Persistence of Vision

Since its launch last summer, Free Market Cure, the website and video series created by MPI fellow Stuart Browning to expose the myths of single-payer health care, has become an internet phenomenon. In January alone, freemarketcure.com averaged over 15,000 visitors a day, and Browning's short film, "A Short Course in Brain Surgery," has been viewed over 1.2 million times.

"A Short Course in Brain Surgery" tells the story of an Ontario man whose blinding headaches and seizures could not move the Canadian medical system to do the tests needed for a diagnosis--so he had to travel to the U.S. and pay out of pocket to learn he had a golfball-sized brain tumor. When he returned to Canada with the news, doctors told him he would have to wait eight months to begin treatment for his life-threatening condition--so he came back to the States, and within a month had received the surgery he needed to restore him to health. It's one of several short films available for free at Browning's site--and all of them are worth watching and considering carefully as we head into an election where health care will be a major issue.

Michael Moore's paean to socialized health care, Sicko, has just been nominated for an Oscar. But don't be fooled. Hollywood's approval does not mean the film is accurate, or that its policy recommendations are sound.

Indoctrinate U kicked off its campus tour last week at the most appropriate campus imaginable: Duke University. Duke is still recovering from its shameful behavior during much of 2006 and 2007, when the administration and the faculty leapt to punitive presumptions of guilt after a mentally unstable stripper falsely accused several lacrosse players of raping her. The whole ugly story is recounted in gripping prose by KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor in Until Proven Innocent; Johnson also maintains Durham in Wonderland, a website with ongoing commentary on the case and its aftermath. Though Duke has never really acknowledged just how badly it behaved, and though the 88 faculty members who signed an outrageously presumptuous and hateful statement against the lacrosse team have never been held accountable for their patently unprofessional actions, there are people at Duke who want to see the culture change. And they are the ones responsible for bringing Indoctrinate U to campus.

Duke Students for an Ethical Duke spearheaded the screening, coordinating with a wide range of campus groups not only to get a good turnout, but also to bring filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney and producer Thor Halvorssen to the event. Here's what they had to say about it all:

Last night's screening of Indoctrinate U was fantastic! The film was insightful, provocative and often hilarious. The Duke Chronicle reported the event in today's issue, though with a few significant mistakes and a somewhat unfortunate title. DSEDuke sponsored the film, with contributions from the Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace and the Political Science department. A discussion afterwards was co-sponsored and promoted by the Duke Conservative Union, College Republicans, Duke Democrats, and the Center for Race Relations.

We promoted the event (albeit with late start) with an attempt to attract a diverse audience, both ethnically, ideologically and intellectually. We encouraged attendees to prepare to ask tough, penetrating questions during the Q&A with Thor and Evan. Evan and Thor were fantastic. With the exception of perhaps one question, we were somewhat disappointed that neither was ever really challenged. Thor in particular was remarkably insightful, animated and inspiring in his responses.

It was also wonderful to meet them in person. Evan and Thor both joined all of us for dinner afterwards at the Washington Duke Inn.

We are currently lobbying for them to create a documentary on the Duke Lacrosse Affair.

Indoctrinate U will be on the road for the coming months, with screenings at Indiana, East Tennessee State, San Diego State, and more. And, on April 3, it will be coming home to roost at Maloney's alma mater, Bucknell. Last time Evan was there showing an early version of the film, the campus police nearly arrested him. Here's hoping the university shows a bit more tolerance this time around.

Indoctrinate U has set the standard for exposure of the campus free speech scandal in the twenty-first century. Setting aside the bookish model of the 80s and 90s, Evan Coyne Maloney made a movie about the problem--and along the way he updated and reinvented it for a society that increasingly gets its messages through the medium of film.

Now, one of the most important higher ed watchdog groups out there--the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education--is following suit. FIRE is announcing its new multimedia project, which will bring video to bear on the important work it does defending liberty on our campuses--and the first installment in that project is FIRE on Campus, a fourteen minute video directed by Maloney and Andrew Marcus. FIRE figures largely in Maloney's movie, and it's a delight to see FIRE partnering now with him.

Watch the film here -- and keep an eye out for more FIRE films. Of particular interest is the campus contest, described as "an initiative designed to encourage students across the country to submit self-produced videos about the state of liberty on their own campuses. FIRE will be asking students for short films dealing with issues ranging from free speech zones to speech codes to abuses of due process, private conscience, and free speech. FIRE plans to announce a contest winner in late 2008."

Indoctrinate U screens tonight at Ottawa's National Archives -- and lest it seem odd that a film about American higher education is attracting attention in Canada, rest assured that Evan Coyne Maloney's film resonates strongly there.

Here's an excerpt from an op-ed in Canada's National Post:

Early 20th-century American novelist Thomas Wolfe, the subject of my grad thesis, is most famously remembered for his book, or rather its title, You Can't Go Home Again. The phrase entered the language as shorthand for the disappointment one feels in later life when revisiting the greatly changed scene of one's youthful bliss.

My youthful bliss was studying the great writers of Western civilization at the University of Toronto. I didn't know then I was witnessing a "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar": the outgoing tide of a classically liberal education.

I don't suffer from the "in-my-day" syndrome, whereby the institutions of one's formative years seem in retrospect superior to those of the next generations. I haven't lost my objectivity; academia has. In my day, the university's mission was to open minds; today it is to close them.

[...]

I often wonder where in Canada I could "go home again" in the 21st century. I have one simple, symbolic criterion: a learning centre that would still hold up for critical admiration the greatness in the writings of Thomas Wolfe, a hard-drinking, aggressively heterosexual white male from a racist background, whose creative inspiration was Western civilization's literary treasure trove and whose overriding theme was his passion for America.

That's a tall order nowadays. I only know one three-year arts program in Canada today I'd be glad to call my intellectual home, and I fear for its survival.

Congratulations to MPI fellows James and Maureen Tusty, whose remarkable The Singing Revolution just won the award for Most Inspirational Film at the Boulder International Film Festival. Over 500 people saw the film, and gave it a standing ovation afterward.

This film has a life of its own. It moves people to tears wherever it plays--and then word gets out about it, and crowds flock to see it. Last December, a scheduled week-long run at Manhattan's Village East Cinema turned into a month-long run, because turnout was so consistently high and reviews were so steadily spectacular. And on the strength of that, The Singing Revolution will be traveling to cities across North America in the coming weeks--starting with a five-screening-a-day, week-long run in each, with the option to extend the run to meet demand.

The Singing Revolution will return to New York City for a special two-day run on February 23 and 24, in honor of Estonian Independence Day. On March 21, it will commence a week-long run in Albany, New York, at the Spectrum 8 Theater. On March 28, it will open at the Cinemark Tinseltown in Vancouver, Canada. On April 18, it will open at Washington D.C.'s Landmark's E Street Cinema. And on April 18 and 19, it will enjoy a special two-day run at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Watch singingrevolution.com for details.

In the coming weeks, The Singing Revolution will show in Toronto, Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and more.

Since it was launched last November, Jared Lapidus' The Libel Tourist has been seen by thousands of people. And it has played a vital role in drawing attention to a frightening loophole in the First Amendment. In New York, legislators are working to close that loophole with "Rachel's Law," a bill inspired by author Rachel Ehrenfeld's troubling and prophetic experience with British libel law. Writing in the New York Post, civil liberties experts Harvey Silverglate and Samual Abady explain how Ehrenfeld found her First Amendment rights abridged by a foreign court, and offer strong words of support for Rachel's Law:

Ehrenfeld refused to fight bin Mahfouz in British courts; he obtained a default judgment that ordered her to destroy all copies of "Funding Evil" and pay him $225,000 in damages.

Normally, such foreign judgments are enforceable in the United States under the legal doctrine of "comity." But Ehrenfeld sued bin Mahfouz in Manhattan federal court seeking an up-front declaration that his English libel judgment violates the First Amendment and is void here.

Unfortunately, the federal court dismissed her case, ruling that bin Mahfouz lacked sufficient New York contacts for it to assert jurisdiction over him.

She appealed - but the jurisdictional issue is a matter of state law, so the federal court sent the case to New York's Court of Appeals. On Dec. 20, that court confirmed the original "no jurisdiction" finding - completely skirting the critical First Amendment issues.

But the court signaled a remedy - noting the jurisdictional issue "should be directed to the Legislature."

In response, Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and Sen. Dean Skelos (R-LI) introduced the bipartisan "Libel Terrorism Reform Act" to create the jurisdictional reach the Court of Appeals found lacking.
Their bill would empower New York courts to assert jurisdiction over anyone who obtains a foreign libel judgment against a New York publisher or writer - and limit enforcement to those judgments that satisfy "the freedom of speech and press protections guaranteed by both the United States and New York Constitutions."

In effect, this renders all foreign libel judgments unenforceable in New York, as no court outside the United States abides by our First Amendment protections.

But this bill, if it becomes law, will do more than protect our precious First Amendment freedoms in New York. It also will serve as a template for action by Congress - and attract foreign counterterrorism scholars and journalists to our shores.

Americans certainly differ about how to fight terrorism but can all agree that we can't protect our way of life without a free press. As Rory Lancman put it: "The ability of our journalists, authors and press to expose . . . the truth is the most important weapon we have in the War on Terror."

MPI fellow Stuart Browning's short film, "A Short Course in Brain Surgery," has now been viewed over 2 million times--and Canadians are beginning to watch with great interest the manner in which the failure of their national health care system is beginning to shape American debate about the issue.

Last week, Browning appeared on Canadian national television to discuss the role his short films are playing in the American health care debate as the 2008 election cycle heats up. Watch it here.