The consequences of denying reality

With the slaughter of rats and mosquitoes, bubonic plague and yellow fever have been vanquished.

Now Oswaldo Cruz declares war on smallpox. By the thousands Brazilians die of the disease, while doctors bleed the moribund and healers scare off the smoke of smoldering cowshit. Oswaldo Cruz, in charge of public health, makes vaccination obligatory.

Senator Rui Barbosa, pigeon-chested and smooth-tongued orator, attacks vaccination using judicial weapons flowery with adjectives. In the name of liberty Rui Barbosa defends the right of every individual to be contaminated if he so desires. Torrential applause, thunderous ovations interrupt him from phrase to phrase.

“1904: Rio de Janerio: Vaccine”

Memory of Fire (Volume 3 of the Century of the Wind Trilogy)

Eduardo Galeano

This actually happened.

People, again, as then, have been told stories with no basis in fact.

They all came from the mind of one man.

One man, determined to bend reality to, ultimately, two points.

It’s not his fault.

Here is another interpretation of reality.

We hope, in an odd way, that Donald Trump will have it read to him when he’s receptive.

We hope he has it read to him before it’s assumptions and numbers are out of date.

We hope he listens.

Because we don’t have to have this many people die.

And maybe, just maybe, he’ll finally realize that the future of the few people he really cares about will depend on this possible, hard reality not coming into being.