William Bowles – Essays
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“Fixing Fallujah”: BBC Radio Orwell Reporting for Duty By William Bowles
Thus “fixing the problem” is the tried and tested method of colonial occupation, destroying everything that stands in the way of installing ‘democracy’ in Iraq. Bombs are now merely “flashes in the night sky” (well it was Guy Fawkes night this past Saturday), the reality has been utterly expunged by the BBC story. The article… Continue reading
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The Imperium Unleashed By William Bowles
The piece by Greg Palast ‘Kerry Won’ seems to indicate that indeed the election was stolen. Whether this is true or not is difficult to ascertain, read the piece and come to your own conclusions. What is clear however, is that in the states where the Black turnout could have had a real impact on… Continue reading
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Al-Qaqa’a: Osama to the Rescue? By William Bowles
So the much-fabled ‘October Surprise’ is in reality the tediously predictable ‘reappearance’ of the infamous Osama bin Laden. How convenient that just when the imperium needs him, he should magically reappear with a thinly veiled threat of impending doom. Continue reading
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Al-Qaqa’a: ‘Benign’ Neglect by a Malign Power By William Bowles
The latest ‘revelations’ to emerge from the annals of the US occupation of Iraq concerns the ‘loss’ of over 350 tons of high explosives that the US was meant to be guarding at the military base of al-Qaqa’a. According to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), the stockpile went ‘missing’ some time after January 2004.… Continue reading
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Psych-Wars By William Bowles
26 October 2004 “The target suffered a terminal illness before a firing squad in Baghdad.” — CIA officer testifying to US Senate hearing, after bloody CIA aided Ba’ath Party coup overthrew Iraqi Prime Minister Abdel Kassem, 1963 The Kurt Nimmo article I posted here last week prompted some emails on the issue of US agent… Continue reading
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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
The New Dark Age 