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 July 2005
Thoughts: Many years ago a Russian called Plekhanov wrote a series of articles on "The Role of the Individual in History". Plek also introduced the writings of Karl Marx, who had then, this was1883, just died in London, to Tsarist Russia. Amongst...
First Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts Jr., lied about his membership with the far right-wing Federalist Society, and now file cabinets full of documents are being released which expose Roberts’ penchant for justice as color-coded. He says he won’t ...
As I write this article, Gurgaon approaches its third day of street riots. The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged full support for neo-liberalism and the global war on terror upon his visit to Washington, only to see the Indian district in the state of H...
Devoted to human freedom, you must embrace even the freedom to express stupidity. So I can happily report that a week ago at this writing Thomas Friedman struck a mighty blow for freedom with one of the dumbest columns he has ever written, "Giving the Hatemon...
When Stephen King was given his award in 2003 for distinguished contributions to American letters, Harold Bloom wrote a vicious, histrionic rejoinder to the decision. Bloom perhaps never sounded so much like New Criterion sith lord Roger Kimball as when he railed ...
An all too common notion in mainstream society in the US and elsewhere in the West is that that there is no longer any need for a women’s movement. After all, goes the argument, look at the people in power. Condi Rice, for instance. If women (and Blacks) wer...
Donald Rumsfeld intends to cut the number of US troops in Iraq The United States military says it is hoping to make a substantial reduction in its forces in Iraq, beginning next spring and summer. General George Casey, the senior US commander in Iraq, said...
On Feb. 1, 1960, four North Carolina A&T University students quietly took seats at the segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter and waited to be served, igniting a black-led movement that spread to the Kress Building and other retail outlets and ultimately r...
August 6 and August 9 will mark the 60th anniversaries of the US atomic-bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Hiroshima, an estimated 80,000 people were killed in a split second. Some 13 square kilometres of the city was oblitera...
On a hot day in July the chamber of the Texas Senate turns out to be a great place to catch some A/C and think about how there are two monuments to Confederate heroes on the front lawn of the Capitol. Read that Southmost monument carefully. The only reason ...
Greetings, moist and tender reader. This week, we have a special treat JUST FOR YOU. Mr. Tripp is far too busy to write his own essay this week, so this is YOUR CHANCE to write one just like his! You’ve said it a million times: you could write one of those i...
"Fascism has taken hold," friends warn, referring to how Bush has used the Patriot Act to whittle away liberties (like habeas corpus) and increase the power of Homeland Security. "It’s fashionism, not fascism," offers another frien...
Terrorist bombings in London, where a great scientist by the name of Sir Isaac Newton is buried, raise important questions of morality and laws of motion. It is customary to discuss and condemn terrorism in the realm of right and wrong. Terrorism is morally wrong,...
Iran may have the weapons-grade uranium out of three nuclear warheads dumped out of a B-52 back in 1991. Or so at least the US government might have some reason to believe, according to a seemingly well-informed person talking to CounterPunch last week. On ...
Ethan Nadelmann, mastermind of the Drug Policy Alliance, has a fantasy starring Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco. Newsom had already spoken and was seated at a table onstage, blushing and shaking his head, as Nadelmann shared his fantasy at a public forum ...
Years of writing about public relations and propaganda has probably made me a bit jaded, but I was amazed nevertheless when I visited America’s Army, an online video game website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). In its quest to find recruit...
Over the past few months controversy has raged over the timing of Peak Oil: the moment when global oil production will reach its all-time maximum and begin its inevitable descent. Oil optimists say the event won’t occur for twenty years or more, and t...
"Nobody has the moral authority to discuss ethics with me" President Lula da Silva Corruption has devastated the Lula regime in Brazil. Every sector of Lula’s "Workers Party"(PT) has be...
Earlier this month, the sixth season of CBS’ Big Brother premiered with the subtitle "Summer of Secrets." The reality show, premised on the hypervisibility of a tightly controlled domestic space, must’ve realized that voyeuristic pleasure in ...
On Thursday just after noon the convention hall at Navy Pier was mostly deserted, delegates to the national convention of the AFL-CIO having wheeled themselves and their suitcases out after the formal conclusion of proceedings, down the escalator and out to waitin...
After 38 years of unwarranted occupation, the Palestinian people deserve to live peacefully in the remaining 22 percent of historic Palestine. The expansion of the Annexation wall is the newest obstacle in the Palestinian’s quest for legitimacy. The Israeli ...
The latest Congressional candidate to be peddled by the pro-war Democratic establishment, including Howard Dean, James Carville, the Daily Kos, Democracy for America, Al Franken on Air America Radio, etc., is Paul Hackett in southern Ohio. He faces his Republican ...
Well done, Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, and the rest of the Washington weirdoes. They have succeeded where others have failed. From the tilting deck of their sinking ship they can truly claim ‘Mission Accomplished’, because they have forged amity out of enm...
"We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality." So wrote Lord Macaulay back in 1830. What would Macaulay have written about the summary firing of Miami Herald columnist Jim DeFede on Thursday? ...
Conscience is not in the chain of command. "Before being sentenced to 15 months for refusing to return to Iraq with his Army unit, Sgt. Kevin Benderman told a military judge that he acted with his conscience, not out of a disregard for duty," the ...