US: Swine flu, hysteria, and politics

Via Lew Rockwell.com: Swine Flu Hysteria to Be Launched Again. Excerpt:

The day that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared a national emergency due to a few swine flu outbreaks almost seems like a front-page story from The Onion. 

Since this "national emergency" lost traction and the swine flu hysteria became nothing more than pesky chattiness, the agents of hysteria have been frustrated at the result of their plans for mass hysteria. 

But Big Government ain't giving up on this one just yet. There's still hysteria to be spread for the purpose of 1) grabbing more powers for government due to the appearance of an extraordinary crisis that is sweeping America and the world, and, even more so, 2) there is still billions to be made for the vaccine producers in the Big Government-Big Pharma corporate state.

Well, the West Bengal media beat up their Communist government for not being hysterical enough about bird flu, so I guess it's fair for the US right wing to complain that Washington under Obama is entirely too hysterical. As Virchow famously said, "Politics is medicine conducted on a large scale."

As I noted in my review of Philip Alcabes's book Dread earlier this week, governments certainly do use disease outbreaks to extend their powers.

But they also do so after dramatic events like bombarding Fort Sumpter, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11. Why no complaints from the Lew Rockwells about those power grabs by Big Government?

The Big Government/Big Pharma idea sounds as much left-wing crank as right-wing crank. Does Mr. Rockwell want mom & pop pharmaceutical companies to start cranking out vaccines in their basements?

As a foe of Big Government, Mr. Rockwell might have been happier if the Bush Administration had sold off the army, navy and air force to private entrepreneurs and then awarded them the contract for the Iraq War. It certainly would have resulted in a much smaller government.

I take comments like Rockwell's as a reflection of an American society that still sees itself blissfully insulated from the sorrows of the non-American world. Other, lesser, browner people die of H5N1, or HIV/AIDS, or dengue, or American mines and cluster bombs. They provide entertainment and talking points to the Rockwells, but their sorrows have no real meaning as the Rockwells define "meaning."

In this the Lew Rockwells are like the citizens of Constantinople in 1453, who preferred to dispute fine theological points in the marketplace while the Turks were coming over the walls.