Utopia. Universal Declaration of Human Rights Lives and Dies ©

U.S. gets poor grades for newborns’ survival. Associated Press.  MSNBC. May 9, 2006.  America may be the world’s superpower, but its survival rate for newborn babies ranks near the bottom among modern nations, better only than Latvia.

Among 33 industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies, according to a new report. Latvia’s rate is 6 per 1,000.

“We are the wealthiest country in the world, but there are still pockets of our population who are not getting the health care they need,” said Mary Beth Powers, a reproductive health adviser for the U.S.-based Save the Children, which compiled the rankings based on health data from countries and agencies worldwide.

The U.S. ranking is driven partly by racial and income health care disparities. Among U.S. blacks, there are 9 deaths per 1,000 live births, closer to rates in developing nations than to those in the industrialized world.

“Every time I see these kinds of statistics, I’m always amazed to see where the United States is because we are a country that prides itself on having such advanced medical care and developing new technology … and new approaches to treating illness. But at the same time not everybody has access to those new technologies,” said Dr. Mark Schuster, a Rand Co. researcher and pediatrician with the University of California, Los Angeles.

The wage gap. Why women are still paid less than men. By Evelyn Murphy and E.J. Graff.  Boston Globe.  October 9, 2005.  If you are a woman working full time, you will lose between $700,000 and $2 million over your working lifetime — just because of your sex.  Is that fair? No. Can it be stopped? Absolutely.

In 1964, when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act that banned workplace discrimination based on race or sex, women working full time made 59 cents to a full-time working man’s dollar. That made sense at the time: As a group, women had less education, less experience, and less opportunity, in part because they were flatly banned from a wide range of occupations. At the time, many people thought the wage gap would close on its own, as the education, experience, and opportunity gaps went away.

But today, 40 years later, the wage gap stands at 23 cents. Women working full time — not part-time, not on maternity leave, not as consultants — still earn only 77 cents to a full-time workingman’s dollar.  That’s an enormous gap, and it has been stalled in place for more than a decade. It’s not closing on its own.  It affects women at every economic level, from waitresses to lawyers, from cashiers to CEOs.

MLK Day Report Shows Greater Disparity Between Black and White.  ZNet Magazine. January 19, 2004.  Although the information, taken mostly from the US Census and the Federal Reserve, has been publicly available for years, few reports have pulled all the disparate pieces together.  “The State of the Dream 2004,” released last week by United for a Fair Economy, challenges traditional notions about the success of the civil rights movement in the past 30 years.  United for a Fair Economy is a nonprofit organization that focuses on highlighting income and other economic disparities in American society.

“These findings contradict the basic values of our country,” said report co-author Betsy Leondar-Wright, who called the disparities “shocking and unacceptable.”

Among the more disturbing findings: Unemployment among blacks is more than double that for whites, 10.8 percent versus 5.2 percent in 2003 — a wider gap than in 1972.  Black infant mortality is also greater today than in 1970.  In 2001, the black infant mortality rate was 14 deaths per 1,000 live births, 146 percent higher than the white rate.  The gap in infant mortality rates was 37 percent less in 1970.

Black Americans have also made little progress compared to whites in terms of income.  According to the report, for every dollar of white income, African Americans had 55 cents in 1968.  Thirty-three years later, in 2001, the gap had only closed by two cents.  The report notes that, at this pace, it would take 581 years to achieve income parity.

According to the report, the average black college graduate will earn $500,000 less in his or her lifetime than an average white college graduate.  Black high school graduates working full-time from age 25 to 64, will earn $300,000 less on average.

Language Legislation in the U.S.A.  Official English and anti-bilingual education bills introduced. By James Crawford.  November 11, 2006.  English Only legislation first appeared in 1981 as a constitutional English Language Amendment.  This proposal, if approved by a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate and ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures, would have banned virtually all uses of languages other than English by federal, state, and local governments.  But the measure has never come to a Congressional vote, even in committee.

Since 1981, 22 states have adopted various forms of Official English legislation, in addition to four that had already done so.  Subtracting Hawaii’s (which is officially bilingual) and Alaska (whose English-only initiative has been declared unconstitutional) leaves a total of 24 states with active Official English laws. 

Reform the Patriot Act to ensure civil liberties. Cable News Network.  April 20, 2005.  For example, under the act the government can monitor an individual’s Web surfing records.  It can use roving wiretaps to monitor phone calls made by individuals “proximate” to the primary person being tapped.  It can access Internet service provider records.  And it can even monitor the private records of people involved in legitimate protests.

After September 11, 2001, when the act was passed, the executive argued that these broader powers would be used to put terrorists behind bars.  In fact, several of the act’s provisions can be used to gain information about Americans in the context of investigations with no demonstrated link to terrorism.

Religious Discrimination in U.S. State Constitutions. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.    May 11, 2006.  The Bill of Rights of the Texas Constitution (Article I, Section 4) allows people to be excluded from holding office on religious grounds.  An official may be “excluded from holding office” if she/he does not “acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.” 

Human Rights Day Focuses On Poverty Eradication. By Lisa Schlein.  Voice of America. December 10, 2006  The United Nations chose poverty as this year’s theme for Human Rights day because, it says, poverty is both a cause and a product of human rights violations.  It says the poor are more likely to have their rights denied, and to be victims of discrimination and persecution.

Mac Darrow, of the U.N. Human Rights Office, says that over the last decade, poverty has come to be seen as a human rights issue, rather than just an economic issue.  He says, research shows poor people suffer from a wide-range of civil and political rights violations.  “Lack of access to adequate schooling.  Lack of personal security.  Lack of ability to participate in public affairs or community level decision-making bodies – really, a very integrated and multi-faceted vision of dis-empowerment.  And, this and like research has driven international development agencies to understand poverty as precisely that, as about social exclusion, about issues of access to political power, economic power and discrimination,” he said.

A Touchy Subject.  Class: A Guide Through the American Status System.  By Paul Fussell.  Public Broadcasting Service [PBS].  Despite our public embraces of political and judicial equality, in individual perception and understanding – much of which we refrain from publicizing – we arrange things vertically and insist on crucial differences in value.  Regardless of what we say about equality, I think everyone at some point comes to feel like the Oscar Wilde who said, “The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet’s dream: it is a most depressing and humiliating reality.” It’s as if in our hear of hearts we don’t want agglomerations but distinctions. Analysis and separation we find interesting, synthesis boring.

Although it is disinclined to designate a hierarchy of social classes, the federal government seems to admit that if in law we are all equal, in virtually all other ways we are not. Thus the eighteen grades into which it divides its civil-servant employees, from grade 1 at the bottom (messenger, etc.) up through 2 (mail clerk), 5 (secretary), 9 (chemist), to 14 (legal administrator), and finally 16, 17, and 18 (high level administrators). In the construction business there’s a social hierarchy of jobs, with “dirt work,” or mere excavation, at the bottom; the making of sewers, roads, and tunnels in the middle; and work on buildings (the taller, the higher) at the top. Those who sell “executive desks” and related office furniture know that they and their clients agree on a rigid “class” hierarchy. Desks made of oak are at the bottom, and those of walnut are next.  Then, moving up, mahogany is, if you like, “upper middle class,” until we arrive, finally, at the apex: teak. In the army, at ladies’ social functions, pouring the coffee is the prerogative of the senior officer’s wife because, as the ladies all know, coffee outranks tea.

House passes bill to tighten immigration laws.  USA Today. December 15, 2005.  The House acted Friday to stem the tide of illegal immigration by taking steps to tighten border controls and stop unlawful immigrants from getting jobs.  But lawmakers left for next year the tougher issue of what to do with the 11 million undocumented people already in the country.

The House legislation, billed as a border protection, anti-terrorism and illegal immigration control act, includes such measures as enlisting military and local law enforcement help in stopping illegal entrants and requiring employers to verify the legal status of their workers.  It authorizes the building of a fence along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Oh, I could go on.  Suffice to say America has problems endorsing what it chooses not to practice.  According to U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is “a letter to Santa Claus.”

Kirkpatrick states, “Neither nature, experience, nor probability informs these lists of ‘entitlements’, which are subject to no constraints except those of the mind and appetite of their authors.”  Apparently to her and to many, preventing illness by providing preventative medicine is not a universal responsibility.  Medical services are not a right.  In a world, or a nation of equals, we are not.  Affluent persons such as Kirkpatrick claim, a person either has the means to fend for him or herself, or they do not.  This former Socialist has concluded we each need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, whether we can afford them or not.

She, in the Reagan tradition, ignores that people are not treated equally and therefore do not have equal opportunities.

For me, Former Attorney General, Ramsey Clark said it well.  As you read of Iraq, please notice, Ramsey Clark is not discussing our more recent decision to obliterate this nation with bombs.  He is speaking of the period prior to our unilateral attack.  When evaluating The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Clark declared,

The United States government pays lip service to the Declaration, but its courts have consistently refused to enforce its provisions reasoning it is not a legally binding treaty, or contract, but only a declaration.  This ignores the fact that international law recognizes the provisions of the Declaration as being incorporated into customary international law, which is binding on all nations.

The most fundamental, dangerous, and harmful violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on its fifteenth birthday is economic sanctions imposed on entire populations.  The United States alone blockades eleven million Cubans in the face of the most recent General Assembly resolution approved by 157 nations condemning the blockade, with only the United States and Israel in opposition.  The entire population of Cuba and every Cuban has had the “right to a standard of living adequate for health and well being… including food, clothing, housing and medical care” deliberately violated by the United States blockade.

Security Council sanctions against Iraq, which are forced by the United States, have devastated the entire nation, taking the lives of more than 1,500,000 people, mostly infants, children, chronically ill and elderly, and harming millions more by hunger, sickness and sorrow.  The sanctions destroy the “dignity and rights” of the people of Iraq and are the most extreme form of “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” which are prohibited by the Declaration.

Despite the cruelest destruction of the most basic human rights and liberties of all the people in Iraq, including rights to medicine, safe drinking water and sufficient food, the United States government, with the major mass media in near perfect harmony, proclaims itself the world’s champion of liberty and human rights.  The problem as Lincoln surely knew is not merely one of definitions.  It is a problem of power, will, and accountability.  The United States intends to have its way and serve its own interests, with Iraq, Cuba, Libya, Iran, the Sudan and many other countries whatever the consequences to the liberties and rights of those who live there.

The United States control over and its concerted action with the mass media enables it to demonize such countries, its victims, for “terrorism,” threats to world peace and human rights violations at the very time it rains Tomahawk cruise missiles on them and motivates and finances armed insurrections and violence against them.

At the same time, the United States increases its own staggeringly large prison industry, more than a million persons confined, including 40% of all African American males between 17 and 27 years old in the State of California.  Simultaneously the U.S. spends more on its military than the ten largest military budgets of other nations combined, sells most of the arms and sophisticated weapons still increasing worldwide while rejecting an international convention to prohibit land mines and an international court of criminal justice.  And the U.S. maintains and deploys the great majority of all weapons of mass destruction existent on earth, nuclear, chemical, biological and the most deadly of all — economic sanctions.

For me, my Mom practiced the philosophy of Universal Human Rights best.  A woman that did not yell or scream would raise her voice in frustration when she felt violated.  We knew she was hurting when she declared, “I have rights!”  Numerous individuals do.  When we do not honor human rights, reactive behaviors persist.

Thus, I invite us to consider as my Mom lived.  She professed, “No one has the right to tell you what you should think, say, do, feel, or be;” and “Do what ever makes you happen as long as it does not hurt another.”  These principles work in tandem.  They allow for a sense of community and connection.  There is an understanding that we are one; yet separate.  The philosophy establishes an authentic equality.  Our household beliefs bestow reciprocal reverence.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights does the same.  This document affords all beings in America and elsewhere what the Constitution and the courts do not.  Unless or until we, the people, take an active stand.  Therefore, I invite you to consider what was novel to me, a canon of unity.  Please consider that crime comes from chaos.  People that are tired, hungry, ill, and hurting lash out.  They, just as my Mom did, seek the rights and privileges other have.

I propose that if we practice what we preach strength, solidarity, safety, security, and sanity will exist for everyone on Earth.

I invite you to envision as experts once did, a world where all people are truly equal and treated as such.  Please contemplate a planet where the principle of free speech, due process, economic, and social rights are honored.  Conceive of a global village where the right to health care and housing are realities, not for a select few but for every human being.  Visualize a place where the ability to organize is not shunned, but welcomed.  Imagine receiving a living wage, no matter your race, religion, gender, educational expertise, or station in life.  It is possible to dream the impossible dream and then act on it?  I think it is!

May We Unite and Universally Honor Human Rights . . .

Betsy L. Angert
BeThink.org or Be-Think