Bush, Slave Labor and Arizona

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, brought to you by the one and only Mark Karlin:

The draconian Arizona Anti-Mexican Immigrant law -- this legislation is not aimed at white immigrants -- would not have passed and been signed under Bush; Karl Rove would have made sure of that.

[...] Bush and Cheney were basically heirs to the slavery tradition of low wage labor and believed that corporate America should have access to the cheapest possible labor market -- legal or otherwise.

[...] Without a Republican in the White House to protect the right of corporations to exploit illegal labor, the Republican Governor of Arizona signed the law [...] and became a right wing populist hero even if it will probably cause her state hundreds of millions of dollars in boycott revenue and litigation costs.

The Republicans still have a split in their party between the corporatists who are happy to employ illegal immigrants at sub-living wages and the white Tea Party populist base that is upset that whites are becoming a minority [...]

That's the Republican dilemma; corporatist profits and slave wages over jobs for Americans and the bigot vote.

Bush was on the side of the corporatists, so the worst of the GOP immigration bills, a la Arizona, never passed during his administrations [...] because big business wanted a continued supply of rock bottom low wage labor. [...]

Americans who have lost their jobs cannibalize themselves by shopping at Wal-Mart because it's -- well -- cheap, and they don't have much money to spend because their jobs were sent overseas or filled here by illegal immigrants.

And who do the Wal-Mart shoppers blame: Obama?

Sometimes you just can't buy stupid.

More here.

Insurrection on the Potomac: The Gun Guys Go Seditious

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my buddy Mark Karlin:

The politically charged gun movement in America that began when right wing ideologues took over the NRA in the '70s (in what was called "The Revolt at Cincinnati") has been pathological from the beginning. [...]

Ironically, as pro-gun legislation is passing across the land and in Washington, the Virginia gun guy "protest" was held on National Park land that now allows handgun carrying because of a law signed by President Obama -- and most of the attendees were locked and loaded.

At both rallies, the talk was defiant and seditious, threatening [...]

There were only a few hundred gun nuts who showed up at each rally, but that was enough to get a scrum of media coverage, as compared to the barely covered 200,000 advocates who showed up in D.C. a couple weeks back to protest for a compassionate immigration policy.

The modern gun lobby -- after the political right wingers took over the NRA in a coup -- is more about white male entitlement, racism, and the false perception that a handgun would be of much value against the United States Military based on a paranoid view of the federal government. [...]

They certainly didn't protest the invasion of privacy on multiple levels under the Bush Administration.

Please read the whole thing here.

Corporate Media Propaganda Aimed at Perpetuating Wealth for the Wealthy

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my pal Mark Karlin:

A Corporate Media Owned by Wealthy Interests is Going to Disseminate Propaganda Aimed at Perpetuating Wealth for the Wealthy. [...]

[I]n the spirit of corporate welfare, private corporations have been given or sold for nominal amounts the right to further enrich the wealthy and global businesses using airwaves that belong to the American citizens. That's not free enterprise; that's socialism for the super rich and stockholders at the expense of the working stiff.

[...]

We get entertainment and news that is just filler in between segments of advertising that make the owners of Big Media very wealthy indeed. [...]

Politics has become just another reality TV show, a soap opera of the never-ending saga of Sara Palin. Or there is the daily overload of the "Tea Party," which was literally created in part by FOX Fraudcasting and its allies in the right wing. [...]

Distraction of the masses is good for the corporate media barons, as they consolidate ownership of Big Media, because a poorly or misinformed public is easier to feed lies to.

Please read the whole thing here.

The Potential Domestic White "Christian" Terrorists in Our Midst are Locked and Loaded

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my pal Mark Karlin:

Through the confused feeling of progressives about a White House that has confounded expectations and tipped corporatist, we appear to be underestimating a serious and real threat to our nation: sedition, violence and assassinations. [...]

[T]he GOP, the likes of Dick Armey, some religious right groups, Aryan nation cells, the Tea Party, and Neo-Confederacy advocates, have poured the gasoline on our Constitutional democracy and lit the matches. They are the same threat as Al-Qaeda, perhaps a more serious one, because they operate from within the United States and are urged on by the right wing corporate media. [...]

This isn't a parlor game; it's a nascent stage of sedition: the open and violent challenge to a legitimate government.

When the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh challenge the validity of the U.S. government (it began with the "birther" movement, claiming that Obama was illegitimately in the White House), along with virtually the entire FOX propaganda and seditious network, we have what amounts to the beginning of an insurrection. The Neo-Confederates have also been given license to come out of the woodwork and join with the Sarah Palin [...]

Challenging the legitimacy of a government to rule is the most basic form of sedition. Violence comes from an uprising of those who believe, with each passing day, that they are living under an "oppressive" form of government, and hearing that confirmed from their favorite right wing talkers and politicians. [...]

Remember Timothy McVeigh? There are tens of thousands of white "Christian" males out there now, potential and actual domestic terrorists in our midst.

Please go here for more.

Sad Day for Progressives When We Become Divided

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my pal Mark Karlin:

Having been on the Internet fighting off the GOP like a junkyard dog since May of 2000 -- and putting on the boxing gloves against the illegal and unconstitutional actions of the Bush Administration for 8 years -- it has personally been of great angst to see the progressive movement divided on a litmus test over HCR.

Most recently, two leading bloggers Markos and Jane Hamsher have taken their feud public over whether or not Dennis Kucinich should stick with his stated principles and not vote for the compromised HCR Senate Bill coming imminently before the House because he believes in a single payer system. [...]

As for Dennis Kucinich, who has articulated deep moral principles over time and is much to be admired, he [decided to support the bill].

Sadly for the progressive movement, we are split now between the social idealists and the pragmatists.

[W]e profoundly lament that the progressive force built up over 10 years has developed such a rift.

There is too much that needs to be done to save our nation from the greedy, the demagogues, and the mega-corporations whose wealth exceeds that of many countries.

More here.

The Lies of "Conservatism" and the "Center" are Immoral

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, brought to you by Mark Karlin:

The modern "conservative" movement is nothing more than a massively funded and highly effective communications strategy to shift America into an oligarchy that functions for the super wealthy through tax cuts and for corporations through the elimination of safety regulations for the public good and the privatization of government.

That's not conservatism; that's highway robbery. It's a crime.

All this came about through the organized strategy and financing of wealthy financiers and corporations to build a network of think tanks, media-owned outlets, reporters toting the oligarchy line on the "benefits" of unrestrained "free trade," public relations initiatives, and front organizations to move America from an evolutionary society relying on the strength of innovation and a dynamic educated middle class to a relatively static society in which those at the top are in a members-only club growing obese with wealth while kicking others down from the ladder to the top and demanding tithes from them.

The most vital cudgel used to achieve this economic and social imbalance that stultifies the American nation and is immoral to its founding principles is the notion of "centrism." It is beat into us by Republican and Democratic politicians (Rahm Emanuel and the White House being current exemplars), the corporate mainstream media, and, of course, the relentlessly effective GOP echo chamber.

What is "centrism" other than an artificial metaphor, given that America is confronting so many issues and that the vast majority of society wants to move forward, not backward. What most Americans want is not static "centrism," but movement ahead. [...]

After all, so called "Conservatism" is the opposite of progress. [...]

America prided itself on breaking away from the fixed and stultifying inherited upper class rule of Europe, only now to have an interest group with such massive amounts of funds to create a "natural order" of winners and losers; in essence, to reverse the American Revolution.

That's not "centrist" or "conservative"; it is immoral, even treasonous.

[...]

The created fiction of the "center" is used as an excuse for inaction on behalf of America's obscenely wealthy interests.

Much more here.

Gun Watch: We Need a Committee for the Right to Keep and Arm Bears

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash via my pal, Mark Karlin:

Attached to the so-called credit card reform bill [...] was [...] a special interest amendment moved along by the NRA and its puppets. It allows, as of Monday, gun toters to carry their guns, including Handguns, into National Parks as long as they are in compliance with state law, as if any park ranger is going to check that one out.

[...] Now the sound of gunfire will have to be added to future filming amidst the majestic sounds of wildlife.

Ironically and reflective of the backwards state of American politics, violence in National Parks has gone down in recent years. [...]

Frankly, at BuzzFlash, we are thinking of starting a Committee for the Right to Keep and Arm Bears. They are going to need firepower now, as well as providing bullet proof vests to park visitors. Protect people and the wildlife; that's what Congress should be doing, instead of the bidding of the NRA.

You can read the whole thing here.

GOP Character Assassination Time: The Teleprompter Meme is Part of a Decades Long Campaign

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, courtesy of my pal Mark Karlin:

I was sick and tired of the Republicans using personality misrepresentations of Democratic leaders -- which the corporate mainstream press repeated ad nauseum -- to try to turn them into negative caricatures, an endeavor in which they have been largely successful. [...]

What is most alarming is that the Democrats rarely seem to be able to counterattack successfully. That's what is particularly distubing about the latest "Obama uses a teleprompter" meme that has infested the mainstream media, egged on by Sarah Palin and the Republican PR/media echo chamber. It's beyond ludicrous: do they think George W. Bush memorized his speeches?

[...] It defines Dems in a negative way that goes right to the subconscious of many Americans, enough to foul up democracy and obstruct the workings of government, not to mention defeat Democrats. [...]

Start acting like your character and integrity matter by fighting back and going after the Republicans. They are extremely vulnerable, but you won't stop them with promises of "bi-partisanship," an act that they only interpret as a sign of vulnerabilty and weakness.

You can read the whole thing here.

President Obama Gives the GOP Hell in Baltimore by Telling the Truth

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash via my pal Mark Karlin:

As Harry Truman said just tell the Republicans the truth, and they'll just think it's Hell.

That's what President Barack Obama did in a bravura appearance before a GOP House member retreat in Baltimore on Friday. [...]

Instead, a newly minted feisty Obama returned to his primary campaign style and let them have it. He broke the mold by debunking the premise of almost every "query" by a GOP House member.

For once, the WH had outsmarted the GOP minority by ensuring the cameras recorded something akin to a political massacre. [...]

Obama reminded you why you voted for him; he exhibited a complete mastery of facts, detail, political motivation, hope and common sense. [...]

The GOP knows now that the Scott Brown win isn't going to lead to a cakewalk to victory in 2010. Obama just sent them that message loud and clear. [...]

Don't put that Obama back in the closet.

We want to see it with great frequency.

You can read the whole thing here, and should.

Two Supreme Court GOP Coups Bracket a Decade

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via the always interesting Mark Karlin:

From the presidential election stolen in December of 2000 by a 5-4 vote to the 5-4 vote in January of 2010, the decade is bracketed with a partisan Republican High Court that twice shoved the basic underpinnings of democracy -- government of the people, by the people and for the people -- into a garbage compactor and crushed our electoral rights. [...]

BuzzFlash was one of the few progressive sites on the Internet -- and perhaps the loudest and most in your face -- when Antonin "the Fixer" Scalia stopped the 2000 recount in Florida because Al Gore would have overtaken Bush and become president. [...]

I was talking on the phone this morning with Thom [Hartmann], and he brought up the irony that may be prophetic that the infamous Dredd Scott decision that declared slaves to be property led to the Civil War. Now, we have a Supreme Court decision that affirmed that corporations have, according to the GOP 5-4 vote, the same election rights as people. [...]

The Dredd Scott decision, as Hartmann points out, resulted in the Civil War. [...]

It might not be time for a Civil War, but it is time for a non-violent populist revolt to restore our Constitutional rights as people and to protect ourselves from the predatory corporations that now will transparently buy their politicians in D.C.

Please read the whole thing here.

Progressives and Populists Need to Redefine the Mythical Political "Center"

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash via my pal Mark Karlin:

There are reports today in Politico that the apparent GOP/Independent "uprising" (and idealistic progressive disillusionment) in Massachusetts is giving the White House second thoughts about cautious, process oriented, incremental change aimed at attracting "the center."

The concept of a fixed "center" in American politics is one of those myths perpetuated by a combination of the GOP, DLC Democrats such as Rahm Emanuel, and the media. America is a nation of evolutionary change. [...]

It is our ability to be innovative, and to be innovative, you have to evolve, change, grow.

If ever there were proof of how the political "center" can be created, it is how the hundreds of billions of dollars and grooming of Ronald Reagan created a perceived and indoctrinated "center" that allowed for the fleecing of the working and middle class that allowed the engorging of the already filthy rich. [...]

Yes, Obama was elected on one word "change," but whether one is a progressive idealist or progressive pragmatist, the corporate media, the GOP, and the Tea Bag organizers were able to turn his cautious approach into something looking like "more of the same." [...]

[I]t's time to return to "change" from the grassroots up and to recreate the "center," as has always been the case as this nation has evolved.

Much more here.

Is America's Only Substantial Jobs Program the Military-Industrial Complex?

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my friend Mark Karlin:

The reality is that right now the military-industrial complex is the government's biggest jobs program, starting with those "volunteer" GIs who join because they can't otherwise find a job. If the military didn't make wars to fight, and we needed a smaller size service, the government would have to deal with a higher unemployment rate at home. [...]

War and the military are our key domestic jobs programs at this point in time.

And they are going to drive us into bankruptcy: morally and economically.

You can read the rest right here.

Journalistic Malfeasance, Harry Reid and The Negro: It's All Entertainment

By GottaLaff

Earlier I posted about the abysmal state of the news media. Once it devolved into a business of reporting for profit, instead of allowing the news to be independent of commercial media, we were sunk.

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my pal Mark Karlin, provides another take that dovetails with my own. Here are a few excerpts:

BuzzFlash has long editorialized that the world of corporate interests, politics, journalism, and entertainment have largely merged. [...]

But although [Jon] Stewart was the straw that broke Crossfire's back, its legacy lives on across the nation in television and radio political slugfests that do little to enlighten public policy, but provide us a ringside seat at the fights.

As [P.M.] Carpenter noted in the end of his commentary on January 12:

Calling for an end to this national behavior is equally "unbearably pointless." Everyone is aware of it, but the addiction holds, and worsens. Perhaps this is merely what a declining empire looks and sounds like.

[...] It seems that even us progresssives, including at times BuzzFlash, can't remove ourselves from sensationalistic fascination with a gaper's block, because the corporate mainstream media keeps repeating it day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute.

Entertainment is always a strategically effective diversion for the non-elite classes from the true issues that confront the nation and them: concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few who want to keep the country club closed. [...]

We are a nation, with some exceptions, of World Wrestling Federation (Entertainment) political junkies.

That does not bode well for our future.

Please read the whole post here.

Mr. Snowman has the right idea: Turn off Fox

By GottaLaff


BuzzFlash has a campaign going called Turn Off Fox. While I deal with a few tech issues on my end, read all about it (via an e-mail from Mark Karlin):

Here's one recent example from a reader:

I was in my local K-mart and noticed that they had FOX news on the TVs in the electronics dept. I voiced my complaint to the person working there, which got me nowhere, but as I was leaving the store I saw a "feedback" number posted by the service desk. So when I got home I called and got a nice sounding fellow who seemed actually concerned over my displeasure. I suggested to him that aside from offending me, I thought the use of such a polarizing channel was stupid for business, and that they should have something neutral on the display. He agreed and said that he would pass it up the corporate ladder as well as sending an alert to the store manager to CHANGE THE CHANNEL!!!!!!! I think I won this skirmish.

Every victory over the fraudulent reporting at FOX News counts. If you have any new ideas or success stories of your own, please do send them in to us at turnofffox@gmail.com. They keep us inspired to work diligently and will assuredly help us encourage others.

Otherwise, let it snow when we have no control, but if you stay inside, remember to continue the campaign -- and to Turn Off FOX.

Who Says a Terrorist Attack Has to be In an Airplane? How the GOP Threatens Our Lives

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, brought to you by my pal Mark Karlin:

Yesterday, I wrote a piece on how the GOP needs terrorists in order for the Republicans to terrorize Americans, because otherwise they have no platform other than basically eliminating taxes for the wealthy and corporations. [...]

While the Republicans are scaring us to death about preventing a plane being blown up, which is almost impossible in the long term, our entire nation is subject to attack from within without any screenings, scanners, or body searches. [...]

The GOP enables terrorism, because the entire party runs on one grade of gas: opportunism. [...]

In a series of year-long gun attacks on American by Americans who believe Glenn Beck and his right-wing media colleagues that white males are victims and guns are their defense against "Socialist Tyranny," the U.S. is confronting a possible "lone wolf" terrorist attack, and one might consider many of these shooting terrorist attacks by those who have heard the siren song of "patriotic" armed rebellion implied by Beck and his right-wing media cohorts.

The right-wing media, and particularly FOX and Limbaugh, have developed an encapsulated pathology that justifies attacks on the government because in their delusional worldview, the federal government is illegitimate. [...]

Some would call Dick Cheney and his "crew" traitors.

BuzzFlash would be among them, because we value life.

Please read the rest here.

Bush Terrorized Us and Al Qaeda Won

By GottaLaff



I have a quick break between San Francisco vacation activities, and ran across this, your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash via my pal Mark Karlin:

When you look back over the 9/11 act of terror that Bush could have likely prevented, but was too lazy to try and prevent after being warned, Al Qaeda beat the Neo-Cons from that point on. [...]

It appears Obama is taking a different path, and that his concern about the nukes in Pakistan falling into terrorist hands is far more on target in regards to our safety, and is a strategic approach to terrorism rather than an end run for oil fields. It's important to also note that by destabilizing Iraq, Bush and Cheney only made the theological extremists in Iran all the stronger.

Let's hope that our primal fear of falling from the sky doesn't overcome our ability to outmaneuver the terrorists.

Becoming terrorized only accomplishes their goals.

Please read the whole thing here. I only gave you a sample.

Lieberman's Former Roommate Talks: "Sorry to see that Joe has become such a shallow husk of a man."

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash:

Joe Lieberman's Former Roommate Talks to BuzzFlash About the Healthcare Bill, 2012 and the Senator's Journey 'to the Dark Side'

So when I got a chance to talk to Lieberman's former roommate at Yale, writer David Wyles, I had to ask.

"I wish I knew. I think there are aspects of those theories that are true," Wyles told me (though he agreed with me that the Israel motive is far-fetched). "Certainly he holds a grudge against the Democratic Party."

And though the idea of Lieberman taking a job in the insurance or pharmaceutical industries amounts to the type of quid pro quo that would repel most of us, Wyles is pretty certain of that possibility.

"They can offer him a big job as a lobbyist or as an executive," he said. And Lieberman will take it: "He has become shameless."

He then said that Traitor Joe "used to have scruples". You'd never know, wouldja?

They haven't spoken for years now, and Wyles said he's "sorry to see that Joe has become such a shallow husk of a man."

Go read the rest here.

In Desperation for Funds, "The Nation" Slanders BuzzFlash: Progressive Sites Need More Dollar Support

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my pal Mark Karlin:

This year, due to the dismal economic situation for just about everyone who is not a Bush tax-cut wealthy person and the ever-growing gap between the rich and the rest of us, progressive publications -- including BuzzFlash -- have had some hair-raising financial close calls as bills pile up while people who can afford donations dwindle.

Through all of this, nearly 10 years, BuzzFlash has never accepted corporate advertising or any advertising at all. [...] The list could go on of how we avoid external influence, but we don't think of ourselves as saints. [...]

Ultimately, we decided to develop the ad piece and how these ads are run for a reason (to soften the toxic or negative image of corporations doing environmental, slave wage, or economic harm -- there are banking ads too), but to give our progressive colleagues their due for how much they sacrifice for a better America. We can assure you that they would all (except the Huffington Post, which is an investment enterprise with the goal of increasing market value) rather not run the deceptive ads, including the Nation. [...]

In the meantime, we were a bit astonished to receive a mass solicitation e-mail on December 16 from Katrina vanden Heuvel (the editorial and marketing genius currently publishing "The Nation") -- whom we deeply admire -- accusing BuzzFlash, among others, of running "Nation" stories "without contributing a penny to support and produce the journalism we invest in."

We don't mind being called out by name by people who have a different opinion, but it's another story when a publication you deeply admire slanders you. The fact is that we post headline links to "The Nation" stories from which they derive more hits because of our size, and they then can charge more money to the likes of Coca Cola and Discover Card for running ads for those corporations. BuzzFlash has never reproduced, copied, nor violated the copyright of any "Nation" article, and many of "The Nation" writers, including Jeremy Scahill whom vanden Heuvel mentions, read BuzzFlash and have been interviewed by BuzzFlash. [...]

BuzzFlash links directly to Nation articles, which drives up their "hits" and page views, which means that they can charge Coca Cola more money to greenwash itself! And BuzzFlash promotes "The Nation" writers and books through interviews. [...]

The truth is that all the publications vanden Heuvel cited need more funding. [...] Against the power of television and radio, we collectively need all the financial support that we can get, because unless our megaphone gets louder, we are going to lose our nation to the Teabaggers and Neo-Confederates, backed by the global corporatists and bankers who pull the strings on Capitol Hill.

Much more here.

Greatest Healthcare? Has Anyone Tried Calling for a Nurse When Hospitalized?

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my pal Mark Karlin:

BuzzFlash wrote about a study awhile back in which the U.S. was ranked 17th in the quality of its healthcare. The fact is most of the Western nations with single payer systems have better healthcare at a cheaper cost. In Canada, which the right wing media shills refer to as a nation with "socialized" medicine, residents live longer than Americans. [...]

But all that aside, we are baffled by the notion that opponents of health care reform claim; that the U.S. has the best healthcare in the world.

Has anyone tried calling for a nurse while hospitalized recently? [...]

We love nurses -- and the California's Nurses Union is one of the most progressive labor organizations in the nation, for example -- but most hospitals have cut nursing staffing levels way below comfort level and health safety in the U.S. It's not the fault of the nurses; it's a failed system of care.

That's because hospital bean counters are cutting back basic care to ensure profits or fat salaries for the administrators and the specialized physicians. [...]

Healthcare now is about profit, not so much care. [...]

As a result, we just keep falling further behind in healthcare, as we continue to press that nurse call button, with no response.

Please read the whole post here.

Harry Reid: Speak Wobbly and Carry No Stick

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, courtesy of my pal Mark Karlin:

I've written in the past how the Republicans and Democrats pick their leaders in the Senate for diametrically opposed reasons: the GOP wants an authoritarian taskmaster who gets Senators to vote with the party position; and the Dems pick a leader (in this case, Harry Reid) who will let then run around like cats in heat, voting any which way they want.

Part of this has to do with one of the most basic differences between Republicans and Democrats: the GOP respects hierarchy and following the leader (think military mindset), and the Democrats love to be off leash and independent.

So when the Dems look for a Majority or Minority Senate Leader, they look to someone who isn't going to lean on them too heavily, and that's how we got Harry Reid -- who seems to have a new opinion and prediction every day -- as Majority Leader for the Dems. [...]

[I]ronically, the Dems and the Republicans both have leaders in the Senate from red states.

Remember Trent Lott as the GOP Senate Leader? Uh, was he from a blue state? Of course not. Are you getting the picture? [...]

Harry Reid, by all accounts, is a nice, comparatively incorruptible guy. As far as Senators go, he's relatively modest and down to earth.

But one thing he ain't is a party line enforcer. [...]

Don't believe any rumors about Reid promising to sink the Stupak Amendment or including a stronger Public Option in the joint reconciliation bill with the House. [...]

Harry just wants the friendship and admiration of his colleagues; but if they don't fear him a little, nothing bold gets done.

Please read the whole post here.