i agree both with the sense of despair as well as the list of things to be thankful for... i find that when i remember to be grateful for my blessings, depression and despair don't stand much of a chance... that's not to suggest sticking one's head in the sand but it's important tokeep in mind not only what IS good in the here and, but also how things CAN be in a brighter future that will be coming...

meanwhile, here's a suggestion for how NOT to support the troops this Thanksgiving...

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/2005/11/how-not-to-support-t roops-on.html 

Alas, even the bright spot you discern looks darker than you suggest, since Mr. Graham's latest amendment would shred the most fundamental of our freedoms, habeas corpus, and Mr. McCain voted for it.

What I really take for this post, aside from all of the specific objections to things that our government has done, is the sense that, even if the Republicans lose the White House in 2008, we are all going to have a whole lot of fundamental problems to deal with -- so many things that Americans of either party would have once assumed, like respect for due process even if the accused is odious, or the notion that out international behavior should not just please us but should be a benchmark by which the choices that other countries make are judged, are just kind of gone now.  Bush rewrote the rules and has invalidated so many old assumptions we've had about who we are and how we act.

Grand pronouncements are often silly and this one will seem silly too but, I think that our mission, in the coming post-Bush era, really will be to restore America's greatness from top to bottom.  We'll have economic work to do, and will face powerful adversaries on that front, and we'll have an international reputation to restore, though we'll face a lot of doubt around the world and, more than anything, both domestically and internationally, we're going to have to restore our principles so that we can be a country with a purpose again, rather than a powerful country that simply pursues its interests and follows the path of convenience with no thought to the larger implications of what we do. 

The Joe Biden Iraq policy, in effect "I wish we could put in more troops but that's politically impossible so we should start thinking about gradually getting out," is neither coherent nor something to be thankful for.

We _can_ be thankful for Representative Murtha for putting a big crack in the united for neo-colonial occupation Democrat-Republican line.

And for folks like Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller on Air America.

But fundamentally I'm thankful for the solid good sense of most Americans, and their sharp disapproval of Bush and the Demo-Repub Iraq policy. Public opinion and the establishment's attempts to appease or even represent it gives peace has a chance.

... the efforts here and abroad are ongoing - Russia wants to kick out Amnesty, Blair is using the Official Secrets Act to prevent more info about Bush threatening to bomb Al-Jazeera (sp?) from getting out, and who knows what oppressive horrors "5 deferment" Dick has in mind for any dissidents if he can get away with it.

Arrogant superpowers can quickly become in Nixon's (shudder) phrase "pitiful, helpless giants".

Thanks to Lindsay Graham? The guy who just shredded the Guantanamo detainees' habeas rights, on the basis of distorted claims about the "frivolous cases" they were filing? I don't think so.

I used to think he was one of the sorta kinda good guys. Not after this.

I find it interesting and instructive that you are thankful for the comments of Sen. Biden but Representative Murtha's comments do not make your list.    From my vantage point, Biden started as a key promoter of the Iraq war, one of its strongest advocates, and one of the most reluctant to criticize the basis and goals of this action. Murtha's comments on the other hand signalled a seismic shift in the debate over the Iraq war something a Biden or a Clinton or a Lieberman could have effected years ago, before so much of this tragedy unfolded.

I'm confused about the accusation of indifference to Pakistan. The article you link to talks of 3 British Chinooks in the airlift efforts, but at the end discloses that 15 American Chinooks are involved. No doubt we could do more, but I don't see how Britain the UN are somehow doing things we're neglecting to do, particularly since we pledged half a billion dollars in aid at the recent donor's conference.

I'll give thanks when and if the criminals in the WH are tried and convicted as they should be.

Note this small piece.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10197204/

If the Brits are going after these folks for violating the UK Official Secrets Act, does that mean that the document is genuine and that its contents and the events described therein in fact represents a true accounting? If the document is not genuine there would not be grounds for any legal action. That is, at least not under the Official Secrets Act.

thepeoplechoose

"Oh my goodness" (That's Rummyspeak). I've been rated "not helpful" for pointing out that W is a warmonger who is killing people for no reason except to justify the deaths of those he's already killed needlessly. And I had the temerity to point out if Dick Cheney had his sick little way the only people who would be granted the right to dissent would be people who agree with him. The nerve of these two frauds who don't even believe in democracy in the USA to try to foist their twisted idea of democracy on the Iraqi people.

If enemy combatants don't have a right to habeous corpus just how is anyone goin to know they haven't been tortured? 

Graham's judge-stripping amendment was designed to prevent the Supreme Court from taking up the case on 'enemy combatants' which the Bush Administration has been lobbying hard that the Supreme Court not take-up because it reduces the unfettered executive privilege Bush so dearly loves.  Graham was just carrying water for Bush with the same old tired argument that it would clog the courts that te Republicans pull-out when they want to deny an individual a fair hearin against governmental or corporate abuse.   

Anne-Marie, I'm pleased that you linked to the editorial in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.  The officials and the people in New Orleans are reduced to begging for their levees.  In my grandchildren's school, as part of a civics class lesson, the kids are writing to the Congress, imploring them to build the levees to protect them from a category 5 hurricane, so they won't drown or have their houses washed away or flooded.  Now, is that not a pathetic state of affairs for the country to be in?  To have children begging for protection?

Here's a link to another front page editorial from the Times-Picayune.

Here are the final words of the editorial:

Some voices in Washington are arguing against us. We were foolish, they say. We settled in a place that is lower than the sea. We should have expected to drown.

As if choosing to live in one of the nation's great cities amounted to a death wish. As if living in San Francisco or Miami or Boston is any more logical.

Great cities are made by their place and their people, their beauty and their risk. Water flows around and through most of them. And one of the greatest bodies of water in the land flows through this one: the Mississippi.

....

Some people in Washington don't seem to remember that. They act as if we are a burden. They act as if we wore our skirts too short and invited trouble.... Remind them that this is a singular American city and that this nation still needs what we can give it.

I'm still really puzzled by this whole thing.  I don't know why Graham, given everythign else he's stood for, introduced it, and I don't entirely understand how the counter-amendment introduced after the weekend came to be.  I feel like there was some kind of gambit going on here, with Graham, but I haven't been able to figure it out. 

Can anyone help me out on this? 

we are all going to have a whole lot of fundamental problems to deal with 

Yeah, and I would add to your list that we need to make some kinda fundamental change to our media institutions.  Not sure what, but... something.  Right now our media seems to be broken.

Thank you for this post. We need to keep New Orleans current in people's minds and hopefully hearts. There are so many problems that still exist there. FEMA abandoned the Katrina victims by transferring much of the responsibility to rpivate agencies, and it is shocking that theu will be forcing evacuees out of hotels, while at the same time alot of housing has not been completed. I do not understand why are top officials can be so cold-hearted.

Thank a civil rights lawyer for  your freedom.  (Equally accurate.)