The New Year begins with some startling statistics.
In a recent article on Counterpunch, Dr. Lawrence Wittner, Professor of History emeritus at the State University of New York, offered a shocking list of dismal statistics regarding the state of America.
We are first in the world’s military spending. In August of 2018, the president and Congress passed a gargantuan military budget of $717 billion. Can you imagine what that amount of money could do for American infrastructure, public education, health care, social services, and immigration reform?
According to Demos, a public policy organization out of New York City, it would take approximately $175 billion to eliminate poverty in America. Eliminate it! Think about that.
And yet, our war spending continues to climb.
The Program for International Student Assessment of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently gave its latest report. In testing 540,000 students from 72 nations, American students scored poorly in reading, science, and mathematics. American students did worse in all three of these subjects than did students in Poland, Russia, and Vietnam. Think about that.
The late Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” We need political leaders who clearly believe that and work to save public education from the disgraceful lack of support our government now gives it.
Regarding health care, the Commonwealth Fund, in a 2017 study of healthcare systems in 11 advanced industrial countries, found that the United States was dead last.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shown that life expectancy in America has been steadily declining. Today we rank 53 out of a hundred nations in the length of life.
Beyond that, we have a higher poverty rate than 41 other countries including Indonesia, Thailand, and Brazil. The latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau has 39.7 million Americans living in poverty. Think about that. And we call ourselves the greatest nation in the world
The Social Progress Index has concluded its 2018 report and it reveals that we have among the highest homicide rates, discrimination and violence against minorities, worldwide. Additionally, in August of last year, the Centers for Disease Control had logged 72,287 deaths in America from drug overdoses, many of them from the deadly opioid epidemic.
We never hear about any of these tragic numbers. What we hear about is $5 billion for a wall on the Mexican border, interminable gridlock in Congress, petty partisanship among our highest leaders, who’s going to win the Super Bowl, Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy, Duchess Meghan Markle banning Prince Harry from drinking tea, and well, other silly and ridiculous things that have nothing to do with the health and well-being of our nation.
We need solutions, not promises. We need leadership, not incompetence. We need vision, not blindness. Compassion, not heartlessness. Intelligence, not ineptness.
The genius of America is alive and well, but rarely is it now called on to guide our people. The spirit of America is warm and welcoming and full of high ideals, but it is thwarted again and again by small-mindedness, petty rancor, bigotry, hysteria, and smugness.
President James Madison once wrote, “Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty.” We are a free people. But if we do not revere our freedom, defend it against oligarchs and tyrants; if we are no longer grateful for it and responsible because of it, then we will lose it.
Is that what is happening to us now? Perhaps. We can’t keep saying we’re the greatest when we keep declining in so many areas of national importance.
It is time to rebuild our nation out of dreams and dignity. At our best, that is who we have always been.
© 2019 Timothy Moody
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