Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: Is Politics Corrupting Science?

For a long time many scientific institutions pretended to be neutral when it comes to politics, including Scientific American, which has never endorsed a presidential candidate in their 175 year history, until now. They claim that "This year we are compelled to do so. We do not do this lightly." Endorsements from many large institutions often don't reflect the views of the majority of members, and presumably they don't reflect the views of many scientists who contribute to organizations like Scientific American or any other organization that gets involved in politics whether they claim to be neutral or scientific or not.

Christine MacDonald, author of "Green Inc." explained how this often works for environmental non-profits when wealthy people, often with political connections, are appointed to head organizations and wind up turning those organizations into public relations fronts for oil companies. There's good reason to believe the same thing happens to other nonprofits, like the Red Cross, which was once headed by Elizabeth Dole, and Planned Parenthood, which was once run by Cecile Richards, daughter of former governor Anne Richards. There's good reason to suspect so-called scientific organizations are also impacted by politics, which will be easier to recognize if more people understand basic scientific principles of any given scientific field.

I'm sure they shouldn't "do this lightly;" however, the way they've done it demonstrates they're being more political about this decision than they have been scientific. The majority of their article Scientific American Endorses Joe Biden October issue released 09/15/2020 talks about how bad Donald Trump is and what a threat he is to scientific beliefs, which I can't argue with; however, it ignores the fact that both political parties have been ignoring the best scientific research for decades and it's been steadily getting worse, making this inevitable.

They could have seen this long ago and spoken up before it got nearly this bad, yet chose not to. They claim that one of the leading reasons for changing their mind is his response to the pandemic, which certainly was bad; however, there's little or no reason to believe that Joe Biden is much if any better, especially since he repeatedly said he opposed Medicare for All, and would veto it. The countries with better access to health care did a far better job handing the pandemic than the United States. And, frankly, most of the ones with less developed access to health care didn't do as bad as the United states either; however there's good reason to believe that if we tested and treated it faster it could have been handled better. Furthermore, it's clear that those with underlying conditions were more susceptible to the pandemic, and if we had universal health care, many of those underlying conditions would have been treated better, reducing the impact of the pandemic.

Some of this is easy to figure out even without advanced medical training. However there have been several studies, including one that came out earlier this year, as reported by Physicians for a National Health Program in 13% reduction in health care costs projected for Sanders Medicare-for-All Act 02/15/2020; this study also indicates that it would save more than 68,000 lives, even without the pandemic. Furthermore, prevention of medical illnesses would save even more lives, and this includes reduction of pollution and clean energy, among other things, yet when it contradicts corporate interests Biden doesn't favor this, although he may come up with policies that imply he'll try during campaign seasons, despite his record of ignoring them in office.

The Scientific American article claims that Biden "is offering fact-based plans to protect our health, our economy and the environment," yet they do a poor job explaining what these are, and an even worse job checking to see if Biden has a track record of supporting these policies during his long record in office as Senator or Vice President. They claim that "Joe Biden, in contrast, comes prepared with plans to control COVID-19, improve health care, reduce carbon emissions and restore the role of legitimate science in policy making. He solicits expertise and has turned that knowledge into solid policy proposals." I'm sure that he's had help from advisors checking with some so-called experts for advice during the campaign season, but I've been following him for years, and like many other politicians he spends far more time soliciting advice from his campaign contributors, including those in the energy industry and business people, not necessarily health care experts, from the health care industry far more concerned with making bigger profits.

Scientific America claims "Biden is getting advice on these public health issues from a group that includes David Kessler, epidemiologist, pediatrician and former U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief; Rebecca Katz, immunologist and global health security specialist at Georgetown University; and Ezekiel Emanuel, bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. It does not include physicians who believe in aliens and debunked virus therapies, one of whom Trump has called 'very respected' and 'spectacular,'" which may be true; however, with Trump catering to fanatics that lowers the bar so much that Biden hardly has to be very scientific to beat it. Furthermore, all of these experts have strong political ties to the political establishment and would be unlikely to be consulted with if they spoke out too much against powerful people.

Both Kessler and Katz were initially appointed by Republicans before serving under Democrats. Kessler may actually be the best of the three, although he supported fast tracking of new drugs, which was pushed by the pharmaceutical industry and may have been risky. But he also pulled a lot of dangerous drugs off the market and provided strong opposition to tobacco. But we can still expect him to abstain from challenging powerful corporations. Katz has ties to the intelligence community and researched biological warfare, which we do need to be concerned about; however, the intelligence community has a bad track record, at times even developing them even after they were banned, and we don't need someone that might cover for them.

Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Rahm Emanuel, may be the worst of the three, adamantly opposing universal health care, instead supporting a voucher system, getting behind the ACA after insurance lobbyists managed to convince the Obama administration and Congress to support it. This was great for corporate profits but left a lot of people uninsured and even fined people that didn't buy it, often because it was never nearly as affordable as they claimed it was. Getting good advice from the medical community is, of course, important; however, the political establishment has learned to cherry-pick their experts so they will go along with the corporate agenda. There are plenty of more sincere medical professionals looking out for the best interests of the majority, regardless of corporate wishes like members of Physicians for a National Health Program, but they get little or no attention from the political establishment or traditional media. The same goes for many other scientific fields, including the environment, education, research on reduction of violence, foreign policy and much more.

Scientific American does hedge a little bit saying "It is not certain how many of these and his other ambitions Biden will be able to accomplish; much depends on laws to be written and passed by Congress," which is of course true; however they would be far more likely to get good policies through if the leading scientific organizations were doing a good job educating the public and exposing politicians when they cater to corporate interests in their own fields, instead of providing propaganda cover for unscientific politicians.

When it comes to protecting the environment and addressing climate change both Biden and Trump are as bad if not worse; although, Biden may do a better job pretending to address this as well. We keep getting one story after another showing how many records we're breaking for extreme weather of some sort including California’s largest wildfire on record is now a million-acre “gigafire” 10/05/2020 and many more. And there are many more stories about other damage done by pollution, including epidemic levels of air and water pollution which is killing millions of people already, yet both Biden and Trump routinely side with energy companies.

Yet, Biden has indicated repeatedly that he would strongly oppose the Green New Deal, that he wouldn't ban fracking nor will he oppose an enormous amount of practices that are damaging the environment and he has close ties to the energy companies and other corporations making massive profits by looking the other way. He has said that he would ban offshore drilling, but Trump has actually done it recently, and Biden has an incredibly long track record of breaking promises to voters so he can cater to campaign donors, like traditional politicians. Even though he promises to ban offshore drilling, his record doesn't indicate he's done it in the past; as vice president he supported weak bans on offshore drilling mostly after the Gulf Horizons disaster, but after the attention died down many of these were reversed and Obama allowed it again, which indicates Trump may have been better on this issue.

Members of environmental activist groups are much more likely to read up on the science behind this endorsement of Joe Biden and realize that it ignores the vast majority of good science and that Joe Biden doesn't base his policies on science at all.

The same goes for many other scientific fields where the best research is often ignored in the mainstream media and political establishment, although it can be found in good libraries, academic journals, or alternative media, including the most effective ways to reduce violence, which I've gone into in numerous articles including Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit, which is the final article in a series of reviews in leading causes of violence, Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation Should Become a Priority Again!, which explains how the media often ignores causes of violence when they have a financial conflict of interest, and Research On Preventing Violence Absent From National Media, which follows up on this focusing on early child abuse leading to escalating violence, and is almost certainly the most important long term cause of violence, followed by abandoned inner cities.

Neither Trump or Biden pay any attention to the leading causes of violence, including early child abuse and corporal punishment, which leads to escalating violence. The nineteen states still allowing corporal punishment in schools and presumably using it more at home consistently have more than 20% higher murder rates, on average than those not allowing it; in 2018 those nineteen states had an average murder rate of 5.90 per 100,000 and the other thirty one states plus Washington DC only had a rate of 4.27. This doesn't directly impact the wealth of the oligarchs financing campaigns; however, it does teach kids to blindly obey their leaders, making them more susceptible to propaganda and less inclined to stand up for their rights.

Many of the other leading contributing causes of violence do have a direct impact on the wealth of those financing campaigns, including poverty, income inequality, lack of education, especially in abandoned inner cities. Neither Biden or Trump are trying to solve these problems, in fact, they both continue trying to rig the economic system for the wealthy doing the opposite. Ignoring these contributing factors leading to higher rates of violence and more confrontations with the police, which are resulting in over 1,000 being killed every year by police, including many that are unjustified. as I pointed out in Most Corrupt Police Forces Are In Most Violent Cities and numerous articles before this, the political establishment responds to high rates of violence by increasing reliance on authoritarian police, who often turn out to be corrupt making the violence even worse, not better. Both Biden and Trump support increased reliance on the police without doing anything about the corruption or holding them accountable.

Instead of basing their decisions on the most reliable research that can help reduce crime and police brutality both candidates rely on misleading slogans like "Biden 2020 He won't teargas your mom!," which is an actual yard sign being sold as well as shirts bumper stickers posters, etc.

Technically neither Biden or Trump are likely to teargas your mom, butt they'll both defend the police if they do it. This is a clear reference to recent protests by mothers in Portland where police teargassed them; but the same thing happened at Occupy Wall Street where police routinely tear gassed protesters, including mothers and children, while Biden was vice president. As a candidate Barack Obama promised to put on a comfortable pair of shoes and march with protesters, and of course broke that promise, along with almost all other promises to the working class. As Senator Joe Biden led the way to increase the militarization of the police which enabled Trump and the police to teargas Portland mothers. At best, Joe Biden does a slightly better job pretending to sympathize with victims of police brutality, with the help of advisers writing his speeches for his teleprompter.

Despite their rhetoric there's far more that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump agree on than they disagree on as pointed out by Caitlin Johnstone in US Politics Isn’t ‘Polarized’; It’s In Almost Universal Agreement 10/06/2020. This is also clear when you look at several memes that were made during the campaign for either Bernie Sanders or Howie Hawkins which list about twenty policies that have overwhelming support, between 57% and 90%, by the majority of the public, yet Donald Trump opposes all of them and Biden only supports a couple, at least during the campaign, but in the past he hasn't even supported those two. The two that Biden supports, or at least pretends to support, are social issues that don't interfere with the fiscal ideology of his campaign donors; on every issue supported by the public, but opposed by his campaign donors, Biden sides with campaign donors who are rigging the economy.

The reason the two leading nominees for president oppose most of the issues supported by a large majority of the public is that a fraction of 1% of the public controls over 95% of the media and they refuse to provide fair coverage to candidates they oppose, so most honest candidates never get the name recognition to become viable. Bernie Sanders turned out to be the exception, for one reason or another, but as I pointed out in Epidemic 2020 Election Fraud Again when it looked like he was going to win the primary there was an enormous amount of evidence of the establishment cheating like hell, all over the country; and Bernie remained silent about this epidemic of cheating and endorsed a candidate who opposes everything he ran on, without a fight.

As it stands we're being told that we have to either vote for a candidate that opposes everything we support because he's the one we think is the lesser evil or "throw away our vote" by voting for Howie Hawkins, who supports the issues that we support and would do a far more effective job using good science to base his decisions.

Scientists usually don't sell out nearly as much as the mainstream media, but the ones that do sell out are far more likely to get media attention than those that don't. A few years ago this was made clear when Neil deGrasse Tyson was promoting his book as TJ Cole pointed out in A Celebrity Salesman for the Military-Industrial-Complex 09/14/2018 where he exposes Tyson's ties to the military and political establishment going back decades and his conflicts of interests. Many people, for a long time including me, have thought that he's one of the most credible scientists out there, since he gets so much media attention, and he does seem credible when opposing views aren't presented.

Tyson tries to give people the impression that the military has been necesary for most scientific discoveries, and that it might not have happened without constant war, although he doesn't discuss alternatives which would be even better. In Accessory to War, the authors, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang, write:

“A vibrant economy … depends on at least one of the following: the profit motive, war on the ground, or war in space … Must war and profit be what drive both civilization on Earth and the investigation of other worlds? History … makes it hard to answer no … Star charts, calendars, chronometers, telescopes, maps, compasses, rockets, satellites, drones–these were not inspirational civilian endeavors. Dominance was their goal; increase of knowledge was incidental.

… The first few years after 9/11 were a fine time to be mercenary, a military engineering firm, or a giant aerospace company.”

TJ Cole points out that he heard about this book as Tyson was making the rounds of various high profile media outlets to promote his book. Since the vast majority of the media is owned by a fraction of 1% they have the ability to only promote views they like just like they only promote candidates they like, which is a massive propaganda advantage. Tyson does argue that there should be a way to avoid this; but he doesn't even try to come up with an alternative to relying on the military for scientific development, that I know of, and the mainstream media doesn't cover those that do, nor do they cover those that expose how many wars are based on lies and how the media provides propaganda cover for them like William Blum author of "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II" There are also many other good authors that do come up with better alternatives, but they don't support the oligarchy agenda so they don't get media coverage. If they did, they could go a long way of fulfilling Tyson's desire to stop basing scientific advancement on either profit or war.

Shortly before TJ Cole wrote this I also pointed out how Tyson was using his reputation to praise another pseudo-skeptic in We Must Become The Media And The Scientists! where Neil deGrasse Tyson says “Michael Shermer is a beacon of reason in an ocean of irrationality,” which I found stunning because I was well aware that even though the mainstream media often refers to Shermer as a "rational" or "scientific" skeptic, I found numerous examples where he also sold out his scientific views for his ideological views. One of the most brazen examples is when he argued that "markets are moral," ignoring the fact that markets, in our current economic system are controlled by a small fraction of the public rigging the economy in their own favor so thatt ehy get all the money and the poor do all the work and get stuck with many of the sacrifices by getting stuck in the most poluted areas or fighting and dying in wars based on lies.

One of the scams, which I pointed out in that article and one other before that, was about a charity which Michael Shermer claimed was a success of Capitalism and how "Markets are moral," but this charity, World Vision, was in the process of being exposed as a scam when his book went to press in 2008, and even before I looked it up I recognized other flaws with charities like this since they often rely on expensive advertising to solicit funds, so a large portion of what they collect goes to pay for the ads. Furthermore, it was a Christian charity, which Michael Shermer is opposed to yet he wasn't skeptical of this scam at all.

This is why it's still clear that we must still become the media and the scientists, whenever possible, or at least learn the basics of many scientific fields, which is often enough to recognize political scams. We need to stop relying on the oligarchs for scientific knowledge or deciding which candidates to choose from, especially since the candidates they rig primaries for almost always oppose most things we support, which means we won't have a democracy until we stop accepting this.