Michael Moore's "Sicko" is hot internet news

[eppie]

My idea of doing something is to get rid of public schools. If parents get to choose where to send their children, there will be competition and nothing inspires improvement like money. If your school has bad test grades you don't get students and as a result, no money.

And so far the theory. In Holland, starting 20 or so years ago, a lot of things got privatized (energy, health care, mail delivery, trains etc.) what you see is that the level doesn't get higher. The only thing that changes is more commercials on TV, higher salary for management, and new paper pusher jobs. It is not about the level of education, it is about making money.

[Swiss Mercenary]

Holy Grail

My apologies. Those indeed would be the Holy Grail of commercial medicine. However, seeing as how attaining them is not exactly a realistic goal, it's far easier to just sell people pills for ADD, or ADHD, or whatever the hell those disorders are called these days. If I had a choice between selling a patent on a cure for diabetes, or a patent on insulin, I'd go with the insulin any day. The former is a one-off sale. For the latter, I can milk people for the rest of their lives. And I definitely would not want to try to sell, say, a diet, or exercise, or whatever other preventative measures. There's very little money in that, compared to drugs.

And just because you personally have never seen the disadvantages of the universal system personally doesn't mean that they're invisible. There are real problems to every system, and none are easily resolved.
Our system is in need of reform, but I think that our system is better set up to deal with the problems of the 21st century than a universalist system. Anyone who believes that universal health care is the easy and correct answer is looking through rose tinted glasses, just like someone who believes that one political party can cure all the ills in the world.

-Baylan

So far, we're getting a better bang for our buck. If you've got ideas for meaningful reform of your system, I can take them into consideration. So far, however, I've seen little to nothing to entice me as to why it is better.

And Pete, in regards to technique and technology, if we were to take that, and run with it, then a monarchy, or something along those lines would be the best form of government. Not in terms of fairness, but in terms of how well off the top 1% is.

On test grades, my distate for them, is when you tie funding to them. I wasn't thinking straight - there's nothing wrong with standardised testing, just like there's nothing wrong with statistics. It's how they are used that's the problem. Because clearly, schools that are already doing badly are going to find it, say, somewhat difficult to improve, if when they get in trouble, they get a budget cut. It's like taking a child who already isn't doing too well in school, cutting off whatever assistance from the teacher he's already been getting, and expecting his grades to improve. :rolleyes:

Throwing money at the problem alone won't fix it, but there are other ways and incentives for schools to do better.

Re: Poverty - the rub is that if you cut off public services, the poor will be the ones who will get hit hardest. When a parent's got a choice between _____, and sending their kid to school, you'll have plenty of them making some pretty bad choices.

The soultion isn't coddling the poor, but making matters worse for them is hardly an improvement. Just because your parents managed to persevere doesn't mean you should wish it on anybody else, or brush attempts at improvement of the system away because they managed it, on that factor alone.

You can go to great lengths into cost (financial, libery-wise, or whatever you want) and effect, however.

[eppie]

I cringed at that scene in Fahrenheit where the interviewed mother of a dead soldier was openly weeping at the gates of the white house.

You want to know why? Because I did not see Moore waving the camera off, or even offering the woman a hug. All I saw was someone making a decision to keep the camera rolling, for what exactly? To show the terrible human price the war, or almost any war in history (just or not) is taking? I honestly doubt that at this point. If anything I see it more as someone filming a car wreck, and hoping to cash in when they send the tape to 'Most Extreme: CAUGHT ON TAPE!'.

That's what I find distasteful, 'friend' Eppie. It sure looked like Moore was turning that excruciating moment into something 'entertaining'. Hey it's just a movie right? The woman was probably only acting one hell of a performance. She should be given an Oscar for best actress. And if it's a documentary, well it's simply a case of cinema verite' right?

No indeed, when a few thousand people are killed it is ...well just war.....but at the moment somebody cathes a grieving family member on tape it is distasteful? Give me a break.
Again, all those snapshots you are mentioning here didn't make me think that e.g. Wolfowitz is puttiung saliva in his hair 4 times a day.
Anti Moore advocates lost the 'he hates America' argument, and now they try to say that film technicaly speaking his documentary is more a movie, and so very confusing....please.....

[Hammerskjold]

>No indeed, when a few thousand people are killed it is ...well just war.....but at the moment somebody cathes a grieving family member on tape it is distasteful? Give me a break.

No 'amigo', catching it on tape is not what I found distasteful. Using it and the people for your own purpose and agenda, that's what I find distasteful. The same way I find neo-cons beating the drums of sham patriotism to support their own agenda to be distasteful. Moore is arguably a talented film-maker. But a documentarian? I can't really see that classification apply to him lately.


>Again, all those snapshots you are mentioning here didn't make me think that e.g. Wolfowitz is puttiung saliva in his hair 4 times a day.

Wolfowitz combing practices should not be the focus. That was my point. Wolfowitz is a shady guy to me not because of his grooming habits. Showing that clip distracts that fact, but it sure ratchets up the 'hey let's hate on this guy because he does that gross thing with his hair'. But it can score easy hate points. Might as well put a devils horn on him and provide the baskets of rotten tomatoes. Do you understand that?

You must have some clue since you were the one that said it's easy to think of the 2 columbine shooters as some sort of satanic spawns out to kill good folks, yes?



>Anti Moore advocates lost the 'he hates America' argument, and now they try to say that film technicaly speaking his documentary is more a movie, and so very confusing....please.....

Now's my turn to say puh-lease. Did you read Moore's -own- writings and comments? He himself alternates between calling it an exercise in first amendment and journalism and documentary, only to say it's just a movie when it's convenient for him. Or are you going to wait for the movie\documentary of his writings to come out?

So which is it Eppie, how should I view Moore's recent work, since you seem to be quite generous with your pithy observations and Yodaisms. Should I question some scenes like you say because only a moron would buy the whole thing, unexamined with no critical analysis? It is after all, just a movie.

Or should I agree with any and every conclusion Moore comes up with, because it's a documentary, and all documentaries are 100% truth. It's easier than reading some 800 pages of reports after all.

Help me out here Eppie! I don't know how to make up my mind, how does -your- mind juggle the inconsistencies of calling it 'just a movie', then switching to it's a documentary chock full of truth? Oh how will I go on about my life now?! Help me Eppie Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!

Actually I'm kidding, don't worry about it, thanks to you I already made up my mind that you are correct in your first self-diagnosis. And I bow to your superior mental inadequecies. Have a beer on me. (bill it to M. Moore.)

edited ps. I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner. Showing the same work on 2 screens simultaneously is the answer. I'll simply label one screen 'movie', and the other 'documentary'. If there's something that I need to take at face value, I'll look at the the 'documentary' screen. If I need to see something as just a movie and therefore not to be taken as gospel literal truth, I'll look at the 'movie' screen. Problem solved.

[eppie]

Wolfowitz combing practices should not be the focus. That was my point. Wolfowitz is a shady guy to me not because of his grooming habits. Showing that clip distracts that fact, but it sure ratchets up the 'hey let's hate on this guy because he does that gross thing with his hair'. But it can score easy hate points. Might as well put a devils horn on him and provide the baskets of rotten tomatoes. Do you understand that?

If you think many people really start hating Wolfowitz because of this than you even have a worse view of humanity than I have. You cannot not seriously think people to fall for these things right? and I also don't think Moore believes this. Or maybe he does...maybe he thinks that the part of the population that would believe the cheap lies of Bush just because he acts "so strong" would also believe the things he said.....well if this is the fact than you are right.

So which is it Eppie, how should I view Moore's recent work, since you seem to be quite generous with your pithy observations and Yodaisms. Should I question some scenes like you say because only a moron would buy the whole thing, unexamined with no critical analysis? It is after all, just a movie.

Or should I agree with any and every conclusion Moore comes up with, because it's a documentary, and all documentaries are 100% truth. It's easier than reading some 800 pages of reports after all.

I think you are grown up enough to make up your own mind. As I said before I guess (I hope) you don't believe anything that is one TV, so don't treat the rest of the population like they do.
Moore's movie have not changed my mind, but I found them quite entertaining and am happy to have watched them.

Finally I think it is clear that he has a goal with his documovie (or whatever you want to call them)....I think he doesn't deny that right?

[--Pete]

Hi,

If you think many people really start hating Wolfowitz because of this than you even have a worse view of humanity than I have. You cannot not seriously think people to fall for these things right?

Ever notice that almost all negative propaganda is based on demonizing the target? Emotion, not reason, is what the masses act on. Which is why most people normally do fall for those things. And your pollyanna view of humanity is precisely why you are almost always wrong in your opinions. They may be valid, but not for the human race. Your mistake, and that of many like you, is to think that the whole of the human race is like your friends and associates. Seriously consider history, look at the current events, and if you can consider a species that gave us millions of dead kulaks, the Inquisition, Biafra, Mongol techniques for 'pacifying' villages, the <strike>Baltics</strike> Balkans (any time in the past 700 years), the Opium Wars, etc., to be fundementally good, then your rose colred glasses are way too thick and way too firmly embedded for the truth ever to penetrate.

--Pete

EDIT: Corrected a bf;)

[Doc]

To be good is to struggle against human nature and remain in constant conflict with self.

[Jester]

To be good is to struggle against human nature and remain in constant conflict with self.

Fortune cookie?

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

And Pete, in regards to technique and technology, if we were to take that, and run with it, then a monarchy, or something along those lines would be the best form of government. Not in terms of fairness, but in terms of how well off the top 1% is.

Poor analogy. The form of government has little to do with what government does since all governments do basically the same things. But in discussing health care, one has to be a little more careful to specify what metric is used to measure 'good, better, best'. Universally available health care that can treat little more than routine medical matters may be 'better' for the bulk of the population. But for the person with a condition that only one institution has the means to treat, then that institution is 'best' reguardless of whether that individual can afford it or has access to it. It is in this sense that the USA has the 'best' health care system. The reason has to do with profit motive, over charging, govenment funding for research, and the tie between many hospitals and universities. That complete ball of string is hard to unravel and there are many debatable points, but the quality of the system resulting from the process (and in some cases, despite the process) in terms of improvement and innovation is beyond debate. Simply follow the progress of medical research in Science, Nature, Science News, or any similar journal. Or look up the history of medical breakthroughs in the last six decades. The story tells itself.

On test grades, my distate for them, is when you tie funding to them.

And on that we are in complete agreement.

Just because your parents managed to persevere doesn't mean you should wish it on anybody else, or brush attempts at improvement of the system away because they managed it, on that factor alone.

Not my point at all. The question was about the so called 'cycle of poverty'. I consider that a cop out and used immigrants as a counter example. However, if the discussion is to go towards what is being done to 'help' the poor to get out of poverty, then the old adage comes to mind: "Insanity consists of repeating an action multiple times and expecting a different result." Based on the results to date, the attempts to help the poor are insane. Perhaps the reason is that the underlying assumptions as to the causes of poverty are wrong. But that, too, is another whole discussion.

--Pete

[Doc]

Fortune cookie?

-Jester

Maybe. I read it in a book about Zen Buddhism.

The whole book read like a fortune cookie but still managed to be quite good.

[Jester]

Based on the results to date, the attempts to help the poor are insane.

Really? I can't believe this. I think nutrition, shelter, medical care, access to education, life expectancy and the ability to climb out of poverty are all substantially better for the poor now, especially in countries which devote substantial resources to that end. I don't have data to prove it, but I'd be interested in any information to the contrary.

We will probably will never turn the poorest of the poor into model citizens. But have we helped improve quality of life and the chances of self-improvement? I think so, and I'm really not sure why these efforts are "insane," even by the definition you gave.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

Really? . . . the ability to climb out of poverty are all substantially better for the poor now, . . . I'd be interested in any information to the contrary.

I didn't feel like spending too much time on this, so I did a simple google on "poverty USA number year": link1, link2, are two of many similar results. I'm sure that with a little effort you could find many more links for world wide poverty. I'd be more interested in seeing data showing that what is being done is actually reducing the depth or width of poverty.

So, while you might be right that "the ability to climb out of poverty are all substantially better for the poor now", it would appear that the ability to sink into poverty has increased even faster.

--Pete

[Jester]

Hi,
I didn't feel like spending too much time on this, so I did a simple google on "poverty USA number year": link1, link2, are two of many similar results. I'm sure that with a little effort you could find many more links for world wide poverty. I'd be more interested in seeing data showing that what is being done is actually reducing the depth or width of poverty.

So, while you might be right that "the ability to climb out of poverty are all substantially better for the poor now", it would appear that the ability to sink into poverty has increased even faster.

--Pete

<Paragraph deleted, apparently incorrect. Apologies.>

It would be fallacious to conclude that a falling standard of living amongst the poor, or an increase in inequality, means that efforts to alleviate the problem are futile. Other unrelated factors, notably population growth, change these numbers for the worse. By analogy, if a dyke floods over, that doesn't mean you should demolish the dyke because it isn't working, but that you should build a taller one. Whether this is true of methods for relieving poverty I'm sure we disagree about, but I think it's far too severe to say that trying to mitigate poverty (at least in any way that has been tried yet) is futile, and that we're insane for continuing to spend money on it.

-Jester

Edit: Deleted first paragraph, apparently American poverty statistics are based on income relative to a package of goods, and are not affected by income distribution statistics.

[kandrathe]

Interesting - I always thought education was something the US had got right. If I've understood correctly how it works, your child goes to the same local high school as all your neighbour's children which means (provided you live in a good neightbourhood) the school should be OK. In my country after elementary school you can apply to go to any secondary (high) school, which sounds good in theory but in practice often means you can't get your child into a good school because they are the most popular ones and your child might not meet the criteria for getting in, which are usually based on how close you live to them. I had to rent a second house next to a school for a year to get my daughter into it - although we had 3 decent schools close to home we dodn't live quite near enough to any of them and would have been given an awful school miles away becase (since no-one wanted to go to it) it had an infinitely big catchment area.

I agree, it appears by your description that in some ways yours is more messed up than ours. But, that is no comfort since ours is horrible.

The problem with education and healthcare in the US in the simplest terms are that people have come to regard them as a RIGHT. They are a service which should be allowed to be governed by market forces and be paid for by those who use them. If education and health care are RIGHTS, why not legal representation and job placement?

[Archon_Wing]

I met Micheal Moore once at my school, and he asked me where the bathroom was. That's about all I am going to say about him.

[kandrathe]

So, while you might be right that "the ability to climb out of poverty are all substantially better for the poor now", it would appear that the ability to sink into poverty has increased even faster.

--Pete

I'm also worried that the gap will increase for the poor, and those with fixed incomes due to the price of energy (and related commodity goods/services) being artificially inflated by global warming hysteria.

[kandrathe]

... but the real issue behind infant mortality is that while it is the poor that need healthcare the most in the US the vast majority of health spending is on the rich.

Some facts on US Health Care... NCHC -- Facts on the Cost of Health Care If you classify the elderly as the richest group, which by reason of age and investment they very well may be, then I might agree that the elderly (wealthy) consume the most health care. Can you show the study where you can support that the bulk of the 2.5 trillion dollars of health care consumed by the US was by the wealthy? I would add inversely then, can you show that per mother prenatal care suffered under the US system compared to other countries?

Here is an interesting article; U.S. Health Care Spending In An International Context

Oh, and at my daughter's London elementary school there were a total of 79 first languages other than English amongst the pupils : )

Ah, then you understand the struggle.

[Occhidiangela]

Are you proposing that the problem of poverty in the United States is a result of the poorest spending their investment money on Starbucks?

Somehow, I doubt it.

-Jester

Do you drink your coffee through a straw? ;)

DR

[Jester]

I'm also worried that the gap will increase for the poor, and those with fixed incomes due to the price of energy (and related commodity goods/services) being artificially inflated by global warming hysteria.

Of course, you could build into an environmental policy a credit for being poor, offset by more substantial contributions by the wealthy.

But, then, that would be socialism.

-Jester

[Xukuth]

I agree, it appears by your description that in some ways yours is more messed up than ours. But, that is no comfort since ours is horrible.

The problem with education and healthcare in the US in the simplest terms are that people have come to regard them as a RIGHT. They are a service which should be allowed to be governed by market forces and be paid for by those who use them. If education and health care are RIGHTS, why not legal representation and job placement?

Legal representation is a right, by the way:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

The purpose of a government is to improve the life of its subjects. To that end, I see no reason why a minimum standard of health care and education should not be established as rights.