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?

The point is, the political reporters are the ones who no longer understand the ritual they are covering. They keep searching for political meanings in the tepid events when a convention is now essentially a human drama and only that.

As the world’s finest democracy, we do not do guillotines. But there are other less bloody rituals of humiliation, designed to reassure the populace that order is restored, the Republic cleansed.

If we have wealth, it will be protected from inflation and possibly even enhanced in value.

Americans cannot teach democracy to the world until they restore their own.

In the deregulated realm of US banking and finance, crime does occasionally pay for its foul deeds, not in prison time but by making modest rebates to the victims.

In this country you can say aloud or publish just about anything you like.

The ways in which people treat animals will be reflected in how people relate to one another.

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

The do-it-yourself version of pensions is a flop, as many Americans have painfully learned.

Everyone’s values are defined by what they will tolerate when it is done to others.

Leaks and whispers are a daily routine of news-gathering in Washington.

If US per capita income continues to grow at a rate of 1.5 percent a year, the country will have plenty of money to finance comfortable retirements and high-quality healthcare for all citizens, including those at the bottom of the wage ladder.

The threat to globalization is not the wasted American dollars but Washington’s readiness to mix US commercial interests with its self-appointed role as global protector.

Children born today have a fifty-fifty chance of living to 100.

The economy is not governed with the bottom half in mind.

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?

Animal-rights advocates remind us of this admonition: The ways in which people treat animals will be reflected in how people relate to one another.

Folks in the bottom half of the economy are already squeezed hard. They will be bloodied and bankrupt if economic policy inadvertently induces a recession.

Obviously, people with low or even moderate incomes could not afford such savings rates, and even diligent savings from their low wages would not be enough to pay for either retirement or healthcare.

Nevertheless, I resist cynicism and continue to believe in the possibilities for genuine democracy.

In 1900 Americans on average lived for only 49 years and most working people died still on the job.

The regime of globalization promotes an unfettered marketplace as the dynamic instrument organizing international relations.

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