I think about this all the time: how where a person is born determines so much about her future. Poverty and the opportunity to leave it, education, health care - the rights and options of people with disabilities - freedom of personhood and conscience - reproductive freedom. Childhood! Having one at all, rather than being forced into a sweatshop, or sex work, or killing. So many basic human rights from which our lives flow are pre-determined by where a person is born.
This is a terrible fact. But why should this be true within one country? From The Independent, via AMERICAblog, via James, emphasis mine.
The United States of America is becoming less united by the day. A 30-year gap now exists in the average life expectancy between Mississippi, in the Deep South, and Connecticut, in prosperous New England. Huge disparities have also opened up in income, health and education depending on where people live in the US, according to a report published yesterday.
The American Human Development Index has applied to the US an aid agency approach to measuring well-being – more familiar to observers of the Third World – with shocking results. The US finds itself ranked 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in survival of infants to age. Suicide and murder are among the top 15 causes of death and although the US is home to just 5 per cent of the global population it accounts for 24 per cent of the world's prisoners.
Despite an almost cult-like devotion to the belief that unfettered free enterprise is the best way to lift Americans out of poverty, the report points to a rigged system that does little to lessen inequalities.
"The report shows that although America is one of the richest nations in the world, it is woefully behind when it comes to providing opportunity and choices to all Americans to build a better life," the authors said.
Some of its more shocking findings reveal that, in parts of Texas, the percentage of adults who pass through high school has not improved since the 1970s.
Long ago, a wmtc reader tried to sell the idea that the US and Canada were the same. (He turned out to be a troll, temporarily disguised by his large vocabulary, but easily unmasked.)
When readers pointed to some basic differences between the two countries - health care, abortion rights, equality of sexual orientation - he argued that because those rights exist in some places within the United States, they therefore exist for the United States. For example, Vermont offers state-sponsored health insurance, therefore the US has universal health care. Abortion rights are secured in New York and California, therefore the US has reproductive freedom. Same-sex couples can marry in Massachusetts, therefore...
As I had been helping women from abortion slave states who came to New York City to terminate pregnancies, this argument blew my mind. Had this guy ever seen a map?
What good do abortion rights in New York do for the woman in South Dakota? What good does Vermont's health insurance plan do for a family in Mississippi? Technically, Americans are free to move to any state they choose. But can a family be expected to roam the country trying to meet their basic needs and secure their basic freedoms? Who will fund these travels? Where will their children attend school?
In a place where many people can't afford the fuel or child care necessary to hold a job, because minimum wage is still under $6.00 an hour, the knowledge that some other state might offer a better life is little comfort. The study mentions "an almost cult-like devotion" to the free market. There's also the cult-like devotion to states' rights - federalism, in US parlance - which justifies these inequalities and locks them in place.
In my work for reproductive freedom, I would often marvel, is this one country or not? A co-author of the report referenced above says: "Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living." I would have to say "not".
6 comments:
Nope. It's not one country at all. And since the Civil War was fought over states' rights versus federal, you could say that war never really ended.
I think Reconstruction should have lasted a century. Slavery has never really been repealed in some areas.
And the 'free market' is just an excuse to justify the unregulated raping of the entire country by giant corporations that owe no allegiance to country, region, or city.
It has been brewing for a century or more, and is unlikely to be repealed in our lifetime. Too many powerful people making money out of it. But then, they are doing to the US what the US was doing to most of Central America and Southeast Asia in the previous hundred years.
A badly educated, religiously opinionated electorate will never ask for real change; only the cosmetic version.
The irony is that it is Canada that is sometimes perceived as a disunited, or at least a disjointed, country. In reality you have more in common with your countrymen and women here than the 'average American' has, if there is such a thing.
Anyone know if there are any other countries that have such a huge number of jurisdictions with such completely laws and policies? A lot of the time on the internet you see like "Here's the rule in every country in the world, and here are 50 different rules for the 50 different states." But I don't know if that's because the US is the only country like that or if it's just because the English-language internet is very US-centric.
Anyone know if there are any other countries that have such a huge number of jurisdictions with such completely laws and policies?
I'd love to know.
Aside from the issue of slavery, I wish the Union had lost the Civil War. Odds are good that by now, the "liberal" aspect of Anglo North America would be one country, and the conservative aspect would be another. And while I'm loathe to wish ill of the US in terms of its national cohesiveness, I can't help thinking that Canada would be immeasurably served if Washington, Oregon, northern California, New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and possibly and handful of the more sensible states ringing the Great Lakes quit the US and rejoined Canada, their ancient patrimony... as would those potential provinces themselves, in my estimation.
And while I'm loathe to wish ill of the US in terms of its national cohesiveness,
Eh, that barely exists anyway. It's just trotted out for ball games and parades.
The problem is there are plenty of wingnuts in the "good" states and plenty of good people stuck in the lousy states.
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