Hey Dottie,
Thanks for posting that! I love that speech Actually, it was made in the 70's.
Well I hope after I write this those who like me continue to do so.
I love my Country. I will be the first to admit that we are very very far from perfect!
I have to think though that we are the greatest nation on the planet. Sorry, thats my feeling.
I admit, I haven't seen the world first hand but the countries I have visited and ones where my family has lived don't hold a candle to us.
Both my Grandfathers fought in WWII. My Moms Dad was in the South Pacific and My Dads father was in Europe. My Dads Father helped free the prisoners in the Nordhusen concentration camp and had to document the atrocites for the Nuremburg war tribunals. He still has nightmares to this day over what he saw and he's 87.
As a nation we give more money and aid than the GNP of most other countries combined. We are good kind people who will help anyone who needs it. When the terrible earthquakes hit Turkey and Pakistan and when the Tsunami hit we were one of the first ther to offer help. Some of the groups that went to help earthquake victims went of their own accord (Texas Equisearch) with their own funds and no help from our government or any other.
No, we don't learn a lot of other languages here. In Europe you have several countries very close together that speak different languages. We don't have that here. In Canada the Majority speak english. Mexico obviously speaks Spanish. I know that Spanish is now being pushed in our schools and many are learning it. Most of our Fedral and State Documents are availible in Spanish as well as many other languages. However, I agree if you are going to another Country it is rude to expect everyone there to cater to you! Thats Just ridiculous! But, what can ya do? Some people are assholes no matter where they come from.I think Oprah Winfrey said it best "In no other country on the face of the earth could a poor black female rise from abject poverty to become a billionaire". i know this first hand. I am by no means a billionaire. Hell most days I'm not even a thousandaire LOL! But I was born poor in the Appilachian Mountains. We had an outhouse and the onlyheat we had was a coal burning stove. But we worked hard and bettered ourselves. I was the first in my family to go to College. It wasn't because I am white, it wasn't because I am male. It is because my family as well as myself wanted somthing better and we worked hard for it.
We all have a lot to offer no matter where we are from! I love getting to talk to people from other countries and learn how they think and how they live. I think this is how we will truly become a global village. Not from our governments (their all idiots in my mind) but from common folk such as ourselves who take the time to meet one another and discuss ideas and experiences.
As to GWB, well, I voted for him (no throwing things at me) I considered him the lesser of two evils. I think Kerry was a disingenuious liar and pretty much the same of Al Gore. I ecspecially have a problem with Gore who Jets around on private Jets, Drives in huge Limos and expects me to ride a friggin bike! But, I digress.
GW is not the man I though he was. But come on! He's not Pol Pot or Stalin. I think all politicians are the same, they will say whatever they need to to get elected and then do whatthey want when they get in office. He's no different and neither are his opponents.
I do think he screwed up Iraq and Afghanistan though.
Bottom line is we are a good country like any other, we have problems and we have our share of assholes starting in the Whitehouse. But a country is it's people and ours has more good than bad at this point. Only time will tell.
Sorry if I offended I surely didn't mean to. Sorry to ramble.
This came out right after 9/11.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently [after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the WTC in New York --FvW] 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.
A step-by-step rebuttal of the following text can be found here:
http://www.vanwensveen.nl/rants/usa/sinclair_rebuttal.html
"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 France 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 earthquakes hit distant cities, 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 Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? 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 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 you 5000 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 neighbours 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."
Stand proud, America!
This is a tough topic for me. America has become the great scapegoat. The purpose of a scapegoat is to avoid taking any responsibility for what happens, or owning one's own shadow. Sorry to wound the narcissism of some other nations or posters here, but the US is not perfect by a country mile, and never claimed to be - just like everywhere and everyone else. We all need more courage to be real and less 'black and white' i.e. you're baddies, we're goodies etc..... that attitude really belongs in a playground, not on a global stage. The Bush Admin has just made it popular in Europe to express that anti-American sentiment.
I recently heard a speaker on the BBC say “Anti american feeling is caused by western European liberals afraid of Islamic hate, they are siding with those they fear. The average European will say US Foreign Policy is the reason but that’s just bollocks because they do not fail to hold their hand out to Uncle and his Foreign Policy when they need cash or aid.” Sorry if I offend anyone here but I tend to agree with that statement. I have heard people interviewed in the street by the BBC in England, France and German…most expressed affection and great respect for Americans as individuals but no respect what so ever and then actually, some interesting misinformation about America in general.
Ignorance and arrogance is a human problem, not an American one.
