Levees Not War

To all our readers and their families—and beyond—we send best wishes for a happy, safe, and more prosperous new year. For everyone we wish full (or at least livelihood-sustaining) employment.

2009 will not be easy, we know, but embedded within the new year’s challenges are opportunities for renewal and a whole new sense of national purpose and possibility. Seeds of change. It is a time for hope, optimism, for dreaming big new dreams and for working hard to make them real. With a new (and very different) administration and many new elected officials coming to Washington and to state and local governments across the nation, it’s a time for collaboration and cooperation for the common good.

We’re all in this together. Being in the work of environmental protection, for example, we realize that all nations have a stake in reducing carbon emissions that cause global warming and melting of ice caps. Rising sea levels threaten not only the Gulf Coast of the United States but also Long Island, the Netherlands, Venice, Bangladesh—every bit of land touched by the oceans. We understand that the more energy-efficient vehicles that the public rightly expects from Detroit should be balanced by federal and state investment in clean-energy public transportation (electric buses, streetcars) and light rail to ease traffic congestion and air pollution.

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Congratulations to Barack Obama for a strong, kick-ass victory in South Carolina and a beautiful, stirring speech. That refrain “Yes We Can” is just what people need to hear. We just wish he’d kicked one butt instead of two (by coming in second).

John Edwards’s campaign strategists have been calling in to ask our advice, and here’s what we tell them: Johnny, it’s the economy. You were right to capitalize on voters’ fatigue with Obama–Clinton squabbles, but give us specific economic remedies and repeat over and over. Economic Security for a Change.

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