As many are beginning to notice, the number of deaths attributed to the swine flu in Mexico has been greatly exaggerated. The first sign that something was amiss should have been the absence of information on the identities of the deceased. Missing were the normally present stories on the tragic lives of the victims. The second sign that something was amiss should have been the impressively small number of attributed deaths outside of Mexico. Despite all the hype, we are now finding out that this strain of swine flu is largely benign. How could such a small story have enveloped the world and caused global panic? The only real disaster has been memetic. The virus that threatens us is not a physical virus, but a memetic virus: the false rumor of a pandemic.

This false rumor had a start. It began with the Government of Mexico. The outbreak of a flu no more dangerous than any other flu was spun into an exaggerated story of biblical proportions. Over the past weekend, the President Calderón, without consulting the Mexican Congress, grasped upon this virus and made a decree giving federal authorities the power to invade homes, quarantine people at will, and bring the country to a standstill. His decree was based on a panic intentionally created by the government itself. Why would Calderón do this?

At this moment, Mexico is in the midst of an existential crisis. The combined realities of its corrupt government, the routes of the drug trade, and the neighboring drug market have combined to give rise to a system of drug cartels that rival the Mexican Government in economic power as well as raw firepower. Calderón is losing grip on the country his illegal election stole from Lopez Obrador . This darling of the corrupt Mexican ruling class has little means left with which to hold his grip upon power. Whether or not it will work, he seems to have made the decision to exaggerate a health crisis as a means to consolidate absolute power and to confer upon himself the powers necessary to stamp out those parts of the drug oligarchy not under his personal control. Shutting down the country and gaining access to any and all properties, homes, and businesses serves this purpose. What will come of this naked grasp of power it is too soon to know.

Meanwhile, around the world, the "never let a crisis go unexploited" factions have been having a hay day. In the United States, the pharmaceutical industries, owned in large part by friends of the former Bush Regime, are pumping up the media's drive to scare the hell out of everyone, driving Americans into hospitals and clinics for an injection of Tamiflu and driving politicians to call for the immediate stock piling of yet more Tamiflu. In the Middle East, Islamic Regimes are using the crisis as an excuse to kill pigs and to point to swine flu as Allah's wrath upon infidels. Israel, for its part, has been doing its best to exhibit its ability to control the media by having the name of the flu changed to something it finds more Kosher: The Mexican Flu . Israel has failed to explain how the name "Swine Flu" is any less offensive as the name "Operation Cast Lead ."

Racists are having a good time at it as well. Boston's neo-fascist Jay Severin was suspended from his job as a radio hate show host for referring to Mexican immigrants as "criminaliens," "primitives," "leeches," and "women with mustaches and VD," as well as blaming these defenseless people for bringing swine flu into the United States. There seems to be something in panic for everyone.

The only matter left to determine the end of this story is whether or not Mexico's Calderón will lead the world in a karaoke rendition of "I started a joke" by the Bee Gees.