Gifts From America

On September 11, 2001 the people of the United States became painfully aware that there are people in the world who don’t like us.  They don’t like our system of government, our attitudes about religion, and our aggressive business practices. Most of all they dislike our popular culture.  This dislike is strong enough to drive some of them to blow up our embassies, attack our naval vessels, damage the Pentagon, and destroy two of America’s landmark office towers.

These actions generated a national sense of outrage in this country  and a hard determination to even the score.  It also left some puzzling questions: why would the deaths of thousands of Americans peacefully at work in the non-military Trade Center Towers be a cause for street celebrations in the Middle East?  

What made the shock even worse was the surprising chorus of voices, both here and abroad, insisting that we got just what we deserved.  That attack hasn’t stopped. The Los Angeles Times, on January 18, 2003, quoted Episcopal Bishop Frank Griswold as saying “ We are loathed, and I think the world has every right to loathe us,  because they see us as greedy, self-interested and almost totally unconcerned about poverty, disease and suffering.”

Could the Bishop be right?  Are we all that bad? Are we really defiling the world with our greedy money culture?

On the record, it seems that the Bishop is guilty of not knowing the American people and of not having any idea of the remarkable variety of ways we offer help to countries around the world.  Are the tens of thousands of young Americans who have volunteered to spend two years in the Peace Corps to serve in poor nations around the world “greedy and self-interested”.  Surely the Bishop doesn’t mean that.  And do the billions of dollars the U.S. Agency for International Development, our National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control spend  each year fighting poverty and disease around the world indicate that we are “almost totally unconcerned about poverty, disease, and suffering”.  Of course not.  The problem is that the Bishop obviously doesn’t know about these programs.  That  wouldn’t be unusual.  Very few Americans do.       

Surely we have faults.  Some aspects of our culture offend many of our own people  just as they offend people in other lands. On the other hand we continuously share our bounty with other countries as we have for many years.  Sometimes our gifts are absent-minded.  We do something for our own benefit and it turns out to benefit people everywhere.  At other times we consciously give the best we have to people in need. If we get blamed for the things we do wrong why shouldn’t we get credit for the things we do right?

Those beliefs led to the concept of a book that would spell out the ways in which the United States has been a generous member of world society. It seemed simple at first until it became apparent that there is no official  list of American “good deeds”.  There is plenty of public comment about American “bad deeds” but, as a people, we never give much thought to American programs that have been widely beneficial.  In fact, we don’t even know that many of them exist. With a little research “Gifts from America” could tell of the many contributions we have made, and continue to make, not to impress  people in other countries, but to inform ourselves about  a record  we have every reason to be proud of.

Are We a Stingy Nation?            

There is another strong reason that we need to understand what our country offers the world.  In addition to the physical and propaganda attack of the terrorists and other detractors we now have an attack on our national character as tightwads and skinflints.  That such terms can be applied to the richest  country on earth seems ridiculous but you  will find them being repeated in the international press and  in leading American newspapers.  The argument goes like this. 

The United Nations Human Development Programme 2002 shows that while the United States currently leads all nations in the amount of  money it provides for direct foreign aid to developing countries it ranks near the bottom of the list in the percentage of gross national product it gives.  While our total funding tops the list it represents only 0.1 percent of our gross national product.  In contrast, Denmark spends 1.06 percent of its gross national product on foreign aid and Norway spends 0.80 percent.

We have to admire the willingness of these smaller countries to dig deep to help poor nations and the numbers are an embarrassment to the United States. But this is far from the whole story.   What you will find in this book is an overview of all the activities our government engages in that benefit the world community.  You will see that our direct foreign aid program, which in dollar terms is the largest in the world, is only a small part of the benefits we offer.  Understanding the gifts the United States  offers the world will surely boost  your sense of pride in our country.