What if Michael Moore had not made "Sicko"?

[Phrost]

Heya Rolfe. Nice ground rules and all but I'm pretty sure that the MA doesn't preclude me from simply ignoring them.

It takes a special kind of hubris for a dramatically obese person to make a "documentary" advocating universal healthcare given all the health problems caused by obesity and the relative ease involved in preventing the condition (stop bringing your hand to your face as often and go for a walk).

When it came to Bowling for Columbine, his obesity wasn't relevant to any discussions (except maybe dealing with recoil). But regardless, pointing out the fact that he's a big fat fatty blubberpants is perfectly valid in this case.

 

[Rolfe]

And this has already been pointed out and noted.

MM is fat and slovenly. Now that's out of the way, maybe it won't become a "point" of "debate" like I've seen in pretty much any other "discussion" of his "work".

You're being repetitive. Next?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

M&M's own list of countries with the best and worst health care showed U.S. at #37 and Cuba at #39. Careful with the hyperbole. You are discrediting M&M's docuganda all by yourself.

The statistics Moore cited were from the World Health Organisation. Being discussed in this other thread. Linda has just made a very comprehensive post on the subject.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150719

Rolfe.

 

[Phrost]

And this has already been pointed out and noted.

Next?

Rolfe.

You can smugly "note" and try to move on as much as you'd like. But dismissing it won't change the fact that it undermines his position pretty damn effectively if you're actually wearing your "Skeptic" hat instead of your "Liberal Ideologue" one.

Or are you the type who'd spend two hours of your time watching a movie about Biology made by Ben Stein, and consider it genuinely thought provoking.

The entire way you framed this discussion in the initial post simply screams that you're not interested in giving the subject the full range of discussion. You're still a Skeptic, right?

 

[Rolfe]

I am always somewhat hesitant to participate in the US health insurance threads but the organization from which I have learned most about health insurance in the US is Consumers Union via Consumer Reports. They have provided detailed analyses, data, projections, costings and scenarios over the years. More depth than anything I have ever seen in anything posted or cited in this Forum.

Sicko mostly confirms what CU has reported.

Gord, is any of that available online? Any way of checking what Moore is presenting would be good.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Phrost, please try to get on-topic here. The stated purpose of the thread is to discuss the arguments presented in the film, omitting ad hominem attacks on the presenter.

How much clearer can I be? We've had about six threads on this film already, and I dredged them all out of the archive before starting this one, and I saw that in every single one of them any attempt at serious discussion was swamped in a tide of abuse against Moore.

Now, just pretend that Joe Bloggs made the film, and Joe Bloggs has a BMI of 25. Is what he is saying valid?

Rolfe.

 

[Phrost]

Phrost, please try to get on-topic here. The stated purpose of the thread is to discuss the arguments presented in the film, omitting ad hominem attacks on the presenter.

How much clearer can I be? We've had about six threads on this film already, and I dredged them all out of the archive before starting this one, and I saw that in every single one of them any attempt at serious discussion was swamped in a tide of abuse against Moore.

Now, just pretend that Joe Bloggs made the film, and Joe Bloggs has a BMI of 25. Is what he is saying valid?

Rolfe.

You're perfectly clear; you desperately want to avoid discussing the perfectly relevant fact that a documentary about UHC was made by an obese man with looming health problems. I'm sure he'll be able to pay for them with all the money he's made off the film, until that runs out.

But whatever, if that's the thread you want to have then I'll either refrain from posting in it any further.

 

[Rolfe]

Well, yes, that's pretty much it. I'm "desperate" to discuss the substance of the film! We've had six threads on Moore's personal deficiencies already, why not go resurrect one of these?

What part of "avoid argumentum ad hominem" don't you understand? Does the film stand up to scrutiny if we assume it was made by Joe Bloggs, 6 feet tall, BMI of 25, and no track record if documentary making to refer to.

Could I have made the bloody title of the thread any clearer?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Just a quick point about the "docudrama" format. I think Moore chose his subjects in part for their potential to provide visual material. Talking heads are bad cinema. So I was always alert for sequences that seemed to be reconstructions rather then original footage.

The very first clip was interesting. Uninsured Adam, unemployed, with a deep cut to his knee. He sutured it himslf because he "didn't want to get into any more debt".

Where did the film come from? I'd speculate someone else filmed it while he did it, and passed the film to Moore, which would explain why it was in there - good footage. That wasn't a fresh wound, it had been like that for up to a week. It didn't look septic, so would probably have healed on its own in the end, although with a big scar. Taping it up and immobilising the knee with a bandage might have helped, but it was in a bad place - maybe he tried that but it broke open when he bent the knee, hence the DIY surgery some days later.

The film was genuine. That was a real cut, and he really sewed it. He sewed it like an amateur, too. Even if I'd suspected someone had deliberately cut himself to stage that, it wouldn't fly. The cut wasn't fresh. It had been like that up to a week. The slightly jerky film seemed to be someone else in the room with Adam, filming it.

It wasn't a horror story in the usual sense of the term. The cut was only skin deep. It wasn't life-threatening. It would have healed eventually. It was in there because there was film that could be used.

It was still a very relevant point. Citizens in the USA having to stitch their own wounds, reminiscent of a third-world country. Oh dear.

Rolfe.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

You're perfectly clear; you desperately want to avoid discussing the perfectly relevant fact that a documentary about UHC was made by an obese man with looming health problems. I'm sure he'll be able to pay for them with all the money he's made off the film, until that runs out.

Is it that hard to understand that ad hominem attacks do not have any bearing on the factual basis of a published work?

How much clearer can I be? We've had about six threads on this film already, and I dredged them all out of the archive before starting this one, and I saw that in every single one of them any attempt at serious discussion was swamped in a tide of abuse against Moore.

Smoke screens. Every time my local newspaper runs an article on Global Warming, someone brings up Al Gore. Every time my country's media critically analyses health foods, herbs, alternative medicine or organic foods, someone slams them for not attacking "chemical" medicines or foods. Every time Brian Dunning (of Skeptoid.com fame) does an article on agriculture myths, he's accused of being in the payroll of "Big {insert industry here}". Look through the Amazon.com one-star reviews on Fahrenheit 911, and you'll find that they are dominated by ad hominem against Michael Moore as a person.

When people run out of facts, all too often they respond by trying to prevent further debate from taking place. The sad part is that it works.

 

[Rolfe]

We managed to discuss the Stossel documentary without declaring that it must be a pack of lies because we didn't like or approve of John Stossel. We managed to show that it was a pack of lies (and non sequiturs) entirely on the basis of the content as presented.

I merely seek to see if the same can be done to Sicko. That Moore's detractors seem unwilling to try is perhaps telling.

Rolfe.

 

[tomwaits]

That Moore's detractors seem unwilling to try is perhaps telling.

Puh leeze. Remember how in the 9/11 forum, people would post 3 hour documentaries and insist that if you didn't do a line-by-line debunking that it was proof that the arguments were valid? This is kind of what you sound like here.

Personally, I've seen Moore's docs and they were so fast and loose with the truth I frankly don't care to see anything that he does now. He's pretty much lost all credibility in my eyes. Maybe this one is better, but I doubt it.

 

[Rolfe]

i did indeed find one story a little strange.

1 H 14m . The guy came back to france when he discovered his illnes. talks about having no income, but then tells about having to call his employer to make sure he gets the remaining 35% payd. sounds like a very strange story but could be because he didnt tell the whole timeline, but its presented strange.

I've looked at that, and it's fairly obvious he didn't mention that he'd got a job when he returned to France. That may be a complicating factor, and I don't know just how.

He said he left France when he was 18, and he'd never worked in France before he left. However, as a French citizen he was fully entitled to return to France. However, filling in the gaps here, he'd still have to suppport himself in France. Presumably he had little or no savings or he wouldn't be in this situation. So to make the move viable, he had to get a job.

I can work this out, because I know someone who has been thinking about how to move to a country with universal healthcare, and getting a job is the tricky bit. Obviously it's easier if you're already a French national.

Would he have been treated so well by the French system if he'd just gone back and stayed with relatives? I don't know. Quite possibly. But it's a loose end.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I felt that some of the footage from France was off topic. I mean, who cares if the French have months of sick leave paid for by the government, or if the government will send someone round to clean your house if you have a new baby? It all got a bit, hey, look what a utopia this is! at that point.

However, it did illustrate something quite interesting. In spite of the very comprehensive healthcare system, the government still has the resources to provide other benefits such as sick leave and assistance to new mothers. And if the people were so heavily taxed that they didn't have a bean left for themselves, they hid it remarkably well.

Are there any French members here in the forum who can comment, I wonder?

Rolfe.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Puh leeze. Remember how in the 9/11 forum, people would post 3 hour documentaries and insist that if you didn't do a line-by-line debunking that it was proof that the arguments were valid? This is kind of what you sound like here.

No, not at all. What Rolfe is attempting is to have a discussion on this movie the way we'd have a discussion on 99% of the movies discussed here.

Take the threads in the Skeptic forums, for example. Someone posts a film clip showing an alleged ghost, and the discussion primarily revolves around how it's real or not real-not about the film producer. Take this thread that I started about the famous YouTube pantry ghost. Notice how it revolves around the facts of the YouTube film itself, not the vested interests of the person who posted it?

If we can have rational discussions on the factual basis of articles and movies when it's people other than Michael Moore and Al Gore, why do MM and AG movie discussions have to descend into ad hominem parades?

 

[Phrost]

Is it that hard to understand that ad hominem attacks do not have any bearing on the factual basis of a published work?

Is it that hard to understand that I already agreed to refrain from posting in this thread, or should I assume you understood it and were just hoping to get in a cheap shot?

 

[Cicero]

We managed to discuss the Stossel documentary without declaring that it must be a pack of lies because we didn't like or approve of John Stossel. We managed to show that it was a pack of lies (and non sequiturs) entirely on the basis of the content as presented.

I merely seek to see if the same can be done to Sicko. That Moore's detractors seem unwilling to try is perhaps telling.

Rolfe.

Your dismissal of any criticisms of M&M's docuganda is not convincing.

''The treatment Moore and the rescue workers receive in the film was done specifically for them, because they knew it would make great propaganda,'' says Alfonso, a general practitioner in Little Havana. ``The medical centers in Cuba that treat tourists and government officials and VIPs are very different than the ones that treat the general population. If you're a Cuban citizen and need a prescription drug, most doctors either tell you to ask your relatives in the U.S. to ship it to you or recommend alternative herbal remedies. That's the degree of scarcity on the island.'' Dr. Julio Cesar Alfonso

http://www.miamiherald.com/509/story/148897.html

Would you consider Dr. Alfonso an M&M detractor? He is not only trying, but succeeding.

Please try to refrain from dismissing this doctor as some disgruntled former captive of Castro's island.

 

[Rolfe]

I have to say this reaction is astonishing me. I've looked at claims relating to alleged NHS horror stories from right-wing commentators, and never found it necessary to use the presenter's previous history or physical appearance as justification for dismissing the entire content.

That so many people seem compelled to enter the thread for no other purpose than disrupting it by doing exactly what they are requested not to do in the OP is really, really strange.

Do sceptics not try to examine the arguments, rather than attack the messenger?

Now I shuld have gone to bed three hours ago. I may be a zombie next time I post. I'd love to be discussing the actual content of the film then.

Rolfe.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Is it that hard to understand that I already agreed to refrain from posting in this thread

Doesn't matter. Posts are subject to reply, regardless of whether they are hit-and-run posts or serious contributions.

Your dismissal of any criticisms of M&M's docuganda

Strawman noted.

 

[Rolfe]

Your dismissal of any criticisms of M&M's docuganda is not convincing.

''The treatment Moore and the rescue workers receive in the film was done specifically for them, because they knew it would make great propaganda,'' says Alfonso, a general practitioner in Little Havana. ``The medical centers in Cuba that treat tourists and government officials and VIPs are very different than the ones that treat the general population. If you're a Cuban citizen and need a prescription drug, most doctors either tell you to ask your relatives in the U.S. to ship it to you or recommend alternative herbal remedies. That's the degree of scarcity on the island.'' Dr. Julio Cesar Alfonso

http://www.miamiherald.com/509/story/148897.html

Would you consider Dr. Alfonso an M&M detractor? He is not only trying, but succeeding.

Please try to refrain from dismissing this doctor as some disgruntled former captive of Castro's island.

Gaaahhhh! I need to sleep. No, I can't tell if he's just being disgruntled or not. Some of what he says is very plausible. It does seem likely the Cubans would have put on a special show for the "boat people".

If so, Moore is being disingenuous. So, scrub Cuba. Let's agree that's been exaggerated and misrepresented. I recall that was the segment that criticism concentrated on before.

It's only one segment though. How about the rest?

Rolfe.