Bird Flu (Excerpt) - New American

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Wed, 30 Nov 2005 03:56:02 -0800 (PST)

Government shills setting us up for

destruction of freedom using avian influenza hysteria

 

 

 

 

Government shills setting us up for destruction of freedom using avian

influenza hysteria

 

http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/printer_2713.shtml

 

 

New American

 

Health / Health Care Last Updated: Nov 29th, 2005 - 15:11:43

 

Bird Flu (Excerpt)

by William Norman Grigg

December 12, 2005

 

The Bush administration has been creating irrational fear about the

dangers of avian influenza just so that they can " save " us from it

through restrictive governmental powers.

 

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace

alarmed [and hence clamorous to be led to safety] by menacing it with

an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

-- H.L. Mencken

 

 

Though the H5N1 virus, better known as Avian Influenza or the bird

flu, is a tangible reality and a potential threat, conjuring the

prospect of the disease mutating into a planet-menacing pandemic

involves a considerable amount of imagination. At present, roughly 60

people out of a global population of more than six billion have

succumbed to the bird flu, and nearly all of them have contracted it

under conditions very difficult to duplicate. No evidence has emerged

to indicate that the virus can be transmitted from one human being to

another -- although it's possible that such a dire mutation could occur.

 

Nonetheless, the Bush administration and the UN's World Health

Organization are prepared to spend billions of dollars to regiment

human society just in case this isolated and relatively obscure

affliction somehow morphs into a global plague. Their actions are

rooted in a version of the " precautionary principle " encoded into

UN-aligned radical environmentalism: supposedly to avoid a

catastrophe, people are expected to live with the same privations and

impositions that would occur had the envisioned catastrophe actually

taken place.

 

Apocalypse Now?

 

Modern politics is built on the cult of the all-powerful,

all-benevolent state. Unlike the modest and limited entity envisioned

by the Framers of our Constitution, which was intended to protect

individual rights and property, the contemporary state is depicted, by

those who worship it, as a secular savior endowed with the power to

rectify all injustices and protect its subjects from every conceivable

hardship or danger.

 

Adherents of the state-cult thus constantly seek to convince a

critical portion of the public that at least three of the apocalyptic

horsemen are saddled up and digging spurs into their mounts, while the

fourth is getting his riding tack in order.

 

The preferred apocalyptic scenarios generally involve large-scale

disasters, such as global environmental collapse or universal nuclear

annihilation. Since 9/11, mass terrorism has been added to that list.

 

These potential crises, however, tend to be too abstract to generate

the required panic. Environmental scare scenarios dissipate quickly

when exposed to rational science. During the Cold War, the vision of

global nuclear holocaust was a potent mobilizing force, but that

threat has lost much of its potency since the apparent collapse of

communism. Post 9/11, that threat has recovered some of its urgency in

the form of exploitable fears of mass terrorism involving weapons of

mass destruction, as the Bush administration's success in deceiving

our nation into the Iraq war illustrates.

 

But 9/11, horrific and destructive as it was, actually illustrates the

limited usefulness of terrorism as a foil for authoritarian reforms.

While the Black Tuesday attacks killed thousands and inflicted

billions of dollars in damage to our economy, it was hardly a

civilization-threatening event affecting the interests and well-being

of most Americans.

 

This is why plague-related scenarios, particularly those involving

bioterrorism, are so promising to those seeking to scare the public

into submission. Most people find it difficult to imagine the collapse

of the biosphere, or a cataclysmic nuclear assault. But everybody

knows what it's like to be sick, vulnerable, and helpless. And since

influenza is a seasonal affliction experienced by millions, the

conceptual link between one's sniffles and aching joints and a global

pandemic seems more plausible. Thus the potential threat of unseen

microbes....To continue reading the complete article, place an online

order for a PDF version of the December 12th issue of The New

American, and get instant access to the full-text of this article

along with the full-text of all the other articles in the same issue.

 

Similarly, if you place an online order for one or more copies of the

print version of the December 12th issue, you'll receive a

complimentary link to the PDF version of that issue, also giving you

instant access to the full-text of the " Bird Flu " article and all of

the other articles in that issue.

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