Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.
Robert Lewis Stevenson.

I just took a survey for Ode about fear and inspiration. There are so many things we have to be fearful about that it's exhausting. The EPA is testing pesticides on people without their informed consent. They asked people to take gel-tabs filled with pesticides with their morning orange juice. How can that sort of inhumanity be practiced by the United States?

We now routinely torture in Abu Graib, Guantanamo and our gulags. We ship people other countries to have them tortured. Alberto Gonzales said the Geneva Convention was quaint. I believe that the long history and application of the Geneva Convention belies that. How can my country be practicing these things?

There are many inspirations. I have a progressive friend who has decided to run for office. We're starting up a Friday Night at the Progressive Movies here in town. We've started a Progressive Toastmasters Club. I have new friends and everywhere I look the progressives are learning to make their voices heard.

And focusing on our fears plays into the hands of the evil empire.

Isn't it ironic -- the USSR didn't survive -- but neither did we. We became the evil empire. I've read about major transformations in other countries and wondered about the people living there. Remember all the "Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom" in China, where people informed on family members who were re-educated or executed? Or the inflation that hit Argentina. How could people survive when their savings turned into dust? And then they had their "dirty war" where perhaps 20,000 people were taken by the government and never returned. And now here we are , five years into our neo-con future. Where is this one going to end? How many families will have broken by then?

I heard something today: To make peace, don't talk to your friends, talk to your enemies.