PROGRESSIVES and libertarians need to unite to get out the vote on Election day. Together they can help to preserve our civil liberties in the face of renewed assaults on our natural rights by the Bush administration.The latest example of the growing threat is the Military Commissions Act of 2006, popularly called the detainees interrogation bill, signed last week by President Bush.

The new law legalizes the president’s ongoing practice of declaring any foreign national anywhere on earth as an “enemy combatant” and then detaining that person indefinitely without any trial and without any evidence the detention is warranted.

Far worse, the law now lets the government detain U.S citizens as enemy combatants. The language about lending “material support” to terrorism is so vague that it may apply to anyone who dares to peacefully protest administration policies.

Essentially, the new law voids all habeas corpus rights for detainees, who will not be able to challenge the legality of their arrests in open court. By merely declaring that someone is a terrorist or else a supporter, the Bush administration could toss that person into prison and throw away the key.

Further, the law allows all but the most extreme forms of torture when interrogating detainees, such as simulated drowning (called “waterboarding”), and it permits the use of their coerced testimony and hearsay evidence in military tribunals. The new law also attempts to immunize the president and others in his administration from prosecution for human rights abuses that under the Geneva Conventions are considered to be war crimes.

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SOCIETY has long been ruled by a worldview that makes sense of life by assuming a king must govern us. Now we’re evolving a new view of life. Due to the emergence of “global thinking,” Paine’s 18th century vision of a free society makes sense in our 21st century.

To understand why Common Sense made sense at the dawn of the United States, and why it still applies to us today, put yourself in the place of those reading Thomas Paine’s essay in 1776.

The colonists’ rights as citizens under the English Constitution had been revoked by “mad” King George III, who probably suffered from variegate porphyria. Parliament only made matters worse with the Stamp Act, Tea Act, and other “intolerable acts.” As Thom Hartmann chronicled in Unequal Protection, Americans hurt by tyranny united behind the protest, “No taxation without representation.” The people wanted a fair say in making the laws governing their lives.

Massachusetts rebelled in early 1775, so English ships blockaded Boston Harbor. When British soldiers killed American colonists at nearby Lexington on April 19, this “massacre” confused and terrified Americans in all of the colonies. They likely felt much like modern Americans felt in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

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THOMAS Paine opened Common Sense with words that still ring true today.

“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but [they] have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one.”

I wholly agree with Paine. By seeing the difference between society and government, we can discover our personal power to shape the future.

The history of society is the story of humanity learning to accept responsibility for liberty. If people governed their own lives sensibly, there would be no need for a high government to control our lowest impulses. If we all lived with compassionate regard for one another, if we loved and respected others as we want to be treated, we’d barely need any government at all. That’s not our current reality.

Our reality today is a world filled with hate, violence, exploitation, and suffering. Why? Society reflects the web of mass consciousness woven daily by what we think, say and do. Our daily actions impact ourselves, our families, workplaces, communities, nations, and planet. The harmful habits of our minds and hearts are reflected in society, and society reinforces those harmful habits in us. It’s a vicious circle. To break the cycle, we need to transform our consciousness. Happily, such a worldwide change in our thinking is happening now.

In an era of globalization, two specters haunt our world, the spirits of absolute tyranny and genuine democracy. We live in the spectrum between. On one side are corporations and religions ruling us through puppet governments that prey upon our addiction to authority. On the other side is a grassroots movement for peace and democracy through enlightened spiritual awareness of our global oneness. Which way goes society and government depends on which way goes each of us. Our daily choices decide the fate of life on earth.

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AFTER a weekend at the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association annual trade show, Sept. 28-30, I’m feeling both chastened and encouraged about the future of the book trade and American literacy.

Last year’s trade show filled two exhibit halls at the Denver Tech Marriott Convention Center. This year we filled one hall. The decline worries me.

Most of the primary national and regional book publishers and distributors were represented, each offering their latest titles to independent and chain booksellers in the Rocky Mountain states, from Montana and the Dakotas south through Utah, Wyoming and Colorado down to Arizona and New Mexico.

The show offered a cross-section of the publishing industry today. Book titles on display ranged from nonfiction public affairs books like mine (Global Sense) to cookbooks to mainstream fiction to children’s books. The high-quality writing and book designs, even from the small regional presses, would impress the most jaded veteran New York literati.

My chief concern was that fewer than 300 retail bookselling ventures attended the trade show. In past years, there would have been more than a thousand. Why the decline?

One obvious reason is that there are fewer bookstores today than in times past. Only half of all adults read books, and I’m told that estimate may be high. More people watch TV and sit before computers screens (as you are doing now) than sit with a book in their laps.

Another reason may be the dumbing down of America. Sometimes I feel convinced that dark forces in society actively oppose human enlightenment. An illiterate, under-educated or under-informed populace is easier to control. Other times I remind myself that global enlightenment is inevitable (given current trends) so we’re really seeing the tyrants’ desperate last stand, trying to forestall the liberation of humanity.

What I do know is that some of the brightest minds in the West gathered in Denver this weekend. While it’s not fair to say this was the greatest concentration of intellect since Thomas Jefferson dined alone, I do feel safe in saying the conversations this weekend uplifted my heart with hope.

As long as free minds can read good books and discuss them openly, we can feel hope for the future of democracy.