David Norris and Gary Dobson are accused of being part of a racist white gang that ‘targeted and killed’ black teenager Two men are to stand trial accused of being part of a racist white gang that “targeted and killed” the black teenager Stephen Lawrence because of the colour of his skin, the court of appeal today said. The killing in 1993 in Eltham, south-east London, is one of the most high-profile unsolved murders in Britain. The men charged are David Norris, who has never before been charged over the stabbing, and Gary Dobson, who stood trial previously and was found not guilty. Dobson was acquitted of killing Lawrence, 18, after a private murder prosecution brought in 1996 by the parents of the talented youngster who dreamed of being an architect. A new law established in 2003 abolished the longstanding ban on people being retried for the same crime after being found not guilty, if “compelling” new evidence came to light. The appeal court agreed on Wednesday that new evidence was compelling enough to allow Dobson’s acquittal to be quashed. In effect, the appeal court, in a ruling by the lordchief justice of England and Wales, wiped the legal slate clean. This means Dobson and Norris will stand trial for the murder of Lawrence. Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk
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Olympic Flame will take in Outer Hebrides and six islands during its 8,000-mile 70-day journey to the stadium London 2012′s Olympic torch relay will start in Land’s End and travel as far as the outer Hebrides on an 8,000-mile journey to the stadium, organisers have announced. The Olympic Flame will arrive from Greece in exactly one year and the relay will continue for 70 days and with 8,000 torchbearers until the opening ceremony of the Games on 27 July 2012. London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe said: “The Olympic Flame will shine a light right across every nation and region of the UK and showcase the very best of who we are and where we live. “The first locations on the route confirmed today give a flavour of the reach the Olympic Torch Relay will have around the UK and how extensive the opportunity for starting to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic Games will be.” The relay aims to go within an hour’s travel time of 95% of the population – and there are also plans to take the Olympic Flame to Dublin. There will be six island visits: to the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Jersey, Shetland, Orkney and the Isle of Lewis. The first 74 locations have been confirmed by organisers taking in famous sports venues, historic sites and places of outstanding natural beauty. On most days of the relay, the Olympic Flame will travel for 12 hours each day ending in an evening celebration event. Olympics minister Hugh Robertson said: “The Olympic Torch Relay brings London 2012 to the doorsteps of the UK giving everybody the chance to celebrate the London Games. It’s a magnificent showcase for the country and a chance to mark the achievements of inspirational people in our communities.” There will be no international torch relay – the International Olympic Committee decided to make it a domestic event after the controversial Beijing torch relay in 2008 where protesters used the event to demonstrate against China’s human rights abuses. Britain’s IOC member Craig Reedie believes that decision will benefit London. “People used the torch as an opportunity for protest when it should really be an opportunity for peaceful celebration,” he said. Reedie said he had been pushing for the torch relay to take in some of Britain’s most famous sporting landmarks as it tours the country. He added: “The intention is to run the torch all around the country – it will go to within an hour’s travel of 95% of the population. “It will also have a British sporting history element to it – so the torch will be run past many of those famous sporting venues such as Wimbledon, Old Trafford, St Andrew’s and of course Much Wenlock (the birthplace of the modern Olympics). “If it does that and encourages young people that will help build up the huge excitement of London.” The torch relay could also prove to be the financial salvation of the cash-strapped British Olympic Association. The settlement of their cash dispute with London 2012 organisers allows them to market two pieces rather than one of Team GB merchandise based around the torch relay. The BOA are not due to announce their torch relay items until early next year but if they get it right it could be worth millions of pounds to the organisation. For example, ahead of last year’s winter Olympics Vancouver sold 3.5m pairs of their famous red mittens – their torch relay merchandise – for CAD$10 (£6.35). Similar sales figures for London would provide a huge financial boost for the BOA. Olympic Games 2012 London Sebastian Coe guardian.co.uk
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Up to 500,000 staff poised for walk-out unless government talks with TUC can come to agreement over new pension scheme Half a million public servants are likely to strike in June, bringing schools, universities, courts and Whitehall to a standstill to demonstrate against changes to their pensions. The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), representing civil servants, will vote on Wednesday to ballot for strike action. Two teaching unions launched their own ballots this week and a third already has a mandate for rolling strike action. All the unions involved are looking at 30 June as the first date for a possible mass walk-out unless government talks with the Trades Union Congress can come to an agreement. The chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, and the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude are leading talks with the unions about implementation of a new pension scheme devised by the Labour ex-minister Lord Hutton, who has recommended ending the most generous final salary schemes and delaying retirement for some public employees. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS union, will tell their annual meeting in Brighton today that he is recommending strike action to tackle an unprecedented attack by government on public services and the people who provide them. He will say: “This coming year is going to be one of the most challenging years for the trade union movement – and public sector trade unions in particular – as the coalition government seeks to make the public sector and its workforce pay for the crisis, through cuts to jobs, services, pay and pensions. “We will need to be creative in our campaigning, tough in our bargaining, and prepared to take action. We will continue to work, and build links, with other trade unions to make our voice as powerful as possible in our campaigning and in any industrial action. “We can work together, campaign together and, yes, strike together – and together we can win.” He will also praise the student demonstrations last year saying their passion proved that young people are no longer apathetic. “Like many I have been inspired by the student protests that erupted at the end of last year – hundreds of thousands of young people taking to the streets because they had been betrayed, again. “Their passion and their organisation surprised me and it also inspired me — because too often people have labelled young people as apolitical and apathetic.” PCS is among the most militant of the unions but also balloting this week is the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, considered the most moderate who have a broad policy to avoid strike action. Serwotka also announced that he will be signing a joint working agreement with Unite this week, which also represents large numbers in the private and public sector to embed joint working “at every level”. Other unions are awaiting the outcome of the TUC/government talks. Ministers are expected to make a formal offer on pensions this summer. Trade unions Civil service Teaching Schools Public sector cuts Public services policy Public finance Public sector pay Public sector pensions Mark Serwotka Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk
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Lib Dem leader says Monitor must not become an ‘economic regulator’ while National Audit Office condemns latest delay in NHS patient database Nick Clegg has singled out the role of Monitor, the NHS regulator, as the area of the embattled NHS bill that needs the “most substantial changes” and has said that all references to the body being an economic regulator “should be removed”. In a presentation by the deputy prime minister to the weekly meeting of his parliamentary party and leaked to the Guardian, Clegg circulated a page-long document in which he set out how he believes the regulator should be reconceived. “Instead of having a duty to promote competition, Monitor’s main duty should be explicitly to protect and promote the interests of patients,” Clegg wrote, saying the NHS cannot be regulated as if it was just a utility “like electricity or telephones”. A new role for Monitor has long been a running sore in the health secretary’s plans. Last week Steve Field, the man appointed by David Cameron to oversee the “pause” in the health legislation, said he also thought the proposed new role for Monitor should be scrapped. Instead, it should promote co-operation and collaboration and the integration of health services. It is known that the Lib Dems dislike health secretary Andrew Lansley’s proposal that Monitor become an “economic regulator”, but this is the first time a full critique has emerged with detailed alternative proposals. Clegg said: “We cannot treat the NHS as if it were a utility, and the decision to establish Monitor as an ‘economic regulator’ was clearly a misjudgment, failing to recognise all the unique characteristics of a public health service, and opening us up to accusations that we are trying to subject the NHS to the full rigours of UK and EU competition law. “I have come to the conclusion that we must not make this change. We must remove from the bill changes to establish Monitor as a competition authority. Monitor should be empowered to encourage informed patient choice and act against anti-competitive practices but only when this is in the interest of patients, individually and collectively, and in the interest of equality of access.” The Lib Dem document shows it wants to maintain the principles of collaboration and competition overseen by the NHS collaboration and competition panel – protocols which are understood to have insulated the NHS from the office of fair trading exercising the full force of competition act powers. Clegg writes: “The CCP should become an advisory body to Monitor. We should agree a memorandum of understanding between Monitor and the Office of Fair Trading on this basis. We will also need to retain Monitor’s role in relationship to foundation trusts to be clear they are not “undertakings’ within the terms of EU law. “Together these changes should mean we can be clear that we are making no substantive changes to the way in which competition law operates in relation to the NHS. “Instead of having a duty to promote competition, Monitor’s main duty should be explicitly to protect and promote the interests of patients, including recognising the ways in which those interests are met by integrated care. Monitor should be empowered to encourage informed patient choice and act against anti-competitive practices but only when this is in the interest of patients, individually and collectively, and in the interest of equality of access.” The party also calls for Monitor to have a role in ensuring there is no cherry-picking by providers of the most expensive treatments. The government is coming under increasing pressure, meanwhile, to abandon plans for a new NHS patient record system after the official spending watchdog warned that it was very likely to waste another £4.3bn in the next four years. The original aim of the £11.4bn NHS IT programme, to install a patient record database accessible from any point in the NHS in England by 2015, will fail, the National Audit Office warns. The £2.7bn spent so far on the system has not been value for money, it says, and the watchdog has no confidence the remaining £4.3bn will be any better spent. The nine-year-old project – the biggest civilian IT scheme attempted – has been in disarray since it missed its first deadlines in 2007. While its ambitions have been downgraded in recent years, the bill from the suppliers has remained largely unchanged, the report says. MPs appealed for the remaining contracts to be abandoned to prevent the £4.3bn going to waste. It amounts to more than a fifth of the £20bn efficiencies the NHS is attempting to achieve. Doctors warned against abandoning the project altogether, saying the modernisation of the paper-based patient record system should still be a priority. The NAO says the new patient records have been implemented in a tiny minority of trusts while other IT systems, such as the digitisation of x-ray images, have been achieved. But the original target to start introducing a database of medical records by 2007 was missed and, according to the current projections, it will not be achieved by the new 2014-15 deadline. The plans for one comprehensive system of patient records have been reduced to a patchwork of different systems across the country that threaten to clock up a new £220m bill to make them compatible with each other, the NAO says. Two of the four contractors have already pulled out, and the prime minister revealed last week that the government was considering terminating a third contractor, CSC, which has been put under review. That would most likely leave the contracts concentrated in the hands of BT, but even its work is under question by the NAO. Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: “The original vision for the national programme for IT in the NHS will not be realised. “The NHS is now getting far fewer systems than planned despite the department paying contractors almost the same amount of money. This is yet another example of a department fundamentally underestimating the scale and complexity of a major IT-enabled change programme. “The Department of Health needs to admit that it is now in damage-limitation mode. I hope that my report, together with the forthcoming review by the Cabinet Office and Treasury, announced by the prime minister, will help to prevent further loss of public value from future expenditure on the programme.” Richard Bacon, the Conservative MP for South Norfolk, who has campaigned to highlight the problems, said: “It is perfectly clear that throwing more money at the problem will not work. “This turkey will never fly and it is time the Department of Health faced reality and channelled the remaining funds into something useful that will actually benefit patients. The largest civilian IT project in the world has failed.” Officials will be called before the Commons public accounts committee to justify the continuation of the programme. Margaret Hodge, Labour chair of the committee, said: “It is deeply worrying to hear the NAO ‘has no grounds for confidence’ that the remaining planned spending of £4.3bn on care records systems will provide value for money.” Simon Burns, the health minister, said: “In the north, the Midlands and the east, only 4% of hospital records systems have been installed. “A decade on and £6.4bn down, all Labour managed to deliver was a patchy IT system that experts now confirm has failed its core objectives. This has been an expensive farce from the beginning.” Dr Chaand Nagpaul, a GP member of the British Medical Association’s working party on NHS IT, said: “We cannot turn the clock back, but this report provides useful lessons on how best to use resources in the future. Patient care needs to be supported by reliable information systems, and IT should continue to be a priority for the NHS.” NHS ‘needs managers’ The coalition’s plan to cut the number of NHS managers is not based on evidence and will damage the service just at the time it needs high-calibre bosses, according to the King’s Fund thinktank. Health secretary Andrew Lansley’s proposals to cut the number of managers by 45% and administration costs by 33% are “simply arbitrary” and should be rethought, it says in a report. The report also accuses ministers of “denigrating” NHS managers by referring to them as “pen-pushers” and warns that that will damage staff morale, deter skilled people from joining and discourage doctors from switching to management roles. David Cameron celebrated the recent rise in the number of doctors and fall in managers in a major speech on health on Monday. The government’s NHS shakeup is being undermined by the steady loss of quality managers, the influential thinktank also states. “Many experienced leaders have already been lost and this puts at risk delivery of the government’s plans”, says its study of NHS leadership and management. Lansley, meanwhile, will reveal more of his thinking about potential changes to the health and social care bill – including the politically charged issues of choice and competition – when he addresses a King’s Fund conference on Wednesday. Denis Campbell Health policy Health NHS Nick Clegg Liberal Democrats Polly Curtis Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
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Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian former special forces officer, has been named as the acting leader of al-Qaida, according to reports from Pakistan A fierce succession battle appears to be gripping the senior ranks of al-Qaida in the wake of the death of leader Osama bin Laden earlier this month, pitting regional affiliates against the central “hardcore” of the organisation. Reports from Pakistan named an Egyptian former special forces officer known as Saif al-Adel as the acting leader of al-Qaida. Al-Adel, who is in his late 40s, is a veteran militant who was close to bin Laden in the 1990s before being detained in Iran after fleeing Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. According to Noman Benotman, a former Libyan militant now living in London, al-Adel was released from Iranian detention and returned to Pakistan last year. The report in the Pakistani The News newspaper identified al-Adel as having been chosen as “interim leader” of al-Qaida after a meeting at “an undisclosed location”. It also said that “none of sons of Osama Bin Laden has shown willingness” to take up a formal position within the organisation. One of the 54-year-old al-Qaida leader’s adult sons, Khaled, was killed with his father in the raid on Abbottabad. Others have been groomed for leadership roles but are currently too young or too inexperienced to command any real support. If confirmed, the appointment of al-Adel is a major blow to bin Laden’s close associate Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian extremist strategist who has long been seen as the group’s number two. Al-Zawahiri is reported to have been given the important, and usually shortlived, role of director of external or international operations for the group. This would nonetheless be something of a demotion for a man who was bin Laden’s closest associate and a major figure in his own right. It could also provide the first evidence of a major split within militant ranks. Senior al-Qaida-affiliated extremists in both Iraq and the Yemen have already pledged their support for al-Zawahiri, who is 59 and among the oldest contenders for the top position, and may not accept the leadership of al-Adel, even as an interim measure. “I tell our brothers in al-Qaida led by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, go on with God’s blessing and be glad that you have faithful brothers in the Islamic State of Iraq who are marching on the path of right,” Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, recently appointed head of the al-Qaida affiliated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), said in a statement posted on the internet last week. Al-Baghdadi is thought to have been named to his post by al-Zawahiri. Rashad Mohammed Saeed Ismail, a senior Yemeni cleric who was close to bin Laden and has been linked to the local “Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” affiliate was quoted by the Yemen Times as saying that “Al-Zawahiri is the best candidate.” “He is the right person to take over. All wings of al-Qaida would approve of him and all Jihadist movements trust him greatly,” Ismail was reported to have said. According to Evan Kohlmann, an American specialist in jihadi forums on the internet, senior members on top-tier al-Qaida web forums already see al-Zawahiri as leader of al-Qaida. Kohlmann reported that some extremists have begun calling al-Qaida “Jund al-Ayman” which means “The Soldiers of Ayman [al-Zawahiri].” Security sources told the Guardian that until there is some kind of communication from verifiable al-Qaida sources – such as the statement announcing bin Laden’s death – it is impossible to be certain who will become overall leader. “There are a whole range of variables…different factions and people and a very dynamic situation. It’s pretty impenetrable,” said one official. “Until we see anything more solid, all these reports are speculative.” Al-Qaida has always been troubled by factional splits. Evidence has emerged of increasingly acrimonious disputes between Libyan, Egyptian and other elements in recent years. There are also generational differences as well as fierce debates over tactics and strategy. “Some leading figures inside al-Qaida argue [it] is too soft, others that it is too extreme. Some want a greater focus on Egypt; others want a greater focus on other countries such as the Yemen,” Benotman, the former militant, said recently. Maintaining the network of alliances built up by bin Laden will be one of the biggest challenges facing any future leader. One recent communication from al-Qaida’s “Fajr Media Centre” indicated a possible direction for the group following the death of bin Laden. “We say to every mujahid Muslim, if there is an opportunity, do not waste it,” the statement said, calling on followers around the world not to consult with any central leadership but “to carry out acts of individual terrorism with significant results, which only require basic preparation.” al-Qaida Global terrorism Osama bin Laden Pakistan Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
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enlarge Even kids weren’t immune as suspected spies. Click here to view this media The age old debate on Immigration and what, if any, should that policy be. It has plagued administrations probably since Jefferson. In 1953 it was aggravated by the Cold War and the threat of espionage and subversive activities from the flood of Displaced Persons at the end of World War 2. Today it’s a bit different, although by 1953′s standards probably not all that much. In 1953 there was the creeping onslaught of people not from the traditional European locales, but rather from Asia, due in no small part to the Korean War. So beyond the fear of espionage and subversion also came the fear of job loss. Those non-European Immigrants, it was thought, didn’t have the same work ethic or understanding of the rules and would therefore flood the workforce with cheap labor and destroy the minimum wage and the unions. To some people, that wasn’t such a bad idea. But the bottom line was, Immigration was becoming a problem and some solution had to be arrived at before things got out of hand. And so, as part of its series American Forum Of The Air from May 17, 1953, the subject “What Should Americas Immigration Policy Be?” was asked of Senator Herbert Lehman of New York and Representative J. Frank Wilson of Texas (both democrats). Sen. Herbert Lehman: “What we now have on our statute books is not an immigration law but an anti-immigration law. The law as presently written is not a law to authorize immigration or to control immigration. But rather to prevent immigration, to discourage it, to make it difficult as possible for an alien to be admitted to this country, either as a visitor or a student or as a permanent resident. Under our present law every alien is assumed to be a potential spy a saboteur, a criminal or a subversive unless and until he can prove otherwise. Even naturalized American citizens are placed under this bar sinister and can be de-naturalized for any one of a number of acts which native born American citizens can’t perform without penalty. The heart of the law is the national origins quota system, a discriminatory plan based on repugnant theories of the racial superiority of the so-called Nordic Races. The law is further characterized by drastic penalties including deportation for aliens. Against aliens for such innocent acts as failure to carry registration cards, or failure to notify the Attorney General of a change in address. And the widest discretion is given to councils and immigration inspectors and other officials to bar, to exclude, to deport and detain aliens.” So, the problem has never really been solved – on the one hand you have “No borders – no restrictions” and on the other you have “fuck ‘em, kill ‘em all” – neither of which is much of a solution. At least in 2011 there isn’t the fear of being overrun by Communist agents posing as students. But there are those gun-toting militias . . .
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As much as CNN likes to tell the public and advertisers that it’s squarely in the sensible center between the partisan attacks of MSNBC and Fox News, the reality says otherwise. Even if CNN has no Screaming Schultzes or Crazy Larry O’Donnell types, it’s still firmly in the Democratic sphere of influence. On his show “In The Arena” on May 12, CNN host Eliot Spitzer recounted how a story in The New York Times “brought a smile to my face. It said the president of the United States calls you for wisdom and advice about issues around the world. So first, when he calls you, what does he say? Hi, Barack calling for Fareed? What does he do?” His guest Zakaria replied, “Mostly it's been face-to-face meetings. You know, usually organized by Tom Donilon, the national security adviser,” and it’s been a “very thoughtful conversation.” (That certainly compliments both sides of the chat.) Spitzer then added “I’m not going to ask you what you have said to the president but it makes my heart warm that the president is calling you for wisdom and advice.” Zakaria is the host of “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” a Sunday CNN news offering. He was happily – proudly – acknowledging that he counsels the president. Neither CNN nor Zakaria found this admission compromised its self-image of neutrality for an instant. There were no urgent denials, as Katie Couric tried to smother Whoopi Goldberg’s on-air claim in 1997 that they marched at abortion rallies together. Zakaria openly proclaimed his presidential access. The folks at CNN certainly failed to remember how their network reacted on November 18, 2002, after Bob Woodward broke the “scoop” that Fox News president Roger Ailes had sent a memo on the War on Terror to Karl Rove, who then shared it with President Bush. CNN anchor Paula Zahn (a former Fox employee) asked commentator Jack Cafferty,“Does that shed new light on ‘we report, you decide’ Jack?” Cafferty joked, “‘Fair and balanced.’ [laughter] We better leave that alone.” On that day, the Ailes “controversy” was in heavy rotation. CNN's “Talkback Live” also devoted a segment to the subject, as did “Crossfire” and “Wolf Blitzer Reports.” So how many segments has CNN devoted to its own compromised position? None, unless you count Howard Kurtz brushing over it all by himself (no outsiders, please) on “Reliable Sources” on Sunday. Zakaria never touched it on his own Sunday show, and when he showed up on Monday’s “Situation Room” to discuss rape allegations against the head of the International Monetary Fund, Wolf Blitzer wouldn’t breathe a word of it. If Roger Ailes sending a memo to Rove compromised Fox’s independence, then what about Zakaria’s ongoing face-to-face strategy sessions with President Obama? As controversy grew over the weekend, Zakaria tried to claim, “At no point did President Obama ask me for advice on a specific policy or speech or proposal, nor did I volunteer it. I know that he has had similar meetings with other columnists.” This denial doesn’t pass the laugh test. What the hell did they talk about, then? If Obama is looking to formulate a policy and a speech (as the New York Times article asserted), then merely being in the room with him and moving your lips is advising him. As Zakaria himself said of meeting Obama in the Times, “He is searching for a way to pull back and weave a larger picture.” But Zakaria isn’t just a “columnist,” as he’s been with Newsweek and now Time. He hosts a Sunday show on foreign policy for CNN. To no w claim that Zakaria's covert meetings do not conflict with his journalistic integrity is not only inaccurate, it’s hypocritical by CNN’s own standards. If they were really interested in the image of journalistic independence, Zakaria would recuse himself immediately from covering foreign policy that affects the United States. What’s happened to our “news” media? They don’t see their role as simply providing the public with the best information. They would much rather apply all their wisdom gleaned from their Harvard and Yale educations to assist the government in running the country. Incredibly, here’s how Zakaria actually ended his show on Sunday. He showed several Internet reworkings of the historic picture of Obama’s staff watching the bin Laden takedown, and announced: “This one may be my favorite. The superhero squad. President Obama is Captain America, Vice President Biden as Flash. Madame Secretary [Hillary Clinton] as Wonder Woman, and many more.” Where are Jack Cafferty’s “fair and balanced” wisecracks now?
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I’m going to say this up front: I’m unqualified to opine about racism and its effect on people. I have my own prism which includes a critical look in the mirror . That look confirms that I’m white, middle-aged, and have not ever lived in a world where I’ve faced down rejection because of the color of my skin. The closest I can get to understanding racism have been recent experiences with ageism, a less insidious but still-jarring experience. Why I’m putting this post up at all: On a day where the Wall Street Journal thinks it’s news that white people think anti-white bias is on the rise , where Newt Gingrich has no regrets about calling the President a “food-stamp president”, where Ron Paul admits his own racism alongside an admission he would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act, it would be easy enough to overlook racism less overt or obvious. And yet, in the words of more than one person I’ve quoted in the list following, racism is expected from conservatives , but liberals/progressives can be racist, too, and in ways far more destructive. As one unqualified to opine, I’m writing this as an observer and a collector. There has been some fine writing on race, racism, race issues and the perception of people of color that racism is an attitude that is not unique to the political right, but also defines a large chunk of the political left, despite the fact that African-Americans have been the most loyal base of the Democratic party for decades. I was advised in a nice way by a concerned friend to be quiet and listen when I wrote about race the last time. That is what I have been doing. Listening. Reading. Paying Attention. Working through my own biases and trying to admit them when I catch myself in them. Today’s Race Discussion I do mean today. Actually, it began Sunday night and continues on through today. Key Posts VCThree : You Know What’s Really Unhelpful? I’m paying the freight; either for every jackass that people decided to hold up as exemplary of Black men, or for their perceived biases against them, based on caricatures and/or real jackassery. And I’m sick of it, and speaking out strongly against it. It makes people uncomfortable, afraid, defensive—and I’m okay with that. They need to feel discomfort, fear, on guard, because it’s a problem. It’s a major problem, and their ignorance of it further exacerbates it, to the degree where People of Color feel marginalized on issues that they feel are vital to their identity. This happens a lot more than Liberals and Progressives admit. AsiangrrlMN : An Open Letter to White Liberals: My Frank Opinions on Race However, that leaves about ten percent of white liberal people who are clueless at best when it comes to race–hateful and/or malicious at worst. Yes, liberals. The big-tent party. The party of tolerance and openness and whatnot. I say that with tongue firmly in cheek because while I believe the ideals of the Democratic Party are in line with that kind of thinking, sadly, I often find the reality to be much less savory. How do you know if you fit into that ten percent? I’ll give you some pointers. If you think we’re past racism in this country or that we are post-racial because hey, we elected a black man, that’s a flag of at least cluelessness. Other indicators are the thought that people of color are too vocal about racism, that we see racism everywhere, that we should be past it, that it wasn’t meant, that, that, that ….In other words, too much explaining and excusing going on. Voting for Obama does not make one not racist or racially-insensitive or whatnot. In fact, starting a sentence with I’m not racist, but, or some of my best friends are black, Asian, Latino, pretty much guarantees that the next words coming out of your mouth are going to be viewed with suspicion by the person whom you are addressing. These two posts triggered what can only be characterized as a sh*tstorm on Twitter last night. It’s too long to reproduce or even embed here. Just go read it, beginning at the top and moving on. It is a conversation which left me feeling like Twitter could possibly be the very worst medium for any serious discussion of race, racism, and issues surrounding the two. Lots of reaction. I’ve had the same thing happen to me and it’s not pretty. It turns into a war of 140 characters volleyed back and forth. When it escalates, which this one did, it does nothing to magnify or amplify understanding, but definitely raises the hostility bar more than a few inches. [Note: @truthrose1 added this to the discussion: Think about this, the reason why things heat up on twitter is because unfortunately the only place an AA can express his her cont… and …is on TWITTER, @Realbrother0003 wrote that and he is 100% correct, Black people have no place to express the truth Yesterday’s Race Discussions Because this is an ongoing conversation over many months with many threads, I’m aggregating some of the posts which I have read and learned much in the past. Tim Wise : Reading Racism Right to Left: Reflections on a Powerful Word and Its Applications This is one of the things that cause trouble when discussing—as I do in my writing and speeches—the topic of racism. Although we might be able to spell it, defining it is another matter. Ask ten people the meaning of the term, and you’ll get at least five fairly distinct answers, if not one for each person in the room. For some, racism means “hatred” based on race. Others say racism is tantamount to “prejudice,” whether or not hateful. For still others, racism requires not just an attitude, but some concrete action—discrimination of some sort—based on the prejudicial attitude. Some suggest it is racist to even think about race, to discuss it, or to notice a person’s color. Some speak of racism as only the most blatant acts of aggression based on color, while others will discuss the subtle types of bias that research indicates are so common, even in the modern “post-racial” era. With Friends Like These, Who Needs Glenn Beck? Racism and White Privilege on the Liberal Left Beyond the personal biases that exist to some extent within all of us (including those who are progressive), liberals and those on the left operate within institutional spaces and even in our political activism in ways that contribute to systemic racial inequity. This we do through four primary mechanisms. The first is a well-intended but destructive form of colorblindness. The second is an equally destructive colormuteness. The third mechanism by which liberal and left activists and advocates perpetuate racism is by the blatant manifestation of white privilege in our activities, issue framing, outreach and analysis: specifically, the favoring of white perspectives over those of people of color, the co-optation of black and brown suffering to score political points, and the unwillingness to engage race and racism even when they are central to the issue being addressed. And fourth, left activists often marginalize people of color by operating from a framework of extreme class reductionism, which holds that the “real” issue is class, not race, that “the only color that matters is green,” and that issues like racism are mere “identity politics,” which should take a back seat to promoting class-based universalism and programs to help working people. Ishmael Reed : Obama, His “Base” and the Jim Crow Media And after taking abuse from a Jim Crow media for a couple of hundred years has cyberspace provided a blogger underclass with the ability to talk back? To be heard and not just seen? To have a voice instead of being confined to providing musical interludes between serious “progressive” talk, like in the movies where the folks were brought up to the big house to belt out a few numbers. Are we arriving at a time when we get the opinions of the rest of us without being interpreted and explained by intermediaries? Adam Serwer He’s Black, Get Over It Part of the problem with the American conversation on race is the bizarre license that people take when writing about it on the basis of their own biography. But being “biracial” does not make one an expert on race, or on racial hybridity, any more than being a Republican or a Democrat makes one an expert on politics. So much of the writing on Obama’s racial identity, or on his political impact is muddled by our own subconscious racial desires. We want Obama to mean something specific, either to us or to others, with little regard for how he actually sees himself. As it stands, Arenas seems ill-prepared to talk about how biraciality operates in the African-American context. The black community in America has always accepted people of varying shades, cultures and backgrounds. Originally, this was a consequence of racial oppression; racist laws that determined that anyone with black ancestry was black. We may not have chosen to be a hybrid people, anymore than we chose to come here in the first place, but that’s what we are now. And it’s a beautiful thing. When it comes to racial identity, there is an idea that being black is somehow reductive, that it obliterates all cultural variety. Nothing could be further than the truth. When asked about his own racial identity, the current president of the NAACP, the 35-year-old Benjamin Jealous, told NPR reporter Michelle Martin that he identifies as black because while he was growing up, “White was an exclusive definition; Black was [the] inclusive definition.” Boston Globe (Madeline Drexler, 2007) : How Racism Hurts – Literally On Why it matters Oliver Willis puts it quite succinctly : Barack Obama matters to black America for many reasons, but his most symbolic role is that he’s a living role model for black children . As I’ve noted many times before, you can tell someone that they can make it with hard work and studying, but it’s a whole other notion to show black Americans that you really can go as high as the highest office in the country. And pictures are worth more than 1000 words or anything I could say here: I’ll keep listening. Talk to me. Tell me more. [crossposted from odd time signatures ]
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Politicians claim case is ‘hurting institution’, as New York chambermaid’s brother tells of her floods of tears Pressure is building on Dominique Strauss-Kahn to resign as head of the International Monetary Fund, with the US treasury chief and European finance ministers questioning if he can carry on in the light of his arrest. In a speech in New York on Tuesday, Tim Geithner, the US treasury secretary, said Strauss-Khan was “obviously not in a position to run the IMF”. He said: “I think it’s important that the board of the IMF formally put in place for an interim period somebody to act as managing director.” Geithner’s comments came after Austria’s finance minister, Maria Fekter, and others, said Strauss-Kahn was damaging the IMF: “Considering the situation, that bail was denied, he has to figure out for himself, that he is hurting the institution,” she told journalists at a meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels. Strauss-Kahn is being held in isolation at the notorious Rikers Island in New York, having been refused bail after denying charges of a sexual assault on a 32-year-old chambermaid. His lawyers are expected to reapply for bail on Friday; one New York tabloid reported they might be preparing to argue sexual contact was consensual. A grand jury is meeting in private to decide whether evidence is strong enough for a case to proceed over the alleged attack in a luxury Manhattan hotel suite. Jurors will announce their decision on Friday. Fekter’s Spanish counterpart, Elana Salgado, also put pressure on the IMF boss. She said the alleged crimes were “extraordinarily serious” and Strauss-Kahn needed to decide for himself if he should step down. “If I had to show my solidarity and support for someone, it would be toward the woman who has been assaulted, if that is really the case that she has been,” she said. IMF officials are also reportedly keen for Strauss-Khan to step down. Officials at the institution said they could not comment and said they had not spoken to Strauss-Kahn since his arrest. Other European officials were more supportive. “I’m very sad and upset. And he’s a good friend of mine,” the Luxembourg prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, said. “I didn’t like the pictures I’ve seen on television,” he added of footage showing Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs escorted by police. Strauss-Kahn, who had been tipped to win the French presidency as the Socialist candidate next year, is accused of sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a maid at the Sofitel hotel last Saturday. He was detained by police hours later as he sat in the first class cabin of an Air France flight about to take off for Paris. He had been due to host meetings about Europe’s debt crisis. The New York Post reported that his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, might be preparing to argue sexual contact was consensual. It quoted a source close to the defence: “There may well have been consent.” Brafman told the court on Monday that forensic evidence taken by police from his client over the weekend “will not be consistent with a forcible encounter”. The brother of the alleged victim, who has not been named, told the Daily Mail his sister called him an hour after the incident and said: “Somebody has done something really bad to me.” She was crying uncontrollably, he said, claiming she told him Strauss-Kahn twice tried to force himself on her. Lawyer Jeffrey Shapiro, representing the maid, said she was from Guinea in west Africa and has a 15-year-old daughter; he said she had no agenda, had no idea who Strauss-Kahn was, felt “alone in the world” and was now in hiding. The allegations have shocked France. In a CSA poll, 57% of voters and 70% of Socialists said they thought Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a plot. The philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy said Strauss-Kahn had been his friend for 20 years and would remain so: “Charming, seductive, yes, certainly; a friend to women and, first of all, to his own woman, naturally; but this brutal and violent individual, this wild animal, this primate? Obviously no, it’s absurd.” Le Monde reported that Strauss-Kahn’s wife, Anne Sinclair, had got a call from her husband as he was travelling to the airport. He mentioned a “serious problem” but made no allusion to a hotel attack. Strauss-Kahn’s former wife, Brigitte Guillemette, defended him in an interview with Le Parisien. He is believed to have to met their daughter Camille after the alleged attack. Guillemette said it was “unthinkable” he could do what he was accused of and then lunch with his daughter minutes later. “He’s someone who is gentle. Violence is not part of his temperament,” she said. French writer Tristane Banon is considering filing a police complaint for attempted rape against Strauss-Kahn over an alleged attack in 2002. New York mayor Mike Bloomberg defended the police decision to parade the handcuffed IMF boss before the media in a so-called “perp walk”, a move that has caused outrage in France, where former French culture minister Jack Lang described it as a “lynching”. Bloomberg told reporters: “I think it is humiliating, but if you don’t want to do the perp walk, don’t do the crime. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for that. Our judicial system works where the public can see the alleged perpetrators.” The case has rocked the financial world as the IMF grapples with the European debt crisis; it led the bailouts of Greece, Portugal and Ireland, and Strauss-Kahn has been one of the bailout packages’ greatest supporters. After his arrest, the IMF’s second-in-command, John Lipsky, was named acting managing director. Among those being mentioned as possible successors are Gordon Brown, French finance minister Christine Lagarde, Kemal Dervis, a Turkish former finance minister now at the US Brookings Institution, and Mohammad El-Erian, an Egyptian award-winning author who heads the Pimco bond fund. China’s top official at the IMF, Zhu Min, is also a potential deputy managing director. France’s Socialist party met for emergency talks about its forthcoming primary race for a candidate to run against Nicolas Sarkozy next year, with Strauss-Kahn out of the picture. “There was emotion, of course, and the shock we all feel, but it is our responsibility to be up to the task,” said party leader Martine Aubry. Dominique Strauss-Kahn IMF Economics Global economy United States France Europe Dominic Rushe Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Democracy Now Features Breitbart Smear Campaign Against Missouri Labor Professors and How the Media is Getting Wise to His Lies
May 17, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman did a great job in her interview today with University of Missouri-Kansas City’s professor Judy Ancel who along with her fellow professor Don Giljum were the victims of the latest Breitbart smear that Karoli covered here and here for Crooks and Liars. As they discussed during the interview, with a few exceptions, the media for the most part treated this story in the manner it deserved, with a healthy bit of skepticism given Andrew Breitbart’s history of putting out highly edited and deceptive videos. “Getting Wise to Breitbart’s Lies”: Missouri Professors Survive Right-Wing Smear Campaign by Andrew Breitbart : Two Missouri labor professors have been vindicated after a right-wing smear campaign almost cost them their jobs. Last month, the website BigGovernment.com—run by right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart—posted footage of a labor relations class taught by University of Missouri professors Judy Ancel and Don Giljum. In the video, the professors appeared to make a number of statements backing the use of violence in the struggle for labor rights. But it turned out the video was edited in a way to distort their words—similar to recent video campaigns against ACORN, Planned Parenthood, NPR and former FDA official, Shirley Sherrod. “I was just appalled. I knew it was me speaking, but it wasn’t saying what I had said in class,” said Judy Ancel, director of the Institute for Labor Studies, University of Missouri-Kansas City. In the video above Amy Goodman described the ordeal Ancel and Giljum were put through and described how the videos were edited that were used on Brietbart’s Big Government web site. More of the interview below the fold. Click here to view this media In the next segment, Judy Ancel and Goodman discussed the student, Phillip Christofanelli and his ties to a local St. Louis tea party group, to Andrew Breitbart and James O’Keefe and how he’s been a guest on Dana Loesch’s local radio show. And as was pointed out by the St. Louis Activist Hub, Democracy Now exposed the smear campaign against the professors by Dana Loesch and Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder where they continued to distort what was taught in their labor studies classes even after they were shown to have been taken out of context. Democracy Now Exposes the Dishonest Smear Campaign of Loesch and Kinder : Democracy Now had Judy Ancel on as a guest in studio and did a great job laying bare the nasty smear campaign against UMSL and UMKC led by CNN contributor Dana Loesch . And as Adam noted, Ancel also criticized the St. Louis Post Dispatch for their coverage which you can read more about here — Post-Dispatch’s False Notion of “Neutrality” Contributes to Demise of Journalism . Click here to view this media They wrapped things up discussing Don Giljum’s treatment by UMSL, the international union, the response from the students in the class and whether there might have been a different outcome if this had happened a year ago. AMY GOODMAN: What happened to Don Giljum? JUDY ANCEL: Well, two days after the story went up on Breitbart’s web page, Don’s international union president of the Operating Engineers called him and demanded his resignation as business manager. He’d been business manager for 27 years of a very important local in eastern Missouri, western Illinois. And he resigned. He had planned on retiring anyway on May 1st, but he resigned a few days earlier. And that really hurt. Luckily, his members have rallied to his side and opposed that action, but it’s done. AMY GOODMAN: We only have a few minutes. Talk about these students and what this means, what this pushback was all about. The fact is, you now have your job, and Don Giljum has been sent a letter from the chancellor? JUDY ANCEL: Of St. Louis, University of Missouri-St. Louis, telling him— AMY GOODMAN: Because he was forced— JUDY ANCEL: He was forced to resign, yeah. And that was reversed, and they have vindicated Don, as you said, and he was told that he will be rehired. He’s an adjunct. And this raises the whole question of the rights of contingent faculty, who teach now a majority of the courses in our universities. How can they have academic freedom when they’re subject to these kinds of attacks? They need to be supported by their universities. AMY GOODMAN: What did the students do? JUDY ANCEL: The students, our students organized. They set up an email list. They started bombarding the universities with support letters for us, denying that we were teaching violence—they gave us a number of statements—and also decrying the fact that their images were put up on Breitbart’s page, a violation of their privacy, possible violation of federal law, and that they were exposed. One of my students said, “My boss watches Fox. He can recognize me. I don’t want to be fired for this.” And one of my students said, “Look, we need the freedom and the privacy to talk about these issues, even inflammatory issues, in the classroom. That’s how we learn. And if that space is violated, that really takes away our right to an education.” AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel like this would have been different a year ago, the outcome? JUDY ANCEL: Absolutely, absolutely. AMY GOODMAN: That you would have been out, that Don would have been out? JUDY ANCEL: That’s right. AMY GOODMAN: What changed? JUDY ANCEL: I think we would have been toast. What changed is Shirley Sherrod and the attacks on NPR, the attacks on ACORN, and the fact that the media is now getting wise to Breitbart’s lies. And so, they held off, for the most part. There were some bad stories, one in the St. Louis Post that was not very favorable, and one in a Columbia, Missouri, paper. AMY GOODMAN: Are you exploring legal recourse? JUDY ANCEL: Yeah, I am. I am. But the fact is that most of the media waited for my response and then my university’s response, which took three days to come, and then we got the headlines, not Breitbart. That was a huge change, and I really appreciate that. AMY GOODMAN: Judy Ancel, I want to thank you for being with us, director of the Institute for Labor Studies, University of Missouri-Kansas City. You can read the entire transcript at Democracy Now here .
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