In response to Nick's eloquent rant, you wrote:

However, if you read Mr. Perlstein's excellent book 'Nixonland' you will see that some dedicated but very naive young people failed to understand the propaganda ramifications of some stunts they did in those times.

Evil POS's like Roger Ailes & his ilk were able to selectively twist certain incidents to the point where they really hurt the Democratic party.

You're falling into the same trap that's already snared too many Democrats and journalists - don't say or do anything that conservatives may some day in some way twist and turn against you. For instance, this comment to Glenn earlier today:

I'd be a bit more cautious if you plan on destroying the personality of Tucker Carlson, especially if you care at holding together your Strange Bedfellows Coalition. Although Carlson is ideologically a rather slippery fellow, he does hold strong ties to Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty.

To which Glenn posted this spot-on reply:

Oh, absolutely. I better start catering everything I say to make sure I never utter a word that is upsetting to someone who might be inclined to support the Strange Bedfellows coalition. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do -- no more criticizing libertarians, or liberals, or Democrats, or independents, lest I cause someone who might support Strange Bedfellows to become angry.

The thing is, no matter what you say or do in opposition to the status quo, its defenders will indeed twist and turn that against you, make propaganda hay out of it. Since the MSM collaborate in that propagandistic attack, there's not a lot you can do unless you've got a lot of money and organization, which the '60s youth did not have and that Obama does have. And even with all that money and organization, Obama is still having a very hard time countering the relentless Republican attack that uses lie and innuendo as its primary weapons.

And so you're still just supposed to walk on eggshells? That's how nothing gets done and how we end up where we are today, with a non-functioning mainstream news media and politicians blatantly lying while they trash the Constitution.

We wrote the owner's manual for authoritarian suppression of free speech, and the one for authoritarian suppression of free speech before it's spoken!

The whole world is watching - to see how we do it.

And where is Obama on all this? Thinking up something measured and non-threatening? He must be looking at these scenes and thinking, "Oh, there goes a bunch of red-state votes!" One would think that a constitutional law professor would speak up about prior suppression of free speech. Yes, I know that John Yoo is also a professor of constitutional law, but still...

At the same time, anyone who destroys people's property should be thrown in jail (after they destroy property, not before) - not for what they're saying but how they're saying it. What are these people thinking?

Oh...right....they're not thinking. Which makes one wonder: Are they Republicans? Doing dirty tricks? After eight dismal years, we've learned that under corrupt, authoritarian rule, anything is possible. Since any war-protester and advocate of free speech would have to know that rampaging in public and breaking windows is doing the Republicans' work for them, and since liberals are by definition smarter than Republicans, one is forced to consider the possibility that they are agent provocateurs - making better than minimum wage.

Sadly, that's probably not the case. The rioters are just...rioters, doing no good and a lot of harm (put yourself in the place of a shopowner just scraping by and now having to replace a plate glass window). I call it self-indulgent. Can we at least get past the election and see how Obama and the Democrats do before we start burning down the city? From what we've seen of the Democrats so far, there should be plenty of opportunities for free speech of a more animated nature.