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We are worried because we believe we are powerless and victims of events. That’s true, but it doesn’t need to be.
FDR, a president who actually did the people’s work — however imperfectly as a product of his times — famously warned us that all we have to fear is fear itself. But not just any fear. Roosevelt was referring to “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
Now, the people listening to FDR’s inaugural address were facing The Great Depression, the worldwide rise of Fascism, and impending war. Like today, it was not an easy time. To tremble, to hide, to divert your attention, or to curl into a fetal position would be tempting, then as now.
We, too, are facing multiple crises. And, although Biden is a good man, it’s clear that no leadership today is capable or perhaps even willing to meet these crises. Most leaders are too busy misrepresenting reality, either using ideology as a self-serving weapon or simply hypnotized by ideology.
All of us are sinking in the quicksand of cruelty and self-destruction. Together. All of us of whatever group we believe we are in. We are actually in the same group, the one who’s letting ridiculous systems rule us, and drive us into an orgy of planet abuse. We are working together in service to our leaders, acting to destroy the…
