"ONLY BOLDNESS CAN DELIVER US FROM FEAR"

And if the risk is not taken...

"The spirit of evil is negation of the life force by fear. Only boldness can deliver us from fear. And if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is violated." --Carl Jung

I am thinking of unsuspending my Presidential campaign, even if it means to basically wage it from my computer. Why? Because with my campaign suspended, the things that matter most are no longer being articulated. The most serious problems are not being discussed. The most important solutions are not being considered.

Martin Luther King, Jr said that our lives begin to end when we stop talking about things that matter most. My concern is that that applies to our democracy as well. Shouldn’t politics be a place where we talk about the things that matter most, from the noblest, most compassionate part of ourselves? I think that’s what Gandhi meant when he said that “politics should be sacred.”

The American economy today is predicated on the existence of a permanent underclass. Tens of millions of people are trapped within its confines, with little to no opportunity for escape. How are we addressing the fact that 39 per cent of Americans report that they regularly skip meals in order to pay their rent? Food pantries can hardly keep up with the increased demand. Millions lack health care, carry crippling debt, and are drowning in despair. How is it acceptable that we not discuss the amount of hopelessness in our midst?

Just as our economy is predicated on a permanent underclass, our politics is predicated on not saying much of anything.

I saw an interview with Vice-President Harris in which she was asked what people can expect from a Biden-Harris administration over the next four years, and her answer was how important it is for people to vote. No “Over the next four years we’re going to make sure that 75-90 million Americans are no longer uninsured or underinsured. No “Over the next four years we going to cancel the medical debt.” No “Over the next four years we’re going to make sure that a higher education or tech school will be tuition free for every American, as is true in other advanced democracies.” No “Over the next four years we’re going to make sure that every American who is willing to work can make a living wage.” Her only answer was, “It’s really important that people get out and vote.” And there is a reason for that. There is no “Issues” page on the Biden-Harris website. The message is the vague promise that we should let the President “finish the job.”

I thought a political campaign was supposed to be more. I thought it was for sorting out important ideas, back and forth discussion of ways to win the hearts and minds of the American people, formulating plans for how to respond to the larger dynamics of American and world history, questioning how to bring forth the best in who we are in order to course-correct our nation at a difficult time.

Silly me. Such things are just quaint relics of a bygone era, when something more than money and power mattered. Exerting the force to make things go your way is all that apparently matters now. If anyone tries to throw a wrench in the machinery, there are ways the system takes care of of it. I would know.

And we have to reverse that.

The decline of American society is upon us, and most of us know it. We are witnessing the hollowing out of our ideals, a diminishment of the very life force of this nation, with today’s cynical politics both reflecting and perpetuating that. Yet I have emerged from two Presidential campaigns with an ever-deepening conviction that the American people are not the problem; the problem is a sclerotic political system - the Great Enabler of the corporate behemoth now destroying the very notion of the public good - and its constant suppression of the will of the people. Yet just as we the people are the greatest sufferers of the problems, we the people are also the germinators of solutions. Whatever the problem, let us in there and we can fix. What we need is a boost to our immune system, and we will take care of all this ourselves. Let us in there. Help people thrive, and there is no problem among us we will not be able to handle.

I agree with the late French philosopher Albert Camus, who said “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” He continued, “And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” 

America is in the midst of a political winter. I am finding my summer, and I might push back.