The Interfaith Alliance has to become an ongoing sustaining and powerful movement whose interest is to prove that religion has a healing side as well as a killing side, and that democracy is the consequence of conscience

War, except in self-defense, is a failure of moral imagination.

Big money and big business, corporations and commerce, are again the undisputed overlords of politics and government. The White House, the Congress and, increasingly, the judiciary, reflect their interests. We appear to have a government run by remote control from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute. To hell with everyone else.

The most important thing the giant philanthropies could do - Gates, Rockefeller, Ford, Open Society Institute, and new ones emerging - would be to create a $2-to-$3 billion Trust for Independent Journalism. They wouldn't miss the money, and democracy would still have a fighting chance because of their investment.

Barack Obama seemed to think he could win over his enemies. He certainly seemed to believe too much in his own powers of persuasion. One thing's for sure - he misunderstood the nature of his adversaries.

I like what I do and keep thinking the best is yet to come.

There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle.