Where Swine Flu Lurks, Propagandists Rush In
The in Mexico and the frightening possibility of it becoming a global pandemic have provided a little something for just about everyone on the U.S. radical right.
Most predictable are the panic-stricken calls for the military to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border entirely. They鈥檙e including the San Diego Minutemen and the California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR). CCIR head Barbara Coe, however, kicked the insanity up a notch by openly suggesting that God infect Barack Obama, members of his staff and their families with the deadly virus in retribution for Obama鈥檚 support of immigration reform.
鈥淎s many Christians have often spoken, 鈥楾he Lord Works in Mysterious Ways,鈥欌�� Coe began a mass E-mail to CCIR members. 鈥淲ouldn鈥檛 it be even MORE interesting if some of the anti-American-pro-illegal alien AMNESTY traitors (posing as U.S. elected officials) who just visited Mexico, also contracted this disease and shared it with THEIR loved ones? We wonder if they would still vote for 鈥極pen Borders鈥�?鈥�
, head of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, a nativist group commonly known as ALI-PAC, slammed President Obama, too. 鈥淭he Obama administration鈥檚 failure to secure our borders against a possible pandemic is putting American lives at risk at a time when days and hours matter,鈥� he said. (On the ALI-PAC website, Gheen is less subtle about linking Mexican immigrants with infectious disease. 鈥淐all me old fashioned, but people should be able to shop at Wal-Mart without worrying about catching tuberculosis,鈥� he wrote.)
As Media Matters , nationally syndicated right-wing talk radio blowhard Michael Savage floated the theory that Al Qaeda is using Mexican immigrants as carrier 鈥渕ules鈥� to bring the virus into the U.S.: 鈥淸C]ould this be a terrorist attack through Mexico? Could our dear friends in the radical Islamic countries have concocted this virus and planted it in Mexico knowing that you, [Homeland Security Secretary] Janet Napolitano, would do nothing to stop the flow of human traffic from Mexico?鈥�
Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin got in on the action with a column last Saturday, announcing at the outset that she鈥檇 鈥渂logged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the U.S. as a result of uncontrolled immigration.鈥� 鈥淲e鈥檝e heard for years from reckless open-borders ideologues who continue to insist there鈥檚 nothing to worry about,鈥� Malkin wrote. 鈥淎nd we鈥檝e heard for years that calling any attention to the dangers of allowing untold numbers of people to pass across our borders and through our other ports of entry without proper medical screening 鈥� is RAAAACIST.鈥�
Speaking of raaaacist, the worst 鈥� and weirdest 鈥� of this week鈥檚 bigoted swine flu commentary comes courtesy of garrulous anti-immigration extremist Frosty Wooldridge. Writing for rightsidenews.com, he uses a few swift, bold strokes to link Mexicans carrying a flu virus to 鈥淰oodoo tribal people in Florida鈥� hosing themselves down with chicken blood. Check it out:
鈥淪uch outbreaks of diseases stem from cultures that lack personal hygiene, personal health habits and standards for disease prevention. 鈥� Hmongs, tribal people from Laos and Cambodia, immigrated to Minnesota to build chicken wire in their dish cabinets in their kitchens to house hens laying eggs, and goats and pigs in their cellars. Voodoo tribal people in Florida behead chickens and goats to spray the blood over themselves for cleansing. I saw it once in a park in South Florida.鈥�
Wooldridge continues: 鈥淚n other words, as the USA imports another 70 million third world people into this country by 2035, they bring their customs, their cultures, their diseases. We cannot educate them or change their habits fast enough to maintain our own health standards.鈥�
Later on Wooldridge goes off about how Mexicans are bringing cases of leprosy into the U.S. in record numbers as well as swine flu. Regular Hatewatch readers will easily guess the source for that dubious assertion. That鈥檚 right: , the anti-immigration fabulist whose fabricated claims about Latino immigrants and leprosy were on CNN鈥檚 鈥淟ou Dobbs Tonight鈥� in May 2007.
But it鈥檚 not just immigrant-bashers who are seeking to capitalize on swine flu hysteria. The antigovernment conspiracy theorists at InfoWars.com note ominously that 鈥淸o]n Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stoked the fear of a global flu pandemic. He said the Mexican flu outbreak is the 鈥榝irst test鈥� of the 鈥減andemic preparedness work undertaken by the international community over the past three years.鈥�
The obvious conclusion to be drawn?
Take it away, InfoWars: 鈥淜i-moon, the United Nations, and the globalists, with the participation of the globalist-dominated corporate media and the ruling elite in Mexico, are hyping the flu outbreak as a possible pandemic in order to sell us their
scheme for world government.鈥�
Aha. It鈥檚 all so clear now.
