I beg to differ with your assessment that there are no charimatic voices within the progressive movement.
As Nicole, GUEST and I have eluded to: like who would know other than those of us in the progressive movement. No one, that's who, becuase these folks are either ignored or should they bubble to the surface thae are demonized, marginalized or trivialized. But mostly just ignored.
Same goes for the muscians: Ani Defranco, Jim Page, etc.
But lets get back to some folks who fall into the Repubocratic/corporate media demonized or ignored. These are a few folks who the general public know nothing or negative PR stuff about: Jim McDermott (D-Wa0, Reverand James Lawson, former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney who was assasinated for asking some hard questions, Al Sharpton who scares the Hell out of the Repubocrtas, Rev, Jessie Jackson, Rep. John Conyers (Mich.), writer Greg Palast, Professor Howard Zinn, Bernadette Devlin Mcaliskey, Leslie Cagan, etc, etc. And this is just the tip of the iceburg. Had these folks a little microphone time then I think you would be of a different opinion...
See, it's real easy to dismiss that which we know very little.
Like how many military experts were hired by the major media during the months when the American people were being prepared for war, when the Bush folks said openly that no decision had been made? I've heard 153... most former generals. How many clergy? None...