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 by Tag 'austerity'
I don’t have a television, so I didn’t get to see President Obama deliver his reelection speech last night. Like millions of Americans, the day after the election was much the same as every other day. I spent my first day after Obama’s victory moving for...
It is remarkable that Social Security hasn’t been a more prominent issue in the presidential race. After all, Governor Romney has proposed ...
Our two fathers would have much to say to today’s presidential and Senate candidates who are pandering for middle class votes? As if tens of millions of economically struggling families, like the ones in which we were raised, did not even exist. In the face of such ...
There is an old story from the heyday of the Soviet Union. As part of their May Day celebrations they were parading their latest weapon systems down the street in front of the Kremlin. There was a long column of their newest tanks, followed by a row of tractors pulling mi...
The coast is clear, the media tells us; economic disaster has been averted. The Euro Zone is finally stable and the U.S. economy is recovering. Whew!
Why, then, are government policies internationally still pursuing extremist measures? In the U.S., a third round of...
Though their conclusions are specious, the proponents of economic austerity programs are in one crucial respect entirely correct: the present economic system is dysfunctional and, as such, requires a radical transfiguration. Indeed, as it ceaselessly spews toxins into the...
We are now faced with the threat of the stark economic policies of neoliberalism or its more stark form of the structural adjustment market-driven model being thrust down our throats. This is thanks to the likes of GOP Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s radical eco...
The US financial rot spread, causing a global economic crisis with catastrophic results: no jobs, millions of property owners bankrupt, waning social security. That was five years ago. Now it is quite possible that the next incumbent of the White House may be Willard Mitt...
On 20 November 2011, thirty-six years after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, the right-wing Popular Party (PP) won a resounding victory in the parliamentary election. Less than ten months later, voting intention polls show that public support for the Rajoy gove...
A sort of joke making the rounds a few years back had (billionaire) Bill Gates walking into a working class bar. The joke was that the moment he did everyone in the bar on average became a billionaire. Understand—he didn’t give away any money or, other than possibly o...
London.
As François Hollande hits the 100-day mark, what is the verdict on the man at the top of French politics? In terms of style, his trademarks emerged quickly enough. Hollande has renewed the Gaullist interpretation of the presidency: in accordance w...
If the news media had to work for a living, this is what they would all be asking right now. The reason is simple. The projections the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) made for Representative Ryan’s budget imply that he literally wants to shut down the federal gove...
In the 132 years between 1797 and 1929, there was no effective regulation of U.S. economy. No federal agencies existed to control corruption, fraud and exploitation on the part of the business class. Even during the Civil War, economic management on a national level was m...
The cruel impoverishment of the debate among the presidential and congressional candidates took a gigantic leap into the pits with Mitt Romney’s selection of 42-year-old Rep. Paul Ryan from the deindustrialized town of Janesville, Wisconsin. Ryan is invariably described...
One of the phrases frequently written in economic circles in the United States (and to a lesser degree in Europe) is “the Euro is going to collapse.” Those who repeat that phrase over and over again do not seem to know how the Euro was established, by whom, and for wh...
Among those who care about the fate of the United Nations it is widely assumed — and regretted — that the UN stood on the sidelines at the start of the global financial crisis, and let the G20, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank take the lead in an int...
On Friday, July 6, President Obama signed into law a bill that would renew transportation programs and extend low interest rates on student loans for one year. While this minimal gesture resulted in, no doubt, sighs of relief from those burdened by student debt, tucked aw...
For decades now, actually since President Reagan’s administration, Republicans, with encouragement from Neocons, Supply-siders, Neoliberals, Tea Partiers, or, in short, the Right Wing in toto, have argued big government is evil, a bureaucratic money-trap that is ineffic...
A major qualm many have with the Fiscal Compact is the implication underlying it that sensible and frugal wealthy European countries such as Germany must get the irresponsible and spendthrift indebted countries to sign up to a set of guarantees before handing them more mo...
This Wednesday, as millions of Americans picnic in the (increasingly) warm summer weather, there is little affection for the social system that carries the flag of freedom the holiday celebrates. With support for the present Congress recently falling into the single digit...
Even if the Greek and other European publics are seen capitulating to the whims of elites for the moment, that deference will probably not last. The Greek people appear to have been spooked into falling into line, by the barest margin, with a bailout package. But througho...
Austerity’s advocates are declaring victory with Latvia’s battle against the European economic crisis and advocating it as the model for Greece & Spain to emulate. Curiously, Latvians have been declaring this “win” by exiting their country.
The “aus...
In quick succession, the World Leaders shall gather, first at Los Cabos (Mexico) for the G20 summit and then at Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Frantic discussions are being held by the sherpas, the bureaucrats whose task...
It seems like every few months alarms are sounded warning US workers that Social Security is going bankrupt. Oftentimes, the follow up to these alarms includes a warning that the only way to save the system is by turning all or part of the funds involved over to Wall St...
Athens
As Greeks prepare to vote in the most important election in their history on Sunday, people in Athens fear they are facing a future full of uncertainty, poverty and violence. Well-publicized crimes help create an atmosphere of violence as the wealth...