Z Nightly Commentaries
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Recent Z Nightly Commentaries
Monbiot: Paranoia Squad
Dec 25, 2008
A British police unit is spreading scare stories. Why?
Monbiot: At Last, A Date
Dec 22, 2008
For the first time, the International Energy Agency has produced a date for peak oil. And it's not reassuring.
Monbiot: One Shot Left
Nov 26, 2008
The latest science suggests that preventing runaway climate change means total decarbonisation.
Monbiot: Clearing Up This Mess
Nov 19, 2008
John Maynard Keynes had the answer to the crisis we're now facing; but it was blocked and then forgotten.
Majavu: Congo
Nov 08, 2008
Perhaps it is because of the civil war, reported to have caused the deaths of more than 3 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1998 and 2003, that something has changed in global politics. Maybe this is why the French government suddenly cares about the plight of ordinary Congolese people. And it would seem that the mainstream media finds the DRC conflict newsworthy.
Monbiot: Ignorance
Nov 01, 2008
How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind's closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist?
Monbiot: Denial
Oct 16, 2008
The economic crisis is petty by comparison to the nature crunch. But they have the same cause.
Monbiot: Bail-out
Oct 01, 2008
They baled out of the bail-out, but the money will still have to come from us. It always has.
Monbiot: Manufactured Famine
Sep 10, 2008
A new wave of food colonialism is snatching food from the mouths of the poor.
Monbiot: Hypocrites Unite
Aug 26, 2008
In her new book, Not In My Name, Julie Burchill reserves her grandest fury about hypocrites for environmentalists. We are, she says, pious, sexless and contemptuous of humankind. All of us are posh and rich, and have found in environmentalism a new excuse for lecturing the poor. We tell other people to live by rules we don't apply to ourselves.
Monbiot: Climate Change Hell
Aug 24, 2008
If you want a glimpse of how the movement against climate change could crumble faster than a summer snowflake, read Ewa Jasiewicz's article, published yesterday on the Guardian's Comment is Free site(1). It is a fine example of the identity politics that plagued direct action movexments during the 1990s, and from which the new generation of activists has so far been mercifully free.
Monbiot: Magic Pudding
Aug 21, 2008
It's a novel way to commit suicide. Just as Russia demonstrates what happens to former minions which annoy it, Poland agrees to host a US missile defence base. The Russians, as Poland expected, respond to this proposal by kindly offering to turn the country into a parking lot. This proves that the missile defence system is necessary after all: it will stop the missiles Russia will now aim at Poland, the Czech Republic and the UK in response to, er, their involvement in the missile defence system.
Majavu: Decolonising the Mind
Aug 18, 2008
In his book 'Decolonising the Mind', Ngugi wa Thiong'o (2006) gives the false impression that decolonising one's mind is simply a matter of proudly speaking and writing in indigenous African languages. Given Africa's history of colonisation, it is understandable why Ngugi would argue along these lines. However, Africa's history of colonisation does not make Ngugi's argument valid. Ngugi argues that he wrote the book to criticise the 'Afro-European or Euroafrican' choice of linguistic praxis - that is, to critique black Africans who choose to express themselves in any of the colonial languages (e.g. English and French). The rationale behind such a criticism is to lament a neo-colonial situation which has meant that the Western World once again steals Africa's talents; only this time with Africans themselves voluntarily and willingly facilitating the thieving, writes Ngugi. To prove that he takes his project seriously, Ngugi explains that Decolonising the Mind "is my farewell to English as a vehicle for any of my writings. From now on it is Gikuyu and Kiswahili all the way."
Monbiot: Self-Justifying Myths
Jul 29, 2008
There is just one party which doesn't seem to care about the controversy created by The Great Global Warming Swindle. That is the company which broadcast it: Channel 4. In fact it seems rather proud of the fuss, and I suspect that Ofcom's damning verdict won't cause its executives a moment's lost sleep. The channel boasts that the programme generated a huge response, and that favourable comments outweighed hostile remarks by six to one.
Monbiot: Censored by Money
Jul 23, 2008
After every test case, the media assume the worst is over: that Britain's libel laws, designed to protect the powerful from public scrutiny, have been fanged, and freedom of speech will no longer be treated like a crime. And then it gets worse.
Monbiot: Tide of Money
Jul 21, 2008
All over the world, protesters are engaged in a heroic battle with reality. They block roads, picket fuel depots, throw missiles and turn over cars in an effort to hold it at bay. The oil is running out and governments, they insist, must do something about it. When they've sorted it out, what about the fact that the days are getting shorter? What do we pay our taxes for?
Majavu: Bemba Arrest Pt. 3
Jul 09, 2008
Vilwar (2003) argues that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is possibly the most mineral rich place on earth. The DRC holds millions of tons of diamonds, copper, cobalt, zinc, manganese, and uranium. It is reported that the uranium used to make the atomic bombs dropped by the U.S. in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were built using Congolese uranium.
Monbiot: Green Lifeline
Jul 04, 2008
A radical new idea could save the world's ecosystems. But what will it do to the economy?
Majavu: Bemba Arrest Pt. 2
Jul 01, 2008
In 1997, Mobutu Sese Seko, who had been the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for 32 years, was toppled by Laurent Kabila, the leader of the Allied Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL). The AFDL was supported by the Ugandan army and the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) in their struggle against Mobutu.
Dec 28, 2008
David Bellamy's at it again, with even dafter claims about climate change.