What do tobacco, global warming, and corruption have in common?

You guessed it - disinformation campaigns.

When an industry’s profits or a political win is on the line, disinformation becomes the go-to marketing du jour. History (and detailed communications and records) has shown the despicable degree to which the tobacco industry went to market away the fact they were killing people for profits, up to and including marketing to children, because the earlier the addiction begins, the harder it is to break. Sadly, even physicians and scientists were paid, disinformation performers. Over the last couple of decades, we’ve seen the same tactics successfully used in the US by big energy to spread misinformation about global warming. Politicians who receive giant big energy donations, regularly help the disinformation caused by sticking to the “I’m not a scientist” script while ignoring the 97% of scientists who agree global warming is the greatest threat our planet currently faces.

As Make It Fair regularly points out, Americans have caught on to our corrupt political system and are fighting back - AND SO - the disinformation marketing from those who benefit from the corruption has begun. We’ve recently noticed a trend of articles appearing which have the singular goal of convincing readers that this “corruption scare” is fake and Citizen’s United is wonderful. In this New York Times op-ed, Mr. Weiner, a political scientist, points to Trump defeating the fundraising front runner Jeb Bush, as an example that money and corruption don’t rule while completely ignoring the Russian interference and disinformation campaign which led to Trump’s popularity. His popularity is built on giant money backed marketing lies as much as is the cult of there’s “no global warming”.

As a scientist, it’s malfeasance for Mr. Weiner to selectively use such anecdotal evidence while ignoring research such as the recent Princeton study citing 20 years of data which proved that “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy” (https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf). This study also goes on to show, however, that the top 10% of income earners and corporations, and the money they have for lobbying and donations, impacts legislation in their favor 60% percent of the time. Also, it’s not difficult to find info proving that the candidate with the most money wins 93% of the time.

Mr. Weiner also goes on to posit the false equivalency of candidates like Warren gaining $20 supporters who are hoping she will fight for them as being identical to the millions and billions the wealthy and corporations use to gain influence. It’s no longer 1 person-1 vote, we’ve become a nation of dollars equal votes. The only difference between the corruption of which Mr. Weiner speaks and today’s corruption is that now CORRUPTION IS LEGAL!

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