Dear Democrats in power and those aspiring to it:

Consider this nothing less than a plea from a very nearly disaffected supporter.

Stop this war . Americans—roughly seventy percent of us—want to see our participation in a civil war (we do understand that our government pushed this situation into full-blown civil war) come to a swift end, a certain end, a foreseeable end. And I’ll tell you what, shy of a clear exit strategy—say, that’s not yet possible—what I want from you Democrats , my party since before birth, is this: I want you to refuse funding for this war . I believe that the overwhelming majority of Americans opposed to our continued participation will understand your voting to end this—which might, by the way, actually work—signals to us not a lack of support for our troops, but a profound support for their wellbeing. If pulling on the purse strings doesn’t get the congress talking about the actual costs of this war—by which I mean monetary, sure, but really also the war’s toll on humans here and in Iraq and neighboring countries, degradation of the environment and on—I don’t know what will. Obviously, the monetary costs are staggering. With the latest request for funding, the National Priorities Project estimates the cost of this war to have reached $611 billion. Every time I begin to hear the breakdown of what that could have bought us—schools, health care, or an adequately equipped and prepared armed services, infrastructure such as bridges that won’t collapse at will—I want to cry. Seventy percent of us always believed or have come to believe that this war money’s been wasted. And if it were just money, I guess that’d be one thing, but it’s not. Purse strings affect lives, millions of them. Purse strings affect lives here and lives elsewhere and not coincidentally it’s October 5th in New England today and the temperature is supposed to hit 86 degrees and remain in the 80’s for many more days, and while a nice little spell of Indian Summer is one thing, this is a globally warmed Indian Summer and I’m scared. I want you to vote to put some of that $611 billion toward sustainability, carbon neutrality, and innovations, sanctions, change that will tend to our planet’s health.

Step it up . On November 3rd at rallies across the country, people are going to ask for 3 things: 1) to create 5 million green jobs conserving 20% of our energy by 2015; 2) cut carbon 30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050; 3) a moratorium on new coal. Sure, I’d like to see every presidential candidate and every member of congress at a Step It Up rally. But more than that, I’d like to see a strong, definitive reprioritization by our leaders to put sustainability into the forefront and have it stay there . The real visionaries of the sustainability movement are talking about economic justice and access to health care, not simply recycling (because we all know recycling alone isn’t going to heal the planet or those of us on it).

Sure, I’ve got plenty more that I want from our government—an end to funding for abstinence-only sex education or an increase in health insurance coverage for children—but for now, I’d settle for real debate about real issues . Please put an end to posturing and politics and avoidance of issues with glossy substitutes (voting against an ad, one opposing the war however poorly chosen, doesn’t amount to representation; if you were going to speak out forcefully against negative character assault you could have stood up with actual ballast for Max Cleland and John Kerry). Oh, and I also don’t want to spend one more minute discussing whether this country is ready for a woman president, a black president, or a Latino president, or a president whose spouse has cancer. I don’t even want to talk about leadership; I want to see it in action (Mr. Obama, why didn’t you vote on the Lieberman bill last week?). War will endure and global warming will go unchecked unless you listen to us and start to insist upon change. Go for it.