posted on February 12, 2003 05:54:13 AM new
mine too, Linda
I woke up this morning - and after reading and watching the news, I felt I needed to contribute to the boards something that everyone could just click on and reflect upon...
hope this works
here are two more of my favorite sites - actually the second one is more light-hearted
posted on February 12, 2003 06:18:16 AM new
When you think the U.S. isn't thought well of all over the world, read this editorial from a Romanian Newspaper...
posted on February 12, 2003 07:09:32 AM new
Great stuff wgm.
I notice Sadamm is backing down on the inspections. I doubt he would have without our Military on his doorstep.
Proud to be an American,
Amen,
Reverend Colin
posted on February 12, 2003 08:59:57 AM new
ahhh...another of my favorite posters
A friend of mine just emailed me this...and the first person who came to mind was austbounty...
This is as relevant in 2003 as it was in 1973. Isn't that a shame?
The Americans
Broadcast June 5, 1973
CFRB, Toronto, Ontario
"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 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.
(c) 1973 BY GORDON SINCLAIR
"Be kind. Remember everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Harry Thompson
posted on February 12, 2003 11:27:09 AM new
I have been reading that radio broadcast for decades. It always made me feel good to be an American . . . and a little bit self-righteous. I have seen it posted several times on the Internet.
When we go to make our unprovoked, pre-emptive, unilateral military strike on Iraq, we will have lost more than our centuries-old American traditions, we will no longer be worthy of such sentiments as expressed like the above. But I guess that's the price that all of us Americans will have to pay - our dignity, for Oil. Others will pay with their lives. I guess that's why "conservatives" voted for Republicans, to destroy the American Way.
posted on February 13, 2003 08:07:38 AM new
Unlateral ?? Oh please. The only countries that are not currently aligned with US policy on Iraq are the Peoples Republic of France, the brooding psychotic union of Germany, and the huge and influential country of Belgium, plus the Criminal Association of Russia.
I wish this conflagration were about oil. However, if it were about oil, our national guard troops would be in Venezuala, not the Persian Gulf.As far as fighting for oil, you're right, industrialized countries will fight for oil. I saw them fighting and killing each other in the gas lines in the 1970s.
For those wringing your hands about 500,000 Iraqi casualities, what about the 500,000 or 1,000,000 children Saddam has so far starved to death ?
We seem to be critical only about US policy. No one wants to petition or protest against Saddam Hussein or bin Laden, except those of us that support a petition and protest to be delivered by our spokesmen and woman in the Marines, Army, Air Force and Navy.
