Would BushCo use a bird flu pandemic as an excuse for a coup?

[FormerRepublican]

I've been watching development in bird flu for quite a long time. WHO seems to think it will eventually go pandemic, we just don't know when. We don't know how bad it will be, but we do know that if it does go pandemic, it will cause disruption around the world.

That worries me with BushCo in office. The reason why it worries me is that BushCo seems to use every event as an opportunity to seize more power. That makes me wonder what BushCo might do if bird flu goes pandemic and it's bad. I do know that the Department of Homeland Security will be in charge if bird flu goes pandemic.

What do you think those whacks in Washington might do? Declare martial law? Stay in office at the end of their term despite a President-elect? Seize power and turn the US into a dictatorship? Will they quarantine everyone without food or supplies? Will they make sure BushCo gets vaccinations but no one else? Will they leave our soldiers in Iraq with bird flu rampant, or bring them home before they're infected? If bird flu causes unrest overseas, will BushCo use it as an excuse to take power in other countries?

I KNOW that BushCo can't resist the lure of more power. So, the idea of a pandemic makes me :scared: beyond the fear of the pandemic itself.

[Darkhawk32]

1. They'd DO ANYTHING to pull off a coup. People like Bush and Co. don't ...

give up power willingly.

[corker]

2. I heard on Tom Hartman

that Homeland security will handle a bird flu epidemic. CDC should do this job...

[TomInTib]

8. Chertoff announced this personally Thursday

with no debate Homeland Security just took it away from CDC.
Remember when they claimed they could immunize everyone in the US in a few days and then the doctors and nurses refused to be innoculated with whatever crap it was they had?

[applegrove]

3. Hmm. Something you cannot see. The perfect enemy for Bush.

[Poppyseedman]

4. How do you know that???

I do know that the Department of Homeland Security will be in charge if bird flu goes pandemic.

I thought the CDC would be in charge of a outbreak

[FormerRepublican]

10. It was in the press...

"The head of the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that his agency --- and not the federal health establishment --- would manage the nation's response if a deadly new strain of bird flu evolved into a human pandemic.

Public health officials expressed dismay at the assertion by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

"They don't have the infrastructure at Homeland Security, or the technical expertise, to handle" a pandemic, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, who was Maryland's health officer during the 2001 anthrax attacks."

http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/news_34c09175043fd0ef10d0.html

[blue sky at night]

5. how many rounds should I lay in for............

the 12gage shotgun I am thinking about buying?
Mike Malloy suggests we all gain a firearm and learn how to use it. Your post makes me think strongly about that Idea.

[Eloriel]

6. Absolutely n/t

[BlueJac]

7. GW would hide

Homeland security.....what a fucking joke....they can't handle their own dicks, like Cheney.

[rbjensen]

9. I run all day in

an ambulance and I hope to God the bird flu stays with the birds. I have visions of "throw out Yer DeaD!" Health care workers will be the first to go.

But the power of the POTUS doesn't mean much to a mutated microbe. Who's to say he'd survive it?

[FormerRepublican]

16. With Bush?

I think he'd make sure he got the one and only dose of the vaccine.

Then he'd hide out in his bunker until the chaos was over.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

11. I have said for a long time

Democrats need to be less worried about who they are running for the next election, and more worried about if there is going to be a next election.

[wli]

12. Bush's bird flu warheads are ready to strike every blue city in the US n/t

[shance]

13. There was interesting information about Rumsfeld and his

coincidental connections with some pharmaceutical companies that made vaccinations for flus and how he seemed to be intertwined with both.

It was strange.

The more we peel the onion, the more Rumsfeld keeps coming to the surface.

Does anyone remember and/or have such information? It was a while back.

I will see what I can find

[shance]

14. Here are the posts. Rumsfeld and Gilead Sciences.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2865001

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2933383#2934219

[FormerRepublican]

17. That gave me more chills over bird flu than I ALREADY had!

:scared:

[sam sarrha]

15. well we dont have ANY capability of making vaccines..

what does that tell you

[area51]

18. Er...

Seems to me that there's already been a coup in this country.

[Hekate]

19. The coup d'etat already took place in 2000

And it's been all downhill from there.

In my lifetime we used to be a country that could take care of any medical emergency on our own -- we knew we had a Public Health System (read: paid for with our taxes, run by our government, and not privatized) that would do everything in its power to quell whatever epidemic came our way.

The 1918 influenza pandemic killed something like 20 million people around the world, many in the US; the US experienced outbreaks of smallpox into the 20th century as well; TB was a killer; polio was a killer.

But the whole point of a Public Health System is that as many people as humanly possible will receive treatment; if quarantines are indicated, quarantines will be sensibly enforced in order to stop the infection from spreading out of control in the general population; and when a vaccine is available, everyone will get it.

That last part is what happened with polio. Every parent in the country knew what it could do, and it scared them spitless. When the Salk vaccine was introduced it was distributed at elementary schools -- I remember my parents walked me and my three sibs over to ours and that the line stretched out to the playground and beyond. I do NOT recall any money changing hands for us to get our arms injected.

And the United States of America sure as hell did not decide that an overseas nation could produce polio vaccine more cheaply and then outsource it. We would have been ashamed to do so. We could take care of our own.

Last year I was unable to get my flu shot because there was a shortage, because production had been outsourced overseas to a plant in Britain, and when there was a screw-up at that plant the US could not recoup the loss. Needless to say I was aghast, not so much for myself as for my country.

Privatizing and militarizing Public Health programs .... Who does it serve?

Hekate
#Why won't the Chickenhawk cross the road?#

[KoKo]

20. Remember the Flu Epidemic that was supposed to occur this Winter?

Remember when Glaxo-Smith Kline's labs in Europe had to stop production because of contamination and CNN and the rest hyped that we would have a major loss of life because there wasn't enough vaccine? Remember the boost the company that makes Tami-flu got even though their vaccine wasn't really made for the strain the "Pandemic Hypists" were talking about?

I don't remember huge amounts of folks dying this Winter from the flu. It all seemed to go away. Was it a boondoggle for certain drug companies hyping it? Did the administration hype it as part of "fear factor" and interest in giving the drug companies more money in their pockets? Maybe the companies they or one of their buddies or relatives have an interest in? Who knows. :shrug: Maybe "Bird Flu Pandemic" is the same hype?

[leesa]

21. Without a doubt. They've been flying the idea for a long time now.

Why do you think such care was taken to ensure these provisions would be written into the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and would be placed under the juristiction of Homeland Security? Why the tinkering with the 1918 flu virus?

The Neocons have long held that the world's population MUST be drastically reduced if we are to survive. Some have come out and stated it directly.