When certain causes become prairie fires, politicians make difficult choices, and often at the expense of someone like Jeremiah Wright and Walter Jenkins. That's the cruel nature of American politics, where the end becomes the consummate objective, and sometimes the means to get there come at a great price.

What's right and good doesn't come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does.

I was not a public - I was not a thinker. I was a doer.

I'm angry at what's happening to America and angry with myself that I can't do more. I would be miserable if I couldn't bear witness.

The delusional is no longer marginal.

You can't have a people's democracy as long as corporations are considered people.

You only have to glance at the daily news to see how passions are stirred by claims of exclusive loyalty to one's own kin, one's own clan, one's own country, and one's own church. These ties that bind are vital to our communities and our lives, but they can also be twisted into a noose.