War Is the Health of the State
This essay by Jeffrey Sachs is the most acute dissection that I've read in a long time of War Inc., the United States's most booming industry. Why are we in Ukraine, why are we in Gaza, why are we everywhere blood flows? Read this and weep -- then work to overthrow this death system. Life in 2024! That's my New Year's wish.
Btw, speaking of our broken healthcare system, as we are below, Sachs also denounces Health Inc.
From Jeffrey Sachs's essay:
Despite these remarkable and costly debacles, one following the other, the same cast of characters has remained at the helm of US foreign policy for decades, including Joe Biden, Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, and Hillary Clinton.
What gives?
The puzzle is solved by recognizing that American foreign policy is not at all about the interests of the American people. It is about the interests of the Washington insiders, as they chase campaign contributions and lucrative jobs for themselves, staff, and family members. In short, US foreign policy has been hacked by big money...
To understand the foreign-policy scam, think of today’s federal government as a multi-division racket controlled by the highest bidders. The Wall Street division is run out of the Treasury. The Health Industry division is run out of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Big Oil and Coal division is run out of the Departments of Energy and Interior. And the Foreign Policy division is run out of the White House, Pentagon and CIA.
Each division uses public power for private gain through insider dealing, greased by corporate campaign contributions and lobbying outlays. Interestingly, the Health Industry division rivals the Foreign Policy division as a remarkable financial scam. America’s health outlays totaled an astounding $4.5 trillion in 2022, or roughly $36,000 per household, by far the highest health costs in the world, while America ranked roughly 40th in the world among nations in life expectancy. A failed health policy translates into very big bucks for the health industry, just as a failed foreign policy translates into mega-revenues of the military-industrial complex.
On December 22, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield abstained from a watered-down UN resolution to provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza.