|
|
|
|
Rift
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
 Posted - 09/12/2001 : 22:37:11
|
This may seem like a strange thing to do, but I want to thank the non-american members on this board for their support.
I know that the United States does some things that others may question and not like (Hell, we do some things I question and don't like), but the unanimous support from the Canadian, British, Australian, German and all the other nationalities on this board is truely comforting.
I can only hope that if such a horrible thing were to happen in another country that we would be as supportive and outraged as you all have been.
Thanks :)
"Goddammit! The world is just filling up with more and more idiots! And the computer is giving them access to the world! They're
spreading their stupidity! At least they were contained before--now they're on the loose everywhere!"?
|
|
|
Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2001 : 23:02:20 [Permalink]
|
I saw today a reminder of a wonderful speech written 25 years ago, and I thought I'd paste it here for those who haven't read or heard it. It's by a Canadian broadcaster who was outraged at all the criticism of the US immediately following the Vietnam war, when our economy was suffering:
"LET'S BE PERSONAL" Broadcast June 5, 1973 CFRB, Toronto, Ontario
Topic: "The Americans"
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 Yangtse. 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 Misssissippi 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.
{cont.}
------------
Hope springs eternal but there's no conviction
Actions mistaken for lip service paid
All this concern is the true contradiction
The world is insane... |
 |
|
|
Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2001 : 23:02:34 [Permalink]
|
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 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 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.
ORIGINAL SCRIPT AND AUDIO
COURTESY STANDARD BROADCASTING CORPORATION LTD.
(c) 1973 BY GORDON SINCLAIR
PUBLISHED BY STAR QUALITY MUSIC (SOCAN)
A DIVISION OF UNIDISC MUSIC INC.
578 HYMUS BOULEVARD
POINTE-CLAIRE, QUEBEC,
CANADA, H9R 4T2
------------
Hope springs eternal but there's no conviction
Actions mistaken for lip service paid
All this concern is the true contradiction
The world is insane... |
|
|
|
Lisa
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2001 : 23:10:53 [Permalink]
|
I also posted this on the JREF board.
Thank you all so much for your kindness. Allow me to offer some condolences in return. 46 different countries had offices/embassies/consulates in the World Trade Center. Your people were already coping in a strange land and culture. They were going about their business, whether it was industry or goodwill. Now they've met tragedy on our soil. I mourn for us all.
Lisa
|
|
|
|
Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2001 : 23:51:48 [Permalink]
|
quote:
I saw today a reminder of a wonderful speech written 25 years ago, and I thought I'd paste it here for those who haven't read or heard it. It's by a Canadian broadcaster
Thank you for giving this speech the proper credit, I've recieved 3 copies of this text on other lists but not all the information about it was there.
I've also gotten several personal emails from friends and family in other countries, all well wishing and concerned.
Thank you Rift.
Rap Crap is to music what Paint by Numbers is to art. |
|
|
|
I Doubt It
New Member
USA
12 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2001 : 06:01:31 [Permalink]
|
On a different postboard, I encountered many from across the borders and across the sea who were also devastated by what happened, not the least of it they felt that NYC was an international city that they were heartbroken to see desecrated.
|
|
|
|
Rift
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2001 : 06:11:53 [Permalink]
|
New York is the closest thing to a 'world capital' there is. As Lisa pointed out 46 countries had embassies at the WTC. I watched a live broadcast of the BBC morning news show last night, they seem to be as devastated about all this as we are, and they say at least 100 british citizens were killed, and that number will probably go up to at least the mid-hundreds. This truly was an attack on the entire world.
"Goddammit! The world is just filling up with more and more idiots! And the computer is giving them access to the world! They're
spreading their stupidity! At least they were contained before--now they're on the loose everywhere!"? |
|
|
|
Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2001 : 19:42:02 [Permalink]
|
quote:
New York is the closest thing to a 'world capital' there is. As Lisa pointed out 46 countries had embassies at the WTC.
If NY is the closest, I think Los Angelse would be 2nd. (1/2 our land is owned by non Ameicans!)
We were sleeping and didn't know anything about NY until we got a call from relatives in Thailand waking us up, asking if we know what happened and if we were ok. My boy answered and thought they were joking but they told him to turn on the TV.
So it's true that this is not only the USA's 'problem'.
Rap Crap is to music what Paint by Numbers is to art. |
|
|
|
andysnape
New Member
United Kingdom
39 Posts |
Posted - 11/09/2001 : 01:56:44 [Permalink]
|
I'd like to reply to this. Thatnk you for your gratitude but there is something that must be pointed out to you. You said that if something like this happened in one of our nations you would hope America would be just as supportive. What's this 'IF' business? We in the UK have had to put up with American funded terrorism on our land for the last 30 years. And please dont use the Sinn Fein/IRA arguement about numbers of dead or methods. Killing is killing, regardless of how it was done done or how many were done. Try telling the people of Onagh, Enniskillen or Lockerbie that their suffering is any less painful than that of New Yorkers. If the IRA are to be believed, then Ted Bundy was an OK sort of bloke, he only killed about 30 women, not 6,500. It's such a shame that America hasn't been as supportive to us in the passed. Now you know how we've been feeling for the last 3 decades.
This may seem like a strange thing to do, but I want to thank the non-american members on this board for their support.
I know that the United States does some things that others may question and not like (Hell, we do some things I question and don't like), but the unanimous support from the Canadian, British, Australian, German and all the other nationalities on this board is truely comforting.
I can only hope that if such a horrible thing were to happen in another country that we would be as supportive and outraged as you all have been.
Thanks :)
"Goddammit! The world is just filling up with more and more idiots! And the computer is giving them access to the world! They're
spreading their stupidity! At least they were contained before--now they're on the loose everywhere!"?
[/quote]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
