"We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Late last night, unable to sleep, I began to think about this quote from the first of Franklin D. Roosevelt's four inaugural speeches and how Bush - just as he's sought to destroy everything else FDR set out - has never embraced this quote.

In Bush's world, Americans have to fear everything: God, brown people, Muslims, compassionate Jews, Social Security, librarians, thinking, people who won't sign loyalty oaths, judges who act like they're meant to uphold laws and not God's dictate, and most of all, fear those who say the emperor has no clothes given the enormous amount of money the emperor spends on fabric.

Bush can't rule the world unless we're terribly afraid because only people who are scared shitless would put up with all this horrific nonsense.

So what if we stop playing? What if we stop being afraid? I used to feel that I was much more afraid of Bush and his minions than I was of anything Osama could do to us. But you know what, I refuse to do that anymore. I'm not playing this fear game. Fear makes you hope and pray and do other basically ineffective things because you're too scared to actually do anything.

Thus, I repeat FDR's bold words: We have nothing to fear but fear itself.