There are two effective ways to lead a crowd, even to lead a nation. One is the force of wisdom real facts and real possibilities. The other is the regressive force of fear: “They’re are going to get you, children. I will protect you.” Fear builds up walls in the mind that keep the “bad thoughts out.” “Thoughts are called “bad” by the people who use fear to establish leadership. Fear establishes a parent/child relationship.
Those who feature fear of “what they are going to do to us” from the most foreign places in the world, use drones to kill the so-called approaching enemy and do not keep a death count. Corporations making money from selling weapons, use our fear sell guns like popcorn to any lunatic who needs to wipe out those he hates or fears like gay dancers in a nightclub. Fear mongers label frightened immigrants running from violence into people who are dangerous to us. They insist on returning these refugees into people who will steal our jobs. Their speech attributes all kinds of crime to them although the fact is that immigrants are more peaceful and responsible than most of those who are born here.
“False leaders” want to stimulate feelings of helplessness rather than “what can we do about it.” Wanting to sell coal and oil and fracked gas and nuclear power, they deny the existence of climate change’s or that man’s behavior is its cause. The group does not focus on consequences. It is all about what can I get from this product now. It sells guns to the “enemy” and then to our troops to fight back. They pay no attention to the fact that fracked gas releases methane which is far more climate warming than coal and oil. The purveyors of fear focus on making money from climate destructive activities rather than their children and all children which lives are endangered.
Wisdom depends on how closely we study what is going on. Wisdom’s lack is largely caused by greed. Corporations treated as people by the Supreme Court are like a blind person whose touch only recognizes money. The walls that money builds cannot ward off the forces of doom. One can get drunk on power but the drunkard too will be swept away by the flood of man’s destructive behavior.
Against the narrow focus of greed, there is a growing body of people saying don’t go there. These people who look at consequences seek life-sustaining solutions. They ask about power from sun and wind and water? They ask whether we must support corporations that continue to use the “old way” and don’t want to spend money to refurbish or be discontinued. They ask how to remove “Citizens United,” the ability of corporations to buy congress. They are not taken in by those who stimulate fear. They refuse to be propagandized into a position of surrender.
