Tuesday, November 13, 2007

HW30: Citizenship Symposium

November 6, 2007 started the week long Citizenship Symposium at Keene State College. The first talk the I attended also was the first talk of the symposium. This talk was titled, "What kind of Democracy do we want?" There were a few different talkers, the Keene State Provost, Mayor Micheal Blastos, and guest speaker Nancy Tobi. The speakers all talked about out democracy and touched upon subjects such as the increasing interest that Keene State Students are taking in politics and government. The Mayor presented KSC with a plaque to announce that "November 6th, Citizenship day was here at KSC." And Nancy Tobi allowed us to view a slide show she called "Citizens Gone Wild." Her main position on the subject was that every person in our society can make a difference if they try. She also talked about Election Crime.

November 8, 2007 was the third day of the Citizenship Symposium here at Keene State College. The second talk I went to was titled "Citizenship and Responsibility" by Tom Lantos. Tom Lantos is a Holocaust survivor and he is the only Holocaust survivor to be in the US congress. Mr. Lantos came to the United States after WWII, he is the Chair of Foreign Affairs. He stated how he had spoken to the new President of France the day before and he then stated that "America did not teach men the idea of freedom, she taught them how to practice it." Mr. Lantos was also very excited because the day before they had passed the Employment Non Discrimination Act, and he said that was a dream come true for him. Tom Lantos then spoke a lot about how the image of the United States is at an all time low. People in surrounding countries are forgetting the good things Americans have done for them and concentrating on the negative affects that are happening around the world such as in Iraq. Mr. Lantos said that are next President has a big task ahead of them because they have to drasitically bring our country back together. Citizenship means the status, rights and duties of a citizen, especially of a particular country, that means that we have a duty to up hold as Americans and I think that Mr. Lantos was trying to tell us that we cannot give up because of everything that is going on because it will get better things are getting better.