The Healthcare/Mortality Crisis in the US began 40 years before COVID

 

Even before the pandemic began, more people here were dying at younger ages in the US than in other wealthy nations. A lot more.

In an article in the latest issue of the Atlantic, Ed Jong describes the result of a study by Jacob Bor, an epidemiologist at Boston University School of Public Health, using data from an international mortality database and the CDC. “For every year from 1933 to 2021, they compared America’s mortality rates with the average of Canada, Japan, and 16 Western European nations (adjusting for age and population).” They concluded that, starting in the 1980s the mortality rate in the US exceeded that of the average of other wealthy countries and that gap has been increasing ever since. They termed the excess deaths as “missing Americans”.

“By 2019, the number of missing Americans had grown to 626,000. After COVID arrived, that statistic ballooned even further—to 992,000 in 2020, and to 1.1 million in 2021. Were the U.S. ‘just average compared to other wealthy countries, not even the best performer, fully a third of all deaths last year would have been prevented.’ That includes half of all deaths among working-age adults.”

The U.S. had the worst COVID outbreak in the industrialized world—not just because of what the Trump did or didn’t do, but also because of fact that our whole economic and political system is failing to meet people’s needs, with healthcare being the most dramatic example. “COVID simply did more of what life in America has excelled at for decades: killing Americans in unusually large numbers, and at unusually young ages.”

We know that American’s life expectancy has been lower other comparable countries since the 1970s. By 2010, that gap was 1.9 years; by the end of 2021, it had grown to 5.3 years. Many countries took a longevity hit because of COVID, but the US was once again exceptional. It experienced the biggest decline in 2020, but unlike its peers, that decline continued in 2021.

So, what’s the big deal if I die at 76 versus 78? Think again. The fact is that our life expectancy is falling behind other wealthy nations in large part because a lot of Americans are dying very young—in their 40s and 50s, rather than their 70s and 80s. “During the pandemic, half of the U.S.’s excess deaths—the missing Americans—were under 65 years old. Even though working-age Americans were less likely to die of COVID than older Americans, they fared considerably worse than similarly aged people in other countries. From 2019 to 2021, the number of working-age Americans who died increased by 233,000—and nine in 10 of those deaths wouldn’t have happened if the U.S. had mortality rates on par with its peers.”

The crisis of early death was evident well before COVID. “Midlife ages are where health and survival in the U.S. really go off the rails. The U.S. actually does well at keeping people alive once they’re really old, (credit Social Security and Medicare, both are which are targets of the right) but it struggles to get its citizens to that point. They might die because of gun violence, car accidents, or heart disease and other metabolic disorders, or drug overdoses, suicides, and other deaths of despair. In all of these, the U.S. does worse than most equivalent countries, both by failing to address these problems directly and by leaving people more vulnerable to them to begin with.”

The origin of this mortality crisis goes beyond the fact that the US remains the only major wealthy country without universal health care. Further, we should note that the beginning of the mortality crisis corresponds directly to the triumph of neoliberalism and the rise of runaway inequality in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period the social safety net (as inadequate as it was) was progressively shredded; the public-health system languished after decades of underinvestment – with both factors tying health more closely to personal wealth and secure employment. As labor unions declined and minimum wages stagnated, more Americans had fewer resources to lean on if their health declined.

When the pandemic hit, poorer Americans already lived, on average, shorter lives than rich ones, and that gulf was widening. During the pandemic poor and minority groups were more likely to be infected because they lived in crowded housing, distrusted medical leaders, and couldn’t work from home or take time off when sick. And instead of addressing these foundational problems, policy makers focused on “personal responsibility”.  

To sum up, the report could have had a subtitle, “Inequality Kills”, or perhaps “Neoliberalism Kills”. Due to the history of systemic racism and the widening divide between the haves and have nots our society kills Black, Brown, Indigenous and poor whites at a much higher rate than well-to-do whites. Unless we, as a society, recognize this fact, our solutions will continue to fall far short. The irony here is that, in the end, that failure (like the failure to deal with the climate crisis) will affect us all.

We may not all be in the same boat, but we are in the same storm and, in the end, a tidal wave will sink even the biggest yacht.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s it all about, Alfie? Biden's "Big Stick" Foreign Policy

 Question: What do the following have in common?

·       US push to expand NATO to the borders of Russia;

·       Massive military aid to the Ukraine with the admitted goal of “bleeding the Russians dry”;

·       The unprecedented naval war games in the Pacific, with which the US, NATO and our Pacific partners are attempting to send a message to China;

·       Biden’s trip to the Middle East, including a stop in that paragon of democracy, Saudi Arabia, where, in a photo op, he fist-bumped the Saudi prince and laid out his vision of a future for the region, stating “The United States is clear-eyed about the challenges in the Middle East and about where we have the greatest capacity to help drive positive outcomes … We will not walk away and leave the vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran”;

·       The $840 billion Pentagon budget, which keeps growing, like the cancer it is and which is already more than 10 time the military budget of Russia;

·       The Pentagon's plans to modernize its ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) with a new generation named the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, or GBSD at an estimated cost of $364 billion (and we all know what happens to estimated costs, particularly when it come to the military).

If you haven’t been connecting the dots, and the media, including much of the “progressive” media, certainly hasn’t, I suggest you might start by reading my blog posts on the history of The Empire of Liberty for the backstory. I would argue that it all makes sense when we follow the development of the US as an expansionist empire based on white supremacy. What follows here is more or less an outline of the rest of that backstory. Hopefully I will get a chance to finish the series in the next few weeks.

The US (The Empire of Liberty) emerged from WWII as the world’s dominant economic, political and military power and as a result was able to forge a postwar system that benefitted it under the alleged framework of promoting democracy and economic development of the Global South. This new, US dominated, order, which replaced the old colonial order imposed by the British (and to a lesser extent other Western European countries), replicated many of its features, in particular its assumption of white supremacy and its willingness to use force to protect its economic interests, which were considerable and growing, thanks to globalization.

Despite its power, the Empire of Liberty immediately faced a challenge to its dominant position from the Soviet Union. When the Soviet armies liberated much of central Europe from the Nazis, they brought these areas into what was essentially their empire that, although much weaker than that of the Empire of Liberty, still represented a challenge total US hegemony, particularly because it claimed to champion an ideology in direct contradiction to capitalism. When, in 1949 the Soviets tested their first nuclear weapon and a socialist revolution in China, the world’s most populous country, allied itself with the Soviets, this became a major threat to the Empire of Liberty and the Empire responded by extending its policy of containment to the Global South.  As a result, the Cold War would become hot, in the form of proxy wars.

Although the Cold War’s origins were mostly in Central Europe (hence the formation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949), as colonies of the US’s European allies began to struggle for independence (both political and economic), they frequently turned to the Chinese and Soviets for support. The US transformed itself into a military bastion in order to contain what it viewed as the spread of communism, even in situations where the forces struggling for liberation eschewed communism. Anyway, what really needed to be “contained” was the threat to US and its Western European allies’ ability to exploit the Third World/Global South.

For the next 40+ years the US intervened in the internal affairs of nations in Central & South America, Asia and Africa to maintain its definition of “a rules-based order”. It created the largest “peace” time military in history and a far-flung apparatus to subvert national autonomy including the overthrow of governments it didn’t approve of. It utilized its economic power and that of the post-WWII economic institutions it had created to promote a model of globalization beneficial to US/European/Japanese capitalist interests, in what can only be described as a neocolonial empire. And, if all else failed, it sent 550,000 soldiers equipped with the most destructive weapons ever used, to project its power in a small Asian country – unsuccessfully I might add.

The collapse of the Soviet Empire in the early 1990s, once more left the US as the only super power (read empire) and many naïve commentators believed that we were destined to a new period – a Pax (or was it Pox) Americana. But the Cold War never really ended, it simply morphed into the War of Terrorism, a very one-sided war to continue imposing US/NATO order throughout the Global South. It has been described as the Forever War … because it is, although now that war is being subsumed by the conflict between the US/NATO and the rising power of China, with its junior partner, Russia., laying the basis for a renewed Cold War.

Therefore, to analyze what’s happening today, we need to understand that the Empire of Liberty is reacting to the threat to its hegemony. And what is the one area where the it can assert its superiority? Military power. It is why the US continues to pour resources into the bloated defense (aka “war”) budget and seeks to “bleed the Russians dry” in Ukraine. Hence the connection between all of the events noted at the beginning of this post.

It should be clear that the world faces two very grave dangers at this point in history, the threat of military conflict escalating to nuclear war and the other existential threats of global warming and global pandemics, which, if not mitigated, will lead to the end of society as we know it. Unfortunately, the US is one of the main driving forces of the former and, as a result of its focus on brandishing its military power, is effectively ignoring the latter. Not since the early 1960s has the threat of escalation leading to nuclear war been this great and that generation didn’t have to face these other existential threats. 

We, who live in the belly of the beast, need to fight like hell to redirect the energies of the Empire of Liberty away from its historical direction in order to build for a better tomorrow. We don’t have any other choice.

 

 

Despair is NOT an option

In these dark days for our democracy and for the world as a whole, some inspiring words from Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen. They remind me of the motto of FRELIMO, the Mozambique National Liberation movement of the 1970s -  "A luta continua, vitória é certa" and the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice" (I always add, and I'm pretty sure Dr. King would agree, "but only if we bend it"). 

Robert Weissman:

We have to fight against despair.

There are many reasons to feel down right now — to feel scared, to doubt the path our country and the world are on.

And I know — from communicating with so many Public Citizen supporters and activists like you — how widespread and deep the current sense of gloom is.

But here’s the thing:

Despair’s cousin is hopelessness. And hopelessness is a dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy that we simply must not give in to.

Hopelessness leaves us helpless in struggles against oppressive forces.

The antidote to despair is hope.

And so, collectively, we need to work on cultivating hope — not blind faith, but hope.

How do we do that?

Well, let’s start by acknowledging that — in such a perilous moment — it’s not easy.

Building hope is a process. While there is no single right answer, and different people will find different ways, this is work we must do together.

Here are some thoughts on how to find — and strengthen — hope.

WE ARE THE MAJORITY

It can often feel like the country has lost its mind, that a majority are locked into anti-science, conspiratorial, hateful thinking.

But in reality, overwhelming numbers of Americans favor a progressive agenda. They want to cut drug prices and end Big Money dominance of elections. They want to tax the rich and restrain CEO pay. They want to address climate change. By large majorities, they favor commonsense gun safety rules and access to abortion.

Yes, this cuts both ways. It’s not uplifting that a minority is able to impose its will on the nation. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that we are the majority.

LOSING IS OFTEN THE PRELUDE TO WINNING

As disturbing as it is to fall short of winning far-reaching reforms, we should recognize the power we’ve built in getting close to victory — and recognize that falling just shy of passing legislation often foreshadows victories to come.

WE ARE WINNING MORE THAN WE REALIZE

Working together in this shared project called Public Citizen, we’ve pushed insurance giant AIG to restrict support for climate-destabilizing fossil fuels.

The U.S. government is sharing COVID-19 vaccine technology with the world.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is working on a rule to protect workers — especially farm workers — from excessive heat.

We stopped a Facebook scheme to create some kind of unregulated global currency.

We filed a lawsuit that forced the United States Postal Service (after Donald Trump put a Republican mega-donor in charge of it) to deliver ballots on time in the 2020 election and that secured commitments to make sure they keep doing so.

And these are just some of the wins that Public Citizen helped score.

Beyond our work, think about the Amazon workers in New York voting to unionize, progressive candidates winning elections throughout Latin America, and the mounting evidence from the congressional January 6 committee of Donald Trump’s criminal conspiracy to remain in power.

THE OPPOSITION IS NOT ALL-POWERFUL

We often imagine that “the other side” is super strategic, well organized, united, and farsighted. It is not so. They are fractious and make missteps all the time.

Believe me, I’m not one to underestimate the power of Big Business, and I take very seriously the rise of neo-fascism in our country. But we shouldn’t imagine these forces to be stronger than they are.

NOTHING IS PERMANENT

When things feel like they are going badly, it can feel like that will be the state of affairs for all time. In fact, political tides shift frequently and often dramatically.

We had national elections in 2002, 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2016 that some proclaimed to constitute permanent national realignments. None of them were. Of course, some things — including bad things — do persist. But, in general, political change is a lot less durable than it may seem.

THERE IS POWER — AND HOPE — IN WORKING TOGETHER

If an overwhelming majority of Americans support a progressive agenda — and they do — then how do we win it?

The number one answer is by working together. In our organizing and mobilizing, there is the power to overcome powerful reactionary forces.

In joining together, we find not just power, but hope. Hope that together we can do great things. And also the hope that comes from standing side-by-side with others (whether in person or virtually), from overcoming isolation, from the feeling of solidarity, and from participating in collective action.

POSTSCRIPT

The Duke of Sussex delivered the keynote address at the United Nations on Monday on behalf of Nelson Mandela International Day. These are some excerpts from his speech.

Looking at Mandela’s face in the photograph (with Queen Elizabeth), Harry spoke of seeing a man who had “endured the very worst of humanity, vicious racism, and state-sponsored brutality” and lost 27 years with his family, and yet he was “still beaming” and “able to see the goodness in humanity.”

“In our own time, a time of global uncertainty and division, when it’s all too easy to look around and feel anger or despair, I’ve been inspired to go back to Mandela’s writings and for insight into how this could be,” the duke said. “How he could experience so much darkness, and always manage to find the light.”

“We’re living through a pandemic that continues to ravage communities in every corner of the globe. Climate change wreaking havoc on our planet, with the most vulnerable suffering most of all,” he explained.

“The few, weaponizing lies and disinformation at the expense of the many. And from the horrific war in Ukraine, to the rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States, we are witnessing a global assault on democracy and freedom ― the cause of Mandela’s life.”

At this moment, Harry posited that people have “a choice to make” regarding how to move forward and deal with the current crisis the world is facing.

“We can grow apathetic, succumb to anger, or yield to despair. Surrendering to the gravity of what we’re up against. Or we can do what Mandela did,” the duke said. “We can find meaning and purpose in the struggle. We can wear our principles as armor. Heed the advice Mandela once gave his son, ‘To never give up the battle, even in the darkest hour.’ And find hope where we have the courage to seek it.”

 

Republicans, Then and Now

 

The mantra of today’s Republican Party, their 50 US Senators and their 6 Supreme Court Justices

(To be read in unison)

 

We recognize no right save one

The right to own and carry a gun.

A child unborn, we will protect

But after that

Efforts to help we will reject.

 

We need more kids, white ones for sure

Because we fear our nation’s lure

Will soon dilute our native stock.

To stop that threat

Our nation’s borders we must block

 

They say the world is facing doom

Hush up with all your words of gloom

The scientists are surely wrong

And anyhow

I won’t be here for all that long

 

Democracy has one big fault

Majorities can sometimes halt

The use of cash to get our way

But have no fear

The filibuster saves the day

 

 

Republicans of a bygone era (50 years or more ago)

 

The Second Amendment – Warren Burger, Republican Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

 

In 1991, retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger stated that the Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.” Burger was a Republican, who was appointed Chief Justice by President Richard Nixon in 1969. “The very language of the Second Amendment” wrote Burger, “refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires. … The Framers clearly intended to secure the right to bear arms essentially for military purposes.”

 

Abortion Rights – Harry Blackmun, Republican Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, writing for the majority in Roe v Wade

 

“This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or ... in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether to terminate her pregnancy.”

 

The Court reasoned that outlawing abortions would infringe a pregnant woman's right to privacy for several reasons: having unwanted children "may force upon the woman a distressful life and future"; it may bring imminent psychological harm; caring for the child may tax the mother's physical and mental health; and because there may be "distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child"

 

The Military Industrial Complex/Global Warming – General Dwight D Eisenhower, Only Republican President from 1933 until 1969, in his farewell address

 

“As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow…

 

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes…."

 

So exactly what are we celebrating?

Three potent reminders that "none of us are free, 'til all of us are free"

From Derrick Johnson, President of the NAACP - July 5, 2022

Yesterday, America celebrated her birthday, known as Independence Day. But to many Black and brown people in this country today, we feel anything but free.

 

 
What is Independence Day to a Black man denied his right to vote? What is Independence Day to a woman denied the right to her own body? What is Independence Day to the child shot dead by police? What is Independence Day to a poor household with no access to wealth but a mountain of debt? What is Independence Day to a country with a democracy in flames and limited freedoms for a limited few?

It’s tough for us to celebrate the Fourth of July because our Fourth of July is still one of oppression. We’re not free to vote, breathe, or choose. Our rights are being slashed.

If our nation managed to free itself from the British, surely we can free the poor from their student debt, Black families from voter suppression, and every woman from draconian rulings.

Democracy is on the ballot this November. Your rights and freedoms cannot afford to sit this one out. It’s not just about the person in the White House. It’s about those ​on the Supreme Court, those running our cities, and those occupying our state houses.

George, we are not free - not even close. But with the power of our vote, we can strike down the forces that hold us back.

From the North Carolina Association of Educators - July 4, 2022

In honor of the Independence Day Holiday, we're making our Ed Insight newsletter available to all. Here's to real freedom and justice for all, including:

The freedom to learn our true history and to have the experiences, achievements, culture, and trials of all people fully included at all levels of education;

The freedom to make decisions over our own bodies;

The freedom to breathe clean air, access clean water, and receive the food, shelter, and health care necessary for all to live and thrive;

The freedom to engage in democratic practices committed to the liberty of all rather than the concentrated wealth and power of a corrupt few.

We are all in this TOGETHER!

From Langston Hughes - written in 1935

Let America Be America Again

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Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!