Maybe people in all ages have thought theirs was a particularly pivotal moment.  Many of us seem to think that now.  I've been daydreaming about a presidential candidate who would concur, would recognize that we're at a dangerous crossroads for the environment, for American prosperity, and for global stability especially regarding nuclear proliferation and terrorism.  (I fear that sounds like a GOP talking point, but I believe it.)

All of these concerns are tied into one issue: Energy policy.  I long for a Democratic candidate who will articulate all of the dangers that have come to us from fossil fuels.  How they are destroying our planet's environment . . . spurring us into wars to keep our fuel flowing . . . providing wealth to repressive governments and organizations that have (with and without cause) threatened us and our allies.  

Oh, Al. . . .  Am I just fantasizing here?  (More fantasy below.)

My Republican friend (I know, I know, but he's a Libertarian Republican so it's okay) and I had a long conversation tonight about 2008, and I am eager to hear what members of this community think about some of what we discussed.

Now, my friend is reasonably well plugged in to partisan Republicanship.  On more than one occasion I have levelled that charge at him--that he's a Partisan hack--so I was especially delighed to hear HIM use the phrase "Bushbots" during our conversation.  Not that that's anything earthshattering, but it surely means that in even hard-to-reach quarters, the bloom is off that rose bush.  But on to 2008. . . .

Last week on "On Point" on NPR, Donna Brazille and Markos discussed the future of the Democratic Party.  The host asked what the Democrats were about, what our party was for.  Donna Brazile gave a long convoluted answer; and Kos noted that Democrats don't have the machinery (Think Tanks, for example) to generate our ideas and message the way Republicans do, and so we are still challenged to say what we are for.  

Someone--a Republican doof--called in and noted that the answer was wishy-washy, and asked how the heck anyone could vote for a party that couldn't say what its ideology is.

At home, I listened.  I fumed.  

Don't we all know what Democratic ideology is!?  

Hmmmmmm.  

I was listening to a guy on the radio tonight named Ritter--not sure how you spell his name--talk about American actions in Iraq, and the likelihood of our invading Iran.  He made a number of persuasive points that all of our government--congress as well as the executive--knew that Iraq had no WMDs, going back to the Clinton era.   His basic thesis was that sanctions were: 1) always about regime change, so it didn't matter whether or not Sadam disarmed or not; and 2) we are on a similar trajectory with Iran.

This guy worked as a UN weapons inspector.  He asserted that sanctions were responsible for the death of between 700,000 and 2.5 million Iraqis.   And that made me a little ill, and got me thinking. . . .

Reading Teacherken's diary made me realize how thankful I am to be away from my students this week, as we are off for Thanksgiving.  

It also has me wondering to what extent my frustrations and those of the people I know are the result of our national wealth, our sense of possibility.  

Is it harder to be thankful in a culture in which it seems like you can always have more, do better?  In which the narratives of our lives sound like a failure if they don't follow a course of increasing material prosperity and social standing? Do the values of Thanksgiving and this incarnation of capitalism sit together comfortably?

I was listening to an NPR talk show today, and I heard a conservative interviewee say something I've heard conservatives say before: that what Bush needed to pick with this second SCOTUS opening was--a fight.  He needed to energize his party, his base, by picking an ideological fight with Democrats and the left. . . and this has me wondering why the politics of our country seems to have turned so inward in the last few years.  By inward, I mean self-absorbed, as if the issues of our parties and our politicians were not the good of the nation, but rather the good of the parties and the politicians, themselves.    

Is that trend increasing, and if so, why?