Posted on 08/10/2009 10:09:51 AM PDT by mmanager
An uncontrollable, deadly virus ravages America, shutting down civilian institutions and triggering martial law. Vaccinations are compulsory, and there are mass quarantines throughout the country.
It's the stuff of Hollywood — but rumors that it could be real are spreading like the flu in the blogosphere, where some people are loudly expressing their fears that the federal government is seriously considering such measures as it maps out a worst-case-scenario response to the swine flu pandemic.
During the bird flu scare of 2005, the Bush administration added novel forms of influenza — including the swine flu — to the official list of "quarantinable communicable diseases," clearing the way for the forced detention of people who exhibit symptoms of the disease.
Now a proposal awaiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates' approval would allow the military to set up regional teams to assist civilian authorities in dealing with the impact of the swine flu pandemic. And some observers see this level of government preparedness as little more than a pretext for tyranny.
"The implications are far reaching," Michel Chossudovsky wrote on the Global Research Web site, which averages 18,000 visitors daily. "The decision points toward the establishment of a police state," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Well, we’ve all been wondering what would trigger Revolution II. I’d say that this would be it.
Unless someone can tell me different......I have heard that H1N1 is “half” as dangerous than the everyday average seasonal flu. If this is true, what’s all the fuss about?
There are already nearly 20,000 dead from the regular flu.
If you’d like things to worry about, I can make a list for you, but swine flu is not on it.
If there ever is a 1918 type event, there is no doubt troops will be mobilized. Won’t be any opposition to it either.
Every case of H1N1 death in the State of Florida has been with patients having pre-existing illnesses. I agree, either something’s being withheld, or this is much ado about nothing.
And in the event of compulsory vaccination, I wouldn’t put it past the government to use those mass vaccinations as a means to implant chips or inject some other type of nefarious cocktail.
I agree, this sort of event would be a good seed for Revolution 2.0.
Please use original title.
What a bunch of bull,,, as the saying goes never let a crisis go to waste. My grandson has had the swine flu and at 2.5 years old you would never even know he was sick.
OK, this is what I do for a living, and you can check out my FR record - so here's the truth, as best as I can determine.
H1N1 is a new human strain of influenza A virus, descended from the 1918 strain in a series of pretty-well worked out steps. It is a pandemic strain, meaning that it's changed enough so that there's no innate immunity in the human population. It has demonstrated the ability to spread rapidly - surprisingly so - and it causes either as much harm, or less harm, that current "seasonal" flu strains.
Because it is a pandemic strain, there are going to be hundreds of millions of cases in the Northern Hemisphere this Fall and Winter. Most of these people will have very few symptoms, some will be asymptomatic. Some will be severely ill, and some will die. In general, the rates of severe illness and death will be lower than a usual flu season, but the numbers of severely ill and fatal cases will be higher than normal, because so many people will be infected.
The political implications of this are a whole other story. In the 1943, 1947, 1957 and 1968 pandemics, there was no sense whatsoever that governments could or should "do something" besides making vaccines available for those who wanted them. The occurrence of large numbers of flu cases, and even tens of thousands of deaths, was not a crisis and did not give rise to emergency measures. But that was then.
The governmental reactions to the "swine" flu cases (that's a very bad name) this Spring and Summer has been very alarming. Politicians and regulators seem to believe that hospitals, doctors, local bodies such as schools and businesses, have an affirmative obligation to prevent transmission of H1N1 virus from the sick to the well, and they are developing plans to act on that belief.
Of course, there are several problems with that. First, there is NO EVIDENCE that public health measures, of whatever kind, are effective in preventing eventual planet-wide dissemination of a pandemic flu strain. Second, the illness caused by H1N1 is not so severe as to evoke panic in a psychologically healthy population. Third, of course, no government, but especially not this one, can be trusted with the sort of police powers that would be needed to make an effective program to stop spread, with the possible exception of requiring vaccination.
And that's the way it is.
***...”quarantinable communicable diseases,” clearing the way for the forced detention of people who exhibit symptoms of the disease.***
You must be sick with the flu if you are Opposed to Obamacare! Detention for you till further notice!
bump
That was a more readable summary with clearer insight then than the original article.
There ARE infectious disease threats to the public health that COULD, under the right circumstances, justify the use of the police powers of the state to arrest transmission. It's just that H1N1 influenza is not such a threat, in the eyes of most people.
150 people die out of a population of 6 billion and they call it a pandemic!?! There is something very fishy about that.
From what I've read from this before this year, and a bit from what I've read on FR lately, "pandemic" has to do with how much something's spread around, not with how bad it is.
The problem with your scenario would seem to be that there haven't been mass graves, quarantines, or martial laws in areas where this flu is already known to exist.
The flu follows a path around the world every year. It never really stops, it just moves on and comes back around annually. There are usually several strains. Vaccines take months to develop, and we in the West develop ours based in part on whatever is being seen at the time on the other side of the globe.
Could it mutate? Yes, of course.
Has it mutated? Not yet, according to news reports.
Thank you for your post.
It is one of the clearest things I’ve ever read on the subject.
OK, I can see that. That certainly isn’t the impression one gets from the media coverage of it or the pronouncements of politicians.
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