See note at end of this blog.

When asked what makes America the greatest country in the world, the anchorman on cable television’s Newsroom, played by Jeff Daniels, delivers this passionate and somewhat inaccurate critique of "American Exceptionalism":

"It's not the greatest country in the world," he fumes. "We're seventh in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, No. 4 in labor force, and No. 4 in exports. ... So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the f* you're talking about."
Quoted on CNN

The investment of the American people in national superiority ensures that our politicians won't ever say what they really think. Complex ideas can be too easily eviscerated into negative sound bites, and negativity remains the only crime guaranteed to keep a candidate out of office.We can trace Ronald Reagan’s election to his insistence that America does everything right. He offered himself to the electorate as a cheering squad and voters happily did the "Wave" in response. Now we endure politicians on par with Mr. Rogers encouraging three-year-olds to think positive thoughts.With nothing real on the discussion menu and the truth off-limits, our candidates of necessity fall back on ad hominem attacks. The Romney/Ryan camp repeatedly insinuates that the President, as a black man, resents a strong, noble, invincible (white) America. A member of Romney's staff went so far as to declare that, by virtue of his “Anglo-Saxon heritage,” the Republican candidate understands and appreciates Europe in a way our African-American President cannot. UK TelegraphIn spite of repeated contradictions in the national press, Mitt Romney refers to Barack Obama’s putative “apologist” stance on the United States. Even the slightest hint that Mr. Obama wavers in visionless patriotism incites Mr. Romney’s base and erodes Mr. Obama's chances.On the other hand, Democrats like to remind us of Mr. Romney’s contempt for the 47%, even though every presidential candidate since Lincoln knows that 47% of the voters will not vote for him. And I suspect that, in spite of pasted-on smiles, all candidates feel hostile to that group and routinely characterize it in disparaging terms.Public relations hacks create the men who speak into the microphones, impersonating "true leaders", people the polls tell them the voters will approve. Nowadays, myopia about America's real problems constitutes the most essential qualification for president. Don’t mention the country’s falling income levels, the rising levels of imprisonment, the young black men murdering each other in the nation’s ghettos. Mum's the word. All the news is good, unless you're the contender. Then all the news is bad but will definitely get better when you take office. Because this great nation deserves you.When a good ole boy says he'll vote for the man he'd like to have a beer with, he means he'll vote for the man who makes him feel good about himself by telling him he’s part of a country envied and admired by the rest of the planet, a country he built.Bulletin: The United States is no longer number one except in dubious categories.We remain first in gross domestic product, a less than stellar accomplishment when you look at what GDP actually represents:

"Since the GDP records every monetary transaction as positive, the costs of social decay and natural disasters are tallied as economic advance. . . . Hurricane Andrew was a disaster for Southern Florida. But the GDP recorded it as a boon to the economy of well over $15 billion." Progress

Our candidates don’t tell us that. If GDP helps their campaign, they tout it. If a falling GDP helps, they brandish it while promising to boost it during their presidency.We also remain an unsurpassable first in military spending, over China by $711,000,000,000 to $143,000,000,000, over Russia, which spends approximately $72,000,000,000, and over the United Kingdom, which spends approximately $63,000,000,000.

Why do we need to spend an obscene $711bn annually on weapons? Last year, according to the GAO, taxpayers shelled out “$71 for a 4¢ metal pin, $644.75 for a . . . gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51 . . . . $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DOD [the Department of Defense] for $7.71 . . . . $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents, an increase of over 177,000 percent.”  fff.org

Such pigging out at the public trough has been around since the Civil War. War in this country has always been big business, with $640 toilet seats that should've been gold-plated and $436 hammers that should've worked without an attached carpenter. But since then, "ersatz people" (aka corporations) have been doing business as usual.)
As the Republicans insist (and Obama intends), we will increase our spending on the military. Our corporations are struggling with record profits. But, of course, these facts wouldn't reach us if we had to depend on our candidates to broadcast them. They're much too depressing.We are first as well in locking up our citizens in numbers and percentages greater than China, Cuba, Russia, or any other country you like to think of as totalitarian. America incarcerates 730 bodies for every 100,000. “According to a US Department of Justice report published in 2006, over 7.2 million people were at that time in prison, on probation, or on parole (released from prison with restrictions). That means roughly 1 in every 32 Americans are held by the justice system.”More recently, “[a]s of December 31, 2010, the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS) at King's College London estimated 2,266,832 [U.S.] prisoners from a total population of 310 million.” China imprisons approximately 1,600,000 of their people despite a population four times the size of that of the United States. Wikipedia

And we are first in spending on medical care: $2.6 trillion every year.Even so, our infants die at in numbers greater than they do in 48 other countries and territories. New York TimesFurthermore, all that spending doesn’t improve our health:

“In a 2011 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation Development, the United State ranked 27th in life expectancy. The report found our cancer survival rates are higher than average, but compared to other developed countries, we're more likely to die of heart disease and we have a not-good track record on treating chronic diseases such as asthma.” Mlive News

Asthma, of course, for reasons it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to conjure, plagues children living in ghetto housing.With so much money slushing around the healthcare system, nevertheless, sick Americans are far less likely to seek medical care than sick people in 29 of 34 developed countries. Mlive NewsBut we are told our healthcare system is the world's best. There will be no bad news tolerated by the emperor-citizens who inhabit this land. Here’s the New York Postresponding to the gloomy Newsroom assessment that led off this blog:

Cuba beats us, but Cuba is a dictatorship that lies about everything. I doubt [Newsroom’s producer Aaron] Sorkin would want his next child delivered in Cuba. 

Still, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK, Canada, Australia and Japan beat us. Why is that? 

Because doctors in other countries look at a premature fetus and think “medical waste.” Our doctors think, “life to be saved,” because in fact ours is the greatest country and that’s how we roll. 

Premature birth, which is the leading cause of infant mortality, is much higher in the US than in other countries — 65% higher than in Britain. The National Center for Health Statistics calls this the “primary reason” Western Europe has better numbers. 

The World Health Organization notes it is “common practice” in Western Europe not to count a delivery as a live birth until the child has survived for a set period of time. If the baby draws one breath outside the womb in the US, that’s a live birth. A lot of these babies don’t make it and drive up our mortality numbers. New York Post

So thoughtless of these infants to drive up our mortality numbers, and so unfair. We're so much better than we look on paper, eh?This would be funny if it didn't march in lockstep with our Pollyanna view of ourselves, and if that view didn’t threaten to topple our democracy.But let’s deal with the Post on the question of having a baby in Cuba. Maybe you wouldn’t want to raise your child in Cuba, but you wouldn’t object to delivering a child there, not if you knew the facts. First of all, it's free. The average hospital stay in the U.S. for a new mother is $3500, which doesn't begin to cover the costs of prenatal care. Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate in the Americas at 4.9 per 100,000 births, with three provinces having achieved well under that. The U.S. has one of the highest infant mortality rates among developed nations.And let's examine the ridiculous claim that the variation in infant mortality rates unfavorable to the U.S. (bad news!) arises from differences in how infant deaths are recorded. Here’s the Congressional Research Service:

“Differences in how live births are recorded may affect international IMR comparisons; however, it is unlikely that these recording differences would entirely explain the high U.S. IMR or the variation between the U.S. IMR and those of some European countries. This is because of both the widespread use of the WHO definition of live births and the small number of births that fall outside the WHO definition. Researchers at NCHS conclude that for recording differences to completely explain the high U.S. IMR, European countries would have to misreport one-third of their infant deaths, which these researchers conclude is unlikely.” Congressional Research Service

Estimates vary wildly on the proportion of healthcare dollars spent in paperwork, but most hold that at least 30% goes to paperwork. Less than 5% goes directly to doctors. Nobody’s saying how much goes to bloat the bank accounts of overpaid CEOs. Get Better HealthIn other words, the failures of our healthcare system are no mystery. It is one of the greatest profit-making boondoggles in history.
My advice: Put your WE’RE NUMBER ONE foam finger in the basement storeroom and hope that someday you'll have a reason to take it out again.
That is, unless you want to celebrate the fact that Americans own a greater number of guns than the gun nuts of any other country in the world, at a whopping 88 weapons per 100 of our peace-loving citizens. Public Square

________________________
Here's a letter I sent in response to a federal judge with integrity. please read the NY Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/us/... and, if you agree with me, send your own thank you to encourage the return of decency to our country:

The Honorable John C. Coughenour
United States Courthouse
700 Stewart Street, Suite 16229
Seattle, WA 98101-9906

Dear Judge Coughenour,

Your statement that you would not sentence a man to 50 additional lashes for "getting blood on the whip" distinguishes you in decency and intellect from the cowed mob mentality of so many Americans and, most particularly, so many of those involved in making laws, and administering and adjudicating our justice system.

Thank you for reminding us of the values we are in danger of losing forever as we place fear at the head of the table.

Sincerely,