Z Nightly Commentaries
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Recent Z Nightly Commentaries
Spannos: Crisis of Global Governance
Mar 14, 2010
Standing before an audience at the Brookings Institute on March 8, a day before meeting U.S. President Barak Obama, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou made the case that today’s European crisis involves American interests and that today there is a “crisis of global governance.”
Kagarlitsky: New Opiate of the Masses
Mar 13, 2010
If the new law recently passed by the State Duma goes into force, it will deliver a big blow to the Russian culture, education and public health.
Pilger: Murdochracy
Mar 12, 2010
Adelaide is Australia's festival city. Its arts festival is currently in swing. Polite debate, aesthetics and high-octane wine are putting the world to rights. With one exception. Adelaide is where Rupert Murdoch began his empire. The voracious trail starts here. No statue stands; his is a spectral presence, controlling the only daily newspaper, even the printing presses. Across Australia, he owns almost 70 per cent of the capital city press and the only national newspaper, and Sky Television, and much else. Welcome to the world's first murdochracy.
Cook: 7 Years After Corrie
Mar 11, 2010
Seven years after Rachel Corrie, a US peace activist, was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, her family was to put the Israeli government in the dock today.
Schechter: Whither Financial Reforms
Mar 10, 2010
What will it take? What are they waiting for? What part of the reality of a systemic crisis that will get worse don't they get?
Blum: Informed Consent
Mar 09, 2010
About half the states in the US require that a woman seeking an abortion be told certain things before she can obtain the medical procedure. In South Dakota, for example, until a few months ago, staff was required to tell women: "The abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being"; the pregnant woman has "an existing relationship with that unborn human being," a relationship protected by the U.S. Constitution and the laws of South Dakota; and a "known medical risk" of abortion is an "increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide." A federal judge has now eliminated the second and third required assertions, calling them "untruthful and misleading."
Quigley: Time U.S. Revolution
Mar 08, 2010
It is time for a revolution. Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.
Jamal: Corporate Supremacy
Mar 07, 2010
The recent Supreme Court decision on corporate personhood, The Citizen's United case, has evoked considerable comment, and even some indignation: "Corporations have the right to spend unlimited amounts of money on politicians?!" - "outrageous!"
Rebick: Israel Losing Legitimacy
Mar 06, 2010
Before Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) even began members of the Ontario Legislature and the Canadian Parliament are falling all over each other to denounce it. I can't remember another time when elected legislators formally denounced a student activity like this. Perhaps during the 1950s when McCarthyism was rampant but that was before my time.
Landau: Pentagon Appetite 2/2
Mar 05, 2010
During pre game Super Bowl ceremonies Queen Latifah sang America the Beautiful. Following her, American Idol winner Carrie Underwood began warbling the Star Spangled Banner. Four jet fighters swished over the stadium. Did any of the cheering crowd or the tens of millions watching on TV ask how much it cost to have the thrill of two screaming jets offer the public supersonic foreplay before extra large men smashed and bashed through the thin membrane (the line) to reach the tantalizing quarterback?
Glick: Principles, Program, Strategy, Tactics
Mar 04, 2010
I have discovered, over the course of my years as an organizer for positive social change, that it is important that members of an organization or movement learn to distinguish between principles, program, strategy and tactics. An inability to do so often leads to internal division and, sooner or later, a falling away of support and energy.
Wallerstein: Euromess
Mar 03, 2010
Everyone is discussing what Fortune magazine is calling the "Greek maelstrom" and everyone is pointing the finger at someone else. Whose fault is it? The Greek government is accused of cheating and allowing Greeks to live beyond their means. The European Union is accused of having created an impossible structure for the euro.
Quigley: Mercenaries Circling Haiti
Mar 03, 2010
On March 9 and 10, there will be a Haiti conference in Miami for private military and security companies to showcase their services to governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the earthquake devastated country.
Landau: Elephant in US Living Room
Mar 01, 2010
History quiz: Name the greatest robbery committed in the last 100 years...
Cromwell: Gates Of Delusion
Feb 28, 2010
Since November last year, the public has been bombarded with the story of stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, revealing a supposed "scandal" of scientific malpractice, stupidly and lazily named "climategate". Further media frenzy erupted over an erroneous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change statement that 80 per cent of Himalayan glacier area would very likely be gone by 2035. Other climate-related storms in a teacup have been appearing in the corporate media almost on a daily basis. This nonsense is distracting attention from a mountain of evidence that human-induced climate change is accelerating and poses a deadly threat to civilization.
Szczepanczyk: Solidarity Gaming
Feb 27, 2010
I agree that markets for many important reasons must be abolished and replaced. The projects around a participatory society, including participatory economics, certainly rank among the more detailed proposals for a more just successor economy and society. But in his commentary about the Olympics, Albert seems to imply that sports themselves essentially won't change, even if the economics surrounding them will change to that of a participatory economy. We'd presumably still have sports and games, presumably with a competitive ethos, complete with winners and losers, even if we'd have jobs balanced for desirability and empowerment, remuneration per effort and sacrifice, and participatory planning instead of markets or command planning.
Pilger: Heroes of Israel
Feb 26, 2010
I phoned Rami Elhanan the other day. We had not spoken for six years and much has happened in Israel and Palestine. Rami is an Israeli graphic designer who lives with his family in Jerusalem. His father survived Auschwitz. His grandparents and six aunts and uncles perished in the Holocaust. Whenever I am asked about heroes, I say Rami and his wife Nurit without hesitation.
Hahnel: Why Cap And Trade?
Feb 25, 2010
A carbon tax is preferable to cap and trade unless there are compelling practical reasons a tax won't work as well.
Raptis: Vectors of Evil
Feb 24, 2010
Suppose we wish to show on paper the magnitude of a force and the direction in which it acts. We agree to symbolize this by a line segment, an arrow, the length of which depicts the magnitude of the force and its direction shows the direction-of-action of the force. We call this arrow a "vector". So, a vector is simply a "carrier" (as its original Latin meaning) of something in a certain direction. Let us now introduce a new mathematical term: the "vector of evil". That is a person that "carries" a certain magnitude of evil directed against somebody. For example, Bush (father), Bush (son), and Bill Clinton can rightfully claim to be "vectors of evil" as all three murdered men, women, and children (infants in the case of Clinton) and their acts were directed towards the Iraqis. Dubya's length of the "vector" seems to be longer as he exceeded one million murdered.
Shiva: Water Wisdom
Mar 15, 2010
Since 1966 - and as a consequence of the introduction of the Green Revolution model of water-intensive, chemical farming - India has over-exploited her groundwater, creating a water famine.