I'm Still Here

Didn't write yesterday. No reason, just didn't.

So it's Friday. My back is still bothering me, which seems like too long. I'm actually motivated to start my summer cleaning, but I can't do it yet. Bummer.

K and I went out to lunch today with the Sibs and Wonderful Niece, which was delightful. Other than that, there is just not a whole lot going on. It's a beautiful day today, not too hot and not really humid at all, although there's a thunderstorm watch on for later.

I've been contemplating something along the lines of a political entry, but you know, all the news is just so horrific that I probably wouldn't know where to begin. And any little rant I post here is just a grain of sand on the beach. I'm finding something ironic about going to, of all places, Gettysburg next week. There are those who will say that the Battle of Gettysburg is the single most significant event in the history of the United States. The Civil War was our most important social/political development, and Gettysburg was the turning point in that war. Think about it. It was the occasion of the Battle of Gettysburg that led to these words:

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.

The great task still remains before us, more now than even it did then. Yet it is still true that we must resolve that those dead shall not have died in vain, and that our essential purpose -- our mission statement as Americans, as it were -- is to ensure that government of, by and for the people shall not perish from the earth. I would like to believe that those dying on behalf of our government every day are not dying in vain, but I cannot believe that. Australian officials -- and Australia is one of our strongest and most important allies, in general and certainly in Iraq -- have said that it's true that we are there to protect our oil interests. Didn't we know that all along? Did we -- did anyone -- ever believe that we were there because terrorists "hate our freedom", as that monkey in the White House has said repeatedly? They hate Americans, certainly, and they have good reason to, considering what we're doing to them. Hate our "freedom"? Who thinks that abstractly?

So I'm going to Gettysburg, commemorative of a lie of a different kind: it was a war fought "to free the slaves", but in fact, it was a war fought to maintain the union, to keep the United States intact as a country, and to prove that the federal government was stronger than the individual states', and was dominant. Hell, even the truth in that one sound noble.

Okay, so I ranted a bit. More to come, I'm sure, as I haven't even gotten started on Cheney and impeachment and all of that. If I could vote today, I probably would vote for Dennis Kucinich. I think he's a man with the courage of his convictions. The others are too busy trying to be elected for us to find out if they have it or not.


WATCHING DR. PHIL :: ENTRY #1516