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 November 2005
The NBA draft has always fascinated me as an incongruous piece of social engineering in a larger environment that finds the concept repugnant. Here’s something from the web describing it: "The NBA draft is divided into two rou...
CIA director Porter J. Goss declared this week in an interview with USA Today that the CIA "does not do torture. We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information, and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none ...
The NBA draft has always fascinated me as an incongruous piece of social engineering in a larger environment that finds the concept repugnant. Here’s something from the web describing it: "The NBA draft is divided into two rou...
At my place here in Humboldt County, Northern California, turkeys learned their lesson a few years ago, when five fine specimens of Meleagris gallopavo–wild turkey to you–wandered onto my property, a few days ago. I assume they forgot to check the cale...
CIA director Porter J. Goss declared this week in an interview with USA Today that the CIA "does not do torture. We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information, and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none ...
Torture and Thanksgiving are not usually part of the same conversation, but this year the Vice President of the United States’ opposition to an anti-torture statute has put torture on the table right next to the turkey. The resemblance of one turkey to the o...
"Next year Lord we’d love to give thanks for everybody’s freedom and equality, but in the meantime please accept our appreciation for the fact that after you adjust for race and class, some of our kids seem not too pulled down by impo...
Torture and Thanksgiving are not usually part of the same conversation, but this year the Vice President of the United States’ opposition to an anti-torture statute has put torture on the table right next to the turkey. The resemblance of one turkey to the o...
At my place here in Humboldt County, Northern California, turkeys learned their lesson a few years ago, when five fine specimens of Meleagris gallopavo–wild turkey to you–wandered onto my property. I assume they forgot to check the calendar. Under Cali...
For the ideologues and civilian militarists in Washington DC ‘peace’ can be secured with the consolidation of a world empire, which in turn implies perpetual wars throughout the world. For the ideologues and political spokespeople of the multinational ...
Striking parallels between the current US occupation of Iraq and events depicted in the movi...
On Tuesday, Britain’s Daily Mirror published an explosive story riddled with implications concerning the character and intent of the US president when pursuing his so-called ‘war on terror’, and perhaps, shedding light on the bombing of Al Jazeer...
Starting Nov. 25, Palestinians from the Gaza Strip may, in theory, be able to freely cross the Rafah border into Egypt, according to an agreement brokered by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Typically, Israel wished to have the final say over the mov...
"The world must construe according to its wits; the court must construe according to the law." Sir Thomas More "A Man for All Seasons" by Robert Bolt Jose Padilla was arrested in June of 2002 at Chicago&#...
With the Bush regime reeling from its own derelictions and falling in the national polls, the question most frequently put to the leading Democrats is, "What do the Democrats stand for?" This is the question that Tim Russert asked Howard Dean, Cha...
Since the beginning of George Bush’s
unpopular war against the Iraqi people, black female leadership
has led the fight in opposing what has now become Bush’s moral
and political albatross.
Although ...
I blew it. I recently wrote a CounterPunch piece on Hypocrisy and how it seems to have permeated every aspect of American life here in what Alexander Cockburn calls, "a very interesting time in the life of the Empire." I noted the strange "Et...
"Couple a multi-state disaster of Katrina’s magnitude, (including some of the poorer and less well-governed states in the union), add on a dysfunctional federal bureaucracy that had deteriorated in recent years, and a chief executive ...
My wife and I were getting ready to watch a spaghetti western Friday evening (specifically, Sergio Leone’s "My Name Is Nobody," the Henry Fonda-Terence Hill masterpiece from 1973). A last check of the headlines suggested that something at least equ...
Sitting in a Georgia motel Saturday night, Kathy Kelly talked through a bad phone connection and a worse head cold to recount the previous day’s activities where she and 13 others were arrested at an airstrip outside Raleigh, North Carolina. The tiny...
The BBC reports (Nov. 17) that two former British government employees have been charged with violating the Official Secrets Act. The Official Secrets Act is useful for protecting the British government from accountability. Anyone who reveals wrongdoing by ...
Hugo Chavez seems to take great pleasure in tweaking George Bush’s nose. He’s repeatedly called Bush a "terrorist" and disparaged the US as a "terrorist state". Just last week, Chavez fired off another broadside saying, "The pl...
This week began with the New York Times noting that "all of Washington is consumed with debate over the direction of the war in Iraq." The debate — long overdue — is a serious blow to the war makers in Washington, but the U.S. war effort will...
One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting. In fact, indigenous people have...
When Bill Clinton told a group of students in Dubai recently that the Iraq war had been a "big mistake", champions of the current White House occupant were quick to accuse him of hypocrisy. For once, they had a strong point. To be clear, Clinton&#...