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 2008
Larry Mendte and Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These are two names you won’t see in the same sentence in most newspapers for obvious reasons.
One is a disgraced TV news anchor in Philadelphia and the other is a death row inmate from the same city – seemi...
The U.S. is dangling carrots in front of Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program–but only after smacking the Iranians with some increasingly big sticks in the form of sanctions.
After an inconclusive meeting over Iran’s nuclear program involvin...
As weeks go, the last few have not been good ones for Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain (R-AZ).
First and foremost, the rug on which stands the greater part of his candidacy was suddenly and rudely pulled out from under him. After saying ...
Commentators whom I respect are saying, with conviction, that there’s no way the U.S. is going to attack Iran. Alexander Cockburn, Jim Lobe and Tom Engelhardt, for example, say no. Others whom I equally respect predict the opposite. Gordon Prather, Ray McGovern...
On the Wall Street Journal OPED page, James Grant– of the outstanding Grant’s Interest Rate Observer– writes, "Through history, outrageous financial behavior has been met with outrage. But today Wall Street’s damaging recklessness has bee...
"A nuclear reactor is so vastly expensive and complicated that people cannot understand it, so they assume that those working on it understand it. Even those with strong opinions might withhold them for fear of being shown to be insufficiently inform...
My irreverent friend, Khan Manka, Chairman & CEO of Manka Brothers Studios, had broken his ankle and was afraid he wouldn’t be able to attend the 26th annual gathering of the nation’s most powerful executives and their trophy wives in Sun Valley, Idah...
“On October 21 (1948) the Government of Israel took a decision that was to have a lasting and divisive effect on the rights and status of those Arabs who lived within its borders: the official establishment of military government in the areas where...
It is said that the Roman Emperor Nero played his Lyre as his city was engulfed by flames. This seems unlikely, and there are no credible witnesses. Nero does deserves some of the blame. Rome in 64 AD was a tinder box of wooden buildings and narrow, crowded streets a...
A devastating blow to the much-hyped revival of atomic power has been delivered by an unlikely source—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC says the "standardized" designs on which the entire premise of returning nuclear power to center stage is ...
To great fanfare in the Western media, the Serbian government recently arrested Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serb nationalist cause during the war in the former Yugoslavia in the early to mid-1990s, on war crimes charges.
Karadzic and Bosnian Serb m...
Barack Obama proved yesterday why November’s presidential election will end in a 50-state sweep. John McCain has no chance. It’s like George Bush climbing into the ring with Mike Tyson; one thundering left hook and the Crawford Caligula would be sprawled ...
The Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, was established in 1985. Designed to keep marginal lands out of Ag production, CRP pays farmers and ranchers to retire acreage from commodity production in exchange for an annual rental fee. In 2007 the cost of the program wa...
Daniel Ellsberg is the kind of American who should receive a Medal of Freedom. Except that the Medals of Freedom are distributed by presidents who routinely give them to “useful idiots” and apologists for their wars and power grabs. It should be renamed t...
Every now and then I am fortunate enough to communicate with someone who has near complete insight into our political process, why things happen and where it seems likely to be headed. Recently I received this brilliant analysis from a high powered politi...
As the ten-year anniversary of Azem Hajdari’s assassination approaches, the killing of the philosophy student who led the democratic movement in Albania is being fanned into memory by US efforts to deport the brother of an eyewitness to the crime.
...
"As we liquidate ancient forests we are redesigning the world and simultaneously throwing away Nature’s blueprint."
-Chris Maser
When nature is defined exclusively as “resource”, intrinsic value eva...
Those relatively few and routinely ignored ‘progressive Democrats’ who robotically urge that the donkey be rallied ’round in times of balloting (‘We’re changing the party from the inside,’ they perenially insist — a job that ...
Despite their tough talk and ominous saber-rattling, everyone expects the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) to eventually reach a settlement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), rather than go on strike, as they’ve threatened. ...
On June 12, when the Supreme Court ruled, in Boumediene v. Bush, that the prisoners at Guantánamo had constitutional habeas corpus rights, it was not immediately clear if the decision would ha...
Recently, at Maxwell Air Force Base, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admonished his Air Force audience to adapt better to the changed circumstances of war in the 21st century. Six weeks later, he fired its two most senior leaders, the Secretary of the Air Force Mic...
Last Wednesday, at an improvised press conference, George Bush gave what may have been the most comical performance of his eight year presidency. Looking like the skipper on the flight-deck of the Hindenburg, Bush tried his best to reassure the public that "all&...
CBS’s new reality show is called “Greatest American Dog,” with pet expert-zoologist Jarod Miller as the host. Twelve “dog-and-human teams are vying for the grand prize of $250,000. These teams are in intense training “by running, jumping...
Republicans are sending around the Internet a photo of a cute little boy whose T-shirt reads: “The mess in my pants is nothing compared to the mess Democrats will make of this country if they win Nov. 2nd.”
One can only wonder at the insouciance of...
On July 8, the resplendently Caucasian, flag-loving, fag-hating, five-term Senator Jesse Helms exited the political scene, stage right, to begin his long-awaited dirt nap. All the world being a stage, a host of players, including Dick Cheney and John and Cindy McCain...