"It's an interesting point, but I do think the citizenry bears responsibility for the acts of its government, especially where the government is democratically elected and some -- but not much - efforts are expended to stop those practices.

It wasn't "the Bush administration" that tortured. It was the United States."

The current government was democratically elected, but we were lied to. How do you deal with that?

I disagree that we are responsible for this mess. The citizenry as far as I can tell is powerless to stop the government from doing what is doing. There is a miniscule percent of the population that cares about governmental abuses, but as you indicate, it doesn't add up to much.

I'd be more than willing to do something, like contribute or participate in something dedicated to changing the ways of the government, but the best I can come with is a cathartic post on a progressive blog. I support the ACLU but they are screwed left-and-right by the DOJ.

The Supreme Court is run by Scalia and is a joke. The CIA does its evil with impunity. Things are becoming murkier and less transparent every day. The M$M is in cahoots with the perpetrators and is their biggest cheerleader. The deck is stacked in favor of the powerful, elite, unknown people who are controlling the erosion of our rights. I don't know who they are or what their motivation is, but I know it is something I can't stop.

That's a nice list of organizations.

If you add up all the participants in all those organizations, you'd have possibly .00001% of the population.

The rest of the citizenry is composed of people like calamine and faragut. What are your chances of accomplishing anything positive? I'd say none in this world!

It must be terribly frustrating for you. i have empathy for you but it seems to me to be a fruitless endeavor.

I think you took my mathematical projections too literally. All I am saying is that, without the support of the citizenry your efforts and the efforts of your cohorts are fruitless.

There were many more people involved in the protests against the Iraq War. I was there at every protest I could go to. Traveling quite a long distance some times.

I learned that the methods now used for crowd control are extremely effective.

I learned that the M$M wasn't going to publicize the protests.

I learned that Americans were "cognitively dissident," and could care less about their government using its military power to wield a big stick in this world.

I learned that if the citizenry cares more about tabloid magazines and gossip than torture and government secrecy and that nothing, in my opinion, can be done.

It's like shoveling shit against the tide.

"The US does not have a "news media". It has a Ministry of Propaganda."

Walter, happy to see that you are still plying your trade and doing it as well as ever.

"And why would the US and UK sit by idly and allow China to buy up all that oil when they could make things difficult and more expensive for them by causing instability in the region? Send in the CIA!"

You are so right! The CIA has been doing that, causing instability, in foreign countries since the 1950's. Thank god above! The world is so much the better for their efforts. Perhaps they could also bring some real harsh torture into the region to make them more humane and the torture, I'm sorry, the enhanced interrogation techniques, will surely convince them not deal with China?

Just an afterthought. Canada has signed many oil deals with China over the last 5 years.

You know that there are many in the CIA who speak Canadian so that would be a real asset and maybe make easy for them to destabilize Canada.

I understand that the reason the CIA thought Iraq had WMDs was because no one in the agency could speak Arabic.

My mother told me pain builds character. I read this crap by Paglia because I am astounded at how bad it is. It is the worst writing in the whole world! It is the worst writing ever written in all of history!

"Republicans charge that Democratic outrage about the Panetta revelation is just an attempt to provide political cover to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."

No doubt that Pelosi is the factual reason that the CIA kept everything hush-hush. I really needed AP to make me aware of that being the cause of the outrage. Intuitively obvious!

It's like Alicia Shepard saying that there are always two sides to the story and that it's the job of the press to point that out even when there isn't two sides to the story.

But I really wonder what the hell the secret program is. My imagination is running rampant. Out of control!

I can sense your frustration.

But you must have missed WinSmith's post. The reason we can torture, invade other countries for no valid reason, disrupt other countries politics with the CIA, bomb the hell out of innocent people with our newfangled drones, destroy the global economy because of our greed, and then cover up all these crimes against humanity, is because the USA is "exceptional."

I can't explain it! It must be something intuitive or you can ask WinSmith.

Lots of luck on educating Bernbart. I stopped subscribing today to the only good part of the NY Times. The crosswords. Because they have decided to ignore journalistic standards and just act as stenographers. They will be extinct soon, I hope! At least they provided good crosswords, but I can't allow one penny of mine to support such a dishonest publication.

"To date, Holder has been the biggest disappointment of the Obama administration."

Obama has been the biggest disappointment of the Obama administration!