It's okay to be scared
It's okay to be scared. We live in frightening times.
It's okay to be frustrated. The crimes through which we've lived cry out for justice.
It's okay to be exhausted. The work never ends.
It's not okay to be defeatist. It's not okay to say "all is lost". It's not okay to castigate the people trying to fix things because they're not being done to your timetable or your preferred specifications.
Our ancestors did not put us here to fail. They did not struggle and bleed and suffer so that we could just give up. They did not sacrifice for us to have the good things of life so that we could throw away those things in a fit of pique.
Our Randy Abraham had this to say over the weekend:
All the Republicans have to motivate their base are scare tactics and culture wars, and those are losing their sting with the younger generation. Voter suppression laws will fire people up and motivate them to get through the clutter.
They’re losing, and they know it.
Take heart: we are the majority, and we are taking our country back.
Fascism wins when we give up. Fascism wins when we despair. Fascism wins when we feel so beaten down by the never-ending nature of the fight that we just want to rest.
Our own Cleto had this to say:
I forget where I read it, but someone said only two groups of people really believed Communism could succeed: devoted Communists and devoted anti-Communists. The latter were fervent, even paranoid, because they really thought Communism could take over the world. I suspect that partially was due to the success of the Communists in suppressing just how badly their countries were doing.
I see a similar mentality among some of our fellow liberals and leftists. They fear that the Elephascists (aka Grim Reaper Party, aka GRP, formerly GOP) will imminently recapture full control of the Federal Government and impose their Thousand Year White Trash Reich. If that were likely, how did the Elephascists ever lose the full control of the Fed. Govt. that they enjoyed in 2017 and 2018? Why isn't the Orange Traitor still polluting the White House with his presence?
I think many of our peers are suffering from a sort of PTSD, from seeing pigs sprouting wings and soaring over the frozen plains of Hell in November 2016.
We were fighting on two fronts, caught between those who want to emulate the Nazis, and those who want to emulate the German Communists. The Nazis are easier to fight. Those supposedly on "our" side are the insidious ones. They, too, have given up on democracy, and hope to make things as bad as possible so that they can be the commissars. That never works out. It didn't work out in 1933. It won't work out today.
But even if it's okay to be scared, and frustrated, and tired, we can't show it. We can't give that advantage to our enemies. As our proudobamabot said:
Not alarm. It makes some folks slide right into panic. One has to model courage and steadfast effort even when one is concerned or whatever. We cannot ever back down, turn away, wring our hands in despair, any of that.
I'm quoting members of this blog for one simple reason: The wisdom is within us. The courage is within us. The reserves of energy and will are within us. We have to push past the fear, the frustration, the bone-creaking exhaustion. Because our ancestors didn't put us here to fail. And our descendants, even if they're not of our blood, are waiting for us to leave them a world better than we found it.
It's okay to be scared. It's what you do with that fear that sets out your destiny.