Bush's Fowl Play

[Guest guest]

The scarriest thing is not Bush or his staff---I have

almost decided that they are nuts, and will use any tool available to control

and subjugate the masses--- but why no protest from Public..or Congress..or

Media--after all here's what he saying..

 

Military enforcement No travel Right of assembly is gone $8Billion to the

" well behaved " The pandemic is certain and will be worse than 911 and Katrina

combined Government can handle better than you. He'll be shutting down schools

and businesses, quarantining cities, and banning public gatherings--the

government acts to prevent people from doing what they should be doing to deal

with the crisis.

 

" Stop in the name of the law " isn't just a slogan from cop shows; it is the sum

total of everything the government does....Could it be that it is running out of

other pretexts for expanding power? Terrorism is getting boring, floods come

only rarely, communism is long gone, the China " threat " is no longer selling,

the Middle East is dull, Global Warming is just too silly, and people have gone

back to ignoring most anything that comes out of Washington.

 

Meanwhile, the regime is desperate to be liked again, and forever relive its

salad days after 9-11. Do ck out the link mentioned...IT's INCREDIBLE HOW

MUCH HAS BEEN SPENT ON THIS HOGWASH IN EVERY STATE

 

 

http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/stateplans.html

 

 

 

State Pandemic Plans eg a fe at random...

California Influenza Pandemic Response Plan (PDF) (672KB)

 

Colorado State Board of Health Preparations for a Bioterrorist Event, Pandemic

Influenza, or an Outbreak by a Novel and Highly Fatal Infectious Agent or

Biological Toxin (PDF) (96.4KB)

Internal Emergency Response Implementation Plan, Appendix 1, Pandemic Influenza

(PDF) (377KB)

 

Connecticut Draft Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Plan (PDF) (466KB)

 

Delaware Pandemic Influenza Preparation and Response Plan

 

Florida Action Plan for Pandemic Influenza (PDF) (1.38MB)

 

 

 

Click to join Avian2005

 

 

Beware the Needle, Rose

 

 

Bush's Fowl Play

by Jeffrey Tucker [To receive the Daily Article in your inbox, go to email

services, and tell others too!]

 

In a classic case of News of the Weird, President Bush gave a press conference

the other day to announce yet another central plan to deal with yet another

disaster — this time an impending disaster, or so he claimed. It seems that some

birds are catching a flu called Avian Influenza or, more commonly, the bird flu.

It causes ruffled feathers and a drop in egg production. It can kill a chicken

in two days flat. Scary.

 

The Chicken Littles at the White House got wind of this and decided to hatch a

plan for dealing with the eventuality that it will wipe out whole cities

inhabited by people. That's people, not birds. He wants $7.1 billion from you

and me, in emergency funding no less, to protect us from the wrath of this

disease, which, he says, could sweep the country and kill 1.9 million people and

hospitalize another 9.9 million. Part of the money will go for " pandemic

preparedness, " and part will go to individual states so they can cobble

together their own plans for our health and well being.

 

As part of this plan, there is a website, pandemicflu.gov, which is also a

helpful link if you haven't so far believed a word you have read. Here you can

click around and find the Mother of All Flu Reports: The National Strategy for

Pandemic Influenza. Be assured that " the federal government will use all

instruments of national power to address the pandemic threat. " That includes

FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, and a hundred other concrete palaces

in DC.

 

In this report you will find what you must do: be " prepared to follow public

health guidance that may include limitation of attendance at public gatherings

and non-essential travel for several days or weeks. " The government, meanwhile,

will establish " contingency systems to maintain delivery of essential goods and

services during times of significant and sustained worker absenteeism. "

 

Yes, we are really supposed to believe that the government will " maintain

delivery " of " essential goods and services. " Your job is to sit in your house

and wait. Let's just say that government has a credibility problem here.

 

Also, the Bush administration has a role for the military to do for the flu

what it did for terrorism in Iraq: " Determine the spectrum of public health,

medical and veterinary surge capacity activities that the U.S. military and

other government entities may be able to support during a pandemic. " Remarkable

what the military can do, from spreading democracy to liberating the oppressed

to curing the sick — that is, when it is not making people sick or killing them

for their own good.

 

Just to show that this isn't merely a perfunctory line, Bush went out of his

way to defend the role of the military in his press conference. " One option is

the use of a military that's able to plan and move, " he said. " So that's why I

put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have. "

 

Now, should this mass-death come about, our future would be rife with many

uncertainties. But one thing we can know for sure: any attempt by government to

manage the crisis will add calamity to disaster. It will be 9-11 plus New

Orleans plus a few other amazing failures all rolled into one.

 

And the worst part of government failure will present itself: rather than make

a mess of its own responsibilities, the government acts to prevent people from

doing what they should be doing to deal with the crisis. " Stop in the name of

the law " isn't just a slogan from cop shows; it is the sum total of everything

the government does.

 

The Bush administration, however — which is supposedly staffed by people

learned in the wisdom of classical- conservative thought and informed by

revelation from America's traditional religious heritage — is just darn sure

that the government is the best and only means to handle a crisis such as this.

 

A dazzling display of absurdity and chutzpah — that's what the Bush press

conference on the flu was. Even if the flu does come, and taxpayers have coughed

up, the government will surely have a ball imposing travel restrictions,

shutting down schools and businesses, quarantining cities, and banning public

gatherings.

 

It's a bureaucrat's dream! Whether it will make us well again is another

matter. And why should individuals on their own have no incentive to deal with

disease? Why should the private sector have no reason to make cures available if

they exist? Why are we to believe that the government would somehow do a better

job at this level of crisis management than the private sector?

 

None of these questions have been asked much less answered.

 

So I'm reading along in The New York Times, and it casually says this: " This

bird flu has infected about 120 people and killed 60. But the virus has yet to

pass easily among humans, as is necessary to create a pandemic. Experts debate

whether it ever will, but most believe that a pandemic flu is inevitable

someday. "

 

Well, as Roderick Long often says about such contingencies, anything can

happen. Men from Mars could land in capsules and plant red weed all over the

world. The question we need to ask is how likely is it and who or what should

address the problem should it arise.

 

The World Health Organization provides a link to data about human infection.

It says the following: " Although avian influenza A viruses usually do not infect

humans, several instances of human infections have been reported since 1997. "

 

So we've gone from hundreds of infections to " several. " And when you look at

the specifics, most were not human-to-human infections but people in closer

contact with sick birds than most anyone ever is. And even among them, most

patients recovered. For example: " A (H9N2) infection was confirmed in a child in

Hong Kong. The child was hospitalized and recovered. " In another case in Canada,

infections resulted in " eye infections. " Among those who did die, it was not a

clear case of Avian, though the site offers the following odd phrasing: " the

possibility of person-to-person transmission could not be ruled out. "

 

For this, we get a presidential news conference? As far as I can tell, the

prospect of millions dying from bird flu is pretty remote. If it does happen—and

anything canhappen—why must government be involved at all? Economists might

invoke a public-goods rationale: pandemic disease protection is a service that

can be consumed by additional consumers at no additional cost and the

beneficiaries cannot be excluded from the good once produced, and thus this

service will not be produced in sufficient quantity in the private sector.

 

The point is so far flung that it makes a case for Randall Holcombe's theory

of the theory of public goods: " it is in the best interest of the those who run

the government to promote public goods theory " and so the best way to understand

the theory is as a justification for the legitimacy of the programs the

government wants for itself. It is a tool the government uses for its own

benefit.

 

What about the private-sector alternative? It will manage it as well as can be

expected. The price of vaccines will rise and draw more producers into the

market. Businesses will establish their own rules about who can come and go.

Private charities will deal with sickness. It isn't a perfect solution but it is

an improvement on dispatching the Marines or having the government provide

" essential goods and services. "

 

What's more, the problem of the bird flu isn't even news, since the incidents

of human infection are several years old. Why does the Bush administration

choose right now to make such a big showing of its preparations for mass death

by bird?

 

Could it be that it is running out of other pretexts for expanding power?

Terrorism is getting boring, floods come only rarely, communism is long gone,

the China " threat " is no longer selling, the Middle East is dull, Global Warming

is just too silly, and people have gone back to ignoring most anything that

comes out of Washington. Meanwhile, the regime is desperate to be liked again,

and forever relive its salad days after 9-11.

 

That still leaves the question of why so many public health officials seem so

hopped up about the bird flu, even though the data doesn't come anywhere near

supporting their frenzy. The answer is buried somewhere in those gargantuan

budget numbers. Someone somewhere is going to get that $8 billion, and it is not

going to be you or me.

 

 

Mises on the phony crises of his time: $10What's remarkable is how little

comment the bird flu plan provoked. We seem to have reached the stage in

American public opinion where hysterical frenzies by government and totalitarian

plans to take away all liberties are treated as just another day. We see the

president telling us to fork over billions, and we turn the channel. Was it this

way in the old Soviet Union or East Germany when the state newscasts went on

every night about the march of socialism? Has crisis management become the great

white noise of American life?

 

It is a serious matter when the government purports to plan to abolish all

liberty and nationalize all economic life and put every business under the

control of the military, especially in the name of a bug that seems largely

restricted to the bird population. Perhaps we should pay more attention. Perhaps

such plans for the total state ought to even ruffle our feathers a bit.

 

 

Jeffrey Tucker is editor of Mises.org. tucker. Comment on the blog.

[Guest guest]

You ask why there is no protest from media? I assume that by media, you mean

corporate, " big " media; in which case, the answer is obvious. Corporate media

are frantically promoting the Bush agenda; why would you expect them to

undermine it by staging a " protest " against it? Why would you expect " congress "

to protest the Bush agenda? Congress is controlled by Republicans; by the most

anti-democratic administration in our history? The Republicans are perfectly in

lock step to a degree never before surpassed. Why would you expect congress to

do precisely the opposite of what they fervently wish to do? The democrat

leadership in congress is as servile and spineless (except for a notable few) as

it has ever been. Without a vigilant and democratically responsible media, what

possible chance do we have.

The right wing in this country is sure of one thing: democrats will do nothing

about media, about its strong bias in favor of republican values (or lack

thereof); of its determination to destroy the liberal agenda in this country.

JP

-

Rose Fitzpatrick

avi

Sunday, January 22, 2006 5:08 AM

Bush's Fowl Play

 

 

The scarriest thing is not Bush or his staff---I have almost decided that they

are nuts, and will use any tool available to control and subjugate the masses---

but why no protest from Public..or Congress..or Media--after all here's what he

saying..

(snip)