While others have celebrated freedom, we have celebrated money. While others, living under dictatorship, have celebrated choice, we have celebrated celebrity.

Occupy Wall Street is not, in the literal sense of the word, an egalitarian movement. No, Occupy Wall Street is a dignitarian movement.

So long as the middle of our political spectrum is depopulated, liberals and conservative are at loggerheads. The answer to the impotence of the old parties is a new party -- the Dignity Party.

Rankism is an assertion of superiority. It typically takes the form of putting others down. It's what "Somebodies" do to "nobodies." It turns out that rankism is the source of most man-made suffering.

Who are the nobodies? They are Everyman, Everywoman, Everychild. In our heart, each of us aspires to become someone new, someone more.

Whether directed at an individual or a group, rankism aims to put targets in their place and keep them weak so they will do as they're told and submit to being taken advantage of.

We were quick to look at the Gates affair through the lens of race. To bring things fully into focus, we need a second lens -- that of rank.

President Obama has yet to tell us how to repair our broken institutions. But he may be doing something equally important. He may be showing us the way.

The well being of whole societies is closely correlated not with average income level but rather with the size of the disparity of income between the top 20% and the bottom 20%.

The "everything is possible" mantra is no longer viewable as just a naïve belief, open to scoffing by cynics and pessimists. It's no longer just an idea, a possibility. It happened.