What I’d like to see them say…

The Republican party – We’re sorry we have deliberately engaged in a decades-long anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-truth, anti-democracy campaign which has caused America to lose its status as a world leader, making us into a fascist Third World country. We’re also sorry for using 9/11 ads, homosexuals, fake patriotism, taxes, etc to scare you into voting for us. Terrorism is defined on Wikipedia as the “systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion”. By that definition, the Republicans are the terrorists.

The media – We’re sorry that we allowed so many to be so dishonest for so long without calling them on it. People have mis-used our instinct to provide “balanced” coverage to cause a country which is paralyzed with hatred, ignorance and religious extremism.

The religious right – We’re sorry we have taken advantage of gullible Americans for our own personal power and financial gain, we have lied to you about evolution and made science and expertise into a bad thing. We have promoted “faith healing” over real medicine, and people have died because of it. We have deliberately kept Americans ignorant to advance our own political agendas.

Some stats:

- The US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world (over 1 in 100 as of 2008, with 5% of the world’s population, the US has 25% of the world’s inmates) (another source).

- In 2007, only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan carried out more executions, and Iraq trailed close behind. Most civilized countries have abolished the death penalty.

- America is the only industrialized country in the world without universal health care.

- In a 2006 poll of 34 countries, the only country with a higher percentage of the population that reject evolution is Turkey.

- Among 18 countries ranked in the UN Human Poverty Index, the US ranks 3rd from the bottom (and has a policy of “welfare racism”).

- In 2003, Reporters Without Borders ranked the US in a tie for 31st place in press freedom.

Isn’t it ironic, dontcha think?

Just this week, we’ve seen the “collapse” of American and global markets, widely attributed to a failure of deregulation.

Also this week, I’ve launched my own very insignificant attack on systemic conservative lying.

And just today, I saw this video, “American Denial of Global Warming”, where science historian Naomi Oreskes outlines the parts of a few players, including Fred Seitz and Fred Singer of the George Marshall Institute. If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, I’ll give you my best summary:

The George Marshall Institute is a conservative think tank established to counter scientific resistance to the Strategic Defense Initiative (Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense plan). Their strategy was simple, confuse the issue by claiming that not all scientists are united in opposition to SDI. They subsequently used the same tactic with the second-hand smoke and global warming issues.

Don’t take my word for it, do your own research, google “marshall seitz singer jastrow nierenberg” and note that Singer’s Science & Environmental Policy Project website is alive and well as of Sept 20, 2008.

Oreskes makes it clear that Seitz, Singer et al were fiercely anti-communist, anti-regulation conservatives, and that there’s nothing inherently wrong with that political view (although this week is a bad week for that point of view). The problem is that they’ve used fake science to promote their political views. And they used the media to do it. This has confused Americans, eroded their faith in science & media, and has delayed meaningful action on global warming.

I say again, reasonable Republicans have a responsibility to reject this type of strategy, which is leading America down the path, not just away from global leadership, but actually to irrelevance.

They really make it too easy…

In my post, “Why should McCain’s lies surprise anyone?”, a commenter actually has the nerve to post a link to a YouTube video that features a voiced-over Obama. If you’re gonna fabricate video, you should do a lot better job. Here’s the video link, you judge for yourself. Meanwhile, Glenn, you really should shut up, you’re not doing your side any favours…

More on yesterday’s post…

I know this is supposed to be a blog about atheism, but global warming is (obviously!) another of my main concerns. It actually all fits together perfectly: Christians, Republicans, liars, deniers.

Here’s another reference about skeptics being paid to disagree with global warming…

More about Lawrence Solomon, apologizing for falsely calling scientists deniers. His book, “The Deniers”, is promoted as a “must’read” on freedominion.com, with no disclaimers. And he even admits that his subjects aren’t really deniers, from DeSmogBlog,

Solomon even says so. He says that while reflecting on his own research, “I … noticed something striking about my growing cast of deniers. None of them were deniers.”

Nigel Weiss, among others, objected to being used, Solomon and the National Post eventually had to apologize to him. But the series has been publicized on at least one right-wing site, freerepublic.com.

Let’s be clear, many of the deniers are status quo, small-government, right wingers with their own agenda. Many call themselves “Christians”, although there’s nothing Christian about their beliefs. They use the same techniques that Big Tobacco used (Fred Singer attacked a 1993 EPA  report on the dangers of smoking, calling it ‘junk science’) and they have successfully stalled action for over 25 years (if you’re skeptical of this story, here’s a reference to the 1979 report, JSR-78-07). They still have lots of believers, for example, Sarah Palin and junkscience.com. It all goes to reinforce the right’s war on science and the “elite”. They even shamelessly promote “Carbon Belch Day”, while Exxon and Peabody are committing crimes against humanity.

Here’s an excellent series, How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.

On the point of lying, conservatives even have their own version of Wikipedia (with charming entries on homosexuality, Creation Science and lots more), here’s just one nice example of right wing hatred. The hard right is in a major battle all over the country to have creationism taught in schools (no reference needed, look it up if you don’t believe me).

I do still think there are reasonable people with legitimate reasons for voting Republican, however, I also think until the lying, hating, ignorant, largely “Christian” extreme right is marginalized to the point of irrelevance, voting Republican is voting to continue America’s loss of international credibility. Hatred and war are not the solution to terrorism, especially when America is mortgaging its future to the Middle East for oil. The US should take a good look at itself, and realize that they have a serious problem with the way they treat their poor and sick, the small-government model of capitalism is in tatters (dragging the rest of the world down with it) and the world needs the US to take a strong position on the environment. Four more years of right-wing hatred and ignorance

We all know America is extremely polarized, I believe that until reasonable Republicans disavow the tactics of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Phil Gramm, Dick Cheney and so many others, they are not acting in the interest of promoting an America that is a leader on the world stage. John McCain is no “maverick” to me and Sarah Palin is part of the scary right wing that should never get close to power.

Why should McCain’s lies surprise anyone?

As far as I’m concerned, that’s what Republicans do, and they do it very well.

They lie about the environment. Look at this story, The Deniers are winning, but only with the GOP. Conservatives have a long, glorious tradition of not only denying the global warming problem, but virulently attacking it, here’s just one example, from newsbusters.org, where the writer repeatedly uses emotionally-charged words like ‘disgraceful’, ‘disgusting’, and ‘despicable’ (I hesitate to even link to it, but I hope rational people will see through the lies and distortions).

Or how ’bout this one, where Fred Singer, a prominent denier, is shot down for claims he never worked for Big Tobacco or Big Oil, with plenty of irrefutable evidence that he did. There’s one document on tobaccodocuments.org that I found particularly fascinating.

Of course, we can’t forget James Inhofe’s 400 deniers, thoroughly debunked.

Here’s a scientific study, “The Organization of Denial”, of 141 “environmentally sceptical” books published between 1972 and 2005, finding that over 92% were published in the US by conservative think tanks. And scientists have been offered cash to dissent.

Sometimes they make it too easy to see through, like when the Conservative Book Club features Lawrence Solomon’s The Deniers, or our friend Fred Singer’s Unstoppable Global Warming. I can’t resist quoting from the opening paragraph of each,

Al Gore and the mainstream media tell us constantly that it’s all settled: global warming is an established fact…

and,

To Al Gore and his disciples, global warming is man-made and dangerous…

This is actually one of the problems, part of the reason these people can’t accept the truth is because Al Gore is so visible in the issue. It remains to be seen if Republicans can change their minds, as one did in this story, Generational Test for Republicans.

(The Conservative Book Club doesn’t stop there, it has entire sections on Global Warming, Radical Islam and The Clintons, appealing directly to the haters.)

Here’s a cleverly-disguised one from globalwarming.org, discussing Lawrence Solomon’s above-mentioned book. By the way, it turns out globalwarming.org is sponsored by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), whose website actually reveals a lot,

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government. We believe that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace.

Translation: they’re a conservative group working for old-fashioned, hands-off government. This week, we all know how well that has worked out!

Here’s a question, Climate change deniers – stupid or just dishonest? DeSmogBlog has a searchable database on global warming deniers, check it out (of course Fred Singer is there). Or see Exxon Secrets, for info on the individuals and organizations working to keep America ignorant, such as CEI and the Heartland Institute. At least the Rockefeller family tried to stand up to Exxon.

They lie about evolution, which is not up for debate. For example, Ben Stein’s “Expelled” (see “Flunked, not expelled, what Ben Stein isn’t telling you about ID”).  Scientists spend so much time and effort fighting back. At least my favourite Young Earth Creationist felon, Kent Hovind, who lied about his taxes is doing time for his crime (Not Safe For Work, but there’s a hilarious video on YouTube). Oh, speaking of YouTube, in 2007, his goons used fraud to remove critical YouTube videos.

We all know they lie about the economy, which McCain says is fundamentally strong. Maybe it is for these 3 Merrill Lynch officials who may get up to $200,000,000, but meanwhile the World Bank is shovelling up to $250,000,000,000 (!!!) into global money markets.

The US is clearly headed in the wrong way, consider these:

The Republican War on Science, Fascist America (where she forgot one, destroy the integrity of the electoral system), Idiot America, The Assault on Reason by Al Gore, a poll of Americans themselves, a poll outside the US, Making America Stupid,

Don’t forget the famous right-wing lying hypocrites Troy King, Mark Foley, Ed Schrock, Larry Craig, Ted Haggard or the haters Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. Check out these blogs which largely feature Christians who get caught in their crimes and Republicons.

They even lie to their evangelical Christian base, as evidenced by this 2006 article, Christian Evangelicals: Enablers of the Wayward Republicans, even as the Religious Right is taking over the GOP.

They lie because it’s the only way they think they can beat Obama.

I can’t summarize it any better that the hard-hitting opening line from the “Exact Opposite” by Baron Dave Romm series,

A standard conservative Big Brother technique is to make wild random claims, sling mud and repeat lies until some of the mud sticks or one of the wild claims has a small germ of truth.

So I appeal to all reasonable Americans who are considering voting Republican – If you continue to elect these people, they’ll never learn. I can understand wanting fiscally-responsible spending, but I’m not convinced they’re the ones to do it.