Bernstein on Watergate: ‘We were afraid we’d make a mistake’
41 years ago today, the Watergate break-in took place, which led to the resignation of Richard Nixon. Carl Bernstein, one of the journalists that broke the story, was in Dalkey last night to speak about how it changed America.
TODAY IS THE 41st anniversary of the break-in at the Watergate hotel in Washington.
Last night, the legendary journalist Carl Bernstein, who broke the story with his colleague Bob Woodward, was in Dalkey for the final event of the Dalkey Book Festival. St Patrick’s Church was packed to the rafters with fans who had come to hear the 69-year-old in conversation with David McWilliams.
Bernstein and his colleague Bob Woodward were only junior staffers when they investigated the Watergate scandal story for The Washington Post, which led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Speaking last night, the investigative journalist gave his opinion on a number of issues, from the role of investigative journalism to the Obama presidency.
Richard Nixon
When asked did he know whether the Watergate story was going to be as big as it was, Bernstein said he did not, but as more information came to light he said he remembered getting a coffee with Woodward at the vending machine just off the newsroom and turning to him and saying:
Oh my God, this president is going to be impeached.
He added that people often asked weren’t they afraid. “Yeah, we were afraid we were going to make a mistake,” he said.
“We are now in the digital age of journalism,” said Bernstein. He was critical about journalists relying on social media for sources and stories, while stating they can be great tools, he said “real reporting is about going to the people, knocking on doors, searching for documentation…”
He was critical of Julian Assange and Wikileaks, stating that “throwing documents” into the newspapers “without giving it context” is not journalism. He criticised how Assange’s actions put many lives ‘at risk’, adding “we have a responsibility as journalists”.
Woodward and Bernstein’s infamous source on the Watergate story, Deep Throat, was protected by them for many years. His identity as the former Federal Bureau of Investigation Associate Director Mark Felt was only revealed in 2005. Bernstein said:
We were smart enough not to even tell either of our now ex wives who Deep Throat was – we kept that secret for over 30 years.
When asked did he think something like Watergate could happen again, Bernstein said: “I would be amazed if a president was willing to conduct a criminal presidency again.”
Obama’s presidency
Speaking about American politics, Bernstein said that the current US President Barack Obama has had many failings over his term in office, stating that he seems to be a reactionary president, acting very late when it comes to situations like Syria.
“It takes Clinton calling him a wuss [for him] to then outline his policy,” he said, adding “he is a very reactive president instead of leading first”.
Bernstein is also an expert on Hillary Clinton, having written her biography in 2007. When asked did he think she will run for the presidency, he said: “She should run for the presidency, if she is healthy”.
However, he added: “She hasn’t had a day off since 1990.”
Read: What was Watergate? Here are 14 facts that explain everything>
Read: After 40 years, the ‘what ifs’ of Watergate scandal are still tantalising>
via Bernstein on Watergate: ‘We were afraid we’d make a mistake’.
Anti-G8 protesters march to security cordon at Lough Erne as world leaders dine inside
Hundreds of anti-G8 protesters marched to the summit site in Co Fermanagh on Monday evening, as the eight world leaders dined on Northern Irish delicacies inside the resort.
The parade and rally at the cordon around Lough Erne Golf Resort passed off without major incident, although at one point around 20 protesters briefly breached an outer wire fence in front of the main security wall, two miles from the hotel.
The episode did not result in a physical confrontation with police, with the demonstrators withdrawing through the barrier when issued with verbal warnings by officers. There were no arrests.
The vast majority of the activists, who marched three miles from Enniskillen town, were in good spirits as they voiced concerns on a range of issues as the G8 leaders met inside.
Police estimated that 700 people took part but organisers put the figure at around 2,000.
Eamonn McCann, of the People Before Profit campaign group, criticised the scale of the security operation around the resort as he addressed the crowds.
“We are not negative, it is they who are negative, it’s them who have to have 7,000 armed personnel to defend them with a ring of steel. What a farce,” he said.
Hundreds of police officers who lined the route, many drafted in from elsewhere in the UK, were confined to essentially a watching brief from a discreet distance.
The event was the second of two major protests planned in Northern Ireland to coincide with the G8.
With Saturday’s rally in Belfast passing off peacefully, security chiefs will be relieved that contingency measures put in place to deal with potential troublemakers have not yet been called upon.
Around 260 additional police custody cells have been set aside and 16 judges have been on standby to preside over special courts in the event of disorder.
Protesters advocating a diverse range of causes and campaigns, local and global, took part.
Some voiced anger at proposals to bring the controversial fracking gas extraction method to Co Fermanagh, with others hitting out at the G8 leaders for their involvement in conflicts across the world. Many were simply making stand against capitalism.
Earlier, dozens of onlookers stood in shop fronts and at pub doors in Enniskillen town centre as the noisy spectacle passed by on its way toward Lough Erne.
Many demonstrators were keen to highlight their causes as they walked along.
Ciaran Morris, 48, was dressed in a Guantanamo Bay-style orange jump suit and clutched a Palestinian flag.
He said he was protesting against injustices like the treatment of the Palestinians as well as incarceration at the US military base on Cuba.
“All the forefathers of America would turn in their graves,” the Fermanagh man said.
Peter Worth, who lives in Bundoran, Co Donegal, was demanding an end to fracking. He said the protest had given him confidence that many more people shared his concerns about the practice.
“You meet like-minded people and you realise you’re not alone,” he said. “It helps that there are people that are also against this wholesale destruction of the planet.”
George Tzamouranis, 48, from Greece, who was brought up in Wimbledon, south-west London, but now lives in Belfast, said he turned out to express his anger at capitalism.
“I’m angry that capitalism is an unjust, unfair system,” he said. “My sister is a stock market analyst and is immensely wealthy, yet I’ve been out of work for 25 years.”
Mr Tzamouranis said he graduated with a degree in Oriental languages, has been unable to get a job with his education other than casual shift work and remains a victim of capitalism.
“I’ve been living on the ragged edge since 1991,” he said. “Living in hostels, night shelters and now they have put me in a tiny one bedroom flat in Belfast. Capitalists are running down companies here, exploiting people in the East and turning us into the unemployed, marginalised, excluded.”
Caoimhin O’Machail, 66, from Dungannon in Co Tyrone, said the decision to hold the summit in Northern Ireland was unforgivable.
“It is capitalism gone crazy,” he said. “The money they are spending on it is obscene – why don’t they throw them into the desert and let them get on with it?”
Frankie Dean, 50, from Ballinamallard, Co Fermanagh, said he wanted to speak up for gay and transgender people being persecuted in Russia and Northern Ireland.
“Obama and Cameron support equal marriage and have done a lot for the LGBT community,” he said. “But Putin and the Russian people are doing bad things to LGBT people. I want to highlight that.
“Also while equal marriage is coming into the UK and other countries, it is not in Northern Ireland – and that is because of religious influences. I want those in government to come away from these influences and respect people’s rights.”
James Pellatt-Shand, 42, from Canterbury, said the turnout was lower than anticipated and blamed protesters being scared off from travelling to the area, but said he was delighted with the carnival atmosphere.
His main concern was global hunger and poverty, which he claimed could be easily solved with goodwill between rich nations.
“But I think they’ll be more likely to discuss how many weapons to give Syria than how many children are going to bed hungry,” he said.
He criticised big companies who avoid tax in developing countries, saying: “They are just stealing the food out of poor people’s mouths.”
Anti-austerity campaigners from Donegal wore giant sized heads of German chancellor Angela Merkel, Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore, whom they accused of being her puppets.
Charlie McDyer said: “They are the instigators of austerity in Ireland. They have no consideration for anyone in this country apart from the elite.”
Four human rights observers with the Committee for the Administration of Justice in Belfast were asked to observe the rally by Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
G8 – Updates
Update 18/06/13
| G8 Summit 2013:The most important issue in the civil war Syria at Belfast … National Turk English The Prime Minister David Cameron was speaking ahead of the opening of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland, which looks set to be dominated by international tensions over Syria. The leaders of the world’s most powerful countries come together today in … |
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| G8 summit: 8000 police officers and drones deployed with thousands of … Metro Security has been stepped up as the G8 summit gets under way with up 2,000 protesters expected to take part in an anti-capitalist march. Prime minister David Cameron is hoping to kick-off the summit with progress on a free trade deal between Europe and … |
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The Feral Irishman
I Think I Might Have To Try A Good Irish Dinner Tonight….Typical Irish 7 course diner
via The Feral Irishman.
Irish government to impose austerity until 2020
The Fine Gael-Labour coalition in Dublin is currently discussing a proposal from Finance Minister Michael Noonan, which imposes austerity budgets until 2020.
Although the programme has not yet been published, government officials have made clear that its purpose is to intensify the spending cuts under the bailout agreed with the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund after the programme expires later this year.
Referring to the dictates of the troika, which have ensured the implementation of a large part of the more than €28 billion of austerity measures since 2008, Noonan said, “When we leave the programme we won’t have that kind of discipline within our system any more and I want to make sure that, because of more loose arrangements, that we don’t lose impetus.”
Specific savings are expected to be outlined by the proposal, and fiscal targets will be included. Spending ceilings for the coming three years are to be presented in the 2014 budget, which will be announced in October.
Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton, like Noonan a member of Fine Gael, was explicit that the government’s strategy would be to step up the downward pressure on labour costs in order to build a “competitive economy.”
“There isn’t a crock of gold that you can dip into and create an alternative to building sound enterprises that are oriented to export markets and who sell innovative products,” he proclaimed.
The Labour Party’s Public Sector Reform Minister Brendan Howlin is playing a leading role in slashing government spending. A letter was recently issued by him to each government department, detailing percentages of budgets to be cut in the years 2015 and 2016. These are thought to include annual savings of at least three percent in the budgets of the health and social protection departments. Other departments could face annual targets of five percent.
The state pension fund will be bled dry to offer incentives to foreign investors and private equity firms to come to Ireland. The Financial Times reported that the remaining six billion euros in the National Reserve Pension Fund would be used by the government to create a “co-investment” fund.
There has been hardly any public discussion on these new developments, which will condemn Irish working people to unending austerity for years to come. These policies will worsen the conditions of misery which already prevail, including an unemployment rate standing at 14 percent.
Essential to the enforcement of austerity is the full support of the trade unions, which the government can be assured of. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has been locked in talks with the coalition since February to reach an agreement to impose the latest round of savings on public sector workers. The successor to the no-strike Croke Park Agreement between government, employers and the unions, which expires next year, aims to save €1 billion by 2016.
The unions are currently trying to force through the Haddington Road Agreement in the face of widespread opposition among workers. In the first vote on the deal in April, a large majority of workers rejected it, including an overwhelming number of teachers, medical staff and emergency service workers.
The bureaucracy then entered new talks on a union-by-union basis in order to divide the emerging opposition. They accepted as good coin the claim from Howlin that the three year agreement would be the last time workers would be asked to sacrifice their wages and working conditions to pay for the collapse of the banks, even as he prepared to outline with Noonan proposals which will see austerity and labour market reforms continue for at least another four years thereafter.
The deal now being voted on by the public sector unions retains all of the cuts demanded by the government. It contains reductions to overtime pay, longer working hours, redeployment measures designed to cut numbers in the public sector, and the freezing of pay increments.
These measures will exacerbate the exploitation of workers who have suffered significant pay cuts since 2008. In the public sector, average wages have fallen by 14 percent, while in other economic areas it is even more. This has been an integral part of the drive by the ruling elite to permanently lower labour costs. According to one study, labour costs in Ireland fell between 2008 and 2012 by 8.4 percent.
On this basis, the Irish stock market is achieving its largest rally since the crisis. Stock values have more than doubled since a low point in early 2009, and companies are predicting that they will secure their biggest profits since that time. One trader bluntly pointed to the source of these renewed gains, telling Bloomberg, “We have to give Ireland credit for actually sticking to the reform programme and taking the levels of painful social adjustment that few countries in Europe have come close to.”
The continued expansion of profits is unsustainable, and there are already clear signs of the danger of another banking collapse. Last week, it was revealed that €3.5 billion of funds loaned to Allied Irish Bank during the near collapse of the banking system in 2008-09 would not be paid back to the state, but would be converted into preferential shares. One press article pointed out that this one move would see the state lose more money than the total savings it had planned in the 2014 budget.
The banks will likely require access to even more financial support from the government, another important factor driving the cuts. Noonan discussed this possibility at his last meeting with the IMF, in the event the banks fail stress tests scheduled for early 2014. The tests, initially planned for autumn 2013, have been pushed back amid concerns over the stability of the banks. Fitch released a report this week stating that “significant risks” still remain in the financial system.
In the absence of agreement within the European Union on allowing the EU’s bailout fund to lend directly to banks, Dublin would be faced with taking even more debt on to the state balance sheet in order to cover the capital requirements of the financial institutions, under conditions in which state debt is already greater than 120 percent of GDP.
In an ominous report released at the end of May which indicates the scale of the developing crisis, Ireland’s Central Bank pointed out that a total of €25.8 billion of mortgages were in arrears by more than 90 days, and small businesses had fallen behind with payments on loans totalling €10.8 billion. The banks have only €9.2 billion in capital to act as a buffer.
While the banks can expect to obtain full access to billions more in state resources, the latest figures point to a sharp rise in severe poverty. One in ten are suffering from food poverty, defined as an inability to afford a meat or vegetarian equivalent meal every other day, or having missed a meal over a period of two weeks because of money problems. The real number of those living under such circumstances is certainly much higher, since the figures from this report were collected in 2010. In a separate study, the Irish League of Credit Unions revealed that almost 50 percent of the population have to borrow money to meet the cost of basic bills.
via Irish government to impose austerity until 2020 – World Socialist Web Site.
GMO and Monsanto Roundup: Glyphosate Weedkiller in our Food and Water?
Historians may look back and write about how willing we are to sacrifice our children and jeopardize future generations with a massive experiment that is based on false promises and flawed science just to benefit the bottom line of a commercial enterprise.” So said Don Huber in referring to the use of glyphosate and genetically modified crops. Huber was speaking at Organic Connections conference in Regina, Canada, late 2012.
Huber is an emeritus professor in plant pathology at Purdue University in the US and has worked with the Department of Homeland Security to reduce the impact of plant disease outbreaks. His words are well worth bearing in mind given that a new study commissioned by Friends of the Earth Europe (FoE) and GM Freeze has found that people in 18 countries across Europe have been found to have traces of glyphosate in their urine (1).
Friends of the Earth Europe commissioned laboratory tests on urine samples from volunteers in 18 countries across Europe and found that on average 44 percent of samples contained glyphosate. The proportion of positive samples varied between countries, with Malta, Germany, the UK and Poland having the most positive tests, and lower levels detected in Macedonia and Switzerland. All the volunteers who provided samples live in cities, and none had handled or used glyphosate products in the run-up to the tests.
The Influence of the Biotech Sector on Safety and Regulation
Although ‘weedkiller in urine’ sounds alarming, Tom Sanders, head of the nutritional sciences research division at King’s College London, says the levels found are unlikely to be of any significance to health because they are 300 times lower than the level which might cause concern. Alison Haughton, head of the Pollination Ecology Group at Rothamsted Research, said that if FoE and GM Freeze want their work to have scientific credibility and provide a genuine contribution to the debate on pesticide residues, they should submit their work for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Valid points, you might think. But FoE believes that there is sufficient evidence to suggest environmental and health impacts from glyphosate warrant concern. It wants to know how the glyphosate found in human urine samples has entered the body, what the impacts of persistent exposure to low levels of glyphosate might be and what happens to the glyphosate that remains in the body. New research published in the journal Entropy sheds disturbing light on such concerns (discussed later in this article).
In 2011, Earth Open Source said that official approval of glyphosate had been rash, problematic and deeply flawed. A comprehensive review of existing data released in June 2011 by Earth Open Source suggested that industry regulators in Europe had known for years that glyphosate causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals. Questions were raised about the role of the powerful agro-industry in rigging data pertaining to product safety and its undue influence on regulatory bodies (2).
In the same vein, FoE says there is currently very little testing for glyphosate by public authorities, despite its widespread use, and authorities in Europe do not test for glyphosate in humans and tests on food are infrequent. Glyphosate was approved for EU-wide use in 2002, but FoE argues that the European regulatory agencies did not carry out their own safety testing, relying instead on data provided by the manufacturers.
Of course there are certain scientists (usually with links to the agro-industry) who always seem to be strident in calling for peer-reviewed evidence when people are critical of the biotech sector, but then rubbish it and smear or intimidate the scientists involved when that occurs, as has been the case with Dr Arsad Pusztai in the UK or Professor Seralini in France. It is therefore quite revealing that most of the data pertaining to glyphosate safety came from industry studies, not from peer-reviewed science, and the original data are not available for independent scrutiny.
Increasing Use
With references to a raft of peer-reviewed studies, FoE also brings attention to the often disturbing health and environmental dangers and impacts of glyphosate-based herbicides throughout the world (1). The FoE study also highlights concerns around the increasing levels of exposure to glyphosate-based weed killers, particularly as the use of glyphosate is predicted to rise further if more genetically modified (GM) crops are grown. It is after all good for business. And the biggest producer of glyphosate is Monsanto, which sells it under the brand name ‘Roundup’.
“The figures don’t lie; GMOs drive glyphosate sales.” (3)
Despite its widespread use, there is currently little monitoring of glyphosate in food, water or the wider environment. The FoE commissioned study is the first time monitoring has been carried out across Europe for the presence of the weed killer in human bodies. FoE Europe’s spokesperson Adrian Bebb argues that there is a serious lack of action by public authorities and indicates that this weed killer is being widely overused.
This certainly needs to be addressed not least because the prediction concerning increasing exposure to glyphosate is not without substance. The introduction of Roundup Ready crops has already resulted in an increase of glyphosate use. Using official US government data, Dr Charles Benbrook, research professor at the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University, states that since 1996 the glysophate rate of application per crop year has tripled on cotton farms, doubled in the case of soybeans and risen 39 percent on corn (4). The average annual increase in the pounds of glyphosate applied to cotton, soybeans, and corn has been 18.2 percent, 9.8 percent, and 4.3 percent, respectively, since herbicide tolerant crops were introduced.
Glyphosate is used on many genetically modified crops. 14 new GM crops designed to be cultivated with glyphosate are currently waiting for approval to be grown in Europe. Approval of these crops would inevitably lead to a further increase of glysphosate spraying. In the US, biotech crops, including corn, soybeans, canola and sugarbeets, are planted on millions of acres annually.
Increasing Dangers
Evidence suggests that Roundup could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson’s, infertility and cancers, according to a new peer-reviewed report, published recently in the scientific journal Entropy (5). The study also concluded that residues of glyphosate have been found in food.
These residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a science consultant. The study says that negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body.
In 2010, the provincial government of Chaco province in Argentina issued a report on health statistics from the town La Leonesa. The report showed that from 2000 to 2009, following the expansion of genetically-modified soy and rice crops in the region (and the use of glyphosate), the childhood cancer rate tripled in La Leonesa and the rate of birth defects increased nearly fourfold over the entire province (6).
Professor Huber also notes the health risks associated with the (increasing) use of glyphosate. He says a number of plant pathogens are emerging, which when consumed could impact human health. Based on research that he alludes to (he refuses to make his research public or identify his fellow researchers, who he claims could suffer substantial professional backlash from academic employers who received research funding from the biotechnology industry), Huber notes that the use of glyphosate changes the soil ecology, killing many bacteria, while giving other bacteria a competitive advantage. This makes plants highly susceptible to soil borne diseases. At the same time, glyphosate has a negative effect on a number of beneficial soil organisms (7).
Huber’s concerns about the impact of long term use of glyphosate on soil sterility are similar to concerns expressed by Elaine Ingham, a soil ecologist with the Rodale Institute, and also research carried out in by Navdanya in India (8).
As for GM crops, Huber says they have lower water use efficiency, tend to be nutrient deficient, have increased bud and fruit abortion and are predisposed to infectious diseases and insect damage. He suggests that Roundup Ready crops, treated with glyphosate, have higher levels of mycotoxins and lower nutrient levels than conventional crops.
“… you could say that what you’re doing with glyphosate is you’re giving the plant a bad case of AIDS. You’ve shut down the immune system or the defense system.” Professor Ron Huber (7)
He concludes that, when consumed, the GM crops were more likely to cause disease, infertility, birth defects, cancer and allergic reactions than conventional crops.
Huber claims that consumption of food or feed that was genetically modified could bring the altered genes in contact with the microbes in the guts of the livestock or people who eat them. He feels this increases diseases, such as celiac disease, allergies, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes, gluten intolerance, irritable bowel disease, miscarriage, obesity and sudden infant death syndrome.
While none of these findings conclusively prove that plant (or animal) diseases are caused by the glyphosate, Huber feels safety evaluations have been inadequate, suggesting that previous (GM sector) research was substandard and extremely misleading in its interpretation of results – or worse.
With some hugely powerful players involved here, many of whom have successfully infiltrated important government and official bodies (9), much of the science and the ensuing debate surrounding glyphosate is being manipulated and hijacked by vested interests for commercial gain.
“… publishing in this area can also be difficult. I know from the International Symposium on Glyphosate that they had to find a journal publisher outside this country (the US) to publish the research data and symposium proceedings. It’s pretty hard to get it published in the States. There are also some hazards to publishing if you’re a young researcher doing research that runs counter to the current popular concepts. A lot of research on safety of genetic engineering is done outside of this country because it’s difficult to gain access to the materials, or the statements you have to sign to have access to those materials stating that you won’t publish without permission of the supplier. I think the 26 entomologists who sent their letter to EPA in 2009 stated it aptly when they said that objective data wasn’t available to the EPA because the materials haven’t been available to them or that they’re denied the opportunity to publish their data.” Professor Ron Huber (7)
Notes
1)http://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/press_releases/foee_media_briefing_glyphosate.pdf
2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/roundup-scientists-birth-defects_n_883578.html
4) http://www.organic-center.org/reportfiles/13Years20091126_FullReport.pdf
6) http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-147561-2010-06-14.html
7) http://farmandranchfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/don-huber-may2011-acres.pdf
8) http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BtCottonKillsSoilandFarmers.php
9) http://rense.com/general33/fd.htm
via GMO and Monsanto Roundup: Glyphosate Weedkiller in our Food and Water? | Global Research.
Fighting For Our Classrooms, and For the Human Beings Inside Them
If you thought the Irish education system was going backwards at a rapid pace just have a read about what is happening in the US. Maybe we are heading in the same direction
It seems as if the same battle is being fought in every aspect of American society. On one side are the forces of egalitarianism, economic opportunity and self-determination. On the other is a well-funded and entrenched elite bent on hijacking our media, our political process and our institutions for their selfish ends.
Sadly, the classrooms of this country haven’t been spared.
Means And Ends
The Wall Street crowd wants us to think of education in terms of means — which usually means finding ways to spend less — rather than ends. But when it comes to education, the “ends” are our children. And the means we choose for them, either consciously or through indifference, reveal who we really are as a people.
Perhaps that’s why a new “education declaration” has attracted signatories as diverse as author Dave Eggers; Prof. Robert Reich; education reformer Diane Ravitch; Larry Groce, host of NPR’s Mountain Stage; economist Lawrence Mishel; Prof. Theda Skocpol; and a number of other prominent political, academic, cultural, religious, and educational leaders. (You can sign it too.)
A quick disclaimer: I’m affiliated with the Institute for America’s Future, one of the sponsors of this initiative. I wasn’t involved with its preparation, but I’ve wanted to write about primary and secondary education for a long time. I’ve held off, partly because the moral truths have been restated so many times that they’ve become clichés.
You know the clichés I mean: Nothing’s more important than our children. Kids come first. It takes a village. “I believe the children are our future/teach them well and let them lead the way …”
The Real Deficit.
When ideas become clichés, we stop listening. As soon as the song’s over we go back to watching politicians boast about who’ll do a better job reducing the deficit — by which they mean the deficit in federal spending, not the deficit in educational resources for our children.
That’s the real deficit, the one that matters, the one that will shape our future. Kids need those resources — not just to learn their ABCs and their 1-2-3s, but to help them become fully realized human beings and full participants in society.
Did you know that, according to the most recent Census Bureau report, the amount we spend per child on education just dropped for the first time in nearly 40 years? “Teach them well and let them lead the way,” indeed.
The Playbook.
A conscience is a tricky thing. It’s tough to live with yourself when you’re shortchanging our kids and our future, no matter how many times you play that old song. What you need is an infusion of “free market” voodoo to convince you — and others — that depriving children of educational resources is for their own good.
Enter Michelle Rhee and Rahm Emanuel and the rest of their ilk, using the same playbook that’s been deployed against Social Security, Medicare and other vital government services. It goes like this:
Pretend that “budgets” are the real crisis — but never mention that corporations and the wealthy are paying less in taxes than ever before in modern history.
Make scapegoats of innocent people to draw attention away from yourselves. For Social Security they’ve attacked “greedy geezers,” but it’s hard to come up with a catchy equivalent for kids. (“Insatiable imps”? “Avaricious anklebiters”?) So they vilify teachers instead.
Sell a fantasy which says that the private sector can do more, with less money, than government can. (Never, never mention that private insurance provides far less healthcare than public insurance, at much higher cost. And don’t bring up the mess privatization’s made of prisons and other government services.)
Find a name that doesn’t use words like “money-making.” How about “charter schools”?
Describe yourselves as “reformers” — rather than, say, “demolishers.” That’s why “entitlement reform” is used as a euphemism for cutting Social Security and Medicare. (Michelle Rhee even called her autobiography “Radical.” Apparently “Shameless” was taken.)
Employ the political and media elite’s fascination with (and poor understanding of) numbers. Suggest that “standardized” and “data-driven” programs will solve everything — without ever mentioning that the truly ideological decisions are made when you decide what it is you’re measuring.
Co-opt the elite media into supporting your artificial description of the problem, as well as your entirely self-serving solution.
Use your money to co-opt politicians from both parties so you can present your agenda as “bipartisan” — a word which means you can “buy” a few “partisans” from both sides.
It shouldn’t be surprising that all these attacks share a common playbook. The money’s coming from the same pockets, and for the same reasons: so they can keep their own taxes low — and make money from the privatization schemes.
The Declaration
A lot of well-intentioned people get taken in by cynical agendas like this, especially when the other side isn’t being heard. That’s where the “Declaration” comes in. It says that “Education is a public good.” A public good is something that is, or should be, available to all without exception, like clean air, drinkable water, and the national defense.
The Declaration also says education funding should be “equitable and sufficient.” No child should be deprived of educational opportunity because of race or income. The map shown below reveals how badly we’re breaking that promise and targeting budget cuts toward minority schools. The Declaration points a finger at this shameful outcome and says that minority children, like all other children, deserve an opportunity to learn.
The Declaration also says that “National responsibilities should complement local control,” which I would interpret as follows: Every state or county manages its schools. But as the nation learned in Birmingham and Little Rock, our civil rights are universal.
And the opportunity to learn is a civil right.
Standards, Not Standardized
The Declaration doesn’t reject the idea of standards per se. But it does say, rightly, that they should be “diagnostic assessments that go beyond test-driven mandates and help teachers strengthen the classroom experience for each student.”
Instead, for 30 years we’ve been moving our educational system toward a goal of absolute standardization, a production-line process in which graduating students are uniform and interchangeable “outputs” to be produced at the lowest possible cost — each equipped with the optimum utility value for the corporations that will employ increasingly few of them.
But that’s not what education is for. Not in a free and democratic society.
The Declaration also observes that “an education agenda that imposes top-down standards and punitive high-stakes testing while ignoring the supports students need to thrive and achieve … (is) turning public schools into uncreative, joyless institutions.”
Joyless lives are for kids in Dickens novels or systematized Orwellian dystopias. They shouldn’t be the fate of today’s American children.
Beating the System
The corporate System — and it is a system — doesn’t want to produce any more student “outputs” than it needs, or any who won’t be useful corporate tools. And it’s perfectly fine for the System if poor and minority kids don’t get a decent education. The System didn’t need their parents and it doesn’t need them either.
Music programs? The System doesn’t need violin-playing ghetto kids or schoolgirls who’d rather play the drums than twirl a baton. Arts programs? Our corporate walls are already lined with Kandinskys and Klees, thank you very much.
But our nation’s children aren’t “outputs.” They’re human beings. “Education is not the filling of a pail,” said William Butler Yeats, “but the lighting of a fire.”
We’re told that our children are citizens of a great, powerful, and democratic nation. Their education must be equal to those claims. They should be prepared to assume the full rights and duties of citizenship, prepared to determine their society’s fate. The System may not want that kind of education for our children. But we do. That’s why we have a democracy.
In the face of a heartless system, it’s time to reaffirm a basic human value: Education is every child’s birthright, and it should honor the humanity which every child possesses.
Human
That includes arts programs. “Imagination is not a state,” said William Blake, “it is the human existence itself.”
The purpose of education is to help us fully realize and express our identities, and to enable us to exercise our freedoms wisely. Anything less means we are a society that is neither fully human nor fully free.
It’s time to declare our unequivocal support for education that draws on the best of us, in a humane and just way. It’s time to reject the cynical values that choose profits over people — especially the youngest people among us.
It’s time to declare that each and every one of our nation’s children possesses a rare and precious quality, whether their schools are in the Hamptons or Harlem, Northampton or the Navajo Nation, Arcadia or Appalachia.
It’s time to declare that each is, fully and profoundly and beautifully, human.
(You can sign the Declaration here.
via OpEdNews – Article: Fighting For Our Classrooms, and For the Human Beings Inside Them.
The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics
A DIFFERING SHADE OF GREEN
This book is a welcome addition to the spate of recent books on the ecological and resource calamities currently facing the planet. Unlike so many others – one thinks in this context of authors as disparate as Bill McKibben and Richard Heinberg – Parr analyses the crisis in the context of global inequality and social injustice. Her analysis is firmly rooted in a Marxism that allows a more comprehensive grasp of why and how the current state of affairs has developed.
She makes it clear that the worsening state of the environment is the effect of global capitalism; the crisis therefore cannot be effectively addressed within the parameters of capital. She does not propose, as do so many, the mere importance of individual initiative, without any contestation of larger economic and social injustices that are inseparable from the workings of the neoliberal order.
Counting on individuals alone to solve the ‘environmental problem’ is itself a symptom of the overarching problem: the current ideological triumph of a relentless capitalist neoliberalism, grounded above all in the supposed wants and needs of the (consumerist) individual.
In eight closely argued chapters, Parr presents the interrelated crises currently facing us: climate change; flawed carbon-offset schemes; population growth and income inequality; looming water scarcity; looming food scarcity and expanding worldwide hunger; the food-industrial complex, with genetically modified food and factory-raised animals; the green city movement and attendant social inequality; and the oil industry and its lamentable, indeed apocalyptic, environmental record.
Typically, authors focus on individual responses to these problems: for example, changes proposed include eating less meat; driving less or not at all; living in a compact city; recycling, dumpster diving, and so on. Only if a significant portion of the world population decides on these changes, individually or in small groups, will the world somehow be ‘saved’.
Heinberg, for example, in The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (2003), recommends a radically restrained (constrained?) lifestyle as a way of enabling humanity to survive longer with a much smaller carbon footprint – necessary if we are to continue to ‘flourish’ as the amount of available oil diminishes on a regular and predictable basis. He doesn’t tell us how to get there from here, though, other than through, presumably, the reading of his book and the activation of our individual consciences.
McKibben, in Deep Economy: Economics As If the World Mattered (2007), proposes a small-community ethic as a way of living a healthier life: growing one’s own food, driving less, and so on. McKibben sees the ideal social unit as that of a small community, but his solution ultimately entails people voluntarily, and presumably individually, choosing to live in progressive small towns or the countryside: rural Vermont is his home, and apparently his ideal. It’s unclear how one can live in Vermont, however, if one is living in poverty in a major urban centre, or in rural India.
I mention these two authors not to condemn them, but to indicate the difficulty that lies before any progressive social/ecological critic who does not firmly tie his or her analysis to a critique of global capitalism. As Parr makes clear, one can indeed make individual choices, but how individual is individual? How individual can any choice be in the current economic regime? The individual will always be the creature of larger market forces and logic. The individual’s response, then, will always have to be framed in a larger, inclusive, political context, as political action.
Here I would point to chapter 6 of Parr’s book, ‘Animal Pharm’, which focuses on agribusiness as it is currently constituted. McKibben’s solution to the woes of junk food, unhealthy meat, fast food, genetically modified food – all harmful both to the human body and to the environment in general – entails the voluntary withdrawal from the current regime, and participation in community-supported agriculture schemes (CSAs), backyard gardening, the support of small local organic farmers, and so on. All laudable, to be sure: anyone who has read Michael Pollan knows that eating good food can certainly improve one’s life.
Parr, on the other hand, stresses some obvious problems with small community reform that somehow never seems to get beyond ‘identity politics’ – that is, beyond the improvement of the lives of certain types of people (vegans, foodies, small-town inhabitants, farmers, ‘creative class’ types, etc.) rather than all people. She notes, for example, that ‘ethical food choices cannot be separated from the material conditions determining food production and modes of subjectification (race, class, gender, species).’ Most vegans have soybeans as a central part of their diets, and yet ‘soybean production is responsible for the razing of large parts of the Amazon rain forest that is facilitating the institutionalization of North–South power relations.’ Hence, ‘the vegan approach runs the risk of facilitating the culture of consumption that capitalism advances.’ She then goes on to cite the intolerance of certain vegan groups when it comes to people who have tried veganism and rejected it, for health reasons.
This would seem to be the nub of the problem: the vegans constitute themselves as a special interest/identity group, they feel confident about it, but they quickly become exclusivist, seeing others as not quite up to their moral or ethical standards. They have to, because they don’t have any overarching political standards, based on rigorous social and economic analysis. The irony is that they are themselves fully caught up in the individualistic consumerism that is the very heart of the ‘society of the spectacle’.
Omnivorous capitalism, in other words, works through both individual oppression and exploitation but also through a kind of personal thralldom to consuming not just reified or fetishized objects but all the images packaged and sold by an ever-resilient capitalism. In the case of vegans, singled out by Parr, a seeming revolt against capitalism is immediately reappropriated by it: if we reject meat as individuals and go to the local wholefood stores to buy soybeans we have merely switched consumable signs; we have not radically changed our activity as passive consumers and supporters of the neoliberal regime.
Identity politics is not even politics; it’s consumerism as social action. The new signs are contestatory only as signs; thus they are the problem (elements of the ‘spectacle’), not the solution. This is the genius of ever-renascent capitalism: it mutates endlessly, always capable of reappropriating contestation, no matter how seemingly radical, and turning it to its own (exploitative) ends. The vegan feels superior eating soybeans; meanwhile, the Amazon rainforest is stripped for profit.
This example is extended in the following chapter, ‘Modern Feeling and the Green City’. The current ‘greening’ of the city, from Parr’s perspective, is capitalist business as usual, with a green tint. Her example is Chicago, where a massive energy efficiency initiative has been undertaken, thanks to the efforts of Mayor Daley. But, obviously, Chicago’s transformation has less to do with ‘saving the planet’, in the noble abstract, than it has to do with turning the city into an economically efficient and lifestyle-friendly metropolis that will attract the ‘creative class’ types that nowadays are held to be the salvation of agglomerations in the age of knowledge-based industries. As Parr writes,
The green roof on Chicago’s City Hall is just another code, alongside other codes such as the LEED-rated buildings, housing voucher schemes, bicycle paths, and so on and so forth. What grounds all of these codes and the shifts they undergo over time is the axiomatic of capital, for in all cases capital serves as the justification for urban development and change.
As with the vegans, the walkable-city types are less concerned with social justice than with establishing their own turf in the most pleasant parts of the gentrified city. And, though Barr does not stress it, gentrification itself is really the index of the failure of the ‘greening’ ideal of the city, because it merely replicates social inequality under the guise of urban efficiency.
When neighbourhoods are ‘revitalized’, when the LEED-style amenities are introduced, those who are not ‘creative class’ hipster geniuses are forced out, and the neighbourhood, which indeed becomes more pleasant to live in, also becomes unaffordable for most people. Gentrification and green urban renewal seem to be locked in a tight embrace; how would one go about separating them?
If I have a criticism of Parr’s book, it is in the lack of specifics she provides in response to this type of question. If we are to do away with consumerist individualism, what, in practice, will replace it? Will people individually choose to undertake a sustainable project that is more socially just and inclusive? How is this sort of individualism different from that put forward by more traditional eco-critics? Will they be spontaneously convinced to do so through their reading of Marx? Or is there a need for some overarching governmental decision-making, somehow under the aegis of Marxism?
Parr criticizes neoliberalism for holding that ‘individuals, not governments or historical forces, are personally responsible for their own successes and failures’. But does that mean that only a government – presumably with the right political orientation – could be capable of implementing what she would take to be ‘successes’? Will people, then, need to be convinced to do the right thing – and be educated in all this – by the government? Which government? Elected by whom, and with what (and whose) money?
Of course change from the top has been tried already: in the Soviet Union, in Cuba, perhaps in Venezuela. The results, to put it mildly, have not always been resoundingly successful. Cuba scores high in the green sweepstakes – energy consumption is low per capita, and yet the population is highly literate and generally well educated, and on that score at least has a good quality of life. Not many other countries can make this claim. (It generally seems that one can make one claim, or the other, but not both.) And certainly Marx has a central role in Cuban political education. But how many Cubans would voluntarily retain their current system if given the choice?
Conversely, throughout the world, liberation and freedom are associated with a more ‘prosperous’ lifestyle, which features, as in China, the purchase of automobiles and other far from carbon-neutral devices (fetishes?). How, then, is a proper education to be carried out, worldwide, following the values that Parr espouses? How to convince everyone, including those poor whose definition of progress is consuming more, that there must be a fairly low-lying ceiling to their consumption? Who will do this convincing? What role will constraint play in it?
Say what you will, part of the genius of capitalism is to make true believers out of people – make them consumers – while all the while motivating them by convincing them that it is entirely in their interest. Capitalism has solved the problem of motivation, if not much else. Marxism and its various avatars have never come close. How in short do you get people to feel solidarity with everyone, when everything in the global culture persuades them to think first of themselves?
This problem can be flipped around. How do you convince those without that the concerns of those with – concerns having to do with the need to curb overconsumption – are legitimate? If those without are focused, inevitably, on consuming more, how can they respect those who are generally critical of enhanced consumption? Here, I think, Parr ignores some of the value of more traditional eco-criticism. No matter what, that kind of writing does critique consumerism; perhaps not the way she wants it to, but it does ‘deconstruct’ it. The green city is a largely carless city, while the car is perhaps the key consumer item in the US economy – witness the desperate governmental efforts to save GM in 2009.
A critique of non-sustainable culture is therefore also necessarily a critique of capitalism, whether it realizes it or not. De-emphasizing a large carbon footprint is de-emphasizing consumer capitalism as we now know it. Rather than making eco-theory entirely subordinate to Marxist theory, it would perhaps be more effective to consider how the two are (or must be) overtly linked. In other words, rather than making light of greening the city efforts – all those yuppie bike paths, and so on – Parr might see how a green critique is inseparable from a Marxist critique. Marxism without the green is a Marxism precisely unconcerned with issues of energy efficiency, the carbon footprint, and so on. We saw, throughout the twentieth century, where such Marxism leads. (Consider, for example, the environmental record of the former East Germany.)
Perhaps Parr needs to realize that the yuppie environmentalists are not the only ones who need to broaden their thinking. In point of fact there are people who bring these strands – social and environmental justice – together most effectively – I am thinking, for example, of the beautifully detailed writing of the Indian eco-activist Vandana Shiva, who is both a champion of social justice and a committed environmentalist. Reading Shiva’s work one is never in any doubt of the necessary coordination of the two impulses, of the how and the why.
Rather than a simple flat-out critique of greening as seemingly inevitable cooptation, Parr could then tell us what her model of the green city would be. How can we imagine a green city in which the poor are not simply forced out of liveable and walkable neighbourhoods? What would a non-gentrified environmentally responsible neighbourhood look like, and (above all) how do we get there? How can a refusal of a car-centric transport system challenge larger capitalist (global) structures by keeping more money in the community? How can living outside the confines of the automobile be more satisfying – when one can play rather than drive? How can people of all walks of life live better through the food they grow in their own plots, and on the bikes they ride? How do global green concerns, in conjunction with a Marxist critique of capitalism, lead towards, rather than away from, greater social equality?
Parr’s book, because of its global sweep, is a necessary first step in any elaboration of an environmentally enlightened Marxism. She would argue in effect that that is the only Marxism – and one can only concur. One cannot separate environmental and social justice: they are intertwined. But how to get there from here?
via The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics.
The 15 Countries With The Highest Quality Of Life
The 15 Countries With The Highest Quality Of Life
For a good chance at a happy life, head to Australia, which one again topped the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development‘s Better Life Index, which looks at the quality of life in member countries.
The (OECD) — an international economic organization — analyzed 34 countries in 11 categories, including income, housing, jobs, community, education, environment, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work-life balance. (You can read the full methodology here.)
We looked at the countries with the highest overall scores, and highlighted a few of the criteria on the following slides.
#15 Ireland
Average household disposable income: $24,104
The Irish have a strong sense of community — 96% of people believe they know someone they could rely on in a time of need (higher than the OECD average of 90%).
They also rate highly in work-life balance, where the average employee works 1,543 hours a year, less than the OECD average of 1,776.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#14 Luxembourg
Average household disposable income: $23,047
Luxembourg rates well in both health and environment, with an average life expectancy of 81 years and a low level of atmospheric PM10 — tiny air pollutant particles small enough to enter and cause damage to the lungs.
Citizens also have a high participation rate in the political process, with 91% of the population turning out for recent elections.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#13 Austria
Average household disposable income: $28,852
Austria has a high rate for education. 82% of Austrian adults ages 25-64 have earned the equivalent of a high school degree.
Austrians also have a strong sense of community, with 94% of the population reporting they know someone they could rely on in a time of need.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#12 Finland
Average household disposable income: $25,739
Finland performed extremely well on the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment — the average student scored 543 in reading literacy, math, and science, whereas the average OECD score was 497.
They also have a high level of life satisfaction with 82% of the population saying they have more positive experiences than negative ones in an average day.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#11 New Zealand
Average household disposable income: $21,892
New Zealand has one of the best rates of renewable energy of any OECD country with 36.47%.
Students also scored 524 in reading literacy, math, and science on the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment — higher than the average of 497.
And New Zealand girls outperformed boys by 15 points, higher than the average OECD gap of 9 points.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#10 United Kingdom
AP/RICHARD LEWIS
Average household disposable income: $23,047
85% of the English population say they have more positive experiences in an average day than negative ones.
They also have a high life expectancy of 81 years, and 97% of the people say they are satisfied with the quality of their water.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#9 Iceland
Average household disposable income: $23,047
Iceland has high levels of civic participation — 98% of people believe they know someone they could rely on in a time of need.
97% of the Iceland population are also extremely satisfied with their water quality, and Iceland has less air pollutant particles per cubic meter than the OECD average.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#8 Netherlands
Average household disposable income: $25,493
People in the Netherlands only work 1,379 hours a year, significantly less than the OECD average of 1,776 hours.
They also test extremely high on the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment with an average of 519 (the OECD average is 497).
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#7 Denmark
Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Average household disposable income: $24,682
Denmark has one of the highest life satisfaction rankings, with 89% of the population reporting they have more positive experiences in an average day than negative ones.
The Danish also know how to balance their work life with their personal life — only 2% of employees say they work very long hours, much lower than the OECD average of 9%.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#6 United States
Assouline
Average household disposable income: $38,001
The U.S. has the highest average household disposable income on the list at $38,000 a year — much higher than the OECD average of $23,000.
It also ranks as one of the best countries for housing conditions, with good basic facilities and general feelings of safety and personal space.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#5 Switzerland
Average household disposable income: $30,060
86% of adults in Switzerland have earned the equivalent of a high school degree, and students scored 517 on the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment — higher than the average of 497.
The Swiss also have a high life expectancy at 83 years of age, and 95% of the population say they are satisfied with the quality of their water.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#4 Norway
Average household disposable income: $31,459
There is a strong sense of community and high levels of safety in Norway, where 93% of people believe that they know someone they could rely on in a time of need.
Norwegians also tend to have a good work-life balance, with only 3% of employees working very long hours, compared to the OECD average of 9%.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#3 Canada
Average household disposable income: $28,194
Canadians work only 1,702 hours a year — less than the OECD average — with 72% of the population working at a paid job.
There is little difference in voting levels across society too, suggesting there is broad inclusion in Canada’s democratic institutions: Voter turnout for the top 20% of the population is 63% and for the bottom 20% it is 60%, a much smaller difference than the OECD average gap of 12 percentage points.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#2 Sweden
Average household disposable income: $26,242
Having a good education is extremely important in Sweden, where 87% of adults aged 25-64 have earned the equivalent of a high school degree.
They also ranked highly in all environmental categories. Their level of air pollutant particles is 10 micrograms per cubic meter — considerably lower than the OECD average of 21 micrograms per cubic meter — and 95% of the population is satisfied with their water quality.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
#1 Australia
Average household disposable income: $28,884
For the second year in a row, Australia is the number one happiest country in the world. And it’s not hard to see why —they rank extremely well in health, civic engagement, and housing.
The life expectancy at birth in Australia is 82 years, two years higher than the OECD average.
Australia also has exceptional voter turnout at 93% during recent elections, which is far above the OECD average of 72%.
Researchers compared data from 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They based the rankings on 11 factors including income, safety, life satisfaction, and health, and then rated each country on a 10-point scale. Income is net-adjusted and in USD.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/top-countries-on-oecd-better-life-index-2013-5?op=1#ixzz2VDnSmmPo
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