Jonathan Rauch writes about how the US has mobilized more then most think.

As everyone knows, today's Americans are pampered, cynical, and self-absorbed. The Greatest Generation served nobly, but then the mold broke. After 9/11, the government asked Americans to give but little, and little is what they gave. As everyone knows.

Suppose what everyone knows is not actually true. Suppose President Bush called for volunteers in the war on terror, and thousands of people came forward. Suppose they created volunteer networks for disaster relief, emergency preparedness, and civil defense. Suppose they did most of this work at the community level, under the radar of the national media. And suppose it all happened not in the massive, militarized, top-down mode of WWII but in the networked, decentralized, bottom-up manner of WWW.

Well, brace yourself. Americans have heard the call.