Posted on 01/01/2005 12:07:00 PM PST by VOA
The Americans
written by Gordon Sinclair (spoken-word recording made by Byron MacGregor
with musical accompaniment by The Detoit Symphony Orchestra)
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 women 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.
The United States of America has nothing to be defensive about. Not one thing. The demand that we trumpet our kindness and generosity is disgusting. Perception is NOT reality. (This is not a criticism of this post; just a general observation.)
Stated a year after my birth, and still true today. If I wasn't the person I am, I really would say to hell with the rest of the world.
darned if someone in Canada is say a few of the same things right now...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1311545/posts
FMCDH(BITS)
BUMP!
New Years Day bump...
Yours is a well appreciated guesture re my post. All the best everyone, for 2005.
Sunday bump...
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