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 October 2012
If you often wonder why ‘free market capitalism’ feels like it is failing despite universal assurances from economists and political pundits that it is working as intended, your intuition is correct. Free market capitalism has become a thing of the past. In t...
Of the three presidential debates, Monday’s saw the only mention of U.S. drone warfare. But after the challenger Romney quickly affirmed his support of President Obama’s drone program, stating that it is “absolutely the right thing to do,” the issue was summaril...
Mitt Romney’s three debate performances in October 2012 have exposed his political cynicism, with the Republican candidate abandoning long-term positions in order to adopt more moderate ideas for the run-up to next month’s election. Prior to the debates, Rom...
You’ve seen the clips from Bad Lip Reading, the YouTube channel that’s emerged as the undisputed winner from this election’s presidential debate by matching the candidates’ exchanges with perfectly synced gibberish.
‘The hot tub is cool now,’ says Mitt ...
There is a hierarchy of attractiveness and what constitutes as beauty here at the edge of the empire. What I am speaking of is not indicative of how people actually feel (nor their needs or desires) but what is portrayed by Momma White Bread nightly on the electric soma a...
Over the last little while, a few individuals, claiming to be Eritrean-Americans, have come on the popular Eritrean website, Dehai, and tried to influence their fellow Eritrean-Americans to vote for Barack Obama. I see this as akin to asking Eritreans to reward Obama for ...
Nazareth.
Six and a half years go, shortly after Hamas won the Palestinian national elections and took charge of Gaza, a senior Israeli official described Israel’s planned response. “The idea,” he said, “is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but no...
There were no spectacular implosions, no remarkable points of stumbling. The third and last debate between President Barack Obama and contender Governor Mitt Romney was not the most exciting affair, though it showed Obama to be far more accomplished, and the result fo...
Paris.
Several questions asked in the third presidential debate were never clearly answered. One of the most vital concerns Israel: What exactly is the U.S. commitment to that country? It’s a question that an American president may suddenly be ...
On March 16, 2003, when Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer, I was thirteen. When I was in middle school, the death of a young woman on the other side of the planet didn’t mean much to me. My parents remember her. My parents’ friend, Peter Bohme...
I am living in the middle of the produce district in Los Angeles. Every morning trucks beeping and backing up wake me, especially the trucks dragging away the full dumpster and sliding in the empty one. Nearby are the toy, flower, and fabric districts. Also, spread among ...
The Case for VotePact
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It’s the 3rd of May 2009. The cold Afghan winter is already went. Spring has showed its impatient for many weeks. But now it is raining and it doesn’t seem to stop. Some military, foreign vehicles are patrolling along the main road that from Herat, chief to...
For some time to come, Libya shall stand as an enduring symbol of the West’s hypocrisy, and indeed duplicity, on the issue of human rights. While the West, and especially the United States, justified its aerial bombardment of Libya last year on the pretense of...
We know that there isn’t much “Hope” for “Change” — at least for progressive change — should President Obama win a second term as president.
Even when he had the chance, with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress...
What did we learn from the Presidential foreign policy debate? Not much specific or of substance. China did not make an appearance in the first hour. This is not surprising – for three reasons. These debates are more about self- presentation than candid statements of ...
Why do they hate us? The mere posing of the question strikes many Americans as unfair in the extreme. The media presents it as a tricky question, worthy of deeper study. At the top echelons of state management, the question has been settled for some time.
George Ke...
Istanbul.
The heavy loaded cargo boats, passenger liners, cruise ships and plentiful ferries packed with tourists steam by the Maiden Tower rising from the black rock amid lucid waters; they gingerly make their way past the mountain-like mosques on the mai...
To some, it may not look like much. But the people have spoken. On a cool, clear Sunday, Icelanders cast either the most important vote in their history, a shining example for the democracies of the world, or a sham pseudo-revoluti...
Romney, Obama, as we Unitedstatesians say in our vernacular: same difference. Some of us care and some do not. Some think the vote counts for squat while many others can’t help but lament how the fate of the world and its Christ-charged duty hinges on this 2012...
Feminists are busy people. We fight for equal rights, for stopping violence against women, for ending trafficking, prostitution, and stripping, and for a world where our children can have access to good education, health care, and day care. Now we have another job, becaus...
It is eerily fitting that George McGovern’s passing has occurred in the final heat of a furious election campaign, precariously balanced between the Republocrats and the Democlicans, a tweedle dum/ tweedle dee choice between two corporately owned politi...
Money is Speech: a Musical History
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Poor Dinesh D’Souza. He was hoisted on his own “petar,” Shakespeare’s little joke in Hamlet, substituting the old word for flatulence in place of petard, the spear. There he was on Rick Scarborough’s windy conference call pillorying President Obama for ...
Fifty years ago today President Kennedy shook my faith in church, school, the USA — and pretty much every other form of authority.
On Oct. 22, 1962, in our living room in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, I watched JFK on TV announce that the Soviet Union had put missiles...