Russia, the United States, and the Self-Destruction of Europe

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Brian D'Agostino

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May 6, 2026, 1:25:14 PM (5 days ago) May 6
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Dear Colleagues

This 18 minute video by Prof. Jaing Xueqin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m-jO3a6Ee4 (my subject line is my own paraphrase) is not psychohistorical per se, but in my opinion is a brilliant exposition of current historical trends in Europe that I think members of this group will find important to know about. Xueqin notes the devastating effects on Europe's economy of its leaders' decision to boycott cheap Russian energy in favor of expensive US liquified natural gas.  Secondly, European leaders are squandering their society's power and resources on a misguided rearmament program directed at a Russian threat that psychohistorians should recognize as a group fantasy, for reasons the author explains.

Just a quick word about Pro. Xueqin. Like some other pundits that I have commended to this group in the past, he has said dubious things in other contexts that I do not endorse.  I strongly endorse the content of this video because I have not found any analyses of comparable quality by so-called mainstream pundits of the important topics he is discussing.  I respectfully invite you to engage with the substance of this video and welcome your comments.

Warm regards,

Brian D'Agostino



Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 7, 2026, 4:18:28 AM (4 days ago) May 7
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In Europe, only the radical right is supporting Russia. Below an article in Le Monde today (automatic translation) :


Maria Bontsler, the human rights defender who, in prison, refuses to “be silent” in the face of the Kremlin's power

After spending decades defending opponents of the regime and the war in Ukraine in court, the lawyer has herself been imprisoned for a year. At 65 years old, prosecuted for treason, she faces a sentence of twenty years in prison. She wrote to “Le Monde” from her place of detention.

In prison for almost a year, Maria Bontsler, one of the best-known figures among the thousands of political prisoners in Russia today, recalled this cruel joke which, dating from the Soviet era, has lost none of its veracity: "One day, from his cell, the accused began to shout: 'Where is my lawyer?' The latter replied: "I'm here, in the next cell..." »

Behind the sarcasm, Maria Bontsler, 65, a veteran of the defence of human rights in Russia, does not hide her concern: “This is not a joke, but a sad reality.” Under Stalinist terror as in Vladimir Putin's Russia.

A lawyer and critic of the Kremlin leader, Maria Bontsler has herself been in prison since her arrest on May 28, 2025. In Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania, where she lived and worked, the human rights activist, with thirty years of experience, finds herself accused of treason. The lawyer faces up to twenty years in a prison camp.

Defending “vulnerable people”

While waiting for the trial, probably at the end of May, Maria Bontsler continues to write to get her messages across from her cell. Without optimism: in a justice system at the service of power, the acquittal rate does not exceed 1%. "Given my profession as a lawyer, I do not expect an acquittal; I have no illusions..., she told Le Monde in writing. The important thing is not to be silent... »

Shocked by the number of procedural violations in the case, his lawyer, Ilya Sidorov, plans to file multiple petitions. The criminal case is partially classified, de facto depriving Maria Bontsler of an effective defence. The trial will be held behind closed doors. “But the defense will categorically oppose it. We will demand a public trial,” Ilya Sidorov said on social media. He claims that his client is “persecuted, and in fact already punished, for her work as a courageous, active and principled lawyer.” At the trial, Ilya Sidorov wants to show that the accusation is not substantiated. "At the end of twelve months of investigation, the six volumes of the file, half of which are made up of the elements we have provided, are in fact empty of evidence," he says. The lawyer's lawyer says he is under pressure, as he and the other defenders are threatened by the Ministry of Justice.

After her arrest, Maria Bontsler was prosecuted for “cooperation with a foreign state”, suspected of exchanging information with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). But since then, the FSB (Federal Security Service, successor to the KGB) has broadened this charge to “high state treason”.

For Maria Bontsler's relatives, there is no doubt: “It is perfectly clear that Maria is being prosecuted because of her activities as a lawyer for politically persecuted people. She actively defended vulnerable people, including victims of torture, Ukrainians and peaceful opponents,”recalls Karinna Moskalenko, her colleague, who, at the United Nations Human Rights Council, has filed complaints about the illegality and arbitrariness of this detention. "This Council demanded that Russia, a member of the UN, provide Maria with access to adequate medical care and examine the possibility of measures other than imprisonment. It can save her. »

A “traitor”

In 1995, during the first war in Chechnya (1994-1996), Maria Bontsler founded the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Kaliningrad. Since then, she has been the head of this association, which over the years has helped more than 35,000 conscripts, military personnel and their families. In 2013, the lawyer received the prize from the Moscow Helsinki Group, the oldest human rights NGO, dissolved by the Russian courts in January 2023, less than a year after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Despite the increasing repression, Maria Bontsler continued to work in Kaliningrad. The lawyer defended peace activists, citizens accused of discrediting the army, falsifying information or extremism. Despite administrative prosecutions and fines for daring to use the word “war” in court, she refused to leave the country. She was the lawyer of Igor Baryshnikov, a 66-year-old engineer sentenced to seven and a half years in a labor camp for false information about the Russian army.

During Maria Bontsler's arrest, an FSB officer pulled the handcuffs he had put on her wrists and, with force, twisted her fingers. The FSB in Kaliningrad filmed the scene: its agents in camouflage uniforms took the lawyer out of her apartment as if she were a dangerous criminal. On the Internet, a portal run by the local authorities disseminated these images. And, on social networks, ultra-patriotic channels rejoiced at the arrest of the “abject liberal lawyer and traitor”.

The message was clear: the arrest of this well-known human rights defender should serve as a lesson to all those who would have criticized the regime. Lawyers are also directly targeted. On 17 January 2025, the three defenders of Alexei Navalny, the most famous opponent of the Kremlin, who died in prison on 16 February 2024, had already been sentenced for extremism to between three and five and a half years in a penal colony.

Since her arrest, Maria Bontsler has been subjected to regular physical and psychological pressure. The prison administration denied her the necessary medical care and deprived her of essential medicines. “All my explanations, statements and complaints about my state of health are ignored,”she denounced in written notes obtained by Le Monde. She survived a heart attack three years ago and suffers from grade 3 hypertension, but also diabetes and a progressive cataract.

Maria Bontsler regularly complains of dizziness, drowsiness, nausea, impaired coordination, shortness of breath, dry mouth and constant thirst. “My health is deteriorating quickly,” she worries. During several court hearings, she lost consciousness and collapsed. Her relatives fear that she will not be able to survive several years behind bars.

From 3,000 to more than 4,600 political prisoners

In more than four years of war, the crackdown on critical voices has continued to escalate across Russia, with between 3,000 and more than 4,600 political prisoners already, according to human rights defenders, most of whom have seen their health deteriorate behind bars.

"My grandchildren dream of a country where lawyers will be protected and can defend their clients... Maria Bontsler continues to hope. Her husband died of cancer. The youngest of their three sons committed suicide at the age of 19. “He didn't want to live in this world anymore. Sometimes I understand it,” she confides.

Supported from a distance by her two other sons, she celebrated her last birthday in prison. “I hadn't planned to celebrate my 65th birthday in this way; I spent the whole day hungry, handcuffed; my birthday dinner was just a glass of cold water and a piece of black bread,”she says in the notes given to Le Monde.

Unlike the majority of other political prisoners, who are anonymous and mostly forgotten, Maria Bontsler enjoys the support of a small group of colleagues and friends who, in Russia and abroad, help her despite the distance. "I have received more than 2,000 letters from all over the world: from Australia, Japan, Argentina, the United States, Europe and Russia. I answered each of them," insists the activist, vehemently. I feel supported by the principles I defend. »

At each of the court hearings in Kaliningrad, her face pale under her curly blond hair, the lawyer, now accused, stands straight and intrepid in the glass cage reserved for the accused. “She is hanging on with all her might,” says her colleague Karinna Moskalenko. In her written notes, with her usual determination and dark humor, Maria Bontsler warned that she would not be silent: "If a huge shark swallows a small fish, the fate of the latter is disastrous. But the system was wrong: I'm not a small fish, I'm a huge sea urchin. »

Benjamin Quénelle




envoyé : 6 mai 2026 à 19:24
de : Brian D'Agostino <bdagost...@gmail.com>
à : Clio's Psyche Forum <clios...@googlegroups.com>
objet : [cliospsyche] Russia, the United States, and the Self-Destruction of Europe

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Brian D'Agostino

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May 7, 2026, 4:45:17 AM (4 days ago) May 7
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Thank you, Brigitte.  It would appear that there are today two political heirs of European fascism.  The populist right has inherited the suppresion of democracy and the so-called mainstream has inherited the war mongering.  Buying Russian energy and negotiating mutual, verifiable threat reduction arrangements is not the same as "supporting Russia," by which I think you mean supporting Putin.  On the contrary, Putin has benefitted politically from the war (though NATO expansion was the primary cause, a point we will have to agree to disagree about).  

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Esa Palosaari

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May 7, 2026, 6:23:41 AM (4 days ago) May 7
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Dear Brian,

I hope you are well! 

I, of course, disagree with you, as before. I think liberal democracy is the political opposite of both fascism and communism which are close to each other like the ends of a horse shoe. In particular, it seems to me that in Europe you will find the most support for Putin and his imperial wars among both the far right and the far left (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/don-t-ignore-left-connections-between-europe-s-radical-left-and-ru/). Putin seems to funnel money to both.

One fact that may be of interest to you, is that an ideologue and strategist supporting Putinism, Aleksandr Dugin, combined fascism and communism in the National Bolshevik Party that he founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1993 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevik_Party). Its party flag is an amalgam of the nazi flag and the soviet union flag:

Sijoitettu kuva-1.tiff

Dugin's geopolitical plans were taught to Russian military leadership from the 1990s onward. Some the strategic plans for Russia were:

1. A sophisticated program of subversion, destabilisation, and disinformation of the West by the Russian secret services together with 
2. the utilization of Russia’s gas, oil and natural resources 
3. in order to bully and pressure all of Europe into ’Finlandization’ of all of Europe, making them subordinate to a Russian empire. 

In particular, the plan includes:
- Cutting off the U.K from the European Union
- Breaking the Atlantic alliance between the continental Europe and the USA.
- Dismemberment of Georgia, with the incorporation of Abkhazia and Ossetia into Russia.
- Annexation of Ukraine into Russia except for the Western Ukraine, because Ukraine is ”not a real country”
- Absorption of Finland into Russia.
- Fueling instability and separatism within the U.S. and Canada against the "globalist Western hegemony" by, for example:
- encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts
- actively supporting all dissident movements: extremist, racist and sectarian groups.
- destabilizing internal political processes 
- supporting isolationist tendencies in American politics

Dugin’s plan has been a pretty accurate guide for world events, the U.S. and European politics, and Russia’s behaviour for the past 20 years. 

My grandmother, born in 1912, used to say, based on her experiences, that both Stalin and Hitler were devils incarnate. To me, it seems Stalin’s and Hitler's legacies do live on in people like Dugin who support ideas of both, use symbols of both, channel money and power to followers of both, and for whom "the greatest enemy of Russia is liberalism”.

Best wishes,
Esa


Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 7, 2026, 7:04:01 AM (4 days ago) May 7
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Thank you Esa.

envoyé : 7 mai 2026 à 12:23
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objet : Re: [cliospsyche] Russia, the United States, and the Self-Destruction of Europe

Brian D'Agostino

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May 7, 2026, 7:31:31 AM (4 days ago) May 7
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Thank you, Esa.  You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.  But it's OUR pig, not the dirty Russian one.

Europeans will discover what Americans have known since World War II, that you cannot have both "guns and butter."  That is what economists call "opportunity costs," or a "tradeoff" in common parlance.  Europeans are trading their welfare state for a garrison state.  You can call it liberal democracy if you want, but it won't be liberal and won't be democracy in any meaningful sense.  It will be rule by the war lobby.  Or more precisely, by politicians who are beholden to the weapons manufacturers, other war profiteers, and the rich who benefit disproportionately from a permanent war economy, while the middle class disproportionately pays the costs. Good luck with that.

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Esa Palosaari

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May 7, 2026, 8:36:29 AM (4 days ago) May 7
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Brian,

Thank you for raising the point. The opportunity cost of spending money on military is of course real. There is a peace dividend, and I personally would much rather use resources for other purposes if there weren’t such threats to us. As a teen I dreamed of moving to Tonga or somewhere else in the Pacific to live without the possibility of having to kill other people in a war. But if there is nobody to defend them, we do not have liberties nor human rights. We can be arbitrarily enslaved, sold, tortured, raped, silenced, robbed and killed like has happened before here when Russia’s imperial forces didn’t have anyone to stop them for years and as is currently happening in areas under Russian occupation in Ukraine.

Finland is currently one of the most militarized countries in Europe with all-male conscription and almost a million people trained and ready to take up arms if needed. Nervertheless and in contradiction to your claim, Brian, its population considers its life to be quite good on average, better than any other population on Earth for quite a number of years in a row by now (https://data.worldhappiness.report/table). Interestingly, another highly militarized conscription country, Israel, reports a high life satisfaction as well, the 8th highest in the world last year. 

There are economic troubles here related to an aging boomer generation, but people still want to defend their country which nevertheless gives good enought economic opportunities and security and a long healthy life expectancy as well as individual freedom to choose what kind of a life to lead, coupled with strong norms that disapprove of corruption and protect you from being exploited by those in power. There are virtues that make up a good polity that modern billiard ball Machiavellian political theorists do not believe exist (although experimental economics have shown them to be a regularity among real people for quite some time now).

In online X/Twitter texts, I have seen the Americans have been pushed the narrative that they do not have healthcare because they pay so much for the military to defend the Europeans. This seems to be not the case according to statistics. I think there is a free lunch there that Americans are leaving on the table. You have a much higher health care expenditure per person than other countries:


Sijoitettu kuva-1.tiff


The results of those extra dollars that you spend compared to others are very poor:

Sijoitettu kuva-2.tiff




My understanding is that the reason you spend much more than other countries but receive so much less is because the health care markets do not function like other regular markets. There are vast asymmetries of information between doctors, insurance companies and patients that do not exist in the farmer’s market. This, I believe, is generally understood by economists. For example, Paul Krugman has lots of popular writings about this. If you would structure your market rules a bit more like the other advanced countries, you wouldn’t have to waste so much and you might get better welfare even with the current military spending levels.

But it is true that we could have even better health and welfare outcomes if there was no external threat to our life and liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Best wishes,
Esa


Brian D'Agostino <bdagost...@gmail.com> kirjoitti 7.5.2026 kello 14.31:

Thank you, Esa.  You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.  But it's OUR pig, not the dirty Russian one.

Europeans will discover what Americans have known since World War II, that you cannot have both "guns and butter."  That is what economists call "opportunity costs," or a "tradeoff" in common parlance.  Europeans are trading their welfare state for a garrison state.  You can call it liberal democracy if you want, but it won't be liberal and won't be democracy in any meaningful sense.  It will be rule by the war lobby.  Or more precisely, by politicians who are beholden to the weapons manufacturers, other war profiteers, and the rich who benefit disproportionately from a permanent war economy, while the middle class disproportionately pays the costs. Good luck with that.

On Thu, May 7, 2026 at 6:23 AM Esa Palosaari <esa.pa...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Brian,

I hope you are well! 

I, of course, disagree with you, as before. I think liberal democracy is the political opposite of both fascism and communism which are close to each other like the ends of a horse shoe. In particular, it seems to me that in Europe you will find the most support for Putin and his imperial wars among both the far right and the far left (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/don-t-ignore-left-connections-between-europe-s-radical-left-and-ru/). Putin seems to funnel money to both.

One fact that may be of interest to you, is that an ideologue and strategist supporting Putinism, Aleksandr Dugin, combined fascism and communism in the National Bolshevik Party that he founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1993 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevik_Party). Its party flag is an amalgam of the nazi flag and the soviet union flag:

Brian D'Agostino

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May 7, 2026, 9:45:59 AM (4 days ago) May 7
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The United States has a dysfunctional and expensive private health care system largely because of an ideology that spending tax revenues on healthcare would be "socialism," while spending even more tax revenues on endless wars and war preparations is "national security," which is the Orwellian euphemism for war and war preparations.  The war lobby in any country always justifies its access to public revenues by ideologies about legitimate defense, legitimate threats the nation is facing, etc.  You can't say, "Build this weapon system because we want to enrich our shareholders."  It's always, "Build this weapon system because the Russians have this or that capability, or are planning to build it, or Alexandr Duggin says they should have it, etc."  In the United States, weapons makers employ about one full time lobbyist for every single member of Congress.  The scale is different in Europe and the political mechanisms are different, but the guns-butter tradeoff is an axiom of economics.  

Another difference is that the European ruling class pays taxes to a much higher degree than the US ruling class, and until now the US has borrowed money essentially without limit and at practically no cost, which is one of the perks of being the global hegemon.  But US hegemony is in crisis and now the US is looking into the abyss of a debt spiral, and Europe, which has maintained a high standard of living until recently because of cheap energy, is looking at a different future, at least until the transition to renewable energy is completed.  I think we can agree on much of this in theory but the devil is in the details and it is clear that you and I have fundamentally incompatible belief systems on matters of international security and related political economy.  That is fine, of course.  But now I need to turn to other things.  Thanks for this dialogue, Esa (and Brigitte), and best wishes with your other endeavors.

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Ken Fuchsman

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May 7, 2026, 12:28:38 PM (4 days ago) May 7
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According to Newsweek’s 10 best hospitals in the world this year, 4 are in the U.S. No other nation has more than one. The U..S. also has the best cancer facility on the planet. The quality of the U S health’s best institutions was unfortunately omitted earlier. Let’s be as factual as possible. 
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Brian D'Agostino

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May 7, 2026, 12:48:41 PM (4 days ago) May 7
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Ken, I never questioned the quality of US healthcare, for those who can afford it.  By "dysfunctional," I meant that it is a Rube Goldberg machine, the wastefulness and inequity of which is uncontroversial and well documented.  And many millions are being financially ruined by their health care costs or are uninsured altogether and when they are treated at all are treated in emergency rooms at exhorbitant public expense.  And of course the cost of pharmaceuticals to US citizens is another scandal.  None of this is to say that it is dysfunctional in every possible way, and for every stakeholder. If you are fortunate enough to be rich or middle class with good medical benefits, or if you are a pharmaceutical executive or a highly paid specialist doctor, the system may be working splendidly for you.

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Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 7, 2026, 4:31:12 PM (4 days ago) May 7
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For sure, the US may have the highest standards of healthcare for those who can afford it.  I found out that more or less  8% of the US population had no healthcare in 2024 :

"National Uninsured Rate at 8.2 Percent in the First Quarter of 2024 :    

https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ee0475e44e27daef00155e95a24fd023/nhis-q1-2024-datapoint.pdf

It's probably more today.

Meanwhile, in Europe - and here I speak about France, which I know of better, the healthcare is maybe not as much of a high standard as in the US, but much more available to the population at large, and even  to foreigners. The governement wants to change this. Read this article for example :

"The French MP Assembly adopted the creation of a minimum contribution for non-European foreign nationals benefiting from universal health protection.

The deputies say no to American retirees who come to France for treatment. The National Assembly voted for the creation of a minimum participation for non-European foreign nationals benefiting from universal health protection.

"Today, foreign nationals with a long-stay visitor visa can settle in France, access universal social health protection after three months of residence, without paying any contributions, without paying taxes without participating in the financing of the system," said Horizons MP François Gernigon in the hemicycle.

"Some agencies, especially in the United States, are even making it a commercial argument by selling facilities to  retirees on the promise of free access to French social security," he said."

https://www.latribune.fr/article/economie/finances-publiques/2707712474121714/plfss-les-deputes-veulent-taxer-les-americains-venant-se-faire-soigner-en-france  

I have a European colleague who was living with his American wife in the US, she got cancer, they could not afford the medical costs, and they went back to Europe, starting everything from scratch again, but at least she could get the treatment she needed.

Also, the universities in France are more or less free of charge, which the French State cannot afford anymore.

No wonder so many countries want to belong to Europe – Ukraine included.

It is this kind of social system that the capitalistic powers (whether it be the US, kleptocrat  putinist Russia or China or big European corporations)  want to destroy in Europe, and this is happening little by little.


envoyé : 7 mai 2026 à 18:48


de : Brian D'Agostino <bdagost...@gmail.com>
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objet : Re: [cliospsyche] Russia, the United States, and the Self-Destruction of Europe

Brian D'Agostino

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May 7, 2026, 4:45:51 PM (4 days ago) May 7
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Well said, Brigitte, I mostly agree.  But I don't think the capitalists and state capitalists want to destroy Europe's social system, exactly.  They just don't care.

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Ken Fuchsman

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May 7, 2026, 5:01:59 PM (4 days ago) May 7
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Brian,

I am in agreement with much of what you say. Given our plutocracy, the Trump admin Obamacare cutbacks are dreadful. This outlook about the less deserving has origins in mid19th century U S. The class discrimination is usually a staple in U S culture, especially in these highly partisan time we are enduring.  All this being acknowledged, the 2025 CEO World ranks the top 20 nations with the best health care. The U S surprisingly is 15th. So there is some achievement amidst the dreadful.

There will continue to be a discriminatory class system in many areas of American life for awhile. A staple of American political life since Reagan in 1981 is when Republicans win the Presidency they dramatically cut taxes for the wealthy, redistributing income, and increasing the national debt as if that has no value. This Republican priority is now over 40 years old.  It should not be forgotten that in the post-Watergate era that the American electorate is most often concerned with pocket book issues than democratic reform.  Therefore there is not mass revolt against plutocratic tax measures. 
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Brian D'Agostino

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May 7, 2026, 5:42:44 PM (4 days ago) May 7
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Ken, I mostly agree.  But the US is usually in the top ten countries according to GDP per capita, and we spend more per capita on health care than our peers.  So notwithstanding the highly unequal distribution of benefits, I'm not surprised that we're 15th overall for health care (and not lower).  Especially in terms of average statistics, where very well funded services for a well-off minority tends to offset the poorly funded services for the poor.

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Benny Beit-Hallahmi

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May 8, 2026, 4:47:26 AM (3 days ago) May 8
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The issue of health care in the USA is dear to my heart  (I had bypass surgery at the Mt. Sinai Morningside Hospital in New York City in 2019).

 

The United States boasts some of the best hospitals in the world, but ranks only 62 in life expectancy, below Canada, France, Spain, the UK, and even Albania.

 

If you look at per-capita health spending, the USA is at the top with $14,885, while Japan spends only  $5,790, and is number 4 in life expectancy.

 

The problem is, of course, for-profit-medicine ahead of access to health care. I received world-class care because I had the right kind of insurance.

Most people in the USA can only dream of that.

 

Benny

 

P.S. Bypass surgery techniques were developed in Argentina, the Soviet Union, and the USA.

 

  • [Cleveland Clinic], USA (1967): Argentine surgeon René Favaloro is widely recognized for standardizing the modern saphenous vein bypass technique, which made the procedure reproducible and widely adopted.
  • Leningrad (St. Petersburg), USSR (1964): Vasilii Kolesov performed the first successful sutured internal thoracic artery (ITA)-coronary anastomosis on a beating heart (off-pump).
  • [Albert Einstein College of Medicine], New York, USA (1960): Robert Goetz performed the first successful, albeit sutureless, internal thoracic artery-coronary bypass in a human.
  • [Baylor College of Medicine], Houston, USA (1964): Michael DeBakey and Edward Garrett performed a successful saphenous vein bypass on a patient.

 

 

 

 

From: clios...@googlegroups.com <clios...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Ken Fuchsman
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2026 7:29 PM
To: clios...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [cliospsyche] Russia, the United States, and the Self-Destruction of Europe

 

 

According to Newsweek’s 10 best hospitals in the world this year, 4 are in the U.S. No other nation has more than one. The U..S. also has the best cancer facility on the planet. The quality of the U S health’s best institutions was unfortunately omitted earlier. Let’s be as factual as possible. 

On Thursday, May 7, 2026, Brian D'Agostino <bdagost...@gmail.com> wrote:

The United States has a dysfunctional and expensive private health care system largely because of an ideology that spending tax revenues on healthcare would be "socialism," while spending even more tax revenues on endless wars and war preparations is "national security," which is the Orwellian euphemism for war and war preparations.  The war lobby in any country always justifies its access to public revenues by ideologies about legitimate defense, legitimate threats the nation is facing, etc.  You can't say, "Build this weapon system because we want to enrich our shareholders."  It's always, "Build this weapon system because the Russians have this or that capability, or are planning to build it, or Alexandr Duggin says they should have it, etc."  In the United States, weapons makers employ about one full time lobbyist for every single member of Congress.  The scale is different in Europe and the political mechanisms are different, but the guns-butter tradeoff is an axiom of economics.  

 

Another difference is that the European ruling class pays taxes to a much higher degree than the US ruling class, and until now the US has borrowed money essentially without limit and at practically no cost, which is one of the perks of being the global hegemon.  But US hegemony is in crisis and now the US is looking into the abyss of a debt spiral, and Europe, which has maintained a high standard of living until recently because of cheap energy, is looking at a different future, at least until the transition to renewable energy is completed.  I think we can agree on much of this in theory but the devil is in the details and it is clear that you and I have fundamentally incompatible belief systems on matters of international security and related political economy.  That is fine, of course.  But now I need to turn to other things.  Thanks for this dialogue, Esa (and Brigitte), and best wishes with your other endeavors.

 

On Thu, May 7, 2026 at 8:36 AM Esa Palosaari <esa.pa...@gmail.com> wrote:

Brian,

 

Thank you for raising the point. The opportunity cost of spending money on military is of course real. There is a peace dividend, and I personally would much rather use resources for other purposes if there weren’t such threats to us. As a teen I dreamed of moving to Tonga or somewhere else in the Pacific to live without the possibility of having to kill other people in a war. But if there is nobody to defend them, we do not have liberties nor human rights. We can be arbitrarily enslaved, sold, tortured, raped, silenced, robbed and killed like has happened before here when Russia’s imperial forces didn’t have anyone to stop them for years and as is currently happening in areas under Russian occupation in Ukraine.

 

Finland is currently one of the most militarized countries in Europe with all-male conscription and almost a million people trained and ready to take up arms if needed. Nervertheless and in contradiction to your claim, Brian, its population considers its life to be quite good on average, better than any other population on Earth for quite a number of years in a row by now (https://data.worldhappiness.report/table). Interestingly, another highly militarized conscription country, Israel, reports a high life satisfaction as well, the 8th highest in the world last year. 

 

There are economic troubles here related to an aging boomer generation, but people still want to defend their country which nevertheless gives good enought economic opportunities and security and a long healthy life expectancy as well as individual freedom to choose what kind of a life to lead, coupled with strong norms that disapprove of corruption and protect you from being exploited by those in power. There are virtues that make up a good polity that modern billiard ball Machiavellian political theorists do not believe exist (although experimental economics have shown them to be a regularity among real people for quite some time now).

 

In online X/Twitter texts, I have seen the Americans have been pushed the narrative that they do not have healthcare because they pay so much for the military to defend the Europeans. This seems to be not the case according to statistics. I think there is a free lunch there that Americans are leaving on the table. You have a much higher health care expenditure per person than other countries:

 

 

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Brigitte DEMEURE

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May 8, 2026, 5:26:05 AM (3 days ago) May 8
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Thank you Benny, also interesting to see the drop of life expectancy in the US during the Covid pandemics...


envoyé : 8 mai 2026 à 10:47
de : Benny Beit-Hallahmi <be...@psy.haifa.ac.il>
à : clios...@googlegroups.com
objet : RE: [cliospsyche] Russia, the United States, and the Self-Destruction of Europe

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