William Bowles – Essays
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About Patria, Pageants and Poppies By William Bowles
17 November, 2009 “Britain’s last surviving World War I veteran shunned Remembrance Day commemorations Wednesday because he was against the glorification of war” — ‘Britain’s last WWI veteran shuns Remembrance Day’ After eight years and tens of thousands of Afghan casualties, the occupiers are settling down to a war of unknown duration. And contrary to… Continue reading
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Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires or just a graveyard with a pipeline running through it? By William Bowles
Come on folks, it’s just good sense, there is no way the Empire can actually win the war in Afghanistan. As I have stated before it’s about being there, not ‘winning’. Afghanistan is basically a stepping stone on the way to some place else and leaving an oil pipeline behind with a friendly government in… Continue reading
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It’s official, they not only forgot, they don’t give a damn By William Bowles
The report on the explosion that blew an RAF Nimrod out of the sky over Helmand Province on 2 September, 2006 in which fourteen people died, was released today and it confirms my view of British military ‘adventures’ that I expressed in ‘Lest we forget?’. The report even names names of extremely high ranking officers… Continue reading
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Whose democracy continued… By William Bowles
23 October 2009 It’s not fair to leave you hanging like that (see Whose Democracy?), we really need to know why the left in the so-called developed world has failed so miserably to carry out its allotted task, a task laid down by our ancestors who spilt much blood, sweat and tears. It occurs to… Continue reading
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Whose democracy? By William Bowles
It’s really time I started writing more about the country I live in, the country of my birth, the UK, a country that has the oldest, the most cunning, the most duplicitous (not to mention the most mendacious) of all ruling classes, after all they’ve been at it for five hundred years, finally being forced… Continue reading
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Lest we forget? By William Bowles
9 October, 2009 There is something ironic—if not downright obscene—about the fact that in the UK the Poppy is used as the symbol of remembrance for all those who have died in the UK’s countless imperial wars, a symbol that is being used to punt the latest ‘adventure’, Afghanistan, home of the opium poppy. The… Continue reading
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North Korea and Iran: So what does the West want? By William Bowles
Some while back (InI passim) I used to write regularly on the London Independent’s allegedly progressive take on events but after awhile I just got sick and tired of reading the damn thing. However, I’ve had a change of heart and decided to pick up the cudgel again. Why? Read on… Continue reading
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Is the Western Left afraid of revolution? By William Bowles
Heretical no doubt but the history of the Left in the allegedly developed world is not exactly littered with success stories, worse still is our relationship with the developing world as the confusion surrounding who to support (or not to) in Iran most clearly reveals. And this is not a new phenomenon as the ideological… Continue reading
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Obama – Bush Lite or just Dark? By William Bowles
The question of why, large swathes of the US ‘left’ supported Obama is not difficult figure out, after eight years of Bush Jnr., anybody was preferable well almost and a Black man, well whaddya know. Furthermore (tho’ I am sure it would be denied) such is the poisonous effect of racism on public discourse, that… Continue reading
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Iran: Which side are you on continued… By William Bowles
28 July 2009 Okay, the battle on the ‘left’ concerning who to support in Iran appears to come down to the following: On the one hand we appear to have those who say that the mass demonstrations are solely the result of the West’s attempts to undermine and overthrow the existing regime, utilizing a ‘colour… Continue reading
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Iran: Whose side are you on? By William Bowles
27 July 2009 I have been reading, with much despair and a deal of consternation, the torrent of ‘analysis’ coming out of ‘left’ field about which, if any, side to support in the ongoing struggles in Iran and, at the end of the day, a good deal more is revealed about the ‘left’ in the… Continue reading
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Covering (up) the coup in Honduras – the BBC does its bit for the Empire By William Bowles
The really important aspect of the BBC’s manipulation of language has to be seen in the larger context of the BBC’s mandate to control our perceptions of reality. So for example, its use of the programme ‘Masterchef’ to boost the UK’s illegal invasion of Iraq by promoting ‘our boys’, when the fact is, the great… Continue reading
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Iran, the arrogance of Empire and the death of Michael Jackson By William Bowles
The Left, such as it is in the West, seems not to know what to do, caught up as it is in the same blast of hot air about the ‘Mad Mullahs’ and projected definitions of democracy. So on the one hand the left’s broadly anti-capitalist thrust is neutralized by its desire not to be… Continue reading
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Marx, the first real globalist By William Bowles
If nothing else, the wholesale plunder of the planet’s natural resources has brought into sharp focus the necessity for some kind of global (and globally enforceable) regulation of what’s left of the planet’s precious cargo of life. But can capitalism undertake such a task? Not only that, is it willing to do so and is… Continue reading
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Scary movie by William Bowles
Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Russia, ‘Swine Flu’, China, ‘al-Qu’eda’, terrorism, crooked MPs, there’s no shortage of suitable subjects with which to scare the kids. The headlines come and the headlines go in an endless parade of impending doom and threats that the end of ‘civilization’ is just around the corner. Continue reading
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From the personal to the political-and back again By William Bowles
We in the so-called developed world have been indoctrinated into thinking that with the right ‘medicine’ we can live forever, death forever held in abeyance. Worse, the emphasis on an illusory immortality, has not only raised our expectations but has disastrously created an entirely new pathology, the dis-ease of health, something that we are misled… Continue reading
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In Memorium: Lord Patel
Edward Teague, better known to his readers as Lord Patel, died this past Tuesday after a short illness. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 