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 2010
It’s the end of the world as we know it. Slavoj Zizek has several ideas why. Foremost among them is the coming end of the economic system we know as capitalism. Although you wouldn’t know it by its champions around the world (especially ...
The results of the NATO summit were as predictable as a Soviet Communist Party congress, with the word “peace” replaced by “war”. NATO’s embrace of the US agenda of missile defence, nuclear arms, and its new role as global policeman surp...
Hooray for The Library of America. What an inspired idea to reprint all of Lynd Ward’s novels in woodcuts with an illuminating introduction by Art Spiegelman. I still remember purchasing my first Ward novel, sometime around 1950, in a used bookstore. That title...
Maybe I should have wagered money with some of my friends regarding the outcome of Proposition 19, the doomed “legalize marijuana” initiative in California. I knew, or felt strongly, that it would fail by a fairly wide margin. My friends seemed to feel co...
At a recent city council meeting Eureka, California Mayor-elect Frank Jager questioned a petitioner’s opposition to the U.S. Navy’s Northwest Training Range complex. Wasn’t she in favor of a well-trained Navy? In his opinion national security intere...
The Middle East policies of US President Barack Obama may well prove the most detrimental in history so far, surpassing even the rightwing policies of President George W. Bush. Even those who warned against the overt optimism which accompanied Obama’s arrival t...
Herewith an explanation of what might appear to the casual traveler to be nothing more than the kind of corporate greed to which we have become accustomed. It is an explanation for the reason for changes that airlines have introduced to the traveler that significantl...
The long recession has reduced consumption, so how does the “business community” – an oxymoron since businesses try to destroy their competitors – sell its crap to people it laid off? The potential buyers. Advertisers — the avant garde o...
"Blowback,” as the late Chalmers Johnson reminded us in his insightful book of the ...
There was dire and somewhat funereal news from Crain’s Business last week in an article called ...
Around here lately there’s been much talk about the Easter Rising. It’s nothing particularly interesting: just the “Men of 1916” turning up as the stars of a series of rhetorical questions that boil down to: “Was it for this that they ga...
There are moments in history that require a speech, even if it is as brief as the “Alea jacta est” (“The die is cast”) pronounced by Julius Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon. It had to be crossed that day, precisely when the ministers o...
Jody Whitney, Manager, Aboriginal Consultation & Regulatory Compliance, BC Region Enbridge Pipelines Inc. Box 50, One Bentall Centre Suite 660, 505 Burrard St. Vancouver, BC V7X 1M4
Tel 604 694 7750 ...
"What do the next two years hold?” I asked in my column in The Nation, right after the November 2 elections. “Already there are desperate urgings from progressives for Obama to hold the line. Already there are the omens of a steady stream of concessi...
In today’s upside-down world of hyperbolized “threats,” the relative magnitude of fear is almost inversely proportional to any actual risk involved. Take the obvious example, terrorism. First and foremost, keep in mind Edward Herman&rsqu...
Based on my experience at the Senate Budget Committee, I learned that reading different deficit reduction plans can be tricky. Some use CBO or other "baselines" as a basis for comparison, but those baselines can be a mystery to some and differ – somet...
This July, traveling by Greyhound, I arrived in Detroit from Windsor, Canada. A dog sniffed all passengers for drugs, and a border agent checked our bags. U.S. citizens produced IDs, while foreigners displayed visas and/or passports. Nothing was out of the ordinary e...
The war in Afghanistan is about perpetual war, not Afghanistan.
It’s about preventing democracy in the United States, not bringing it to Southwest Asia.
And it is the tombstone of the Obama Presidency.
To justify the fight, they’...
Women in the American Indian Movement shared stories of lives lived with great courage, as federal agents stalked them and attempted to intimidate them, during the AIM International Conference.
The AIM Women’s Leadership panel brought toge...
Haiti needs legitimate leaders right now. Unfortunately, the elections set for November 28, 2010 are a sham. Here are five reasons why the world community should care.
First, Haitian elections are supposed to choose their...
Istanbul.
"Strike for no money! That’s rich! how we gonna live with no money? I’ve heard it all now.”
In 2005 CounterPunch published an essay I wrote talking about the idea of abol...
Usually, my neighbors here in the condo complex are friendly and cooperative. During last year’s harsh winter, we worked outside, removing snow, chatting, and helping each other. During association meetings, we discuss community issues. Occasionally, there&rsqu...
This Thanksgiving, most farmers around my hometown in central Minnesota are celebrating a good harvest. Rain for once fell at the right time in the right amounts, and prices for many crops grown in Litchfield are high.
After yo-yoing up and down...
"Free-range turkey,” I muse to Liam in the very present tense of several weeks ago. We stare at the small blue-tinged skin of the creature. Someone has cut off her head and then, perhaps seeking to flesh out the meaning of the word “overk...
As the 21st Century unfolds, humanity is faced with a stark reality. Following the world stock market crash in 2008, people everywhere are questioning the unbridled greed, selfishness and competition that has driven the dominant economic model for decades. The old ob...