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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'
If the Greeks with some effort and success will say No to austerity then Syriza and Tsipras might have a good handle on the Banks and the EU. The Banks are necessarily caught in the grip of fright. and their own contradictions — they may have to bail out Greece. If ...
The hopes of Mexico’s president Felipe Calderon to have the European crisis under control before he presides over the G20 Summit have been dashed. Although the immediate threat of an economic meltdown has subsided, the crisis is far from over. Continued uncertainty in G...
“The burden of recapitalizing insolvent banks or loss-making acquisitions of solvent banks will fall on Spanish citizens.”
– Karl Whelan, economist at University College, Dublin.
Before EU finance ministers approve ...
Last month’s student protests in Quebec have made it clear, yet again, that austerity policies cannot be imposed except by authoritarian methods. More than a third of the students in the province struck after Jean Charest’s liberal (centrist) government decided to inc...
I’ve been listening to various Keynesian arguments lately and I find them boring. In the United States, United Kingdom and Sweden, the Keynesians are critiquing the utter stupidity of the austerity agenda which is half a loaf in the battle for sanity. Yet, the probl...
It might seem strange to invoke Freddie Mercury and Queen in the context of the eurozone, but it’s the first thought that springs to mind, as Brussels and the increasingly hapless ECB, continue to mismanage their way to financial and economic catastrophe. Yesterday, the...
WHEN the Group of Seven (G7) was formed in 1974, its charge was to provide confidence to a global population uncertain about the major structural features in the world. The members of the G7 were Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and West...
The present situation of Europe is such that it can only lead to further social and political polarisation. Less than five years ago things were so different that it seems as if we were living in another world. Since 2008 the living conditions of the great majority of Eur...
Current political developments in California highlight the gaping chasm that divides the established political process – which is routinely mislabeled as “democratic” – with the positions embraced by the vast majority of Californians.
Unfortunately, Califor...
Frankfurt, Germany.
It almost seemed as if the City of Frankfurt, Hessian Police and, after all, any court up to the Federal Constitutional Court (in German: Bundesverfassungsgericht, BverfG) went paranoid and hysterical all together and at once. What seem...
“Austerity has failed because Greek society has been destroyed, the production base has been dissolved. Our country has been in a deep recession for five consecutive years. This has never happened in Europe in peacetime.”
–Alexis Tsipr...
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s stirring call for austerity tugs at the national tear ducts. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pleaded for it in the past and watched his flock embrace it creatively. With the finance ministry even acting on Dr. Singh’s call in 20...
“Men and women of Greece, it is with a sense of dignity and patriotic duty, that we made the decision not to betray your hopes and aspirations…The pro-bailout parties did not simply want us to support a government that would impose more austerity, ...
The citizens of Spain have taken to the streets and squares in great numbers to demand their rights. Estimates vary enormously. Spain’s right-wing government claims that 22,000 people came out in Barcelona in the demonstrations on 12th May while the organiser...
Austerity during a serious recession is economically insane. It is a pro-cyclical policy that makes the recession more severe. A more severe recession is a mass destroyer of wealth and quality of life. It is pure waste. It is the primary cause of dramatic increases in pub...
One of the joys of being American is that every new day is a clean slate—no history, no memories, no experiences, a complete blank. This may help explain why our national conversations serve their intended purposes while being entirely content-free. Newsflash to self-de...
At the May 6 polls, the radical left-wing coalition Syriza becomes the second “party” in numbers of voters as it moves from 4.5% at the previous elections (2009) to 16.8% (52 MPs instead of 13). It is the first party...
The countries that are doing very well in Europe are the Scandinavian countries. Denmark is different from Sweden, Sweden is different from Norway – but they all have strong social protection and they are all growing. The argument ...
The eurozone is slipping into a recession that could have been avoided. Had policymakers provided fiscal support for stricken countries in the South and guarantees on their government bonds, (as the USG does for US Treasuries) then their economies could have continued t...
“Other countries have gone through similar experiences. Latin American countries suffered a lost decade after 1982, and Japan has been stagnating for a quarter of a century; both have survived. But the European Union is not a country and it is unlikely to su...
In the build-up to World War II, the French military created the Maginot Line. This barrier, which utilized state of the art military defenses, was intended to defend France from a ferocious assault by Hitler’s armies. When the attack ultimately came, the Germans made q...
With a deepening crisis and aggressive austerity measures, the people in Spain have reasons aplenty to rebel. First a socialist and now a conservative government have slashed retirement, unemployment, and severance benefits, made all labor contracts effectively precarious...
Will the French elect a different president, but leave unresolved all the issues raised in the election of 2007? The French would welcome a change of government: because, apart from President Sarkozy’s egregious shortcomings — his ubiquity, his exhibitionism, his endl...
If you want to see House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan sanctimoniously excuse himself and his friends for missing the most predictable economic crisis in the history of the world, you now have the opportunity: In a ...
Someone has pinched the heart of St. Lawrence O’Toole, and thereby hangs a typical Irish tale filled with metaphors, parallels, and some pretty serious weirdness.
Who done it? The suspects are many and varied.
Could the heist from Dublin’s Christ Church ...