vedana.net

Stupid White Men

Two quotes from Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men," which I've just finished reading:

The first, from page 206, regarding capital punishment: "The United States is among only six countries that impose the death penalty on juveniles. The others are Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. The United States is also the only country besides Somalia that has not signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child."

The second, from page 174-175, printed here for the benefit of those of you who firmly and blindly believe that the USA is the Best Country in the World: "Among the top twenty industrialized nations,

• We're number one in millionaires.
  
• We're number one in billionaires.
  
• We're number one in military spending.
  
• We're number one in firearm deaths.
  
• We're number one in beef production.
  
• We're number one in per capita energy use.
  
• We're number one in carbon dioxide emissions (more than Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and the United Kingdom combined.
  
• We're number one in total and per capita municipal waste (720 kilograms per person per year).
  
• We're number one in hazardous waste produced (by a factor of more than twenty times our nearest competitor, Germany)
  
• We're number one in oil consumption.
  
• We're number one in natural gas consumption.
  
• We're number one in the least amount of tax generated (as a percentage of gross domestic product).
  
• We're number one in the least amount of federal and state government expenditure (as a percentage of GDP).
  
• We're number one in budget deficit (as a percentage of GDP).
  
• We're number one in daily per capita consumption of calories.
  
• We're number one in lowest voter turnout.
  
• We're number one in number of political parties represented in the lower or single house.
  
• We're number one in recorded rapes (by a factor of almost three times our nearest competitor- Canada).
  
• We're number one in injuries and deaths from road accidents (almost twice as many as runner-up Canada).
  
• We're number one in births to mothers under the age of twenty (again, more than twice as many as Canada, and nearly twice as many as number two New Zealand).
  
• We're number one in the number of international human rights treaties not signed.
  
• We're number one among countries in the United Nations with a legally constituted government to not ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
  
• We're number one in number of known executions of child offenders.
  
• We're number one in likelihood of children under the age of fifteen to die from gunfire.
  
• We're number one in likelihood of children under the age of fifteen to commit suicide with a gun.
  
• We're number one in lowest eighth-grade math scores.
  
• We're number one in becoming the first society in history in which the poorest group in the population are children."
  

Obviously Moore gets a bit sensational (understatement) in his reporting of these "facts." Obviously some of these numbers are twisted for the purpose of shock value. But my reason for posting them isn't to promote the facts themselves, but rather to raise awareness of the mass inequality present in the world today, broadly and generally represented by these facts. Inequality that we as consumers and US citizens have played a large but surely unintentional part in spreading.