> --- On Mon, 6/30/08, Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
>
> "Looking beyond Obama, the hopeful expectations
> awakened by his campaign, coupled with the current crises in US foreign
> and
> domestic policy, may portend a new era of change in US politics"
>
> Seems like the "hopeful expectations" awakened by Obama, and the "crises
> of domestic and foreign policy", are pulling in opposite directions, and
> the warlike impulse is likely to swamp any progressive ones.
=========================================
Yes, if there's another attack on US soil to remind Americans of 9/11 or a
strike on Iran by the Israelis which threatens to draw in US into a wider
war. But meanwhile the fear of terrorism and the patriotic outrage it
sparked seems to have subsided since 2004 and has been replaced by the fear
of falling real incomes and housing values, job loss and personal
bankruptcy. If Iraq should again start claiming US casualties in significant
numbers, it will strengthen the Democrats rather than the Republicans as has
been the pattern.
It seems a combination of hope and fear is what moves people to act - necessity and agency.