Z Nightly Commentaries
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Recent Z Nightly Commentaries
Landau: Iraqi Dead
Apr 21, 2009
Instead of focusing attention on the devastation caused by an unjust, imperial war, the US media deliberate on the success of 'surge' and cheer for the troops.
Landau: Biden & Nixon
Apr 14, 2009
On March 27, Vice President Joe Biden began a three-day tour to Latin America to attend a high level consultation session for the Summit of the Americas, scheduled for mid-April in Trinidad and Tobago. He met in Chile with President Michelle Bachelet and Presidents from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, and the Prime Ministers of Norway and the United Kingdom.
Landau: Sliding Down In Anger
Mar 27, 2009
While the arcane Washington budget processes each Senator and Member trying to grab something for his or her district or State -- unfold, the poor should start to worry. They have already lost or about to be lose homes, jobs and health care. The propertied classes focus on their major concern: their property, which stands immeasurably higher in their moral guidelines than the lives and welfare of those without or with less.
Landau: No Criticism
Mar 17, 2009
Most Jews I know get little pleasure from the existence of Israel; just the opposite. They feel disgusted by the behavior of their tribal kin toward Palestinians. This antipathy doesn’t concern Israel’s right to exist, a phony argument still maintained by hard line Zionists. Israel exists, period. Most of the world recognizes that. Anyone wanting to eliminate it belongs in the loony bin or prison.
Landau: Capitalism Failed
Mar 15, 2009
When the Soviet Union and its state socialism collapsed, the promoters of capitalism kvelled. But ten years later, in the early Bush years, ENRON, a super giant corporation got caught cooking its books to disguise the real state of its operations. It defrauded its stockholders and bilked California taxpayers by planning for an energy shortage at peak times and then jacking up prices. In doing its hanky panky ENRON colluded with a major accounting firm, Arthur Anderson. WorldCom and Adelphia went through similar versions of this corporate hanky panky -- pre-dating the later banking and insurance horrors.
Landau: Crisis Unseen
Mar 03, 2009
After the November election, liberal Democrats began to scream for rapid bailouts and threw money at bankers who then shocked the lawmakers by behaving like bankers. They took the taxpayers' money and spent it on themselves. "Let me tell you about the very rich," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote. "They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft, where we are hard, cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand." ("The Rich Boy," 1926)
Landau: The Wrestler
Feb 17, 2009
As a kid, I watched the Super Swedish Angel, Gorgeous George, and Primo Carnera (former boxer), wrestle on a small black and white TV screen. I would scream from my living room at the TV because the ref always looked elsewhere when the villain delivered a rabbit punch. The "bad guys" used dirty tactics and occasionally even "won" the match.
Landau: Terrorists
Feb 11, 2009
On January 21, President Obama telephoned the King of Jordan, the Prime Minister of Israel, the President of Egypt and Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, before dispatching former Senator George Mitchell to spearhead peace negotiations. He excluded Hamas leaders from his phone tree, although they had won the 2006 election to represent the people of Gaza. Obviously, Hamas has also won the label "terrorist" and, as Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni proudly if not smugly assured members of the National Press Club in Washington DC, Israel would not talk with Hamas. 'We do not negotiate with terrorists," she asserted, moral indignation dripping from her words. (January 16)
Landau: Reason for War?
Feb 02, 2009
On January 18, Israel and Hamas agreed to a weeklong cease-fire. Prime Minister Olmert declared Israel had achieved its objectives. "Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been killed," said Olmert.
Landau: Obama Nightmare
Jan 22, 2009
My wish for Obama's New Year's resolutions: Lose the empire! Stop giving military aid and special treatment to Israel; demand Israel behave responsibly under international laws; get out of Iraq and Afghanistan -- quickly.
Landau: Cohen & Me
Dec 29, 2008
As the prosperous, ethical and super-duper powerful United States erodes, The New York Times Magazine editors decided to feature, on its December 2 cover, the demise of Cuba's socialist society.
Landau: Venezuela and Cuba
Dec 21, 2008
Watching Hugo Chavez orate on Venezuelan television rings old memory bells. "Socialism. Revolution, Patria." Words I heard in 1960-61 in Cuba.
Landau: Postcard from Venezuela
Dec 17, 2008
Anti-Chavez sentiment, which inspired a failed military coup in 2002, has grown smarter. Newly elected opposition governor Capriles Radonsky participated in that coup, but now he has pledged to work with Chavez's government to confront national problems. Didn't McCain say that to Obama?
Landau: Scandal
Dec 08, 2008
U.S. scandals arose centuries ago, often deriving from imperial adventures that involved breaking laws and lying or covering up. Each one dramatizes the conflict between the values of a democratic republic and an autocratic empire, between pious Christian facades and base -- but very understandable -- motives, like greed, acquisitiveness and even revenge. In 1898, God, for example, ordered President McKinley to “take the Philippines,” as he informed the press corps of his decision to take Manila Bay. The Dole family then benefited from its investment in pineapples. McKinley wanted to convert the heathens, of course. U.S. troops occupied the Philippines until 1933. A crazed anarchist executed McKinley in 1899. Payment for his imperial sin?
Landau: Old Axioms
Nov 30, 2008
The time for Obama and his "change" phrases will soon get tested. As candidate, he wisely refrained from spelling out the specifics of policies the country needed or what he actually planned to do about failed foreign policy and a badly wounded economy - aside from his less than radical health care package.
Landau: Old Axioms
Nov 24, 2008
The time for Obama and his "change" phrases will soon get tested. As candidate, he wisely refrained from spelling out the specifics of policies the country needed or what he actually planned to do about failed foreign policy and a badly wounded economy - aside from his less than radical health care package.
Landau: Poverty & Empire
Nov 17, 2008
In the 1970s, Martin Agronsky, a weekend talk show host in Washington, finally invited the venerable I.F. (Izzy) Stone to join the establishment "pundits." From the early 1950s through the early 1970s, Izzy had raised the basic issues to a readership -- no more than 100,000 -- of Stone's Weekly.
Landau: New President
Nov 06, 2008
President Obama will inherit the financial meltdown that has begun to reach beyond the "developed" countries and into Russia, Korea and Brazil. As he makes plans to reissue New Deal measures to get people back to work and reinforce the crumbling infrastructure at home, he might hum Woody Guthrie songs of the Great Depression.
Landau: Iraq
Nov 02, 2008
On infrequent news reports from Iraq I occasionally recognize a place I filmed. In late September 2002, I saw Baghdad, Kerbalah, Najaf, Hamidayah and other Iraqi cities through the camera lens. Saddam Hussein had just announced he would allow UN weapons inspectors to return to Iraq. US politicians and pundits ignored the implications of his action. But in Baghdad, visiting foreigners breathed sighs of relief. If Saddam had weapons, they concluded, the best forensic experts in the world with sophisticated technology would find them. Saddam knew this, so it meant he didn't have WMD. As soon as the inspectors concluded their search and failed to find the alleged stash, Bush would have lost his reason to go to war.
Jul 18, 2009
Amidst interminable "reporting" on the "poor" victims of Ponzi maven Bernie Madoff - would anyone care if people had blown $65 billion trying to get richer in Las Vegas? - an alarming July 5 NY Times headline informs: "Safety Net Is Fraying for the Very Poor."