Monday, August 03, 2015

Another look at Merchants of Doubt

Writing on the CounterPunch website, Louis Proyect reviews the 2010 book and the 2014 documentary film, Merchants of Doubt. Even though you may think the subject is exhausted by now, Louis Proyect's review has new insights. The two Freds (Fred Seitz and Fred Singer) play important roles, of course. But did you know that Fred Singer was once funded by the Unification Church and Rev. Sun Moon?? I didn't know that and I suspect many Rabett Run readers didn't know that, either.

6 comments:

  1. Reading it now. The movie has not made it here (NZ) to my knowledge. I'll be organizing something in the next few months I suppose. The book provides a remarkably clear insight into just how this evolved into a Left vs Right issue - and if one understands that, the rest of the story is pretty darned clear.

    respectfully
    bjchip

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  2. What, you haven't read the book? (It's on page 130/location 3947.) Shouldn't be a surprise. Moon owns the Washington Times, which opposed tobacco regulation, opposed lead regulation, opposes carbon consumption taxes, etc. Moon and the Freds are soulmates in their belief that every regulation kills an angel investor.

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  3. No surprises- he spent the 1980's as editor of the Washington Times' answer to Parade, the Moomies glossy and widely unread Insight magazine.

    Did you know his next day job was as an expert witness for a firm of litigious patent trolls ? Patlex?

    All this and more can be found in the lengthy interview he gave to The New American the official magazine of , wait for it, The John Birch Society.

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  4. You do realize that Proyject's account of RJR's support of Rockefeller University reseach is cmplete balderdash?

    It reflects Conway& Orsekes fialure to consult the records there . Not a dime of the $5 million went to tobacco research of any sort, the main beneficieary being prion research .

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  5. Moon's Unification Church is also well known in other denialist-watching circles for sending "Intelligent Design" proponent Jonathan Wells to college for a PhD in biology solely for the veneer of credibility this would grant to their anti-evolution arguments.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wells is living proof that materialism is too impot=rtnt to be left to the Moonies or the Marxists. Proyject included.

    ReplyDelete

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