The fine print: Swine Flu is another excuse to consolidate power

In another example of how the media is just an unpaid PR arm for the government, this Australian headline was shared by an Aussie friend on face book: "Hunt for 22 on Mexico flu flight"

Not too far down the page we can find this perfect little gem of government disrespect for the people they claim to protect.

"Australian health authorities were given sweeping powers to forcibly detain and isolate suspected carriers late yesterday."

Elsewhere, it's reported that North Carolina health officials are putting their citizens under forced quarantine - essentially a house arrest.

And over what? Apparently only 18 of the 200 that have died in Mexico city have been tested and definitively connected to this "new" flu strain. The CDC claims that 30-40,000 people die in this country from flu. But so far, nobody in any country outside Mexico has died from the misnamed swine flu. Yet public health authorities are panicking and asking us to panic right along with them. How panicky is enough? Why that it will be just perfect for them if you give them broad police powers that allow them to detain you, lock you up and inject you with whatever medication will enrich their big-Pharma benefactors.

Goering on War

From The Nuremberg Diary by Gustave Gilbert.

Sweating in his cell in the evening, Goering was defensive and deflated and not very happy over the turn the trial was taking. He said that he had no control over the actions or the defense of the others, and that he had never been anti-Semitic himself, had not believed these atrocities, and that several Jews had offered to testify in his behalf. If [Hans] Frank [Governor-General of occupied Poland] had known about atrocities in 1943, he should have come to him and he would have tried to do something about it. He might not have had enough power to change things in 1943, but if somebody had come to him in 1941 or 1942 he could have forced a showdown. (I still did not have the desire at this point to tell him what [SS General Otto] Ohlendorf had said to this: that Goering had been written off as an effective "moderating" influence, because of his drug addiction and corruption.) I pointed out that with his "temperamental utterances," such as preferring the killing of 200 Jews to the destruction of property, he had hardly set himself up as champion of minority rights. Goering protested that too much weight was being put on these temperamental utterances. Furthermore, he made it clear that he was not defending or glorifying Hitler.

...

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."