Google drops a Sicko bollock
p2pnet news | movies:- “It’s not much of a surprise to learn Google is upset about Michael Moore’s Sicko, the documentary that’s eviscerating America’s health-care system,” I posted on Monday, going on:
“How’s that? Well, Google, which recently propelled itself into the political arena, is also apparently into health care.”
And the good people who run Google are all very deeply upset.
“In one of those oops moments that has already generated significant backlash and could end up in a guide on ‘marketing don’ts,’ a Google blogger has pissed on Michael Moore’s new movie Sicko and has offered to help the poor, unfairly criticized health care industry to fight back,” says Elinor Mills on Webware.
“How? By selling them Google ads.”
Here’s what Google says on its ‘health advertising’ (No! Really!) blog:
We can place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or in relevant websites within our ever-expanding content network. Whatever the problem, Google can act as a platform for educating the public and promoting your message.
What a load of old bollocks.
But in much the same way that the Net has opened up the way for ordinary people to make themselves powerfully felt against corporate efforts to ‘advertise’ them into doing things they don’t want to do and buying things they don’t want to buy, Moore, a very ordinary person with extraordinary bravery, is galvanising Americans into unthinkable (for US health care corporate interests) action.
“In all my thirty years on this earth, I have never ever seen any movie have this kind of unifying effect on people,” says Josh Tyler on Cinemablend, continuing:
It was like I was standing there, at the birth of a new political movement. Even after 9/11, there was never a reaction like this, at least not in Texas. If Sicko truly has this sort of power, then Michael Moore has done something beyond amazing. If it can change people, affect people like this in the conservative hotbed of Texas, then Sicko isn’t just a great movie, seeing it may be one of the most important things you do all year.
It can indeed.
Back to Google, “Moore attacks health insurers, health providers, and pharmaceutical companies by connecting them to isolated and emotional stories of the system at its worst,” it says on its blog. “Moore’s film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care.”
Of course, the industry is money and marketing driven, wholly and completely: just like Google. Any interest it has in consumers is motivated entirely by bottom-line considerations. Just like Google.
Below is a comment post from p2pnet reader:
“by connecting them to isolated and emotional stories of the system at its worst”
BULLSHIT! Complete and total CRAP-SPEAK!
I am one of those ‘isolated’ stories, I know dozens more personally (many of whom I am related to), and HUNDREDS more as loose associates. In fact, EVER LAST LIVING BREATHING OR DEAD PERSON I HAVE EVER TAKEN THE TIME TO TALK ABOUT THIS WITH, IS A VICTIM OF THE FOR-PROFIT HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY WITH HORROR STORIES TO TELL…an not a SINGLE good experience.
Except for three people who went to Canada for surgeries that they COULD NOT get done here in the USA. All three of them I met while sitting in a Veteran’s Affairs waiting room, trying to get services from an administration glutted by Iraq war casualties, and struggling under a budget that BushCo takes perverse pleasure in slashing year after year. The four of us needed operations to LIVE, but we had all been discharged FOR THOSE CONDITIONS before we had two years in service. so the VA won’t touch us. Fuck they CAN’T touch us, they just don’t have the manpower or cash!
And civilian healthcare system won’t even LOOK at us because of our ‘pre-existing conditions’. My three acquaintances could afford to take a road trip to Canada, get hitched to some friendly locals, and get their operations.
I was already married at the time. Now that I am divorced, I can’t afford the trip (hell, my health is so bad I couldn’t SURVIVE the trip).
And all this could have been solved with about $500 worth of drugs 10 years ago when the injury occurred … BEFORE it became a chronic life-threatening condition.
So I say FUCK the privatized healthcare system, FUCK Nixon for instituting it, FUCK BushCo for perpetuating it and doing his best to neuter the few precious SOCIALIZED (VA and MediCare) healthcare systems we have, and most especially FUCK EVERY SINGLE APOLOGIST LIKE GOOGLE THAT WHITE-WASHES THIS HORROR STORY OF A SYSTEM!
I have about 2-3 months left to live, and these last few months are going to be hallmarked by unimaginable pain and immobility. Wake the hell UP america, and kick the fascist elites out of power …
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
Also See:
Google is upset – Google slices Sicko, July 2, 2007
Webware – Google as spin doctor, June 19, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here here for details.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
July 5th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
“Of course, the industry is money and marketing driven, wholly and completely: just like Google. Any interest it has in consumers is motivated entirely by bottom-line considerations. Just like Google.”
My wife is a doctor. I know personally that in at least her case this statement is pure bullshit. She puts up with a lot of crap from patients but still bends over backwards to the point of her not taking any money home from her office, working for free, so that she could make people healthier. She cares nothing whatsoever about the money (although I’ve wished she’d do so a bit more, her bills need to be paid, preferably not from my medical business unrelated salary — and I’ve done that) and only about providing health care. I’ve a nurse sister who has the same attitude.
An “industry” may be money driven (rather much the definition of “industry”, Moore’s movie Industry business is money-driven), but that doesn’t mean the people in it are that way (although there always will be those that are). If you do a movie about the scum of any business, it’ll look bad and that’s what he’s done. It’s not a balanced view overall, it’s crap showing how “good” the bottom 1% is. Did he go to other countries and look for their bottom 1%? No! Their top 1% against our bottom 1%.
Most medical businesses consist of one or a small handful of doctors working for themselves, even if their office has a hospital as his/her landlord. Not mega corporate machines. There are exceptions like perhaps veteran hospitals. But then that’s a government thing, and since when is the government expected to do anything well?
July 5th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
“My wife is a doctor. I know personally that in at least her case this statement is pure bullshit.”
Your wife and sister belong to an exceedingly moot __MINORITY__!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Doctors and nurses that have ‘cared’ for me didin’t give a ratz azz about anything but money and getting their shifts done; respectively. As a result, I’m yet another casualty of poor/non-existant health care!!!
My late husband was __KILLED__ by “doctors” who’s only bottom line was there wallets and greedy-azzed pharmaceutical companies!!!!!
So to the poster quoted in this article that the VA has effectively murdered him, my sincerest condolences for you and your family.
July 6th, 2007 at 2:33 am
“My wife is a doctor. I know personally that in at least her case this statement is pure bullshit.”
So your wife is running an healthinsurance company out of your basement too?
If not, then is your argument just a Strawmen to blur the point of the film
Because Mr. Moore’s film is about the business of healthinsurance taking money in, and being more interested in filling the companies shareholder pockets with it instead of spending most of it on sick people where only a minimal percentage is spend for administrative stuff of the company.
The american healthinsurance system hasn’t the overall well being of patients in mind, but the well being of the people that own those companies.
July 6th, 2007 at 3:23 am
In a country a big as the USA, in any industry you will find extremes. Regardless, the average american, the ones that have no say in politics in spite of their majority status, gets poor education poor justice and poor healthcare.
The problem, at least for justice and healthcare is that they have becomes businesses run for direct profit and very high salaries on the one hand and very poor service, wrking conditions and salaries on the other hand.
But at the same time a huge amount of money is spent on armamets needed to police the world according to Bush-Chaney priorities (corporate profits and oil control?).
A more social education, legal and heath system should be mandated by the people, but… too bad the people’s vote is worthless vis-a-vis lobbies.
July 6th, 2007 at 9:54 am
I am friends with a few doctors. Most of these doctors are good, hardworking people who have their patients’ best interests at heart. On the other hand, I also know many other “doctors” who don’t give a damn about their patients. How many times has people spent the day in a hospital emergency room waiting to be seen? I bet the majority of Americans have been through this.
IMHO, the (slight) majority of doctors and nurses ARE NOT AT FAULT. Many are stuck doing mandated paperwork for the hospital, government, and insurance companies. I remember as a child when the county health department provided most of its services for free. Now days, these services are very expensive. Insurance companies just about run the state government where I live. What is needed is not more government regulation, but rather more competition.
The current health care providers have a near monopoly on the health of the people. The damned government is even trying to take away nutritional and alternative treatments and cures. The AHCA (Agency for Health Care Administration) determines how many hospitals are allowed to open in a certain area. Rather than increasing government involvement in the medical and insurance industries, I propose getting the government almost completely out of it. This also includes licensing doctors and medical facilities. Rather than being licensed, Doctors, nurses, and medical facilities should be certified. Certification would mean that doctors, nurses, and medical facilities meet a certain minimum standard of excellence. This would mean that ANYONE would be allowed to “practice medicine” but only those who meet certain standards would be allowed to carry the seal of state certification.
I understand that not licensing health care professionals would mean that quacks, incompetent practitioners, and outright criminal would have a chance of fleecing the population. This is why I recommend a program of certification. Customers would have the right to ask to see the certification before receiving services from a specific health care professional. Word of mouth (as well as lawsuits) will also do good to weed out the bad actors.
Health care professionals as well as patients should determine how many and what kind of hospitals, clinics, and services that are allowed in a specific area, not government or insurance commissars.
I know of one doctor in my area who work over 15 years providing quality care to his patients. He had passed his Florida physician licensure exam and set up practice. After about 15 years in practice, it came to light that he never went to medical school. Instead of learning in a high priced school situation, he learned from books, etc. The point is that he had enough knowledge to pass the state medical exam.
The point is that the United State has become EXACTLY was the founders FOUGHT AGAINST. We the people have no representation in government, the legal system, or the medical system. Competition works. One only has to look at what is happening with the entertainment industry. We have the high priced corporate products filled with low quality fillers, DRM, advertisements, etc. which is supported by the government. On the other hand we have the higher quality product without much of the advertisements, DRM, etc. that is distributed online. We need to have similar choices with our food as well as our health care.
Michael Moore does well to point out the problems with our health care system. As far as the problem is concerned, he is right on target. The system is LOUSY (with few exceptions) as far as the patents are concerned.
However, I strongly disagree with him on his proposed solution.