The security of the United States of America depends on a rapid withdraw of our military forces from the Middle East. The sacrifice of thousands of our most dedicated youth and the waste of trillions of dollars in tax revenue, that could be used to rebuild America, must stop. This orgy of violence lead by fanatics on both sides of the conflict does nothing but strengthen the forces of terrorism both in the United States and abroad. The political, social and economic interests of the majority of the people of the Middle East and the US are subordinated to the interests of a narrow segment of the wealthy Islamic and Christian jihadists. Using a fundamentally distorted view of Christianity and Islam, these warmongers distort public perception through their control of mass media while using their wealth and political power to keep the Middle East destabilized for their own geo-political and economic benefit. Everyone from the Saudi monarchy and other right-wing forces in the Arab world to war-entrepreneurs such as Cheney, Rumsfeld and Erik Prince (head of the largest mercenary army in the world) are in on the deal. Profits go up with the body count.

 But besides the obvious moral questions of this marriage of war and profit, there is a simultaneous undermining of America’s security. Setting aside the health issues directly linked to the wars such as maimed veterans, rising rates of PTSD, suicide and drug use among returning combatants and the emotional/economic trauma to American families loosing fathers, mothers, husbands and wives—the drain of these conflicts on our body politic precludes dealing in a serious way with our broken economic system and in particular the healthcare system.

At a time of potential terrorist attack, including weapons of mass destruction, when natural disasters of all sorts such as earthquakes, tsunami, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, fires, and floods ravish our planet and outbreaks of infectious diseases are on the rise—we have let the ruling elite speed the downhill spiral of our healthcare system. This is not the time to cut back on public healthcare—quite the opposite. Our healthcare system is incapable of servicing even our routine health needs let alone the inevitable disasters on the horizon. In the last 30 years 40 new or emergent diseases such as SARS, West Nile virus, Ebola, Avian Flu, antibiotic resistant strains of streptococcus and salmonella not to mention HIV/AIDS batter healthcare systems around the globe. For our own security, this is the time to dramatically increase the quality and availability of healthcare and research. This is the number one threat to the health and security of American citizens. Our healthcare is one of the worst in the world. The lives of millions of Americans are at risk. This doesn’t seem to concern the politicians in Washington DC. Why?

The now ‘routine’ healthcare issues that plague our nation such as childhood diabetes and cancer and the continuing rise of diseases affecting the elderly cause economic hardship in addition to physical pain. Younger and younger working people are disabled and unable to work, often loosing their meager health benefits exactly at the time they need them most. Healthcare providers, HMOs, and insurance conglomerates spend millions to disqualify those who might actually benefit from their services. These entities see profit as their main goal not the health of Americans. Health related corporations pour billions into the coffers of our elected officials to stop serious reforms to our healthcare system. Their stocks go up as our health and economic security goes down.

The simple truth, hidden from Americans even during the healthcare debates around ‘Obama Care’ is that for the 1% of the population who control the politicians of the Democratic and Republican parties, there is no healthcare crisis. Even though our country, the richest in the world, ranks below many underdeveloped countries in over-all healthcare, the rich of America have the best healthcare money can buy. Even the elected officials have voted themselves a completely separate healthcare package from the rest of us. Both the politicians and the rich who control them are insulated from the effects of the current healthcare crisis. No ex-congress person or senator, banker or stock market swindler will loose their homes like hundreds of thousands of retired working and middle class families do each year because of skyrocketing medical bills. In fact, along with tax breaks and windfall profits, rising medical costs and the bankruptcy of growing layers of the American population is just another way of shifting more wealth into the hands of the few on top.

Health and Wealth for the Rich—No Care and Despair for the Rest.

Revolutionary Americans cannot agree!

 Turning Disaster into Opportunity—the Shocking Truth

 The disaster of New Orleans before and after hurricane Katrina is textbook lesson in what is in store for America in the grip of neo-conservatism. Behind the glossy neglect of Rupert Murdoc’s Fox News is a tale of greed that calls into question the moral compass of our great nation. Those that used ‘Shock and Awe’ to bring the Iraqi population into submission saw the disaster in New Orleans as an opportunity to bring their brand of shock therapy home in a big way. Many of the same profiteers who made a killing (literally and figuratively) in Iraq did the same disservice in New Orleans. Halliburton/KBR, the war contractor that received no-bid government giveaways in Iraq—enriching then VP Dick Cheney, was a major player in the post-Katrina rape of disaster-shocked New Orleans. Blackwater who’s mercenary army played a major role in the ‘pacification’ of war-torn Iraq, sent its battle tested soldiers onto US soil to ‘keep the peace’ in the flood racked Gulf Coast. In less than a year Erik Prince’s security empire received more than 70 million dollars in government contracts. Instead of disaster relief we got protection for the rich. Same rape different date.

The real disaster began long before the hurricane struck. The Army Corps of Engineers admitted after the fact that their studies had shown the levies would not hold during a category 4 hurricane. This was known decades before disaster struck. But the protection of low-income residents is a low priority when compared to constructing breakwaters to protect the yachts of the rich. FEMA, the federal agency concerned with disaster relief was gutted by the Bush administration as part of his drive to shift resources from growing dangers at home to the fictitious threat of global terrorism. While the poorest citizens of New Orleans died for lack of food, water and medical care, FEMA did not have the resources or political leadership to intervene in a timely fashion. Bush downplayed the seriousness of the situation. After all the rich were not in danger, their wealth and property was being well protected by the police, National Guard and private security forces. While people were trapped in their homes or shot trying to flee the disaster zone, and bloated bodies floated in the floodwaters, corporate ghouls were planning how to use the disaster to make their dreams come true.

While residents from the hardest hit areas were sent to far off cities, often separating family members by thousands of miles, the neo-conservatives moved in to restructure New Orleans to their liking. They suspended minimum wage laws, to supposedly save money while giving the same disaster capitalists that lined their pockets with US tax dollars in Iraq, free reign to once again feast on public coffers. As in Iraq, no opportunity no matter how ghoulish remained untapped. Kenyon, who’s parent conglomerate was a Bush campaign supporter was put in charge of removing corpses from streets and houses. Even at their average billing price per victim of more than $12,000, they were slow and incompetent. Many victims continued to rot in attics nearly a year after the floodwaters receded.

But the ‘piece de resistance’ for the Bush conservatives was the dismantling of the public school system in favor of privatized charter schools. Long a right-wing pipedream as a way to make the public pay for private for-profit schools, with most of the affected citizens in Diaspora and the city in shock and disarray the butchers moved in. Money earmarked for the victims of the flood was used to gut the public school system and fire all the unionized teachers. Before Katrina there were 123 public schools, after the disaster capitalists were finished only 4 remained. Teachers rehired by charter schools found their salaries and benefits slashed. What the neo-conservatives could not accomplish through democratic means, they pushed through behind the backs of American citizens, cynically using disaster relief as their cover.

Medical care was non-existent during the initial stages of the disaster and when it finally arrived it was too little, too late for many citizens. The affluent areas of course did not suffer a breakdown in their medical services—it was the poor and middle class that suffered. The failure in New Orleans shows the failure of our present healthcare system to respond quickly to emergency situations. It underlines the need for the United States of America to wake up to the potential for widespread breakdowns in our ability to provide basic medical care when faced with man-made or natural disasters. Our future security will depend more on having emergency response teams at home than on ‘surgical’ killing squads in the Middle East. Let Americans decide. Do we want to continue destroying the health and welfare of millions abroad or do we want to build a universal healthcare system second to none at home for all Americans? The Democrats and Republicans know the answer—that’s why they don’t ask the question. Revolutionary Americans believe that our future as a nation worthy of global leadership depends on

Healthcare—Not Warfare!

With Our Security at Risk–Life is Still a Revolutionary Demand!

 In a world of incurable diseases, natural disasters, and human made health risks, the wisdom of our founding fathers to put life as the first right of American citizens, could not be clearer. The disasters in New Orleans, Haiti and Japan show that no country is disaster proof in our ever-changing world. The right to life in our modern world must include the right to adequate healthcare for every citizen of the United States. The fact that millions of retired mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers have lost their homes to pay medical bills is a cause for national shame. After working for 40 or 50 ears to buy a house and build the economic security to enjoy a well deserved rest in their later years—hundreds of thousands a year find the promise of their ‘Golden Years’ torn from them by greedy banks and a failed healthcare system. Not one person in England, France Germany, Switzerland, Japan or Taiwan looses their homes due to a catastrophic illness. These are capitalist countries not socialist. We must learn from their example and stop the forces within our society that are destroying the American Dream.

Without life—liberty and the pursuit of happiness are meaningless. The richest country in the world can afford to be number one in healthcare, not one of the worse. For every dollar we spend, we get half of what other countries receive in medical benefits. A little publicized fact, lost within the ‘debate’ on the debt crisis, is that the root of our dire economic forecast is soaring medical costs. If Americans paid the average for healthcare around the world—there would be no debt crisis. If we fixed the healthcare problem we would not only have better healthcare, we would have a healthier economy. We pay more for less when it comes to healthcare, yet those who profit from the status quo scream “socialism” at any attempt to maximize the cost-benefit ratio of medical care in the US. Obama-care on the one hand or privatizing Medicare on the other does not begin to solve the problem. They are attempts to limit the discussion. We must look at successful models around the world and adapt them to the American reality. Increased funding, especially at the outset will be required. The problem of financing a bold advance in healthcare must be part of the solution. Therefore a central themeof a push to restructure our failing healthcare system must be:  Healthcare—Not Warfare!

The promoters of non-revolutionary small-minded thinking will cry that we don’t have enough doctors to provide adequate health care to all Americans. They are right! (pun intended) The health care crisis is tied hand and foot to the crisis in our schools. The education of doctors in the United States is an outdated system of hyper-competition and indebtedness that strips the humanitarian impulses our youth and calls into question the Hippocratic oath. The medical industry conspires to maintain an artificial scarcity of doctors, which results in over-worked, highly stressed health care professionals. Medical students graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, which trap them in a system where money takes president over a balanced rewarding life of helping the sick and injured. This entire system must go. In order for Americans to have a healthcare system second to none, we must dramatically increase the number of doctors in the United States. We must use our revolutionary vision to create a new breed of healers dedicated to the health of every American. Our doctors must be freed from the twin shackles of over work and unreasonable malpractice insurance that constantly threaten their health and economic security.

Redirecting America’s power from war making to healthcare must begin with how we educate our youth who wish to pursue a career as healers. For those who are not born into the lap of luxury, zero interest student loans should be provided to attend medical school. These loans would cover all basic education and living expenses and only be due upon completion of their studies. When they graduate, students who choose private practice would repay the loans at a reasonable interest rate depending on their net income. Others could opt to work off their debts by working in community clinics or volunteering for over seas humanitarian assignments.

We should also build state of the art medical schools financed by federal, state and private funds. These would be free to qualifying students, who in turn would be able to choose among various positions within the national health care system or critically important research facilities dealing with infectious diseases and other threats to national health. This type of system would allow doctors to focus on what they are trained to do, instead of being tied hand and foot by financial concerns. The same type of approach would also extend to nurses, techs, and other critical health care professionals. This would prevent the periodic shortages of trained professionals that currently rack our health care system. Such a bold approach would need a national plan. The health of our citizens is too important to leave to the blind forces of the profit based market system.

A revamped healthcare system must include a plan to deal with potential and actual ‘hot spots’ for disease control. The incredible rise in homelessness and hunger in the United States following the financial rape of our collective wealth by bankers and Wall Street manipulators must be reversed. This is a national health issue as well as a question of justice and humanity. While the few on top used the financial meltdown to concentrate more wealth in their hands, the majority lost retirement funds, meager investments and many their livelihoods due to massive unemployment. Millions lost their homes. Malnourished families living on the street pose immediate health risks. Poverty has long been recognized as a breeding ground for disease. In an environment of new and more resistant diseases this poses a serious threat to the entire nation.

In the greater Los Angeles area alone homelessness is rising close to the 100,000 mark. Besides the disgrace this represents for the richest country in the world, it is a serious health issue. These outcasts of society overtax our inadequate emergency and psychiatric facilities and over-run the few agencies providing food and/or shelter. Imagine a serious outbreak of infectious disease among this population. Or consider the very real possibility of a major earthquake/tsunami along the San Andreas Fault. Building earthquake proof emergency shelters with food and water as well as well supplied health clinics would prevent what we saw happen in New Orleans. These could be used immediately to ameliorate the human suffering among the thousands of homeless currently in the streets and relieve the strain on existing medical facilities. In a pandemic situation these facilities could be easily converted to isolation/treatment facilities. The possibilities of disease outbreak, and/or natural or man-made disaster are very real. A national healthcare plan must include preventive measures to maximize our security under such circumstances.

Another related healthcare issue is drug disease. The marketing and use of illegal drugs, like homelessness, is spurred by the deteriorating economic system in the United States and around the world. Displaced and unemployed, many turn to illegal activities as the only means of survival. Drug use is even more of a health issue with the rise of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Caught between the violence of the police and drug gangs, fear blocks any real way out for victims of this growing social scourge. Only by legalizing all drugs and stopping the flow of money to the drug cartels that make billions off the misery of others will we begin to solve this problem. Drug addiction must be seen as a medical problem. Prohibition only perpetuates the ability of black-market capitalists to continue doing business. Taxes from the legal distribution of drugs could be used for treatment and education, funding community clinics and detoxification centers. At the same time we would stem the spread of infectious blood/bodily fluid borne diseases such as hepatitis and HIV/AIDS and end drug related violence that fill our emergency rooms. Continuing the current ‘War on Drugs’ sponsored by the Democratic and Republican Parties only perpetuates the problem. Only a revolutionary plan for universal healthcare will solve our current health related problems while preparing to meet future challenges.

Such a plan is critical for national security as well. Money spent preparing for natural or man-made disasters here at home is far more important to the safety of our citizens than sending troops abroad in pursuit of questionable ends. Spending billions a week on developing a modern medical system able to respond to national or international disasters would serve the American people better than poring those funds into the pockets of the tiny cabal of war-profiteers. When a worldwide pandemic recurs, all the drones, bombs and elite military units will not help the situation. At this very moment those who claim national security as their excuse for waging war around the world are leaving us dangerously vulnerable to the real threats that loom on the horizon. In a world of disease and disaster, our heroes will be doctors, researchers and rescuers not purveyors of death, destruction and torture. Increasing the number of health care professionals would be one part of ensuring that our nation is in the best position to deal with unforeseen emergency situations such as nuclear accidents, tsunamis, epidemics, weather-related disasters, and yes, even terrorist attacks. The longer we wait the more likely it is that we will pay an enormous price in human suffering. This is the real question of national security in a changing unstable world. We cannot afford to wage war around the world and provide top-notch medical care for every single American citizen. We must choose.

The Revolutionary American Party says

For the security of America we must:

Bring Healthcare Costs in line with International Standards

End the Drug Wars—Healthcare and Education not Violent Prohibition

Increase Funding for Emergent Disease Research

Build Our Emergency Medical Response Capability

Provide Universal Healthcare for All Americans

Healthcare—Not Warfare!