Notes from Finland
I am returning to the
This has been simply a wonderful trip.
I am indeed sorry if my earlier note expressing optimism and hope for our country and new leaders hit some readers wrong. My dad was too silent on many issues of importance… So here’s a parting thought and then I will leave well enough alone:
I personally have come to the conclusion that race in human beings is not a real concept. Our new President was born to parents who were of two different colors – he is not black, not white, but an American. We would do well as citizens of this amazing planet to cease using the polarizing concept of race. Considering our origins, we are all Africans.
Dialog and kindness are the paths forward – lets go there.
Happy Trails and Peace to all,
8 comments:
I like your optimism. I also agree with you about race.
Based on what I see and hear in the media, race has been one of the two major factors leading to the Obama victory -- probably the greatest. I don't mind that. It's not a negative. People want to heal old wounds and many people relate to him because of their own racial and culture backgrounds.
After race, the second factor is his policy. This is really the only problem I have with Pres. elect Obama. I believe he means to keep his campaign promises.
So, while his cultural and his personality and skills might help to heal US relationships with other nations, in the mean time he and his friends will strive to remove what's still remaining of our constitutional constraints upon government.
So what does a Finish breakfast look and taste like?
I'm not sure I understand why race isn't a real concept. If that means that all humans should be considered important and equal then, fine. But race is a valid thing. I would say the race of a person is like the sex of a person. I'm proud to be a female. I'm proud of the descendants I've come from. But if someone receives a position or anything else solely on his/her race or sex that is wrong.
This election is historic. An African American as president. But I don't want his presidency to also be historic on spending, taxes and socialism. I didn’t vote for Obama because he is white, black or whatever color. I didn’t vote for him because I didn’t want him as president.
Bill, your thoughts on a world population are wonderful and utopia-like. And I would like to live in that world. I believe we will some day. But they are totally unrealistic with the existing corruption in the leadership of many countries. That’s one reason people fight hard to become citizens of this country. I don’t want to live in other oppressive countries.
Even though Harry Reed is LDS, I certainly don’t believe like he does, politically. I would be very happy if he wasn’t the Senate head.
I have a bunch of close friends here that are LDS and that voted for Obama. In fact, my bishop voted for him. I think it is great chatting with everyone to see why they think the way the do. It helps me become more solid on things I say I believe in. It’s great to discuss and question ideas and opinions as long as no one is picking a fight or picking on someone’s intelligents.
Those are my thoughts. It’s great chatting about this sort of thing! Unlike popular thinking, I believe we should talk about politics and religion.
It has been interesting to me that the only people I have heard discuss Obama's race are the people who voted for him. That makes me suspect race was the reason many people did vote for him. To me this is just as racist as not voting for him due to race.
I have no problem with an African American being president. Rather, I take issue with his liberal politics, his 'spread the wealth around attitude', his Robin Hood take from the rich and give to the poor solutions.
It was interesting to see your optimistic post. I am glad someone is happy about this outcome. For me I have just felt queasy and anxious for the last few days.
The most optimism I can hope for is that it won't be as bad as I fear.
Bill,
Thanks for sending me the link to the Wilberg family blog. I just accessed it for the first time, and want you to know that I was so touched by your comments about the exciting historical significance of this past week. I absolutely concur with your eloquent remarks that, “This is a day of hope not fear, of progress not threats, of cooperation not conflict, of common ground not misunderstanding, of addressing problems not creating strife.” Our family sat and watched Obama’s acceptance speech (along with millions of other people throughout our country and throughout the world) with an upwelling of excitement and hope for our future. I cried with joy, and spoke with hundreds of people who were equally struck by the importance of this empowering choice that a significant majority of our country has made.
I believe we are “witnessing a change of monumental importance for America” and I can’t even begin to express my excitement for this new way forward that creates a more compassionate society, unity rather than division (in our country as well as within the larger world community), and focuses on the issues rather than a need to tear down others with negative fear-based character attacks. I am so pleased that we are finally going to address the major issues we have facing us right now:
1) The worst economic situation since the Great Depression (after 8 years of a Republican president in the White House)
2) The need for sustainable energy (solar, wind, etc. rather than dependence on foreign oil.)
3) Global warming and environmental protection
4) Appreciation for diversity (cultural, racial, disabilities, religious, etc.)
5) Health care for all individuals
(which is becoming even more important now that many hard working individuals are getting laid off in the serious economic downturn and will no longer be covered by employer plans)
I am so excited and hopeful and I know in my heart that we are moving into a new, positive way of working together for a greater good. I so enjoy Obama’s Aloha spirit! God bless us all.
Kathy Richins
Aloha
I have always been leery of making blanket statements about why things are the way they are or why we might believe something, if we base this on little or no evidence to support these statements. For example since 3000 of the World's scientist who have done substantial pure research, have read, published, evaluated, discussed and observed the effects of humans on our climate over many many years, I tend to believe them far more than a President who was found supporting blacking out words on a scientific document on climate change because he doesn't like what the words say.
So I would contribute to this discussion on why Obama won (that is who supported his win) through some research results of an exit polling by Edison Media Research for The Associated Press and television networks conducted of 10,747 voters with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.
To comment on the anecdotal comments made regarding this being a race election, actually 90% of voters said the race of the candidates was not important to their votes. Now, one might believe since most blacks did vote for Obama, this had a big impact, however, there is a lot more to the story than just this fact.
Those that voted from Obama were overwhelmingly first time voters, young, hispanic, black, a majority of woman, educated voters and interested in the economy as a priority. Also a slight majority of men (less than the majority of women) favored Obama and slightly less than half of white people.
Of note, McCain primarily drew strength in votes from senior citizens, white (slightly over half), and working-class voters, especially those who haven't finished college.
Obama drew the votes of close to 70% of first time voters, more than half of women, two-thirds of Hispanic voters and nearly all blacks. 40% of first time voters were black or hispanic and Obama drew close to 70% that were under 30 years old. Also of note is that close to 33% of first time voters were independent (not democrat nor republican)...over 40% were Democrats. Important is that only 20% of first time voters were Republican. Basically a whole bunch of young, new, culturally diverse, educated, and passionate people came out to vote for Obama. This clearly wasn't just about race. Obama won more votes than anyone in history and a 7% margin, the highest for 20 years.
Harold
Man! We've had more activity on this blog in 3 days than we've had since it was created! That's fabulous! Kathy and Harold I hope you stay!!! Sign up to be contributors as well so you can post and not just comment.
Some thoughts of mine:
*The economy does freak me out. I'm worried that higher taxes for the "wealthy" (who employ many) won't help that. Obama has said 250K and under, you'll be fine. But I've head him and Biden lower that number 200, then 180 (or was it 150?)
*energy: one of the cheapest and safest forms of energy is nuclear and Obama will never do anything with that.
*Yes, I'm gonna say this: I don't believe that global warming is all man-made. I DO believe in caring for our earth in the many ways we should. Stephanie posed a few great questions to me months ago: If we have power to cool the earth, could we cool it too much? How would we warm it up if needed?
This is a link saying over 31,000 American scientist disagree with the Kyoto protocol. There isn't just one opinion out there.
http://www.petitionproject.org/
*I don't want universal health care (or something like it.)
Harold, can you put a link to that info about the voting statistics? I'd like to read it.
That's what I think so far. But I love discussing everything! Keep it coming!
I'm so happy that we've come together on this blog! I hope Harold and Kathy you post stuff/pictures of what you are up to. I think blogs are such a great way to stay in touch. Everyone else, too!!
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