For good measure, throw in any bogeyman you can think of, preferably from the plentiful annals of anti-communism. Shake the toxic brew for a few seconds, and voilá…you get the desired effect: Moore’s proposed cure is UNAMERICAN! Moore has been defanged. Never mind that all of these lies were efficiently and conclusively addressed and dismantled in SICKO. The lingering effect will be one of doubt, and doubt is already a victory for their position.
Nothing new under the sun
Students of rhetoric and lawyerese know that this is an old and hypocritical formula taught since the time of Hermogenes or earlier: When confronted with an immense, unassailable truth, concede the undeniable in order to deny what you want to deny and maybe save the day.
Ask any rhetorician if you doubt me, or, perhaps more entertaining, any of those highly-paid prostitutes we see crawling all over the body of this decomposing republic, the fabled “spinmasters.” Or any Republicrat demagogue. For this is how Madison Avenue, the professional political class, the incestuous media, and, in particular, their even more revolting relatives, the underhanded operatives of the public relations industry, earn their bread. By serving those who can pay, which is not the vast majority of the American public. Compared to this crowd, the ladies of the night are paragons of virtue.
Reinventing the same narrative
As I suggest above, these scoundrels realize that they can’t deny outright that the healthcare system is rotten, and that Big Pharma is an assembly of white-collar crooks with the ethics of Al Capone, since such a gnawing suspicion is now commonplace among most ordinary Americans. So the only solution has to be consistency in maintaining the old lies. Or, just maybe, to appease the masses, propose that yet one more special blue-ribbon panel be appointed to study the obvious: that profits and healthcare don’t mix; that they should NEVER be in the same bed.
It is a foregone conclusion that these rascals are betting on the legendary short attention span of Americans, and their almost perverse propensity to forgive those who victimize them with impudence, coldly figuring that, by the time the inevitably multi-volume, heavily footnoted report appears, most Americans will have long forgotten about SICKO and the lessons it taught them while mesmerized with the latest episode in the Paris Hilton saga. (The commissioning of ponderous studies on obvious problems is an old tradition and political gimmick to delay remedial action in America.)
I’m therefore prepared to wager a bet that, as a first stage in their battle with SICKO and its political consequences, the powers that be are—as we speak— busily putting the finishing touches on some ambitious p.r. and ad campaign to start muddying up the waters once again, with the leading politicians on hand to dismiss as “not serious,” or “not realistic,” any proposal that would create a government-sponsored single payer healthcare system, or any plan that dares to completely rule out “a partnership” between government, big pharma, and the private insurance companies.
The excuses will be the usual time-tested arguments: “we don’t want more bureaucracies,” “higher taxes”, “bigger government,” or whatever these cowards and liars usually hide behind to pay off their debts to their controlling masters, or save their skins from the sure-to-follow attacks the hypocrites on the right, through their highly disciplined noise machine, will surely deliver in keeping with the enormous lies they have disseminated with impunity for decades.
So the old tricks are being dusted off once more to render service to the empire. The same old tricks that Moore eloquently shows in his film have kept Americans in a cage of woefully inadequate (and brutally expensive) healthcare for as long as anyone can remember. The same high-handed deceptions spread by the conservative American Medical Association and the pharmaceutical mafia half a century ago, using as their megaphone the “all-American” persona of Ronald Reagan, surely one of the phoniest and most malignant politicians of the Twentieth Century. A blackmailing system of healthcare apportionment that has also served to tame labor and restrict the mobility of employees confronted with unhappy workplace conditions.
Cognoscenti of cold-war and right wing propaganda will recognize that Karen Ignagni, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, and one of the earliest voices to be deployed in defense of capitalist medicine, has no compunction in resorting to the old bugaboos. It’s not accidental that she’s already warning us about that dreadful thing, a “Government takeover…” Brrrrr. Haven’t we heard that one before? When did the commies ever come to power except in “takeovers”??? Get the implication? It’s filthy and this woman knows it, but hey, she is what she is. As they say, very few will “see” something when their fat paychecks depend on not “seeing it.” Even if it costs unnecessary lives and happiness, which were, I thought once, part of the birthright of all Americans.
Readers wishing to read further on this topic may examine the attached Action Alert prepared by FAIR, a fraternal media watch organization with a distinguished record of impeccably documented exposes. The paper speaks for itself. Read it, and take action. Whining endlessly about how bad things are without taking any decisive action is a formula for defeat, and that, folks, is no longer an option.
Patrice Greanville is Cyrano’s Journal (http://www.bestcyrano.org/ ) founding editor.
Action Alert (from FAIR)
USA Today’s ‘Sicko’ Debate
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
