Gettysburg Contemplation

This past week has been one of quite a bit contemplation. After the breakdown I had in O’Hare after no sleep and waiting for a flight that felt like it was never going to come, I spent a lot of time thinking.

I finally got to see things that I had wanted to see but felt out of reach.

One of the biggest was Gettysburg. I’ve been a bit of Civil War nut since I was 8 years old. It’s a fascinating period in American history. It’s also something that I’ve learned about from different points of view. Each one is different.

So, finally seeing Gettysburg for myself was pretty momentous. It meant an incredible amount to me. It was such an important battle in an important war.

Being there made me think. It made me think about what’s going on in the United States currently. We were once divided along race lines. Now we’re divided along class lines. We’re divided among the haves and have nots.

While I was standing on top of Little Round Top it came to me. How close are we to coming to another Civil War? Is what we’re going through now more akin to the Civil Rights movement in the sixties and seventies or are we headed somewhere more drastic?

The truth is, something has to change. The economic policies that we’ve had for the past decade are simply not working. Deregulating the banks and loosening of regulations for business has obviously caused some catastrophic issues.

It’s clear to virtually everybody that there are problems that need to be addressed.

We’ve started by protesting. But what happens when protesting is not enough? What do we do then? Do we take that step to dissolve part of us from the federal government?

I don’t think there’s any good answer to this. The reality is that taxes need to be raised. They need to be raised against the people who have been allowed to hoard their wealth. If we don’t, we’re no better off than being in a feudal society. We’ll have the lords and the serfs. Is that something we want? Is that something we can live with?