Fun_People Archive
28 Nov
USA gloating (from a "foreigner")

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 99 17:21:12 -0800
To: Fun_People
Precedence: bulk
Subject: USA gloating (from a "foreigner")

X-Lib-of-Cong-ISSN: 1098-7649  -=[ Fun_People ]=-
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[Personally, I always go to the Congressional Record when I want an
 unbiased and even-handed evaluation of the United States' prestige
 and place in history...  -psl]

Forwarded-by: Matthew Kleinosky <mkleinosky@bigfoot.com>
------------------
GOD BLESS THE USA

Good reading, from a Toronto newspaper's editorial page!!!!
Widespread, but only partial news coverage was given recently to a
remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian
television commentator.  What follows is the full text of his trenchant
remarks as printed in the Congressional Record.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most
generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.
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 these 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 in to help.  This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by
tornadoes.  Nobody helped.  The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped
billions of dollars into discouraged countries.  Now newspapers in those
countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.  I'd like
to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the
United States Dollar build its own airplane. 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 the
International lines except Russia fly American Planes?

Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or 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 their
draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded.  They are here on our streets,
and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting
American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.  When the railways
of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the
American 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 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'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get 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 those.

GOD BLESS OUR WONDERFUL USA.

© 1999 Peter Langston