I was initially attracted to this thread for personal reasons; three of my children suffer from some form of autism. My youngest son was just diagnosed with aspergers (a high-functioning form of the malaise). By now, I have familiarized myself with most of the arguments regarding vaccines and other alleged "causes", but have tried instead to concentrate on just getting my kids through adolescence and early adulthood with some degree of success.

But, my reason for writing is to voice a general dissent from the all-too-prevalent view that the Left has been a total wash in American political life. Quite the opposite is true, and the fact is that so much of early Communist and Leftist thinking has now become an inevitable feature of our social narrative that it has become commonplace to the point of invivisibility. It is now virtually impossible to argue seriously that blacks are inferior to whites, that women should be paid by standards different from those of men, that unions should not be allowed to organize among workers, that gay or bisexual people should be deprived of equal rights. The current attempt in the Congress to provide tens of billions of dollars to distressed homeowners is barely raising more than a perfunctory protest among even the pro-business press. And notions that groups or races or tribes are more or less "worthy" or "moral" than others is now routinely dismissed as so much cant. The country *has* come far since the 1950's. True, not as far or as fast it could have or should have, but still, considering the power of the forces arrayed against it, the Left has performed remarkably well. This despite its abandoning of class as the salient feature of its numerous campaigns while overly embracing competing nationalisms (sexual, racial, etc.).

So, I remain optimistic. I like the Obama campaign because it effortlessly incorporates so much that represents the best of the Left in America, while eschewing much of the poisonous legacies of nationalism. I would dearly love to see health care and energy nationalized, a massive program of public works, an irreversible committment to public education. No political campaign in 2008 is going to deliver such a wish-list, but if the Left perseveres even in these dark times, the realization of such a program will never become eclipsed by the revanchist forces in our midst.