Freedom Rider: The Real Ebola Conspiracy
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“African countries are poor because they have been systematically looted by Europe, the United States and the rest of the capitalist world for centuries.”
The ability to engage in critical thinking seems to be lost on the vast majority of Americans.
When Americans don’t like a president they claim that his mother traveled all the way from Hawaii to Kenya to give birth to him. Others swear that parents in Newtown, Connecticut went along with a government plot and pretended their children were shot to death in school when they are in fact still alive somewhere.
Ebola, now officially known as Ebola virus disease (EVD), has claimed thousands of lives in sporadic outbreaks ever since it was identified in the Congo in 1976. Scientists are unsure of its exact origins but hypothesize that its host is a forest dwelling fruit bat. According to this theory, its bodily fluids can be spread to other animals and then to humans through physical contact.
Past outbreaks have occurred in rural areas of central Africa but the first cases in west Africa, including urban areas, appeared in March 2014 in Guinea and spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. More than 7,000 have been diagnosed with Ebola and over 3,000 have died.
African countries are at greater risk of all manner of disasters because they are poor and they are poor because they have been systematically looted by Europe, the United States and the rest of the capitalist world for centuries. There is nothing suspicious about disease emergence anywhere on the planet and there is nothing suspicious about countries ruined by war and theft of resources being hardest hit when disaster strikes.
“The inclination to believe that Bill Gates and the Illumnati are controlling EVD doesn’t lead to useful information, plans of action or reasoned analysis.”
No one should believe the government or the corporate media or any entity without question but there is too great a tendency to want to believe outlandish assertions instead of easily provable facts. Despite what well meaning social media users may say, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) do not have a patent on EVD. The CDC acknowledges having applied for a patent for research purposes and having that application rejected. It would be far more useful to find out how and why disease strains are patented than to share stories which have no basis in fact.
There is no reason for western nations to “weaponize” Ebola and kill Africans. The monetary and foreign policies they already have do that quite well. Africom assures that the United States will control the militaries of almost the entire continent. The endless war of terror has killed many thousands of people in Somalia and Libya. Western support for dictator Paul Kagame in Rwanda and his theft of precious minerals resulted in the deaths of 6 million people.
While people forward emails claiming that the United States government has a patent on Ebola, everything from oil to coltan to diamonds is being stolen from Africans, keeping them impoverished and their nations weak. That is enough conspiracy for anyone to follow without inventing tales of government plots.
Human beings like stories, and the more dramatic and scary the better. The inclination to believe that Bill Gates and the Illumnati are controlling EVD doesn’t lead to useful information, plans of action or reasoned analysis. It leads to disempowering thoughts, distraction and an inclination to ignore the very real but not very dramatic developments that control the world.
“Before the outbreak there were only fifty physicians in a nation of 4 million people.”
Although there is no vaccine or established treatment for Ebola, its transmission can be stopped. In Liberia, the Firestone rubber company used its money to open its own hospital and treat local residents in its company town. Patients were isolated and health workers were properly protected. This protocol is effective and results were predictable. Contagion was stopped and fatalities were minimal.
In a just and equitable world, a corporation which didn’t want hampered operations or sick workers would not be the only example of an EVD success story. The rest of Liberia isn’t as lucky as Firestone’s employees. Before the outbreak there were only fifty physicians in a nation of 4 million people. Such a paucity of resources makes any communicable disease a catastrophe.
The American health care system has its own horror stories and is replete with a variety of nefarious conspirators. Big pharma conspires to keep the price of prescription medications artificially high. Insurance companies created “managed care” to eliminate choice for patients and providers and maximize profits for themselves. The result is the world’s most expensive system which only ranks 37th in the world in measurement of health outcomes. Even with the advent of the Affordable Care Act, there are still millions of people in this country who die from preventable health conditions and it is all the result of conspiracies to make money.
While the fear of illness and death is understandable it is not logical to turn what should be a reasoned analysis into foolish hysteria. Anyone who wants to look for Ebola conspiracies should spread this story instead. White health care workers who become infected are taken to Europe or the United States for treatment but black doctors are left to die. That information is worth spreading to the whole world.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
This week’s featured author is Nick Nesbitt. Nesbitt is Professor of French and Italian at Princeton University. His book is The Price of Slavery: Capitalism and Revolution in the Caribbean.
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