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 September 2011
The U.S. threat last week that “all options” are on the table if the Pakistani military doesn’t cut its ties with the Haqqani network of anti-U.S. insurgents created the appearance of a crisis involving potential U.S. military escalation in Pakis...
Three months ago I wrote ...
It is looking more and more like game over for Bashar al Assad in Syria.
Ironically, this is in spite of the fact that Bashar has apparently demonstrated that an authoritarian regime, left to its own devices, can often do a good job of crushing determined domestic ...
The University of California – Berkeley College Republicans staged an anti-affirmative action bake sale this week on UCB’s Sproul Plaza to protest Senate Bill 185, that would re-introduce affirmative action in the state of California. The bill recently passed in the...
The number of UN member states extending diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine has now risen to 131, leaving only 62 UN member states on the wrong side of history and humanity.
...
Starting October 6 thousands of people will gather for three major actions, in Washington DC, at the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and in Miami Florida, at the US Southern Command in Miami. These events all target U.S. militarism, and directed toward but...
As the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Industry, and Obama administration continue to push nuclear energy as safe and clean, a grassroots insurgency is growing from the awakening depths of the growingly vociferous American maelstrom. Fukushima’s three meltd...
Since 1972, Bangladesh has been firm about the films of the monster that we all know as Bollywood, a beast so prolific it disgorges some thousand films a year. No viewings of Bollywood films have been permitted in Bangladesh’s cinemas – till now.
The power of...
The Inspiring Life of Eddie Zheng
...
Much of the mainstream media is covering Rabbani’s death as the end of the peace process with the Taliban. Did the Taliban assassination of Berhanuddin Rabbani, the chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, bring a potentially permanent end of peace talks in Afghan...
The fast developing predator drone technology, officially called unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs, is becoming so dominant and so beyond any restraining framework of law or ethics, that its use by the U.S. government around the world may invite a horrific blowback.
...
Senior Bahraini police officers suspended for torturing detainees are being swiftly reinstated in a sign of a growing struggle for power within the al-Khalifa royal family over the extent of the repression to be used against pro-democracy protesters.
In addition, 9...
California healthcare workers have now taken their fight to another level – on Thursday, September 22, some 21,000 struck the huge Kaiser Permanente chain, 24 major medical centers – while more struck Sutter, Kaiser’s healthcare partner in crime, also a giant in the...
The United States Postal Service Board of Governors is dominated by corporate executives, lawyers, and lobbyists. And according to consumer advocate Ralph Nader, that’s a key reason why the Postal Service is in trouble....
The Kenyan activist, Wangari Maathai, is dead at 71. With her passing we have lost one of our era’s great environmental visionaries. Maathai came from an impoverished, rural background; it was her belief in the environmentalism of the poor that propelled her life’s wo...
Today’s wall is longer, higher and it does not stop terrorist activities inside the West Bank. Houses are demolished, land is destroyed and people are dying.
It is night. He is dark and it is dark. The fear comes out of his eyes. He is being chased by dogs and be...
“Wall Street got drunk […] It got drunk and now it’s got a hangover.”
—George W. Bush
As usual, Bush got it wrong. Wall Street soberly and cynically got the rest of us drunk on dreams of homeownership, a robust stock portfo...
They thought they glimpsed a flash of Rick Perry’s soft underbelly. Eyes certainly strained from behind the Medicare benefit bifocals. Yes, it was a soft underbelly! He showed a moment of compassion by mentioning that it was hardly fair to deny children of illegal im...
I was born into the crack era. Although not old enough to take part in the crack game, it did not leave me immune to the detrimental effects the drug had on my community. Growing up in the Bronx, I was surrounded by crack users, drug sellers and poverty. I f...
“I Will Be a Hummingbird”
...
Economic policy in the United States and Europe has failed, and people are suffering.
Economic policy failed for three reasons: (1) policymakers focused on enabling offshoring corporations to move middle class jobs, and the consumer demand, tax base, GDP, and car...
“Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a byproduct of the activities of a ca...
More than 10 years ago, before 9/11, Goldman Sachs was predicting that the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) would make the world economy’s top ten — but not until 2040. Skip a decade and the Chinese economy already has the number two spot all to its...
Funding fears, political gridlock and plunging stocks have pulled the eurozone deeper into crisis. On Friday, the gauges of market stress continued to widen signalling more turbulence in the days ahead. Libor –the rate at which London-based banks borrow from each o...