Jill Stein is Not Anti-Science, People!

Another email leak from the neoliberal think tank has revealed a calculated agenda to slander Green Party presidential nominee Dr. Jill Stein with rumors that they know to be entirely unfounded, further illustrating just how terrified the Democratic party is of a progressive takeover. Professional neoliberal Robert Naiman circulated a list of attack editorials against Stein among his drooling lackeys, prefaced by the following statement.

“If you have a lot of Facebook friends, you may have recently noticed a high level of activity on your Facebook feed by Jill Stein acolytes.

If so, you may find the following links useful to throw them off their game. No warranty, express or implied. You don’t have to prove that Jill Stein is an anti-science conspiracy theorist. You just have to say, ‘There are unanswered questions about whether Jill Stein is an anti-science conspiracy theorist.'”

In other words, “Deliberately cast baseless suspicion on her.”

So I hope that clarifies what’s happening here a bit. If you’re one of the people going around flinging the term “anti-science” around in connection with Jill Stein’s name, those may feel like your own thoughts, and you may even labor under the delusion that you came up with them yourself, but in actuality they are a pre-packaged mind-virus cooked up by professional slander experts like Robert Naiman. A little critical thinking is all it takes to inoculate yourself, though.

Here’s a video of Dr. Stein clearly putting to bed the baseless accusation that she might be anti-vaccination in some way at her CNN town hall last week:

https://youtu.be/QTpz2XBGce0

Let’s clear this up right now: Jill Stein is not, in any way, shape or form, an “anti-science conspiracy theorist.” She is the opposite, which is why this smear was designed this way. In the Karl Rove handbook of negating your political opponents, number two is to attack them on their strengths, thereby forcing your “opponent to back away from the very qualities that makes them an attractive candidate.” And obviously, science is Stein’s strength.

Jill Stein is a brilliant doctor who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard university, has written several books reviewing and aggregating information from scientific studies on medicine, health, and the environment, and is absolutely, one hundred percent qualified to have authoritative opinions on these matters. If you think otherwise, it is because you’re failing to think critically.

Dr. Jill Stein’s strength is her science background and her solid science platform. She has consistently advocated for more scientifically-founded policy, i.e. founded on unbiased scientific research. Stein calls for a better environment for that to happen. At the moment, the governing bodies which regulate the scientific research which determines health policy are run by people who take large donations from lobbyists and corporations with a vested interest in the outcomes of that research. The new FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, for example, has received money from 23 drug companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, Merck, Schering Plough, and GSK, and is a former big wig from the biotech corporation Genentech. He also has financial ties to Gambro, Regeneron, AstraZeneca, Roche, and Gilead, of $1,000-a-pill hepatitis C treatment infamy.

GMO giant Monsanto (also the creators of the notorious militarized herbicide Agent Orange) has an astonishing number of former executives now holding powerful positions in the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice, and even the Supreme Court. Another anti-labelling win for them was just quietly signed into law with almost no media attention by President Obama, who also signed the controversial Monsanto Protection Act in 2013, a bill which was written in part by, you guessed it, Monsanto. These are not “conspiracy theories” that I’m sharing here. These are facts.

Is this really an environment conducive to scientific research of drugs and GMOs? Leaving aside your opinions on these matters and acknowledging corporatism’s undeniable influence on current American policy, can you honestly say that the scientific research our policies are based upon has happened in an unbiased atmosphere that is hospitable to conclusions that may not perfectly suit Monsanto or Johnson & Johnson? If you truly value science and the scientific method, can you honestly say you’re using that sharp, critical-thinking brain of yours to its fullest capacity in this area? Is an accomplished and respected medical doctor saying “We should have actual unbiased studies determining our health policy” in any way unscientific?

Stein’s position on dismantling nuclear power and moving to green options is equally well-founded in science. We still don’t know how to dispose of nuclear waste, we still don’t know what the immense amount of radioactive water still leaking from Fukushima is doing to our oceans, we don’t know when the next meltdown will be, and should the unthinkable happen and human civilization collapse for whatever reason, our planet’s hundreds of nuclear power plants could go into meltdown with no employees there to cool the rods, possibly wiping out all remaining life on earth (one detail all the post-apocalyptic movies seem to leave out). This alone is reason enough to deactivate them all to the best of our ability.

Jill Stein’s platform is rock solid.

But even if it wasn’t, how on Earth are voters being shamed for supporting Jill Stein, whose platform is a thousand light years ahead of the Democrats? How are progressives being wedged and bullied over GMOs by a party whose nominee helped kill a million Iraqis? Which is worse, my progressive friends: wanting to run some more tests on GMO corn, or facilitating a disastrous and destabilizing regime change and laughing about its leader’s death and mutilation? Which is worse: another one of Hillary Clinton’s evil, unforgivable wars and all the suffering, death, destruction, rape, robbery, and chaos that always come hand-in-hand with war, or a doctor saying she wants more tests on the effects of Wi-Fi on children?

It’s absolutely idiotic that people are accusing Jill Stein of being “anti-science,” and it’s absolutely idiotic that people buy that as a valid reason to vote for the warmongering corporate crony Hillary Clinton instead.

Don’t be an idiot, dear reader. Too much evolution went into making that gigantic human brain of yours for you to waste it regurgitating Dan Savage lines and manufactured neoliberal talking points. Thank you in advance.

[Image via AP Photo/Alex Brandon]