Z Nightly Commentaries
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Recent Z Nightly Commentaries
Pilger: SETTING THE LIMITS OF INVASION JOURNALISM
Dec 06, 2006
On 14 November, Bridget Ash wrote to the BBC's Today programme asking why the invasion of Iraq was described merely as "a conflict". She could not recall other bloody invasions reduced to "a conflict". She received this reply:
Prashad: Beirut
Nov 26, 2006
A series of flaps on campus. Racist incidents abound: the most public is at Texas A & M, home to the new Defense Secretary. Students donned "blackface" and played plantation life. They might be influenced by the sunny depictions of the slave economy from
Pilger: Let's now charge the accomplices
Nov 10, 2006
In a show trial whose theatrical climax was clearly timed to promote George W Bush in the American midterm elections, Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced to hang. Drivel about "end of an era" and "a new start for Iraq" was promoted by the usual fa
Pilger: The Blair Doctrine: Blood & Money
Nov 03, 2006
On 17 October, President Bush signed a bill that legalised torture and kidnapping and effectively repealed the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus. The CIA can now legally abduct people and ÒrenderÓ them to secret prisons in countries where they are likely t
Pilger: Busy Fondling Their Self Esteem
Oct 17, 2006
The great Chilean balladeer Victor Jara, who was tortured to death by the regime of General Pinochet 33 years ago, wrote a song that mocks those who see themselves as rational and liberal, yet so often retreat into the arms of authority, no matter its dis
Parenti: Mystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty in the World
Sep 28, 2006
There is a "mystery" we must explain: How is it that as corporate investments and foreign aid and international loans to poor countries have increased dramatically throughout the world over the last half century, so has poverty? The number of people livin
Prashad: Northampton's Book of Peace
Sep 18, 2006
Children know right from wrong. In 1926, during the Passaic, New Jersey, textile workers' strike, children took to the streets. One child wrote, "We strikers' children are getting sick and tired of the way Chief Zober has been treating the strikers. So we
Pilger: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Sep 12, 2006
As he launches a season of his films this week at the Barbican in London, John Pilger looks back on some of his 50-plus documentaries and argues that, in its descent to 'Big Brother' and other so-called reality TV, television is losing its sense of public
Prashad: The Ring Around China
Sep 01, 2006
For good reason, the international Left has been wary of the UN and the WTO. And yet, despite their many drawbacks, both the UN General Assembly and the WTO as institutions held the possibility for multilateralism. There are contradictory interests across
Pilger: The Real Threat We Face In Britain Is Blair
Aug 16, 2006
If the alleged plot to attack airliners flying from London is true - remember the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, and to the raid on a "terrorist cell" in east London - then one person ultimately is to blame, as he was on 7 July last year. They wer
Peters: Unity Meeting, Boston, Mass.
Aug 15, 2006
The organizations represented at an anti-war "Unity Meeting," held at the 1199SEIU union hall on July 6, 2006, seemed to capture all the hopefulness, dedication, and hard work that is best about progressive movements today. The meeting was an attempt to p
Podur: N. and the Memory Wall (On a day in the future)
Aug 12, 2006
N., a young Palestinian/Israeli Jew, was late for her meeting with her friend H., the child of Palestinian Muslim refugees who had returned from Lebanon on a bus a few years before. N. was still preparing her gift for H., a hat to cover his prematurely ba
Peters: The Corporate Parent
Aug 03, 2006
When I gave birth to my first daughter, I was in a hospital. Contraction-inducing pitocin was dripping into my veins, and I was hooked up to a monitor, featuring a jagged line graph which represented the force of each contraction. During heavy contraction
Pilger: The Us Empire Makes Its Move To Take Over The Middle East
Jul 27, 2006
The National Museum of American History is part of the celebrated Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Surrounded by mock Graeco-Roman edifices with their soaring Corinthian columns, rampant eagles and chiselled profundities, it is at the centre of
Parenti: The Stolen Election of 2004
Jul 03, 2006
The 2004 presidential contest between Democratic challenger Senator John
Pilger: east Timor: The Coup The World Missed
Jun 23, 2006
In my 1994 film Death of a Nation there is a scene on board an aircraft flying between northern Australia and the island of Timor. A party is in progress; two men in suits are toasting each other in champagne. "This is an historically unique moment," effu
Parenti: Still Soft on (Corporate) Crime
Jun 09, 2006
A half century ago, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black reminded us in Griffin v. Illinois (1956) that there "can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has." The corporate executive with a team of high power
Prashad: Security
Jun 06, 2006
In early May, the federal threat level was "elevated" (the color is yellow). According to the Department of Homeland Security this means, "All Americans, including those traveling in the transportation systems, should continue to be vigilant, take notice
Pilger: A Glimpse Of Freedom
May 25, 2006
The long, wide, bleak streets of cobblestones and tufts of petrified grass reach for the sacred mountain Illimani, whose pyramid of snow is like a watchtower. There was almost no life here when I first came to Bolivia as a young reporter - only the freezi
Dec 12, 2006
"DonÕt go to the Parent-Teacher Council meeting," advised my daughter, who is a 9th-grader at a large urban high school. "They'll only try to scare you."