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 August 2004
No need to inquire about co-payments at Abu Ghraib prison facility. Rummy’s HMO will cover the whole thing. And, there’s no sense in worrying about those nagging medical malpractice suits either. American doctors can pursue their o...
August 15, a group of us gathered to celebrate our buddy, Earth First! co-founder and Lowbagger King Mike Roselle’s 50th Birthday. Of course, we went to an outdoor setting–not a Wilderness; that would be an unacceptable place for such a gathering. So, ...
It is acknowledged almost everywhere except in official Washington and London that Iraq and Afghanistan have gone to hell in a hand cart, thanks in the main to appallingly poor planning by the Pentagon of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith, an arrogant trio of silly as...
Kerry or Bush? How about the 5.9 million people here in the United States, under "the supervision" of the Justice system, either in prison, in jail, of probation or parole. Will it make a difference to these people–two million of them ...
Upon accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Senator John F. Kerry promised to "bring back this nation’s time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we hav...
If you ride the commuter train from Chicago 40 miles west to Aurora, Ill., you’ll pass towns with small shops on tree-lined streets, lush woods, golf courses–and plenty of large single-family homes. But for working-class and poor people who live in Aur...
I have known for a while that police brutality is commonplace in Los Angeles, but last week I witnessed an incident that really put a human face on it. I am one of the only white/middle-class people in my neighborhood (maybe the only one!– I’d say it&#...
When I was younger and financially responsible only for myself, I worked only when I had to. Needless to say, since I had few needs and even fewer bills, I didn’t work more than the equivalent of six or seven months a year. These months of work were intermit...
A small group of California doctors have made a specialty of evaluating whether a patient has a condition with symptoms that might be eased by cannabis. They call themselves "cannabis consultants." They keep abreast of the cannabinoid-therapeutics litera...
Life in Baghdad in these days is nerve wracking. It is so hard to keep your sanity through one more night of bombing. The explosions, the machine guns all around your house at night, the many times you jump up and down because it feels as if the last gun shot came...
Calls for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions have generated a great deal of controversy in some quarters, notably among Israeli academics and their supporters in Europe and the United States. The Palestinian voice, the voice of the Palestinian academy an...
A headline in the comic weekly Onion reads, "Homosexual Admits to Being Governor of New Jersey." And you know, all the news sounds as if it’s being played backward. Here’s Bush proposing to bring some troops home–and Kerry saying that&#...
"The holy shrine will remain safe from all attacks that could possibly harm its sacredness." Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Allawi, about the Najaf Mosque Despoiling holy places is often a deliberate tactic of war. I...
The nation’s top dog of war is frisky again. Donald Rumsfeld has returned to high visibility — after a couple of months in the media doghouse following revelations about torture at the Abu Ghraib prison — now openly romancing the journalistic pac...
Jeffrey St. Clair is an environmentalist and author of Been Brown So Long it Looked Like Green ...
Two recent articles by Andrew C. McCarthy, a contributor to the National Review and a former chief assistant U.S. attorney who led the prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in connection with the first World Trade Center bombing,[1] discuss related topics of grea...
Racial profiling is back. Not that it ever left. But for a time it was unacceptable for commentators to argue that law enforcement should target suspects based on skin color. Today, it’s the edgy thing to advocate. This isn’t racism, the claim goes, bu...
Caracas. Hugo havez had motivate...
As the field coordinator of the Nader/Camejo campaign in Wisconsin, my inbox has seen e-mails from excited volunteers, people wanting to sign a petition, desperate pleas telling me that campaign volunteers in Wisconsin represent the "left arm of the Bush camp...
The mass demonstration in New York City planned for Aug. 29 on the eve of the Republican National Convention, the first full-scale protest against Bush policies and especially the War against Iraq in well over half a year, promises to bring upwards of half a milli...
Recently the New York Times carried an article by David Pogue endorsing what he call...
Many progressives make it sound as if there’s a world of difference between the candidates. Is this true? The standard liberal charge hurled at Nader supporters is that we believe there is "no difference" between the two mainstream parties i...
In the Minds of the Rich, the Venezuela Poor Aren’t Even Members of Society…Guess Who’s Laughing Now
Caracas. I never left Caracas du...
"They say freedom and democracy and yet they appoint a government. Appointment cannot agree with freedom and democracy. Rather, we are demanding with all our strength the formation of an Iraqi government and sovereignty, but not through the Ameri...
Many things are not believed because their current explanation is not believed. Nietzsche One of the overlooked but frequently favored means for presidents to work their will without involving Congress is to issue regulation...