“Stand by Obama”
Dear former students of the UPEACE/AU Dual Master Program on Natural Resources and Sustainable Development; dear former students of UPEACE from the USA from othe MA Programs. I am boldly assuming that you have a ample mind and that you are from the groups that wants a new, different USA( for your own sake and for the sake of the world). I am assuming that most of you choose to change things beginning by voting for Barack Obama for President.
I am not a USA citizen. I am from Latin America. I love many USAeans,all my former students, colleagues, neigbours,…. finally friends. I also admire many features of being a USA citizens and many of the successes of the USA, just like the ones of many of the other countries of the world. But I don´t like the USA policy of domination, I don´t love the empire, I don´t love the build-up wars in the name of freedom and democracy ( but really in the name of business and economy), I don’t love the greed of the Corporations, the will to intervene everywhere to “protect” the USA interests, the lack of interest of too many USAeans for other cultures and for the rest of the world.
Why I am telling you all this?. Because what happens in the USA , affect deeply the rest of the world and too many time for the worst. Once I expressed that we, the rest of the world, since we are directly affected by the elections in the USA, should have both vote and veto right in your elections and in the political decisions of the United States of America. But we have not that right, and we hope that some of our good friends of the USA will do something for themselves and for us.
The father of George Steiner warned the Austrian Jews about the dangers of fascism. There are many USA authors philosophers and thinkers that also are permanently warning about the dangers of the of the Palin-Bush-Cheney-Runsfeld-Rice- etc. and of all the new members of the delirant party of selfishness, racism, war and evil economy. Read Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens to look for guidance. Re-read Henry David Thoreau, Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, Gandhi, Martin Luther King. Review what your Father Founders said and wrote. To day in the news it was announced that the Republicans want to repeal the Health Care Reform just passed through the Congress some months ago. .
This week I saw a CNN interview with Jeremy Rifkin, the author of “The Hidrogen Society”, and he remembered that…“President Obama was elected by the Internet Generation”. Now is time that the same Internet Generation, rescue the USA from the Tea Partisans. You are supposed (because of your background as UPEACErs) to be activist of peace and sustainable development, for your country and for the world. I want to invite you all to assume that role. I want to invite you to quit indifference, frustration, the easy life, the thinking in yourselves, and start a campaign, a restless campaign using the same tool that brought you all the same hope. The Internet. The elections of Tuesday the 2nd. of November should call you all to immediate action. Retake Internet for the next two years, show your citizens that the mess produced by the republicans in the world economy is not possible to be repaired by President Obama in only two year. Tell your citizens that they need to think long term, that they have to think in the others, concretely in their children and grandchildren, and that coming back to the Tea Partisans things will be worst for all. Start now and take your Internet to respond to the radicals and support your President. ¿could you tolerate your conscience with a Sara Palin as President of the USA in a two years time?
With love to all of you
Ronnie de Camino, Santa Ana, 7th. November 2010.
Dear Ronnie, Thank you for trying to provoke some action on the part of my paisanos and myself. Jeremy Rifkin's point is interesting (re: the internet generation) and bring to mind something that Thomas Friedman said at a lecture of his that I recently attended at a local University. A student asked him what young people could do to make a difference (in bringing about a better world. His response was to the effect that "you are the first digital generation, however, the world of politics and influence is still analog. While you interchange opinions on the internet, deals are being made face-face and in back rooms. If you want to make a difference, get out and make your voice heard. Get physically involved". Apparently that was true for Obama's election when the internet generation when out and voted. They did not turn out in the last election and now we face an uncertain political future for these next two years. Un abrazo, Jim
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