Cross posted from The Pennsylvania Progressive.
It's Halloween season so you know what that means: the election is just around the corner and George Bush is about to deal the Fear Card. He's going to don his big, bad ogre mask, unleash Darth Cheney and warn Americans that electing Democrats will be the equivalent of putting Osama bin Forgotten in the halls of Congress.
They did this in 2004, equating some of our Congressional candidates with the Taliban. They told voters outright that a vote for change was a vote for the terrorists. The only political tactic President Bush knows is the one using fear, terror, and portents of dark days ahead to scare voters just as Halloween approaches.
I am so fed up with the fear mongering, the war mongering, the hate mongering, the lie mongering, the politics of personal destruction. There's a very dark cloud hanging over America and it has nothing to do with the holiday. It's the specter of darkness cast by our leaders. The constant talk of dire consequences unless we do exactly as they say. We must follow their path of concentrating power in the White House to save us all from the bogeyman. The bogeyman they refused even to capture. Yes, Osama was forgotten. He was ignored because he served a purpose: keeping America gripped in fear.
It's time for a new Morning in America. It's time to cast off the cloak of darkness George Bush has enveloped us in to keep us from seeing the truth: his policies have made the world more dangerous, not less. His policies and mismanagement have created more terrorists not fewer. His incompetence has lost us this war and destabilized the Middle East and, therefore, the world.
Most of all he has cast a cloud of doom and gloom across America. It's time to throw off the politics of hatred and negativity. It's time to face the dawn of a new time with forthrightness and hope. We can deal with threats to our people. Real threats not ephemeral ones. Yes, Osama killed 3,000 Americans on September 11th. But we lose so many more Americans than that every year to things we can control. We allowed Osama to escape capture and diverted our resources and attention to Iraq.
We can deal with the limited threats of terrorism through intelligence, law enforcement techniques, better cooperation and equipment, human assets, diplomacy and justice. We do not have to tie Americans' civil rights in a small package and cast them aside. We do not have to tie every American in a knot of fear. The politics of fear must end. We must cast off these ropes and untie the American Dream once again.
This should be a time of hope. Americans should be resting comfortably knowing our skies, our ports, our borders are secure. Five years post September 11th we should have a world class intelligence operation working hand in hand with law enforcement to expose plots against us instead of putting 140,000 troops in harms way training additional agents of terror.
It's time for someone to step forward with a message of hope to counter the Republicans Message of Fear. Americans are hungry for a new message, one of hope and promise. One of better, brighter days.