How Corporate America is Pushing Us All Off a Cliff
by Michael Moore
michaelmoore.com (November 19 2010)
Global Research (November 21 2010)
When someone talks about pushing you off a cliff, it's just human nature
to be curious about them. Who are these people, you wonder, and why would
they want to do such a thing?
That's what I was thinking when corporate whistleblower Wendell Potter
revealed {1} that, when "Sicko" was being released in 2007, the health
insurance industry's Public Relations firm, APCO Worldwide, discussed
their Plan B: "Pushing Michael Moore off a cliff".
But after looking into it, it turns out it's nothing personal! APCO wants
to push everyone off a cliff.
APCO was hatched in 1984 as a subsidiary of the Washington, DC law firm
Arnold & Porter - best known for its years of representing the giant
tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris. APCO set up fake "grassroots"
organizations around the country to do the bidding of Big Tobacco. All of
a sudden, "normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-Philip Morris
Americans" were popping up everywhere. And it turned out they were
outraged - outraged! - by exactly the things APCO's clients hated (such
as, the government telling tobacco companies what to do). In particular,
they were "furious" that regular people had the right to sue big
corporations ... you know, like Philip Morris. (For details, see the 2000
report "The CALA Files" (PDF) {2} by my friends and colleagues Carl Deal
and Joanne Doroshow.)
Right about now you may be wondering: how many Americans get pushed off a
cliff by Big Tobacco every year? The answer is 443,000 Americans die every
year {3} due to smoking. That's a big cliff.
With this success under their belts, APCO created "The Advancement of
Sound Science Coalition". TASSC, funded partly by Exxon, had a leading
role in a planned campaign by the fossil fuel industry to create doubt
about global warming. The problem for Big Oil speaking out against global
warming, according to the campaign's own leaked documents {4}, was that
the public could see the "vested interest" that oil companies had in
opposing environmental laws. APCO's job was to help conceal those oil
company interests.
And boy, have they ever succeeded. Polls now show that, as the world gets
hotter, Americans are getting less and less worried about it {5}.
How big is this particular cliff? According to the World Health
Organization, climate change contributes - right now - to the deaths of
150,000 people {6} every year. By 2030 it may be double that. And after
that ... well, the sky is literally the limit! I don't think it's crazy to
say APCO may rack up even bigger numbers here than they have with tobacco.
With this track record, you can see why, when the health insurance
industry wanted to come after "Sicko", they went straight to APCO. The
"worst case", as their leaked documents say {7}, was that "Sicko evolves
into a sustained populist movement". That simply could not be allowed to
happen. Something obviously had to be done.
As Wendell Potter explains, APCO ran their standard playbook, setting up
something called "Health Care America". Health Care America, according to
Potter, "was received by mainstream reporters, including the New York
Times, as a legitimate organization when it was nothing but a front group
set up by APCO Worldwide. It was not anything approaching what it was
reporting to be: a 'grassroots organization'. It was a sham group".
Health Care America showed up online in 2007 (the year "Sicko" was
released) and disappeared quickly by early 2008. You can still find their
website archived at {8}. As you'll see, their "moderated forum" {9}
allowed normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-the-insurance-industry
Americans to speak out. For instance, here's something Nicole felt very
strongly about:
Moore shouldn't be allowed to call his film a 'documentary'. It should
be called a political commercial. We need to fix our health care system,
but we shouldn't accept a Hollywood moviemaker's political views as the
starting point.
Here's what Wendell Potter revealed {10} about the insurance industry's
media strategy:
As we would do the media training, we would always have someone refer
to him as 'Hollywood entertainer' or 'Hollywood moviemaker Michael Moore'.
They don't want you to think that it was a documentary that had some truth.
Thanks for your perspective, "Nicole"!
Now, how big was THAT cliff? A pretty good size - according to a recent
study {11}, 45,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health
insurance.
And here we are in 2010. A lesser Public Relations firm might be resting
on its laurels at this point, content to sit back and watch hundreds of
thousands of people continue to be pushed off the various cliffs they've
built. But not APCO! Right now they've taken on their biggest challenge
yet: leading a giant, multi-million dollar effort {12} to help Wall Street
"earn back the trust of the American people".
We may never know the size of this particular cliff. But we can be sure
it's gigantic. According to the New York Times {13}, one of the things
Wall Street's recession gave us is "the crippling of the government
program that provides life-sustaining antiretroviral drugs to Americans
with HIV or AIDS who cannot afford them". Internationally, organizations
fighting AIDS and other diseases are "hugely afraid" of cutbacks in
funding {14}.
Of course, there are the 101 ways recessions kill quietly. For instance,
children's hospitals are seeing a sharp 55% rise {15} in the abuse of
babies by parents.
And that's just the previous cliff. If APCO and its Wall Street
co-conspirators lull us into turning our backs on them again, we can be
sure the next cliff - the next crash - will be much bigger.
Anyway, this is all just a way for me to say to APCO: No hard feelings! My
getting mad at you would be like a chicken who's still happily pecking
away getting mad at McDonald's. Compared to the millions you've already
turned into McNuggets, you've actually treated me much, much BETTER!
Spying on my family, planting smears and lies about me, privately
badgering movie critics to give the film a poor review, scaring Americans
into believing they'd be committing a near-act of treason were they to go
to the theater and see my movie - hey, ya done good, health insurance
companies of America. And, most important, you stopped the nation from
getting true universal health care. Good job!
There's only one problem - I'm not one of those "liberals" you fund in
Congress, the ones who fear your power.
I'm me. And that, sadly, is not good for you.
Yours in good health,
Michael Moore
PS: It seems to me that APCO's discussion of pushing me off a cliff should
legitimately be part of their Wikipedia page {16}. And why not something
about their role in Wall Street's new Public Relations offensive? So I'm
asking everyone interested to write something up that meets Wikipedia's
guidelines {17} and help bring the APCO Worldwide entry up to date. Post
it somewhere online and send a tweet about it to @mmflint {18}. I'll award
a signed copy of "Sicko" by noon Sunday to the best entry ... and then
deputize you to post it on Wikipedia for real and make sure APCO's minions
don't take it down. Just be sure afterward not to walk near any cliffs!
PPS: The late, great comedian Bill Hicks had some thoughts about marketing
and the people who do it {19}.
Links:
{1}
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-in-the-news/push-michael-moore-off-cliff
{2} http://www.centerjd.org/archives/studies/CALAFiles.pdf
{3} http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/aag/osh.htm
{4}
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0912FD3B5B0C758EDDAD0894D0494D81&pagewanted=print
{5}
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/americans-global-warming-concerns-continue-drop.aspx
{6}
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111602197.html
{7} http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/ahip1.pdf
{8} http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.healthcare-america.org/
{9}
http://web.archive.org/web/20070828004858/www.healthcare-america.org/getinvolved/voicing.cfm
{10} http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/transcript2.html
{11}
http://michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/%20http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58G6W520090917
{12} http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aFb60nvnfyZM
{13} http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/us/01aidsdrugs.html
{14} http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66H1Q720100718
{15} http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36859272/ns/health-kids_and_parenting
{16} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APCO_Worldwide
{17} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines
{18} http://twitter.com/mmflint
{19} http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
_____
_______________________________________________
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
