To hell with "leaders"

If you're like me, you've seen a boatload of great ideas about how to respond to this nightmare we find ourselves in popping up here and elsewhere on the Web in the last 24 hours.

Economic warfare. Reframing the terms of debate. A Goldwateresque, decades-long project of institution-building and networking.

All intriguing and necessary ideas. But they're all too often undermined for me by a comment appended to them by their authors: "If only Barack Obama..." or "Hillary..." or "Howard..." would pick this up and run with it.

With all due respect to those worthies: Fuck that. It's as if the people giving birth to these amazing and powerful insights aren't aware of their own power.

We don't have the time or the luxury of waiting around for the "leaders" to get the message. We need, now more than ever, to BE the leadership we desire, each one of us.

In Germany, not so very long ago, there arose a doctrine known as the fuhrerprinzip, or "leadership principle."

At the limit, the fuhrerprinzip implies absolute and unquestioning submission to authority (and we all know how that turned out, don't we?). For me, the seeds of the fuhrerprinzip can be found in our need for heroes and "leaders" of all sorts.

So instead of waiting for Howard Dean to rise up and inspire us to action, why not take action now, on our own initiative? Why not trust your own judgment, form your own opinions and strategies and act on them today?

Now more than ever before, we need to be our own heroes and heroines.