The issue at hand.

In the immediate wake of the November 2004 elections there were some Americans who called for "healing the wounds of a divided nation," coming together, and finding unity on common values. Joe Volk, executive secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, advocated "practicing values that are shared across the deep divide in the middle of America: affirming the dignity of every human being, compassion for the stranger, tolerance for minority views, and freedom for all." These are important values, to be sure. But, sad to say, they simply aren't "shared across the deep divide in the middle of America." Eleven states passed anti-gay-marriage laws, energizing some conservatives to push again for a marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Where is the affirmation of the dignity of every human being in this? Where is the compassion for the stranger, the tolerance for minority views, and freedom for all?

Clearly, these values still must be struggled for. So let's accept it: the United States is divided, it has been for a long time, and it's going to stay that way until we change more hearts and minds. The factions against abortion and gays, the factions for capital punishment and theocracy said long ago, "Never mind healing the divide, we're out to win!" And guess what? They did.

So now we Humanists must do likewise. We need to become confident in the rightness of our ideas, firm in our resolve, creative and determined in our social action, and unabashedly subversive of entrenched power whenever it works against our values (including those values we share with our religious friends).

I know the desire to be "nice" can be strong. But how can we be nice to those who lied to get the United States into a war where over 100,000 Iraqis have been killed, who aroused the world's ire against us, and who spurred the recruiting of more terrorists who kill more innocent civilians? How can we be nice to people who want to send pregnant women again to back-alley butchers, to people who want to take away necessary rights, and to people who line their pockets and the pockets of their friends through policies that are destroying the fragile ecology of our only planetary home?

We aren't dealing with mere differences of taste and opinion. These are life-and-death concerns. So being nice can often be immoral. And that's the main idea behind this issues cover stories and supporting features. They remind us that, though we have George W. Bush as president for four more years, we should be thinking in terms of the next two. The mid-term elections offer the next available opportunity to stop the rightwing juggernaut. So, from now through then, we must vigorously oppose and resist conservative social policies at every opportunity. In such action lies our only hope.