Happy Fourth of July
Here's a wee reminder of our obligations as American citizens from John Nichols at The Nation:

As America celebrates the 228th birthday of the new world, however, it is important to recall that [Tom] Paine also reflected upon the prospect: "If you subvert the basis of the revolution, if you dispense with principles and substitute expedients, you will extinguish that enthusiasm and energy which have hitherto been the life and soul of the revolution; and you will substitute in its place nothing but a cold indifference and self-interest, which will again degenerate into intrigue, cunning and effeminacy."

Paine's warning anticipated this degenerate moment, in which Americans are awakening to the prospect that the president and his advisers intrigued the country into a foreign misadventure that stinks rather too much of the imperialism Americans once associated with the British crown their forebears revolted against.

Should we despair at the realization of Paine's worst fear for the land? Perhaps a bit. But Paine would surely warn against surrendering to that despair. These may, in fact, be the times that try men's souls. But as Tom Paine suggested in 1776, such times are where the false patriots are separated from the true: "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, as definitional a pair of summer soldiers as ever will be found, can lead their sunshine patriots in celebrations of imperialistic conquest and their allegiance with Tony Blair and what remains of the tattered British realm. The sons and daughters of Tom Paine will stand this Fourth of July and honor the revolutionary spirit that revolted against the corruptions of empire.