Our Politics Is The Pathogen - a podcast by Laura Flanders

HI, I’m Laura Flanders of GRITtv.

Infectious disease specialists say Ebola can't spread through the air, but the political grandstanding about it can and if history’s any guide, that could well do us more harm than the epidemic.

To recap, while thousands of people in west Africa have contracted and died from Ebola, just a handful of Americans have so far come down with the disease. By contrast, more than 200,000 of us end up in the hospital every year from 'flu and still, many don’t bother with flu shots.

While there’s no shot for Ebola, it can be killed by bleach and it can be contained, as the WHO says it has been in Nigeria, thanks to the calm, methodical action of smart, local health workers.

I mention all that, because should you tune in to the US’s mid-term elections, you’ll hear Republicans and Democrats spreading all manner of panic. First they traded partisan attacks, accusing one another of not doing enough to keep Americans safe. Now, candidates of both parties are going after the President and government.

Take those calls for a ban on travel from from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone; something the administration and most public health experts oppose and think is crazy. Calls for a ban have long come from the lunatic fringe, and from not so fringe lunatics like House Speaker John Boehner. But Democrats too are buying into the ban. Candidates in tight races like Kay Hagan in North Carolina and Michelle Nunn in Georgia are both on board the travel ban bandwagon, and even the feminist’s favorite Texan, Wendy Davis has come out in favor. It’s a way to look tough and distant from the low approval ratings of the president. Besides, what’s public health expertise when polls report that sixty-seven percent of Americans are in favor — and even more in Texas?

With just days to go before the vote, candidates seems to be competing for Ebola spotlight in an election season in which politics itself has lost the interest of the voting public. They’re tripping over each other to stoke fears and then pander to the fears they’ve stoked, and desperate for viewers to whom they can serve ads, cable news is all over it.

President Obama is hardly immune. After all, it was he who kicked off the season calling for a "war on Ebola." Forty years ago, when he was in a tough spot, Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs”. That brought us our longest most deadly waste: a trillion dollars spent, more than 45 million drug arrests and nothing to show for it but abject failure.

Where will the panic-mongering on Ebola lead? We don’t know yet, but we know where we’ve come from. The “war on drugs" brought us prisons packed with nonviolent offenders, mostly people of color. The "war" on illegal immigration brought us border camps packed with kids. The "war on terror" has led us straight to hell.

Ebola is a crisis in West Africa. Here it’s not the pathogen that’s the problem, it’s our pathological political system. It spreads alarmism through the airwaves and the symptoms of contagion are madness.

You can watch my interview with author, activist Arundhati Roy on the Myth of Gandhi and Glenn Greenwald on the corporate pillars of the National Security State at GRITtv.org. And you can also find our more about the syndication of the Laura Flanders Show on TeleSUR English. To tell me what you think, write to me: Laura@GRITtv.org.

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