Monday, September 25, 2006

Corrupt, Cruel and Inhumane


There’s more information available on the Tripoli Six, whose plight I discussed earlier. You can watch a short, gripping movie trailer here, and there’s a list of contacts and other pertinent links here (both via Effect Measure). Also via Effect Measure, this quote:

They stand in for all of us who risk killing our patients because the tools we are given are so defective, our patients, through no fault of their own, are so sick, and the system so corrupt, cruel and inhumane it cares nothing for their deaths except as a political gambit to divert attention.
This is well said, but it makes me question Revere’s assertion that this is not a partisan issue. In America, we’re currently debating whether torture should be legal, and whether science has any authority, and whether access to healthcare is a social good, let alone a human right. The situation in Libya – where religious hatred is trampling science, and political opportunism is whitewashing the horrors of a failed public health system, and torture was used to extract false confessions - shows what can happen when you compromise on certain basic values.

That said, prominent conservative blogs are picking up the story and demanding action, which is all to the good. We can continue to discuss the larger philosophical issues once the Tripoli Six are finally released. Until then, please continue to spread the word.

UPDATE: Effect Measure announces that Mickey Grant's film Infection - the trailer for which is linked above - is now available for free viewing via streaming video. Give it some time to load.

3 comments:

Phila said...

It's odd that all this is happening at the last moment (as opposed to an ongoing campaign for the past few years), but probably there has been stuff going on, but just been a rumble under the surface. There is nothing like a possible death sentence to catch people's attention, though.

There has been an ongoing campaign, actually (though I was unaware of it myself until recently). This is basically just a new tactic, as far as I can tell.

Normal news media tend not to cover ongoing stories, unfortunately. The fact that these medics are Bulgarian and Palestinian doesn't help, and the fact that Gadaffi's "conversion" was a legitimating narrative for the pro-Bush camp helps even less.

Still, the bipartisan effort is definitely heartening, and I think there are grounds for hope.

Anonymous said...

The video by Mickey Grant is "Injection", not "Infection". Six medical workers have been sentenced to death to cover up the real reason for the AIDS epidemic in Libya. We should all add our voices to the global outcry for justice.

Mickey Grant said...

You can view my entire film, INJECTION on Google Video at the following address:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5182317638126553942&q=injection&hl=en