A day for thanks, and for wishes

Joan Vennochi of The Boston Globe wrote this on Thanksgiving Day:

HOLIDAY COLUMNS scare me. Under pressure to produce words that might pull people from their Thanksgiving turkey, the brain freezes.

I mentioned this to one regular e-mail correspondent, Herbert Yood of Orleans. Within minutes he fired back this reply:

''Were it I, I'd give a shot at what we ought to be thankful for. There are plenty of things we bemoan -- the war in Iraq, the fact that people we don't know are very happy to kill us, an absurd health care system, a corrupted political system and so on, but we rarely express thanks for what we do have:

''A civilization that does provide education and opportunity to many.

''The fact that we are Americans instead of people in far less pleasant lands.

''Free public libraries.

''People who worry about the air we breathe and the water we drink (true, we also have people who foul both the air we breathe and the water we drink, but at least it's not all one way).

''Some of us are lucky enough to be able to love and be loved.

''That however dysfunctional our healthcare system is, that there are people within it who do their best to provide healing and comfort to the afflicted.

''That ultimately we live in a country where many people have good hearts.

''And, despite all the sins of the press/ media, we do live in a society where we are free to express our thoughts. Even at my sourest, I have always known that if I had been born and raised in many other countries, I would long ago have been put up against a wall and shot. And you -- my goodness. Your life expectancy in a place like Zimbabwe or the Sudan could probably be measured in seconds, were you in those places."

Thank you, Herb.

His last point is especially noteworthy for journalists, but there is something in what he wrote for everyone. Essentially, he reminds us of the enormous freedom we have in this country to disagree, point out flaws, and blame each other for what goes wrong. And it all happens within the context of civilized, if not always civil, debate.

In the press, we take shots -- in print, on the air, and via the Internet -- every day. In return, we expect nothing more than nasty e-mail shot back at us. And we complain about that, too, even while colleagues risk their lives as they report from the epicenter of vicious struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This country is at war with itself over war. Still, as ugly as American politics can be, the damage is confined to victory or defeat on election day.

In America, headlines may blow up someone's political career and polls may undercut their political influence. The idea that an endless supply of people will blow themselves up in an effort to turn the political tide in Iraq still has the capacity to shock; it is so alien to the way power ebbs and flows in this nation.

We drag our politicians through the mud, not from their beds, to be shot and tossed dead on the street. We can be grateful for that, as well as for everything else my e-mail correspondent mentions.

Yet some of us still do selfishly wish for more, personally and collectively as a country. For example, instead of simply bemoaning war, I wish there were a way to figure a way out of it as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans. I wish the country could look ahead, not back, and in doing so, politicians would focus on solving problems, not on waging their next presidential campaign. I wish there were a way to appreciate everything we have and then agree on how to make it better. I wish that the political right and left in this country would appreciate the preciousness of cacophony and stop trying to impose their specific set of values on everyone else.

Wishing for more and thinking it possible, if not probable -- come to think of it, those are also reasons to give thanks in America.