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 June 2010
It is sad to see that the U.S. Congress is having trouble even passing just $24 billion for unemployment insurance at a time when the economy is weak and unemployment is at nearly 10 percent. This shows the power of right-wing ideology in this country...
In a better, more ‘sporting’ world, Argentina’s footballers, having seen on the big screen that they had been gifted a goal unjustly by poor officiating, would have allowed Mexico to go up the field and score a goal unopposed to even...
As at previous meetings, the Toronto summit of the exclusive G20 club to which the world’s richest countries invited the heads of state of the major emerging countries once again raised great expectations only to conclude with an empty bubble. A...
Since the Gulf oil spill catastrophe, more than two months ago, I have dropped in regularly to the excellent online coverage by the ...
"We hope it will lead to greater harmony among all the parties," declared Louis Susman, US ambassador to Britain, speaking during a visit to Northern Ireland a week after the June 15 publication of the report of Lord Saville into the massacr...
Starting with the Homeland Security probe at Washington’s Reagan Airport, arrival back in the United States resembles an alien abduction to a planet of bright lights, strange beings and incomprehensible behavior. The featureless mysophobic lands...
Utopian feminists—the ones who profess that if only women ruled, society would be peaceful—should take a look at the ladies who preside over the violent, pill-snorting, gun-toting, hillbilly White clan in “...
Almost two months after the spill President Obama addressed the nation (June 15). He said he would “fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes.” Not in my lifetime, I thought. Maybe not even in his.
...
Assuming you haven’t left planet Earth in the past two weeks, you know the 2010 World Cup is well underway in host nation South Africa. Even the uninterested have heard the unmistakable “buzz” emanating from its stadiums, as if a mas...
The Cave Man is a hair-raising account “in fictional form” of Xiaoda Xiao’s imprisonment, of his “forced labor in a Mao Prison Labor Reform Camp” from 1971-1978. In a brief author’s note, Xiao states of the situatio...
For some reason it is very rare to see the major issues I face as a woman reflected in the mainstream media. I find this quite sad, given that the feminist movement – which dates from Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 Vindication of the Rights of...
It seems that Afghanistan is a never ending font of surprises. For decades U.S. officials took the position that Afghanistan held nothing of value for the United States, especially in the form of vital strategic resources. That assumption was a major ...
After spending more than ten years in jail without a formal sentence, Curtis Flowers now can point to another unenviable distinction – he’s the first person in U.S. history subjected to six murder trials for the same crime.
...
Soccer-loving cynics have long predicted problems now growing worse here in South Africa because of World Cup hosting duties:
• loss of large chunks of government’s sovereignty to the world soccer body Fif...
The U.S. is facing resurgence in the war against a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Congress contained the Bush administration’s more virulent anti-abortion efforts, especially after the 2006 election. Since Obama’s election and ...
Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for the reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally”
– John Maynard Keynes
This is an attempt to think...
A year ago, I attended the inauguration of Mauricio Funes as President of El Salvador, after covering the election campaign. My recent documentary Yesterday’s Enemies concludes with the dramatic narrow victory of Funes that enabled him to become...
Stephen Sackur provides a misleading and one-sided picture of Venezuela after a brief visit there, during which he interviewed President Hugo Chávez for The Guardian ("...
“Drugs were not Kissinger’s priority,” Jim Ludlum explained. “Drugs were a no-win situation.”
The Strength of the Pack by Douglas Valentine
Relentl...
The advent of the Internet has profoundly changed the practical realities relating to libel law. Yet libel law — which is a creature of state law, but incorporates important requirements imposed by Supreme Court First Amendment jurisprudence ...
In accepting General McChrystal’s resignation, President Obama said that McChrystal’s departure represented a change in personnel, not a change in policy. “Americans don’t flinch in the face of difficult truths or difficult tas...
If you have been to Toronto, you must have noticed that it lies on the shores of the vast and beautiful Lake Ontario. On this eve of the G20, the Lake looks perhaps especially blue and beautiful, as if with a vengeance, it seems to me. But this is not...
Finally, a parliamentary debate in Lebanon over the human rights of Palestinian refugees. What is unfortunate though, is that granting basic civil rights to over 400,000 Palestinians – 62 years after their expulsion from their historic homeland ...
The new documentary film Guazapa: Yesterday’s Enemies begins with the monumental event in the country’s modern history – the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero. It was he, more than any other contemporary Salvadoran, who possessed abi...
If you are planning to fly over the 4th of July holiday, be aware of your rights at airport security checkpoints.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has mandated that passengers can opt out of going through a whole...