Tribute to America

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.

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.

© 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

From the website: http://www.snopes2.com/quotes/sinclair.htm#add

Gordon Sinclair died in 1984. He was a Canadian radio commentator. He read this commentary in 1973 in regards to the VietNam war.

A virtual ribbon from Better Homes and Gardens

The Miami Herald - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Published Wednesday, September 12, 2001

It's my job to have something to say.

They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which trouble The American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.

Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.

Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's revealing by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. Moreover, we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.

IN PAIN

Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

However, there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making Us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last Time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. Nevertheless, determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

THE STEEL IN US

You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of Our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold. As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange:

You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started.

However, you're about to learn.

From LOTH mailing list, Lynn

An Open Letter to a terrorist

Why? Because of something you guys will never understand.
America isn't about a building or two, not about financial centers, not about military centers, America isn't about a place, America isn't even about a bunch of bodies. America is about an IDEA. An idea, that you can go someplace where you can earn as much as you can figure out how to, live for the most part, like you envisioned living, and pursue Happiness. (No guarantees that you' ll reach it, but you can sure try!)

Go ahead and whine your terrorist whine, and chant your terrorist litany: "If you can not see my point, then feel my pain." This concept is alien to Americans. We live in a country where we don't have to see your point. But you're free to have one. We don't have to listen to your speech. But you' re free to say one. Don't know where you got the strange idea that everyone has to agree with you. We don't agree with each other in this country, almost as a matter of pride. We're a collection of guys that don't agree, called States. We united our individual states to protect ourselves from tyranny in the world. Another idea, we made up on the spot. You CAN make it up as you go, when it's your country.

If you're free enough.

Yeah, we're fat, sloppy, easy-going goofs most of the time. That's an unfortunate image to project to the world, but it comes of feeling free and easy about the world you live in. It's unfortunate too, because people start to forget that when you attack Americans, they tend to fight like a cornered badger. The first we knew of the War of 1812, was when England burned Washington D.C. to the ground. Didn't turn out like England thought it was going to, and it's not going to turn out like you think, either. Sorry, but you're not the first bully on our shores, just the most recent.

No Marquis of Queensbury rules for Americans, either. We were the FIRST and so far, only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in anger. Horrific idea, nowadays? News for you bucko, it was back then too, but we used it anyway. Only had two of them in the whole world and we used 'em both. Grandpa Jones worked on the Manhattan Project. Told me once, that right up until they threw the switch, the physicists were still arguing over whether the Uranium alone would fission, or whether it would start a fissioning chain reaction that would eat everything. But they threw the switch anyway, because we had a War to win. Does that tell you something about American Resolve?

So who just declared War on us? It would be nice to point to some real estate, like the good old days. Unfortunately, we're probably at war with random camps, in far-flung places. Who think they're safe. Just like the Barbary Pirates did, IIRC. Better start sleeping with one eye open.

There's a spirit that tends to take over people who come to this country, looking for opportunity, looking for liberty, looking for freedom. Even if they misuse it. The Marielistas that Castro emptied out of his prisons, were overjoyed to find out how much freedom there was. First thing they did when they hit our shores, was run out and buy guns. The ones that didn't end up dead, ended up in prisons. It was a big PITA then (especially in south Florida), but you're only the newest PITA, not the first. You guys seem to be incapable of understanding that we don't live in America, America lives in US! American Spirit is what it's called. And killing a few thousand of us, or a few million of us, won't change it. Most of the time, it's a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of Spirit. Until we're crossed in a cowardly manner, then it becomes an entirely different kind of Spirit.

Wait until you see what we do with that Spirit, this time.

Sleep tight, if you can. We're coming.

Charles Brennan

©2001 Kurtz Art Studio Inc, http://www.cartoonfix.com.

NEVER, ON ANY FRONT

Americans are now asking themselves, "What can I do to help?" Millions have prayed and tens of thousands have responded to blood drives and have donated money to the Red Cross and other trusted organizations. That will continue. But what else can you do?

The answer may be more simple than you realize. The answer is work harder -- harder than you've ever worked before.

Here's why: As America and her allies unite, there is an important aspect of the terrorists' strategy to destabilize the civilized world that cannot be ignored.

David Dolan, a former CBS correspondent in Israel, stated this week, "(The) enemies concluded in the 1970's that the great United States could eventually be brought to its knees by internal guerilla-style terrorist strikes that would wreak emotional and economic havoc. "America's gigantic warships and far flung military bases would prove basically useless... Militants realized that the main target for attack should be lower Manhattan, since that would severely injure the massive U.S. economy -- the key element in America's power and prestige."

The terrorists were successful in wreaking emotional havoc. However, the economic havoc our enemies have conspired so hard to achieve can be stopped! You see, our enemies used our own airplanes to destroy our lives and property, and now they want to use our own fears to destroy our economy. They've physically killed our countrymen, and now they want to economically kill the rest of us.

Our free economic system is psychologically driven. When you're scared, you stop spending, when you stop spending, the economy comes to a standstill, and more workers are laid off, creating a downward spiral. The value of the American dollar is based on consumer confidence and productivity. That's why, more than ever, Americans need to insure that our economic base remains strong by doing two simple things -- work harder and spend money. The money you spend has to be earned by good old fashioned hard work.

The same holds true for our government. The $40 billion that has been pledged by Congress to fight this terror does not grow on trees. While Congress does have a printing press in the basement, the fact remains, that the value of the money is only backed by the labor it takes to create it. If American consumers are not working, not buying products or services, and not paying taxes, then the $40 billion might as well be Monopoly money -- it is worthless. We cannot fight this new war with fake currency.

If there were ever a time for Americans to roll up their sleeves and get to work, now is the time.

You may not be in the military -- but you can do your part in assuring victory in this new war by being a confident and loyal supporter of our economic system by shopping with your hard earned dollars. There are no excuses. If you don't have a job, find one. If you can't get one, then do something constructive and fix up the house. If you're retired, volunteer to fix up your community. No matter what your circumstances, each of us can apply more effort to our occupations and volunteer activities.

Even though our thoughts and prayers during this past week have taken us away from our jobs, this is not the time to curl up in a ball and pretend this is all going to go away. If you want to do your part in making America stronger, now is the time to open your wallet and buy American to put other Americans to work.

The stock market will be re-opening. The terrorists will be watching the financial television networks, with great hopes that the opening bell will spell disaster. Nothing would make them rejoice more than to see the markets nosedive into economic chaos, forcing businesses to close. They are hoping that investors will run for the hills, causing an erosion in confidence of our capitalistic system. We've already seen it. Our airline companies are on the brink of collapse.

What can you do? Buy American stocks! Make solid investments in our blue chip companies that employ hundreds of thousands of workers and who make up the backbone of our commercial prosperity. If you like smaller companies, then buy those too. Mortgage rates are very low and stocks have been undervalued for too long. You have a golden opportunity to personally participate in America's economic triumph and thwart the terrorists' plans. And buying U.S. Savings Bonds doesn't hurt either!

It's time to invest in America! It's time to put our shoulders to the grindstone, work harder and better at our jobs, and unite our pocketbooks to show the terrorists that they will NEVER win on any front.

-- Lee Simonson, Publisher
http://www.petwarmers.com

Click on this candle to get one for your own webpage. There is a wonderful tribute site to visit while you are at it!

Also, go Light a Virtual Candle at another site.

A tribute to America from the World.

I thought this graphic was so moving that I decided to put up both the small and large one that I received.

A 14 YEAR OLD BOY WAS TO CELEBRATE HIS BIRTHDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. INSTEAD OF A CELEBRATION, HE FACED AMERICA'S WORST TRAGEDY YET. HE WROTE THIS POEM DURING ALL THAT WENT ON. IT IS INCREDIBLE THAT A 14 YEAR OLD REALIZED AND PUT INTO WORDS ALL OF THIS.

AMERICA'S GIANT

The blood lines of the world run through my veins, for I offer freedom to the oppressed. I stand for many things and many people. I am the nation.

I have fought in every battle of every war, for more than 200 years: Gettysburg, Anzio, Normandy, Guam, Iwo Jima, Korea, Saigon, Granada, Beirut, Panama, in the Persian Gulf... a score of places, long forgotten by all but those who were there with me. I was there, I led my soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen. I follow them, I watch over them -- they love me.

When freedom called, I answered and stayed until it was over. I left my heroic dead in Flanders fields, in the oceans of the Pacific and Atlantic, in the steaming jungle of Vietnam, the waters of the Persian Gulf, and the sands of Desert Storm.

I was conceived in freedom and, God willing, in freedom I will spend the rest of my days. May I possess always the integrity, the courage, and the strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain the citadel of freedom, and the beacon of strength to the rest of the world. This is my goal, my hope, my prayer.

I have been soiled, burned, torn and trampled on in the streets of countries I have helped set free and, sadly, of my own country. And when it's by those whom I have given the freedom to express their rights, it hurts... but I shall overcome, for I am strong!

I have slipped the bonds of earth and from my vantage point on the moon, I stand watch over the uncharted new frontiers of space. I have been a silent witness to all of America's finest hours. But my finest hour comes when I am torn into strips, to be used as bandages for my wounded comrades on the field of battle... when I fly half mast to honor my soldiers, and when I lie in the trembling arms of a grieving mother, at the graveside of her fallen son or daughter.

I am proud... I am free... I am brave. My name is "Old Glory", long may I wave. Dear God, long may I wave.

Please visit my friend Lori's Patriotic Page, that has a large selection of Patriotic music midi files. It also has a link to her MIA page.

by Lori Bucevicius

Last update September 16th, 2001.