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
Amid the enthusiastic applause in New York and the celebrations in Ramallah, it was easy to believe — if only a for minute — that, after decades of obstruction by Israel and the United States, a Palestinian state might finally be pulled out of the United Nati...
Israel has a good friend in Rupert Murdoch. Here in the UK, I’m still not sure which is worse – to see a mob of MPs suddenly united against the police, press and seemingly themselves or a mob cowering before Rupert Murdoch and his empire. But aside from the cessp...
When I arrived at Zuccotti Park at approximately 12:15, the march which was just getting under way initially appeared to be small, marginal and unimportant. By describing it in this way, I do not mean to denigrate it. After all, I have spent a good part of my life att...
In a recent interview, former Maine Senator George Mitchell ...
A couple of years ago, when I was teaching at a graduate institute in California, I had a dream that I was teaching Joseph Conrad’s novel, ...
Greenwashing the Pentagon
...
Did you catch Obama’s populist twitch? The moment when he tossed aside the stifling cloak of compromise, and like Joshua before the walls of Jericho issued the trumpet call to the disheartened Democratic base that henceforth it will be the battlements guarding the untax...
Today, September 23, Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas submits, to the UN the application for Palestinian statehood for the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967.
What are the implications of this effort? Does it serve the Palestinian ...
The political world has turned upside down in the Middle East since the Arab Awakening erupted. The region has been convulsed by the most radical changes since the end of imperial occupation and the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948.
One significant develop...
A WONDERFUL SPEECH. A beautiful speech.
The language expressive and elegant. The arguments clear and convincing. The delivery flawless.
A work of art. The art of hypocrisy. Almost every statement in the passage concerning the Israeli-Palestinian issue was a ...
Almost 50,000 U.S. troops occupying Iraq. We are still paying almost $50 billion just this year for the war in Iraq. And while we don’t hear about it very often, many Iraqis are still being killed.
There’s an awful lot of discussion underway about the m...
While the Fed’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) promised more monetary easing on Wednesday, the announcement was overshadowed by an exceedingly gloomy report on the state of the economy. The official statement warned of “significant downside risks to the econ...
The recent decision by the Obama Administration to sell $5.8 billion in arms to Taiwan is a bit of a head scratcher, rather like the hunter who goes into the woods with one bullet. Seeing a deer to his left and a turkey to his right, he shoots in the middle. It will ann...
In the course of research for a paper on US-Pakistan relations I came across a speech given by President Obama in March this year, titled ‘A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan’. It was interesting and quite informative, if misguided and engagingly ingenuou...
In his September 21 speech to the United Nations, President Obama announced that he would veto U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, because its independence was not a result of a negotiated settlement with Israel. He said that “peace depends upon compromise among p...
My name is Bunnatine Greenhouse; I am the former Civilian Procurement Executive and Chief of Contracting for the United States Army Corps of Engineers and in that position I was responsible for awarding and managing over $23 Billion in government contracts each ye...
That is a question that people should be asking as the other potential candidates withdraw from the race. At the moment, the economies of the United States, Europe, and Japan are all suffering from weak growth or worse. The debt crisis of eurozone countries threatens anot...
“To govern is to choose, and the choices made [by the Bush administration] in 2002 were fateful. The United States began that year shocked and wounded, but with tremendous strategic advantages. Its population was more closely united… World opinion ...
Everyday the same news – Greece lurches nearer to a default, the financial markets panic, and governments come up with a few more euros or some soothing words to calm them for a few hours. The meltdown has been put off for another day.
Almost every commentato...
The Qatari authorities are aware that hydrocarbon reserves will not last forever, and they intend to profit from the financial security that oil and natural gas exports have brought them (80% of external revenue, 60% of total revenue) by diversifying the economy. At the e...
An innocent Black man put to death despite a wave of international protests. A Texas ...
Clyde Edgerton’s latest novel explores US racism and class in a subtle but incisive manner. The novel’s title, ...
Here in the Realm of Cross Purposes, I sat on D’s balcony in what he calls a cheap chair. But it’s the anti-gravity adjustable recliner and it does everything but what should be consensual. My hands worked the arms, forcing it forward, then back. I told him I coul...