U.S. Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution Stuns World Health Officials
There is a story in the NY Times about the USA bulling other countries to not support a resolution, based on years of research, that calls upon civilized nations to encourage parents to opt for breast milk if breast milk is an option because the research shows that breast milk makes for healthier babies. The USA opposed the measure, it is reported, to satisfy the demands of the baby formula industry, an industry that promotes formula as equal to or better than breast milk for reasons that are all about profits and nothing to do with concern for the welfare of children.
The article points out that the Trump administration blackmailed other countries, mainly poor countries that receive aid from the USA, Ecuador withdrawing its sponsorship after, reportedly, threats were made.
This is a Trump story. But it is also a WHY Trump story and a story that is at least as much about the modern USA in the world and its inhuman manipulation of world politics to serve something far different than freedom, the common good, the welfare of people, the welfare of children. This story is about capitalism and those whose thievery is justified by it being the only concern of the government of this nation.
If this is not understood, if the evidence that abounds is not heeded, then there is every good reason for the world, the humane and decent elements in the world, to look elsewhere for leadership. Capitalism will do everything it can to survive and in particular, its supporters will do everything possible to insure that no alternatives are given the chance for consideration. It is only seems as good as it seems to people because it is backed by the biggest propaganda machine ever created, the advertising industry, its constant lies a central part of the reality by which most people live. Paradoxically, good numbers of people know this and have come to accept the lies as something with at least as much veracity as obvious truths.
If one can look at a story such as this and not cringe, not consider how “normal” a part of life the notion that corporate good is more important than human good is, cannot see how wretchedly ridiculous this is and how dangerous to every aspect of life this is, than there is something very wrong with them. And there are a lot of people with whom something is very wrong because they refuse to see that the market is not benevolent, that the market exists to fulfill first corporate “needs” and human needs only if there is a profit is to be made. If the bad can produce greater revenues than the good, than, corporately speaking, the good is bad and the bad is good.
Propaganda has sold lies as a truth, deception as a necessity of life. Trumpism is just a more virulent form. Or maybe not. Maybe it is just a more transparent form that allows the actors to be more visibly rotten and ugly. Maybe Trumpism is capitalist/corporate society straight up, the mask of civility removed and everything mean allowed to celebrate itself before the public.
It really is amazing how much rottenness is ignored daily by those who live in modern capitalist countries, under the corporatist regime and how so many think tyranny is something they have not experienced. I do not think it hysterical or overblown to say that the people I know and live with are blinded by a kind of artificial light that is produced that dazzles, that distracts, that recreates before the eyes a false sense of what can and should be, a can and should be that good and humane people, if they knew any better, would never allow, would fight tooth and nail against. Somehow they believe in a system that is, by nature, if it is to “work,” cruel.
Trump is the ugly monster we have helped to create. He is the real face of mothers being taught to misfeed their children. He is the face of people being denied medical care because providing it is not “cost effective.” He is the face of new leadership that bluntly debases people to insure corporate friends a better bottom line. He is the anti-United Nations forces who see cooperation an evil because the game played well means winners win no matter what the cost to others.
An earlier post linked an article that described Obama’s plan to deal with high drug prices, not by forcing manufacturers to lower prices but to better spread the cost around the world so the manufacturers and their stockholders can maintain profit levels even if it means that some people who could be treated will not be because of the cost.
That is the sensible world envisioned for the world by our capitalism. I say bad. Really fucking bad.