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 'Cuba'
“During the Special Period’s most difficult years, countless and creative solutions were found by our campesinos and agricultural science researchers. There was one objective and one priority: to recover our agricultural systems and produce what’s necessary to f...
In their 54-year-old effort to bring down Cuba’s revolutionary government and restore obedience in our Caribbean neighbor, U.S. officials have compiled a spectacular record of failure, overshadowed only by the determination to persist in their pursuit of wrongheaded...
This week Alfredo Guevara, the father of revolutionary Cuba’s film industry, died of a heart attack at the age of 87. The N.Y. Times obituary was refreshingly honest about the role he played:
A committed Fidelista, Mr. Guevara nevertheless insisted th...
This is a fruitful period of experimentation and debate in Cuba. It is now almost seven years since Raúl Castro replaced his brother Fidel, first as interim president in 2006 and then as president in 2008. Under Raúl, the country is taking steps to transform the econo...
April 17-19 marks the 52nd anniversary of the US-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles, our proxies to try to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. My guess is that few Americans today remember what the invasion was, much less surmise why I can argue that the hubris ...
Havana.
If there has ever been any question that the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) is essentially a political organization – one that took up arms guided by a political vision and will abandon them when that political strategy leads th...
The Sunday New York Times (NYT) publication of the opinion piece entitled “For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun” by Roberto Zurbano has turned into a debate on whether a segment of the Cuban population has done well or not after 1959. The auth...
To restore good relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, damaged by several years of neglect, is one of many difficult tasks now facing the Obama administration. A measure that could have far-reaching consequences and notably improve the U.S.’ battered image in t...
Liberal and conservative Americans alike have celebrated Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez. She’s become the new “resistance to Cuban communism” heroine, a world-renowned troublemaker inside communist Cuba.
Yoani also acquired semi-princess status in western Europe...
Yoani Sanchez’ long-awaited arrival to the United States has been heralded as a victory for the opposition in Cuba and an example of how citizen journalists, armed with social media, can bring about democratic change in authoritarian societies. However, a closer loo...
Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
It was late afternoon when our flight from Miami arrived at the Toussaint L’Overture airport in Port Au Prince. Someday the fine folks at American Airlines will have to explain why it makes sense to fly from Puerto Rico to Hait...
Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Over the past thirty years, Human Rights Watch has become one of the most recognized non-governmental organizations in the world due to its global promotion of human rights. But despite its claims to be an advocate of international hum...
Last Monday, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (CELAC) met for its second summit in Santiago, Chile, one year after its founding meeting in Caracas, Venezuela in 2011. The Summit is the culmination of roughly a decade of efforts to create a viable ...
The time has come and almost gone for Washington to repair its broken relations with Cuba. For 53 years the White House has maintained a punishing embargo on trade with Cuba. Its proponents, with the goal of removing Cuba’s revolutionary government, still plead: ...
It’s about time,”I commented when I heard that Nancy Stout had written a biography of Celia Sanchez...
We wait with a Latina woman and two of her kids until the prison guard at the entrance desk calls our number. We pass through the X-ray machine and get our wrists stamped. Then we sit and stare at a religious display in the show case – church-state separation?— where ...
Now they don’t even bother to hide their worry: the same politicians who slandered Cuba for decades, saying Cubans “can’t travel,” and even going so far as to draft laws meant to push disaffected Cubans to hurl themselves into the sea, are now rushing to figure ou...
“When Chavez became president of Venezuela, the country was limping….. He gave everything he had in him – his sweat, soul, strength, energy, intelligence and love – to change Venezuela with dignity, growth, sovereignty, and nation-building....
Dear Santa,
I just wanted to shoot you off this quick note to ask you for a gift this Christmas before tomorrow in case something catastrophic happens. I know that this year has been especially challenging for your crew as far as figuring out who’s been naugh...
President Obama went too far in throwing gratuitous insults at President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela on Friday ...
Several of our friends expressed shock when they learned that President Obama had won some 48% of south Florida’s Cuban-American vote. One asked: how can you explain that a reputedly reactionary community would yield such a high percentage vote for a Democrat?
Th...
Although most progressives would agree that last Tuesday’s elections did little to resolve the overwhelming list of challenges that faces our nation there is a glimmer of hope that the United States is inevitably moving towards a policy of engagement and normalizati...
Fifty years ago millions of people around the world expressed their fear – well merited — that nuclear war would erupt between the US and USSR over Soviet missiles placed in Cuba. Many Americans have the idea that a crazy Fidel Castro wanted to launch them at US t...
When I read last week that the Cuban government is scrapping its notorious permiso de salida—the official sanction required to exit the island—I immediately thought back to a warm May evening about two years ago. As a college student in Havana, I caught a Cub...
The world is once again in turmoil. Several Arab nations are clearly in a state of mayhem, rebelling against decades of injustice. But their struggle is not always based on ideology, and it is not well defined. The West is taking full advantage of the confusion, pushi...