Yaphet Kotto, RIP… Myanmar Mon Amour and the New York Times STILL can’t come in from the cold
And now a moment of silence for the late, great actor Yaphet Kotto, who died on Monday in the Philippines (where he had moved). The obits all focused on Kotto’s co-starring roles in Alien, Live and Let Die and the well-scripted police series Homicide. But I remember Kotto for his performance in Blue Collar, the gritty 1978 Paul Schrader film about three Detroit autoworkers (Kotto, Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel) who stand up against the corrupt, cozy pact between their company and union. Kotto was often compared with James Earl Jones (whom he replaced on Broadway in The Great White Hope). But I always found Kotto even stronger and more centered a screen presence.
Wildcatters Harvey Keitel, Richard Pryor and Yaphet Kotto in Blue Collar
Kotto turned down parts in the Civil War drama Glory about a Black company led by a white officer and as the chauffeur in the sentimentally racist Driving Miss Daisy. And his explanation was pure Kotto: powerful, righteous, dignified. “Do you see me taking orders like that? I couldn’t see myself… taking it from some old (white) lady either. Some other actor may be able to put that on and make it look real, but I couldn’t do it.”
Kotto was the dramatic symbol of Black power for me. He wore his strength with grace and ease, and when he was on screen, he always held the camera. I miss him already.
Myanmar Mon Amour… The massive civil disobedience in that Asian country against the military regime that has dominated the country for the past six decades is truly inspiring. Though a poor country, workers throughout Myanmar have gone on strike against the junta’s recent coup and the economy has nearly ground to a halt. The military kleptocracy is buffered by oil revenue and black market booty from drug trafficking and other illegal scams. But sooner or later Myanmar’s massive civil disobedience will start to topple the corrupt generals. The Myanmar people’s protest tactic reminds me of the teaching of the 16th century French intellectual Étienne de La Boétie – a close friend of the philosopher Montaigne. Boetie insisted that all people had to do to overthrow tyrannical regimes was to withdraw their support. If enough people pull away their hands and stop holding up a tower of power, it will soon topple. I know he’s not politically correct anymore, but Dr. Seuss had the same subversive idea in Yertle the Turtle.
Boétie on the tower of tyranny: just let it fall
The New York Times can’t come in from the cold… Whenever I see David Sanger’s byline in the Times, I reach for my water pistol. He’s one of the correspondents who’ve long haunted the halls of Langley and Foggy Bottom, and like the national security apparatchiks he covers, Sanger can’t envision a world where the United States is not in mortal combat with Russia or China. In his latest think piece – on the front page of the Sunday Times – Sanger twice quotes former CIA director Robert Gates --- a permanent fixture in America’s military-industrial complex – who urges (unsurprisingly) an escalation of the cyber war with Russia. Sanger also quotes President Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan, who frets that China’s strategy is to compete with America not militarily but in the economic and technological arena. And the problem with that is….? I thought we Americans are supposed to thrive on good old business competition. But clearly the U.S. empire prefers global domination.
David Sanger, the reporter who won’t come in from the cold… ever
Look, I get it – Putin truly is a “killer” as Biden recently described him. But that’s what human rights activists should be calling the leader of Russia – not the commander in chief of the United States. Many of the world’s leaders – including the rulers of allied nations Saudi Arabia and Israel – are killers. But Biden refrains from that type of blunt language with regard to MBS and Bibi. For that matter, as Putin impolitely observed, who is a bigger “killer” in the world arena than the United States? Biden doubled down on that dubious distinction by launching more bombing raids in Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen.
I realize that America has no mass peace movement these days. But there are many political figures, academics, activists and even former military officers whom the New York Times could contact for critical analysis of America’s endless wars. Instead, the Times keeps turning to hacks like David Sanger (and the Washington Post to his counterpart, David Ignatius) for the latest spin on U.S. empire-think.
,,, And for more on the corporate media’s strangulation of debate about the U.S. national security colossus, check out Chris Hedges’s interview with me in his video show On Contact.
