Watching The Debate This Afternoon It Was

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.

Fox News And Rush Limbaugh Have Raised Ignorance To Ideology And Stupefied An Entire Political Party. No More Roguish And Rowdy Band Of Predators Ever Did More To Demean And Despoil The Democracy On Whose Carcass They Feed.

Democracy Belongs To Those Who Exercise It.

The Supreme Court Consistently Favors Organized Money And The Political Privileges Of The Corporate Class. We Have A Senate That Is More Responsive To Affluent Constituents Than To Middle-class Constituents, While The Opinions Of Constituents In The Bottom Third Of Income Distribution Have No Apparent Effect At All On The Senate's Roll Call Votes.

Having Lost Faith In All Else, Zealots Have Nothing Left But A Holy Cause To Please A Warrior God. They Win If We Become Holy Warriors, Too; If We Kill The Innocent As They Do; Strike First At Those Who Had Not Struck Us; Allow Our Leaders To Use The Fear Of Terrorism To Make Us Afraid Of The Truth; Cease To Think And Reason Together, Allowing Others To Tell What's In God's Mind.