CounterPunch (newsletter)
Encyclopedia
CounterPunch is a bi-weekly newsletter
published in the United States
that covers politics in a manner its editors describe as "muckraking with a radical attitude". It includes a website, updated daily, which contains much more material not published in the newsletter.
Running six to eight pages in length, the CounterPunch newsletter primarily publishes commentaries by Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
with regular contributions by a wide range of others. It is noted for its critical coverage of both Democratic and Republican politicians and its extensive reporting of environmental and trade union issues, American foreign policy
, and the Israeli-Arab conflict.
-based investigative reporter Ken Silverstein
. He was soon joined by the journalists Cockburn and St. Clair. In 1996 Silverstein left the publication and Cockburn and St. Clair have since been co-editors. In 2007 Cockburn and St. Clair wrote that in founding CounterPunch they had "wanted it to be the best muckraking newsletter in the country", and cited as inspiration such pamphleteers as Edward Abbey
, Peter Maurin
, and Ammon Hennacy
, as well as the socialist/populist newspaper Appeal to Reason (1895–1922).
CounterPunch-sourced news stories have frequently featured in the Project Censored
annual list of top 25 "underreported, mis-reported, or censored" news stories, including three in 1997 alone ("Dark Alliance: Tuna Free Trade, and Cocaine"; "Corporate America Spends Big $$ on Pro-China PR"; and "U.S. Alone in Blocking Export Ban of Toxic Waste to Third World"). Other entries include 1998 ("The Scheme to Privatize the Hanford Nuke Plant" and "American Drug Industry Uses the Poor as Human Guinea Pigs"), several in 2000 and others in 2001 2003 and 2004.
Regular Counterpunch contributor, Israel Shamir
, was part of the WikiLeaks
organisation and an associate of its director, Julian Assange
, and in late 2010 and early 2011 wrote a series of exclusive articles for CounterPunch drawing on materials from the United States diplomatic cables leak
. He has also written and co-written articles for CounterPunch on what he alleges to be a campaign of harassment against Assange. One of these articles, "Assange Betrayed", made allegations against a plaintiff in a Swedish rape case against Assange that were widely circulated in the media. The allegations in CounterPunch were the topic of controversy in the mainstream media.
on particular topics. This stance is perhaps most controversial in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict, where its contributions are critical of Israeli government actions
. This includes contributions from such controversial anti-Zionist
figures as Gilad Atzmon
, Norman Finkelstein
and Israel Shamir
, as well as leftwing Israeli Uri Avnery
, founder of the Gush Shalom
peace movement. Others include Jonathan Cook
, Alison Weir of If Americans Knew
, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes
. CounterPunch has been criticised by some Jewish and anti-racist groups for some of this material.
Within the broader area of American foreign policy, contributors include William Blum
and Patrick Cockburn
. CounterPunch also has a strong tradition of criticising US financial and economic policy, including the financial regulation
deficits which led to the 2008 crisis. In this area contributors include former Financial Times
and Forbes
editor Eamonn Fingleton
, Paul Craig Roberts
(Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration
) and Michael Hudson
. On environmental issues, contributors include Joshua Frank
and Harvey Wasserman
. Some more frequent contributors, such as Dave Lindorff
and Saul Landau
, cover a wide range of subjects.
, Edward Said
, Tim Wise
, Ralph Nader
, M. Shahid Alam
, Tariq Ali
, Ward Churchill
, Lila Rajiva, Peter Linebaugh
, Tanya Reinhart
, Noam Chomsky
, Frank "Chuck" Spinney, Franklin Lamb, Boris Kagarlitsky and Alexander Cockburn's two brothers: Andrew
and Patrick
, both of whom write on the Middle East
, Iraq
in particular.
The site regularly publishes articles by left-wing authors, such as Lenni Brenner
, Fidel Castro
, and the late Stew Albert
, as well as newer contributors, such as Vijay Prashad
, Diane Christian, Joshua Frank
, Norman Finkelstein
, Ron Jacobs, Pam Martens, Gary Leupp, Cynthia McKinney
, Kelly Overton, David Price
, and Sherry Wolf
. Some paleoconservative and and libertarian
writers, such as Paul Craig Roberts
, William Lind, Sheldon Richman
and Anthony Gregory are also regularly published in CounterPunch. Franklin Lamb contributed a series of articles on the 2011 Libyan civil war
from his location in Libya
described the CounterPunch website as "one of the most popular political sources in America, with a keen following in Washington". The New York Times has variously described CounterPunch as a "biweekly left-wing newsletter",a "political newsletter", and a "muckraking newsletter".
Noam Chomsky
has described CounterPunch as "a voice of sanity, insight, understanding of what is happening in the world". Ralph Nader
has described it as "a roaring colosseum of commentary, columnists and tell-it-like-it-was,-is,-and-should be original reportage, complete with a bookstore whose readable volumes tear away the lies, evasions, cover-ups and myths of a censored world".
The Anti-Defamation League
in 2007 described CounterPunch as an "anti-Zionist radical left newsletter". The pro-Israel media watchdog group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA)
in 2007 described CounterPunch.org as an "extremist anti-Israel web site".
, has published a number of books, typically works by individual CounterPunch contributors, or collections of essays by CounterPunch contributors. The most controversial books, reflecting CounterPunchs stance on criticism of the Israeli government
, are 2003's The Politics of Anti-Semitism
, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, and The Case Against Israel (2005) by Michael Neumann
, a philosophy professor at Trent University
Ontario in response to Alan Dershowitz
's The Case for Israel
. Of the former book, CounterPunch said "Is this the most controversial book of 2003? It was denounced by liberals and neocons alike, numerous reviews in mainstream papers were quashed by editors."
A number of CounterPunch books focus on environmental issues, including St Clair's Born Under a Bad Sky: Notes from the Dark Side of the Earth (2008) and Andrea Peacock's Wasting Libby: The True Story of How the WR Grace Corporation Left a Montana Town to Die (2010), on W. R. Grace and Company
's role in Libby, Montana
. A Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils (2004), a collection of essays, illustrates CounterPunchs criticism of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Other books include Serpents in the Garden: Liaisons With Culture & Sex (2004), Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia (2004), and End times: the death of the fourth estate (2007), all edited by Cockburn and St Clair, and How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds (2009) by Paul Craig Roberts
.
Newsletter
A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one main topic that is of interest to its subscribers. Newspapers and leaflets are types of newsletters. Additionally, newsletters delivered electronically via email have gained rapid acceptance for the same reasons email in...
published in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
that covers politics in a manner its editors describe as "muckraking with a radical attitude". It includes a website, updated daily, which contains much more material not published in the newsletter.
Running six to eight pages in length, the CounterPunch newsletter primarily publishes commentaries by Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Jeffrey St. Clair
Jeffrey St. Clair is an investigative journalist, writer and editor. He is the co-editor, with Alexander Cockburn, of the political newsletter CounterPunch, and a contributing editor to the monthly magazine In These Times. He has also written for The Washington Post, San Francisco Examiner, The...
with regular contributions by a wide range of others. It is noted for its critical coverage of both Democratic and Republican politicians and its extensive reporting of environmental and trade union issues, American foreign policy
Foreign relations of the United States
The United States has formal diplomatic relations with most nations. The United States federal statutes relating to foreign relations can be found in Title 22 of the United States Code.-Pacific:-Americas:-Caribbean:...
, and the Israeli-Arab conflict.
History
The newsletter was established in 1994 by the Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
-based investigative reporter Ken Silverstein
Ken Silverstein
Ken Silverstein is an American editor covering the Washington bureau for Harper's Magazine. In addition to contributing to the print edition of Harper's Magazine, Silverstein publishes a weblog entitled "Washington Babylon" on the magazine's website...
. He was soon joined by the journalists Cockburn and St. Clair. In 1996 Silverstein left the publication and Cockburn and St. Clair have since been co-editors. In 2007 Cockburn and St. Clair wrote that in founding CounterPunch they had "wanted it to be the best muckraking newsletter in the country", and cited as inspiration such pamphleteers as Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey
Edward Paul Abbey was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental...
, Peter Maurin
Peter Maurin
Peter Maurin was a Roman Catholic social activist who founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 with Dorothy Day.Maurin expressed his ideas through short pieces of verse that became known as - Biography :...
, and Ammon Hennacy
Ammon Hennacy
Ammon Ashford Hennacy was an Irish American pacifist, Christian anarchist, social activist, member of the Catholic Worker Movement and a Wobbly...
, as well as the socialist/populist newspaper Appeal to Reason (1895–1922).
CounterPunch-sourced news stories have frequently featured in the Project Censored
Project Censored
Project Censored is a non-profit, media criticism and investigative journalism project within the Sonoma State University Foundation. It is managed through the School of Social Sciences at the university....
annual list of top 25 "underreported, mis-reported, or censored" news stories, including three in 1997 alone ("Dark Alliance: Tuna Free Trade, and Cocaine"; "Corporate America Spends Big $$ on Pro-China PR"; and "U.S. Alone in Blocking Export Ban of Toxic Waste to Third World"). Other entries include 1998 ("The Scheme to Privatize the Hanford Nuke Plant" and "American Drug Industry Uses the Poor as Human Guinea Pigs"), several in 2000 and others in 2001 2003 and 2004.
Regular Counterpunch contributor, Israel Shamir
Israel Shamir
Israel Shamir is a writer and journalist. He is a commentator on Arab - Israeli relations and Jewish culture. Originally from Novosibirsk, Siberia, Shamir says he moved to Israel in 1969, serving in the 1973 war, after which he took up journalism and writing...
, was part of the WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
organisation and an associate of its director, Julian Assange
Julian Assange
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, writer, computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks with the stated purpose of creating open governments.WikiLeaks has published material...
, and in late 2010 and early 2011 wrote a series of exclusive articles for CounterPunch drawing on materials from the United States diplomatic cables leak
United States diplomatic cables leak
The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began in February 2010 when WikiLeaks—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowers—began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates,...
. He has also written and co-written articles for CounterPunch on what he alleges to be a campaign of harassment against Assange. One of these articles, "Assange Betrayed", made allegations against a plaintiff in a Swedish rape case against Assange that were widely circulated in the media. The allegations in CounterPunch were the topic of controversy in the mainstream media.
Contributions and topics
CounterPunchs "muckraking with a radical attitude" has seen it welcome contributions from a range of contributors critical of conventional wisdomConventional wisdom
Conventional wisdom is a term used to describe ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true by the public or by experts in a field. Such ideas or explanations, though widely held, are unexamined. Unqualified societal discourse preserves the status quo. It codifies existing social...
on particular topics. This stance is perhaps most controversial in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict, where its contributions are critical of Israeli government actions
Criticism of the Israeli government
Criticism of the Israeli government, often referred to simply as criticism of Israel is an ongoing subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of International relations theory, expressed in terms of political science...
. This includes contributions from such controversial anti-Zionist
Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...
figures as Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist, novelist, political activist and writer.Atzmon's album Exile was BBC jazz album of the year in 2003. Playing over 100 dates a year, he has been called "surely the hardest-gigging man in British jazz." His albums, of which he has recorded...
, Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
and Israel Shamir
Israel Shamir
Israel Shamir is a writer and journalist. He is a commentator on Arab - Israeli relations and Jewish culture. Originally from Novosibirsk, Siberia, Shamir says he moved to Israel in 1969, serving in the 1973 war, after which he took up journalism and writing...
, as well as leftwing Israeli Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement.A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat in the Knesset from 1965–74 and 1979–81...
, founder of the Gush Shalom
Gush Shalom
Gush Shalom is an Israeli peace activism group founded and led by former Irgun and Knesset Member and journalist, Uri Avnery, in 1993...
peace movement. Others include Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook is a British writer and a freelance journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, who writes about the Middle East, and more specifically, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.-Background:...
, Alison Weir of If Americans Knew
If Americans Knew
If Americans Knew is a nonprofit organization that focuses on the Arab–Israeli conflict and the Foreign policy of the United States regarding the Middle East, offering analysis of American media coverage of these issues. Its mission, according to the group's website, is to provide "what every...
, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes
Nancy Scheper-Hughes
Nancy Scheper-Hughes is a professor of Anthropology and director of the program in Medical Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. She is known for her writing on the anthropology of the body, hunger, illness, medicine, psychiatry, madness, social suffering, violence and genocide...
. CounterPunch has been criticised by some Jewish and anti-racist groups for some of this material.
Within the broader area of American foreign policy, contributors include William Blum
William Blum
William Blum is an American author, historian, and critic of United States foreign policy. He studied accounting in college. Later he had a low-level computer-related position at the United States Department of State in the mid-1960s. Initially an anti-communist with dreams of becoming a foreign...
and Patrick Cockburn
Patrick Cockburn
Patrick Cockburn is an Irish journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent since 1979 for the Financial Times and, presently, The Independent....
. CounterPunch also has a strong tradition of criticising US financial and economic policy, including the financial regulation
Financial regulation
Financial regulation is a form of regulation or supervision, which subjects financial institutions to certain requirements, restrictions and guidelines, aiming to maintain the integrity of the financial system...
deficits which led to the 2008 crisis. In this area contributors include former Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
and Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
editor Eamonn Fingleton
Eamonn Fingleton
Eamonn Fingleton is an Irish journalist and author. His books, written for a general audience, deal with global economics and globalism...
, Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and...
(Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
) and Michael Hudson
Michael Hudson (economist)
Michael Hudson is research professor of economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College...
. On environmental issues, contributors include Joshua Frank
Joshua Frank
Joshua Frank, born in Billings, Montana, is a journalist and progressive author living in the United States and covers current political and environmental topics...
and Harvey Wasserman
Harvey Wasserman
Harvey Franklin Wasserman is an American journalist, author, democracy activist, and advocate for renewable energy. He has been a strategist and organizer in the anti-nuclear movement in the United States for over 30 years. He has been a featured speaker on Today, Nightline, National Public Radio,...
. Some more frequent contributors, such as Dave Lindorff
Dave Lindorff
Dave Lindorff is an investigative reporter, a columnist for CounterPunch, and a contributor to Businessweek, The Nation, Extra! and Salon.com...
and Saul Landau
Saul Landau
Saul Landau is journalist, filmmaker, and commentator. He is Professor Emeritus at California State University, Pomona. He is a senior Fellow at and Vice Chair of the Institute for Policy Studies.-Career:...
, cover a wide range of subjects.
Contributors
Contributors to CounterPunch have included Robert FiskRobert Fisk
Robert Fisk is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. As Middle East correspondent of The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported on the United States's war in Afghanistan and the same country's...
, Edward Said
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
, Tim Wise
Tim Wise
Timothy Jacob Wise is an American anti-racist activist and writer. Since 1995 he has lectured at over 600 college campuses across the US...
, Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
, M. Shahid Alam
M. Shahid Alam
Muhammad Shahid Alam, D.Phil, is a Pakistani economist, academic, and noted social scientist. He is a Professor of Economics at Northeastern University, Boston. He is on the Advisory Board of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, London....
, Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...
, Ward Churchill
Ward Churchill
Ward LeRoy Churchill is an author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1990 to 2007. The primary focus of his work is on the historical treatment of political dissenters and Native Americans by the United States government...
, Lila Rajiva, Peter Linebaugh
Peter Linebaugh
Peter Linebaugh is an American Marxist historian who specializes in British history, Irish history, labor history, and the history of the colonial Atlantic. He is a member of the Midnight Notes Collective.-Education:...
, Tanya Reinhart
Tanya Reinhart
Tanya Reinhart was an Israeli linguist who wrote frequently on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She contributed columns to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot and longer articles to the CounterPunch, Znet, and Israeli Indymedia websites....
, Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, Frank "Chuck" Spinney, Franklin Lamb, Boris Kagarlitsky and Alexander Cockburn's two brothers: Andrew
Andrew Cockburn
Andrew Cockburn is a journalist who has lived in the United States for many years.-Early life and family:Born in London in 1947, Cockburn grew up in County Cork, Ireland. His father was socialist author and journalist Claud Cockburn...
and Patrick
Patrick Cockburn
Patrick Cockburn is an Irish journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent since 1979 for the Financial Times and, presently, The Independent....
, both of whom write on the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
in particular.
The site regularly publishes articles by left-wing authors, such as Lenni Brenner
Lenni Brenner
Lenni Brenner is an American Marxist Trotskyist writer. In the 1960s, Brenner was a prominent civil rights activist and a prominent opponent of the Vietnam War....
, Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
, and the late Stew Albert
Stew Albert
Stewart Edward "Stew" Albert was an early member of the Yippies, an anti-Vietnam War political activist, and an important figure in the New Left movement of the 1960s....
, as well as newer contributors, such as Vijay Prashad
Vijay Prashad
Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. He is the author of eleven books, most recently The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World...
, Diane Christian, Joshua Frank
Joshua Frank
Joshua Frank, born in Billings, Montana, is a journalist and progressive author living in the United States and covers current political and environmental topics...
, Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
, Ron Jacobs, Pam Martens, Gary Leupp, Cynthia McKinney
Cynthia McKinney
Cynthia Ann McKinney is a former US Congresswoman and a member of the Green Party since 2007. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives. In 2008, the Green Party nominated McKinney for President of the United States...
, Kelly Overton, David Price
David Price (anthropologist)
David H. Price is an American anthropologist. He studied anthropology at The Evergreen State College, the University of Chicago and the University of Florida and is a professor of anthropology at St. Martin's University in Lacey, Washington.Price has conducted cultural anthropological and...
, and Sherry Wolf
Sherry Wolf (activist)
For the American surrealist painter and designer, see Sherry Wolf .Sherry Wolf is an American revolutionary socialist, Jewish anti-Zionist, independent journalist and author. Openly lesbian, she was on the Executive Committee for the LGBT National Equality March for full civil rights in October 2009...
. Some paleoconservative and and libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
writers, such as Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and...
, William Lind, Sheldon Richman
Sheldon Richman
Sheldon Richman is an American political writer and academic, best known for his advocacy of libertarianism.He is the editor of The Freeman, a magazine published by The Foundation for Economic Education, a Senior Fellow at the Future of Freedom Foundation, a Research Fellow at The Independent...
and Anthony Gregory are also regularly published in CounterPunch. Franklin Lamb contributed a series of articles on the 2011 Libyan civil war
2011 Libyan civil war
The 2011 Libyan civil war was an armed conflict in the North African state of Libya, fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and those seeking to oust his government. The war was preceded by protests in Benghazi beginning on 15 February 2011, which led to clashes with security...
from his location in Libya
Reception
In 2003 The ObserverThe Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
described the CounterPunch website as "one of the most popular political sources in America, with a keen following in Washington". The New York Times has variously described CounterPunch as a "biweekly left-wing newsletter",a "political newsletter", and a "muckraking newsletter".
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
has described CounterPunch as "a voice of sanity, insight, understanding of what is happening in the world". Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
has described it as "a roaring colosseum of commentary, columnists and tell-it-like-it-was,-is,-and-should be original reportage, complete with a bookstore whose readable volumes tear away the lies, evasions, cover-ups and myths of a censored world".
The Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
in 2007 described CounterPunch as an "anti-Zionist radical left newsletter". The pro-Israel media watchdog group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA)
Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America is an American non-profit pro-Israel media watchdog group. The group says it was founded in 1982 "to respond to the Washington Post's coverage of Israel's Lebanon incursion", and to respond to what it considers the media's "general...
in 2007 described CounterPunch.org as an "extremist anti-Israel web site".
Books
CounterPunch Books, an imprint of AK PressAK Press
AK Press is a worker-managed independent publisher and book distributor that specialises in radical left and anarchist literature. It is collectively owned and operated.-History:...
, has published a number of books, typically works by individual CounterPunch contributors, or collections of essays by CounterPunch contributors. The most controversial books, reflecting CounterPunchs stance on criticism of the Israeli government
Criticism of the Israeli government
Criticism of the Israeli government, often referred to simply as criticism of Israel is an ongoing subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of International relations theory, expressed in terms of political science...
, are 2003's The Politics of Anti-Semitism
The Politics of Anti-Semitism
The Politics of Anti-Semitism is a book edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair and published by AK Press in 2003.Contributors include former U.S...
, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, and The Case Against Israel (2005) by Michael Neumann
Michael Neumann
Michael Neumann is a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. He is the author of What's Left? Radical Politics and the Radical Psyche , The Rule of Law: Politicizing Ethics and The Case Against Israel , and has published papers on utilitarianism and rationality.-Background...
, a philosophy professor at Trent University
Trent University
Trent University is a liberal arts and science-oriented institution located along the Otonabee River in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.The enabling legislation is the Trent University Act, 1962-63. The University was founded through the efforts of a citizens' committee interested in creating a...
Ontario in response to Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
's The Case for Israel
The Case for Israel
The Case for Israel is a New York Times bestseller by Alan Dershowitz, a law professor at Harvard University. The book responds to common criticisms of Israel....
. Of the former book, CounterPunch said "Is this the most controversial book of 2003? It was denounced by liberals and neocons alike, numerous reviews in mainstream papers were quashed by editors."
A number of CounterPunch books focus on environmental issues, including St Clair's Born Under a Bad Sky: Notes from the Dark Side of the Earth (2008) and Andrea Peacock's Wasting Libby: The True Story of How the WR Grace Corporation Left a Montana Town to Die (2010), on W. R. Grace and Company
W. R. Grace and Company
W. R. Grace and Company is a Columbia, Maryland, United States based chemical conglomerate.The company has two main divisions, Davison Chemicals and Performance Chemicals. The Davison unit makes chemical catalysts, refining catalysts, and silica-based products that let other companies make...
's role in Libby, Montana
Libby, Montana
Libby is a city in and the county seat of Lincoln County, Montana, United States. The population was 2,626 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Libby is located at , along U.S. Route 2....
. A Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils (2004), a collection of essays, illustrates CounterPunchs criticism of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Other books include Serpents in the Garden: Liaisons With Culture & Sex (2004), Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia (2004), and End times: the death of the fourth estate (2007), all edited by Cockburn and St Clair, and How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds (2009) by Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and...
.