William Bowles – Essays
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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
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Which way is up? by William Bowles
3 December 2007 A major blight of the ‘Left’, at least in my experience, is that it spends more time in-fighting than out. Why this should be so I’ll leave up to the psychoanalysts (or perhaps anthropologists?) to explain but it is surely a legacy we could well do without. My feeling is that is… Continue reading
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The nature of the beast by William Bowles
22 November, 2007 Darling admits 25m records lost Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing. The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25m people. Alistair Darling, the… Continue reading
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Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil By William Bowles
15 November 2007 AIDS, truly the white man’s burden It’s taken decades to unmask the story of how AIDS came to be, and far from being an ‘act of nature’, the real story of its origins is one of ruthless ambition and professional rivalries, entrenched interests, racism and the arrogance and the indifference of the… Continue reading
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‘The Geography of Blame’ – Haiti, AIDS and Racism in the Mainstream Media By William Bowles
Nobody bothers much about what’s happening in Haiti these days until that is, a spurious piece of work appears which asserts that AIDs made its way to the US from Haiti via a single individual, then and only then does Haiti makes the headlines. Continue reading
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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
The New Dark Age 