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 July 2002
Ironically, it was Herr Schickelgruber who stated it most succinctly: "the bigger the lie, the more they believe" (and follow). And follow they did, through a path laden with death, destruction and repression. Just re-watched the excellent film &q...
Ironically, it was Herr Schickelgruber who stated it most succinctly: "the bigger the lie, the more they believe" (and follow). And follow they did, through a path laden with death, destruction and repression. Just re-watched the excellent film &q...
Opposition to the Patriot Act, legislation passed by Congress and signed by the President last year, is growing. Americans are beginning to understand that many precious liberties have been put in jeopardy by the government’s rush to enact new laws in the wa...
Let the corporate criminals take over Wall Street. And investors flee the market. Hello criminals. Goodbye market. Pollute nature. And nature confronts the polluters. Push the people to the edge of their misery, and the pe...
The Weatherman/Weather Underground Organization derived from a frustration inside the U.S. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) with the seemingly endless protest against the war in Vietnam and the racism endemic to U.S. society. Formed by some of the brightest...
Could the USA turn into a dictatorship? Of course not, the idea is preposterous! Or is it? Let’s look at a scenario: End of 2004, the polls indicate that G. W. Bush’s previous massive support has melted away to below 45% and his gang is destined...
Between a diner and an empty store that once housed a shoe store, video store, and tanning salon, in a small strip mall in Bloomsburg, Pa., is Friends-in-Mind, an independent bookstore. On the first floor are more than 10,000 books on more than 1,200 r...
So now our globalizing, populist counterparts claim, like good Marxists, that capitalist is used to crises, which it always overcomes. Or, better yet, that capitalism is crisis. Shareholder capitalism– the postmodern economic fantasy– is meeting its mo...
"When the leaves coming falling down In September, when the leaves come falling down … When the leaves come falling down in September, in the rain When the leaves come falling down" –Van Morrison, "When the L...
The attacks of September 11th, 2001 caused significant changes throughout our society. For our military services, this included increased force protection, greater security, and of course the deployment to and prosecution of the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and...
For the Zuni, this place is the center of the world. For the Department of the Interior under Gale Norton, it’s just another coal seam, 18,000 acres of wasteland just waiting to be strip-mined. The pueblo tribes of the Southwest call this place the Zu...
"We should invade [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Columnist Ann Coulter, National Review Online, Sept. 13, 2001 "Just turn [the sheriff] loose and have him ...
Every time there is some news about the economy not doing too well, or some kind of underhanded business dealings exposed, or corporate corruption that will cost the average citizen (while maintaining the status quo of the business elite), I start to expect some k...
Two questions that people too often divorce from each other have dominated the Bush administration’s actions since September 11. One involves foreign policy–how should the U.S. government respond abroad to the events of that date? The other involves domestic p...
Seeing Alan Lomax’s obituary on the front page of the New York Times irked the hell out of me. Harry Smith syndrome all over again—-the Great White "Discoverer" as the axis of cultural genesis. Lomax, wrote Jon Pareles, "advocated what h...
The Israel Defense Forces this week cynically capitalized on an earlier public relations coup, releasing yet another snapshot of a Palestinian toddler posed with weapons. The photograph, purportedly seized during a military operation in Hebron, is reminiscent of l...
I am writing today because I would like all of you to be informed about some very disturbing information I received last week. September 11 was certainly one of the most horrifying tragedies we have ever witnessed on our own soil, but I fear it is being badly expl...
In testimony last week before the Senate Commerce Committee, Army Secretary Thomas White stated that he has not been contacted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) about his possible involvement in the manipulation of California’s deregulated e...
When George Bush Jr came to power in January of 2001, he proceeded to implement foreign affairs and defense policies that were every bit as radical, extreme and excessive as the Reagan/Bush administrations had starting in January of 1981. To be sure, Bush Jr had n...
Now that the digital ink is dry on the six plans released July 16, 2002 for the benighted World Trade Center site, perhaps it is time to draw a few preliminary conclusions while rehearsing some recent events and possible future history. Any surmises at this point ...
When thinking of Palestine most people probably form images of air-raids, razed-to-the-ground buildings, stone-throwing children, Israeli tanks rolling down emptied streets, frightened people behind barred windows, and angry Palestinian working class kids planning...
"There’s a Natural Mystic blowing through the air. If you listen carefully now you will hear. This could be the first trumpet, might as well be the last. Many more will have to suffer, many more will have to die. Don’t ask me why, thi...
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, "Journalists who would give up some credibility for a little government access deserve neither." Too many members of the Washington press corps have become nothing more than toadies for the current administration. While e...
You may not realize it, but your home computer is a potential threat to national security. With an Internet connection and a few accomplished keystrokes, you have the ability to shut down electric and telecommunications grids, nuclear plants, water systems, subway...
When did the great executive stock option hog wallow really start? You can go back to the deregulatory push under Carter in the late Seventies, then move into the Reagan Eighties when corporate purchases of shares really took off. This was the era of the leveraged...