Since September 11, 2001 the use of fear has been even more palpable.  Fear is the excuse for robbing Americans of liberties, for going to war, for reducing our interaction with the rest of the world.  The use of fear especially when combined with a desire to have it easy has made for a mean and sterile politics.

Democrats should call for a series of governmental initiatives that call on the United States to strive to greater things and are based on hope.

Transportation, including the moving of the data and comminications.  It was the Erie Canal that originlly made New York City the world capital.  Whether it is rail, shipping or the internet the United States should be on the cutting edge of transportation.  We need to be able to move goods, people and ideas from coast to coast and beyond the coasts with greater ease and lower costs.

Biology, the human genome project was originally a governmental enterprise.  The need for basic biological research maybe beyond the cost of private companies.  The government ought to expand funding of biology.  One of the terrible things about the push against evolution is not so much the pushing of relgion on us but what is says about scientific knowledge in this country and the efforts to make our students as ignorant about science as possible.

Engery, this almost goes without saying but energy has economic, environmental and military consquences.  From top to bottom in the energy complex there needs to be changes from extraction to conservation.  We are never going to be self-sufficient but we can use a great deal less energy.

Water, though it is not talked about too much may be the crisis in coming years.  One of the reasons the Middle East is such an intractible problem is not oil but water.  We have a drought now in the Mid-West, Europe and Africa.  There has to be a better way to gain access to potable water and to use less water.

Space, for some reason Progressives have often disparaged the space program.  However, exploring the universe especially as a global enterprise gives us more basic knowledge and lifts us beyond the mundane.

It would be my goal that these projects would serve a number of ends.  They would find solutions to current problems, generate current jobs both in government and throughout private enterprise.  Beyond the current they would create ideas that lead to a world we cannot now imagine starting whole new industries.  Creating exciting new jobs with careers that are both personally and socially fulfilling it will lead to greater demand for better schools and an improvement of the schools.

A last thought.  This country has lost two generations of Ph.D.s.  The first in the 1970s and now as many cannot find jobs in Universities. We ought to open up high schools and lower to Ph.D. regardless of the education courses they have taken.  Perhaps like in Europe they can be encouraged to write and publish in their feel thus improving their skills and taking advantage of tenure in high schools that otherwise to be a nice perk but a perculiar protection.  Schools should be filled with teachers who know and love their subjects and thus will be far better teachers.

Since the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam the United States has combined a level of self satisfaction and the fear that the good ies will be taken away.  Both parties have pushed fear as their major electioneering tool.  It is time for Democrats to turn our back on fear and call on the country working together to do great things.