Considering how many musicians have contracted the H1N1 virus, aka swine flu, of late (Marilyn Manson, Kasabian, Jens Lekman, a Backstreet Boy, etc.), I’m not surprised that famous rockers may start chiming in on the national debate over President Obama’s plans for quelling the outbreak and the controversial swine flu vaccine.
Billy Corgan, for one, is quite wary of the vaccine and the potential for mandatory inoculation laws. In fact, he considers some of the messages coming from the government and media to be “propaganda.”
“I say ‘propaganda’ because, in my heart, there is something mighty suspicious about declaring an emergency for something that has yet to show itself to be a grand pandemic,” Corgan writes on his new blog. “Our American President Obama has declared a national emergency about this virus, which he in his own words said was, at this point, a preventative measure. So, why declare an emergency if there isn’t one?”
To be clear, Corgan doesn’t question the dangers of the illness, as he has “friends that have gotten the swine flu,” but he does think it was possibly man-made and has personally chosen to not take the vaccine:
I do not trust those who make the vaccines, or the apperatus [sic] behind it all to push it on us thru fear. This is not judgment; it is a personal decision based on research, intuition, conversations with my doctor and my ‘family’. If the virus comes to take me Home, that is between me and the Lord.
The rest of Corgan’s post consists mostly of philosophical questions regarding mortality and “your own Mind-Body-Soul power,” but he does conclude by criticizing a mandatory vaccination law in Massachusetts, announcing: “Soon, you won’t even have the choice to live OR die as you wish!”
Go here for the master puppeteer’s full rant on propaganda, H1N1 hysteria, and a holistic take on current events.