21 October 2013
Central to us on the left is the dilemma of a seemingly indifferent working class to the changes that impact directly not only on our material well-being but on the corporatisation of our cultural lives. Some argue that it’s down to the prevailing sense of powerlessness as the gulf between those who govern and the governed, deepens and widens. But there is perhaps another explanation for our disenfranchisement; the role of the ‘middle class’ as a mechanism of social control.
16 March 2012 — www.boilingfrogspost.com
The Boiling Frogs Presents William Bowles
William Bowles joins us to discuss the latest on Syria, the massive propaganda campaign that has been unleashed on the Western public, and the real motives behind a rapacious imperial power in supporting, encouraging and arming groups like the FSA and the Syrian National Council to wage war on the government. Mr. Bowles makes the important distinction between armed insurrection and a popular revolution, and talks about the West’s ‘Human Rights’ being a malleable notion utilized as a political and ideological weapon to be applied most selectively and discriminately- according to which ‘side’ the government of any particular country happens to be on, and the phenomenon of the ‘Red Tops’, all written and run by well paid, university trained media professionals who have learned how to communicate their master’s message to its target audience- the working class.
Here is our guest William Bowles unplugged! http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2012/03/16/podcast-show-80-the-massive-propaganda on syria/
23 February 2012 — Strategic Culture Foundation
The Sheep Look Up, John Brunner’s remarkably prescient ‘science fiction’ novel, first published in 1972 concerns the destruction of the entire environment in the US and the rise of a ‘corporately sponsored government’ leading to the eventual total breakdown of US society.
Continue reading
28 December 2011
My last piece clearly touched a nerve at least judging by the readership it’s gotten so I thought it worth exploring the issue a little further, especially in light of the comments I’ve read.
25 December 2011 — Strategic Culture Foundation
I don’t remember much about my high school years. Some of the highs (few in number) come back to me but it was mostly lows which probably explains why I don’t remember much. It’s not that I was dumb, I just had no motivation, but I was interested in history, jazz and politics (thanks to my parents) and even won a prize for a history essay as well as starting up the school’s first jazz appreciation society (not appreciated by the school I might add, the head of music tore down my posters).
19 October 2011 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Four years ago in a Ministry of Defence Review, the Whitehall Mandarins, more astutely than any so-called Lefty, determined the following:
“The Middle Class Proletariat — The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx. The globalization of labour markets and reducing levels of national welfare provision and employment could reduce peoples’ attachment to particular states. The growing gap between themselves and a small number of highly visible super-rich individuals might fuel disillusion with meritocracy, while the growing urban under-classes are likely to pose an increasing threat to social order and stability, as the burden of acquired debt and the failure of pension provision begins to bite. Faced by these twin challenges, the world’s middle-classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest.” — ‘UK Ministry of Defence report, The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036’ (Third Edition) p.96, March 2007
28 September 2011
In case you hadn’t noticed, especially if you get your news from the MSM, there is the mother of all capitalist crises unfolding around us. A crisis that appears to be far deeper even than the Crash of ’29 and given the global nature of corporate capitalism, nobody (except the rich) can escape its awful destructive power, short of revolution of course.
So deep in fact, that the imperial elites are incapable of resolving it and appear to be frozen to the spot like a deer caught in the headlights, attempting to apply ‘solutions’ that only compound the contradictions. It points once and again to the chaotic nature of capitalism that hides its ignorance behind glib phrases that mean nothing.
17 August 2011 — Strategic Culture Foundation
“At 9.22 the Brixton shopping centre appeared almost calm by comparison to Railton Road. Rubbish was strewn across the main A23 Brixton Road; burglar alarms rang vainly from looted shops; and knots of youths, black and white, drifted along in the almost complete absence of police.” — ‘Eyewitness: Looters moved in as the flames spread’
13 August 2011
According to the BBC there are ten competing reasons behind the riots: Continue reading
10 August 2011
It’s fashionable to call them the ‘underclass’ that the state has buried away, out of sight–out of mind on ‘sink estates’ or trapped and invisible in the poorest neighborhoods of our cities. Demonized and/or sentimentalized by the state/corporate media (‘Shameless’ and ‘East Enders’ come to mind), exactly as in Victorian times, an entire section of the working class have been reduced to some inferior, sub-human species by the political class and its media partners-in-crime. Continue reading
Investigating Imperialism 