Bernie Sanders slammed in the Encyclopedia of American Loons...

[Archae]

Will any media or other candidate bring any of this up, Sanders' penchant for advocating woo?

http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2019/06/2203-bernie-sanders.html

[MineralMan]

1. That was an interesting blog.

It's a minor issue, for the most part, but I don't like to see unscientific medical practices promoted by anyone in government. I'm sorry to learn about this. Much harm has been done by CAM practitioners, through delays in receiving effective medical care. People have died, unnecessarily due to this.

[Archae]

3. Excatly. We rightly slammed Trump for his anti-vaxx views.

So we need to slam Bernie for his pro-woo advocacy.

Medical issues are not to be decided using wild claims that can't be backed up with science, they have to be valid.

[Gothmog]

2. Interesting blog

[Archae]

4. Yeah, while most of those slammed in it, are right-wingers...

The blog does slam a few liberals.

[comradebillyboy]

5. Really, what do those establishment scientists and

medical researchers know?

[SidDithers]

6. DU rec...

Thanks for posting.

Sid

[yuiyoshida]

7. I don't know about American loons but

Canadian Loons are HONORED on the Canadian Dollar coin! So, there is that...

[LibFarmer]

8. One cannot appeal to the fringes

without supporting woo woo.

The Sanders devotees eat it up.

[comradebillyboy]

10. What ever happened to pyramid power and healing crystals?

Much of that New Age nonsense disappeared but a lot of the alternative medicine rubbish still persists. Science based medicine isn't perfect but it's far superior to the alternatives.

[LibFarmer]

11. It is the psychology behind the whole thing

Some people just get a kick out of opposing the conventional no matter how cooky the alternative is.

It is all about being against the norms and with almost no care about the damage it would cost.

This is why the word "establishment" is used as a weapon to capture the imagination and support of these fringe groups.

[Hortensis]

14. Yes. My half sister's one. Our thoughts are on non-intersecting

lines. I'm so fed up I'm repelled by paranormal anything, there's so much flooding the nation that I see it as a symptom of serious societal disease. A distinguished local natural history museum does exhibitions catering to tastes for fantasies instead of science.

We have a winter place in Florida that has a lot of low-income neighbors, mostly retired, and before that I'd never imagined being acquainted with so many "paranoids" who refuse to take prescribed medication. They all have stories about various medications that almost killed them and forced them to save their own lives through alternative medicines. Apparently they think the FDA trials for efficacy of poisoning, not cure or control. All in service of Big Pharm.

Question: What's the correlation between low functioning, low education and income, and this kind of "thinking"? Any input from your observations of those who agree with you, Senator Sanders?

[SidDithers]

12. I think you can still buy that stuff at Goop...

Sid

[peggysue2]

9. I have little patience with this sort of thing

We have a swath of the American public turning their backs on science and reason.

It's one thing to use alternative medicine as a supplement to more conventional approaches, particularly under the auspices of improving quality of life: for instance, stress, anxiety. My mother-in-law used acupuncture for back pain and found the first round very useful. The second round not so much. My sister-in-law has used essential oils for reducing anxiety while fighting pancreatic cancer. But when you have public figures supporting the woo-woo approach, there will always be a segment that will use the approach alone without seeking conventional therapies and merely reducing their own survival rate.

We have people openly pushing against vaccination when vaxxing has saved countless lives. We have climate deniers when the evidence of climate change is all around us and presents a global, existential threat.

Sorry, but we don't need more of this nonsense, a step back into the Dark Ages. Our ancestors would be appalled. As for Bernie Sanders advocating this stuff? Pretty sad, IMHO.

[Hortensis]

13. +100. Not mention seeing American healthcare, among the

best on the planet and available in high quality to over 2/3 of Americans, and in less to millions more, as "largely dysfunctional," so dysfunctional that prescribing yoga, worthwhile as it is, is supposed to be a substantial improvement, a "bright spot."

Ideologues are people whose blind, rigid ideology straightjackets the ability of their thoughts to range, to even see, much less connect, the dots. I believe Sanders is the same person he was 50 years ago, when he was also calling for almost every institution to be seized and socialized. He's just learned to keep quiet about most of it.