politics

Way more than twice. Samoa is just a case study that is very publicized because the impact is easy to directly measure given it was an island

He is prominent and visible and uses that visibility to purposely misled. He is not just “some guy”. He has chaired foundations with serious money behind them based on these beliefs. He writes pseudoscientific articles (and promotes the work of others that do the same). Articles that have a “sciencey tone” but are fairly easily discredited by anyone with a pulse and a background in biology, statistics, medicine, etc. Lazy and corrupt journalism has platformed him and his foundation for almost a decade now because they can’t be bothered to do even basic fact checking. Salon had to retract an article he wrote because it was so misleading. Rolling stone published the same article but didn’t bother to retract it.

When called out on his paper being full of errors and bullshit he claimed government conspiracy on Joe Rogan. He exhibited similar behavior in his confirmation hearing, pulling a bullshit paper from a fake journal and when people tore it to shreds online, why couldn’t he find research in a reputable journal like nature, etc he went back to that bullshit conspiracy argument. The government wants your children to have autism you see, even though thimerosal isn’t in vaccines anymore (and never caused autism to begin with)

He was one of the loudest voices against Covid vaccines. And his voice was one of the ugliest. He consistently stokes racial tensions with his anti vaccination arguments. He suggested it was racially motivated loudly and publicly. He was one of 12 people responsible for 65% of anti vaccination content on instagram. This isn’t directly measurable like Samoa but given the us Covid death toll he very much caused preventable death, again. And shocker, he’s also anti 5G

On the racism bit he actively targets black americans with anti vaccination propaganda. His “foundation” specifically releases literature and media linking vaccines to the concept of medical racism and Tuskegee. He takes advantage of pain felt by marginalized communities to advance his agenda even though it puts said communities in danger

And for some icing on the cake he denies the link between HIV and AIDS and advocates against retrovirals.

People talk about the worm in his brain and all that nonsense but they don’t talk about the 14 years of drug addiction (and probably much longer). By all accounts Kennedy started doing drugs and acting out in his teens with basically no consequences. His reward for acting like a shithead, doing heroin and cocaine, stealing shit, vandalizing property, etc? Getting to go to harvard because of nepotism and then become a rich lawyer. He claims he got clean after he got caught for possession of heroin in the 80s. He did a single rehab program. I have worked in rehab, it is extremely uncommon that someone with a 15 year addiction quits after one go. Especially someone with a shitload of money.

I would not be surprised if he switched to pharmaceuticals and considered that “quitting” as it “legitimized” his addiction (even though taking 20 adderall a day isn’t how it’s supposed to work) and then eventually cleaned up his act later on. It would explain why he is so vehemently opposed to stimulants for psychiatric treatment: “I couldn’t handle taking one or two a day so obviously no one can, this shit is poison!” type projection. Obviously this is conjecture though.

I have a great deal of sympathy for people who struggle with addiction and I don’t care if you do drugs but at some point my sympathy stops. The Kennedy family created a monster by giving him unfettered access to resources and 0 consequences for shitty behavior. Now he’s still very rich (est net worth of 20-30 million) and he uses that to fuck over countless people. Fuck him