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 August 2010
On August 22, I was in Manhattan for the counter-protest to support the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero. My friend Elaine Brower gave an impassioned speech, talking about the “gentlemen’s" club by the site, and a huge Century 21 clothi...
Chuck Norris is no pinko-liberal-commie, and Human Events is a very conservative publication. The two have come together to produce an important article, “Obama’s US Assassination Program.”
It seems only yesterday that Americans, o...
Pirates, warlords, Marxist guerilla turned G-20 statesman and the USA… the real story of the Somali pirates in the Horn of Africa is a tale that needs telling.
This story starts in a place calling itself Puntland, after The Land of Punt, a onc...
…as no doubt the story of Julian Assange’s escapades in Sweden will be known once it inevitably makes its way into the hands of one of the goofier Hollywood directors – say Robert Zemeckis or Mel Brooks, or perhaps Stephen Herek of Bill & Ted’...
This weekend brings us the August 28 anniversary of the March on Washington back in 1963. It was when Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech from the Lincoln Memorial. At least 250,000 people, 75-80 per cent black, rallied in the...
A disaster of biblical scope: the floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains a month ago have affected more than 17.2 million people and killed over 1,500, according to Pakistan’s disaster management body | August is the monsoon season in Pakistan. This year a hard rai...
On August 22, I was in Manhattan for the counter-protest to support the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero. My friend Elaine Brower gave an impassioned speech, talking about the “gentlemen’s" club by the site, and a huge Century 21 clothi...
“We will not even bring cooking knives.”
– Samar al-Hajj, coordinator of the all-women Lebanese aid vessel Mariam
The bloody wake left by the Mavi Marmara after the May 31 Israeli commando raid has not deterre...
When engaged in contract negotiations, it’s illegal for a company to “plead poverty” in an effort to derail the union. Management is not allowed to say that they can’t afford to give the workers a raise, or to suggest that if they granted the...
Michael Neumann is a Professor of Philosophy at Trent University, Canada. He has long been a trenchant critic of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, and has written extensively on the topic for CounterPunch , notably his book ...
The drive from Ithaca, New York, at the southern end of Lake Cayuga to the old-and-new money town of Skaneateles at the northern end of Skaneateles Lakes takes a little less than an hour, but traverses two worlds, the one affluent (at least in parts) the other rural and p...
Maybe the government, the National Advisory Council (NAC) and other assorted enthusiasts of the Food Security Bill can learn from Maharashtra about moving towards ending hunger altogether.
In 1963, the government of Maharashtra (population in 2010 over 100 m...
Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, the co-chairman of President Obama’s deficit commission, has sparked calls for his resignation after sending an offensive and sexist note to Ashley Carson, the executive director of the Older Women’s League. While such call...
The rupture of diplomatic relations between Venezuela and Colombia after a special session of the OAS on July 22 marks increased animosity between the outgoing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez.
The dispute ...
Lima.
Once again the guardians of law and order fatten themselves on human suffering, assisted by their solicitous epigones of the press. They wanted to produce a spectacle for the bleachers; they wanted to demonstrate the sacros...
If one reads the New York Times and other popular journals, you will find the occasional feature discussing the end of feminism. Depending on the editorial stance and intended audience of the journal, this article will either decry or celebrate the "return"...
That cliché in modern America should get re-worded: “Taxes Equal Death.” In 2010, unique in the world, the US military budget absorbs the lion’s share of the federal budget, under the aegis of security but actually to wage seemingly permanent war....
We continuously hear the livestock industry talking about “problem” wolves—those animals that attack untended livestock. Yet the real issue is “problem ranchers” who externalize one of the costs of doing business—namely operating a live...
Since the September 11 attacks, the topic of Islam, and in particular Muslim extremism, has come front and center in the news coverage and public discourse. This focus has in some cases spun off into strange and disturbing areas. One example in the news is the "Groun...
“Taft is a fathead.” (Theodore Roosevelt, 1912)
The anti-gay blog QueerHunt has just launched an expose that General David Petraeus is gay and has a secret Arab boyfriend he periodically meets in a D...
Market extremists argue that the private sector can do almost everything better than governments. The most extreme do not concede the qualifier “almost” and argue that even the police and army should be privatized.
The growth of private security compan...
Mention the name Amtrak and you might be on the receiving end of some unexpected hostility. Tales of delays or strange transfers or even outright anger at high prices will likely ensue. In fact, for most people in America, the idea of a national rail system is a myth and ...
In recent weeks, Republicans have expressed surprisingly muted criticism of President Obama’s handling of the Ground Zero mosque controversy. Some GOP leaders – everyone from anti-Zionist Pat Buchanan to libertarian Grover Norquist – have gone so far as ...
The Atlantic published a disturbing article recently, "The Point of No Return” by Jeffrey Goldberg, who makes the case that, since Israel is guaranteed to initiate an attack on Iran by next spring, the US should take the initiative and do the job itself.
...
Swaziland is a small country with a big problem. The 1.3 million inhabitants of the land-locked southern African kingdom live under the thumb of one of the world’s last absolute monarchies, a venal and repressive regime whose plunder of the country is systematic and...