Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/133640
FILM Directed by Kirby Dick The Invisible War T here's been a huge kerfuffle about gays in the military, but why would that be when an estimated 500,000 women and countless men have been the victims of sexual assault by straight men? In 2012 alone there were 26,000 reported assaults. Worse yet, for 25 percent of them, the superior to whom they would report the attack is their rapist. In an investigative film documenting numerous assaulted women and several men, some of them repeatedly or by several men, we learn that many of the bright young recruits who are dedicated to serving their country get abused by a system in which they are punished and their superiors usually get away scot-free. A major problem is that these cases do not go to court but are handled at a low level within the military, with decisions handed down by men whose only training is in the old boy network. We don't even have accurate statistics on incidences of assault, as many of the rapes go unreported. This is because there is often an array of retaliatory actions against the report- ing women. One was more than nine years into service and lost her job, meaning she also lost her pension and her career. Their problems don't always end when they leave the military, either. Kori Cioca has been fighting for six years to get health benefits for injuries sustained when she was physically abused and raped by a superior. Others suffer from crippling PTSD. And 40 percent of homeless female veterans report having been raped while in the service. We complain about the treatment of women in some other countries, are appalled that a woman would be an outcast, perhaps stoned, for being the victim of rape, yet we are doing a version of this very same thing to innocent women in our own military. The women have been shamed, but it is we who should feel shame for allowing this to continue. —Abigail Lewis Directed by Matthew Heinman & Susan Froemke Escape Fire The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare I t doesn't have to be this way. The United States doesn't have to spend nearly three times as much money per person, per year as other nations do on healthcare, and still rank only 50th in lifespan. Clearly, we're doing something wrong. It's not that people are doing their jobs badly, as the film Escape Fire points out, but that we've designed their jobs wrong and put them into a situation where they are serving shareholders instead of people. The name of the film was inspired by firefighters. When a wall of flame is approaching, if you light a fire to the area surrounding you, there will be nothing to burn when the flames reach you and you'll be safer. In the same way, if we teach people how to take care of themselves before they need medical intervention, we'll have a much higher success rate, or what physicians call "better outcomes." The United States spent 2.7 trillion in 2011 on healthcare, but as Dr. Andrew Weil points out in the film, it's not really healthcare at all, but disease management. It's a business model that only continues to flourish if people are ill, so if you get healthy or die, you don't help their bottom line. No wonder it took 10 years to defeat industry lobbying against our Patients' Bill of Rights. There's a wealth of information in this entertaining and disturbing film, along with documented stories of physicians and patients. One particularly powerful story line follows a veteran who gets off a shopping bag full of prescription meds through mind/body healing. Healthcare costs have been largely unregulated, so the insurance companies raise prices as much as they like. If a quart of milk had increased at the same rate, the film tells us, it would now cost $45. But it's been a vicious cycle. One thing driving up costs is that many can't afford insurance and end up in the emergency room. Our new healthcare mandate tries to address that, but it's just a bandaid. We need universal healthcare— something every other industrialized nation has—and we need better education… starting with the doctors. (www.escapefiremovie.com) —AL june / july 2013 FINAL REDESIGN WLT-5-27-11pm.indd 33 33 5/28/13 11:12 AM