Maybe the Beatles got it wrong in "Eleanor Rigby"? Maybe it's "all the stupid people, where do they all come from?"
They're all up in the media these days.
Then start in 2024 and start with us: It's a gay song.
The Village People were marketed as a gay group and recorded many gay songs.
But most importantly, the artist doesn't get to decide.
Art, by its very nature, is an interaction between the artist and the public. Without that interaction, it's not art.
The
public will put their imprint on the art. That can be in the form of
applause, it can be in hisses. It will be critically evaluated as
well. After you release art to the public, you can offer what you were
trying to say as a creator but that really is not ever the last word.
"YMCA"
was seen as a gay song by the public immediately upon release and
that's how it is still seen and -- sorry to break it to Victor -- how it
will always be seen.
The visuals in the video make it so. As do the lyrics which Victor claims to have written.
He
wants to insist that his "hang out with all the boys" was misunderstood
and that it was some kind of (exclusively) Black thing -- for men to
call each other boys. Interestingly enough there are many, many songs
where men are referred to as boys but they aren't seen as gay songs.
Why?
Because women appear in them.
There are no women referred to in the song "YMCA." Just a place you can stay and hang out with all the boys.
The
Village People were a minor group in musical history, a novelty act,
and outside of their interaction with the gay community, there's no
reason to remember them.
On
BILLBOARD's pop charts, the group has three hits: "Macho Man" (another
song that fails to mention women), "YMCA" (number two, their biggest
charting his on BILLBOARD's HOT 100) and "In The Navy" (number three).
Guess what? That last one mentions "fellow man." But no women.
Despite the fact that the Navy began allowing women to enlist in 1917.
From the US Navy Memorial Site:
| WALSH-LORETTA | The United States Navy Memorial |
|
|
The
U.S. Naval Reserve Act of 1916 permitted the enlistment of qualified
“persons” for service in the Navy. When the Secretary of the Navy asked
whether this applied only to males and was told that it did not, the
Navy began enlisting women less than a month later. Historical records
reflect that on March 17, 1917, the first woman to enlist in the Navy
was Loretta Perfectus Walsh. She was born on April 22, 1896, in
Philadelphia and thus had the distinction of being the first woman to
service in any of the U.S. armed forces in other than a nursing
assignment. Until Walsh’s enlistment, women had served as Navy nurses
but were civilian employees with few benefits.
Walsh,
aged 20, was enlisted on March 17, 1917, as a Yeoman(F), all of whom
were popularly referred to as “Yeomanettes.” During World War I a
reported 11,274 female Yeoman(F) served in the Navy. The Yeoman(F)
women primarily served in clerical positions. They received the same
benefits and responsibilities as men, including identical pay ($28.75
per month) and were treated as veterans after the war.
On
March 21, 1917, Walsh was sworn in as Chief Yeoman, becoming the first
woman Chief Petty Officer in the Navy. She served her active duty at
the Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia and when World War I ended, Walsh and
all the Yeoman(F) personnel were released from active duty. As Walsh
had enlisted in the Naval Reserve for a 4-year enlistment she continued
on inactive reserve status, receiving a modest retainer pay, until the
end of her enlistment on March 17, 1921.
Walsh
fell victim to influenza in the fall of 1918 and later contracted
tuberculosis. She died on August 6, 1925, at the age of 29 in Olyphant,
Pennsylvania. After her death she was buried in Olyphant’s St.
Patrick’s Cemetery under a monument that reads:
LORETTA PERFECTUS WALSH
APRIL 22, 1896 – AUGUST 6, 1925
WOMAN AND PATRIOT
FIRST OF THOSE ENROLLED IN THE U.S. NAVAL SERVICE
WORLD WAR 1917-1919
HER COMRADES DEDICATE THIS MONUMENT
TO KEEP ALIVE FOREVER
MEMORIES OF THE SACRIFICE AND DEVOTION
OF WOMANHOOD
In
memory of Walsh and her bold actions, the official history program of
the Department of the Navy identifies March 21, 1917, as a date in
American naval history. Annually, in recognition of Walsh’s historic
service, a wreath laying ceremony is held at her gravesite on this date.
The
U.S. Naval Reserve Act of 1916 permitted the enlistment of qualified
“persons” for service in the Navy. When the Secretary of the Navy asked
whether this applied only to males and was told that it did not, the
Navy began enlisting women less than a month later. Historical records
reflect that on March 17, 1917, the first woman to enlist in the Navy
was Loretta Perfectus Walsh. She was born on April 22, 1896, in
Philadelphia and thus had the distinction of being the first woman to
service in any of the U.S. armed forces in other than a nursing
assignment. Until Walsh’s enlistment, women had served as Navy nurses
but were civilian employees with few benefits.
Walsh,
aged 20, was enlisted on March 17, 1917, as a Yeoman(F), all of whom
were popularly referred to as “Yeomanettes.” During World War I a
reported 11,274 female Yeoman(F) served in the Navy. The Yeoman(F)
women primarily served in clerical positions. They received the same
benefits and responsibilities as men, including identical pay ($28.75
per month) and were treated as veterans after the war.
On
March 21, 1917, Walsh was sworn in as Chief Yeoman, becoming the first
woman Chief Petty Officer in the Navy. She served her active duty at
the Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia and when World War I ended, Walsh and
all the Yeoman(F) personnel were released from active duty. As Walsh
had enlisted in the Naval Reserve for a 4-year enlistment she continued
on inactive reserve status, receiving a modest retainer pay, until the
end of her enlistment on March 17, 1921.
Walsh
fell victim to influenza in the fall of 1918 and later contracted
tuberculosis. She died on August 6, 1925, at the age of 29 in Olyphant,
Pennsylvania. After her death she was buried in Olyphant’s St.
Patrick’s Cemetery under a monument that reads:
LORETTA PERFECTUS WALSH
APRIL 22, 1896 – AUGUST 6, 1925
WOMAN AND PATRIOT
FIRST OF THOSE ENROLLED IN THE U.S. NAVAL SERVICE
WORLD WAR 1917-1919
HER COMRADES DEDICATE THIS MONUMENT
TO KEEP ALIVE FOREVER
MEMORIES OF THE SACRIFICE AND DEVOTION
OF WOMANHOOD
In
memory of Walsh and her bold actions, the official history program of
the Department of the Navy identifies March 21, 1917, as a date in
American naval history. Annually, in recognition of Walsh’s historic
service, a wreath laying ceremony is held at her gravesite on this date.
That
was one of the reasons the Navy didn't use the song in the seventies as
a recruiting tool. They recruited women and yet the song 'about' the
Navy didn't note that. The other reason was that the Navy saw "In The Navy" as a song from a gay group.
They
have no cultural significance if you strip them of their contributions
to the LGBTQ+ community. Do that and they're a two-hit wonder of bad
fluff songs.
So, Victor, choose whether you wish to be remembered or not. You do have control of that.
As
for suing people because they say "YMCA" is a gay song? You have no
control over that. You co-wrote a song -- or allegedly did -- and
that's it for you, it's been released and it's out there and
interpretation will take place. And that interpretation we're referring
to is what happens with art. There's another issue: Legal. You start
suing people for their opinions, get ready to lose whatever pennies
you've managed to save. Those will be frivolous lawsuits that attempt to squash Constitutionally guaranteed free speech -- not only will your
case not hold up in court, those you sue can turn around and sue you and
they -- not you -- would have case law on their side -- centuries of
case law.
Stupid.
Which, sadly, brings us to THE DAILY SHOW.
Jon Stewart is a nice person that we both know. He's not a very smart person -- without his writers.
The
king of COMEDY CENTRAL returned to THE DAILY SHOW this year. He left
in 2015 as the anchor. The show suffered tremendously. In a need to
put some understanding on this crazy, insane world, some claimed that if
Jon had been present in 2016, no way would Satan Trump have been
elected president in 2016. Sometimes, Jon acts as though he believes
that. This despite the fact that his return to THE DAILY SHOW did not
block Satan from being re-elected.
Some might, in fact, argue that it helped Trump get re-elected.
We
always find it hilarious when Jon wants to play above the fray and
non-partisan. He does that, for example, when working on veterans
issues.
In 2024, he did that on THE DAILY SHOW.
He
pretended that he was treating both candidates fairly when, in fact,
Kamala Harris was a serious candidate with actual plans to help the
American people and Donald was a raging hate monger who had notions --
fleeting notions -- in the place of plans.
But watching THE DAILY SHOW, you didn't get that.
There were his attacks on Dick and Liz Cheney, for example. Both endorsed and supported Kamala.
We're sworn enemies of Dick Cheney. We're not fans of Liz. However, we were glad to have anyone who cared about America's future speaking out on behalf of Kamala. We applaud them for it. We will call out and object to any effort on the part of Satan Trump to attack Liz.
Little
weasel Jon didn't feel the same -- despite having once put his name to a
bad book -- a very bad book -- entitled AMERICA (THE BOOK): A CITIZEN"S
GUIDE TO DEMOCRACY INTERATCION.
His reaction to Dick Cheney's endorsing Kamala? Raging on camera and fake vomiting into a trash can.
Our
democracy is now at stake thanks to the results of that election. We
hope Jon feels his mincing about on camera was worth it. We really hope
he feels that way. We, however, do not.
We
were also appalled by the "gay" "jokes" that we hadn't registered on
the show in Jon's absence. But suddenly it was okay to call something
"gay" for no reason other than to garner a cheap (and homophobic) joke.
So, no, we haven't been thrilled about Jon's return.
And
if Trevor Noah looked foolish mincing around on camera (and he did),
Jon's mincing and mugging are even sadder at 62. We're reminded not
just of Bob Hope at the end of his career but of 'Bob Hope' in ANNIE HALL -- as the
comedian trying to hire Woody's character to write jokes for him:
Yeah, yeah. Hey, kid, he tells me
you're really good. Well, lemme
explain a little bit o' how I work.
You know, you can tell right off the
bat that I don't look like a funny
guy when I come-you know, like some
o' the guys that come out. You know,
right away
they're gonna tell yuh their stories,
you're gonna fall down, but I gotta
be really talented. Material's gotta
be sensational for me 'cause I work,
you know, with very, very... Come
on, I'm kinda classy, you know what
I mean? Uh... uh... lemme explain.
For instance, I open with an opening
song. A musical start like
and I walk out
"Place looks wonderful from here and
you folks look wonderful from here!
"And seein' you there With a smile
on your face Makes me shout This
must be the place." Then I stop right
in the middle and then I open with
some jokes. Now, that's where I need
you, right there. For instance, like
I say, "Hey, I just got back from
Canada, you know, they speak a lotta
French up there. The only way to
remember Jeanne d'Arc means the
light's out in the bathroom!"
Yes, that's what Jon's descending to -- a joke in Woody Allen and
Marshall Brickman's Academy Award winning screenplay.
And Jon's brought it on himself.
He's
is so grossly out of touch. And what's worse is how embarrassing he is
on THE WEEKLY SHOW -- a podcast that's supposed to let him do what he
was doing on APPLE+ but, in fact, only serves to create even more
embarrassment.
We're
bothered that a program which started in 2024 has so few Black women on
it. The same two Black women have appeared on two shows each. So
Black women are featured as guests on four out of 34 episodes. Black
men? Six episodes have featured Black men. So ten episodes have
featured Black people. Ten out of 34. Some episodes feature as many as
4 guests. So that's really not a good score at all.
When White YOUTUBE decides to stop embracing apartheid, please let us know.
In
the meantime, we have to suffer through nonsense like Bernie Sanders.
The 83-year-old senator is facing a lot of criticism from the Black
community for his racism this year -- including his refusal to see
Black working class women as part of the working class.
Bernie
Sanders once compared poor white Vermonters to black South Africans
suffering under apartheid. At other times, he likened the plight of some
working people as well as imported foreign laborers to slavery.
Now
that Sanders is rising in the polls and expected by many to win Iowa,
rival Democrats are bringing to light his decades-old comments in an
effort to question the senator’s stances on race and to underscore the
challenges he has had with black voters.
At
a 1986 public forum, Sanders said poor Vermonters “are the equivalent
of blacks in South Africa. They don’t vote, they aren’t involved, they
don’t care about the issues,” according to the Bennington Banner in
Vermont. Sanders amended his statement after one observer on stage
commented about his “pretty fiery oratory.”
Now as offensive as that is, he made it worse:
“Obviously
the analogy is not true,” Sanders then responded, “because in South
Africa the blacks are not invisible — they are beginning to stand up.”
At the time of his remarks, Vermont’s population was about 99 percent white and about 0.2 percent black.
Really, Col Sanders? Really? In 1986, Black people in South Africa "are beginning to stand up"? Really.
We
guess that's true . . . if you ignore many, many historical incidents
such as the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in which 69 Black people were
killed protesting apartheid.
Were those Black people not standing up, Bernie?
We can provide many, many more examples.
What
happened is Bernie made an insulting remark to White people, so he
tried to fix it and didn't care if it was insulting to Black people.
A
political advocacy group founded by Bernie Sanders entered into a
nondisclosure agreement with an African American political consultant
that bars her from discussing a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination
at the organization and the Vermont senator’s 2016 presidential
campaign.
The consultant, Tezlyn Figaro,
confirmed the existence of the nondisclosure agreement to The Associated
Press without providing additional details.
Besides
its size, there’s the gender and racial composition of Sanders’s inner
circle—which is predominantly white and male. In the run-up to the
presidential race, Sanders has been bedeviled by issues of race and
gender. The day after the 2018 midterms, he told The Daily Beast that
one of the reasons Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum—black Democrats
running for governor in Georgia and Florida, respectively—lost was not
because they were too progressive but because “a lot of white folks out
there who are not necessarily racist…felt uncomfortable for the first
time in their lives about whether or not they wanted to vote for an
African-American.” Sanders’s refusal to fault those white voters was
widely condemned by black and progressive activists.
Then in early January, The New York Times reported
on accusations of sexual harassment made by former Sanders 2016
campaign staffers that went unaddressed by the campaign’s higher-ups.
Sanders’s campaign committee later released a statement pledging: “To be
clear: no one who committed sexual harassment in 2016 would be back if
there were a 2020 campaign.” But a number of Sanders’s supporters and
aides continue to complain that his inner circle is still just a bunch
of “white guys.”
So it seemed a setback on Thursday when the Daily Beast published an article quoting
Sanders on the role of racism in Gillum’s apparent defeat. “I think you
know there are a lot of white folks out there who are not necessarily
racist who felt uncomfortable for the first time in their lives about
whether or not they wanted to vote for an African-American,” the senator
said of the Florida governor’s race. A small outcry ensued, accusing
Sanders of evading the reality that opposing a black candidate out of
discomfort with black leadership is, by definition, racist
For
those of us interested in how the left prioritizes its various
radicalisms, Sanders’s answer is illuminating. The spectacle of a
socialist candidate opposing reparations as “divisive” (there are few
political labels more divisive in
the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivaled by the
implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist. Sanders says the chance of getting reparations through Congress is “nil,” a correct observation which could just as well apply to much of the Vermont senator’s own platform. The
chances of a President Sanders coaxing a Republican Congress to pass a
$1 trillion jobs and infrastructure bill are also nil. Considering
Sanders’s proposal for single-payer health care, Paul Krugman asks, “Is
there any realistic prospect that a drastic overhaul could be enacted
any time soon -- say, in the next eight years? No.”
[. . .]
Unfortunately,
Sanders’s radicalism has failed in the ancient fight against white
supremacy. What he proposes in lieu of reparations -- job creation,
investment in cities, and free higher education -- is well within the
Overton window, and his platform on
race echoes Democratic orthodoxy. The calls for community policing,
body cameras, and a voting-rights bill with pre-clearance restored -- all are things that Hillary Clinton agrees with.
And those positions with which she might not agree address black people
not so much as a class specifically injured by white supremacy, but
rather, as a group which magically suffers from disproportionate
poverty.
This
is the “class first” approach, originating in the myth that racism and
socialism are necessarily incompatible. But raising the minimum wage
doesn’t really address the fact that black men without criminal records
have about the same shot at low-wage work as white men with them; nor
can making college free address the wage gap between black and white
graduates. Housing discrimination, historical and present, may well be
the fulcrum of
white supremacy. Affirmative action is one of the most disputed issues
of the day. Neither are addressed in the “racial justice” section of
Sanders platform.
We
could go on and on with this -- including Bernie's public apology when
THE NEW YORK TIMES revealed he paid women on his 2016 campaign much
lower wages than what the men received.
We
could bring up
our piece from last week and how Bernie (and COMMON
DREAMS) plugged a 'progressive' candidate (union betrayer who is also anti-immigrant) and insisted that we on the
left should emulate him -- this man who praised Donald Trump (a detail
left out by Sanders and by COMMON DREAMS) among many other vile things.
Bernie
is a fake ass and he's always been. He talks. He never accomplishes.
At 83, it's probably too late for him to accomplish anything. But
damned if COMMON DREAMS and others don't treat him like a hero and
fountain of wisdom.
That's
what bring us to Jon. Bernie was Jon's guest last week on THE WEEKLY
SHOW and it resulted in red ass and embarrassment for both.
And to add to the embarrassment SECULAR TALK host Kyle Kulinski signed off on the conversation in the comments to the video, "Both my presidents."
Why?
Why was Bernie on? Why was Kyle impressed?
We can tell you why we weren't impressed.
Why
is Bernie being celebrated? He is so problematic. It's not just that
he's racist, it's not just that he's an idiot. There are so many more
issues.
Mike noted one:
But
guess what? He shares that honor with others. He's 83 years old. His
fan boyz need to stop worshiping him. He should have taken his old ass
out of the Senate long, long ago. Instead, he ran for re-election.
This year. What are you Bernie freaks, idiots?
You
are. You are part of the idiots of the week. It's a six year term.
He'd be 89 if he lived to the end of that. Dianne Feinstein was 90 when
she died in office. And in 2018, Dems seriously tried to get her out of
office when she was 85. But you idiots keep electing old man Sanders
who does nothing and who is too damn old to be in the Senate. And you
would have held DiFi accountable if she'd only had two embarrassing
moments this week while Senile Sanders had four.
We
say that we're opposed to the geritocracy in our national leaders but
clearly what many must mean is that they're opposed to it if they
dislike the politician. Satan's followers weren't bothered by his
advance age (78). Jill Stein's followers weren't bothered by her
advanced age (74). And they weren't bothered that 83 year old Bernie
ran -- and last month won -- another six year term in the US Senate.
Meaning if he doesn't die before the end of his term, he'll be 89 years
old.
We
keep hearing that young blood is needed but we keep rejecting that
claim when it comes to our favorite hollow shells who are too old to
serve in office or on the bench.
Speaking with her [Senator Laphonza Butler], the thing that is clear is that Butler has
undertaken a process that her predecessor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, never
did: She has recognized that it's time to leave.
Feinstein, a legend in her native California, died in office at age 90,
so infirm that in her last year she missed dozens of votes and held up
the work of the Senate Judiciary Committee at a critical moment when
Democrats had control of the chamber and the opportunity to stock the
federal bench.
Decisions like hers - like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's
refusal to retire while President Barack Obama was still in office, and
President Joe Biden's stubborn insistence on running for another term
despite his advanced age - have forced Democrats into their current
beleaguered crouch: cast out of the White House, stuck in the minority
in the House and Senate, and with a super minority on the Supreme Court
that could take decades to break.
In the U.S. House, minority leader Hakeem Jeffries appears to be
working to quietly shuffle the oldest members out of leadership
positions: 76-year-old Raul Grijalva, 77-year-old Jerry Nadler, and
74-year-old Gerry Connolly are all facing challenges to their leadership
positions on key committees. But the party more broadly will, at some
point, need to reckon with the age issue that, more than any other, has
put them in this position.
It's past time to stop glorifying a senile old man running for re-election to a six year term at the age of 83. It's time to call him out and end the worship.
Instead, Bernie
and Jon whined like the two elderly idiots they've become. They're
tired of the doom and gloom, they insisted, over the results of the 2025
election. It was so surreal and disgusting, it was like watching a sex
tape Mika and Joe made. It's not "helpful," Jon insisted -- and Bernie
agreed -- to get people upset and worried about Satan's inauguration
next week.
Jon, you've never come off Whiter.
There’s
a reason 78 percent of Black men and 92 percent of Black women voted
for Vice President Kamala Harris. We knew the truth from the beginning.
We knew the consequences of Trump the sequel…and there’s no education in
the second kick of the mule.
So,
let’s be honest. It’s bad folks, especially if you’re Black. Can Black
folks expect to be targeted with increased oppression, suppression,
incarceration and injustice over the next four years? Yes. Will the MAGA
support of white supremacists like the Proud Boys translate to a
further rise in domestic terrorism and racial violence? Yes. Is it going
to be a fight every step of the way for Black folks even to be
considered real Americans in the MAGA administration? Of course it
is…and that barely scratches the surface.
So here do we go from here? We go forward. It won’t be easy. But nothing worth doing ever is.
We
go forward because that’s what we do, from the freedmen who escaped the
chains of slavery to the high school student filling out a college
application. We go forward because our parents and grandparents and all
those who came before refused to give up no matter how bad it got. So
neither will we.
Sure, we’ll have to work longer and fight harder but that will just make the victory that much sweeter.
We move forward because, at the end of the day, it’s the only way left.
We guess life looks a lot different for people of color than it does for two very wealthy Jews.
Namby Pamby Jon Stewart then insisted that we "don't know what's going to happen when Donald Trump takes over."
A
White man not conversant in the words of the late, great Maya Angelou?
Color us non-surprised. It was Maya who said, "When someone shows you
who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much
better than you do."
But, hey, funny White boy thinks he knows better than Maya.
Satan
has told us who he is. We know who he is and we know what he plans to do
which is why people are rightly worried. Jon Stewart, in his cloistered
bubble, doesn't have to deal with real issues which is why he doesn't.
And that's why he's so out of touch.
How out of touch?
On
the same broadcast, he likened Satan returning to the White House to a
custody arrangement: "The kids are going to live with Dad for the summer
and you just have to f**king eat it."
Who
knows what the hell he thought that was conveying but everyone should
grasp that an abusive parent does not automatically get summers with
their kids and you can't get more abusive than Satan.
As awful as the above is, it only got worse. "Gag reflex," Jon whined -- with Bernie agreeing -- is what greets him when he praises Robert Kennedy Junior or Elon Musk.
He finds that shocking. Because that's how out if Jon Stewart now is.
Elon Musk is a racist -- he grew up in South Africa under apartheid and only fled his birth country when apartheid was crashing down around him. He's a racist. He is a hate merchant. He is a transphobe. He is someone who poured dark money into the 2024 election.
There is nothing to admire about him. There is nothing to praise about him.
Junior? Junior is up for a post in government that he's not qualified to hold. If he gets it, he will put public health at risk -- as evidenced by his own statements and his own past behaviors.
Bernie whined about how unfair it is when you're attacked for saying good things about Satan Trump. Why, Bernie insisted, Satan's promise to cap interest rates on credit cars at 10% (only a temporary measure) is good.
They are talking about dangerous and deadly people -- Satan and Elon are dangerous and deadly.
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network urges the Senate not to confirm
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human
Services. Kennedy’s long record of spreading misinformation about
autism in particular and public health in general makes him a disastrous
choice for this role. His opposition to life-saving vaccines, his
belief that HIV may not cause AIDS, his desire to increase the use of
quack autism “treatments” and his comments about putting people taking
psychiatric medication in labor camps should all be immediately
disqualifying. Autistic people, the disability community, and the
nation’s public health will all suffer if he is confirmed.
Vaccines save lives
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the founder of Children’s Health Defense, a prominent anti-vaccine group. He has claimed that no vaccine has been proven safe and effective, that the recommended vaccine schedule for children is dangerous, and that “autism does come from vaccines.” He has also fought against COVID-19 vaccination, falsely calling an early COVID vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
Vaccines are safe and effective. Vaccines do not cause autism. The
idea that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is linked to
autism comes from one fraudulent 1998 publication
claiming that the vaccine had caused autistic traits in 12 children.
The man responsible for this publication, Andrew Wakefield, used unethical methods and failed to disclose financial conflicts of interest.
The paper did not give enough evidence for its claim that the MMR
vaccine could cause autism. It was later retracted by the journal that
published it, and Wakefield had his medical license revoked.
In spite of the fraudulent origins of the idea that vaccines cause
autism, and in spite of decades of replicable research proving that this
is not true, some people, like Kennedy, continue to perpetuate the
myth. These lies do very real harm to the autistic community. Kennedy
has described autistic people in insulting ways meant to inspire fear, saying that
“their brain is gone” and that the purported effects of vaccination are
“a Holocaust.” By working to prevent childhood vaccination, he
effectively communicates the message that living as an autistic person
is a worse fate than dying of measles or pertussis.
The anti-vaccine movement has led to a wave of fake “autism cures,” many of which have very real health risks. Kennedy recently promoted two of these fake cures when he accused the FDA of suppressing “hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds.” Hyperbaric therapy,
a treatment for decompression sickness in divers, has been promoted as a
fake autism cure in spite of a complete lack of evidence and associated
health risks. Chelation, a treatment for heavy metal poisoning, is
another fake cure, and its off-label use for autism has been associated
with at least one death.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his allies claim that autistic people did not exist in his youth and that “I have never in my life seen a man my age with full-blown autism.”
The idea that autistic people of Kennedy’s age (70) do not exist is not
true. Autistic people have always been here, but before widespread
autism diagnosis, we either went undiagnosed, or received different
diagnoses than would be used today — for example, the outdated diagnosis
of “childhood schizophrenia” for autism, or diagnosing people who today
would only have an autism diagnosis with intellectual disability.
Autistic people in Kennedy’s generation were all too often
institutionalized or incarcerated. Even if Kennedy is telling the truth
about not seeing us, that does not mean we were not there.
Of course, Kennedy’s lies about vaccines do not just hurt autistic people. Kennedy and his nonprofit played an active role
in a recent measles outbreak in American Samoa, spreading vaccine
misinformation until the vaccination rate dropped low enough that 5,700
people were infected with measles, and 83 people died. Kennedy has also made false claims
about COVID-19 vaccine trials and about the Vaccine Adverse Event
Reporting System, blaming unrelated deaths on COVID vaccinations.
Anti-vaccine misinformation like that promoted by Kennedy’s group has
led to a reduced rate of childhood vaccinations in the United States since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lies about public health endanger everyone
Kennedy has taken other stances on public health, also based on
misinformation, that disproportionately harm disabled people. He has
opposed COVID-19 vaccination when people with intellectual and
developmental disabilities (IDD) are at risk for worse outcomes if we get COVID. He wants to take fluoride out of drinking water, making everyone’s dental health worse, when people with IDD have worse dental health outcomes
to begin with. He opposes the use of medication for ADHD in spite of
research demonstrating that these medications are safe and can prevent deaths among people who take them. He has falsely linked
antidepressants, which for many people are life-saving medication, to
mass shootings. None of these beliefs are based on evidence, and all of
them would make terrible public health policy.
Kennedy’s fringe beliefs have led him to propose some truly
disturbing disability policies. Notably, he has discussed sending people
who struggle with addiction or take psychiatric medications to “wellness farms,”
where they could labor for several years and would be forbidden to use
cell phones. In the autism community, we have seen farms promoted as a
housing solution before, and we recognize this idea for what it is: a
proposal to institutionalize the 16% of Americans who take psychiatric medication and the 16% of Americans who struggle with substance use.
If you need to, take a moment to re-read the above quoted from ASAN. If you're Bernie Sanders and Jon Stewart, you might in fact need to read it several times over.
Junior is a threat to public safety.
But instead of addressing that reality, Bernie and Jon whined about the "gag reflex" people have when Junior talks about how "ultra processed foods are killing Americans" -- Jon's like "yeah."
These two were worse than Mika and Joe.
Jon Stewart: God
awful. That's got to change. But if you were to
say that, boy, are you just dog piled. How can you agree with Robert
Kennedy Jr on anything? He's this and that. Elon Musk says we've got
waste and inefficiency in the government and we're like, yeah, we've
been yelling about that for years, and as soon as we do that -- how can
you? How dare you? It's really interesting.
At least Bernie grasped that the food issue Jon was misunderstanding was actually an issue for the FDA. (Trump wants to nominate Junior to head Health and Human Services -- not the FDA while under HHS, unless Junior's going to be the ultimate micro-managers, someone else will be over the FDA.)
We'll give Bernie that. Bernie then wanted to ponder how do you walk the line?
How do you?
Well, you do it by calling out people who are dangerous to American citizens. For example, you love baked potatoes? That's fine. Know what's not? Going on TV and glorifying Hitler because, like you, he loved baked potatoes.
That has nothing to do with anything. Not anything that matters to our lives. Junior and Elon are dangers -- just as much as Donald Trump.
And if you can't grasp that, go over to the right or shut your damn mouth. Stop justifying these hateful people and their lies.
We honestly couldn't afford this nonsense as a country in 2024. We damn sure can't afford it in 2025. As Florence Reece long ago asked in the song she wrote, "Which Side Are You On?"
