Hat tip to Pharyngula - The American COLLEGE of Pediatricians is bogus, the American ACADEMY of Pediatrics is a legitimate professional scientific org.

In writing earlier today about the hatred on the right for anything related to sex, gender and human sexuality, the following is worth sharing from Pharyngula.  It deals directly with the right wing attempt to fake they are an accredited genuinely scientific group, when their real purpose is to promote false information about children specifically and the LGBT community more generally.

We can expect to see sources like the bogus American COLLEGE of Pediatricians quoted in the upcoming anti-trans bathroom use legislation promoted by the intellectually dishonest MN GOP.  Lying is for losers, and it is what the MN GOP does when the facts are not on their side; they fake the facts and they lie outright.  They are not above using the work of bogus groups to do so.

For those of you not familiar with Pharyngula, they are a well-respected Minnesota blog that does an excellent job of science reporting and commentary.

From Pharyngula:

Speaking of bad science, never trust the American College of Pediatricians

I know! It sounds so official and sciencey! It’s got “college” in it, which is formal and academic, and “pediatricians”, which are a kind of doctor, and you can never go wrong slapping “American” on your brand label. But they are a lie.

It’s also because the ACP is not a legitimate medical organization; its name is designed to be mistaken for the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is a national organization with some 60,000 members. The ACP, by contrast, is estimated to have no more than 200 members, and it has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its anti-LGBT positions.
“The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex,” the statement reads. “Facts – not ideology – determine reality.” The “facts” that follow actually reflect a social conservative ideology that rejects the very reality of what transgender children experience.

They’ve issued a statement that transgender kids are being harmed, based on claims that believing you are of a gender other than the one you were born with is a mental disorder (psychologists disagree), that it’s just a phase kids go through (nope, again — that’s based on some bad studies), and that sex reassignment surgery, rather than discrimination and hatred, triggers suicide at a high rate (you can figure that one out).
I’m all in favor of facts. Unfortunately, painting the word “fact” on a lie does not make it true.

GOP/Conservatism of all stripes = Political Cancer

I was reading one of the blogs listed in our blog roll this morning, about an unlikely comparison  and contrast between marxism and cancer. This paragraph reminded me much more of the policies of Republicans than any other political, social or economic structuring:  

From Pharyngula:

In that sense, cancer is more of a reactionary counter-revolution, in which a few cells abandon the bonds of trust to selfishly exploit their neighbors and the resources of the whole. If they succeed, the whole system will crash, leading to the deaths of trillions of cells…including the greedy and short-sighted cancerous reactionaries.
The struggle for life is also a fight for the welfare of the masses. It is the restoration of harmony and cooperation to all of the cells of the body. I wish my comrade in the Leeds General Infirmary well, and if he should fall, let us all remember that he fell in glorious struggle, as a communal entity resisting an exploitive few.

How do I see this as a similarity to a Republican cancer on the body politic?

1. Voter suppression parallels attacks on the immune system, the body's way removing disease, and the body politic's way of removing corrupt or incompetent elected officials and voting down bad legislation.
2. Tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, sweetheart deals, subsidies, and lack of regulation where there is obvious corruption and profiteering that lead to exploitation of labor and resources to benefit a few, to the ultimate detriment of the whole.
3. Struggle for life and cooperation of the masses vs political cancer - attacks on the social safety net, social security, medicaid and medicare, even the opposition to disaster aid all represent a philosophy of every individual for themselves, too bad if you die or are hurt, you are on you own even if that is cumulatively detrimental to the whole.
4. Chaos and disruption in individual living bodies result from the uncontrolled cellular growth of cancer, such as tumors, or the loss of tissue, such as bone tissue in osteosarcomas, and similar destructive outcomes have resulted from the bad governance of the Republicans, such as their inability to pass necessary legislation (highway bill comes to mind), as well as their government shutdowns, and their obstructive gridlock of congress, and their current speaker dilemma dysfunction.  Shut downs, for example, cost many millions of wasted tax dollars, and was responsible as well for a loss to our economy in the billions from lost economic activity, etc.
5.Opposition to factual sex ed leads NOT to less sexual activity but to highest unplanned pregnancies  among those least able or likely to be desirable parents (the reason we try to decrease unplanned pregnancies, especially among the young and immature) at the highest costs to society as a whole resembles uncontrolled detrimental cell growth. Attacks on factually accurate education as a whole, weakens the nation as a whole, and in particular weakens our economy which is education driven.
6.  Attacks on organized labor by the GOP/Tea Party has resulted in the gradual weakening and destruction of the middle class, just like a cancer.
7. Science denial of crises like global warming clearly harm the whole globe, not just the United States in multiple ways. Science denial is like cancer in facilitating that harm, usually to the exploitive benefit of the few, like those who get rich off of fossil fuels, while the rest of us are left to pay for the damage it does, and economically are at the mercy of fluctuating commodity market manipulation.
8. Gun violence versus gun control -- I shouldn't need to spell out this one; it should be obvious.
9. Short term exploitive gains in all areas of public policy and in conservative business practices as well, benefitting from short term advantages that are at the expense of long term success. An example would be failing to regulate hedge funds, or to break up the big banks, both of which engage in short term exploitation that is detrimental to long term growth and stability.

Those are my cancer/GOP comparisons -- please feel free to add your own comparison and contrast in the comments section.


Go ahead - take a wack at it yourself.