William Bowles – Essays
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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
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Food – the ultimate weapon of the ruling elite By William Bowles
McNamara’s thinly veiled genocidal utterances took place over thirty years ago, echoing the wealthy and the privileged’s fear of the ‘great unwashed’ when ‘over-population’ was the buzzword. So not much has changed has it, we’re hearing the same, tired old messages being rolled out once again by the ruling elites and their spin doctors. McNamara’s… Continue reading
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Sink or Swim in the capitalist ocean? By William Bowles
When a group of so-called Aboriginals from I believe Borneo (or maybe it was Papua New Guinea) visited the UK recently they were gob-smacked to find homeless people on the streets of London. The concept ‘homelessness’ simply didn’t exist in their vocabulary and reinforced by the vast wealth that surrounded them (the ‘Aboriginal and the… Continue reading
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Trapped on Planet Bail-out — Bad Science Fiction By William Bowles
4 April 2008 “Britain, a touchstone for democracies around the world.” – BBC ‘reporter’ commentating on the state visit by president Sarkozy of France to the UK, BBC1 6pm news, 26 March, 2008 The great Polish writer, Stanislaw Lem (he wrote the novel ‘Solaris’) developed a theory of fiction writing based upon the idea that… Continue reading
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Rumours of War by William Bowles
21 March 2008 Destabilisation is the name of the ‘game’ “We are not in Iraq to engage in nation-building — our mission is to help Iraqis so that they can build their own nation.” — Donald H. Rumsfeld, Washington Post, September 25 2003. It seems to be a common—but in my view, mistaken—assumption by the… Continue reading
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Can the Clintons Clinch it? Who cares By William Bowles
It’s pretty obvious, at least to me anyway, that the ‘democratic process’ has run its course, at least as it’s presently constituted in the so-called developed countries. Not that I’m advocating a dictatorship, in any case we already have a de facto dictatorship by default by virtue of the total non participation by the ‘people’… Continue reading
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There’s a kind of madness in the air By William Bowles
16 February, 2008 Note: sorry about the story being out of sequence but all attempts at posting it failed. Had to wait until my return. February 2, 2008 — For the first time in a long time I’m taking a trip to NYC, my old ‘home town’. The airport (I use this term advisedly) I’m… Continue reading
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Observations from the Front Line: The US State of Denial By William Bowles
16 February, 2008 Observations from the Front Line Manhattan, 13 February, 2008 — For the first time, almost exactly thirty years ago, I sat where I’m sitting now, writing this, in the Broome Street Bar, corner of Broome and West Broadway. I was building the Cayman Gallery a couple of hundred yards away further up… Continue reading
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The Alien Amongst Us By William Bowles
The use of fear as an instrument of the state’s control of the population is probably as old as the central state itself, whether of invasion, internal ‘subversion’ or the ‘alien’ and records show that in Europe, it’s been used as and when convenient, for at least the past one thousand years. Continue reading
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‘Chinese Torture’ or what goes around comes around By William Bowles
25 January, 2008 Dumping on China by the usual horde of Western pundits seems to be de riguer these days. Hardly a day goes by without some scary headline that either warns of the dangers of billions of Chinese getting a car, refridgerator, microwave or whatever and hastening on Climate Change and/or ‘swamping’ Western markets… Continue reading
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Palestine: Collectively Punished by Israel and Collectively Punished by the media By William Bowles
22 January 2008 “No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible.” — Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907, Article 50″ Continue reading
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Obama – the man without a past for a country without a future By William Bowles
That both a black man and a woman are the ‘front runners’ in the ‘race’ for the presidency speaks reams about the desperate state of the Union these days, not that the up-coming US election has much relevancy to anything of import but the illusion that voting every five years is a reflection of real… Continue reading
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The Obama Phenom or revolving door ‘democracy’ By William Bowles
There are dark forces at work here, namely the pr and media sectors of the ruling elites who have realised that the only way to (hopefully) save their bacon is to have an economically and politically ‘safe’ Black prez who captures the imagination of those who have never voted (about 30% of the eligible population),… Continue reading
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It’s all-out war on the planet. Chaos (capitalism) rules okay!
7 January, 2008 “The dominant trend shaping the present situation – is the advent of ‘neoliberalism’ – a concerted capitalist offensive aimed at sweeping away the gains made by working people during the last century and at deepening the subjugation of Third World countries.” — Cuban Communist Makes the Case for International Revolution I have… Continue reading
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Trying to Square the Climate Circle By William Bowles
16 December 2007 Sink or Swim – The ‘choice’ apparently, is yours, according to Hilary Benn, but only if you can breath under water and swim Here, in the UK we have a minister for the environment, Hilary Benn is his name, son of doyen of the ‘left’ of the Labour Party, Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, whose… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 