Naturalistic Paganism
The election is Tuesday, November 5th. It’s expected to be very close, which in itself is an indictment of our society. Please vote if you haven’t done so already! In addition to all the harm a second Trump term could cause to democracy itself (if it survives at all), the climate crisis, what’s left of women’s rights, racial equality, the living conditions of the 99%, and so many more – one topic isn’t talked about much, and it’s an area of serious threat.
That area is science, and especially the health sciences. That’s because like authoritarian dictators and wannabes, science is and always has been the enemy. Science teaches people to think critically – because they have to if they are to evaluate competing scientific claims based on the evidence. That in itself is sufficient to make science the target of authoritarians, and when we add the many science related problems of the day – climate change, stem cell research, vaccines, and so many more – science again becomes the enemy of authoritarianism.
A few good resources on that are the recent books “The Republican War on Science” by Moody, “Fantasyland” by Andersen, and “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science” by Hotez – among many more. That’s a whole topic in itself, as is the embrace of pseudoscience and anti-science by the Nazis (not a surprise). None of that is new – and it’s as important as ever. No, in addition to all of those, Kennedy traded his few % of support for an offer from Trump that would hurt and kill at least hundreds of thousands, likely millions, of Americans, benefiting Kennedy.
Trump says he’ll put Robert F. Kennedy in charge of America’s Heath
Kennedy has made a career out of peddling conspiracy fantasies and misinformation which exploits people and fleeces them for money, such as his book of conspiracy lies (you can see him at an anti-vaxx rally in the top picture). That’s a lot of the reason why Kennedy as a net worth of 50 million dollars.
He’s literally peddled viciously harmful lies like vaccines causing autism (they don’t), that Covid is biologically engineered to spare Asians and target white people (and spare Jews, can’t forget Kennedy’s Nazi sympathies), and so on.
You know Alex Jones, right? He’s the one who spread the lie that the Sandyhook slaughter of kids was fake, and he raked in millions from spreading that vicious lie, profiting by hurting the vulnerable. Kennedy does the same thing – spreading lies, hurting people by doing so, and laughing all the way to the bank.
Putting him charge of public health would allow him to rake in much more money by hurting literally millions of Americans with his scams. I could say “This is the end result of the Republican vilification of science!”, but that would be too optimistic – because Republicans in charge can make things much, much worse for science – and for all of us as a result – than even Kennedy destroying our medical science in America.I pointed out the Republican War on Science in my previous post about election activism, and I wish I had been wrong.
It’s scary to watch. I hope we can all continue to resist this, and work for a better future. I’m glad we are not alone in this.
Starstuff, Contemplating by Jon Cleland Host
We are assemblages of ancient atoms forged in stars – atoms organized by history to the point of consciousness, now able to contemplate this sacred Universe of which we are a tiny, but wondrous, part.
Dr. Jon Cleland Host is a scientist who earned his PhD in materials science at Northwestern University & has conducted research at Hemlock Semiconductor and Dow Corning since 1997. He holds eight patents and has authored over three dozen internal scientific papers and eleven papers for peer-reviewed scientific journals, including the journal Nature. He has taught classes on biology, math, chemistry, physics and general science at Delta College and Saginaw Valley State University. Jon grew up near Pontiac, and has been building a reality-based spirituality for over 30 years, first as a Catholic and now as a Unitarian Universalist, including collaborating with Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow to spread the awe and wonder of the Great Story of our Universe (see www.thegreatstory.org, and the blog at evolutionarytimes.org). Jon and his wife have four sons, whom they embrace within a Universe-centered, Pagan, family spirituality. He currently moderates the yahoo group Naturalistic Paganism.
Naturalistic Paganism 
This is so dumb, it’s funny.