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 December 2005
Kurt Vonnegut, at age 82, has published over two dozen books. His latest is called "A Man ...
Four months ago I wrote an article, "Doomsday; the Final Months of the Housing Bubble" that predicted a dramatic fall in housing prices that would have a catastrophic effect on the American economy. In truth, I’m a lousy forecaster and simpl...
CounterPunch published a piece on October 21 by Vietnam veteran, Colonel Dan Smith. Smith notes: In April 2005, the [National] Guard had eight combat brigades in Iraq–more than 50 percent of U.S. combat strength in-country. Even in World ...
On Sunday morning of last week Mahmoud Shawara, a laborer, mounted his mule and set out from his home in the village of Nuaman to look for work in the neighboring village of Umm Touba. At about 9 A.M., he was arrested by a Border Police unit that detains workers w...
I have been reading Counterpunch for quite some time. I reply to many of the authors who contribute to this wonderful, informative site. I have been told by at least one (Professor Gary Leupp) that I should write an article for the web site. OK, professor, here we...
A thunderstorm engulfed the city this Christmas Eve morning, an apt–if ominous–metaphor for the city,s reconstruction nearly four months after Katrina came to town. A ghostly atmosphere haunts New Orleans, making Christmas seem more like Halloween gone...
The three questions lighting up our house in the days leading up to Christmas were: 1) Is Santa Clause real? 2) Was Jesus a man or a god? and 3) Is God real? Although my wife and I have long since told our ...
The diversity of the planet’s many religious impulses and institutions prompted William James to write a book titled Varieties of Religious Experience. Even casual observers of the religion scene will have noticed that this variety includes a diversity among...
On December 16, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and 41 other members of the U.S. House of Reprentatives wrote President Bush calling for the release of Haitian political prisoner Fr.Gerard Jean-Juste. The nonviolent activist priest, who has been held on trumped-up cha...
At stake in the so-called war on terror is longer just treatment of detainees, but the freedom of Americans. Bush and company have very wrongly used the commander-in-chief power as a lever to make the President far, far too powerful, powerful far beyond any...
Tis the holiday season, so here’s wishing you one that’s merry and bright, with not too much in the way of holiday blues, but lots of good cheer, good works and good sex to chase the blues away. This is not as unholy as you might think. In ancient paga...
The summer 2005 revelations by former FBI assistant director W. Mark Felt that he was the source known as Deep Throat that helped bring down Richard Nixon has revived talk among certain US residents regarding the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney. While I...
The New Testament provides no specific date for the birth of Jesus. If it occurred as the Gospel of Luke tells us, as shepherds were watching over their fields by night, it probably wouldn’t have taken place in December. Too cold. So why do most Christians o...
David Horowitz frequently, I should say incessantly, corresponds with me. Why, I don’t know. I am quite sure he doesn’t either. But someone on his payroll sends missives out to me regularly, informing me of one or other of Mr. Horowitz’s perennia...
Looking for a last minute gift idea for someone who is hard to shop for? How about a chance to wreck the nation? That’s the idea behind a wacky political board game dreamed up by two California women who watched as Bush and the Republican Congr...
"I’m very proud of my gold pocket watch. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch." –Woody Allen "They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they hear not; noses have they, but they...
1. Smokey Robinson: The
Solo Anthology (Motown)
A collection of 36 immaculately
sung soul songs ...
It was only a matter of time before Santa Claus himself came under the Neanderthal-eyed scrutiny of American intelligence. After all, Santa’s citizenship is unknown, and he crosses borders with no passport or other form of identification. No one knows whethe...
Start with Bush. Never at ease before the cameras, he now has the glassy stare and mirthless smile of a cornered man with nowhere left to run. Nixon looked the same in his last White House days, and so did Hitler, according to those present in the Fuehrerbunker. A...
Never has an imminent war been so loudly and publicly advertised as Israel’s forthcoming military attack against Iran. When the Israeli Military Chief of Staff, Daniel Halutz, was asked how far Israel was ready to go to stop Iran’s nuclear energy progr...
Richard Cohen, the finely-calibrated syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, wrote a column on October 28, 2004 which commenced with this straight talk: "I do not write the headlines for my columns. Someone else does. But if I were to write the headline...
The levee that gave way when Lake Pontchartrain poured into New Orleans was not an old earthern berm strengthened by vegetation, but a "new, improved" concrete-and-steel wall. In the rescue effort, helicopters made so much noise that people trapped insid...
In England during the early years of the 17th century, an illuminating and important debate occurred over what, if any, were the limits of monarchical authority. The crux of the debate was this: did the power and authority of the monarchy supersede the law or was ...
Former CIA analyst I’ll say this for Vice President Dick Cheney: he puts it right out there, whether it is trying to ensure legal protection for those torturing prisoners, or insisting-as he did on Tuesday-that a wartime president "needs to have his...
Countless words of condemnation have been heaped upon George W. Bush and his hard-Right regime–a crescendo growing louder by the day, with voices from across the political spectrum. But the most devastating repudiation of the Regime’s foul ethos was ac...