In early September, Dr. Thomas Alter II—author of the well-regarded book Toward a Cooperative Commonwealth: The Transplanted Roots of Farmer-Labor Radicalism in Texas (University of Illinois Press, 2022)—was fired from his tenured position teaching history at Texas State University after he gave an online talk at a socialist conference.
Alter’s...
Ronald Reagan is heralded by conservatives today as a heroic figure who rejuvenated American society after the malaise of the 1970s.
Reagan’s worshippers, however, fail to acknowledge the rise of massive inequality in the 1980s, Reagan’s support for death squad operations in Central America, and the fact that Reagan only...
The CIA likes to fashion itself as a heroic agency that helps to protect national security and uphold democracy around the world.
However, Hugh Wilford’s book, The CIA: An Imperial History (Basic Books, 2024), shows that the CIA draws directly from British and French colonial precedents, and adopts the same...
Ramparts magazine was a beacon of the 1960s social movements: an anti-establishment muckraking magazine that published important exposés of the CIA, including its involvement in the murder of Ché Guevara, its infiltration of the National Student Association (NSA), and its support for clandestine police training programs in South Vietnam...
Heidi Boghosian: In 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, which led to the formation of the National Security Council and, under its direction, the CIA. Its original mandate was to collect and analyze strategic information for use in war. Though shrouded in secrecy, many CIA activities such as...
William H. Blum
1933 - 2018
William Blum died in Virginia early this morning on December 9, 2018. He was surrounded by friends and family after falling in his Washtington D.C. apartment and sustaining serious wounds 65 days ago. He was 85 years old.
Bill was born March 6, 1933 at Beth Moses...
In the 1980s, Samuel K. Doe was the CIA’s boy. He was one of Africa’s worst rulers, who provided bases used for subversion campaigns across Africa and upheld the interests of Firestone Rubber.
When Doe lost his utility, the CIA supported Charles Taylor who helped trigger Liberia’s ruinous civil war in the 1990s.
Eartha Kitt was a magnetic singer, songwriter and actress who starred as Catwoman in the 1967 season of television’s Batman and was known for her 1953 Christmas song “Santa Baby.”
In the early 1950s, Kitt recorded six top-30 songs. Orson Welles once called her “the most exciting woman in the...
The effects of this poisonous coup attempt—cooked up at Langley more than 30 years ago—had lingering consequences which exacerbated income equality, stifled economic growth and undercut human rights.
Back in the 1980s New Zealand registered in the global consciousness because of its then-Prime Minister, the late David Lange, and his...
In this extraordinary fifth installment of "Live on the Fly - Julian Assange: Countdown to Freedom," Randy Credico speaks with Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture and professor at Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights; Lauri Love, who successfully avoided extradition to the U.S.; and...
