WILLIAM GREIDER

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

By manipulating its money values, a government could win large markets overseas for its exporters and thus create satisfaction at home with expanding production and employment.

Corporate 'citizens' are the leading outlaws. They may regularly violate the law without surrendering their political rights.