Spring is in the air and The Archers has pupped with Ambridge Extra – an everyday story of rural folk, for young people The big thing this month – apart from the passionate coupling of Jolene and Kenton – is that The Archers has pupped. As The Archers is 60 years old, Ambridge Extra is a happy, if embarrassing, event. It will be transmitted twice a week on digital radio (off you go to Argos) and, according to the scriptwriter, will just zip along, whereas its elderly parent moves with almost vegetable sloth, like a mighty marrow. I fear it is intended to appeal to the younger element. Hands up anyone who wants to know more about Jamie’s mates Marty and Steve or Alice’s chums Chaz and Paulie. (Does no one have real names any more?) Yesterday they turned up, all pimples and alcopops, though curiously well spoken. Jamie, who is going through a bumpy adolescence, was being urged to steal from The Bull (“What’s the point of living in a pub if you can’t help yourself to the booze?”) while Alice, off her head on tequila at a rave (“Oops-a-daisy! Whoo!”), was rescued from the lascivious Sean (“Oh, what are you doing?”) by Chaz. In spite of the added alcohol, nothing much happened, which is what normally happens in Ambridge. Meanwhile, back in the marrow patch, Kenton and Jolene are inextricably entwined (“Kenton! I’m ready!”). Elizabeth is poaching Roy from Grey Gables to run Lower Loxley. Which, it turns out, is actually Higher Loxley, as the length of Nigel’s dying scream as he plummeted from the roof (allowing for acceleration and discounting wind resistance) indicates it must be as tall as York minster. This didn’t come up at the inquest as the tender-hearted coroner was distracted by David’s tears. David has become disturbingly morose recently: “We have to collect a sample of dung from every cow. It’s just One Thing After Another.” Happily, the heroic Ruth, though up to her neck in muck and bullocks, stays upbeat:”Standing around being miserable is not going to get the yard scraped.” Don’t you just love these old country saws? Radio 4 Radio Nancy Banks-Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Spring is in the air and The Archers has pupped with Ambridge Extra – an everyday story of rural folk, for young people The big thing this month – apart from the passionate coupling of Jolene and Kenton – is that The Archers has pupped. As The Archers is 60 years old, Ambridge Extra is a happy, if embarrassing, event. It will be transmitted twice a week on digital radio (off you go to Argos) and, according to the scriptwriter, will just zip along, whereas its elderly parent moves with almost vegetable sloth, like a mighty marrow. I fear it is intended to appeal to the younger element. Hands up anyone who wants to know more about Jamie’s mates Marty and Steve or Alice’s chums Chaz and Paulie. (Does no one have real names any more?) Yesterday they turned up, all pimples and alcopops, though curiously well spoken. Jamie, who is going through a bumpy adolescence, was being urged to steal from The Bull (“What’s the point of living in a pub if you can’t help yourself to the booze?”) while Alice, off her head on tequila at a rave (“Oops-a-daisy! Whoo!”), was rescued from the lascivious Sean (“Oh, what are you doing?”) by Chaz. In spite of the added alcohol, nothing much happened, which is what normally happens in Ambridge. Meanwhile, back in the marrow patch, Kenton and Jolene are inextricably entwined (“Kenton! I’m ready!”). Elizabeth is poaching Roy from Grey Gables to run Lower Loxley. Which, it turns out, is actually Higher Loxley, as the length of Nigel’s dying scream as he plummeted from the roof (allowing for acceleration and discounting wind resistance) indicates it must be as tall as York minster. This didn’t come up at the inquest as the tender-hearted coroner was distracted by David’s tears. David has become disturbingly morose recently: “We have to collect a sample of dung from every cow. It’s just One Thing After Another.” Happily, the heroic Ruth, though up to her neck in muck and bullocks, stays upbeat:”Standing around being miserable is not going to get the yard scraped.” Don’t you just love these old country saws? Radio 4 Radio Nancy Banks-Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Spring is in the air and The Archers has pupped with Ambridge Extra – an everyday story of rural folk, for young people The big thing this month – apart from the passionate coupling of Jolene and Kenton – is that The Archers has pupped. As The Archers is 60 years old, Ambridge Extra is a happy, if embarrassing, event. It will be transmitted twice a week on digital radio (off you go to Argos) and, according to the scriptwriter, will just zip along, whereas its elderly parent moves with almost vegetable sloth, like a mighty marrow. I fear it is intended to appeal to the younger element. Hands up anyone who wants to know more about Jamie’s mates Marty and Steve or Alice’s chums Chaz and Paulie. (Does no one have real names any more?) Yesterday they turned up, all pimples and alcopops, though curiously well spoken. Jamie, who is going through a bumpy adolescence, was being urged to steal from The Bull (“What’s the point of living in a pub if you can’t help yourself to the booze?”) while Alice, off her head on tequila at a rave (“Oops-a-daisy! Whoo!”), was rescued from the lascivious Sean (“Oh, what are you doing?”) by Chaz. In spite of the added alcohol, nothing much happened, which is what normally happens in Ambridge. Meanwhile, back in the marrow patch, Kenton and Jolene are inextricably entwined (“Kenton! I’m ready!”). Elizabeth is poaching Roy from Grey Gables to run Lower Loxley. Which, it turns out, is actually Higher Loxley, as the length of Nigel’s dying scream as he plummeted from the roof (allowing for acceleration and discounting wind resistance) indicates it must be as tall as York minster. This didn’t come up at the inquest as the tender-hearted coroner was distracted by David’s tears. David has become disturbingly morose recently: “We have to collect a sample of dung from every cow. It’s just One Thing After Another.” Happily, the heroic Ruth, though up to her neck in muck and bullocks, stays upbeat:”Standing around being miserable is not going to get the yard scraped.” Don’t you just love these old country saws? Radio 4 Radio Nancy Banks-Smith guardian.co.uk
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Mau Mau insurgents who survived labour camps bring case using files withheld for decades by Foreign Office Highly embarrassing colonial-era files detailing the British army’s repressive tactics against Mau Mau insurgents in Kenya during the 1950s will be revealed in a landmark compensation case. The discovery of thousands of documents withheld for decades from the Kenyan government will raise awkward questions about the Foreign Office’s attempt to deny liability for the allegedly systematic mistreatment of thousands of Kikuyu victims prior to independence. The case, brought by four survivors of the notorious detention camps operated by the colonial authorities could also set a precedent by forcing the release of files relating to other colonies once controlled by the UK. During the so-called “Emergency”, detainees were subjected to arbitrary killings, castrations, sexual abuse, forced labour, starvation and violence from camp guards, lawyers for the detainees will argue in the high court on Thursday. Among those detained and abused was Barack Obama’s grandfather. The UK government denies that mistreatment was as widespread as alleged. In the past it has relied on an obscure legal precedent relating to Patagonian toothfish which states that responsibility for acts committed by a colonial government pass to the new, successor government at independence. An open letter from the Kenyan Human Rights Commission to the foreign secretary has been signed by a host of civil rights organisations and politicians including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Vince Cable, and Professor Sir Nigel Rodley, a former UN special rapporteur on torture. It declares: “It is a little known fact that during the Mau Mau war, in the run up to Kenyan independence, the then British government systematically violated human rights and committed war crimes on a vast scale. “The full extent of Britain’s knowledge and authorisation of torture only emerged recently after historians from Harvard and Oxford gathered detailed testimonial evidence and conducted extensive research of public and court records. “In response, the government claims that the current Kenyan government is legally liable for abuses which took place under the British colonial administration. In our view, this represents an intolerable abdication of responsibility.” Key documents uncovered during research into the claims show that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office made a calculated decision not to hand over any of its colonial era files to the Kenyan government. A letter dated 7 November 1967 stated that it was general practice at independence not to hand over any files that “might embarrass HMG or other governments” or “members of the police, military forces, [or] public servants”. The FCO letter continued: ” … The moment we return any records whatsoever there is the danger that we should find ourselves under constant pressure to make good other gaps … in the record of the Kenya government. “… The fact that it has always been British policy to withdraw or destroy certain sensitive records prior to independence has never been advertised …” The Kenyan government at the time was requesting the return of files relating to the Mau-Mau Emergency and other topics. The Foreign Office will have to argue that the Kenyan government is responsible for pre-independence human rights abuses despite the fact that it did not then exist and was subsequently denied access to files revealing what actually occurred during that period. Dan Leader, of Leigh Day & Co, the law firm representing the Kenyan claimants, said: “Every leading historical expert on the Kenya Emergency has filed statements in support of the victims. To seek to pin the liability for British torture onto the Kenyan government is an appalling stance for the government to take and one which we hope the judge will reject.” An FCO spokesman said: “We understand the strong feelings that the Mau Mau issue still creates in Kenya and elsewhere. The Emergency period caused a great deal of pain for many on all sides, and marred progress towards independence. “The UK intends to fully defend these cases. The defence will be based on well-established aspects of constitutional and international law. We are stating that under the law HMG cannot be held liable in this case.” Explaining the belated discovery of the FCO-witheld files, Foreign Office minister Lord Howell told parliament his department had “decided to regularise the position of some 2,000 boxes of files it currently holds, mainly from the 1950s and 1960s, which were created by former British administrations overseas. The intention is to make as much of this material as possible available to the wider public. “The domestic records of colonial administrations did not form part of British public [ie, official] records and they were kept by the individual states created at independence. It was however the general practice for the colonial administration to transfer to the United Kingdom, in accordance with colonial office instructions, shortly before independence, selected documents held by the governor which were not appropriate to hand on to the successor government.” Kenya Human rights Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk
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Woman identified by police investigating Sian O’Callaghan murder was killed shortly after estrangement from family They had not seen her for around eight years, but they clung to the hope that one day they would be reunited with her. Now relatives of Rebecca Godden-Edwards are trying to come to terms with the shattering news, delivered on what would have been her 29th birthday, that she was murdered shortly after she vanished from their lives. Godden-Edwards’s body was finally identified nine days after being found in a shallow grave in a farmer’s field by detectives investigating the killing of another young woman, Sian O’Callaghan, who vanished after leaving a nightclub in Swindon last month. Officers are waiting to question Swindon taxi driver Chris Halliwell, who has been charged with 22-year-old O’Callaghan’s murder, over Godden-Edwards’s death. Meanwhile, a tragic story of how a young girl who became estranged from her family, and then simply disappeared, began to emerge. Police sources were at pains to make it clear that Becky, as she was known to her friends, was from a good, hardworking Swindon family. By all accounts, she was a bright, bubbly schoolgirl. When she was in her mid-teens, however, family and friends say she fell in with the “wrong crowd” and began using drugs. In May 2002, when she was 19, she broke into a pub, the historic Trout Inn in Lechlade, 12 miles from Swindon – and, coincidentally, close to where her body was found – and stole cigarettes and cash. Her lawyer told Swindon magistrates that she had been taking class A drugs since she was 15, having been introduced to them by a boyfriend. Another boyfriend had demanded that she break into the pub with him after holding a knife to her throat. Home was a comfortable house in a leafy road on the edge of Swindon. But her life was becoming increasingly chaotic. Around a year after the burglary, Godden-Edwards vanished. Her family say they thought she had gone to Bristol, but police sources say that by this time she was “disconnected” from them. The family attempted to find her. In 2007 they contacted the missing persons helpline and asked for help. A “vague” report was made to a police station in Wiltshire, but she was not put on the missing person’s list. The family discussed hiring a private detective. And there was one red herring – a grandparent thought he had seen her two years ago. But it must have been a false sighting: she had already been dead for years. Only last year, her mother tried to find out what had happened to her daughter by posting a message on the Missing You website : “Karen Edwards is trying to trace the location of Becky she has been missing for 8 years, and I need to contact her urgent or just to know that she is ok! can anyone help?” The family finally came to know at least something of what happened to the young woman when a DNA match established the identity of the remains found in a field at Eastleach, Gloucestershire. Many questions remain. A postmortem has yet to establish the cause of death and police are appealing for people who knew Godden-Edwards from 2002 onwards to come forward. They are asking people to think back in case – perhaps without realising it – they saw her being abducted or attacked. Her family have asked to be left in peace by the media. A note pinned to the gate of the family home read: “Please respect our privacy and let us grieve in peace.” Halliwell, 47, who is being held at Long Lartin jail in Worcestershire, is due to appear at Bristol crown court for a preliminary hearing relating to O’Callaghan’s murder on Friday. Wiltshire police sources said detectives working on the murders of O’Callaghan and Godden-Edwards were continuing to liaise with other forces over unsolved killings. Wiltshire detectives are known to have met with Avon and Somerset officers to discuss possible links with the murder of Melanie Hall, 25, who went missing after leaving a nightclub in Bath in 1996. Crime Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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Prime minister reveals willingness to work with spy agencies but urges Pakistan to ‘make its wealthy pay more tax’ David Cameron has taken a calculated and expensive diplomatic gamble by agreeing to put his faith in the Pakistani security services to help Britain leave Afghanistan, in the hope of preventing the export of terrorism to Britain. Nearly half of the terrorist plots against Britain come from Pakistan’s lawless north-west frontiers. On a visit to Islamabad, Cameron promised £950m in aid to fund 4m school places and 8,000 teachers, arguing that education is the best antidote to terror. Pakistan is now the largest beneficiary of UK aid. Cameron said he could justify the move domestically only if the Pakistani elite paid more taxes. He said bluntly, in a speech, that Pakistan suffered from “weaknesses in terms of government capacity and waste”. But he revealed a new willingness to work with Pakistani intelligence agencies to secure a political settlement in Afghanistan before Britain leaves in 2015. A year ago, Cameron put UK-Pakistan relations in deep-freeze by criticising the Pakistanis for facing both ways in the fight against terror. On Tuesday he talked of a fresh start and a new era of co-operation. British officials say they are now convinced that the growing internal Islamist terrorist threat inside the country has caused the intelligence service, the ISI, to take a tougher role in combating the Taliban and al-Qaida inside Pakistan. British officials said the Pakistani prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, and the president, Asif Ali Zardari, recognised they were involved in “an existential battle” with terrorists. During his one-day visit, Cameron offered the president unprecedented intelligence co-operation and agreed to set up a joint “centre of excellence” in Pakistan to exchange knowledge on improvised explosive devices. He also sought to reassure his hosts that he does not see India as Britain’s preferred partner in the region. He set a goal of Anglo-Pakistani trade rising from £1.9 bn to £2.5bn by 2015. In a sign of the importance of the trip to UK national security, Cameron was accompanied by Sir Peter Ricketts, the national security adviser, Sir David Richards, the chief of the defence staff, and Sir John Sawers, head of MI6. The three were in Islamabad only a month ago to prepare the ground for what is being billed as an “enhanced security dialogue”. The aim was to build a less transactional relationship, officials said, and to work on the basis of broader, long-term trust. At a joint press conference, Gilani said: “I want to assure you that Pakistan has the resolve and the commitment to fight against extremism and terrorism. We’ve paid a heavy price for that.” He pointed out that 30,000 civilians had been killed and a similar number disabled. He said: “The political leadership has been targeted. The bombs have gone off in girls’ schools, hospitals, the malls, the police stations and even in the intelligence service headquarters.” Cameron praised his hosts: “What you see in Pakistan is a huge fight by the government taking place against terrorism.” He defended the size of the projected aid package, saying he would “struggle to find an example of a country” whose progress and success were more in Britain’s national interest than were those of Pakistan. But, unusually, he challenged Pakistan by pointing out that it currently spends only 1.5% of national income on education, and has one of the lowest tax revenues, relative to GDP, of any country in the world. “You are not raising the resources necessary to pay for things that a modern state and people require,” he said. “Too few people pay tax. Too many of your richest people are getting away without paying much tax at all. And that’s not fair.” British officials indicated that they had asked the Pakistan military as diplomatically as possible when it planned to enter North Waziristan, the tribal heartland and sanctuary from which many terrorist groups operate. British intelligence and the CIA consider the region to be the place where suicide bombings and cross-border attacks originate. Cameron made a partial reference in his speech, saying: “Neither the Pakistan army nor Nato forces must ever tolerate sanctuaries for people plotting violence.” The Pakistani army has suffered big losses as a result of clearing out other federally administered tribal areas, and seems to be holding back from tackling North Waziristan, partly due to a peace deal having been struck. Pakistani troops moved into South Waziristan in 2009. Pakistan says it lacks military capacity to lead an assault on a mountainous area that could lead to a mass exodus of refugees. In the absence of troops on the ground, Britain supports what it sees as the highly effective use of US unmanned drones to bomb terrorist targets in the area, a practice that Pakistani politicians regularly denounce as being counter-productive and in breach of their sovereignty, and leading to the slaughter of innocent tribal elders. Only last week, Pakistan pulled out of tripartite talks on Afghanistan in anger at the US attacks. Since 2007, about 164 drone strikes have been carried out, killing almost 1,000 militants. David Cameron Pakistan Global terrorism UK security and terrorism Foreign policy International education news Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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UN says it has received calls from Gbagbo’s top generals, as president shelters in basement of his palace Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo has been holed up in a bunker with his family and a handful of supporters as army generals negotiated his surrender. The former history professor turned politician, who refused to accept that he had lost last year’s election, is facing an ignominious end to his 10-year rule after waging a desperate war to preserve it. As he sheltered in the basement of his presidential palace surrounded by forces loyal to his rival, Alassane Ouattara, the UN said that it had received calls from Gbagbo’s three top generals – the head of the armed forces, the head of the police and the head of the elite republican guard – offering to negotiate terms for surrender in return for guarantees of safety. The negotiations came after a dramatic 24 hours in Ivory Coast. On Monday night, UN and French forces opened fire with attack helicopters on Gbagbo’s arms stockpiles and bases. Earlier, columns of foot soldiers allied to Ouattara finally pierced the city limits of Abidjan. Gbagbo’s spokesman, Ahoua Don Mello, told Reuters there were “direct negotiations based on African Union (AU) recommendations which said Alassane Ouattara is president. They are also negotiating judicial and security conditions for Gbagbo’s camp and his relatives.” But defiant to the last, Gbagbo’s foreign minister, Alcide Djedje, insisted he was at the residence of the French ambassador in Abidjan to negotiate a “ceasefire” rather than “surrender”. He also denied his leader would go into exile. “I was sent by President Gbgabo to negotiate a ceasefire and we negotiated all night and reached an agreement this morning at 10.00 GMT,” he said. Ouattara has urged forces loyal to him to take Gbagbo alive, and his advisers have called for Gbagbo to stand trial at the international criminal court. Although the four-month stalemate between the rival presidents seemed to be all but over, there have been continued reports of sporadic fighting and fears of revenge attacks and looting. Ouattara will face a massive challenge to unite the deeply divided, war-torn country and rebuild its shattered economy. “One might think that we are getting to the end of the crisis,” Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the UN mission in Ivory Coast, told the Associated Press. “We spoke to his close aides, some had already defected, some are ready to stop fighting. He is alone now, he is in his bunker with a handful of supporters and family members. So is he going to last or not? I don’t know.” France, the former colonial power, said both it and the UN required Gbagbo to agree in writing that he was giving up power before any agreement is reached. Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister, told parliament he had spoken to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and they agreed that “the departure of Gbagbo be preceded by the publication of a document with his signature in which he renounces power”. The UN and French offensive on Monday night, an unprecedented escalation in the international community’s efforts to oust Gbagbo, was carried out in the name of civilian protection but also proved useful to the rebels backing Ouattara. President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke to Ouattara, whose victory in last November’s election has been endorsed by the UN, US, the AU and EU, twice on Tuesday. Barack Obama said he welcomed the role of UN and French forces in Ivory Coast. “To end this violence and prevent more bloodshed, former president Gbagbo must stand down immediately, and direct those who are fighting on his behalf to lay down their arms,” the US president said. “Every day that the fighting persists will bring more suffering, and further delay the future of peace and prosperity that the people of Côte d’Ivoire deserve.” But the president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the current head of the AU, condemned foreign military intervention in Ivory Coast and Libya, saying Africa must be allowed to manage its own affairs. France said its military would intervene only as long as requested by the UN. France’s intervention infuriated Gbagbo’s camp, which already blamed Paris for supporting the north of the country in a 2002-03 civil war. Even before the latest offensive, post-election violence had left at least 1,500 people dead – most of them Ouattara supporters – and forced up to 1 million to flee their homes. Many civilians in Abidjan, a city of about 4 million people, remain trapped in their homes and in urgent need of food and water. The prosecutor of the international criminal court, José Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said he was analysing information on last week’s massacre in the western town of Duékoué, where at least 800 people were reportedly killed, and wanted to open a formal investigation. Moreno-Ocampo said on Tuesday it was not yet clear who was responsible for the massacre. The Elders, a group of eminent global leaders, called on Ouattara to unite the nation through reconciliation. Its chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said: “I urge President Ouattara to commit publicly to a process of accountability. His actions and words in the coming days are critical to the future of Côte d’Ivoire. The people need reconciliation, not retaliation.” Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo United Nations Selay Kouassi David Smith guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media For some strange reason, after having attacked and demonized Martin Luther King for the entirety of his Civil Rights career when he was alive, right-wingers now seem to want to claim him as one of their own — a small-government conservative preacher who believed in fiscal restraint. Eh? So yesterday, while union supporters marched on the anniversary of King’s assassination, the talkers at Fox News were in full denunciation mode. First there was Neil Cavuto, claiming that the unions were “co-opting” King for their cause. To persuade us of this, he hosted Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson (the guy who previously had gone on the air and claimed that “Barack Obama is destroying America based on lies” and that “Barack Obama hates white people — especially white men. Sorry folks, but the truth will set you free!”): PETERSON: If it’s possible to turn over in your grave, I believe that Dr. King is turning over in his grave today. I was born on a plantation down in Alabama, I participated in the Civil Rights movement, I did sit-ins. And Dr. King was about uniting the races, he wasn’t about dividing them. Dr. King believed that the same law that protected white Americans should protect black Americans. He wanted us to have the freedom to move about in this country. He was about morality and justice. And for Jesse Jackson and others to take his movement, to take his purpose and use it for personal gain, I have to say, Neil, is nothing less than evil. Cavuto apparently thinks it was a mere coincidence — due to the fact that most of the workers were black — that King was in Memphis to support striking garbage workers. Peterson, likewise, tries to claim that King had no special affinity for the cause of labor unions. Then there was Glenn Beck, arguing that it was “absurd” to suggest that King was a supporter of the unions’ cause: Click here to view this media BECK: Trying to take away the rights Dr. King gave his life for, really? … This is what he gave his life for, a union? Now, he may have supported this event, this cause, but he gave his life — fighting for civil rights. The right of all men to be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, or, uh, their union label. Is there a person within the sound of my voice — outside the union halls — that I could ask, Why did someone kill Martin Luther King? Why? And they would say, ‘Good thing you asked me — collective bargaining rights, of course!’ That’s absurd! Of course, this shouldn’t surprise anyone, since in the case of Beck we’re talking about a guy who promotes the work of King-haters like Cleon Skousen on one hand while trying to claim King’s legacy for himself with the other. A guy who viciously attacks progressives and their causes while conveniently overlooking the historical fact that his adopted idol was himself an ardent progressive. Indeed, King fully understood that civil rights and labor rights are powerfully intertwined — that ensuring the ability of black people to organize for their rights was part of a parallel fight for all working people to organize for theirs. And that the very people who opposed the rights of unions to organize were the same people who wanted to keep black people from enjoying their full rights as citizens. Really, all you have to do to understand this is to read Dr. King’s own words, which stand as stark repudiation of the union-hating garbage being spewed on Fox. For instance, take his 1961 address to the AFL-CIO: “Negroes are almost entirely a working people…. Our needs are identical with labor’s needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old-age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor’s demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature, spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.” “The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society.” “Negroes in the United States read the history of labor and find it mirrors their own experience. We are confronted by powerful forces telling us to rely on the goodwill and understanding of those who profit by exploiting us. They deplore our discontent, they resent our will to organize, so that we may guarantee that humanity will prevail and equality will be exacted. They are shocked that action organizations, sit-ins, civil disobedience and protests are becoming our everyday tools, just as strikes, demonstrations and union organization became yours to insure that bargaining power genuinely existed on both sides of the table. “We want to rely upon the goodwill of those who oppose us. Indeed, we have brought forward the method of nonviolence to give an example of unilateral goodwill in an effort to evoke it in those who have not yet felt it in their hearts. But we know that if we are not simultaneously organizing our strength we will have no means to move forward. If we do not advance, the crushing burden of centuries of neglect and economic deprivation will destroy our will, our spirits and our hope. In this way, labor’s historic tradition of moving forward to create vital people as consumers and citizens has become our own tradition, and for the same reasons.” And he was similarly clear about the principles involved in the current labor battles: “In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. It is supported by Southern segregationists who are trying to keep us from achieving our civil rights and our right of equal job opportunity. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.” Or you can visit AFSCME’s page devoted to King’s role in the Memphis strikes to get a clear picture of why King was there and how intimately the causes of civil rights and labor rights were twinned. Not that these right-wingers will ever admit that.
Continue reading …McDonald’s Is Hiring 50,000; Usual Media Ridicule of ‘Hamburger Flippers’ Notably Absent
April 5, 2011 No Comment
First, let me make something clear. One thing I learned in my first job as a dishwasher back in the Mesozoic Era is that all work conscientiously done can be noble. I don't criticize McDonald's for wanting to grow their business and the businesses of their franchisees, and I surely won't criticize anyone for taking a fast-food job to put food on the table or to gain an employment foothold. That said, the people who have expressed contempt for such jobs and for an economy that for the last 30-plus years has, according to certain wong-headed social critics, been devolving into one where the only jobs available will be low-paying, dead-end service-sector jobs have been awfully quiet in the wake of the fast-food king's announcement that it's looking to hire 50,000 workers. An unbylined write-up at the Associated Press Monday evening comes across as more of a puffy promo than as a hard-news piece (puffery in bold): McDonald's wants to fill 50K jobs on hiring day
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