New at Reason

January 29, 2008

Michael C. Moynihan explores how a brilliant new documentary, Shoot Down, recounts the 1996 destruction of two unarmed planes off the coast of Cuba and begins the hard work of redrawing Hollywood's false image of "Castro-as-beneficent-leader." As Michael Moore's paean to Cuba's health-care system gets an Oscar nomination, read all about Shoot Down here.

Comments

|1.29.08 @ 12:10PM|#

"From our vantage point, it's easy to forget that Clinton sanctioned the liberal use of heavily militarized federal agents at Ruby Ridge, Waco, and during the seizure of Elian Gonzales from a Florida residence. He also reversed a 30-year old American policy treating those fleeing Cuba as political refugees."

What vantage point is that other than the one of a hypocrite? I don't see how anyone could easily forget watching the government burn American citizens to death on national TV.

|1.29.08 @ 12:13PM|#

While Clinton pretty clearly sanctioned the massacre at Waco... and likely would have sanctioned Ruby Ridge.... it's hard to pin Ruby Ridge on him, considering that it happened before he was President.

As for the Brothers to the Rescue... who knows. It's still a big deal in South Florida, but there's a lot of people who are still convinced that those planes weren't just out there to look for refugees. Me? I'm not sure either way.

|1.29.08 @ 12:17PM|#

Ohnoes Hollywood!

|1.29.08 @ 12:19PM|#

Why does Clinton get the blame for Ruby Ridge?

|1.29.08 @ 12:22PM|#

The original Waco raid - the decision to use militarized police to storm the compound SWAT-style - was ordered before Clinton, too. It was the second attempt that was ordered by Freeh and approved by Reno.

|1.29.08 @ 12:23PM|#

Oh, I get it. CIA planes spying on Cuba's wonderful healthcare system! Spying on their incredible technology, scientific advancements, and model infrastructure! How DO they do it!!

|1.29.08 @ 12:24PM|#

I think it is a great overreach (but expected from MM) to assert that Sicko was a "paean to Cuba's health-care system." As I saw it Moore's whole rhetorical trick was "hey, this craphole has a health care system which treats its people better than we do."

And I'm not sure that a "Castro as beneficent leader" image can be said to be that hegemonic of a view in Hollywood films...Many do show things being awful under Batista of course, which they were...The last one about this I remember was the Lost City, chock full of stars and pretty hard on Castro and Che (rightfully so)...

Nick Gillespie|1.29.08 @ 12:25PM|#

Ruby Ridge obviously took place before Bill Clinton became president. However, his administration sanctioned the carnage there by later promoting the person in charge to deputy director of the FBI. As The New York Times noted in 1995, "Two years ago Larry Potts, a senior Federal Bureau of investigation official, was one of those most responsible for mismanagement of a disastrous encounter between agents and a band of armed separatists in Idaho. F.B.I. Director Louis Freeh censured him for his role in that fiasco, and Attorney General Janet Reno approved the censure. Yet now Mr. Potts has been promoted to deputy director of the agency. The promotion was recommended by Mr. Freeh and approved by Ms. Reno. What kind of two-faced management is this? If a censure means anything, it is surely not a ticket to promotion but a warning that the recipient is not fit for the highest levels of command responsibility."

|1.29.08 @ 12:26PM|#

Cesar-because Clinton=Great Satan in the mind of many on the right. In fact, he counted and capitalized on such hysteric hatred...Without that hatred he was just a mediocre DLC candidate and politician...

|1.29.08 @ 12:28PM|#

MNG, Clinton was still a power-abusing slimeball. Hes also a first-class liar and fraud.

I was starting to like him better in retrospect after seven years of Dubya. However, since hes been opening his mouth so much in the past weeks I've been reminded again and again why I hated him in the first place.

|1.29.08 @ 12:29PM|#

Nick
That kind of stretching would make Mr. Fantastic proud...MM just got carried away with feeding the red meat to the right wingers...

DavidS|1.29.08 @ 12:30PM|#

Nick - no-one would read the article and think that 'sanctioned' was being used in the sense you suggest.

|1.29.08 @ 12:32PM|#

The guy was " one of those most responsible for mismanagement" of RR. He was censured (fall guy?). Then two years later this senior official had worked his way into a promotion. That's a stretch. The administration who ordered it in the first place is to blame, not the one that later promoted "one" of those "most repsonsible" for the "mismanagement" (not decision) of the operation...

Cesar-slimeball? Yes. Great Satan? Hardly...

|1.29.08 @ 12:33PM|#

"It is clear, though, that, as Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) argues in the film, had such an event been perpetrated by the apartheid government of South Africa or Pinochet's Chile, the level of public outrage surely would have been greater."

Exactly.

fyodor|1.29.08 @ 12:34PM|#

And however heavy handed and wrongheaded the assault on the Waco compound was, there's little evidence the feds were directly responsible for the fire that killed those folks.

I'm surprised joe hasn't beaten me to that.

|1.29.08 @ 12:34PM|#

I think it is a great overreach (but expected from MM) to assert that Sicko was a "paean to Cuba's health-care system." As I saw it Moore's whole rhetorical trick was "hey, this craphole has a health care system which treats its people better than we do."

And I'm not sure that a "Castro as beneficent leader" image can be said to be that hegemonic of a view in Hollywood films...

Michael Moynihan knows all of that.

He uses language to manipulate, not teach or convince. He doesn't refute arguments, so much as characterize them, or mischaracterize them, in a manner to make them feel disreputable.

|1.29.08 @ 12:35PM|#

You know, if George W. Bush had carried out Waco lefties would be screaming about the coming fascism.

dhex|1.29.08 @ 12:37PM|#

cesar: such is the nature of team red team blue go team go, despite joe's protestations to the contrary.

everyone wants to lick some boots. it's only human. what matters is whose foot is wearing the boot.

|1.29.08 @ 12:38PM|#

Cesar,

I totally forgot that John Edwards beat Hillary in Iowa on a previous thread. I remembered her as coming in second.

Because it fits a narrative by which I understand events. It's in my head that Hillary and Obama are fighting it out for first place, so that's how I remembered events.

|1.29.08 @ 12:40PM|#

"Long under the spell of radical writers such as Dalton Trumbo and Clifford Odets, Hollywood was "a town that welcomed Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista junta but never took up the cause of a single Soviet or Eastern European dissident."

Perhaps they were too busy with such left wing dramas as Red Dawn and Rocky IV.

While it is lamentable that Cuba attacked Cessnas with MiGs, Moynihan points out that Brothers to the Rescue transformed from doing humanitarian missions to outright conflict with the Cuban government. After years of warning the Brothers to stop flying into Cuban airspace, Cuba finally shot down planes that admittedly had violated Cuban airspace repeatedly with the intent to provoke. It was an overreaction, but if you intend to provoke a dog, and that dog bites you, you can't claim to be surprised. In fact, you should claim success, because that was your goal.

Castro is an awful human being, but that doesn't make radical right wingers good people. I know what the article is trying to say, but I look back to the main points: (1) there are currently a bunch of movies that negatively portray the human consequences of communism and a few that romanticize revolution, (2) Hollywood put out tons of anti-communist movies in the 70s and 80s, and (3) radicals provoked Castro into an act of murder to prove what we already knew: that Castro is a murderer....and by the way, Clinton is too.

BakedPenguin|1.29.08 @ 12:40PM|#

I was starting to like him better in retrospect after seven years of Dubya. However, since hes been opening his mouth so much in the past weeks I've been reminded again and again why I hated him in the first place.

QFMFT

Hollywood isn't as glorifying of Castro as MosFilm was, though.

dhex, well, if we gotta lick boots... (possibly NSFW)

|1.29.08 @ 12:41PM|#

"It is clear, though, that, as Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) argues in the film, had such an event been perpetrated by the apartheid government of South Africa or Pinochet's Chile, the level of public outrage surely would have been greater."

Oh bullshit. This is a country where most people, including most libertarians, thought a video of a kid begging the police not to repeatedly shock him was hilarious.

|1.29.08 @ 12:45PM|#

the hard work of redrawing Hollywood's false image of "Castro-as-beneficent-leader." As Michael Moore's paean to Cuba's health-care system

such is the nature of team red team blue go team go

Good thing being a libertarian so thoroughly innoculates one to simplifying cheerleading and phoney-baloney dualisms.

As least Democrats like myself acknowledge that such bias is possible, and look out fot it.

The Wine Commonsewer|1.29.08 @ 12:45PM|#

Well done, Mr Moynihan.

there's little evidence the feds were directly responsible for the fire that killed those folks.

Alan Bock would disagree with that.

|1.29.08 @ 12:48PM|#

Had such an event been perpetrated by the the regime of Fulgencio Batista, the level of Miami Cuban outrage surely would have been zero because Batista supported their sugar interests.

|1.29.08 @ 12:50PM|#

Good thing being a libertarian so thoroughly innoculates one to simplifying cheerleading and phoney-baloney dualisms.

Mr Kettle: You are most certainly black!

|1.29.08 @ 12:51PM|#

Anyhow, thank you Mr. Moynihan for highlighting this documentary.

|1.29.08 @ 12:51PM|#

Perhaps they were too busy with such left wing dramas as Red Dawn and Rocky IV.

C'mon Lamar, the Cuban in Red Dawn was clearly portayed as being a reluctant white hat. I heard that Vince Foster used the Whitewater millions to pay off John Milius* to change the Cuban into a good guy.

(*When I was looking up Red Dawn on IMDB I was thinking to myself "No way was this pos written by Milius. That would be way too pat." Sure enough, written and directed by Milius. I LOL'd.)

|1.29.08 @ 12:52PM|#

And however heavy handed and wrongheaded the assault on the Waco compound was, there's little evidence the feds were directly responsible for the fire that killed those folks.

But they did prevent fire fighters and rescue crews that were standing by from, um, fighting the fire and rescuing people. And perhaps the more than 150 teargas "ferret" canisters, and the structural damage done by a FUCKING TANK to the building had something to do with it.

But, yeah, no real evidence.

|1.29.08 @ 12:52PM|#

See, if you read the whole comment before opening your yap, you don't end up looking like a fool, like you did just now.

|1.29.08 @ 12:53PM|#

As least Democrats like myself acknowledge that such bias is possible, and look out fot it.

Your mother must be proud.

|1.29.08 @ 12:53PM|#

Cato has a good white-paper on Waco.

|1.29.08 @ 12:54PM|#

there's little evidence the feds were directly responsible for the fire that killed those folks.

I mean, how could firing incendiary tear gas rounds into a wooden building be responsible for the ensuing fire? Geez, you wingnut Bill-haters need to get a grip.

Calidore|1.29.08 @ 12:57PM|#

de stijl,

C'mon Lamar, the Cuban in Red Dawn was clearly portayed as being a reluctant white hat.

FYI: I believe the character was supposed to be Nicaraguan.

fyodor|1.29.08 @ 12:59PM|#

I think it is a great overreach (but expected from MM) to assert that Sicko was a "paean to Cuba's health-care system." As I saw it Moore's whole rhetorical trick was "hey, this craphole has a health care system which treats its people better than we do."

Well, yeah, he reflected Cuba being a "craphole" to a degree, but only to the degree that it's so poor and much poorer than the US. One would come away with the impression (if not refuted by other sources) that at least its government really cared about its people (and about US citizenry more than the US government does).

|1.29.08 @ 1:02PM|#

At least Morgan Suprlock is there to point out to us morons that Cuba is great because it doesn't buy "Consumer crap" like we do./sarcasm

|1.29.08 @ 1:02PM|#

Should read, "because no one there buys "Consumer crap" like we do.

|1.29.08 @ 1:04PM|#

"Had such an event been perpetrated by the the regime of Fulgencio Batista, the level of Miami Cuban outrage surely would have been zero because Batista supported their sugar interests."

So, what are you saying Lamar? That most, if not all, Cubans exiled in Miami are/were Batista supporters? That they simply dont like Castro because he doesnt support their sugar interests? That none of them were with "La Revolucion" at the beginning but were later oppressed and persecuted?

|1.29.08 @ 1:04PM|#

Cesar,

Go Team Red White and Blue!

|1.29.08 @ 1:06PM|#

joe-

If someone says Holland has better drug laws than we do I'll be the first to agree. If they say Singapore has more economic freedom I'll be the first to agree.

But if they say Cuban healthcare is the wave of the future, I'm going to say healthcare here is better. If someone praises North Korea because they don't have any advertisements, I'm going to disagree.

|1.29.08 @ 1:06PM|#

So, what are you saying Lamar?

I think he's saying that it's remarkably easy to put togther such a shabby argument in order to manipulate people who are eager to choose up sides.

And that's where you come in, rana; you did notice that his comment was a deliberate parallel to an earlier one that you didn't see anything wrong with, right?

|1.29.08 @ 1:08PM|#

"Oh bullshit. This is a country where most people, including most libertarians, thought a video of a kid begging the police not to repeatedly shock him was hilarious" (joe)

Evidence please? MOST people thought this was HILARIOUS?? The only people who didn't were probably Democrats or public school teachers? Unbelievably stupid.

|1.29.08 @ 1:09PM|#

Cesar,

If someone says Holland has better drug laws than we do I'll be the first to agree. If they say Singapore has more economic freedom I'll be the first to agree.

And that's because you don't have anything invested in taking a side in an America/Holland or America/Singapore pissing match.

But if they say Cuban healthcare is the wave of the future, I'm going to say healthcare here is better. And even when they DON'T say that, you can easily be fooled into believing they have, and rush to the barricades to argue "our side." That's the point.

|1.29.08 @ 1:10PM|#

joe,
Are you refering to Lamar's 12:40pm post?

|1.29.08 @ 1:11PM|#

evidence please?

Uh, the fact that "Don't tase me, bro!" has become a punchline?

Do you OWN a television?

|1.29.08 @ 1:12PM|#

Joe anyone that even suggests we have anything to learn from a authoritarian communist government doesn't deserve to be given the time of day.

Funny how lefties pounce on anyone who dare suggest Pinochet grew Chile's economy, but are quite willing to talk up Cuba's healthcare and education systems.

DavidS|1.29.08 @ 1:14PM|#

Funny how lefties pounce on anyone who dare suggest Pinochet grew Chile's economy, but are quite willing to talk up Cuba's healthcare and education systems.

But Pinochet did grow the economy, and Cuba's health indicators are (or certainly were a few years ago when I last looked) better than you'd expect given its wealth.

|1.29.08 @ 1:14PM|#

rana,

His 12:48 PM post, the one you referenced, the one where he replaced that language in this quote:

"It is clear, though, that, as Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) argues in the film, had such an event been perpetrated by the apartheid government of South Africa or Pinochet's Chile, the level of public outrage surely would have been greater."

|1.29.08 @ 1:15PM|#

Cuba's health indicators are (or certainly were a few years ago when I last looked) better than you'd expect given its wealth.

So is Costa Rica's.

jackanapestarian|1.29.08 @ 1:16PM|#

It's hilarious 'cause he said "bro", not 'cause he was tased. Not that he might not have deserved it. I would add that saying "dude" also qualifies one for tasing.

jackanapestarian|1.29.08 @ 1:17PM|#

Not to mention "change."

|1.29.08 @ 1:17PM|#

But we don't hear anything about Costa Rica. We hear about Cuba. Because in Hollywood, its someone hip to admire Communist thugs.

|1.29.08 @ 1:18PM|#

My 12:48 post is a re-write of Lincoln Diaz-Balart's quote about other regimes like Pinochet's. I was pointing out that many Miami Cubans who escaped the revolution had no problem with Batista's murderous ways, but now criticize Castro for human rights abuses.

joe was right in his characterization, and apparently a much faster typer.

As for "Don't tase me, bro" Here and reply to this