GlennGreenwald:

"As he (Chomsky) has pointed out, when you have a message that is something other than conventional wisdom being said over and over, then it's impossible to express the message in a persuasive way using very few words. Those who espouse conventional wisdom need not offer evidence or articulate their premises, because it's all just assumed. Only those who challenge that wisdom are required to do so, which makes that message one that, by definition, can't be accommodated on television."

Chomsky somewhat ruefully calls his necessary style a lack of 'concision'. When one is simultaneously correcting the received historical record, based on his own painstaking (and heroic, when you think about it) study, bite-sized nuggets are really not possible. Education is the key to his content and style. Sigh...

As with your own excellent work at shaping the debate and the record.

"Cheney really is crazy, isn't he?"

-- had_enough

Yup.

That's what all the Iran nonsense is about. Start another illegal, immoral war of choice between now and November and you have the scenario for another 2004, with McSame as a proxy president. Fear motivated voters then...those who didn't 'want to change horses in midstream'.

Sheesh, what an evil and corrupt Rasputin can do when they set their minds to it! "So?"

Gee do you think....

Bank of America knows its "spokesman" is the same guy who is now in the news as one of the administration's PR lackeys and who could quite possibly be forced to either accept a pardon from GWB or defend himself in a court of law?

I wonder how much BoA would appreciate a few thousand "heads ups" on this.

..............................

Thanks, I'll be one for sure. You saved me from looking up the contact info. Ain't gonna break the bank, but I'll take my money elsewhere if I have to to object as loudly as I can.

"The next Congress and President Obama should promptly enact a law to clarify the legal nature of our fight against the use of mass terror tactics. That law should clarify that our intelligence and, when necessary, military commitments to avoid and punish the use of terror attacks against Americans -- and all civilized people -- consists of the pursuit of international criminals outside the protection of any state. This is not a war but is the same as efforts to obtain protection from and justice against terrorists ranging from the Barbary pirates to the Baader-Meinhof gang. If any state, like Afghanistan before 9/11 or arguably Pakistan currently, sponsors or assists groups planning or using mass terror, the traditional notion of war against that specific state may be appropriate. What we should have learned from this reckless administration is that the 1984-like use of perpetual war is as much a risk from a radical right-wing government, manipulating a panicked and accommodationist Congress, as from any radical left-wing one. And we might ask ourselves why the lesson of Germany from 1933 to 1945 wasn't sufficiently instructive."

Absolutely spot on. The terrorists are stateless international criminals, nothing more or less. Dignifying them with words like 'war on terror' is not helpful, and indeed has been quite harmful.

I agree with all of Mike Stark’s points. This is intended as a conversation, not a series of ultimatums. Keep the lines of communication open on MyBo. For whatever reason, Obama effed up. He needs to know it, be held accountable, and be reminded of it every day from every voice that cares about our constitution until this FISA thing is found to be the unconstitutional travesty it is (as it will be in even a mildly rational world) in the various new lawsuits and repealed.

It does no good (and actually will do harm) for progressive activists to get PO’ed and just pick up their toys, go home, and not participate.

Onward, no retreat, just re-evolution.

You state that...

'U.S. military intervention in the petro-states of the Mideast was a cherished neoconservative policy goal. I defy anyone to find evidence that the nationalization of the financial economy was a similar neocon wet dream.'

It's not hard to find the evidence. It has long been a neocon wet dream to drown good government in the bath tub and make critical initiatives impossible in the future. This unprecedented transfer of wealth from the middle class to the oligarchs will do just that. To a neocon, the enemy (or friend) of my enemy is my friend if it cripples that opponent. To mix sports metaphors, "checkmate, game, set, and match".

This flawed bill’s defeat is the logical outcome of a failed government, wherein the thugs and their ideologically-driven agenda, aided and abetted by a complete dereliction of duty by a failed “opposition party” in Congress since impeachment was taken off the table, have brought our beloved country to the brink of another Depression.

After the ongoing shredding of the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and international law and common decency, and generally destructive behavior to 95% of the population here, who is surprised that a regime and an ideology that hates government cannot lead?

Chin up! It takes nerves of steel to finally drive a stake through the heart of this barbarian regime that delights in putting a gun to our collective heads while yelling 'fire!' in a crowded theater.

A bill will pass and pretty soon…and Obama can make good on his promise today to immediately review its provisions (the privatization of profit and the socialization of risk for the Masters of the Universe) and so begin the process of retaking our own government and electoral process from those who would sacrifice it and us at the altar of laissez faire capitalism and rabid ideology.

We are better than that. Or else the Main Streets will burn as Wall Street self-destructs.

Actually 97 days...but who's counting?