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 September 2004
With all the discussion of polls and the presidential race it may be hard to believe, but I have yet to see a single poll asking whom people want to be president. Virtually every poll has a structure like this: "If the 2004 presidential election were b...
Baghdad. A two-man delegation of...
Few on the left will disagree that John Kerry’s Democratic Party is corporatized, conservative and cowardly. But it’s the best we can do, the Anybody-But-Bush argument goes, until the liberal wing of the party reasserts itself against the conservative ...
The 2004 U.S. presidential elections are international in every sense of the word. This does not mean that the concept of nation-state is over, much less that the international stage has become democratic. The United States is still somewhat of a democracy, though...
As we inch along towards the Nov. 2nd Skull and Bones’ presidential selection, the desperation of the Democrats and their sycophants gets ever shriller. Taking the frenzy of the last couple weeks even further, we no...
Dear Americans (I am here addressing only those of you who are rationally choosing to prolong the suffering of the human race for 4 more years): Just this past week, Iraqis had the equivalent death toll of 9/11. In fact, they have one every week or two, on ...
Is it not peculiar to circulate a statement calling upon people to vote for a particular candidate without giving a single reason why that candidate is worthy of support? Indeed, the statement is critical of the candidate’s position on the most important cur...
Howard Cosell once said, "Rule Number One of the ‘Jockocracy’ is that pro-athletes and politics should never mix. But in these times of war and resistance, a new wave of sports stars are demanding to be heard. In Major League Baseball, Blue Jays s...
I’ve just returned from a week or so in Romania, where I was attending an academic conference in a Transylvanian town too small to mention on a theme too recondite for me to even bother to try to explain it. I can report, however, on the results of the usual...
What a zoo. Republicans who oppose Nader’s principles and platform have sued to get Nader on the ballot in the key swing state of Michigan. And Nader’s Republican support is a national phenomenon concentrated in swing states. Their goal is to split lib...
Despite what John Kerry may say along the campaign trail, the Democratic Party is largely to blame for laying the groundwork the Republican hawks needed to justify attacking Iraq and waging Bush’s greater "war on terror." This of course is n...
EVERY FOUR years, progressives are told to vote for a Democrat for president in order to save the Supreme Court. If the Republicans get the White House, goes the argument, they will continue packing the court with right-wing justices, and any number of crucially i...
On May 1, 2003 President Bush donned a flight jacket, landed on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and before a "Mission Accomplished" banner announced that "major combat" in Iraq had ended. "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance i...
We know now what our "heroic" troops in Iraq have been up to-and why they are so wildly unpopular there. Thanks to an investigation by the Iraqi Ministry of Health, we now know that the U.S. military not only kills more civilians than rebels; it a...
Amid all of the spotlight about the death toll and damages caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne over the past weekend, which killed at least 1,000 people and left more than 1,250 missing, the story of another tragedy has been lost in the media coverage. For nearly a mo...
The inclination of a mother to protect her children is instinctual and when violated, renders a pure form of justice that is powerful, swift and decisive. George W. Bush’s illegitimate war in Iraq is becoming the corporeality that got between the proverbial ...
GEORGE W. BUSH should be struggling to explain the disastrous invasion of Iraq and an economy that’s still sputtering three years after the end of a recession. But for the past month and a half, it’s John Kerry who has been on the defensive. Now, even ...
The UN General Assembly’s reaction to George Bush’s speech last Tuesday was begrudgingly polite. Unlike past years, no one clapped during the speech. At the end, applause was subdued. His talk was treated as irrelevant. What is the sound of no h...
SOLANGE ECHEVERRIA’s interview with reporter Kevin Pina aired on Flashpoints on September 24, 2004 SOLANGE ECH...
Try to digest radio blasts of campaign rhetoric amidst nerve-wracking traffic jams and insistent billboards. In a massive mall parking lot, designed to divert the brain from human themes, I try to understand my country’s empire. The energy spent involved in ...
If I were Ralph Nader, (and given the number of people screaming at me about stabbing Kerry in the back I sometimes think I am) I’d get on the plane to Palestine, and Baghdad and spend less time on ballot access fights with lawyers working for the Democrats....
You should always worry when someone uses the old "taken to its logical conclusion" line of argument. It usually means that they are about to make some ridiculous claim about you and then spread it around as much as possible. That is exactly what Ted Gli...
The Bush presidency has been the most elaborate public relations swindle in the history of the country. From his inauguration to the present day, Bush’s every move has been carefully choreographed to maximize the ambitions of his handlers. His appearances ha...
The hundreds killed this week by tropical storm Jeanne provided Haiti another brief appearance in the U.S. media, but with little context or discussion of the murderous regime now in power. Nor did any reporter point out that when U.S.-backed Prime Minister Gerard...
Back in graduate school at an American university many years ago, I had an Indian friend, a pilot. Our group at that time was mostly made up of other Indian grad students, getting their MS or PhD. Unlike the rest of us, our pilot friend was the only one with a wel...