the Green movement in Iran was just one more of the seemingly endless series of CIA attempts [...]

That is based on what? Because Ahmadinejad said it was true? I wouldn't call the politicians in the Green movement US lackeys.

It's not all about US, all the time, worldwide.

... UN has failed to do for the past 50 years.

But hasn't the US blocked any UN resolutions to send troops to places like Jerusalem?

If true, that is nice and meta-circular.

Fester is no longer in charge of Jokes of the Day. I believe Klytus is now in charge. In any event, I was only making a nomination.

And Saggy was the one to make the original statement.

Maddow didn't starting calling the Tea Baggers Tea Baggers. Some dude started it by wanting to send bags of tea to Congress. That was his original name.

Maddow did do a segment about how the name Tea baggers share unfortunate resonances. And since the practice apparently involves male genitals, I don't think it has anything to do with lesbians.

Also Soros made his most famous billions shorting Sterling (GBP), not the USD.

And not all differences here are 'astroturfed'. I mention military spending because it's a dominant part of the budget, especially when you include interest on the debt used to fund the military budget. In my opinion, anybody who talks about reducing the size of government and bringing fiscal responsibility back , but doesn't want to touch military spending is not serious. I am looking directly at ReaderReader and others.

I agree that there is fraud and waste. But the private sector isn't exactly fraud and waste free either. An audit of Blue Cross, Blue Shield of North Dakota showed a lot of waste and what looks like fraud to me (like $34,000 for a retirement party billed as expenses).

If citizens want their monies spent wisely, we're going to have to apply more pressure.

Admadinjad is not an extremsit, he is a principled leader of a people trying to regain some measure of respect after years of assault from the west.

That's why a large part of the Iranian population think he's a nut job and his reelection was fraud (try theranbureau.com). So that makes him neither principled nor a leader. Add in the fact that he's part of the hardliner cabal whose economic dominance relies on isolation from the West. That does sound like our hard liners.

The purpose of Fox News is to make money. Most media is amoral in the true sense of that word. I think they want to present a certain point of view, but they don't want the viewing populace to follow that POV to it's logical conclusion. When the peasant citizenry actually takes to the streets with pitchforks and torches, it will be bad for business.

Maybe more coffee is required. That's often my problem.

Starting out with a tautology is not exactly persuasive. The truth is a shy creature. Many have caught fleeting glimpses, but few have seen her glory entire.

I would agree that Bush 43 was/is not a conservative by commonly accepted definitions of what it used to mean to be conservative, but that doesn't make him progressive. Politics is not an on/off switch with only two possible outcomes. There are more than two competing forces at work here in our society.

I would agree that power appears to be concentrating in our empire into fewer and fewer hands, but those hands aren't exactly progressive. Real progressives, like Kucinich, are tokens and kept on the periphery of real power.

As for Reagan, I have seen that speech before. He's the dude that followed through on the big military programs started by Carter. Contrary to what you are implying, both Carter and Reagan made their contributions to the Military Industrial Complex warned about by Eisenhower; That's where a lot of power has concentrated.

As for Obama, the 'right' wanted to brand him progressive and far left. If you read the letters here on Salon, few progressives thought he was progressive. He was viewed as more of centrist. And that's how he has governed, by and large. Which many find disappointing. But it shouldn't be too surprising.

I'm glad that the Teabaggers have rebranded themselves as Teapartiers. It's much better marketing.

I don't see how you can cut taxes much without cutting military spending as well and contracting the Empire a bit. And as far as concentration of power goes, Many corporations are more powerful than countries; their interest isn't always our interest.

Talking about how people are reacting to this situation and thinking some of it is crazy doesn't let Hasan off the hook.

He did a terrible, terrible thing. Saying that some reactions are stupid and counterproductive does not take away from that.

Barry, if you are interested in communicating with us (not everybody here is), it would be helpful to stick with commonly agreed definitions of words. Most progressives would not consider Bush 41 or 43 as progressive. I would also consider paragraph breaks.

You appear to have a Libertarian streak, or are at least anti- New World Order. Why not discuss that without reminding me how stupid I am ( I get plenty of help on that already out in the real world).

I agree that for a moment of time, after 9/11 there was a moment when politics as usual was suspended. But you can't go back in time. And when I think of 9/11, I think of people I used to work with who died, or the fact that I could have been in one of buildings if fate had played out differently. Fester is here only because of the most mundane decision made months before. When I think of '9/12' I start to get real fucking angry. Just FYI.

If you serious about recapturing that moment, then don't wait for others to 'get it'. We're never going to agree 100%. Maybe we could agree about 1 or 2 things of out 10. That might be enough.