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Just a bunch of ordinary fools who think they’re special
FDR famously said that the only thing we need to fear is fear itself. I think he was right about that. Right now, millions of us — maybe billions — are afraid that a group of powerful demonic evil-doers are engaging in a dastardly plot to cook the planet for profit. They are rampaging and we are unable to stop them.
The schemers are people like Charles Koch and Joe Manchin. And oil executives and billionaire tycoons. They are fearsome opponents and there is no way ordinary people like us can defeat these malevolent geniuses. We need a superhero. We keep looking for one. But our hero never arrives.
As the wildfires flare up, as temperatures skyrocket, as we see death and destruction and our world literally ending before our eyes, we wonder: what went wrong?
Fantasy Land
What went wrong is we succumbed to a fantasy. We saw towering shadows of small weak men — and they looked like brilliant giants. What we actually saw were old morons pissing in the pool in which they and their children were swimming — and they thought they were getting away with something. Really, really stupid. These are no Brainiacs. Or Lex Luthors.
