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 December 2009
In an open letter released this month to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), fo...
This is the golden age of muckraking books and documentaries but some of them may have escaped your attention because reviews and promotions cannot keep up with the sheer volume of material.
Here are my recommendations for your Holiday and later reading time: ...
It seems that the targeting of Muslims and Islam has become a kind of national theater in France. Unlike theater, however, the disturbing trend can, and will turn ugly – in fact to a degree it already has – if the French government doesn’t get a gri...
How many times has the Romeo and Juliet story been retold? Having asked that question, I’m not certain that Eritrean writer Sulaiman Addonia had Shakespeare in mind when he wrote his evocative story of two star-crossed lovers, not in Eritrea but in Saudi Arabia...
That we’ve reached the 350th year since the birth of Henry Purcell provided a sufficient and welcome excuse in this household to displace the perennial juggernauts of Christmas music—Bach and his Christmas Oratorio and the first part of Messiah by Handel ...
Hazlitt got gloomily drunk for a fortnight after the battle of Waterloo, accurately anticipating that decades of reaction lay ahead, now that Boney had been definitely put away, with the Holy Alliance in the saddle and the French contagion safely bottled up. Smart fe...
"In the absence of all hope, we cry out our cry of hope,” Palestinian Christian leaders, representing churches and church-related organizations, meeting in Bethlehem on December 11, concluded in their 13-page document titled “Kairos Palestine –...
Any union negotiator will tell you that no matter how high the stakes, how tense the talks, or how agitated or unglued the parties become, contract negotiations between labor and management are mind-numbingly boring affairs.
Take away the shoptalk and protoco...
Natural Gas markets have been volatile but low for the last year and a half. Just four months ago, gas bottomed out at $1.88/mmbtu and closed yesterday at just about 300% of that figure at $5.55 after nearing $6 last week. Of course that comes after prices peaking in...
I finally caught John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. This is...
I attended St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania (hometown of legendary golfer Arnold Palmer and once the home of Rolling Rock beer). When I was there, 1963-1967, it was a decent liberal arts college, about as liberal as a Catholic school could be. Keynes rule...
First Iceland, then Ireland, now Greece. Much of Europe is mired in inescapable debt and bankrupt nations, the result of crashing banks, bank bailouts, and soaring unemployment. The U.S. and U.K. watch from a distance, knowing their turn is next.
The European...
Since the summer of 2003, I’ve crisscrossed the country speaking at colleges and theaters and bookstores, first with The Weather Underground documentary and, starting in March of this year, with my book, ...
As reported by the New York Times, Chase Bank asked millions of Facebook users to "decide what matters" by casting votes for their favorite organizations. Participation comes with a chance to win $25K and a shot at $1 million. Chase ultimately rigged their ...
I remember the day I first met Jamal Juma. He was speaking at a United Nations conference in 2003 about the damage being done by Israel’s Wall. The audience was shocked: Many had heard that Israel had started carving a Wall in the West Bank in 2002, but they ha...
There was only one thing worse than being unemployed in 2009: working for the drug sector.
Not only did the two biggest drug settlements in US history occur in 2009–Eli Lilly’s $1.42 billion for mismarketing Zyprexa and Pfizer’s $2.3 billion ...
This Christmas Eve marks the 172nd anniversary of a battle for liberty in 1837 on the banks of Lake Okeechobee, Florida, that helped shape the United States of America. An estimated 380 to 480 freedom-fighting African and Indian members of the Seminole nation threw b...
One of the main arguments made by self-proclaimed "liberal humanitarian interventionists" in support of President Obama’s escalation of the Afghan War is that a return of the Taliban to power will condemn women to conditions approaching slavery. It is...
Tis the season to be jolly, especially if you are a US corporation full up with cash. And many are. Cash reserves at US companies are at a 40-year high, with companies averaging 10 percent of market value in cash deposits or T-bills. In the health care and tech secto...
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the landNot a creature was stirring in Afghanistan.The bedrooms were bunkered with piles of hard stonesTo protect from attacks by the Predator drones.The children were huddled, afraid, in ...
The Massachusetts legislature, more than three years ago, passed what then governor Mitt Romney called "universal health care," a bill requiring state residents to carry health insurance if they can afford it and, if not, pay more in state income tax.
...
MIKE WHITNEY: President Barack Obama recently visited Dover Air Force Base where he was photographed with the flag-draped coffins of soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why did Obama do this and what was your reaction?
Cindy Sheehan: "I th...
They fought about it in Shakespeare’s time.
Shakespeare wrote a play about it. A character emerged depicting the essence of it. Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice”—a portrait of capitalism, in the period of transition from the feudal s...
This week, as James Cameron’s 3D cinematic science fiction saga dominates the American box office, and tie-in products permeate fast food franchises and toy stores, it is worth noting an interesting bit of cultural leakage tying our own real militarized state t...
The Senate Banking Committee overwhelmingly voted to approve Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke for another 4-year term. This is a remarkable event since it is hard to imagine how Bernanke could have performed worse in his last 4-year term. By Bernanke&rsquo...