Guest Contribution

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Jacqueline Marcus

"…Another, supposing himself above others, will have a license to do what he wishes, and challenges respect and honor as due to him before others -- which is an argument of a fiery spirit. This man's will to hurt arises from vainglory and the false esteem he has of his own strength."

—Thomas Hobbes, Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society

What kind of society do we live in when a Vice-President of the United States authorizes torture techniques on detainees with the conviction that he is absolutely right and that the laws of the land are -- wrong? What kind of society do we live in when media networks promote Dick Cheney's view that the implementation of torture is not only acceptable, it should be legalized? What kind of society do we live in when the highest members of the United States Government turn a blind eye to perhaps the worst war crimes committed by a White House Administration in this country's history?

One would have to conclude that a society that promotes and defends the practice of torture can no longer recognize the meaning of goodness and justice.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Bill Berkowitz

Force-feeding Democracy: 'The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,' to premiere at Toronto Film Festival

A BuzzFlash exclusive online interview with Rick Goldsmith, the co-director of a 'story about American government, secrecy, lies and power.'    

" … this is a self-governing country. We are the government. And in terms of institutions, the Constitution provides for separation for powers, for Congress, for the courts, informally for the press, protected by the First Amendment. . . . I think we cannot let the officials of the Executive Branch determine for us what it is that the public needs to know about how well and how they are discharging their functions. . . ." – Daniel Ellsberg interviewed by Walter Cronkite, while underground after releasing the "Pentagon Papers."

A little over 38 years ago, when he released the "Pentagon Papers" to The New York Times and other newspapers, it set off one of the 20th century's most important battles over government secrecy and freedom of the press. The nation was stunned by the revelations, and he became one of the most reviled and admired figures in America. The Nixon Administration was apoplectic; it targeted him through warrant-less eavesdropping and ransacked his psychoanalyst's office to gain access to his medical records. An exhausted anti-war movement was buoyed by his courage and audacity. And yet, despite the uproar, the Vietnam War lasted several more years.

He was arrested and tried for espionage and conspiracy, and faced life imprisonment. The charges were later dropped due to the Nixon Administration's misconduct.

In 1969, Daniel Ellsberg, a former Marine Corps officer, was given access to classified documents regarding the conduct of the Vietnam War, in his capacity as a U.S. military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation.   

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Alan James Strachan, Ph.D.

Somewhere a health insurance executive is laughing.

Sitting behind his vast teak desk, lighting a Cuban cigar, he is laughing as he watches television images of frightened citizens screaming in fear at their Congressional representatives. They are shouting in rage and panic about the "death panel" provision in proposed health care legislation -- a provision that does not exist.

The insurance executive is laughing because the plan hatched to destroy health care legislation by him and his associates is working to perfection. All he and his multi-millionaire brethren had to do was pay savvy public relations firms to create ads and hold public forums in which outrageous lies were disseminated about the proposed legislation.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Alan James Strachan health care reform death panel health insurance

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Protect Democracy from Buzzflash.net

Progressive organizations and writers have lately begun to postulate about the pending end of the culture wars; the battle of ideologies and worldviews that has created deep political divides, and attracted many white, working class Americans to vote for corporatist agendas that do not represent their own best interests. Writers and pundits who believe that the culture wars are no longer an issue in politics ignore the realities of rural, Southern, and Midwestern America, where conservative worldviews, and the values that they instill, still dominate the social, religious, and educational institutions.

It is easy to see why many progressives have convinced themselves that the culture wars are coming to an end. The obvious indicator was the domination of the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections. After eight years of an extremist right wing Republican administration, much of that time with control of Congress, voters chose a dramatic change, giving control of the federal government to the Democrats and electing the country's first non-white president. Optimistic progressives chose to interpret this as a rejection by Americans of modern Republican politics and its anti-progressive social values narrative.

Another explanation of why the culture wars are ending was offered by Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress in his recent article, "The Coming End of the Culture Wars" in the July edition of American Progress, in which he theorized that changing American demographics; especially the coming of age of the 1980s generation, whom he perceives as a more tolerant generation; and the rapid population growth of certain minority communities that he sees as more progressive than the old mainstream white America.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution protect democracy religious wars Obama Rick Warren

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

By Bill Berkowitz  
 
Struggling to find an identity and a larger audience, a number of long-time hard-core Religious Right groups have joined together to launch the Freedom Federation
 
The summer had barely just begun. Worldwide attention was focusing on the death of Michael Jackson and the cable news shock troops were on it 24/7. Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee for the U.S.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Religious Right Freedom Federation

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

By Michael Winship

Toward the end of George McGovern's failed presidential bid in 1972, I was helping advance a bus trip for vice presidential candidate Sargent Shriver.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Universe Healthcare Ted Kennedy

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Jacqueline Marcus

I want to begin this commentary by saying farewell to our Lion, Senator Ted Kennedy, who will be immensely missed with sadness…

***

If you listened to Andrea Mitchell's report of the CIA torture documents last night on the NBC Nightly News, you'd never know that the Bush Administration authorized orders to practice heinous crimes of torture on the detainees, as today's The New York Times article points out -- there were no "bad apples" at a lower level. The Bush White House gave direct orders to torture with the stamp of approval from Bush's Attorney General, John Ashcroft.

However, the message from Mitchell's report was a defense of Dick Cheney's claim that "torture works," according to Mitchell, "there is evidence that these enhanced interrogation methods may have saved American lives…"

The CIA report, though mostly redacted for reasons that must shock the conscience to put it lightly, should have been a flashing neon BUSH WHITE HOUSE in CRISIS 24/7 headline news story. Instead, it's being swept quickly under the filthy corporate media carpet. It's absolutely stunning to finally see hard-core evidence, proving that torture was not only authorized by Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and others working in the Bush Administration, but also it was an "order" to do so.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Jacqueline Marcus Andrea Mitchell torture Dick Cheney

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Burt Hall

Open letter to Senators Webb, Warner, Baucus, and Conrad:

Far right attempts to sabotage health care reform have promoted uncivilized behavior at town hall meetings and attracted extremists packing guns. Now, the swiftboaters who viciously attacked Senator Kerry are attacking the President on the public option. Every U.S. Senator worth his salt should go on the airways and counter the far right misinformation machine. As to current polls, they are meaningless when the public (including some of your own colleagues) don't even understand the reforms.

You could start by educating the public and your colleagues on the critical differences between private insurance and the public option. For example, private insurers have failed to control the exploding costs of health care or to provide sufficient care for our people. We rank nearly last among advanced nations in practically ever health care category. Other advanced nations have been successful without private insurers. Big business here bypasses private insurers and self insurers. Private insurers have restrictions, such as on coverage and what doctors you can see. The public option allows freedom. Further issues to explore about private insurers are (1) what do they actually contribute to medical care, (2) does the insurance business even apply to the medical field, and (3) is it moral for private insurers to profit from human illness?

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Burt Hall public option health care reform Senate health insurance

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Jeff Fleischer

For the past few election cycles, most talk of amending the Constitution has come from candidates hoping to cynically create a wedge issue. The regressive wing of the Republican Party has routinely concocted measures that had no chance of passing but could effectively rally a certain percentage of its base to the cause of restricting freedom, whether via perennial attempts to ban flag burning or the 2004 obsession with restricting marriage rights.

However, while health care reform has dominated the news lately, the Senate is quietly advancing an amendment with a legitimately noble cause -- to make the federal government slightly more democratic. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) has introduced a measure to ensure that voters will determine who fills vacancies in the nation's highest deliberative body via special elections. (The amendment -- co-sponsored by Mark Begich, Dick Durbin, and John McCain -- was passed by a Senate subcommittee on August 6 and now must pass the full Judiciary Committee.)

It's a simple idea, and a good one.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Jeff Fleischer Senate Russ Feingold succession Cabinet Rod Blagojevich

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Michael Winship

A sorry state of affairs. If it wasn't for all the 40th anniversary celebrations of Woodstock, the primary cultural contribution of the month would be the announcement that former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas -- birther, born again and former Republican House Majority Leader -- will be a contestant in the next round of "Dancing with the Stars."

Still, better to see DeLay trotting the boards of ABC's hit "reality" show than back marauding the halls of Congress - or roaming faraway Saipan with now imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff, praising the U.S. possession's sweatshops as "a perfect Petri dish of capitalism." ("It's like my Galapagos Island," DeLay enthused.)

When he makes his debut on "Dancing with the Stars," you have to wonder if Tom will specialize in that favorite Lone Star dance, The Cotton Eye Joe, or more appropriately, some variation of The Sidestep, immortalized in Broadway's The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Michael Winship Tom DeLay Jack Abramoff Woodstock Ang Lee