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 October 2006
Bunnatine Greenhouse sits in a cubicle in a far corner of an office in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers(USACE) headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., where, she says, "I am treated like a non-person." Months crawl by yet her immediate supervisor just...
If control of Congress changes hands in January, it will be because the Republicans lost, not because the Democrats won. The national Democratic Party is not trying to win elections this year. It is sitting back, playing it safe, and watching the Republican Party ...
North Korea’s nuclear test and UN sanctions have brought relations between the U.S. and North Korea to their lowest point since President Bush took office. Yet it was only little more than a year ago that for one brief moment hopes were kindled for a diploma...
Former Secretary of State James Baker, co-chairing a bipartisan commission on Iraq, offered Bush a prudent version of imperialism. He didn’t quite call for immediate U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, but he questioned Bush’s refusal to talk with Iran an...
"It is circumstance and proper timing that give an action its character and make it either good or bad." Agesilaus, quoted in Plutarch’s Lives Timing is important. So, it seems, are clothes Back in Apr...
President Bush signed a bill this week authorizing the construction of a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Immigration experts and counterterrorism experts say that this new plan to barricade the southern border will have little impact on immigration fl...
Canadian citizen MAHER ARAR, who is barred from entering the United States, delivered his acceptance speech for the ...
The president seems confused. After making a curious remark observing that the war in Iraq was placing a strain on the psyche of America, President Bush has become the primary focus of concerns about a strained psyche. Last week, the president uttered more...
Last Man Standing, by Jerry Lee Lewis (Artist First) After bouncing aro...
Gillo Pontecorvo, one of the great revolutionary film directors of all time, recently passed away at the age of 86. He is best known for two classic films about the struggle against colonialism, The Battle of Algiers (1966) and Queimada/Burn! (1969). ...
In an article concerned with the rapid urbanization of India and China, a writer for London’s Financial Times (August 5/6, 2006) points out that Bangalore "has become a byword for a catastrophic failure of urban planning." Interestingly, he ...
As U.S. midterm elections near, the topic of political honesty draws some pundits like moths to light. Take Sebastian Mallaby in the Washington Post of October 23. "Every honest politician knows that entitlement spending on retirees is going to bust th...
In a September 12, 2006 lecture on faith and reason at the University of Regensburg in Germany, Pope Benedict XVI used a monologue to propose a "genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today." ( "Faith, Reason and the Universit...
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in an interview with Lesley Stahl of CBS News, said impeachment would be "off the table" if Democrats take over the House of Representatives in November, calling it a "waste of time." She couldn...
The reaction of most mainstream US politicians to Hugo Chavez’s recent rhetorical flourish during his speech at the United Nations where he called George Bush the devil certainly showed the world how much of a threat the Washington powermongers consider his ...
President George W. Bush and the neoconservative handlers of his administration have added a new bogeyman to their long and evolving list of enemies: "Islamic fascism," also called "Islamofascism." This wanton flinging of the word "fascism...
"I DIDN’T do it." Those were the words that Michael Dewayne Johnson scrawled in his own blood as he died from a self-inflicted slashed neck–hours before he was scheduled to be put to death in the Texas death chamber. Johnson’s ho...
There are three things wrong with the current policy in Iraq. Occupation, occupation and occupation. Foreign occupation is the reason why over 90% of Iraqis want the Americans to leave their country. It is the reason why nearly 50% of Iraqis believe ...
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier. Kipling ...
Vermont’s got problems. Skyrocketing property taxes, surging energy costs, overpriced health care, job flight because businesses can’t afford to pay decent salaries. Even the fall foilage has lost its sparkle. We’ve got one overstressed old nuke ...
During my professional lifetime, liberals and the left-wing have focused on failures and misdeeds of the private sector, while libertarians and conservatives have focused on the failures and misdeeds of the public sector or government. It turns out that both sides...
"It sounds like a face-saving way of announcing a withdrawal," commented an Iraqi political leader yesterday on hearing that the US military commander in Iraq and the chief American envoy in Baghdad had said that Iraqi police and army should be able to t...
When I received the very early phone call around 6:15 on the morning of the 17th of October informing me that there were "very many policemen" headed my way, I did not hesitate. I closed down my computer, said goodbye to my son, and left my home. I didn&...
This morning, I awakened to the news that five more US troops were just killed in Iraq, bringing the total this month to 96. October has been deathly cruel to Americans and to Iraqis. Yesterday, during George Bush’s news conference, the president did ...
Dear Madonna, You are no doubt dismayed by the public outrage that has greeted your decision to adopt a baby boy from Malawi–a country that most people in the West probably only know from the ad campaigns of charitable organizations showing sickly bab...