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.

Weekend Edition October 26-28, 2007

Is Anyone Still Listening?

A Castro Behind Every Bush

by ALAN FARAGO

People won’t get as many colds, is how White House spokesperson Dana Perino put it yesterday when asked about global warming and criticism that the Senate testimony of one of the nation’s top scientists, CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding, had been "eviscerated."

While Perino was giving blondes a bad name, elsewhere President Bush was attacking Castro, in "what aides called a defining speech for his U.S. position on post-Fidel Castro Cuba".

According to The Miami Herald, President Bush was applauded by Cuban Americans in the audience 20 times while invited foreign diplomats "mostly held their applause until the end."

Get the picture? Who is listening any more, except the people already in the echo chamber?

According to The Miami Herald, "Bush used the occasion to draw a line: There will be no concessions to Cuba’s communist government."

That’s a "defining speech"? It’s white noise for everyone else.

The invited diplomats were bored. Said one, "It was really nothing." As the world understands, it’s always been more about Florida than Cuba.

Back in Miami, one spokesperson of the Cuban American community that supports President Bush said: "I think the president’s speech could be a catalyst to open the door in Cuba for the people to lose their fear."

Wait. This is the president who helps people lose their fear? I don’t think so.

This is a president for whom the fear card is every other card in the deck.

Pray, next November, for a new arrangement.

In the meantime, there is an end-of-the-world exhaustion to this administration– no matter how many times it tries to plant the flag of democracy in Cuba.