No tanks blockade our nation's Capitol.

No militia beats our citizens.

No leaders of health care reform have been rounded up for summary execution or long sentences in gulags.

In recent years, we have borne witness to the unquenchable yearning for freedom and justice across the globe: in the streets of Tehran, in Baghdad, in Tiannanmen Square, in the Philippines.

Yet here we sit in the land of the free and the home of the brave, unwilling to confront our government and demand life for 50 million of our own countrymen.

We read our screens. We trade emails. We rail through our keyboards.

But few of us Google our congressional delegation's contact information. Even fewer write to express our demand that campaign promises be kept--that our representatives deliver with all deliberate speed the health care all Americans deserve, without the interference of corporate greed.

And least of all do we dream of doing what our times demand. Previous generations have organized in times of crisis, but not us. Others before us have sacrificed their bodies on the altar of freedom, but we are too busy with small obligations to leave our homes. Millions who secured justice for us marched until their calloused feet bled. But not us. We are demoralized.

Poor us, we who live in challenging times. Our economy quakes. Threats abound. We cower in fear of failing at our task and so resign ourselves to the fate we imagine.

Fail we will if we do not arise to meet the foe. Even now, the future of health care is being written, yet we recline in our homes and offices, complacent in the comfort that we will have someone to blame when health care reform slips through our grasp.

Complaints are no substitute for action. Our generation has been blessed by others who have shown the way. Reform did not end with the election of Barack Obama. No, not unless we choose to mark its grave with the date Nov. 4, 2008.

To arms! The enemy is upon us! We are a free people, not chattel to the wealthy special interests!

Organize. Lobby. Shout at your government at the top of your lungs!

Phone. Fax. March.

Join the battle with all your heart and do not give up. Victory is ours if we only press the fight.

Or else rest with the knowledge that you waited to act, huddled in your home, neglected to speak truth to power and watched health care fall when others tried to rally you. Fight now or forever hold your tongue.