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 2011
Since Colonel Gaddafi has lost his military hold in the war against NATO and the insurgents/rebels/new regime, numerous talking heads have taken to celebrating this war as a “success”. They believe this is a “victory of the Libyan people” and that we should all be...
The current ideology to justify aggressive war is based on a dogmatic dichotomy between Democracy and Dictators. The pro-war party in the West has been shifting the center of international law and order from the United Nations to a more exclusive club of “democracies...
Tripoli
Rebel militiamen, many of them former prisoners of Muammar Gaddafi, have an iron grip on Tripoli, but wonder who will hold long-term power in Libya. Issam, a bearded Islamist who controls a district of the revolutionary stronghold of Souq al-Jumaa,...
On Aug. 10, 1961, the United States began spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam, in a campaign called “Operation Ranch Hand.” The spraying lasted nearly 10 years and resulted in death and disability for more than 3 million Vietnamese, including the childre...
As we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and my father remains incarcerated in a modern-day internment camp, the time in which we live begins to feel less like 2011 and more like 1942. But this week could determine whether today’s justice system is capable of rewri...
Exploiting fear, hysteria and ignorance has been a lucrative business for the Islamophobia network in America.
After a six-month-long investigative research project, the ...
Most adults know that there is no Santa Claus. They should also know that there was no stock market crash associated with the Standard and Poor’s downgrade of U.S. government debt. However, because powerful interests want to spread misinformation about the downgrade, pe...
Australian officials were breathing a sigh of relief when ‘Cablegate’ disclosed little that might cast them in a poor light before their American puppeteers. (If, indeed, there was any light to begin with.) When it took place last year, there were the usual observat...
The system works — for some. The some include the elite donors who finance the system. Duh.
The long-waged war over outright corruption in the American political system has failed massively. Half-measures like McCain-Feingold were more PR exercis...
Wellington, New Zealand.
The visit of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to Russia in August 2011 received little attention in the international media, and most of the articles were uninformed. As is often the case, the South Korean media provided the best co...
GOP Candidate Flowchart
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As Gen. David Petraeus prepares to take the helm at CIA in September, he can expect unswerving loyalty from his likely deputy, Michael Morell, who has been acting director since July when Leon Panetta left to become Secretary of Defense.
Like many senior CIA offici...
Juan Cole is a brand name that is no longer trusted. And that has been the case for some time for the Professor from Michigan. After warning of the “difficulties” with the Iraq War, Cole swung over to ply it with burning kisses on the day of the U.S. invasion of I...
Tripoli.
Yassin Bahr, a tall thin Senegalese in torn blue jeans, volubly denies that he was ever a mercenary or fought for Muammar Gaddafi.
Speaking in quick nervous sentences, Mr Bahr tries to convince a suspicious local militia leader in charge of...
Here is an important question: What single organization is responsible for more terror plots in the USA than any other? Possible answers: Al Qaida. That would no doubt be the popular answer but it would be wrong. The KKK. Way past their prime, so that is not it. The Jewi...
National political discussion of the economics and budgets over the last two decades have been dominated by the debate over President Clinton’s tax increase and President Bush’s subsequent reversal of this tax hike. If we narrow down the focus to the hike on t...
This is the second week of protests, led by Bill McKibben, in front of the White House demanding that President Barack Obama reject a proposed 1700 mile pipeline transporting the dirtiest oil from Alberta, Canada through fragile ecologies down to the Gulf Coast refineries...
The indictment of four men linked to Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri made public by the Special Tribunal on Lebanon Aug. 17 is questionable not because it is based on “circumstantial evidence”, but because that evide...
Durban, South Africa.
Will the host city for the November-December world climate summit, the COP17, clean up its act? Last Tuesday’s launch of a major Academy of Science of South Africa (Assaf) report, ...
Newfane, VT .
A classic David vs. Goliath battle is taking shape in the courtroom and in the streets and fields of Vermont as Entergy Nuclear of Louisiana tries to overturn Vermont law in the federal courts.
The state has thoughtfully and repeatedl...
In “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” Paulo Freire advocated for a teaching practice that shatters a town’s “culture of silence.” An irrepressible force against capitalism and hierarchy, Freire asked us to imagine creative modes to address...
Thus Far and No Further
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Tripoli
My roommate left our hotel and hopefully Libya last night for his village near Arlit, Niger thanks to the assistance of one of Tripoli’s Christian Churches. I shall miss him a lot.
It was a recently formed human rights group from the Cop...
Bank funding costs are rising, liquidity is being choked off, and interbank lending has started to stall. A full-blown crisis can still be averted, but leaders will have to knuckle down and resolve the political issues fast. Otherwise the 17-member monetary union will fra...