published in Eastern Economist #398, September 17, 2001
If you ask most people “What’s your idea of a great neighbor?” they’d probably say, someone who never makes too much noise, who never borrows anything of yours, who’s friendly, and who can help you out in a pinch.
You don’t want them telling you their problems. You don’t want them asking you for money. You don’t want their kids stomping around drunk at a Saturday night bacchanalia because the parents are out of town. And you definitely don’t want to be calling the cops because the husband and wife are at each others’ throats.
By these parameters – other than the noisiness, maybe – America qualifies as a good neighbor. And if you really think of it, most other countries fail the test miserably – including much of Western Europe – vis-à-vis America.
But don’t take my word for it. Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian radio commentator, broadcast an unusually strong editorial from Toronto that many people right now are passing around the Internet, thinking it was written this past week. Read on.
“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 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 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.”
Yes, it sounds like it was written yesterday – except for the draft dodgers part, which is what made me use Google on the Internet to find out the truth. The truth is that Sinclair broadcast this scathing editorial on June 5, 1973. Not only was it rebroadcast many times back then, but it was read into the Congressional Record multiple times as well.
Fortunately, things have changed somewhat since then – possibly with the influence of this well-respected, strong-opinioned Canadian, who died in 1984 at the age of 84.
Since then, the Europeans have developed the Airbus, the Russians now work jointly on space shuttles, and Germany reunited without any money from the US. The European Union has gone a long way to mend a lot of the more broken-down fences between the US and its transatlantic neighbors. It has also taken a good deal of global responsibility on itself in the last 30 years.
Moreover, today, when America is not under threat of political scandal – it has survived two presidential impeachments since 1973 – but under threat of physical destruction, other countries are rallying to provide it with emergency and moral support. Even humble Ukraine offered to send additional crews, although the US declined.
Today, the free world seems a little more congizant of the importance of “loving your neighbor as you love yourself.” They know now that, if America goes, with it goes the whole concept of a free world. •
–from the notebooks of Pan. O.
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