America Is About Class. To Pretend That

Talk About The Flag Or Drugs Or Crime (never About Race Or Class Or Justice) And Follow The Yellow Brick Road To The Wonderful Land Of Consensus. In Place Of Honest Argument Among Consenting Adults The Politicians Substitute A Lullaby For Frightened Children: The Pretense That Conflict Doesn't Really Exist, That We Have Achieved The Blessed State In Which We No Longer Need Politics.

Democracy Is A Difficult Art Of Government, Demanding Of Its Citizens High Ratios Of Courage And Literacy, And At The Moment We Lack Both The Necessary Habits Of Mind And A Sphere Of Common Reference.

The Practice Of Our Democracy Depends On A Sense Of, And Knowledge Of, History In The Same Way That Playing In The World Series Requires A Bat And A Ball.

The American Press Is, And Always Has Been, A Booster Press, Its Editorial Pages Characteristically Advancing The Same Arguments As The Paid Advertising Copy.

Money Is Like Fire, An Element As Little Troubled By Moralizing As Earth, Air And Water. Men Can Employ It As A Tool Or They Can Dance Around It As If It Were The Incarnation Of A God. Money Votes Socialist Or Monarchist, Finds A Profit In Pornography Or Translations From The Bible, Commissions Rembrandt And Underwrites The Technology Of Auschwitz. It Acquires Its Meaning From The Uses To Which It Is Put.