While we Americans have made it a national pastime to descend into paranoia and hysteria over entirely fabricated threats, be it ISIS or measles, we seem to ignore clear and present danger despite the facts. One such fact that no one seems to talk about, or even know about, is the horrifyingly high number of U.S. citizens who die as a result of “medical error” each year. Johns Hopkins researchers have estimated that number to be around 250,000 annual deaths. Others believe it to be higher, upwards of 400,000. This is insane, almost too difficult to believe. Even more so is the fact that it’s never mentioned. Not on the news, by regulators, or by our own benevolent ruling class. Instead we’re treated to breathless accounts of possible measles infections, death from which is on par with a Bigfoot sighting. And yet our reckless, or ignorant, or indifferent, or psychopathic, or klutzy, or distracted, or stupid, or something, medical workers are killing Americans left and right. You can find the individual stories online: parents take their toddler in for routine dental work, or some supremely minor operation, and they turn around and their child has died. The medical establishment issues a collective shrug, “hey, it happens”, and that’s that. Or first-rate dumbass working in a pharmacy mixes up a kid’s prescription, and he dies. Or someone takes their aging mother for a routine exam, and comes back a few hours later and they’re just gone. Even staring at the numbers, the bald facts of professionally conducted study, it’s almost impossible to believe. And yet there it is.
We Americans only seem to fear what we’re told to fear by the corporate media. It’s terrifying how easily we’re manipulated, how easily the media can conjure a fear-stricken mob out of the citizenry, and then Piped-Piper it into rubber-stamping any new law, regulation, or overseas bloodbath. That’s called manufacturing consent, a phrase coined by the great Noam Chomsky for his book of the same name.
One of my favorite quotes comes from, of all places, the film Men in Black: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”
The corporate media and it’s owners don’t want a nation of individuals, thinking, pondering, and calling BS. They want one big herd, panicky, emotional, unable to think on its own. Much more easy to manipulate.
