The main reason so many EU countries have strong economies and a better quality of life than the USA is due to the compatibility between labor unions and corporate management.

In America we have an adversarial relationship between the corporate State and blue collar workers – and what’s left of the unions. CEOs can make three thousand times what the average worker makes and nobody sees a problem with that. And the GOP is strident in its desire to suppress wages and strip benefits from working people at every opportunity. The result is that social services and public services of all kinds have been steadily declining in quantity and quality for the past 30 years; and they’ve been handed over to private corporations, whose only interest is increasing shareholder profits. That means layoffs and “cost-cutting” measures.

In Europe, American corporations (including fast food chains like McDonald’s and KFC) are mandated by law to give their workers the same “socialist” benefits that all EU wage-earners are entitled to: unionization, paid medical and maternity leave; free childcare; required vacation days.

Only in America are we unable to have the same benefits provided to the rest of the world by US multinationals.

If socialism is so bad, why is the quality of life so much higher in Europe? Why are they so much happier? Americans never seem to have an answer for that one…

Europeans are always horrified to learn that in the USA you can be fired from your job at any time for any reason, without notice, and hourly employees often don’t know from one week to the next when or how much they will work. And don’t get me started on our criminally low minimum wage.

Those who are responsible for suppressing the minimum wage are traitors to this country, plain and simple. Any corporation that can’t afford to pay its workers a livable wage needs to go out of business. That’s how Capitalism is supposed to work. The ‘hidden hand’ of Adam Smith and all that, right?

But we don’t have that here. In the USA, we have corporate welfare. Here, our tax dollars serve as a safety net for non-tax paying corporations.

Another fun fact: it now costs four times more for college in America than it did before the Reagan era (including his stint as governor of California…) In most of the EU, higher education is virtually free and paid for through taxes. God forbid!

Internet and telecom services cost way more over here too, and are vastly inferior. The US still doesn’t even rank in the TOP TEN in global internet speed…and in a lot of EU countries wireless is free.

Everything in the USA favors the “get-rich-quick-produce-nothing” crowd…like the Super uber-rich Silicon Valley, hedge-fund managers, Social Media moguls…celebrities…lottery winners…

And for some reason, America’s elite are convinced they have zero social responsibility to their fellow citizens. Apparently they don’t even care about the future of their own children – or grandchildren. They don’t consider what kind of world they’re going to have to live in when they grow up. I mean, fuck climate change, over-population, toxic air, poisoned food and water. There’s profits to be made right now, dammit!

How fucked up is that? The concept of ‘community’ in the USA is severely broken. The idea of empathy (or even basic survival instincts) is non-existent in the current political climate.

Inevitably what happens is that critical areas like infrastructure and public services aren’t maintained; mass transit doesn’t get built or even repaired; trains wreck; roads crumble from lack of funding; bridges collapse; trash doesn’t get picked up; dams burst. Eventually, private industry steps in to take over and ruin everything for good.

But as long as some old white guy somewhere can make a profit, it’s okay.

And because Europeans walk a lot and ride more bikes and don’t eat as much processed, steroid-injected shit as Americans, they are generally thinner and healthier – and they live longer. You rarely have the morbid obesity that we see on a regular basis in the US.

Europeans also know far more about us than we know about them, and they generally know far more about world history, technology, art, and culture. Because all of the media they consume isn’t government propaganda.

They are for the most part more lenient, progressive societies. Sex and procreation are treated as a part of human nature in other western nations. Nudity isn’t “dangerous” or “dirty.” They don’t seem to have this idea in the US that normal human life is a disgusting, embarrassing process.

Sadly, the US as a whole seems content to rest on its laurels and pound its chest about ‘exceptionalism’ despite a wealth of evidence of America’s decline; especially when one considers the flawed but generally successful European model, which values the health, well-being, education, and relative happiness of its citizens over corporate profits.

It may be more difficult to become fabulously wealthy, okay, but the average citizen has much more peace of mind and a much better quality of life.

A society whose entire raison d’ etre is to make as much money and kill as many people as possible is not a very healthy place to live. Somewhere along the way, America’s ideals got distorted and greed became its national religion. Since the Coup of 1963, our leaders have all become spokesmen for the death merchants. Instead of supporting democracy around the world, the US has historically supported brutal dictators and repressive regimes of all stripes. Because they need weapons. And training…and we’re more than happy to supply them.

Before embarking on yet another foreign invasion of dubious worth (Greenland, Panama, or Iran…), this country needs to focus on its own crumbling society – which has already reached a breaking point.

A nation is truly powerful when it has a strong economy and a healthy, cohesive, relatively happy population supported by a viable social fabric. A nation is strong when it has an appreciation for its real, not fake – culture.

A nation is weak and scared when it needs 800+ bases overseas, 13 aircraft carriers and 20 thousand nuclear warheads to “protect” itself. At least that’s how I see it.

Things aren’t perfect in Europe – or anywhere, obviously – but the European model is at least built upon institutions that were meant to stand the test of time. In America we no longer even have The Constitution to protect us.

Most Americans believe they are ‘exceptional’ and that they live in the greatest nation on Earth. And yet most have never even traveled outside the US…so their uneducated opinion means nothing. But that’s a common flaw among the American people: they believe that if they say it, it’s true. Just like our “president.”

They don’t ever let facts get in the way of history – or reality.