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 'Greece'
November 23, 2011: The day before the Thanksgiving holiday brought three extraordinary news items. One was the report on the Republican presidential campaign debate. One was the Russian President’s statement about his country’s response to Washington’s mi...
Padua, Italy.
Making economics and politics appear separate is one of the chief characteristics of capitalism as a system of class rule, as Ellen Mieksins Wood has pointed out in many of her writings. But it is how politics is manifested AS economics and e...
Credit conditions in the eurozone continue to deteriorate while yields on French, Spanish, Belgian and Italian bonds move higher. Italy’s 10-year yield increased 19 basis points to 6.89 percent on Tuesday, just a stone’s throw from the “unsustainable” ...
Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have both been forced from office and replaced by representatives of big finance. Mario Monti, who will replace Berlusconi, was formerly the European Chairman of the Trilateral Commissio...
An American took his phlegmatic English friend to see the Niagara Falls.
“Isn’t that amazing?” said the enthusiastic American. “Look at that vast mass of water dashing over that enormous cliff!”
“But what,” replied the unimpressed Englishman, a...
The Occupy Wall Street protests in the US are also directed against the Street’s representatives in the Democratic Party and the White House. The protesters probably don’t know that Socialists in France still consider Barack Obama exemplary. Is there a misunderstandin...
“Italy is now mathematically beyond the point of no return.”
–Barclays Capital
The situation in Europe gets more depressing by the day. Policymakers have waited too long and now events are beyond their co...
It’s finally become clear to everyone the key problem in the current Eurozone crisis is just too much democracy.
Pesky voters opposed to austerity measures get in the way of efforts to cut government expenditures in order to reduce deficits and make repayment of ...
Some of us have been warning for months about the cri...
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou touched off a firestorm last week when he proposed putting the austerity package designed by the “troika” (the I.M.F, the European Central Bank and the European Union) up for a popular vote. The idea that the Greek people might d...
In the struggle against global laissez faire capitalism that has brought the current economic collapse, protesters won an important victory last week in Britain, while stalemate continued in Greece. The alliance between the church, the main financial district called the C...
Three years of President Obama, as of today. Count and weep. Just over a year from now Americans will be deciding whether to reelect Barack Obama or… probably Mitt Romney. In the latter case this is to assume that that Mitt, a Mormon and family man – both danger flare...
Every day that passes adds to the fraudulent image of what is called Western democracy.
Consider that the entire Western world is outraged that the Greek prime minister announced that he is going to permit the Greek people to decide their own fate instead of having...
“Italy’s borrowing costs have spiked higher towards levels that forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to be bailed out. The yield on Italy’s ten-year bond is up another 0.32 percentage point at 6.43 percent, a new euro-era high. A yield above 7...
In the last month, people from around the country and around the world have picked up on the Occupy Wall Street theme of retaking the country from the wealthy. Insofar as this sentiment gathers force in Europe, there is probably no place better for people to plant themsel...
The title of this piece should have been the title of the news stories today about the surprise announcement by the Greek Prime Minister that, instead of forcing but another round of draconian austerity measures upon the Greek people, the Greek government will instead be ...
Imagine if the local fire chief, in the spirit of conservation, decided he’d use no more than 1,000 gallons of water to put out any given house fire. Do you think the citizens would support that policy if their town was burned to the ground? And, yet, this is the sa...
Historically, Greeks are very good at constructing myths. The rest of the world? Not so much. Reading the press, one gets the impression of a bunch of lazy Mediterranean scroungers, enjoying one of the highest standards of living in Europe while making the frugal Ge...
“Conspiracy theories” have a bad press. But sometimes conspiracies are real and sometimes conspiracy theories do account for what they purport to explain. Whether they do or not is an empirical question. Because real world politics is propelled by multiple, hete...
Athens.
In Athens, Greece, there are all the elements of a low-intensity conflict zone. Greece has become ground zero of the Eurozone’s fiscal crisis. The latest strikes are seen by many to be historic in a country with a rich tradition of protests.
...
Naxos
“People are coming back to farms around here that they abandoned years ago so they can grow potatoes, cabbages and vegetables to help them survive the crisis,” says Petros Citouzouris, as he pruned his vines high in the mountains of Naxos...
“Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at th...
The doom mongers are out in force. The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has dramatically stated that European authorities have “just a matter of weeks” to avert economic disaster. Likewise, the mouthpiece of conventional financial “wisdom”, the Financial...
No one opposes unity. And no one opposes a stronger, more unified Europe. What people oppose is policy; policies that slash workers wages, privatize state assets, increase unemployment, and prolong recession. That’s what people oppo...
CADTM: During this talk, you have claimed that Greece is forced to choose between two options: either to eat humble pie, resigning itself to turning to the Troika; or to refuse the dictates of the markets and the Troika by suspending repayment and cal...