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 2009
I once wrote an article about former President George W. Bush saying that he was a perfect Manchurian candidate. That is, if his missing year when he was supposed to have been flying fighter jets with the Texas Air National Guard was actually spent in the former Sovi...
One of the few things that irritates me more than Barack Obama is Barack Obama’s critics.
Or, at least, some of them. I’m one of his biggest un-fans, and in that sense I join legions of progressives heartsick in watching this right-wing presi...
The default in Dubai is not the beginning of Financial Meltdown 2. Don’t look for dominoes here. Yes, it does raise serious questions about the vast debt-overhang in emerging economies–particularly East Europe. But, this is not a "sovereign def...
Mara Ahmed and I were given the opportunity to interview Tariq Ali when he spoke at Hamilton College in Upstate New York on November 11, 2009, during his recent speaking tour of the United States. Tariq, a native of Pakistan who lives in England, is a well known writ...
Ashok Chavan is the chief minister of the state of Maharashtra, whose prime city is Mumbai. He was reelected to that very powerful post in India’s state polls in October. Chief Minister Chavan received choice coverage in the days before the election. But any re...
The suicide this past weekend of Los Angeles Times sportswriter Mike Penner, who for the last few years wrote under the byline of Christine Daniels, leaves me today with a desire to rant and rave over an insane anomaly in American human rights protections.
Tit...
Nazareth.
Israel’s finance minister was accused last week of trying to deflect attention from discriminatory policies keeping many of the country’s Arab families in poverty by blaming their economic troubles on what he described as Arab society&rsq...
An underlying conceit of the new spin about benchmarks and timetables for Afghanistan is the notion that pivotal events there can be choreographed from Washington. So, a day ahead of the president’s Tuesday night speech, the New York Times quotes an unnamed top...
There are now at present some 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 allied forces occupying Afghanistan, in league with the Northern Alliance warlords and the corrupt and feeble Karzai regime in Kabul. President Obama clearly wishes to increase the figure and will announce b...
The Indiana stretch of the Ohio River Valley is one of the most toxic environments on Earth. On Nov. 24, I took a road trip to Evansville and Mount Vernon to interview John Blair, president of the environmental group Valley Watch, and Marcella Piper-Terry...
Forget about kicking back and enjoying an American beer; a massive wave of consolidation is transforming the industry.
According to a recent report by the Marin Institute, a California-based alcohol industry watchdog, a rush of buyouts and mergers in the last ...
Wading through the endless debate over health care has exhausted the patience of most Americans — the zigzags, obscure language, and long-winded discussion is inherently repulsive.
But now the dust is starting to settle, and the Congressional vision fo...
Like scores of journalists, I attentively listened as Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong delivering his closing remarks, and for the last time answering journalists’ questions. It was the conclusion of 17th Apec Economies Leaders’ Meeting in Singapo...
Paul Kantner and Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane released an album titled Blows Against the Empire in 1970. Besides the fact that it had an incredible lineup of San Francisco area musicians, it was also interesting because of its science fiction theme.&nb...
The word from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at last week’s community meeting in the Bronx was disappointing, to say the least. After promising “good jobs” during a recent campaign, how could a man with so many billions, and now fresh from a ...
Pulling up to the home of Gail and Robert Anderson, a large statute of the Virgin Mary sits in the yard welcoming guests into the home, while protecting the family that lives there. Next to the statute of Mary, inside of labyrinth of daisies, daffodils, tulips and ro...
All the talk about the extent to which American politics have become “polarized” causes one to ask how serious the phenomenon actually is. How pervasive and deep-seated is it really? Is it as alarming as it’s made out to be, or is it one...
Obama’s dipped below 50 percent in public approval, which—so the pollsters tell us—is nothing particularly unusual for a new president at this stage of the game. Next week, he’s scheduled to announce that that he’s ordering 34,000 more t...
President Obama has been under media fire for kowtowing to China on his visit there, specifically for not publicly mentioning the host country’s human rights record. No wonder! Hypocrisy is the favored tool in foreign policy diplomacy, and here the President fa...
“Who controls the past, controls the present. Who controls the present, controls the future.”
-– George Orwell
In an editorial penned on November 20 at Truthout.org, “What Obama Is Up Against,&rdqu...
Beirut
"It is the right of the Lebanese people, Army and the (Hezbollah led—ed.)Resistance to liberate the Shebaa Farms, the Kfar Shuba Hills and the northern part of the village of Ghajar as well as to defend Lebanon and its territorial waters in ...
From my window in Alameda overlooking San Francisco Bay, I watch hundreds of men and women in white suits, some with masks, busily uprooting slimy sea plants and gently grabbing birds with feathers coated in black grease. Abutting the public beach, this “bird p...
The recession is having one positive effect. The national cholesterol is going down.
More than half of Americans have cut back on meat, many becoming "recession-bred flexitarians," says Gourmet magazine–people who use meat as a condiment not a...
"The impunity with which the Sri Lankan government is able to commit these crimes [referring to 2009 war atrocities, including brutal internment of 300,000 Tamils] actually unveils the deeply ingrained racist prejudice that is precisely what led to the marginali...
With President Obama poised to announce our "new" strategy in Afghanistan next Monday, the courtiers and pundits in Versailles on the Potomac seemed to have reached a consensus that he will opt for an escalation in Afghanistan of 35,000 troops. Such a polic...