SageSuggestions : 2009-08-09

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Sixty years ago, when I was in school, our teacher would use a copy of the daily newspaper to lead us through the events of the day. We were taught to believe the articles on the editorial or opinion pages were just that, the opinions of the writers and not the news. The rest of the newspaper was made up of the facts and the events as presented by the journalist reporters on the scene.
All of these years later on a sunny Saturday morning, August 15, while drinking my coffee and reading the Star Tribune I am treated to an article on page 12a by The Washington Post telling me President Obama went to Belgrade Montana looking to "take on vocal opponents" of his healthcare plan. He was "eager to address crticism of his program", but lo and behold all he found was support. We are told it was his popularity that made the crowd of about 1300 people, except for two men, "overwhelmingly supportive and friendly"!
He told the crowd he and Max (Baucus) just wanted to be honest with them. In some cases they've seen funding of the opposition to his plan by big insurance. So I guess all the people turning out all over the country to raise questions or concerns about the "mystery plan" are just paid plants or shills.
Well I have a question for you Mr. President and for the newspapers who report these stories. If you "just want to be honest with us" why didn't you tell us the "first come-first served" tickets to your event were in fact given out on a first come basis as long as the ones who came were supporters of you and your plan? Oh yeah, except for the welder in an NRA jacket and the insurance salesman.
Obviously, everything that appears on the news pages today is not the news as it happens, but the part of the news we choose to report.
I wonder what the teachers use now to teach current events?

The Declaration of Independence

When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Format of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying it's Foundations on such Principles, and organizing it's Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate the time Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes, and accordingly all Experiences hath shewn, that Mankind more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinced a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

(The specific grievances are listed as is the Declaration of breaking the connections with Great Britain.

56 patriots (YOUR FOREFATHERS) signed the Declaration of Independence knowing they would be accused of Treason against the Crown and condemned to Death if caught!

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THE DECLARATION ON LINE at: www.archives.gov>exhibits>charters

Gettysburg Address

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon 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 battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place--for those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate--we cannot concecrate--we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who have 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 to the unfinished work which they who fought 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 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, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.
Abraham Lincoln

SageSuggestions

Saturday, August 15, 2009

What's Happening Now?

What Others Think!