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It's an honor to be invited by an American to give my perspective on what benefits America has brought to the world. I recognise that there has been some friction over the past few days. I have repeatedly said that I have many American friends and a great love of that country, and I know that at least some people here have good reason to recognise the truth of this. Perhaps the following thread will be accepted as a peace offering by the rest of you.

Britain left the United States with an appalling legacy, that of slavery, and I live in one of the two cities in the world that profited most from that commerce. Bristol is still wealthy as a direct consequence of the trade in enslaved people, both Africans exchanged for goods and British transportees condemned by our courts. Some of Bristol's current municipal Societies have a continuous history from the rise of the Slave Trade to the present day. As an aside, Bristol was founded in the twelfth century to service a different slave trade - we bought and sold the Irish then, though, not Africans.

So, my first American benefit to the world: America has shown that it is possible to put right the iniquitous inheritance of a color bar. Abraham Lincoln made declarations which have inspired people worldwide ever since. Lyndon Johnson set in train such measures as had never been tried anywhere before. You have a society today which shines with mutual love and tolerance, far beyond what we in the nineteen fifties could ever have dreamed you would achieve. I have no reservation at all in congratulating America on its achievement in racial integration.

Secondly, and associated in many ways with the first, there is now no glass ceiling at any level in US society for women, and this was achieved in America before it found its way anywhere else in the world.

Third, a combination of two allied areas of technology, it is the US that the world has to thank for the development and open-market access to communications satellites, and to space exploration in general through NASA.

Fourth, Jonas Salk as an example of the progress that the US has handed to the world in the control and elimination of a number of diseases and health issues. Reduced mortality rates through water provision and improved hygiene, the near abolition of polio and rinderpest, the successful containment of smallpox, were all US-led programs.

Fifth, an utterly idealistic program of the nineteen forties, with no agenda other than the improvement of what turned out to be sixteen million US citizens. This was the GI Bill, providing post-secondary education grants for returning veterans of World War Two and the UN-communist conflict in Korea.

While I'm tempted to continue, this would just turn into a more and more boring list. There's plenty there to consider, and we can all add to the thread as it grows.

Thank you for the invitation.

Thank you. I appreciate that.



britain's not bad either i might add. the Beatles were nice chaps. and the queen's actually a pretty nice old gal.



:yh_bigsmi

Yeah, walking on the moon is the one thing that immediately springs to mind......

john8pies wrote: Yeah, walking on the moon is the one thing that immediately springs to mind......I sat up all night, watching that. The BBC had Eugene Shoemaker making commentary, he was a gem. I did try to cover that in my list, I just stretched the comment to space exploration in general.

I would never have thought, as I watched through that night, that by the 21st century there would have been nobody outside of low earth orbit for thirty years. It was such a giant leap, and it's been left hanging there all this while. If the Indians put up a manned mission, I'll cheer, or the Chinese, or the Australians, but I'm not holding my breath any longer for NASA to make a positive move.

spot wrote: I sat up all night, watching that. The BBC had Eugene Shoemaker making commentary, he was a gem. I did try to cover that in my list, I just stretched the comment to space exploration in general.



I would never have thought, as I watched through that night, that by the 21st century there would have been nobody outside of low earth orbit for thirty years. It was such a giant leap, and it's been left hanging there all this while. If the Indians put up a manned mission, I'll cheer, or the Chinese, or the Australians, but I'm not holding my breath any longer for NASA to make a positive move.
it is far more cost-efficient, safer, and in terms of time-to-launch faster, to use machines to do the exploration, rather than people. machines don't require water, oxygen, electric shavers, toilets, spacesuits, food, light, or protection from the vacuum of space (mostly) - all of which add weight to the payload, and each pound added makes an enormous difference in the size of the rocket needed to launch that payload into space.



there's no doubt that having a human right there at the spot that's being explored makes a big difference. but technology has narrowed the gap considerably, with high resolution cameras and robotics.



NASA has done some great things in the thirty years since the last moon landing.



and on the other side, pioneers like jim rutan are making space exploration possible without government funding. as we know, governments move slowly, and burn through money at amazing rates. the private sector has an incentive to work lean and mean. the first human launched into space by a private group occurred last october. i think we'll see space exploration again - but without government sloth.

posted by john8pies

Yeah, walking on the moon is the one thing that immediately springs to mind......

I've always been a fan of the police as well Sting should never have left them. :sneaky:

gmc wrote: posted by john8pies

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I've always been a fan of the police as well Sting should never have left them. :sneaky::wah: I started singing that as soon as i saw johns post!