FEAR ITSELF

1929. Fear itself. That rainy drizzly inaugural day in Washington with the stock market decimated and Mr. Roosevelt standing next to Mr. Hoover in those tall stove pipe hats, everything as somber as the black and white film where Mr. Roosevelt tells a crowd of black umbrellas--the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself. Quaint words once upon a time, but we know fear itself don't we? We feel it when we watch the cable channels and listen to wrestlers and has been kung fu actors tell us who we should vote for. We feel it when we can no longer decipher between news and entertainment where Larry King holds us hostage with who the Donald will endorse for President. Where have all the real people gone? We feel it when the market plunges nearly five hundred points and nobody can really have a serious discussion about the problem because everyone is busy being a celebrity. Are there any adults left in the house?Are we now victim to the Sara Palins who are as much a phenomenon for her hair and accent as her experience? Where is Mr. Obama now? Has he been swiftboated by the forces that be? Has the news media finally devoured their own? Where did all that hope go to in two short weeks? Could a woman who likes to shoot wolves from a helicoter and field dress a moose and talk about war with Russia and not even know what the Bush doctrine is really derail our best hope for change in this country? Could an old man with a rich Stepford wife really inherit the White House by proxy, hiding behind the short skirts and updo of a woman half his age who is married to snow mobile racing First Dude, a woman who tries to ban books, fire state troopers, and has her husband call people to tell them she is not happy with them? Where is that higher calling? Has it really all been sold down the river with the rest of our values? For what? A buck? Where is our Mr. Roosevelt now? We need him and we need him badly, because my friends, we are the ones standing in the rain now, and it's 2008.