Over 16,508,917 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?

But wait, there's more!

The Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response "works in close collaboration with key partners, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. HHS, through ASPR/BARDA, executes acquisition programs, utilizing the Special Reserve Fund commensurate with these priorities. HHS also works to promote open communication of U.S. Government needs to industry, an essential partner in Project BioShield. The availability of a substantial, long-term funding source was designed to provide the incentive for industry to respond to U.S. Government requirements and develop critical medical countermeasures for the American public."

And I thought saving lives would be incentive enough. What was I thinking!

This is accomplished through the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise (PHEMCE). Like ASPR/BARDA, the PHEMCE includes "key interagency partners" the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Agriculture.

As Antifascist Calling pointed out in previous articles notably "Bringing the (Bio) War Home," under cover of protecting the nation's food supply, USDA facilities such as the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) in partnership with the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) carries out dangerous dual-use research that endangers the health and safety of the public.

In the intervening years since Project BioShield legislation was enacted, things have gone from bad to worse. Since after all, the "business of government is business," giant multinational drug consortiums have been the law's biggest winners. And if the National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB) has its way, HHS's corporate partners stand to reap an even-greater windfall.

The intelligence and security web site Cryptome posted an August 11 notice buried deep inside the Federal Register.

The NBSB is seeking public comment on the group's new working document, "Inventory of Issues Constraining or Enabling Industry Involvement in Medical Countermeasure Efforts." Cutting through the bureaucratic jargon, NBSB's "Market & Sustainability Work Group" seeks to hand over even more cash to their "industry partners."

Apparently the FDA's already "streamlined" review process and "contracting flexibility" under Project BioShield isn't enough for the corporate freebooters reaping billions in hand outs.

NBSB proposes to further "incentivize" industry by "increased federal funding for advanced development, in the form of cost-reimbursement contracts and rewarding private-capital investments with milestone payments at procurement." This would give the drug industry the following "advantage:" "Risk of distraction of large industry partners from commercial mission or dilution of effort [potential conflict with fiduciary responsibility to shareholders of publicly traded companies]."

Under NBSB's proposal, the drug industry stands to grab "reimbursement of development costs + 15%, with return-on-working-capital at 22%, and cost-of-money-for-capital at 15%."

If said corporate patriots swing into action during a national emergency, then "compensation if commercial product(s) during emergencies (e.g., lost sales, market share, delayed licensing" are fully paid by the federal government.

Nice work if you can get it!

While it is vital that government, particularly our civilian institutions, plan for contingencies that may arise as the result of a pandemic outbreak of disease or a terrorist attack, the secrecy and opaque procedures surrounding entities such PHEMCE only fuel suspicion.

Indeed, PHEMCE's Enterprise Executive Committee, chaired by BARDA and charged with implementing "tactical activities," particularly when such policies are not clearly spelled-out, bolster arguments by Boston University's Wendy Mariner that "proposals to limit liberty represent a dangerous precedent to constitutional theory, particularly when there's almost no evidence it will matter."

But perhaps the revival of Bush-era quarantine proposals and the NBSB's free gifts to corporations already plush with veritable mountains of cash "matter" in a different sense, one which those of us armed with socialist "conspiracy theories" fail to grasp.

Pentagon Power-Grab: Militarizing the Heimat

As we have witnessed on more than one occasion in recent American history, the nature of a national security state is precisely to usurp civilian power and transfer it to opaque, unaccountable militarist bureaucracies such as the Pentagon.

The Hill reported August 10 that "a bipartisan pair of governors is opposing a new Defense Department proposal to handle natural and terrorism-related disasters, contending that a murky chain of command could lead to more problems than solutions."

Vermont Governor Jim Douglas (R), the chairman of the National Governors Association and Vice Chairman, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin (D) wrote a letter opposing the Pentagon power-grab.

Under current law, governors and not the Department of Defense, exercise control over National Guard units in their own states as well as DoD personnel or any other Guard units from other states deployed under their jurisdiction.

Their objections arose over a Pentagon proposal for a "legislative fix" that would give the Secretary of Defense authority "to assist in response to domestic disasters and, consequently, control over units stationed in an affected state," The Hill revealed.

"We are concerned that the legislative proposal you discuss in your letter would invite confusion on critical command and control issues, complicate interagency planning, establish stove-piped response efforts, and interfere with governors' constitutional responsibilities to ensure the safety and security of their citizens," Douglas and Manchin wrote to Paul Stockton, assistant secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and America's Security Affairs. (Reid Wilson, "Governors Oppose DoD Emergency Powers," The Hill, August 10, 2009)

After objections by governors were raised to a similar proposal in the House version of the fiscal 2009 Defense authorization legislation, it was removed from the final version of the bill. It now seems however, that the Pentagon is back seeking to expand their writ over civilian institutions.

That this latest proposal arrives simultaneously with a mandate for new Executive Branch authority to quarantine sick people, should raise public alarm levels. The Bush regime's proposal would have handed the state authority to order a "provisional quarantine" of three business days, up to six calendar days, for individuals suspected of being infected with H1N1 "or other illnesses listed in a presidential executive order."

Under regulations proposed, but never implemented by the previous administration, airlines and cruise lines would have been required to store personal data on passengers "including email addresses, traveling companions and return flight information." Indeed, the information "would be subject to review by federal officials in a health emergency, though it would be voluntary for passengers to provide the data," according to Politico.

This series of disturbing reports follow close on the heels of analysis by Michel Chossudovsky, that a decision has been reached by U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) to establish regional teams of military personnel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a "significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall."

Chossudovsky avers that "the decision points towards the militarization of civilian institutions, including law enforcement and public health." This assertion is validated by the Politico report. Objecting to the DoD's desire to usurp civilian authority over National Guard forces, the letter by prominent governors underscores the danger to civil liberties by an out-of-control Pentagon bureaucracy hell-bent on "assisting" civil institutions.

Citing the military's consideration of "a plan to give transportation and laboratory help to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the event of a major outbreak," Chossudovsky writes:

Much of the groundwork for the intervention of the military has already been established. There are indications that these "regional teams" have already been established under USNORTHCOM, which has been involved in preparedness training and planning in the case of a flu pandemic.

Within the broader framework of "Disaster Relief," Northern Command has, in the course of the last two years, defined a mandate in the eventuality of a public health emergency or a flu pandemic. The emphasis is on the militarization of public health whereby NORTHCOM would oversee the activities of civilian institutions involved in health related services. (Michel Chossudovsky, "H1N1 Pandemic: Pentagon Planning Deployment of Troops in Support of Nationwide Vaccination," Global Research, July 31, 2009)

They wouldn't do that, would they?

Since his inauguration in January, President Barack Obama's administration has continued the repressive policies of the Bush regime. From warrantless wiretapping to corporate give-aways, and from presidential signing statements and the indefinite detention of "terrorism" suspects to the escalation of imperialist adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, like Bush, the Obama administration represents the continuity of policies across a narrow bipartisan political spectrum, designed to bolster the national security state.

Moves to implement quarantine regulations and Pentagon plans to assume control during a national public health emergency are clear signs that democratic decision-making processes in the United States are growing weaker by the day.

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, his articles can be read on Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily, Pacific Free Press and the whistleblowing website Wikileaks. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press.

Leave a comment!
html comments NOT enabled!
NOTE: If you post content that is offensive, adult, or NSFW (Not Safe For Work), your account will be deleted.[?]

giphy icon
last post
9 years ago
posts
149
views
43,530
can view
everyone
can comment
everyone
atom/rss

other blogs by this author

 7 years ago
Health Tips
 8 years ago
Nowadays
 8 years ago
Crafting
 12 years ago
Song Lyrics
 13 years ago
Stories
blogroll (list of blogs that the blogger recommends)
10 years ago 
huhwot by 3442332  
official fubar blogs
 8 years ago
fubar news by babyjesus  
 13 years ago
fubar.com ideas! by babyjesus  
 10 years ago
fubar'd Official Wishli... by SCRAPPER  
 10 years ago
Word of Esix by esixfiddy  

discover blogs on fubar

blog.php' rendered in 0.0432 seconds on machine '54'.