Real National Security

Rep. Mark Pocan has introduced a bill that would redirect 1.3 percent of the US military budget, or $9.6 billion, to vaccinating another 30 percent of the world’s population in the coming year. That is a good first step but will the US Congress, many of whose members are bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, pony up that much? Or more – by my calculation 4% of our military budget should pay to vaccinate close to 100% of the world’s population?

 

Of course, there are other ways to achieve this, like forcing the big pharmaceutical companies to get off their patent asses and allow (no, now that I think about it – “help” would be even better) counties in the Global South to produce the vaccines. For free! They’ve already made obscene profits from the vaccine; to quote Bernie Sanders, “Enough is enough”.

 

With the US death toll over 600,000 and climbing, with the increasing possibility of further mutations, which could very well be more deadly and vaccine resistant, and with the virus devastating people in the Global South, what could be more important for national security? More and “better” drones?

 

We don’t even have to appeal to the moral obligation to our fellow human beings (although that would be a welcome relief from the extreme self-indulgence that has become an overreaching cultural norm) since it is in the interest of everyone to end this plague. NOW!  

 

And think of the good will it would produce around the world. It might even undo some of the effects of the US’s War on Terror, although I would argue that it will take a lot more than that. But as I noted in the beginning, it would be a good first step.