The discipline of desire is
the background of character.
– John Locke

FEAR, rage and grief consumed me when two hijacked airplanes slashed into the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. Standing dumbstruck before my television screen at home in Denver, I watched the live news feed from New York at 9:03 AM as United Flight 175 banked gracefully into the south tower and burst into a ball of flame. When the twin towers collapsed that morning, the debris cascading down looked like two inverted mushroom clouds.

As the day wore on, TV news began to echo the drumbeat of war emanating from the White House. Because I’ve worked for years as a journalist reporting on media and politics, because I’ve studied and taught the tools of public relations and propaganda, I saw an ominous trend. With Americans feeling terrified, the president was pledging an “endless war on terrorism” while implying the air attack justified a crackdown on U.S. society—for our own safety, of course.

I picked up my phone and called my representatives in Congress. I left messages urging them not to sacrifice our civil liberties on the alter of homeland security. They did not call back.

In the weeks that followed, I began drafting an essay on the future of democracy in America and the world. I wrote that most of us are ripe for plucking by tyrants because we feel afraid and insecure. As I wrote, I confronted my own dark shame and pain, the hidden shadow of self doubt that for years has kept me small and weak.

In late September, I recalled using Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in 1997 as the framework for an essay at my new website on the need for democratic governance of the Internet. In a flash of insight, I saw that Paine’s classic work was a perfect vehicle for talking about how global thinking empowers us for freedom. Inspired by Paine as if he was leaning over my shoulder, whispering in my ear, I started writing the book, Global Sense, voicing my soul while praying to touch your heart.

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