For America's Sake

Our greatest presidents have had a common vision for the community we call America. Abraham Lincoln believed that government should be not just "of the people" and "by the people" but "for the people."

Today, what we have is an America fashioned into a second Gilded Age, for the comfort and luxury of the wealthy. The conservative movement has distributed wealth in our nation so that the top 1 percent of Americans are worth more than the bottom 90 percent. That is to say, that under the conservatives, government has ended up servicing the powerful by taking from everyone else.

There is a better vision for American as seen by Jefferson, Lincoln and the two Roosevelts. They each recognized that Aristocracy is not Democracy. They saw that Freedom is more than a private value, it is a social contract. We have obligations to each other, mutually and through our government, to assure that we all equally have a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

America is more that the sum of our material appetites. Our country is more than an economic machine. Freedom is not a license but a responsibility -- the gift we have received and the legacy we must bequeath. We are the story of equal power -- of democracy and not aristocracy. We have and must provide the promise to leave no one out.

It's time to get back to these basics, and to reclaim Democracy.