EditorBlog

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

In this time of nano-second news cycles that have little if any historical context, it is easy for some to forget that the GOP art of character assassination has been its hallmark for decades, patricularly the last 20 years.  But BuzzFlash, celebrating its 10th year online on May 11th, doesn't forget it for a moment.  It's a large reason that I started BuzzFlash in 2000.

I was sick and tired of the Republicans using personality misrepresentations of Democratic leaders -- which the

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BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

When a Super Bowl political issue such as healthcare reform drags out for more than a year, to most Americans it looks like gridlock.  Given President Obama's rational Zen leadership and Rahm Emanuel's shortsighted self-enclosed view of Congress and the American "center," the President and the nation would have been better served, it appears, by Obama throwing the long ball of "Medicare for All."

BuzzFlash has advocated government administered universal health coverage for years, and particularly the phrase "Medicare for All."  Sure, it probably wouldn't have passed the Senate the first time around, but it would have been quick, decisive, and bold.  That's what Americans want in a Super Bowl quarterback, and despite all the polling on self-identified political labels ("conservative," "liberal," etc.) that's what they want in a president.

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BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

As Harry Truman said just tell the Republicans the truth, and they'll just think it's Hell.

That's what President Barack Obama did in a bravura appearance before a GOP House member retreat in Baltimore on Friday.

It was a jaw-dropping trip to the woodshed for the Republicans, who must have thought Obama would rely on the usual political pablum to respond to their inane, inaccurate Frank Luntz talking point questions (which were often long campaign style statements).

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BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

10 years ago, I began hand posting the BuzzFlash mailbag as a way of stitching together heartfelt and thoughtful progressive e-mails I received at the time, particularly after the theft of the 2000 election, when feelings were raw and a feeling of distress for democracy high.

2010 is our tenth anniversary of posting on BuzzFlash.  Technology and alternatives to the mailbag have advanced at quantum speed during the decade, and after a great deal of deliberation we have decided to r

Technorati Tags: EditorBlog A Decade of the BuzzFlash Mailbag

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

From the presidential election stolen in December of 2000 by a 5-4 vote to the 5-4 vote in January of 2010, the decade is bracketed with a partisan Republican High Court that twice shoved the basic underpinnings of democracy -- government of the people, by the people and for the people -- into a garbage compactor and crushed our electoral rights.

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BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

Take a tip from Gandhi if you are feeling dismayed and helpless by the 5-4 Supreme Court decision to officially let corporations buy candidates and elections: We are the change.

We thought that by voting for Barack Obama, the lobbyists, big banks, and corporations that pull the strings on Capitol Hill would be given the boot, but instead they got a warm embrace and a couple trillion of our tax dollars.

As we know on BuzzFlash, progressives are caught in a heated bout of infighting, while

Technorati Tags: EditorBlog Corporate Governance Supreme Court Alternatives Grassroots

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

BY Mark Karlin

As Naomi Klein, whom I deeply admire for her insights on the relationship between global marketing and corporate governance, recently wrote in a UK Guardian article: "As Studs Terkel, the great oral historian, used to say: 'Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up.'"

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BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

So many hearts in America have been horrified and galvanized to support relief action in Haiti that it reawakens the common bond of being human -- and reaching out to support those in such devastating need.

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BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

If there were no terrorists, the military-industrial complex and its political enablers would have to invent them.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and China's turn toward the favorite slave wage factory site for American corporations (particularly Wal-Mart), we don't need a military-industrial budget in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

After all, the terrorist problem is primarily a crime/intelligence issue, with some military support, but not the kind of wars that we've been e

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BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

It's a day to mourn and help the people of Haiti, whose plight of poverty has been ignored for so long that it takes a devastating earthquake for the wealthier nations to provide it with massive assistance.

But the Third World economy dependent upon onerous financial terms from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund -- terms that benefit the lenders and their products and don't build up the Haitian economy -- won't change after the initial relief is finished. Just as the tsunami victims only received temporary relief, such will be the case in Haiti that suffered for so long as the U.S. and Europe condoned corrupt rulers who were easily bought off.

The heart of individual Americans is great and individuals will provide much in the way of contributions for relief; and the Obama Administration will do much more than Bush would have done to ease the pain. But watch: Haiti will sink back into its pre-devastation morass as media attention shifts to more pressing "news" such as Sarah Palin quitting another job.

Americans, grown fat and prosperous during its Post-World War II years of Empire, produced a new generation of oligarchy, and they bought the major media outlets (particularly television) to ensure their Wall Sreet greed and gilded bonuses as they exported jobs overseas. They needed the media, particularly television, which at least 70% of Americans say they rely on for "news," to create a scapegoat for the declining pay and jobs for the middle and working classes. The new big money of the oligarchy comes from financial manipulation of "paper" -- from gambling, if you will. It also comes from making money off the debt the working and middle class has assumed since they haven't really had an adjusted increase in salaries since the early '90s (you know, the Reagan revolution). And of course, there are the global corporations such as Wal-Mart who sell workers with lower wages or no jobs cheap goods made in China that used to be made by the unemployed workers who buy them from Sam Walton's billionaire heirs.

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