When I came to OZ from the US I noticed a difference in the expression of ‘patriotism’. There are few Australian flags flying from private houses - very few.

It is not that they are not proud of their country here but they don't seem to need to proclaim it. When called on to fight they do so with vigor, but otherwise don't get into a daily pledge of allegiance.

I have heard Americans say that one should not make a verbal attack on the president of the United States, especially, in time of war. In OZ knocking the Prime Minister is a national sport at any time.

I have not seen one sticker in OZ that says “I support our troops”. It is quietly expected that the people in OZ support their troops – why wouldn’t they? The need to proclaim that support in public does not exist.

Such a proclamation in OZ would be seen as a cry for attention. Self-serving attempts to call attention to oneself by ostentatious waving the flag or proclaiming support for the troops is frowned on. Action (when called on) is the OZ way of showing support. There are times and days set aside for remembering the dead of great OZ battles. Speeches are made at these times about the sacrifices that should not be forgotten. Then OZ turns its focus back to work and sport and the joys of life for another year.

OZ is a small country in comparison to the US of A. OZ does not have the huge economy of the US, but OZ did her bit in the World Wars, Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq (both times). Most people in OZ do not know that they enjoy a higher standard of living than they do in America.

On most indices Australia does better than the US:

Infant Mortality (what is the value of an American baby to Americans?)

Rank - Country - Value - / Unit
1. Japan 3.30 deaths/1,000 live births
2. Sweden 3.42 deaths/1,000 live births
3. Iceland 3.50 deaths/1,000 live births
4. Singapore 3.57 deaths/1,000 live births
5. Finland 3.73 deaths/1,000 live births
6. Norway 3.87 deaths/1,000 live births
7. Andorra 4.06 deaths/1,000 live births
8. Germany 4.23 deaths/1,000 live births
9. Netherlands 4.26 deaths/1,000 live births
10. Austria 4.33 deaths/1,000 live births
11. Switzerland 4.36 deaths/1,000 live births
12. France 4.37 deaths/1,000 live births
13. Macau 4.42 deaths/1,000 live births
Slovenia 4.42 deaths/1,000 live births
15. Spain 4.54 deaths/1,000 live births
16. Belgium 4.57 deaths/1,000 live births
17. Luxembourg 4.65 deaths/1,000 live births
18. Australia 4.83 deaths/1,000 live births
19. Liechtenstein 4.85 deaths/1,000 live births
20. Canada 4.88 deaths/1,000 live births
21. Denmark 4.90 deaths/1,000 live births
22. United Kingdom 5.28 deaths/1,000 live births
23. Ireland 5.34 deaths/1,000 live births
24. Czech Republic 5.37 deaths/1,000 live births
25. Malta 5.62 deaths/1,000 live births
26. Hong Kong 5.63 deaths/1,000 live births
Monaco 5.63 deaths/1,000 live births
28. Portugal 5.73 deaths/1,000 live births
29. San Marino 5.97 deaths/1,000 live births
30. New Zealand 6.07 deaths/1,000 live births
31. Greece 6.12 deaths/1,000 live births
32. Aruba 6.14 deaths/1,000 live births
33. Italy 6.19 deaths/1,000 live births
34. Taiwan 6.65 deaths/1,000 live births
35. United States 6.75 deaths/1,000 live births
36. Croatia 6.92 deaths/1,000 live births
37. Cuba 7.15 deaths/1,000 live births
38. Korea, South 7.31 deaths/1,000 live births
39. Israel 7.37 deaths/1,000 live births
40. Cyprus 7.54 deaths/1,000 live births
41. New Caledonia 8.06 deaths/1,000 live births
42. Reunion 8.13 deaths/1,000 live births
43. Slovakia 8.55 deaths/1,000 live births
44. Hungary 8.58 deaths/1,000 live births
45. Cayman Islands 8.64 deaths/1,000 live births
46. French Polynesia 8.78 deaths/1,000 live births
47. Chile 8.88 deaths/1,000 live births
48. Poland 8.95 deaths/1,000 live births
49. Virgin Islands 9.00 deaths/1,000 live births
50. Bermuda 9.05 deaths/1,000 live births
51. Puerto Rico 9.38 deaths/1,000 live births
52. American Samoa 9.82 deaths/1,000 live births
53. Nauru 10.33 deaths/1,000 live births
54. Costa Rica 10.56 deaths/1,000 live births
55. Kuwait 10.57 deaths/1,000 live births
56. Netherlands Antilles 10.71 deaths/1,000 live births
57. Estonia 12.03 deaths/1,000 live births
58. Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of 12.14 deaths/1,000 live births
59. Barbados 12.72 deaths/1,000 live births
60. French Guiana 12.84 deaths/1,000 live births
61. Jamaica 13.26 deaths/1,000 live births
62. Fiji 13.35 deaths/1,000 live births
Tonga 13.35 deaths/1,000 live births
64. Brunei 13.50 deaths/1,000 live births
65. Bulgaria 13.70 deaths/1,000 live births
66. Uruguay 13.80 deaths/1,000 live births
67. Belarus 13.87 deaths/1,000 live births
68. Lithuania 14.17 deaths/1,000 live births
69. Saint Lucia 14.37 deaths/1,000 live births
70. Latvia 14.59 deaths/1,000 live births
71. Grenada 14.63 deaths/1,000 live births
72. Sri Lanka 15.22 deaths/1,000 live births
73. Dominica 15.34 deaths/1,000 live births
74. Saint Kitts and Nevis 15.39 deaths/1,000 live births
75. United Arab Emirates 15.58 deaths/1,000 live births
76. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 15.70 deaths/1,000 live births
77. Palau 15.76 deaths/1,000 live births
78. Mauritius 16.11 deaths/1,000 live births
79. Argentina 16.16 deaths/1,000 live births
80. Seychelles 16.41 deaths/1,000 live births
81. Greenland 16.80 deaths/1,000 live births
82. Serbia and Montenegro 16.90 deaths/1,000 live births
83. Romania 18.40 deaths/1,000 live births
84. Bahrain 18.59 deaths/1,000 live births
85. British Virgin Islands 18.80 deaths/1,000 live births
86. Jordan 18.86 deaths/1,000 live births
87. Malaysia 19.00 deaths/1,000 live births
88. Russia 19.51 deaths/1,000 live births
89. Qatar 20.03 deaths/1,000 live births
90. Saint Helena 20.70 deaths/1,000 live births
91. Ukraine 20.87 deaths/1,000 live births
92. Antigua and Barbuda 20.90 deaths/1,000 live births
93. Oman 21.01 deaths/1,000 live births
94. Tuvalu 21.34 deaths/1,000 live births
95. Panama 21.44 deaths/1,000 live births
96. Thailand 21.83 deaths/1,000 live births
97. Colombia 22.47 deaths/1,000 live births
98. Bosnia and Herzegovina 22.70 deaths/1,000 live births
99. Anguilla 22.80 deaths/1,000 live births
100. Solomon Islands 22.88 deaths/1,000 live births
101. Mexico 23.68 deaths/1,000 live births
102. Venezuela 23.79 deaths/1,000 live births
103. Suriname 24.74 deaths/1,000 live births
104. Trinidad and Tobago 24.97 deaths/1,000 live births
105. Philippines 24.98 deaths/1,000 live births
106. China 25.26 deaths/1,000 live births
107. Korea, North 25.66 deaths/1,000 live births
108. Bahamas, The 26.21 deaths/1,000 live births
109. Lebanon 26.43 deaths/1,000 live births
110. El Salvador 26.75 deaths/1,000 live births
111. Libya 26.80 deaths/1,000 live births
112. Tunisia 26.91 deaths/1,000 live births
113. Belize 27.07 deaths/1,000 live births
114. Paraguay 27.71 deaths/1,000 live births
115. Samoa 29.73 deaths/1,000 live births
116. Honduras 29.96 deaths/1,000 live births
117. Vietnam 30.83 deaths/1,000 live births
118. Nicaragua 31.39 deaths/1,000 live births
119. Marshall Islands 31.58 deaths/1,000 live births
120. Syria 31.67 deaths/1,000 live births
121. Brazil 31.74 deaths/1,000 live births
122. Ecuador 31.97 deaths/1,000 live births
123. Dominican Republic 34.19 deaths/1,000 live births
124. Egypt 35.26 deaths/1,000 live births
125. Peru 36.97 deaths/1,000 live births
126. Albania 37.28 deaths/1,000 live births
127. Guyana 37.55 deaths/1,000 live births
128. Algeria 37.74 deaths/1,000 live births
129. Guatemala 37.92 deaths/1,000 live births
130. Indonesia 38.09 deaths/1,000 live births
131. Armenia 40.86 deaths/1,000 live births
132. Moldova 41.58 deaths/1,000 live births
133. Iran 44.17 deaths/1,000 live births
134. Turkey 44.20 deaths/1,000 live births
135. Morocco 44.87 deaths/1,000 live births
136. Sao Tome and Principe 46.04 deaths/1,000 live births
137. Saudi Arabia 47.94 deaths/1,000 live births
138. East Timor 50.47 deaths/1,000 live births
139. Cape Verde 50.50 deaths/1,000 live births
140. Georgia 51.24 deaths/1,000 live births
141. Kiribati 51.26 deaths/1,000 live births
142. Ghana 53.02 deaths/1,000 live births
143. Papua New Guinea 54.84 deaths/1,000 live births
144. Gabon 55.05 deaths/1,000 live births
145. Iraq 55.16 deaths/1,000 live births
146. Bolivia 56.05 deaths/1,000 live births
147. Mongolia 57.16 deaths/1,000 live births
148. Senegal 57.57 deaths/1,000 live births
149. Vanuatu 58.11 deaths/1,000 live births
150. Kazakhstan 58.73 deaths/1,000 live births
151. India 59.59 deaths/1,000 live births
152. Maldives 60.13 deaths/1,000 live births
153. South Africa 60.84 deaths/1,000 live births
154. Kenya 63.36 deaths/1,000 live births
155. Yemen 65.02 deaths/1,000 live births
156. Sudan 65.59 deaths/1,000 live births
157. Bangladesh 66.08 deaths/1,000 live births
158. Zimbabwe 66.47 deaths/1,000 live births
159. Botswana 67.34 deaths/1,000 live births
160. Swaziland 67.44 deaths/1,000 live births
161. Namibia 68.44 deaths/1,000 live births
162. Togo 68.73 deaths/1,000 live births
163. Cameroon 70.12 deaths/1,000 live births
164. Burma 70.35 deaths/1,000 live births
165. Nepal 70.57 deaths/1,000 live births
166. Nigeria 71.35 deaths/1,000 live births
167. Uzbekistan 71.51 deaths/1,000 live births
168. Burundi 71.54 deaths/1,000 live births
169. Turkmenistan 73.17 deaths/1,000 live births
170. Mauritania 73.80 deaths/1,000 live births
171. Gambia, The 74.93 deaths/1,000 live births
172. Kyrgyzstan 75.34 deaths/1,000 live births
173. Cambodia 75.94 deaths/1,000 live births
174. Haiti 76.01 deaths/1,000 live births
175. Eritrea 76.32 deaths/1,000 live births
176. Pakistan 76.53 deaths/1,000 live births
177. Comoros 79.51 deaths/1,000 live births
178. Madagascar 80.21 deaths/1,000 live births
179. Azerbaijan 82.41 deaths/1,000 live births
180. Lesotho 86.21 deaths/1,000 live births
181. Benin 86.76 deaths/1,000 live births
182. Uganda 87.90 deaths/1,000 live births
183. Laos 88.94 deaths/1,000 live births
184. Equatorial Guinea 89.02 deaths/1,000 live births
185. Central African Republic 93.30 deaths/1,000 live births
Guinea 93.30 deaths/1,000 live births
187. Congo, Republic of the 95.34 deaths/1,000 live births
188. Chad 95.74 deaths/1,000 live births
189. Congo, Democratic Republic of the 96.56 deaths/1,000 live births
190. Cote d'Ivoire 98.33 deaths/1,000 live births
191. Zambia 99.29 deaths/1,000 live births
192. Burkina Faso 99.78 deaths/1,000 live births
193. Rwanda 102.61 deaths/1,000 live births
194. Ethiopia 103.22 deaths/1,000 live births
195. Tanzania 103.68 deaths/1,000 live births
196. Bhutan 104.68 deaths/1,000 live births
197. Malawi 105.15 deaths/1,000 live births
198. Djibouti 106.96 deaths/1,000 live births
199. Guinea-Bissau 110.29 deaths/1,000 live births
200. Tajikistan 113.43 deaths/1,000 live births
201. Mali 119.20 deaths/1,000 live births
202. Somalia 120.34 deaths/1,000 live births
203. Niger 123.64 deaths/1,000 live births
204. Liberia 132.18 deaths/1,000 live births
205. Afghanistan 142.48 deaths/1,000 live births
206. Sierra Leone 146.86 deaths/1,000 live births
207. Angola 193.82 deaths/1,000 live births
208. Mozambique 199.00 deaths/1,000 live births

Incarceration:

The USA ranks number one in terms of the Percentage of Population in Prison!

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/incarceration

Life Expectancy:

Canada ranks tenth in life expectancy at 79.83 years while the United States ranks 38th at 77.14 years. Australia ranks 6th at 80.13 years.

The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).

The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.7Cool.

US workers lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!

"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).

Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).

Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). The US is not the place to be anymore.

The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.

"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80)
Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

"U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81

Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).

The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).

U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).

Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005)."

When I hear “patriotic” Americans say the US is the greatest country in the world, I wonder what criteria they are using. That the US can still push little countries around is evident. But it does not seem to take good care of its own people.

So on what criteria should we judge a country? Is ‘patriotism’ just a form of denial? Does ‘patriotism’ prevent us from being honest about our country’s strengths and weaknesses?

 

 

 

                                                                                                                      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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