It's the end of 2009. We're still in two wars, Guantanamo is not yet closed, and the jobless numbers are still sky-high. What happened to all the optimism we started the year with? There have been bright spots and not-so-bright spots, nasty political fights and moments of progress.

Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films has been making documentaries on the biggest progressive issues for the last decade. He's gone from the 2000 election to the Iraq War, Fox News to Wal-Mart, and lately has been a leading voice urging leaders to Rethink Afghanistan. He joins us via phone to talk about progressive organizing through media--what works, what doesn't, and where to go from here.

It's the end of 2009. We're still in two wars, Guantanamo is not yet closed, and the jobless numbers are still sky-high. What happened to all the optimism we started the year with? There have been bright spots and not-so-bright spots, nasty political fights and moments of progress.

The year is almost over, and it's certainly been an eventful one. We've seen a new president, some huge bank bailouts, a dramatic election season and we're closer than we've ever been to national health care reform--whether that's a good thing or not.

The progressive community is at each other's throats over the health care bill: some say kill it and start over, others say pass it now and fix it later. Without a public option, Medicare buy-in, or other cost-controlling measures, and with Stupak and Nelson holding women's rights for ransom, is there anything good left in this bill?

Sarah Schulman notes that what she calls "familial homophobia" is a common experience that almost every gay person experiences. More importantly, she stresses that instead of dealing with this individually, we need to create community solutions together to deal with these problems.

Most people think of theater as something that happens on a stage, with seated people clapping politely. But Circus Amok take their brand of avant-garde political theater to the streets of New York, even when it's freezing outside.

Payday lenders are often predatory, and their victims are disproportionately people of color--and almost all poor. In this video from our friends at New America Media, we take a look at an alternative program in San Francisco that offers low-cost short-term loans to keep people out of the clutches of the payday lenders.

"If you cheat, you make a lot of money." So says William K. Black, a former senior deputy chief counsel at the federal Office of Thrift Supervision. Black is an expert on the shady dealings of banks and corporations. David Heath of the Huffington Post interviewed him for this report.

During the holidays, New York City's already-wild traffic gets so much worse that the department of transportation and MTA send out Gridlock Alerts to encourage people not to drive. Our friends at Street Films made this list of ten things to be thankful for when Gridlock Alert hits.