Posted on 10/19/2007 4:29:23 PM PDT by slickeroo
Fox News Airs Real Cuban Healthcare Video
Friday, October 19, 2007 10:14 AM
By: Humberto Fontova
Exactly a half century ago both The New York Times and CBS — between hailing him as a 'humanist" "a Christian" a "Robin Hood" and an "anti-communist" — reported that the Cuban rebel chieftain Fidel Castro commanded "hundreds" of guerrillas in a "war" against Cuban dictator Batista.
On clandestine trips to the war zone in Cuba's Sierra Maestra mountains, reporters for the two most prestigious media outlets in America had seen these hundreds of rebels first hand.
Two years later Castro himself cackled while recounting how he'd ordered his 18 "rebels" to march in front of the gaping U.S. reporters then scurry into the bushes, change uniforms and march through again.
During this time the wire dispatches from New York on the Cuban rebellion, including those from The Associated Press, were being concocted and written word for word by a Castro's own agent in New York, Mario Llerena, who admits as much in his book, "The Unsuspected Revolution: The Birth and Rise of Castroism."
In the words of (leftist) British historian Hugh Thomas: "In all essentials, Castro's battle for Cuba was a public relations campaign, fought in New York and Washington." "Fought" and also won, I might add.
In 1979 David Halberstam's book, "The Powers That Be," was all the rage in Beltway circles. The book claimed that the major media had "stopped following the news and was now making the news . . . an account of the rise of the modern media as an instrument of political power," reads the jacket. Reportedly, this became one of Fidel Castro's favorite books.
Not that he probably learned anything from it. Simply that he received smug confirmation of something he'd proven decades earlier.
Well, he's still at it — and still (mostly) winning. Castro's propaganda ministry retains an influence (more of a spell, actually) over worldwide media and academic circles that simply will not abate and that has proven impervious to refutation, however thorough, consistent and authoritatively documented.
But Michael Moore's parroting of Castro's claims in "Sicko" gagged even some in the U.S. mainstream media.
An ABC producer, amazed by pictures smuggled out of Cuban hospitals and posted on the Web site The Real Cuba, decided to counter "Sicko" by using ABC's Havana Bureau to interview Cuban dissidents. These would reveal the actual conditions in Cuba's hospitals.
ABC's Havana Bureau shuffled nervously and finally said OK, but first they'd have to ask the Stalinist regime's permission for such an interview. Think about that for a second. Then remind yourself that these people are probably clinically sane. Then ask yourself what's in Cuban water.
ABC's Havana Bureau (like any news agency's Havana Bureau ) proved utterly useless in reporting anything unsanctioned by a Stalinist regime's propaganda ministry and dared not raise a peep of public protest over this totalitarian censorship. This is the very same ABC, by the way, that on its "World News Tonight" bemoaned the Dixie Chicks canceled concerts (in completely private-sector venues) as a form of "censorship."
Thwarted by their own Havana Bureau, some ABC producers resolved to get their hands on any evidence regarding conditions in Cuba's hospitals, feature them on "20/20" and blow the case wide open. For this they contacted George Utset who runs The Real Cuba Web site whose pictures had originally impressed them. George now turned to contacts inside Cuba. The evidence was to come from the very belly of the beast, in the form of smuggled videos.
Michael Moore's reputation inside Cuba helped the clandestine project. Two years ago Fidel Castro hailed Michael Moore as "that outstanding American!" For weeks "Fahrenheit 9-11" was featured on Cuba's state TV.
All this instantly made its director suspect among Castro's subjects. "Sicko" confirmed the worst. This American millionaire, by spreading a Stalinist regime's lies, struck many Cubans as a simple accomplice to their oppression — one of many. The friend of my oppressor is also my oppressor, they reasoned. The Castroite propaganda in "Sicko" so outraged some Cubans that, now knowing the truth could reach millions of Americans via ABC's "20/20," they risked their lives by using hidden cameras to film conditions in Cuban hospitals — but only those hospitals that were genuinely Cuban, meaning that they served Cubans.
The ones showcased by Michael Moore exclusively serve rich foreigners and high Communist Party officials. Watching Moore reading from Castro's cue cards by claiming these hospitals served average Cubans, knowing this propaganda would be spread worldwide (and swallowed by many), was more than these desperate Cubans could stomach.
At enormous risk, two hours of shocking — often revolting — footage was obtained with tiny hidden cameras and smuggled out of Cuba.
The man who assumed most of this risk was a Cuban dissident, Dr. Darsi Ferrer, who was also willing to talk on camera, narrating much of the video's revelations. Dr. Ferrer works in these genuinely Cuban hospitals daily, witnessing the truth.
More importantly, he wasn't cowed from revealing this truth to America and the world.
Alas, with the videos finally in their hands, ABC started getting cold feet. The "20/20" segment kept getting smaller and smaller. That on-again, off-again funeral extravaganza widely expected in Havana has raised the perceived importance of Havana press bureaus, and ABC's Havana staff had already whimpered objections to this project. They were unaware of the smuggled videos but many of their colleagues stateside apparently "felt their pain." More cutting and more paring ensued.
On Sept. 12, "20/20" ended up running a short segment on the matter, barely five minutes long and with almost none of the smuggled video footage.
Even so, viewer response was thunderous. "20/20" was deluged with atta-boy! e-mails. The Cuban regime responded also. The Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee called a meeting to discuss the issue, then called in ABC's Havana bureau for a talking-to.
John Stossel's follow-up shows on "Sicko" included no mention of Cuba's healthcare.
Enter Fox News, and the "Hannity & Colmes" show in particular. Fox producers got word of these smuggled videos and immediately requested a look.
They promptly got to work editing, translating and subtitling. On Oct 10 they ran huge segments of the smuggled videos. Fox viewers saw naked patients covered with flies while laying on "hospital beds" consisting of a bare mattress. They saw building that would be condemned by the health board of any U.S. municipality serving as "hospitals." They saw and heard Dr. Darsi Ferrer along with other Cubans who described their inability to obtain something so basic as aspirins.
"Greed," was the motif of Michael Moore's "Sicko," right?
Well, Fox viewers saw footage of Cubans being told that aspirins and other medicines just might be available to them, but only if they paid in U.S. dollars, not the Cuban pesos they held out in desperation.
Dr. Ferrer, from all we hear to date, has not been arrested or pummeled by the secret police, which is cause for some consolation. But as so often happens with totalitarian regimes, once one of their targets is widely publicized, the regime simply moves their crosshairs to one more obscure.
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Humberto Fontova is the author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara. Visit www.hfontova.com
¿Donde podemos ver el video?
Excellent post. Thank you!
I wish I’d seen that. I wonder if there’s someplace it can be viewed.
The headline word “slime” can be either an adjective or a verb.
How hard is it to slime, slime?
In any event, the original was "Fox News Airs Real Cuban Healthcare Video."
Sliming Michael Moore is like sliming a snail. I think Fox is doing something better - they’re pouring salt on this slug.
I had not realized that it was appropriate to change the title from the original article’s title to one that gave a totally different meaning to the thrust of the article.
I’m not sure there’s enough slime on earth to coat that beast.
This is what HilaryCare would look like.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Here is my wish: May Michael Moore fall ill the next time he is in Cuba, and may he be “cared for” to his dying day in the facilities and in the manner in which the average Cuban is cared for.
fix the headline:
Fox News Helps Slimey Michael Moore
Cinema de Havana.
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