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 November 2003
Miami. We were loading our video equipment into the trunk of our car when a fleet of bicycle cops sped up and formed a semi-circle around us. The lead cop was none other than Miami Police Chief John Timoney. The former Police Commissioner of Philadelphia Ti...
George W. Bush’s malapropism (the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar) no longer makes me laugh. On November 2, Iraqis fired a surface to air missile into a US helicopter, killing 15 and wounding 21 servicemen. Other mili...
Of all the movies to represent the Sixties in the U.S., the John G. Avildsen-directed Joe has got to be the most unforgiving. For those unfamiliar with the plot, it goes like this. Joe, a loudmouthed working man played by Peter Boyle meets Bill Thompson, a Madison...
"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French." Gandhi [1] "Palestine will be as Jewish as England is English." Chaim Weizman [2] ...
Establishment critics of the war on Iraq restricted their comments regarding the attack to the administration arguments they took to be seriously intended: disarmament, deterrence, and links to terrorism. They scarcely made reference to liberation, democrat...
The most important aspect of Zacarias Moussaoui’s prosecution may have little to do with Moussaoui himself. Although he is an admitted member of Al Qaeda, and the sole defendant being tried for the September 11 terrorist attacks, Moussaoui makes a puny ...
Just a few days after Veteran’s Day, Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Revolution. A commemoration of the 1910 uprising that overthrew a brutal dictatorship, November 20 reminds Mexican citizens of their revolutionary past. Among the legendary figures of tha...
They offered the family a blank check to leave their home to the bulldozers. Muneera and Hani refused and now all they can see is concrete. They tell us the story in a lovely living room, insisting on serving us sweet tea despite their own Ramadan fast. The c...
RIO DE JANEIRO. After a quarter-century of intensive grassroots organizing and a victorious presidential campaign a year ago, Brazilian social movements are in a strong position as they push the left-wing Workers Party government to fulfill its promises. Th...
Dear American serviceperson in Iraq, I am a retired veteran of the army, and my own son is among you, a paratrooper like I was. The changes that are happening to every one of you–some more extreme than others–are changes I know very well. So I’m g...
What has happened to the Chief-of-Staff, Lieutenant-General Moshe ("Bogie") Ya’alon? Until recently, he was the most aggressive hawk in the army, perhaps in the whole country. Suddenly he is almost turning into a dove. Has he had a di...
Every summer for the past ten years young biologists head off into the forests of the Pacific Northwest to call spotted owls. Every year they get fewer and fewer responses. The spotted owl, which thrives only in the oldest of forests, is in a downward spiral towar...
Thirty years ago this month, I first went to the field with the United States Marine Corps. I was a new staffer for Senator Robert Taft, Jr., of Ohio, and the Marines had invited me down for the "Company War" at The Basic School at Quantico, Virginia. Ea...
For an hour we sat in the overcrowded and badly ventilated courtroom of the Jaffa Military Court, listening to presiding judge, Colonel Avi Levi, reading out a long verdict–hard to understand as he was rushing through the document. The text gave different an...
Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, and the man who probably will be the Democratic nominee for the office of President of the United States, made a bold statement recently. He said, “White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag de...
The President, speaking a day after attacks in Iraq killed at least 35 people, said such attacks should be seen as a sign of progress because they showed the desperation of those who oppose the U.S.-led occupation. "The more successful we are on ...
Having destroyed all drafts of my only novel, I took a teaching position in Farmville, Virginia, renting a second story apartment across the street from the campus and with a view of the ubiquitous statue of the Confederate soldier. I could see him from the window...
There are three of them standing alone out here looking like volcanoes that pushed up through the ground of the short grass prairie when no one was looking. Up this way by the Alberta border a hot wind shoves the browning grasses back and forth all day. Distant ye...
One of the more amazing things to contemplate in this bizarre polity called the United States is that George Bush, probably the least engaged, most willfully ignorant, and most bungling and disastrously inept president the country has ever had, is still viewed by ...
In his bland story on the annual downtown Veterans Day parade, sponsored by Veterans of Foreign War, Tallahassee Democrat/Knight Ridder reporter Gerald Ensley, strives for the local Mayberry touch. "On a warm November day, Tallahassee threw a Veterans ...
Has Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez resigned yet? If not, why not? It is astonishing that he remains in his position as commander of occupation forces in Iraq. Why astonishing? Why resign? Because the Secretary of Defense of the United States of...
Read William Safire’s "On Language" column in the Sunday New York Times Magazine and, besides the fact that complaining about how humans speak is about as logical as pointing out that dolphins do not execute their swimming strokes perfectly, Safire...
Over the last several weeks I have had the privilege of interviewing two icons of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, George Foreman and John Carlos. One boxer. One sprinter. Two strikingly different liv...
In mid-October, my email in-box began to receive forwards from Michael Bednar, a graduate student in the department of history at the University of Texas, Austin. The subject line suggested that it was an email joke: "Congress moves to regulate postcolonial s...
For those who missed it, this season ABC is running a new prime-time drama on Thursday about the Homeland Security Department. The show is based on the concept of a special-operations team contained within DHS whose purpose is to respond to and preempt potential a...