SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
american revolution
Published 250 Years Ago Today, Thomas Paine's Common Sense Must Inspire Us Again
With a document that speaks powerfully to our current crisis, Paine emboldened his fellow citizens-to-be to turn their colonial rebellion into a world-historic revolutionary war for independence and inspired them to establish a democratic republic.
Jan 10, 2026
Common Sense by Thomas Paine is the most influential work of political literature in American history.
Self-published on January 10, 1776, Common Sense instantly became a sensation, spreading like wildfire across the colonies. Within a few weeks, it had sold more copies than any book in the history of the colonies.
Paine’s arguments persuaded thousands-upon-thousands of people throughout the 13 colonies to demand more than reform, to support complete independence from England and join the revolutionary cause.
Less than six months after Common Sense was first published in Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence was signed in the same city, establishing a new country defined, in contrast to its European predecessors, by its commitment to equality, liberty and the consent of the governed—just as Paine advocated in Common Sense (and, unlike the founding fathers, Paine did not hesitate to advocate for democracy).
Paine showed Americans... that they could govern themselves without kings and overlords, and that they could set an example to the world of what a nation of citizens, not subjects, could accomplish. The relevance of these passages for our troubled times cannot be overstated.
Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia from England in late 1774. Paine quickly fell in love with America and its people. Struck by the country’s startling contradictions, magnificent possibilities, and wonderful energies, and moved by the spirit and determination of its people to resist British authority, he committed himself to the American cause. In the Spring of 1775, he called for the abolition of slavery, a position he saw as consistent with—and central to—the rebellion.
Paine published Common Sense on January 10, 1776, a pamphlet of fewer than 50 pages, that changed the course of world history. In its pages, he harnessed Americans’ shared but as-of-yet unstated thoughts, expressing them in words such as “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth” and “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Paine emboldened his fellow citizens-to-be to turn their colonial rebellion into a world-historic revolutionary war for independence, and inspired them to establish a democratic republic. Paine defined the new nation in a democratically expansive and progressive fashion and articulated an American identity charged with exceptional purpose and promise.
In Common Sense, Paine showed Americans that they were in fact Americans, not British colonists, that they could govern themselves without kings and overlords, and that they could set an example to the world of what a nation of citizens, not subjects, could accomplish. The relevance of these passages for our troubled times cannot be overstated.
Paine appreciated the ethnic and religious diversity that already prevailed and projected the nation-to-be as a refuge for those seeking freedom. (Indeed, many passages in Common Sense speak directly to the crises enveloping America today.)
Crucially, Paine portrayed America not as thirteen separate entities, but as a singular nation-state: “Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honour… Our strength is continental not provincial.” And he proposed a charter—a constitution encompassing a Bill of Rights—both to bind the prospective states into a union and to guarantee that liberty, equality, and democracy would prevail. Most emphatically, he argued for “freedom of conscience” and, to assure it, the separation of Church and State: “As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith….”
In the spring of that year, 120,000 copies of Common Sense were sold. 500,000 by the end of the Revolutionary War. (Throughout Paine took no royalties, using the funds to buy mittens for General Washington’s troops). Plus, newspapers throughout the colonies excerpted it and working people read it aloud in taverns, cafes, and farm fields. Soon, town councils north and south were petitioning the Second Continental Congress to declare INDEPENDENCE! America turned Paine into a radical, and he turned Americans into democratic revolutionaries.
Today, we honor Common Sense on the 250th Anniversary of its publication, and we honor its author, Tom Paine, one of the authors of our country
Keep ReadingShow Less
What to the Arab-American and the Child of Immigrants Is the Fourth of July?
For me, it is hard to separate the explosions lighting our night sky from over 600 days of explosions, also funded by our tax dollars, setting alight universities, hospitals, tents, and children in Gaza.
Jul 04, 2025
As we walked toward the park for the fireworks display, my 5-year-old held my hand excitedly. “I want to see the fireworks up close,” she said. We’ve only watched neighborhood displays through our window, in previous years. She helped me pull her younger sister in the wagon behind us.
When the first fireworks lit up the sky, both children covered their ears. “It’s too loud!” They cried, looking up at the sky in awe. “How do they shoot them up there? I want to see,” said my older child, quickening her pace. But my heart paused.
For me, it is hard to separate the explosions lighting our night sky from over 600 days of explosions, also funded by our tax dollars, setting alight universities, hospitals, tents, and children in Gaza. The daily atrocities, which include illegally blocking food and humanitarian aid and then “deliberately” shooting at unarmed Palestinian civilians waiting for aid at U.S.-funded distribution sites, have all but faded from our newspapers.
No child should have to look up at the sky in fear that the bombs bursting in air will flatten their home, school, or hospital, or separate them from their loved ones.
I immediately thought of a Palestinian-American colleague in NYC, who had recently texted, “My aunt just came for a visit from the West Bank, Palestine. When she heard fireworks in the neighborhood, she froze and asked, ‘Has the war come here?’”
On some level it has. The insistence of U.S. elected officials on continuing to send our tax dollars to Israel for its annihilation of Gaza, in spite of majority public opposition, played a decisive role in the 2024 election. The disillusionment of the American electorate, and the growing gap between policy and public opinion, has only grown. Now 3 out of 4 Americans believe that our democracy is under serious threat.
In 1852, Frederick Douglass, an American abolitionist and statesman, was invited to deliver a speech at a meeting of the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in New York, entitled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” He reflected on the young republic, extolled its fight for political freedom, and then asked a vital question: “Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?” Douglass urged the listener to ponder on the inequities of our 76-year-old nation, founded on universal declarations of freedom, whose economy relied on enslaving Black people, and denying them the same freedom we proudly proclaim. His question today bears repeating.
Today, as we celebrate 249 years of American democracy, the ironies of the moment could scarcely be more stark. Our president, himself the child of one immigrant and married to another, aims to end birthright citizenship. The 1800s feel closer than ever as the Executive Branch pushes our Constitution to its limits, challenging the 14th Amendment which granted birthright citizenship to the children of slaves. That same president has also brazenly endorsed evicting or eliminating 2 million Palestinians from their homeland to turn Gaza into a beach resort, although 4 out of 5 Americans oppose this flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
In the past month, plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have detained U.S. citizens on their way to work, and detonated explosives to blow off the front door during a raid of a Los Angeles home, traumatizing a woman and her two children, 1- and 6-years-old, who were sleeping inside. In spite of the misgivings of a majority of Americans, Congress has forced through massive cuts to healthcare and nutrition benefits, which may push an estimated 17 million people off health insurance, threaten the closure of 300 rural hospitals, and increase food insecurity for over 40 million Americans. And thus, it should be little surprise that our same president has contracted with Palantir to create a searchable, “mega-database” of tax returns and other private data of U.S. citizens, which would enable surveillance and further erosion of our civil liberties. Our ability to tolerate the erosion of freedoms and security for some portends the erosion of freedom for all.
As we gather with our neighbors, friends, and family this weekend, let us reflect more deeply on our duty to protect the Declaration that we celebrate. For too many citizens of this republic, firework displays echo the devastating realities our loved ones face. No child should have to look up at the sky in fear that the bombs bursting in air will flatten their home, school, or hospital, or separate them from their loved ones. At a bare minimum we should have the power to ensure that our tax dollars do not fund such atrocities.
As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, we must urgently acknowledge that the American Revolution is not over. Let us not whitewash our history but understand that we shape it. We all have a role to play in defending its core principles, of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for all. At this moment, the most rightful way to honor our democracy is to follow Douglass’ sage exhortation to “stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”
This piece has been updated with edits from the author.
Keep ReadingShow Less
We Must Rise Up to Stop This Corporate Coup—and Fast
Break with your routine, Americans. It’s your country they are seizing!
Feb 08, 2025
Rise up people and fast. Tyrant Trump and his Musk-driven gangsters are launching a fascistic coup d’état. Much of everything you like about federal/civil service for your health, safety, and economic well-being and protections is being targeted.
To feed Trump’s insatiable vengeance over being prosecuted, being defeated in the 2020 election, or now just being challenged, this megalomaniacal, self-described dictator is harming the lives of tens of millions of Americans in need and millions of Americans who are assisting them.
In his demented lawless arrogance, convicted felon Trump is nullifying the freedoms and protections of the American Revolution (King Donald is today’s King George III), and rejecting the Declaration of Independence (which listed the rights and abuses against the British Tyrant that Trump is shredding and entrenching). He is defiantly violating the U.S. Constitution, its controls over dictatorial government, and its powers exclusively given to Congress. The Constitution demands that we live under the rule of law, not the rule of one man.
While Trump enjoys Mar-a-Lago and his golfing, Madman Musk, a South African, is literally living in the Executive Office Building next to the White House, with his heel-clicking Musketeers, seven days a week (they brought in sleeping cots) guarded by a large private security detail.
Consider, people, that the world’s richest man, with billions of dollars of federal contracts, is unleashing his henchmen to wreck the daily work of public servants committed to providing critical services that have long and bi-partisan support. Assistance to children, emergency workers, the sick and elderly, public school students, and people ripped off by business crooks. He is firing the federal cops on the corporate crime beat – whether at the FBI, the EPA, or the key Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which Trump/Musk are gutting.
Some headlines: “Laws? What Laws? Trump’s Brazen Grab for Executive Power” by the great reporter Charlie Savage (New York Times, February 6, 2025). Outlaws taking charge, driven by greed for the government’s honeypots of corporate welfare, and near-zero taxes for the rich and big corporations.
When the forces of law and order reassert themselves, Elon Musk may become known as felon Musk.
Or “Searching for Motive to Musk Team’s Focus on ‘Checkbook’ of U.S.” by Alan Rappeport, February 6, 2025, New York Times.
Or “White House Billionaires Take on the World’s Poorest Kids” by the super-reporter Nicholas Kristof (February 6, 2025. New York Times) shutting down The Agency for International Development’s distribution of AIDS medicines, and crucially stopping U.S. health agencies from countering rising, deadly pandemics in Africa that could come here quickly without U.S. defensive actions abroad. Already the devastating effects on children missing healthcare and food are erupting.
Kristof concludes that all this (and the dollar amounts are very small compared to their benefits) may seem like a game for Trump/Musk, but “… it’s about children’s lives and our own security, and what’s unfolding is sickening.” It is also criminal!
When the forces of law and order reassert themselves, Elon Musk may become known as felon Musk. He is not a properly appointed federal official. He has no authority to send his wrecking crews into one agency after another, demanding private information about Americans, pushing people out, and shutting down operations.
Musk, whose next target is the federal auto safety agency that has been enforcing the safety laws against Tesla and has not surrendered its regulation of self-driving cars (Musk’s next big project). Musk refuses to disclose his sweetheart contracts with the federal agencies nor has he disclosed his tax returns. Demand them.
What is very clear in the first 20 days of Trump’s lawless madness is that he is moving fast for a police state along with deepening the corporate state with and for Big Business. His prime victims are not the vast military budget at the Department of Defense, nor the big budgets of the Spy Agencies or of Musk’s lucrative fiefdom – NASA, the Space Agency. No, like the bullies they are, Trump/Musk are smashing people’s programs. They hate Medicaid (provided to over 80 million Americans) or the food programs for millions of children. Crazed Trump is pushing to shut down many clean wind power projects and cut credits to homeowners installing solar panels while booming the omnicidal oil, gas, and coal industries. He wants many more giant exporting natural gas facilities near U.S. ports which could accidentally blow up entire cities.
Outlaws taking charge, driven by greed for the government’s honeypots of corporate welfare, and near-zero taxes for the rich and big corporations.
Musk’s poisoned Tusks have even reached Laos, Cambodia, and parts of Vietnam where mine-clearing efforts have been cut off. These are the U.S.’s Vietnam War era unexploded ordinances and bomblets that have killed tens of thousands of innocent residents, mostly children, in the past fifty years.
The Washington Post headline on February 6th, “Musk Team Taking Over Public Operations” understates the carnage. They are brazenly shutting down agencies, taking down thousands of government websites helpful to all Americans, and telling conscientious civil servants to obey or be driven out.
The Republicans in Congress, to their future shame and guilt, are surrendering their constitutional powers in the very branch of government our Founders assigned to check any rising monarchy in the White House.
The Democrats in the minority are just starting to protest, some in front of shuttered federal buildings. But they have not yet initiated unofficial public hearings in Congress to give voice to the surging anger of Americans (now flooding their switchboards) whose narrow majority of Trump voters are sensing betrayal big time. Demand unofficialhearings now! Federal judges are starting to uphold the violated laws.
The media, itself threatened by Trump’s attacks, censorship, and who knows what is next from this venomous liar (see the Washington Post’s Glen Kessler’s January 26, 2025 piece “The White House’s wildly inaccurate claims about USAID spending” or “Trump’s gusher of misleading economic statistics at Davos”) will cover protests and testimony by people all over the country. The rallies and marches have begun and will only get larger as Trump and Musk sink lower with their tyrannical abuses.
The career military does not relish the reckless buffoon that Trump put over them as Secretary of Defense. American business cannot tolerate the chaos, the uncertainty, the tumult. Thirty-nine million small businesses are already feeling the oncoming Trump tsunami.
Break with your routine, Americans. It’s your country they are seizing with this burgeoning coup. Take it back fast, is what our original patriots of 1776 would be saying.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular