A New Gettysburg Address?

The United States pretends that it is a government “of the people, by the people, for the people”, a sentiment so ably put by Abraham Lincoln.  Indeed, in the days when the Gettysburg Address was made that was indeed the proposition under which the United States prospered and grew. As a nation it grew to be one of the few “Superpowers” on the Earth.  This was a tribute to the drive and willpower of the people, the collective whole of the entire nation.  It was the accomplishments of the people of the United States that gave it the wealth and prosperity that it currently experiences.


Recently, however, that willpower has been subverted and turned for other purposes.  Special Interest Groups have taken the future out of the hands of the people and have placed it in the hands of a select few individuals whose mission is to advance the interests of that group as opposed to the interests of the country.  The recent world wide protests against ACTA are a demonstration that the interests of the country are secondary to those of the special interest groups.  If the interests of the country were paramount then this agreement, as written, would never have come into being as the vast majority of citizens in every country oppose the treaty.  The same thing with SOPA and the TPP.  All of these agreements are one sided agreements that help special interest groups but do not help the actual citizens of the countries involved.


Abraham Lincoln would be saddened by what he sees in the United States right now.  Extremism now reigns supreme both within political circles and in mainstream culture.  It is not that extremism is dominant in either, but the amount of press coverage given to the extreme positions has made them, by mere presence, more influential than they should be in a society for the people.


The battleground for much of the fight is the Internet.  Born with the ideals of the United States in mind – freedom and equality – it is trying to be absorbed by special interest groups for their own purpose.  Unable to control it through other purposes, these special interest groups are trying to make the government, “for the sake of the people” take control and tell people what to think and what to do.


If Lincoln looked out on society today what would his new Gettysburg Address sound like?  If Abraham Lincoln were standing on the steps of the Supreme Court or Congress, what would he say?  To be honest, I think it might almost be identical to what he said 150 years ago.

Two score and six years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new technology, 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 technology, or any technology, 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 technology 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.

Government for sale?

At what point did it stop becoming a government for the people? It is difficult for me to remember a time when government did something because it was the right thing to do instead of being the politically expedient thing to do. Am I that naive in that big business took over the government years ago and I am only recognizing that fact now?

Copyright laws were put in place for the benefit of society as a whole, not as a means to prop up business models that have failed to evolve along with the rest of society. In the current set of governments around the world the people who get to write copyright laws are either the government officials who received thousands of dollars in contribution from an organization that uses copyright as its main business model or ... the organization itself.

ACTA? People don't want ACTA, they never did. Any attempt by any government to say that its people wanted ACTA is just poppycock.

SOPA? Big business wanted SOPA, not the people.

TPP? Big business wanted TPP, not the people.

Copyright extension laws? Big business wanted those, not the people.

When I grew up the clouds were white, decisions were easy to make and the world revolved around the fact that the people of the world were what mattered. Now when I look around I see that Big Business is now more important than the people that elect the governemnt. Heck, Big Business buys the government and the individuals who propose more laws to help Big Business get the money.

Is this the world we want to live in?

On the brink of another revolution

Every so often events occur that shape our world and how we view each other.  Man’s first steps on the moon showed us that we were only a single part of a much larger picture.  Much larger than we could have ever imagined a hundred years ago.  The Jonestown massacre showed us the power that so few can have on so many.  Repeated throughout the twentieth century in countries around the globe the ability to so twist someone’s perceptions was a frightening reminder that we need to look out for each other.  The first heart transplant showed us that we were all the same inside:  black, white, red, yellow.  Our parts are interchangeable making us all the same, but our minds make us so breathtakingly unique.  When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot I don’t think anyone would have predicted that  over 16 million people would eventually lose their lives in the first of the “War to end all Wars”.

Many events that people remember are the big, splashy, news tabloid type of events that make a lot of noise in a very short period of time.  The Challenger disaster and the John F. Kennedy assassination are two events that typify that sort of event.  In this day and age of instant news and twenty four hour coverage it is difficult to hide something of importance.

Sometimes, however, that’s what happens.

The destruction of the Berlin Wall was not something that was planned in advance.  The East German government announced that its citizens could freely access West Berlin and West Germany and celebrations broke out.  Soon people started chipping away at the wall and, with no one jealously guarding the wall that divided the nation it was soon being dismantled by the very people it was meant to keep apart.  The people started it, not the government.

The recent changes in the Middle East, most notably Egypt, came from the people.  Most people agree that the impetus for the revolution was the self immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi and the success of the Tunisian Revolution.  While Tunis was first, Egypt was much more visible to the rest of humanity due to the press corps that went to the Middle East to cover the Tunis event.  The death of one man, while by no means matching the impact of Franz Ferdinand’s death in terms of the loss of life, was no less important in terms of its impact on how people perceive themselves.

The bravery, some say foolhardiness, of single individuals has shaped human civilization throughout the ages.  While not there personally, the name “Tiananmen Square” still brings back the pictures of a single man standing in the way of tanks.

There are opposing forces at work, however, that would like to reduce the impact of that single man to nothing more than a grain of sand on the beach.  These forces come in many different flavours:  multi-national corporations, theological bigotry, racism and plain old greed.  These forces are growing stronger in our society forcing individuals to kowtow to “truths” that they don’t believe in and people they no longer trust.  While Egypt may have had their revolution and Tunis and Liberia and many other countries in Africa and the Middle East, the rest of the world has been silent, waiting for its time.

Waiting for the time to Take Back Our World.