William Bowles – Essays
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The Case of Kamel Bourgass: The sound of one hand clapping or a conspiracy of one by William Bowles
Kamel BourgassPerhaps the most difficult thing for your ‘average’ citizen to take in is the idea that your government would deliberately lie and deceive you over a thing like terrorism. After all, the state is meant to protect its citizens, isn’t that why we have a raft of laws and an incredibly expensive enforcement system… Continue reading
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Uncovering the past or how I got my degree in political archeology by William Bowles
5 May 2005 U.S. Congressman John Conyers demands to know in a letter to George Bush why: …the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted… Continue reading
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The Lesser of Two Evils By William Bowles
Much play has been made of ‘tactical voting’, especially by the ‘left’ pundits, the argument being as ever, that we have to keep the Tories out. But the ‘good old days’ of a ‘real’ Labour government are long gone (were they ever there in the first place?). In any case, the chances of a Tory… Continue reading
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Get with the programme! By William Bowles
Some (maybe many) people may regard me as a bit of hangover from the previous century, what with all my talk of Socialism, when it appears as if, at best, we are fighting a rearguard action against the forces of reaction. Yet I continue to trundle out my cries of outrage against the current order.… Continue reading
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The Pope as Spectacle By William Bowles
So the Pope is dead (just in case you haven’t noticed). Listening to the BBC, one would think that it has transformed itself into Vatican Radio. Eulogies to the Pope have been never-ending ever since the geriatric reactionary finally shuffled off this mortal coil. The BBC for one, seems already to have elevated him to… Continue reading
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Caliban and the Witch Triggered By William Bowles
Caliban and the Witch triggered a lot of thoughts in my mind but especially why, in spite of our fundamental understanding of the nature of the capitalist system, it’s proving so difficult to produce a viable and acceptable alternative. Continue reading
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Information Clearing House Archive Part 5 26-30 March 2005
30 March 2005 — Information Clearing House [I’ve been archiving ICH digests since early 2003. Unfortunately, an unknown number of the links are now dead, so I can’t guarantee that the link will take you where you want to go. WB] Information Clearing House Digest March 26-30 2005 Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 Let’s lecture the… Continue reading
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Welcome to Perception Central By William Bowles
Frankly, I think England is, as they say, fucked. The question is, why? There are, I contend very fundamental issues involved here that have to do with the nature of British capitalism. I further contend that the current Labour government, far from being a break with its past, is actually right in tune with its… Continue reading
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A life out of balance By William Bowles
A reader turned me onto two movies this past week, ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ (or on Amazon.com) the Hopi word for a ‘Life out of balance’ and, ‘Powaqqatsi’, ‘Life in Transformation’ both of which I recommend not only for the way they reveal the staggering beauty of Planet Earth but of how they compare our natural Home to… Continue reading
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The Wolf at the door by William Bowles
The Western media have, to put it mildly, been somewhat dismayed with the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to be head of the World Bank. How to explain to the public that the architect of the invasion of Iraq, arch-Zionist and mass murderer, has been put in charge of the Bank that has been charged (in… Continue reading
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Book Review: Can’t see the wood for the trees? by William Bowles
Within the pages of this book lie the reasons that explain why men and women now inhabit different worlds, for the reasons are not biologically determined but most definitely ideological in origin but because their roots are buried in the hidden history of the rise of capitalism some five hundred years ago, the reality of… Continue reading
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400 Years of Blogging By William Bowles
If nothing else, the explosion of electronic ‘Penny Dreadfuls’ or the ‘Blog’ has at long last enabled us to challenge the long-held assumption that to be a journalist you need to have some special dispensation from some higher power that enables one to stand aside from the human race and cast an ‘objective’ eye over… Continue reading
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Blair’s ‘Morality’ gone mad By William Bowles
One of the arguments used by the government in its attempt to justify preventive detention is that the sources cannot be revealed for fear of ‘compromising’ them. The truth however, is a lot grimmer as Straw’s defence of torture reveals. For what Straw’s comment exposes is a totally morally bankrupt ruling elite, getting more desperate… Continue reading
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Update on the terror ‘Debate’ – the BBC version By William Bowles
The fundamental idea namely that the state can imprison people for what they might do (or think) has conveniently vanished. Convenient because tackling the issue of preventive detention – because that’s what the law is all about – is entirely missing from the debate. Continue reading
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Information Clearing House Archive Part 2 March 8-11 2005
11 March 2005 — Information Clearing House [I’ve been archiving ICH digests since early 2003. Unfortunately, an unknown number of the links are now dead, so I can’t guarantee that the link will take you where you want to go. WB] Information Clearing House Digest March 8-11 2005 Date:Fri, 12 Mar 2005 The Rendering U.S. knowingly… Continue reading
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Re “Terrorist Related Activity” By William Bowles
What is amazing about the Zarqawi saga is how, over time, Western governments (with the able assistance of the media) have managed to keep the pot boiling regarding a man whose existence is far from actually being established as fact (although of late, he, along with Osama seems to have fallen off the front page,… Continue reading
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The BBC Photoshop’s the news By William Bowles
I have been following BBC coverage on both the World Service and BBC Radio 4 as well as the BBC Website over the past few days of the shooting death of the Italian secret serviceman and the wounding of the freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena. The discrepancy between eyewitness accounts of the event and the… Continue reading
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Privatising Propaganda By William Bowles
The use of PR companies and ‘NGOs’ by the US government to ‘sell’ its foreign policy goes back a long way but it was the invasion of Grenada under Reagan when we witnessed a ‘test run’ of the idea and the technique really came into its own during Gulf War 2 in 1991 when the… Continue reading
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From Word Play to Gun Play:The legitimacy of the state’s right to rule By William Bowles
Many on the ‘left’ may dismiss the arguments surrounding the ‘legal’ basis that underpins the obviously (to me and most of the planet) illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq as no more than a lot of hot air and obfuscation, preferring to take the ‘political’ road to judgement. But it is the ability of the… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 