By
Tom Kando
CONGRATULATIONS, PRESIDENT OBAMA!
NEVER HAS ANYONE WORKED SO HARD AND DONE SO MUCH TO DESERVE RE-ELECTION.
YOU ARE AN INSPIRATION TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. YOUR CONTINUED LEADERSHIP IS A BLESSING FOR THE COUNTRY.
THIS IS A HISTORICAL MOMENT.
AMERICA CAN LOOK FORWARD TO THE FUTURE
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20 comments:
HOORAY, HOORAY! Today's headlines should read...
"Neo-Fascists NARROWLY Defeated in US Elections, Millions Put Applications For Exit Visas on Temporary Hold."
Yeah! Yesterday was a good day. We did it again,
Gail
Poor Country… Remember the romans and the greeks, they too were powerful in their days.
Dear Tom, Please remove me from your email list serve.
I don't think the last 4 years of increased debt, tax increases, higher gas prices are anything to congratulate. And I could go on.
Socialism is not the path for me. It will take this Country down.
No hard feelings. Just a difference of opinion.
FELICITATION!
Cher Tom, formidable!
Tu sais, le dernier jour, avant de domir, j'ai medite, "tourne mes pouces" et prie pour lui. Heureusement je n'etait pas la seule, on dirait. Et ton blog et tes contributions ont aide aussi!
Hurrah!
Love you
mom
(You know, the last day, before going to sleep, I meditated, crossed my fingers and prayed for him. I wasn't the only one, apparently. And your blog and your contributions also helped!)
Dear Tom:
Congratulations for the victory of president Obama!!!!
Actually, I am now working for a private English language school in China, and all my colleagues and students are strongly pro-Obama! We all paid much attention to the vote and are so so glad about the results!!
Congratulations, president Obama! Congratulations, America!!!
Best regards from China
Congratulations Tom, your side won...now welcome to the recession of 2013 as businesses cut back.
In addition to relief at the election results, I felt another emotion upon hearing Romney's speech. Most news reports described it as short or sometimes "gracious" but I found it mostly 'disturbing'. Did anyone else have a similar reaction?
For a man who came only a few percentage points away from the 'popular' vote, he missed a golden opportunity to heal this country's wounds at the pinnacle of his public life. After all, he had the support of almost half of the American people.
What was the most disturbing?
The speech was truly only about 'himself' and loss of his personal ambitions. It was not about our people, the future of our country, or the healing and unifying that needs to take place.
Consider the weakness of his statement about politicians needing to come together. It was a cold statement lacking personal conviction. One could only perceive his personal grief at his lack of success.
At the same time, if the speech had been 'gracious' it would have contained a desire to work toward healing the divisions and to help the country move forward. Shockingly, he instead said he would 'pray for the president.'
This I found to be the most offensive way to end the speech, a lowdown and final political jab. It was as if Obama had thrown the country into a hopeless situation beyond all human help. Thus, Romney revealed his truly shallow character that made me pity him.
I breathed a second sigh of relief that he is not the captain of our ship, for that is the scariest thought of all. We need clear-thinking, intelligent and bi-partisan leadership during this troubled time, not sour grapes.
Romney proved in his concession speech that he just couldn't measure up to the job. What a sad commentary on Republican politics.
Je pense que les Etats Unis vont sombre dans un gouffre. Les gens entreprenant vont trouver d’autre pays ou leurs efforts seront reconnu. Je considère que ces élections on couronner la médiocrité. J’ai vu la même chose en France quand les communistes disait a tout le monde qu’il prêchait l’égalité. Le résultat était un nivellement par le bas avec les membres du parti étant les seuls qui s’enrichissent. Même chose en Tchécoslovaquie ou en Bulgarie. Le gouvernement dictait ce que vous mangiez, ou vous vous logiez. J’ai perdu ma meilleure amie, une bulgare dont le père était le représentant (semblable à un ambassadeur) en France. Elle est morte d’un cancer du sein mal soigne. Obamacare promet la même chose. Je pense que ceux qui ont voté pour Obama auront le reste de leur vie pour le regretter.
Merci,
Je ne suis pas d’accord avec vous, mais ce n’est pas ce dont je veux vous parler maintenant:
Par hazard, vous mentionez les satellites communistes d’avant.
Saviez-vous que je viens de la Hongrie moi-meme? Je suis ne a Budapest, ou j’ai passé la guerre, et nous avons demenage a Paris, quand j’avais 7 ans. Donc les questions dont vous parlez me touchent personellement.
Evidemment, je suis tout-a-fait d’accord que le communisme etait un desastre –
pour le monde entier et pour mon pays.
Par contre, les democraties sociales d’Europe Nord-Ouest
(la Holllande, par example, ou ma mere de 100 ans habite encore,
et que je visite 2 ou 3 fois par an), ainsi que l’Allemagne et la Scandinavie, marchent beaucoup mieux que l’Amerique (que j’appelle un pays “paleo-Capitaliste”).
Les services medicaux “socialises” de la Hollande sont tellement superieures a ceux des Etats Unis
que nous sommes heureux que notre mere de 100 ans habite la-bas, et non pas ici.
En tout cas, je vous remercie beaucoup pour vos commentaries.
Romney proved in his concession speech that he just couldn't measure up to the job.
I noticed Cheryl! Romeny offerred to pray for Obama and the nation, and said not a single word about getting behind the leader of the US, duly elected, and making things work despite differences and disagreements.
A petty and venal man. Not a patriot at all.
I thought Romney's concession speach was one of his best. Obama's speach was eloquint, inspiring and passionate. What a wonderful night. Tom, I feel a bit of 'I told you so' regarding your prior post! The tea party is too strong but is dying out.
I do remember that you are originally from Hungary but at 7 I doubt that you have observed that much. I don’t know if you have visited eastern European countries before and after. In Prague before if you went to a store you did not ask for something specific you wanted, you ask them what they were willing to sell you, after you can find anything you want. Before you went to a restaurant and they did you a favor to allow you to eat there, the service was usually miserable. After, they are there to serve you and treat you courteously. And I could go on and on. The people who don’t like the change are those, generally who don’t want to work hard.
Anne-Louise
To Anne:
In English now:
I have been back to Eastern Europe a dozen times since I left – from 1979 through 2007.
To see my family and academic colleagues, and to do research.
I established a student exchange program between Sac State and Budapest’s Corvinus University,
I spent a sabbatical in Budapest,
I drove around the Soviet Union during the 1970s for many weeks, camping, picking up hitch-hikers,
staying with Muscovites in their apartments – from St. Petersburg/Leningrad to Moscow, Novgorod, Smolensk, Kiev, you name it.
I spent many weeks in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia and elsewhere,
and I have published articles about economic conditions in Eastern Europe both before and after the collapse of Communism.
My mother published a best-selling book about the 1956 Hungarian uprising, which came out again on that event’s 50th anniversary.
Google her – Ata Kando!
Sorry for bragging.
But look, you and I have no argument about Eastern Europe.
I agree with you that Communism was a disaster.
Salutations amicales,
Tom, I am thoroughly impressed! Thanks for bragging! I never had the opportunity to travel in Eastern Europe and Russia. My youthful travels took me through the Middle and Far Easts.
Last night Monica and I toyed with the idea of traveling on the Siberian Express -- a sorry substitute for your accomplishment, but maybe something worth doing.
I became good friends years ago with Bernice Shapiro, a scholar of the USSR. She set my thinking straight regarding the "accomplishments" of the socialists republics, explaining that, practically speaking, rampant corruption became the Achilles heel of the Communist/Socialist project.
Anne writes: "The people who don’t like the change are those, generally who don’t want to work hard."
A familiar trope is it not? --- lazy blacks, lazy Greeks, Lazy Mexicans, lazy white trash, lazy Arndrosians (so say the Bahamian Exumians)
Now I think this is a topic worth exploring in greater depth. What do we mean when we speak of people who "don't WANT to work?" Is laziness something that can be quantified in ergs expended, product output? Services rendered?
In the US, the relative industriousness of people is believed to mark the difference between those who succeed and those who fail. Hard work pays off, we say. It follows then, that those who fail must be lazy.
Do you have any references you could call out on this subject?
Of course, “not wanting to work,” “the takers,” the “47%,” “lazy,” etc, these are all synonyms, sometimes code words, for the same worn-out stereotype of whatever group you wish to apply it to. (You can address Anne, if you wish....)
yay O'Bama> he's made some horrendous wrong calls, but i still believe he can become
the Man with the Flashlight
I am delighted with the outcome - we have given a great man 4 more years to accomplish objectives that he laid out four years ago - objectives that will benefit all of us - not just the wealthy, not just the middle class and not just the poor. I call Obama a great man because I believe that he stands for values that has made our country great and strong - the ideal of affordable healthcare as a right - for everyone, equal and fair taxation across the board, acknowledging the right to be different and not be penalized for it, while still valuing the opinions of dissenters, working to end the war in Iraq, an unpopular and costly war.
On another note, I firmly believe that many of today's Republicans were yesterday's Democrats who have become disconnected from their roots - an example would be my own 80-year old brother. Born in poverty, raised in lower middle class surroundings with determination to do better. We were always financially on the edge but with the help of others, i.e.; things like credit at the local store and a lot of ingenuity we were able to move up the ladder a notch and get viable, decent paying jobs. Then our parents were able to take advantage of that great idea of Roosevelt's - Social Security which is what it really was to us. For my mother it was the difference between living a decent life and poverty. We were a fiercely Democratic household - holding onto the ideals of the party that favored minimum wages, progressive taxation, decreased military spending, all with a liberal philosophy, etc., etc. Then something happened to him, he acquired some wealth, moved to the suburbs and became an isolationist. He seems to have forgotten that he is his brother's keeper and has the idea that less fortunate people are taking from him. Why? I don't get it but apparently the Tea Party does which he has joined and espouses their rhetoric of cut, cut, cut - mostly from the poor. I think that this trend has changed our country and I am hopeful that the trend is reversing - the re-election of Obama give me hope that I am right.
So you could say I believe the country is going in the right direction and I agree with Cheryl on Romney's speech.
In 2008 a Convention was signed to abandon the use of cluster ammunition. 107 countries signed. Three important countries did not. China, Russia and USA. China and Russia was to be expected. But the US? With their high moral standards, the protector of Human Rights worldwide,”the Greatest Democracy in the World” according to themselves. Why have they not signed this treaty? Even a number of US Military “have long argued they are outmoded and immoral because of the dangers posed to civilians from bombs that do not explode and litter the ground like land mines.”………The last meeting was in Oslo in September 2012…..
What is the use of this weapon?
How many children are killed and maimed every year because of this horrible weapon?
“Nearly all victims — 94% — are civilians, and 40% are children,” said Elizabeth MacNairn, executive director of Handicap International U.S. “The report counts between 20,000 and 54,000 cluster munition victims, who will need life-long assistance, and access to a range of health care and support to be fully included in society. Their families and communities also need help.”
So WHY???
The topic of the post is to express happiness at the election of President Obama. No reasonable person can deny that this is better than the alternative would have been (Romney's election) - even if some, like you no doubt, would see Obama as the lesser of two evils.
I agree with you that cluster bombs are an abomination, but that is not the topic of this post.
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