The burnt odor in Washington is from the disintegrating authority of the governing classes.

The problem of modern democracy is rooted in its neglect of unorganized people.

Maybe the reason some folks lag behind in our free enterprise system is because they depend too much on the free part and not enough on their own enterprise.

If you think about it, Washington's overwhelming power in the world is founded on death, the awesome arsenal for killing people.

Democracy begins in human conversation. A democratic conversation does not require elaborate rules of procedure or utopian notions of perfect consensus. What it does require is a spirit of mutual respect-people conversing critically with one another in an atmosphere of honesty and shared regard.

A profound political question is suddenly on the table: Must the country continue to give precedence to private financial gain and market determinism over human lives and broad public values?

Democracy is held captive, not just by money, but by ideas - the ideas that money buys.