Twelve score and one year “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.”
Today, we are not in a physical war, but in an informal civil war over intractable social and economic issues that serve to only divide and alienate us. They pit the rights of the individual, the group and the inevitable impact our on society and the environment through religion, politics and money. It is a civil war between the haves and have nots, rewarding those who benefit from the exploitation of the planet’s resources, and ignoring or targeting those who struggle and labor to provide the necessities of life for ourselves and our families.
It is a war between the individual and his institutions and corporations for the soul of humanity and the survival of the planet that sustains us. There are no winners in this war, only casualties. It will end only when everyone comes together to the benefit of all individuals, plants, animals and minerals that constitute Planet Earth.
Today, we have a president who is dedicated to the enrichment of personal power and wealth for himself and the haves, not the general welfare of the people he leads. He and his Party are dismantling the institutions and protections provided by government to those most in need.
In the end, only you, the people can correct the conditions that have been erected and are perpetuating this unspoken civil war. Will it continue, or can there be peace and the domestic tranquillity “that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
* I hope President Lincoln doesn’t mind my my emulating his powerful words in this difficult time. And I hope each of you will reflect on the costs and efforts necessary to maintain those freedoms our forebears fought and died for.