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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 'China'
War in the East China Sea?
PETER LEE
China’s PRC regime has been preparing for escalating confrontation with Japan if Tokyo decided it really wanted to test the commitment of the United States to back it in the crisis over the Senkaku/Daioyutai Islands. Showing Japan the undesirability of openly...
World War in Asia?
LINH DINH
With the Asia Pivot, the US wants to encircle China, and supplies old and new allies with missiles aimed at its main rival. An amped up arms race means cash flow for the world’s biggest death dealer. If all these Asian nations buy as many American fighter planes as ...
China and the New Myanmar
PETER LEE
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is attempting to establish a modus vivendi with the new political order in Myanmar. With the violent government crackdown on demonstrators at a copper mine-site at Monywa, in northwestern Myanmar, on November 29, things just got ...
The Irrational, Racist Fear of China
ANDRE VLTCHEK
Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Libya are in shambles, crushed by the heavy boots of Western imperialism. But we are told to fear China. The entire nations of Indochina were bombed back to the stone age, because Western demi-gods would not tolerate, and fe...
South Korea’s New Boss
PAUL GOTTINGER
On December 19 conservative Park Geun-hye, daughter of former military dictator Park Chung-hee, won South Korea’s national election over her opponent Moon Jae-in of the liberal ‘Democratic United Party’.  Ms. Park won 51% of the vote compared to Mr. Moon’s 47.8%...
The Asian Pivot: Four More Years
CONN HALLINAN
In March 1990, Time Magazine titled an article “Ripples in The American Lake.” It was not about small waves in that body of water just north of Fort Lewis, Washington. It was talking about the Pacific Ocean, the largest on the planet, embracing over half of...
Xi’s China
MARTINE BULARD
The new team who will be leading China and its 1.3 billion citizens over the next five years were presented to the people on state television on 14 November via a press conference with Xi Jinping, the new general secretary of the Communist Party (CPC). The Standing Comm...
Whose Side is Warren Buffett on Anyway?
D. SIDNEY POTTER
It’s not often that I can’t figure out, or even admit that I can’t figure out a person.  And fortunately, that hasn’t happened in this particular instance when it comes to deciphering Warren Buffett’s true stripes.  The problem is, like a Discovery cable show ...
The Dangling Appendage
BINOY KAMPMARK
Melbourne. The US juggernaut is positioning itself with some speed while the policy free wonks in Canberra catch their breath.  The US Presidential election results are still warm, and President Barack Obama’s heralded “pivot” (some call it “rebal...
China Daily Has Had Me!
ANDRE VLTCHEK
The story is very simple: the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China was just about to open, and one of the editors of the China Daily sent me an email from Beijing, to Nairobi, asking me to study the Chinese Constitution and to shoot a commentary on the...
Tariq Ali on the Future of Greece
KOSTAS PLIAKOS
You have said that Europe is falling apart financially and that we should go back to the drachma. Do you insist on this view? This is a difficult dilemma; could the country survive without any similar moves in other European countries? If Greece is to bre...
Lessons From the Sino-Indian War
PETER LEE
China is looking for a “Western” pivot to counter the United States’ diplomatic and military inroads with its East Asian neighbors such as Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Myanmar. For China’s strategists, as an interesting analysis in t...
Ottoman Déjà Vu?
CONN HALLINAN
Two years ago Turkey was on its way to being a player in Central Asia, a major power broker in the Middle East, and a force in international politics. It had stepped in to avoid a major escalation of the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia by blocking U.S. ships from ente...
The Gillard White Paper on Asia
BINOY KAMPMARK
It has a familiar ring to it. Australia, that White Tribe of Asia, is now sounding desperate, hoping for recognition in a region it has struggled to comprehend since the days of British colonisation. If human beings are seeking to find the common thread o...
Hard Lessons From the Asian “Pivot”
PETER LEE
The real action in Sino-US relations this week was not the predictable China-bashing in the third election debate between US President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney in Florida on October 22: it was the little-noticed concurrent visit to Asia of a high...
A Faux Debate on Foreign Policy
MICHAEL BRENNER
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 ...
Militarizing South Korea
GREGORY ELICH
With the presidential election in South Korea just two months away, efforts are underway to lock into place a policy of confrontation with that nation’s neighbor to the north. When current South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office five years ago, he wasted little...
Japan’s Right: Going Nuke?
CONN HALLINAN
Behind the current impasse among China, Japan and Taiwan over five tiny specks of land in the East China Sea is an influential rightwing movement in Japan that initiated the crisis in the first place, a crisis it is using it to undermine Japan’s post-World War II peace ...
America RIP
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
During the second half of the 20th century the United States was an opportunity society. The ladders of upward mobility were plentiful, and the middle class expanded. Incomes rose, and ordinary people were able to achieve old-age security. In the 21st century the o...
Mo Yan and Joseph Anton
FARZANA VERSEY
Mumbai. If Mo Yan had chosen to live in a swanky hideout in the nowhere space offered as asylum, there would be much jubilation over his being awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. Instead, he lives in China, was educated in the People’s Libe...
How Bain Exported Illinois Jobs to China
Rev. JESSE L. JACKSON
Mrs. Dot Turner has worked at what is now Sensata Technologies in Downstate Freeport for 43 years. The company does sophisticated work creating sensors for automobiles. It enjoyed record profits last year. But not enough for its owner — Bain Capital — which is m...
China’s Nexen Deal Tangled Up With Keystone Pipeline
PETER LEE
An interesting side product of globalization is how China bashing has become a staple of domestic politics in nations around the world, from America to Zambia, from Sydney to Tokyo. Best practices also propagate with remarkable speed and efficiency. It may not be a...
The Empire Trapped
RAMZY BAROUD
Editors representing many Asian newspapers stood in a perfect line. They were nervous and giddy at the prospect of meeting Li Changchun, China’s powerful member of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee. Personally, the Great Hall of the People and the for...
Why Cracking Down on China Means Cracking Down on Romney and His Pals
DEAN BAKER
One of the themes that Governor Romney has been hitting at aggressively in his campaign ads is that he will get tough on China. The ads complain that China is a cheater, most importantly by “manipulating” the value of its currency. This means that China has been delib...
A Culture Of Delusion
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
A writer’s greatest disappointments are readers who have knee-jerk responses.  Not all readers, of course.  Some readers are thoughtful and supportive.  Others express thanks for opening their eyes.  But the majority are happy when a writer tells them what they want...