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 May 2009
Three elder critics of technological civilization got together in a rather bizarre way — via email. Their mission? To reflect on the anti-technology movement of the 1970s-‘90s and offer perspective to new generations growing up in a cyber-worl...
We in the United States have been endowed with enormous philanthropic foundations, which have been fixing up the world for the last 100 years. One might wonder how their activities relate to the current economic crisis. News on this subject is not found in the headli...
There were a couple of moments which, had they gone the other way, could have made a big difference for organized labor. One was Ronald Reagan firing those 11,000 striking air traffic controllers, in August, 1981. Reagan is president for ten minutes and h...
The black love affair with President Barack Obama is stronger than with any figure in the post-civil rights era. According to a recent "New York Times" poll, President Obama enjoys a 96 percent approval rating among African Americans. As an African American...
Dear Jean,
I saw Michele the other day in New York after the RAM show at New York’s French Institute. She came up to me after the performance and her look of concern made me stop the conversation I was having and I headed over to her immediately. I...
While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
– Eugene V. Debs*
Two hundred forty souls reside now inside the American prison...
Once upon a time early in the 19th century, corporations came into existence by state legislatures approving charters, which were granted for a limited period of time and for limited purposes. These corporations – producing textiles and other products in ...
The recent announcement that Barack Obama will deliver a major address to the Muslim world from Cairo in early June has further heightened expectations that the new American administration is determined to achieve a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As ...
The noble vision of a Solartopian green-powered Earth is at last upon us.
Our eco-future is defined by the four Great Green Truths: we have a global crisis, it has a solution, the solution is winnable, and winning requires a "middle path" of action ...
When it comes to expressing plain truths, few are as gifted as American rednecks. During recent travels in the Appalachian communities of West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky I’ve collected scores of their comments on our national condition and especially Pres...
Torture is a violation of US and international law. Yet, president George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney, on the basis of legally incompetent memos prepared by Justice Department officials, gave the OK to interrogators to violate US and international law....
Presidents, and especially former presidents, sometimes say things that will surprise you.
One of the most surprising to many people, and one of the most thematically consistent, is the insistence of their claim to the weakness of the office. In making t...
In February the government of Pakistan and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) came to an agreement whereby the government accepted the latter’s imposition of Islamic law in parts of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in exchange for a ceasefire. Few thought the a...
"It took us six years to get legislation on this passed in Austin, but now we’ve got it all passed. We first had to change the law to where a private company can own a license (to handle radioactive waste), and we did that. Then we got another law passed t...
One would be forgiven for not believing headlines last week stating that General Electric has finally started the process of dredging the Upper Hudson in an effort to remove polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the river. Forgiven because it has been more than half ...
"Obama Calls on World to ‘Stand Up To’ North Korea” read the headline. The United States, Obama said, was determined to protect “the peace and security of the world.”
Shades of doublespeak, doublethink, 1984.
North Ko...
Politicians normally like to be praised, but I have to wonder how President Obama feels having gotten accolades from such unaccustomed sources as Ari Fleischer, John McCain and the Wall Street Journal.
As a presidential candidate, Obama rightly called the mili...
Of all the analysis generated by the Obama-Netanyahu meeting Robert Satloff’s is the most significant. Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which serves as AIPAC’s think tank. His piece, circulated Thursday, prov...
Will China be the "growth pole" that will snatch the world from the jaws of depression?
This question has become a favorite topic as the heroic American middle class consumer, weighed down by massive debt, ceases to be the key stimulus for global pro...
The California Supreme Court declared today that separate but equal is acceptable for gays in California when it comes to marriage – indeed it is now enshrined, oddly enough, as an exception to our Equal Protection clause until voters decide to un-enshrine it t...
On April 18, seven members of the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) were shot by private security guards on a farm in the Amazon that belongs to Agropecuária Santa Bárbara Xinguara S/A, a company controlled by international banker Daniel ...
You’d have to say that the American prison system is a rank failure. With two million inmates, it is the largest and at over $60 billion a year, the costliest prison system in the world, not just in the percent of the population that is kept behind bars, but in...
“There’s a lone soldier on the cross smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door You didn’t know it, you didn’t think it could be done In the final end he won the war after losing every battle…”&nbs...
Two days after his inauguration, President Obama pledged to close Guantánamo within one year. The Republicans, led by Senators John McCain, Mitch McConnell and Pat Roberts, immediately launched a concerted campaign to assail the new president. They claimed his...
To my knowledge, no one has proposed waterboarding the Fed. However, the response of much of the country’s political leadership to the suggestion that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit the Federal Reserve Board might lead people to think that wat...