BBC
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Some Old White Guy Does The Whitewash By William Bowles
Do politicians lie? Do fish swim and birds fly? It’s difficult to know where to start with this ‘inquiry’ except to say that Hutton has transformed what was meant to be an investigation into the events surrounding the alleged suicide of Dr David Kelly and his being ‘outed’ by the government into a total whitewash… Continue reading
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Collective-selective amnesia By William Bowles
Self-censorship? Yes sometimes. A shared worldview? Yes sometimes. Heavy debts? More likely. Self-delusion? Even more likely. Amnesia? Absolutely necessary. A collective and selective amnesia, for without it how could the illusion be maintained? Continue reading
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The things they say By William Bowles
The state’s representatives – with the able assistance of ‘objective’ journalists – first deceive themselves before deceiving the rest of us, or so it would seem if one listens to their ‘earnest’ pronouncements on the ‘progress’ of the occupation of Iraq. In the month of November occupation forces and their mercenary assistants, suffered their highest… Continue reading
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Weapons, Media and Politics – an evil ‘axis of interests’ By William Bowles
Carlyle is a who’s who of the right-wing elite both here in the UK and over the pond in the US, with former Prime Minister John Major as a director, George Bush Snr and his Secretary of State, James Baker, as advisers, and it’s headed by Frank Carlucci, Ronald Reagan’s Defence Secretary. Continue reading
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Intel – al-Qu’eda – The War on Terror: Destroying the Myths By William Bowles
24 November 2003 Several related issues on my mind on this grey, London morning as I contemplate the latest ‘news’, scan the headlines and peruse my (overflowing) mailbox and all are, in some way, related (except the weather). Continue reading
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This is how it goes… By William Bowles
The BBC is directly complicit in absolving the occupying forces from responsibility for the current state of affairs in Iraq. It’s this kind of ‘distancing’ between the media and the state that is so difficult to deal with as a kind of ‘osmosis of attitudes’ is taking place. Articulate these small lies often enough, and… Continue reading
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Iraq: The Big Lie Gets Even Bigger By William Bowles
With the willing complicity of the mass media, including the craven BBC, the real story, occasionally alluded to but never pursued, is that the decision to invade Iraq was made at least a year ago if not immediately after 9/11. And the government’s ‘attack’ on the BBC following the Kelly ‘revelation’ was an attempt to… Continue reading
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All the ‘news’ that’s fit to invent By William Bowles
So I figured by at least Tuesday (today) I’d read something of substance on the WTO meeting in Cancun in the major media, but aside from the Independent’s (16/09/03) short editorial that smugly informed me that it collapsed in “acrimony” and that it was “American and French unwillingness to face down powerful farm lobbies”, that… Continue reading
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Iraq: Flawed, selective, distorted and mistaken? Selling the big lie By William Bowles
About the only thing the media won’t entertain is the idea that invading Iraq was always the basis of Blair’s policy and that all the squirming and changes of justification flow from this basic premise. How else does one describe the way the media worms its way through the mire and deliberately avoids the lies… Continue reading
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Trust- Belief – Exaggeration By William Bowles
As the state is increasingly exposed as fraudulent, so the media has created a barrier that absorbs direct attack by deflecting criticism into the ‘nooks and crannies’ of the management of the state machine. How it does this is revealed by the nature of the relationship between the state and the media and the use… Continue reading
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A marriage made in hell By William Bowles
The media’s response to the ‘revelations’ of the Hutton inquiry reveals more about the nature of corporate journalism than it does about the role of the government’s propagandists. And especially, the back-peddling being performed in an attempt to justify the complicity of the media in not seeing what was patently obvious to anyone who cared… Continue reading
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The verdict? Guilty, sort of By William Bowles
One is tempted to hold off saying anything until the loathsome Alistair Campbell, chief propagandist for the Blair government does his pitch at the Hutton ‘enquiry’ today. However, of far more importance than what he does or doesn’t say (after all, the cat’s out of the bag anyway), is how will the Blair government deal… Continue reading
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Dr David Kelly, the real deal: preserving the integrity of the state By William Bowles
17 August 2003 It is instructive as well as fascinating to follow the convoluted trail of disinformation and hyperbole in the government and the media’s attempts to transfer the blame from one individual to another in the agenda of diverting attention from the central issue, namely why we went to war. Continue reading
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Dr David Kelly, loyal foot soldier of the state By William Bowles
Far from being troubled about the impending invasion, Dr David Kelly could just as easily have been troubled by the use of ‘evidence’ that “takes away from the case for war.” In other words, Kelly’s statements can be interpreted as continued support for the war but that he objected to the way it was being… Continue reading
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Discovered! Shoal of Giant Red Herrings By William Bowles
The government’s propaganda campaign to scare the populace into accepting an unacceptable war, has, with the grovelling complicity of the media, including the so-called liberal arm of the press, entered a new but depressingly familiar phase. Continue reading
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The Death of Dr David Kelly: Dark actors – dark forces? By William Bowles
Given Dr Kelly’s central role in the September document, he surely must have known well before its release in September 2002, that it contained false information to boost the case for war. So why wait until May of this year before voicing his concerns? Continue reading
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Will we ever be told the truth about the death of Dr David Kelly? by Melanie Philipps
Even though the inquiry into the affair by Lord Hutton exonerated ministers and officials of virtually all charges, merely rebuking them for not having warned Dr Kelly that his name was about to be made public, the Government was still widely blamed for driving him to his death. Continue reading
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The Death of Dr David Kelly: Murkier and Murkier By William Bowles
Did Dr Kelly commit suicide because he could no longer tolerate the fact that the government he worked for had lied in order to justify going to war? Or was he murdered because he was about to expose the lies? Continue reading
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The Death of Dr David Kelly: Opening a can of worms By William Bowles
It is being suggested that he went through some kind of ‘sea change’ last year during his frequent visits to Iraq as part of the Unmovic inspection team and that he was convinced that Iraq had indeed, destroyed its CBW weapons. According to an unnamed analyst quoted by the Independent, he became disillusioned with the… Continue reading
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Mind your language! Part Two By William Bowles
So we have the ironic situation of BBC News reporting on its own alleged unreliability. Can the news be trusted? What is the future of public broadcasting and so on. Yet of course, the nature of the lack of trust in the state media is entirely misdirected. It’s okay that the coverage of the war… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 