You have no evidence that your statements are true. Ruth might well have used bennies - benzedrene - it was common and plentiful at the time, and it is a performance enhancing drug. Particularly after a late night out drinking. That said, I have no evidence that Ruth did do drugs, but you certainly don't have any that he did not.

There is no Hizbollah presence in Syria. Do you make this stuff up as you go along? Moreover, 'southern Syria' is the Golan which has been occupied and ethnically cleansed by Israel since 1967.

I'm not going to flame you, just disagree with you. Atheism means one thing and one thing only: disbelief in a god. There is nothing more. No other precepts, doctrine or dogma. Nothing. Atheists are liberal, libertarian, conservative and probably other flavors. There are strong atheists and weak atheists - one is willing to make the declarative statement "There is no god", the other says "based on the evidence, I do not believe". Not a religion, just one view of one thing.

Pro-choice means pro-choice, and I know of no one who gives a pass to the Chinese. Government authority to force abortion is exactly the same authority needed to criminalize abortion. I support abortion on demand in the U.S. AND full control of reproductive decisions vested only in women worldwide. Choice - by women over their own bodies. Period.

This has to be the most pathetic and least knowledgeable take on music that I've read in a long time. Full disclosure: I'm 60 years old and heard music from the 60s as it was occurring not years later.

First, my wife was the punk rock queen of Atlanta on the radio for 10 years, and Sex Pistols, The Clash and Ramones are romantic music in my house. BUT, the Ramones, much as I like them, weren't very interesting musically, and certainly not even in the same league as the Stones. Yes, the Stones truly sold out later, but listen to pre-1970 Stones, and there's stuff there the Ramones could only dream about. Listen to 5X5 or Sympathy for the Devil.

Sgt Pepper wasn't the interesting Beatles album. Try Revolver or Rubber Soul or even the White Album. Given where I was at the time, Magical Mystery Tour was my fave.

Finally, where is mention of the Kinks, the first punk band in history. What about the roots of modern political rap: Whitey's on the Moon or The Revolution will not be Televised. What about the Yardbirds? I really hate it when someone who grew up in the 80s or later talks about 60s music with no sense of what else was happening at the time.

Ron Paul is completely correct on a few issues: Iraq, the Ptariot Act, the War on Drugs, etc. But, he's a Libertarian, and, while there has always been some unexploited common ground between lefties and Libertarians, he's totally out to lunch on most other things. Ron Paul is the anthesis of progressive thinking. He opposes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, ALL environmental protection and on and on and on. His wet dream is a social Darwinist nightmare run by corporate predators where everyone is very free to get screwed.

I would be willing to bet very good money that you do not, in fact, give 50% of your income to the government.

Portland is the priciest place to live in Oregon but that was also true 50 years ago, long before there was a greenbelt. Further, the Portland greenbelt is mostly private land with no public access. It protects prime agricultural land and limits sprawl, but it is not parkland, and the majority of us who live in Portland give little thought to it other than as a protective measure, because we can't use it.

BTW, the biggest explosion in housing prices in Portland are in old neighborhoods in the SE (I live in a 1908 bungalow in the SE) and NE and in penthouses in the Pearl.

Contrary to the whack job thinking of the extreme right, Hillary Clinton is not on the far left or even the near left. She has no right even to call herself a liberal. She's a DLC DINO with no apparent solid convictions of any kind. I would still take her over any Republican.

I'm 60 years old, and I love music from the 60s. BUT, there was also Tommy James and the Shondells and a host of other garbage bands. Nirvana or Green Day or the Clash or many others stack up quite nicely against 60s music.

You have now proven yourselves to be the disgusting Nazi scum that we always thought you were.

The Salon censors are out in force today. The trolls post hate, and those posts remain, but counterposts are deleted. Some weird standards here.

The problem with your post is that most progressives are not socialists. We do support some socialist ideas and programs, especially social insurance programs like single payer national health care financing, social security, etc., but we don't want the state owning any of the means of production or deciding what will be produced or interfering in our personal freedom for the so-called common good, whatever that actually is.

Also, when you say to vote socialist, who do you mean? Not the idiots of the Socialist Workers Party, I hope. Trotskyite bozos will advance this country not one bit. So, who do you mean?

One more thing - and I'm definitely not trying to bait you - is that people do vote against their own personal interests on a regular basis, and that can be good. I'm very affluent - top 1% - so Bush's tax cuts definitely gave me more money, but I have never voted for a Republican in my life. I vote against my personal economic interest every single time I vote. I do it because I believe that there are many more important things than my personal finances