“Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” Robert F. Kennedy (Originally attributed to George Bernard Shaw)
January 1, 2025, And Every Wednesday
By Linda Case Gibbons, Esq.
(Check out Lest We Forget and FYI.)
Being a Visionary isn’t a walk in the park. People don’t understand what “Visionaries” see, and then, unfortunately, people make fun of them.
There are even songs written about this.
“They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round.
“They all laughed when Edison recorded sound…”
“They all laughed at Fulton and his steamboat, Hershey and his chocolate bar. Ford and his Lizzie, kept the laughers busy,
“That’s how people are…”
Yes. That’s how some people are.
So it wasn’t a surprise that President Thomas Jefferson was given a tough time when he bought the Louisiana Purchase.
And that Secretary of State William Seward was mocked when he bought Alaska. The purchase was dubbed “Seward’s Folly.”
We know who had the last laugh. And we know these guys were Visionaries who took advantage of a Land Mass Fire Sale.
Russian Tsar Alexander sold Alaska after he lost the Crimean War and needed the money.
Napoleon offered the Louisiana Territory for sale for the funds to fight the British.
In 1803 Jefferson paid France $15 million dollars for land that doubled the size of the U.S., at about four cents an acre.
In 1867, Seward bought Alaska and paid Russia $7.2 million dollars for land that was called a foolish waste of money for “seemingly unusable land.” Russians moved out of Alaska and it was indeed barren until the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896.
That’s where the visionary part comes in.
Alaska was rich in valuable natural resources, oil, timber, fish, copper, gold and fur. Its location gave the U.S. access to the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic, creating a valuable U.S. defense system.
Like Greenland.
Trump wants to buy it. And people are laughing because they don’t understand.
It’s how some people are.
Greenland is big, three times the size of Texas. It has uranium, rare-earth minerals, and an estimated 50 billion barrels of offshore oil and gas.
It is the shortest polar route between Washington and Moscow; the shortest route from North America to Europe.
Denmark owns it. It’s rumored the possible asking price is $300 billion dollars, which, it is rumored, would clear off Denmark’s entire debt.
It’s a bargain at twice the price.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede said, “We are not for sale.”
We'll wait and see how the Art of the Deal works out.
A Visionary, like Trump, thinks about and plans the future with imagination and wisdom. A few days ago he said he might demand the return of the Panama Canal. Why?
The U.S. built it, the U.S. comprises 70 percent of the Canal’s traffic, and the U.S. is charged high fees to use it.
And, Trump says, China wants it.
“The Panama Canal opened for business 110 years ago, and was built at HUGE cost to the United States,” he wrote in Truth Social
“When President Jimmy Carter foolishly gave it away, for One Dollar, during his term in Office, it was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else.”
“If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.”
As the country mourns the passing of former President Jimmy Carter, we can agree President Carter was a good man, but not a visionary, just as Joe Biden is not a visionary, and that both men are in a neck-and-neck race for worst president.
The good works of Carter and the bad deeds of Joe are not what this nation needs from a president.
What we need is a Visionary.
Hold the Line, America.
Stay strong, Patriots, and Happy New Year!