Z Nightly Commentaries
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Recent Z Nightly Commentaries
Bennis: Massacre on the High Seas
Jun 02, 2010
By coincidence, I am in Istanbul at the moment. In Turkey, home to most of the dead and injured among the international activists, 10,000 people here in Istanbul marched from the Israeli consulate to the city's main square, while thousands more took to the streets in Ankara, expressing outrage and demanding international accountability and immediate action to end the blockade of Gaza.
Bennis: After the Karzai Visit
May 26, 2010
An overview of what an alternative to war in Afghanistan might look like - negotiations, what a concept...
Boyle: Harvard's Gitmo School
May 18, 2010
Not surprisingly, the January 2007 issue of the American Journal of Imperial Law--otherwise known as the self-styled American Journal of International Law but originally founded a century ago and still operated by U. S. War and State Department legal apparatchiks and their law professorial fellow-travelers--published an article by Harvard Law School's recently retired Bemis Professor of International Law Detlev Vagts (who only taught me the required course on Legal Accounting) arguing in favor of the Pentagon's Kangaroo Courts System on Guantanamo despite the fact that they have been soundly condemned by every human rights organization and every human rights official and leader in the entire world as well as by the United States Supreme Court itself in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006).
Bond: South Africa’s World Cup Hangover
May 15, 2010
On June 11, South Africans start partying like no time since liberation in April 1994, and of course it is a huge honor for our young democracy to host the most important sporting spectacle short of the Olympics. All the ordinary people who have worked so hard in preparation deserve gratitude and support, especially the construction workers, cleaners, municipal staff, health-care givers and volunteers who will not receive due recognition.
Blum: Suddenly Gone Stupid?
May 14, 2010
If you shake your head and roll your eyes at the nonsense coming out of the Teabagger followers of Sarah “Africa is a country” Palin and other intellectual giants like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh ... If you have thoughts of moving abroad after the latest silly lies and fantasies like “Obama the Marxist” and “Obama the antichrist” ... If you share Noam Chomsky’s feeling: "I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime” ... keep in mind that the right wing has long been at least as stupid and as mean-spirited.
Blum: Hiroshima, Nagasaki & Fallujah
Apr 17, 2010
When did it begin, all this "We take your [call/problem/question] very seriously"? With answering-machine hell? As you wait endlessly, the company or government agency assures you that they take seriously whatever reason you're calling. What a kind and thoughtful world we live in.
Burbach: Communitarian Socialism in Bolivia
Apr 08, 2010
During the past decade Latin America has become a scene of hope and expectations as its leaders and social movements have raised the banner of 21st century socialism in a world ravished by imperial adventures and economic disasters. Proponents of the new socialism assert that it will break with the state-centered socialism of the last century, and will be driven by grassroots social movements that construct an alternative order from the bottom up. There is also widespread concurrence that the process will take a unique path in each country, that there is no singular model or grand strategy to pursue.
Boyle: Neo-Cons & Con-Artists
Apr 05, 2010
It is now a matter of public record that immediately after the terrible tragedy of 11 September 2001, U.S. Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld and his pro-Israeli Neo-Conservative Deputy Paul Wolfowitz began to plot, plan, scheme and conspire to wage a war of aggression against Iraq by manipulating the tragic events of September 11th in order to provide a pretext for doing so. Of course Iraq had nothing at all to do with September 11th or supporting Al-Qaeda. But that made no difference to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, their Undersecretary of War Douglas Feith, and the numerous other pro-Israeli Neo-Cons inhabiting the Bush Jr. administration.
Bond: Climate Justice Opportunities
Apr 01, 2010
Fierce debating about United States climate justice (CJ) strategies and tactics on ZNet over the past couple of months leave us ready to continue exploring comradely but sharp differences.
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."
Bond: Class Apartheid in South Africa
Feb 15, 2010
Before we get to some hot South African political economy and political ecology, first consider the psycho-socio-sexual-sporting context.
Blum: Zinn & Haiti
Feb 09, 2010
Progressive activists and writers continually bemoan the fact that the news they generate and the opinions they express are consistently ignored by the mainstream media, and thus kept from the masses of the American people. This disregard of progressive thought is tantamount to a definition of the mainstream media. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy; it's a matter of who owns the mainstream media and the type of journalists they hire - men and women who would like to keep their jobs; so it's more insidious than a conspiracy, it's what's built into the system, it's how the system works. The disregard of the progressive world is of course not total; at times some of that world makes too good copy to ignore, and, on rare occasions, progressive ideas, when they threaten to become very popular, have to be countered.
Bohmer: Howard Zinn Presente
Jan 29, 2010
Comments on Howard Zinn
Bennis: Haiti, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Obama
Jan 19, 2010
Catastrophe in Haiti, escalation in Afghanistan, new threats against Yemen, Israeli siege of Gaza tightens...and Obama's been in office a year now. Yikes.
Blum: Anti-Empire Report
Jan 11, 2010
Lincoln Gordon died a few weeks ago at the age of 96. He had graduated summa cum laude from Harvard at the age of 19, received a doctorate from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, published his first book at 22, with dozens more to follow on government, economics, and foreign policy in Europe and Latin America. He joined the Harvard faculty at 23. Dr. Gordon was an executive on the War Production Board during World War II, a top administrator of Marshall Plan programs in postwar Europe, ambassador to Brazil, held other high positions at the State Department and the White House, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, economist at the Brookings Institution, president of Johns Hopkins University. President Lyndon B. Johnson praised Gordon's diplomatic service as "a rare combination of experience, idealism and practical judgment".
Brecher: Freezing the Greenhouse
Jan 08, 2010
While world leaders play the blame game and politicians dither, deadly carbon emissions grow without restraint. The official US government "business as usual" projection is for a 39 percent increase in carbon emissions worldwide by 2030, roughly two percent a year. Given the apparent deadlocks in Copenhagen and Washington, is there anything those concerned about the climate crisis can do to halt this momentum?
Bond: Learned from Dennis Brutus
Jan 06, 2010
Dennis Brutus died at age 85 on December 26, battling cancer, climate change and capitalism.
Bond: Post-Copenhagen Hangover
Dec 23, 2009
In Copenhagen, the world's richest leaders continued their fiery fossil fuel party last Friday night, ignoring requests of global village neighbors to please chill out.
Brecher: Doom and Gloom
Dec 21, 2009
As world leaders return from Copenhagen without an agreement that will protect the earth's atmosphere from devastating climate change, we ordinary people are forced to confront not only what we think, but also what we feel.
Jun 12, 2010
The World Cup begins this weekend here in South Africa, with the home team playing Mexico on Friday before 95,000 fans at Johannesburg’s Soccer City.