In this 3rd episode of Red Pill Radio, I talk to longtime economic and social justice activist and environmentalist Ted Glick. He is a former U.S. Senate NJ Green Party candidate and a Bernie Sanders supporter. After checking in about how the virus is impacting his life, he and I talked about Bernie Sanders, the presidential race, the Green Party, racism, and White people’s responsibility to confront it.
Before the interview, I comment on the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of following accepted science as we navigate this crisis. You will find the most up to date information at the Center for Disease Control and World Health Organization sites. You can also find more links to pandemic information including New York Times coverage at www.mtmdail.com/covid19.
I think some people do not take the pandemic seriously because they do not understand what it could mean to have a new disease run through a population. This March 17, 2020, U.S. News and World Report article titled, The Deadliest Viruses on Earth, reminds us of how lethal past viruses have been.
While I call on everyone to rely on science for information about COVID-19, I realize that people have used science for political and racist reasons. For centuries, racists used science to try to prove the myth of race. Now, since genome mapping and sequencing, we know that genetics does not support dividing people into meaningful “racial” groups. You can read more information on this topic by reading this April 17, 2017, Harvard University Science in the News online article that states, “…there is no evidence that the groups we commonly call “races” have distinct, unifying genetic identities. In fact, there is ample variation within races.”
But when it comes to pandemics, specifically the COVID19 crisis, accepted science is still the best place to start for accurate information. Follow the lead of science because scientists and public health advocates will have the best information. And most of them want the best info out there. Scientists, like all of us, can get sick and die or have loved ones who are more vulnerable to death by the disease than others. The virus does not discriminate, and the scientists know that.
Before Ted’s segment, I briefly talked about how Democrats and Republicans pursue the same goals of global U.S. economic and military hegemony. Both use economic warfare in the form of sanctions and shooting wars as their primary tools of influence in affairs between nations. Both are responsible for the continued truth of Dr. King’s 1967 observation that the U.S. is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. I discussed the fact that the Federal budget allocates more than 50% of discretionary spending for war. You can find an excellent analysis of the budget from 2007 to 2020 provided by The Balance.
