A Sunday repast.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) argues that a stable democracy requires a large middle class to minimize political antagonism between rich and poor. Leaders should be elected "by all, from all" limited to brief terms in office. There should be no life offices; and no office should be held twice by the same person. Aristotle argues for a strict one-person-one-vote system for all adults; voting rights should not be limited to property owners, lest the nation lapse into oligarchy as wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of a few.

So we are all of us in the midst of a holiday weekend - except those of us stricken by such a great calamity as that which has befallen our fellow citizens along the Gulf Coast and those who are in the process of trying to ease their suffering.

Now is a time when we see what the measure of Americans as a people are, as the call goes out for aid across the nation and across the globe. Over the coming weeks and months we can be certain the news will get worse. While there will undoubtedly be bright spots amidst the gloom, the number of lives lost due to this event shall be staggering when tallied up. It will make the losses we suffered in 2001 pale in comparison, even though those losses be no less dear to our hearts.

In the aftermath, as we try to help our fellow citizens rebuild their lives, we will have to begin the long hard task of asking ourselves where we were remiss. It is not enough to merely assess the damage and rebuild. We must take this opportunity as a nation and look at where we are headed and where we want to go.

We are only as rich as our poorest neighbor, as healthy as our sickest friend and as strong as our weakest companion. If we are to export a system and society which we would hold forth to be the model for the rest of the world, we had better be sure it is a good model. One in which all people are insured of freedom but also opportunity, for education, for health, for security. Those integral elements assured to all Americans by the documents set forth by the founding fathers of this nation.

It is in these areas where we must hold our leaders accountable. Our strength as a nation in the past has come from the ability to override the differences among us and to work for the common good of all. If we cannot move beyond the devisive rhetoric of party ideology, we shall suffer an ignominious fate and watch as our nation fades from the world stage to become some second rate power basking in the glory of its past accomplishments.

The faces that stare out from our TV screens, speak volumes to us of another America. An America where poverty is common. These faces tell us, for all the success our leaders would have us believe we have enjoyed as a nation, there are far too many who are being left behind. Far too many for whom the basic human necessities of life are a luxury. While we hear talk daily of a War on Terror will somehow make our society safe, we must ask ourselves safe from what?

Will it be a nation safe from suffering, poverty, hunger, ignorance and disease? If we find we cannot make our fellow citizens safe from these things can we honestly tell ourselves there is any other war worth winning?