The answer is so simple, and
sad. Mr. Moore’s latest eye-opening
documentary, “Where To Invade Next” visits countries that have learned from,
and adopted our laws and policies, policies that no longer exist in the U.S. of
A.; such as tuition-free public colleges (Slovenia), prison systems that
rehabilitate rather than punish (Norway), where drug use is not a crime
(Portugal), and 8 weeks paid vacation is the law (Italy).
His film shows America on the way
to becoming a Third World country, somewhat lost in the last century and
falling behind other developed countries and many developing countries, in caring
for our citizens.
Perhaps the most moving segment was
that on women’s rights. We who were not able to pass the Equal Rights Amendment
that prevented discrimination against women in the 1970s, were imitated in
countries like Iceland with the first democratically elected President in 1980,
and where women’s rights are enshrined in their constitution (Tunisia, a Muslim
country).
For some reason, beginning in the
1970s, these countries began to give more rights to their citizens, while
America, the world’s oldest democracy, took them away. Germany has enshrined collective bargaining
in their corporations, where 50 percent of the governing board has to be made
up of its employees, whereas many states in the U.S. have either banned
collective bargaining, or the paying of dues to support collective bargaining,
in 25 right to work states.
And Icelandic corporations must
have at least 40 percent of each gender on their boards, which was made law
after 2008 and the collapse of their banking system. The 3 largest banks all filed for bankruptcy,
and some of their all-male executives went to jail, the result of “excessive,
testosterone-driven risk taking” said a commentator on their trials. The result was a mass revolt by Iceland’s
women that demanded a greater role in the running of their own country.
Michael Moore interviewed Iceland’s
special prosecutor for financial crimes, Olafur Hauksson, who said he had
learned his prosecution techniques from Bill Black, a U.S. special prosecutor
who had convicted bank executives resulting from our Savings and Loan scandal. But no U.S. executive has been prosecuted
since, much less convicted, for their excessive risk-taking and disregard of
financial regulations during the subprime meltdown and Great Recession.
Why have such more modern
democracies passed us by? Moore hints
that maybe they have learned from their horrific past of religious and world
wars to care better for their citizens.
But the U.S. hasn’t learned from the biggest stain on our democracy—slavery. We still enslave mostly African Americans in
our prisons, thanks to the war on drugs initiated by President Nixon, after
President Johnson had signed the Civil Rights Act that finally gave Blacks the same
rights as other American citizens.
While crime rates have gone down,
the number of people incarcerated has gone up in U.S. prisons. According to
Human Rights Watch, 2.3 million people were incarcerated as of 2007. The United
States has the largest incarceration rate in the world with a staggering 762
per 100,000 residents. Compare this to the U.K. whose rate is 152 per 100,000
residents, or Canada whose rate is 102.
So many prisoners create a large
workforce. According to truth-out
and the Left Business
Observer, “the federal prison industry produces 100 percent of all
military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants,
tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98
percent of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93 percent of
paints and paintbrushes; 92 percent of stove assembly; 46 percent of body
armor; 36 percent of home appliances; 30 percent of
headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21 percent of office furniture. Airplane
parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye
dogs for blind people.”
And why do we no longer have
tuition-free public colleges? It perhaps
began when Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California in 1966, UC
Berkeley was a hotbed of protests, and tuition-free for California residents.
Governor Reagan didn’t believe such
an education should be free for rebellious college students. His most infamous action of that time was the
firing of the UC Berkeley Chancellor Clark Kerr for not following his orders to
ban the student protests. Reagan vowed to “clean up that mess in
Berkeley,” warned audiences of “sexual orgies so vile that I cannot describe
them to you,” complained that outside agitators were bringing left-wing
subversion into the university, and railed against spoiled children of
privilege skipping their classes to go to protests, according to Dissent
Magazine, describing that time.
“He cut state funding for higher education, laid the foundations for a shift to a tuition-based funding model, and called in the National Guard to crush student protest, which it did with unprecedented severity. But he was only able to do this because he had already successfully shifted the political debate over the meaning and purpose of public higher education in America.”
California
was becoming more conservative, in other words.
Instead of seeing the education of the state’s youth as a patriotic duty
and a vital weapon in the Cold War, Reagan cast universities as a problem in
and of themselves—“both an expensive welfare program and dangerously close to
socialism”. He even argued for the importance of tuition-based funding by
suggesting that if students had to pay, they’d value their education too much
to protest.
Reagan’s assault against higher education
was only the beginning of the neo-cons attack on our educational system. Their real purpose was an attempt to dumb
down the electorate by crippling our public school and university systems. The fewer that were well educated meant the
fewer could challenge the power of those that supported the so-called Reagan
Revolution.
So there is a reason our
educational system ranks lower than 20 or more countries in the world. M Moore visited Finland to learn why they are
ranked #1
in the world, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment
(PISA), “a standardized test given to 15-year-olds in more than 40 global
venues.”
He interviewed teachers, students, and
education officials. They all said their students’ welfare came first, and
standardized tests should be abandoned.
They had learned from our educational system that once upon a time allowed
more free time for social interaction, little or no homework, when music and
art were an important part of our educational curriculum from elementary school
onward.
Perhaps
that is the saddest revelation of Michael’s film. How we have come to undervalue the lives of so
many American citizens, including our own women and children.
Harlan Green © 2016
Follow Harlan
Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen
