William Bowles – Essays
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Eat your heart out Mussolini By William Bowles
15 October 2004 “We control political forces, we control moral forces we control economic forces, therefore we are a full-blown Corporative state.” – Benito Mussolini [1] The database state Six million video surveillance cameras, biometric ID cards, transnational data interception laws and ‘joined up’ government. Add to this the privatisation of key state functions, all… Continue reading
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Big Brother is Watching/Acting By William Bowles
Rackspace is the US-owned corporation which hosts a number of Indymedia Websites that got closed down around the planet last week including a number here in London. In all, a total 140 Websites in around 17 countries have been shut down, and although some of the UK Indymedia servers are apparently up and running once… Continue reading
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Forward to the past! By William Bowles
8 October 2004 I suppose it’s not so strange really but the more the status quo crumbles, the more the British state retreats into its imperial past – with the help of the state-run media. Nothing could typify this better than the BBC’s coverage of the Tory Party conference this week. For a moment I… Continue reading
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Book Review: ‘The Politics of Empire: Globalisation in Crisis
If you want to know what I think about the Bush/Kerry ‘lesser of two evils’ debate then I think the quote above answers the question, for regardless of who gets elected, the issues are far bigger than the election, hence although the details may vary depending on whether it’s Bush or Kerry who is the… Continue reading
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Embedded in a Media Fantasy World: The case against objective reporting By William Bowles
26 September 2004 I recently had a brief exchange with the Washington correspondent for the Independent, Andrew Buncombe over his ‘paper’s coverage of events in Iraq. Now although I’ve never actually met Andy, and I’m sure he’s a decent fellow, I brought to his attention a recent ‘War Report’ compiled by an Iraqi journalist that… Continue reading
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A World Without Politics? By William Bowles
18 September 2004 Is like envisaging a world without sex, an unthinkable idea you’d assume, after all politics like sex makes the world go round and indeed it (they) still do even if buried under a blizzard of reality TV programmes, an endless procession of ‘celebrities’, patriotic parades and other assorted diversions, the latest of… Continue reading
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Reelect the “Fucking Crazies”? By William Bowles
16 September 2004 An essay I’ve just made available by Gabriel Kolko, The Lesser Evil posits the view that electing Kerry poses a greater threat to peace and stability in the world than reelecting the “fucking crazies” to quote Colin Powell. Kolko’s thesis rests on the premise that it’s military alliances that pose the greatest threat… Continue reading
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Further Developments By William Bowles
14 September 2004 After writing my previous essay, I realised that I was touching on a number of quite fundamental issues that required further investigation, not the least of which is the issue of the nature, formation and the possible direction that opposition to the imperium could take. I admit that this is mostly speculation… Continue reading
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Memories of Development By William Bowles
12 September 2004 Being raised in a world of socialist ideas and culture is both a blessing and a curse, the curse being one’s conscience. Some socialists I have known have no problem reconciling their philosophy with their jobs (aside from the occasional ‘twinge’), reasoning that one has to make a living somehow and I… Continue reading
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(non)Sense & sensibility By William Bowles
9 September 2004 My folks cut their left-wing political teeth so-to-speak in the 1930s – the anti-fascist movement, the Spanish Civil War, the unemployed struggles and of course, defence of the Soviet Union was the stuff of their lives. I say of course because in the 1930s, much like today in some respects, the world… Continue reading
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Plus câ Change? By William Bowles
31 August 2004 Being incapacitated for the past couple of weeks has had one positive effect, namely, I’ve been able to think and read without being constantly pressured to produce and edit for the site at my usual frenetic pace. And indeed, as I lie here, propped up in bed, my shoulder nagging away in… Continue reading
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Crunch Time in Caracas By William Bowles
This coming Sunday 15 August, the infamous Recall Referendum takes place in Venezuela. For those of you not familiar with the situation in Venezuela – fifth largest producer of oil on the planet and 10% of it going to that insatiable guzzler of the stuff, El Norté, the US – in 1998, the country voted… Continue reading
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Iraq: Illusion and Reality – Media coverage reveals the Imperial Mindset By William Bowles
The Western media made a great play of the ‘sovereignty’ that Iraq allegedly achieved a little over a month ago when CIA/MI5 ‘asset’ Allawi was installed ‘Diem-style’ by his US paymasters. And indeed, ever since then, the media in direct collusion with the state has tried to foist on an extremely sceptical public the illusion… Continue reading
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Depoliticising Death By William Bowles
9 August 2004 Today’s (9/8/04) Independent has the headline: “A race against time “Darfur is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Read the statistics, and then find out how to help” With of course, the obligatory photograph of an emaciated baby, followed by the also obligatory round-up of ‘statistics’ on the plight of the Sudanese. Strange… Continue reading
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Flirting with Terror By William Bowles
7 August 2004 Hi There Suckers! If you enter the keywords “terror” into Google, you’ll get over 6.5 million hits. Enter the word “terrorism” and you’ll get almost 5.5 million and “terror” will return almost 5 million. “Terrorist” will get you 4.3 million and the “war on terror” returns a little over a 500,000. A… Continue reading
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It’s a Girl’s World By William Bowles
3 August 2004 Anybody who has been reading my serialised novel ‘XX‘ will know that I have an abiding interest in issues surrounding gender. There are lots of reasons for this, not the least my own experience of being a man in a man’s world. It occurred to me that I rarely write about issues… Continue reading
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Book Review: Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President By William Bowles
One thing is for sure, at least according to Justin Frank M.D. the inside of George W’s head is pretty messed up. The question is, which came first, a messed up policy or a messed up president or do the two go hand in hand? And I suppose, this is where I find it difficult… Continue reading
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Making Sense of Sudan By William Bowles
The build-up in the press coverage of Sudan to its present hysterical fever pitch must surely come as no surprise to most knowledgeable Africa watchers but the reality is that the present situation in Sudan is well over a quarter of a century old and much longer in the making. And of course it’s also… Continue reading
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Why I’m a closet Anarchist By William Bowles
Last night there was a TV doccie on a man who had been falsely accused of murder and had spent 25 years in jail, 13 of them because he refused to admit that he was guilty. He finally won his appeal against wrongful conviction last year. But in a sense winning his appeal resulted in… Continue reading
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Information Clearing House Archive Part 5 July 27 2004
July 2004 — 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 July 22-27 2004 Date: 27 Jul 2004 1 YEAR & 108 DAYS… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 