To my great disappointment it appears that the politics of division are making a big comeback. Many Americans share my disappointment - especially those who were filled with great hope a few years ago when then-Senator Obama announced his candidacy in Springfield Illinois.

I had in mind a message although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly persuading Americans and especially Southerners of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.

When too many Americans don't vote or participate some see apathy and despair. I see disappointment and even outrage. And I believe that out of this frustration can come hope and action.

Americans particularly after World War II tended to romanticize war because in World War II our cause was the cause of humanity and our soldiers brought home glory and victory and thank God that they did. But it led us to romanticize it to some extent.

In Afghanistan there is a plan to build democracy hundreds of thousands of troops are protecting it. There is a plan to rebuild and reconstruct there. But many thousands of Americans die from violence and poverty every year and we don't have a plan for reconstruction at home.

What the New Yorker calls home would seem like a couple of closets to most Americans yet he manages not only to live there but also to grow trees and cockroaches right on the premises.

Yes Americans can still get credit for cars and trucks and refrigerators and those businesses are doing well. But just try to get a home loan now.

Here at home when Americans were standing in long lines to give blood after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon we squandered an obvious opportunity to make service a noble cause again and rekindle an American spirit of community.

I am not suggesting that all those missionary organizations working in Haiti should pack up and go home but I am urging them to understand that Haiti does not need clever Americans with newly contrived schemes for saving their country.

Now I know there are many Americans who say 'Get out of Afghanistan. Bring 'em all home.' And there are others who say 'Put in hundreds of thousands of more.'

Today's misery is real unemployment home foreclosures and bankruptcies. This is the Obama Misery Index and its at a record high. Its going to take more than new rhetoric to put Americans back to work - its going to take a new president.

For most of our history Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats.

For most of our history no one dared to tell Americans 'you don't build that.'

When President Obama entered the White House the economy was in a free-fall. The auto industry: on its back. The banks: frozen up. More than three million Americans had already lost their jobs. And America's bravest our men and women in uniform were fighting what would soon be the longest wars in our history.

Let me tell you never before in the history of this planet has anybody made the progress that African-Americans have made in a 30-year period in spite of many black folks and white folks lying to one another.

September 11 was terrible but if one goes back over the history of the IRA what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible.

What people forget is that the most radical thing about Obama is that he was the first black man in history to imagine that he could become president who was able to make other Americans believe it as well. Other than that he is a centrist just like I try to be. He's been bridging divisions his whole life.