*Bird Brains*

[Guest guest]

Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers41.html

*Bird Brains*

*by Becky Akers <mailto:libertatem@...>

The beast that evicted Hurricane Katrina victims from their homes and

herded them onto buses at gunpoint

<http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html>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

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/04/AR2005100400681\

..html>.

In reality, Americans are as likely to die from bird flu as they are

from terrorism. Only a couple hundred people worldwide

<http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/Archive/2006/Jan/19-86928.html>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

<http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-03-22-bird-flu-study_x.htm>

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

<http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-05-03-us-flu-plan_x.htm?csp=24>

out of commission. But a far graver and more realistic threat comes from

Leviathan. In 232 pages

<http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-03-flu-report.pdf>released

this week, the critter outlined its ideas for grabbing power during such

a crisis.

Both the /National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza: Implementation Plan

/ <http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-03-flu-report.pdf>and

the mainstream reporting on it stun with their absolute faith in

government. Americans are apparently even more helpless than we

suspected, unable to hie themselves to drugstores or doctors when flu

hits and too stupid to stay home in bed unless held there by martial law

(p. 19 of the /Plan/). Pharmaceutical companies, those geniuses who keep

aspirin flowing onto store shelves and cancer patients alive for

decades, need government's guidance, too. Mere entrepreneurs certainly

couldn't marshal the resources to " improve a flu laboratory in Singapore

and encourag[e] new cell-based vaccine-making technology in this country

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/03/AR2006050301487\

..html>. "

One thing the state won't encourage, however, is supply and demand. That

system may stock American stores to capacity, improving, lengthening and

saving lives, but it can't be trusted to cure bird flu. No, for that we

need " officials " who will " decide who should get limited supplies of

vaccine and antiviral drugs " and " whether the government would dip into

those domestic supplies to help contain a foreign outbreak. " Comforting

to know that bureaucrats who dole out patronage to friends will be

doling out medicine, too. It's a far more personal approach than all

that heartless profiteering with its treatment of anyone and everyone

willing to pay.

Airline passengers obsess this Administration, and its /Plan/ focuses

the usual attention on them. You might suppose the Feds would weary of

tormenting folks after four years of long lines, stocking feet, and

checkpoints, but no. Apparently, warrantless searches and illegal

" detainment " were only a dry run.

Page 14 of the/ Plan /contains these chilling words:

/Quarantine and Isolation of Travelers/

Current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations

for managing air passengers who may be infected with an influenza virus

with pandemic potential include isolation of ill persons, quarantine of

all non-ill travelers (and crew), and targeted treatment and prophylaxis

with antiviral medications. The Federal Government will develop criteria

and protocols for isolation and quarantine of travelers early in a

pandemic, prior to significant spread of the virus in the United States.

Our Rulers have actually been discussing this for a while. /USA Today

/reports

<http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2006-03-09-airports-bird-flu_x.htm>that

only " eighteen airports with heavy international traffic have small

federal quarantine stations. They must rely on airlines and /state and

local authorities /to help identify sick travelers and, if needed,

/quarantine /other passengers. " [Emphasis added throughout.] Looks like

you'll be explaining your sneezes to a cop: " Well, Officer, I've had hay

fever since, hmmm, I guess I was 13, and -- and -- /achoo! /Oh, gee,

sorry. There's a Kleenex in my pocket, if you'd just take these cuffs

off me. "

In the end, logistics may save us: " Most major airports -- Logan in

Boston, Dulles outside Washington, Seattle's SeaTac, Miami and New

York's JFK among them -- haven't found facilities /they can seal off /to

house /a large number /of potentially exposed passengers for /several

days/. " Or maybe not: " If passengers on a jumbo jet /needed to be

quarantined/, 'I don't know what we would do except /leave them on the

plane /while we scramble, and that's not a good answer,' says Jeff

Fitch, SeaTac's public safety director. " Hey, no problem, Jeff. The

Transportation Security Administration has already set precedent

<http://www.click2houston.com/news/4815082/detail.html> for you there.

Astonishingly, sheeple who don't object to screeners' groping them and

who blither such idiocy

<http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2006-05-04-tsa-jokes_x.htm?csp=28>as

" Basically you're glad [the screeners are] there. How do you be

antagonistic toward those guys? " are rebelling against Leviathan's

prescription for aviators with avian flu. The Feds want flight crews to

spy on passengers and report anyone who's coughing or sneezing.

Actually, that's already the law, though most crews, lacking Leviathan's

arrogance and also lacking medical training to diagnose flu, are

understandably reluctant to rat out customers. But bureaucrats rise to

the challenge, according to /USA Today/

<http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2006-03-09-honolulu-airport-birdflu_x.ht\

m>:

" Tapia, chief of the CDC [Centers for Disease Control] quarantine

station here [in Honolulu], pressured airlines to make sure flight crews

report sick patients as required by law. If a flight routinely fails to

report illness, 'I'll go to the jetway and meet the plane myself,' Tapia

says. 'You only have to do that once or twice and they get the

message.' " Indeed.

Also objecting to the /Plan/, though for their usual wrong reasons, are

Congressional Democrats. Ted Kennedy

<http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-05-03-us-flu-plan_x.htm?csp=24>(D-Mass\

..)

suppressed his hiccups long enough to allege that " Other nations have

been implementing their plans for years, but we're reading ours for the

first time now. These needless delays have put Americans at risk. " Not

as much as driving across a bridge with the Senator at the wheel. He

also complained

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/03/AR2006050301487\

_2.html>that

the document " still leaves us without a coherent overall national plan. "

Let's hope so.

Click to join Avian2005 Avian2005/

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