Kennedy’s speech today concluded powerfully: “If we’re really going to end the chronic disease epidemic, we need to recognize the connection between the physical decrepitude that now badgers our citizenry and the pervasive spiritual malaise that has left so many young people feeling alienated, dispossessed, disconnected, purposeless, and hopeless.... Spiritual and physical maladies thrive on one another; they feed on one another. Our overall wellness must begin with a spiritual question: how do we relate to ourselves, to each other, to our communities, and to the planet?” “Vested interests and malignant political actors profit and flourish when we are atomized and fragmented and uncertain, when we can be easily propagandized, when we live in fear and helplessness and victimization. These forces prefer to have us in terror and anxiety, which disable our capacity for critical thinking and make us more compliant and more credulous. They want us hiding from ourselves, to avoid our own shadows, and dulling our pain and loneliness through sedation and distraction. Yet inside of us, we know that love and self-knowledge are the only true paths to good health. Here at HHS, we need to take on the task of guiding our country and the world to question, towards skepticism, towards engagement, to discover our own paths to living our fullest lives, unleashing the potential in every one of us to make good personal choices that allow us to nourish, to heal, and to develop ourselves. Only this path will make us effective citizens in a democracy. This is decidedly the American identity that we want for our children and their children. Through our own example of dedication and integrity, we can inspire our country on the mission toward well-being and toward achieving our historic mission as an exemplary nation. The goals that I have for HHS—the goals of transparency, of informed choice, of integrity, of efficiency—are possible only with your help. This task before us is historic: to reverse a trend of worsening health that goes back 60 years. And I know that we can do it. I know a higher standard of health is possible. I know that because I remember a time that our country was the healthiest and most robust country on Earth. With your help and commitment, we can go back to that time. We can have that again. Now let’s get to work, and thank you all very much."show more

Jonny Paradise

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