Some of the most intelligent people on the planet are just as easily manipulated, sometimes even the people doing most of the manipulating.

Spot on, Jon.

CJ, at grassroots level, all of that you describe is still there, at least in my neck of the woods. Admittedly a lot of those anti-establishment twenty-somethings have now joined the middle class and have moved their folk clubs into the leafy suburbs, but there are still plenty of us left on the left.