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Today's
Stories
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's
National Parks
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
March
23, 2004
World's Greatest Country
Do
the Facts Lie?
By M. SHAHID ALAM
Prophet Muhammad said, "He is not
one of us who proclaims the cause of tribal partisanship"
When asked, what is "tribal partisanship," he an-swered,
"[It means] your helping your own people in an unjust cause."
[1]
"I choose to live in what I think
is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous
terrorist acts and should stop." Noam Chomsky [2]
Interviewer to Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright: "We have heard that a half a million children
have died [because of sanctions against Iraq]. I mean that's
more children than died in Hiroshima. And--you know, is the price
worth it?" Secretary Albright answered: "I think this
is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth
it." [3]
On March 21, 2003, as I headed home, a day after
the United States formally invaded Iraq, I ran into a colleague
from Northeastern University--a professor of the humanities--at
the Ruggles train station in Boston. I was aware of his political
inclinations, and he of mine, from previous encounters. Still,
I thought we were on friendly terms.
"I bet you oppose the war,"
he greeted me, as I approached him.
"Not at all," I shot back,
" I wish to see Iraq liberated as much as you."
Although, it was only the second day
of the war, and the bombs and missiles were accurately on target,
it appeared that the tension leading up to the war had taken
their toll on our colleague's nerve. He snapped at my banter.
Agitated, he began to poke his finger in my face, while lecturing
me about how "thankful" I should be about living in
"the world's greatest country ever." Luckily, my train
arrived on time--for which I am thankful--saving me from
an unhinged patriot's harangue.
This was not my first encounter with
the overzealous patriotism that often dominates political discourse
in the United States; and not only among members of the zany
right. All too often, politicians rally their audience with inflated
claims of American greatness. The United States is "the
greatest country in the world." At other times, it is "the
greatest country ever," "the greatest country ever
conceived," or "the greatest country in the history
of mankind." When the exuberance soars, America also "kicks
ass!"
Nearly as often, one hears of the United
States as the great Samaritan: second to none at 'civilizing'
half-breed races. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, the United
States is the "the last best hope of mankind," no less.
More frequently, it is "the shining beacon on the hill."
Recently, John Kerry, Democratic Presidential candidate, roused
students at UCLA, "I believe we can bring a real victory
in the War on Terror. I believe we must, not only for ourselves
but for all who look to America as the last best hope of earth."
I have to wonder if the Vietnamese civilians killed by Kerry
and his crew also looked upon them as "the last best hope
of earth." [4]
Judging from results from polls, quite
a few Americans are persuaded by this rhetoric of American greatness
and munificence; though my colleague from Northeastern would
go into a fit over their 'fewness.' In 1955, according to a Gallup
Survey, 66 percent Americans polled believed that "The United
States is the greatest country in the world, better than all
other countries in every possible way (emphasis added)."
In 1991, mercifully, this percentage had declined to 37 percent;
five years later, it held steady at 37 percent. (This looks like
the proportion of steady Republicans in this country.) But there
is a fly in the ointment. In response to a slightly altered question,
55 percent Americans agree that "the United States is the
greatest country in the world, better than all others."
On the worse reading, then, a clear majority of Americans still
subscribe to the thesis of American uniqueness; though that majority
is down to 55 percent from 66 percent. Shall we take comfort
from this decline in the proportion of hyper-patriots in the
US since 1955? [5]
In the absence of polls on the issue,
I will report results from my own unrepresentative annual surveys
on America's civilizing mission. For several years, I have passed
out a questionnaire to assess my students' preparation for my
undergraduate courses in Development Economics and the Global
Economy. One perennial question I ask is about US 'foreign aid.'
What percentage of its gross domestic product does the United
States annually allocate as foreign aid to Third World countries?
I offer my students five choices: (A) One-tenth of one percent,
(B) One percent, (C) Five percent, (D) Ten percent, and (E) Twenty-five
percent. Incredibly, about half the class chooses C, and most
of the remaining half pick D and E. Two or three 'unpatriotic'
students in each class pick A or B. The correct answer is
A. Perhaps, my students think it proper and patriotic to
pick a percentage that makes their country look generous.
In a sense, this talk of national greatness
is unsurprising. It is the sta-ple of a world organized--as it
has been these last few hundred years--into nation states that
must compete to survive and stay ahead of the pack. They compete
economically, politically and militarily. Often, this competition
requires sacrifices--of rights, of leisure, of safety, of lives.
The ideological weapon in this competition is nationalism--creating
pride and unity grounded in claims of national greatness, and
matched by an equal contempt for the low or lower standing of
other nations.
Perhaps the United States is distinct
because of the intensity of its nationalist claims. The standard
political rhetoric maintains that the US is the "greatest
in the world," "the greatest ever," or "the
greatest in the history of mankind." It stands at the top
of the food chain. Some older nations--that have survived many
cycles of history--might think this strange. Are these upstarts
trying to compensate for their late arrival on history's stage?
Arguably, older nations have the self-assurance of a long and
often distinguished history behind them and, therefore, do not
feel compelled to stake out exaggerated claims of national greatness.
But there is more to it.
Nationalism is for the most part a modern
phenomenon, a product of the competition between the new nation
states operating in a capitalist world economy. In this competition,
success and nationalist obsessions work in tandem. A nation fired
with its own greatness is more willing to endure greater sacrifices;
conversely, it is also more willing to inflict pain on Others.
In the case of the United States, there was no shortage of successes--economic,
technological and military--to fuel notions of national greatness.
As these successes grew, the American establishment found it
convenient to ratchet claims of American greatness. Most likely,
by the turn of the twentieth century, if not before, the United
States was declared to be unique among nations: the greatest
country ever, populated by the noblest breed of humans, the instrument
of God, and the greatest civilizing force on earth. Today, no
Congressman can disavow American uniqueness and survive an election.
I could explore the sinister objectives
served by these visions of American uniqueness--how corporate
capital has used it to rally Americans behind imperialist wars,
to incite fears of white America against Americans of color (and,
hence, divide America's working poor), or to dupe American workers
into surrendering their rights to corporate capital. Since all
this has been done before, I will attempt something a bit pedantic,
but I hope still useful. I will examine whether the United States
is indeed "the greatest country in the world, better than
all other countries in every possible way?" I suspect this
is a thankless task, but my work will be amply rewarded if it
deflates even a little some of the illusions of American grandeur.
By the most widely accepted criterion,
America's economic lead looks quite secure. Measured in terms
of dollars with comparable purchasing power, the US had a per
capita income of $35,080 in 2002, one of the highest in the world.
Only two other countries had higher per capita incomes; Luxembourg
at $51,060 and Norway at $37,850. But these are small countries,
with 444,000 and 5 million people respectively; and the per capita
income of the richest 444,000 or 5 million Americans would easily
exceed the per capita income of Luxembourg and Norway respectively.
In other words, Americans can take just pride in their country's
economic preeminence: the United States is the world's richest
country.
The United States also commands the world's
largest economy, though only by a narrow margin. Measured in
terms of dollars with comparable purchasing power, the US gross
national income adds up to $10,110 billion, a little more than
a fifth of the global income. The European Union comes a very
close second with a combined gross national income of $9,520
billion. With its rapidly expanding membership, the European
Union may soon outpace the US as the world's largest economy.
China places third in the world league of major economies, with
a gross national income of $5,807 billion. At its present stellar
growth rate, China could outstrip both the US and the European
Union within two decades if not sooner. [6]
Surely the US lead in technological capacity
must be larger and more secure. In its 2001 Report, the UNDP
published for the first time a Technology Achievement Index (TAI)
"which aims to capture how well a country is creating and
diffusing technology and building a human skill base--reflecting
capacity to participate in the technological innovations of the
network age. This composite index measures achievements, not
potential, efforts or inputs." According to this measure,
the US ranks second--with a TAI value of 0.733--finishing behind
Finland with a TAI of 0.744. Perhaps this makes Finland a threat
to America's national security; no country that lags in technology
can lead the world for long. Conceivably, the likes of Ann Coulter
and Bill O'Reilly might urge President Bush do something about
it. After all, Finland is a small country; knocking down
its TAI a few places will be much less of a challenge than occupying
Iraq. [7]
Perhaps the United States might regain
the lead when judged against indicators of technological effort,
such as R&D spending as percentage of a country's GDP, or
R&D personnel per million in the country. However, this only
makes matters worse. On the first measure, the United States
ranks seventh, behind Togo, Sweden, Israel, Japan, Korea and
Switzerland. (Yes, I too am wondering about Togo.) On the second
criterion, the United States improves its rank to fourth place,
still lagging behind Iceland, Japan and Sweden. [8] (Now what
does Iceland do with all those scientists?)
In a last ditch effort, to salvage America's
position, I decided to extend the technology comparisons to three
indicators of educational performance. But this only produced
more disappointments. Judged in terms of school life expectancy
(the number of years a child is expected to spend in the educational
system), the US ranked fifteenth in the late 1990s. In mathematical
literacy for fifteen year olds, it ranked eighteenth out of 27
countries. It's performance was only marginally better in scientific
literacy, moving up to the fourteenth place in the same group
of countries.[9]
The United States commands the largest
lead where it matters most--in military power. At $396.1 billion
in fiscal year 2003, US military spending exceeds the combined
military budget of the next twenty countries. In 2002, the US
outspent the seven "rogue" states (Iran, Iraq, Libya,
North Korea, Sudan, Syria and Cuba) by a factor of thirty-seven.
[10] With Iraq under occupation since April 2003, and Libya air-freighting
the components of its would-be WMDs to the United States, the
ratio by which the US outspends the remaining "rogue"
states must have risen still higher. Given these gaps in destructive
capabilities, the United States should feel safer than any empire
in recent memory. So why doesn't it?
In personal freedom, most Americans confidently
place their country at the top. In a Gallup Poll taken in August
1995, Americans were asked, "how far up or down on a 10-point
scale [10 being highest] would you rate each of the following
nations in terms of the individual freedom granted to its citizens?"
The US came out first, with 74 percent of the respondents giving
it a 'high' rating (10-9-8). Canada and Britain ranked a distant
second and third, with only 63 and 46 percent giving it a 'high'
rating. [11]
Experts view the freedom rankings a bit
differently. The Freedom House, a conservative organization based
in New York, publishes an annual report, Freedom in the World,
that relies on opinions of experts to rank countries by various
indicators of freedom. According to their index of civil and
political liberties compiled for 2000-2001, the United States
received the highest score of six (on a scale of one to seven),
but this was an honor that it shared with fourteen other countries,
including Portugal and Uruguay. Britain ranked 34th, well after
Poland and Panama. Israel, the world's most touted 'democracy,'
ranked 41st, after Bolivia and Benin. [12]
Is the United States the world leader,
then, in press freedom? That too is misconception. In October
2003, Reporters Without Borders published its Second World
Press Freedom Ranking; compiled from a questionnaire with
"53 criteria for assessing the state of press freedom in
each country." The United States ranked 32nd, behind Hungary,
Jamaica, Benin and East Timor. To make matters worse, American-occupied
Iraq, only recently 'liberated' from the grip of a tyrant, ranked
135th. There is one consolation: US-occupied Iraq is ahead of
Saudi Arabia, our closest ally in the Islamicate world. [13]
In many situations, it may be useful
to look upon the rates of incarceration as an important indicator
of un-freedom and racism in a country. For many years,
USSR, 'the Evil Empire," led the world in this field with
its Siberian gulags. More recently, the United States has taken
the lead with the highest rate of incarceration per capita: 6.41
per thousand in 1999. Russia, the successor to USSR, remains
in hot contest, with an incarceration rate of 6.37 per thousand.
[14] If we add the prisoners the Bush-Ashcroft regime has taken
recently under the Patriot Act inside the United States, those
held in Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those captured
at our behest (under 'extraordinary rendition') by torture-friendly
regimes, our leading position looks quite secure. The racial
composition of those incarcerated tell their own story. Consider
the percentage shares, in the table below, of African-Americans
in the prison and total populations of four US states in 1996.
This disproportion is common to many states. [15]
Table One
Share of African-Americans in
State Prisons
| State |
Prison
Population % |
State
Population % |
| Nebraska |
31 |
2 |
| Connecticut |
46 |
9 |
| Wisconsin |
49 |
6 |
| Massachusetts |
37 |
6 |
In his first inaugural address in 1993,
President Clinton spoke of the United States as the "world's
oldest democracy." [16] Is it? Presumably, this history
starts the clock of democracy in 1787 when the Constitution was
ratified. But many would consider this problematic, since this
Constitution excluded as much as a sixth of the country's population--its
slave population--from any of the rights of citizenship. Can
we then start the clock of democracy in 1865 when slavery was
abolished, or in 1868 when the Confederate states re-entered
the Union with a commitment (in their state constitutions) to
equal rights for all citizens? That too is dubious.
For another hundred years, the United
States was not a democracy for all its citizens. At first through
terrorist methods, and, later, starting in the 1890s, through
amendments in the state constitution, the Southern states pressed
ahead in their effort to exclude blacks from the political process.
This resulted in "the disfranchisement of nearly all black
citizens and the removal from office of nearly all black legislators
in the former Confederate states by 1910." [17] Arguably,
we might start the clock in the 1960s, when the blacks launched
the Civil Rights Movement to regain their political rights. However,
this process is far from complete. Under felony disenfranchisement
laws, still on the books since the days of segregation, some
4.7 million Americans are denied their voting rights. Under these
laws black men are disenfranchised at seven times the rate for
all Americans. [18]
Considering the salience of sports and
athletics in American culture, I would be remiss if I did not
document America's ranking in this important field. Since few
countries in the world have taken up America's favorite sports
(surely a disappointment for a hegemonic power), we will have
to examine America's standing at the Summer Olympic games. At
first blush, the US appears to live up to its reputation at the
Sydney Olympics of 2000, leading the world with a points total
of 201, well ahead of Russia (180) and China (131). But is the
points total an appropriate criterion? A fair comparison
would look at points total per capita. On a per capita basis,
the US position slips to 41st. [19]
We arrive finally at the compassion derby.
In a recent speech, President Bush declared, "We are a compassionate
country, and we are generous toward our fellow citizens."
It is a favorite pitch with American politicians in both parties.
But this just won't wash. In its Human Development Report,
2003, the UNDP measures a Human Poverty Index (HPI) for seventeen
developed countries; it measures deprivations in four
dimensions. On this index of human poverty, the US ranked dead
last out of seventeen countries. [20] If we measure compassion
"toward fellow citizens" in terms of income inequality--conventionally
measured by the Gini index--we get the same result. The US has
the largest value for the Gini index amongst developed countries.
[21] By what available metric is the American political system
"generous" to weaker segments of its own society?
In measuring US compassion towards other
countries, I will take the more lenient view, not listing the
invasions launched, regimes changed, the bombs dropped, coups
instigated or sanctions imposed against the 'salt of the earth.'
[22] Instead, I will compare the funds allocated to 'foreign
aid,' the index by which Americans most often measure their generosity
towards poor countries. The total funds allocated by the United
States to 'foreign aid" amounted to 0.11 percent (note the
position of the decimal) of its gross national income. That is
easily the lowest ratio for the twenty-four members of Development
Assistance Committee of the OECD. [23] On the ground, matters
are much worse. Nearly one-third of this aid goes as grants (no
obligation to pay back) to another developed country, Israel,
to buy the most advanced weaponry in the US arsenal.
So the United States is not the
greatest country in the world, better than all other countries
in every possible way. Why have I labored to establish
this rather obvious result? There is a deep, two-way connection
between these claims of superiority, of uniqueness, and the efforts
by the American establishment to obfuscate the inequities inside
the United States and to justify the inequities it helps to create
and sustain outside its borders.
Every time America's 'leaders' speak
of the "world's greatest country," behind the backs
of their constituents, many, perhaps most of them are scheming
to build more prisons and fewer schools, to hire more policemen
and fewer teachers, to train more secret agents and fewer scientists,
to fund more WMDs and fewer life-saving drugs; they are being
wined and dined by Corporations who are monopolizing the media,
denuding our rights, placing their profits before our lives,
our children, our safety, and the natural beauty of the world
we live in. In their myopic pursuit of power, these politicians
would rather build the "world's greatest country" (if
only they could) but populated with an impoverished, uneducated
and unhealthy population, supine and undemanding of their rights.
Every time America's 'leaders' boast
of the "world's oldest democracy," and of exporting
democracy to the world, I can see peasants expropriated; workers
shot, tortured and jailed; people's revolutions overthrown, crushed
by American force, guile and lucre all across the Periphery;
all to protect the unrestrained right of American Corporations
to make money. Every time these mandarins proclaim that the
United States is the "last great hope of earth," people
all across the Periphery take cover, for they know that these
words will be followed, as they have been in the past, by napalm
bombs, by landmines, by cruise missiles, by daisy cutters, by
shards of steel planted in their children's eyes. The people
of the Periphery are all too familiar with the rhetoric of the
"world's oldest democracy." They will not be deceived.
So the United States is not the
greatest country in the world, better than all other countries
in every possible way. What if this carefully guarded
secret were to spill out? What if Dan Rather, America's favorite
news anchor, were to open the CBS Evening News tonight with the
announcement that some great think tank in Washington, preferably
a conservative think tank, after years of carefully investigation,
involving the best brains in the social sciences, had discovered
that the United States "isn't after all the greatest country
in the world, better than all other countries in every possible
way?" Would this be another devastating blow to America's
self-confidence, greater than that caused by the carnage of 9-11?
Would Americans show up for work the next day or the day after?
Why bother if you are not living in the "world's greatest
country?" How would the President respond to this national
catastrophe? What would he do to restore American confidence
in their greatness? Invade Canada? Colonize Antartica? Or perhaps,
ship the entire population of the Northeast to Mars?
Most Americans may well be relieved at
this revelation. It was what they had suspected all along, but
could never gather the pluck to tell the corporate lackeys--masquerading
as leaders--who kept telling them otherwise. And now that this
ruse had been exposed, perhaps, Americans will start asking the
tough questions, start reclaiming their lost rights, and start
rebuilding a democracy of all the people, for all
the people and by all the people. Once this questioning
starts, perhaps Americans will also start looking into all the
ways in which their country--especially their government and
corporations--impoverish their neighbors around the world, neighbors
they, as Christians, should love, not reduce to poverty, dependency
and misery.
When the United States, an admirable
country in many respects, collectively aspires to inclusiveness,
both inside and outside its borders; when the United States places
people--people everywhere--before the profits of its corporations;
when the United States aspires to be the best country--under
a scale of humane values--not merely the greatest; when the people
of the United States want for the world what they want for themselves;
then, and only then, will the world embrace Americans as their
own, a good people, even a generous people, contributing more
than their share to the human struggle to make our world a better
place for everyone.
M. Shahid Alam
is professor of economics at Northeastern University. His last
book, Poverty from the Wealth of Nations, was published
by Palgrave in 2000. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's
hot new book: The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. He may be reached at m.alam@neu.edu.
Visit his webpage at http://msalam.net.
© M. Shahid Alam
References:
[1] Muhammad Asad, The principles
of state and government in Islam (Gibraltar: Dar Al-Andalus,
1993).
[2] "CNN debate on terrorism: Chomsky
v. Bennet," Counterpunch.org, May 30, 2002.
[3] Rahul Mahajan, "We think the
price is worth it," Fair, November/December 2001.
[4] "Full
text of Kerry's speech to UCLA," Sacbee, February
27, 2004:
[5] Everett Carll Ladd and Karlyn H.
Bowman, What's wrong: A survey of American satisfaction and
complaint (Storrs, CT.: The AEI Press, 1998).
[6] Data in this and the previous paragraph
are from World Bank, World development report, 2004 (Washington,
D.C.: Oxford University Press, 2003).
[7] United Nations Development Programme,
Human development report, 2001 (Washington, D.C.: Oxford
University Press, 2000): 46, 48. The TAI is a composite of eight
indicators, lumped into four categories: technology creation,
diffusion of recent innovations, diffusion of old innovations,
and human skills.
[8] World Bank, World
development indicators, 2002, CD-ROM:
[9] The first indicator is tabulated
by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics; the second and third indicators
are provided by OECD. All three are reported in: http://www.nationmaster.com
[10] Aniup Shah, "High
military expenditure in some places," June 11, 2003.
[11] Ladd and Bowman (1998): 16.
[12] Freedom House, Freedom in the
World 2000-2001 (New York: 2001), reported in: http://www.nationmaster.com/
[13] Reporters Without Borders, Second world press freedom ranking (October 20,
2003).
[14] UN, Office on Drugs and Crime, Seventh
United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal
Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 - 2000 (UN,
Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention,
December 2002).
[15] Human Rights Watch, "United
States: Punishment and prejudice," May 2000, 12, 2(G).
[16] Bill Clinton, Inaugural
address, January 21, 1993:
[17] United States Department of Justice,
Introduction
to Federal voting rights (February 11, 2001).
[18] The Sentencing Project, Felony
disenfranchisement laws in the United States (Washington,
DC: March 2004).
[19] http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php
[20] United Nations Development Programme,
Human development report, 2003 (Washington, D.C.: Oxford
University Press, 2000): 248, 342.
[21] World Bank, World development
report, 2003 (Washington, D.C.: Oxford University Press,
2002): 236-7.
[22] For the complete record on American
'compassion,' read William Blum, Killing Hope: US military
and CIA interventions since World War II (Monroe, ME: Common
Courage Press, 2004).
[23] World Bank, World development
report, 2003 (Washington, D.C.: Oxford University Press,
2002): 290.
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