‘K’ Metamorphoses into ‘G’ By William Bowles

19 February 2019 — Investigating Imperialism

[I think it’s time to republish a piece I wrote 15 years ago, in 2004, though clearly very few took notice of it then, will it be any different this time? I doubt it, it’s probably already too late to do anything about it. What the Labour government initiated in 2004 has now reached, not only fruition but is now sweeping the ‘democratic’ West as the crisis of capital intensifies and opposition to neoliberalism intensifies. I call it what it is, Fascism. Maybe not the Fascism of Hitler or Mussolini, there are no jackboots, they don’t need them this time, they have built the corporate-security state, a state that has us all on file, a state that records our movements, a state that knows what we read, who we see,  a state that now works in tandem with its corporate masters just as Mussolini’s Fascism did, a state that makes Orwell’s 1984 amateurish by comparison.  Reading through it, I don’t think I need to alter one word. WB.]

24 April 2004

“Someone must have slandered Joseph K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.” – Franz Kafka, ‘The Trial’

Industrializing Class War By William Bowles

2 February 2018 — InvestigatingImperialism

Have you noticed that it’s no longer PC Dixon of Dock Green who mediates the relationship between the state and its citizens as he goes about his beat in your neighbourhood? Instead, it’s a Kevlar-armoured, video-monitored, taser-equipped, drone-surveilled, spit-masked supplied soldier, straight out of Star Wars, who now staggers along under the weight of an industrialized capitalism, visibly physically disconnected from the citizens they monitor by their bullet-proof uniforms, that more resemble a rack of tools in your local hardware store than the Bobby on the beat.

The Two-Faced Book By William Bowles

7 January 2018 — investigatingimperialism

At the end of the 1970s, when I first started using and investigating digital media, it quickly became apparent to me, that what became the World Wide Web, was very much a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it afforded independent journalists and investigators, a vehicle for reaching a public outside the control of corporate/state media and whose only parallel lay back in the 17th century, with the invention of the printing press and moveable type, broadsheets and later the so-called Penny Dreadfuls. Sold on street corners and in coffee houses, and produced in literally hundreds of small printing shops, they challenged the status quo in ways previously impossible. Often banned and their writers/publishers thrown in jail under the then new sedition laws, they heralded the arrival of modern capitalism.

The State under siege or is it the people? By William Bowles

27 June 2005

Clause 1 and Schedule 1 of the proposed National Identity Bill sets out more than fifty categories of information required for the register (subject to change by regulation):

Why I’m still a lefty or the rake’s progress by William Bowles

27 May 2005

I’ve come to the conclusion that the UK exists in some kind of parallel universe, outside of normal space and time. A medieval bubble of a place, where ‘tradition’ has replace reason, where animals engender more concern than people. A place where mediocrity rules and which appears to be hurtling back into the past at an alarming rate of knots, faster even than Dr Who’s Tardis.

Big Brother is Watching/Acting By William Bowles

12 October 2004

“In the present matter regarding Indymedia, Rackspace Managed Hosting, a U.S. based company with offices in London, is acting in compliance with a court order pursuant to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), which establishes procedures for countries to assist each other in investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering. Rackspace responded to a Commissioner’s subpoena, duly issued under Title 28, United States Code, Section 1782 in an investigation that did not arise in the United States. Rackspace is acting as a good corporate citizen and is cooperating with international law enforcement authorities. The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this matter.” – Statement issued by Rackspace Managed Hosting [1]

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 more using backup facilities many of the 140 Websites are still offline including a number of Internet radio sites that ‘happened’ to use the same servers.

"And when they came for me…" By William Bowles

9 January 2004

On the 14^th of May last year I wrote a piece called “Remember to remind me”.[1] In small part it was about my confusion over two quotes, one by James Baldwin:

“If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own…. For if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.”

More, or rather, less on the ‘Civil Contingencies Bill’ By William Bowles

27 November 2003

Amazing isn’t it, a bill which if passed, that along with the 2000 Terrorism Act, pretty well entrenches total state control over the citizen, barely gets a mention in the media. The BBC in its News at One programme yesterday (25/11/03) didn’t even mention it as being included in Queenie’s speech. Later, on PM News at 5, it got a passing mention as something that might be of concern to civil liberties groups, but that was about it. Talk about the sin of omission!

Big Brother? No, it’s Biometric Big Blunkett By William Bowles

6 November 2003

So Blunkett has finally gotten his way and persuaded his cabinet cohorts that the good citizens of the ‘mother of democracy’ must have a ‘biometric’ ID card. The card, that by the way, loyal citizens will have to pay forty quid for the privilege of owning, will contain your photo, finger and thumbprint and for the first time, a shot of your iris. All the information will be held in a national database, so that your identity can be checked by anyone with access anywhere in our former democracy.