God Damn it! - Enough Already!
‘…let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.’
President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, FDR, gave that deeply memorable and terrifyingly accurate sentence in his first inaugural address in 1933.
Technorati Tags: fdr, politics, republicans, democrats, war on terror
How remarkably naive and haplessly inane is it to compare the depressed situation the United States, and indeed the World, faced in the 1930’s to today? The ‘thirties’ saw a global economic meltdown, the near-collapse of democracy, a whole generation of men annihilated by a world war and an unending despair striding the U.S. from coast to coast.
Today’s situation? A deeply-fragmented world united under only one banner! The staggeringly greedy pursuit of wealth and power by a very few powerful and desperately corrupt nations at the expense of the majority’s civil liberty, the global environment, the third-world and the patient hopes of every decent law-abiding citizen trying to make ends-meet in every society; every demographic in this country and across the world. Hmm! Can you compare? Which is, was, worse? Which timeline is the more desperate and seemingly overwhelming? Now, or then?
FDR continued his speech as thus; ‘In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.’
All of a sudden the differences between the 1930’s and this, the bleeding edge of the 21st century are stark!. In those days the country needed and certainly voted for a leader that could deliver a better world. The nation was led by a visionary that recognized a better world. The nation were united and supported by their desire and belief in a better world.
Today we have a nation tearing itself apart by the lack of vision, the loss of self-awareness! The nation no longer believes in itself, its strengths, but only its weaknesses.
Today we have leadership, an oxymoron on so many levels, that leads with a vision shared, understood and supported by few and despised and distrusted by the majority.
Today we are paralyzed by introspection and uncertainty. The failure of leadership has been neatly counter-balanced by denial, the abusive promotion of terror as social doctrine and the amazing acceptance of every shockingly bad decision by an apathetic and selfish over-worked over-taxed society too absorbed by the pursuit of the next paycheck to care about the painfully obvious collapse of their society from within.
So God be damned already! I’m looking for answers and there seem to be scant few outlets for reasonable solutions. Perhaps Noah had the right idea? Perhaps we need to build an Ark quick before the Almighty gets wise to the true depth of our problems!
Though I seem to revel in this self-pity, with my half-hearted doggie-paddle in the shallower side of the enthusiasm pool, I do yearn to throw my energy and semi-retarded passion into something, someone like a Franklin Delanor Roosevelt.
Let’s replace the ‘War on Terror’ with a ‘New Deal!’. The disgust for a corrupt and pathetically weak United Nations replaced by the vision and pursuit of a truly empowered global grass-roots democracy of the people by the people for the people! An overly secretive Administration ruled by a cartel of corporate interest groups replaced by a moderate, transparent and disgustingly frank non-political think-tank with a simple shared vision - the removal of fear and the reestablishment of a nation united in its will and proud of its place in a fair and vigorous global community.
Time to wake up!
Posted on December 16th, 2006 under FDR, New Deal, Politics, War on Terror • 
Email This Post
• RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback