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Communities affected by events elsewhere, Snyder says |
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Monday, 07 January 2008 |
 congressman Vic SNYder tells members of the Bryant Rotary Club about how national and international affairs impact what happens in local communities. Snyder was the club’s first speaker of the new year.
“We are all interested in politics these days,” Bryant Alderman Steve Gladden, a member of the Rotary Club, said before introducing Snyder. “Because things change and even though it is on a Washington, D.C., level, it affects us locally as business leaders in our community.”
Gladden said that he contacted Snyder and asked him to speak to the Rotary Club for several reasons, but mainly because he wanted people to hear about his experiences with world affairs and how they can affect the local communities. He said that what happens in the nation’s government and the world impacts the local economy and local businesses.
Snyder, who represents the state’s 2nd Congressional district, focused on healthcare, poverty and the war in Iraq and pointed out that that events outside the community directly affect the local area.
“You are part of what makes this country work,” Snyder said. “You are a part of what makes this robust democracy work. So when you look at some of these issues that we are facing, I think they are big-time things, in some ways really unprecedented in our history. We’re sitting here in this robust, vibrant economic community of Bryant and a lot of you who are in business know that what determines what happens in your business is not necessarily what happens in the state capital in Little Rock or the Bryant City Council or the school board.
“It’s what happens in [the world] — what businesses [nations] decide to go after, what they do about energy policy, or what contracts they strike up with Venezuela to take more oil out of our system. There’s a whole lot of issues involving our competition internationally that impact our world right here in Bryant.”
Snyder told a story about visiting what is now called the Russian Federation several years ago and speaking with a man about the Russian civil society.
“I made several trips to Russia and I heard one of the Russians speak during the pre-[Russian Federation President] Vladimir Putin era, but he was talking about the development of what he thought was the greatest gap in Russia, what he called the Civil Society,” Snyder said. “He was trying to figure out how it was in America that we had development.
“Now what does he mean by the civil society? That’s what you are — the nonprofit organizations and the community service organizations. Now why was that so important? Here was a guy that was very knowledgeable, a scholar, but what he knew and he figured out was, you’ve got the government, you’ve got the private business.
“The government can’t do everything; the private business sector cant do everything; and somewhere in that is the oil that makes everything work, [which] is the civil society, the community volunteer work and all the different forms of that. Really, it is the heart and has been for decades in this country.”
Snyder explained how speaking with the Russian man showed the importance of civil service in a country and how it impacts society in a positive manner. He then spoke of how he believes this election year is an important time in American History and that the American people want to make a change in politics.
“We are heading into an election year and a pivotal time in our nation’s history,” Snyder said. “Regardless of whether you are a nonpartisan group or whether you are an independent, a Republican or a Democrat, we all have an uneasiness about where we want this country and this world to go, and it is not all going where we want it to go. So I don’t sense any kind of laying back of people of America, saying ‘oh its a doldrums, so you just coast’.
In regard to upcp,omg presidential caucuses, Snyder said he expects there to be “a remarkable turnout.”
“ I don’t think everyone is going to say we have these perfect candidates, but the resoluteness about us as Americans is that we want something different. We not only want what we’re doing to be better than what it is, but we want the results to be better than what they are.”
He told the Rotary members that the United States is involved in two “active shooting wars” with Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the “ongoing war against Al-Qaeda,” and that this also impacts our nation. Snyder said that Americans have issues with those wars and that the wars impact our nation economically to further illustrate the impact of international affairs on a local community. He tied in how he believes that the future of how we use energy can help lift people out of poverty in America.
“All those economies out there that are trying to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty, what drives their economy is energy,” Snyder said. “This competition for energy sources didn’t go away and we’re gonna have to deal with that in a whole lot of ways if we can. Its not gonna go away over night. We need to be the ones developing the efficiencies and the technologies of the future.
“My wife believes in redemption and second chance and we’ve got a second chance now. We’ve got a wind blade and turbine company going in at Little Rock. We started a development subdivision, which will be a solar-powered subdivision in which each house will have at least 50 percent with this solar power. We’re raising our fuel efficiency standards and all these things don’t turn out overnight. It takes research to make that happen.”
Snyder closed his speech by saying that he expects a great turnout of voters in this year’s presidential election. He said that regardless of people’s political views, he believes everyone is looking for a dramatic change in the presidency.
“I think that this election year is going to be very important toward shaping where we go with these issues and the kind of process we have for dealing with those, and that’s what elections are about,” Snyder said. “There is something different with how the job of the presidency is done, how people come in and give advice. I think people want something different and regardless of whether that’s a Republican or a Democratic president, I think the American people want and expect something dramatically different from what they are getting now. I think that this is going to be an exciting year as a nation.”
Snyder’s Little Rock office may be reached at 324-5941; or e-mail him at
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