William Bowles – Essays
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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
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Welcome to the crony capitalist convention where New Labour got into bed with the bankers but we were the ones who got screwed
14 February 2009 The cry goes up, ‘wha’ happened?’ The former boss of HBOS, Sir James Crosby became head of the Financial Services Authority allegedly the ‘watchdog’ of the financial sector and then it emerges that Crosby was one of the architects of what Michael Hudson describes as: “The commercial banks…us[ing] their credit-creating power not… Continue reading
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Reform or Revolution? By William Bowles
These are extremely dangerous times, the capitalist system is teetering on the edge of collapse and as it has done in the past, it will resort to whatever measures it needs to protect the interests of capital including the establishment of a police state. Continue reading
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Living (and dying) in the age of barbarism By William Bowles
It surely cannot have escaped your attention that our much vaunted ‘democracies’ are in fact barbarian states masquerading as civilized. Continue reading
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Higher Ground By William Bowles
Revolutions tend to occur when and where we least expect them to, the result of pent up forces that emerge at very specific moments. Are we approaching one of these moments? Continue reading
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The Final Solution is a No-State Solution By William Bowles
One can only come to the conclusion that the destruction of the physical infrastructure of the Gaza Strip, let alone the thousands of dead and injured, is intended to make the place ininhabitable leaving only the West Bank as the putative Palestinian state. Continue reading
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British Capitalism – the Worm Ouroboros By William Bowles
British capitalism has degenerated into that of a ‘middleman’, creaming profits off the global circuit of capital without contributing anything to real wealth creation and once the inevitable speculative bubble burst, as per usual, it’s the working class that pays the bill. Continue reading
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Now why can’t those damn Palestinians just disappear? By William Bowles
Unfortunately for Israel, those damn Palestinians persisted in ‘hanging around’, jammed into refugee camps across the Middle East, ghettoized and relegated to third class people in the land of their birth, Palestine. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 