... we would like to express our thanks for the support of Karel Schwarzemberk during the last presidential election – for the signing of Three-King Challenge, and for the votes cast for this candidate. We did lose, but we lost honorably. The other side won, but thanks to using tactics in many cases un-honorable and bellow the belt. Let’s be proud that we were part on the honorable side of the election campaign…
... I recall one very important meeting early in the morning in the presidential residence of Lany at the end of nineties. My friend staggered in, and instead of a normal greeting, he immediately started with the nasty verbal attacks on everyone present, including me, and ostentatiously ignored our host, the President himself. I was totally surprised, because till that moment we were always on friendly terms. President Vaclav Havel, standing behind my friend’s back, gave a waiter a hand sign to quickly put a full glass of Becherovka in front his guest. My friend immediately emptied it, then the second and then the third one. After that we were finally able to start the meeting. How many Becherovka shots he disposed of till the lunch break I do not know, I lost count. But, his mood was great. His opinions and comments during the debate started to change with growing level of alcohol in his blood. When we finally left that afternoon and stepped in front of a squad of reporters, he was holding me around my shoulders like his best friend and I was not able to escape his squeeze even in front of buzzing cameras; that made me quite uncomfortable. Next to me now stood, in the body of my friend, somebody totally different, and that made me quite sad. After this meeting I started to avoid him and on meetings with him I usually sent one of my deputies. This sadness I feel every time when I see him, on the TV screen, heroically assuring the public that he stopped drinking Becherovka, because he switched to Slivovitz. So, he exchanged one hard liquor for even harder one. ...
Request
During the first round of our election we were choosing from the field of nine candidates. In that choice, we cast aside personal judgments, and the most important role here played the personal political persuasions. We judged every one of them, if their views, their opinions and political ideas are, or not, close to our personal views. This concept should be also used in the second round. Unfortunately, this was not the case. In one of two final candidates the political persuasion practically did not come to play, because his decisions are not influenced by his thoughts, he is influenced mostly by something totally different – by alcohol. Just to make things clear. I am far from being an abstinent and do fully understand anyone who likes to drink a glass of beer after the good lunch, who during a get together with his friends consumes few glasses of vine, or who sometime uses hard liquor to flush bad feelings. In here, I am talking about something totally different.
The person I have in my mind I met in early nineties and we became fast friends – during the glass of vine. He was a nice, pleasant and friendly man with the great sense of humor. The fact that our political opinions were not always on the same page did not stop us from cooperation or from debating points in parliamentarian restaurant. But, as time went by, vine changed to hard liquor Becherovka and it was quite rare to see him sober. He became masterful in hiding his condition, and those who did not know him closely, they hardly noticed that he was drunk. He entertained people around him, he was always in great mood and funny and if he staggered, people took it as part of his charm. Once, after he disposed a battle of Becherovka, he grabbed my shoulders and said: “…my political adversaries are spreading around that I am a drunkard, but look at me – everything I consume, I immediately metabolize…”. Thanks to his physical constitution, he was able to endure more liquor than most other people did. But one cannot fool nature indefinitely, and the hardship that endured his body, his mind did not. The use of hard liquor on the daily basis eventually changed his personality to something totally different.
I recall one very important meeting early in the morning in the presidential residence of Lany at the end of nineties. My friend staggered in, and instead of a normal greeting, he immediately started with the nasty verbal attacks on everyone present, including me, and ostentatiously ignored our host, the President himself. I was totally surprised, because till that moment we were always on friendly terms. President Vaclav Havel, standing behind my friend’s back, gave a waiter a hand sign to quickly put a full glass of Becherovka in front his guest. My friend immediately emptied it, then the second and then the third one. After that we were finally able to start the meeting. How many Becherovka shots he disposed of till the lunch break I do not know, I lost count. But, his mood was great. His opinions and comments during the debate started to change with growing level of alcohol in his blood. When we finally left that afternoon and stepped in front of a squad of reporters, he was holding me around my shoulders like his best friend and I was not able to escape his squeeze even in front of buzzing cameras; that made me quite uncomfortable. Next to me now stood, in the body of my friend, somebody totally different, and that made me quite sad. After this meeting I started to avoid him and on meetings with him I usually sent one of my deputies. This sadness I feel every time when I see him, on the TV screen, heroically assuring the public that he stopped drinking Becherovka, because he switched to Slivovitz. So, he exchanged one hard liquor for even harder one.
I am not oversensitive, I had seen a lot in my life; I went from the bottom up. I dug trenches together with Gipsy co-workers, in a factory I worked on lathes, I was feeding coal to boilers, worked in water-work machine shop, as a hospital technician, as an editor in propaganda department, and I got elected to the Parliament. Now I am teaching on the College - and everywhere I was meeting nice and honorable people and also all kind of opposites. And sober people and drunks, too. I do realize that I do not have to explain to anyone who in his/her personal experience learned how alcohol can change personality of a person, or what kind of hell is an alcoholic able to cause even to his friends and loved ones. Here I would like to ask all those who do know, to explain to those who do not, that it is a travesty to elect such a person to the Presidency of our Republic.
Daniel Kroupa
Philosopher and former politician
http://www.vyzvatrikralova.cz/kroupa.html
Lakewood, April 16th 2013
James Jakoubek
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