Jim Hightower: US Ranks 27th in Social Justice

[marmar]

US Ranks 27th in Social Justice

Monday 16 January 2012
by: Jim Hightower, Other Words Blog | Op-Ed

Being at the bottom of the heap in terms of social justice confirms the reality of both economic and political inequality that the Occupy movement is protesting.


"USA: We're No. 1!"

Oh, wait — Iceland is No. 1. But we did beat out Poland and Slovakia, right? Uh...no. But go on down the rankings and there we are! No. 27, fifth from the bottom. So our new national chant is, "USA: At Least We're Not Last!"

A foundation in Germany has analyzed the social justice records of all 31 members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), ranking each nation in such categories as health care, income inequality, pre-school education, and child poverty. The overall performance by the United States — which boasts of being an egalitarian society — outranks only Greece, Chile, Mexico, and Turkey. Actually, three of those countries performed better than ours in the education of pre-schoolers, and Greece did better than the United States on the prevention of poverty.

Our bottom-of-the-heap ranking in social justice confirms the economic and political inequality that the Occupy movement is protesting. It also helps explain why this grassroots uprising in America has spread so rapidly to more than 600 communities and has generated such broad public support. After all, our nation is fabulously rich, ranking well ahead of nearly every other OECD member in national wealth, so there's no excuse for us sitting at the bottom of the list in education, health care, poverty, and other measures of a democratic and egalitarian society. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/us-ranks-27th-social-justice/1326737822

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[Tansy_Gold]

2. wow, we're that high? n/t

[Selatius]

5. Well, there are only 31 member states in the OECD. If we're aiming for dead last, we still failed.

There's always a tiny modicum of humor in the darkest of piles.

[NorthCarolina]

3. K&R

[RKP5637]

4. K&R !!! And I bet most Americans are totally oblivious to this, at least

Fox News viewers. I run across people that think we're #1 in everything, it just stuns me, the ignorance in this country about what is going on. And how some are so willing to be used while decrying OWS.

[izquierdista]

6. I'm going to blame a lot of this on our private transportation system

The most wonderful system of highways ever designed for private automobiles to zip from one end of the country to the other. But unlike other countries that have nice highways (think Germany), there is no public transportation outside of the northeast and a few major cities. No opportunity to meet your neighbors on the public transportation, unless you want to meet the POOR neighbors who can't afford cars.

With everyone spending a lot of their disposable income on the upkeep and maintenance of their private automobile, everyone's level in the social justice ranking is on show. If you don't drive a nice, late model car, you fall in the rankings. If your car is too old and ratty, or you just don't want to spend lots of your money for 'mobility', you aren't deserving of as much social justice. On the other hand, if your kids go to a crappy school and you can't afford health insurance, somehow a nice new paint job and a set of rims makes it all better. We've become a tribe that socks away their wealth in the most bizarre of places -- no, not the tulip garden, but what is parked in the garage.

[Quantess]

7. 27th place out of 31?

That's terrible! Even I didn't suspect it would be that bad, and I'm fairly cynical.