Libya: Bewitched, bothered and bewildered By William Bowles

7 March 2011

“Despite the situation in Libya remaining unresolved, one thing is now certain: the president of the United States is now in control of the money, and this gives him a powerful tool … ‘Most countries consider the freezing of their assets an act of economic warfare'” — ‘Money as a weapon in West’s war on Libya‘, RT, 7 March 2011

In the West, revolution is something we are not very familiar with although it’s something the Left talk about an awful lot, other peoples’ revolutions that is.

Criticizing Venezuela from the outside By William Bowles

14 May, 2010

Now ‘real’ lefties are probably going to call me a wuss, you know the kind of thing, ‘defend the revolution no matter what’, or label me a counter-revolutionary, but hey, it’s not for me to tell Venezuela how to do things whilst I’m sitting semi-comfortably here in London.

It’s real dilemma, after all we lefties want to see the Bolivarian revolution succeed just as much as the Venezuelan people do. So let’s hear what a Venezuelan comrade has to say on the subject of Chavez, PSUV and the state:

“Comrade Juan Contreras, an activist in the popular movement in the January 23 neighborhood and elected alternate deputy candidate by Circuit 1, was the next speaker. Contreras said that candidates of the apparatus had a tremendous advantage against the candidates of the popular movement and the fact that there were so many candidates had been a source of strength for the bureaucracy.

“He expressed deep concern over the fact that there had been an attempt to make the popular movement fit within the framework of the state. He reminded all those present that it was the actual movement of the masses that had saved the Revolution on April 11, 12 and 13, 2002 and again during the oil lockout. Nobody had called them out, but it was the spontaneous movement from below that overthrew the coup and rescued the government of the Revolution. According to Juan Contreras, this showed the great wisdom of the people.” — ‘Venezuela: The PSUV rank and file criticize the internal elections’, Vheadlines, 13 May, 2010

Which way is up? by William Bowles

3 December 2007

A major blight of the ‘Left’, at least in my experience, is that it spends more time in-fighting than out. Why this should be so I’ll leave up to the psychoanalysts (or perhaps anthropologists?) to explain but it is surely a legacy we could well do without. My feeling is that is has a lot to with the ‘messianic’ nature of the Left, which has more in common with religion than with political economy.

And of course it’s a trait that’s well exploited by capital and its mouthpieces, witness for example the furoré the MSM has had with el presidente Chavez and his attempts (and no doubt others around him) to alter the Venezuelan constitution, giving the president some pretty awesome powers (for a democratic socialist) including sweeping emergency powers and extending his term of office (indefinitely?).

Book Review: Capitalism – past its sell-by date? By William Bowles

30 November 2006

Book Review: The Chávez Code – Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela by Eva Golinger

Perhaps the greatest triumph of modern capitalism has been its ability to sell itself and to do it by fair means and foul with the emphasis on the foul.

Historically, it has been the CIA which up until the 1990s did the dirty work for US imperialism as the record clearly shows. However, the CIA’s record in overthrowing foreign governments is far from being a success story. A new strategy was needed, and one which was untainted with the ‘dirty tricks’ label of the Nixon years and which could be sold to the public under the umbrella of ‘spreading democracy’, Western-style of course.

Book Review: ‘Haciendo posible lo imposible’ By William Bowles

8 September 2006

Review: ‘Democracy and Revolution – Latin America and Socialism Today’, D.L. Raby

‘[O]nly a fool could think that the solution to the world’s problems lies in capitalism.’ – Hugo Chavez Ruz

I really like this book; firstly its straightforward language makes it accessible unlike the verbal diarrhoea that usually afflicts academic writing, especially on the ‘left’ with all its talk of paradigmatic this and the dialectics of that.

Crunch Time in Caracas By William Bowles

13 August 2004

Never even in Latin American history has the media been so directly involved in a political coup. Venezuela’s ‘hate media’ controls 95% of the airwaves and has a near-monopoly over newsprint, and it played a major part in the failed attempt to overthrow the president, Hugo Chávez, in April [2002]. Although tensions in the country could easily spill into civil war, the media is still directly encouraging dissident elements to overthrow the democratically elected president – if necessary by force.
Maurice Lemoine, Aug 2002, Le Monde Diplomatique[1]

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 into power a president, Hugo Chávez Frias who incurred the wrath of the imperium by daring to promote the interests of the poor and the dispossessed of the country who constitute some 80% of the population.

US Foreign Policy: A Mystery to the Media? By William Bowles

3 April 2004

Okay, so what’s the deal? Why won’t the corporate media tell us what’s going on? Why do I have scrabble around the Internet looking for answers? Why won’t my local print, tv and radio tell me why, yet again, the US is orchestrating a coup d’etat against Venezuela?

Dumb questions I know, but over the past week, the number of stories on Venezuela available locally – of any kind – is zero. And over the past few weeks, it’s not much more, a handful to be exact. And no doubt, just as with the appalling press coverage of the US-backed coup d’etat in Haiti, we won’t read anything until it’s all but over (barring the killing), then of course, the vampires are all over the place.

Haiti: Gangster (F)RAP(H) By William Bowles

2 March 2004

“Tell the world that it’s a coup. That American soldiers abducted (me).”
Jean Bertrand Aristide

“”Aristide would “leave Haiti in a Lear Jet or in a pine box.””
James Foley, US Ambassador to Haiti

No matter that the corporate media have done their best to cover up the outrage that has been committed against the people of Haiti, things have a way of working their way out into the light of day.

The telephone conversation between Randall Robinson of the TransAfrica Forum and Jean Bertrand Aristide has blown the lid of the gangsters game plan. And it might well be that the phone call saved Aristide’s life, as more information about how the abduction took place comes to light.

National Endowment for Democracy: At It Again in Haiti! By William Bowles

19 February 2004

The National Endowment for Democracy that ‘celebrated’ its 20th anniversary this year has a long and less than illustrious past. It’s dead hand has descended on a number of countries over the past two decades including Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela (currently also on-going) and of course Haiti.