9 senseless social panics that did lasting damage to America [View all]

[KamaAina]

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/07/9_senseless_social_panics_that_did_lasting_damage_to_america_partner/

America is a fearful and gullible nation with a media misinformation machine that is more than happy to stoke our anxieties. Like windup toys, we obediently point in whatever direction the fearmongers tell us to and run, screaming and flailing our arms while demanding that someone do something about it. Many of these false social panics have done horrible and lasting damage, often long after the country has seemed to come to its senses.

1. Reds Under the Bed and Communist Hysteria

Red baiter Joe McCarthy would be right at home in today’s Republican party. Self-aggrandizing, prone to making baseless accusations, and cynically motivated by the endless pursuit of power, McCarthy was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1947. Though one of his first acts was to go to bat for a group of Nazis he claimed had been denied a fair trial, he was less concerned with justice for his fellow American citizens, whom he subjected to a witch-hunt that would make Bill O’Reilly proud.

2. AIDS Panic and Misinformation

The continuing AIDS crisis is a global tragedy that has devastated countless families, communities and an entire continent. Yet America’s reaction to the disease was nothing short of sheer hysteria that no amount of actual information could quell. Throughout the 1980s, movies, TV mini-series, talk shows and news items constantly warned of the dangers of young people contracting AIDS after just a moment of sexual “recklessness” (Something to Live For, Kids). A 1987 episode of “Oprah” showcased a town in West Virginia that banded together against its lone HIV-positive resident. A family with three HIV-positive hemophiliac children (the Ray brothers) lost their home to arson after a court ordered a public school to allow the kids to attend. A posse of scared, overzealous parents banned teenager Ryan White from attending his school. And the nightly news showed doctors, nurses and cops wearing rubber gloves and, given the choice, hazmat suits for even the most casual contact with people presumed to have AIDS (which essentially meant all gay men)....

7. Crack Babies

The crack epidemic gave rise to all sorts of bad laws, disproportionate, racist penalties and misplaced hysteria, including trumped-up concern about so-called crack babies. Images of these poor, trembling, underweight creatures, said to be born doomed because of their mother’s crack addiction, inspired both pity and fear. The fear was that the babies would never be able to live anything resembling a normal life, would themselves be addicted to crack, have brain damage, cost a great deal of money, have no conscience, and likely grow up into a dreaded “superpredator” if they grew up at all. What most people didn’t know was that the crack baby scare was based on one very small study of 23 babies in 1985. Yet it was enough to cause a media frenzy.