Fear Mongering

 When I worked as a meteorologist, I noticed certain meteorologists really liked snow so whenever there was even the smallest possibility of snow, they would forecast it. I called those meteorologists snow mongers. They gravitated toward the outcome they wanted. 

In the years prior to the recent pandemic I learned a number of things. I learned not to trust politicians for obvious reasons.  The Jerry Sandusky incident and subsequent slander of Joe Paterno by the media taught me to not trust the media. They don’t report just the facts and let viewers or readers formulate their own opinions, they report the facts they want you to hear and the opinions to accompany those facts.  I also learned not to trust most businesses.  The primary aim of a business is to make money not to help the public. Pharmaceutical companies are a prime example of this given the significant number of lawsuits against them. 

Enter a pandemic and the primary entities calling the shots are politicians, the media and the pharmaceutical companies. The media is spreading fear to get more viewers/readers, the politicians are falling for it and the pharmaceutical companies are profiting from that fear possibly at the cost of our future health and safety. 

I find myself wondering why so many people are not reading the scientific, peer reviewed studies that are being published that are disputing a lot of the “facts” being spread. Censorship is the answer. If someone tries to talk about one of these studies that is against the popular opinion, it gets removed from most social media platforms.  I didn’t want to believe it was true but I’ve seen it happen myself. A little 1984 with a twist of Fahrenheit 451 anyone?

Why are we as a society not fighting this?  Many people just don’t know this is happening or don’t want to hear about it.  The media, government and drug companies are turning us against each other by fear mongering. Our brains are being hard wired to shame and not show kindness. To blindly believe and not question.  Only when we start listening to both sides can we develop an opinion of our own and start sowing kindness and understanding. But that takes courage and in this age of fear mongering courage is in short supply. 

When will we as a society develop the courage to overcome our fear and listen to one another with open minds?  That is how we are going to beat this pandemic, not by getting a shot every 6 months.