Bush sees pandemic as a means to power, not a disaster to be prevented

[Inland]

If you were thinking about what to do about pandemics, you would be thinking about, oh, I don't know, public health, treatments at the local emergency rooms, quarantines on a hospital wide level, fast response with vaccinations, stuff like that.

But all of that is the boring stuff, the hard work, the stuff that costs money and don't directly aid the rich or the halliburtons of America. So Bush won't touch it. (The CDC plays the same role in the world of infectious disease that FEMA plays in the world of natural or unnatural disasters. And of course, Bush didn’t even mention the CDC. Hope there isn’t a horse show manager in charge at the CDC. Vaccinations and public health are the levees against disease. Wonder if they are fully funded.)

But his lack of interest in the hard work of preventing pandemics doesn’t mean Bush doesn’t have a plan. Bush practically falls over himself to skip to the martial law, Bush installed as People’s CinC latter stages of a disaster. That's the FUN stuff. Men in uniforms armed with abbreviations, making plans, drawing up contingencies, markers on the map, big arrows showing huge, coordinated and successful operations. AND, unspoken, Bush striding like a colossus as the people BEG him to save them, and Congress passes a Grant of SuperduperAuthority, appropriates a trillion bucks string-free, and the constitutional rights and federalism are superseded by the Emergency. Don't think it would happen? What do you think the War on Terra is? It's already happened, but largely happening overseas, but feel free to ask Jose Padilla if there's martial law yet.

Of course, you and I know that to get to the Bushian Wet Dream Stage of martial law, tens of thousands if not hundreds thousands are dead and that more will die because no quarantine will hold, and that it's best to work on the boring stuff to prevent that outcome even without the worry that Bush isn't going to give up the martial law once the pandemic is over.

Bush doesn't agree. Sure, he would rather that Congress and the courts just make him Dictator without thousands of thousands of deaths, but if a pandemic is what it takes, well, that’s what it takes. He wants power, and that’s all he wants.

[Avalux]

1. Exactly.

They WANT this to happen, and they're making every effort to terrify people. They could give a shit about public education and providing folks with the tools necessary to take care of themselves and curb transmission.

[shoelace414]

2. Flu season starts in November

"perhaps we should keep people from congregating at schools and other polling places in November 2008. I'll just hang on to the presidency until the crisis is done"

:crazy: :silly: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat:

[dbeach]

3. and the elderly and the vets want those flu shots

the repuke pols can have all my doses of whatever they got
in the govt medicine bag..

[annabanana]

4. He has no interest in saving lives...

He knows his "base" is safe, insulated by buckets of money that will let them wait it out in luxury anywhere in the world while bodies are piled higher.

He just wants to have the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines handy in case anyone else gets any .... umm..."ideas" about things like "equal access" or other commie stuff like that.

nominated.

[cyberpj]

5. BUT - Did they set us up as well?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4980133&mesg_id=4980133

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Man, you knocked that one out of the park!

:applause:

[Coastie for Truth]

7. Check out "Bush Doesn't Need Military For Avian Flu"

at

[Inland]

13. Good post! nt

[AirAmFan]

8. Latest WH application of Marketing 101: BIRDS are their new "psychological

ANCHOR" for an old message -- only the Republican Party can protect you from ... ???

(the bogeyman of the moment). The new one is "bird flu", which will promote unnatural fear of the birds most Americans see several times a day. Especially dead birds, or sick birds, or birds on TV, seeming to be administered injections by gloved people wearing white coats.

"Terra" doesn't cut it any more--look at Dubya's poll numbers. And World Communism was strangled by infectious capitalist greed many years ago.

What better new bogeyman than bird flu? A guest on CNN today gave middle America the ultimate scare: When the 1918 influenza epidemic hit WWI troops, often devastation of victims' bodies was so complete that it was impossible to tell whether a corpse was BLACK or WHITE!

Millions who succumb to this new propaganda will shudder whenever they see a sparrow, starling, pigeon--ANY BIRD! ... Then they'll find comfort in thoughts of Big Brother Cheney, or of Little Brother Dubya. They are "security blankets" for millions of ignorant Republicans, even though this WH have squandered trillions of dollars to actually DESTROY strong pre-2000 disaster protection and relief capabilities.

TV "news" producers can get into this game simply by showing birds in flight or -- better yet -- birds being examined by ornithologists. Extremely cheap stories to produce--all a producer needs is a camera and a bird.

[Inland]

10. And I'm remembering the lack of vaccine last year

Not because there was a worse than usual flu, but because there was a usual flu...that is, something that a competent government would successfully control.

I'm worried about the usual being mishandled to become the once in a century pandemic.

[TheCowsCameHome]

9. I worry more about Bush and what he's done than bird flu

[Inland]

11. Well, some haven't survived Bush, some haven't survived flu.

Is Bush as single minded and parasitical as a virus? We'll see.

[Bridget Burke]

12. That's EXACTLY it!

Serious planning is needed to deal with a possible pandemic.

But he wants to call out the army!

[Inland]

16. And now I"m wondering what to do about it.

Of course, what I want is for America to have a public health system and a plan. But that would require some sort of executive action, and as Bush showed us with Iraq, nobody can make him plan ahead or look at any alternatives he doesn't want to look at.

So Bush is going to give us a plan much like the plan for Iraq: "It's either give me authority or nothing." People with other ideas, third ways, will be ignored. Faced with the framing of issues in the fascist dream manner...only unfettered executive authority can ever make the trains run on time....we'll give it to him, just like we gave it to him on Iraq.

[Nothing Without Hope]

14. Absolutely true. SEE THIS THREAD ON MARTIAL LAW AND HOW THEY HAVE

BEEN PREPARING FOR IT. Read the ENTIRE thread - there are must-read articles on the FEMA executive orders, the Posse Comitatus Act, NorthCom, and more in the replies. At the end of the replies are discussions of how this new flu threat is being used as more ammunition to terrify people into allowing military martial law to "protect" them, as if it would.

Again, I urge you to read the ENTIRE THREAD, including the replies:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4790112
thread title: Missing A KEY POINT in *'s speech: POWER GRAB FOR POTUS AND MILITARY

The LA Times article cited near the end of the reply thread makes it clear that increased DOMESTIC VACCINE PRODUCTION and a distribution network is absolutely vital, but Bush isn't talking about that. He wants to be dictator and he sees the hurricanes and now the flu threat as his "enabling events."

Anybody STILL calling this tinfoilhattery? The route to this point and into martial law, a military dictatorship, is plain as day. Read the thread and see.

Oh, and by the way - the first head of NorthCom, one mission of which is to administer martial law if it is declared, was none other than General Eberhard, who was the head of NORAD on 9/11. You'll recall that it was never explained - the excuses kept shifting and never made sense - why ALL fighter/interceptors were called off on that day so that the hijacked planes could finish their long flights into the most heavily protected airspace on the planet. You'd think that Eberhard would have been courtmartialed for such a lapse, but no, the grateful Bush Administration PROMOTED him to be head of their huge military power structure. Shows you what we're dealing with, I think. They have been purging military brass who uphold the Constitution - like General Byrnes - and replacing them with Bush loyalists.

Why does everyone assume that the US military brass will automatically uphold the Constitution instead of following Bush's orders? Acccording to the infamous Yoo memo of 2001, Bush has sole power to direct the military or declare war. Blatantly unconstitutional, of course, but it will serve as an excuse for traitors.

Read the entire thread. It's all there.

[Marr]

15. There are plenty of man-made outbreaks that could be put

out there as well- if this whole flu thing doesn't pan out.

It's conceivable, though I think it's very unlikely, considering this bunch was too chickenshit to smuggle WMD into Iraq after the invasion.

[Nothing Without Hope]

17. kick n/t