This was too awesome to simply throw into my shared items. Go read it, right now.

I am of the firm belief that you cannot have real democracy when you have any portion of the population that lives in fear. Fear of violence. Fear of hunger. Fear of imprisonment. You cannot be free and be fearful. They are incongruous. They are like toothpaste and orange juice.

It is possible to create a world where a person is worth more than what they can pay for. We have to start from the basic premise that food is a human right. Housing is a human right. Education and medical care are human rights. Without access to these things, no matter what our government or even our laws tells us, we are not free. We are not democratic when the scales of justice have the thumbs of the rich holding them down. And if nothing else, you all should see by how foggy brained I’ve been, how being hungry makes rational democratic choices impossible.