Fixing America In 500 Words Or Less Chapter 29 SHOULE WE BLAME IMMIGRANTS FOR CONTAGIOUS DISEASES?        Media demagogue Lou Dobbs, who literally lives on land stolen from Mexico by “illegal” Anglo-American settlers, has deliberately hammered home the term “illegal” in relation to Latino immigrants over and over and over again. Such racist-tinged, hate-filled overt propaganda dehumanizes hard-working God-fearing men and women, whose only “crime” is trying to feed their hungry families.        Several right-wing hate-mongers used the 2009 so-called “Swine Flu” outbreak to pour more fuel on already highly-irrational blood-drenched immigration issue fires.  Massachusetts talk radio's Jay Severin, apparently an illegal alien from a galaxy far, far away, was suspended after he called Mexican immigrants “criminalians”, claiming hospital emergency rooms have become “essentially condos for Mexicans”.        Daily media diatribes of overt racism and human hatred have resulted in significant violence against poor often defenseless immigrants.  Hate crimes have increased dramatically, including the beating death of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez by Pennsylvania teenagers, later acquitted of murder by an all-Anglo jury.  Hate fueled right-wing Americans today publicly demonize and demonstrate against even young children fleeing the most dire of circumstances.        Viral disease can “break out” anywhere at anytime in an apparent "country of origin", as a result of external transmission of the virus.  European-borne diseases destroying entire native cultures would appear in the same "real-time" ill-informed media reality of today, to have originated in the United States.        Since Mexico City and surrounding areas are well-known tourist destinations, it is quite possible that the so-called “outbreak” of "swine flu" in Mexico was a result of transmission by someone from a relatively immune population.  The real country of origin could have been China, France, India, Israel, Australia or even the United States. ¹        People living in Mexico may have been less immune to this particular virus than a population located elsewhere, which may not be protected as well against another type of virus.  Even close-proximity populations can have immunities neighboring populations lack, which could explain why “swine flu” in the U.S. was not immediately as severe as in Mexico.        A contagious disease could just as easily appear to "break out" in the United States, transmitted by a tourist from Denmark, Germany, Saudi Arabia, or some other population and, be more harmful to people here than even those living next door in Mexico and Canada.        Anyone who doesn't understand disease in the modern globally connected world is by-and-in-large, a global crap-shoot, doesn't belong on the public airwaves spreading gross deceptions of superstition, fear and racist-fueled hatred.  Some historians suspect diseases extremely detrimental to American native populations were transmitted by herds of pigs that explorers took along with them as a food supply.        What decimated American native populations could literally have been a form of "swine flu" that European immigrants were immune to, because unlike native populations, they had built up immunities for centuries living in close proximity to their pigs. ²        Should we blame immigrants for contagious diseases?  Who's going to immunize us against the virulent contagion of hatred, racism and tirade of fear-mongering propagated by anti-human rights right-wing media swine-balls? ³        You decide. NOTES: 1. Tracing true origins of viral diseases is an incredibly difficult and most uncertain pursuit. Given that there was an outbreak of the so-called "swine flu" in Northern Ireland in 2009 and, nineteen people died from the same virus in the previous year, the outbreak of this disease into the United States in 2009 can hardly be blamed on Latino immigrants.  According to Wikipedia, "A study conducted in 2009, and published in the journal Nature, has managed to establish the evolutionary origin of the flu strain of swine origin.  The phylogenetic origin of the flu virus that caused the 2009 pandemics can be traced before 1918.  Around 1918, the ancestral virus, of avian origin, crossed the species boundaries and infected humans as human H1N1.  The same phenomenon took place soon after in America, where the human virus was infecting pigs; it led to the emergence of the H1N1 swine strain, which later became the classic swine flu."  Wikipedia: Swine Influenza. 2. Source:  1941: New Revelations of the America's Before Columbus; by Charles C. Mann. 3. Scientific statistical research clearly demonstrates that migrants are more beneficial than detrimental to societies.  According to an article posted on Science Daily regarding research conducted by the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health:  "Stereotypes that migrants are disease carriers who present a risk to public health and are a burden on services are some of the most prevalent and harmful myths about migration.  Evidence from a comprehensive new report, including new international data analysis, shows these myths to be unfounded, yet they continue to be used to deny migrants entry, restrict access to healthcare, or detain people unlawfully." Click Here to Go Back to Contents Click Here to eMail the Author Copyright © December 10th, 2019 by Richard Aberdeen. Copyright © December 10th, 2019 by Freedom Tracks Records. ( including from several earlier copyrights ) No part of this material may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher and signed by the author. For inquiries, please contact Freedom Tracks Records.  The essays entitled Revolution and Revolution ~ Side B are open copyright and may be reproduced and distributed as desired.