An uncontrollable, deadly virus ravages America, shutting down civilian institutions and triggering martial law. Vaccinations are compulsory, and there are mass quarantines throughout the country.
It's the stuff of Hollywood — but rumors that it could be real are spreading like the flu in the blogosphere, where some people are loudly expressing their fears that the federal government is seriously considering such measures as it maps out a worst-case-scenario response to the swine flu pandemic.
During the bird flu scare of 2005, the Bush administration added novel forms of influenza — including the swine flu — to the official list of "quarantinable communicable diseases," clearing the way for the forced detention of people who exhibit symptoms of the disease.
Now a proposal awaiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates' approval would allow the military to set up regional teams to assist civilian authorities in dealing with the impact of the swine flu pandemic. And some observers see this level of government preparedness as little more than a pretext for tyranny.
"The implications are far reaching," Michel Chossudovsky wrote on the Global Research Web site, which averages 18,000 visitors daily. "The decision points toward the establishment of a police state," he said.
Astonishingly, after Cobb allows adults a brief appearance in her story to admit that using the military is unlikely and that government planners must think in worst-case terms to avoid being unprepared, she ends with a non sequitur that indicates her editor's probably sucking down umbrella drinks on some Caribbean vacation:
So rewrite the script: An uncontrollable, deadly virus ravages the population, triggering martial law to protect a handful of survivors lucky enough to get a vaccination.
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