I confess - I sent this out to about three people (close friends and family only). I prefaced it with a plea to forgive me if they’d already read it. I had never seen it before. One friend wrote back and thanked me for sending it, and said he “forgave” me!
I certainly wouldn’t be offended if someone told me that it was written a while ago. It’s still appropriate today. Actually, I think it’s kind of nifty that the speech is still so fitting.
Why would anyone be offended when they find out it’s an old speech? I don’t get it.
No - you misunderstood me. If I had sent that email forward to someone, and they told me, “It actually was written a while ago, but the words still apply today”, I wouldn’t be offended. I wouldn’t take offense at being corrected and told that. I’d want to know. As long as the recipient of my email was polite about it, what’s there to be offended about?
Well, in my girlfriend’s case (and we’re just friends, Vinnie Virginslayer), she was upset because she was ignorantly forwarding the speech of a famous dead Canadian as “recent”, and would still be doing so if I hadn’t clued her in. No doubt she felt rather sheepish, and her first reaction was to shoot the messenger.
I think “The Americans” was a great speech, but my quibble with its revival is that we have no idea if Sinclair would still hold the exact same opinions today. Almost 30 years have passed since it was written in 1973, and the U.S. has engaged in some questionable military activity since the speech was written. (I harbour no “blame the U.S.” sentiments; I’m just saying, y’know.)
If people must circulate the speech, they should take care to remove the misleading “recently” paragraph. The fact of the matter is that “The Americans” was written in response to “the stream of criticism and negative press recently directed at the United States of America by foreign journalists (primarily over America’s long military involvement in Vietnam, which had ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords six months earlier)” – that’s a salient point.
Athena I hope you didn’t eat Mexican food today it is not as good coming up as it is going down ya know. Sorry I just posted it in the GD. Hey, I just heard it for the first time yesterday. ::wildest bill going back under his rock for cover::
FWIW, Sinclair’s speech got enough radio airplay and sold enough copies in 1973 to have reached the Top 10 on Billboard’s American pop chart. It stayed in the top 40 for several weeks.