Why people don’t trust the government

There’s several articles, and Twitter feeds, and blog posts, out there attempting to explain why people are so hesitant to accept the .GOV’s word for why this or that has to be done to stop Covid. And, aside from the ones trying to blame one particular party or group of people, most of them are generally pretty correct about some portion of the problem. But none of them manage to sum it up all together.

Its not JUST about current day politics (though holy god, if the .GOV was TRYING to destroy people’s trust in the health system they couldn’t have done more damage than what they did).

It’s about the past, and recent, history too.

Tuskegee

Crack Epidemic

Plutonium

Operation Sea Spray

MK Ultra

Forced Sterilization Poor And Disabled (multiple links)

Note that I was lazy and mostly just pulled the Wikipedia links. There are LOT more links available, that go into A LOT more depth.

Someone’s going to say the Crack Epidemic doesn’t belong in the list. But it’s a PERFECT example of the use of the media to drive hysteria in a specific direction. Deliberate or not I don’t really care.

And if you look at the dates on some of those “experiments” they continued until the same decade I was born in (or past it), and since I’m only in my early 40’s that means that there’s EASILY still people alive today who were unwitting participants in these experiments. This isn’t something that happened to great great great grandma and is now whispered about in family stories. This is dad and mom’s life for people.

Nor is this a comprehensive list. There are LOT more such in history, and not so far back, as in, during my lifetime, that could be added to this list.

So no, the .GOV frequently doesn’t have the “best interests” of the people as a goal.

And before you believe those screaming headlines, and OMG talking points, or hell, that twitter post telling you how the “local hospital is FULL!!!!! of covid patients!!!!!”, remember that the CDC’s data is publicly available on their website. As is the Covid data from most states. And there are MULTIPLE sites that are tracking that data and collating it into graphs so it can be easily viewed and compared to not only each other but to history.

It doesn’t have to be a grand conspiracy (cause yah, SOMEONE will always end up giving away the secret). Its human nature folks.