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 April 2004
There is a myth circulating amongst antiwar people. That myth is elucidated quite succinctly in an editorial in the April 21, 2004 edition of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. According to this piece, "the Bush administration has gotten the United States into a...
Amidst the political storm in Israel regarding the "Gaza disengagement" plan, only one really meaningful fact emerges: Sharon received Bush’s approval to proceed with his plan for the wall in the West Bank. With regard to the Gaza strip, the...
Howell Raines, the fallen editor of the New York Times, likens his relationship with Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, its publisher, to a marriage. His account of their divorce leaves little doubt that he was the wronged party. But I do believe that his plaint in the Atlan...
"Hey! I think the time is right for a palace revolution, Cuz’ where I live the game to play is compromise solution!" -Rolling Stones (Street Fighting Man) While the sun in Iraq scorches an already turbul...
Baghdad. It was the turn of Basra’s schoolchildren yesterday to suffer the horror of a suicide bombing. In what was the bloodiest attack on Iraq’s largest Shia city, bombers in vehicles packed with explosives detonated them against police buildi...
Senator Byrd, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, delivered the following remarks regarding the continued lack of security and stability in Iraq. Mr. Byrd also addressed the claim made in a book by Mr. Robert Woodward that the Pres...
Every time we publish a story that mentions a criticism of U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, we get dozens of letters complaining that we are giving Kucinich short shrift. No doubt this column won’t be any different. This tells us that Kucinich has a loyal g...
One of the few consistencies of the war in Iraq is America’s ability to make the wrong choices. From starting the war in the first place through outlawing the Baath and sending the Iraqi army home to assaulting Fallujah and declaring war on Shiite militia le...
In his brilliant book, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals, J...
For tourists interested in democracy, the best attraction in Washington, DC, from April 23-26 will be the World Bank at 1818 H St. NW. It’s not what is inside the building that is worth the stop those days, but the three people who will be across the ...
Along with dozens of other female political prisoners, campesino leader Luz Perly Cordoba lives behind bars in the Bogota women’s prison, El Buen Pastor. They are forced to sleep in the dirt of the floor, and their babies will grow up in confinement. ...
"I thought it was very interesting that Charlie Duelfer, — he’s the head of the Iraqi Survey Group — reported some interesting findings from his recent tour there. And one of the things was, he was amazed at how deceptive t...
former CIA analyst By November, the Roman circus of this U.S. election year may rival the old Barnum-and-Bailey "Greatest Show on Earth." A couple of acts in the great show have recently been getting new publicity in the nation’s capita...
"So they stood on the sidelines as the parade marched on and 50,000 of our soldiers died in a war they did not understand. And they watched and cheered as millions of Vietnamese died at our hands, while the silent enemy went to Sunday barbec...
There’s nothing wrong with those on the Left congratulating themselves on having gotten a thing or two right these days. Lord and Lady know, the Bushites do it all the time, even when they’re obviously, disastrously wrong. Thus, I cheered when, in a r...
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed W. B. Yeats, "...
HAVANA. Their trip could not have been shorter. The small delegation of AP managing editors, representing 1,700 newspapers in the United States and Canada, arrived from Mexico the day before and left the day after. For most, if not all, of those...
(Dear Jeffrey, I came upon this letter while searching through my junk mail file. I have no idea how it got there unless the FBI or CIA were combing files under the Patriot Act and this got misplaced. But it is a curious piece, both because it...
Am I the only person around who feels in his bones these are The Last Days? Just what we need, 24-hour talk radio as stupid as Limbaugh et al. How many more unfunny ways can Al Franken say that Democrats are good, Republicans bad? I’m probably fortuna...
These days, presidential candidates George Bush and John Kerry have a lot in common, and I don’t mean the fact that both are rich New England preppies and Yale Skull and Bones Club alums. I’m talking about how both are walking a knife’s edge, try...
Of course, the President is more than incompetent these days. He seems deliberately intent, like a boy who has built a tower of blocks, to make sure everyone in the room is watching, when the tower crashes to the ground. With American soldiers already exten...
The king of discount retailing is looking like a blue chip bargain. James Hale, The Online Investor, March 4, 2004 Wal-Mart probably doesn’t set out with the purpose of destroying lives and wrecking the American econom...
Review in American Historical Review (1985):[please note that the reviewer evidently believes Dr. Rice is a man] CONDOLEEZZA RICE. The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1983: Uncertain Allegiance. Princeton: Princeton Unive...
It’s not difficult to feel sorry for Pfc. Keith Maupin, 20, shown today as a captive of the Iraqi resistance on al-Jazeera TV. It’s not difficult to feel sorry for him as a frightened human who may soon lose his life or suffer years as a captive in the...
NOTE: Doctors from four hospitals in Baghdad were interviewed in compiling this report; all asked that their names be left out. Baghdad, Iraq. "Why do you keep asking about the closing of the Fallujah hospital?" my Iraqi translator asks in ...