Ce qu'en pensent les potes

Posted by Nicola Griffith

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/02/pulling-the-wings-off-flies/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86530

There are certain people in the world who are so uncaring of others’ needs and feelings that they are untroubled by conscience—they have no conscience. These are the people who as children pulled the wings off flies for fun, just because they could. These are people who, when they have power, kill other people.

Here today, by ‘people’ I am referring specifically to the current US administration. There are literally dozens of decisions the Trump administration and its minions in Congress have made that will kill people at home and abroad. Remember that: dozens.¹ I’m going to mention just two as examples, one foreign, one domestic.

Domestically:

According to the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan agency, the OBBB (‘one big beautiful bill’) package just passed by the Senate and now back with the House would increase the federal deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years. 11.8 million Americans will lose their health insurance in the next decade due to the bill’s changes to Medicaid and the ACA, while more than half Americans will pay fewer taxes.

According to the Yale Budget Lab, after taking into account tax and social safety net changes, the poorest 20% of U.S. households will lose an average of 2.9% of their real income. The real income of the next 20% of households would remain flat. The top 60% of households (those earning over about $36,500 a year) will all benefit—but those in the top 20% (earning over about $120,500) will benefit massively—and just look at how much the top 5% (earning >$265,000) will gain.

At those low incomes, nearly 3% can mean the difference between survival and not: the old, the frail, the ill, the disabled will die—most especially the old, fail, ill and disabled people of colour. Can you spell ‘eugenics’?

Then add in the ballooning deficit, and what they will mean in terms of the value of the dollar and the ability of the US to borrow, and things get virulently worse, very quickly. In the short term, many people in the US will die; in the long term, many many people will die.

Internationally

Again, I’m going to talk about just one decision (of so many, so very many): the shuttering of USAID. I just looked at a new paper in The Lancet: ²

Higher levels of USAID funding—primarily directed toward LMICs, particularly African countries—were associated with a 15% reduction in age-standardised all-cause mortality (risk ratio [RR] 0·85, 95% CI 0·78–0·93) and a 32% reduction in under-five mortality (RR 0·68, 0·57–0·80). This finding indicates that 91 839 663 (95% CI 85 690 135–98 291 626) all-age deaths, including 30 391 980 (26 023 132–35 482 636) in children younger than 5 years, were prevented by USAID funding over the 21-year study period. USAID funding was associated with a 65% reduction (RR 0·35, 0·29-0·42) in mortality from HIV/AIDS (representing 25·5 million deaths), 51% (RR 0·49, 0·39–0·61) from malaria (8·0 million deaths), and 50% (RR 0·50, 0·40–0·62) from neglected tropical diseases (8·9 million deaths). Significant decreases were also observed in mortality from tuberculosis, nutritional deficiencies, diarrhoeal diseases, lower respiratory infections, and maternal and perinatal conditions. Forecasting models predicted that the current steep funding cuts could result in more than 14 051 750 (uncertainty interval 8 475 990–19 662 191) additional all-age deaths, including 4 537 157 (3 124 796–5 910 791) in children younger than age 5 years, by 2030.

Which boils down to

• USAID funding saved nearly 92 million lives during the 21 years analyzed
• including over 30 million children under age 5
• as result of o USAID, 14 million people will die within 5 years—14 million preventable deaths
• and 14 is just the average—it could be as many as 19 million

So what’s my point?

Do not try to appeal to the administration or Congress’s better natures. They don’t have one. They understand power. The power we have is our voice and our vote. Use it. Thinks of the tens of millions of people—real people, with real lives—who are dying now and will die in the future because people like us gave those wing-pullers power. Take their power away. Please.

1. Possibly hundreds. So many I truly don’t know where to start. Pandemic readiness, science funding, space funding, climate research, Gaza, Ukraine, tariffs, climate regulations, the ACA… ︎
2. The full text, open access: do read it. ︎

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/02/pulling-the-wings-off-flies/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86530