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
Energy policy is an important issue for America and one which my Wisconsin constituents take very seriously. Crafting an energy policy requires us to address important questions about, for example, the role of domestic production of energy resources versus foreign...
Through the years we have heard a lot of misplaced complaining that Montana isn’t "business friendly." It is now dawning on us that we need more businesses that are "Montana friendly." For 60 years we have heard the drumbeat about ...
Let me say right from the get go that I’m not a conspiracy theorist by nature. As a journalist I like to see the facts line up solidly before I go with an accusation. At the same time, I also subscribe to Noam Chomsky’s approach of looking at ho...
I am working on my computer when I discover that the House has passed CAFTA. I turn on the TV for the eleven-o-clock news. The local channels are full of reports…about an uptown homicide. On cable, both Fox and MSNBC each have a specialist standing near...
The northern Indian state ...
Why all this unspeakable violence in our Selma, in our nation and in our world at large? Selma is part of the nation and the world at large. Why are our children killing each other? Why is it becoming almost common in this little town for parents to bury their chi...
The final vote on CAFTA, the free trade agreement between the US and Central America, rolled out in the wee hours of July 28. It was a tight vote in the House, a squeaking 217-215, where 15 Democrats crossed over to support the measure while 27 Republicans voted a...
In case you missed them, here are the words of wisdom Tony Blair uttered yesterday: "Until we get rid of this complete nonsense of trying to build some equivalence between what we are doing helping Iraqis and Afghans build their democracy ...
Over the last two days hundreds of people have died in Mumbai and across Maharashtra as the South-West monsoon lashes the state. 37.1 inches fell in one day – the highest ever in the country. About 150,000 people were stranded in railway stations, tens of th...
Skin-whitening or skin-bleaching is a practice whereby women (and some men) use various forms of skin-whitening products in order to make their skin appear as white as possible. As an anti-aging therapy, skin-whitening promises to "restore" as well as to...
June 30, 2005, was the peak of neocon delusion. On that day American Enterprise Institute neocon Karl Zinsmeister posted his article on the AEI online site titled: "The War is Over, and We Won." No sooner than Zinsmeister put delusion to paper tha...
In the sixteenth century, Europe was devastated by wars of religion, a fact which gives that unhappy time some relevance to our own. The foremost soldier and commander in sixteenth-century Europe was the Duke of Alba. An excellent ...
I sold my home three weeks ago anticipating what I believe will be "Economic Armageddon" in the United States. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. My wife and I have lived in the same home for 25 years, raised both of our children there, and owned the p...
Former NSC staffer "We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." It was September 2002, and then-National Security Advisor, now-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was fastening on CNN perhaps the most...
I sometimes having trouble even finishing news stories. Tony Blair, as per my reading on the BBC website and elsewhere, said that Iraq was no excuse for the London bombings. But the invasion of Iraq was justified by the New York bombings? It’s precise...
The acclaimed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has often voiced enthusiasm for violent destruction by the U.S. government. Hidden in plain sight, his glee about such carnage is worth pondering. Many people view Friedman as notably articulate, while ...
To all the haters that don’t think cycling is a sport, and the Tour De France ranks just below watching an apple turn brown, let’s be clear: Lance Armstrong has earned the love. The cancer-surviving cyclist ended his career with a record seventh straig...
A recent article by Juan Cole depicts Iran as the real victor in the Iraq War. This is because ...
On Monday, I reported that the US, formerly a superpower until afflicted with "new economy" syndrome, has lost so much manufacturing capability that it can scarcely produce one submarine every two years and one aircraft carrier every five years. US manuf...
Editors’ Note: In tw...
The recent wave of bombings in London has shifted the jaded attention of the world’s media on the ‘war on terror’ in Iraq to Europe. And of course the immediate suspects responsible for the bombing are thought to be Al Qaeda, either directly...
I’m old fashioned. I criticize anyone in writing, he gets a copy. When I say God is the Great Sinner in the Sky, (he made the world), I email him. Badmouth Hitler & it goes to Mr. Nice Guy in Argentina, a bit old, but still planing a comeback. So Christo...
The Duke of Wellington, warning hawkish politicians in Britain against ill-considered military intervention abroad, once said: "Great nations do not have small wars." He meant that supposedly limited conflicts can inflict terrible damage on powerful stat...
Chicago. "This is how it ends: with a bang and whimper", CounterPuncher Lee Sustar muttered to me during the press conference yesterday in which James Hoffa of the Teamsters and Andy Stern of SEIU announced their unions were disaffiliating from th...
Over 100 people, few if any of them employed by the corporate media, filled a press conference room in the US Capitol on Monday to hear artists, advocates, and experts speak against the current energy bill and against a proposal to dump the nation’s nuclear ...