Guest Contribution

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Jeff Fleischer

For a prize commemorating peace efforts, the Nobel Committee's selection of Barack Obama sure set off a war of words.  

Given the reaction of the pundit class in the days following the announcement, one would think the president had agreed to accept the Iron Cross or that he'd spent taxpayer money campaigning for the award. Worse, the hyperbole didn't come simply from partisan forces.

This is not to say President Obama should or shouldn't have won the award. Frankly, this was a year with no shortage of deserving candidates. Morgan Tsvangirai, who at great personal risk stood up against the underrated evil that is Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe, springs immediately to mind. So does the perennially deserving 14th Dalai Lama, whose message of freedom only grows more important as China continues to assert itself as a world power and other nations fear alienating the world's largest country. There are worthy choices among the Iranians who took the streets in their fight for democracy, the Afghans working against voter fraud, or the NGOs trying to save lives in Darfur. For all Obama's promise, he has a lot left to do -- and he, to his credit, is the first to acknowledge that.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Andrew Lehman

In the 1960s, there was the "Generation Gap." Youth were perceived by themselves, their parents, and society at large as feeling alienated from their parents and society. Several new forces had emerged that were embraced by youth, forces that felt foreign to older folks. Nonmonogamous premarriage behavior was reveled in. Promiscuity was respected. The Pill and an emerging woman's movement made this possible. Drugs were embraced as techniques to acquire insight about the self. Music grew to become an opportunity to realize and reveal far more about the self than a desire for a mate. The draft was vilified. Both "small is beautiful" and a new holism emerged that embraced both immediate community and global community as necessary to a balanced whole.

Still, most of the population was not above a good story. Ronald Reagan was elected on the premise that lower taxes meant more government services. Reagan proclaimed that empowering the wealthy would result in increasing the resources of those with no money. The Generation Gap seemed to decrease as Americans almost universally focused on the more and more difficult task of maintaining an established lifestyle as resources congregated with fewer and fewer people.

In the 1960s, there was a gap between generations as young people struggled to find a way of living life that would result in a healthy world. Most middle-aged and older adults viewed themselves as members of a nation. What is emerging now is a generation abyss where young people have found a way to feel that they are members of a world. Adults in their 50s and 60s, who were youth in the 1960s, are struggling to find that feeling.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

On Tuesday, October 13, the Senate Finance Committee finally is scheduled to vote on its version of health care insurance reform. And therein lies yet another story in the endless saga of money and politics.

In most polls, the majority of Americans favor a non-profit alternative -- such as Medicare -- that would give the private health industry some competition. So if so many of us, including President Obama himself, want that public option, how come we're not getting one?

Because the medicine that would cure our healthcare nightmare has been poisoned from Day One -- fatally adulterated, thanks to the infamous, Washington revolving door. Movers and shakers rotate between government and the private sector at a speed so dizzying they forget for whom they're supposed to be working.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Dee Evans

I awoke this morning and couldn't believe my ears. That President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize? No. That on almost every news channel that I turned to, all I heard was people who call themselves professional "news" people ranting and raving about how did this happen and how Obama didn't deserve it.

This is so funny. When people try to argue that President Obama needs adequate time to successfully achieve results from his policy changes, everyone on the right and in the media chimes in, "Well, he's been in office for 10 MONTHS." Then when President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize, everyone on the right and in the media chimes in, "Well, he's only been in office for 10 MONTHS." How hypocritical.

Now, I expect this kind of non-thinking, partisan rhetoric coming from many in the right-wing party (they just don't know any better). But I expect a lot more from the media... although I increasingly don't know why.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Martha Rosenberg

Pfizer's $2.3 billion settlement announced last month by the U.S. Department of Justice, for fraudulent marketing of Bextra, Geodon, Lyrica, and Zyvox inducts the world's biggest drug maker into the pharma Three-Peat Hall of Fame.

It's only been five years since Pfizer agreed to pay $430 million for seizure drug Neurontin abuses and entered into a Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA), a trust-but-verify arrangement with the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services in 2004.

And it's only been seven years since Pfizer agreed to pay $49 million to settle charges it defrauded Medicaid by overcharging for cholesterol drug Lipitor and entered into another CIA in 2002.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

[Editor's Note: The author took an article describing the outrage about the Dixie Chicks dissing President Bush -- overseas -- and applied it to Obama.]

Republican legislators and radio talk show hosts are finding out that criticizing President Obama's plans for health care reform can cost you air play, big time.

Stations across the United States have pulled the Republicans from their rosters following reports that they said they were "ashamed the president of the United States."

Station managers said their decisions were prompted by calls from irate listeners who thought criticism of the president was unpatriotic.

One station in Kansas City, Missouri held an "elephant toss" party Friday morning, where Republican critics were encouraged to dump the group's tapes and CDs into trash cans.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Bill Berkowitz

Although no video has surfaced with her saying "I would hope that a wise Jewish lesbian with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion," a la the recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, nor has any bizarre petition shown up with her signature affixed to it, a la Van Jones, the president's former point man on green jobs. Nevertheless the Christian Right -- led by the always agitated folks at the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) -- is up in arms over Chai R. Feldblum's nomination to become a Commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces civil rights laws.

Feldblum's record indicates that she is a perfect fit for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; a compassionate advocate for the rights of the disabled and the disaffected. Au contraire say several Religious Right groups: Her appointment will be a victory for the 'forces of darkness,' and mark the end of 'religious liberty.'

Feldblum is the first openly gay or lesbian person that has been nominated to the EEOC -- as one of five commissioners, her nomination must be confirmed by the Senate -- which issues regulations implementing anti-discrimination laws and which authorizes test case litigation under anti-discrimination laws.

In a piece headlined "If You Hate America You Have a Lawyer -- Chai Feldblum," the TVC wrote that Feldblum is a "sort of general counsel to the Forces of Darkness," and her appointment is indicative of a President that "hates America."

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Michael Winship

You certainly can argue that the depths to which our so-called democratic dialogue has sunk are nothing new. Politicians and advocates have been slinging mud since the earth was cool enough to hurl.

The undeniable difference today is the speed and variety of the compost being thrown. With the 24-hour instantaneous delivery systems offered by radio, TV, and the Internet, people are feeling more and more compelled to say ludicrous, shameful things in public that just a short time ago they would have hesitated to say in private.

Rational pleas for ceasefires go unheeded. But this week, conservative Rick Moran, the freelance writer (and brother of ABC News' Nightline co-host Terry Moran) who runs the archly named Web site Right Wing Nuthouse, went out on a limb and urged sanity.

He wrote, "Employing reason and rationality to fight Obama and the liberals is far superior to the utter stupidity found in the baseless, exaggerated, hyperbolic and ignorant critiques of the left and Obama that is [sic] passed off as 'conservative' thought by those who haven't a clue what conservatism means...

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by John F. Stott

A recent letter described in vivid detail about the plight of end-of-life hospital care for seniors. The letter then went on to talk about how government could help. How so? More regulations? Legislation of our choices? How could government possibly bring anything positive to the table?

Well, for starters, a doctor or a family won't feel comfortable withdrawing care in the absence of a living will, unless there's a legal precedent to do so. A doctor won't look kindly on turning off the ventilator if he or she thinks there'll be a lawsuit. For this reason, a national policy that provides a framework for what constitutes "end-of-life," is not a bad idea. Because of the serious issues involved, guidelines should be developed on a federal level. Also, a family won't feel right withdrawing care if there's even a small chance that the sick family member might recover. As it is now, definitions of "viability" vary from state to state, but perhaps that's not such a good idea. Thus, it's perfectly legitimate for "The Government" to set policy regarding protecting the rights of doctors and family members who elect to withdraw care.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Jacqueline Marcus
 
I just read BuzzFlash's ad on John Farmer's new book The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11 (confirming our doubts), and it made me question, once again, the role that the U.S. Department of Justice is taking as far as investigating and prosecuting the Bush/Cheney criminals that lied about the Iraq invasion, the cover-up lies about the 9/11 attack, Halliburton, torture crimes, wire-tapping, and many more impeachable crimes that were committed in the last eight years.
 
So far, zero investigations regarding the Bush White House crimes.  Instead, what concerns our Man of Justice -- Attorney General Eric Holder?!  (Drum roll please.) Getting film director Roman Polanski! As much as I like Eric Holder, the contrast between the Bush/Cheney high crimes and the Polanski case is a bit much!

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