Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
Gettysburg is a very sacred place for me for I have blood on that field of battle. Having walked the fields and read many books and the movie GETTYSBURG many times, my heart rate elevates each time I have the honor of the trek to the field. Walking its unique terrain, imagining moving hundreds of thousands of troops into Napoleonic formation assuring mass death and yet these men did as they were taught with great result.
Each time I trod the fields, the elevations and my mind is a whirl to synthesizing what I had read to the actual locations on the ground, walking the paths of large troop movements on a hot July time in the heavy wool uniforms as massive road marches add color to my mental walking through the battlefield in hopes to grasp the reality my forefathers did for me. I always leave the lastest Gettysburg adventure feeling renewed, refreshed and more proud of my relatives that made that horrific journey into the cauldron of lead and hell for a cause and a purpose.
Today will likely decide the actual people that will vie for leading our nation. As you read through the text of the infamous Lincoln speech that touched so many so deeply at its enduring application since the Autumn of 1983; in that brief 130 year span, I cannot escape the sense that our nation has transgressed to a nation much like the one that was unfolded in the lead up, during and after the Gettysburg Campaign.
Lack of trust in generals and political leadership was the norm and not the exception. The balance of a nation's future hung in the balance of the outcome of the Union after the 1863 bloodbath Lincoln so aptly put to words. There were widely divergent views of the President that swung from love and respect to date and disdain. There were institutions that hung in the balance Lincoln knew had to be abolished from the face of the earth. Lincoln clearly saw the mandate for close international diplomatic relationships and for me most of all Lincoln knew the nation has to bee joined as never before the forces of our nation to be able to achieve its true greatness.
I believe it very ease to see that the world Lincoln faced with the agenda of hard work to get accomplished via his leadership and fortitude is as viable and distrait today on steroids. I believe our nation has chosen the path of all defeated empires by turning insides, erecting real or imagined walls to protect with the fence. In every case we as a nation have attempted this, we end up in a global war I see that as inevitable unless the walls are opened via trade, diplomacy and must pure leadership
Recently I watched the UN Ambassador from the US indicate that America does not need to lead everything global initiative but for every global initiative, the world want and needs America nearby for we have been the stabilizing forces since before WWII. We have elective via this current President to abandon that sacred high group. That, for me, is criminal and the great indictment of the Obama Doctrine whatever that turns out to be for I still certainly see nothing but more Keynesian economic and monetary policy, broader entitlement safety nets and every increasing Big Government that somebody must pay for which, of course, will be additional borrowing and increased taxes regardless of what they say in the campaign.
If the next generation of POTUS leadership is determined today by Ohio and Florida then so be it. The campaigning has turned mean, sour and unproductive and America is quite tire of the spectacle; this American is. One this for absolute sure shown vividly in this election is that Americans are fed up with the Obama tenure and the gridlock in our nation's Capitol thus the likes of Mr. Trump ride high in that saddle. He may be an irrelevant POTUS in office but he does offer a cool drink of water of chainsawing decades of dead wood embedded in Congress, the White House that has our nation stymied. The rest of those still standing, for me, clearly represent continuation of the way it has been down this primrose path was have stumble down via the last eight years of ineffective leadership.
Racism is worse than in the 1960s due in large part to the cadre media outlets such as CNN has collected of African Americans bent on creating negative rhetoric that is creating this atmosphere of race baiting and cop hating. I must believe our nation is better than this but you know, perhaps we really are not better than this and that is very, very sad.
We need to very new beginning; not more of the same old same old!
No comments:
Post a Comment