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 2006
Four years ago, gasoline was $1.36 a gallon on average. This past January, gasoline prices were 72 cents lower than they are today at over $3.00 per gallon. Production and refining costs since those time periods have not increased by much. Who’s raking it in...
New Delhi Israel’s ambassador in New Delhi, David Danieli, sees Hezbollah as something akin to a scorpion (Times of India, 28 July). His is not much of a new invention. Other Israelis in responsible positions have made similar statements before. A fe...
By an odd coincidence of the calendar, Israel’s current assault on Lebanon is occurring precisely 50 years after the "Suez Crisis". The calendar may not constitute the only coincidence. In 1956, Israel struck south against Egypt in secret ...
Ashley O’Donoghue is a low-level, nonviolent offender currently serving a 7-to-21-year sentence for the sale of 2 1/2 ounces of cocaine. In September 2003, the Oneida County district attorney claimed that the 20-year-old was a major drug kingpin and needed t...
Beirut. On Saturday, July 29th I spoke with several children from South Lebanon at a refugee center in the Chouf region. These are their stories, in their own words … Hadeel Moussa, age 12, from Dar al-Hamis: "Israel made us refugees and d...
Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band 40th Reunion. DVD 2006 This concert took place in the UK in January of 2006. I don’t feel like I should have to explain who they are and I will not, but I know I should because the band had a relatively short...
This essay ends with a warning to Jews–"Fear The Wrath of God." This warning applies also in my opinion to the American people. After two weeks, the war settled down comfortably in the Middle East, like an old aunt on a regular visit to her ...
Butte, Montana. What better place for a genuine daredevil, a legitimate death defying type with a lifestyle to match, to wrap it up? For I can’t think of one good reason that Evel Knievel did not die in 1969, at the age of 30,...
In a characteristic op-ed, titled "Arithmetic of Pain", that would surprise neither his supporters nor his critics, published by the Wall Street Journal on 19 July 2006, Alan Dershowitz sinks to new lows of depravity and inhumanity in his long-standing h...
Just as Time was announcing the "End of Cowboy Diplomacy" if not the twilight of the neocons, Israel’s invasion of Gaza and Lebanon makes the neocons’ dreams closer to realization. They want to attack Iran and Syria. The Israeli government al...
From the beginning, this culture-civilization-has been a culture of occupation. - Derrick Jensen It’s scripted: a tragedy whose end is embedded in its beginnings, an unfolding logic whose conclusion is the inevitable r...
If we look at the world through the eyes of a nouveau-imperialist, few things are more certain than that humanitarian intervention is the special and last prerogative of the white race (known in polite circles as The West). When the Americans, Canadians, British, ...
Jerusalem. Today I saw on Israeli TV that this morning 30 rockets fell on Israel, including some on Haifa. No one was hurt. However, the fact that Hizballah (and Hamas) can fire rockets in broad daylight on Israel is very significant. Israel has spy ...
On Wednesday, July 26, after eleven hours of deliberation, a jury found Andrea Yates–who in 2001 drowned her five children — not guilty by reason of insanity. This was Yates’s second trial. In March 2002, a Texas jury deliberated only thre...
As clips of hurricane-strength winds uprooting trees across St. Louis in late July made national news, many commentators spoke of the awesome power of nature. But this storm was not an act of god. It was an act of Exxon-Mobile and its friends. And they are not god...
At first glance, history seems to repeat itself in Lebanon, where a lengthy cold war is intermittently interrupted by an extreme show of violence as traditional players quickly sprint into action, stacking their support behind one party or the other. News h...
Q. Who is winning this war? On the 15th day of the war, Hizbullah is functioning and fighting. That by itself will go down in the annals of the Arab peoples as a shining victory. When a featherweight boxer faces a heavyweight and is still standing in...
West Bank, Palestine. Ramallah turned its back on the Secretary of State when she arrived for her exclusive meeting with the President of Palestine. A meeting that totally excluded the government of this struggling people. When we first dared the e...
Most mornings I get up around five o’clock and I try and write for an hour. The last few Julys I’ve become absurdly addicted to watching and listening to live feeds of the Tour de France in the early hours of the west coast morning while I write. As a ...
"People do not forget. They do not forget the death of their fellows, they do not forget torture and mutilation, they do not forget injustice, they do not forget oppression, they do not forget the terrorism of mighty powers. They not only do...
Amman, Jordan. A barrage of rockets and mortar rounds exploded in the mainly Shia Karada neighbourhood in east Baghdad, killing 31 people and wounding 153. The attack yesterday came soon after President George Bush agreed to rush more US troops to Baghdad t...
Qlaya, Southern Lebanon Is it possible – is it conceivable – that Israel is losing its war in Lebanon? From this hill village in the south of the country, I am watching the clouds of brown and black smoke rising from its latest disaster ...
Nazareth. When journalists use the word "apparently", or another favorite "reportedly", they are usually distancing themselves from an event or an interpretation in the supposed interests of "balance". But I think we should rea...
I slept on my fire escape one night last week but it wasn’t due to martial strife or a daredevil spirit. Rather, the sight of yours truly three flights up sporting boxer shorts and a death grip on the bars came courtesy of Con Edison (with a nod to Mayor Blo...
London. In 1982, an unusual sight appeared on the Mediterranean horizon. Like the death ship in Star Wars, a World War II battleship threatened the Lebanese shore. US naval spokesmen claimed the USS New Jersey was the most fearsome artillery platform on the...