William Bowles – Essays
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Is it the 1930s all over again? By William Bowles
The bottom line then is that the crisis of capital has only two outcomes: remove the competitors or, face the end of capitalism and build a socialist alternative. If the former, then general war (whatever its form, ie “endless war”) is the only conclusion, thereby consuming the over-accumulated capital, ‘taking out’ the major competitors and… Continue reading
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US invade Pakistan — but no complaints from the ‘international community’ By William Bowles
I love it! I just came across an article, “Did We Just Invade Pakistan?” but you’ll search in vain for any headline in the mainstream media that even comes close to calling it a US invasion of Pakistan. Continue reading
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Lies, nothing but damn lies and then there’s the mass media… By William Bowles
The US, along with the UK via their military and economic control, especially over the financial and oil markets are directly responsible for the current crisis, a crisis compounded by the massive financial fraud perpetrated by the major banks and investment corporations, a fraud that ordinary working people are being forced to pay for. Continue reading
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Back to the future: “Chaos and instability Washington’s official policy line” By William Bowles
The West, led by the US and the UK have inflamed the situation by sending an armada into the Black Sea, promised to re-arm Georgia, broken off any meaningful dialog with Russia, and re-invented the Cold War. And in so doing, backed Russia into a corner by refusing to recognize its legitimate rights. Continue reading
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Can a revolt of ‘consumers’ spark a revolution… By William Bowles
The power of big, transnational capital has transformed not only the economic landscape but also the nature of the way we live — from the food we eat (and where we buy it) to the fundamental fabric of our social spaces, and judging by the level of dissatisfaction with contemporary capitalist society, great swathes of… Continue reading
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Aprés la deluge — wracking up the fear quotient By William Bowles
20 August 2008 Russia is following a course “horrifyingly similar to that taken by Stalin and Hitler in the 1930s.” — Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s former national security adviser The other night I went to a meeting on the situation in Georgia organized by the Stop the War Coalition at which one of the… Continue reading
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Georgia – Another Pawn in the ‘Great Game’ By William Bowles
On August 7th, Georgia launched an unprovoked and vicious assault on the capital city of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, killing perhaps as many 2000 civilians, many of them women, children and old people and destroying much of the city including the main hospital and the university. Continue reading
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How’d they do that? By William Bowles
The global crisis of capitalism is ‘explained’ as being the “credit crunch” and all the fault of bad loans made by banks and mortgage lenders, but is this really the truth or are we being misled by a complicit corporate/state media? Continue reading
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Book Review: The ‘Empire of Chaos’ or living in the age of impunity By William Bowles
1 August 2008 Book Review: International Justice and Impunity – The Case of the United States, edited by Nils Andersson, Daniel Iagolnitzer and Diana G. Collier. Clarity Press, 2008. Impunity: N. Nonliability, exemption, let-out, immunity, special treatment. Impunity: Vb. Exempt, set apart, absolve, grant immunity, are just some of the descriptions my Roget’s Thesaurus lists… Continue reading
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Does a leopard change its spots? By William Bowles
The US government is talking with Iran, so what’s the catch? The simple answer is the November election. The move is clearly aimed at associating McCain/Republican Party with a new, kinder, softer Bush cabal although the Washington Post sees it somewhat differently. Continue reading
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Deep in the capitalist doo-doo By William Bowles
18 July 2008 “The current market jitters are centred on disturbances in the world’s credit markets. Worries about the viability of sub-prime mortgage lending have spread around the financial system, and the central banks have been forced to pump in billions of dollars to oil the wheels of lending.” ‘Financial crises: Lessons from history‘, Analysis… Continue reading
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War, war, war or jaw, jaw, jaw? By William Bowles
It’s amazing isn’t it how the media, given the appropriate cues from the state, so readily slips into a warring state of mind. I’m talking of course about Iran. Continue reading
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High Culture — Low Values By William Bowles
The Britain I grew up in was saturated with class: your accent (acquired via your education), dress and address defined who you were, even how intelligent it was assumed you were, what paths in life were open to you, your ambitions, in fact the whole nine yards were laid out for you from the day… Continue reading
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Five Years On By William Bowles
7 July 2008 It’s over five years since I started publishing InI (and not coincidentally, since the illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq) and it’s been a struggle to keep it going not only because of the cost of maintaining it but also because I’ve kept it going single-handed throughout this entire period. Not that… Continue reading
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Robert Mugabe, yet another man the West loves to hate By William Bowles
And as long as Mugabe left Britain’s ‘kith and kin’ alone (the settler farmers), it was quite happy to let Zanu-PF spout all kinds of socialist rhetoric, as long as he didn’t actually implement any of it. Thus all the statements out of the West about the ‘miracle’ of Zimbabwe, the ‘bread basket’ of Southern… Continue reading
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Conflating inflation – when is a crisis not a crisis? When the BBC says it’s a ‘slowdown’ By William Bowles
20 June 2008 — Investigating Imperialism Commenting on the pay deal struck between Shell’s tanker drivers totaling 14% over two years, a BBC ‘reporter’ during an interview with UK government minister John Hutton (BBC World News, 18 June 2008) made the following statement (not exactly verbatim but accurate as to content): BBC: “But when other workers… Continue reading
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Book Review: Why the Left doesn’t get it By William Bowles
15 June 2008 Book Review: ‘Deer Hunting With Jesus – Dispatches from America’s Class War’ By Joe Bageant “Never experiencing the life of the mind scars entire families for generations.” This is the hardest review I have ever had to write. Who am I writing it for seems to be at the heart of my… Continue reading
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On being different and why it’s important By William Bowles
Being ‘different’ is not something tolerated in our society. Of course there are outlets for those who don’t ‘fit’ but always within strictly defined circumstances. The arts come to mind and especially the theatre but in the mainstream of society, being ‘different’ takes on an ideological significance and especially if, like myself you came from… Continue reading
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I’m overwhelmed by the horror of it all By William Bowles
4 June 2008 I’ll be honest, the reason I haven’t been at all productive of late is because I felt so utterly depressed about the state of the world that I simply felt inadequate and overwhelmed by the task of writing. The fact that the world is controlled by a gang of psychopaths so utterly… Continue reading
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The world is run by sleazy creeps with a license to print money By William Bowles
The UK is the world’s numero uno conduit for money, in all its varied and wonderful guises and, as far as the financial sector is concerned, it’s a question of how many ways are there of skinning a cat through devizing all kinds of financial ‘products’ that can be bought and sold (at a profit)… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 