Giving Aid, and Going Home Quietly

GLOBAL WARMING'S latest calling card reinforces the need for global cooperation, and the world seems poised to rush massive amounts of aid to the Phillipines, bless their hearts. Is there any way to tie all this aid-rendering to global economic stimulation and development? All seven billion of us, living in safe, cozy little apartments, with everything we need. Shouldn't that be the American dream? From its very beginning, the United States o' America has expanded; America was made to expand. It had no intentions of letting something so minor as the pacific Ocean stop its expansion, so on it went, across the Pacific, to places like Hawaii, the Phillipines, China and Japan. Sailing an armada into Tokyo harbor and insisting on admission, dealing opium in China to the Chinese and sending the profits to America, and exterminating the native cultures on Hawaii and the Phillipines might have been a bit too much expansion, but America was young, with the indiscretions of youth, and all that. Come to think of it, the United States is still young; how much longer can we use that as an excuse? The rest of my lifetime is long enough for me. You are cordially invited to read two very good books about American history, expansion, and places like the Phillipines: "The Tragedy of American Foreign Policy" by William Appleman Williams, and "The Imperial Cruise", by James Bradley. I can promise you this; if you do read these two books, you'll become convinced that the U.S.A. should give as much help as possible to the Phillipines right now, and this aid should have no strings attached, and after it has been given, the Americans should just go home quietly.