radiofree.asia

Category: Feature Articles

  • The Financial Industry is a Lot Bigger than a Giant Vampire Squid

    Image by Alexander Grey.

    The size of the financial industry bears no relation to the economy. Self-mythological panegyrics aside, the finance industry confiscates money; it doesn’t create it. How much? Get out your calculators, and maybe you’ll have to find a way to add a couple of digits to what your screen can hold.

    Perhaps the total amount of money extracted by financiers (or, more to the point, speculators) is not quite as large as Douglas Adams’ description of space in the, yes, increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers’ Trilogy, as “Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is.” But it’s close.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post The Financial Industry is a Lot Bigger than a Giant Vampire Squid appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  • Gerald Horne on the Counterrevolution of 1836

    Dr. Gerald Horne, who hold the the Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, maintains his high-velocity writing pace with a new volume about the founding of the Lone Star State, The Counter-Revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of U. S. Fascism from International […]

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Gerald Horne on the Counterrevolution of 1836 appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • It’s All Gonna Break

    Every time I see a Gen X critic declare pop culture dead, I remember all of the columns and cover stories that asked “Is Irony Dead?” after 9/11. To be sure, a survey of American media right now wouldn’t exactly be encouraging, or particularly exciting: the highest grossing movie of the year, Top Gun: Maverick, […]

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post It’s All Gonna Break appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • The Case of the Missing H-Bomb

    Things go missing. It’s to be expected. Even at the Pentagon. A few years ago, the Pentagon’s inspector general reported that the military’s accountants had misplaced a destroyer, several tanks and armored personnel carriers, hundreds of machine guns, rounds of ammo, grenade launchers and some surface-to-air missiles. In all, nearly $8 billion in weapons were […]

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post The Case of the Missing H-Bomb appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Phillips’ Formula: The Art of Politicizing Noir on Page and Screen

    Image courtesy of Soho.

    Scripts, comics, TV episodes and fiction flow from the prolific, protean pen and brain of Gary Phillips, who is now adding two more books to his already impressive oeuvre of 20-plus volumes. The Los Angeles-based auteur’s latest novel, One-Shot Harry (Soho Crime), is set against the backdrop of Dr. Martin Luther King’s imperiled visit to L.A. as he prepares for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. And hard on the heels of this hardboiled page turner, the tireless Phillips has edited the crime anthology South Central Noir (Akashic Books), which drops September 6.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Phillips’ Formula: The Art of Politicizing Noir on Page and Screen appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  • Love, Sex, and Politics

    Image by Gayatri Malhotra.

    As the recent Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade so poignantly illustrates, the clash over love and sex is one of the most fundamental cleavages in modern American politics. Although it was written back in 1956, Erich Fromm’s book The Art of Loving offers observations that are strikingly relevant today. Fromm’s insights shed new light on old problems. They help us understand how insecurities related to love, sex, and gender underpin our most vexing societal conflicts, specifically malaise under neoliberalism, incel culture and gun violence, and authoritarian movements. Thinking about the psychology of sexuality and gender better equips us on the Left to formulate programs that tackle the roots of these explosive social problems.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Love, Sex, and Politics appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  • Blowing Up is Hard to Do

    Illustration by Susie Day.

    You see, real violence comes from corporations and governments that create droughts and floods and storms that starve and displace millions. Then there’s the ongoing killings of environmental activists, called ecoterrorists by the state. Above all, Ma, we got to see that there’s a difference between violence done to sentient beings and the property damage of protests that disrupts business-as-usual.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Blowing Up is Hard to Do appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Afghanistan Beyond the Narratives of Insiders

    Army paratroopers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division prepare to board an Air Force C-17 at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 30, 2021. Photo: US Army, Master Sgt. Alexander Burnett.

    The hot sun beat against the building’s modernist glass windows. Inside, in a spacious conference room that smelt like burnt coffee in plastic cups, a man angrily yelled that there was no alternative to a centralized Afghan presidential system and that Afghan would never get anywhere with a reliance on foreign aid. He was a leading voice behind giving Afghanistan foreign aid for twenty years.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Afghanistan Beyond the Narratives of Insiders appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • The Border’s Wheels of Fortune Spin

    In the annals of border history, U.S.-Mexico relations and global commerce, Ciudad Juárez has often played a pivotal role. Nudged against El Paso, Texas, and Doña Ana County, New Mexico, the northern Mexican city has been a place of revolutions and political upheavals with international repercussions, the passageway of migrants to the promised land of […]

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post The Border’s Wheels of Fortune Spin appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • The Spoils of War

    Image by Kevin Schmid.

    Mainstream media coverage of Washington and US foreign policy can sometimes provide useful information on our military-industrial complex/ Few journalists, however, dig as deeply, comb through as many documents, or spend as many months cultivating sources to uncover the inner works of that labyrinthine, sprawling sector of our economy as Andrew Cockburn, the Washington editor of Harper’s. Cockburn’s new book, The Spoils of War: Power, Profit, and the American War Machine, collects a decade’s worth of essays from Harper’s and The London Review of Books. The assembled pieces, each framed with introductory and closing comments from 2021, lay bear the mendacity and greed of the defense bureaucrats and war profiteers who drive U.S. foreign policy.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post The Spoils of War appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • We Have No Cheering Interests When Two Oligarchic Right-Wing Governments Fight

    Image by Lerone Pieters.

    It is bewildering to see the Russia/Ukraine war be reduced to a cheering contest, as if a football game were being watched. For those along much of the political spectrum, this cheering for “our side” is not a surprise given the well-oiled propaganda apparatus that constitutes most of the corporate media. But many on the Left have substituted cheerleading for analysis, on both sides.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post We Have No Cheering Interests When Two Oligarchic Right-Wing Governments Fight appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  • The CIA’s First War on China

    You won’t find a star of remembrance for him on the wall of fallen heroes at CIA HQ in Langley, but one of the Agency’s first casualties in its covert war against Mao’s China was a man named Jack Killam. He was a pilot for the CIA’s proprietary airline, Civil Air Transport, forerunner to the […]

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post The CIA’s First War on China appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Melilla and the Monster the EU Made

    Like many border cities, Melilla is a contentious place. When Morocco achieved independence in 1956, after more than 40 years as a French protectorate with Spain controlling the northern third of the country as well as Western Sahara, Spain retained Melilla (12 km2, population about 83,000) and Ceuta (20 km2, population about 84,000), its sister […]

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Melilla and the Monster the EU Made appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • The Big Case: On the Trail of the Mole on the CIA’s 7th Floor

    Image by Isai Ramos.

    Bob Baer served 21 years in the Central Intelligence Agency at the Middle East and beyond, and was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal. After leaving the CIA Baer became one of the Company’s most stinging, trenchant critics. His book See No Evil was adapted by writer/director Steven Gaghan for the 2005 movie Syriana, wherein George Clooney depicted a character based on Baer, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Golden Globe.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post The Big Case: On the Trail of the Mole on the CIA’s 7th Floor appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Sayonara Glaciers

    Glaciers are a major source of water for people around the world. Up to 75% of all earth’s fresh water is stored as glacial ice – mostly in Antarctica and Greenland, but also in Alaska, the Himalaya and the Andes. As glaciers disappear from the Himalaya and Andes mountains, the rivers they feed via meltwater will dwindle and even dry up. Once water melts out of a glacier most of it ends up in the ocean where it is useless for drinking or irrigation. Glacial ice is not being replaced. Almost 2 billion people rely for water on glacially fed rivers in in China, India, Nepal, Bangledesh and elsewhere.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Sayonara Glaciers appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • How the US Went From a War on Poverty to a War on the Poor

    Clinton signing the Welfare “Reform” bill. Photo: White House.

    Not long after Clinton signed the welfare bill, judgment came from Senator Moynihan, who had begun his service to the state back in the sixties with sermons about the “pathology” of the black family and now, bizarrely, was defending the system he’d denounced for years. Even this man of all seasons and all masters was shocked: “It is a social risk no sane person would take, and I mean that. If you think things can’t get worse, just wait until there are a third of a million people on the streets It’s not welfare reform; it’s welfare repeal.”

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post How the US Went From a War on Poverty to a War on the Poor appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Imagining a “Half-Earth” Sustainable Economy

    It seems vastly easier to imagine the future as a dystopian nightmare than as a time when today’s problems are mostly behind humanity. For every work of optimism, such as Star Trek, there are dozens of works imagining a nightmare world of deprivation, environmental destruction and severe repression amidst a world of people scrambling to survive anyway they can in a war of all against all.

    Even if a cultural byproduct rather than an intentional construction, this depressing ratio of future scenarios is the inevitable result of capitalism. From cradle to grave, we are endlessly bombarded with propaganda incessantly telling us that humans are competitive, not cooperative, and that individualism is the highest expression of “freedom.” Cut-throat competition is the natural way of the world, as natural as the tides of the ocean, and that participation in struggles against other human beings is the only possible method of organization in a world in which countries and nations also compete fiercely because the world must be organized into “winners” and “losers” through competition. Greed is not only good, it is the primary characteristic driving human behavior because markets sort who those “winners” and “losers” are.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Imagining a “Half-Earth” Sustainable Economy appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • The Fiery Death of Giant Sequoias

    Photo by Joshua Frank.

    We are now losing sequoias at a rate that was once thought to be impossible, and there is no doubt that as fire continues to destroy the last remaining groves of sequoia in California, the great giants of the Sierras could be gone by the end of the century.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post The Fiery Death of Giant Sequoias appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • The Gospel According to Darwin

    Dazzlingly deploying cutting edge cinematic equipment and techniques, plus the latest scientific knowledge, the ​five-part nonfiction series The Green Planet presents a rare flora’s-eye-view of life on Earth. This BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit production is hosted by Sir David Attenborough, who spryly traverses from and traipses through rain forests, deserts, mountains and the frozen north to “See our planet as never before… from the plants’ perspective,” the renowned naturalist intones in his smooth, soothing, familiar voice as the documentary opens.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post The Gospel According to Darwin appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • George Carlin: the Triumph of Bullshit

    George Carlin at work. Source: HBO.

    There’s a new two-part series streaming on HBO well worth a watch: George Carlin’s American Dream. I was expecting an extended display of his comedy wares, but it wasn’t that, and I wasn’t disappointed. The series is about his life. His families. His cultural background, economic status. How his comedy developed from the Sixties onward, during the most turbulent time in America, when, as the Bard from Duluth, “revolution was in the air.” Context.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post George Carlin: the Triumph of Bullshit appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • How Boris Johnson Became a Footnote

    Boris Johnson, stuck on a zip line, during the 20212 London Olympics. Source: ITV.com.

    Johnson treated public office like one big joke, and was content to have himself portrayed the same way in the media: as a shambling, scruffy-haired scallywag, a buffoonish bumbler always ready with a jolly jape and a sheepish shrug when he was caught out in a bit of mischief. This carried him far in a system happy to hide its rapacious corruption behind his resounding noise.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post How Boris Johnson Became a Footnote appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • When History Called on the General

    You’ll see the General’s image at nearly every gathering of the new right: Proud Boys, Patriot Front, Oath Keepers, anti-vaxx Freedom Convoys. He is their new icon and they’ve taken to adorning themselves and their trucks with his face on shirts, stickers and flags. His craggy image, often behind dictator shades, is usually depicted alongside his favorite instrument of mass death: the helicopter, the hovering abattoir from which he had his enemies–students, teachers, trade unionists, feminists, indigenous activists–pitched into the Pacific Ocean.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post When History Called on the General appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • The Impact of Criminalizing Abortion on Prisoners and Mass Incarceration

    Women prisoners at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Wilsonville, Oregon. Photo: Oregon Department of Corrections.

    In the aftermath of Roe, women prisoners seeking to terminate pregnancies often had to go to court and seek injunctions forcing jail and prison officials to provide them with access to abortion services. There is a dearth of information about how many pregnant prisoners are in custody at a given time and how many have sought to terminate their pregnancies.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post The Impact of Criminalizing Abortion on Prisoners and Mass Incarceration appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Climate Nemesis

    Starving polar bear on ice melting from climate change. Wikipedia.

    Why is it that the US government and Americans tolerate an increasing danger to their lives and the health of the natural world from the burning of petroleum, natural gas, and coal? The science is straightforward. The burning of fossil fuels is increasing the temperature of the planet. So, the solution is obvious. Stop burning fossil fuels. And yet the entire economy and society are hooked on burning the very substances that are causing local and global harm.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Climate Nemesis appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Oyez, Oyez, Oy Vey, The People’s Choice: Roe

    Image by Aiden Frazier.

    The Fountain Theatre’s “hyper-staged” revival of Lisa Loomer’s 2016 award-winning Roe is live theater with an activist agenda at its timeliest and most urgent. Loomer’s two-act play is an updated dramatization of 1973’s Roe v. Wade Supreme Court landmark ruling that the high court just overturned on Friday, June 24 (a date which will live in infamy). The drama also depicts the actual historical figures who played leading roles in the abortion rights struggle – Jane Roe aka Norma McCorvey (Kate Middleton) and the attorney who represented her before the Supreme Court, Sarah Weddington (Christina Hall) – as well as other personalities also associated with the groundbreaking case and personages, ranging from attorney Gloria Allred (Aleisha Force) to producer Fred Friendly (John Achorn) to Operation Rescue’s Rev. Flip Benham (Rob Nagle).

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Oyez, Oyez, Oy Vey, The People’s Choice: Roe appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Exploring Reflections of Modern Capitalism within Science Fiction

    The exploration of humanity and technology inherent to Science Fiction allows writers within the genre to create realities that reflect our own. The alternate realities allow readers to experience the horrors of modern capitalism from an alternate perspective. In creating distance between the problem and the reader, Science Fiction becomes a vehicle to enlighten readers about issues pertaining to their reality. The horrors and atrocities that are committed by players of the system are exaggerated to highlight the problems within modern society. Therefore, Science Fiction, across mediums and subgenres, offers strategies to highlight the exploitation of workers and consumers. Snow Crash (1992) and the videogame series Fallout both provide realities that allow readers and players to explore futures affected by capitalism and its horrific practices. In presenting exaggerated versions of our reality, authors are using the various devices and strategies allotted to them by Science Fiction. Also, in showcasing different medium, novel and videogame, one can see how authors across mediums translate said devices of Science Fiction to fit within their narrative.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Exploring Reflections of Modern Capitalism within Science Fiction appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  • Financial Manipulation and Inequality Keep Rising

    Many well-meaning people lament that our economic system is “not working.” But that isn’t true if we apply some historical context. What has capitalism wrought since its earliest days?

    Capitalism is a totalizing system built on slavery, colonialism, imperialism, plunder, deeply uneven power relations and exploitation. It remains a system where “might makes right” is the “rule of law.” The “innocence” of early capitalism is a fantastical myth purporting the existence of an earlier, innocent capitalism not yet befouled by anti-social behavior and violence or by greed.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Financial Manipulation and Inequality Keep Rising appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • The (Migrant) Season of Death is Upon Us

    Image by Sujeeth Potla.

    Summer Solstice should be a time for celebration. But for many desperate migrants attempting to enter the United States, it is a time of death. Soaring summer temperatures in the desert of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, which grow hotter and hotter due to human-induced climate change, claim many lives of undocumented migrants funneled into remote crossings riddling the rugged and vast region.

    For those who do successfully cross, the network of highways leading into the U.S. interior can prove fatal.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post The (Migrant) Season of Death is Upon Us appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • On the Precipice of Global Civil (Class) War?

    Image by Jon Tyson.

    Most of us know there’s something wrong in the world. Some of us know it’s even worse than what we’re used to. A plague stalks the planet despite efforts to control it—efforts rejected by those whose agenda demands an angry god, a Darwinian approach to their fellow humans, or both. The numbers of migrants and refugees is in the tens of millions. They flee wars, poverty, criminal violence and natural disaster only to find persecution, hatred and violence on their journeys and at their destinations. Fewer and fewer people own more and more of the world’s wealth; a statistic that means the rest of the world’s people have to share what remains. The level of inequality is impossible to fathom for those of us who are not among the world’s richest and irrelevant to those who are. Police forces in rich nations and poor continue to brutalize that part of the population the economic system has no need for. In many nations—especially the United States—those forces murder Black people rates vastly disproportionate to their presence in the population and their power in the society. Lurking behind this all is climate change caused by humanity and its economic enterprise.

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post On the Precipice of Global Civil (Class) War? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.

  • Free Soloing

    Keith Jarrett concerts often unfold like a running feud: with his piano, with the venue, with the acoustics, with the audience, with his own precarious emotional state. The piano player is notoriously temperamental, thorny, moody. Jarrett is a compulsive artist, if not a perfectionist, and he can be petulant. He has singled out audience members […]

    To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.

    If you are logged in but can’t read CP+ articles, check the status of your access here

    In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.

    More

    The post Free Soloing appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

    This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.