The saviors

     Yes, yes: I know there’s only one Savior. That’s why I departed from longstanding practice by not capitalizing the word in the title. But I have something in mind to which the word saviors is relevant.

     It’s about you, Gentle Reader.

* * *

     Long, long ago, for a website far away, I wrote a piece titled “A Beautiful Older Woman With A Breadbasket And A Great Big Gun.” It’s reprinted here. It was stimulated by a squib from Britain’s Daily Telegraph about the chaos and violence in Liberia in 2003. That squib quoted a Liberian woman, Fanny by name, who said this:

     "There's no food anywhere," said Fanny, a Liberian refugee who had trudged for two days to reach the stadium. "People are dying. The Americans must come. We want peace."

     Listen to Fanny once again:

     “There’s no food anywhere.”
     “People are dying.”
     “The Americans must come.”

     Suffering, tragedy… and a plea for rescue. “The Americans must come.” Had Fanny ever met an American? Perhaps, but more likely not; there aren’t many reasons for Americans to go to Liberia. But it’s plain from her words that she knew us.

     It’s commonplace to praise “the men who run to the sound of the guns:” those who dash toward danger and violence to place themselves between the victims and what threatens them. We have them among us. Just this past Friday we commemorated an atrocity, visited upon us by savages who had to steal the weapons with which to strike us, in which we lost many of them: the bravest and best members of our species. But even those of us who lack that particular response will “run” toward the sound of suffering and tragedy. We do so, not to feast upon them like vultures, but to relieve them as best we can.

* * *

     Just now there’s a lot of bad feeling among us. Political divisions, significant social pathologies, finger-pointing, even a lot of genuine suffering. Times like these incline us toward self-doubt. Paul Simon caught the flavor of it many years ago:

I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
Oh, but it's all right, it's all right
For we've lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong

     Simon wrote that in the early Seventies, which historian Paul Johnson characterized as “America’s Suicide Effort” in Modern Times. Things didn’t look good for the U.S. back then. But we recovered. Indeed, we resumed our place as “the indispensable nation.”

     What makes us “the indispensable nation?” Why is ours the nation relied upon by other nations to maintain the peace of the world? Why do billions of human beings immediately look toward the United States of America when disaster strikes and tragedies accumulate? Why, given the general impression of Americans as brash, crude, and violent, is it our role?

     The late P.J. O’Rourke, in telling off a disparaging Englishman, leaped to the brash, crude, and violent:

     Back in London, I was having dinner in the Groucho Club—this week’s in-spot for what’s left of Britain’s lit glitz and nouveau rock riche—when one more person started in on the Stars and Stripes. Eventually he got, as the Europeans always do, to the part about “Your country’s never been invaded.” (This fellow had been two during the Blitz, you see.) “You don’t know the horror, the suffering. You think war is—”
     “A John Wayne movie,” I said. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie—with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mister Limey Poofter? You’re right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They’re us. WE BE BAD.
     “We’re the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars. We’re the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d’Antibes. And we’ve got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.
     “You say our country’s never been invaded? You’re right, little buddy. Because I’d like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who’d have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying ‘Cheerio.’ Hell can’t hold our sock hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer, and buy more things than you know the names of. I’d rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen, and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch.”

     [From Holidays in Hell.]

     That’s the typical American response to being denigrated by some supercilious foreigner. We do it there, and we do it here:

     Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro colleagues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular:
     "See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, there’s a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..."
     After which he and many of my Euro colleagues laughed out loud.
     And then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster.
     I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose --
     "Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want?
     Something with its own inexhaustible power supply?
     Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water?
     Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it?
     Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies?
     Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?
     Well "Franz", us peasants in America call that kind of ship an "Aircraft Carrier". We have 12 of them. How many do you have? Oh that's right, NONE. Lucky for you and the rest of the world, we are the kind of people who share. Even with people we don’t like. In fact, if memory serves, once upon a time we peasants spent a ton of money and lives rescuing people who we had once tried to kill and who tried to kill us.
     Do you know who those people were? That's right Franz, Europeans.
     There’s a French Aircraft carrier? Where is it? Right where it belongs! In France of course! Oh why should the French Navy dirty their uniforms helping people on the other side of the globe. How Simplesse...
     The day an American has to move a European out of the way to help in some part of the world it will be a great day in the world, you sniggering little f**knob..."
     The room fell silent. My Hindi friend then said quietly to the Euros:
     "Can you let your hatred of George Bush end for just one minute? There are people dying! And what are your countries doing? Amazon.com has helped more than France has. You all have a role to play in the world, why can't you see that? Thank God for the US Navy, they don’t have to come and help, but they are. They helped you once and you should all thank God they did. They didn’t have to, and no one but them would have done so. I'm ashamed of you all..."
     He left the room, shaking and in tears. The frustration of being on the other side of the globe, unable to do anything to assist and faced with people who could not set aside their asininity long enough to reach out and help was too much for him to bear. I just shook my head and left. The Euros stood speechless.

     [Written by Frank Martin of varifrank.com, after the Christmas Tsunami]

     If we stipulate that yes, we are brash, crude, and violent, then why are we considered “the indispensable nation?” Why not the more civilized Britons? Why not the more refined and artistic French? Why not those masters of overcoming tragedy after tragedy, the Russians?

     Because we are, and they’re not. Because it’s what we do.

* * *

     We’re not all heroes who “run toward the sound of the guns.” We know those men and love them. May they forever be celebrated as the very best of us. But we’re something else that’s more creditable than is usually admitted.

     Americans are the most charitable people who’ve ever existed. When we see privation or desperation, we give. Some give money; others give time and effort; still others give prayers and encourage their fellows to do the same. We give with both hands, and we never demand a reckoning or a counting-up. If we’re not bodily among those who distribute our gifts, nevertheless we’re with them in spirit.

     In 2025, American material charity from private sources amounted to over $600 billion. That was in one year. And we keep going, year after year. Human suffering and tragedy never cease, so neither do we.

     Sniggerers in other lands can say what they please about us. They don’t do what we do. Mostly, they can’t, but even the wealthiest of them come nowhere near to our generosity. Millions of faceless, nameless persons have benefited from our giving. Some are alive for no other reason.

     No, our gifts aren’t always sufficient unto the need we seek to relieve. We know that; we give anyway. We give out of hope: our own and the hopes of those in need.

     The Savior exhorted us to give. Christians are often told by their clerics to “be the hands of Christ in this world.” All those who do so, no matter the magnitude of their gifts, are saviors of a lesser order.

     Fanny knew where to find us.