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
The Geneva Declaration on Terrorism, passed May 29, 1987 by the UN general assembly, points out that the main perpetrators of terrorism are governments striving to keep down parts of their populations or other peoples. In this document the main culprits are the Unite...
One of my professors years ago was a round little man who liked to warn us, with a twinkle in his eye, “Making predictions is very difficult, especially predictions about the future.” Will a bill pass, in what form, and then what will the long term implic...
One of my professors years ago was a round little man who liked to warn us, with a twinkle in his eye, “Making predictions is very difficult, especially predictions about the future.” Will a bill pass, in what form, and then what will the long term implic...
A scandal erupted last week in sleepy Ottawa with the revelations of Canada’s chief diplomat in Kandahar in 2006-07, Richard Colvin, who told a House of Commons committee on Afghanistan that Afghans arrested by Canadian military and handed over to Afghan author...
Berkeley.
This was bound to be a big week in California regardless, as the threat of a 32 percent tuition and fee increase across the University of California system made a crashing entrance into reality with Wednesday’s vote by the UC Board of Regents. ...
Obama’s approval rating has slipped under 50%. Still, I think most Americans feel somewhat sympathetic towards him as he wrestles with what to do in Afghanistan. That, I think, is how the White House wants us to view this interval: the president is a Hamlet-fig...
One of the ongoing themes of this column has been gangs and the role they play in a Fourth Generation world. Here in the United States they already serve as an alternative primary loyalty (alternative to the state) for many urban young men. Gangs will lik...
Of all the towns that have been subjected to drilling for natural gas in Pennsylvania since the opening up of the Marcellus Shale, none have suffered more than Dimock. In just over a year several drinking water wells have been contaminated (one of which exploded on N...
I have been a political analyst and writer in Mexico for the past two decades. I’m also a mother faced with the challenge of raising children there. As a human rights advocate and a mother, today I speak to you, frankly, with a great sense of urgency.
Me...
Salaried, white-collar, non-union employees of Delphi (the former General Motors-owned auto parts conglomerate), in Warren, Ohio, were recently treated to a bitterly cruel lesson in the benefits of belonging to a labor union.
As part of GM’s gover...
There are more than 15 million people unemployed and almost 2 million people set to lose their homes to foreclosure this year. But there is good news: the Wall Street banks are as profitable as ever and set to give out record bonuses this year. The taxpayer bailouts ...
The endgame is over for low-income senior citizens, but the national hoax continues. Seniors in the state where I live don’t have to wait for the finale of “what is expected to be a bruising, full-scale health care debate after Thanksgiving” (...
In vigils and marches in cities around the country last night we mourned and protested the murder of gay Puerto Rican teenager Jorge Steven L?pez-Mercado on the evening of November 13th.
His murder was so gratuitous – Jorge was decapitated, dismembered ...
“We are upset and saddened by the recent bombings by the Saudi army to harm the much loved Yemeni people. Saudi Arabia’s intervention does nothing but feed the useless bloodshed on its border with Yemen.”
– Mahdi Akef, Chai...
In his wild and slanderous "...
The ongoing absolutism in Congress in trying to prevent women—or at least poor women—from obtaining abortions is one of the more shameful spectacles in America.
The sanctimonious Blue Dog Democrats and the Republicans, who almost unanimously oppose...
A small group of rich people who own most of Honduras and its politicians enlist the military to kidnap the elected president at gunpoint and take him into exile. They then arrest thousands of people opposed to the coup, shut down and intimidate independent media, sh...
Republican members of Congress and what masquerades as a “conservative” media are outraged that the Obama administration intends to try in federal court Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, and four alleged co-conspirators.
...
President Obama is following in the footsteps of George W. Bush as America’s Disconnector-in-Chief. Obama went to Fort Hood, Texas, where 13 soldiers were killed and many wounded by military psychiatrist Major Nadal Malik Hasan, and continued the self-del...
South Africa deported an Israeli airline official last week following allegations that Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, had infiltrated Johannesburg international airport in an effort to gather information on South African citizens, particularly black and ...
Andrew and Leslie Cockburn have produced the best movie of the year. American Casino tells the story of the fi...
No one has believed that the United Nations will respond positively to a Palestinian request for a resolution providing for the creation of a Palestinian state within the borders of 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital and the right of return for Palestinian refugees ...
Hey, remember Seinfeld? Remember how it billed itself as a “show about nothing”, and how, in fact, that’s what it was?
I think we’re at the point now where it’s become inescapable that the Obama presidency is also a show abo...
I get weekly emails from Levana Layendecker of Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and Mitch Stewart from Organizing for America. In increasingly shrill prose, the two try to convince me to support whatever legislation emerges from Congress. They warn, “IF THE I...
The Wall Street Journal reports that the same Republican forces who attempted a putsch on a safe GOP seat in the NY 23 Congressional District against an incumbent deemed to be too moderate, Dede Scozzafava are now planning to turn to the US Senate primary race in Flo...