[Narrator Richard Wolff] These days, the most stunning thing about 
capitalism 
is the drive it seems to have to self-destruct.
What an amazing reality, that a country with the 
biggest defense establishment in the world, 
can not defend itself against the COVID-19 virus 
half as well, as dozens of countries 
with much less military and many fewer resources.
[Prof. Charles Mahoney] The fundamental purpose of goverment,
and this is something that conservatives and liberals both agree on is
to keep the poeple safe and secure. 
If you think about the CDC's annual budget, it's about 11 billion dollars a year. 
In comparison, one defense contractor alone, Lockheed Martin, 
earns almost 50 billion dollars a year from federal
government contracts.
That's about five times as much as the United States spends on the CDC
All the money the United States spends on jets, 
satellites, aircraft carriers, cyber warfare capabilities,  
it would total almost 1 trillion dollars a year. 
Madame President, I believe in a strong military, 
but we can not contiune to give more money to The Pentagon than it needs. 
We are spending more on the military than the next 11 nations combined.
That's Russia, China, UK, France, you name it...
more than all of them combined. 
We are talking about the need to defeat 
our most immediate adversary right now. 
An adversary that has taken, in recent months, over 120 thousand American lives. 
And that of course, is the coronavirus. 
When the coronavirus crisis began, defense contractors, sought 
assurance from the federal government
that they would be taken care of, even if thier workers couldn't go to the office 
or do thier jobs becuase of mandated social distancing requirements.
The federal government commited to supporting major 
defense contractors in the United States,
becuase it considered them "strategically important corporations".
[Host Jim Cramer] The defense industry is relatively immune to the persistence of the economy
In a few days to regroup, Lockheed surged up the 380 today.
Major American defense contractors are for-profit, publicly traded corporations.
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. 
In other words, these companies, and I'm talking about 
Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman,
for all intents and purposes, are governmental agencies,
over 90 percent of thier revenue, comes from the taxpayers.
[CNN Reporter] A plane form the US backed Saudi led coaltion
struck a bus carrying them [children], dozens died. 
Munitions experts tell CNN this was a US made, Mark MK82 bomb. 
This number here denotes, Lockheed Martin, one of the top US defense contractors. 
And Lockheed Martin isn't the only major US defense contractor, 
there are dozens of corporations that make billions of billions of dollars a year. 
Northrop Grumman,
Raytheon, 
Boeing,
These are major companies that make billions of dollars 
that have been not much use to us during the coronavirus pandemic. 
Which represents one of the greatest existential threats 
the United States has faced, perhaps in it's history. 
As it's achieved increasingly apocalyptic proportions in this country, 
there still doesn't seem to be any sort of initiative to 
get something like test and trace set going so that 
we could reopen without compromising safety. 
But that fact that it's still not going now, kind of makes me think we live in a failed state. 
We have research and development into planes 
that military does not need,
but we can't get gloves, gowns, and plastic face shields 
to our healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic. 
So from a manufacturing standpoint, from a priority standpoint, 
public heath has been left by the wayside for far too long. 
I think when we come out of this pandemic, 
we need a reorganization, we need a reprioritization of our values, 
and that also includes funding to public health. 
We have an aversion to public health and health overall in the US, 
Becuase somehow it got thought of as a handout, a giveaway. 
You know there's somehting sort of "socialist" about 
providing basic services to your population
And reframing it as a national sercuirty priority is one thing, 
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. 
I think about how easy that last military funding bill went through congress, before this all started.
It was bipartisan, there was just no brakes on it whatsoever. 
It's always "how can we pay for this?" but it's never with militarization.
[Trump] The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act
is about making sure our warfighters have to tools, 
resources, and equipment you need to fight and to win,
all the time, to win. 
We don't have enough masks.  We don't have enough gowns. 
We're making our military stronger and more
powerful than ever before. 
We don't have enough gloves.  We don't have enough nasal swabs. 
And if you saw where we started from not so long ago, 
We don't have enough vials for tests, we're short on reagents. 
You'd really be amazed. I want to thank everybody, but I also want to thank those great companies 
that really designed, made this equiptment.
Becuase i've seen it, and I've seen much of it in action,
and I frankly, have never seen anything like it in my life. 
So I just want to congratulate you all 
Becuase together, we're protecting our people, our values, our traditions, 
and our glorious American flag. 
[hesitant applause]
If the horrific pandemic we are now experiencing,
has taught us anything,
It means national security means a lot more than
building bombs, missiles, jet fighters, tanks, submarines, nuclear warheads, 
and other weapons of mass destruction. 
National security also means, doing everyhting that  we can, 
to make sure that every man, woman, and child in this country, lives with dignity and security.
[Narrator Richard Wolff] The slogan for our time, can be, and should be,
"We can do better than capitlaism".
We can take of our needs, meet our needs, and do without, 
the subordination of everyhting to the private profit of a few. 
