PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The privatization of public goods and services turns basic human needs into products to buy and sell. That's more than a joke, it's an insult, it's a perversion. It generally benefits only a privileged group of businesspeople and their companies while increasing inequality and undermining the common good.

Various studies have identified the 'benefits' of privatization as profitability and productivity, efficiency, wider share ownership and good investment returns. These are business benefits. More balanced studies consider the effects on average people, who have paid into a long-established societal support system for their schools and emergency services, water and transportation systems, and eventually health care and retirement benefits. These studies have concluded that:

• Privatization has generated large profits for new owners but these have not been shared with the general public.

• The potential benefits of privatization are often outweighed by high contracting costs and opportunism.

• Most privatization programs appear to have worsened the distribution of assets and income, at least in the short run.

While privatization may lead to efficiencies in producing goods, it is generally only true under conditions of competition and regulation. The New Jersey Privatization Task Force asserted that "States that have had the most success in privatization created a permanent, centralized entity to manage both privatization and related policies aimed at increasing government efficiency."

In the U.S. and around the world, privatization has simply not worked in industries that provide essential public goods and services:

Education

The notion that the public school system needs to be 'saved' by charter schools is not supported by the facts. A Stanford University study "reveals in unmistakable terms that, in the aggregate, charter students are not faring as well as their traditional public school counterparts." A Department of Education study found that "On average, charter middle schools that hold lotteries are neither more nor less successful than traditional public schools in improving student achievement, behavior, and school progress."

Charter schools also can take money away from the public system, and their teachers have fewer years of experience and a higher turnover rate.

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

No matter how many gaffes Mitt Romney and his advisors commit during their current European trip, and despite not having much love for the Republican Party's presumptive presidential candidate, conservative Christian evangelicals will turn out in November in droves to vote against President Barack Obama. A question I raised in an April piece for BuzzFlash, titled "Will They or Won't They? Romney and the Evangelicals," was: Will conservative Christian activists became active member of Romney's electoral army? My answer at the time was that he might not need them.

I concluded the piece with this observation: "Picture this: Come August, cities and towns across the state of Utah begin to resemble ghost towns, as armies of Mormons spread out across the swing states to work for Romney."

I am now forced to publicly admit that my concluding comment was wrong on at least two counts: 1) Many members of Utah's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (commonly called "Mormons") community have not waited for August to get involved with the Romney campaign; and, 2) Utahans do not have to leave the state in order to serve.

NIKOLAS KOZLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

On a certain level, I wonder whether Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who is now defending WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, agreed to take the assignment for personal reasons.

In recent years, Garzón has come to international attention for pursuing a number of high profile international cases. In 1998 for example, the judge sought to apprehend brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Washington's ally during the Cold War. Not stopping there, the pugnacious judge issued an order for British authorities to detain Henry Kissinger no less.

ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"In the end, after he has felt the full force of our justice system, what will be remembered are the good people who were impacted by this tragedy," President Obama said this week in Aurora, Colo., after the shootings.

That's probably not true.

From Charles Whitman up to the present day, the collective American memory preserves the name of the killer . . . the lone psycho, the shadow hero. We're far too fascinated with violence not to mythologize its perpetrators. And just as we all know (because the media tell us) that there will be a "next war," we know, oh God, in the deep churnings of the heart, that there will be more murder victims - schoolchildren, college students, shoppers, churchgoers, theatergoers, bystanders. We know because we live in a culture that tolerates and perpetuates violence.

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Any enterprise that has Rupert Murdoch's fingerprints on it should be accompanied by a, "Warning: Danger Ahead" sign. A recent report by Education Week's Jason Tomassini detailing Murdoch's News Corporation's rebooting of its efforts to develop and market digital educational products to public schools will either have you shaking your head in disbelief, or make your head explode.

According to Tomassini, Murdoch's News Corporation recently "jump-started its fledgling - and mostly quiet - education division ... unveiling Amplify, a new brand for its education business that will include education software products and, in a surprising move, curriculum development."

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today questioned why President Barack Obama has not defended Social Security against Republican calls for deep cuts in the program that benefits some 55 million retired and disabled Americans, widows and orphans.

"I do not believe that we should cut Social Security," Sanders said in a major Senate floor speech. "I would like to know, and I think the American people would like to know, if President Obama feels the same way. It is past time that the president told the American people in no uncertain terms that he will not cut Social Security on his watch."

PETER MICHAELSON FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

I've been trying for some time to fathom the psychology of educated and supposedly sophisticated people who, in paralysis and resistance, are unwilling to respond rationally to the perils of global warming. We need to look deeply into the heart of this issue.

Why haven't we taken rational or logical steps to shut down our lethal fossil-fuels industry and to replace it with better conservation and renewable-energy technologies? An assortment of psychological reasons for our paralysis present themselves, including denial, greed, fear, passivity, stubbornness, self-centeredness, self-sabotage, and our species' lack of compassion for future generations.

PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

When it comes to the economy, too many Americans continue to be numbed by the soothing sounds of conservative spin in the media. Here are three of their more inventive claims:

1. Higher taxes on the rich will hurt small businesses and discourage job creators

A recent Treasury analysis found that only 2.5% of small businesses would face higher taxes from the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.

As for job creation, it's not coming from the people with money. Over 90% of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market, real estate, and personal business accounts. Angel investing (capital provided by affluent individuals for business start-ups) accounted for less than 1% of the investable assets of high net worth individuals in North America in 2011. The Mendelsohn Affluent Survey agreed that the very rich spend less than two percent of their money on new business startups.

The Wall Street Journal noted, in way of confirmation, that the extra wealth created by the Bush tax cuts led to the "worst track record for jobs in recorded history."

2. Individual initiative is all you need for success.

President Obama was criticized for a speech which included these words: "If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own...when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together."

'Together' is the word that winner-take-all conservatives seem to forget. Even the richest and arguably most successful American, Bill Gates, owes most of his good fortune to the thousands of software and hardware designers who shaped the technological industry over a half-century or more. A careful analysis of his rise shows that he had luck, networking skills, and a timely sense of opportunism, even to the point of taking the work of competitors and adapting it as his own.

WILL DURST FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

You might say it was a turbulent week for Mitt Romney. You could also say a light lemon sugar wash makes for ineffective mosquito repellent. He claims to have totally left Bain Capital to run the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics even though his company handed the government multiple signed documents stating otherwise and now financial questions plague his campaign like a swarm of dive-bombing bees in a bathroom stall.

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

In a world where Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is hands-down the champion of wackiness, two new contenders are challenging her for the title: Judson Phillips, president of the for-profit Tea Party Nation, and veteran conservative Dinesh D'Souza, author and president of The King's College in New York City, a subsidiary of Campus Crusade for Christ.