Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch
HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.
Archives from May 2002
Gov. Parris N. Glendening took a courageous step when he put a moratorium on executions in Maryland, as Gov. George Ryan did in Illinois in 2000. Mr. Glendening’s action signals mounting concern about flaws in our death penalty system: the 101st death...
My short visit to Quebec was nearing its end. After a magnificent week of visiting friends, I was ready for my trip home: New York City, USA. I had crossed the border many times in the past. But this time I was exceptionally anxious, unsettled and feeling insecure...
The apartheid government of South Africa came to power in 1948, the same year that the State of Israel was created in Palestine. Having lived and witnessed the legacy of Zionism, I wonder sometimes if this shared birth year was not an accidental prophecy. ...
Image–Henry Fuseli, "The Nightmare" (1781-82) All-Purpose Disclaimer: The following is a bad dream–the result of a feverish brain and hyper-imagination. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to reality as ...
After the latest morbid turn in the Chandra Levy mystery, it appears that politics has now come back full circle to where it was before September 11th. With the recent scandals and miscues, the President is no longer Winston Churchill or Franklin Roosevelt, he is ...
When the inhabitants of Bethlehem came out of their homes, after the long weeks during which Israeli soldiers shot at everything in town that moved, they discovered that the landscape had changed. While they were imprisoned in their homes, the army had been workin...
The more a government emphasizes its commitment to defense, the less it seems to care about the survival of its people. Perhaps it is because its attention may be focused on more distant prospects: the establishment and maintenance of empire, for example, or the d...
Dear Georgie: I thought I was the only guy facing a political/ethical firing squad. But you have topped me, my lad. The "I" word is beginning to be brought out of mothballs. Unless something major happens (another terrorist attack would help out a...
"When they came in they blasted the door open. Three hundred soldiers in my house, and they put us, twelve people, in one room. They brought a dog and took a man with them to serve as a human shield to walk between the houses. Then they took me. I won’t...
Here’s an obscenity even greater than the bare breast of a statue for Attorney General Ashcroft to cover up: the U.S. war against Afghanistan. That’s the implication of Vice President Dick Cheney’s damage control efforts on the Sunday talk...
"What did the President know and when did he know it?" This question, evocative of the Watergate investigation, is now being posed by politicians and pundits seeking to determine what information the Bush Administration ...
Around the time that Thriller redefined the blockbuster hit in the mid’80s, I found myself reporting a vision. "What the record companies really want is to release one record a year-maybe one each, but maybe just one," I said. "Everyone will b...
During the drafting of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the Palestinians carefully studied the American Declaration of Independence as well as the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic. As can be seen from the text of their Declaration, the Palestini...
Can it be that it was all so simple? In 1948, upon Israel’s founding, the International Left was supportive of Israel, including Arab communist and socialist parties, particularly in Egypt. Even after the "Nakhba," Marxists, even within the ...
During America’s war against the Vietnamese, one of the common plaints of the soldiers in the jungle was that one couldn’t tell the "enemy" from a "friend". Eventually, this inability to differentiate turned to a frustration that ch...
Soon after September 11, government officials and journalists suggested that Yemen might be an appropriate target in the endless "war on terrorism" launched by the Bush administration. Unlike Iraq, Somalia, Iran and some other candidates (but like the Ph...
During the wars in former Yugoslavia the architect Bogdan Bogdanovich coined the term "urbicide" to describe the destruction of cities in the Balkans. In Palestine the violence has targeted the entire landscape. A trail of devastation stretches as far as...
I hope my colleagues who believe that the current war on terrorism justifies violating the liberty of millions of young men by reinstating a military draft will consider the eloquent argument against conscription in the attached speech by Daniel Webster. Then-rep...
A few weeks ago, a vociferous pro-Israel demonstration was held in Washington at roughly the same moment that the siege of Jenin was taking place. All of the speakers were prominent public figures, including several senators, leaders of major Jewish organis...
According to the 2000 census there are over 105 million households in the U.S., containing an average 2.59 people each. The median household income is $37,000 per year (for the 2.59). Doing division, that works out to around $14,000 per person. Taking all things i...
If, like many people, you’re planning to read a little didactic fiction this summer, I suggest ...
There’s little over a month left before the Kyoto Protocol is to be ratified. As things stand right now it may instead go down as the late 20th century’s grandest testament to good intentions. In preparation for that fateful moment, the Federal governm...
The decision to send Condoleezza Rice out before the reporters yesterday to downplay new evidence that the White House had credible warnings of Osama bin Laden’s plans to hijack planes was a huge slap to the face of reason. Rice’s two main arguments se...
Several weeks ago, I called for a congressional investigation into what warnings the Bush Administration received before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I was derided by the White House, right wing talk radio, and spokespersons for the military-indust...
During the 1999 war in Kosovo it was aggravating as hell to watch as innocent civilians suffered, all the while knowing that a well-armed and well-equipped NATO military force was sitting across the border in Macedonia doing nothing to stop what was described as e...