The Lies Are Deadly

Posted on by under education, Election 2020, Election 2022, Environmental Issues, History, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

My jaw dropped when I read the variety of reasons (or rather excuses, excuses, excuses) Republicans have come up with for mass shootings in the U.S.  Hint:  not a single one of them blames the problem on easy access to guns.  Among their reasons are:

  • Abortion (Fox ‘News’ host Mark Levin)
  • ‘Lecturing women’ (Fox ‘News’ host Tucker Carlson)
  • ‘Regular pot use’ (Fox ‘News’ host Laura Ingraham)

And yet another Fox host, Greg Gutfeld, claims that the way to stop mass shootings is to simply ignore them.  Yep, you heard right … he claims that if the media refuse to cover mass shootings, they will “decrease by 30%, 40%, 50%”.  Oh, to live in such a world of abject ignorance.

The tragedy is that some 30% of the people in this country actually watch Fox as their main new source, sometimes their only news source.  Those same people tend not to be college-educated, not to be deep thinkers, and to be easily swayed by rhetoric that plays on their emotions.  I know it’s not possible to simply shut Fox ‘News’ down, for that would be an infringement on the 1st Amendment, but I do wonder, if Fox went away tomorrow, how many minds could be awakened between now and November?  Enough, possibly, to make a real difference in the upcoming election and future elections, perhaps even enough to convince people to THINK on occasion.

The lies and conspiracy theories floating throughout the air waves pose a direct, distinct threat to the security of the nation and its people.  In April, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the formation of a board to monitor national security threats caused by the spread of dangerous disinformation.  But alas, the Republicans went ape-shit crazy, calling it Orwellian and even some Democrats made the valid point questioning the powers that such an office might wield in the hands of future Republican administrations.  And so, the board has been ‘paused’, likely never to see the light of day again in this administration.

So, how DO we counter the lies and falsehoods, the conspiracy theories that have already led to violence and death?  If we cannot demand truth from all media outlets who call themselves ‘news’ outlets, and we cannot regulate the lies from within the government, what is left?  Education.  But we currently have too many states where the lies are infiltrating even our schools with the sanction and blessing of state governments.  Florida, for example, refuses to allow the teaching of concepts that could make students, “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any form of psychological distress” for actions “committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex or national origin.”

So how in hell are we to educate the next generation if the current generation is too cowardly to face the truth.  Yes, slaves – people from the African continent, people with Black skin – were brought here in the 17th century and sold … yes, SOLD like property … to white men who used them to perform backbreaking labour and paid them nothing, but beat them half to death if they underperformed.  Yes, we turned away a ship, the MS St. Louis, filled with Jews seeking asylum from an evil anti-Semitic dictator and sent many of them to their subsequent deaths.  And yes, this nation’s white government stole both property and freedom from Japanese-American citizens during World War II simply because they were of Japanese ethnicity.  And the very worst was the first … when white people first arrived on this land, they murdered and stole the land of the Indigenous People who were here long before white men came here seeking asylum from tyranny.  Isn’t it ironic that they inflicted the same treatment, only worse, on people that they themselves were fleeing?

Do you see a trend here?  Black people, Jews, Japanese, Indigenous … BIGOTRY … RACISM!  But yet, we are not to teach our children of these events and many, many more because it might “make them feel guilt.”  Let them feel guilt!  Let them at least try to put things to right, to make up for the crimes of their ancestors, to strive for a better nation, one where EVERYONE is welcome and treated equally! A world where justice doesn’t mean something entirely different for Black people than it means for white people. But instead, we are to allow them to grow up as ignorant as their parents are … more so, actually, for the parents know the truth but choose willful ignorance over intelligent thought.

I know what the ultimate solution to the dangerous lies and conspiracy theories will ultimately have to be, and so do you if you think about it, but it is not the one I would have chosen.  It is a battle I once thought we had already won.

25 thoughts on “The Lies Are Deadly”

  1. Reblogged this on THE FLENSBURG FILES and commented:
    Fellow columnist Jill Dennison wrote a powerful piece on the dangers of turning our backs on the truth and how people believe in the lies that are fabricated even through the media. This piece is a must-read as the problems go beyond the United States, especially if we look at Russia and its justification in capturing Ukraine at the dismay of the rest of the world. The main theme is that we should be exposed to the truth no matter how painful it is. Not everything is rosy and sometimes cleaning out the dirtiest of trash brings about a clean environment full of unity and peace.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. why is it that with a lot of these shootings, warning signs were available for months or even years in the form of social media posts, testimonies from family members, etc, and our incompetent FBI does nothing to connect the dots and facilitate taking action earlythese scumbags. Can anyone answer this question honestly?

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  5. Jill, my question to folks espousing inane rationale is simple. The top 23 wealthiest countries have the same degree of mental health issues, same percentage of women, and similar percentages of minority citizens as does the US. Then, why does the US have more gun deaths than all those other countries COMBINED? Mr. Carlson, Ms. Ingraham, Mr. Levin, care to opine. Keith

    Liked by 1 person

    • Hi Keith. As always, you pose a good rational thought provoking question. My guess would be that those other countries take much more seriously the intervention and treatment of mental conditions than we do here in the united states. doctors and psychiatrists are too often willing to just put people on medication without addressing the root cause, that might be too many therapy appointments for the greedy insurance companies to cover.
      After all, what priority of good quality mental health is given over profits to maintain the lavish lifestyles of these corporate thugs?

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    • And I would love to hear those folk answer your question … I imagine there would be a bit of stuttering while they searched their mental archives for a perfectly inane response. You and I, however, know all too well what the answer is.

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  6. REGULAR POT USE!!!! ROFLMAO!!!! I have been a regular pot user since I was 18 … I turned 18 in 1978, boys & girls … I was called “Polly Pothead” LOL … I still smoke on a daily basis, because as someone who’s bipolar, weed mellows me out when I’m manic & cheers me up when I’m depressed … it’s better than any pill any psych-doc ever prescribed for me.

    I have lived with very violent men who have also been potheads & the worst times they were violent (or at least argumentative) was when we were OUT of weed & they were drinking heavily because they couldn’t get high. Honestly, that’s true for me, too. The only time I want to drink is when I’m out of weed … so I try never to be out of the stuff. Drinking is poison for someone like me.

    Weed mellows you out … you don’t want to fight when you’re high … you want to cook some good food & make love.

    Laura Ingraham … makes me think of my youngest sister … so straight that if she bends, she’ll break.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Yep, Ingraham like the rest of her Fox cohorts is not able to see past the tip of her nose, has apparently never been a human. On a personal note, coming of age about a decade before you, naturally I smoked a bit of weed, but found I did not like it at all … preferred a beer or a cup of wine, and still do. But never in my wildest dreams did I think it was the evil responsible for mass shootings!!! I wonder if she’ll blame Shinzo Abe’s shooting on pot use in Japan???

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    • good point. I’ve always thought it was stupid the alcohol is nationally legal but pot isn’t. We need to make the reverse a reality. these idiots who say pot is a gateway drug are the same morons who were saying that rock music was satanic back in the 80’s.

      Liked by 1 person

  8. Blowing FAUX News off the airwaves would be a good thing. So would bowling the Republucan Party over. Maybe IF a Civil War does start, those could become Prime Targets! Along with Mar-A-Lago, the Texas and Florida governor’s mansions, aund more. If…

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    • It would be a good thing, but can you imagine the uproar??? I cannot even begin to imagine what an internal war would look like … nobody would be safe anywhere … oh wait … we aren’t now anyway!

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  9. Yeah, that’s like how it is where i’m currently living too, the government brainwashing the people, and, we the people are still, following their leads, and, it’s due to ignorance, and how the governments’ are, playing we the people, for, STUPID, and unfortunately, the masses are still, DEAD asleep, inside that blanket of ignorance, wrapped to tightly to wake back up.

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    • It isn’t so much our entire government, as one party … the Republicans … who are now known as the party of conspiracies and lies. But yes, they think that We the People are stupid and pliable, can be molded to believe whatever they say … and sadly, about half the people in this country are just that — too ignorant to know the questions to ask, too blind to see where they are being led. Sigh.

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  10. Fox News is a blight and one of the main rreasons why the U.S. reputation is so tarnished. To see Tucker Carlson feted by so many people for spouting the rubbish he disseminates is sickening. A prime candidate for McCarthyism. There was a time when if he’d come on TV with his hatred he’d never have worked on Tv again.
    Cwtch.

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    • I agree. There are others — Newsmax, One America News Network, and Brietbart, to name a few — but combined they don’t have the following that Fox does. There was a time that I thought Fox might be losing their grip on the public, a time when I thought surely Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity were headed into oblivion. But, sigh, ignorance knows no bounds. You’re right … there was a time we held the media’s feet to the fire, demanded truth … but today, about half the nation seem content to be fed a pack of lies, prefer entertainment value to facts.
      Cwtch

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