Getting that Sinking Feeling?

New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof (April 2nd), is keen to note that the United States is definitely number one in having a military that can (in my words) scare the crap out almost anyone, but in terms of “livability,” we are 16th among global rankings. Why? Kristof says: “[B]ecause our economic and military strengths don’t translate into well-being for the average citizen… [adding] Sure, technically Norwegians may be wealthier per capita, and the Japanese may live longer, but the world watches the N.B.A., melts at Katy Perry, uses iPhones to post on Facebook, trembles at our aircraft carriers, and blames the C.I.A. for everything. We’re No. 1!”

Our priorities cost us big bucks, put us in harm’s way all too often, get us involved in really long, usually frustrating regional conflicts far from our shores, taking American (and local) lives and constituting the biggest contributor to our federal deficit. Not only that, but we are the target for those who want to prove that they can take on the king of hill and thrive.

We treasure gun rights over personal health, amassing untold wealth over equality, cutting public school budgets to fund our military and creating agricultural subsidies (unless the rather transparent guise of “crop insurance”) for agribusiness conglomerates at the expense of feeding the poor. Being a nation of immigrants, we cannot pass legislation to allow those who entered the United States as little children (being dragged in by their parents) to become citizens in the only country they have really ever known, even if they enlist in the military or become super-skilled and college-educated. Conservatives rail at healthcare legislation to cover as many folks as possible, but we are almost a third-world nation in our overall objective health standards.

“In the Social Progress Index [based on a vast amount of data reflecting suicide, property rights, school attendance, attitudes toward immigrants and minorities, opportunity for women, religious freedom, nutrition, electrification and much more], the United States excels in access to advanced education but ranks 70th in health, 69th in ecosystem sustainability, 39th in basic education, 34th in access to water and sanitation and 31st in personal safety. Even in access to cellphones and the Internet, the United States ranks a disappointing 23rd, partly because one American in five lacks Internet access.

“‘It’s astonishing that for a country that has Silicon Valley, lack of access to information is a red flag,’ notes Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative, which oversees the index. The United States has done better at investing in drones than in children, and cuts in social services could fray the social fabric further.

“This Social Progress Index ranks New Zealand No. 1, followed by Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands. All are somewhat poorer than America per capita, yet they appear to do a better job of meeting the needs of their people.” Kristof.

To fiscal conservatives, cutting back social programs increases our competitive edge and opens doors to people to pursue new opportunities. Wrong! While you can most certainly go overboard with social legislation, it seems that a pile of countries with social benefits that are considerably more generous to its citizens that what we provide here in the states actually score higher in the opportunity evaluation than do we. For example, there was a mass exodus from Ireland to the United States by reason of the potato famine of 1845, but today Ireland sits above the U.S. as a land of greater opportunity.

And just because our macro-economic numbers excel does not mean that life is better for the average American. “Overall, the United States’ economy outperformed France’s between 1975 and 2006. But 99 percent of the French population actually enjoyed more gains in that period than 99 percent of the American population. Exclude the top 1 percent, and the average French citizen did better than the average American. This lack of shared prosperity and opportunity has stunted our social progress.” Kristof.

What is increasingly clear, as the United States continues to fall down those categories where it’s all about the quality of our lives, is that our priorities – supported by clichés, buzzwords and unsustainable mythology (like the use of the miserably-failed “trickle down” theory) – are very much out of touch with what really makes most of us happier, healthier and even more productive.

Being able to sport a military that just seems to get us into a whole heap of trouble with a budget that is more than the next ten military powers combined, that the NRA can sponsor legislation and get real support to advance the open sale of gun silencers without restrictions while shooters at Sandy Hook, Aurora and Ft. Hood add grave markers in horrible mass killings, and that we can effectively subsidize the rich with the wage-taxes of those well-beneath them in earning capacity seems to say how completely we have got it wrong.

I keep repeating these statistics, perhaps because I continue to be shocked by them, but we do live increasingly in a banana-republic economic spectrum, where our middle class continues to contract and slide downwards, where 1% of our population owns 42% of the nation’s wealth, while the lower 60% owns a mere 2.3% of that wealth. These are the statistics of shame and failure, and they fly in the face of all of our recent historical claims to greatness. In those facts are the seeds of our own destruction.

I’m Peter Dekom, and unless we all start caring about all of these issues, there won’t be a country that this massive military budget was built to defend.