I had left the wikileaks stories alone until now, but this little breaking story is just too good to pass up on. Documentary Filmmaker and legendary eater Michael Moore recently ate about 16 boxes of twinkies (presumably), then coughed up $20,000 to bail out WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He also praised traitor PFC. Bradley Manning, who is alleged to be responsible for the leaks, calling him a "courageous patriot" for exposing United States "war crimes". So, it appears that all is well in the love affair between Michael Moore and any enemy of the United States that he can find. No surprises here, right? Well, maybe a little bit of one. First, one must remember that clowns like Assange and Moore generally assume that there is some type of unspoken loyalty between them. Then, one must consider the fact that both parties have done nothing but exemplify disloyalty across the board. So here is how this little crackpot drama plays out.
Assange, fresh out of jail, releases a new batch of documents, which included this gem about Michael Moore and his fictitious documentary "Sicko".
XXXXXXXXXXXX stated that Cuban authorities have banned Michael Moore's documentary, "Sicko," as being subversive. Although the film's intent is to discredit the U.S. healthcare system by highlighting the excellence of the Cuban system, he said the regime 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.
What a nice little "thank you" note for the guy who just got you out of the tank, right? Moore disputes this little gem as being a fake plant.
Sounds convincing, eh?! There's only one problem -- 'Sicko' had just been playing in Cuban theaters. Then the entire nation of Cuba was shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008! The Cubans embraced the film so much so it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of 'Sicko' were set up in towns all across the country.
Now, I assume Michael knows what he is talking about here. Does he have any theory about why this false information would be released in a secret document from one Government official to another?
The U.S. government has been passing around these "secret" documents to itself for the past fifty years, explaining in painstaking detail how horrible things are in Cuba and how Cubans are quietly aching for us to come back and take over. I don't know why we write these cables, I guess it just makes us feel better about ourselves.
Awe, come on Michael! You're a conspiracy theory guy, and that is the best you can do? Are you sure that our Government didn't do this just in case some renegade Private gives secret documents to wannabe journalists who will dump it on the web, get arrested, get bailed out by a wannabe documentary filmmakers, and thus said filmmaker will lash out and discredit the very leaks that he has been praising? It makes more sense than most of your theories. But the funniest part is his outrage.
So what do you do with about a false "secret" cable, especially one that involves you and your movie? Well, you wait for a responsible newspaper to investigate and shout what it discovers from the rooftops. But yesterday WikiLeaks gave the 'Sicko' Cuba cable to the media -- and what did they do with it? They ran it as if it were true!
So here you have WikiLeaks, who have put themselves on the line to find and release these cables to the press -- and traditional journalists are once again just too lazy to lift a finger, point and click their mouse to log into Nexis or search via Google, and look to see if Cuba really did "ban the film."
Yes, journalists should positively fact check their stories before they just run with them. So, my question is, who is the first journalist to release this story?
I support Julian, whom I see as a pioneer of free speech, transparent government and the digital revolution in journalism.
Yes, Michael Moore identifies Assange as a journalist. That having been said, how many journalists are responsible for pushing a lie here? Michael linked to the stories from "lazy" journalists who "failed to fact check" but they all seem to have one thing in common. Link 1 carried this headline. "WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system". The first line from link 2 is "And they say there's nothing interesting in the WikiLeaks cables:". The third link breeches the subject as follows. "I thought of him when I read the latest Wikileaks’ cables in this morning’s Guardian."
Notice something there? Each and every one of these articles isn't claiming to have hot new scoop that turns out to be false. They are all simply reporting the information that the first "journalist" Julian Assange posted on WikiLeaks. So, Michael, I will agree that journalists need to do a little fact checking. Perhaps you could discuss this with your bailout buddy right after you help him get over his fear of bending over to pick up the soap. And perhaps you should retract this offer to help this lazy journalist spread his unchecked lies across the world wide web.
"I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars,"
In the future, perhaps Michael Moore would be better served to remain silent and thought of as an idiot, than to open his mouth and remove any doubt. Either way, perhaps he has learned a valuable lesson. After all, it is possible that not every enemy of the United States is indeed Moore's friend.
