WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:270000 00:00:01.876 --> 00:00:04.838 [Narrator Richard Wolff] These days, the most stunning thing about capitalism 00:00:05.630 --> 00:00:09.634 is the drive it seems to have to self-destruct. 00:00:10.468 --> 00:00:16.141 What an amazing reality, that a country with the biggest defense establishment in the world, 00:00:16.975 --> 00:00:20.979 can not defend itself against the COVID-19 virus 00:00:20.979 --> 00:00:28.653 half as well, as dozens of countries with much less military and many fewer resources. 00:00:34.451 --> 00:00:36.995 [Prof. Charles Mahoney] The fundamental purpose of goverment, 00:00:36.995 --> 00:00:41.875 and this is something that conservatives and liberals both agree on is 00:00:41.875 --> 00:00:45.336 to keep the poeple safe and secure. 00:00:45.670 --> 00:00:50.759 If you think about the CDC's annual budget, it's about 11 billion dollars a year. 00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:55.472 In comparison, one defense contractor alone, Lockheed Martin, 00:00:55.472 --> 00:00:59.142 earns almost 50 billion dollars a year from federal government contracts. 00:01:00.894 --> 00:01:05.106 That's about five times as much as the United States spends on the CDC 00:01:05.106 --> 00:01:13.364 All the money the United States spends on jets, satellites, aircraft carriers, cyber warfare capabilities, 00:01:13.364 --> 00:01:16.117 it would total almost 1 trillion dollars a year. 00:01:20.914 --> 00:01:24.375 Madame President, I believe in a strong military, 00:01:25.335 --> 00:01:31.049 but we can not contiune to give more money to The Pentagon than it needs. 00:01:31.674 --> 00:01:37.430 We are spending more on the military than the next 11 nations combined. 00:01:37.430 --> 00:01:40.433 That's Russia, China, UK, France, you name it... 00:01:40.433 --> 00:01:42.811 more than all of them combined. 00:01:44.521 --> 00:01:46.815 We are talking about the need to defeat 00:01:47.565 --> 00:01:50.693 our most immediate adversary right now. 00:01:51.778 --> 00:01:58.618 An adversary that has taken, in recent months, over 120 thousand American lives. 00:01:59.327 --> 00:02:01.913 And that of course, is the coronavirus. 00:02:03.331 --> 00:02:09.629 When the coronavirus crisis began, defense contractors, sought assurance from the federal government 00:02:10.004 --> 00:02:16.010 that they would be taken care of, even if thier workers couldn't go to the office 00:02:16.010 --> 00:02:20.890 or do thier jobs becuase of mandated social distancing requirements. 00:02:21.724 --> 00:02:27.564 The federal government commited to supporting major defense contractors in the United States, 00:02:27.981 --> 00:02:30.817 becuase it considered them "strategically important corporations". 00:02:31.693 --> 00:02:34.779 [Host Jim Cramer] The defense industry is relatively immune to the persistence of the economy 00:02:34.779 --> 00:02:39.409 In a few days to regroup, Lockheed surged up the 380 today. 00:02:39.409 --> 00:02:44.747 Major American defense contractors are for-profit, publicly traded corporations. 00:02:44.747 --> 00:02:52.005 And there's a real moral hazard here, because no matter what they do the federal governmennt will always have thier back and support them. 00:02:52.839 --> 00:03:00.096 In other words, these companies, and I'm talking about Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, 00:03:01.139 --> 00:03:06.186 for all intents and purposes, are governmental agencies, 00:03:06.186 --> 00:03:11.482 over 90 percent of thier revenue, comes from the taxpayers. 00:03:15.069 --> 00:03:21.159 [CNN Reporter] A plane form the US backed Saudi led coaltion struck a bus carrying them [children], dozens died. 00:03:21.701 --> 00:03:26.998 Munitions experts tell CNN this was a US made, Mark MK82 bomb. 00:03:27.498 --> 00:03:32.754 This number here denotes, Lockheed Martin, one of the top US defense contractors. 00:03:32.754 --> 00:03:36.216 And Lockheed Martin isn't the only major US defense contractor, 00:03:36.216 --> 00:03:40.470 there are dozens of corporations that make billions of billions of dollars a year. 00:03:40.553 --> 00:03:41.554 Northrop Grumman, 00:03:41.846 --> 00:03:42.847 Raytheon, 00:03:43.306 --> 00:03:44.307 Boeing, 00:03:44.307 --> 00:03:51.689 These are major companies that make billions of dollars that have been not much use to us during the coronavirus pandemic. 00:03:51.689 --> 00:03:57.987 Which represents one of the greatest existential threats the United States has faced, perhaps in it's history. 00:03:57.987 --> 00:04:03.034 As it's achieved increasingly apocalyptic proportions in this country, 00:04:03.034 --> 00:04:07.205 there still doesn't seem to be any sort of initiative to 00:04:07.914 --> 00:04:14.462 get something like test and trace set going so that we could reopen without compromising safety. 00:04:14.462 --> 00:04:20.009 But that fact that it's still not going now, kind of makes me think we live in a failed state. 00:04:20.468 --> 00:04:25.890 We have research and development into planes that military does not need, 00:04:25.890 --> 00:04:31.854 but we can't get gloves, gowns, and plastic face shields to our healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic. 00:04:32.438 --> 00:04:40.363 So from a manufacturing standpoint, from a priority standpoint, public heath has been left by the wayside for far too long. 00:04:40.530 --> 00:04:43.783 I think when we come out of this pandemic, 00:04:43.783 --> 00:04:52.041 we need a reorganization, we need a reprioritization of our values, and that also includes funding to public health. 00:04:52.041 --> 00:04:57.588 We have an aversion to public health and health overall in the US, 00:04:57.588 --> 00:05:02.927 Becuase somehow it got thought of as a handout, a giveaway. 00:05:02.927 --> 00:05:08.850 You know there's somehting sort of "socialist" about providing basic services to your population 00:05:08.850 --> 00:05:12.770 And reframing it as a national sercuirty priority is one thing, 00:05:13.104 --> 00:05:19.360 But I don't think it gets to the aversion that many politicians in the US have to social spending and health spending in particular. 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:26.451 I think about how easy that last military funding bill went through congress, before this all started. 00:05:26.451 --> 00:05:30.163 It was bipartisan, there was just no brakes on it whatsoever. 00:05:30.163 --> 00:05:34.542 It's always "how can we pay for this?" but it's never with militarization. 00:05:48.639 --> 00:05:52.226 [Trump] The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act 00:05:52.643 --> 00:05:59.650 is about making sure our warfighters have to tools, resources, and equipment you need to fight and to win, 00:05:59.650 --> 00:06:01.194 all the time, to win. 00:06:01.194 --> 00:06:03.154 We don't have enough masks. We don't have enough gowns. 00:06:03.154 --> 00:06:08.076 We're making our military stronger and more powerful than ever before. 00:06:08.076 --> 00:06:10.703 We don't have enough gloves. We don't have enough nasal swabs. 00:06:10.703 --> 00:06:16.626 And if you saw where we started from not so long ago, 00:06:16.626 --> 00:06:19.629 We don't have enough vials for tests, we're short on reagents. 00:06:19.837 --> 00:06:24.550 You'd really be amazed. I want to thank everybody, but I also want to thank those great companies 00:06:24.550 --> 00:06:32.558 that really designed, made this equiptment. Becuase i've seen it, and I've seen much of it in action, 00:06:32.558 --> 00:06:38.398 and I frankly, have never seen anything like it in my life. So I just want to congratulate you all 00:06:38.398 --> 00:06:46.406 Becuase together, we're protecting our people, our values, our traditions, and our glorious American flag. 00:06:46.406 --> 00:06:49.158 [hesitant applause] 00:06:52.495 --> 00:06:58.960 If the horrific pandemic we are now experiencing, has taught us anything, 00:06:59.502 --> 00:07:14.892 It means national security means a lot more than building bombs, missiles, jet fighters, tanks, submarines, nuclear warheads, and other weapons of mass destruction. 00:07:14.892 --> 00:07:21.524 National security also means, doing everyhting that we can, 00:07:22.525 --> 00:07:30.867 to make sure that every man, woman, and child in this country, lives with dignity and security. 00:07:30.867 --> 00:07:37.039 [Narrator Richard Wolff] The slogan for our time, can be, and should be, "We can do better than capitlaism". 00:07:37.498 --> 00:07:42.628 We can take of our needs, meet our needs, and do without, 00:07:43.129 --> 00:07:47.049 the subordination of everyhting to the private profit of a few.