The Rich, Like Well Brought Up Children,

Under The Rules Of A Society That Cannot Distinguish Between Profit And Profiteering, Between Money Defined As Necessity And Money Defined As Luxury, Murder Is Occasionally Obligatory And Always Permissible.

More Than Illness Or Death, The American Journalist Fears Standing Alone Against The Whim Of His Owners Or The Prejudices Of His Audience. Deprive William Safire Of The Insignia Of The New York Times, And He Would Have A Hard Time Selling His Truths To A Weekly Broadsheet In Suburban Duluth.

Most American Cities Shop To Their Best Advantage When Seen From A Height Or From A Distance, At A Point Where The Ugliness Of The Buildings Dissolves Into The Beauty Of An Abstraction.

What Joins The Americans One To Another Is Not A Common Ancestry, Language Or Race, But A Shared Work Of The Imagination That Looks Forward To The Making Of A Future, Not Backward To The Insignia Of The Past. Their Enterprise Is Underwritten By A Constitution That Allows For The Widest Horizons Of Sight And The Broadest Range Of Expression, Supports The Liberties Of The People As Opposed To The Ambitions Of The State, And Stands As Premise For A Narrative Rather Than Plan For An Invasion Or A Monument. The Narrative Was Always Plural; Not One Story, Many Stories.

The American Oligarchy Increasingly Has Less In Common With The American People Than It Does With The Equivalent Oligarchies In Germany Or Mexico Or Japan.