*Swans Commentary* » swans.com <http://www.swans.com/main.shtml> *July 2,
2007*


------------------------------
Sick Minds & Sick Bodies
by Charles Marowitz

*(Swans - July 2, 2007)*   We may have lost our reverence for deities but we
have doubled our reverence for celebrities. We might almost say that
celebrities have effectively replaced our worship of gods -- if by "worship"
we mean devout and mesmeric involvement with personalities whose lives we
feel obliged to follow to the degree that the press feels obliged to
publicize them.

But we have to make a distinction between those "celebrities" who often are
non-entities that have acquired status because of media exposure and the
public's irresistible weakness for scandal, and persons who represent
essential aspects of our lives and times and who, beyond widespread public
recognition, stand for something more than the aggrandizement of their
personalities. Al Gore is a good example of the latter kind of celebrity,
and so is Michael Moore. Significantly, they have both achieved prominence
through the medium of documentary films -- and, whereas Anna Nichol Smith,
Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, or Lindsey Lohan are, in Orwell's pert phrase,
merely "holes in the air," Moore and Gore represent troubling and pertinent
issues.

Moore is, in many ways, the more fascinating character because the whole of
the conservative Establishment in America is determined to belittle his
importance and the relevance of the issues he deals with. In a recent *New
York Times* article preceding the premiere of his film *Sicko,* a sub-head
in the article read: "Michael Moore tries to inject himself into a policy
discussion on health care" -- as if a person who feels strongly about an
issue that is swamped in corruption and duplicity has no right to "inject
himself into" such a "policy discussion"; the inference being that he is
intruding into areas where he doesn't really belong. But everyone in America
who is subject to a rotten and overpriced health program and is repelled by
the mendacities of drug cartels (disguised as sympathetic pharmaceutical
distributors) and sincerely wishes to enact reform is entitled to express an
opinion on this wide-ranging issue.

But because Moore is something of an oddball, often unshaven and not exactly
a clothes horse, the media tend to be snide and belittling -- inferring that
his positions on these issues can easily be ignored because he is obviously
"a marginal character." "I'm doing this," Moore has said about
*Sicko,*"because I really want to make a contribution to the national
debate on this
issue." To which the *New York Times* pundit replies, "(the film) lacks the
credibility to move public opinion in a lasting way and . . . it will have
no more impact than Mr. Moore's previous films." Michael F. Cannon of the
Cato Institute then chips in to remind us how "after *Bowling For Columbine,
* we all got together afterwards and decided to ban guns." Cannon's sarcasm
is quite justified. *Bowling For Columbine* did not initiate a national
outcry to ban guns, but it did reheat an issue that had been simmering in
the minds of parents and educators for some time about the need to reduce
the availability of weapons nationwide. We know that so long as the NRA
maintains the support it does and no politician has the guts to challenge
its lethal policies, the danger from guns will remain acute. But is that an
argument for ignoring the issue and being snide about the hundreds and
thousands of deaths that occur because of the easy availability of firearms?
No one believes Mr. Moore's film is going to initiate a transformation of
the health system in America or cause drug manufacturers to abandon their
specious commercials for products whose side effects cause nausea, vomiting,
headaches, dizziness, liver dysfunction, possible heart attacks, or
four-hour erections. But if filmmakers, politicians, and the press do not
persistently issue concerned criticism of these evils, the status quo will
never change; more people will be made miserable, and more people will
unnecessarily have their life spans shortened.

Moore's "single-payment system with the government as insurer which would
guarantee access to health care for all" would, as Kevin Sack in *The New
York Times* warns, "put the private insurance industry out of business." And
what a blessing that would be! A system of regulated health-care sponsored
by the government, which places America into the same civilized camp as
England, Scandinavia, France, Canada, Cuba, and most of Europe, is both "a
consummation devoutly to be wished" and a defensive action against one of
the most corrupting monopolies in American life; an industry responsible for
untold misery and the early and preventable deaths of millions of Americans.
Why should such a proposal reek of infamy and be treated as a threat for
shutting off everyone's oxygen supply? Are we so inured to good sense that
we cannot entertain the notion of universal health care for all Americans?
Are we so intimidated by the lies of capitalism that we cannot appreciate a
socialist idea that could "promote the general welfare"? Or have we become
so warped by super-slick commercials about bogus cures and preventive
medicines that we can no longer comprehend the humanist notion of using our
plentiful resources for the health and betterment of our citizenry?

Ken Johnson, a senior vice president of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of
America predicted Moore's film was "going to energize activists" but not
"change anybody's party affiliations." Which, if one clearly reads the
sub-text, says: We are shelling out millions of dollars to lobbyists to keep
the present unfair system in place, and no transient muckraker or ex-hippie
is going to change that system -- not so long as bought Republican and
Democratic hirelings are out there obfuscating the issues and maintaining
the illusion of "professional health care." Johnson's assumption is that not
even the blinding truth about the abuses, the corruption, and the injustice
is going to shift the power of well-financed corporate greed. And he's
probably right.

The Left, no doubt, will embrace Moore's message as they did his previous *
cris-du-coeur,* and a majority of Americans who can't be bothered about
reform will view *Sicko* as simply another Moore-made "entertainment."
Something to be riled up about for a few minutes after viewing and then
erased along with the news from Iraq, the Middle East, or the malaise in
Washington. But if we were living in revolutionary times, would we as
blithely dismiss Tom Paine's *Common Sense* or James Otis's *Rights Of The
British Colonies,* or the other patriotic pamphlets of the period as we do
the portent of Michael Moore's film? Or would we be fired up by the urgency
behind the criticism and demand reform that would abolish the abuses
suffered by large segments of the population? During the period of the
American Revolution, America had not yet become inured to the implications
of political reform. There were pamphlets containing socially charged ideas
that didn't have to be interrupted by 30-second commercials or saturation
coverage from TV, radio, blogs, and a wide assortment of magazines. Mass
communications had not diluted the significance of burning issues that
affected everyone almost equally. The other big difference was that
Americans belonged to a communal society and were united in their grievances
and their sense of oppression. Today, although we bitch about the outrageous
fees squeezed out of us by the medical and legal professions and the
lackadaisical attitude of both doctors and lawyers, it all occurs in an
atmosphere of fatalism; a sense that nothing we do -- either politically or
socially -- can really eliminate the abuses. We know that whomever we elect,
nothing will change because the private interests that run America are
equally divided between the two dominant parties and no wrongs can truly be
righted because the odds against genuine change are too overwhelming.

It is in such a social climate that films like *Sicko* and people like Moore
assume such great significance. In a world where passivity and complacency
rule our lives, the muckraker becomes the closest thing we have to a savior.
A voice that says: things can change, if enough people get off their
keisters to effect change. It is when a nation has been lulled into a state
of stasis that we depend on the clarion call that comes from a growing,
dissatisfied minority.

It is in the interests of the monopolies, the corporations, and the denizens
of Red State complacency to belittle the efforts of people like Michael
Moore -- as they once did with Al Gore, before the granting of an Oscar
caused them to sit up and take some notice of what many more people now
recognize as a threat to the health of the planet. But when political
snideness fueled by a prevailing cynicism passes for film criticism, we have
to transcend our knee-jerk reactions and reconsider the relevance of the
issues before us. If we don't, we will all deserve the opprobrium attached
to the word "sicko"; a word that connotes "sick minds" as much as it does
sick bodies

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤