I was torn. The title of this blog could have been 'LIES IN AMERICA' but decided to go the PC[ish] route instead.
I just recently realized I can't compete, because far too many politicians and media personalities and corporate CEOs and other Experts - spew far better 'fiction' than I do. [At least I research some facts as well!]
Moving on...
Contrary to the avalanche of disinformation and misinformation peppered at Main-Street all day, every day, the vast majority of people in this country actually 'like' the other people in this country.
Lie #1--America Is A Racists Country...Pockets of intolerance exists, but We-The-People tend to welcome new immigrants, from anywhere, because all of our ancestors came from everywhere. We tend to like Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Baptists, Amish, Christian Science, Hindus, Lutherans, Anglicans and other faiths. We tend to like music and art and all kinds of food that originated in other countries - enthusiastically exploring any new restaurant that opens within a 30 mile radius. By nature, we're more curious than hostile toward people of color and those whose ancestors once spoke languages other than [American] English because...In my own family [scandal] my Jewish great grandmother married my Irish Catholic great grandfather in December 1899 and my grandfather was born four months later - who intern later married my grandmother a Norwegian immigrant [1920] - whose father abandoned his family in Norway to come to America [1904] then took up with a housekeeper in Wisconsin...
Watching Henry Louis Gates Jr's program "Finding Your Roots" [PBS] I discovered I'm just as Irish as Dr. Gates. I'm made up of DNA shared by ancestors who came from many global corners. I'm a biological salad...Actually, WE ALL ARE. In my immediate family, either siblings or offspring have married people whose ancestors came from South Korea, from Turkey, from Egypt, from Mexico and South Vietnam. So how can I object to those cultures when people from those cultures are now three in-laws, six nephews and one grand daughter...They too are now part of my salad. Adding them to our family has enriched us as I hope we have enriched theirs. WHICH, looking beyond the negative news headlines and out-of-touch social policies - has been happening every single day for decades all across America via intermarriage!
Lie #2--We Need More Vaccinations For Herd Immunity...We're 'at' Herd Immunity and have been since July. [But I have since updated my numbers to include mid August.] If we add the number of confirmed Covid-cases [39,488,866 M] from March 2020 to August 16, 2021 to the number of fully vaccinated [168,400,000+ M 12 & older] added to an estimated number who have immunity because they got Covid, but never saw a hospital 19,000,000+ M. [Never mind those with partial immunity/single dose--the simple math total of cases plus vaccinations is [now] at 227,633,299+ Million... The U.S. population [2020 Census] is 331,450,000 M - however, we must subtract from that total census the number children under age 11 [27,988,700], which brings us [no drum roll necessary] to 303,461,300.
The CDC contends [and we all know how 'clear' they are] that herd immunity is anywhere from 50 to 90% depending on the severity of the infection rate. Since Covid [still] has a less than 2% death to infection rate that puts herd immunity for Covid at about 70%. So--using that ratio of cases with vaccinations--to population says 'herd' to me. As for the Delta and Mu 'variant' - we're still not getting any reliable data on those...
Perhaps the medical-experts we keep hearing from [who tend to contradict themselves on a regular basis] didn't take the same biology classes that I did. Maybe I took the wrong ones...But, Mr Taylor, one of my favorite science teachers taught one of my favorite subjects in high school and I paid attention. In my senior year [for some reason] the chapters on our human immune system stayed with me because I found the information fascinating.
Lie #3--Global Warming...Ever since Al Gore initiated this hysterical-trend I'm often screaming into a pillow. I took geology at the University of Alberta. But without a masters or doctorate, I waited expecting we'd soon hear from a respected, prominent professional with ethics and a PhD in geology - to speak up! But Global Warming suddenly became a research grant money, golden-goose that no one was about counter.
Of course there's global warming, it's natural. There has been global warming before. Earth has had five major ice-ages and in between there have also been warming cycles. What isn't natural about Earth presently is how human trash is accumulating without any dedicated, effective effort to address human trash. [Carbon dioxide from all the hot-air political speeches alone are a problem.] Anyway - before my children learned the joys of flush toilets, cloth diapers were part of our everyday laundry adventure. Cloth diapers and cloth potty training pants and cloth dust rags and cloth napkins could be washed and reused. Paper grocery bags broke down as mulch in garden soil. Glass soda bottles, milk bottles and glass ketchup, mustard, salad dressing containers could be turned in washed then reused. None of that ended up as waste in landfill sites or in the oceans to choke innocent marine life.
And while the parade of paid researchers push clean-green energy like wind, sunlight and electric vehicles they condemn natural gas and uranium. Even more inconsistent these same [expert] critics made plastic straws a trash villain while ignoring the impact of 60 million plastic water bottles used each day just in the United States. [Then there's plastic bags, plastic food containers, hair and beauty products, diapers and oh yeah those pull-ups potty training pants.] The next favorite target of loud environmental groups is blaming the petroleum industry for much of global-warming neatly ignoring the devastation of forests world wide -and- the vital role petroleum plays in the manufacture, transportation and maintenance of wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars. [Typically it takes two barrels of oil just to make one solar panel and many more barrels of oil for one wind turbine and one Tesla.]
I'm only a fiction writer and former journalist - but I'm not stupid and either are you. Researching facts for what I do with detailed mystery-suspense plots is a learned skill. You can research too. The vast majority of people have the ability to comprehend all manner of complicated concepts and information, but we need accurate information - not propaganda. Then we need to let our elected representatives know - that we know what we know...
We have too many fearful young children because those young children have too many fearful parents and those parents are fearful because they were deliberately and systematically lied to by too many people who had too much money to gain by their actions. Follow the money...Who gains from perpetuating social fear? Who gains from an ongoing viral fear? Who gains from creating environmental fear?
https://medium.com/@BraveNewFilms.org/heres-how-to-contact-all-535-members-of-united-states-congress-call-email-tweet-20b8a1c54195
*Sherrie Todd-Beshore is a mystery-suspense novelist and former journalist...
Via amazon.com or patchworkpublishing.com
MG/YA Mystery Series [Mosquito Creek Detective Club] Book1 "Mosquito Creek Inn"
Adult Suspense Thriller: "Fine Points Malice And Payback"
