Dan Rather and his colleague Elliott Kirschner wrote a tribute to Dr. Anthony Fauci on his retirement. They noted that the anti-VAXX conspiracy theorists have been howling for Dr. Fauci’s scalp. Surprisingly, Elon Musk joined the anti-science mob with a hostile tweet.
They write:
One of the most dedicated public servants in this nation’s history is stepping down after decades of government service. That this same man is being scurrilously attacked by the world’s richest man on a rapidly degenerating social media platform is a sad but instructive snapshot of our times.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has served presidents since Ronald Reagan. He has led efforts against infectious diseases ranging from HIV/AIDS to Ebola to, of course, Covid-19. His work and dedication have saved countless lives. And for much of his career, he was viewed with great respect on both sides of the political aisle.
But we all know what happened. Fauci has become a target for the anti-science, conspiracy-theory-marinated movement stoked by the former president. And today, Elon Musk sent out a tweet that epitomizes the debasement. Like a smirking bully on the schoolyard, he wrote; My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.
Many online were quick to point out how Musk had earlier tweeted favorably about vaccines. And they noted how he has been staggeringly wrong about the pandemic, which he said early on would just disappear. Plus, for what exactly is Fauci supposed to be prosecuted? You have to be fluent in crazy conspiracy theories to start trying to answer that question.
But even to try to debate on the merits is to have already lost.
This isn’t about facts and the truth. This is about scoring political points. It is about flooding our global discourse with horse manure. It is about attacking the very notion of expertise. It is about saying everything can be true so nothing is true. It is about intimidating scientists and health officials. It is about feeding the MAGA crowd with the red meat of a sacrificial lamb.
Who is the real Elon Musk? With all his money and power, why does he pander to the MAGA crowd?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Fauci = 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
Musk = 🤮
Well, Musk has outed himself as a rightwing extremist nutcase.
Even a gifted mind is not immune to mental illness as illustrated in the film, ‘A Brilliant Mind.’ I also seem to remember a certain mathematics professor by the name of Ted Kaczynski, aka the unabomber, that terrorized the US between 1978 and 1995.
Musk is quite literally a n automobile salesman.
He might be selling new instead of used cars, but he’s a car salesman all the same, with all that entails.
Hes also selling rockets but is a car salesman selling rockets.
Would you trust your life to a car salesman?
I wouldn’t.
I wouldn’t even trust a car that had been built by an car salesman.
Elon Musk is certainly no John Nash.
Not even in the same league.
Can a mentally ill individual be right?
Well, Dirac had Asperger’s disease. Many people think, he has been right.
Musk or Trump are nor mentally ill, they are simply wrong.
People are seeing through the hype of the car salesman.
Tesla stock is down 60% this year (below $500 billion for the first time in 2 years) and Musk is no longer the richest person.
Do not, Elon, go gentle into that good night,
SpaceX rockets should burn at close of day;
Burn, rage against the dying of the light.
Though rich men even at their end don’t know democracy is right,
Because their forked tongues no lightning gave they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who called good men pedos in frightened flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved them on their way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, billionaire jerk, there on the sad height,
Curse, curse, us all now with your fierce tweets, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the blowing up in flight.
Extraordinarily well done, SomeDAM!!!
Bob, this was not our usual darn poet! 🙂
President Obama (I love writing that) spoke (went viral) about Hershel Walker…(paraphrasing)
“So you’re at the airport and you are ecstatic when you see your college football star there. Do you say: ‘Hey, Hershel, you’re the best ever, how about you fly the plane for us today?”
Well… Hey Musk, you’re a billionaire and supposedly send people up in outer space, how about you treat and cure my disease!
All politics and stupidity aside, how does one scientist dare criticize another?
As several have stated… “Running a social media platform is not rocket science, it’s significantly more difficult”
“All politics and stupidity aside, how does one scientist dare criticize another?”
I hope you do not consider Musk a scientist?
Most scientists would not consider Musk a scientist (and most engineers would not consider him an engineer), but actually scientists criticize other scientists — of st least their scientific work all the time. It’s the check on bullshit.
Musk is supposedly doing the landing component for Artemis moon project. Wonder about astronauts’ confidence level in that. Remember early NASA test launches?
Anyone that has endured so many administrations from both parties must have something positive to offer the public. Dr. Fauci is a man of science, not an enemy of the people, that the right wing has portrayed him to be. He and his family do not deserve death threats. Like public education Dr. Fauci is a victim of the hyper-political climate that right wing extremism has engendered. It is my understanding that Dr. Fauci intends to work in another position away from the media circus to which he was subjected to during MAGA mania. Bon Voyage, Dr. Fauci! Thank you for your service.
Musk’s company SpaceX should have its billion dollar contract with NASA canceled.
How’s that for cancel culture?
Ha ha ha.
But not based on innuendo but on what Musk says and does. The guy is totally unreliable.
You can’t believe a single thing that comes out of his keyboard or mouth.
If I were the NASA administrator, I simply would not trust any safety data coming from SpaceX with Musk in charge.
Musk is king of instant gratification.
His purchase of Twitter is an effort to short circuit the normally long process required to get public respect t.
He thinks he can just buy it and immediately have the ear of Presidents.
He must be particularly peeved that even Final Trump rejected his offer to let Trump back on Twitter.
NASA,has just expressed confidence in SpaceX with Musk in charge.
NASA chief Bill Nelson should be held legally accountable when (not if) Musk’s rockets eventually crash with astronauts on board.
The whole thing is entirely predictable.
Upper level management driving safety decisions and overruling engineers (the people in the know) is what led to the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding and killing all the astronauts.
Well argued, SomeDAM. I totally agree.
In 1990, Elon Musk entered Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the Wharton School in 1995.
To become a car designer, you typically need at least a bachelor’s degree in automotive design or engineering.
Rocket scientists in the US are employed by NASA or a similar organization to design and manufacture spacecraft. This requires a minimum of a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, though many people in this industry need or prefer to obtain a higher degree.
A BA in physics and a BS in economics is not the same as an engineer that designs and builds car or a rocket engineer/scientist. Mindless Musk is someone that think because he is very wealthy, he is an expert in everything. Who is that other serial lying, racist billionaire (with lots of debt) that thinks the same way?
The only talent (if we can call being a bully and troll a talent) Mindless Musk has is threatening and shouting at his workers until they build him what he wants, and even when they do, Mindless Musk still can’t built a car or a rocket.
“A BA in physics and a BS in economics is not the same as an engineer that designs and builds car or a rocket engineer/scientist. Mindless Musk is someone that think because he is very wealthy, he is an expert in everything. ”
Lloyd, Mindless Musk is recorded.
touche (don’t know how to do the accent)
You’re right
I expect he had to trust some engineers and other smart people to proceed.
Anyway – yes, ignorant… and dangerous with that big of a microphone and the people addicted to it (as we learned in the Jan. 6 hearings)
And then there’s Greene’s call to arms for insurrections –
“I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I organized that, we would have won,” Greene said to cheers and applause. “Not to mention, it would have been armed.”
Musk cannot be the world’s leading expert in everything.
Bill Gates owns the title.
Well, BG has been quiet lately; maybe he is getting old—and maybe this is why we can hear Musk’s voice.
Gates and Musk are both misleading e parts.
A Bachelor of Arts in physics?
Is that physics for poets?
Mud does not design either his cars or his rockets.
But what he does is make decisions that affect the safety and quality of both the cars and the rockets.
He also has a tendency to play down crsashes of both cars and rockets.
And his pattern of firing anyone who disagrees with him is exCatly the opposite of what one would expect of any engineering manager worth a damn..
Who is Mud, SDP?
Why would anybody listen to Musk? He makes broad statements showing his ignorance. Here, for example, he claims that most (scientific) papers are useless https://youtube.com/shorts/hWeZkHVHF1g?feature=share
He ignores the fact that unlike inventions in engineering, the results of much of academic research may be used decades or even centuries later.
Some of the scientific basis for the stuff his companies (Tesla, Twitter) are using were discovered by people who have been long dead. These are people who were told at the time that their discoveries are useless.
It’s besides the point that the importance of discoveries and inventions is not necessarily determined by their usefulness. It’s one thing that Einstein’s general relativity theory have been found useful in GPS, making hundreds of billions each year to manufacturers and their CEOs, but the real importance of the theory is how it has shaped our view of the Universe.
Beautifully argued, Mate!!!
If you read the history of enlightenment scientists, you will be amazed to see the path from Boyle’s study of gasses and Newton’s study of motion to Watt’s steam engine. How true are the assertions you make here, Mate
yep
Rockets to Mars are pretty much the definition of useless.
Especially when it is very likely to be a one way trip.
There is no way in hell that any space colony is going to last the two years on Mars between the times of closest approach of earth and Mars.
People have tried and failed to last a shorter time in a totally self contained and self sustaining habitat here on earth, where they can bail out at any time.
I suspect t it is going to be a very long time before humans have self sustaining colonies off of earth.
And even then, there will be so much infighting for scarce resources that they will probably kill each other off fairly quickly.
But I sincerely hope that Elon is on the maiden voyage.
The people who envision idyllic space colonies where everyone shares everything they have and sings kumbaya are just completely delusional.
Humans can’t even get along without killing each other in tge environment of relative plenty that tge earth offers.
On Mars , everything will be scarce and humans will revert back to a tribal raiding mentality, one tribe stealing from and killing another for good, water and even air.
It is going to be brutal and I don’t know why anyone would ever volunteer, even if they could be assured of surviving the months long flight exposed to damaging cosmic rays.
Mars also lacks the magnetic field of the earth which means it also lacks the shielding from cosmic rays (both galactic and solar)
As Reb Tevye sang in Fiddler on the Roof
When you’re rich, they really think you know.
I’d choose a mask over a Musk any day of the week..
A Fauci over a faux chief.
haaaaa! well said
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