WikiLeaks: Cuba Banned Sicko for Depicting ‘Mythical’ Healthcare System

Folks, you just can’t make this stuff up!

From the Guardian UK:

Cuba banned Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a “mythically” favourable picture of Cuba’s healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a “popular backlash”, according to US diplomats in Havana.

I’ve always said that liberals were irony impaired, but can you see the irony in banning a film that was supposedly a “documentary”, (Redundancy alert!) a film which supposedly, honestly depicts things as they really are, being banned because the subjects of the documentary might react negatively to the fact that it simply wasn’t true? In fact, it was so far from true as to be described as “mythical”? That such care was NOT available to them?

The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks , is surprising, given that the film attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system.

But the memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so “disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room”.

Castro’s government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it “knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.”

Wow. Aren’t documentary makers supposed to, I don’t know, document stuff? When you start making stuff up to make a point, don’t you slip over into becoming a propagandist?

The cable describes a visit made by the FSHP to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in October 2007. Built in 1982, the newly renovated hospital was used in Michael Moore’s film as evidence of the high-quality of healthcare available to all Cubans.

But according to the FSHP, the only way a Cuban can get access to the hospital is through a bribe or contacts inside the hospital administration. “Cubans are reportedly very resentful that the best hospital in Havana is ‘off-limits’ to them,” the memo reveals.

According to the FSHP, a more “accurate” view of the healthcare experience of Cubans can be seen at the Calixto Garcia Hospital. “FSHP believes that if Michael Moore really wanted the ‘same care as local Cubans’, this is where he should have gone,” the cable states.

A 2007 visit by the FSHP to this “dilapidated” hospital, built in the 1800s, was “reminiscent of a scene from some of the poorest countries in the world,” the cable adds.

Conservatives have known for a long time that Moore was a big, fat liar, er, a large, dietary and factually challenged individual. His dishonest editing of his earlier work should have gotten him kicked out of Hollywood.

The irony becomes complete, when you consider that Michel Moore has offered to go the bail on the wikileaker himself, Julian Assange. Well, before this latest “leak” he was!

On his website today Michael Moore has said that Cuba did not ban his documentary,

Because, denial is not just a river in Egypt.

Update: Moore claims: “The entire nation of Cuba was shown the film on national television”

Unfortunately, The entire nation of Cuba does not own television sets. 75-80% of the population does not. I would imagine that the top 20-25% of income earners have both TVs and access to better health care than the populace at large.

ownership tv-sets: 200 – 246 per 1000

http://www.populstat.info/Americas/cubag.htm

I’ll have to look into that statistic, and see if it is households with (a) TV set or just the number of TVs per capita. If it is the latter, then, anyone with multiple sets would mean an even smaller percentage of the populace would have access to anything broadcast.

H/T Memeorandum

Cross posted at Proof Positive