Please Choose Hope

America has had its finest moments when its leadership inspired hope, and it's worst moments when the leaders mongered fear.

The titles of two excellent books "Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Preserver of Spirit and Hope" by Barbara Bennett Peterson; and Jonathan Alter's "The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope" accentuate the importance of FDR's ability to inspire hope in a nation in the grip of the Great Depression.

Hope was a recurring theme in President John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, and in numerous of his speeches. Speaking of world peace, he said, "Peace...makes life on earth worth living...enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children."

Lyndon Johnson, in his inaugural address, said, " They came here--the exile and the stranger, brave but frightened--to find a place where a man could be his own man. They made a covenant with this land. Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire the hopes of all mankind; and it binds us still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish."

The stated mission of Jimmy Carter's "Carter Center" is "Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope"

And of course, Bill Clinton was elected as the "Man from Hope," a fortunate play-on-words for the town where he was born and raised.


Contrast this with President Bush's policies of encouraging Americans to be nervous, suspicious and fearful. Fearful of strangers, fearful of the unknown, fearful of the Future itself.

This is MY hope: That our next president turns away from eight years of fear and paranoia and returns to foreign and domestic policies that emphasize optimism and idealism and most of all, hope.