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
Eleven days ago, I walked through the familiar stone archway, descended steps worn smooth by the feet of others, and re-entered the paradise that is the American University of Beirut. It was my first trip back in 25 years. Here my father and four uncles were all e...
BEIRUT — I have started coughing, but I don’t know why. I am not sick. I don’t have a cold. I think it’s a reaction I’m having to stress. My body feels weak. My mouth is always dry, no matter how much water I drin...
The bottled water industry is a prime example of why P.T. Barnum, not Adam Smith, should be anointed as capitalism’s patron saint. Aside from its usefulness in remote areas during disasters and emergencies, bottled water is an enti...
From the ABC News Website: Investigative
Ivy Leaguers Leave Lebanon First and Fast Through Private Security Firms
July 21, 2006 9:47 AM
Ingrid Anid, Astrid Hill & Lara Setrakian Report:
When fi...
The world is witnessing what could be a critical turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel is now engaged in a war that could permanently undermine the efficacy of its much-vaunted military apparatus.
Ironically, the...
French filmmaker Mathieu Verboud is set to release a new documentary for European television this fall, which will reveal important new insights into the case of former FBI translator and president of the ...
Quick. Someone call the irony police. The Israelis are demanding that Lebanon and every other player with a stake in the Middle East comply with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559. That’s the one that calls for the disarming of all milit...
It took nearly three-and-a-half years for the case of the Pitstop Ploughshares to reach a jury. It took the jury less than three-and-a-half hours to find the five activists not guilty of criminal damage to a US Navy plane at Shannon Airport in western Ireland in F...
On Friday morning, as I traveled north on Interstate 5, I passed two tractor-trailers heading south toward the 32nd Street Naval Station in downtown San Diego. Each vehicle carried about 10 unmarked bombs; each bomb was approximately 15 feet long. Two military hel...
It was December 1982, and I had decided to go back to Beirut after the withdrawal of the Israeli troops to check on my parents.
I traveled alone, leaving from JFK the day after Christmas on a British Airways flight to London with a...
BAGHDAD: The number of Iraqi civilians being murdered or killed in the current fighting has been revealed for the first time by the United Nations. It is far higher than previous estimates. More people are dying here – probably more than 100 a day,...
They are in the schools, in empty hospitals, in halls and mosques and in the streets. The Shia Muslim refugees of southern Lebanon, driven from their homes by the Israelis, are arriving in Sidon by the thousand, cared for by Sunni Muslims...
VA Shrink: Were you in Vietnam?
Vietnam Vet: Yes.
VA Shrink: When were you there?
Vietnam vet: Last night.
I‘m kneeling. Tears streak my face, drip down, fall to earth. It’s only m...
There never was any doubt of the Bush Regime’s complicity in Israel’s naked aggression against the Lebanese civilian population. Bush has protected Israel from world condemnation. Bush has blocked those who attempted to ...
The expressions of shock that Lebanese civilians are taking the brunt of Israel’s onslaught — and the unwillingness in some quarters of the media to report the fact — reflects a poor understanding of Israel’s...
How do I even start this? How do I write about my Beirut? My heartbreak, my home, my safety, my loss. again.
I suppose I just start.
I have experienced true terror a handful of times. The first was in 1983. The first time I ...
Do you know that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon? Israel has ordered all the villagers to clear out. Israel then destroys their homes and murders the fleeing villagers. That way there is no one to come back and n...
I recently told a sweet but sometimes dense (by his own admission) male friend that it isn’t all about penises. I meant it in a personal sense, but when I opened my morning paper and saw a story about a prostitution ring that involved smuggling women into th...
I recently published a piece in Counterpunch and a couple other places that I titled "Keep It Radical!" The essence of the piece was that it is important to develop and maintain a radical (in the fundamental sense of the...
One of Eli Lilly’s key objectives, when they were marketing Prozac in the early 1990s was to get employers to reimburse for anti-depressants. Some leaders of the National Association of Manufacturers had expressed reluctance to underwrite "mental healt...
You have been a weak president, despite your strutting and barking, when it comes to doing the right things for the American people within the Constitution and its rule of law. This trait is now in bold relief over the Israeli government...
TOKYO — The sexiest schoolgirls in the world parade down Japanese town and village streets every weekday after class in their micro-mini skirts, exposing tanned legs that are never sheathed in hose, no matter how cold. Although America’s semi-...
A WOMAN, an immigrant from Russia, throws herself on the ground in total despair in front of her home that has been hit by a missile, crying in broken Hebrew: "My son! My son!" believing him dead. In fact he was only wounded and sent to the hosp...
This is obviously the outcome of the newly emerged Hebraic arithmetic laws. For 2 kidnapped Israeli soldiers who are still kept alive, 500,000 innocent Lebanese civilians are displaced. For 2 abducted Israeli soldiers, Lebanon, a sovereign state, is broug...
Having only just escaped death a few weeks ago, I am now trying to focus on my healing process. I am attempting to follow my doctors’ orders, manage my pain, build up my strength and think positive, healing thoughts. Therefore, I am trying to ignore...