The following is an editorial by Gordon Sinclair on June 5 1973 as the
United States was pulling out of Vietnam...
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 earth.
As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I
read
of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtze. Who rushed in with men and
money to help? The Americans did.
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. I was there. I saw it.
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. 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 107? 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 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 everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers
are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, 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 Israel 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
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 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 neighbors 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 nose 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.
/end
Thank you Gordon for these words of wisdom, and thank you America. I hope
we
can count on you when we are in a time of need.
here's the full story...
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover090205.htm
dewey
A Proud North American.
Ps. Karen Gordon: You are partly right, I live near Nanaimo (~ 40 minutes
away). However the aliases you've mentioned are not (or were ever) mine,
including Leo. I was born in July, though.
I did work at a burger joint as a kid a few years back. (before the
internet
was around). So, I guess the "flipburger" name would suite me. ;-)
|
