Guest Contribution

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

On October 13, we lost a resolute champion of the law, a man who left his impact on the lives of untold numbers of Americans.

His very name made his life's work almost inevitable, a matter of destiny. William Wayne Justice was a Federal judge for the Eastern District of Texas. That's right, he was "Justice Justice." And he spent a distinguished legal career making sure that everyone -- no matter their color or income or class -- got a fair shake. As a former Texas lieutenant governor put it last week, "Judge Justice dragged Texas into the 20th century, God bless him."

Dragged it kicking and screaming, for it was Justice who ordered Texas to integrate its public schools in 1971 -- 17 years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision made separate schools for blacks and whites unconstitutional. Texas resisted doing the right thing for as long as it could. Many of its segregated schools for African-American children were so poor they still had outhouses instead of indoor plumbing.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Nikolas Kozloff

Last week, representatives of the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (known by its Spanish acronym ALBA) met in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba to discuss the future evolution of the trade bloc, designed to promote reciprocity amongst left-leaning regimes in the region such as Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador. Since its inception in 2004, ALBA has carried out important exchanges of goods and services; for example, Venezuela has exported subsidized oil to Cuba and receives Cuban medical assistance in return. However, some wonder whether ALBA is practical or can help to foster real economic development for the region's poor.

ALBA leaders however say it's time to place such doubts aside. Last week in Cochabamba, they declared their historic adoption of a common currency called the Unified System of Compensation of Reciprocal Payments or SUCRE in Spanish. Named after Antonio José de Sucre, a military general and hero of the wars of independence against Spain, the Sucre is to be gradually substituted for the U.S. dollar in terms of commercial exchange between ALBA member nations.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Richard A. Stitt
 
In an interview after President Barack Obama's visit to Texas A&M University campus, George H.W. Bush decried the incivility that he hears from both sides of the political spectrum. "I don't like it. The cables (TV) have a lot to do with it."
 
"The way they treat my son and anyone who's opposed to their point of view is just horrible," Mr. Bush said.
 

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Jacqueline Marcus

Once upon a time, President Clinton spoke wisely about the connection between world poverty and terrorism. When 97 percent of the wealth is hoarded by no less than a dozen corporate families with 19th century destructive-to-the-planet investments in defense weapons, oil, coal, nuclear, drugs, and health insurance profits, expect global poverty to reach a state of anarchy and terrorism.

Many years ago, President Clinton addressed the problem of unequal distribution of wealth. He spoke about the majority of people around the world who are earning no more than $2 a day, illustrating how easily we spend two bucks on a cup of Starbucks coffee. (Think of the film "Slumdog Millionaire," and the terrorists attack at Mumbai, India's five-star hotel the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, July 20, 2009). When poverty increases, terrorists will target the rich, i.e., corporate expansion and control. Thus the underlying cause of terrorism is poverty.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Richard A. Stitt
 
On October 16, Barack Obama accepted the honor to speak at Texas A&M University campus where the George H.W. Bush Library is housed. He appeared at the invitation of George H.W. Bush to honor the thousand points of light envisioned by the former president during his four years in the White House.
 
But I have never seen or experienced the bitterness, rancor, and outright hatred against President Barack Obama or any president in my lifetime as that exhibited by the unprincipled, toxic, and depraved Republican Party from the day he took the oath of office.
 
Over 48 years ago, John F. Kennedy also experienced extreme backlash from those who claimed, that as the first Catholic president, the Vatican would run the White House. But, the racists, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-Black extremists have not toned down their rhetoric. On the contrary, they have sharpened and increased the frequency of their hate propaganda.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Richard Stitt Barack Obama George H.W. Bush Rush Limbaugh

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Michael Winship

Despite the graciousness of his speech at the White House last Friday, President Obama's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize did have an air slightly reminiscent of Lincoln's story about the man who was tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail -- if it wasn't for the honor of the thing, he'd just as soon walk.

Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, a member of the Nobel committee that chose him, told The Associated Press this week, "I looked at his face when he was on TV and confirmed that he would receive the prize and would come to Norway and he didn't look particularly happy."

After all, Obama has been President for barely nine months and yes, he has made some fine speeches in support of peace and bettering international relations. But was that enough to merit the award? Was he winning it more for who he's not -- George W. Bush -- than for who he is?

Sadly, much of the initial reaction in the United States was churlish and scornful, ill-informed, and frankly, as un-American as those of the knee-jerk right who cheered when Obama's quick trip to Copenhagen failed to win the Olympics for his Chicago hometown. We are less serious as a nation than we should be. The empty-headedness and inanity of much of the media and political response to the announcement bears testament to that unhappy truth. We would do better to see ourselves as others see us than to scream in protest and sarcasm when another part of the world wishes to honor our President and us.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
By Nikolas Kozloff

Celebrity Anthony Bourdain has never made a secret of his disdain for vegetarians and vegans. In his best-selling book "Kitchen Confidential," the former New York cook remarked somewhat amusingly, "Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn." After his book became a hit, Bourdain moved into television and currently hosts No Reservations, a rather unusual and unorthodox travel show that examines far-flung cultures and exotic cuisines of the world.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Jimmy Lohman

There is nothing especially heroic about voting to provide better health care to the American public -- especially when you represent the predominantly Democratic state of Maine where a large majority of voters favor the President's plan. So you won't be hearing any praise for Olympia Snowe over here.

It might have been a little courageous had Sen. Snowe broken with other Republicans and actually worked to get the bill passed, and not simply announced her begrudging qualified support for it the day it came to a vote in committee. But Republicans don't engage in leadership -- only in griping and complaining incessantly that people with nothing are a burden on the people with everything.

In her speech this afternoon announcing her decision to vote for passing the pathetically watered down bill out of the oligarchic Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Snowe felt compelled to note: "I have shared my Republicans' concerns (sic) about vast governmental bureaucracies and governmental intrusions."

This is about as disingenuous and specious a statement ever delivered, even for a member of the Senate Finance Committee.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Gregory Mysko
 
America's most valuable treasure, its people, and their talents are being sacrificed to a ridiculous dogma called "Globalization and the Free Market." Too many Americans are out of work or underemployed. And the only ones who aren't underpaid are the Wall Street executives and media pundits who promote this process that is bankrupting everyone else.
 
As the election season of 2010 starts to rev up, one phrase used by Democratic and Republican politicians over and over is "new jobs." None of them say specifically what those jobs are. It is an abstract concept. The mainstream news media has done a superficial job of covering the extent and dynamics of job losses while focusing instead on sad human interest stories of the unemployed and their financial struggles. And the reporting of the reality of where "new jobs" will be created is a collection of platitudes and repetition of business school palaver. But to people who have lost their jobs, there is nothing abstract about any of this.
 
According to American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC) Executive Director Auggie Tantillo, "Running a trade deficit for natural resources that the United States lacks is something that cannot be helped, but running a massive trade deficit in man-made products that America easily could produce itself is a choice -- a poor choice that is bankrupting the country and responsible for the loss of millions of jobs." That sums it up most accurately.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

"Private capital tends to become concentrated in [a] few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones."

"The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists privately control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed most cases impossible for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."

-- Albert Einstein wrote this in 1949 in the "Monthly Review" in explaining why he was a socialist.

The following is an excerpt from Chris Hedges' recent book, "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle":

Corporations are ubiquitous parts of our lives, and those that own and run them want them to remain that way. We eat corporate food. We buy corporate clothes. We drive corporate cars. We buy our fuel from corporations. We borrow from, invest our retirement savings with, and take out our college loans with corporations and corporate banks. We are entertained, informed, and bombarded with advertisements by corporations. Many of us work for corporations. There are few aspects of life left that have not been taken over by corporations, from mail delivery to public utilities to our for-profit health-care system. These corporations have no loyalty to the country or workers. Our impoverishment feeds their profits. And profits, for corporations are all that count.

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