I ventured out today on a date with my wife and viewed the movie Lincoln. As a student of screenwriting and movie making, I am sure this movie is embellished somewhat for entertainment purposes. I am no history expert on the life or actions of President Lincoln and I am sure he had many faults, as we all do. However, what I do know of his life and his Presidency it leaves me with the question of what has happened to real leaders in this country?
It seems to me in today's world that politicians on both sides are more yes people to the rich and corporate entities that support them than they are leaders. Our current President is so ripe with potential and ability and squanders it with inflexibility and party lines that his potential is lost. His most recent challenger in the election is another potential great leader that could not get over his own prejudice and education that he became extremely intolerant. Neither man has lived up to their true potential and shown real leadership.
"Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes." ---Peter Drucker
Today's leaders are intolerant of anyone with beliefs other than their own. During my life I have not witnessed one President that has demonstrated true leadership. In my opinion, both political parties in America are way off track and intolerant of one another. Any party that caters to one side more than the other is certainly biased and unfair. The so called Tea Party is nauseating to say the least. Radio talk shows fuel and feed this intolerant, inflexible type of behavior.
I am not a member of either political party and do not favor one side more than the other. I wonder what happened to responsibility. Everyone in politics wants a balanced budget, but scoffs at it if it hits their own back yard. NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) is the way of politics. Every politician wants to cut spending as long as it is done in another state. Would fairness not support an equal cut across the board to all programs in equal amounts?
Where is a President that stands before the people and says, we are in trouble, we need to change, we all need to sacrifice. Where is the President that bails out the people and not the Corporations or Banks. Where is the President that says we are going to let the banking and real estate sectors solve their own problems, but we have set up programs to ensure no one starves or goes homeless. Does the money not belong to the people? Where is the President that looks Congress in the eye and states he will not sign a budget with a deficit. Where is the President that stands before the people and answers to the people and not to the financial supporters of their election.
Where have all the leaders gone?
"Four score 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
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