Wanta hear something really, really scary?

[cornermouse]

This was scary.

Chris Mooney on 'The Republican War on Science
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4848808

In his new book The Republican War on Science, journalist Chris Mooney contends that the Bush administration has distorted research and misinformed the public on issues ranging from stem-cell research to global warming.

The motivation, Mooney argues, is political power. He says more and more federal science agencies are being run by political appointees and fringe theorists.

Mooney, who specializes in the relation between science and politics, is a former editor with The American Prospect. He has also written for Mother Jones, Wired, The Boston Globe and Slate.


But what followed was worse. Much worse. Heavily interlaced with talk about "liberals", "leftists", and many references about scientists and colleges as having liberal agendas and creating leftists. He finished it up with threats and talk about retaliation against scientists who push what he called a liberal agenda (in other words, anything that he didn't agree with).

As he talked, I just kept thinking about the purges that happened during my lifetime...Cambodia, Vietnam after the fall, Bosnia... While I know we're not there yet, I really began to wonder how far are we away from this happening right here in the U.S.A.?

Republican Lobbyist Robert Walker on Bush and Science
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4848811

Robert Walker, a retired congressman from Pennsylvania who served as chairman of the Science Committee, responds to allegations that the Bush administration has mishandled scientific issues. Walker now serves as chairman of Wexler & Walker, a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.

[donco6]

1. Both Hitler AND Stalin purged the universities first.

What's that tell you?

[cornermouse]

2. I know.

And I swear I could hear the echoes of all of them while Walker was talking.

[donco6]

3. It makes perfect sense.

I think of that RW movement with Horowitz' "Students for Academic Freedom"; religious invasion of the major military academies, and now your quotes - it all adds up to a major purge of our academic institutions, with mandatory placement of RW ideologues. Just like Germany in the 30s.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. The intelligentsia is always a threat to authoritarian rule

[applegrove]

4. The Freedom that the founding fathers talked about was the enlightenment.

It was all about "Freedom to get good information that the elites had had a monopoly on".

That is what Freedom in the American context actually means.

Hypocrites!

[Jackpine Radical]

5. From the Enlightenment to the Endarkenment:

from Franklin & Jefferson to Falwell & Robertson in 200 years.

[Just Me]

6. In case anyone hasn't "got it" yet; money and power are their "religion".

Jesus and God are conveniently appropriated and exploited to SERVE these evil men's religion of money and power. I believe the Christian doctrine asserts that such exploitation is the only unforgiveable sin.

[applegrove]

8. Who controls the good information - rules.

[SmokingJacket]

9. I've never met a scientist who had anything but a SCIENTIFIC

agenda. To a fault, really. That's what being a scientist means.