Fear itself

“There go my people. I must hurry and catch up with them for I am their leader.” --Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

We heard Jesse Jackson at The Capital Times 90th birthday party Wednesday and came away more convinced than ever that if anything is to change, the people must lead; the leaders won’t.

The Capital Times story said it this way:

Most campaigns are "more poll conscious than change conscious," Jackson said. If the people push leaders to address the subprime economic crisis and better public education, the leadership will emerge and claim they were campaigning for those things all along. If the demonstrations are big enough, the candidates will catch up with the people."

Many of the issues that Jackson has championed, including civil rights struggles, were initially below the radar, he said. "It might not be popular or politic, but if it is right it will win ultimately."

Jackson’s brand of politics wasn’t popular with the mainstream media (with the notable exception of The Capital Times) and practical politicians when he ran for president – despite winning 18 million votes. It is the politics of hope, the belief that if enough people work for positive change, it will happen. It’s not popular now either. The Democrats too often seem to be engaging in the politics of despair – how to not lose. And the Republicans of course, are all about the politics of fear – fear the terrorists, fear immigrants, fear environmental protection, fear change of any sort.

Fear is the most basic of human emotions and is therefore the winning position in times of crisis. When Roosevelt said the only thing we had to fear was we had “fear itself,” most people understood that we had nothing to fear, but in fact, the important part of the sentence was the last two words. We must fear fear. One of the most common lessons of history – if anyone reads history these days – is that fear always leads to bad decisions – choices we will regret later. I don’t imagine I have to innumerate those in this blog. There's a long way to go to correct the abuses of the last seven years, but step one is to cast our most narrow-eyed suspicion on any politician who tries to lead by fear. They are always the enemy inside the camp.