Guest Commentary

PAUL A. MOORE, PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER IN FLORIDA, FOR BUZZFLASH.COM

The children will in some cases become sick and throw up. Others will panic and wet themselves. Still others will complain of nightmares and plead for reassurance from parents and teachers. But no excuses are countenanced in the Sunshine State. The state once again went ahead with its annual ritualistic destruction of 8 and 9-year-old children this past week through the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT).

All the children psychologically injured came from families without the means to take refuge in private schools where the FCAT is banished as junk pedagogy. Thankfully, affluent parents can protect their children from the test. Poor and working class mothers and fathers are trapped though. They watch anxiously from the sidelines on test day and hope for the best.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Chase Whiteside and Erick Stollof New Left Media

New Left Media put together this amazing video what may be the final anti-healthcare reform rally in Washington:

Their fantastic juxtaposition tea party and circus is brilliant. Here's what they had to say about the event:

On March 16, 2010, Tea Partiers from around the country gathered (in disappointing numbers) in front of the Capitol building for their final protest against health care reform. Also in town, appropriately, was Barnum & Bailey's actual circus.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Norman Solomon

Not long ago, the most prominent supporters of the public option were touting it as essential for healthcare reform. Now, suddenly, it’s incidental.

In fact, many who were lauding a public option as the key to a better healthcare future are now condemning just about anyone who insists that the absence of a public option makes the current bill unworthy of support.

Consider this statement: “If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current healthcare bill. Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over healthcare and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real healthcare reform.”

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Robert C. Koehler, Tribune Media Services

America’s charade of change comes complete with national “debate” and a slight readjustment of the center to accommodate the Bush Lite policies of the Obama presidency.

What matters is that any change President Obama proposes be symbolic rather than substantive. A furious battle then ensues over the symbolic change so that, if it does finally come to pass — with the president weathering the endless flow of invective and fear-mongering from the Republican right — it will appear as though something was actually accomplished.

Meanwhile, business as usual holds course. The great swell of hope for a renewal of American society that swept Obama into office — for a real accounting of the crimes of the Bush administration, not to mention a reversal of its most heinous policies and a return to value-based governance — dissipates into the vague, scattered disappointment of millions of supporters, who once again have no focus for their disaffection.

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NEIL WOLLMAN FOR BUZZFLASH.COM

To their benefit, Republicans and conservative media have long been good at using euphemistic names to frame political issues. Terms like “the death tax” to describe the inheritance tax have caught the public and media attention. During the health care debate, there has been the “Cornhusker Kickback," the "Louisiana Purchase," and “Gator Aid.” And now for “Deem and Pass” procedure, which House Democrats might use to pass the bill, there is the “Slaughter Solution/Strategy.” Turning the tables, some Democrats are calling “Deem and Pass” the “Republican Option,” since the GOP used it 30 some times when they were in control of the House.

So let's turn the tables and pass healthcare reform using "The Republican Option."

Technorati Tags: Guest Commentary Framing Healthcare Reform

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Harvey Wasserman

The nuclear power industry is sending a clear and forceful message to the citizens of Vermont: "Drop Dead."

The greeting applies to Ohio, New York, California and a nation under assault from a "renaissance" so far hyped with more than $640 million in corporate cash.

The Vermont attack includes:

1) A direct threat to ignore the state Senate's 26-4 February vote against renewing the Yankee reactor's operating license. As a condition of buying Yankee, Entergy long-ago ceded to the legislature approval of any extension of an operating license, which expires in 2012. But Entergy now says it will spend all the corporate cash it needs to evict the current Senate and install one more to its liking.

2) Vermont's pro-nuclear Republican Governor Jim Douglas says the Senate's vote is "meaningless." Douglas is not running for re-election but is certain to become a high-priced Yankee arm-twister when he leaves office.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

The Green They Steal, The Greed They Wear...a St. Patrick's Day Lament
by Michael Moore

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Friends,

It was amazing. Every story on the front page of Monday's New York Times told the story of the Age of Greed during which a system known as capitalism is slowly, but surely, killing us:

Insurance company greed: "Millions Spent to Sway Democrats on Health Care"

War profiteers: "Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants"

There's no profit in repairing our infrastructure: "Repair Costs Daunting as Water Lines Crumble"

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH

The New Apostolic Movement uncovered … and un-covered.

The mainstream media has plenty of time and space to devote to Sarah Palin’s Hollywood hi-jinks, but apparently has little interest in delving into her fantastic religious connections. 

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Marian Wang, ProPublica

If you haven’t already watched it, Marketplace has a great video explaining Repo 105, a shady accounting maneuver through which Lehman Brothers hid its financial troubles for so long before finally filing in 2008 for the largest bankruptcy in U.S history.

Repo 105 from Marketplace on Vimeo.

As business reporters sniff through Anton Valukas’ 2,200-page “coroner’s report” on Lehman, here’s a look at all the people who’ve denied they knew anything about the “Repo 105” scam.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Danny Schecter, author of The Crime of Our Time

The Big Short Is A Bit Short In Missing The Reasons for The Crisis: Michael Lewis’s Delusion Thesis vs Senator Kaufman’s Case for Crime

It’s the number one book in the county. Every day, Michael Lewis’s The Big Short is getting B I G G E R, no doubt because he is so mediagenic, conversational and likes to laugh with the hosts who interview him about his findings.

On Sunday, he laughed with Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes when the two bantered on about how about stupid it all was and why so many smart people drank the Kool Aid.  The story he tells has no hard edges really…it’s about “delusion,” Wall Street deluding us all and then each other.

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