Guest Contribution

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Christine Bowman

I submitted a question for the president (only three out of thousands were ultimately featured), listened in on the telephone conference, and watched President Obama's remarks and Q&A online. Here are some impressions.

Speaking with supporters brought together by Organizing for America at DNC headquarters as well as online and via teleconferencing, President Obama Thursday sought to dispel myths and rally his troops for the ongoing struggle to bring change to America’s healthcare system.  Whereas opponents of reform have narrowed their focus to disparaging the idea of a “public option,” the president reiterated his support for offering a public insurance option but also emphasized that his reform plan is much broader than that one element, which he described as an attempt to provide consumers an additional choice and insurers some incentive to improve.

Standing before a banner proclaiming “Health Insurance Reform Now,” the president began by taking off his jacket and literally rolling up his sleeves. He reminded volunteers that “Victory in an election wasn’t the change that we sought. It [has] to manifest itself in the lives of everyday people.”

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Healthcare Obama Public Option Wasserman Schultz Progress Change

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Sue Wilson

On August 11, 2009, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in a unanimous vote became the first elected body in the United States to stand up to Hate Radio. Their resolution urges "the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct a comprehensive investigation on hate speech in the media, allowing public participation via public hearings, and asks the NTIA to update its 1993 report on the Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes."

For two years, San Francisco's Hispanic/Latino Anti-Defamation Coalition has been trying to get some traction on this issue. They've staged rallies against Michael Savage worked with the Media Alliance, Common Cause, and Broadcast Blues to protest hate radio, and supported the National Hispanic Media Coaltion's campaign to convince the FCC and NTIA to act. But HLADC leader Aurora Grajedas saw she could better affect national change by working with her own city's board of supervisors. Acting locally is a good lesson for all activists.

Still, there is resistance to any such study, as opponents charge these groups are trying to shut down the First Amendment. But let us be clear, Radio Speech is not Free Speech. I will stand by Glenn Beck's right to stand on the street corner and say illegal immigrants should be made into a new fuel called "Mexinol." I may not like it, but I stand by his right to say it. But there is a difference between shouting on the street corner and broadcasting all over the country.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Sue Wilson Fariness Doctrine hate radio right-wing talk radio Ronald Reagan Telecommunications Act

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Michael Fjetland

As I watched the health care debate I realized that America has a bipolar condition. We are half smart and half crazy at the same time.

America's health care system ranks 37th in the world, yet I saw people who looked like walking heart attacks -- whose insurance companies will probably drop them for pre-existing conditions right after the bill fails -- railing against changing the system to prevent that type of thing from happening. What happened to America being No. 1 instead of insisting on hanging at 37?

Truth has been a casualty in this non-debate shouting match. No one mentions that it was a Republican Senator from Georgia, Johnny Isakson, who submitted the language being mislabeled as Obama's "Death Panel." (Article: Sen. Johnny Isakson Says Palin's Death Panel' Talk Is Nuts). Iowa's Sen. Grassley repeated that misrepresentation as if it was the President's idea instead of a Senate Republican who proposed it. That isn't fair or honest to the American public.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Richard A. Stitt

There are much bigger problems surrounding the debate over our much needed health care reform. But, the biggest one is not the message. It's the messenger. To begin with, the mainstream media presume that most Republicans actually care about having a debate. The truth is, they don't care one iota about health care reform, especially during Barack Obama's Administration.

A New York Times editorial today writes, "But any project as ambitious and expensive as health care reform must be robustly debated." Robustly debated, of course, assumes there are people who actually recognize the shameful lack of coverage for millions of Americans and want a sincere debate.

Serious debate cannot occur in an atmosphere where insurance company proxies pack town hall meetings and drown out anyone desiring to have an honest debate. Instead, all too many in the mainstream media have been complicit in focusing on the angry NRA fist-shaking, Obama-hating mobs who have only one agenda: tear down and undermine President Barack Obama.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Richard A. Stitt GOP health care Newt Gingrich Barack Obama

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Michael Winship

When I was 15, my father was in a near-fatal car collision with a semi-trailer truck. At Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY, he lay in a coma for two months.

As the medical bills mounted and the insurance was running out, my mother had to make an agonizing decision. My father would have to be airlifted to the VA Medical Center in Kansas City, where his veteran's benefits would defray the costs. She would go there with him; arrangements would have to be made for someone to take care of her home and kids while she was away. For how long, no one was certain.

Miraculously -- almost as if he realized what was going on -- Dad suddenly emerged from his coma and was released from Strong a short time later. He never fully recovered from the accident, but for that moment, at least, further domestic upheaval and financial chaos were averted.

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Michael Winship health care health care reform death panel lobbyist

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

It's war.

Hundreds of protesters are turning Democratic Town Hall meetings into combat zones in a battle over health care. They are angry, really angry. Barack Obama's healthcare plan, they believe, is going to euthanize Grandma.

I would be angry, too, if they were going to kill my grandmother, wouldn't you? Except, of course, the government is not going to euthanize anybody; the Obama Adminstration, such as most family doctors, just want people to prepare advance directives, statements that give people control over their own end of life issues.

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Nikolas Kozloff

As a result of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's decision to allow six U.S. military bases on his country's soil, the propaganda war has heated up in the Andean region. In neighboring Venezuela, Hugo Chávez says Colombia is seeking to destabilize the border and has hinted that war could be imminent.

When Uribe and Chávez slug it out rhetorically, the two constantly employ historical references, in particular to the Great Liberator Simón Bolívar. A leader of the independence struggle against Spain, Bolívar was a member of the Caracas aristocracy and liberated Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador from imperial rule in the early 19th century.

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BuzzFlash Guest Commentary

By Maria Allwine

On Monday night, Maryland Senator Ben Cardin held a town hall meeting at Towson University, just north of Baltimore. A long-time BuzzFlash reader and Baltimore activist, Maria Allwine, provided this account.

I was at the protest before Monday night's town hall meeting on healthcare hosted by Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin. Here are my impressions of last night:

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BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

Forwarded by Dave Lindorff (based on an idea from one of his readers)

Questions Should You Find Yourself at a microphone at a 'Town Meeting':

1. If Canada's single-payer system is so god-awful, why have repeated Conservative governments at the provincial and national level in Canada never touched it? Canada is a democracy. If Canadians don't like their health care system, why haven't they gotten rid of it in 35 years? Since the system there is run by the separate provinces, many of which are very politically conservative, why has not one province ever tried to get rid of single-payer?

2. Why is rationing by income, as we do it here, better than rationing by need, as they do it in Canada?

3. Wouldn't single-payer mean that companies could no longer threaten working people with the loss of their health insurance? Why is this a bad idea?

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution 10 Questions on Healthcare Reform Canada Facts

A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

By Bill Berkowitz
 
Mark DeMoss, a long-time conservative public relations expert has launched ‘The Civility Project’ which, he claims, calls for civility in the public discourse. Evidently, the Tea Partiers breaking up Town Hall meetings aren’t listening. 
 
This is not the golden age for the Republican Party and its Christian conservative base: “Birthers” rage; Tea Partiers shout down elected representatives at Town Hall meetings; GOP officials are caught sacking their aide’s wife (Sen. Ensign), an Argentine (Gov. Sanford), and anyone he could pay (Sen. Vitter); Joe the Plumber returns from Gaza and briefs GOP lawmakers on Middle Eastern matters; Sarah Palin cuts and runs; congressional Republicans say no to just about everything Obama, including health care reform; Dick Cheney hawks his hawkishness and defends torture, while daughter Lynn, considers running for office (defending torture?); and the old-timers on the Christian Right are selling the same anti-gay, anti-abortion smack. Even former Florida Governor Jeb Bush admitted – in an August Esquire magazine interview with Tucker Carlson – that the Party has lost its way.
 
Bush goes on to tell Carlson that Republicans “haven’t upgraded our message. We haven’t updated it. If you close your eyes and listen to most Republicans, most conservatives, the same speech could have been given in 1990. … If people think our message is outdated, our message is not relevant to the world we live in, and I think a growing number of people may feel that, you lose your relevance.”

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Civility Right Wing Thugs Townhall Terrorists