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 October 2003
Hard as it is for all of us to confront, the loss of life in Iraq must be looked at in current and historical ways. Comparing our current human loss with past losses is our only measuring stick. During the two-year period of 1963 and 1964 in Vietnam the Uni...
"It seemed a small miracle that no one was killed or even wounded here," wrote reporter Ian Fisher in a Monday report in the New York Times on Sunday’s stunning attack by Iraqi guerrillas on a U.S. military convoy in Falluja, a city west of Baghdad...
Having pushed Iraq’s Sunnis into waging guerrilla war by effectively disenfranchising them when we outlawed the Baath Party, we now seem intent on picking quarrels with Iraq’s two other main groups, the Kurds and the Shi’ites. Desperate for troop...
About two weeks ago, I reviewed Diana Johnstone’s Fools’ Crusade, an excellent ...
The liberal media is in a furor over remarks by Lt. Gen. William "Jerry Boykin," recently made undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Over the past couple of years, Boykin, a self-described "born-again" Christian, has promoted "...
As the echo of the war drums fades away and the angry masses calling for blood slowly disperse, we, as a nation must now confront the truth. We face the unpleasant reality of an uncertain future, compromised safety, a failing economy, and the question of how a soc...
The hackneyed phrase "political circus" came vividly to life on the shores of the Pacific this month. The national media, hardly sober and substantive in the best of times, was postively drunk with tabloid glee over two lurid spectacles whose simultaneou...
In acknowledging the recent thirtieth anniversary of the US-sponsored coup that brought to General Augosto Pinochet to power in Chile, a number of articles and opinion pieces have appeared. The Nation recently cast the incident in somewhat sentimental terms. Such ...
The United States apparently has fitted out the Harpoon missiles it previously supplied Israel to accommodate nuclear warheads. These missiles are carried on three German-built submarines, making a reality of Israel’s grandiose plan for a nuclear-triad force...
After a more than a month of intense protests against the exportation of Bolivia’s gas to the US through a Chilean port, many protesting sectors are focusing their demands solely on the resignation of their president, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Bolivi...
I teach at a Native American university next to a modern battleground. The fight is over a highway proposed through wetlands. In the news media, this is reduced to the frontier model of pioneers — business interests — versus Indians. Other serio...
"Israel has been urging America to invade Syria, but America seems to be reluctant. So, in order to force the hands of America, Israel is going to invade Syria," Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told the official Bernama news agency recently. &q...
"I made it very clear to the prime minister, like I have consistently done, that Israel’s got a right to defend herself, that Israel must not feel constrained in defending the homeland." President Bush, summarizing his conversation...
[Editors' note: The following essay is excerpted from economist ROBERT POLLIN's explosive new book, ...
Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Thomas Cooper On October 10, 2003 President George Bush spoke to about 100 rightwing Cuban exiles at the Rose Garden. There he stated his commitment to bringing about "regime ...
Most notable, perhaps, is APEC’s transformation. Founded by dozen countries in 1989, it has developed into a forum of twenty-one countries that addresses economic issues in the Asia-Pacific region. This diverse group includes the U.S., Canada, China, Taiwan ...
In a well-publicized flap at the Los Angeles BookExpo last May, satirist Al Franken accused Bill O’Reilly of lying about, among other things, the tabloid show Inside Edition–which O’Reilly hosted before moving to Fox News–winning Peabody aw...
On the day that three more US soldiers died in Iraq, Californians elected a narcissist governor in a bizarre recall election. As Der Gropenfuhrer** heads for Sacramento, millions of poor people believe that Arnold will magically terminate the newly imposed and hat...
Let me begin this commentary by stating clearly that I am a Dylan freak. I’m not going to go dig in his garbage like some others so identified have, nor am I going to assign any supernatural aspects to the man and his work. After all, he is a human, not a go...
As predicted, the duopoly and their media stenographers at corporate headquarters are demanding that recall elections a lot harder to qualify for the ballot. "We just can’t allow voters to monkeywrench things like this," wail the media and the big ...
Gabo (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) has confessed that it is still on his conscience that he initiated me into what I still possess to this day, "an addiction to easy-to-read bestsellers as a method of purification from official documents". To which I must add...
There’s an unrepentant religious fanatic on the loose…a man who believes, "The Antichrist is probably a Jew alive in Israel today." This man (we’ll call him MG for now) is a wealthy fundamentalist who preaches, "Communism was the b...
Left on our office voicemail at 2 a.m. on Oct. 3, 2003: "Hi. I heard your speech today in UC Berkeley; the debate. I’m telling you this right now. On Monday, at 2 PM, you better not be in your office. Because me and my buddies, who were trained i...
"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask not what you can do cause you’ve probably already done it your country thanks you very much. Ask nothing, and if you’re lucky you shall receive nothing worse than nothing." Well, why ...
It was a tiny Reuters’ news item last week but there was a lot more to it than a first glance might reveal. "The administration arranged for some 75 House members and 25 senators to visit Iraq in recent weeks. Most returned supporting Bush’s $87 b...