Battle Plan
I have argued that Flublogia has accomplished a great deal, but, thus far, we have failed to get a public education campaign from the Federal government to explain to people the need to prepare for a pandemic. A brutal dictatorship and its corporate allies are responsible for this failure, imo.
In this blog, I will suggest several measures we can take to compel our governments to do the right thing and give the public the information they need to survive a pandemic.
1. Get allies.
Flublogia is a small group. Our numbers are not sufficient to get the attention of politicians. Our past successes have depended on help from others. We need more help.
A severe pandemic will affect certain people disproportionately. For example, how will people with kidney disease get dialysis when 40% of the providers are ill and utilities are erratic? There are 214,000 people who need dialysis every year in the US alone. What will happen to them during a pandemic? Perhaps we should tell them.
Essential workers may be expected to work during a pandemic:
Most professional health-care organizations have policies recognizing duty to care, even
at risk of harm to practitioners and their families.
From: An Ethical Framework for Use in a Pandemic. Report of The Iowa Pandemic Influenza Ethics Committee (p. 27)
How many of them know this? Perhaps we should tell them.
We will be most effective if we target an audience we have a direct connection with. For example, a number of members of Flublogia who are nurses have been very successful in getting our message to their fellow nurses through forums popular with nurses. It would be great if more people joined other forums with large audiences. Each group needs to hear that the government knows that H5N1 may go pandemic with its current CFR but that they aren't telling the public about it. And then explain exactly what that means to them.
2. Go viral
We desperately need some good YouTube videos. As we have all seen, these things can be incredibly effective. They level the playing field between informed citizens and the often biased MSM. Production values count almost as much as content, so these would have to be well done. I'm thinking of a series of videos, each a few minutes long, and each designed to maximize outrage about the government's failure to provide the public with accurate information about a severe pandemic.
3. Get elected
One of the great things about living in a free country is that many public officials are elected. It may not be realistic to try to become the next mayor of New York, but there are lots of offices that people can run for and win. Just ask Pixie! Once you become an elected official, your opinions automatically take on a new authority. When you challenge some clueless unelected PH official about local plans for a severe pandemic, they will have to take you seriously. The more elected officials we have in our ranks, the more leverage we will have with the Federal government.
These tactics have worked for other Davids in their battles with Goliath, and I think they could work for us as well. Any other suggestions would be welcome.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
