Do you feel the change? Is it what you have hoped for?

Maybe you feel like you are a part of them, maybe you think the change you have been waiting for is here at last. Do you finally feel seen? Is it all going to be better now?

The truth is, they don't care about you. You are nothing but a cogwheel to them, a replaceable, faceless part. To you we say: if you truly want to find what you are looking for, look to your humanity, look inward. Not up. Not to them. Only to you. For your own sake, make peace with your demons. Find similarities rather than differences.

Perhaps you are disappointed by what was, because change was promised, but you saw none. You did your duty, went to vote, made a decision like a good citizen. 

The truth is, leaders came and went, and they left you with empty promises while you are still treading water, feeling alone with your thoughts. And now, even that single straw you used to grasp has proven to be the flimsy reed it always has been. You feel lost, and don't know where to put your hope.

Or you are trying to go through this with blinkers on? Trying to sleep until this nightmare is over, until it is all better again? After all, does it really concern you?

Maybe you have your loved ones, your home, your work, your days. They leave you alone. You take their money and ignore them, you keep their business running, and the moment they focus on someone else, you try to forget them.

No matter where you find yourself, one thing is in common: you have been turning away from the truth. There is a wound that won't heal in the world. There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow, and now it's here. It's here and it's not visiting anymore. It wants to stay. Fascism is the enemy of the people, it is a disease that thrives in capitalism, it is never more alive than when we are asleep. It wants more and more, until it controls everything and everyone.

The enemies of the people, whether they come as monarchs, dictators, religious zealots, capitalists, fascists or all of it say that the people cannot live without them. “If it were not for us,” they say, “there would be nobody to maintain order, to lead, to give out work, and to compel people to work. If it were not for us everything would collapse, and everything would fall to pieces. Nobody would know what's right and what's wrong.” 

They distract you with issues of little to no relevance, they send you on a wild goose chase to channel your focus away from their everlasting task of entrenching their power. While you are riled up about matters that are exaggerated beyond any reason, you do not notice the boot on your throat slowly increasing the pressure. 

Their lies are so convincing, you even lick their boots and cheer them on with your last breath, doing so gladly because you are convinced that this is how it has to be. You are convinced that you have no choice but to toil away your entire life at their command, keeping the wheel turning with your labor while they live in worlds you can only imagine. You are so convinced their system is right that you can not imagine anything else.

But this is not what it means to be human. This is not what it means to be free. The lies of the monarchs, of the dictators, of the nationalists, of the religious zealots, of the politicians, the political parties and the billionaires, and of the fascists in all of their wake, will not confuse, intimidate, or deceive us. We know that, for leadership, we need not look up, not to bloodlines, not to the color of skin, not to a passport, not to the heavens, not to a political party nor to numbers on a bank account. 

Because none of this determines your worth as a human. Only your actions do.

So for leadership, we only need to look to ourselves. Look to your humanity. Get up from under the boot. Rise. We have proven that the people can live without monarchs, without god, without a political party, without dictators and capitalists. They never proved that they can live without us.

We have risen. Rise with us.

-- From a speech given at a protest in Munich, June 2098

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