Meet The Putin-Loving Congressman Who’s Worried About Fluoride In Our Drinking Water

[DonViejo]

James Kirchick

Republican Dana Rohrabacher is Putin’s most reliable defender on Capitol Hill. Now he’s joined the old far-right crusade against fluoridated drinking water, which conspiracy theorists say leads to Communist mind control.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher had an odd warning last week for the Heartland Institute. The conservative think tank was hosting a conference challenging the notion of “whether man-made global warming is a problem worth addressing.” Rohrabacher, a prominent climate change skeptic who once suggested that “dinosaur flatulence” might have been responsible for past fluctuations in global temperatures, was delivering a speech entitled, “Global Warming as a Power Grab.”

Riffing on the notion of scientific consensus, the California Republican remarked that he did not “know whether fluoridating the water helps people’s teeth become better or not. But I do know that in this country, we should be the ones who should be deciding what we put into our bodies one way or the other. Not the federal government or the local government putting fluoride into our water!”

The last time water fluoridation was seriously debated in America was at the start of the Cold War. The far-right John Birch Society, whose founder claimed that Dwight Eisenhower was a “dedicated, conscious agent of the communist conspiracy,” launched a nationwide campaign opposing fluoridation on the grounds that it opened the floodgates to Soviet mind control experiments on Americans. Stanley Kubrick famously satirized the theory in his classic Dr. Strangelove via the character of Jack D. Ripper, the mad Air Force officer who warns against Soviet attempts to poison our “precious bodily fluids.”

In light of Rohrabacher’s repetition of Birch Society talking points, one might assume that he has maintained a rigorous skepticism, if not paranoia, about Russian designs on the world. Rohrabacher worked as a speechwriter for fellow Californian Ronald Reagan and, after winning his first term in Congress in 1988, traveled to the wilds of Afghanistan to join mujahadeen fighting the Soviets. “I was Vladimir Putin’s worst nightmare,” he boasted in an interview earlier this year. But in a befuddling foreign policy about-face, Rohrabacher is now Putin’s best friend on Capitol Hill.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/20/meet-the-putin-loving-congressman-who-s-worried-about-fluoride-in-our-drinking-water.html

[Frustratedlady]

1. Oh, yes! I well remember those days when people fought against fluoride.

I remember that some of them went to the local park and got their "fluoride-free" water and wouldn't do any cooking or drinking of city water. Only problem was, the park was owned by the city and the water came from the water company, fluoride, and all.

Their brains just work differently than the rest of us. Fluoride, spraying for mosquitoes, the Beatles that were sent by the Communists to control the minds of young people, Communist takeovers...I hadn't thought about those for years, but they were very real. My parents got sucked into the Beatle story. They finally gave up when my brother and I didn't change into some kind of monsters.

[former9thward]

2. The OP seems to think this debate is ancient history.

The last time water fluoridation was seriously debated in America was at the start of the Cold War. Just last year the hipsters in Portland, OR voted to reject fluoride in their water. They thought it was poison.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/22/portland-fluoride-water/2350329/

[SunSeeker]

3. Dana Rohrabacher is a vile piece of shit.

He and Darryl Issa are the shame of California.