Andrew Cuomo - "We were never great"
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World War II service in my family:
My Dad- Navy
Uncle Pat-Army Air Corps shot down in the Pacific, rescued by PT Boat
Uncle Ben- Army Air Corps= stateside- service baseball
Uncle Lou- 1947-48- Army- Occupied Japan
They are gone now but after the War worked like dogs, had nice middle class lives, loved this country, and would be saddened by the disrespect shown by so many.
(Yes, Italians were called Dagos and worse, Poles Pollacks, Jews Kikes - mostly by us Catholics--for shame The discrimination was rampant. But they worked and studied their way to acceptance and success. Just like the Asians and Hispanics of today. Where else could this happen but in a great America?)
Both sides of family emigrated from Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. Moms father came with nothing, shared tenament one room apartment with 3 others in Little Italy, worked hard as carpenter for whole life raising two daughters and lived a long successful and wonderful life.
My dads family similar, my grandfather worked hard as mason, first for others before starting own company, raised 10 kids, 3 of which served in WW2, lived solid middle class life.
Both came here speaking no English, no money, dealt with prejudice, but worked hard, had strong family values and lived the American dream.
America was great and is still great.
Love it.
So they and other successful immigrants back then:
Worked hard
Did not depend on government
Assimilation to adopted country
Did not play the pity business with race baiters
Accepted prejudice as a fear by natives and adjusted
Respected the flag and America in general
No crime
Very nice!
So they and other successful immigrants back then:
Worked hard
Did not depend on government
Assimilation to adopted country
Did not play the pity business with race baiters
Accepted prejudice as a fear by natives and adjusted
Respected the flag and America in general
No crime
Very nice!
Than you. There are so many of us with stories like this.
When they arrived, all they ever wanted was “ a day’s work”.
Obama said “ You didn’t build that”
Tell that to the Jews, Italians, Poles and Irish who came home dead tired every night- many after working two jobs- because their families came first!
"God Bless America land that I love..." that says it all.
( Song written by Russian Jewish immigrant Irving Berlin)
Like many immigrants, there are very hard working people and then people who commit crimes. Out of the 1920’s crime organizations dominated by the Jewa and the Italians came to power. They dominated their neighborhood, preyed on their own kind, as people would get gunned down in the street.
It’s an immigrant story that has been from the Irish, to the Italians, to the Russians and now the Mexican gangs and Ms 13s. You can glorify the past and there are some amazing things that happened. But what is happening now is not much different than what happened in the 20’s. As time passes on we tend to look fondly back and forget the problems that were there. The recent immigrants that come to the country are always the lowest forms of people according to the people that are already here. It’s tradition as long as this country has been around.
There are always going to be bad people among groups, and recent immigrants are always going to have to deal with additional adversities, but this country affords more opportunities to make a better life than anywhere else in the world.
Tell them that quote by Obama, which was heinously worded, was cherry-picked from a larger quote (see below), taken out of context and used as a political attack.
Tell them...
...too many know better, but don't care.
...we stopped listening to and trying to understand each other.
...
about our echo chambers.
...how hyper-partisan we've become....about the state of political discourse.
...about the rise of the party extremes.
...far too many of us treat politics as sport, caring more about petty wins than effective policy.
...about our debt and what we're (not) doing about it.
...about all of our issues and what we're (not) doing about them.
...facts and truth stopped mattering.
...who our President is and all the things he's done and said.
Then tell them we're sorry for what we've become, because this isn't what they sacrificed for.
Full quote: There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.
So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President — because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.
We are a country of immigrants and as you’ve said, whether it was fair or not, each of those groups had to work their way up from the position when they entered. In fact, we are far more accepting of immigrants today (dual language options, etc.). The one issue that has created the most contention now though is illegal immigration.
Dual language? Another pet peeve of mine is this problem that people have with people speaking Spanish. It amazes me that people have no idea of history. The first settlers here were the Spaniards see St Augustine which predates Jamestown by 50 years. Spanish has always been spoken in this country and was the first language here not English. Spain not England explored most of this country throughout the South and West. How many states are actually Spanish names? Spanish is the original European language in most parts of this country and is interwoven in our history.
With that argument, we actually should be adopting Lenape, Souix and Apache as primary languages. It was their country before the Spaniards.
Maybe. Not really sure why that offends people though.
Feel free to disagree, these are just our opinions but I think if we are pointing to a time of greatness in America, we should consider all the people in the America at that time. If you look back and say yeah that period was great except if you were poor, a woman, or black, or gay, etc... in my opinion, we fell short of being "great".
Entirely possible we would never meet what my definition of great would look like but that doesn't mean it is something we shouldn't strive for. I'm not really a person who dwells in the past. I think we should learn from history and be better today than we were yesterday. .
I'm personally not offended. I realize that, as humans, we're never going to be perfect. My ancestors came here because it was "great," relative to their situation elsewhere at the time. To them, it was great.
You can strive for greatness, but know that we're ALWAYS going to have racism, the poor, and people looking askew at LBGT folks. That's human nature, always has been.
I am not offended, you have the right to believe whatever you want to believe, another thing that makes America Great.
We as a society should always strive to be better, but unfortunately there will always be someone that will be or at least feels they are not getting their "full share". That in my opinion does not stop something from being great.
I know next to nothing about Cuomo's record as governor of NY. With that being said, his comments that "We were never that great" aren't even remotely offensive to me. Could he have chosen more careful words to get his point across? Sure. But if this is offensive we need to order a lot more verbal bubble-wrap.
I'd rather have someone in charge who is over-critical of our country and its past than a fawning spokesman for the state.
It's very dangerous to demand that all our politicians run around in subservience to our nations past without question.
I want to add that I'm not here to argue the accuracy of the claim "We were never that great." First I would have to define "greatness," and then I would need a historian to see whether or not we check off all the boxes. My point here is to argue against the pitchforks that come out whenever someone questions our history.
I'd rather have someone in charge who is over-critical of our country and its past than a fawning spokesman for the state.
It's very dangerous to demand that all our politicians run around in subservience to our nations past without question.
I want to add that I'm not here to argue the accuracy of the claim "We were never that great." First I would have to define "greatness," and then I would need a historian to see whether or not we check off all the boxes. My point here is to argue against the pitchforks that come out whenever someone questions our history.
Quite frankly, I'd like to see all of our politicians talk less and do more.
And let's face it, 80% of the time they open up their mouth's, stupid partisan stuff comes out.
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