Welcome back to Lucid, and a special hello to new subscribers. Mark your calendars for our regular Friday live Q&A, on November 19, 1-2pmET. Log-in info for the Zoom call will be sent on Friday morning. Everyone is welcome to ask a question (with camera on or off), air a concern, or just listen in.
Wow! Stunning to see a someone inspired by Rush Limbaugh fill subscribe to LUCID and fill your page with propaganda. Peter Hotez, for whom I have the most respect said this goes beyond disinformation, but is anti-science aggression. Then call you names and intersect one of the most vile and prolific terrorist organizations in history, Hitler and the Nazis to your work. Thank you for exposing truth and educating the world on authoritarianism Ruth.
I totally agree with everything said here. The last line of the interview is the most pressing. Having deep dived into studying antisemitism and seeing how it overlaps with all the issues presented here I'm left with the reinforced belief that the possibility of civil and human rights violations/atrocities in our country is significant. The people, politicians, organizations, and money associated with the anti-science aggression Prof. Hotez has written about must be exposed. It is very likely that they are linked to other nefarious activities and associations which promote anti-democratic and anti-liberal efforts. When citizens believe conspiracies and act on that belief in ways that threaten their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of those they care about they can be further manipulated into doing other things which in "normal" times wouldn't be entertained. No doubt foreign governments and entities stoke this as well as part of a concerted effort to destabilize or distract America from effective diplomacy abroad (Russia, China, etc.) We have seen this play from them before.
I would like to learn more about how you can dismantle the far right organizations that are pushing the anti-vaccine message. Can’t they be arrested for killingthousands of people?
Anti-intellectualism is one of the characteristics of fascism and we are surely seeing this with the anti-science movement. We don't have the book burning yet but we do have book banning. The criticism of higher education is rampant, saying that these institutions are hot beds of communist propaganda. Meanwhile we have far right industrialists funding a far right agenda at many universities, including Yale. Social media is being used to lambast higher education as being useless to society. Many people believe this nonsense, as their tribal emotion supersedes the truth. Hitler hated academia and especially psychologists and psychiatrists. Of course there was his infamous book burning actions. We have so many characteristics of fascism that we cannot ignore it. Anti-science is but one of many of these characteristics. The fact that we had a failed fascist coup attmept in 1933 headed by several industrialists (including Prescott Bush), should be a warning call about today's movement.
Authoritarians obliterate anything having to do with science even if it means increasing the death rate among their own followers. Red state governors and mini Trumps like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbot or Kristy Noem for example understand this implicitly. The rejection of all things science or evidence based is a central component to the authoritarian need to create an alternative reality based on propaganda, lies and conspiracy theories. An authoritarian personality cult like Trump's MAGA movement can not long exist if its follower's engage in rational scrutiny because if they do, their assumptions and belief systems quickly break down.
An anti vax, anti mask, antiscience militancy in part fulfills the need for cultural and social solidarity among it's followers in the MAGA movement. It is not only about identity, It has become a form of virtue signaling for them to show their allegiance to the cause and there are many martyrs who have paid with their lives. MAGA world has in part become a violent death cult.
SiriusXM satellite radio service has been offering reliable vaccine info on it’s Doctor Radio channel to it’s 35 million subscribers since the pandemic began … Dr Hotez has been a frequent guest, along with all the movers and shakers that have led the efforts to respond to the pandemic .. from Dr Fauci to the researchers who developed the vaccines, and frequently live-streaming the doctors and nurses as they were treating COVID patients in the ERs and ICUs …. their expert, reliable, current info probably saved my life while driving my big rig (almost entirely confined in 2020) … another good info source has been Pete Dominick, who had frequently interviewed Dr Hotez for years prior to the pandemic on his (now cancelled) SiriusXM show STAND UP WITH PETE DOMINICK … since reincarnated as an amazing podcast, and introduced me to Ruth a couple years ago, and frequently has other medical experts like bioethicist Dr Arthur Caplan and epidemiologist Dr Megan Mae … info is out there, could list more reliable sources that got to me, isolated as I am … and in spite of the poor presentation by MSM and government agencies … not to pooh-pooh Dr Hotez accurate assessment of the anti-vaccine threat .. but to indicate, he’s definitely not a single voice crying in the medical wilderness
Thank you for sharing this amazing discussion. It's exactly what I've been thinking about: how do we get the Government (and whoever else needs to help) to vigorously fight against the threats we're seeing. Please keep talking about this.
The AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), which publishes Science every week and does a lot of science advocacy, speaks out against this misinformation. But I'm not sure how far and wide they go. The science community has always stayed pretty quiet when it comes to advocating for what they do, why taxpayer money should fund them, and why their work is important. Dr. Hotez is right about that part. I know of small efforts going on, along with those of AAAS, but we need more.
Wow! Stunning to see a someone inspired by Rush Limbaugh fill subscribe to LUCID and fill your page with propaganda. Peter Hotez, for whom I have the most respect said this goes beyond disinformation, but is anti-science aggression. Then call you names and intersect one of the most vile and prolific terrorist organizations in history, Hitler and the Nazis to your work. Thank you for exposing truth and educating the world on authoritarianism Ruth.
I totally agree with everything said here. The last line of the interview is the most pressing. Having deep dived into studying antisemitism and seeing how it overlaps with all the issues presented here I'm left with the reinforced belief that the possibility of civil and human rights violations/atrocities in our country is significant. The people, politicians, organizations, and money associated with the anti-science aggression Prof. Hotez has written about must be exposed. It is very likely that they are linked to other nefarious activities and associations which promote anti-democratic and anti-liberal efforts. When citizens believe conspiracies and act on that belief in ways that threaten their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of those they care about they can be further manipulated into doing other things which in "normal" times wouldn't be entertained. No doubt foreign governments and entities stoke this as well as part of a concerted effort to destabilize or distract America from effective diplomacy abroad (Russia, China, etc.) We have seen this play from them before.
I would like to learn more about how you can dismantle the far right organizations that are pushing the anti-vaccine message. Can’t they be arrested for killingthousands of people?
Anti-intellectualism is one of the characteristics of fascism and we are surely seeing this with the anti-science movement. We don't have the book burning yet but we do have book banning. The criticism of higher education is rampant, saying that these institutions are hot beds of communist propaganda. Meanwhile we have far right industrialists funding a far right agenda at many universities, including Yale. Social media is being used to lambast higher education as being useless to society. Many people believe this nonsense, as their tribal emotion supersedes the truth. Hitler hated academia and especially psychologists and psychiatrists. Of course there was his infamous book burning actions. We have so many characteristics of fascism that we cannot ignore it. Anti-science is but one of many of these characteristics. The fact that we had a failed fascist coup attmept in 1933 headed by several industrialists (including Prescott Bush), should be a warning call about today's movement.
Authoritarians obliterate anything having to do with science even if it means increasing the death rate among their own followers. Red state governors and mini Trumps like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbot or Kristy Noem for example understand this implicitly. The rejection of all things science or evidence based is a central component to the authoritarian need to create an alternative reality based on propaganda, lies and conspiracy theories. An authoritarian personality cult like Trump's MAGA movement can not long exist if its follower's engage in rational scrutiny because if they do, their assumptions and belief systems quickly break down.
An anti vax, anti mask, antiscience militancy in part fulfills the need for cultural and social solidarity among it's followers in the MAGA movement. It is not only about identity, It has become a form of virtue signaling for them to show their allegiance to the cause and there are many martyrs who have paid with their lives. MAGA world has in part become a violent death cult.
SiriusXM satellite radio service has been offering reliable vaccine info on it’s Doctor Radio channel to it’s 35 million subscribers since the pandemic began … Dr Hotez has been a frequent guest, along with all the movers and shakers that have led the efforts to respond to the pandemic .. from Dr Fauci to the researchers who developed the vaccines, and frequently live-streaming the doctors and nurses as they were treating COVID patients in the ERs and ICUs …. their expert, reliable, current info probably saved my life while driving my big rig (almost entirely confined in 2020) … another good info source has been Pete Dominick, who had frequently interviewed Dr Hotez for years prior to the pandemic on his (now cancelled) SiriusXM show STAND UP WITH PETE DOMINICK … since reincarnated as an amazing podcast, and introduced me to Ruth a couple years ago, and frequently has other medical experts like bioethicist Dr Arthur Caplan and epidemiologist Dr Megan Mae … info is out there, could list more reliable sources that got to me, isolated as I am … and in spite of the poor presentation by MSM and government agencies … not to pooh-pooh Dr Hotez accurate assessment of the anti-vaccine threat .. but to indicate, he’s definitely not a single voice crying in the medical wilderness
Thank you!
Thank you for sharing this amazing discussion. It's exactly what I've been thinking about: how do we get the Government (and whoever else needs to help) to vigorously fight against the threats we're seeing. Please keep talking about this.
The AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), which publishes Science every week and does a lot of science advocacy, speaks out against this misinformation. But I'm not sure how far and wide they go. The science community has always stayed pretty quiet when it comes to advocating for what they do, why taxpayer money should fund them, and why their work is important. Dr. Hotez is right about that part. I know of small efforts going on, along with those of AAAS, but we need more.
Thanks for this interview!