William Bowles – Essays
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Coup D’etats and all that stuff By William Bowles
Is it conceivable that a core group of people within the US Establishment led by the CIA could, over a period of years, engineer what amounts to a coup d’etat to remove the Bush Gang from the White House? The motivation being that the Bush administration’s policies were threatening the very basis of US capitalism… Continue reading
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21st Century Time Machine By William Bowles
To continue my sojourn into the Victorian era it’s also worth looking at the raft of regurgitated Victorian ‘scientific solutions’ that have accompanied the right wing agenda pursued by both the US and UK governments for a decade or more Continue reading
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The new imperialism or picking up where they left off? By William Bowles
9 June 2004 My previous essay (‘Queen Victoria in Drag‘) prompted some further thoughts on our present predicament and foremost was the reality that the 20th century consisted almost entirely of a war between two ideologies – capitalism and socialism. And although the examples, the Soviet Union, China and so forth were not exactly what… Continue reading
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Queen Victoria in Drag? By William Bowles
So 24-hour drinking will be with us shortly which means that people will be able to forget how unhappy they are 24/7. Predictably, the killjoys amongst us are whinging about binging but like everything else under overdue capitalism, rather than deal with causes, it’s easier to dump on the effects. Taken collectively, with every passing… Continue reading
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CSI Baghdad By William Bowles
The George Tenet affair illustrates the ‘wheels within wheels’ strategy of the propaganda war being waged over the abject failure that is the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it’s a failure on two fronts: the failure of the invasion itself to establish a secure beachhead in the Middle East and the imperium’s failure to… Continue reading
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Englan’ is a bitch By William Bowles
Perhaps it’s because England’s slaves were in the colonies or maybe it’s just the sheer length of time (centuries) but whatever the reason, the nature of racism in the UK has its own peculiarities that sets it apart. One could go into an extensive analysis of the history of the ideology of racism in English… Continue reading
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Information Clearing House Archive Part 6 30-31 May 2004
May 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 May 30-31 2004 Date: 31 May 2004 === 1 YEAR & 52… Continue reading
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Knowing who we are and why it matters By William Bowles
29 May 2004 Awhile back I wrote a piece called “Listen to your ancestors” that in part was based upon my experiences of living in Africa for ten years (before being unceremoniously booted out by my former ‘comrades’). In part (although unstated) it was on reflection also about my immigrant roots here in the UK… Continue reading
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A Damn Fine Mess By William Bowles
27 May 2004 So where is the demand from the so-called Left of the Labour government for the complete and unconditional withdrawal from Iraq? Are they too hiding behind the fig leaf of the UN? A UN that is reluctant to takeover the minefield created by the occupation and one complicated by the juggling of… Continue reading
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Where is the Left? By William Bowles
25 May 2004 “The paralysis of the US leftist intellectuals, their inability to express solidarity with the Iraqi resistance is a disease which afflicts all “leftist” intellectuals in the colonial countries. They are fearful of the problem (the colonial war) and fearful of the resolution (national liberation). In the end, the comforts and freedoms they… Continue reading
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This business of politics By William Bowles
I’n’I started life rather informally when I started writing articles for Information Clearing House in March 2003. Then, due to an initial financial donation from a reader of my essays on ICH, I was able to start up this Website in August 2003. The rest as they say, is history. Continue reading
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Keep your eye on the ball By William Bowles
The Berg decapitation video appeared at a very fortuitous time for the imperium, of that there can be no doubt. But unusually, the unfortunate Berg has disappeared off the video screens as quickly as he appeared when one would have thought that his horrific execution would have been milked for all its worth by a… Continue reading
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Welcome to the Hall of (Daily) Mirrors By William Bowles
For decades the ruling class has pretty well had things ‘under control’. It could rely on an electorate dosed to the eyeballs on anti-communism with liberal lacings of racism, a side dish of xenophobia followed by a dessert of crumbs from the well-stocked larder of the capitalist way of life. Live now, pay later. Continue reading
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Psy-Ops? By William Bowles
Already, there are questions surrounding the death of Nicholas Berg portrayed in the notorious video and supposedly committed by Al Qu-eda’s #2 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Of course, we have no proof that ‘Al Qu-eda’ committed it let alone Zarqawi aside from the assertions that have come from the US authorities and what it says on… Continue reading
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The world – one year later By William Bowles
Like a runaway train, the ‘war on terror’ that must have seemed such a good idea at the time, has taken on a life all its own that now threatens to crash into the imperial terminus. Continue reading
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The immoral low ground By William Bowles
9 May 2004 “Saddam a “presentable young man” with “engaging smile,” “Let’s “do business,” said British Embassy in 1969.”” “”The goal has never been to win the Olympic high jump in democracy,” Paul Wolfowitz “That strategic objective, of a free, democratic, de-Baathified Iraq, is grandiose, and unattainable…. It’s just a matter of time before we… Continue reading
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The Ties That Bind By William Bowles
By now it should be clear that the photos published in the Daily Mirror last week, were a deliberate attempt to deflect exposure of the real and horrifying level of murder, torture and abuse inflicted on the Iraqi people. Not only since the occupation, but for past thirteen years of sanctions and bombings that resulted… Continue reading
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Mind Your Language! By William Bowles
The issue of who is an actual fighting soldier has been thrown into sharp relief by the enormous numbers of ‘private military contractors’ or PMCs hired to do the work of the state-employed soldier in Iraq, the former Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan. Continue reading
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CHAFF By William Bowles
4 May 2004 Chaff is the stuff they toss out of helicopter gunships and other aerial killing machines to try and fool ground-to-air missiles and other assorted bits of materiél that gets fired up-up-and-away at them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but if you toss out enough of the stuff, the odds of… Continue reading
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Of cluster bombs and piss: two sides of the same coin By William Bowles
The ‘tradition’ of pissing on the enemies of the empire has a long and ignoble history. British troops, when faced with Ghandi’s non-violent resistance to the colonisers, recognising that murdering them didn’t work, took to pissing on them instead, in order to get them to move from the vast sit-down demos the Indian anti-colonial movement… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 