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Editor's Note: It is Day 279 of the Great Con II. Besides taking a wrecking ball to the norms of a democracy, even the people’s house wasn’t spared the lies and the spin. The current occupant is also set to pay himself $230 million with the help of justice department minions just as farm aid and family subsidies are set to expire (imagine a referee in a sports game who bet money on one team, then makes calls that favor that team, then after the game collects his winnings from the suckers).
Do not normalize this.
The latest news suggests that working Americans are cutting back due to inflationary prices and a slowdown in job creation, yet the wealthy continue to spend at high levels. The disconnect between policies and realities in America may be at its highest peak, where the notion of wealth building is accepted as virtuous, regardless of how one achieved it.
That’s why it’s important to remember the lessons of those who did things for the greater good, not just to make another buck. As we have witnessed, a culture that treats the collective well-being as just another transactional opportunity will experience significant health inequality, personal debt, reduced protections, increased risk, and poorer economic outcomes.
Certain things in life such as environmental protection and public health were never meant to be priced.
As Robert F. Kennedy dismantles decades of public health progress, it's worth remembering when civic duty, not profit or position, was the highest calling. Among the faded giants of America's past, few stories are as interesting as those who put public health before profit. The leading legend is, of course, Jonas Salk.
Few people today understand the climate from which public health and national immunization developed. In the early 20th century, the perpetual threat of polio was always there, ready to afflict parents with their worst fears as their children suffered. Having polio meant a significant risk of paralysis or death, followed by prolonged rehabilitation with varying chances of a full recovery. During outbreaks, people treated polio like we treated COVID, quarantining and often staying away from public spaces.
When Salk's vaccine rolled out and was found to effective, he became the most celebrated scientist in America, if not the world.
He could've been fabulously wealthy, but he gave the vaccine away.
When questioned by newsman Edward R. Murrow on who owned the patent, Salk replied, "Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"
It's hard to imagine any Silicon Valley founder uttering those words, let alone the executives behind today's billion-dollar pharma or AI empires. If Salk's vaccine belonged to everyone, what would he say, for example, about today's drug empires? Or what about the collective intelligence of all humanity being harnessed for AI behind corporate firewalls?
Salk saw his work as a public good. The vaccine, Salk insisted, belonged to everyone, not to markets or tycoons.
Salk's act is often portrayed as a kind of aberration, the sacrifice of a wannabe saint, but this is a misreading of the record on human interest in the public good. Public health produced scientists such as Marie Curie, Norman Borlaug, Rachel Carson, and Albert Sabin. These are people who measured success not by bank balances but by the betterment of humanity. It was a tradition of social good now endangered by religious zealotry and the amassing of private fortunes.
Frederick Banting gave the world insulin. Instead of reaping billions, Banting and his research team sold the patent for insulin to the University of Toronto for a dollar, insisting that the life-saving therapy, like air or water, should never be bottled up by capital. He reportedly quipped, "Insulin belongs to the world, not to me."
Sabin was Salk's friendly rival, and he likewise released his patent for an oral vaccine, believing that any profit he could make paled before the benefit of freeing millions from living in an iron lung.
John Sulston, a Nobel laureate who mapped the human genome, opposed attempts to patent genes and published the Human Genome Project data freely to keep it out of private hands.
What these people shared was a conviction that discoveries need not necessitate personal enrichment. Salk himself dismissed the pursuit of material excess as something "in the category of mink coats and Cadillacs—unnecessary".
The purposeful destruction of our public health network is evil and naive. Public health was built on being a "good ancestor" as Salk liked to say, speaking to responsibilities not only to the present, but to the generations yet unborn. Many of the medicines and vaccines most essential to public health were developed not in private boardrooms, but in public labs and universities by hard-working scientists and doctors, often supported by government and charitable funding.
When profit becomes the sole mission, life-saving therapies can be shelved or hoarded, increasing inequity and the erosion of public trust. Today's destruction of public services and the malicious treatment of public health experts (Dr. Fauci?) have only occurred because we’ve forgotten the likes of Salk, Banting, and Sabin.
Their stories remind us of the depravity of measuring wealth only by money.
History remembers Salk not for what he owned, but for what he gave away. When the next pandemic hits or the next AI breakthrough arrives, are you going to believe a public health doctor or a corporate mouthpiece? Will you be able to tell the difference between someone who labored out of love or someone who liked to make deals?
Who do you think represents the interests of humanity?
As the current administration dismantles decades of public health progress, it's important to view this for what it is: another disinvestment in the public good.
At one time, people valued civic duty more than politics or television.
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NO BS HITS
Want to be more conscientious about the climate in what you buy? Here’s a cool website that helps you do that.
Beautiful piece that is really about the art of loving and suffering.
When Russia is doing this to their own people, the proper question is to ask why on Earth would the United States be dealing with Putin in this war?
Are you happy?
That’s the question this great read starts with this. It’s more pertinent than we think as many of us walk through our days with all kinds of emotions, stress, and distractions, but spend little time really considering what makes us happy or how to find it.
Stories like this help us remember the importance of our time and earnestly cultivating the activities that make us more content with things. Believe me, there are plenty of reasons we can be despondent or act out in ways that are not healthy. My experience has been that when people struggle with happiness, it comes out in all kinds of ways. As a manager, I was often very flexible with behavior that was more self-defeating. I worked to coach them through it and see things in a new light. When it became acts of bullying or bad-mouthing, I worked to nip that in the bud. That’s when things going wrong internally are getting acted out in unhappy ways.
Another thing I am sure of. Supporting families is supporting happiness. That’s why many of us work for universal healthcare, good jobs, and affordable daycare. All the things that support a family. It doesn’t come from buying stuff, but increasing the opportunities for happy moments. This isn’t pie-in-the-sky or woke thinking.
More moments, less transactions.
A reader sent me the below from Brainfood, and happy to share it with you.
A lot of success in life is just putting yourself in a position for good things to happen. Take a moment to read this, pausing for a few seconds after each statement. They are simple, but not easy.
For two years now, I’ve been following the growth of AI for its creative potential, and for the potential problems that may ensue. Unfortunately, AI is rolling out during an administration that will err on the side of speed and risk vs. how it can support the average American. Falling behind China is driving everything (as if China can control what it creates itself). The administration is viewing AI as a potentially threatening tool to be used against us, so we’ve gone to a wild west, boom or bust rate of growth with AI.
It’s dangerous because there is no sound public policy guiding the creation and use of AI. My advice remains the same. Learn everything you can, as it is not going anywhere, but also support individuals such as Mr. Clark here who have genuine concerns about opening the box and not being able to control what comes out of it.
And Now….
Keep up your reading habit. You’ll get more from a good book then scrolling your time away. Continue to practice your gratefulness. After you’ve read this, find one minute of time to simply sit and be.
Sit and be.