"You Talking About Cuba?"

Sergei Eisenstein, despite his fall from Soviet grace, left a powerful resume as the most prolific and talented propagandist to ever live. His energetic "collision montage" painted an image of drama and life onto an utterly dead and desiccated regime. I've written here about his cinematic genius, for only a man of immense talent could peddle monumental lies with such grace. After reading several initial reviews of Michael Moore's Sicko, I think we might have something greater than Eisenstein here.

"You talking about Cuba?"
-Fidel Castro's reply to Mr. Burn's request to live in his "socialist utopia" in an episode of The Simpson's.

I'm not sure even Eisenstein could make Cuban health care look glamorous. The vast majority of Cuba's population doesn't have access to the upper level hospitals that cater to party officials and the tourists who pump dollars into the regime for a cheap liposuction or face-lift. In the state run hospitals for those who can't pay, it's better to stay home and care for yourself. Patients must supply their own toilet paper, light bulbs, and other necessities, and doctors work with next to nothing. Moore glosses over the hundreds of testimonies from dissident doctors or the ugly fact that simple aspirin commands a huge price on the Cuban black market. Only the greatest propagandist of all time could make this brutal reality look like a sunny utopia.