As news broke about a second healthcare worker in the U.S. being infected with Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) – commonly called Ebola, though formerly known as Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever – a few things became obvious: There is too much panic being cultivated by the U.S. Press and too much misinformation about what Ebola is and how to contract it, and the U.S. public is still extremely gullible. The biggest threat we face from Ebola is not contracting it. The biggest threat we face from Ebola is how much ignorance, and in some cases criminality, is on display.
For Americans, when it comes to the media’s reports about Ebola, stupidity based on inexperience and poor decisions runs rampant. Terrorizing us with sensational propaganda headlines about the crisis has resulted in most Americans having a weak grasp of the facts about Ebola which doesn’t speak well for the coverage we have received from our media so far. Because our media caters to Washington and the corporations that own it regardless of fact or truth the public is being lied to and often purposely misinformed. The Ebola crisis is no different than any other crisis when it comes to Washington purposely misinforming the U.S. population.
In fact, the U.S. public has been bombarded with stupidity over the Ebola crisis. Right-wing ignorance over the crisis has been on full display, especially for Fox “News” viewers who are the most uninformed group in the country. Consequently, hundreds of millions of people have been infected with Ebola hysteria which of course inevitably fuels racism and targets xenophobia. It is rather telling that the first person to die from Ebola in the U.S. was a black man who was treated more like a criminal than a victim.
Politics — particularly of the Republican variety — also plays a major role in the fear and panic American media has concocted which has been highly reminiscent of the AIDS crisis from the 1980s and a lot of the same misconceptions, including stigmatizing the victims, misguided calls for travel bans, unfounded overblown fears over the proximity to those infected, the lack of leadership from the top, gross misunderstandings on the transmission of the disease to healthcare workers and the plethora of crazy rumors and fabricated myths made back then are being made today without question. Instead of checking facts our media pushes lies for political gain.