Just Say "No" to Fear!

I wanted to share with all of you a column I recently had published in SitNews, from Ketchikan, Alaska.

May 14, 2006
Sunday


Dan Thomasson of the Scripps Howard News Service recently wrote in SitNews (5/12/06) that Democrats were calling for revenge and impeachment and investigations. He is using the new Republican talking points that are once again trying to frighten Americans from doing what is right and needed urgently: throwing the scoundrels who have given us the mess that is now our American political scene out of office!

This Administration has regularly relied on provoking fear among the electorate to further their political shenanigans. In defense of the illegal collection of calling information from millions of Americans, this President calls upon the fearful picture of 9/11 and claims we haven't had another attack have we?

They have used fear to advance their privatization schemes trying to frighten Seniors about the solvency of their Social Security checks and then advocating diverting funds from the Social Security Trust Fund towards private accounts; an action that any observant American would realize would only hasten the demise of that Trust Fund.

They have used fear to deprive us of civil liberties, bypassing FISA courts when law demands it.

They used fear and lies to get us into an unnecessary war in Iraq, distorting intelligence, fixing the facts according to the Downing Street Memo, and outing a CIA operative who herself was involved in research on WMD's, compromising our own intelligence community to advance their own political agenda.

They even use fear of homosexuals, blatent homophobia, to advance their political agendas by claiming marriage is "under attack" that two gays getting married will somehow undermine our own marriages. That we need to pass laws and Constitutional Amendments to "protect the sanctity of marriage" when what they really mean is that we should reach down into our ugly reservoir of hate and insecurity and pass laws to hurt two people who wish to express their love for one another and have the state prevent them from doing so. Shameful.

They use fear and threaten our privacy by checking the books we take out of the library and the internet searches we wish to perform by unchecked investigations into the private lives of every American.

I am tired of being frightened by politicians.

I will not allow myself to be afraid anymore.

America is too great a country to allow desparate despots to undermine our Freedoms, our love of each other, our protection of our liberty and our desire to live in a world where war is a thing of the past, where mutual respect and tolerance prevails, and where the law and Constitution are meaningful.

It is time to send the Republicans in the House, the Senate, and yes in the Presidency packing. Bring back government for the people, by the people and of the people.

Just say no to fear.

Robert Freedland