MilkAddict

How poorly we measure the success of our nations? On March 18, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy challenged the way progress and well-being is measured in USA. Today, the same speech is more than actual as the Gross National Product of a Country measures “everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy, brother of J.F. Kennedy

Here is Robert F. Kennedy’s speech:

“Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over eight hundred billion dollars a year, but that GNP — if we should judge America by that — counts air pollution and cigarette advertising and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”

Here is the video of his speech:

We live in an age where we have the power to spread our ideas through the internet in a second all over the world, in an age where we should be able to put all the pieces together thinking about our future in a constructive way, spreading the knowledge and fighting the ignorance, making this place livable for everyone, be proud of noble values, but it seems we all keep pretending to be blind and care only about our little interests:

“If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.”
Mary Pickford