{
  "path": "/blog/no-more-looking-leader",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ntnmdg6fuvogzr6khf7agoqf/site.standard.publication/liebs-log",
  "tags": [
    "Politics",
    "Philosophy"
  ],
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "title": "No more looking for a leader",
  "description": "In the waning years of the G.W. Bush presidency, Neil Young released a song called \"Looking for a Leader\" on his 2006 \"Living with War\" album. It pretty much summed up the mood of the county as people began to realize what a quagmire Bush had led us into in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama stepped up and we got lucky as he was about as good a leader as one could hope for. Now comes the heartbreaking news that Cesar Chavez was a sexual predator who's victims included teenage girls in his organization. In 1969 a bunch of us white anti-war hippies went to one of his rallies in Indio, CA. We wanted to show common cause with the work they were doing. I can only imagine how devastating this news is to those who devoted their lives to the farm workers union. Having your heroes exposed as flawed human beings is one thing. Having them exposed as vile criminals is quite another. Power corrupts, there can be no doubt about it. In the end those we elevate to positions of leadership will always fail us. Human's have not evolved beyond that point yet. Once we start believing in our own importance our ego takes over and inhibits our sense of right and wrong. I don't care who you are or how moral a base you start from, once you get taste for power it's all over. As a society we need to stop looking for leaders and learn to start solving our problems cooperatively. I too have been guilty of bemoaning the dearth of the kind of leaders we had in my youth. Somehow I thought if we only had another Martin Luther King, or Robert Kennedy, or even John Lennon. If we only had a great leader we could solve all our problems. I hereby renounce that thinking as delusional. No leader is going to solve the world's problems. We've got to do it ourselves. We've got to do it by working together, by collaborating and cooperating. We've got to find a way forward that does not pin our hopes on leaders who, in the end, will always fail us.",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-26T08:19:29-07:00",
  "textContent": "In the waning years of the G.W. Bush presidency, Neil Young released a song called \"Looking for a Leader\" on his 2006 \"Living with War\" album. It pretty much summed up the mood of the county as people began to realize what a quagmire Bush had led us into in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama stepped up and we got lucky as he was about as good a leader as one could hope for. Now comes the heartbreaking news that Cesar Chavez was a sexual predator who's victims included teenage girls in his organization. In 1969 a bunch of us white anti-war hippies went to one of his rallies in Indio, CA. We wanted to show common cause with the work they were doing. I can only imagine how devastating this news is to those who devoted their lives to the farm workers union. Having your heroes exposed as flawed human beings is one thing. Having them exposed as vile criminals is quite another. Power corrupts, there can be no doubt about it. In the end those we elevate to positions of leadership will always fail us. Human's have not evolved beyond that point yet. Once we start believing in our own importance our ego takes over and inhibits our sense of right and wrong. I don't care who you are or how moral a base you start from, once you get taste for power it's all over. As a society we need to stop looking for leaders and learn to start solving our problems cooperatively. I too have been guilty of bemoaning the dearth of the kind of leaders we had in my youth. Somehow I thought if we only had another Martin Luther King, or Robert Kennedy, or even John Lennon. If we only had a great leader we could solve all our problems. I hereby renounce that thinking as delusional. No leader is going to solve the world's problems. We've got to do it ourselves. We've got to do it by working together, by collaborating and cooperating. We've got to find a way forward that does not pin our hopes on leaders who, in the end, will always fail us."
}