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 March 2007
A recent poll in Lebanon suggests deep pessimism about the chances of avoiding another civil war. Plenty of ‘wise owls’ here think civil war is just a matter of time. No less an oracle than Tarek, the doorman at the Alexandria Hotel in Ashhifye...
The two month old government of leftist Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and the popular movements that back him have emerged triumphant in their first battle with the oligarchy and the traditional political parties that have historically dominated the country. ...
The night before his five-day walk to protest immigrant prisons of the Rio Grande Valley, Jay Johnson-Castro drove to Los Fresnos to get an advance glimpse of International Educational Services, Inc. (IES). "Where’s the school?" he asked, a...
Arthur Mutambara, the leader of one faction of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the MDC, and one of the principals in the Save Zimbabwe Campaign that’s at the centre of a storm of controversy over the Mugabe government’s crackdown on opposition,...
The March 14 Los Angeles Times contained that rarissima avis, good news from Ramadi: The commander of U.S. troops in Iraq wanted some sweets, and nothing was going to stop him. Not even the fact that he was tramping through a neighborhood that only days a...
Damascus. Syrian Airlines flies from several European capitals to Damascus, but Americans can’t book seats from the United States, thanks to the 2003 Syrian Accountability Act, which an obedient (to the Israeli lobby) Congress passed and an eager Bush...
What if you knew the story behind everything you ate, such as where the food came from, who grew it and how? Imagine the landscape from which it came, perhaps a thriving collection of family farms. What if you knew the people that grew the food, knew that they got...
Despite polls showing that 6 in 10 Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq asap, the best that this crew can come up with is a call-not binding, or course-for the president to pull out the troops by next spring or even summer. That would be over a year from now, and m...
Sulaimaniyah. A rocket or mortar bomb exploded 50 yards from the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, as he was telling reporters in Baghdad that he was thinking of boosting the UN presence in Iraq because of improved security. A startled looking Mr Ba...
Sulaimaniyah. Al Gore is a master of dishonesty. Karl Rove should pay attention, since he may want to tell big lies to Congress soon, too. In two and a half hours of testimony before a near-idolizing Senate hearing, Al Gore said very little. He profu...
The $124 billion supplemental appropriation is a good bill to oppose. I am pleased that many of my colleagues will join me in voting against this measure. If one is unhappy with our progress in Iraq after four years of war, voting to de-fund the war makes s...
Lahore, Pakistan. A week ago Tuesday, Islamabad sounded like a whistle factory. Clusters of policemen screeched themselves silly on their whistles, lest any mortals dare to ‘gather’. It was four days after Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhr...
In recent times high-profile Wall Street investment banks have brought slick financial reasoning to the base art of loan-sharking. The most vulnerable Americans have been targeted for loans they can ill afford. Those with poor credit histories can be charged at do...
On the morning of February 8, a white hospital van stopped a few feet from a curb in Los Angeles’ skid row area. According to witnesses, a man wearing a soiled hospital gown fell through the doors, and the van, later connected with Hollywood Presbyterian Med...
President Bush is literally getting away with mass murder. The Commander-in-Chief "decider" is committing the "signature" war crimes of the 21st century. In broad daylight. Before America and the world. Camouflaged in a neatly tailored conserva...
A protest by guest workers shut down a Gulf Coast oil rig repair company just days after a new report likened the conditions of guest workers in the U.S. to slavery. The March 16 walkout by workers at the Signal International marine fabrication company̵...
Kirkuk. Seven bombs detonating in the space of 35 minutes sent up clouds of black smoke over the centre of Kirkuk earlier this week. The explosions in Arab and Turkoman districts killed 12 people and injured 39 but exactly who was behind them is unclear....
The March 21, 2007 edition of the New York Times featured an article called "Prevalence of Alzheimer’s Rises 10% in 5 Years." It began: "More than five million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, a 10 percent increase from the last offic...
Last month, the watchdog agency on America’s health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, made the official announcement that a breath-taking one in 150 kids is autistic in the U.S. They based this new rate on two studies done on eight year olds ...
Wednesday’s Al Gore performances before committees in the House and Senate were witnessed by overflow crowds. Gore sparred with elected representatives of Big Energy and repeatedly sounded this alarm: "Our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know ...
Even as the world’s billionaires grew in number from 793 in 2006 to 946 this year, major mass uprisings became commonplace in China and India. In India, which has the highest number of billionaires (36) in Asia with total wealth of $191 billion, Prime Minist...
On March 17 I joined the wonderful surge of patriotic Americans who braved horrendous weather to march from Constitution Gardens to the Pentagon in opposition to the Iraq war. One of the dominant themes of the day in signage, t-shirts and speeches was to "Bri...
Finally, Jim Cramer has come clean. The market is fiction, upon fiction, upon fiction. Stock fundamentals don’t matter. It’s all about lying and manipulation. Lie, spread rumors to reporters, including to the bozos at the Wa...
Just today, the text of HR 1591 and its report (House Report 110-60) for the new "emergency supplemental" to pay for the troop surge and other war costs have become available at Thomas.gov on the internet. As has already been widely reported, House Appro...
The invasion of Iraq was certainly not without warning. President George Bush made his intentions clear even as United Nations weapon’s inspectors sought in vain for the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that Mr. Bush claimed were concealed in that co...