William Bowles – Essays
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The Fourth Estate is bankrupt By William Bowles
How can such a press be considered free or independent in any real sense of the word? Controlled either by the state or three large corporations, the MSM plays an intrinsic role in maintaining the status quo and it does it quite openly. Until now that is… Continue reading
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Russia Today: A new kind of media? By William Bowles
A global, digital media cuts both ways or as they say ‘what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander’. The arrival of The Real News Network, Democracy Now! and grtv for example demonstrates what can be done, even on a shoestring budget. But to get onto the global media circuit still requires… Continue reading
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Syria/Libya versus Bahrain: A BBC factoid By William Bowles
The BBC which makes much of its ‘objective’ and ‘balanced’ news coverage, when challenged by the facts of its biased coverage of events in the Middle East and elsewhere, cites examples of where it has given voice to all sides of the issue. This is debatable, but let’s assume that the BBC does present all… Continue reading
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This is what empires do By William Bowles
Surely it must be obvious that it’s the act of being there that counts? Occupation, as they say, is nine tenths of the imperial law. Wherever in the world the Empire has gone to ‘install democracy’ or whatever the excuse used to invade, it has stayed, every single time and built bases, hundreds of them… Continue reading
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William Hague: Following in Churchill’s footsteps By William Bowles
Now let me get this straight: In order to save civilian lives (the infamous ‘Right to Protect’), the Empire, through its Rottweiller NATO, not only deindustrializes Libya but it also causes a mass exodus of refugees hundreds of whom drowned and many thousands more were left stranded, attacked and abused. Continue reading
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Empire Games – but who writes the rules? By William Bowles
The Western left’s abdication, nay abandonment of principles that go to the heart of the socialist liberation project has been long in the making, centuries even and made all the more obvious by the left’s take on events in Libya and now Syria. Critiques of the ‘humanitarian, socialist interventionists’ came thick and thin but for… Continue reading
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Wiki wha? By William Bowles
Every day I receive hundreds of stories and of course I can’t read but a small fraction of them but still I get a sense of the story from the title and the description as to whether it warrants further investigation. One thing is apparent from the process of scanning so many stories is that… Continue reading
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Pirates of the Mediterranean By William Bowles
In a very real (and I hazard a guess, legal) sense the BBC is complicit (as is the rest of the MSM) in the committing of war crimes not only by accepting the idea that force is the only means of resolving conflict, but also by actively promoting this view in its ‘news’ coverage. Continue reading
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The truth about ‘civilized transitions’ By William Bowles
This is what it comes down to: A TV ‘news’ presenter reveals in all its starkness, how the Empire corrupts totally. Here we have an apparently intelligent and educated person dismissing the leader of a country as if he’s just another expendable piece of the Empire’s junk. ‘Yeah, why you don’t just get rid of… Continue reading
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Disposable and Expendable By William Bowles
13 May 2011 21:00:25 — Strategic Culture Foundation Disposable: Osama As more ‘facts’ emerge about the assassination of Osama bin Laden, one thing is clear: that there has been active collaboration between the Empire and the media in suppressing the true nature of the events surrounding bin Laden’s death[1]. For starters, are we to believe… Continue reading
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The file on Osama bin Laden’s assassination
7 May 2011 A roundup of stories relevant to the assassination of Osama bin Laden America again needs Osama Osama bin Laden conscientiously accomplished the task set and, once September 11th 2001 was over, earned peace and quiet that he was promised by his US bosses. But 10 years went by, and the masters of… Continue reading
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Libya: Some ruminations on current events By William Bowles
I know I keep hammering on about this but it still hasn’t sunk in with those who profess to be on the left, bemused, or perhaps it’s bewitched, as they are by the concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’. Continue reading
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Libya: The Empire conducts a war fest (or business as usual) By William Bowles
A gaggle of the world’s most powerful, militarized states led by the US, UK, France and Canada are busy pulverizing countries around the planet, with the Ivory Coast being the latest addition to the orgy of destruction being carried out in the name of ‘humanitarian intervention’. This is ‘gunboat diplomacy’ in the era of the… Continue reading
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Libya: Distractions and diversions By William Bowles
One thing should surely be clear and that is the pivotal role played by the corporate/state media in selling the Libyan ‘no-fly zone’ and the subsequent invasion by the Empire, albeit by first ‘softening up the enemy’ and then as illegal arms supplier. Continue reading
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Libya: A sheep in wolf’s clothing? By William Bowles
I think those who have led the left in the post-WWII period are just too damn comfortable, small fish in even smaller ponds who have traded in their revolutionary inheritance for a monopoly on thought. Thus it continually fragments as they seek the ‘true path to enlightenment’, with the competing ‘isms’ endlessly fighting it out… Continue reading
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Libya is Kosovo revisited (kind of) By William Bowles
Right from the very beginning of ‘Operation Odyssey Dawn’ something just didn’t smell right about the Libyan ‘revolution’. From the outset this was no peaceful, civilian insurrection such as those taking place elsewhere in the region. In other words it started life as a civil war heavily disguised—with Western help—as a ‘peoples’ revolution’, but one… Continue reading
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Libya: Keeping up appearances By William Bowles
And to make the entire sordid and illegal affair more palatable to a world quite used to being ‘liberated’ by US ‘largesse’ in its distribution of democracy, do it all through an Anglo-French front (they have the most to lose along with Italians in Libya through their oil concessions) but with the US pulling all… Continue reading
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Libya: Bewitched, bothered and bewildered By William Bowles
So why did Chavez and Castro (as well as Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua) offer public support to Ghadafi? Well, as things have turned out, it is clear that this is not about Ghadafi but all about imperial ambitions and I hazard the guess that they both knew more about the machinations of the Empire than… Continue reading
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Civil war in Libya, intervention by the West already a reality By William Bowles
So intervention in the internal affairs of Libya is already underway and the longer the civil war continues the greater the odds that the West will escalate its intervention, especially if it looks like Ghadifi can succeed in crushing the opposition. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 