Now is the Time We All Need A Great Leader~

May29

We need words and acts of wisdom, ethics and compassion, from our leaders now more than ever. Since this is utterly lacking, take heart from the words of a truly gifted leader that could never be more relevant than today.

Martin Luther King (1929 – 1968) addresses the March On Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, where he gave his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” 

“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963

“Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

“I Have a Dream”, Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963

My heart breaks for George Floyd, his family, and our country. Are we not better people than this?

There are no cheers today, only grief~

See:

https://www.joincampaignzero.org/#vision

236 thoughts on “Now is the Time We All Need A Great Leader~”

  2. Yes, we are better than this! It has to start at the top though. Reboot! Joe Biden may not be a great leader but he will be a very good one. And many of our future leaders will be women, hopefully great leaders.
    Racism goes very deep though…..and I am hopeful it will change……with excellent leaders in the future.

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  6. It’s disconcerting how incidents like this one grab us by the collective throat and tap deep into our being the cry for justice, hope for peace, and desire for love — only to have everyone swiftly move on to the next thing before this thing is resolved. Thank you, Cindy, for pointing it out so well — that we can ill afford to keep doing thusly and must address and resolve these issues as (before?) they arise.

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    • Thank you. Listening, genuine empathy, respect, grief and sorrow shared, along with proactive solutions to address the destructiveness of racial hatred and violence in the US, is what our president needs to feel, express and do. Unfortunately he cannot experience, do or express any of this genuinely, and this is a significant and fundamental failure on his part, that is harming all of us.

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  11. How true, we are interdependent worldwide to preserve, care for and care for our wonderful earth. There has to be justice in all countries and I don’t understand why the US is having such a hard time with it. I also have a dream: justice for all people on our planet.

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    • I had thought we had moved past this racial hatred and violence. I thought we had learned and evolved, improved. It is heartbreaking to see our country descend into chaos egged on by hate and to realize we have sunk further into darkness than ever before. For police to feel empowered to restrain and murder a human being in the middle of the street, in broad daylight, while people begged them to stop, tells us everything about the current state of the union. I have seen a lot of bad stuff in my life. This is worse.

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    • It is Dr. Kings voice that rings so loudly even from the grave. Shaming us with how far we have fallen from his beautiful dream and love for us all. I can hear his voice as I type. It is so sad. I thought we had learned, but we haven’t. We are crawling back to even more hatred and violence.

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  13. The great leaders are coming to the scene when people are ready for them. Nowadays it is not the time. For the most of the people Money and Greed iare the most relevant things for today but not Love and Care about anybody and anything else. Sorry, probably these words are not really appropriate for particular situation, but it is just my own humble opinion.

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      • I’m trying to spread the words of truth wherever I can and hope that some people who are blinded by Trump’s force will finally start to see a glimmer of reality. It’s mind-boggling and frankly inexcusable to me that there are intelligent and educated people out there who refuse to reject all that he stands for. Why? I’m guessing because they don’t want to lose their personal wealth, and/or guns. So very disheartening. 😦

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        • Some supporters feel they are fighting for a larger piece of the pie and competing against minorities for it. If resources in our very wealthy country were distributed more fairly, then there would be no need to fight for your piece of pie. It is sad and disheartening and frustrating. Trump and his helpers have certainly made everything so much worse.

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  16. I put a post on my blog last night asking everyone to reblog Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech. Only one person reblogged it which is really upsetting. I understand many of my followers or people I follow live in other countries so this may not be relevant but I know many of the people I interact with are in the US and is is really sad that no one reblogged it. We need him back right about now!

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  17. I pray things will get better for America and for all races. Even though racism exists everywhere and racial violence exists in other countries, it’s always distressing and disappointing to see them in an advanced ‘first world’ country, especially America because I think much of the rest of the world still looks up to it as the ultimate progressive nation (despite the current president doing his best to change that standing, in my opinion).

    It’s truly heartbreaking what’s happening now. And it’s very, very difficult to find a peaceful solution because there are so many people within who want chaos and violence to achieve their racist objective. It’s just like when terrorists are determined to destroy the peace between Muslims and non-Muslims, by committing murder and violence so that they can try to recruit more people on both sides to get on board their sick thinking and spread more hatred and violence, either through further actual violence or online incitement. Regarding the unrest in America now, I hope Americans of all races will stay strong and united to continue opposing all violence, and that more concrete action will be taken by the political leaders to help this. Hugs to you, Cindy! Cheers.

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    • I share your hopes Halim. The leadership we have is clearly throwing gas on the fires, fanning the flames, making everything worse. This is the time to listen. To feel and express genuine empathy. To brainstorm ideas for solutions, seek compromise. Take proactive helpful action. Trump and his team has proved themselves unable to do any of these things. They posture, and encourage racist rhetoric, they fan the flames of violence. They are culpable, and the result is terribly sad for so many of us in this country.

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  18. Cindy, I see I’m not too late to leave a response to this post. I’m not one for politicising everything but I wanted to say I appreciate the way you expressed your thoughts and feelings in this post. I wish more people would follow your example and call George, the victim of this horrible crime, by his name, and express condolences to his family in that same spirit.

    If we were doing better as a society, those bystanders would have gone up to the police officers and pushed them off George and called for emergency medical services themselves. But we live in a society where we are afraid of being arrested – if it meant rescuing a man who is obviously in distress, it would be the right way to start. That is the problem I see.

    I believe that the way we have gone about addressing human rights abuses is piecemeal. This is why incidents like these are always happening. The underlying problem is that we don’t have the mindset of “each man as my brother, each man as my friend”. Even if he committed a crime, he is still a member of our community and we have to treat him with the dignity and respect that we would want for ourselves.

    Put differently, we are told by people in authority that having authority is the best thing because it gives us power, freedom and security. Because everybody else is competing for what seems to be a limited resource, it creates this power struggle between people. And of course when you’re levelled out in terms of economic and social positioning, people will create hierarchies and position themselves in order to attain power and authority. This is why politicians are helpless and ineffective in situations like these.

    So, leadership is going to have to be cooperative. There has to be a group of people who decide that we have to share leadership within our communities and assign roles to each other so that we can level out all of this top-down thinking.

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    • It does seem like we are witnessing the fall of the republic. When the system is ruled by greed, racist self interest and violence, coupled with unfair resource allocation to all, anarchy and rage rise up, before the republic falls. It is not like we didn’t know. It is not like we didn’t have ample warning. We are seeing in our country what Trump and his supporters have done to us, they have reaped the storm and it is a bad one.

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        • Yes, you plus me, plus all the other humans who want kindness over cruelty, we are the snowflakes, the term Trumpsters use to deride us. Apparently most trumpsters have never experienced sequential high altitude avalanches. Snowflakes working together are an unstoppable sequential avalanche force. Stay well my friend.

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  19. I just got done watching the mother of George Floyd’s daughter try to speak to the media, but she could barely get a word out through her tears. It was awful, and even Wolf Blitzer looked like he was about to cry on camera. How can we keep doing this to mothers and children? And then instead of offering comfort, our dictator-in-chief says we need to “dominate” people who’ve already been controlled and abused for 400 years. Our country is a disgrace to the world.

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  21. Hi Cindy, this might be controversial, but I feel it needs to be said – although I’m not American I’m from a country (South Africa) that is quintessentially known for race issues, but in many respects the USA and South Africa are not so different in that regard – historically speaking: South Africa had apartheid and the USA had the Jim Crow laws – even after segregation was abolished in both nations, racism and racial tensions continue to simmer and flare up at times today. Although there’s much more to be said about the history of all of this in both cases, suffice to say that both systems were abhorrent due to human rights violations. Now, to the issue of the current riots in the U.S.

    My understanding is that several people have died in the protests so far and that one of them is an African-American police officer, shot by shop looters. So I’ll get straight to the point here and say that (whether this happens in US, SA, or anywhere else), I do not see how such violent acts (including the gratuitous looting of stores & violence against peaceful shop owners, citizens OR police) can be condoned (through silence).

    For me, personally, to be against racism I have to be against all racism – and to be against violence, I have to be against all violence – I cannot be selective about it. Therefore I would have to condemn both the racist violence that set the whole thing off (first) as well as the racist violent response to it (second). There are clearly a lot of opportunists who would always take advantage of these type of situations under the cover of “it being justified” – and (if it were me) by not condemning them too, I would hold double standards and be supporting violence – which is not what I’m about.

    Something I have come realize over time is that when it comes to protesting against racism, there is absolutely no way that the majority of people in the USA or Europe (or most other places for that matter) would ever say a word against anti-white racism – especially in South Africa, (where it is as real today as Apartheid was real in the past) – to the extent that I never bring up the issue, because I already know it would simply be ignored by very ardent anti-racism activists who would normally so powerfully protest against racism (of a certain kind).

    It is that inherent bias among the majority of good citizens that has made me skeptical of the authenticity of people in general who claim to fight against racism, because when it happens in a reverse context, they go silent (90% would) because it’s simply not politically correct. I know this from observation over a couple of decades in various countries and across the internet.

    For me the question right now is: how much violence during protests must happen before it is condemned by good citizens in general? (only when absolutely everything is in ruins and loads more or people have died?)

    Speaking one’s truth is very important, even it has the potential of burning bridges, hopefully it wont in this case – thanks for hearing me out!

    J.J.

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    • Such a well thought out, respectful expression of your experience and thoughts could never burn any bridges with me. I don’t expect people to agree with me, and I welcome thought provoking discussion and differing view points. This is how we learn, advance our knowledge, and reach compromise. I have seen and personally experienced some of what you describe in South Africa and found it incredibly frightening. I know you have experienced and know so much more first hand. You are so right, speaking one’s truth is important to our own personal integrity. I am glad you spoke from your heart and I thank you. I learned from it. I don’t condone looting, violence and mayhem, but I do understand the pain, helplessness, frustration and anger behind it, and I do support the right and need for protest. I hope these multi-racial protests impacting our country force leadership to stop, think and change their racist rhetoric and practices, because change is absolutely needed. Thank you for speaking up. დ

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    • Thank you for your kind hearted motivation in sending this to me. I am sure Dr. King who was a Christian minister and a person who lived his faith appreciates it too. God Bless you & keep you. დ

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  31. I agree and we need a great leader in the UK too. Sadly lacking at the moment. Racism brings a whole host of nasties which we can’t ever allow to take hold. But the protests though valid do worry me during a pandemic.

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    • Yes. Agreed. Strange days indeed. Unfortunately racism has been allowed to take hold for quite a long time, historically speaking. Seeing it rise up now accepted by leadership is unacceptable. I do like what many physicians are saying regarding covid and the protests, “racism is worse than covid.” Besides, how long can we continue to isolate in our homes? I know the answer for me, my grandbaby twins are coming for dinner Wednesday. There are 20 months old. I haven’t hugged them for three months. დ

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  35. I just couldn’t write about George Floyd despite wanting to. My draft was a scathing diatribe about racism and our inequitable society. Having been brought up in the UK, I feel that we need the basics of a first world country – Healthcare, Housing, Food. That would be a good place to start.

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  36. The power of his words, heard and read, have no borders in time or space – they’re there always for all of us, because he knew, and reminded us — yes, we ARE better than this, and the promise and the dream are always there for us ❤️

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  37. Beautifully said 💗 The time is here to wake up to who we all are…. children of the divine…. thank you for being a bright light 💗🙏💗

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  38. Yes, his words are powerful and enriching. Just too many years gone by and still the need for a different way of being in this world. Leadership severely lacking in some of our ‘developed’ nations.

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  40. Yes, this is the time we need a great leader that truly has everyone’s welfare at heart. Someone who don’t see colors nor start hate and discrimination. We can’t have a leader that divides a nation & brew chaos and confusion.

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