Thomas Paine would be appalled by the continuing lack of equality in America, by the ever-growing power of corporations and the ever-increasing difficulty of maintaining life as a "middle class" American.
We live in critical times. So has every other generation of American citizens. We cannot realize the promise of our American Revolution by restoring the past. We cannot become the "summer soldier and sunshine patriot" of Thomas Paine's The American Crisis.
At a time when the courts are increasingly giving deference to the police and prioritizing security over civil liberties, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Millbrook v. United States is a glimmer of hope in a sea of gloom.
Why do bad things happen? The past week I have seen talking heads pontificate on the school massacre in Connecticut, sure of their own why.
America is at a crossroads. We are experiencing tensions, familiar to historians, between the haves and have-nots, and their respective allies. In his essay, Orwell described the age in which he lived as "tumultuous, revolutionary" -- just like ours.
This week marks the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. And this week we turn to Sense and Sensibility, which features some of the very same indignities that ignited last year's protests.
The capacity for intellectual empathy is essential to those who wish to live generously and with integrity in a pluralistic society. It is even more essential today than in times past.
In 1999, I decided to self-publish a novel. I'd sold books to mainstream houses in the past, but no one wanted this one. But I believed in it. My agent believed in it. My wife believed in it. The dog was neutral.
It is time to review our foundational values and documents and establish why sustainability is very much based on American values that transcend today's politicized political climate.
Two hundred and thirty-six years ago this week, a pamphlet was published in Philadelphia. Thomas Paine's Common Sense hit the American consciousness like a bombshell -- one which would reverberate for years to come.
We started to make a list of people throughout history who might be considered Occupy Wall Street's spiritual forefathers and mothers, but it got so long it felt like the album cover for Sgt. Pepper.
Despite Ron Paul's "strong" second-place finish, our great pundits have dismissed him, and Bachmann is a darling while he is a pariah. Bachmann and Paul -- if there is a difference, it is one without a distinction.
Need refreshment from the summer heat? A respite from the debt ceiling debacle? A break from the sense that all the hope was for naught? Read the book that turned America's colonial rebellion into a revolution.
Yes, we know the 4th of July is more about fireworks and picnics than the Revolutionary War, but we are, after all, celebrating American Independence....
America has always been religious -- and also religiously diverse. The historical narrative suggests that it's this special combination to which the United States owes its existence.
In Sunday’s Week in Review, I wrote about the death of the old-school literary feud now that Paul Theroux has shaken hands with V.S. Naipaul, Rick M...
John McCain's latest war gospel hangs an alarming tale. The rule of law has been dethroned and the president has been endowed with absolute power as the American Empire has eclipsed the American Republic.
Here's John Adams on Thomas Paine's famous 1776 pamphlet "Common Sense": "What a poor, ignorant, malicious, short-sighted, crapulous mass." Then comes Paine on Adams: "John was not born for immortality."
The afterlife of the man once called "Tom Paine with a guitar" has, for the last 30 years, paralleled that of Tom Paine himself. Both Ochs and Paine were discarded by their respective mainstream worlds.
Today the political right does its best to lay claim to the revolutionary patriot Thomas Paine and to harness him to the cause of constraining democra...
Greetings to friends of Thomas Paine! We gather all across the USA -- believe me, ALL ACROSS THE USA! -- to celebrate the birthday of the man who in ...
Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0. Keeping an eye on conservatives as I do, I was intrigued by a popular new title, "365 Ways to Drive a Liberal Crazy" ...
The narrative of Palin's book is the same narrative that has dominated American religious history and has proven so detrimental to those who do not fit into the white Protestant fold.
Tom Jefferson preferred marijuana to tobacco, or to any other crop he grew. He wrote his wonderful Declaration on paper made from it. Ben Franklin built an entire mill that used hemp as its primary stock.
There's more religion than politics in the 2010 Tea Party, Jill Lepore is saying. There's less of 1776 about it than of 1976 -- that dyspeptic post-Vietnam, post-Watergate bicentennial moment.
