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 October 2009
Arguably, two critical assumptions responsible for the events in Iraq (and the pending disaster in Afghanistan) are (1) that men who wear ties and jackets and carry briefcases and Blackberries are “smarter” than men who wear funny clothes and ride camels,...
Israel’s defenders, increasingly besieged, increasingly proclaim that antisemites hide behind criticism of Zionism or Israel. This is quite true, but what sort of ‘hiding’ is involved? Antisemites do not literally hide out of sight...
Senate Democrats are a dogged bunch. And they’re not easily deterred from their primary duty of kowtowing the big banks. Case in point, the first-time home-buyer tax credit, the controversial bill which provides an $8,000 tax credit (re: subsidy) for new home b...
There are currently about 124,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 65,000 in Afghanistan. There were 142,000 in Iraq and 31,000 in Afghanistan when Bush left office.
By my count, that’s 16,000 more imperialist troops occupying foreign territory, being where they...
How appropriate that with Halloween just around the corner, the Fed and Treasury have announced a coordinated effort that will put the central bank at the forefront of pay regulation on the zombie firms now kept alive courtesy of US government largesse. Trick or trea...
Carsulae, Italy.
The Via Flaminia emerges from a hillside—literally—and climbs up a gentle hill toward a ruined forum. Like all Roman roads, it was well built, considerably more so than the modern ones jammed with trucks and cars that crisscross th...
It would surely be perverse of Radovan Karadzic to challenge Tony Blair for the presidency of the EU and risk splitting the war criminal’s vote.
A record as a war criminal will hardly enhance any candidate’s chances. But neither does it seem to be ...
If it had happened a few centuries ago it would have been part of the Counter-Reformation. Occurring now, it was still pretty significant. It was the news that Pope Benedict XVI had invited members of the Anglican Communion to abandon their church and join his. His i...
Among the conventional wisdom that we hear everyday in the business press is that developing countries should bend over backwards to create a friendly climate for foreign corporations, follow orthodox (neoliberal) macroeconomic policy advice, and strive to achieve an...
For years dissident members of the American Psychological Association, along with non-member psychologists, have fought the associations policies promoting psychologist participation in military and intelligence interrogations. These dissidents argued that psychologi...
One week before Election Day, the special election to fill a vacant House seat in New York’s North Country is heating up. It’s a three-way split, pitting a Republican, a Democrat, and a Conservative against one another. It’s close.
And the co...
I’m glad to hear on the news that the economy is doing better. But, frankly, my own household doesn’t feel it. My under-30 partner and I don’t own any stocks, so we’re not benefiting from Wall Street’s recovery. We’re both st...
Derrick Jensen is the prize-winning author of A Language Older Than Words, ...
Three years after he was gunned down by Oaxaca state security agents October 27th 2006 while filming a confrontation between activists and local police during the oft-violent campaign to oust tyrannical governor Ulisis Ruiz Ortiz (URO), a prominent member of the once...
The Peace Cycle, an annual ride for peace from London, just ended in Jerusalem. At the same time, Ehud Olmert just ended what he may have hoped would be a victory lap speaking around the United States and Palestinian school children from the villages of Tuba and Magh...
Next time you see a junkie sprawled at the curb in the downtown of your nearest city, or read about someone who died of a heroin overdose, just imagine a big yellow sign posted next to him or her saying: “Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work.”
Kudos to...
Why is an economist writing a book on the geopolitics of Zionism? This is easily explained. I could have written a book about the economics of Zionism, the Israeli economy, or the economy of the West Bank and Gaza, but how would any of that have helped me to understa...
At first, I was horrified to learn that Sweden’s Royal Academy of Sciences had gone ahead this year and awarded a prize in Economics. That horror abated some when I learned it had been awarded, for the first time ever, to a woman. And it abated more when I unde...
Ten percent of Americans are unemployed, and many doubt that President Obama’s stimulus will create enough jobs to reduce this rate significantly. But given the structure of our labor force, more jobs is not necessarily what we need anyway. Our workforce includ...
Yarmouk Refugee Camp, Damascus.
Known simply as “the General”, Michel Naim Aoun was born in a peaceful mixed Christian-Shia area of Haret Hreik, now a core Hezbollah zone. He rose from poverty to become the head of Lebanon’s newly creat...
Tucked away in the corners of the news media sits a report that the U. S. government will provide $5 million in trucks and military equipment to Mali. The aim of this donation is to help the Malian military fight the group known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQ...
It is a testament to the strength of our commitment to democracy that we Americans believe elections will solve the problems of a country – any country. This is a nice civics lesson but the lessons of history are otherwise. And it is not a sound principle of fo...
Two new reports dealing with the June 28 military coup in Honduras have demolished the arguments of the current de facto government and its foreign apologists that the coup was consistent with the Honduran constitution and that most Hondurans welcomed the illegal ous...
I just received a letter from President Obama. Right there on the outside envelope are the words “I need you.” After not answering several letters which I have mailed and faxed to him, I was, for the briefest of moments, curious about this personal plea f...
At a time that most countries of the world felt a sense of relief for the positive steps taken by Iran and the West, which promise a let up in tensions on the regional and international level, Israeli analysts, writers and rulers single themselves out by expressing e...