HW 30: What Kind of Democracy do we want?

On Tuesday November 6th I attended the Citizenship Symposium. This symposium was titled "What kind of Democracy do we want?" This was part of the KSC symposium. The symposium started out with the KSC Provost explaining that in recent years college students at Keene State College have been showing an increase interest in politics, and our government. This particular election has started early, and has gotten more involvement and attention than any other election in the past (According to the Provost). He then introduced the mayor, Michael Blastos. He presented KSC with a plaque announcing today November 6th as citizenship day here at the college. The guest speaker, Nancy Tobi presented us with a slide "Citizens Gone Wild." She gave a vivid description of her ancestor Moses. "Moses was a poor humble refugee who did not get to see the fruits of his labor." I found this to be a good description. I interpreted this as, each and every person can make a difference. Even if it takes years to actually see your efforts taking place, you've made a difference in homebody's life. To me, that is worth it. I found the slide about Election Crime to be very interesting. An election crime, affects the well-being of the entire planet. That is a HUGE crime to break. Think how many people you are affecting. Basically, the solution to this is controlling the counts of the votes this way the motive is to control the planet. I enjoyed her quote 'Politicians are like diapers; they need to be changed, and for the same reasons." I thought that was exactly true. How could you have the same politician for more than 8 years? Sometimes 4 is just too long. I enjoyed how passionate she way about her slide show and I think it must have taken a lot of effort to present that to us.
Added 11/17
I also attended the Symposium on November 8th. This one was titled Citizenship and Responsibility. The first to speak was Katrina Sweat. She introduced her father the guest speaker Tom Lantos. Tom was the only survivor of the Holocaust to serve in the U.S. congress. Tom was originally from Hungry. In 1980 Tom decided to run for congress. In 2006 he was elected chairman of the house for foreign affairs committee. Tom touched alot on foreign affairs. Tom had recently spoke to the President of France he quoted him quite frequently throughout his speech. The main point of his speech was Immigrants are just as much citizens as American-borne citizens. They too feel patriotic about their country. I agree with him on this, there was a reason they decided to come here. A vivid description that Tom made was "America did not teach men the idea of freedom, she taught them how to practice it", this was said by the president of France. This is very true you can believe in freedom but it is the act of practicing freedom that makes it count. A quote that I found to be accurate was his expectations for the next American president. As most know the issues we are having in our country today are quite controversial regarding President Bush. Lantos said "There will be two responsibilities for the next president
1. to bring the country together
2. The laborious job of rebuilding the prestige status and respect of the United States."
This is exactly right. We have lost some respect. We are a strong nation and we should be able to gain our respect back from other countries. The new president will have his or her work cut out for them.