The Left's new Goebbels strikes out

Humberto Fontovo spanks Fatboy Dim for allowing himself to be used by the Castro regime to spread propaganda:

"We cannot for a second abandon propaganda" wrote Fidel 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, his new documentary, 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, even exceptionally. 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's 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 health-care 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 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 website. "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 are: "Breast augmentation/ implants for only $1,500 (through the belly button procedure.)"

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 teen-age boys used to view Playboy magazine: "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.

[. . .]

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 in the United States due to U.S. sanctions," reported Anthony Boadle from Reuters' 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 -- 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, 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 "1000-2000 cases" of the dread disease in the U.S. 110 U.S. Congressmen promptly signed a special letter to Secretary 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. 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.

[. . .]

A few years back Castro, launched his "Doctor Diplomacy" wherein he started sending Cuban "doctors" to heathen lands (though their spouses and children were held hostage in Cuba) to heal the sick and raise the dead. This was coupled with "free" treatment of poor foreigners from the Carribbean and Latin American nations in Cuban hospitals. The scheme has gotten no end of gushy reviews in the major media.

Some less prominent reviews might add perspective. Especially as these report much closer-range observations of the scheme along with follow-ups. Here's one from the newspaper The Jamaican Gleaner titled, "Eye Surgery Hopes Dashed; Patients Suffer Complications," which notes: "The survey included 200 patients (Jamaicans who traveled to Cuba for eye surgery) and of that group, 49 patients - nearly a quarter - experienced post surgery complications. According to Dr. Albert Lue, Head of Ophthalmology in Jamaica’s Kingston Public Hospital, the complications causing the patients impaired vision was corneal damage and damage to the iris due to poor surgical technique." "Since I come back, from Cuba," said George Foster, a 70-year-old Jamaican participant in the Cuban "Miracle Operation," "I can see from the right eye but I can't see from the left."

Brazil also got a birds-eye view of Cuba's vaunted "Doctor Diplomacy." "96 Cuban Doctors Expelled from Brazil” starts the April, 2005 story from Agence France-Presse. "Federal judge Marcelo Bernal ruled in favor of a demand by the Brazilian state of Tocantins’ Consejo Regional de Medicina (Regional Council on Medicine) that Cuban doctors be prohibited from practicing in their state.” Based on the results they’d achieved with Tocantins' residents, the judge referred to the Cuban doctors as Witch Doctors and Shamans. We cannot accept doctors who have not proven that they are doctors.”

According to a report by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, over 75 per cent of "doctors" with Cuban "medical degrees" flunk the exam given by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates for licensing in the U.S. This exam is considered a cakewalk even by the graduates of Mexico’s Tec de Monterrey School of Medicine. Most Cuba-certified doctors even flunk the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates' exam for certification as "Physician Assistants," making them unfit in the U.S. even as nurses.

There is more there that is worth a look, especially the part about how the Cubans falsify their infant mortality rates, but the point is made.

Of course Fatboy Dim was in no way duped by his Cuban case officers. He was a willing and knowing participant in this bit of propaganda. It was his idea, after all. And it was his money that financed this boxoffice debacle.

Which fact helps explain the way that he is running around becoming more and more hysterical as it becomes more and more obvious that this turkey isn't even going to break even for him. Not only is he out a few million (which is an enormous deal to him because the Fatboy is as greedy as only a leftist who pretends to be disgusted by the wealthy can be) but the luster is off of his reputation for making commercially successful "documentaries".

I would suggest that he start trying to memorize the phrase "would you like fries with that" but letting him around fast food falls under the "disaster waiting to happen" heading.

Perhaps Morgan Spurlock needs a buttboy?