A medic wearing protective gear attends to a sick child carried by her mother
in the emergency area where people with swine flu-like symptoms are checked
at the naval hospital in Mexico City, Friday May 1, 2009.
(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
May 3, 2009
Dead pigs found in a south eastern province of China, an Al Qaeda plot involving Mexican drug cartels, pharmaceutical companies working with the International Monetary Fund and G-7, are just a few of the conspiracy theories attempting to explain the deadly swine influenza outbreak in Mexico.
Unfortunately, after a big event like the current swine influenza epidemic, conspiracy theories inevitably appear.
Governments and private entities do engage in conspiracies. However, most conspiracies do not hold up under critical inspection. The problem of succumbing too easily to a conspiracy theory in the present crisis is that it can be damaging to the immediate action needed to avert a possible worldwide pandemic. Conspiracy thinking can produce a deep cynicism towards positive action and long-term organizing upon which change depends. Conspiracy theories also increase the anxiety of an already fearful public.
What we need is to find the source of the new virus and how it jumped to humans, which could lead to more effective vaccines and drugs to help prevent future outbreaks. Now we need sound science, not wild conspiracy theories.
The Hunger Site
May 4, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Hey Ralph,
The first case of this swine flu came from a Mexican village set next to 800,000 pigs in an American farm made possible by NAFTA cause the company (Smithfield) had paid over a hundred million in fines (largest in American history) for polluting rivers in Virginia. They went to Mexico, made a toxic stew of pig shit and that’s the truth.
What happened to the objective observer of the Zionist state when it comes to swine flu?
h.
May 4, 2009 at 7:40 am
Comment on the comments: Too many Americans are uncritical consumers of information. Tell a whopper (the larger the better) often enough and many people will come to accept it as the truth. Now many of these same gullible consumers are falling for swine flu scams. Let the buyer beware (caveat emptor) when evaluating information and product claims. Trust, but verify.
May 3, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Allah is punishing mankind for not being Muslim. It’s as simpla as that.
May 3, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I swear, I wonder if we are living in the “enlightened” 21st Century or in the days when the European powers were pointing fingers at each other over the spread of syphilis. Knowledge and common sense are still at the mercy of the ignorant among us.
May 3, 2009 at 10:13 am
This essay is awfully short on facts and long on opinion. What does Stone want to accomplish?
His argument echoes so many of the most pedestrian ones heard since 9/11, an event which was clearly NOT what the official investigation claimed it was.
Whatever the origin of the Swine Flu– we know for certain that in the absence of facts and trust of government and media… people panic, as we have seen, much more easily.
Stone’s attempt to stifle investigation and bolster the prejudice that people who ask questions are nuts simply retreads the bound minds of consensus opinion.
A healthy skepticism of EVERYTHING is called for in our times.
Even while wondering how much Donald Rumsfeld has made off of Aspartame and is making off of Tamiflu, I personally admire how comedian George Carlin responded to a question someone posed to him about 9/11.
He said, “I always question the received reality…. The people who are in charge do what they want. And they will always do what they want.”
http://tinyurl.com/yuplyr