September 11, 2002

The Gettysburg Address,
A BuzzFlash September 11th Editorial

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

In 2002, where are the Abraham Lincolns of America?

Out of the wounds of war and pain of loss, he inspired a nation to rededicate itself to the noble aims of democracy.

We lost more than three thousand people in a few minutes of crazed criminal zealotry on September 11, 2001. Now, more than ever, we need leaders to champion the cause of freedom and peace, not to pay lip service to those ideals while appealing to our raw vulnerability and basest instincts.

We cannot live in fear. We cannot become an oppressive state in order to battle those who seek to terrorize us. When a government openly plays on the fears of the governed, it aids and abets the cause of the terrorists, who seek to undermine the basic framework of our democracy.

We may be battling for our lives against the elusive terrorists who hate America, but we are also battling for our democracy in a struggle with our own executive branch.

We can best honor the memory of those who died at the hands of madmen on September 11th, as Lincoln exhorted, by being "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."

Let us recommit ourselves, as Americans, to fighting for the democratic values that make this nation a beacon of light to the rest of the world.

Let us honor those who died on September 11th by recommitting ourselves to recapturing our government from those who would seize our inalienable, Constitutionally protected rights through a death by a thousand cuts.

We cannot let the terrorists win. We cannot be manipulated into a state of perpetual fear, in which we helplessly turn to our "Big Brother" Government that is trying to convince us that war is peace and tyranny is freedom.

To the terrorists -- and to those in the executive branch who are exploiting the emotional weakness of a population who has experienced terrorism -- BuzzFlash says, "We will honor the thousands of Americans and foreigners who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by honoring and fighting for freedom."

It is our pledge.

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On September 11, 2002, we reprint the Gettysburg Address. With a few word changes, the remarks could be read at Ground Zero today, if we only had a leader with the vision, eloquence and an instinctual commitment to democracy to deliver them.

One day again soon, America will be a bastion of democracy, instead of a nation slouching toward the Gulag.

Delivered at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863

Fourscore 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

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

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