The Junk Science of George W. Bush by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

[acmavm]

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http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040308&c=1&s=kennedy

As Jesuit schoolboys studying world history we learned that Copernicus and Galileo self-censored for many decades their proofs that the earth revolved around the sun and that a less restrained heliocentrist, Giordano Bruno, was burned alive in 1600 for the crime of sound science. With the encouragement of our professor, Father Joyce, we marveled at the capacity of human leaders to corrupt noble institutions. Lust for power had caused the Catholic hierarchy to subvert the church's most central purpose--the search for existential truths.

Today, flat-earthers within the Bush Administration--aided by right-wing allies who have produced assorted hired guns and conservative think tanks to further their goals--are engaged in a campaign to suppress science that is arguably unmatched in the Western world since the Inquisition. Sometimes, rather than suppress good science, they simply order up their own. Meanwhile, the Bush White House is purging, censoring and blacklisting scientists and engineers whose work threatens the profits of the Administration's corporate paymasters or challenges the ideological underpinnings of their radical anti-environmental agenda. Indeed, so extreme is this campaign that more than sixty scientists, including Nobel laureates and medical experts, released a statement on February 18 that accuses the Bush Administration of deliberately distorting scientific fact "for partisan political ends."

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I also recall the case of Dr. James Zahn, a nationally respected microbiologist with the Agriculture Department's research service, who accepted my invitation to speak to an April 2002 conference of more than 1,000 family farm advocates and environmental and civic leaders in Clear Lake, Iowa. In a rigorous taxpayer-funded study, Zahn had identified bacteria that can make people sick--and that are resistant to antibiotics--in the air surrounding industrial-style hog farms. His studies proved that billions of these "superbugs" were traveling across property lines daily, endangering the health of neighbors and their herds. I was shocked when Zahn canceled his appearance on the day of the conference under orders from the Agriculture Department in Washington. I later uncovered a fax trail proving the order was prompted by lobbyists from the National Pork Producers Council. Zahn told me that his supervisor at the USDA, under pressure from the hog industry, had ordered him not to publish his study and that he had been forced to cancel more than a dozen public appearances at local planning boards and county health commissions seeking information about health impacts of industry mega-farms. Soon after my conference, Zahn resigned from the government in disgust.

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Now Congress and this White House have used federal power for the same purpose. Led by the President, the Republicans have gutted scientific research budgets and politicized science within the federal agencies. The very leaders who so often condemn the trend toward moral relativism are fostering and encouraging the trend toward scientific relativism. The very ideologues who derided Bill Clinton as a liar have now institutionalized dishonesty and made it the reigning culture of America's federal agencies.

The Bush Administration has so violated and corrupted the institutional culture of government agencies charged with scientific research that it could take a generation for them to recover their integrity even if Bush is defeated this fall. Says Princeton University scientist Michael Oppenheimer, "If you believe in a rational universe, in enlightenment, in knowledge and in a search for the truth, this White House is an absolute disaster."

-More-

Very long article, but if you have kids, or if you care about what happens to this planet, you need to read it.

[H2O Man]

1. Robert Kennedy, Jr.

is fantastic. Listen closely to him. He supports Kerry, which should convince any thinking person that there are significant differences between Kerry and bush.

[The Traveler]

3. Is that you, Robert of Waters?

rocker sends ...

[The Traveler]

2. Suppression of truth

The neo-cons are dedicated to the suppression and distortion of truth. It is central to their strategy and their ideology of concentrating power in the hands of a designated elite. This is, of course, identical to the technique and method of Goebbels and Lenin. Corporatism, be it state sponsored (socialism) and capital sponsored (fascism) cannot endure the scrutiny of a population who achieves unfettered access to the truth.

For me, the biggest issue of the 2004 election is the systematic suppression and distortion of truth. We have gone to war based on misinformation and lies. Our environmental policy is shaped by denial. Our science policy is incoherent because our leaders dare not base it on scientific truth. This is not a recent phenomenon, nor is it confined to the operation of the Bush regime. Americans have been kept in the dark and fed manure for years.

But I cannot recall a time when government by deception has been so blatant, so smugly obvious. The operating assumption seems to be that Americans are ignorant and stupid. Eerily and regrettably, I find considerable evidence that supports that assumption.

RFK Jr. rocks. I was 12 when his father was killed. It was my first taste of heartbreak. In all my years, I have never seen another like him, but he would be proud of his son, and the stands he has taken.