David Cameron’s promise to tackle trafficking said to be in disarray after an exodus of expert Home Office staff David Cameron’s promise to tackle human trafficking is said to be in disarray after an exodus of expert Home Office staff and the sidelining of the official in charge of the policy. A former police officer – one of the most senior figures to have been involved in investigating trafficking, who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions – said: “One of the concerns is the lack of continuity of staff at the Home Office. The entire original team has gone.” Cameron has repeatedly stated that trafficking is a priority for the coalition; only last week immigration minister Damian Green told parliament: “The UK is a world leader in its anti-trafficking work, but that does not mean we should stand still.” But the inter-ministerial group on human trafficking has met only once, while specific targets for tackling the issue no longer feature on the Home Office website. The voluntary sector, meanwhile, claims that officials are refusing to set agendas on trafficking or provide detailed timescales for action. The government was due to unveil its four-part strategy to disrupt trafficking in March, but sources say it will appear in June at the earliest. Even the government’s recent decision to endorse the EU directive on human trafficking has led to concerns among MPs, who fear that ministers will be unwilling to appoint an independent rapporteur who would investigate government policies on trafficking and tell parliament whether the UK is fulfilling its obligations. There are also concerns over the treatment of victims after they have escaped from their abusers. Evidence suggests that such women are being classified as illegal immigrants rather than victims of a crime. The Poppy Project, widely acknowledged as the UK’s leading organisation for trafficking victims, and which last week had its Home Office funding removed after eight years, said there had been four attempts at forced deportations of victims in the past three weeks, compared with two in the previous three years. A Home Office spokesman said: “There has been no delay. The strategy will be published shortly. The government remains committed to working with our international partners and seeking the views of expert groups in the UK to tackle this awful crime.” Opting into the EU trafficking directive and a new border police command would help target organised criminals. A Home Office source said the changes to personnel were a routine staff redeployment and rejected claims of a lack of expertise among officials. Anti-trafficking plans, he said, would appear on the Home Office website when the strategy was published. Human trafficking Prostitution Mark Townsend guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Senior politicians vow to review ties to America after discord over drone attacks and assassination of al-Qaida leader The security of Nato’s main supply line into Afghanistan came under threat on Saturday as Pakistani parliamentarians voted to review all aspects of their relationship with the US amid worsening political fallout from the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The unanimous motion was passed in the early hours of Saturday morning at the conclusion of an extraordinary 10-hour parliamentary session when the military’s top brass offered apologies and admissions of failure, and the country’s spy chief offered to resign. Condemning the 2 May raid on bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad, 35 miles northeast of Islamabad, as a “violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty”, parliament voted unanimously to review the country’s terms of engagement with Washington. In feisty speeches lawmakers warned against further “unilateral action”, including CIA drone strikes, and urged the government to consider cutting the Nato supply line that runs from Karachi to Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass and Balochistan. Suspicious of Pakistan’s failure to capture bin Laden but recognising the importance of the supply line and pursuing other al-Qaida fugitives, the Obama administration is dispatching Senator John Kerry – the “good cop” of US diplomacy with Pakistan – to Islamabad on Sunday. “We’re not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart, we’re trying to find a way to build it,” he told reporters in Kabul on Saturday. Kerry arrives in Pakistan at a time of unprecedented criticism of the powerful military. On Friday night top generals were submitted to harsh questioning from parliamentarians during a marathon session that stretched late into the night. The inter-services intelligence (ISI) chief General Shuja Pasha, one of the most powerful figures in the country, admitted to an “intelligence failure” on Bin Laden, insisting that the ISI had been kept in the “complete dark” by the US over the raid, and tendered his resignation to prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. It was not accepted – a sign that the government, led by Asif Ali Zardari, has decided to support the weakened military. The fragile civilian government is gambling that its pro-army stance will guarantee it a full term in office. “It was politically a very astute move,” said Talat Masood, a retired general and political analyst. Another striking revelation came from the deputy air force chief, who admitted that CIA drones take off from Shamsi airbase in Balochistan province. But he insisted that the drones were unarmed – those carrying missiles came from Afghanistan, he said – and that Shamsi was actually under the authority of the United Arab Emirates, which built the remote airstrip in the 1990s for rich sheikhs on bird-hunting expeditions. Despite having been technically held in camera, details of the parliamentary session leaked out to the media. One MP told the news website Dawn that the air force chief claimed to have ordered his jet fighters to shoot down US helicopters with Bin Laden’s body on board when they were leaving Pakistan, but they were too slow. Although generally apologetic, in some instances the generals struck back at their critics. When an MP from a religious party attacked Pasha, the spy chief told the mullah that was in no position to talk because he had received funds from Libya and Saudi Arabia. The parliamentary motion appeared intended to deflect attention from uncomfortable questions about Bin Laden’s Pakistan sanctuary onto complaints about US breaches of sovereignty. But the opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted from power in a 1999 military coup, said he was determined to seek greater accountability of army power. “The elected government should formulate foreign policy. A parallel policy or parallel government should not be allowed to work,” he told a news conference yesterday. Deteriorating relations with the US are further complicated by a bitter row between spies on both sides. The fact that the CIA could run such a massive operation to capture Bin Laden had deeply embarrassed the ISI, said Vali Nasr, a former Obama administration advisor. “It’s not just a diplomatic embarrassment, it’s a counter-espionage failure,” he said. “Suddenly the ISI is scared of what the CIA is capable of doing.” In a further sign of cooling relations General Khalid Wynne, chairman of Pakistan’s joint chiefs of staff committee, has cancelled a five-day visit to the United States due to start on 22 May. The US has begun to look to central Asian countries to reduce its reliance on Pakistan for military supplies to Afghanistan. The cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has already threatened to have his supporters block military trucks passing through Peshawar. But outside parliament, the gap between political rhetoric and ground realities is as stark as ever in Pakistan. On Friday a CIA drone fired missiles that killed five people in the tribal belt, the fourth such attack since 2 May. Yesterday the death toll from Friday’s Taliban suicide attack on a paramilitary training centre climbed to 89; a Taliban spokesman said the vicious bombing was to avenge the al-Qaida leader’s death and warned of more to come. Pakistan Nato Osama bin Laden Afghanistan Global terrorism US military United States al-Qaida Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
enlarge In 1980 it was their turn to be stuck on the treadmill to oblivion. Click here to view this media The only thing reasonably different about this May 13th as opposed to the May 13th in 1980 was that in 1980 it fell on a Tuesday. It was a Presidential election year, so all eyes were on the Primaries being held – Ted Kennedy and George Bush Sr. still campaigning hard, even though both were trailing. The Embassy saga in Tehran was still going on. Ed Muskie, in his first diplomatic mission since being appointed Secretary of State, arrived in Brussels on his way to Vienna and talk immediately fixated on the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Carter Administration’s Foreign Policy. Libya was creating a stir with bloody purges being carried out by the Gaddafi regime and Americans were busily being expelled on the grounds of being suspected CIA operatives. And it was Tornado season with twisters ripping through Missouri and Pennsylvania. All in all, an interesting day even if it was a Tuesday in 1980. Here are three newscasts beginning with the CBS World News Roundup, followed by the 9:00 am (West coast) Network news and ending with The World Tonight, all from May 13, 1980.
Continue reading …
Will Blue triumph? Can Jedward win? Enjoy every ridiculous minute of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest live from 8pm with your glamorous hosts, Heidi and Stuart The finalists: semi-final one and The finalists: semi final two 8.16pm: It’s the first act! His name is Axel, but goes by the name of Paradise Oscar, and he is from FINLAND . Ooh, Jeff Brazier! Right, so basically it’s about someone called Peter who knows each European country by heart. He is off to save the planet, apparently, and we’re all welcome to join him as long as we sing da da dum da da dum. I’m only going if Paradise Oscar doesn’t wear that bloody awful shirt. 8.13pm: The phonelines are open, and you can start voting! Except you haven’t seen any of the acts yet, but since when did that matter? VOTE JEDWARD. You know you want to. 8.07pm: They have no been joined by 43 Lena lookalikes waving the flags of Europe. And now the actual Lena, doing the final chorus. And a full swing band. And many, many, fireworks. My head hurts. 8.00pm: IT’S STARTING! Live from the Espirit arena in Dusseldorf, which is apparently packed with 35,000 fans. Or so Graham Norton tells us, for he is in charge of UK proceedings. Our hosts for the evening are Anka, who is wearing a red dress like a 70s shagpile rug and a over-tight ponytail; Judith, who is wearing Bacofoil and doing the French bits, and a man called Stefan who is the actual Swedish Chef off the Muppets. He is talking about TV vankings. I hope these are rankings. Ah, there’s nothing like a bit of set-piece intro comedy, is there? Lena can’t perform last year’s winning song, Satellite, because she is also competing this evening, so Stefan and Anke are performing a rockabilly version. Imagine how bad that could possibly be, and then multiply it by about 7 MILLION. 7.58pm: It’s nearly time! It’s Heidi here now right through until 9.30pm, when Stuart will take over. 7.47pm: Oh, apparently the warm-up guy is cracking xenophobic gags. The Irish are drunks, the Italians are short and the British have no sense of humour. Oh, bravo. 7.44pm: Heidi Stephens: A message from James in Dusseldorf – loads of Union flags on display, apparently, and the warm-up guy is getting the crowd going. Who the hell do you book to do the warm-up for Eurovision? 7.24pm: Stuart Heritage : Right, you know how these Eurovision drinking games work by now. Whenever any of the following happens, you have to drink something. Or eat something. Or just generally despair at the world a little bit. I will be doing the last of these suggestions, whereas Heidi will be wittering incoherently in no time: 1 – The UK’s entry is described as ‘our strongest in years’ 2 – The hosts misguidedly attempt to flirt with each other 3 – A song rhymes ‘fire’ with ‘desire’ 4 – A song rhymes ‘high’ with ‘sky’ 5 – While announcing their country’s voting scores, a presenter unsuccessfully tries to chat up the host 6 – Someone wears enough fake tan to make you question the reliability of your television’s contrast settings 7 – A performer finishes their song by bellowing into a wind machine 8 – A song makes a cackhanded nation-specific political statement that’s lost on 99% of the audience 9 – The UK doesn’t do as well as people thought it would 10 – Someone mumbles bitterly about political voting 7.16pm: Heidi Stephens: Guten abend meine freunde! It’s nearly time! I’m going to take you through the first 90 minutes of this evening’s show, which should cover most of the 25 glorious musical contributions from Europe’s finest musical talent. At 9.30pm, my lovely co-host Stuart Heritage will be taking over for all the amazing interval entertainment and the scoring, right through to the bitter end when Blue are crowned champions and the UK faces the prospect of hosting the 2012 show on a budget of £8.50 and a pocketful of fluff and buttons. OK, maybe not, but I think the UK might do alright. The good news is, we can’t do any worse than last place in 2010, so hurrah. I haven’t seen much by way of the performances this year, so most of what’s going to occur this evening will be new to my unpolluted eyes and ears. I’ve also heard bits of the UK entry, but not the entire song, so if there’s bit in the middle where they all make a human pyramid with Duncan on top playing the spoons, my horror will be unfeigned. I have, however, made a note of the all the artists’ names and song titles, so I don’t waste valuable viewing time looking up how to spell something in Slovenian that sounds like it’s just been coughed up by a horse. Alas Stuart and I didn’t make it to Dusseldorf this year, but we are receiving dispatches from JAMES HODGE, who is sending all the news and gossip from inside the arena so we can post it here. Apparently it is currently packed to the rafters with lots of very excited people, some of whom are waving the flags of more than one nation. And this, my friends, is the spirit of Eurovision. Also, Jagermeister. 7.10pm: Heidi: Hello and welcome to the annual Guardian Eurovision Song Contest liveblog, coming to you live from the UK! Stuart: Bonjour et bienvenue à la réunion annuelle Guardian Eurovision de la chanson liveblog concours, à venir avec vous en direct du Royaume-Uni! Heidi: You’re doing this on Google Translate, aren’t you? Stuart: Yes. Heidi: Oh. Hello! I’m Heidi! Stuart: And I’m Stuart! Heidi: And we’re your Eurovision liveblog hosts! Stuart: Bonsoir! It’s going to be a crazy crazy Euro liveblog party! Heidi, you are looking very beautiful this evening. Heidi: Thank you Stuart, and you are also looking very handsome. Right, that’s the obligatory clunky flirting over. Welcome to the 2011 Eurovision Liveblog! It’s a night of bad outfits, demented dancing and impenetrable lyrics, and that’s just from Blue and Jedward. We are very excited. Clearly the whole of Eurovision is too much drama for one liveblogger to cope with, so tonight’s liveblog will be a two person affair – Heidi Stephens will be kicking things off at 8pm, with Stuart Heritage picking up the sequinned baton at 9.30pm. Do feel free to join the fun by leaving your comments below, and don’t forget to let us know where you are, who you’re with and who you’re cheering for this evening. We do not discriminate. If Moldova float your boat, so be it. Yay, Eurovision! Enjoy! Eurovision 2011 Eurovision Television Heidi Stephens Stuart Heritage guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Unnamed worker taken along with an Italian after gunmen raid building in north-west part of the country A British contract worker has been kidnapped by gunmen in Nigeria. The raiders stormed into the man’s apartment on Thursday night and fled with him and an Italian worker, police said. The pair have not been named. A police chief said a “horde of gunmen” burst into the building in Birnin Kebbi, in the north west of the country. A German colleague managed to escape by scaling a wall but a Nigerian engineer was shot and wounded, Kebbi state police chief Adamu Hassan said. He told Nigerian media the missing pair had been working for a construction company in the state capitaland that there had not been a ransom demand. The men worked for the firm B. Stabilini and were building a bank. The firm was unavailable for comment. The policeman said a large amount of cash in the apartment was not taken, according to the website This Day Live . A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are aware of reports of a missing British national. We are urgently looking into these reports.” Kidnappings in Nigeria’s north-west are unusual, unlike in the country’s southern delta where oil workers have routinely been kidnapped. In September 2008 two Britons were held by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, while in April 2009 a Scottish oil worker was abducted and his guard killed in Port Harcourt. In January 2010 three Britons and a Colombian were kidnapped, and in November of the same year, four men from the US, Canada and France were taken while 7.5 miles offshore on the Okoro field. Nigeria Africa guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Report showing trains in Europe cost 40% less to run will fuel attack on pay and outdated travel perks Transport secretary Philip Hammond will spark a confrontation with unions this week by demanding steep cuts in the wage bills of Britain’s railways, citing an official study suggesting that they cost 40% more to operate than equivalent systems in France, Germany and the Netherlands. The report, by former Civil Aviation Authority chief Sir Roy McNulty, will set an “aspiration” of reducing the cost of transporting passengers by 30% by 2019, with potential savings of more than £1bn annually by the end of the decade. Commissioned in the latter days of Gordon Brown’s government, the study, to be published on Thursday, is likely to be used by ministers to attack both unions and the historical perks enjoyed by rail staff. Train drivers earned an average of £41,179 last year, more than police officers, teachers, firemen and nurses, and unions have
Continue reading …
US and Britain condemn conviction of Andrei Sannikov, who described charges of staging riots as ‘absurd’ A Belarussian presidential candidate has been sentenced to five years in prison following a trial that he denounced as political punishment for challenging the nation’s authoritarian leader. A district court in the Belarussian capital Minsk handed out the sentence to Andrei Sannikov after convicting him on charges of staging riots following December’s presidential election. Sannikov called the charges “absurd” in a statement before the verdict, which was condemned by the US and Britain. “This is a political punishment for me as a presidential candidate who has formed a strong team of professionals and declared readiness to take charge of the country,” he said. Sannikov, a 57-year-old former deputy foreign minister, said he was tortured by Belarus’s secret police and that its chief personally threatened harsh reprisals against his wife – a journalist – and their four-year-old son. Another four opposition activists were also given prison terms in the same trial. Sannikov’s trial was the latest move in an ongoing crackdown on dissent by the government of President Alexander Lukashenko, who was declared the winner of December’s election with nearly 80% of the vote. International observers criticised the election. The exchange rate of the national currency of Belarus plunged by 30% this week after the government completed its devaluation. Hard currency reserves have plummeted to less than $4bn, and staples such as vegetable oil and sugar began vanishing from stores. “A severe economic crisis has prompted Lukashenko to tighten repression to prevent the opposition from forming the core of protests,” said Alexander Klaskovsky, an independent political analyst. The US state department issued a statement condemning Sannikov’s conviction and other trials of presidential candidates and opposition activists. “Belarus should immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners and cease continuing human rights violations against critics of the government,” it said. “The results of ongoing trials will be taken into account as the United States continues to review its relations with Belarus and consider further measures.” The Europe minister David Lidington also voiced concern about Sannikov’s conviction, calling it a “new low for the rule of law in Belarus”. “Mr Sannikov is guilty of nothing more than the peaceful expression of his opinion about the results of December’s flawed elections,” he said. Belarus Alexander Lukashenko Europe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …This week the DCCC spent a quarter million dollars on media in the Buffalo suburbs to advance the candidacy of conservative Democrat Kathy Hochul. Hochul is certainly “better” than her opponent, GOP hack Jane Corwin — but does Hochul deserve that kind of expenditure? Her first TV ad starts with her throwing the immigrant community right under the bus. Still, she is a Democrat and that’s the DCCC’s job: elect Democrats — the good, the bad and the ugly. Blue America has a different mandate: we leave the bad and the ugly to the DCCC and try to lend a hand with the Good. Let’s see if anyone can find anyone better anywhere than our newest candidate, New Mexico state Senator Eric Griego. Kathy Hochul brags that she “led the fight” to prevent illegal immigrants from getting drivers’ licenses. Eric took a very different approach to the problem in his career. When New Mexico’s new Republican governor signed an executive order attempting to mimic the Arizona “Let me see your papers” law, Eric became the champion in the fight to oppose her. It was the most controversial and politically risky issue he had tackled. “She signed an Executive Order requiring state law enforcement to ask for immigration status for all ‘criminal suspects.’ I introduced legislation barring state and local law enforcement from ever asking about immigration status. I also led the fight against the repeal of drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants. The policy had been effect for several years and became an effective wedge issue for the new conservative Republican Governor and her cronies. In a rare showing of Democratic unity, the state senate thwarted the repeal of the drivers licenses.” A very different kind of Democrat than Kathy Hochul. And a very different kind of Democrat than the kind of conservative Big Business shill the DCCC is rumored to be recruiting to run against Eric for the Albuquerque seat opening up due to the departure of our old friend Martin Heinrich for the open U.S. Senate seat. Right now Eric’s only declared opponent is an extremist religious-fanatic, Republican pastor named Dan Lewis, who is hellbent on wrecking government regulations. The Albuquerque chapter of DFA first alerted us to Eric’s decision to run for the seat, describing him as “a hard-nosed progressive fighter for families, children and workers who’s ready, willing and able to take on the right wing attacks on education, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.” That’s the picture his record in public service paints. The first thing I ever heard him say was “The last thing we need to send to Washington is a Democrat who’s a kinder, gentler version of the Republicans, frankly.” Blue America has spent weeks talking with him since then. He’s exactly the kind of unapologetic progressive leader we need in Congress, an antidote to the dozens of Blue Dogs and conservatives always scurrying across the aisle to vote with the Republicans against the interests of working families and for their corporate donors. In contrast, Eric led efforts at the state level to do what our kind of Democrats are trying to do at the national level– “Before cutting core spending on kids, seniors and working families,” he told me passionately, “we should ask big oil and other corporate tax evaders to pay their fair share. We should also repeal the Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 a year. For the Republicans to defend subsidies for big oil is indefensible given their outrageous profits. To say taxes on the richest CEOs and multinational corporations are ‘off the table’ is outrageous when at the same time the Republican leadership is willing to ration Medicare, Medicaid and limit Social Security.” In the state legislature he sponsored several tax reform bills that would have raised personal income taxes on the wealthiest two percent of New Mexicans and to limit subsidies to large out of state corporations. The bills were killed by state Senate leaders. “In my first year in the Senate, I passed a green jobs bill that provides state-funded training for solar, wind and other renewable energy workers. That year [2008] and in 2011 I sponsored comprehensive ethics and campaign finance reform legislation including public financing for all state elections, contribution limits, and a state ethics commission. The ethics and campaign finance bills never got heard due to opposition from Senate leadership.” In 2005 Eric was behind the successful Albuquerque initiative to provide voluntary public financing for local elections. “We are now one of the few cities in the nation with public financing of local elections.” Kicking off his campaign a couple weeks ago, Eric told his supporters in Albuquerque why he’s the right man for the job. Those reasons resonate perfectly with Blue America: “We need a Democratic Congressional candidate who will unapologetically stand up for Democratic values. The current Republican leadership in Congress wants to dismantle the protections that it has taken generations to build, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We need a strong courageous advocate for working families and who has a record of taking on those who put the interests of the richest two percent of Americans and the largest corporate interests ahead of our children, our environment and our local businesses.” If that kind of message appeals to you– and, by the way, I should mention that Eric is also the Executive Director of New Mexico Voices for Children, a non-profit research, policy and advocacy organization that fights for the state’s vulnerable children and working families– please consider making a donation to our newest endorsed candidate, Eric Griego.
Continue reading …It’s not just the racist outbursts and the intense adoption of bizarre conspiracy theories about the president’s birth certificate that pretty clearly identifies the Tea Partiers as truly a bunch of loons. Then there are the costumes. We got a prime example earlier this week in D.C. , when a group of “Tea Party” spokesmen got up in front of reporters dressed in Revolutionary War costumes and intoned a raft of nutty stuff about fomenting a new American revolution. What they were really on about was their contempt for House Speaker John Boehner as a “Republican In Name Only” who was selling them out on their key monetary issues. The press conference was indeed about attacking Republicans in the House and warning them they face defeat in the 2012 primaries if they fail to live up to their demands. And the key demand this week is that Republicans refuse to raise the limit on the national debt. The presser seemed to have been organized by WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah, who spoke second. But it was led off by a Georgia preacher named William Temple, dressed up as a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He explained: TEMPLE: We do this colonial outfit to remind the current government of the first revolution. And we are in a revolution, the American people, right now. Temple went on to claim, among other things, that he had led “1.9 million people” in the September 12 “March on Washington” last year that he claimed propelled Republicans to power. Um, right. In the real world, you see, he was one of about 90,000 people who mostly came to hear Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Of course, part of these people’s delusion is that they believe they are far more powerful than they really are. So there they were, demanding that Republicans step up and toe their line on raising the debt ceiling — even, of course, if it means the United States is forced to default on its full faith and credit. Later, another colonial impersonator — this time doing George Washington — stepped up to the podium and made more vague threats against wayward Republicans: And the funny thing is, Republicans really believe this stuff. They are completely cowed by the Tea Partiers. That’s who owns them now.
Continue reading …
Did you know that television isn't liberal enough? That's what Bill Moyers told PBS's Tavis Smiley Friday (video follows with transcript of commentary): BILL MOYERS, PBS: Television, including public television, rarely gives a venue to people who have refused to buy into the ruling ideology of Washington. The ruling ideology of Washington is, “We have two parties, they do their job, they do their job pretty well. The differences between them limit the terms of the debate.” But we know that real change comes from outside the consensus. Real change comes from people making history, challenging history, dissenting, protesting, agitating, organizing. Those voices that challenge the ruling ideology – two parties, the best of all worlds do a pretty good job – those voices get constantly pushed to the, to the stage, to the areas of the stage you can’t see or hear. Just who is offering a “stage” for such voices. Try to guess: MOYERS: You can get, you get some voices like those on your show, you get them on Amy Goodman, on “Democracy Now,” and a few other places like that, but not as a steady presence in the public discourse. So, in Moyers' view, the perilously liberal “Democracy Now,” Amy Goodman, and Tavis Smiley are offering a stage for voices that are “challenging history, dissenting, protesting, agitating, organizing.” And we need more venues for such voices. Imagine that: television isn't liberal enough. Who'd have thought it? But there was more in this discussion between two of the most radical tax-funded media figures in the nation that was destined to raise some eyebrows: TAVIS SMILEY, HOST: I read the charter of what public television and public radio were created to do, and I say this, and it may be politically incorrect to say on PBS, but we are not living up to that charter. We're not living up to it on public television, we’re not living up to it on public radio when it comes to a diversity and inclusion of other voices. We’re not living up to that. So I wonder whether or not in some ways we deserve being pricked a little bit, pushed a little bit if we're not living up to the charter, but you tell me. So Smiley is concerned that PBS and NPR aren't living up to their charter because they're not offering a diversity of views. That's a concept most conservatives would agree with. However, to someone like Moyers, diversity means – wait for it! – more liberal opinion: MOYERS: I don't think we're living up to that charter that Lyndon Johnson proclaimed, no, I don't. The conservatives have won to this extent: too many people in public television and public radio are looking over their shoulders fearing that the Right is after them. We don't really have a Left in this country. There is no organized Left that comes after journalists the way that the Right comes after journalists who offer a different alternative. This is an old story, Tavis. Richard Nixon and Pat Buchanan, his communications director, tried to do in public broadcasting back in the early ’70s when they accused us of being liberal when in fact we were just offering an alternative view of reality – something they don’t want. Got that? Public television and public radio are not fulfilling their charter because they're not liberal enough. Any questions?
Continue reading …