Things began to unravel in earnest during President Carter’s Presidency. Kidnappings and hijackings brought President Reagan to the White House. He quickly managed to create a laissez-faire economy allowing businesses to operate in a fashion not heard of since the beginning of the Twentieth Century. 
The aftermath of the 1990 Persian Gulf War unleashed sporadic terrorism. The Coalition Forces, under the leadership of America and President Bush, Sr. let down the Kurds and Shiites. 

Bases were established on sacred grounds instead of pursuing a fleeing army that blatantly conquered Kuwait, a sovereign nation. What a strategic blunder! What a waste of 500,000 men and women deployed with world consent. I yelled, jumping out of my chair, “how can this be?” We have failed the basic tenant of war. The enemy must be brought to its knees. Remember that WWI set the stage for fascism because we made a deal with the aggressors.

In 2003, I lent my support to the Iraq War which deployed the Doctrine of Rapid Dominance, otherwise known as “Shock and Awe”. My reasons were very personal and had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. I hoped to show the world that America is ready to sacrifice men and treasure to make the Kurds and Shiites whole.

Abu Ghraib came on the news. The Hungarian Field Commanding General e-mailed to me while on the ground, “Bob, the Hungarians had nothing to do with this.” Talk about being shocked. My life flashed in front of me. I had enough! I had changed my mind!

In 1950, the Communist Hungarian National Defense Authority (AVH) tortured my father at their Headquarters in Budapest.  This place of physical and mental brutality is now a museum. It is appropriately named the House of Terror.

Have I come full circle? Am I back to square one? What happened to civil rights? What happened to the Geneva Convention? What happened to America setting the standards?

I was seven when witnessing WWII. I was thirteen when my father was separated from the family at a railroad station by a detachment of secret service agents. A Lieutenant Colonel, my father, thrown in prison! No bail! No nothing! Our home raided! Our beds slept in! My mother’s savings stolen from the kitchen cupboard! The food pantry sealed! What must our family do now? I asked. Will father be executed? How can I help? I rushed to hide the just salted and smoked pig in a chimney across the lake at my aunt’s house. I walked miles and took the ferry several times for several days. I tried not to be conspicuous. The ferry Captain was a good man! I felt he knew.

As a Lieutenant Colonel my father refused demands that he join the Communist Party. Imagine an officer of the People’s Army doing that and having been accused of believing in the victory of Americans during the Korean War. His coerced testimony was set aside. He was not executed for sabotage. His life was finally spared. He was sentenced for petty crimes never committed. His genius saved his life. He was put to work in prison heading an engineering gulag. 

Father prevented the family’s deportation from the city by going on strike at the Vac penitentiary for political prisoners. Father demanded better rations and treatment for his prison engineering office. Eye glasses and food were needed to insure creativity. His demands were met. The family was left alone.

My dear mother, Ilona, worked in the hospital to feed six children.
I worked the steel yards. I shoveled the streets of Budapest during winter nights, collected scrap metal and loaded cement tucks. The family needed bread and money to survive.

I had a Bible. This empowered me to lead an underground Bible Study Group. We met in homes and in the hills. We joined retreats and hoped for better days. Guns were on the horizon. It was only a matter of time. We knew the time would come.

Father was finally released and immediately put back to work on Top Secret Military installations and a vast underground strategic Metro System to prepare Hungary for WWIII. Quite a promotion I say for an accused saboteur, an enemy of the people.

In 1956, I was attending the Technical University of Miskolc when the news came from Budapest. The uprising had begun against the Stalinists controlling the Communist Party.  The students and the workers had been fired on at Parliament Square. The demonstrators were attacking the Kossuth Radio building. Soon we heard the voices of freedom broadcasting! I and about ten other students rushed to capture the nearby police station. The sergeant opened the door saying “We were waiting for you to take our guns”. We arrived in downtown Miskolc on an open flatbed truck driving by the family home that was leveled during WWII. Retaliation was well underway. We tried, but could not stop the lynching. 

My best friend Ernest fell in Budapest. The Soviets brought in new forces while the United Nations conveniently focused on the Suez Canal. We held out in the Tapolca hills after the campus was overrun. In late November we all headed west.

I stopped to say good bye to Mom and Dad. “Why must you go?” father needed to know.  I replied “The choice is freedom or the gulags.” He understood, but reminded me that “real Magyars would stay and resist with silence”. “I know Dad. But I had enough!” I replied. He did not get out of bed. “Go if you must”. I bent over and said good-bye.

Captured twice, betrayed by opportunists, sheltered by farm laborers, guided by village workers, and released by a solitary Russian soldier yards away from the border, I made it to Austria. We embarked at Bremerhaven for the New York harbor. I thank the United States Navy for bringing me across the treacherous January North Atlantic. I thank all Americans for welcoming the Hungarian Refugees to your shores and heartlands during those trying times.
  
In 1989, I rushed to Bucharest to witness the Romanian Revolution. I just had to make my final mark on the demise of the Iron Curtain and embrace the freedom fighters and the freedom of the peoples of Eastern Europe.  The meaning of over fifty journeys behind the Iron Curtain was suddenly realized. My mission was complete. My people were freed!!

There are only a handful of people in history that returned behind the Iron Curtain in the 1960s to crawl across the Yugoslav border on a moon lit January night to free a brother from communist tyranny. One of them is now standing in front of you. In 1966, I also crossed Checkpoint Charlie as the Captain of the U.S. Kayak and Canoe Team to participate in the World Championships. Just ask the State Department about the team briefing, at the U.S Embassy in West Berlin, on how U.S. athletes were instructed to tip-toe the American Flag through East Berlin to avoid creating the wrong impression. The politicians were worried. But the American Team was hailed by the Berliners. The American team under my command pierced “The Berlin Wall” without guarantees of anyone’s personal safety.

This brings us to the subject of Walls be they virtual or real. We erect Walls between blue collar workers, white collar workers, African Americans, Caucasians, Asians, Latinos, Jews, Gentiles, Protestants, Catholics, and Muslims. Shall I go on?  “We the People” of the World are separated by invisible Walls.  Oh, how we love to erect such Walls. It provides a steady stream of voters that are filled with fear and are blind to the truth. “Divide and Conquer”! Well, I don’t think so! There is no long term peace through disunity!

Mr. President, “Tear Down this Wall”! Replace it with refugee processing centers to separate the good, honest working, but desperate people of Mexico from the criminal elements. Return dignity to all working Mexicans already in the United States. Grant them permanent residence or issue them temporary work permits depending on their family status.  Remember that all babies born in the United States of America have the right to aspire to the Presidency. They need parents to raise them here, not in Mexico.  

Mr. President, give our border guards the means to defend our Homeland without adopting an Iron Curtain strategy.  Let’s refocus globalization. Let’s give Mexico a priority when it comes to international investments. Our neighbors are being left behind!

When it comes to NAFTA, there is no need to spend much time on amendments. Sure, it has flaws. Human rights, labor protection, and the environment must be addressed. I urge all the People of our great Nation to take another good look. Let’s move forward. Let’s take a giant leap toward a North American Economic Union. It is an imperative if we are to successfully compete with other thriving world economies. It is time to secure the Gulf of Mexico. It is time, to secure our borders without the blemish of The Wall.  

Joan and I were impressed by Senator Obama from the moment we heard him speak at the 2004 Democratic Party National Convention. This past March we decided to make a difference. We registered as Democrats to vote for Senator Obama in the Pennsylvania Presidential Primary. Three weeks ago we got the chance to meet the Senator. My instinctive reaction was to speak up and yell to the world “Yes, we can” and Yes, I will help any way I can to meet head on “The urgency of now”.

I am here to call upon all Pennsylvanians to reelect Democratic Congressmen and reject Republicans consistently supporting the misguided policies of the Bush administration.

I tip my hat to all Democrat and Republican Representatives who are already working hand in hand to support change. Greed must be stopped. Greed is a distractive menace. Greed benefits no one. Greed destroys productivity, impoverishes the citizenry, and shatters hope. It will surely engulf our Nation. 

The American working class fell 40% behind the expansion of our Nation’s Gross Domestic Product. This has nothing to do with NAFTA, CAFTA or displaced Mexican refugees or migrant workers once welcomed. It has a lot to do with sharing in good measure the bounties of our economy! “We the People” are being left behind!   

How can I say that, one must ask?

Going back a dozen years to 1996 as a reference point, the Gross Domestic Product of the United States of America grew at an accelerated pace. It is now outpacing by 40% the federal minimum wage. And that’s a fact!

There is no end to this in sight! The Federal minimum wage should stand at nine dollars and twenty cents not at six dollars and fifty five cents. Therefore, many of you were and still remain very seriously short changed more than five thousand dollars per year. Who needs tax refunds? Give us our fair share! 

The skeptics will say - can you really use the minimum wage as a barometer? “Yes, we can!” I am confident that if one elects to study any of our great States in detail, using prevailing state minimum wage standards or any other wage scales, the same conclusion in relative terms will become apparent. But the best barometer is your personal experiences.

The question of how did we all survive for so long remains!  Surprise! Surprise! We turned to our credit cards, personally and as a Nation! And, that is exactly what the loan sharks wanted you to do. Conspiracy or not, it sure worked just fine for them. Caution is now in order.  Our Nation and “We the People” are almost bankrupt and energy imperialism is on the rise. Energy independence remains the last bastion of hope.

Did we see this coming? I did! If others did not, I’m stunned!

I lost my job in 1971 and was forced to hit the unemployment lines for the first time. A family of five was suddenly faced with the question of how to survive. My wife just had major surgery. What must I do, the question hunted me again?  The answer was clear. We are Americans! We are in America! Our family can and will survive.

We decided to move back to the Philadelphia area. Joan was born in Philadelphia and I worked there for Boeing during the Vietnam War. I looked around. What shall I do? I decided to establish a trading company. I began to trade in petrochemicals by leveraging the first energy crisis. 

The oil embargo and its aftermath in the 1970s was the beginning of hostilities between industrial nations and the oil cartel. It was that exact moment when a substantial duty on oil imports needed to be imposed to make alternate energy viable. But, our government chose to look the other way and did nothing. It’s still not too late. It can and must be done.

This is the only way to take quick control over imported crude oil. Let’s set the price for imported crude oil around $250 per barrel. Let’s regulate the price of domestic crude oil. Let’s control the price at the pump. Let’s raise Federal minimum wage standards to at least ten dollars. It’s long over due and would help offset the impact on those in dire need. Let’s slow down the Cartel! Let’s give alternate energy sources a chance.

The raiding of this great Nation’s treasures began in earnest in the 1980s. Our government allowed the Savings and Loans Crisis to ferment. Since that critical moment, you and I continue to bail out big business. Our government deficit spending grows by leaps and bounds. Yes, the 1980s cost you a bundle and went out with a bang. The current housing market collapse is not new! It just keeps repeating itself. In short, “We the People” are allowing big business and government to cover up strategic blunders and destroy our dollar while the few acquire vast riches on the way.

If it were not for innovation, this matter could have not been brushed aside in the 1990s. So, “Here we go again”.  America is experiencing another financial crisis. We got to home plate without a home run. And that is pretty incredible! Heaven knows the cost that you are about to bear. “We the People” are bearing the consequences of government and big business running amuck. It is time, to halt this runaway train. Do not let the tail wag the dog!

I have spoken of my journey through life. I touched some nerves for sure. Presidencies and their consequences were put in focus. History, financial crisis, oil imperialism, minimum wage, wars, bibles, guns, revolutions, and The Wall were touched in brief. Racial, ethnic, and religious walls were put in focus.

“Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords” declared President Teddy Roosevelt. Did you know that he is still the youngest President on Record? Did you know that he busted organized crime and big business? “We the People” can and must take charge. Let’s register and vote in November. Let’s give Senator Obama a hand. 

Vote for unity! Vote for America! Vote for the Democratic Ticket! Vote for Barack!

Let us now together show solidarity to all our fellow Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans. I plead that we close ranks, destroy the barriers between peoples, and unite.

Vote for unity! Vote for America! Vote for the Democratic Ticket! Vote for Barack!

“We the People” are living and witnessing a great revival on Independence Mall in the Cradle of America. We are rejecting greed and fear. We are one. We are united.

Vote for unity! Vote for America! Vote for the Democratic Ticket! Vote for Barack!

This moment together with you, here in the heart of Independence National Historic Park, will never be forgotten by me.

I’m humbled by the opportunity of sharing my memories and the facts that I hold to be true.

Thank you America! Thank you Pennsylvania!  Thank you one and all! Thank you! Thank you so very much!  

God bless you! God bless America!