FEAR ITSELF!

Sick of the hate and bigotry of Chicago my immigrant father moved us to Wisconsin in the 60s. He wanted to return to the more pastoral life on a farm he knew in Poland. As a boy I was astonished to see how welcoming people were. Folks we never met before would see that we were new to modern agriculture and pull in the yard and offer help and advice. I made friends quickly and met a girl and eventually married her. Life was good.

We are told now things have changed and to fear immigrants, that anyone new is to be feared for bringing murder rape and drugs. We need to carry guns. That life is now a nightmare of despair and declining prospects. Watch out because someone else might get more. And sex. Everything is about sex to the point where even displaying a rainbow is promoting perversion. Any opposition to these wild assertions gets you cast as a pedophile or a “groomer” or even a communist to the point where even small towns like Kiel were beset by bomb and death threats for simply policies that called for a little tolerance.

But yet even now I look around and see none of that. I moved about these same communities with no fear. I see no more crime or decline than than in the past and in fact see the signs of prosperity all around us. We drive decent cars. Our institutions still function. We have no more war than before. Those that say otherwise don't seem to remember Korea or Viet Nam or the Gulf War or that there ever was a draft for that matter.

In a few days we have a choice. We can listen to the purveyors of doom and decline. Or, we can believe what we see around us. I see no difference from the Wisconsin I found back in 1965. It is still the land of friendly helpful people, peaceful society and opportunity that it was then if we only have the courage to see it. Anything else is what Franklin Roosevelt spoke to at the depths of the Great Depression, a nameless, unreasoning fear itself. Choose courage! The future awaits.

Bernard J. Starzewski

4823 Greendale Rd.

Valders Wi. 54245

920 684-6565