18 October 2003
[This is another essay out of the past that on rereading, seems even more relevant than it did when I wrote it almost exactly ten years ago in 2003. It exists in its old non-Wordpress form but republishing it here, makes it more accessible as well as tying into my current writing. WB]
I am a big fan of history. Ever since I was a kid, history fascinated me and perhaps in another life I might well have become a historian. And, in an age where history gets rewritten by the corporate media hour by hour, day by day, understanding where we come from and how we got here is a critical issue.

The last few weeks have seen a gigantic propaganda onslaught by the state and corporate interests to confuse, misdirect and finally channel peoples’ concerns anywhere except where they truly belong, that is, directed at big business and the political class that represents them, that has for hundreds of years raped Africa and the rest of the poor of this planet that in turn, made possible the obscene wealth we in the developed world not only possess but squander. A squandering that is directly responsible for the other major crime of our age, climate change.
