“Just apologize to the American people and to the families of the troops for not doing your job four years ago. We wouldn’t be in this war if you had done your job. Come on. Just admit it. Just apologize to the American people.” — Michael Moore, live on The Situation Room (7/9/07)
That was the discomfiting challenge thrown repeatedly at the feet of Wolf Blitzer by Michael Moore last night, 9 July 2007, in what will likely go down in the pathetic annals of American mass communications as a moment of rare candor and truth.
In a truly unprecedented, unscripted interview, Michael Moore ripped into Wolf Blitzer’s and CNN’s facade of evenhanded professionalism in connection with the developing national debate on healthcare. Visibly filled with righteous anger, Moore insisted, as he has all along, that health is one area where there ought to be no disagreement about the inapropriateness of having for-profit insurers and the sleazy Big Pharma cartel regulate access to treatment and medications. Socialized medicine is the solution, argued Moore, and even fellow capitalist nations have recognized that much. This, of course is a bit too much for the corporate media, accustomed not only to shill for a rotten status quo, but profiting handsomely from the big advertising and p.r. dollars spent by insurance companies and the drug companies to promote their wares and legitimacy. Still, if this is a harbinger, the day of recknoning may be finally approaching. (Moore was obviously wise to the media’s charming game of recording full interviews and later cutting anything “controversial” or “offensive” to their commercial sponsors. And man, did he also slam that big suckass, the “grateful immigrant doctor” Sanjay Gupta, that CNN is constantly trotting out, for all his sneaky service to the Empire.)
Watch Moore’s tirade here on Cyrano’s Journal CJTV:
http://www.bestcyrano.org/moore.CNN7907.htm
After watching the videos, be sure to check out Michael Moore’s “SiCKO Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight”
Reaction in other sites
The effect of the interview was electrifying and soon the net was pulsing with excited commentary. Besides our own CJtv, ALTERNET was among the first to offer the video online, along with YouTube and other video archives. Under the headline, Michael Moore Rips Wolf Blitzer on CNN: “Why Don’t You Tell the American People the Truth”, Adam Howard, PEEK’s editor, proceeded to sum up the multifarious media distortions in their treatment of Moore’s work. Said Howard, “We all love to see Wolf Blitzer (who tirelessly defends CNN medical ‘expert’ Sanjay Gupta) taken down a peg, but the video [posted on the site] is really about the whole mainstream media getting called out on their bullshit, which makes it so much more satisfying. Naturally smug bigots like Lou Dobbs act amused by what they consider Moore’s ‘act’. Little do they know, they’re the ones making asses out of themselves day in and day out.”
Howard certainly captured the growing combative mood among the public, not just the left, after decades—eons—of cynical indifference, constant lies and exploitation. Except for the deranged legions on the right, Moore’s broadside has received wide acclaim in practically all sensible quarters. Lest we forget, SiCKO once again reminds us of the sheer power of the audiovisual medium—cinema and television—a medium which, in 2007, still remains almost totally in the hands of antisocial corporate hands. The corporate media retain the power to induce people to accept, endorse, re-evaluate or reject specific notions—many to their own detriment. Anyone can imagine what a different world, as Moore keeps saying, this would be if these media people—especially the heavily career-minded top ranks, not to mention the media tycoons themselves—had been merely doing their duty, instead of shilling for the corporate elites who profit handsomely from their prostitution. As Che once intoned, to bring the empire to its knees we need one heroic Vietnam, two Vietnams, three Vietnams…in our immediate turf we might say, “One Moore, two Moores, many Moores” to finally start changing the course of this nation toward authentic democracy.
Patrice Greanville is Cyrano’s Journal’s editor in chief.
For a complete rebuttal of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s take on SiCKO and healthcare, check this factsheet at Michael Moore’s web: ‘SiCKO’ Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight’ (http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article_10017.php)
RELATED MATERIAL: COMMENTING ON THE COMMENTARIES, a worthwhile overview of the debate.
NOTE: Moore is supposed to do a second interview with Blitzer on July 10. We hope to be able to feature that segment as soon as it becomes available.
