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Related: About this forumJournalist & Filmmaker Saul Landau, 77, Dies; Chronicled Cuban Revolution For Decades
Journalist & Filmmaker Saul Landau, 77, Dies; Chronicled Cuban Revolution For Decades
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/9/10/journalist_filmmaker_saul_landau_77_dies_chronicled_cuban_revolution_for_decades
The award-winning journalist, filmmaker, author and professor Saul Landau has died at the age of 77. His death was confirmed by the Institute for Policy Studies where he was a senior fellow and vice chair of the IPS board. Landau made more than 45 films and wrote 14 books, many about Cuba. “He stood up to dictators, right-wing Cuban assassins, pompous politicians, and critics from both the left and the right,” IPS Director John Cavanagh said in a statement from the group. “When he believed in something, nobody could make him back down. Those who tried would typically find themselves on the receiving end of a withering but humorous insult.”
Landau’s recent film, "Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up?" exposed U.S. support for violent anti-Castro militants. Last year, Landau appeared on Democracy Now! to discuss the history of the Cuban Five and U.S. support for a group of anti-Castro militants who have been behind the bombing of airplanes, the blowing up of hotels and assassinations. Today, they are allowed to live freely in the United States. "What did Cuba do to us?," Landau asks. "Well, the answer, I think, is that they were disobedient, in our hemisphere. And they did not ask permission to take away property. They took it away. They nationalized property. And the United States ... has never forgiven them."
Landau is survived by his wife, Rebecca Switzer, his first wife, Nina Serrano, and his five children, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
RIP.
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Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)It seems he has touched so many lives and lit many fires in the darkness, and his time has been so well spent. He provided fuel and encouragement for life-sustaining work in our future.
How hard it must be for fascists to comprehend people like Saul Landau who put others first, far FAR ahead of their own comfort. He lived for the right reasons, not to be sated to the max.
Looking forward so much to seeing his last film.
Landau has left such an impressive body of work, and revealed the truth in a country which was doing it's best to keep it all buried. Laundau is going to win, in the end.
Thank you, Mika.
This is sad, sad news regarding an intelligent, courageous, fascinating person. He was heroic.
Socialistlemur
(770 posts)I don't suppose he managed or was willing to film Castro's jails.
Mika
(17,751 posts)LESSONS FROM OUR NEIGHBORS TO THE SOUTH:
THE CUBAN PRISON SYSTEM - REFLECTIVE OBSERVATIONS 2000
by Prof. Soffiyah Elijah
Clinical Instructor
Criminal Justice Institute
Harvard Law School
Since the island nation of Cuba experienced its successful revolution in 1959 its prison system has been evolving. Despite accusations of harsh human rights abuses from its neighbors to the North, Cuba today maintains a prison system that is in many respects far more humane than Western propaganda would have the uninformed public believe.
My study of the Cuban prison system began in 1987 when I first visited the country to attend a conference co-sponsored by the American Association of Jurists and the Cuban Association of Jurists. I was pleasantly surprised during the trip when the opportunity arose to visit a men's prison. A group of conference attendees traveled by bus to the prison and when we arrived we were not searched and our belongings were not checked. We did not sign in or out. Nobody asked to check our identification. Having visited numerous prisons in the U.S. I have never entered any of them without a thorough search of my person and my belongings. Government issued photo identification is always required.
Although we were given a tour of the prison we were free to wander off and talk with the prisoners unmonitored. We walked all around the facility and were allowed to go into cells, work areas, the cafeteria, hospital, classrooms, recreation area and any other space we chose. This we were allowed to do unaccompanied. The prisoners wore street clothing.
Although one might think that this must have been a minimum or medium security prison, there are no such institutional classifications. Prison institutions are not characterized by security level. Rather prisoners of varying security levels are all housed in the same facility. The four levels of security classification for prisoners are maximum, high, moderate and minimum. The distinction in their security classification is borne out in the frequency with which they are allowed family and conjugal visits, mail, phone privileges and furlough availability. All prisoners, regardless of security level, are afforded at least four family and conjugal visits a year. Prisoners with the lowest security classifications are afforded more frequent family and conjugal visits than higher security classified prisoners.
Needless to say I was a bit taken aback at this very different approach. For the next thirteen years I built on this experience and conducted further research on the Cuban prison system.
In 1988 I returned to Cuba to attend the International Women¹s Conference hosted by the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC). Another opportunity arose to visit a prison, this time it was a women’s facility. My impressions were very similar to those I had when I visited the men’s facility. In a nutshell, the Cuban system still impressed me as being more humane than what I had observed in the United States.
Prisoners in Cuba are incarcerated in the province in which they live. A province is the geographic equivalent to a county as we know it in the United States. This is done to facilitate regular contact between prisoners and their families. This contact is seen as an integral part of the prisoner¹s rehabilitation. Families are incorporated through joint counseling into the rehabilitation process. Each prison is staffed with professionals who are trained to assist the family and the prisoner plan for his or her re-entry into the community. The focus is on rehabilitation as opposed to retribution and punishment.
Prisoners or their families may request conditional liberty passes. These are similar to furloughs and are granted to allow the prisoner to tend to his or a family member’s health. The furlough time is counted as part of the sentence.
Prisoners are not obligated to work. Work is considered a right of the prisoner so that he can earn an income. Prisoners are allowed to work in the same sort of employment as they held prior to their incarceration if it is available at the facility where they are being held. They are compensated for their labor at the same wage that free workers are compensated. They are not charged room and board no matter how much they earn. Similarly, they do not have to pay for their education, medical, dental or hospital care or any other activities they experience. Social security benefits and pensions are available to all prison laborers. In the event of a prisoner’s death, his family will receive his pension. A portion of the prisoner’s earnings is sent to his family. Even if a prisoner does not work, his family will be cared for by the State.
Once a prisoner has served at least half of his sentence he can request a conditional release if he is a first offender. A positive conduct record is the primary factor considered in granting the request for relief. The request for conditional release is made to the sentencing tribunal. The district attorney is given an opportunity to be heard with respect to the request. All prisoners are released after serving two thirds of their sentences.
In 1997 the availability of alternatives to incarceration was expanded to cover all defendants sentenced to up to five years incarceration. Previously these alternatives were only available to defendants sentenced to up to three years. The expansion of the availability of alternatives to incarceration to all defendants facing up to five years’ incarceration covered almost 95% of Cuba¹s prisoners. The recidivism rate for those prisoners released pursuant to the use of alternatives to incarceration is less than 15%. These alternatives include a form of probation, conditional release (similar to parole) and suspended sentences.
The conditional release program is very interesting. The defendant lives for twelve days in a residence located near a farm or industrial center. He works at the farm or industrial center during these twelve days. Then he has three days off where he can leave the residence and go home to his family. On the fourth day, the defendant returns to the work site and the residence. The defendant works side by side with non-incarcerated workers who are not informed of his status. He is paid the same wage as his co-workers and is afforded the same benefits and privileges. He works the same shifts and wears civilian clothing. Work alternatives can be revoked if the defendant fails to adhere to the rules and conditions of the program. The sentencing tribunal is informed if the defendant fails to meet the conditions and it can decide to return the defendant to prison.
The goal of the Cuban prison system is to return people to the community as productive contributors as soon as possible. Therefore the focus is not on punishment, but rather on rehabilitation and re-education. Perhaps this goal would be a useful addition to the prison system that has evolved in the United States.
Permission granted by author to post in entirety.
Socialistlemur
(770 posts)Not by a casual foreign visitor taken to a Potemkin jail. And I tend to think she's just another one of those ivory tower employees of the extreme left propaganda system. She is clearly not an unbiased observer. For example, here's some of what she has been engaged in:
Gender, Race & Participatory Democracy in Bolivarian Venezuela
featuring Fernando Vegas, Venezuelan Supreme Court Justice, J. Soffiyah Elijah of the Harvard Criminal Law Institute and Barbara Dougan of the National Lawyers Guild"
I was curious when I saw the title so I started looking up Venezuela Justice System using a search engine and found this:
I'm Hugo Chávez's prisoner, says jailed judge
Detained without trial in a notorious prison for the past year, María Lourdes Afiuni lambasts colleagues for their silence
This is an article in the Guardian, written in 2011.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/14/chavez-prisoner-maria-lourdes-afiuni
[link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/14/chavez-prisoner-maria-lourdes-afiuni|
It seems to me there's a set up which goes back in time, whereby professors and lawyers with a Stalinist leaning provide aid and propaganda cover for extreme left regimes which apply the Stalinist dictatorship centralized command system. I defend their right to do, write, believe whatever they want, but I'm too cynical and experienced to fall for material written by such persons defending regimes such as Cuba's. They lack credibility.
Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)and then pile it on with claims they were wildly beaten, tortured, etc., etc. and work as extensions of the Miami "exile" community, like the clown "poet" who told the world he had been maimed and spat upon, and crippled in prison, was innocent, although was involved in planting bombs, told people he was desperately permanently injured, yet, upon release, as he arrived from Havana on his plane, he bounded across the tarmac to greet them, throwing his creepy little arms around his "exile" cohorts, before eventually becoming Ronald Reagan's UN appointee.
So disgusting. We're all too familiar with all the whoppers and stunts they employ for their fascist advantage. The original "exile" wave drove waves of long-time Miami citizens out of the area after they took over that town, and turned it into what the U.S. FBI termed "America's Terror Capital,"
as they bombed, shot, burned down, executed anyone they politically disliked for years and years after arrival. Scums. They also turned Florida's political system into a dirty circus, known all over the country for its corruption. Just like old Havana was before they were all removed from power.
Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)[center]
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U.S. citizens' tax dollars at work.
Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)Saul Landau: Politically committed film-maker
Wednesday 11 September 2013
Saul Landau was a writer and Emmy Award-winning documentary film-maker whose work gave an unprecedented glimpse into Fidel Castro's Cuba and who co-wrote a riveting account of a Washington assassination linked to Augusto Pinochet. Part scholar, part journalist, part activist, Landau made more than 30 films and collaborated on more than a dozen books with an unabashed left-of-centre viewpoint. His films offered inside views of Castro's Cuba, Chile under Salvador Allende and Mexico during guerrilla uprisings in the 1990s.
"I think I'm objective, but I'm not detached," he said. "All my films try to teach people without preaching too hard... That's why I make films... to raise people's consciousness in one way or another." He first made a splash in 1968 with his documentary Fidel, which followed Castro on a week-long journey through the Cuban countryside. Although some dismissed it as propaganda, the film offered a view of Castro as a man of the people, chatting with villagers and striking out during an impromptu baseball game.
Landau made documentaries about Iraq, Syria, Angola and Jamaica, but his most acclaimed film was set in the US. Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang (1979), which Landau made with the Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler, examined the US government's attempts to suppress information about the harmful effects of nuclear radiation from open-air explosions in western states in the 1950s. It contained compelling interviews with Jacobs, a dying journalist who believed his cancer was caused by his exposure to fall-out from a 1957 test blast in Utah. Landau and his collaborators won an Emmy Award for best documentary. "It had a big impact on slowing the spread of and eventually stopping the construction of nuclear power plants," said John Cavanagh, director of Washington's Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank of which Landau was a board member.
In 1976, two of Landau's associates at the Institute, Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, were killed in a car bomb in Washington. Letelier was Chile's Ambassador to Washington when Allende was overthrown during the 1973 coup, Moffit his assistant. Landau's 1980 book Assassination on Embassy Row linked the killings to the Pinochet regime.
Landau went on to help investigate human rights abuses in Chile in the 1970s. His films and political statements led to frequent death threats, particularly while he was investigating the Letelier and Moffitt murders.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, where he received a master's in history, he began his political activism as a student by working in an effort to recall the red-baiting senator, Joseph McCarthy. He made his first visit to Cuba in 1960 as a researcher for the sociologist C Wright Mills.
More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/saul-landau-politically-committed-filmmaker-8810143.html
Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)Documentarian Saul Landau shed a light on the world’s unseen issues
JOHN ROGERS
The Associated Press
Published Wednesday, Sep. 11 2013, 11:45 PM EDT
Last updated Wednesday, Sep. 11 2013, 11:47 PM EDT
Saul Landau was a prolific, award-winning documentary filmmaker who travelled the world to profile political leaders including Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Chile’s Salvador Allende. With his camera he brought audiences an up-close look at such subjects as war, poverty and racism.
Mr. Landau, who had been battling bladder cancer for two years, died Monday night at home in Alameda, Calif., said colleague John Cavanagh, director of the Institute for Policy Studies. He was 77.
The director, producer and writer of more than 40 documentaries, Mr. Landau worked almost until his death. He regularly submitted essays to The Huffington Post and elsewhere, sometimes writing from his hospital bed, according to his son, Greg. He was also working on a documentary on homophobia in Cuba.
Mr. Landau was the author of 14 books. While most covered topics such as radical politics, consumer culture and globalization, one of them, My Dad Was Not Hamlet, was a collection of poetry.
His documentaries tackled a variety of issues, but each contained one underlying theme: reporting on a subject that was otherwise going largely unnoticed at the time, whether it was American ghetto life, the destruction of an indigenous Mexican culture or the inner workings of the CIA.
More:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/documentarian-saul-landau-shed-a-light-on-the-worlds-unseen-issues/article14270026/
Vadem
(2,596 posts)The last time we met was at our house and I bet you didn't know that Saul was a poet as well. He played my piano and I sang and he wrote a poem about me--he said I had the voice of an angel and that my blue eyes sparkled like Sapphire's. He and Rebecca were our dearest friends and I am heartbroken. RIP Saul, I love you! Dear Rebecca, I love you, too! Peace to you and the children!
Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)Saul Landau
Monday 16 September 2013
Filmmaker;
Born: January 15, 1936; Died: September 9, 2013.
Saul Landau, who has died aged 77, was an award-winning documentary filmmaker who profiled political leaders such as Fidel Castro of Cuba and Chile's Salvador Allende. His 1968 documentary Fidel gave the world one of the earliest close-ups of the revolutionary leader who installed Communism in Cuba, but his most acclaimed documentary was probably 1979's Paul Jacobs And The Nuclear Gang, which examined the effects of radiation exposure on people living downwind from Nevada's above-ground nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s.
The director, producer and writer of more than 40 documentaries had continued to work almost until his death. He regularly submitted essays to the Huffington Post and had been working on a documentary on homophobia in Cuba.
Landau was also the author of 14 books. While most covered issues like radical politics, consumer culture and globalisation, one of them, My Dad Was Not Hamlet, was a collection of poetry.
His documentaries tackled a variety of issues, but each contained one underlying theme: reporting on a subject that was otherwise going largely unnoticed at the time, whether it was American ghetto life, the destruction of an indigenous Mexican culture or the inner workings of the CIA.
One of the documentaries Landau said he was most proud of was The Sixth Sun: Mayan Uprising In Chiapas, which looked at the 1994 rebellion by the impoverished indigenous people of southern Mexico. Landau travelled to Chiapas to interview, among others, the masked revolutionary leader known as Subcommandante Marcos.
More:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/obituaries/saul-landau.22128952