Connecting the Dots: Swine Flu, Global Warming, Goldman Sachs

As the media continues to bombard us with fear-laden stories about swine flu, global warming, the economic downturn, etc, I’ve become increasingly aware of the very same underlying theme behind such stories that writer Steven Grant outlines below. This is taken from his most recent column, Permanent Damage, which appears each Wednesday at www.comicbookresources.com (yes, I’m an avid fan of comic books, but I primarily read Steven’s column because of his insightful views on world events). I was planning to write a piece about what Steven discusses myself, but he did such a cogent, intelligent job of it that I’m sharing his version instead. Here it is:

“Back in the real world, all kinds of interesting and bizarre things seem to be going on. The new swine flu continues to generate urgency and panic, mostly among governments and news agencies, with several European and American state governments gearing up for mandatory vaccinations (for anyone who doesn't voluntarily get one, of course, so they can maintain the illusion that vaccinations are voluntary), and various members of the federal government have been putting forth the idea that mandatory vaccine shots are entirely Constitutional, suggesting the Feds are considering it as well. Meanwhile, the virus seems not to be cooperating very well in the production of sufficient volume of vaccine (everyone needs two shots, apparently), and levels aren't rising fast enough for interested parties' tastes. There's also much talk of bypassing FDA testing and approval procedures – emergency, you know – to speed delivery, while exempting vaccine manufacturers from lawsuit in the event vaccines. (There are several different ones being made by different companies, all of them qualifying as experimental at best.) While such exemptions are fairly standard, historically swine flu vaccines have done more harm than good, as in 1976, when public outcry forced the government to abandon vaccinations after deaths and the paralyzing Guillain-Barré syndrome were connected to the vaccinations.

That year swine flu came and went without much widespread effect.

What makes this year's version interesting isn't so much the flu itself – the deaths associated with it so far appear to only result in people with already seriously compromised immune systems, meaning that in symptom and effect it's pretty much like any other flu – but that the promotion of a vaccine has followed almost exactly on the 1976 script, with dire warnings that, after a very mild spring and summer as far as flu cases go, it will mutate and return with a vengeance in the fall. But why are they so sure it will mutate, and if it does, why so sure it'll mutate into a devastating variety? A slew of contradictory messages from the World Health Organization hasn't helped much. News that they're "tweaking" the virus, ostensibly to help antivirus manufacture, comes on the heels of news they're investigating reports the flu is man-made, in labs in, of all places, my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where samples of the horrific 1918 Spanish flu drawn a couple years ago from a frozen Inuit corpse of that era have been experimented with. (A genetic similarity of the "Mexican" flu, as it's called in Europe, to the Spanish flu is the legitimate concern in all this.) Meanwhile, WHO also quietly (or, rather, barely) announced they will no longer tally swine flu-related deaths. No reason was given, but the implication is clear: there aren't enough deaths to support the hysteria campaigns surrounding the flu.

But in England, at least, flu fever rages on, as it was revealed that Tony Blair's wife contracted the dastardly bug. The message spread far and wide by Britain's media was that even the families of the famous and powerful

That this should come at a moment when other European nations are facing their own populace resistance to immunizations and when Blair is openly politicking with the EU to effectively become president of Europe makes for... interesting timing.

Thrown into this mish-mash is Goldman-Sachs, the brokerage firm that recently infuriated the nation by posting massive profits and huge bonuses for their latest quarter after cheerfully soaking up billions in government aid after pleading impending financial disaster following last year's sub-prime crash and its fallout. Hidden for most amid all that outrage is that Goldman-Sachs is suing a former employee who allegedly stole proprietary software that a judge declared can be used to manipulate the entire market.

Aside from its status as an old and venerated investment firm with strong ties to the government (not to mention the Russians), what guarantee do we have that Goldman-Sachs hasn't been using their software to manipulate the stock market? Would they have developed this software without intent to use it? Considering the profits they seem to have cobbled together while all around them in investments are holding on for dear life. We can "blame" everything on the free market, but manipulation and free market forces are often hard to distinguish in the moment, as in the 2002 California energy crisis (from which the West has never really recovered – its effects went well beyond California – and which greatly contributed to California's current economic crisis) that was originally chalked up to "market forces" but turned out to be the work of an energy cartel rigging prices.

What ties all this together is a meme that I ran across four times while flipping channels in the last week. (Sorry, they came and went too fast to have noted references.) Russia's President Medvedev, talking to member of the EU, brought up the possibility of a world government. Discussing last October's financial collapse and the ongoing international financial crisis, a financial guru on CNBC announced another, worse financial crisis will hit within six months (he didn't specify its nature) and the only way to deal with or prevent these financial crises is a single world government – he called it crucial and necessary - with the power to control all currencies and regulate all financial transactions. A health official (not sure if he was CDC or some other organization) suggested that the current swine flu may only be the first of many "superbugs" facing us in this century and that the most effective way to deal with the impending threat is a world government that can act unilaterally to combat them. Someone promoting Al Gore's global warming agenda (which has been taking some pretty severe hits lately, seemingly making many who've warmed to Gore's ideas even more determined to enact a sweeping anti-global warming program ASAP) was lauding the virtues of the "carbon credits" idea being shoved through Congress at the moment and stated the best way to ensure carbon credits were being traded fairly (though, it should be mentioned, Gore owns the trading system and would personally profit on every trade) and keep it from becoming another bubble/bust in the making is – say it with me now – a world government overseeing the whole thing.

I'm not exactly a John Bircher, but when the same thing is mentioned in this many different contexts in such a short space of time, something's in the air, or something's in the water. What gives? The wider context most of them share is the concept of imminent and critical necessity - the same premise for the Iraq War, and while I'm generally in line with global warning crew some of them are getting pretty damn scary in a Robespierre kind of way. Anyway, in the midst of all this, it suddenly came to me what Al Gore really wants with this whole carbon credits sideshow. (The basic translation of carbon credits: you can still pollute and burn energy as much as you want, as long as you buy someone off.)

He wants to be the first President Of Earth. (Take that, land that robbed him of his triumph in 2000!)

These are the questions I'd like answered: why is everyone talking one-world government in passing all of a sudden? Why is that suddenly supposed to be the answer to all crises? Should we ever make decisions based on crisis necessity, since the tools clearly exist to generate any crisis necessary, whether political, economic, environmental or medical? And if Blair, Gore & Medvedev duke it out to be first president of the world, can we make it a cage match?

(Note: No Fox News program, personality or source was consulted in the writing of this piece.)” are not safe from the bug… What was severely downplayed in the reports was her relatively mild incapacitation – was there ever a moment when she seemed anywhere near death? – and that neither Tony nor their children (so far) contracted the flu. So how contagious is it, really?

Copyright © 2009 by Steven Grant. All rights reserved.)

All I will add to Steven’s comments is that I personally believe that the agenda for a one-world government has been in the works since at least the dawn of the 20^th century, and that things have slowly but inexorably moving in that direction primarily due to the increasingly intrusive control of government in our lives under the guise of social services and national security.Additionally, I do not believe the official stories about swine flu, global warming, or the economy. My view is that they are all media manipulations in service of an elite agenda.