This is the curse of a movie fan. The WHO has placed the swine flu pandemic at Level 6 and I say to myself that I have seen this happening in movies whose titles I have forgotten.
The plot is formulaic – there’s bad-haired Dr. Frankenstein doing his military-scientific research, attempting to invent a magic-liquid that when dabbed on humans, determines whether they are terrorists or Commies. Then while the mad scientist was taking a nap with a drool sliding from his mouth, his cat sneaked in and stepped on a chemical which spilled and diluted with another concoction – mayhem!!! And a new strain of virus is born to cause wreckage on our “civilization.”
Maybe the movies ruined me to assume that behind a convoluted story are the steady hands of manipulation and conspiracy. Or maybe it’s my political orientation. My brain is programmed to suspect the “Washington consensus” and this neo-liberal project governing our very existence. Or is this just paranoia on my part?
I am not saying that the swine flu pandemic is not real. What I am saying is that it is not a mere health issue. We were all given fair warning at the height of the protest against GATT, that in the IPR provisions where the production of GMOs is explicitly encouraged and tampering of the environment in the guise of research would go unregulated, the result could be the proliferation of new strains of virus.
It looks like the prophecy is manifesting itself.
Before my mother visits me in my dream again, mocking my propensity to paint a political hue in every issue, I will beat her to the punch.
Yes, Myat. The swine flu pandemic is not a mere health issue. It is political.
First, it is an outcome of a political decision to ratify the GATT despite warnings of its detrimental effects on health, on nation-states, on national economies, among other things.
Second, it has been woven into this highly contentious and very political issue of immigration. At the moment, the heat is on Mexico where it supposedly originated. US-Mexico relations is not exactly good-morning-sunshine. There’s NAFTA, the war on drugs, illegal immigrants, and now that the US government has finally admitted its bankrupt economy because it cannot shroud it any longer, calls to “close the border” could gain a lot of support.
Third, the quarantine law is proving to be a headache on political diplomacy. The Mexican government recently decried China’s strictness. Who determines when national interests end and racial discrimination begins?
Fourth, those lunatics at Fox News are howling this could be a form of bioterrorism. Well, they say loonies don’t lie. Seriously, they are sounding off the usual suspects – those men wearing robes and who pray to their God 6 times a day.
It’s not as if the US needs a valid justification to fire its guns. For the sake of argument, let’s agree with those loonies. Why would the Arabs sacrifice Mexicans? More significantly, is there a technology in the world more superior and sophisticated than that of the US? If there’s one country that has invented and mastered bioterrorism, it’s the US.
Will the US be even made to confess its preoccupation in creating its own monsters and demons? Don’t ask me. Observe how US officials defend the use of torture by its military. Take Condoleeza Rice who argued without rhyme and reason that if an action is approved by the president, therefore legal, it’s not torture. Is this how mainstream America thinks? I mean, this is a culture that introduced wild ideas like collateral damage, low-intensity conflict, preventive containment, among other things.
And the devil of it all? The US still wins in this so-called pandemic. This pandemic, more than anything, has legitimized the use of thermal scanners and other devices invasive of individual privacy. As if the US needs another excuse to pry and spy on its citizens and the rest of the world. Essentially, the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has been strengthened.
That’s just swell – in the name of security, you have a government which thinks it’s legal to read your mails and horoscopes before you do, to tap your phone in case you’re talking to Martians, spy on the contents of your belly, and monitor your body temperature. What’s next? Clearly the US is becoming a police-state if it isn’t one already.
And you know what? I first learned about it in movies.
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5 comments:
I think the movie was Outbreak yung kay Dustin Hoffman at Renee Russo.
i can relate to that : you first learned about it in movies. there’s an article in Reader’s Digest Asia December 2005 issue which tells about Hollywood films predicting events. For example the bombing of the World Trade Center last September 11, 2002. There was a film shown years before that event. I forgot the title of the article and the RD Dec 2005 issue is not with me that is why i cannot expound on that.
Joahnna, I am not too sure I watched those movies you’re referring.
Movies, for all their crappiness, carry certain realities and if you watch the right ones, you actually get schooled. The cinema for me is a fascinating classroom.
the sky is falling! the sky is falling! the men in suits are good in capitalizing on unfounded fears. Look what it got us- a war in Iraq and rubles in Afghanistan. And N.Korea? No one wants to deal with it cause that's where the real danger lies.
And the world is enveloped in a cloak of secrecy and those men in monkey suits know the language code.
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