This is yesterday's news in some ways, but Katie Halper makes a good point here -- with all the millions of column inches expended on nit-picking Michael Moore, shockingly little attention seems to have been paid to his weird decision to let SiCKO uncritically accept the Bush administration's claims about the quality of conditions for prisoners at Gitmo all for the sake of a pretty silly scene.
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Moore and Gitmo
11 Aug 2007 09:11 am
Comments (9)
Hardly a weird decision at all. "Sicko" was consciously made to have the broadest possible appeal of any of Moore's movies, and so he doesn't bring up the fact that conditions in Guantanamo are shitty, nor does he bring up the fact that most of the Guantanamo prisoners aren't actually affiliated with al Qaeda at all. To say "oh, by the way, those 'terrorists' down there are innocent prisoners, and we're torturing them," would turn viewers off from Moore's main point, which is to sell them on universal, single-payer health care. This would hardly be the first time Moore has pandered to patriotism to make a point, either.
I'm sure Moore is aware of actual conditions in Guantanamo - I read his "why don't you let these sick people into Camp X-Ray" as more of a reductio for the administration line - but to go out of his way to point out that our leaders are war criminals in the middle of a movie about health care would, I think have irritated more people than his trip to Cuba (which I think was still moving enough to be justified - the five cent inhalers in the third world hellhole alone was worth the whole final act).
Weirder still is the assumption that torture and high quality health care are somehow incompatible. Mayer's New Yorker piece certainly suggests otherwise: "mechanistic aura", "Each detainee was continually assessed, physically and psychologically." etc. Plus if you were going to test the limits at black sites, you'd want Gitmo to be by the books perfect to give some cover.
I always thought that part was supposed to be kinda tongue-in-cheek, like Moore didn't even have to critique it.
It is old news, but that's kind of the point. Nobody has talked about it. As for the tongue and cheek part, it may be to Moore and to some of us, but I doubt it is to the "broader audience". And torture and good healthcare can, actually be mutually exclusive when healthcare is withheld for interrogation purposes, where people are force fed in a violent and painful way. And of course the actual physical and psychological torture that contextualizes the healthcare, has some effect, one would think. Even if Moore had no other way of handling the issue, even if explaining the reality of GTMO would have been a detour, his whitewashing is still worth noting. One could argue that it is a necessary evil, a net positive etc. But the fact that liberals aren't even acknowledging the omission suggests that we aren't that much more progressive on this issue. And it is true that liberals have mobilized around middle class librarians much more than they have around Muslim/ Arab "enemy combatants" or torture victims. I also don't think people would be so willing to overlook or legitimize Moore's presentation if these were say, people who were being tortured in another country, like, say POW's. So instead of just nodding our head at the fact that this is the best way to reach middle America, it seems like we should be concerned that liberals aren't at least conflicted about the distortion to say or write anything about it.
If I remember correctly, Michael Moore quoted what the government says about the health care provided to Guantanamo prisoners, e.g.,in testimony by government officials to Congress; and then his point is that if we're giving such care to prisoners then why not to the 9/11 rescue workers?
His stunt very indirectly points to the fact that the government is likely lying about Guantanamo.
But the purpose of it cinematically was to find a natural way to get the 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba.
So to respond to Guff's remarks - it is a commonly observed fallacy to say that Michael Moore (or whomever) must address every ill or else the liberals are somehow flawed. Sicko is about health care, not about prisoners in Guantanamo.
Moving from specific persons to the liberal in general - since the liberal position in general is that Guantanamo must be closed, the question of what its medical facilities are like is moot. Even if the Mayo Clinic relocates there, we want Guantanamo closed.
I agree with Archit Shah. No one knows exactly what condidtions are like in Gitmo, except that they are extremely unpleasant. However, we know that there is a very carefully planned torture program being conducted, that physicians have been used to carefully monitor the medical condition of prisoners receiving the torture, and that many of the prisoners are considered high value, that is, they are believed to have lots of important information (so premature death would be considered a failure of some sort).
So, why is it absurd to think that these people are not receiving careful and comprehensive medical care? The ethics and logic of any careful comprehensive medical care program that is designed to ensure the prisoners basic health and maximize life span in order to continue a torture program in the hopes of extracting information is obscure to most of us, no doubt. But evidence exists that this is what is happnening.
And anyway, people who are so literal as to confuse a premise for a good stunt in a Moore film with serious analysis are being simple minded, or have nothing better to do than engage in futile and unproductive nitpicking.
Isn't it obvious why nobody is harping on this? It's in nobody's interest. The left doesn't want to criticize Moore, and the right doesn't want to admit that the Bush Administration spin on conditions in Guantanamo is a lie.
It isn't the right doesn't want to admit it-they actually just don't care what the conditions are. They might actually be excited to hear that Guantanamo was a roach-infested sickly dungeon.
Comments closed August 25, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
"...with all the millions of column inches expended on nit-picking Michael Moore..."
Straining at gnats while swallowing camels. Good 2,000 years ago, good today, good 2,000 years in the future.
Posted by Barry | August 11, 2007 9:27 AM