Democracy Is A Difficult Art Of Government,

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

We Need Not Seek Our Own Best Selves, And In The Meantime We Inoculate Ourselves Against The Viruses Of Age And Idealism, Which, As The Advertising Agencies Well Know, Depress Sales And Sour The Feasts Of Consumption.

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.

The Genius Of Capitalism Consists Precisely In Its Lack Of Morality. Unless He Is Rich Enough To Hire His Own Choir, A Capitalist Is A Fellow Who, By Definition, Can Ill Afford To Believe In Anything Other Than The Doctrine Of The Bottom Line. Deprive A Capitalist Of His God-given Right To Lie And Cheat And Steal, And The Poor Sap Stands A Better Than Even Chance Of Becoming One Of The Abominable Wards Of The State From Whose Grimy Fingers The Reagan Administration Hopes To Snatch The Ark Of Democracy.

I Begin To Understand That Failure Is Its Own Reward. It Is In The Effort To Close The Distance Between The Work Imagined And The Work Achieved Wherein It Is To Be Found That The Ceaseless Labor Is The Freedom Of Play, That What’s At Stake Isn’t A Reflection In The Mirror Of Fame But The Escape From The Prison Of The Self.