... these industrial methods of farming have gotten us used to cheap food. The corollary of cheap food is low wages. What we need to do in an era when the price of food is going up is pay better wages. A living wage is an absolutely integral part of a modern food system, because you can't expect people to eat properly and eat in a sustainable way if you pay them nothing.

-- Raj Patel, Author, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle For the World Food System

I wrote this book because I felt that this is hurting America. ... I didn't want to feel I left a legacy for my children of this sort of hateful talk. You stand up and say, look, not in my country. I'm not going to stand here and be silent while you go and dehumanize everyone who disagrees with you.

-- Rory O-Connor, coauthor, Shock Jocks, Hate Speech & Talk Radio, America's 10 Worst Hate Talkers and the Progressive Alternatives

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A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

I want to blame the media. I want to blame the Bush administration. But we have to get past it. We've done that for years now, and that's not going to solve anything. One of the statements I make in the book is that if politicians were angels, we wouldn't need smart voters. But the politicians aren't angels. The media, corporate run -- they're not angels. And that's not going to change.

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

Rove's dream was to recreate the landscape of the judicial system, and to install judges that were either pliable, malleable, and/or very, very pro-corporation. Essentially that is what he did in Alabama in the early Nineties. That is what this is all about. If you control the governor in the states where the justices are not elected, you control who gets on the supreme court. And that's essentially what this is all about for Rove ultimately. But to get those kinds of things done, you have to eliminate the governor you don't want and install the governor you do want. There are a lot of corporate interests funding this. So it intersects in that sense. It's buying the law and restructuring the state judiciary.

-- Larisa Alexandrovna

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

We have a trade and a globalization policy that is designed to create a race to the bottom among ordinary people. When you force American workers into direct unfettered competition with workers who are enslaved, with workers who are allowed to be paid a dollar a day, with workers who are allowed to be employed in sweatshops, you are creating a wage-cutting environment that's destroying competition towards the bottom.

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

One thing which struck me during my trip and researching this book was the turning away from the traditional right-wing military establishment. That is a huge development. I was really struck by that when I went into the Ministry of Defense in Buenos Aires, hoping to interview high-up government officials about Argentina's military policy. The official who greeted me was, A, a woman, and B, a civilian.

--Nikolas Kozloff, author, Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left

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If you produce a "Top Gun" where you’re glorifying pilots, the military will give you every assistance. But if you are arguing something that’s critical of what the military would be doing, you’re probably going to get the cold shoulder.

A film like "Ironman," based on a Marvel comic, portrays the military in a positive light, or even more so, as morally correct. It’s seen as a real recruiting vehicle in tough recruiting times.

-- Cliff Schecter on the Real McCain

The late Molly Ivins is beloved by progressive voters and political junkies for both her wisdom and her wit. BuzzFlash already has honored her as a Wings of Justice recipient. Now we pay tribute by revisiting her remarks, made in the run-up to the last US presidential election in 2004.

We reprint our August 11, 2004 interview in full, below:

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
by Sean-Paul Kelley for BuzzFlash.com

Year after year, the Bush people come forward and say how great the economy is, and that's full of crap. Since Bush has been President, median family income has gone down. For working families, it's gone down hundreds of dollars. Five million more people have slipped into poverty. Eight million people have lost their health insurance. Three million Americans have lost their pensions. And we have lost millions of good-paying jobs.

-- Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

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