“These are the times that try men’s souls.” Thomas Paine said that, and I wish I could ask him, “What times aren’t?” Still, whatever else they are these are our times. And, however obviously true that is, it is painful to confess.

History might be written by the winners, but our most profound, long-lived legends and stories are created by the folk. That’s why the stories, songs and poems are not called Elite Lore. Many of them are cautionary tales about the blindness, cruelty, hubris and dehumanizing excesses of authority. The Framers, aware of this creative power, [...]

I’m gonna repeat my sad joke: we are approaching the time when there will be “corporate creationists” so convinced of the divine status of the corporate life-form that they will deny vehemently that corporations evolved from human beings. Americans, we are the new monkeys.