"New Dark Age"

            Trust your religion and religious leaders more than science, logic and reason. Trust your gut over scientific research and objectively collected data. Trust the story about a friend of a friend’s third cousin over documented and investigative studies. And then—TRUST NO ONE!

            Our slippage into an under-educated population occurred gradually. First, we forced the content of our public schools to dumb down to standardized testing levels. Then an Us VS Them mentality bloomed that tainted legitimate media. Finally, we allowed Christian religious beliefs to seep into public and governmental institutions, to become a litmus test for viable candidates for many elected positions. The message shifted to TRUST NO ONE (unless that person has the same religious views as you).

            So now we find ourselves, as a country, mired in obvious lies and more obscured half-truths that our gullible population cannot unravel. They blindly turn to sources for information that foster more confusion and promote distrust.

            These are the most recent theories I’ve followed. Each one disturbing because they prey upon fear. Fear that someone’s out to take your jobs, undermine your marriage and family, or physically harm someone you love.

THE NEW DARK AGE BELIEFS (in no particular order):

               First, women should have no rights to determine their own reproduction. This includes using any birth control. Women are secondary to men in many faiths, and therefore, deserve lesser pay. They shouldn’t expect respect within the work force. Legal protection for women being abused by men should be limited.

Troubling, isn’t it! We actually have a growing population that believes a woman’s place in in her home, where she may not even be safe.

            Second, all of the “research” on climate change is false. Climate change is a liberal lie to undermine our profitable use of fossil fuels. They have some kind of secret agenda that will wipe out our economy if we turn to reusable energy and protect the air we breathe and water we drink. They have a plot, as yet unknown in details, to subvert the entire course of modern civilization by implementing laws internationally that could begin to contain the destruction of our environment. Many people actually believe that God will step in, wave his magical hand, and wipe away all of the damage we’ve done to the planet.

I cannot fathom why anyone would risk our entire planet just to prove they are right about a possible liberal agenda.

            Third, anyone who’s different from you threatens you, your family and your community. Therefore, anyone immigrating here is suspect of engaging in behaviors ranging from taking your jobs to murdering you and your entire family, as you sleep peacefully in your home. (Thus, you must arm yourself with an arsenal of weapons and ammunition). Anyone who has a difference in sexual orientation must be ostracized. You have a duty to deny this group their rights to job security, medical care, purchasing homes, or even marriage. Many people actually shift blame to current weather disasters to God’s punishment for acceptance of “differences.”

I keep wondering why God punishes all of the “innocent” people, too, through these floods, famines, and other natural disasters.

            Fourth, Big Pharma controls all of our doctors and scientist. Therefore, any program that benefits pharmaceutical companies should be rejected. This belief meshes together the facts and data that these companies have one agenda alone—PROFIT. Therefore, nothing that comes from these companies can be trusted. The latest, of course, is vaccinating our population. Many people believe these companies actually inject cancer causing agents into our systems in order to generate future clients dependent upon medications to survive. Many people believe that by refusing to vaccinate their children, they are protecting them.

I know that pharmaceutical companies drive all decisions by profit, but I also believe that resurgence of diseases like tetanus, measles, and polio far outweigh worry that Big Pharma want to make a buck.

            Fifth, colleges are indoctrination centers that subvert the core religious beliefs of families and undermine the structure of American society.

I will admit that colleges do expose young minds to new worlds. The curriculum should drive students to critical thinking. My worry about colleges stems more from the fact that they are driven by profit instead of aiming for the purer goals of student self-actualization.

            How do we get out of all of this mucked-up thinking? I look to our youth with optimism that they will filter out the lies and filth that my generation’s heaped upon them and create a courageous new world of enlightenment.   

Copyright 2019 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"No Compassion"

 

            Sometime between 1952 and 1957, my mother had a miscarriage. At that time, women had to miss three cycles before getting pregnancy tests. I know for certain that Mom had to be at least sixteen weeks along when her hemorrhaging and severe abdominal cramping forced Dad to rush into the emergency room at MacDill Air Force Base. He told the story of blood being everywhere, doctors and nurses surrounding him as he carried Mom into the room, and thinking she was already dead.

            Mom recounted that she felt herself looking down from above as the emergency staff worked over her. “We’re losing her! We’re losing her! We’re losing her!” warned one doctor.  Mom’s thought was that she couldn’t die; she had my sister to love and care for. As the number of miscarriages in the Tampa area increased, eventually they were linked to the DDT that fogged the streets during that time period. Mom’s future pregnancies received the designation as “High Risk” and the military doctors sent her to a private OB/GYN when she was pregnant with me.             

            The severity of damage to her uterus made another miscarriage possible, but I arrived without difficulties. However, Mom continued to have problems with menstrual pain that grew progressively aggressive as the years passed. She also had difficulty getting pregnant again, and had almost given up on any more children, when she finally became pregnant with my brother in 1962.

            After my brother’s birth, Mom’s menstrual cycles grew more painful. Her interactions with doctors became a pathetic round of them minimizing her agony. When she recounted passing blood clots larger than her fist, one doctor patted her on the knee and said, “It’s all in your head, dear.” Eventually, one doctor tried prescribing birth control pills that barely dinted her pain. By 1967, Mom spent part of every month writhing in anguish, bed bound with heating pads and hot water bottles, unable to function for days.

            Dad became Mom’s advocate and eventually found a military surgeon who listened to them. He ordered X-rays and suggested surgery because of an unidentified mass he spotted. He advised that he would probably need to remove Mom’s uterus, which my parents agreed to immediately.

            However, when the surgeon noted that Dad was Catholic, he knew that he would have to consult with Dad’s priest to get permission from him. Imagine my mother’s furor to learn that after all of the years of doctors’ knee patting condensation, she needed another male’s approval for a hysterectomy. My mother wasn’t Catholic. My father was, and so her surgery was delayed until after the doctor proved to the priest the medical necessity of the procedure.

            Mom’s long ago miscarriage had torn her uterus. With every menstrual cycle, endometrial tissue seeped into her abdomen and adhered to her ovaries, Fallopian tubes, and pelvis. Once the surgeon opened her up, he found metal sutures from the appendectomy she had as a teenager with endometrial tissue attached to the entire area. He told Mom after he was finished that he was ashamed so many doctors had dismissed her and the obvious suffering she bore monthly.

           

            Unfortunately, Mom’s story in the 1950s and 1960s continues even now with many women seeking reproductive care. Today, patients and physicians pit themselves against merciless laws that needlessly endanger personal freedoms.

 

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman