<span>Thomas Paine said, "Freedom hath been hunted round the globe," and the hunt has come back to America. In 1776, the year America was founded, there were portents of a new age, just as there are at the turn of the twenty-first century. That year Paine wrote Common Sense, a slender volume published anonymously. He referred to those heady days as "the seed time of continental union, faith and honor." We are now in such a seed time, and much can be gained by revisiting Paine's the mes and purposes. There is no monarchy to oppose. But in many ways the subtle bonds of "corporate democracy" and the practices of politics themselves-the power of money in elections, the demise of political parties as vehicles for public participation, the overwhelming reliance on manipulative advertising and other marketing techniques, diminished voter involvement, the debased language of political and policy discussion-provide contemporary analogues to the difficulties and dilemmas faced by the early Americans under colonial rule. </span><span> </span>
