William Bowles – Essays
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Bush’s Tower of Babble by William Bowles
3 November 2011 “[W]e got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have [sic] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon” — president… Continue reading
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The BBC back-peddles big time or how to completely rewrite history before the ink’s even dried By William Bowles
29 October 2007 Question: When is a Plan not a Plan? Answer: When the Plan is not a Plan, Plan The BBC is currently flighting a programme in two parts entitled ‘No Plan, No Peace – the Inside Story of Iraq’s Descent into Chaos’ (28 and 29 October on BBC1). Way back and many times… Continue reading
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The Red and the Green: Part Two – What kind of development? By William Bowles
4 October 2007 If we are to deal with the threat to the planet’s biosphere, it should be obvious to all that there has to be both political and economic democracy if we are to stand even a chance of stabilising what we’ve totally buggered up. And judging by the concern people are expressing about… Continue reading
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Iran: The ‘Great Game’ continues only now it’s called ‘The War on Terror’ By William Bowles
2 October 2007 Being a bit of a news junkie, I decided today to start archiving (again, I must be mad) the megabytes of news links I’ve been collecting (see the InI’s Newslinks Section). The problem with dealing with such a vast collection of mostly useless links (but who is going to spend the time… Continue reading
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I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your centrifuges down By William Bowles
25 September 2007 “The military option is not the worst option – The worst option is a nuclear Iran.” – Danny Yatom, former Mossad boss L’affaire Iran in its latest incarnation has been going on now for over two years with all kinds of dire threats emanating from the Beltway (and elsewhere eg, Sarkozy’s recent… Continue reading
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Blackwaters run deep By William Bowles
24 September, 2007 Mercenary armies are not new. Before conscription most wars were fought with hired hands, often consisting of soldiers from many countries serving under a single flag, so the use of mercenaries in Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia (and let us not forget the hired killers who fought under the South African… Continue reading
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Global Cashastrophe By William Bowles
17 September 2007 Question: How many classical economists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: As many as it takes to screw up an economy Never mind global warming, I’ve realised that it’s better to own nothing than owe everything. Apparently those who have (had) their cash in Northern Rock (around £2 billion… Continue reading
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Communicating with the ancestors by William Bowles
14 September 2007 Hip-Hop forever I’ve been a fan of hip-hop music ever since it broke out of the Bronx in the late 70s. In those days it is true to say that hip-hop was very much a New York thing reflecting its Black/Hispanic roots in uptown Manhattan and the Bronx. And then there was… Continue reading
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Economics 10000001 or the revenge of the Ninjas By William Bowles
12 September 2007 Explaining economics is probably the most difficult thing for any writer to undertake, especially if one’s take on things is not in the mainstream, that is to say, not what they call classical economics, which is another way of saying that capitalism is the only possible system, so it’s interesting to see… Continue reading
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Iraq and Oil — Why the mainstream media won’t talk about it By William Bowles
10 September 2007 ‘Order 150 passed in 1987 by Saddam Hussein banned public sector workers from organizing trade unions. Oil Minister Hussein al-Sharistani declared all oil unions illegal in July 2007, using [the same] Ba’ath regime anti-union law'[1] Ever since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the mainstream media have deliberately downplayed the role of… Continue reading
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(Yet More) Rumours of War and other tales from Psy-Ops Central by William Bowles
7 September 2007 “Reports that the Bush administration will put Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list can be read in one of two ways: It’s either more bluster or, ominously, a wind-up for a strike on Iran. Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC, maybe within… Continue reading
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Book Review: Who said Marx wasn’t Green? By William Bowles
1 September 2007 Book Review: Ecology Against Capitalism by John Bellamy Foster “An ecological approach to the economy is about having enough, not having more.” — John Bellamy Foster “For the first time — nature becomes purely an object for humankind, purely a matter of utility; ceases to be recognized as a power for itself;… Continue reading
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The BBC’s hall of mirrors By William Bowles
26 August 2007 “However, especially in the years since Hutton, we’ve come to focus on it [public trust or rather, lack of it] first and foremost in the context of journalism. Accuracy, impartiality, resolute defence of our editorial independence, a willingness to acknowledge mistakes when we make them: meeting all these expectations simultaneously is an… Continue reading
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Barbie bites back By William Bowles
Mattel’s double whammy The toy company, Mattel has had to recall 18 million of its products (2 million of them in the UK), all manufactured in China, for various health and safety safety reasons including high levels of lead in the paint and magnets that come off. Coincidentally, the New York Times ran a puff… Continue reading
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No need to panic, let the market decide By William Bowles
14 August 2007 “We’ve got blind panic… and obviously a complete lack of confidence [in the market]” – Tony Craze, Dawntrader.co.uk It should be obvious to all and sundry by now that capitalism is in dire straights. Last week’s meltdown of the world’s major capital markets was only ‘rescued’ by the injection of literally hundreds… Continue reading
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Failing to make the right connections By William Bowles
7 August 2007 I’m torn, really torn between trying to keep up with the deceptions the corporate press keep feeding us and wanting to ignore the entire sorry mess completely, but well you know how it is, almost without exception, everyday there’s a story that grabs my attention because it represents all that’s wrong with… Continue reading
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Blogopopsicles of the world unite! by William Bowles
The Web has opened a veritable can of worms as far as the mainstream media are concerned, even so-called liberal journalists seem to feel threatened by the emergence of a global, independent media, the latest one to emerge being Robert Fisk (who I referred to in my last piece). Now whether, as fellow blogopopsicle Chris… Continue reading
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Letter from a far-off galaxy by William Bowles
1 August 2007 “I despise the internet. It’s irresponsible and, often, a net of hate. And I don’t have time for Blogopops. But here’s a tale of two gutless newspapers which explains why more and more people are Googling rather than turning pages.” — Robert Fisk: “No wonder the bloggers are winning”, Published in the… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 