America's Real Outbreak

After seeing the newest out-of-proportion hysteria associated with Ebola in this country (the people freaking out don't seem to give a damn about the genuine outbreaks in Africa, except in relation to how they affect the US), and watching the drumbeat of fear once again pounding on the right... a strange calm has settled over me.

Normally I'd get pissed off at the selfishness, hypocrisy, opportunism, paranoia and sheer stupidity on display. But a link that appeared on my Facebook page a couple days ago changed that - maybe for good. It was to a right-wing 'news' story that was about nothing more than spreading terror, misinformation and anger. There was no other point to it. And instead of making me frustrated and annoyed, it just made me really sad.

I felt bad for the people who search this stuff out. Who spend their time feeding their anger with half-truths and outright (easily debunked) lies. And who then decide to spread this poison to others, to their 'friends.' I feel passionately about things - and that includes getting upset with what I consider to be injustices - but the level of self-serving, self-righteous anger evident in so much right-wing propaganda these days makes me feel the people who willingly and uncritically buy into it must be miserable. It must be like living with a snakebite, the poison always coursing through you. What an awful way to be.

I've always maintained anger is addictive. The chemicals it releases in the brains of some people causes them to become hooked, as surely as a vulnerability to alcoholism or drug addiction. I say this as someone who has experienced that addiction, and has lived around others that suffer with it. Like any addiction, it needs to be constantly fed to maintain the 'high.' And like any addiction, it will eventually destroy you.

So much of what I see in society follows this addiction pattern, including a desperation to maintain the high at any cost. Are you genuinely angry at the direction the world is headed? Do you feel strongly about climate change, or politics, or racism, or sexism, or the economy, or any number of other legitimate concerns? There's a lot to be pissed off about. But once you've carved out your territory - your anger bunker - do you ignore facts and expert opinions that conflict with your dug-in position? Do you actively seek out more and more extreme positions in an attempt to feed your righteous anger, chasing your high with the journalistic equivalent of back-alley drugs manufactured in a garage somewhere? Do you only feel good when spewing vitriol at those you hate for their beliefs?

Is it more important to be right than to be correct?

Then you're an addict.

And while I think this addiction has reached epidemic proportions among the conservative movement - who have, in the interest of short-term gain, sold themselves to the least among them - the far-left isn't immune. While the right spreads fear, paranoia and anger through Fox News, Breitbart, Drudge and Twitchy, the far-left has Salon, Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden. The anger addiction crosses all boundaries, spreading instability and paralysis wherever it goes.

And that makes me sad. Sad for the people who live like that. Because I get it. It's a shitty way to live and a hard addiction to break. I hope, as a nation, we can beat it, and soon. Because a nation of addicts only interested in chasing their next high is a nation dominated by dishonesty, hate and selfishness.

Ebola's not the biggest health crisis we need to be worried about right now.

#anger #america