Weeks,
You’re more convincing when you stick with the issues being discussed and resist the temptation to dismissively characterize entire groups of people. Exactly the same statement could be made, with just as much accuracy, substituting “right wing rhetoric” for “Progressive rhetoric.”
In any case, I’m interested in your views.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Jerry: Don’t talk to me that way, you running dog of brazen Imperialist power!!! Once you polish your dialectic we can issue a communique condemning these corrupt capitalist pigs once and for all! 
Seriously, Jerry, do you ever read Progressive newspapers, blogs, etc.? Just as Gilder stands by his assertions, I have heard this rhetoric for all of my adult life, being in proximity to Marxist-central Berkeley. There IS a pattern, there is a tendency and no, you cannot simply substitute the word Conservative and come up with an equal. There may be a commonality in polemic rhetoric, but the Progressives have unique qualities, and many seem to come out of Communist China and Little Red Book days, with a pinch of Orwell thrown in.
Once again, in your harsh rhetoric of characterizing the US’ actions of the past 50 years, you completely ignore the Cold War and the many strange bedfellows it created. Disingenuous to ignore it. Yes, much wrong was done by both sides but there is a monotonous aspect to the singular condemnation of the US…
The pipeline story keeps getting kicked around, it even made it into a James Bond movie. But really, isn’t it more about opium poppies than pipelines?
I believe that the United States mostly supported the Mujahideen (later named the Northern alliance) during the soviet era (up to 1989). The soviets bugged out while eyes were on the wall and left much of their equipment for the war lords to fight with, and they did. Five years of constant war. The talaban took over a large part of Afghanistan in the mid 90’s and was not considered legitimate (by the US). The Talaban might have had strict rules, but dieing seemed less random (giving up a little freedom for security) I do not think that we intentionally trained any of the talaban fighters. Later we invaded with the help of the Northern alliance.
However, hey I am not a historian, I could be wrong.
Perhaps the U.S. is acting like a global police state, although that description sounds to me more like acting like a global police -force- than police -state-. However, I myself wasn’t making any claims as to what the U.S. was -acting- like. I’m just stating that the reach of U.S. power is not such that it warrants describing the U.S. as a world government. That other governments are ordering the arrest of our agents argues, in fact, that we do not have that power.
That Guantanamo is a Gulag inasmuch as Gulag is a synonym for prison, with political connotations, I certainly accept. I still find it a poor metaphor, but I don’t care to argue the point further. Interested parties can certainly find enough on the history to make up their own minds on the accuracy of the metaphor.
I suggest reading some writings by Boris Pasternak and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Compare their experineces to the experiences (not from the mouths of the detainees, they are proven liars) they are experincing now.
They get free medical, dental, proper food (look at the weight gains), time to worship, etc. The guards are bending over backwards and accepting a lot of abuse from the detainees that would never have occured in actual gulags.
I can see no way that it could compare to an actual gulag.
I’ll settle for that. I’ll add to it that the US behaves as though they believe they have the authority to police the rest of the world. Of course they are in error.
I would love to see you get swept up into Guantanamo, be held without any charges or due process, endure “interrogation” and torture, and continue that way without knowing what will ultimately happen for years on end, and then come out and write to us about how pleasant it was.
Have you actually read any of their writings? I have.
If I had to spend time confined, I would gladly spend my time at Guantanamo rather than the real gulags in Siberia. Which would you choose if you had to make the choice?
Inform yourself.
You’ve changed the object of your characterization. You referred to such hyperbole as the “hallmark of progressive rhetoric.” Now you’re using rhetoric of the sort you’ve encountered in the Berkely “Marxist hotbed” area as justification for your comment.
There are plenty of mainstream progressives who state their views without any more hyperbole than do a large number of mainstream conservatives. And there are plenty of right wing sources that are just as rabid in their rhetoric as the left wing sources you’ve objected to. However, I would be committing just as much of a disservice to thoughtful conservatives if I were to say that “hyperbole is the hallmark of right wing rhetoric,” though I would have exactly as much justification for saying it as you have for saying what you said.
Without a doubt, there is a symmetry. There are plenty of commentators, radio talk show celebratories, network television personalities, bestselling authors, etc. on the conservative side whose style is shrill, confrontational, typically self righteous, and most certainly hyperbolic, just as there are plenty of them on the liberal side. But there are also many thoughtful, intellectually honest individuals on both sides as well.
Best wishes,
Jerry
The U.S. armed and trained the Taliban because the U.S. power interests hoped the return of the feudal warlords to power would give the U.S. oil companies a chance at the oil pipeline to Central Asia - a chance that a secular socialist government, the Progressive Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), would not give them. It was this government that U.S. President Jimmy Carter set out to overthrow by beginning to send money and equipment to fundamentalist opposition groups in 1979. This inital effort grew into even more extensive U.S. backing of the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and other factions, all of which drew their power from the feudal landlord class. The CIA actually created Osama bin Laden’s organization back in the 1980s to attack the progressive government in Afghanistan. The U.S. began its war against the secular government six months before the U.S.S.R. intervened with troops.
Fife players?
So in other words – you prefer the Gulag at Guantanamo over the Gulags of the Soviet Union.
Fair enough.
I will take that, then, as a concession of the point (that the U.S. is not, in fact, a global police state.)
And, again, if you were forced to choose between the two, which would you go for?
Don’t be another Charles Rangel, now! 
I would choose neither, I think they are both deplorable. Unlike the Gulags of the Soviet Union – the ones at Guantanamo presently exist. I only wish we could further compare them as both being done away with as well.
Yes, a concession. I should have been more clear that it was more about the way they are behaving and what they consider them self to be. Kind of like the way the Emperor viewed himself in the mirror when everyone else saw him in his skivvies.
jGilder, I think you should change your board name to Charles Rangel. I have never heard him answer a yes/no either/or question. He will sidestep it with the liberal talking points every time I have ever heard him. :roll:
“Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.” - Groucho Marx
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing..if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Groucho Marx