Posted on 03/16/2006 11:27:05 PM PST by Number57
(audio of broadcast available via link)
I'd never heard this before. It's amazing how this man spoke out in defense of America, given the times in which he broadcast it. It applies to current times, I think. Too bad we don't have broadcasters willing to buck the norm any longer.
Topic: "The Americans"
The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the world.
As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Well, Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did, that's who.
They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. And I was there. I saw that.
When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.
The Marshall Plan... the Truman Policy... all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. And now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.
I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.
Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or a woman on the moon?
You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are right here on our streets in Toronto, most of them... unless they are breaking Canadian laws... are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.
When the Americans get out of this bind... as they will... who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the bonds, let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both of them are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.
Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.
I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.
This year's disasters... with the year less than half-over... has taken it all and nobody... but nobody... has helped.
ORIGINAL SCRIPT AND AUDIO COURTESY STANDARD BROADCASTING CORPORATION LTD.
(c) 1973 BY GORDON SINCLAIR PUBLISHED BY STAR QUALITY MUSIC (SOCAN) A DIVISION OF UNIDISC MUSIC INC. 578 HYMUS BOULEVARD POINTE-CLAIRE, QUEBEC, CANADA, H9R 4T2
It was a very stirring piece, and it was MUCH appreciated at the time.
There was some circulating on the Internet in a slightly-altered form as something "recently" printed in a Toronto newspaper after 9/11.
Unfortunately, it was only played on a few Canadian radio stations, and very infrequently at that.
Not really, Byron McGregor (referred to earlier) recorded it and it played EXTENSIVELY on CKLW 800, Windsor. This is a 50,000 watt clear channel station that can be heard all over eastern North America.
I grew up in Chatham, Ontario, 50 miles east of Windsor, listening to CKLW as a child and teenager, and this broadcast is seared in my mind.
I remember this one.
I grew up listening to Gordon Sinclair on CFRB and many others on that station too. At the time this commentary was made there was no bigger radio station in Canada. Sinclair was a very well known personality in Canada as he appeared often on television too. I wouldn't call him a conservative but probably the best description of him was curmugeon. This commentary was very well known in Canada.
For those fans of CKLW (including me) here's a great tribute site: http://www.thebig8.net. Byron McGreggor's version hit the top 5 on Billboard's chart at the time. I don't have my Billboard chart book here at the office, but I've looked this up before. Gordon Sinclair's version peaked in the 20s.
God Bless our American brothers and sisters.
Not to argue with you too much, but while I realize CKLW and CFRB may have played it, for other stations in Canada, it was a shutout...they played it once, perhaps, and then nothing.
Besides, CKLW, while a Windsor station, had a huge audience in Detroit and Northern Ohio (Cleveland, Toledo, etc.) and GM Alden Diehl and PD Jim Jackson knew where their bread was buttered.
I can't vouch for CHUM in Toronto, and CKY in Winnipeg may have played it (but they had an American GM and PD and a couple of American jocks at the time). Out on the west coast, CFUN didn't play it, nor did CKLG, and in Calgary and Edmonton, nobody was playing it.
In 1973, Canadians weren't that affectionate toward Americans, generally, and expressions of sympathy toward the US were not plentiful.
As for Canadian attitudes about Americans in 1973, well, I lived in Windsor then too. It's kind of different here. Windsor is virtually a big suburb of Detroit.
Wow, does that bring back memories.
Like most Canadians, I loved Gord Sinclair and CFRB (still do).
What's really amazing is how similar everything is today (in Canada,
the U.S. and the rest of the World)as it relates to where the U.S.
is and how it is viewed both inside and outside the U.S.
Deja vu all over again..
"Unfortunately, it was only played on a few Canadian radio stations, and very infrequently at that."
George Noory played it on Coast2CoastAM last night or the night before.
According to my Billboard reference book "The Americans" by Byron McGregor peaked at #4 and Gordon Sinclair's version peaked at #24 on Billboard charts in 1974.
That's where I first heard it... but wanted to look it up for a transcript. I forgot to mention C2C... thanks for clarifying :)
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