The Greatest Country On Earth (originally posted 11/28/09)

"Like a Catholic articulating his religious beliefs by reciting the Nicene Creed, we as patriotic Americans should from time-to-time delineate the reasons why we believe that the United States is, as my prophet Sean Hannity proudly proclaims, "the Greatest Country on Earth!" The reasons may be, to quote a famous American philosopher of the 18th century, self-evident, but I still believe it helpful to put them down on paper. I, Gentleman Tony, encourage my handful of readers to do the same. It is not enough to say we have freedom to be what we want to be in the USA. Other countries offer that same freedom. It is not enough to say our country is beautiful. Other countries are also beautiful. What makes the USA the greatest country on earth?


Some may believe the United States, as a whole, to be an unsafe country, what with the proliferation of guns and statistics showing a continual epidemic of violent crimes (murder, robbery, rape, etc.), but I look at my glorious country as a playground of a battle of a Survival of the Fittest. It is this attitude that makes us the strongest nation in the world, hardening us up to make the necessary decisions that advance our nation's cause without being swayed by moral arguments. A lesser country would not have had the mettle or the might to wipe out an entire race (Native Americans) in the glorious cause of Manifest Destiny, overthrow governments (Chile 1973, which featured the subsequent torture of a large population) to win the Cold War, intern an entire population of American citizens during a war (Japanese-Americans in World War II) JUST IN CASE, or use an Atomic Bomb, all choices we made to make us the world's only superpower (don't even bring up China, puh-leeze!)."


As I started to write about the greed and ego that proliferates the American economy today, I found it too cumbersome to continue writing in an ironic vein. In 1992, during my days attending Stony Brook University, a statistic brandied about was that 1% of the American population controlled over 50% of the wealth, which was alarming enough. Today, supposedly, that percentage is closer to 95%, which is more of a celebration of feudal times and Darwinsim than the Judeo-Christian principles conservatives love to point out on which this country was supposedly founded. CEO pay is, according to various sources, 187 to 400 times the pay of the average worker. No other industrial nation even comes close to this. CEOs and other important players in the finance industry routinely receive large bonuses and obscene so-called golden parachutes (as opposed to golden showers) after destroying the American economy. Meanwhile, American family life is being undermined by economic pressures. Nowadays, in a two-income household, the mother works not as an expression of Women's Liberation or to "keep up with the Joneses," but because they HAVE to. Unions are being destroyed and workers are being laid off, not for the survival of a company, but because a company is not making obscene-enough profits. The American worker has, on average, 8.2 days of vacation time per year. Banks are allocated billions of taxpayer dollars (the TARP funds) after creating a climate of deregulation, monopolies, loopholes such as tax shelters and derivatives, deceptive "fine print" (it is commonly accepted, almost celebrated in America, that one will get screwed without exactly knowing how at the onset), and falsely-inflated balance sheets that caused themselves to fail and led to tens of millions of workers losing their jobs and millions being foreclosed on. This was all for the benefit of a few increasing their already-vast wealth (how much is enough?). I consider these men criminals for what they have done.


Greed has also extended even to health care, where entire multi billion-dollar industries (Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies) were created in the USA from people being sick. No other country is obscene in this respect as we are, where you need sick people for an industry to be profitable. It is one of the great shames of the United States that free enterprise is allowed to even permeate hospitals, but rising health care costs oblige us to either deal with the whims of insurance companies or just 'make do.' Pharmaceutical companies create suspect drugs causing lasting side effects, but can hide from personal responsibility under the guise of incorporation. Compare this to China's attitude, where in January 2009 two men were sentenced to death for producing melamine-tainted milk that killed six and made 300,000 kids ill. Could you conceive of something like this happening in America? No, I'm not talking about producing something tainted- we can all conceive that. I mean, the death sentences.


The USA also causes great damage to the environment, relative to population. Despite having only 4-5% of the world's population, the USA contributes 20.2% of the CO2 emissions (see http://www.iea.org/co2highlights), which is depleting the ozone layer and causing climate change that is reducing the surface area of the polar caps as we speak. All in the name of industrial progress. Of course, we do not care- with the haze in the air of our major cities and industrial towns and the polluted bodies of water that surround them, plus the litter and noise pollution and our non-attitude towards animal preservation, one cannot say that we are hypocritical in this respect.


The two most telling events that define the current American psyche of apathy is 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. The horrors of the terrorism of 9/11, allowed in no small part by apathy within the highest levels of government, initially brought this country together. Platitudes offered to soliders, policemen, and firefighters by the famous and by ordinary folk reassured these brave men that their services would never be forgotten and always kept in its proper perspective. The first anniversary of 9/11 was recognized with great fanfare. Fast forward to today, when people post platitudes taking one minute to write on Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace about remembering our veterans but cannot be bothered to attend a Memorial Day or Veterans Day parade or attend a local New York City remembrance of the victims of 9/11. Men and women serving multiple tours of duty in Iraq and in Afghanistan are coming home dead, wounded, and mentally affected without the proper medical and financial support for them and their families (How many people are even aware of the Walter Reed Hospital scandal?). Where are the cries to rectify this situation? And, why, after 9/11, are we still as dependent on foreign oil as ever?


There are also few cries from the public en masse to voice their outrage over the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster on American soil in most of our lifetimes. Another disaster exacerbated by lack of governmental preparedness and hack bureaucracy, images of desperate African-American people clinging to their children and to their lives on rooftops still haunt some of us today. I make a point of saying "African-American" because the slow government rescue response would not have occured if this had happened in, say, Boston. Four years later, despite the heroic efforts of a few in the private sector, thousands of displaced economically-disadvantged Katrina victims still live in trailers. Of course, the fact that the generous donations of many were so grossly and corruptly misallocated largely went unpunished, just as consumption of tax dollars by war profiteers such as Halliburton continues unabated with barely a whimper from the public.


(However, we did for a time try to change the name of french fries to freedom fries, so Americans are not totally apathetic. However, I do not recall a similar movement to change the name of French kissing, taking the idea to its logical conclusion.)


One consistent facet of American history is how anti-Christian a nation that depicts itself as One Nation Under God (you know, THAT God) really is. God has always been invoked in America as an excuse to justify some un-Godly behavior (slavery and the subsequent lynching and discrimination of African-Americans and the current discrimination of gays based on fear and ignorance). Of course, more Americans go to Mass than in any other European nation, as many like to point out (nations below Texas do not count, unless one is planning a vacation), but are they paying attention to the Gospel readings as they fumble for their wallets to contribute to the Rolex Watch/Molestation Defense Fund? Most Christian-Americans arrogantly believe God favors the USA over every other nation, but one of the primary themes of the Gospels is how Jesus believes all are equal before the eyes of God, so it is antithetical for a true Christian to believe that God favors one over another. A true Christian would believe that a Muslim baby orphaned as a result of an indiscriminate American bombing raid has just as much value as, say, the star quarterback of the local high school football team, but do the majority of Americans in their heart of hearts really believe that?


Most alarming is how the American Dream is being corrupted by popular culture and by political hypocrisy. We are fascinated by so-called Reality TV and by talk shows, venues where Americans can enjoy varying degrees of celebrity for accomplishing nothing (I need not list examples of celebrities and programs at the risk of dating my blog- new non-entities will soon replace the current non-entities). We are seduced to being reduced to whining on television and on radio about our failed relationships, our drug addictions, and other personal shortcomings "so others can learn from my mistakes"- not, of course, for attention and for profit. Wanting to be President or some other politician is no longer an idealistic dream; it merely implies wanting to have an election bought in order for you to be a figurehead for powerful interests. The lack of creative ambition and heightened focus on superficiality in today's music scene is startling- just perk up your ears in a shopping mall or turn on the television for proof. We are too lazy to pursue relevant academic disciplines, and hard-working foreign students majoring in math, engineering, and science enroll in our institutions of higher learning to participate in what the American Dream should actually be.


Apathy, apathy, apathy. We are fat, on drugs (many of them legal), distracted by I-pods and cellphones, unaware of our country's history, and hold no one accountable in government and in business. We say we are disabled when we aren't and take advantage of a hopelessly understaffed social system, and feel entitled without really working hard for our desires. We keep an economic embargo on Cuba while posing for pictures with the worst kind of Third World thugs. We still treat vehicular manslaughter as a joke. We are the only nation wretched enough to constantly pause to reflect on how far we have come on the subject of Racism. Other nations (even Germany, which knows a thing or two about a racist past), just integrates and gets on with it without making a big deal of it. We are hypocritical, from liberal and conservative politicians on down.


You say the United States is the Greatest Country on Earth. Your move.