Are We Being Served? By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
21 October 2013

Image by L. S. Lowry by Northshore School of Art via Flickr

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.

The BBC and the Imperial Mindset by William Bowles

Image by morenoberti via Flickr

by William Bowles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
3 September 2013

Yes, I know I keep banging on about the BBC but it is such an influential power, not only nationally but also globally, so much so that its pronouncements are most often taken as gospel (objective, impartial, unbiased). But any reading of the history of the BBC should disabuse you of this piece of fiction.

Chemical Hallucinations by William Bowles

by William Bowles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
30 August 2013

I think it’s true to say that the days of creating ‘dodgy dossiers‘(pdf)[1] are now over, at least if the latest ‘dodgy report’ is anything to go by. Put out by the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee, it purports to offer proof that Assad gassed his own people. But aside from the fact that it offers not a shred of proof, it’s also amateurish and clearly put together in a panic.

The BBC’s Syrian Chemical Weapons Coverage: An Exercise in Imperial Deception By William Bowles (updated)

by William Bowles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
23 August 2013

Over the past three days, since the story first broke, the BBC’s news Website (I use the word news advisedly) has carried twelve stories on the alleged chemical weapons attack that took place in a suburb of Damascus. Today’s offerings include, Hague believes Assad behind attack (23/8/13), without offering a shred of proof that the Assad government is behind the alleged attack or even that it took place, takes foreign secretary Hague’s ‘belief’ as a given. The lead paragraph tells it all:

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague says he believes President Assad was behind a chemical attack in Syria.

Depleted Uranium: The BBC’s John Simpson does a hatchet job on Fallujah’s genetically damaged children by William Bowles

by William Bowles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
1 April 2013

Image by NewsHour via Flickr

Under the title ‘Fallujah’s children’s ‘genetic damage’ that old war horse ‘literally’ of the BBC’s foreign propaganda service, John Simpson, manages not to mention the phrase ‘depleted uranium’ when allegedly reporting on the alarming rise in birth defects that include cancer, leukaemia and a horrific rise in child mortality since the US demolished the city of Fallujah in 2004. And it’s not until right at the end of the piece that the US attack on Fallujah is even mentioned, let alone depleted uranium!

Zionism loves colonialism, Zionism is colonialism By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
7 March 2012

Ynet Op-ed: Zionism will only cease being demonized when West stops to demonise colonialism [sic]

If I didn’t know any better I’d think the following Op-ed piece from the rightwing Israeli news source Ynet was another Yes Men spoof but it’s for real. I decided finally to publish the opinion in its entirety (if in a somewhat fragmented form) for it reveals the insane irrationality that underpins Zionism as the only ‘defender of the Jewish people’ (aside that is from its benefactor the US).

Syria: One Country, Two Stories By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
3 March 2012

I read a lot of news stories every day as I munch my way through the BBC News, VOR, RT, Dissident Voice, Strategic Culture Foundation, Global Research, countless RSS feeds, and so it goes… A lot of news sources and obviously I can’t read everything but what strikes me first, as it does I suspect everyone else, are the headlines, and it’s from these that we take our cues as to the importance of an event, especially to those who rule.

Impotence in the face of impunity? By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
29 February 2012

A fellow writer tells me that she feels overwhelmed by events and I feel the same way. An awful sense of deja vu that we have as much chance of stopping the march to total war as they had in the 1930s. Except that this time it will not be us citizens of Empire who are on the receiving end of Western industrial-scale murder and pillage. The world’s first colonial world war, with the haves pitted against the have-nots. As I have remarked before, without a non-capitalist alternative to not only reign in some of the ‘excesses’ of capitalism but also curtail its relentless expansion, the world is essentially defenceless.

The sheep look down By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
crossposted on Strategic Culture Foundation
22 February 2012

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.

“No one except possibly the late John Brunner…has ever described anything in science fiction that is remotely like the reality of 2007 as we know it.” William Gibson

Syria and the media: “Activists say…” By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info,17 February 2012
22 February 2012

Every time I read a BBC news piece about events in Syria it invariably includes the following phrase (emphasized):

“Troops are shelling intensively parts of the Syrian city of Homs, activists say, a day after the UN General Assembly called for an end to violence.” — ‘Syrian city shelled after UN vote’, BBC News, 17 February 2012

Syria: Feeding off the carcase By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
16 February 2012

An uncle of mine, a quite extraordinary individual, used to say that he was privileged to have a ‘ringside seat’ when viewing the rampages of capitalism. To which I must add that the ticket to gain admission has been extremely costly, for the planet, but not for my uncle in spite of his lefty leanings. But privileged he was, as all of us are here in the West, insulated from the worst extremes of Empire by all those dead brown bodies.

Tariq Ali says Assad has to go: I’m depressed – no, I’m outraged By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
15 February 2012

All quotes from, ‘‘Assad must go to save Syria from intervention’, RT 15 February 2012.

Today, I see that the well known ‘revolutionary’ Tariq Ali is telling that,

“He [Assad] has to be pushed out,” Tariq Ali insists, for which “the Syrian people are doing their best”.

Moral capitalism? What an insult to our intelligence! By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
27 January 2012

Image by tdietmut via Flickr

PM Cameron’s call for a “moral capitalism” would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic and hypocritical. After all, hasn’t it been capitalism’s alleged occupation of the ‘moral high ground’, what they now choose to call ‘humanitarian intervention’ that has been used as a justification for mass murder and genocide? But plainly the millions killed and the countries decimated don’t fall under Cameron’s definition of what is and isn’t ‘moral’. Clearly, it’s for ‘local consumption’ only.

A captive nation By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
19 January 2012

There are more young people of working age out of work than at any time in recorded British history according to the latest government figures.

I started the current version of my online presence as it were in March of 2003 and have managed somehow to continue writing ever since, though I’ve had my share of blank spots along the way.

Writing on a regular basis used to be fairly easy for me but as the years have worn on and no doubt me wearing out, it gets more and more difficult for me to face up to a world that has gone from bad to worse to downright dire in the course of my lifetime.

A fool’s paradise revisited By William Bowles

by William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
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.

Generally speaking the response has been favourable though one Website that carried it prefaced it by saying that it ‘overstated the argument’. Elsewhere comments ranged from ‘why the hell do you watch television anyway?’ to ‘you’re stating the obvious’, but if so, why so many readers?