to take as much equipment and as many supplies as they can carry. One told the Associated Press, “The [Cuban] doctors are pretty well trained, but they have nothing to work with. It’s like operating with knives and spoons.”

      And doctors are not necessarily privileged citizens in Cuba. A doctor in exile told the Miami Herald that, in 2003, he earned what most doctors did: 575 pesos a month, or about 25 dollars. He had to sell pork out of his home to get by. And the chief of medical services for the whole of the Cuban military had to rent out his car as a taxi on weekends. “Everyone tries to survive,” he explained. (Of course, you can call a Cuban with a car privileged, whatever he does with it.)

      So deplorable is the state of health care in Cuba that old-fashioned diseases are back with a vengeance. These include tuberculosis, leprosy, and typhoid fever. And dengue, another fever, is a particular menace. Indeed, an exiled doctor named Dessy Mendoza Rivero — a former political prisoner and a spectacularly brave man — wrote a book called ¡Dengue! La Epidemia Secreta de Fidel Castro.

      INFANT MORTALITY
      When Castro seized power, almost 50 years ago, Cuba was one of the most advanced countries in Latin America. Its infant-mortality rate was the 13th-lowest in all the world, ahead of even France, Belgium, and West Germany. Statistics in Castro’s Cuba are hard to come by, because honest statistics in any totalitarian society are hard to come by. Some kind of accounting is possible, however: Cuba has slipped in infant mortality, as it has in every other area (except repression). But its infant-mortality rate remains respectable.

      You might suspect a story behind this respectability — and you are right. The regime is very keen on keeping infant mortality down, knowing that the world looks to this statistic as an indicator of the general health of a country. Cuban doctors are instructed to pay particular attention to prenatal and infant care. A woman’s pregnancy is closely monitored. (The regime manages to make the necessary equipment available.) And if there is any sign of abnormality, any reason for concern — the pregnancy is “interrupted.” That is the going euphemism for abortion. The abortion rate in Cuba is sky-high, perversely keeping the infant-mortality rate down.

      Many doctors, of course, recoil at this state of affairs. And there is much doctor dissidence on the island. Some physicians have opened their own clinics, caring for the poor and desperate according to medical standards, not according to ideology or governmental dictates. The authorities have warned that, in the words of one report, “new dissidences in the public-health sector will not be tolerated.” Anyone trying to work outside of approved channels is labeled a counterrevolutionary or enemy agent.

      http://old.nationalreview.com/nordlinger/nordlinger_cuba7-30-07.asp

    • 1 year ago
  • sandokan0
    • 0
      sandokan0  

    • Those that have knowledge of the reality of the health care system in Cuba recognized Michael Moore's documentary Sicko, as a propaganda tool for the Castros dictatorship. Moore employed the most effective Stalinist methods of agitprop, depicting Castros’ health care system as the finest in the world.

      The regime health-care system falls very short of its classless claims as shown in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pqv5ABQP5U&feature=player_embedded

      This leak confirms that Michael Moore is a consummate propagandist.

    • 1 year ago
  • congoboy
  • Nephwrack
  • congoboy
  • Nephwrack
  • trut
  • trut
    • 0
      trut  

    • Curtisreed, you been sucked in AGAIN. Try to make sure your stories have even a shred of truth to them before spewinglies all over the web. Please and thank you.

    • 1 year ago
  • BrushwithDeathToothpaste
    • 0
      BrushwithDeathToothpaste  

    • i become suspicious when I read the following:

      "the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so "disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room".

      In the govt controlled, oppressed world of Cuba, why would the doctors walk out? I suspect the doctors were not actually in Cuba and were comprised of expats in Florida. Technically speaking they are Cuban doctors.

      The other red flag is comparison of life expectancies in both nations. They are practically identical. Does that mean Cuba has good health care, or that we have crappy health care?

    • 1 year ago
  • congoboy
  • congoboy
    • 0
      congoboy  
    • Image
    • BrushwithDeathToothpaste:

      An American reporter writes about the medical apartheid that she witnessed in Cuba

      Those of you who saw Michael Moore's documentary "Sicko," would remember the scene where Moore and his guests walked into a Cuban pharmacy and asked for an asthma medication, Salbutemol, and immediately the clerk opens a drawer and gives it to one of the guests, a woman from New York, who then begins to cry when she learns that in Cuba that medicine costs only a fraction of what it costs in New York. According to Moore, his guests received the "the same care" that any regular Cuban would receive, "no more, no less."

      But the scene at the Cuban pharmacy, as the whole portion of Sicko filmed in Cuba, was a fallacy conceived, scripted, staged and rehearsed by the Cuban regime with Moore's acting the part of the useful idiot.

      In an article titled "Catching a cold in Cuba," Sally Melcher Jarvis, a correspondent for a Pennsylvanian newspaper who went to Cuba in November of 2007 accompanying a humanitarian mission organized by a local museum, found out about the apartheid that regular Cubans are suffering since Castro turned them into second class citizens in their own country.

      Here is part of what she wrote: "It wasn't much of a cold; just the kind that would get better by itself in a week. In the meantime it was a nuisance with a cough and stuffy nose. A little over-the-counter remedy would help.....There were no over-the-counter remedies to be had. I asked the guide what Cubans did if they had a cold. The guide said that a Cuban would go to the doctor — a visit free of charge — who would write a prescription for aspirin. However, there would be no way to fill the prescription. We visited a pharmacy later in the trip. Behind the counter five well-dressed Cuban women waited to serve, but the shelves were empty. The only items in sight were the monthly ration of sanitary napkins, 10 permitted per Cuban woman per month.

      It was like being in a dream where two different things can happen at the same time. We were in a two-tier system: one for the privileged (tourists, for example) and the other for those who lived and worked in socialist Cuba. Our luxurious state-owned hotel was closed to Cubans, except for those who worked there. A Cuban could not even come in for a meal.

      It was depressing to see attractive and intelligent people restricted and denied opportunity in such an appealing land only 90 miles away from our country. The accident of birth has put me in a free country and I have never been so grateful." Click here to read the entire article http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

    • 1 year ago
  • ras_menelik
  • ras_menelik
  • congoboy
    • 0
      congoboy  
    • Image
    • ras_menelik:

      March 2 - These photos were taken at Havana's psychiatric hospital, known as Mazorra, in early January of this year and taken out of the island by people who risked their lives to show the world what really is happening in Castro's Cuba.

      These are several of the more than 40 patients who died of hypothermia at the hospital, when temperatures near freezing hit the area where Mazorra is located.

      These patients died because of the negligence of those in charge of this hospital, and after they died, hospital officials threw them on a table, one on top of the other, like bags of garbage at the local dumpster.

      This is the fantastic healthcare that Cubans receive, according to Michael Moore and other useful idiots.

      Patients are treated worse than animals. It is the cruelty of that brutal regime that has been oppressing the Cuban people for more than 51 years, while the dictator murdering and oppressing Cubans is referred to as "president," and embraced by Latin American leaders who were democratically elected.

      Many show marks that indicate that patients were beaten before they died.

    • 1 year ago
  • a619ko
    • 0
      a619ko  

    • Hmm...The Cuban education and health systems are actually...Great. The people of Cuba, in education have a 99.8% literacy rate, although maybe taught propaganda,No doubt about it. In the U.S., we would call it "values of education."...Even so, Cuba has a higher literacy rate then that of the U.S.(A 1st world country). Cuba also produces fine doctors that are ordered to help parts of South America. But, when we talk about Moores sicko, we find that Cuba, does not have the money to purchase great quality medical equipment...Even so, Castro has managed to treat his people well.

    • 1 year ago
  • congoboy
    • -1
      congoboy  
    • Image
    • a619ko:

      The first four photos below, were also taken at the Marina Azcuy facility.

      They were taken at the Hogar Provincial de Ancianos Marina Azcuy in Pinar del Rio province.
      http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm
      In September of 2004, one of Sweden most influential newspapers, Dagens Nyheter, published several of these photos in an article about healthcare in Cuba for elderly people.

      The other one was taken by a tourist who was recently in Cuba. Click on the images to enlarge.

    • 1 year ago
  • MizPiz
    • 0
      MizPiz  

    • [sarcasm]Congratulations, you proved Michael Moore is a sack of shit. I can only imagine this would completely destroy the health care debate and it's arguments just like with Al Gore and global warming.[/sarcasm]

    • 1 year ago
  • MotherForTruth
  • congoboy
  • MotherForTruth
  • congoboy
  • congoboy
  • MotherForTruth
  • congoboy
  • MotherForTruth
    • 0
      MotherForTruth  
    • congoboy:

      True. That is also my opinion. But the only way to find the absolute truth is you need to experience the life in both countries. In this case, you need to experience healthcare in Cuba and in US. If you rely on someone's report you most likely will be manipulated.

    • 1 year ago
  • jahbini
    • 0
      jahbini  
    • congoboy:

      CB, Thanks for sharing.

      Facts are facts. Can't argue with a fact. There are lots of facts.

      Truth is not fact. Truth is revealed by the viewpoint you as a human view the facts. Everybody has a truth. Everybody is 100% for their own truth. Namaste and all that crap.

      Wisdom, however, is the ability to select the most valuable truth(s) from all the possible viewpoints, and act on that appropriately.

      CongoBoy, you and I are both working in that direction.

    • 1 year ago
  • congoboy
  • congoboy
    • 0
      congoboy  
    • jahbini:

      facts can be disseminated incorrectly and sometimes twisted to make a point that may not be true. depending on ones gullibility and belief system, what may not be truth may appear to be so. i am certainly not infallible but i attempt not to be gullible. i can be fooled as as easily as anyone sometimes but i try to explore issues a little more deeply than just taking the word of a politician, actor or movie producer. just because one is powerful and or wealthy and gets more media attention doesnt necessarily make them intelligent or even smarter than anyone else. following the money trail to see who's profiting from any given cause reveals a lot. beware of prophets seeking profits.

    • 1 year ago
  • jahbini
  • MotherForTruth
  • congoboy
  • congoboy
  • trut
  • congoboy
  • Varex_Sythe
  • congoboy
    • 0
      congoboy  
    • Varex_Sythe:

      nope, but i've researched it beyond moores propaganda film sicko...To be sure, there is excellent health care on Cuba — just not for ordinary Cubans. Dr. Jaime Suchlicki of the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies explains that there is not just one system, or even two: There are three. The first is for foreigners who come to Cuba specifically for medical care. This is known as “medical tourism.” The tourists pay in hard currency, which provides oxygen to the regime. And the facilities in which they are treated are First World: clean, well supplied, state-of-the-art.

      The foreigners-only facilities do a big business in what you might call vanity treatments: Botox, liposuction, and breast implants. Remember, too, that there are many separate, or segregated, facilities on Cuba. People speak of “tourism apartheid.” For example, there are separate hotels, separate beaches, separate restaurants — separate everything. As you can well imagine, this causes widespread resentment in the general population.

      The second health-care system is for Cuban elites — the Party, the military, official artists and writers, and so on. In the Soviet Union, these people were called the “nomenklatura.” And their system, like the one for medical tourists, is top-notch.

      Then there is the real Cuban system, the one that ordinary people must use — and it is wretched. Testimony and documentation on the subject are vast. Hospitals and clinics are crumbling. Conditions are so unsanitary, patients may be better off at home, whatever home is. If they do have to go to the hospital, they must bring their own bedsheets, soap, towels, food, light bulbs — even toilet paper. And basic medications are scarce. In Sicko, even sophisticated medications are plentiful and cheap. In the real Cuba, finding an aspirin can be a chore. And an antibiotic will fetch a fortune on the black market.

      A nurse spoke to Isabel Vincent of Canada’s National Post. “We have nothing,” said the nurse. “I haven’t seen aspirin in a Cuban store here for more than a year. If you have any pills in your purse, I’ll take them. Even if they have passed their expiry date.”

      The equipment that doctors have to work with is either antiquated or nonexistent. Doctors have been known to reuse latex gloves — there is no choice. When they travel to the island, on errands of mercy, American doctors make sure to take as much equipment and as many supplies as they can carry. One told the Associated Press, “The [Cuban] doctors are pretty well trained, but they have nothing to work with. It’s like operating with knives and spoons.”

      And doctors are not necessarily privileged citizens in Cuba. A doctor in exile told the Miami Herald that, in 2003, he earned what most doctors did: 575 pesos a month, or about 25 dollars. He had to sell pork out of his home to get by. And the chief of medical services for the whole of the Cuban military had to rent out his car as a taxi on weekends. “Everyone tries to survive,” he explained. (Of course, you can call a Cuban with a car privileged, whatever he does with it.)

      So deplorable is the state of health care in Cuba that old-fashioned diseases are back with a vengeance. These include tuberculosis, leprosy, and typhoid fever. And dengue, another fever, is a particular menace. Indeed, an exiled doctor named Dessy Mendoza Rivero — a former political prisoner and a spectacularly brave man — wrote a book called ¡Dengue! La Epidemia Secreta de Fidel Castro.http://old.nationalreview.com/nordlinger/nordlinger_cuba7-30-07.asp

    • 1 year ago
  • congoboy
    • 0
      congoboy  
    • trut:

      An American reporter writes about the medical apartheid that she witnessed in Cuba

      Those of you who saw Michael Moore's documentary "Sicko," would remember the scene where Moore and his guests walked into a Cuban pharmacy and asked for an asthma medication, Salbutemol, and immediately the clerk opens a drawer and gives it to one of the guests, a woman from New York, who then begins to cry when she learns that in Cuba that medicine costs only a fraction of what it costs in New York. According to Moore, his guests received the "the same care" that any regular Cuban would receive, "no more, no less."

      But the scene at the Cuban pharmacy, as the whole portion of Sicko filmed in Cuba, was a fallacy conceived, scripted, staged and rehearsed by the Cuban regime with Moore's acting the part of the useful idiot.

      In an article titled "Catching a cold in Cuba," Sally Melcher Jarvis, a correspondent for a Pennsylvanian newspaper who went to Cuba in November of 2007 accompanying a humanitarian mission organized by a local museum, found out about the apartheid that regular Cubans are suffering since Castro turned them into second class citizens in their own country.

      Here is part of what she wrote: "It wasn't much of a cold; just the kind that would get better by itself in a week. In the meantime it was a nuisance with a cough and stuffy nose. A little over-the-counter remedy would help.....There were no over-the-counter remedies to be had. I asked the guide what Cubans did if they had a cold. The guide said that a Cuban would go to the doctor — a visit free of charge — who would write a prescription for aspirin. However, there would be no way to fill the prescription. We visited a pharmacy later in the trip. Behind the counter five well-dressed Cuban women waited to serve, but the shelves were empty. The only items in sight were the monthly ration of sanitary napkins, 10 permitted per Cuban woman per month.

      It was like being in a dream where two different things can happen at the same time. We were in a two-tier system: one for the privileged (tourists, for example) and the other for those who lived and worked in socialist Cuba. Our luxurious state-owned hotel was closed to Cubans, except for those who worked there. A Cuban could not even come in for a meal.

      It was depressing to see attractive and intelligent people restricted and denied opportunity in such an appealing land only 90 miles away from our country. The accident of birth has put me in a free country and I have never been so grateful." Click here to read the entire article http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

    • 1 year ago
  • freecrack
    • 0
      freecrack  

    • the big one was a great movie, as well has his early more independant work.but if you watch his shit, they get progressively (pun intended) one sided.
      i still havent seen sicko cuz his 9-11 bush bashing movie was such propaganda.

      i hate bush, but i want legit reasons to that end, not propaganda.

    • 1 year ago
  • crystalman
  • Dmerza1989
  • congoboy
  • Ryuu88
  • pjacobs51
    • +5
      pjacobs51  

    • Moore said on his blog that the cable came in the wake of the US health insurance industry deciding to "to spend millions" to go after him and, if necessary, "push Michael Moore off a cliff".

      He said the industry worked with anti-Castro Cubans in Miami in order to have them speak out and smear the film.

      "So, on January 31, 2008, a state department official stationed in Havana took a made-up story and sent it back to his HQ in Washington," said Moore.

      The film-maker said on his blog that the diplomatic cable, dated 31 January 2008, was "a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the state spin their lies and try to recreate reality.

      He added: "The entire nation of Cuba was shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008! The Cubans embraced the film so much so it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of 'Sicko' were set up in towns all across the country."

    • 1 year ago
  • congoboy
    • -1
      congoboy  
    • pjacobs51:

      thats another moore quote we can all bank on! and like al gore, he's just another fat bloated white dude bamboozling the ignorant with his fiction to make a buck

    • 1 year ago
  • jahbini
    • +2
      jahbini  
    • congoboy:

      This article from 2007 actually compares the real cuban system with the version that Sicko brings forward. Yes, there are several tiers of medical treatment. Moore only presented the Pretty one.

      Still, Cuba even has vaccines that are effective against diseases, where the US has not been able to develop similar cures. All on a budget that won't even pay for your granny's Depends.

      The link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QCJaSljdK3YJ:www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N15193062.htm+sicko+cuba&cd=20&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

      Still, the effectiveness of the Cuban Health establishment is pretty phenomenal for a nation so suppressed.

      A quote from that article -- "Dr. David Hickey, a transplant surgeon at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, said Cuba is a world leader in primary health care based on preventive medicine.
      "It's a very sobering experience for someone coming from the affluent West to see what they can achieve," he said.
      Hickey, an honorary professor of surgery at Havana University, said he had nothing to teach Cuban doctors who do heart, kidney, pancreas and liver transplants.
      A decades-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba forced it to develop its own molecular biology industry, which produces innovative drugs that prevent rejection in transplants.
      Cuba has developed the world's first Meningitis B vaccine which is available in Third World countries but not in Europe or the United States due to U.S. sanctions.
      "

    • 1 year ago
  • congoboy
  • jahbini
    • 0
      jahbini  
    • congoboy:

      Hey, I'd love a Cuban Vacation! I hear they actually have real sugar cane. Love that stuff. Makes the best rum.

      You going to spring for the airfare? I'll go if you do.

    • 1 year ago
  • a619ko
  • congoboy
  • CitizenHill
    • 0
      CitizenHill  

    • It is so evident that Michael Moore early on learned how to game the progressive social activists with the propaganda they wanted to see and hear - proof positive that those who stand for nothing will fall for anything.

    • 1 year ago
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