Massing's ultimate disavowal of his own argument is similar to something I've noticed when I engage in debates with my own circle of educated, liberal friends on issues like civil liberties, restraining government power, etc.

Bottom line: things haven't gotten bad enough yet that most people want to reject the political establishment. Rejecting it entails a whole host of problems. Namely, you can no longer subscribe to the dominant narrative of your country, which, as popularly conceived, is a tale of steady, Hegelian improvement from one epoch to the next. Instead, you're forced into a somewhat depressing little box from which you see only encroaching totalitarianism, regardless of whether the official in charge has a "D" or an "R" behind his/her name.

It ought to be manifestly clear to anyone who's gone through the last 10 years with eyes open that the latter view is by far the more factually correct. But it doesn't get you invited to cocktail parties for Democratic politicians, and it keeps you from being one of the kool kids. These people are mostly middle- and upper middle-class, and socially ambitious.

So I believe this class often decides that, somehow, working "within the system" is still preferable to throwing metaphorical bombs at it from the outside. But this is as much or more an emotional decision as a logical one.

The reason this is still more depressing for those of us who regard our government as corrupt to its core is that one wonders what it will take to change the game. How many more wars and occupations, how much more bankrupting of the U.S. Treasury, how many more torture regimes will it take before people wise up?

Pam, you've written a very eloquent and perceptive post about the difficulties both minority and white GLBT people face in countering this particular form of bigotry.

Although I would not discount the latent racism of white GLBT people, for myself (a white gay man) it's more just a sense of having no real avenue or effective means to contest homophobia in minority groups. We are still largely a segregated country, socially speaking; there is still a very large void that separates the daily experiences and social conditioning of whites vs. various minority groups.

Moreover, most white GLBT people are still preoccupied fighting the homophobia in their own communities, churches, etc. Only the most privileged of us come from backgrounds where we are almost universally accepted by relatives and coworkers, for example. It's not realistic to think most of us could have any credibility as strangers to a minority community.

It may be just my perception as an outsider, but it seems to me that black gay and lesbian luminaries like James Baldwin and Barbara Jordan are not talked about much within the broader black community. That's a shame, because no one ever wrote more scathingly, or accurately, about the corrupt, localized totalitarianism of organized religion than Baldwin. He also eloquently debunks the reverse racism of the black Muslims of his day. I would venture to say that both of those messages badly need a hearing among many religious blacks today.

As for Jordan, I still get chills when I hear her stirring speech before the House committee considering the impeachment of Richard Nixon. Her belief in the secular, not religious, values as embodied in the U.S. Constitution is no less a wonder to behold today than it was in 1974.

I'm really disappointed in Patrick's mealy-mouthed take on the unconscionable behavior that Continental displayed towards its passengers in the Rochester incident.

For me, it's just yet another example of how the after-effects of 9/11 have metastasized to the point where now, apparently, paying passengers of our domestic airlines have absolutely no rights at all. Everyone acknowledges that this action violated the most basic rules of common sense; the manager of the Rochester airport has claimed that the facility was prepared to accept the passengers overnight. In short, what the hell happened? Does anybody care?

Speaking more broadly, isn't this also a perfect example of how the American people have become little more than fat sheep, so paralyzed are we by our fear of authority and "terrorism"?

Frankly, the fact that the passengers didn't mutiny doesn't bode well for the future. Only when people demand their rights and stop this reflexive obeisance to mindless, cruel, and indifferent authority will anything change.

With all due respect to Mr. Hughes, I suspect the lionization of his reputation that we've seen since his demise has more to do with the aging of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers than with any quality intrinsic to his films.

Hughes was a confectioner of cinematic trifles who happened to capture the spirit of his times: growing up and searching for one's bearings in a highly materialistic culture. Although they are not without their pleasures, Hughes' films' most grating tendency is that they pretend to criticize that which they are part and parcel of, namely affluent, white, suburban America.

Unfortunately, Hughes, as much as any other filmmaker of the last 30 years, helped to spawn the relentless onslaught of commercialized, brain-dead "youth culture," from which American cinema has never recovered.

As an aging Gen Xer myself, I understand the innate desire to revisit and mythify those memories of youth, and Hughes' death seems to have created an opportunity for my generation to indulge. Nonetheless, I protest. I've seen about as much coverage of Hughes' death as those of true luminaries of world cinema - Bergman, Kubrick, and Fellini, for example - men who brought profound and diverse sensibilties to the art, and who expanded the cinematic vocabulary.

Hughes' films are representative of the closed system of American culture itself: endlessly self-referential and self-congratulatory. Anything beyond our borders, physical or metaphorical, is either scary or comically inept. Depending on your mood, Hughes' work can certainly amuse, but it won't rock your world the way a great artist will. The distinction is crucial.