Damn You, Michael Moore

It's time for me to reposition toward the center by condemning the Great Satan Michael Moore. Not only does Moore engage whatever it is all Decent People are supposed to condemn him for (it can't be because some portions of his films are inaccurate, because nobody shuns Tony Snow or Charles Krauthammer) but he's screwing around with capitalization. I mean SiCKO, really? All-caps with a little "i"? The world doesn't need this. It was bad enough when big business started in with the AstraZeneca and so forth, we don't need it on the left as well.

Photo by Flickr user Tim Snell used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

If I'm correct, aren't you operating under some kind of consent decree, Matthew, where you agree not to comment on anybody elses spelling, punctuation, grammar, or capitalization problems under you get your own house in order.

If you fail to meet the terms of the consent decree, doesn't that mean you get thrown immediately into jail, without passing Go?

Posted by Petey | June 22, 2007 9:07 AM

The mIXeD cAPs thing was, as I recall, really big as a signifier of youth and anti-establishment attitude in the early days of the Internet (1995-96).

I guess Michael Moore is either trying to revive it or is a little behind the times himself.

Posted by James Gary | June 22, 2007 9:16 AM

What Petey said. Glass houses, Matt. Also, shouldn't you be condemning Steve Jobs? The iPod was the grandaddy of this intercaps thing, if memory serves.

Posted by Christmas | June 22, 2007 9:18 AM

I haven't seen this film yet... Does anyone know when it'll be in theaters or on DVD? I am a medical technologist and I've worked in cancer care for years. I can speak from inside experience and say that the US system of healthcare is horribly broken, infiltrated by greedy businessmen. Healing is a psychological and spiritual process as well as a physical one, but the US attitude toward healing is "Cash, charge or credit?"

Posted by J R | June 22, 2007 9:41 AM

...anybody elses(!) spelling, punctuation, grammar, or capitalization problems under(!) you get your own house in order.

Petey maked spilling mistake's.

Posted by apm | June 22, 2007 9:58 AM

I think we need to generate tailor made "Sista Solja"s. We need some famous, outspoken people whom even Noam Chomsky would call a dangerous left-wing radical. That way even the most liberal candidate could have a "Sista Solja moment" without betraying their principles. So, Matt, for the good of the cause I suggest you write an essay proposing that parenting be socialized.

Posted by Njorl | June 22, 2007 10:53 AM

Posted by J R | June 22, 2007 9:41 AM:"I am a medical technologist and I've worked in cancer care for years. I can speak from inside experience and say that the US system of healthcare is horribly broken, infiltrated by greedy businessmen. Healing is a psychological and spiritual process as well as a physical one, but the US attitude toward healing is "Cash, charge or credit?""

Anecdote is not necessary useful. Horribly broken? Infiltrated by greedy businessmen? Can you please explain why the US has so a long life expectancy then? Can you explain why, specifically in the area of cancer care, if you are far more likely to live longer in the US after diagnosis than in Britain for many forms of cancer? Can you please tell me how many chemo therapy drugs were developed outside the US? Like it or not, for those with insurance, health care in the US is very very good. A spiritual process? May I ask for any evidence whatsoever, involving a double blind test, that would even suggest that is true?

Posted by HeiGou | June 22, 2007 11:00 AM

mATT,

I wish you would get this straight. Michael Moore is NOT the Great Satan. He's the Big Satan. And there's a reason he's getting interested in health care: at his age, and at his weight...

Posted by wendell | June 22, 2007 11:10 AM

Can you explain why, specifically in the area of cancer care, if you are far more likely to live longer in the US after diagnosis than in Britain for many forms of cancer?

Yeah, we all saw the Kudlow piece...stop gerrymandering your argument around our failures in other aspects of healthcare, such as diabetes. Also, considering our place in the world financially, US life expectancy is nothing to be crowing about. The development of chemotherapy drugs is more often than not NIH-funded, and thereby outside the bailiwick of the pay-to-play system to which J.R. was referring.

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | June 22, 2007 11:33 AM

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | June 22, 2007 11:33 AM:"stop gerrymandering your argument around our failures in other aspects of healthcare, such as diabetes."

I don't see why I should - after all ten seconds of thought into the issue would show that whatever is really going wrong with American health care is a damn complicated thing that is not responsive to trite cliches about corporate greed. Diabetes is, after all, largely self inflicted and a product of wealth.

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | June 22, 2007 11:33 AM:"Also, considering our place in the world financially, US life expectancy is nothing to be crowing about."

Perhaps and yet America does not do too badly.

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | June 22, 2007 11:33 AM:"The development of chemotherapy drugs is more often than not NIH-funded, and thereby outside the bailiwick of the pay-to-play system to which J.R. was referring."

J.R. was only referring to greedy corporations as far as I could see. I agree that the NIH funds a lot of drug work. Funds that for some reason socialist (and I expect fairly greedy business free) North Korea does not have. But the work is still often done with or by corporations.

Posted by HeiGou | June 22, 2007 11:40 AM

Seems like every time someone needs to bash socialized healthcare, they run to the UK.

Well, figures: the UK NHS sucks. We all agree. Starting with the British themselves.

Try to make the same arguments with Germany, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, even Italy, Spain* and Portugal.

Have fun finding figures you can take out of context to make the US look nice. It will be a challenge.

* Which funnily enough gets so many 'sick' British tourists every year that there ended up being plenty of complaining at the highest levels of both governments to get better paid for the favor.

Posted by El Cruzado | June 22, 2007 11:46 AM

Joe Klein types are always mentioning Michael Moore as a left version of Ann Coulter. Why? Moore does not advocate against people he has disagreements with. He hasn't suggested people blow up Washington Times building. He is also not celebrated by the MSM by constantly getting invited on gasbag shows as a pundit or "constitutional expert".

Posted by DonB | June 22, 2007 11:52 AM

All-caps with a little "i"?

He's trying to destroy our system of Capitalism!!

Posted by moron | June 22, 2007 12:18 PM

Anybody know why SiCKO is spelled that way? There has to be some significance to this choice, right?

Posted by blah | June 22, 2007 12:45 PM

SiCKO? You mean "silicon carbon potassium oxide"?

Posted by jlw | June 22, 2007 12:56 PM

Can you please explain why the US has so a long life expectancy then?

Below UK, France, Sweden, Japan, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, and Italy, not to mention Bosnia and Herzegovina (among others); from Cruzado's list we do nip Denmark and Portugal.

I don't think this stat is particularly meaningful, especially as a metric for health care, but if you're going to cite statistics pick ones that help your case.

Posted by Matt Weiner | June 22, 2007 1:19 PM

Having watched SiCKO last night, I have to tell you--it's a kick in the gut. I didn't feel very good about America or being an American. It's not a partisan film at all--he's out for blood on both sides. Let's put it this way: Mr. Moore may be a propagandist, but he's a damn good one. He's angry (and rightly so) about the state of health care in this nation.

When you watch SiCKO be prepared to feel like the lowest rung of the totem pole. America looks like crap in that movie (except of course for Guantanamo Bay, where the detainees have excellent care--interestingly enough they can get dental care 24 hours a day, but in the suburbs of Washington, DC a 12 year old boy dies of an abscessed tooth because his mother couldn't locate care covered by medicaid).

And any "Democrats" uncomfortable about what Moore has to say in this film can leave my party. If you want to call yourself a member of the Democratic party, our health care system is unacceptable. Finally, Hillary is the worst of them. She's taken a complete 180% turn since the 90s and is now the number 2 recipient of health care money in Congress. I wouldn't look to her to replace our current system of evil with anything good.

Posted by James Hare | June 22, 2007 2:37 PM

I wouldn't look to her to replace our current system of evil with anything good.

Baseless. Her current plan is less ambitious than Obama's or Edward's, but saying it wouldn't be an improvement is asinine.

Posted by washerdreyer | June 22, 2007 3:48 PM

i assume it is a play on PhRMA.

Posted by justinf | June 22, 2007 6:22 PM

Matt Weiner:

Life expectancy comparisons need to take into account America's ethnic diversity: we have some population groups that aren't exactly into clean living, and consequently have poor life expectancies: blacks, American Indians, etc.

Posted by Harry | June 22, 2007 7:31 PM

The earliest case of egregious mixed-caps I know of would be Steve Jobs' company NeXT, from 1985.

Posted by Jon H | June 22, 2007 9:16 PM

Did I say that life expectancy was a bad metric for measuring health? Yes I did.

I believe there's some dispute about whether lower life expectancy for black people and Native Americans is entirely due to their alleged moral failings, though; there's a lot of research about the relation of societal inequality to life expectancy, and of course those groups are disproportionately likely to get crappy health care because they're uninsured.

Posted by Matt Weiner | June 23, 2007 12:19 AM

I don't see why I should - after all ten seconds of thought into the issue would show that whatever is really going wrong with American health care is a damn complicated thing that is not responsive to trite cliches about corporate greed. Diabetes is, after all, largely self inflicted and a product of wealth.

Diabetes is more often than not a side-effect of lack of wealth -- the poor subsist on calorically dense, low-cost food. Barring your fave bugbear, cancer, most U.S. illness is self-inflicted, so does that mean we turn a blind eye to any affliction not deemed an 'act of God?' Absurd.

Noone said corporations are the sole wrench in our healthcare apparatus...but they're goddamn reticent to peruse any possible solution, so it would seem they're enmeshed deeply enough that they don't want to be part of the solution...you know how the rest of the saying goes...

J.R. was only referring to greedy corporations as far as I could see. I agree that the NIH funds a lot of drug work. Funds that for some reason socialist (and I expect fairly greedy business free) North Korea does not have. But the work is still often done with or by corporations.

Perhaps because North Korea is perpetually flirting with bankruptcy, and relies on splitting the atom to balance its checkbook? They sink nary a dollar into whatever the Pyongyang equivalent of NIH is, so one couldn't really tell how much greater their contribution to medicine would be if they inserted extraneous middlemen. That's perhaps the worst attempt at misdirection I've ever seen.

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