2024 US Election #3

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YellowMellow14 said:
That all may be true but you can't take any anti-vaxxer seriously.
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I dunno. I think it’s good to hold feet to the fire, especially when public health is a lucrative business.
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Lady_H said:
Apparently “progressives” don’t like progress when it’s not in the interests of big pharma, big food, big agri, big medical and the deep state 🤔
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Curveball: progressives are the biggest capitalists
 
YellowMellow14 said:
That all may be true but you can't take any anti-vaxxer seriously.
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Again, you need to listen to the man himself talk about this topic beyond what you have picked up from one-liners and youtube clips. He is not an “anti-vaxxer” (that most silencing of descriptives, along with “racist”, ) and he is not against people making informed choices about vaccinations based on good science. He was concerned that vaccinations don’t go through the same trials other drugs have to. He IS against an entire nation being forced to take a vaccination because they’re told to do so by the government. You may not like the principle of freedom to decide what to do with one’s own body, but for many of us it remains an important one. (An important principle to Democrats re abortion of course, but abandoned when it comes to vaccinations).

He’s against big pharma and the Democrats hate him for it. Go figure.
 
Lady_H said:
Again, you need to listen to the man himself talk about this topic beyond what you have picked up from one-liners and youtube clips. He is not an “anti-vaxxer” (that most silencing of descriptives, along with “racist”, ) and he is not against people making informed choices about vaccinations based on good science. He was concerned that vaccinations don’t go through the same trials other drugs have to. He IS against an entire nation being forced to take a vaccination because they’re told to do so by the government. You may not like the principle of freedom to decide what to do with one’s own body, but for many of us it remains an important one. (An important principle to Democrats re abortion of course, but abandoned when it comes to vaccinations).

He’s against big pharma and the Democrats hate him for it. Go figure.
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Again, I am conflicted on the topic of vaccines.
I’m all for choice, but I didn’t get vaccinated for myself, I have never been clinically vulnerable although that may happen as I age. I got vaccinated for other people as in my former working life I did often work with those who were clinically vulnerable.

You say he is all for good science, but didn’t he promote the myth that vaccines cause autism, long after it was debunked by very good science?

(Genuine question Lady, I know we don’t see eye to eye on everything but I again I am interested to know where the information I get originates x)


Edited to add: I wasn’t being facetious when I said it might be good if he was in charge over food in America. The amount of additives which are allowed is frankly mind boggling. It is more expensive to eat well in the UK, no denying, but when I go to the States the difference between “healthy”, for want of a better word, and cheap crap food seems much greater .
 
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Veronicaaa said:
It was a genuine question, not 'whataboutism'. If Trump is pulling out of arming Ukraine, shouldn't it also pull out of arming Israel?
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You’re right and I apologise for that, I didn’t mean to sound glib.

I just can’t answer to your question right now. I know a lot about RFKJ and healthcare but much less about foreign policy and the best solution to some incredibly dangerous wars. I would add that some foreign policy blogs I follow seem to indicate that Hesgeth is more hawkish than expected and that the Ukraine policy may not yet be set in stone. But I just don’t know.

IMO What needs to be addressed, and what many administrations both R and D over the years have failed to address, and what has led to so many disastrous American foreign interventions, is outlining exactly what is it that the US is trying to achieve and what is in the best interests of the American people. It’s like having a clear strategic mission or purpose and allowing the tactics to be developed from the strategy rather than the other way round. If you have a clear strategy then what you do in Ukraine or Israel might be less confusing (this is a very simplistic way of explaining it, I realise). So if your goal is not to intervene, not to get involved in disastrous foreign excursions, then perhaps your role is to do absolutely everything you can to prevent these awful destructive conflicts from happening.

We are where we are now, but looking forward I agree that things cannot go on as they are. This lack of clear vision and strategy is a failure of leadership in my opinion that has been going on for many years and needs to be rectified. And if the US takes a new approach or at least clearly defines one, that may have big knock on effects for the rest of the world.
 
Doc said:
Well, my question really was why you though social media was the reason for populism.
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That’s the general consensus of political commentators, not me. But I think it does make sense.
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Piff paff puff said:
The left are very outraged which means the correct decisions are being made 😌
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Since when has America been ‘left’ at all? In the UK we don’t consider the democrats to be left. FYI.
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As an aside, I thought Trump was pro vaccine? If Americans have an obesity crisis, isn’t that a cultural thing rather than healthcare related?

tbh mandatory vaccination makes me uncomfortable even though I’m generally pro vaccination. Is Trump considering stopping free vaccines, is that the issue?
 
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Lady_H said:
We are where we are now, but looking forward I agree that things cannot go on as they are. This lack of clear vision and strategy is a failure of leadership in my opinion that has been going on for many years and needs to be rectified. And if the US takes a new approach or at least clearly defines one, that may have big knock on effects for the rest of the world.
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FWIW I agree about big pharma and 'big food'. But they're not going to tackle the 'big state' without looking at the military industrial complex. If Trump really wanted to destroy the Democrats, he could easily do it by holding them to account for their foreign policy, with all its complicity in war crimes and partnership in genocide. He won't do that because republicans are up to their neck in it too, and also because of the money and power involved in the arms industry (which, as far as I'm concerned, *is* the 'deep state'). But as long as they continue to support Israel unconditionally, they're never going to put 'America first' - they are under the sway of a foreign, hostile, and totally corrupt regime.
 
Robert F. Kennedy is advocating for:
- Raw milk consumption: raw milk can contain e.coli bacterias. They can induce infections that can be difficult to treat and in some cases lethal. Drink raw milk from your farmer neighbor if you wish so (I grew up in the countryside and none of us did that - we always boiled the milk for safety reason before drinking it) but promoting the commercialization of raw milk on a large scale is madness especially as there is a current outbreak of HSN1 and there is no method to detect it in the milk.
- Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin: no mega studies have shown those treatment to be effective against Covid-19. In fact for someone advocating for stricter controls on drugs, he contradicted himself by pushing those treatment at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He is also spreading many conspiracies, and openly supported leading opponents to vaccination in Samoa during a trip in 2019 - few months later there was a measle outbreak, leading to the death of 83 people. Kennedy and his children might be vaccinated but he has no issue to support anti-vax movements. He won't hesitate to use lies - for instance in 2022, the anti-vax group he led co-published a book accusing the covid-19 vaccine to be behind the sudden death of young and healthy people: a 12-years-old child was featured on the cover book against the will of his parents and never got vaccinated against covid-19.

The food and drug industries certainly need more regulations, stronger punishments (the case of over prescription of OxyContin is a good exemple of crime not being punished), more incentives to help people to be healthy instead of making them dependent on unhealthy food and drugs. I am sure there are better qualified people with a strong sense of ethics that could do that job way better than Kennedy that repeatedly showed that his ideological views are overpassing safety and a scientific approach on food and drugs.
 
Onetwofour said:
Robert F. Kennedy is advocating for:
- Raw milk consumption: raw milk can contain e.coli bacterias. They can induce infections that can be difficult to treat and in some cases lethal. Drink raw milk from your farmer neighbor if you wish so (I grew up in the countryside and none of us did that - we always boiled the milk for safety reason before drinking it) but promoting the commercialization of raw milk on a large scale is madness especially as there is a current outbreak of HSN1 and there is no method to detect it in the milk.
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Sounds like that psychopathic woman, Belle Gibson who managed to dupe many people into believing she had cured her ‘brain tumour’ by drinking raw milk etc. in the end, after making a tonne of money by exploiting vulnerable and sometimes dying people, she was exposed as a liar and a fraud.

Health conspiracies seem to be the result of people who have an unnatural mistrust of others because they, themselves are disordered. A balance is necessary. Governments should not sweep vaccine damage under the carpet because it happens. But at the same time, we’re about to regress back to times where people died of unnecessary health problems if it’s going to become mainstream to reject basic, scientific principles.
 
Piff paff puff said:
The left are very outraged which means the correct decisions are being made 😌
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Do you actually think that someone has to be “left” to think that having a rapist in the White House, an Attorney General accused of sex trafficking and under investigation by the ethics committee, and a conspiracy theorist running the Health Department might not be the greatest idea in the world?
 
Miss Begotten said:
Do you actually think that someone has to be “left” to think that having a rapist in the White House, an Attorney General accused of sex trafficking and under investigation by the ethics committee, and a conspiracy theorist running the Health Department might not be the greatest idea in the world?
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Indeed, from what I can gather there are plenty of republicans who are also questioning the thinking behind and the wisdom of decisions.
 
When people think what's right is what's being criticized by the "other side" they've lost any ounce of independent thinking. Also many Republicans are not especially excited by all Trump's picks. I guess that's why Trump demanded that the future Republican majority leader of the Senate agrees on recess appointments of Trump's picks. He knows the Senate might be resistant to many of his picks and that his majority at the Senate is probably not enough to nominate the people he chose.

In many cases the issues are that Trump's picks are loyalists who don't have the experience required to oversee such critical departments, which would make them less able to advise Trump and would facilitate some of his decisions without proper scrutinity. It's funny that many people were criticizing Harris for being underqualified to become president but now are happy to whoever Trump would chose to run the government, without asking any questions.

(As for Harris, not choosing her as a president can be absolutely understood based on one's political opinions but I don't know how someone who rose to the position of Attorney general of California, was a senator and VP was lacking of professional or political experience. She might be a bad candidate for many reasons but certainly not because of her career).
 
Onetwofour said:
Robert F. Kennedy is advocating for:
- Raw milk consumption: raw milk can contain e.coli bacterias. They can induce infections that can be difficult to treat and in some cases lethal. Drink raw milk from your farmer neighbor if you wish so (I grew up in the countryside and none of us did that - we always boiled the milk for safety reason before drinking it) but promoting the commercialization of raw milk on a large scale is madness especially as there is a current outbreak of HSN1 and there is no method to detect it in the milk.
- Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin: no mega studies have shown those treatment to be effective against Covid-19. In fact for someone advocating for stricter controls on drugs, he contradicted himself by pushing those treatment at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He is also spreading many conspiracies, and openly supported leading opponents to vaccination in Samoa during a trip in 2019 - few months later there was a measle outbreak, leading to the death of 83 people. Kennedy and his children might be vaccinated but he has no issue to support anti-vax movements. He won't hesitate to use lies - for instance in 2022, the anti-vax group he led co-published a book accusing the covid-19 vaccine to be behind the sudden death of young and healthy people: a 12-years-old child was featured on the cover book against the will of his parents and never got vaccinated against covid-19.

The food and drug industries certainly need more regulations, stronger punishments (the case of over prescription of OxyContin is a good exemple of crime not being punished), more incentives to help people to be healthy instead of making them dependent on unhealthy food and drugs. I am sure there are better qualified people with a strong sense of ethics that could do that job way better than Kennedy that repeatedly showed that his ideological views are overpassing safety and a scientific approach on food and drugs.
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Well where are all these people that are so ethical and qualified then? Where have they been for the last few decades? They don’t exist because nobody wants the job - or they’re too in hock to the corporates to do it. It takes someone with great courage and passion to take on the FDA, NIH, CDC, pharma and the rest of them. It is a massive undertaking, almost doomed to failure, and there is going to be extraordinary pressure and pushback on him from the most powerful industries in the world.

So he’s taking on a hell of a job. Believe me the last thing he’s going to be doing is forcing you or anyone else to drink raw milk.

His overall concern - which is clear when you listen to his long form interviews instead of picking out individual talking points from the MSM - is to get corruption out of the agencies, improve food quality, reduce the grip of the pharmaceutical industry, find alternative ways to keep Americans well and push for transparency of data in all these areas.

I’m struggling to see why any of this is a bad thing or why he’s the wrong person to do it in the absence of anyone else. It’s a topsy turvy world indeed when Democrats and those on the left are intent on attacking someone who’s at least attempting to take on corporate and governmental corruption.
 
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Lady_H said:
Well where are all these people that are so ethical and qualified then? Where have they been for the last few decades? They don’t exist because nobody wants the job - or they’re too in hock to the corporates to do it. It takes someone with great courage and passion to take on the FDA, NIH, CDC, pharma and the rest of them. It is a massive undertaking, almost doomed to failure, and there is going to be extraordinary pressure and pushback on him from the most powerful industries in the world.
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You said the job is almost doomed to failure yet want to know why its not been previously sorted out? It won't work unless there is cross party agreement (or the party pushing the changes holds enough power to be able to carry a majority through all voting levels regardless) and there has been less and less cross party agreements over recent years.

He may well succeed at some parts (and to be absolutely fair to him - some of his talking points regarding pharma and food regulations are sensible suggestions), I'm just unsure whether his overall legacy willbe of achieving a healthier country or if he will make access to healthcare even more difficult than it already is.
 
Lady_H said:
Well where are all these people that are so ethical and qualified then? Where have they been for the last few decades? They don’t exist because nobody wants the job - or they’re too in hock to the corporates to do it. It takes someone with great courage and passion to take on the FDA, NIH, CDC, pharma and the rest of them. It is a massive undertaking, almost doomed to failure, and there is going to be extraordinary pressure and pushback on him from the most powerful industries in the world.

So he’s taking on a hell of a job. Believe me the last thing he’s going to be doing is forcing you or anyone else to drink raw milk.

His overall concern - which is clear when you listen to his long form interviews instead of picking out individual talking points from the MSM - is to get corruption out of the agencies, improve food quality, reduce the grip of the pharmaceutical industry, find alternative ways to keep Americans well and push for transparency of data in all these areas.

I’m struggling to see why any of this is a bad thing or why he’s the wrong person to do it in the absence of anyone else. It’s a topsy turvy world indeed when Democrats and those on the left are intent on attacking someone who’s at least attempting to take on corporate and governmental corruption.
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It's not talking points. If you don't have issue with someone using the death of a child to promote a false narrative against the will of the parents of that child, that's your opinion. You cannot be upset that other people are not agreeing with his methods and the conspiracy theories he is promoting on his platform.

Kennedy is far not the only person decrying the state of the food industry in the US. Obesity linked to a bad diet powered by food industry's bad practices is a worldwide issue. Many scientists and journalists have been long raising concerns. Over the years I have watched countless of documentaries and read many articles on the topics. Many researchers are working on understanding the links between processed food and the rise of deases associated to that kind of diet. Many organisations are working on warning people about food safety, advocating for changes in practices in the food industry. There are tons of qualified people on the topic that are not spreading misinformation like Kennedy does.

The current state of the food industry in the US are the results of decades of resistance to regulations to insure food safety, limits on sugar, fat and other components bad for our health. The reasoning behind is that it will rise costs of production, reduce profits and people are "free to eat what they want". The EU - constantly mocked in the US for its regulations - have stricter rules on food additives. They didn't wait Kennedy to act on it. Another issue about food is affordability of healthy food (food deserts are a good example of that issue), lack of knowledge on cooking and diet, unhealthy food at the canteen for schoolchildren. To change this we need to invest on education and meals for kids at schools. Who are always trying to more and more defund schools? Who wants to get of the federal department of education? How is it possible to ensure a stronger monitoring of the food industry and stronger regulations when people vote for small government policy?

Big farmers are constantly voting for the Republicans because they don't want regulations, they don't want their practices being overseen and being prevented to use toxic pesticides, antibiotics and unadapted food to feed their cattle. During his last mandate Trump has constantly advantaged the agro business over small farmers, increasing their strength over the food market in the US and imposing their practices as the norm. Under Trump food safety enforcement has been slowing done. But we are to believe that now he will act differently? Trump has always been on the side of big corporations and deregulations. If he really changed his mind he would have taken someone competent, not Kennedy. Kennedy has been chosen for political reasons. Trump exchanged a nomination for Kennedy against his endorsement. So maybe the US will become some kind of food utupia but Trump's reccord until now didn't show any sign of that.
 
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