Sicko

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Over at a Comment is Free Christopher Hayes has an interesting comment on Michael Moore, propaganda, and Moore's new movie Sicko. By the sounds of it, the movie is a compelling critique of the US health care system. Moore's good at compelling, which is part of the reason why the right hate him. Moore's also good at logical inconsistency, various versions of 'the kite fallacy', and, of course, factual 'smoothing', which is why I feel conflicted about him*.

According to Hayes, Sicko - otherwise brilliant - ends with Michael Moore taking 9/11 rescue workers, whose health problems have been shamefully untreated in the US, to Cuba for medical attention. The first half of this premise sounds wonderful to me: given all the elixir d' propaganda that has been milked from the 9/11 heroes, the fact that some have been simply left to suffer the health consequences of the event, is not only an appalling indictment of the US health care system but also of the US itself.

And I can see the temptation of Cuba too: what better way to stick it to US elites then getting treatment from the old socialist boogieman. But the exercise is flawed in two ways. First, there's the uncomfortable fact that foreigners are charged for health care in Cuba (a point which, if Ben Whitford is to be believed, it is omitted from the film). Second, there's Cuba's human rights record - which shouldn't be, but too often is, ignored by some on the left.

Why give air to a regime like Castro's?

[Update: according to the Wikipedia "In an interview with Time Magazine, Moore states "I’m not trumpeting Castro or his regime. I just want to say to fellow Americans, "C’mon, we’re the United States! If they can [provide care for all] we can do it."^[11] Fidel Castro is also referred to as a "dictator" in the film." Which sounds a bit better - maybe I should just shut up until I've seen the film myself.]

[Update 2: Ah heck, blogs aren't about just shutting up, anyhow. So one more thing: I've been reading over the film list for this year's Telecom New Zealand film festival. In 2004, Fahrenheit 911 was afforded prime place, not so this year: we won't be seeing Sicko at all. Instead, we've got Manufacturing Dissent, a critique of Moore. What a difference a few years and a personal debunking industry can make.

Although if the Wikipedia entry is to be believed, there's some tasty irony floating round - it seems as though Manufacturing Dissent may have, erm, manufactured, claims about Michael Moore meeting Roger Smith.]
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* It's worth noting that polemicists from all points of the politic compass engage in these activities. The fact that Moore's indulgences are more well known is not, in my opinion, evidence that he is any worse at them than anyone else but rather the fact that he has been successful enough to foster a Moore debunking industry.

Até dia Qui bô voltà

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As part of their series on migration the New York Times has an interesting article on a small island state and its diaspora. The country in question isn't in the Pacific though, and its emigrants aren't in here in New Zealand. Instead, the story is about a small collection of sand covered islets that float in the Harmattan-swept North Atlantic: Cabo Verde, or the Cape Verde Islands. The Islands are a small independent African nation, formerly a colony of the Portuguese.

The thrust of the story, and what makes it interesting, is its focus on the social consequences of migration. There's little denying that remittances have made the lives of both the emigrants and their families back home better off economically, but the social costs for the separated families are often high.

It's not only the families at home who suffer either: around the world migrant workers are highly vulnerable to exploitation and worse. And Cape Verdians are no different in this respect.

This is something I know from personal experience. I spent several months in the Cape Verde Islands in 1999; for the first six weeks I stayed in a rented room in the village of Palmeira on the Island of Sal. In the room adjacent to me, only partially separated by a wall that never quite made it to the ceiling, was a family; a mother and her son. Christian, the son, must have been close to my age and we slowly became friends. His mother, until I finally got invited into their room, I never met. She stayed inside all day and the only reason I knew of her presence was the almost endless muttering that drifted over the wall. When I finally was invited in by Christian I met a pale woman with the wild, wide-open eyes of some form of mental illness. Christian tried to introduce me to her, but she recoiled away - frightened I guess.

Later, as we sipped Coke in the local bar, Christian explained, keeping his Portuguese simple so I could understand. Her problem was "not one of god, but one of man; of bad things". When he was young she had left home to work as a maid in Italy. Only to return one day in a state similar to the one I met her in. She had some photos, which Christian showed me - a pretty young women on the beach and happy, it seemed, in the streets of some Italian town. But clearly something had gone very wrong. Rape? Something similar? I don't know if Christian had ever tried to find out; I certainly never felt comfortable asking him.

Eventually, I moved on, chasing waves on another island. I wrote to Christian from London - sending him the present he had asked for - a Bob Marley hat - but never heard back. So I've always wondered what became of him and his mother. And thinking about their plight has always made me sad - it's doing so again now.

In an ideal world she would have never had to leave her country to find work to support her family. But, I guess, we don't live in such a world. And so, even thinking about this sad story again, I'm still in favour of migration and guest worker programmes. What I'm also in favour of though, is domestic legislation to protect those, most vulnerable, workers when they are in New Zealand or any other host country.

The New York Times article also tells the story of a young Cape Verdian man who was sent back to the Islands from the US as a result of his delinquency. This is another untold story of migrant workers. Subject to the social stresses of life in the urban 'under class' younger migrants and, in particular, the children of migrants, sometimes fall foul of the law, which can lead to them being deported. Or, to look at it another way, something that can lead to the host nations exporting their social problems. The Maras of Central America are a classic example of this - gang members deported from the US took their ultra-violent gang culture back to San Salvador and other cities. Closer to home, it appears that the worst of recent rioting in Tonga was perpetrated not by pro-democracy activists but by gang members sent home either from Salt Lake City or, to a lesser extent, New Zealand.

In the Cape Verde Islands I got to meet a couple of their equivalents. When a French friend and I hopped off the ferry in Sao Nicolao we were met by two tattooed, bandannaed youths Juan (surely Juao?) and Jose who asked us in American accents "whatup?" and invited us to smoke some pot and "shoot some hoops". The term for such youths in Sao Nicolao was retornadas (or somthing similar) and, judging by the way the otherwise friendly, elderly hotelier who offered us his two cents worth on them later that evening spat out the words, retornadas were hardly held in high esteem. I don't know how much trouble Juan and Jose actually caused - in the small fishing port they now called home simply having tattoos was probably crime enough to warrant ostracism. Even so, there was no way to escape the fact that their home, the only country on earth where they could now live, was anything but the home they had been brought up in. They seemed utterly trapped between cultures, between geographies. Such, I guess, is the plight of the migrant.

Slavery China Style

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I've written before about China's great leap forward into the world of capitalism and global markets. What will happen over the next 20 years and what it will mean for the people of China, and the rest of us, is surely one of the big development questions of our generation.

Or, more accurately, it is several of the biggest development questions of this day and age bundled together. One of the most important being what the current wave of economic development will mean for China's poor.

At present, China's economic growth appears to be a rising tide that is lifting most ships. But it is certainly also a tide that is lifting those at the top much higher than those at the bottom. Similarly, while it's true that sweatshops are probably a better alternative than grinding rural poverty, in the absence of independent trade unions and a free media, it's also true that the manufacturing boom isn't doing as much as it could for the country's workers. And the conditions that it is taking place under are most definitely unjust.

At its very worst this injustice is, quite literally, slavery. Here's Li Datong in OpenDemocracy:

Another shocking news story broke in China in June 2007. It was discovered that in Hongtong county, Shanxi province, people kidnapped from rural areas were being forced to work as slaves in a brick kiln. Horrifying television footage showed them after their chance rescue - they were filthy and emaciated, with their clothes in tatters and blank expressions on their faces. It was impossible not to think of the images of holocaust survivors rescued from concentration camps at the end of the Second World War.

Similar scenes occurred over the following days. After an instruction from "senior leaders in the central government" an inspection team was sent to the area. It was only at this point that local officials seemed to wake up and stir into action, beginning with a large scale investigation and rescue operation. By 22 June, several hundred "slave workers" had been rescued. Of the 3,347 Shanxi brick kilns investigated, 2,036 were operating without the proper licenses or tax registration. A total of 53,036 people were being illegally employed. The investigation uncovered cases of people being kidnapped, of restriction of personal freedom, of forced labour, use of child labour, and abuse and even murder of workers.

While we are on the subject of labour rights in China, the recent skirmish over the draft 'labour contract law' is an interesting example of the political economy of globalisation. When the Chinese government finally appeared to be taking action to provide workers with some basic protection who should spring up to oppose them? Why, western business interests, of course.

Perhaps more surprising, and definitely more inspiring, was the countervailing force that sprung up. Once again, Li Datong:

On the morning of 24 April 2006, the managers of over twenty American companies were invited by AmCham Shanghai to attend a seminar to attack the labour-contract law, with the threat of withdrawing investment. The opposition to this law by multinational firms caught the attention of the US media, and on 13 October the New York Times ran a front-page story with the headline: "China Drafts Law to Empower Unions and End Labour Abuse".

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The reaction to the article in the New York Times surpassed any Chinese expectations: American union organisations publicly began to support the Chinese law and leftwing members of Congress wrote a letter to President Bush on 31 October stating: "We would like to declare our opposition towards the actions of American companies, which are attempting to thwart the drafting of the new Chinese labour contract law that will give workers more rights".

Oh Dear...

...it appears that dear, sweet Karl Du Fresne has Coddingtoned his stats. As I noted yesterday, he made the following claim in his Dompost Column.

New Zealand has the second-highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the OECD and our abortion rate remains one of the highest in the developed world. The rate has more than trebled since 1980 and, most tellingly, it has steadily increased in the age groups where the FPA directs much of its efforts. For girls aged 11-14 it has doubled since 1991, and for older teenagers – those aged 15-19 – it has risen by 60 per cent.

With regards to the trebling since 1980, it's not exactly clear whether he's referring to the abortion rate or the teen pregnancy rate. Let's examine both in turn.

Teenage Pregnancies:

According to Statistics New Zealand

In the early 1970s, 70 out of every 1,000 teenagers had a child in any year. By the mid-1980s the figure had fallen to 30 per 1,000. Subsequently, it varied between 30 and 35 per 1,000 until 1997. There has been a general downward trend in the last five years, and in 2002 the fertility rate for teenagers was at a historical low of 25.6 per 1,000.

In other words, the teenage pregnancy rate has not 'more than trebled since 1980'.

Abortions:
According to Statistics New Zealand

...the teenage abortion rate has almost doubled since 1980...

That's 'almost doubled,' not 'more than tripled'.

But the big picture is more interesting, as Stats NZ notes:

Interestingly, although the teenage abortion rate has almost doubled since 1980, it was accompanied by a decline in teenage fertility (see Figure 4). Thus, short-term variations aside, the known pregnancy rate (live births plus abortions) in 2001 (50 per 1,000) was almost the same as that 20 years earlier in 1981, in spite of a number of social changes, such as non-eligibility to welfare support and high levels of youth unemployment, which may have been expected to act as disincentives to teenage childbearing.

And what about the good old days (you know before our country was run by "leftist lesbians")? Guess what? Teengage pregnancy rates aren't much different from what they were in 1901. And they are much lower than they were in the 1940s and 50s.


In other words. Du Fresne's stats are nonsense.

Seeing as I've been digging round the stats website I thought I show one other table too.


You'll note that, among developed countries, New Zealand's stats on teen pregnancies and the like compare poorly. Only one country stands out as being consistently worse the United States. Home of the 'religious approach to teenage sex'. Compare that to the Netherlands which has comprehensive sex education.

In short Karl Du Fresene, in his swipe at leftists, lesbians and FPA has been utterly dishonest.