[FRIAM] Liberal "othering" or statement of fact?

[uǝlƃ ☤>$]

Ha! I didn't miss the point. I rejected it. Left wingers are prone to it, too. Whether you see them as "right" or "left" is irrelevant to the actual group and more relevant to *you*. The actual group is "those who buy into snake oil."

On 8/31/21 9:42 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> You guys' (guises'?) capacity to miss the point is only equaled by my own.  THE POINT WAS: Does the Krugman article point to an actual group of people who share the properties of being prone to snake oil pitches, right wing politics, (and, I would add, revivalist religions), or is this "group" and invention of Krugman's imagination.  This relates to a long standing discussion we have been having about abduction.  Do we get, on the basis of one data point (right wing asshole ness OR snake oil vulnerability) to predict snake oil vuilnerability, on the one hand, or right-wing asshole ness on the other.  Is there a THERE there.  
> 
> Nick 
> 
> Nick Thompson
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
> Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2021 10:31 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Liberal "othering" or statement of fact?
> 
> I don't want to be a "both sides" person. But there's plenty of that on the left, too. I suppose it's for products like Paltrow's: https://goop.com/ Or reiki. Or crystals. Snake oil is non-partisan.
> 
> One thing that's a toss-up for me is the NCCIH: https://www.nccih.nih.gov/ On the one hand, I'm an integrationist ... and my contrariness demands I respect *complementary*. But some of the stuff they support research into looks like hogwash to me. I try to keep an open mind, though.
> 
> On 8/31/21 7:09 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>> *//*So saith Paul Krugman:
>>
>>  
>>
>> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/opinion/covid-misinformation-supple
>> ments.html 
>> <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/opinion/covid-misinformation-suppl
>> ements.html>
>>
>> Once you’re sensitized to the link between snake oil and right-wing politics, you realize that it’s pervasive.
>>
>> This is clearly true in the right’s fever swamps. Alex Jones of Infowars has built a following by pushing conspiracy theories, but he makes money by selling nutritional supplements <https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/how-does-alex-jones-make-money.html>. It’s also true, however, for more mainstream, establishment parts of the right. For example, Ben Shapiro, considered an intellectual on the right, hawks supplements.Look at who advertises <https://tvrev.com/whos-still-advertising-with-tucker-carlson-at-the-end-of-q2-2021/> on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. After Fox itself, the top advertisers are My Pillow, then three supplement companies.Snake oil peddlers, clearly, find consumers of right-wing news and punditry a valuable market for their wares. So it shouldn’t be surprising to find many right-leaning Americans ready to see vaccination as a liberal plot and turn to dubious alternatives — although, again, I didn’t see livestock dewormer coming.
>>


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