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 November 2008
“If you want peace, work for justice.”
- Pope John Paul IV
There are literally thousands of organizations in the United States alone working for peace and justice. I would probably think of them as cons...
1. Questions
It is still said, maybe believed in Texas and Alaska, that in the American democracy the people are approximately equal and they are free in choosing and influencing those who govern them and deal with the rest of the world. In fact American democ...
The recent electoral victory of Barack Obama and the Democratic party presents a unique opportunity to overturn the most perverse policy of the Bush administration and the religious right, the conservative repressive sexual agenda. The following nine proposals can he...
There are two effective ways of destroying a union local. The first and most obvious is the “traditional” method, where the membership (a minimum of 30% is required) formally petitions the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) and requests that a de...
“It’s obvious, the point of advertising is to delude people with the imagery and, you know, tales of a football player, sexy actress, who, you know, drives to the moon in a car or something like that.. The goal of advertising is to create unin...
As a left of left-leaning liberal, I have a certain choice when it comes to dealing with the wealth my late conservative father accumulated in his life: aside from helping to ensure that my mother in her remaining years gets everything she needs, I can either choose ...
When Gaza’s electricity is in working order, most Palestinians in the impoverished and overcrowded Strip huddle around their television screens. It’s neither "American Idol" nor "Dancing with the Stars" that brings them together. It...
Edward Winslow’s Good Newes from New-England published in 1624 in London begins its account in November of 1621. There is no word of the first Thanksgiving. That didn’t happen until 1623 and was a day of devout prayer and penance not one of overt ce...
About twice a year someone says that there’s a new band that’s gonna save Rock and Roll. Some trendsetter decides that leather jackets and guitars are cool again, and critics old and young praise them for “saving” Rock, like it’s some fe...
I’ve made no secret about my less than enthusiastic response to Obama’s candidacy and subsequent election. That being said, it wasn’t Obama in particular that I was unenthusiastic about. Obama showed himself, within the context of the US...
The atomic bomb was more than a weapon of terrible destruction; it was a psychological weapon
– Henry L. Stimson
When the decision was taken to allow Lehman Bros (7.1 trillion in derivatives – all figures taken from...
The arrest and interrogation of Damian Green, one of Britain’s leading opposition politicians, by the counter-terrorism police (November 27, 2009) on ‘suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office’ is an extraordinary event. Counte...
Olivier Assayas’s demonlover (2002) is, in short (and I know this is going to sound awfu...
It is a deep thing that people still celebrate the survival of the early colonists at Plymouth — by giving thanks to the Christian God who supposedly protected and championed the European invasion. The real meaning of all that, then and now, needs to be continu...
Things are getting crazier by the day. On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced that the Fed would commit another $800 billion to fight the financial crisis which has spread to the broader economy and is causing sharp declines in consumer spending. ...
On most Thanksgiving days in years’ past, and, for days thereafter, I would be behind one of the baskets in Anchorage’s Sullivan Arena at the Great Alaska Shootout. ESPN would televise some of these games, but, for the Alaskan fan, far removed by geograph...
There have been bleaker Thanksgivings, to be sure, than the one Americans celebrated yesterday. The circumstances of the storied first feast in 1621, (very interestingly discussed on this site this weekend by David Yearsley and Mike Ely) on the Massachusetts shorelin...
A deep recession — or worse — is in the holiday forecast, but belt-tightening doesn’t have to ruin the festive mood. Here’s one painless way to cut expenses while giving the planet a much-needed break: Resolve not to buy any new clothes &mdash...
The atomic bomb was more than a weapon of terrible destruction; it was a psychological weapon
– Henry L. Stimson
When the decision was taken to allow Lehman Bros (7.1 trillion in derivatives – all figures taken from...
Indigenous peoples in Indo-Afro-Latin America, especially Bolivia and Ecuador, are rising up to take control of their own lives and act in solidarity with others to save the planet. They are calling for new, yet ancient, practices of plurinational, participatory, and...
“With [traditional Israeli defense strategists] it’s all about tanks and land and controlling territories . . . and this hilltop and that hilltop. All these things are worthless.”
-Incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert...
What kind of government in the 21st century can deny another people basic human rights – that is, the right to food, water, shelter, security and dignity?
What kind of government imposes draconian sanctions on another people for democratically electing ...
The first time I walked through this piece of the Lolo National Forest, smoke was still rising from the deep duff layer of the old-growth spruce-fir forest. It was a crisp, blue-bird October day five years ago and I was leading a team of University of Montana student...
It has never been more clear how much corporations depend on We, the People for their very existence. Corporations are given the right to exist through a public charter. For public corporations, shareholders are bestowed with limited liability, and they benefit from ...
No one has ever accused them of being quick learners but when it comes to reaching into the taxpayers’ pockets you’d have thought they’d have tumbled to it more quickly than they did. I refer to Alberto Gonzales ’s legal fees. Thanks to the ad...