Since Ronald Reagan ushered in the Age of Ignorance in 1980,
the Republican Party has dumbed down America
through Fox News and Talk Radio. There
is a reason Fox News and Talk Radio are banned in Canada . It’s the ignorance and hatred stupid.
Anyone who has seen the movie Hotel Rwanda knows how powerful hatred and ignorance being
bombarded over the airwaves is. Talk radio
in Rwanda
called the Tutsi’s cockroaches that had to be chopped down by the Hutu’s. That message was drilled in over and over,
day after day until the genocide. That
is no different than the messages that are drilled in over and over, day after
day in the United States
by Fox News and Talk Radio.
Remember Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on Michael J. Fox and
Christopher Reeve for supporting embryonic stem cell research? Embryos that were created in a Petri dish and
frozen for the purpose of reproduction were burned or discarded if not used for
reproduction. Prior to the anti-science
George W. Bush, leaps and bounds were made in the science world using the
unused embryos for research rather than just destroying them.
The attacks on science under George W. Bush and the slashing
of funding for life-saving research into rare diseases, cancer, brain injuries,
and brain diseases like schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer’s plus a myriad of
other conditions that affect the quality and quantity of life were
devastating. These devastating cuts have
been continued and increased under President Barack Obama. That’s right, it’s worse under Obama.
On Friday, December 6th C-Span’s Washington
Journal had an entire show on the effects of sequestration on the National
Institutes of Health. NIH is the largest
supporter of biomedical research in the world and with the cuts under the Bush
Administration and the sequestration cuts under the Obama Administration, the
loss of scientists and medical research has been mind numbing.
Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the NIH was the first
guest. Dr. Collins headed up the Gnome
project under President Clinton. The
Gnome project has been called the biggest scientific advancement since
President John F. Kennedy’s project to put a man on the moon.
Dr. Collins said “internationally things are so exciting
right now scientifically, there’s never been a time of such promise, but
frankly things have never been so constrained in terms of resources”.
Dr. Collins said “this is a historically difficult moment in
lack of support for science that began 10 years ago. In 2003 President Clinton’s Gnome initiative
was stymied by the incurious George W. Bush.
Funding for the NIH went flat under George W. Bush and when
adjusted for inflation the cut was about 3% per year. On top of that, on March 21st, 2013 the NIH lost $1.5
Billion dollars for research under Barack Obama’s sequestration. All totaled the NIH has lost 25% of their
research money over the last 10 years.
Dr. Collins said that sequester has done so much damage that
scientists are leaving the U.S.
for countries that are more enlightened.
The investment in NIH is a wonderful support of the economy. When you talk about the return on investment
of the funds going to all 50 states, you get a 2 fold return in just one year.
According to Dr. Collins, Neuroscience Research is the last
frontier in medical research. The human
brain is the most complicated structure in the universe with 86 billion
neurons, each with about 1,000 connections.
The $1.5 billion that has been cut for brain science under
sequestration in order to provide tax cuts for billionaires and banks could
fund brain disease research to identify abnormalities 10 years before any onset
of illness. What is the cost to our
nation for untreated brain and mental illness?
Is that worth low taxes to become an ignorant nation that has no value
for its citizens and their well-being?
Obama is not a Democrat, never was, he is a Ronald Reagan
Republican. He has said over and over
that he wanted to be transformative President like Ronald Reagan.
Where presidents like William Jefferson Clinton and John Fitzgerald Kennedy were visionaries seeing man on the moon and science creating a toolkit to repair your body from your own Gnomes, Obama and Reagan saw a waste of money.
Obama is no Kennedy and no Clinton. He has achieved his goal of becoming the
transformational president that Reagan was.
Every human need is for sale to the highest bidder.
By Patricia Baeten.
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