Saul Landau
Counterpunch (US) and AK Press (UK), 2007, p/b, $15.00 (US) and £10 (UK)
Saul Landau is one of those names on the American Left that I recognise but whose work, apart from his Assassination on Embassy Row, about the murder of Letelier 25 years ago, I don’t think I have ever read before – maybe one or two things on the Net from Counterpunch, the co-publisher of this book. The author blurb tells me that Landau is an Emmy-winning filmmaker and a Fellow and Board Member of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Bells of recognition may be ringing, for it was the IPS which was at the heart of one of the American Right’s conspiracy theories two decades ago, thinly disguised in the Robert Moss/Arnaud de Borchgrave novel about KGB penetration of America, The Spike. (20 Landau, I guess, is an example of the old New Left, who have been right about most things, in my opinion; and, crucially, right about the nature of American capitalism and imperialism.
I think this is a selection from the columns Landau has been writing for <www.progreso-weekly.com>, a left-wing, pro-Castro website based in Miami.(21) I say ‘I think’ because Landau doesn’t tell the reader this, just gives a hint in his introductory remarks. At any rate, some of these essays appeared there – I didn’t have the patience to search through the hundreds of columns by Landau at that site – and many of them have the feel of being a regular column: short, sharp and of a regular length.
The foreword by Gore Vidal is apt because there are some similarities between Landau’s comments on American politics and some of Vidal’s essays. But Landau isn’t as good a writer.
Landau is a socialist and this is a socialist’s view of America and the consequences of its imperialism. Landau also wants to convey the sheer absurdity and venality of much of the American Right. But that’s been done already. How often do we need to be told of the idiocies of Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan, the cynicism of Karl Rove, or the horrors of consumerism as a way of life? Reading this I kept thinking, OK, but we know all this. But the ‘we’ in that last sentence is tiny. The other 99% of the English-speaking world doesn’t know this; and the people for whom reading these essays would be useful or educational won’t read them. Those who will read them don’t really need them. And if some of the material is familiar, for the most part, we – the 1% or so who share Landau’s views and general knowledge base – need another reason to read it (unless you simply enjoy having your prejudices confirmed and applauded).
But why am I complaining? How many books get published in the UK in the course of a year which tell the truth about the American Right, American imperialism and the media, present good news about Cuba (which, whatever its faults, has resisted the beast only 90 miles away for 50 years) and are generally on the side of the good guys? Not too many. Maybe I should be celebrating instead of carping; but this collection, though it has some nice moments, and though I agree with most of Landau’s sentiments and prejudices, really isn’t essential.
Notes
- IPS supported Cuba, which was a Soviet client, so IPS was a KGB front. That was the theory. Moss et al never produced any evidence – hence the necessity of the novel, perhaps.
- At the Progreso site the page ‘About us’ includes an interview with Ricardo Alarcon de Quesda, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the National Assembly of the People’s Power.