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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Michael Winship

If you want to royally tick off New Yorkers, try telling us what to do.

That's probably why the police stopped trying to enforce the jaywalking laws here years ago (as opposed to Washington, DC, where I once got one too many tickets and was sent to pedestrian school).

And that's why in the weeks after 9/11, my favorite sign was the one that appeared in the windows of Italian-American neighborhoods near where I live downtown. In bright red, white, and blue, it read: "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You got a problem with that?"

So imagine how pleased many of us were when told by conservatives -- most of them from out-of-town -- that we should be very afraid that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his Al Qaeda henchmen will be put on trial here in New York City, just blocks from the scene of their horrific crime, the World Trade Center.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Maria Allwine

What if we all just stopped working? All of us -- just stopped going to work and started living the lives we talk about and long for? What if we all just stopped getting in our cars and driving through the horrific traffic that leaves us angry and spent before we even get to work? What if we all just stopped waiting for the bus that never comes or when it does, comes an hour late? What if we all just stopped going to jobs where we are bullied, harassed, disrespected, used, abused, threatened with the loss of our livelihoods and health insurance and then thrown out anyway like last week's garbage when the expiration date you didn't know they had stamped on your back comes due? What if we all stopped being afraid of losing our possessions, liberated ourselves from them and in doing so became free in a glorious way we never dreamed existed?

What if we all stopped talking about how much we hate working and did something about it?

Who says we have to work? Who says we have to give ourselves up to a system designed by others to exploit us for their own profit, destroy our spirit, and turn us against each other as we scratch and claw in vain to eke a living from it? Who says we must sacrifice our minds, our health, our precious time, our humanity to be rewarded every two weeks with green paper that, even as we so desperately need it, keeps us enslaved? Who says we have to do this?

I don't know about you, but I did not sign up for this. I did not agree to get up every morning and work for people who see me as less than they are, who feel that my needs and rights as a human being could not possibly be the same or as important as theirs. I did not agree to work in jobs that dull my mind, force me to hide my intelligence and heart, turn everyone into unhappy wage slaves who exist solely to profit others. I did not agree to work for companies that have no bottom line except "MORE." I did not agree to work for companies that engage in unethical and probably illegal conduct and that terminate loyal employees simply because those $1 million partner bonuses might be a little less this year. I did not agree to work for companies where incompetence, stupidity, venality, and amorality are rewarded and loyalty, initiative, kindness, and sound ideas are scorned. I did not agree to be part of a system that makes us all less than caring and peaceful human beings. Work should not cost us our sanity and our common humanity. Yet it does and we let it. How did we get to such an unhealthy and destructive place? Why do we continue to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of greed (theirs) and stupidity (ours)?

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Nikolas Kozloff

It's everyone's worst nightmare: being caught in an underground subway in the midst of a power outage. Yet, that is exactly what happened recently when Brazilian commuters in the city of São Paulo were trapped inside trains and literally had to be pulled out of subway cars. In addition to sparking problems in public transport, the blackout or apagão led to hospital emergencies and the shutting down of several airports. In all, the power outage darkened approximately half of the South American nation, affecting 60 million people.

In recent years, Brazil has become an economic powerhouse yet the blackout exposed vulnerabilities in the country's infrastructure. In the wake of the power outage, government officials intent on sustaining high economic growth have tried to figure out what might have gone wrong with the country's electrical grid. Initial reports blamed the power outage on the massive Itaipu hydroelectric dam, though a spokesperson for the facility said there had been no problem at the plant.

Itaipu, the official stated, was solely responsible for power generation and the failure occurred in the transmission line. Perhaps, the Energy and Mines Minister declared, a chance atmospheric event such as a storm could have disconnected Itaipu. While the authorities conduct further investigations into the matter, some are concerned about the scope of the apagão and have demanded a more detailed explanation.

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by Bill Berkowitz

Move over Nostradamus, "Rapture" kings and queens, "End Times" prophets, and Y2K hucksters. Here comes the real "end of days" brought to you by the Mayan calendar: Not! In its first weekend, the film "2012" was a box office sensation; it took in $225 million -- $65 million domestically and $160 million internationally. "2012" is an special effects spectacular, combining the star power of its cast with the kind of doomsday scenario -- derived from the end of the Mayan Calendar –- that apparently is being lapped up by movie audiences everywhere. Talk about going global!

In attempt to both explain and neutralize both the hype and the hysteria generated by the film's doomsday scenario, Gary DeMar, president of an organization called American Vision ("Exercising Servanthood Dominion"), recently wrote a column titled "Avoiding Doomsday Hype and Hysteria." In the piece, DeMar –- who is not so well-known amongst the general public -- excoriates those Religious Right leaders that have consistently set a date for the end of time, the rapture, etc.

While he praises Mark Hitchcock, pastor of Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, who is the author of "2012: The Bible and the End of the World," for, among other things, "offer[ing] a critical evaluation of the supposed Mayan prophecy," he is critical of Hitchcock's end of the age theorizing.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Michael Winship

In Great Britain, Remembrance Sunday falls on the second Sunday of November, the one closest to November 11, the anniversary of the end of the First World War in 1918.  Once, the world called November 11 Armistice Day. Now, here in the States at least, it is Veterans Day.

As coincidence and travel itineraries would have it, twice over the last four years I've been in London on Remembrance Sunday. This time, my girlfriend Pat and I were on our way home from Greece, stopping off for a couple of days to see old friends.

As we unpacked at the hotel, a recap of the Remembrance Sunday ceremonies was playing on TV - Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife laying a wreath at the Cenotaph (the UK equivalent of our Tomb of the Unknown Soldier), a stirring parade of veterans along Whitehall, the military bands playing "Rule, Britannia," "God Save the Queen" and "O Valiant Hearts."

Remembrance Sunday fell just a couple of days after the horrendous shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 soldiers dead and 30 wounded, many of whom were preparing for deployment to Afghanistan. From Greece, we had been watching the news reports on CNN with special interest. I'd been at Fort Hood several times - the huge military base is where my parents met during World War II; my father a medical supply officer, my mother a secretary from a nearby town. It was Camp Hood then.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Martha Rosenberg

"When he bolted her the first time, she didn't die. She just stood there looking stunned as blood trickled from her forehead. She then got her bearings and tried to turn and run."

"The gas cart was filled to the brim with pigs today, a total of 39, including 9 large pigs that were at weaning age. They were left in the cart all day to trample each other, before being gassed all at once."

Read the diary and watch the video of undercover investigator Mike who worked at the Country View/Hatfield Quality Meats hog farm last spring, and you're sure laws are being broken and the operation will be shut down. Wrong. There is nothing illegal in one of the most gruesome videos to circulate the Web says Mercy For Animals (MFA) who conducted the investigation, because there are no farm welfare laws to break.

As the anti-factory farming movement gains momentum, many have heard about gestation crates, enclosures so small sows can't turn around, that are banned in the European Union and some states. They have heard of tail docking and castration without anesthesia -- also banned in some European countries -- manure lagoons, dead piles, and animals that go cage crazy from their confinement.

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by Nikolas Kozloff

If Lord Bertrand Russell were still alive today, the Global North's glaring inaction on climate change would most likely appall him. One of the 20th century's most eminent philosophers, Russell was also an outspoken critic of war and irrationality. In 1966, just as the United States was ramping up the war in Vietnam, Russell helped to establish a novel legal tribunal that condemned war crimes committed in Southeast Asia.

What is intriguing about the Russell tribunal held in Sweden is that, from a legal standpoint it lacked any institutional or political authority. No matter, declared the legendary English philosopher: in the absence of meaningful moral standards in the law, the tribunal would help to foster a new sense of ethics in the international arena. Fundamentally, he hoped to form "a highly representative, independent, and respected" international body.

The Englishman financed the tribunal through loans and proceeds from his autobiography and managed to attract a number of political and intellectual heavyweights as a result of his star power. Luminaries who eventually participated in the Russell tribunals included the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, social critic Simone de Beauvoir, and writer Julio Cortázar.

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by Andrew Lehman

In the United States, there have been three powerful democratization surges in the last 100 years. Each featured an experience by participants of feeling part of something larger than themselves. It continues to astonish me how the one we are experiencing now is almost invisible to folks I know.

In the 1930s, working people were provided a voice and power to affect their lives in positive ways. The commons emerged as a political power as people were able to realize that the process of focusing on shared resources provided a new way of viewing influence. Democratization was viewed as a feature of the commons.

In the 1960s, democratization acquired an almost spiritual dimension as peace and new interpersonal-communication protocols became integral to understanding how the commons operated. Integration and feminization transformed the idea of how working together worked. I felt part of something larger than myself.

Over the last 20 years, there has been growing a third wave of commitment to the commons. Far more subtle than the other two waves, its influence has been exponentially more powerful. Perhaps it makes no sense to separate them; they are all part of the same process. The process features a horizontalization of society as power shifts downward with the realization that what we have in common is more useful and significant than what we can accomplish as independents.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Jacqueline Marcus

The New York Times reports "that the United States ambassador in Kabul has expressed written opposition to deploying more American troops to Afghanistan, baring the fierce debate within the Obama administration over the direction of the war, even after weeks of deliberations and with the president on the verge of a decision."

The ambassador in Kabul speaks for the people of Afghanistan. When Hillary Clinton was touring the region, she was blasted from students who told her quite bluntly that they never asked the United States to take control of their country, they have no right to be in their country, and most importantly, they want the U.S. to LEAVE! One angry student shouted at her: "How would like it if a drone flew over and indiscriminately killed civilians in their homes?!"

Indeed. The point went right over the Secretary of State's head. Hillary wants war! Send those 40,000 troops!!  

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Martha Rosenberg

Martha Rosenberg is a Chicago-based cartoonist and freelance writer.

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