Let's hope the Bama doesn't do anything stupid like backtrack on the procedures W put in place THAT HAS KEPT US SAFE FOR 8 YEARS! Let him lift one thing and have us be attacked. It'll be a long four years till we get rid of him in that case. But you know what, you leftie libs? I'm not that worried anymore, heh heh heh. It seems he was a conservative in disguise! Go Bama!!

I'm intimately familiar with Yalta. Apparently you're not, remotely. Now, having released your deep & impressive reading list for the last year+, might I suggest a little walk through Orwell's amazing Spanish Civil War Memoir,"Homage to Catalonia". More TORTURE for the untested. :-) Now, segue to that pesky google button and type in Comintern & Cominform. Pesky Communist Int'l Organs of the cuddly Stalin.

Boyo, you could begin now on Stalin and go for 5-years solid and not approach my comfort with the Great Father of the Peoples. Ya know, kind of akin to your grasp of...ohhhhh... Nope, sorry, I was gonna say The Nation, but I'm probably ahead of you there, too.

After Orwell's memoir, move on to the wonderment of Dr.Bob Conquest's great meditation on the 20th Century: "Reflections on a Ravaged Century". Go ahead, Laddy Buck, make my day.

"Stalin NOT an Internationalist with vast geographical ambitions...? Ummm, ask Eastern Europe,"

I've only got one word to say to you Benjamin..."Yalta".

As for Chomsky and Zin I would not give those two old tenured, lefty gatekeepers any more house room than I would Fukuyama or any of the nutters at the American Enterprise Institute.

The Democrats caved on civil liberties for the same reason Macy's doesn't sell three-armed leather sweaters or GM make great, fuel-efficient cars: there is a perception that the end-user (customer, client, voter...) is not especially interested. As indicated by the examples, this perception can be true or false---note that the perception can be true when it were better it weren't.

We don't get exactly the government we deserve, but there is a direct correlation between our polity's lack of interest in human rights---not "good human" rights, not "American human" rights, but human rights as such---and our politicians' failure to deliver.

Leaders would do better than they're asked to do, but that is risky business---how many of us have given up a greatly-desired job over a principle? I do not love them for being so, but I cannot excessively fault politicians for not being significantly morally better people than their voters, especially in an age where being better at anything, except perhaps athletics, in any way, is suspect.

Unfortunately I see very little hope our civil rights will increase with Obama. As you mention as soon as Obama got the nomination he did a 180 on the FISA legislation and supports spying on us. Because both of Obama's parents are/were not US citizens he was/is not even eligible to be president. If Obama does not respect the US Constitution on his eligibility to be president then we can expect he will not respect the US Constitution in any form or fashion. Of course Obama is the bad guys' replacement for comrade Little George. The bad guys are racists so we can expect Obama will be put in situations that seem over his head and they will blame his inadequet responces on race. The bad guys are communi$t$ and live to steal money, they are responsible for the economic meltdown that got Obama elected, although McCain is a communi$t as well, so it does not surprise me Obama's first plan is a massive government work program, communi$tic in nature, with the logical result of a bigger destruction of our free enterprise system. Our only hope is to extract the bad guys from the ownership of our banking system. Obama will be no help because they have proof of Obama's every embarrassing moment and dirty deed and thus Obama will be led around just as comrade Little George was led. Sorry for the spelling errors but I simply cannot write without a spellcheck.

as a 'Yoot, as was Gertrude H. The War came and he morphed into a Liberal Anti-Communist. There used to be many of them. Imagine, LL.

Back to the library for ya, Buck-o. Stalin NOT an Internationalist with vast geographical ambitions...? Ummm, ask Eastern Europe, China, and Korea how that worked out for them. Curious IF you expose your tiny self to the TORTURE of critical thought, Lad. Gimme your last 10-15 books devoured or even skimmed. Nope, Chomsky & Zinn don't count! I'm fully prepared to do so. No cheating. Cliff Notes verboten, Kid.

A day to engage...

There was little in Mr. Greenwald's comments that surprised me as I've digested several tomes on subjects Bush/Cheney/Iraq/Torture over the past few years in an effort to get to the bottom of the obscene lawlessness that has emanated from our leaders and been too readily accepted by so many of our fellow citizens. Still, reading about it again is distressing, especially about the complicity, the enabling of the Democratic Party. Really, anyone with any sense should turn their collective backs on both parties. Bush/Cheney initiated the crimes this country has engaged in these past 8 years, but the Demos have helped grease the way. I renounced membership in both parties years ago, and I can only call upon independent thinkers who care for this country, and even more, the principles which purportedly gird it, to separate themselves from these destructive entities--the Democratic and Republican Parties. As far as what's needed from the Obama Administration to once again make the US a Nation of Laws--it is indeed clear. It's been clear to me for some time now. The question is, will Obama do what is necessary? I hate to say it, but I doubt it. I don't think he, or most other democrats are at all interested in the truth regarding illegal war, torture, et al., as the Demos would be revealed as being nearly as culpable as Bush & his cabal. The few who will be calling for thorough investigations into these affairs are going to be labeled as trouble makers and their message drowned out by the calls to let bygones be bygones. And so another grievous blow against our Constitution will be allowed to stand, moving us closer to the abyss of suicide that Lincoln warned about. I do hope I'm wrong.