By Marjorie Logman
Aurora, Ill.
It has been seven years that I have been prescription-free. Of the 22 prescriptions I was on, several were anti-psychotic and heavy pain-relieving medications. It took more than eight months to clean my body out and find a sense of a sound mind. What has amazed me is how many Americans that are not diagnosed with mental illness are lost in what I worked so hard to remove from my life. I hope this calls those into account where they are getting information and the subtlety of emotional influence to believe what is not true. It is tearing the United States apart.
To me this is evident in frequent Bela Suhayda’s Reader’s Commentary articles in The Voice. I can see the influence of giving yourself to the internet and news sources that lead one to believe what is not actual. Unfortunately, and sadly, I see this in the Christian Church. Pastors preaching paranoia and fear of the other, along with a false sense of persecution. Defaming the “left” for sexual improprieties and government control when the Church is filled with sexual abuse and grifters taking money in the name of God. It is a spiritual cancer. Fox News has deteriorated to appealing to unreal fears and conspiracies which delude so many Americans. I always get the childish excuse that Johnny did it too.
It is difficult to have a logical discussion with writers such as Bela Suhayda because he is coming from an emotional conviction that he is right. Most of what I see is paranoia and picking things up from sources that deal in assumptions and target outrage, not facts. It is to me is a symptom of the greater problem in the U.S., where emotions take the lead and changes in society are turned into outrageous demonic problems.
It is why, I think, we have a college population that so fragile that everything that is minimal is a personal affront. Along with that, especially on the side of what was called conservative, ideas and ideologies true or not are your identity. No room for conversation. In this, which it is called, bubble any one can enter and add to the conspiracies. Donald Trump is a great example. I remember Mom telling me how people were deceived by Al Capone because he ran soup kitchens in Chicago. It did not make him kind and generous. He was still a gangster. Unfortunately, in Aurora, City Hall would give him a plaque and a special day.
To me, it is as though individuals are watching a movie and being told what the other is like, and it has nothing to do with the actual. It is why there is no room for conversation or debate with writers such as Bela Suhayda until facts and actuality are agreed on and we can meet on a higher ground that excludes outrage.
This makes journalism difficult today.