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 2008
Yes, the Baby Boomer Generation is an annoying self-indulgent group and seemingly blatant hypocrites, have you seen Dennis Hopper hooking for Wall Street lately?, but one thing the Boomers did do is put on the table the hard issues of the time-poverty, identity, i...
Bach has many lessons to teach us, though they are rarely for the faint-of-heart. Indeed, faintness of heart itself is one of the main themes of this often dark music. For Bach the weakness of the body is the central fact of earthly life, and the human propensity ...
San Francisco Chronicle sportswriter Bruce Jenkins writes in an easy-to-read, colloquial style that invites agreement with the point he’s making. But Bruce seems to be getting crankier as he ages. Take his March 22 column opposing the right of 19-year-olds t...
America’s tragedy is that we have three neoliberals left in the presidential race, at a time when, as Martin Wolf correctly pointed out in Wednesday’s Financial Times, neoliberalism has collapsed. The bailout by the Fed of Bear Stearns sounded the deat...
It’s been a dizzying season of hookups and breakups for airlines. Everyone said they were single and ready to mingle. But, as it turned out, players found the game was not as easy as it first appeared. The plan was simple enough. Coupling up would d...
The latest protests in Tibet and crackdown by Chinese authorities have brought up the usual sermonizing in the West about Chinese government oppression and illegitimate control of the Tibetans. Although I have little love for the Chinese leaders — I think th...
The stories of the Uyghurs in Guantánamo — Muslims from the oppressed Xinjiang province of China, formerly known as East Turkistan — have long demonstrated chronic injustice on the part of the US authorities to those who know of them, although t...
The recession is a wake up call. Americans need to confront some false gods–free trade, gas guzzlers and Wall Street. In the 1990s, the U.S. launched the World Trade Organization and opened trade with China. Americans were to import more tee-shirts an...
The air is escaping from the little multi-hundred billion dollar balloon Bush administration floated to resolve sunken credit markets. Meanwhile, news on the economy, in the past week especially, has been massaged within an inch of its news cycle life. We’re...
After spending almost a year’s time deliberating following a hearing last May 17, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia has shot down all three claims by death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal challenging his conviction for th...
The Sierra Club’s national board voted March 25 to remove the leaders of the Club’s 35,000-member Florida chapter, and to suspend the Chapter for four years. It was the first time in the Club’s 116- year history that such action has been taken ag...
It’s a pity really! For generations employees of the United States Forest Service – clad in their crisp green uniforms and with Smokey the Bear always nearby – were among the most trusted government officials in the world. But over the past 25 ye...
Now that either could win the big race, Obama and Clinton fudge and hedge about withdrawing troops immediately from Iraq. Barack "will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will kee...
Charlie Ehlen is a Marine veteran who lives in Louisiana. He and I have been keeping up an intermittent correspondence for the past few years. After a piece of mine gets published in Counterpunch I usually receive a comment or two, often from Charlie. After a rece...
I did not hear Barack Obama’s great speech on race when he gave it live, so I read the text as I listened to it on You Tube. The hype surrounding it seemed over the top, reminiscent in fact of the highly praised (at the time) speech given by Colin Powell at ...
Chairman John Conyers House Judiciary Committee U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Congress Washington, DC 20510 Dear Chairman Conyers: Prominent Constitutional law experts believe President Bush has engaged in at least, five cat...
The chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Deborah Platt Majoras, is leaving her job. She’s going to become vice president and general counsel for Procter & Gamble (P&G). Should it raise eyebrows for the head of the leading U.S. consumer...
The Iraqi army is fighting the Mehdi Army Shia militia in the streets of Basra after the government launched its most serious offensive to gain control of the southern oil city. Clouds of dark smoke rose over Basra 340 miles south of Baghdad as Iraqi soldie...
While the Iraqi government continued its large-scale military assault in Basra, the NPR reporter’s voice from Iraq was unequivocal this morning: "There is no doubt that this operation needed to happen." Such flat-out statements, uttered with...
(An open letter to Nancy Dubuc, Executive VP and General Manager of the History Channel) Dear Ms. Dubuc, While standing in a clear-cut a few minutes from my home in Philomath, Oregon, I pondered the role of your new show, "Ax Men." Once...
We have heard it for some time now: the market is divine, lending its magical corrective qualities to sort out the good from the bad. A character portrait of George Bush by a former teacher of his, Professor Yoshi Tsurumi (1 March 2004), recalled a pupil’s s...
Most wars move not at a steady pace but in a series of fits and starts. For about half a year, we have been enjoying something of a lull in the war in Iraq. Anything that reduces casualties is to be welcomed. But the bulletins’ claims that the downward trend...
"Was George Washington a terrorist?" asked Bill Frelick, Human Rights Watch’s refugee policy director, only semi-facetiously. What sparked his question was the exceedingly broad definition of terrorist activity employed in U.S. immigration l...
On February 11, a decision was handed down by a Los Angeles County Superior Court that has the potential to negatively affect the lives of California grocery workers. The ruling overturned an ordinance (the Grocery Worker Retention Ordinance) passed in December 20...
There’s another reason to lament Arctic ice melting; as soon as floes break up off the shores of Labrador and Newfoundland, fleets of Canadian seal killers will arrive to initiate the largest marine mammal hunt in the world. 275,000 seals will ...