By OcJim

Our troops will come home from Iraq by the end of this year. Will they too join the ranks of the homeless, the unemployed, and the walking wounded – many without hope or help. One could well believe that Jim DeMint, Republican Senator from South Carolina, who voted against jobs for veterans, wants them to fail too (in addition to President Obama).

The Iraqi War seemed righteous at that time of insecurity and terrorist attacks. National pride and loyalty strived to make it so, in the media and in the minds of citizens.

But wars should be fought out of necessity and with clear motives, not out of pride, hidden agendas, or personal gain, for the price of war is death, even living death. Contrarily, those who approve war usually command from a safe distance and usually never risk much that is dear.

The perpetrators and the architects of the Iraqi War had personal motives and waged the war with tools of deception, propaganda, jingoism and fear. Those who fought the war were good and decent men and women who trusted that their government was led by just people and that the media informed them honestly.

Now the sacrifices of the dead shipped home in coffins are seemingly forgotten by the top leaders who sent them there, but not by their friends and loved ones. The wounded in mind and body are remembered only by those who cross their path as they walk on crutches, struggle with artificial limbs, commit suicide in Occupy America tents, or violently explode in post-traumatic anguish, some murderously. Unimaginable suffering has come out of this war for the small percentage who served and over a million innocents dead or wounded.

Though some are too young to remember the war, the stench of distortion and lies is still with us. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush are free to write and sell their books of self-justification and distortion: torture is good; I saved America; those against the war were traitors; suspension of liberties was necessary – we are all slapped in the face with their arrogance, freedom from prosecution, and immorality, especially prisoners serving time for minor offenses, like using drugs, too poor to defend themselves.

I know in a democracy, elected representatives are supposed to look out for our interests, but we should know by now that money not brains or concern for the people is the predominant criterion for those elected as representatives of the people. Mean spiritedness, self-interest, and favor for the rich are the almost palpable emissions from the buildings of authority in Washington, certainly not good will for men, women and children.

Abraham Lincoln’s words in the Gettysburg Address have become a mockery in the backdrop of a Supreme Court that appointed a president and unbalanced the scales of justice in “Citizens United”, of a Congress whose credo is “government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations shall be perpetuated at all costs,” and of a president too timid to dare alienate the plutocratic masters as advised by his appointed puppeteers of the rich.

“Government of the people, by the people and for the people,” are real words of democracy and freedom spoken by Lincoln on November 19, 1863. Some 10,000 men on both sides lay in their graves. In this three day battle, the dead, the maimed and the wounded totaled over 50,000.

Almost immediately after the ferocious July battle at Gettysburg, torrential rains had raised thousands of bloated bodies buried in shallow graves, and summer’s humid heat brought the stench of death and a plague of flies and marauding pigs. The cemetery at which Lincoln spoke was purchased by an interstate commission, where it re-buried them in coffins supplied by the federal government.

Twenty thousand stood around the platform which overlooked the cemetery. The main speaker was Edward Everett, a noted orator from Massachusetts, who spoke for over 2 hours. Lincoln’s speech was shockingly brief. It lasted just 2 minutes.

The Civil War was a necessary war, a war to preserve the union, a war with honorable leaders, fought for cultural and economic reasons that, out of the horror and carnage, yielded a better nation.

The agenda behind the Iraqi War is still with us. It is not preservation of the union, more like dissolution of the union when you have the minority leader in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, blocking all hope of progress toward economic recovery and blatantly stating his number one priority, not putting Americans to work, but defeating Barack Obama.

The other house of Congress sports other demagogues like Eric Cantor, John Boehner and Paul Ryan. All perpetrated the lies of the past election that Republicans “are for jobs.”

For voters who are paying attention, it is blatantly apparent that jobs are the last thing they want to accomplish. The first is defeating Barack Obama. All manner of distortion, deception and lies is warranted to achieve that goal. Not a single jobs bill has been introduced in the Republican-controlled House in over a year.

The words, indeed, the spirit of Lincoln has been twisted like the Nazi swastika (a twisted cross), not government of the people, by the people and for the people. Just substitute rich for people, and you have the Republican distortion of Lincoln’s words.

If Republicans have their way, they will permanently replace his address with their own, twisted into the Republican Gettysburg Betrayal.