First Madeleine Albright, now Prince Harry: The Strange World of Humanitarian Awards By Felicity Arbuthnot
7 May 2012 — Global Research
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URL of this article: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30742
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Updates from May, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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InI
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InI
Success!
1 May 2012
A couple of hours after being ‘stented’. Photo by Tonxti Vazquez
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Andrew
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InI
Quality of food was atrocious but to be expected. Worse was the minute quantities so I was constantly hungry. But then food along with everything else has been ‘outsourced’. My pillows for example were one grade above sack cloth. Meals no doubt can’t cost more than 35p (see the 2nd Media Lens piece for details on the disgusting privatization which is eating the NHS from the inside, out, like something out of ‘Aliens’.
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Tad
I thought you were a man in his sixties Bill, you look about thirty-eight in the picture!
I have a stent or two myself. I didn’t have a heart attack though, just cursed pains in my chest caused by a blockage. They say the stents are painless. After two years, I can still feel mine if I move too far and in the wrong way.
Living as I do in Cambridge, I am indeed fortunate that I have two world-leading cardio-vascular centres virtually on my doorstep, namely Papworth, and Addenbrookes, but I fear for other parts of the country that are not so fortunate.
Obviously, I don’t know the severity of your own condition, and I hope the prognosis is good, but having been through this particular mill, I am reasonably sure you’re in safe hands, despite the shortcomings of the NHS.
Regards
Tad
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InI
The camera always lies but thanks. Actually the following day a doctor said to me that on the day I did look 67 but by the next day I’d lost 10 years. Feel great today, if a little tired but much less anxious. And thanks for the compliment.
I don’t want to mention the actual hospital as I’m working on an essay about the NHS but the treatment was absolutely marvellous and especially the hard put upon nurses whose dedication and compassion is incredible. The female principle in action.
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Jasper Cook
hey Bill. Got this link from Vauneen. You’re looking great. Glad you got it sorted.
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InI
Hi Jasper,
Actually, it’s just the beginning. I’ve gotta long road in front of me.B
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InI
The NHS saved me so now we have to save the NHS!
30 April 2012 — williambowles.info
A pathetic excuse I know for no new posts but I had a heart attack last week and got out of hospital yesterday. Story to follow coincidentally? the Media Lens piece soon. Not so much on my experiences with the wonderful, beautiful NHS workers who saved my life and took such loving care of me but precisely WHY the NHS is so important, vital and central to all our lives and why we HAVE to save it for all!
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Julian+Jackson
Sorry to hear about that. Please take it easy and recover
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InI
Thank you Julian though ‘taking it easy’ is proving very difficult to do as it transpired that moving on is like breaking an egg to make an omelette only this case it involved breaking my heart.
Bill
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Tad
I wish you well, and a speedy recovery
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InI
Dear Tad,
Thank you and I’m on the mend, though it will, I’m told, take some time.Bill
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InI
Apologies for the ‘break in service’ this past three weeks but my medication started to attack me and put me completely out of action.
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InI
Statewatch News Online, 26 March 2012 Launch of Frontex Observatory
PRESS RELEASE: Launch of Frontex Observatory ˆ 26 March 2012
http://www.statewatch.org/frontex
e-mail: office@statewatch.orgEstablished in 2006 by Regulation 2004/2007, Frontex is the European Agency for the Management of the External Borders of the European Union. It coordinates and organises with Member States high-tech border control operations at sea, land and air external borders of the EU, and carries out joint return flights of irregular migrants. Its mandate was revised in 2011. Since its inception, Frontex has been criticised for its lack of transparency and accountability.
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InI
Syria Newslinks 24-25 March 2012
25 March 2012 — williambowles.info
25 March 2012
Obama, Erdogan talk non-lethal aid to Syrian opposition
Voice of Russia, News Today at 09:56
President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday discussed providing medical supplies and communications support to the Syrian opposition but there was no talk of providing lethal aid for rebel forces, a U.S. official said. -
InI
Information Clearing House Newsletter 21 March 2012: Arundhati Roy – Capitalism: A Ghost Story
21 March 2012– Information Clearing House
Afghan Villagers Say Shootings Were Revenge
By Deb Riechmann and Mirwais Khan
Several Afghans near the villages where an American soldier is alleged to have killed 16 civilians say U.S. troops lined them up against a wall after a roadside bombing and told them that they, and even their children, would pay a price for the attack.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30879.htm
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InI
VTJP Palestine/Israel Newslinks 21 March 2012: A Planned Escalation: Israel Prepares for War
21 March 2012 – VTJP
News
International Middle East Media Center
Soldiers Kidnap 11 year old Child From His Classroom
IMEMC – A report by the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, revealed that on Monday Israeli soldiers kidnapped an 11-year-old Palestinian child while he sat behind his desk at an elementary school in Rad Al-Amoud neighborhood, in occupied East Jerusalem. …
Continue reading this... -
InI
VTJP Palestine/Israel Newslinks 20 March 2012: UK Voices ‘Concern’ Over Israeli Settlement Building
20 March 2012 – VTJP
News
International Middle East Media Center
Israeli Court Upholds Appeal To End Discrimination In “Feast Meals”
IMEMC – For the first time in Israel’s history, the Israeli District Court upheld an appeal filed on behalf a Palestinian political prisoner from the northern West Bank city of Jenin demanding an end to discrimination in the distribution of special meals that were only granted to Jewish prisoners during Jewish and Israeli holidays. -
InI
VTJP Palestine/Israel Newslinks 19 March 2012: UN: Settlers grab Palestinian water springs
19 March 2012 – VTJP
News
International Middle East Media Center
23 Detainees Holding Hunger-Strike
IMEMC – The Ad-Dameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association reported, Monday, that there are 23 detainees who are currently on hunger-strike protesting the illegal policies of Administrative Detention used by Israel to keep hundreds of detainees behind bars without charges. … -
InI
Podcast Show #80: The Massive Propaganda on Syria
16 March 2012 – http://www.boilingfrogspost.com
The Boiling Frogs Presents William Bowles
William Bowles joins us to discuss the latest on Syria, the massive propaganda campaign that has been unleashed on the Western public, and the real motives behind a rapacious imperial power in supporting, encouraging and arming groups like the FSA and the Syrian National Council to wage war on the government. Mr. Bowles makes the important distinction between armed insurrection and a popular revolution, and talks about the West’s ‘Human Rights’ being a malleable notion utilized as a political and ideological weapon to be applied most selectively and discriminately- according to which ‘side’ the government of any particular country happens to be on, and the phenomenon of the ‘Red Tops’, all written and run by well paid, university trained media professionals who have learned how to communicate their master’s message to its target audience- the working class.
Here is our guest William Bowles unplugged! http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2012/03/16/podcast-show-80-the-massive-propaganda-on-syria/
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InI
Zionism loves colonialism, Zionism is colonialism By William Bowles
7 March 2012 — williambowles.info
Ynet Op-ed: Zionism will only cease being demonized when West stops to demonise colonialism [sic]
If I didn’t know any better I’d think the following Op-ed piece from the rightwing Israeli news source Ynet was another Yes Men spoof but it’s for real. I decided finally to publish the opinion in its entirety (if in a somewhat fragmented form) for it reveals the insane irrationality that underpins Zionism as the only ‘defender of the Jewish people’ (aside that is from its benefactor the US).
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Mark+Mc+Hale
when ever i read an article, who’s subject matter involves colonialism or white privilege. A Chris Rock line always jumps into my head – “If it’s all white, it’s all right!” The irony is never lost on me, while at the same time the quote itself is “dead right” – PS…. A Good dissecting of Mr Castro, Bill
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InI
Responsibility to Protect or justifying the Right to Project Power? By William Bowles
7 March 2012 — williambowles.info
Frankly, it’s not easy defending the Ba’ath regime in Syria, after all not so long ago the Communist Party in Syria and other left groups were suppressed by the ruling Ba’ath Party, its members thrown in jail and even killed[1]. But I make no apology for defending the Assad regime’s right to independence and to resist foreign subversion and an attempted takeover by the Empire under the guise of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’.
InI
The October Surprise File December 22, 1988
5 March 2012 — williambowles.info
Update: I’ve copied this over from its original location. It still makes fascinating reading, the machinations of people with immense power, able to shape events to their pleasing, and that of their class.
Compiled and Edited by William Bowles, December 22, 1988. This file is a compilation of texts that have either been uploaded to or posted on this system [New York On-Line] or Peacenet, which have been edited to remove duplication, and/or innacuracies and irrelevancies.
InI
Syria: One Country, Two Stories By William Bowles
3 March 2012 — williambowles.info
The battle that has been raging in the southern Syrian city of Homs and that now seems to have been resolved with a ‘win’ for the government, though it would seem at a terrible cost in lives, is now the subject of a follow-up by the MSM; how to care for the survivors, and, what exactly went on in Homs? This is how the BBC reported it: Continue reading this...
InI
Impotence in the face of impunity? By William Bowles
29 February 2012 — williambowles.info
A fellow writer tells me that she feels overwhelmed by events and I feel the same way. An awful sense of deja vu that we have as much chance of stopping the march to total war as they had in the 1930s. Except that this time it will not be us citizens of Empire who are on the receiving end of Western industrial-scale murder and pillage. The world’s first colonial world war, with the haves pitted against the have-nots. As I have remarked before, without a non-capitalist alternative to not only reign in some of the ‘excesses’ of capitalism but also curtail its relentless expansion, the world is essentially defenceless.
InI
The sheep look down By William Bowles
23 February 2012 — Strategic Culture Foundation
The Sheep Look Up, John Brunner’s remarkably prescient ‘science fiction’ novel, first published in 1972 concerns the destruction of the entire environment in the US and the rise of a ‘corporately sponsored government’ leading to the eventual total breakdown of US society. Continue reading this...
Julian Jackson
Yes indeed! one of your most apposite essays. PKD, Ballard, Brunner and Gibson were far ahead of mainstream writers in their analysis of dystopian systems. I do sometimes wonder if our masters read them and said: ah – this is the plan, we have a blueprint now :-)
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InI
Are they that smart? I think not…
InI
Syria and the media: “Activists say…” By William Bowles
17 February 2012 — – williambowles.info
Every time I read a BBC news piece about events in Syria it invariably includes the following phrase (emphasized):
“Troops are shelling intensively parts of the Syrian city of Homs, activists say, a day after the UN General Assembly called for an end to violence.” — ‘Syrian city shelled after UN vote’, BBC News, 17 February 2012
InI
Syria: Feeding off the carcase By William Bowles
16 February 2012 — williambowles.info
An uncle of mine, a quite extraordinary individual, used to say that he was privileged to have a ‘ringside seat’ when viewing the rampages of capitalism. To which I must add that the ticket to gain admission has been extremely costly, for the planet, but not for my uncle in spite of his lefty leanings. But privileged he was, as all of us are here in the West, insulated from the worst extremes of Empire by all those dead brown bodies.
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Sean Mulligan
Heres a good article about Syria by Seumas Milne. It mentions the current support from the West for the Syrian rebels.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/07/syria-intervention-escalate-killingAlso, here is a great article by Stephen Gowans on Syria.
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/syrias-uprising-in-context/
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jill rowan
Please add me to your mailing list. Thanks. Jill.
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InI
Jill, You can do it yourself from the sidebar. Takes a few seconds. B
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InI
Tariq Ali says Assad has to go: I’m depressed – no, I’m outraged By William Bowles
15 February 2012 — williambowles.info
Prequel: I’m going to write a longer piece on this issue, not Ali per se but on the entire ‘orientalism’ approach that saturates all of us, left and right.
All quotes from, ‘‘Assad must go to save Syria from intervention’, RT 15 February 2012
Today, I see that the well known ‘revolutionary’ Tariq Ali is telling that,
“He [Assad] has to be pushed out,” Tariq Ali insists, for which “the Syrian people are doing their best”.
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Fazal Rahman
The following comment was posted under this article on Dandelion Salad. It may be useful to post it here too.
It is good that someone has exposed the darling of Counterpunch and many other Western “leftist” web sites and publications, for what he really is and has been all along. However, there should be no surprise in Tariq Ali’s position on Syria.
He is a thoroughly Westernized British citizen of Pakistani origin, has been a Trotskyite, and, like most Trotskyites, anarchists, and ultra-leftists, was attacking the former USSR with ignorant, slanderous, empty, and subjective generalities and accusations, without showing any knowledge of the concrete political economy of the former USSR. Obviously these qualities put him on the same wave lengths with a large number of Western “leftists”. In general, his writings lack depth and objectivity, and tend to be superficial, demagogic, and parasitic. However, a large part of the Western “leftist” media seems to prefer such writers and speakers.
Another darling of the Znet and other “leftist” media has been Pervez Hoodbhoy, another Pakistani “leftist intellectual”, who has been vilifying the anti-imperialist resistance forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and pleading for their defeat by the US, NATO, and Pakistani militaries.
Both of these “leftist intellectuals” had completely underestimated the determination, strength, resilience, anti-imperialist and anti-occupation spirit, and guerrilla warfare competence and efficiency of the resistance forces, and were ridiculing, slandering, and mocking them for thinking and acting as if they could confront and take on such incomparably superior and high-tech military forces, as those of the US and NATO. Initially, when the Afghan resistance forces made a strategic retreat, in face of the overwhelming conventional forces of US and Western imperialism, they, like so many others, thought that Afghan resistance was crushed and finished. Obviously they neither knew the Afghan character nor the nature of guerrilla warfare and Afghans’ long historical experience in its strategy and tactics. On the other hand, the great and unmatchable Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap, who had lead the Vietnamese resistance forces to victory, against the incomparably superior forces of French and American imperialisms, had predicted that US invaders will lose both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghan resistance forces came roaring back and are now much more powerful, successful, and popular than before their strategic retreat.
Now that the whole world can see the strength, resilience, and successes of the efficient applications of guerrilla warfare strategy and tactics of the Afghan and Pakistan anti-imperialist and anti-occupation resistance forces, Tariq Ali has started to parasitize and latch on to those, without explaining such a drastic trapeze.
Like so many other Western “leftists”, his positions are the result of a cunning and clever mind, attempting to maintain a balance between respectability, acceptability, and selling himself and his writings, on the one hand, and a subjective, manipulative, and parasitic “leftism”, on the other. It is a refection of the quality of mass psychology of the left and leftist media in the West that only such Westernized Third World people are allowed publicity.
Articles in support of the Afghan and Pakistan anti-imperialist resistance are almost non-existent in the “leftist” literature of the West. This author’s article, with the following web link, seems to be an exception in this regard.
Todd Millions
Tariq Ali was interviewed several times by CBC on a book tour a couple years back-Fascinating as his scholarship may seem-I regard his thoughts as -cloying, since he let slip that,he doesn’t actually know the meaning of-”semite”.Not an uncommon thing amongst the -’educated’,and me steering them too a dictionary is oft resented. Where, when (and who and how) this mis-definition came into -common occurrence is the real nub.
Bern
Of course as I first quoted you, you intended some dummies who might read you to believe Ali was in favour of foreign interventionintended to. And there are plenty of them around, so you’re in good company.
As for envoking what Syrian should or should not do, I don’t read him that way at all. On the contrary it is yopu and your ilk who absolutely forbid the Syrian to do anything to resist the Assad murder machine. Like a good computer bound, safe, western intellectual, you have your principle s( right or wrong) for which the Syrians should be pleased to be slaughtered.
Your biggest lie ois of course the smear on the Strians themselves, that their struggle against the Assad clique is a result of western intervention.
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InI
I intended for people to read it as if I had accused Ali of favouring intervention? I did no such thing! The thought is entirely a product of your own mind. As to the Syrian people ‘resisting the Assad murder machine’, I thought it was absolutely clear whose side I am on. Again, you regurgitate the same accusation you made before, that the Syrian peoples struggle is “the result of foreign intervention”. Where did I say that? Produce it for me please. I’ll ignore your assumptions about who I am, they don’t warrant a response. Thus rather than examining the situation you’d rather insult and defame.
Bern
It’s evident from the text and quotes you use, that your condemnation of Tariq Ali is based solely on the RT summary, and not on having heard the interview,
This is a dishonest proceedure, but you seem not to be bothered about that.
An honest and objective account of the interview could leave no doubt that Ali is
against western intervention
opposed to the US puppet Arab League proposes for “peace forces”
believes that any form of military intervention could only lead to a far worse explosion of violence.
believes that external political pressure from China and Russia could contribute to a peaceful outcome.
Yes, he believes that Assad should go, from almost every point of view, but he rejects that that should be brought about by outside military intervention.
Your claim that minority, sectarian Assad’s regime is the bulwark against US further hegemony in the region is utterly proposterous. You propose it seems that the left should continue to support Assad’s party, with its policy of mass repression, and imprisonment, the phoney constitutional referendem, announced today, which has written into the single party state. the party of Assad and his clan.
Did you ever hear of a new constitution being legitimately agreed on in 10 days from its publication.
One can only really view your position as one-domensional. One one side the US, and the other the Syrian regime. The dimension that doesn’t even occur to your is THE PEOPLE. Like so many so called liberal “anti-imperialists”, the people count for little of nothing in your reckoning, and are either incoherent, sectarian, dupes of imperialism, or even their direct agent.
Only the existing power brokers interest you – nothing much changes unless they say so. Nothing can change without being authorised by the existing power brokers, or by some other elite authority. You doubtless hate the uncertainty, even chaos that occurs when the masses start to try and liberate themselves.
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InI
Did I ever say that Ali is for Western intervention? No, I did not. That’s not what the issue is about. Evidently you haven’t read me too closely. I read and listened to the complete RT piece and I stand by my views on this. Ali has no business invoking in their name, what the Syrian people should or should not do. I’ve got a much longer piece in the works on this important issue for the left here.
InI
I have to add, that if the playing field were level, which it ain’t, in Syria, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s precisely because of foreign intervention that has brought Syria to this impasse. If Syria were left alone to sort out its problems, which is precisely what Russia and China are calling for, for whatever reasons, then the Syrian people could make their choices.
Bern
Tariq Ali predicts, threatening a foreign intervention ,,,,
…………………….
That a lot of bollocks, to be polite. Actually it’s a bare faced fucking lie.
He repeated makes it clear he opposes any form of intervention, other than political pressure from ouside, and preferably from Syria’s allies like Russia and China.
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InI
Then what’s the point of calling for Assad to go? His unfounded belief in some future ‘democratic’ government emerging after the carnage is over? What world does Ali live in? As I said over and over again about Gaddafi, it’s not about these leaders, anymore than it’s for us to call for them to be gone. Clearly we do it by the same ‘right’ that NATO does. and what’s a bare-faced lie? Ali’s or mine?
Congratulations! I myself had a stent put in a few years ago after what turned out to have been a pretty mild heart attack. I actually enjoyed the stay in hospital, once I was unplugged enough to hobble around on my own. Even the food wasn’t that bad.