Bird Brains
Becky Akers at LewRockwell.com - commentary on the Homeland Security Council's National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan (1.4 meg, 232 page PDF). Can you say "martial law", or "unwarranted search". Thought you could. [lew]
The beast that evicted Hurricane Katrina victims from their homes and herded them onto buses at gunpoint wants to take another stab at compassion and caring. This time Leviathan will prey on folks stricken with avian flu. Presumably, that will leave them too weak to fight off the federal flunkies as they hustle them into quarantine and wring confessions about their contacts and their whereabouts from them. Wanna bet the bureaucrats bustling around these wards make Nurse Ratched look like Florence Nightingale?
Bird flu seems about as remote a threat as terrorism at this point. Which is not to say that either should be dismissed: both are weapons of mass delusion in the government's hands. Terrorism has nigh destroyed the country, not through murderous mayhem but through the state's fearmongering and tyranny. Bird flu looks to finish the job. Leviathan is already huffing about quarantines and nationalizing industry, informants and military responses.
In reality, Americans are as likely to die from bird flu as they are from terrorism. Only a couple hundred people worldwide have contracted it during the last three years. The mortality rate runs a high 50%, but that's offset by the lack of contagion: the bug burrows into its host's lungs rather than perching in the nose or throat before catapulting on a cough. It could mutate, of course, allowing us to spread it to each other, and the prognosis then becomes more menacing. It's estimated a pandemic would knock 40% of the workforce out of commission. But a far graver and more realistic threat comes from Leviathan. In 232 pages released this week, the critter outlined its ideas for grabbing power during such a crisis.
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