October 23, 2014
By Mike Caccioppoli
It never ceases to amaze me what cowards Americans are. They are afraid of everything. Afraid of terrorism, afraid of air travel, afraid of countries thousands of miles away, afraid of Cuba, afraid of rare diseases. Yet somehow they think they are the most courageous people in the world. The rest of the world doesn’t see it that way, which would be the majority of the earth. And for good reason because it’s not true.
Three people have contracted Ebola, only two of them while in the United States. Both of those people are nurses that had direct contact with the man who died. That’s it. Yet, there are screams for travel bans and paranoia over how easy it is to contract the disease. None of it is based in reality, just fear and of course crass politics. And hey right wingers..don’t tell me about Obama’s “late” response to Ebola when your hero Reagan let over 40,000 Americans die of AIDS before he would even mention the word!
What is really killing Americans at an alarming rate is obesity, alcohol and cigarettes. This is reality, but all we hear about is how frightened Americans are over Ebola. About as frightened as they are over ISIS. Neither poses any imminent threat at all. AT ALL. But they want travel bans as well as boots on the ground in Iraq so more strangers can die in the name of “freedom.”
It’s not freedom at all but fear. They are afraid so they want others to protect them from their uniquely American fears. Notice how most other nations including Canada have no such fears. They don’t worry about ISIS or Ebola the way Americans do. Maybe the real fear should be with Texas and its health care system. A place where they send you home from the hospital with 103 fever and a free cowboy hat and an autographed Rick Perry head shot.
It’s stunning how Americans have the inability to look around them and see how other countries handle things. It’s like they live in a vacuum. The first reaction to any crisis is fear. Not a common sense solution or a dialogue but outright hysteria. There is no weighing options because that would take brains and courage. Two things that too many Americans are lacking. Stop flights! Don’t allow them damn foreigners in our schools, to learn or teach! Doesn’t matter if you aren’t from anywhere near West Africa or Africa for that matter…you look foreign so you must have the Ebola! You must be feared!
It’s fucking pathetic. It continues generation to generation because kids see their parents being afraid so they become afraid. Speaking of the children, an 11 year old shot and killed an albino deer with a crossbow and now feels like a “rock star” according to his wonderful father. Albino deer are so rare that I didn’t even know they existed. They are also beautiful. They don’t inspire fear at all. They inspire hope about nature and what evolution has given us. Yes evolution. Because if they were created by the lord why would most Christians not be up in arms about the murder of one..right?
The murder took place in Howell, Michigan. Mostly Michigan is fine, but not Howell. It is a right wing shit fest. Home to the KKK. No wonder this kid is a hero there. So are guys in sheets. Now I don’t want to be too hard on the kid. I do however despise his parents. Instead of teaching their son about empathy and concern for weaker creatures, they have taught him to kill and to love it. To bask in it. Maybe a school or a politician can be his next target? For this there should be a nice place in hell prepared for them. The same can be said for the right wing propaganda rag USA Today that actually glorified the killing.
This is an all American story for sure. If the obstacle is tough and powerful like ISIS or Ebola, we cower. If it’s an easy target like a poor Albino deer we shoot to kill and show off. What courage! I know what…let’s sing “God Bless America” one more time! Notice how they don’t have the need to sing about blessing Canada in the middle of every hockey game? But Americans wouldn’t notice that, they never notice anything outside their own little universe. Other nations advance while we are stuck in the dark ages.
How to deal with terrorism or a disease? Fear and discrimination. How to raise a child? Violence and power is good, honorable. Dress them up in camo (what war are they fighting?) and send them out to kill nature, destroy the environment, hey it’s OK, you are an American son!
Fear the unknown and the strong, bully the weak and the defenseless. Makes my skin crawl.
(Update: A fourth person, a doctor in New York City has been tested positive for Ebola. Of course more mass hysteria and fear without thinking for a second that any disease in which we know the names of EVERY person that has it, can’t be too dangerous.)
Mike.Caccioppoli@yahoo.com
@CaccioppoliMike
America The NOT SO Beautiful 
Can I hit the like button several times please? I thought of putting this on my blog and pretending I wrote it – (nah, just kidding). But you forgot one thing – conspiracy! Obama is a terrorist, he’s responsible for Ebola! He’s in league with Isis, Ebola was cooked up in a CIA lab and spread to the Africans as a cunning plan to remove the 2nd amendment freedom to kill 42,000 Americans a year with private guns.
I think the route cause of this fear is guilt. Guilt of the original genocide upon which your society was built, with the sweat and toil of slave labor. How can a society feel good about itself under those circumstances, especially when you’ve got Native Americans still walking around the place reminding people, plus all those freed slaves (one of them being Commander in Chief) They are all scarred that these people are going to exact revenge on them.
Sorry for the rant, you got me going early in the morning!