Let us speculate By William Bowles

28 October 2008

There’s an awful lot of speculation going on right now, from both the left and right about where the latest crisis of capital is headed, chief amongst them is the notion that this signals the end of the US Empire, that the so-called uni-polar world is over, that a new multi-polar world, headed by China, Russia, India and Brazil is emerging.

The theory is based upon the fact that the US is no longer the world’s numero uno economic power and it’s true that even an overwhelming military force is dependent on the economics that fuels it. But how true is this idea and even if it is true, over what timescale are we talking about here?

Robert Mugabe, yet another man the West loves to hate By William Bowles

29 June 2008

Robert Mugabe is bit like Osama bin Laden, if he didn’t exist they’d have to invent him, and invent him they have, with a vengeance.

There’s a kind of madness in the air By William Bowles

16 February, 2008

Note: sorry about the story being out of sequence but all attempts at posting it failed. Had to wait until my return.

February 2, 2008 — For the first time in a long time I’m taking a trip to NYC, my old ‘home town’. The airport (I use this term advisedly) I’m leaving from, Gatwick, just outside London, has been tranformed into one, gigantic shopping mall (with runways attached as an afterthought).

The security ‘check-in’ is OTT, now you even have to take your shoes off (shades of the ‘shoe bomber’). How long before we get stripped searched and every orifice in our battered bodies probed, I wonder? If it gets to that point, you’ll never see me in an airport ever again.

Observations from the Front Line: The US State of Denial By William Bowles

16 February, 2008

Observations from the Front Line

Manhattan, 13 February, 2008 — For the first time, almost exactly thirty years ago, I sat where I’m sitting now, writing this, in the Broome Street Bar, corner of Broome and West Broadway. I was building the Cayman Gallery a couple of hundred yards away further up West Broadway for my good friend Jack Agueros, who later was to hire me as the designer/constructor of El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem.

In those days, SOHO (South of Houston Street) was full of empty sweat shops and industrial buildings that the owners were only too happy to rent out for whatever they could get. A couple of thousand square feet could be had for as little as $800 a month and on a ten-year lease.

‘Chinese Torture’ or what goes around comes around By William Bowles

25 January, 2008

Dumping on China by the usual horde of Western pundits seems to be de riguer these days. Hardly a day goes by without some scary headline that either warns of the dangers of billions of Chinese getting a car, refridgerator, microwave or whatever and hastening on Climate Change and/or ‘swamping’ Western markets with an avalanche of cheap goods.

Amazing that for half a century the Cold War was all about ‘Red China’ rejecting the ‘market’ and the capitalist way of life and now they’ve got it, the self-same pundits are all whinging about the ‘threat’ from Chinese capitalism. Obviously you can’t win if you ain’t a white European or American (well at least that’s what they say for public consumption). The reality however is very different and it goes to the very core of the nature of capitalist economics, ‘expand or die’. The problem for Western Capitalism is that the new boy on the block, China, is just too big to take on and what’s more it now produces most of everything we buy in malls across the land.

A beginner’s guide to creating a ‘crisis’ By William Bowles

15 October 2006

“Each party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of the Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country.” — Article X of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Poor old North Korea, the latest bogeyman, its leader variously described as a tyrant, psychopath etc, etc. is once more the focus of Western ire. Now in all likelihood the reason is because things ain’t going too well in Iraq or Afghanistan and the Iranians have told the West to shove it, so isn’t it real convenient to have North Korea, waiting in the wings as it were, to frighten the kids with.

Woof-Woof! The bite is far worse than the bark By William Bowles

8 August 2006

Consider if you will that the US has, for the past 100 years pursued a policy that would enable it to ensure global dominance through the ownership and control of vital energy supplies and as a result enable it to dominate the world’s economy to the benefit of its own capitalist class. This policy has resulted in innumerable wars and coup d’etats and even the deliberate destruction of entire countries through its control of world trade and innumerable foreign governments.

Israel: Blackmailing the world By William Bowles

3 August 2006

Israel’s deliberate and continued destruction of Lebanon is intended to force the Western powers to occupy the country on US/Israel’s behalf

I’ve spent the last couple of days doing (almost) nothing but reading, trying to get a handle on events. Firstly, it’s obvious to anyone who knows anything about Lebanon and the place of Hizballah in Lebanese society realises that the idea of destroying Hizballah is ridiculous regardless that it’s Israel’s stated objective. Therefore what are the real objectives of the US/Israeli onslaught?

Is Lebanon the Great Unravelling? By William Bowles

28 July 2006

‘We are farmers, we can fall back on the land, hide in caves, make our own cheese and eat our lambs. The Israelis in their bunkers, this life upsets them. They will quit.’ — Mohammed Mulimh, 29, a Lebanese farmer

I think it’s now clear that the gamble the US took with its proxy force, Israel, is a military-political disaster. Soon, there won’t be much left to destroy in Lebanon, then what? There are several options open to Israel (US), none of them too inviting, yet sooner or later the real world will force the US to reconsider what it has done (if it’s not done so already):

A US call to (more) arms By William Bowles

19 July 2006

“A cease-fire that would leave the status quo ante intact is absolutely unacceptable. A cease-fire that would leave intact a terrorist infrastructure is unacceptable.” — White House spokesman Tony Snow, 18/7/06 (See ‘American imperialism wants war’)

One thing should absolutely clear by now, when it comes to Israel’s actions—the US calls the shots. I trust this lays to rest all those deluded individuals on the ‘left’ who subscribe to the fallacious notion commonly referred to as the ‘tail wagging the dog’.