Sicko Propaganda

Newsmax ^ | 7/23/07 | Humberto Fontova

[slickeroo]

Sicko Propaganda

Humberto Fontova

Monday, July 23, 2007

"We cannot, for a second, abandon propaganda" wrote Castro in a letter to a revolutionary colleague in 1954. "Propaganda is vital — propaganda is the heart of all struggles."

Michael Moore claims that Cuba's Stalinist regime played it as straight with him during the filming of Sicko as he plays it with its viewers.

"I asked them to give us [the 9/11 workers featured in the documentary] the same care they give their own Cuban citizens," he assured us "No more, no less. And that's what they did."

You cringe at having to contest this in full public view.

Does anyone with a fully-functioning brain actually believe it? Will I insult America's intelligence by pointing out something so appallingly obvious as the absurdity of Moore's claim?

You would like to think the forthcoming refutation by Dr. Julio Alfonso, a Cuban doctor who defected in 1999, is too obvious to require publication and circulation. But sadly, history shows that Castro's propaganda (as disseminated by his agents, both on the payroll and off) has an odd — if mercifully temporary — effect on cerebrums that otherwise function normally.

This effect is similar to the one sugar in the gas tank has on an automobile engine.

As a recent and tragic example of this phenomenon, recall that in April of 2000 after a Dan Rather "60 Minutes" interview with Elian Gonzalez' father, polls showed that 70 percent of Americans firmly believed that this father — a subject of a Stalinist regime who was surrounded by Castro plainclothes police while in the very CBS studio — was acting completely free from coercion.

So let's go ahead and allow Dr. Julio Cesar Alfonso, who worked within Cuba's healthcare system for years, to remind America of something that should be blatantly obvious: "The treatment Moore and the rescue workers receive in the film was done specifically for them, because they (the regime) knew it would make great propaganda."

Dr. Alfonso had barely finished his interview with the Miami Herald when something titled "Havana Hospital" launched a Web site "After being featured in the Cannes Film Festival — honored film 'Sicko,' we are now open for Medical Tourism to Cuba." says the banner. "We welcome you with peace and goodwill without any concern towards politics or propaganda. We are very good surgeons ready to help."

Among the featured bargains: "Breast augmentation/implants for only $1,500 (through the belly button procedure.)"

A full 99 percent of Cubans have no more experience with a hospital like the one featured in "Sicko" than Michael Moore has with a Soloflex. Most Cubans view a hospital like the one featured in "Sicko" the way teenage boys used to view Playboy magazine and husbands view a Victoria's Secret catalog: "WOW! — if only!"

For an accurate picture of what the average Cuban undergoes in healthcare please visit the harrowing pictures smuggled out of Cuba (at enormous peril) and posted on TheRealCuba.com. If a picture is normally worth a thousand worth then these are worth a million.

In 'Sicko,' Moore parrots the Castroite claim that Cubans live longer than Americans. In fact the figures are practically identical, which actually casts Cuba's vaunted healthcare in a negative light. In all nations with high emigration rates, longevity rates skew high.

This occurs because the birth is recorded but the death gets recorded in the nation migrated to. So it seems like fewer people die.

Naturally, the opposite effect appears in nations with a large influx of immigrants. The death is recorded but the birth was recorded in the nation immigrated from. So generally speaking, a nation with high longevity but known to hemorrhage its people has little to boast about with regards to longevity figures.

All they're proving is that theirs is a miserable place to live from which massive numbers of people flee.

And few nations hemorrhage people like Cuba — almost 20 percent of its population since he glorious revolution. This 20 percent Cuba's population, let's not forget, represents those who got out with the clothes on their back and against enormous odds.

Had Stalinist Cuba followed the norms of all civilized nations in allowing free emigration with family, property, etc. (as in pre-Castro Cuba, when almost nobody left) Cuba today (statistically speaking) would boast the highest longevity rates in the annals of man's history.

Methuselah at age 969, and Noah at 950, would compare to the average Cuban as spring chickens.

As eagerly expected by Michael Moore's Cuban case officers, "Sicko's" screening was the signal for their other propaganda assets to chime in. "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," reported Anthony Boadle from Reuter's Havana Bureau last week.

Of this 27 word sentence, by a news agency considered authoritative worldwide, exactly 14 words are true. This vaccine is not available in the U.S. and Europe alright, but hardly because of "sanctions."

In fact, in 1999 Bill Clinton's Treasury Department granted the pharmaceutical giant, SmithKline Beecham, a license to market the Cuban vaccine in a joint venture with Castro's medical ministry, pending FDA approval.

And why not? Castro's minister of public health himself, Carlos Dotres, had hailed the vaccine as the only effective one in the world!" Highly impressed, Bill Clinton's FDA chief Dr. Carl Frasch, said it could annually prevent "1,000-2,000 cases" of the dread disease in the U.S. 110 U.S. congresspersons (the usuals) promptly signed a special letter to Sec. of State Madeline Albright beseeching her to allow this breach of the diabolical "embargo," if only to protect the lives of America's children!"

That was eight years ago. No, the reason the vaccine is not available today in the U.S. and Europe is simply that — like so many other Castroite concoctions and proclamations dutifully trumpeted by news agencies who earn Havana bureaus — the vaccine is a farce and its sale a swindle. And, at least in this case, most civilized countries refuse to help propagate the swindle on their citizens.

Some Third World countries discovered the swindle the hard way. "Brazil has wasted $300 million on a Cuban vaccine that is completely ineffective," wrote Dr. Isaías Raw, director of Sao Paolo's prestigious Butantan Institue specializing in Biotechnology.

A study by Brazil's Centro de Vigilancia Epidemiológica (Center for Epidemiological Research) from 1999 seconded Dr Raw: "The studies conducted on the use of the Cuban vaccine in children under 4 years old-the major risk group for hepatitis B showed no evidence that the vaccine protected them against the disease. This vaccine should not be recommended."

All current medical literature flatly asserts that despite countless attempts, "no effective vaccine against the meningitis B has yet been developed." The pharmaceutical giant Novartis is currently testing one and claims to be close to it's development.

Sadly for Michael Moore's Cuban case officers, the medical establishment remains infested with men and women who stubbornly cling to their professional ethics. Enlisting their full cooperation presents challenges much more daunting than enlisting the cooperation of news agencies panting for a Havana Bureau and a portly filmmaker obsessed with vilifying his country.

************ Humberto Fontova is the author of "Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him."

[slickeroo]

"Michael Moor'e Cuban case-officers," indeed.

[griswold3]

At least on ‘Hardball’ last night, Chris Matthews and Michael Moore called this what it is.... Socialized Medicine.

But they kept saying ‘It’s Free’. (Ain’t nothing ‘free’ Mikey Boy.)

[pnh102]

Michael Moore claims that Cuba's Stalinist regime played it as straight with him during the filming of Sicko as he plays it with its viewers.

That claim would be 100% correct.

[weegee]

But they kept saying ‘It’s Free’. (Ain’t nothing ‘free’ Mikey Boy.)

That especially goes for the people living UNDER Socialism. You are required to pay for it and it is criminal to buy your own private service.

[The Great RJ]

I’ll believe Moore’s BS when I see the Hollywood lefties start going to Cuba for their own medical care. Moore should start by getting a gastric bypass in a Cuban hospital.

[Cheburashka]

At least on ‘Hardball’ last night, Chris Matthews and Michael Moore called this what it is.... Socialized Medicine.

But they kept saying ‘It’s Free’. (Ain’t nothing ‘free’ Mikey Boy.)

---

Of course it’s free. The plantation master always provides free health care for the slaves. It's not like the slaves have any money to pay for it with.