U.S.A. Midterms

The Andorians still are in control and the Romulan red wave never appeared. Both sides are full of fear...


Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms address to a nation in crisis imagined a future in which all of humanity enjoys the “four essential human freedoms” — freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Though he insisted that it was “no vision of a distant millennium,” the United States is still striving to achieve those freedoms today. Roosevelt’s message remains as urgently relevant as ever.


In Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, he famously declared that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” But what is often lost when people remember that earliest of soundbites is what came right after. That was his definition of fear: “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” It is not just that fear is unproductive; it actively undermines progress. To persist through tumultuous times, it will take discipline, strategic vision, hope and history — and a mass movement of people who have achieved freedom from fear.