Lady Liberty In New York Harbor
I received a response from one of my regular readers who made some comments that I am always either shooting at the Bush Administration, or was saying something negative about the current direction of the country. I was then asked if I thought it was "really all that bad or was I just one of those "disgruntled Americans" that couldn't see any good coming from anywhere?"
Well, I can personally say that I was very fortunate to have grown to adulthood during the 60's and for having a career in high-tech that took me to different countries and exposed to different cultures from all over the world. I can therefore attest to a certain amount of truth in the statement; "Yes, compared to today, back then were the good old days."
Now, that's not to say that there haven't been any positive improvements in our lives over the last 4 to 5 decades. However, from the bigger picture, the attitude that I had then and that of many of the people that I was fortunate to meet from other parts of the world, both they and I previously saw America in a much more positive light than we do today.
And just what makes me come to that conclusion? Well, I didn't just pull that idea out of thin air. There are plenty of different, dependable sources currently available that show just how far down the scale of "Pride in America" has fallen, especially over the past two decades.
Now I'm not just referring to the high profile areas in the US such as the loss of America's manufacturing jobs to other countries, whole industries such as steel, chemical and automobile manufacturing moving outside the US, the lack of universal healthcare and the increasing cost of America's current healthcare, the latest mortgage crisis, the US education system going into the tank, the fact that we have more people in prisons than any other country, or the issue of the on-going shrinking of America's middle-class. No, these and other similar issues in the US are all bad enough on their own merit.
My issue of concern is my personal view of the decline within America, as well as how we are seen by those other countries that had previously seen America as a true and real, "beacon of light". Those countries that had seen that being "fair and balanced" to the general public was actually possible in a large, diverse society. And, that by being such, all those within that society would continue to benefit from that structure over time.
America today, not the "United States of America", but "cultural America", and its people today are no longer looked at as that "capable" world leader and that "beacon of light". America today is more and more seen as just another biased country, with a bullying large military complex with political leaders that lecture the world by saying; "Don't do as we do...do as we say."
As I said, I didn't just come to this conclusion on my own. Here are some examples from other contributors of what I am referring to as our continuous down-ward slide in the eyes of the world. The information that I am showing here is not just from one single source. This data is collected from a number of reputable organizations, many that are independent and world-wide in scope and reputation. Some of them that you may, or may not recognize are; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, World Health Organization; United Nations Human Development Report; World Economic Forum Report; Economist Magazine; Yale Center for Environment and a number of other well respected organizations.
Here are some of their compiled results, but first, let's take something on the lighter side.
The University of Leicester, in Great Britain, does a regular report on; "Which is the happiest country in the world?" The University uses the answers to a long list of questions that came from the responses of 80,000 individuals, worldwide, in order to map out the "subjective attitude of well-being". In the past, America had always previously been in the top 3-5 positions of this index.
Here is the latest listing for where the University of Leicester says the people of the world have rated for which is the "Happiest Country":
Position / Country
1st / Denmark
2nd / Switzerland
3rd / Austria
4th / Iceland
5th / The Bahamas
23rd / USA
41st / UK
90th / Japan
178th / Burundi (Last place)
Now let's look at some other more serious areas:
When looking at the opinion polls of the past, the people from the following European allied nations, all had previously had very positive attitudes toward the United States of America. Those countries include; France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Spain. (Even the people of the "Russia" of the past, would in private, make positive comments about America, and many at the time tried to defect to the US.)
As an example, in 1963, when President Kennedy was killed, the entire world, (with the single exception of Communist China), mourned Kennedy's death. Tens of thousands of people, in hundreds of countries, took to the streets with lit torches in mourning. Even the Noble Prize winning author, John Steinbeck, while on a book tour at the time in Warsaw, Poland, stated; "There was great sorrow expressed in the streets of Warsaw, upon hearing of President Kennedy's death".
Today, the world attitude toward US President George W. Bush is very different. In 2004, when Bush was finally appointed as the US President by the US Supreme Court, the banner headline in the Guardian Newspaper, one of the most influential daily publications in Great Britain read; "How can 59,000,000 voting Americans be so stupid?".
There have been many articles written in European papers stating how George W. Bush is "totally unfit for the office of US President and is a total embarrassment to the country". Bush has engendered so much scorn and hatred of some countries, that when he visits some nations (such as Germany), efforts are made to keep him from making any contact with the thousands their citizen-demonstrators, holding signs calling Bush "evil and a terrorist".
Today, the majority of many of the world's population has a very negative feeling toward America. Years ago, the US was looked at as not only the strongest military power in the world, but was also a great nation for what we stood for and for our fairness and generosity. That attitude is no longer the prevalent attitude of even some our previously closest allies. This negative attitude has also grown substantially since the US invasion of Iraq.
After the first three years of the Bush Administration, here is what the independent Pew Research Polls stated about the attitude of these countries towards the United States:
Country / % of Negative Attitude toward America / % of
Negative Attitude toward Iraq invasion
>>> France -67% / -87%
>>> Germany -71% / -85%
>>> Great Britain -40% / -60%
>>> Italy -59% / -76%
>>> Spain -74% / -79%
>>> Russia -68% / -83%
And those minus (-), negative % ratings are only for this specific area of failure in America in the eyes of the world. There are other, more substantial areas of our downward "slide" that also need to be demonstrated.
Here are some of those areas. And once again, this information comes from a number of those reputable organizations as listed earlier in this article.
Subject of Consideration / WW US Position today / Comments
Quality of Life / 13th Place
National Health Quality / 37th Place
Freedom of the Press / 48th Place
Women's Rights / 17th Place / (Norway & Iceland tied for 1st Place)
Currency Strength / 3rd Place / (UK #1, EURO #2)
Infant Mortality / 32nd Place
Environmental Law & Policy / 45th Place
Life Expectancy / 29th Place / (United Nations Report)
AND JUST WHAT DOES ALL THIS REALLY MEAN?
Arnold Toynbee, the renowned 19th century British Economist & Social Reformer of his time once stated: "All great nations eventually commit suicide." Some respected European historians are starting to suggest that this is what's happening in America today. They also feel that the past illegal Republican US government management by the so called "conservatives" were who was responsible for heading America in the wrong direction.
Or is this just another blip on the screen of the normal ups and downs of a great nation? If it is the beginning of a possible fatal "government disease", then just how far has America gone down that deadly path to date?
My guess is that we are seriously being tested by our system and that fortunately, we at least have a political structure that allows for all Americans to up-right their ship and to get headed back in the right direction. But it's up to us to recognize the problem, make the appropriate changes and adjustments and to get back to being more of what we had stood for in the past.
Yes, I am an optimist and I do believe that "the good old days" could once again still be ahead of us. However, we have a lot of work in front of us, if we are seriously expecting to succeed in our current lifetimes.
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