102 Comments

Knowing the truth and the reality of situations makes me feel less vulnerable. I have never understood why those in power, including law enforcement and our representatives at all levels of government, would deny or withhold a truth that would help the public that pays their salary. Is it some twisted reasoning that led them and leads them to think that it is "for the greater good " when the opposite is true? Innocent lives should not be expendable.

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❤️

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During reflection upon a period of time that brought the basic rule of vulnerability (any time, to anyone) home to me, I realized feeling vulnerable leads to feeling grateful and humbled by the good I do have or the good others did for my family. That gratefulness energized our actions to pay good forward to others. Do not turn away from the feeling of darkness. Meet it head on by fighting for good.

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You always have the right words to express how so many of us feel. I love your guarded optimism and truthfulness. I’m grateful the Biden is a sympathetic President who cares for everyone unlike his predecessor who only cared about those who idolized him. I wonder how Rand Paul justifies his request for aid? I’m sure he has a perfectly perfect excuse. God help us as we are all very vulnerable as is our democracy.

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Dan, U r such a wonderful writer. The way you put things in your articles are so touching, and honest. I have always loved you and ur presence on the news...I miss that, but I am happy that you have, "Steady", that you are still in touch with us. We need U and ur words of comfort and wisdom now, more than ever. Thank you!!!

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As always, a truthful yet hopeful message. I have learned in the last few decades (!) to try to remain vulnerable, for in only in my own vulnerability can I see what other people might be going through. If I feel myself being unsympathetic or jaded, I know that I need to seek the softness that vulnerability brings in myself, and therefore in others. Take it to a larger community level and we may have something that can help to save us.

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Your comments about our personal inability to deal with societal vulnerabilities remind etc me of the Parable of the Starfish:

A man is walking along a beach covered in thousands of dying starfish tossed up by the previous night’s storm. Up ahead he sees a figure doing something, though he cannot see what. As he gets nearer, he realizes it’s a young boy picking up starfish one by one and throwing them nack into the water. The man asks the boy “Why do you bother? Don’t you see how many starfish are cast u on the beach? What difference can it make?” As the boy picks up another starfish to throw back into the water he replied “It will to this one.”

My point is that those vulnerabilities you ascribe to society as a whole are comprised of all of our individual vulnerabilities and one-by-one is the only way to effectively address them.

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Just a very simple "Thank you" for some needed perspective in this frustrating time.

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Dan and Elliot, your thoughts about shared vulnerabilities uniting us rings such truth. First, these shared deficits and accomplishments in our lives have to be recognized. Such recognition can be encouraged only through educational systems that are inclusive in their presentations of the histories of the American peoples. How else can students develop a sense of these shared vulnerabilities or appreciate the struggles experienced by different groups of Americans.

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Dan Rather, I've respected you for years. Been reading Steady for a while now. This is the first article where I have been impressed because you are speaking about what's important and what's too easily missed. This is what I expect from you; and your writing in this article is important, valuable - and a truth not to be neglected or missed about our vulnerability. Thank you very much! This needed saying, and I needed to hear this; I am deeply touched - and I needed to be, because I was missing this important and vital truth that you wrote about here so very well. And the comments I am seeing are mighty valuable, too -- and you and Elliot Kirschner wrote this and elicited such comments -- very much needed in our world and in our country. So...thanks again; very well done, and very much needed, this article is.

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Somehow reading this made me feel better - maybe even a little less vulnerable since we are in this together.

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As always, Mr. Rather and Mr. Kirschner, I read this particular post and found such resonance with what I hear daily in my work as a psychotherapist and in conversations with my family and friends. I won't use space to enumerate even some of the particular examples of what I hear, nor will I describe my own experiences of feeling vulnerable. As I approach my 74th birthday this coming week, I'm delighted to be in good health and also all too aware that my choice to wear a mask everywhere I go reflects my awareness of my vulnerability. I see the increasing number of people living on the street here in NYC, and wonder about their vulnerability. As more of my patients report they've been exposed to Covid and I worry about their well-being, I remember the fears my parents had when I was little of the threat of polio that lifted with the Salk and then the Sabin vaccines.

I read about the all-too-many people who die attempting to find political asylum and imagine the vulnerability my grand- and great-grandparents felt in their voyages from Eastern Europe to America well over 100 years ago. I read about the Russian military build-up along the border with Ukraine, and I remember the October night 59 years ago, having heard Kennedy challenge Khrushchev to turn his ships around from their course to Cuba, saying goodbye to my best friend because we didn't know if we'd be alive the next morning. We've all experienced moments and periods of vulnerability in our lives, although I believe few of us have faced vulnerabilities from SO MANY different threats at the same time as we do now.

I don't know that I'm adding anything new to the discussion. Rather, I'm writing to thank you both (as I have in the past) for expressing so meaningfully and movingly what I'm aware of even more as I prepare to add another candle (metaphorically) on my birthday cake and move into another year of uncertainty. I look forward to your future postings, and wish you both a safe, healthy, and meaningful holiday season and New Year.

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Thank you for the thoughts today, Dan!

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Dan, send a copy of this to Manchin, who just, in a startling way, on the Fox propaganda channel, just put the kibosh on Build Back Better, after months of getting his colleagues to whittle the bill down substantially, and after giving President Biden, who met with him at his (Biden’s) home, the impression that he would vote for it. His unforgivable deceit will be hurting millions of our citizens.

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One of your best and they are all good!

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I understand economical vulnerability from my own individual life with years of financial struggling. I appreciate Dan and Elliot's putting vulnerability on a larger scale, of other's in our own communities, in our nation, in our world. BUT, I would point out that too much of what I see in one slice of American society is the "I've got mine and you can't have any of it" mentality, particularly of those in the high income brackets. We claim to be "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." But we are also "one nation, vulnerable and crying, divided and with neither liberty nor justice to be found." My prayer for this Christmas season and for the new year is for sight instead blindness, security instead of vulnerability, and an enhanced awareness of community and our role in it.

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