John Simkin
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James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 August 2011 17.53
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/18/phone-hacking-glenn-mulcaire
Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone-hacking affair, is suing the now defunct tabloid's publisher News International in an attempt to force the company to pay his legal bills.
Mulcaire's action comes after the company, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, announced on 20 July it would stop paying his legal costs with immediate effect.
It emerged earlier this week that News International has paid "approximately £246,000" to lawyers acting for Mulcaire.
He has issued a high court writ claiming News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that published the News of the World until last month, has a contractual obligation to pay the legal bills he is running up fighting more than a dozen high court cases being brought by public figures. The company received the writ on Wednesday.
Mulcaire is named as a defendant in numerous cases, including those being fought by actor Steve Coogan and Labour MP Chris Bryant, along with News Group Newspapers.
It was Mulcaire who is alleged to have routinely hacked into messages left on mobile phones on the instructions of senior figures at the News of the World.
He has already served a jail sentence for illegally intercepting messages left on phones belonging to members of the royal household.
News International confirmed it had received the writ but had no further comment.
James Murdoch, who has managerial responsibility for News International as News Corp's deputy chief operating officer, told MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee in July that he was surprised when he was told the company was meeting Mulcaire's legal costs and said he would end that arrangement.
Murdoch revealed in evidence provided to the culture select committee on Tuesday that News International had funded Mulcaire's legal bills to the tune of about £246,000.
Mulcaire was employed on a rolling 12-month contract by News International and it was reviewed on an annual basis. That was cited by the company as the reason it awarded him a payoff despite the fact he had been arrested for phone hacking in 2006, at which point his relationship with the company ended.
James Murdoch told MPs he was "very surprised" to learn the company was meeting the private investigator's legal costs.
Following Murdoch's 20 July comments, Mulcaire's solicitors Payne Hicks Beach wrote to News International to inform the company it was still legally liable to pay for a high court appeal he was fighting.
Mulcaire's appeal was against an order forcing him to identify who at the News of the World ordered him to hack into mobile phones.
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I remember listening to famed author Whitley Strieber on one of his Dreamland programs years ago when he quoted in amazement an article that had just been published in a San Antonio daily newspaper. Strieber, a native Texan, at that time lived in San Antonio. The article that he quoted stated that Perry's wife had moved out of the Governor's mansion after she caught him in bed in the mansion with a named male state office holder.
This news story appears to be the source of the Perry's alleged activities. Either the article was published or it was not and either its facts were true or they were not. I trust with the U.S. Presidency at stake the issue will be thoroughly researched and a just conclusion reached.
There is a history of right-wing politicians being anti-gay who turn out to be homosexuals. Probably the most significant of these were Joe McCarthy who had sex with young men he recruited for his campaign against the left. This included Roy Cohn who eventually died of Aids.
In the UK several openly gay politicians have reached high office. Is this possible in the US?
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Another 17th century figure that needs to be considered is Gerrard Winstanley. Influenced by the ideas of the John Lilburne and the Levellers, Winstanley published four pamphlets in 1648. He argued that all land belonged to the community rather than to separate individuals. In January, 1649, he published the "The New Law of Righteousness". In the pamphlet he wrote: "In the beginning of time God made the earth. Not one word was spoken at the beginning that one branch of mankind should rule over another, but selfish imaginations did set up one man to teach and rule over another." Soon afterwards he established a group called the Diggers. In April 1649 Winstanley, William Everard, a former soldier in the New Model Army and about thirty followers took over some common land on St George's Hill in Surrey and "sowed the ground with parsnips, carrots and beans."
Digger groups also took over land in Kent (Cox Hill), Surrey (Cobham), Buckinghamshire (Iver) and Northamptonshire (Wellingborough). Local landowners were very disturbed by these developments. In July 1649 the government gave instructions for Winstanley to be arrested and for General Thomas Fairfax to "disperse the people by force" in case this is the "beginning to whence things of a greater and more dangerous consequence may grow".
Oliver Cromwell is reported to have said: "What is the purport of the levelling principle but to make the tenant as liberal a fortune as the landlord. I was by birth a gentleman. You must cut these people in pieces or they will cut you in pieces." Instructions were given for the Diggers to be beaten up and for their houses, crops and tools to be destroyed. These tactics were successful and within a year all the Digger communities in England had been wiped out.
Winstanley continued to argue for the redistribution of land and in 1652 published "The Law of Freedom". In the pamphlet he criticised the government of Oliver Cromwell: "And now you have the power of the land in your hand, you must do one of these two things. First, either set the land free to the oppressed commoners, who assisted you, and paid the Army their wages; and then you will fulfil the Scriptures and your own engagements, and so take possession of your deserved honour. Or secondly, you must only remove the Conqueror's power out of the King's hand into other men's".
In "The Law of Freedom" Winstanley takes the view held by the Anabaptists that all institutions were by their nature corrupt: "nature tells us that if water stands long it corrupts; whereas running water keeps sweet and is fit for common use". To prevent power corrupting individuals he advocated that all officials should be elected every year. "When public officers remain long in place of judicature they will degenerate from the bounds of humility, honesty and tender care of brethren, in regard the heart of man is so subject to be overspread with the clouds of covetousness, pride, vain glory."
Winstanley goes on to argue for a society without money or wages: "The earth is to be planted and the fruits reaped and carried into barns and storehouses by the assistance of every family. And if any man or family want corn or other provision, they may go to the storehouses and fetch without money. If they want a horse to ride, go into the fields in summer, or to the common stables in winter, and receive one from the keepers, and when your journey is performed, bring him where you had him, without money."
The Law of Freedom sold well and for a while Winstanley's ideas appeared popular with the English people. However, the Restoration brought an end to the discussion about the way society should be organized.
In 1660 Winstanley moved to Cobham and later became a Quaker and worked as a merchant in London. Gerrard Winstanley died on 10th September, 1676.
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Was Rick Perry making a reference to the JFK assassination when he characterised the strategy of the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, as "treasonous". He then went onto say: "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."
I haven't been paying much attention to the Republicans but it seems that Perry is a Texas Republican who fits the Bush mold and maybe even more to the right.
I'm sure that Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie have a more moderate Republican waiting in the wings who they will drag out after all the others knock each other out.
He is indeed to the right of George Bush. Karl Rove has already claimed that Perry is too extreme and should never have made these comments about Ben Bernanke.
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Was Rick Perry making a reference to the JFK assassination when he characterised the strategy of the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, as "treasonous". He then went onto say: "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."
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James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 August 2011 21.14 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/16/phone-hacking-letters-denials-evasion
The truth about phone hacking at the News of the World has long been shrouded in a fog of half-truths, corporate denials and misleading answers to parliament. But the letters sent to MPs by News Corp's deputy chief operating officer, James Murdoch, two of his former executives, and a leading law firm, potentially shed some light on who knew what about the practice, and when.
They also raised the stakes for those who allegedly participated in what has become one of the biggest corporate cover-ups in recent times. The key players in the phone-hacking saga, including former News of the World editors Colin Myler and Andy Coulson, the paper's ex-lawyer Tom Crone, and Les Hinton, who chaired News International until 2008, are now engaged in a Mexican standoff.
Each is in effect accusing some or all of their former colleagues of misleading parliament, the industry regulator and the public about how widespread the activity was. By the time the truth is established, some of them are likely to be facing substantial jail terms.
The most incendiary of the letters, dating from 2007, was written by Clive Goodman, the paper's former royal editor, who was once close friends with Coulson. The then NoW editor fired Goodman when he pleaded guilty four years ago to hacking into mobile phones belonging to members of the royal household.
Goodman mounted an appeal against his dismissal. In a letter written in March 2007, and handed to MPs by the law firm Harbottle & Lewis – beware a lawyer scorned – Goodman claimed Coulson was aware that phone hacking took place. He said the practice had been openly discussed in editorial conference until Coulson himself barred those who attended from mentioning it.
As smoking guns go, this one is still hot: there is a devastating line in every paragraph. For years, News International has insisted it had one rotten apple in the newsroom: Goodman. Now it appears that all along it has been sitting on a letter which explicitly claims that the entire newsroom was rotten. The letter also alleges that Crone and Coulson offered Goodman his job back if he did not implicate the paper or its staff in his mitigation plea. It is true that Goodman may be a man with an axe to grind, but News International, interestingly, did not try to claim that he could not be trusted.
Even more tellingly, a second copy of the Goodman letter, sent to the committee by News International itself, was censored by the company so that Goodman's reference to discussion about hacking in editorial conference was removed.
Goodman's claims, if true, undermine repeated denials from Coulson, who told the same MPs in 2009 that he was not aware of the practice.
More seriously, Coulson repeated his assertion to a Scottish court during the trial of Tommy Sheridan in December 2010 after he was called as a witness and cross-examined by Sheridan himself. The former SMP's lawyer, Aamer Anwar, has called for Coulson to be jailed. "If it is shown that people lied in the Glasgow high court they should go to prison," he said. The typical penalty for perjury is years rather than months in jail (the maximum sentence is 10 years), although Coulson denies all knowledge of the phone hacking, as he always has done.
There are serious implications for David Cameron. The more trouble Coulson is in, the worse his misjudgment in hiring him as his director of communications looks. And the more negligent his failure to check him out. Did the Tories even ask Hinton about him when they hired him? Did they know of the Goodman letter? Surely if he had been vetted for No10, someone would have spoken to Goodman?
There are also questions for James Murdoch to answer. Is it conceivable that he – an obsessive for detail – did not know about the Goodman letter?
And of course that wasn't the only smoking gun doing the rounds. In their own letters Crone and Myler repeated their assertions last month that Murdoch was wrong to tell MPs in July that he had not been told about the existence of an email that suggested phone-hacking was not limited to a single NoW journalist. An email sent by a reporter at the paper had been retrieved from News International by lawyers acting for the PFA chief executive, Gordon Taylor. It contained the text of voicemails left on Taylor's phone and was marked "for Neville". There was only one "Neville" working at the paper at the time – investigations editor Neville Thurlbeck. Asked by the culture committee last month: "Did you see or were you made aware of the 'for Neville' email?" Murdoch replied: "No. I was not aware of that at the time."
In his letter, Crone states clearly: "Since the 'for Neville' document was the sole reason for settling [the Taylor case] … I have no doubt that I informed Mr Murdoch of its existence, of what it was and where it came from. I do not recall if I produced it or showed him a copy." Myler confirmed in his own letter that Crone's recollection was correct – according to Myler, Murdoch knew about the email prior to authorising a £700,000 pay-off to Taylor to settle his hacking claim. As John Whittingdale, the Tory MP who chairs the culture committee, pointed out, the accounts given by Murdoch and by Crone and Myler are contradictory. "They can't both be right." This is crucial because if it can be shown the company authorised the £700,000 payment to Taylor in an effort to conceal the fact that a second News of the World reporter hacked into phones, it could also prompt criminal charges. Paying someone for not disclosing evidence of an arrestable offence may be an offence under the Criminal Law Act, according to legal sources.
Myler and Crone also face further questions about why they told the select committee in 2009 that a trawl through "thousands" of internal News International emails the previous year had found no evidence that phone hacking was not restricted to a single reporter. If they were aware of the "for Neville" email, as they now concede they were, they must have suspected this wasn't the case. Myler and Crone will both be recalled to give evidence in person, probably in the autumn.
It was Harbottle & Lewis, the law firm hired by News International in 2007 to examine the claims made by Goodman in his appeal against his dismissal, who sent the Goodman letter to MPs. But even it has questions to answer.
It has represented members of the royal family and questions have been raised about whether it might have had a conflict of interest when it was asked by Hinton to examine emails sent to and received by Goodman, who had just been found guilty of intercepting messages left on phones belonging to the royal household.
Harbottle & Lewis delivered a blow to News International when it refuted suggestions made by James Murdoch last month that it had been asked to give News International a "clean bill of health" in 2007 by examining internal emails. The man who took charge of that investigation, Hinton, has also been asked by MPs whether he would like to "clarify" the evidence he has given. So too have former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner, and Rebekah Brooks, another ex-editor who was chief executive of News International until her resignation last month. There are plenty more questions – and answers – still to come.
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Hey Scott, nice song, who is it do you know?
Dawn
David Neal, guitarist with Kitty Hawk. The track is taken from his album “Speak Truth”.
http://outerbanksvoice.com/2011/05/16/david-neal-set-to-release-thinking-mans-cd/
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Although he never used the term "socialism" (he preferred the term "leveller", Thomas Rainsborough, played an important role in the development of the movement. Rainsborough was born in 1610. A strong opponent of Charles I and after the outbreak of the Civil War he served in the parliamentary fleet. In 1643 he was given command of the Swallow, a 34 gun ship. Soon afterwards he helped General Thomas Fairfax in the defence of Hull.
Rainsborough joined the army and took part in the capture of Crowland in December, 1644. When the New Model Army was formed he was given command of a regiment. He fought at Naseby and participated in the sieges of Bridgwater, Sherborne and Bristol.
A radical in politics and religion he was elected to represent Droitwich in the House of Commons in 1646. In October 1647 Rainsborough took part in the Putney Debates. The debate was based on An Agreement of the People, a constitutional proposal drafted by the Levellers. Senior officers in the New Model Army such as Henry Ireton argued against the idea of universal suffrage. Rainsborough, was the highest ranking officer who supported the Levellers. In the debate Rainsborough argued: "that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent be put himself under that government." A compromise was eventually agreed that the vote would be granted to all men except alms-takers and servants.
The House of Commons was angry with Rainsborough for taking this point of view and General Thomas Fairfax was called before Parliament to answer for his behaviour. For a time Rainsborough was denied the right to take up his post as Vice Admiral. Eventually, after support from Fairfax, Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton, Parliament voted 88 to 66 in favour of him going to sea.
As a supporter of the Levellers, Rainsborough was unpopular with his officers and he was refused permission to board his ship. Parliament now appointed the Earl of Warwick as Lord High Admiral and Rainsborough returned to the army. In October 1646 General Thomas Fairfax sent him to take command of the siege of Pontefract Castle.
On 29th October, 1648, a party of Cavaliers attempted to kidnap Rainsborough while he was in Doncaster. During the struggle to capture him he was mortally wounded. At his funeral in London the crowd wore ribbons colored sea-green, which became the emblem for the Leveller movement.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/STUrainsborough.htm
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Who is Adrian Mack? Great review. He must be a blogger or something, no MSM journalist would do a review this good.
http://www.straight.com/archives/contributor/7
http://alienatedinvancouver.blogspot.com/2007/08/adrian-mack-is-great-let-it-be-known.html
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Article by Adrian Mack:
http://www.straight.com/article-423937/vancouver/jonathan-demme-direct-bullxxxx-jfk-movie
A troubled loner? That’s how Lee Harvey Oswald is described in the promo for Stephen King’s upcoming book 11/22/63, shortly to be adapted for the screen by filmmaker Jonathan Demme.
A more accurate portrayal of Oswald would present Kennedy’s alleged assassin as an intelligence operative involved in a false defector program, a phony Castro supporter who hung with right wing extremists and anti-Castro groups in New Orleans, a cartoon Marxist befriended by ultra-conservative White Russians in Texas, and a tragic fall-guy who was reportedly seen meeting in Dallas with the CIA’s head of Cuban operations.
Hell, an accurate portrayal would also tell you that there were at least two Oswalds running around for the most part–another rather large indication that Oswald was part man, part weirdo intelligence operation. Perhaps King and Demme would consider revamping their story to include two “troubled loners?” That’d be a start, at least.
But Hollywood doesn’t traffic in accurate portrayals, especially when it comes to JFK. Oliver Stone’s 1991 film is a notable exception. So notable, indeed, that it actually stirred up enough public interest to prompt legislation, even as Stone was being publicly executed by the press—a fate that sits there waiting for any high profile critic of the lone nut myth.
Nonetheless, in 1992 the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act resulted in the release of over five million classified documents, overseen by an independent agency called the Assassination Records Review Board. Naturally, the best books that arrived in the wake of the ARRB have been resoundingly ignored by major media; books like Gerald McKnight’s ferocious dismantling of the Warren Commission, Breach of Trust, or James Douglass’ towering JFK and the Unspeakable.
Other, disreputable works, such as Legacy of Secrecy or Vincent Bugliosi’s decrepit Warren Commission defense, Reclaiming History, were met with fanfare and hosannas by the likes of the New York Times. As is the way with these things, the first is being turned into a Leonardo DiCaprio movie, while Bugliosi’s 10 pound fairy tale is getting the miniseries treatment from Tom Hanks. Why bother? The whole comic fable was already made into an entertainingly xxxxty TV movie.
One of the more rewarding aspects of the JFK Records Act is that Jim Garrison, the New Orleans DA whose failed case against Clay Shaw in 1969 gave Stone’s film its basis, has largely been vindicated. Not only did it emerge that Clay Shaw was indeed working for the CIA, as Garrison charged, but a mountain of evidence revealed the amazing lengths to which the CIA went to infiltrate and neutralize the DA’s investigation.
This included activating media friends like Walter Sheridan to spuriously discredit Garrison. In fact, the campaign mounted against Garrison was so vicious that some years later, after being forced out of his position as the chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Richard Sprague would state to journalist Dick Russell, " ... there is a greater ability to manipulate public opinion by certain agencies of government than I would have believed possible ... I've become more interested in the media than the assassination."
Sprague was also unseated in part by a negative media campaign. His crime? He refused to sign non-disclosure agreements with the intelligence community. Sprague was replaced by Robert Blakey, who made no such demands on the CIA, while uncomfortably looking away from the highly suspicious intelligence matters his investigators kept turning up. Even this farcically compromised government investigation still had to conclude there was a “conspiracy” to murder Kennedy. Blakey just remained wedded to a strenuously narrow personal view that it was a Mob operation.
That changed recently. “We… now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency,” Blakey states in an addendum to an interview he gave to Frontline. “Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story. I am now in that camp.”
Blakey’s about-face happened when he learned, many years later, that the CIA’s liaison with the HSCA had also been a pointsman in the Agency’s Miami Cuban operations in 1963. George Joannides handled the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE), a Cuban exile group that had interacted dramatically with the pro-Castro version of Oswald in New Orleans. In other words, Joannides was implicated in the very files he was put in charge of. The fox had been hired—taken out of retirement, even—to guard the henhouse. Nobody at the HSCA was aware of this duplicity at the time.
You think they’d have been a little more suspicious. Even J. Edgar Hoover had to admit that the CIA tended to lie about Oswald. In fact, almost everybody who bothers to look sees that the CIA has acted anything but innocently regarding its knowledge of the assassination. Everybody except a lot of well-paid members of the media establishment, any politicians who value their careers, and useful idiots like Forrest Gump, the kid from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Stephen King, and now Jonathan Demme. Jonathan Demme! The guy who made Caged Heat! This is a painful development for some of us.
I suppose you could argue that almost 50 years after the event, it’s no big thing to turn the killing of JFK into a little light entertainment, as in Stephen King’s time-travel yarn about a man who goes back to stop Oswald—the guy who didn’t do it—from doing it. “Who cares?” you might shrug, “It was a long time ago, and besides, using cinema as a political tool to inform, educate, and agitate is the kind of thing they do in crazy loser countries like France and Argentina.”
Or you could take the view that Hollywood’s magical power to mold consensual “reality” is a force better applied to the light of truth rather than to the ever widening gyre of historical misinformation, especially if one views the assassination from Stone’s horribly persuasive perspective as a daylight coup brought to you by extremists in the highest levels of the establishment.
It might seem quaint now, but a smart president looking to avoid a Vietnam war was actually considered enough of a threat at one time. JFK’s death allowed a monumental heave towards chaos. His killers got their war, and we’ve been stuck with this culture of endless conflict and consensus unreality ever since. Almost half a century later, a sitting American president—a Democrat—demonstrably supports war, torture, and the continued malfeasance of the corporate and finance sectors, and he’s considered the good guy.
That, as James Douglass puts it, is why JFK’s death still matters. In this context, one wonders if King and Demme realize the damage they’re doing.
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I thought it might be worth members posting their favourite love poems. My favourite is Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress (1681)
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Andrew Marvell is an interesting character:
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It has been argued that John Lilburne was one of Britain's first socialists. He was born in Thickley Puncherdon, in 1615. His father, Richard Lilburne, owned land in Durham. His mother, Margaret Lilburne, was the daughter of Thomas Hixon, the yeoman of the wardrobe to Elizabeth I. Lilburne's mother died soon after he was born. He was educated at schools in Newcastle and Auckland. At the age of fifteen he sent by his father to London where he become an apprentice in the cloth trade.
In 1637 Lilburne met John Bastwick, a Puritan preacher who had just had his ears cut off for writing a pamphlet attacking the religious views of the William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Lilburne was shocked that someone could be so severely punished for expressing their religious beliefs. Lilburne offered to help Bastwick in his struggle with the Anglican Church. Eventually it was agreed that Lilburne should go to Holland to organise the printing of a book that Bastwick had written.
In December 1637 Lilburne was arrested and charged with printing and circulating unlicensed books. On 13th February, 1638, he was found guilty and sentenced to be fined £500, whipped, pilloried and imprisoned. The following month he was whipped from Fleet Prison to Palace Yard. When he was placed in the pillory he tried to make a speech praising John Bastwick and was gagged.
While in prison Lilburne wrote about his punishments, The Work of the Beast (1638) and an attack on the Anglican Church, Come Out of Her, My People (1639). In November 1640, Charles I was forced to recall Parliament for the first time in eleven years. Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan member of the House of Commons, made a speech about Lilburne's case. After a debate on the issue. Parliament voted to release him from prison.
When the Civil War broke out in 1642, Lilburne immediately joined the Parliamentary army. Lilburne fought at Edgehill but was captured at Brentford on 12th November, 1642. Charged with "bearing arms against the king" he was put on trial at Oxford. Lilburne was in danger of losing his life until Parliament announced on 17th December, 1642, that it would carry out immediate reprisals if he was executed.
In 1643 Lilburne was released during an exchange of prisoners. He now joined the army led by the Edward Montagu and took part in the siege of Lincoln. He was a good soldier and in May 1644 was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. However, in April 1645 he left the army after being told he could not join the New Model Army without taking the covenant.
On 7th January, 1645, Lilburne wrote a letter to William Prynne complaining about the intolerance of the Presbyterians and arguing for freedom of speech for the Independents. Prynne was furious with Lilburne for making this comments and he was reported to the House of Commons. As a result, he was brought before the Committee of Examinations on 17th May, 1645, and warned about his future behaviour.
Lilburne was once again called to appear before the Committee of Examinations on 18th June, 1645. For the second time he was let off with a caution. William Prynne was unhappy with this verdict and arranged for the publication of two pamphlets about Lilburne, A Fresh Discovery of Prodigious Wandering Stars and Firebrands and The xxxx Confounded. Lilburne replied with Innocency and Truth Justified.
In July 1645 Lilburne's old friend, John Bastwick, reported Lilburne to the House of Commons, claiming he had made critical comments about the Speaker, William Lenthall. Lilburne was arrested and sent to Newgate Prison. While in captivity wrote a pamphlet where he repeated the charges against Lenthall and other members of Parliament. Lilburne was released without charge on 14th October, 1645.
John Bradshaw now brought Lilburne's case before the Star Chamber. He pointed out that Lilburne was still waiting for most of the pay he should have received while serving in the Parliamentary army. Lilburne was awarded £2,000 in compensation for his sufferings. However, Parliament refused to pay this money and Lilburne was once again arrested. Brought before the House of Lords Lilburne was sentenced to seven years and fined £4,000.
While in prison Lilburne wrote several pamphlets. This included Anatomy of the Lords' Tyranny (1646), Regal Tyranny Discovered (1647), The Oppressed Man's Opinions Declared (1647) and London's Liberty in Chains Discovered (1648). He also wrote A Remonstrance of Many Thousands Citizens with his friend Richard Overton.
On 1st August, 1648, the House of Commons voted for Lilburne's release. The next day the House of Lords agreed and also remitted the fine imposed two years earlier. On his release Lilburne became involved in writing and distributing pamphlets on soldiers' rights. He pointed out that even though soldiers were fighting for Parliament, very few of them were allowed to vote for it. Lilburne argued that all adult males should have the vote and that these elections should take place every year. Lilburne, who believed that people were corrupted by power, argued that no members of the House of Commons should be allowed to serve for more than one year at a time.
Lilburne and his friends, including John Wildman, Richard Overton and William Walwyn, formed a new political party called the Levellers. The Levellers' political programme included: voting rights for all adult males, annual elections, complete religious freedom, an end to the censorship of books and newspapers, the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords, trial by jury, an end to taxation of people earning less than £30 a year and a maximum interest rate of 6%.
The Levellers started publishing their own newspaper, The Moderate. They also organised meetings where they persuaded people to sign a Petition supporting their policies. His wife, Elizabeth Lilburne, was also active in this campaign.
When these reforms were opposed by officers in the New Model Army, the Levellers called for the soldiers to revolt. In March 1649, Lilburne, John Wildman, Richard Overton and William Walwyn were arrested and charged with advocating communism. After being brought before the Council of State they were sent to the Tower of London.
Lilburne was tried first and after a jury refused to convict him Lilburne and the other Levellers were released on 8th November. Lilburne was granted £3,000 in compensation for his sufferings and was granted estates in Durham.
Oliver Cromwell agreed with some of the Leveller's policies, including the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords. However, he refused to increase the number of people who could vote in elections. Lilburne now began writing pamphlets attacking Cromwell's government. Cromwell responded by having Lilburne arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Over 10,000 people signed a petition calling for Lilburne's release but Cromwell refused to let him go.
Lilburne was eventually charged with treason. It was claimed that the pamphlets that he had written had encouraged people to rebel against Cromwell's government. However, the jury at Lilburne's trial found him not guilty. As soon as he was released Lilburne returned to writing pamphlets. He attacked Cromwell's suppression of Roman Catholics in Ireland, Parliament's persecution of Royalists in England and the decision to execute Charles I.
Once again Lilburne was arrested. This time Oliver Cromwell banished him from England. For four months Lilburne lived in Holland, but in June 1653 he was caught trying to get back into England. Once again Lilburne was imprisoned and charged with treason. This result was also the same; the jury found him not guilty. However, this time Cromwell was unwilling to release him.
On 16th March, 1654, Lilburne was transferred to Elizabeth Castle, Guernsey. Colonel Robert Gibbon, the governor of the island, later complained that Lilburne gave him more trouble than "ten cavaliers". In October, 1655, he was moved to Dover Castle. While he was in prison Lilburne continued writing pamphlets including one that explained why he had joined the Quakers.
In 1656 Oliver Cromwell agreed to release Lilburne. John Lilburne's years of struggle with the government had worn him out and on 29th August, 1657, at the age of 43, he died at his home at Eltham.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/STUlilburne.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/STUlevellers.htm
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Find out why some people considered Franklin D. Roosevelt a socialist while others believe he prevented the growth of communism in the US.
He was at best a moderate Social-Democrat, there was very little transfer of the economy to the public sector. The cases where this was done such as the TVA were cases where the private sector was unlikely to act. By the standards of countries just about any western European country his policies were rather conservative.
Thought he seems to have lowered the vote count for the Socialists and other leftist parties i doubt they ever would been able to elect more than a handful of mid-level candidates if FDR had not been elected.
Emanuel Celler, was a left-wing member of Congress when Roosevelt was elected. He wrote about his election in 1953. "The first days of the Roosevelt Administration charged the air with the snap and the zigzag of electricity. I felt it. We all felt it. It seemed as it you could hold out your hand and close it over the piece of excitement you had ripped away. It was the return of hope. The mind was elastic and capable of crowding idea into idea. New faces came to Washington - young faces of bright lads who could talk. It was contagious. We started to talk in the cloak rooms; we started to talk in committees. The shining new faces called on us and talked. In March of 1933 we had witnessed a revolution - a revolution in manner, in mores, in the definition of government. What before had been black or white sprang alive with color. The messages to Congress, the legislation; even the reports on the legislation took on the briskness of authority."
At the time we had a Labour Government in the UK. Our prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, thought that the New Deal was too left-wing and refused to follow these policies. If you listen to his speeches on the subject of Social Security it reflects the changes that took place in Europe at the end of the Second World War. Roosevelt was the first leader in the western world to accept the theories of John Maynard Keynes. These are theories that are still supported by the non-communist left in Europe.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but AFAIK FDR never proposed:
• nationalising any companies
• universal healthcare
• free post secondary education
The cases where he created public agencies to provide private private sector type services where in areas where the private sector displaied no interest in doing business. True pushed trhrough Social Security and unemployment insurance but the formers was funded by its beneficiaries and the latter was partially funded by the workers with the rest coming from their employers, Bismark backed similar programs. He increased regulation of businesses but not radically so.
How was he to the left of Ramsay MacDonald?
I do not believe FDR was a socialist. That is a word used to describe him by the far-right. I do take the view that the New Deal helped to prevent the USA from becoming a socialist country. That is why people on the left hate liberals like FDR who have helped capitalism to survive.
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What about this one:
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Thought the first-half of this song was appropriate for JFK researchers. Can you think of any others?
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Nancy Wake died this week. She would make an excellent case-study for people studying the Second World War. In 1939 Nancy married the wealthy French industrialist, Henri Fiocca, in Marseilles. Nancy was in France when the German Army invaded in May 1940. After the French government surrendered, Nancy joined the French Resistance. She worked with Ian Garrow's group helping British airmen shot down over France to escape back to Britain.
In December 1940 the network was betrayed and Nancy was forced to go into hiding. She continued to work for the French Resistance and was eventually arrested while in Toulouse. However, the authorities did not realize they had captured the woman known as the "White Mouse" and she was released after four days.
It was now too dangerous to remain in occupied France and Nancy crossed the Pyrenees into Spain before travelling to Britain. David Stafford has pointed out: "Henri promised to follow. But he was picked up by the Gestapo and shot. She blamed herself for his death: if it had not been for her, she mourned, he would have survived the war."
Nacy Wake now joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and agreed to become a British special agent. Her training reports said "a very good and fast shot" and she "put the men to shame by her cheerful spirit and strength of character". Vera Atkins, who worked in the SOE's French section, remembered her as: "A real Australian bombshell. Tremendous vitality, flashing eyes. Everything she did, she did well".
On 29th April 1944, Nancy was parachuted into the Auvergne region of France. Her main objective was to locate local bands of the Maquis and to provide them with the ammunition and arms that were being dropped by parachute by the Royal Air Force four times a week.
Nancy had the task of helping the resistance to prepare for the armed uprising that was due to coincide with the D-Day landings. She also led a raid against the Gestapo headquarters in Mountucon and a German gun factory. Henri Tardivat, one of her comrades in the resistance later said that: "She is the most feminine woman I know, until the fighting starts. Then she is like five men."
After the death of her second husband in 1997 she returned to London and lived in the Star and Garter Home for ex-servicemen and women in Richmond. To fund her later years she sold her war medals. She commented: "There was no point in keeping them. When I die, I'll probably go to hell and they'd melt anyway. My only condition is when I die, I want my ashes scattered over the hills where I fought alongside all those men."
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The British newspaper the Daily Mail recently posted a story on its website claiming to have inside information on the secret tapes Jackie Kennedy made with historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. just months after her husband’s death.
According to the Mail story, the tapes are filled with sordid information — including tales of the president’s affair with a 19-year-old intern, Jackie Kennedy’s belief that Lyndon Johnson and a cartel of Texas businessmen were responsible for John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and stories of her own affair with the movie star William Holden.
The story quickly made the rounds of the Internet, but ABC, the network that actually has the tapes, dismissed the Mail’s claims as bogus.
"The tabloid reports about the content of the tapes are totally erroneous," a spokesperson from ABC said in a statement. "ABC News isn’t releasing any content from those tapes until mid-September, at which point it will be clear how off base these reports are."
The Mail updated the original story to include ABC’s response, but did not remove the original story from its site.
Jackie Kennedy had requested that the tapes, which total eight hours and were made just four months after her husband was killed, not be released until 50 years after her death. But her daughter, Caroline Kennedy, agreed to let ABC have access to the tapes now — just 17 years after her mother’s death. The network is putting together a "20/20" special with Diane Sawyer in which Americans will get to hear the tapes for the first time. It’s scheduled to air in September.
The special will coincide with the release of a new book based partly on the tapes: "Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy." It has a forward by Caroline Kennedy and annotations by historian Michael Beschloss.
"It is a great privilege to be able to share these recollections with the millions of people who admire my parents. My mother took very seriously the obligation to preserve and document the history of my father’s administration — and these interviews are the result. I am honored to play a small part in that effort by bringing them forward in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy administration," Caroline Kennedy told ABC News.
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English golf professional Wilfrid Reid and Harry Vardon and Ted Ray from Jersey came to America to play golf in 1913, and were involved in the US Open Championship "The Greatest Game" at the Country Club at Brookline (where JFK was born).
While the event is famous for having been won by the local amateur and caddy Francis Ouimet, there was a famous incident where Ted Ray and Wilfrid Reid got into a fight in the clubhouse.
I always thought the argument had something to do with golf, but I only recently got Wilfrid Reid's side of the story, and thought that John Simkin and Andy would appreciate it:
Wilfrid Reid, from My Life in Golf:
....Its funny how some things remain in your mind, while moreimportant ones are sometimes forgotten. I recall looking for Ray at the 1913Open and found him in the bar of the hotel with Alex Smith. They were having abig argument about socialism. Then I had to open my big mouth. I said, Ted,how the hell can you argue in favor of socialism when you make as much money asyou do?
Well, Ted really got angry at that, really upset, and hepunched me right in the face and knocked me clear over the table. My face wasswollen clear out to the ear, and the next day I had a devil of a headache.Vardon was very upset and said he was going to withdraw, but I talked him outof it....
Kellys Golf History: Wilfrid Reid - First Seaview Pro and ACCC 46-48 - My Life in Golf
I had not heard that story before. I suspect Ray was a supporter of Eugene Debs, the leader of the Socialist Party of America in 1913. Between 1901 and 1912 membership of the party grew from 13,000 to 118,000 and its journal Appeal to Reason was selling 500,000 copies a week. This provided a great platform for Debs and his running-mate, Emil Seidel, in the 1912 Presidential Election. Debs won 901,551 votes (6.0%). This was the most impressive showing of any socialist candidate in the history of the United States. In some states the vote was much higher: Oklahoma (16.6), Nevada (16.5), Montana (13.6), Washington (12.9), California (12.2) and Idaho (11.5).
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdebs.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsocialismP.htm
During the First World War Debs made several speeches explaining why he believed the United States should not join the war. After the USA declared war on the Central Powers in 1917, several party members were arrested for violating the Espionage Act. After making a speech in Canton, Ohio, on 16th June, 1918, criticizing the legislation, Debs was arrested and sentenced to ten years in Atlanta Penitentiary.
It was the Red Scare movement led by A. Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson's attorney general, that destroyed the party. Soon after taking office, a government list of 62 people believed to hold "dangerous, destructive and anarchistic sentiments" was leaked to the press. This list included the names of Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, Oswald Garrison Villard and Charles Beard. It was also revealled that these people had been under government surveillance for many years.
Worried by the revolution that had taken place in Russia, Palmer became convinced that Communist agents were planning to overthrow the American government. His view was reinforced by the discovery of thirty-eight bombs sent to leading politicians and the Italian anarchist who blew himself up outside Palmer's Washington home. Palmer recruited John Edgar Hoover as his special assistant and together they used the Espionage Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (1918) to launch a campaign against radicals and left-wing organizations.
A. Mitchell Palmer claimed that Communist agents from Russia were planning to overthrow the American government. On 7th November, 1919, the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution, over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were arrested. Palmer and Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects were held without trial for a long time. The vast majority were eventually released but Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Mollie Steimer, and 245 other people, were deported to Russia.
In January, 1920, another 6,000 were arrested and held without trial. These raids took place in several cities and became known as the Palmer Raids. Palmer and Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects, many of them members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), continued to be held without trial. When Palmer announced that the communist revolution was likely to take place on 1st May, mass panic took place. In New York, five elected Socialists were expelled from the legislature.
James Larkin, an Irish trade unionist living in New York City, was charged with "advocating force, violence and unlawful means to overthrow the Government". Larkin's trial began on 30th January 1920. He decided to defend himself. He denied that he had advocated the overthrow of the Government. However, he admitted that he was part of the long American revolutionary tradition that included Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He also quoted Wendell Phillips in his defence: "Government exists to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection - they have many friends and few enemies."
The jury found Larkin guilty and on 3rd May 1920 he received a sentence of five to ten years in Sing Sing. In prison Larkin worked in the bootery, manufacturing and repairing shoes. Despite his inability to return to Ireland, he was annually re-elected as general secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union.
As a result of this Red Scare people became worried about being members of the Socialist Party and subscribing to left-wing journals and the Appeal to Reason, which was selling 760,000 a week before the First World War, was forced to close in November, 1922.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAredscare.htm
An interesting footnote to this story is that Ted Ray was being financed by English media baron Lord Northcliffe. He was the Rupert Murdoch of his day and owned most of Britain's right-wing newspapers. I wonder if he knew Ted Ray was a socialist.
By the way, Charlie Olden, was an unsuccessful comedian in Britain until he decided to change his name to Ted Ray. He admitted he got the idea after watching Ted Ray play golf.
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I actually don't understand what all this hub bub is based upon.
To me this would be a big story for say Ladies HOme Journal, or say the National Enquirer.
But what makes it important to us?
I mean unless we know why she thought what she did, then how is this important or influential?
It is important to all those who want the case to be reopened. This story will get coverage in the mainstream media and might put pressure on those who can open up the files.
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Poster's notte: This interview is not to be missed. Chris Bryant is one courageous individual.
You are right about Bryant. It is important not to forget the role that Tom Watson and Nick Davies have played in the exposure of this story. Another figure that deserves praise is Ed Milliband. When he first became Labour leader he followed the example of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and tried to get on Murdoch's right side. He was warned by Rebecca Brooks that he would be destroyed by News International if he made anything of the phone-hacking case. He went along with this at first but a couple of months ago he changed his mind and used it to relentlessly attack Cameron. It could be argued that he only did this when Murdoch was down. However, he made sure he was unable to get back on his feet.
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The greater your weight, the lower your IQ, say scientists
By Nina Goswami
12:01AM BST 15 Oct 2006
It is bad for your blood pressure, knocks years off your life and is a strain on your heart. Now scientists have discovered that gaining weight lowers your intelligence.
The findings follow last week's government figures that show Britain as the "fat man" of Europe, with nearly a quarter of adults and more than 14 per cent of children under 16 classified as obese.
This suggests the survey is measuring class rather than intelligence. The "lumpen proletariat" tend to eat junk food in Britain. I suspect this is the same problem in the US.
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Abraham Whitehead was a cloth merchant from Holmfirth who joined the campaign for factory legislation. He told a parliamentary committee in 1832: "The youngest age at which children are employed is never under five, but some are employed between five and six, in woollen-mills, as piecers.... I have frequently seen them going to work between five and six in the morning.... They get their breakfast as they eat; they eat and work; there is generally a pot of water porridge, with a little treacle in it, placed at the end of the machine." He was concerned about the impact the work was having on the children. "I have seen a little boy, only this winter, who works in the mill, and who lives within two hundred or three hundred yards of my own door; he is not yet six years old, and I have seen him, when he had a few coppers in his pocket, go to a beer shop, call for a glass of ale, and drink as boldly as any full-grown man, cursing and swearing."
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BBC Website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14356458
Prime Minister David Cameron and his senior colleagues must "come clean" over their dealings with the Murdoch family, Labour has said.
The party has sent letters to Cabinet ministers, containing more than 50 questions it claims have still not been addressed by the coalition.
It comes in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.
They ask what discussions key ministers had with the Murdochs about their attempt to take full control of BSkyB.
The bid collapsed following intense pressure at the height of the hacking revelations.
Labour has demanded Mr Cameron reveals "the dates, nature and content of the discussions" he had with James or Rupert Murdoch as well as ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks about the deal.
The party is also attempting to keep up the pressure on Mr Cameron and his colleagues about Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor who then worked as Downing Street communications chief for two-and-a-half years.
The letter calls on the Prime Minister to reveal if he spoke to Mr Coulson following his arrest.
Shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis said: "The signs are that David Cameron still does not get it.
"David Cameron and George Osborne treated warnings about Andy Coulson with contempt and failed to put a proper distance between themselves and senior News Corp executives during the consideration of the BSkyB bid.
"A tangled web of their own making will not go away until they and their cabinet colleagues give full and frank answers to legitimate questions."
It has previously been reported that Mr Cameron had 26 separate meetings with executives from Mr Murdoch's companies since last May's election.
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One of the most disturbing cases involves William Dodd. He was born into a poor family living in Kendal on 18th June 1804. At the age of five William was sent to work as a card-maker and the following year was employed in a local textile factory. William's three sisters also worked at the same factory. During busy periods William and his sisters worked an 18 hour day.
Dodd's first job was as a piecer. As he was later to point out this work put a great deal of pressure on the "right knee, which is always the first joint to give way." Within a few years Dodd was a cripple: "My joints were like so many rusty hinges, that had laid for years. I had to get up an hour earlier, and, with the broom under one arm as a crutch, and a stick on my hand, walk over the house till I had got my joints in working order."
In 1819 found work at Isaac and William Wilson's textile mill in Kendal. William Dodd became an overlooker with responsibility for checking the ages of children working in the factory. Dodd attended evening classes given by a local schoolmaster. Once Dodd had been taught to read and write he was asked by his employer to help with clerical work in the factory.
Dodd, who was now badly crippled, found working at Wilson's textile mill increasingly difficult and in 1837 left to form his own school. Dodd taught reading, writing and arithmetic but after a few months he lost the right to rent the rooms he was using as a school.
Dodd made several attempts to find a wife but he claims he was rejected because he was a cripple. After being refused by several women of his own age a friend told him "that after a certain age women would take up with anything." He became friends with a woman much older than himself. In his autobiography he described how she reacted when he asked her to marry him: "I saw a slight curl of the upper lip - her eyes then began to descend, till they settled the intensity of their gaze upon my knees. At the moment, I wished the earth to open and swallow me up."
After this rejection Dodd decided that he would "live and die a bachelor". He now moved to London where he looked for work as a clerk. Unable to find permanent work, Dodd was forced to do a wide variety of temporary jobs.
In 1839 Dodd was employed by John Kirby as a clerk but by In the spring of 1840 the pain in his joints became intolerable. According to Dodd his right wrist now measured "twelve inches round". William was sent to St. Thomas' Hospital and the doctors eventually decided that he would have to have his right arm amputated. A doctor told him that "on dissection, the bones of the forearm presented a very curious appearance - something similar to an empty honeycomb, the marrow having totally disappeared."
Dodd decided to write a book about his experiences as a child worker. When the manuscript was finished he sent it to Lord Ashley who arranged for it to be published as A Narrative of the Experience and Sufferings of William Dodd a Factory Cripple. Lord Ashley decided to employ Dodd to collect information about the treatment of children in textile factories. William Dodd's research was published as The Factory System: Illustrated in 1842.
William Dodd's books created a great deal of controversy. Dodd was attacked in the House of Commons as an unreliable source of information. John Bright: "I have in my hand two publications; one is The Adventures of William Dodd he Factory Cripple and the other is entitled The Factory System - both books have gone forth to the public under the sanction of the noble Lord Ashley. I do not wish to go into the particulars of the character of this man, for it is not necessary to my case, but I can demonstrate, that his books and statements are wholly unworthy of credit. Dodd states that from the hardships he endured in a factory, he was "done up" at the age of thirty-two, whereas I can prove that he was treated with uniform kindness, which he repaid by gross immorality of conduct, and for which he was discharged from his employment." As a result of this attack Lord Ashley decided to sack Dodd.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRdodd.htm
Here is his description of working in a factory as a child:
At the age of six I became a piecer. The duties of the piecer will not be clearly understood by the reader, unless he is acquainted with the machine for spinning woollen yarn, called a billy. A billy is a machine somewhat similar in form to the letter H, one side being stationary, and the other moveable, and capable of being pushed close in under the stationary part, almost like the drawer of a side table; the moveable part, or carriage, runs backwards and forwards, by means of six iron wheels, upon three iron rails, as a carriage on a railroad. In this carriage are the spindles, from 70 to 100 in number, all turned by one wheel, which is in the care of the spinner. When the spinner brings the carriage close up under the fixed part of the machine, he is able, to obtain a certain length of carding for each spindle, say 10 or 12 inches, which he draws back, and spins into yarn; this done, he winds the yarn round the spindles, brings the carriage close up as before, and again obtains a fresh supply of cardings.
These cardings are taken up by the piecer in the left hand, about twenty at a time. He holds them about four inches from one end, the other end hanging down; these he takes, with the right hand, one at a time, for the purpose of piecing, and laying the ends of the cardings about 2 inches over each other, he rubs them together on the canvas cloth with his flat hand. He is obliged to be very expert, in order to keep the spinner well supplied. A good piecer will supply from 30 to 40 spindles with cardings.
The number of cardings a piecer has through his fingers in a day is very great; each piecing requires three or four rubs, over a space of three or four inches; and the continual friction of the hand in rubbing the piecing upon the coarse wrapper wears off the skin, and causes the finger to bleed. The position in which the piecer stands to his work is with the right foot forward, and his right side facing the frame: the motion he makes in going along in front of the frame, for the purpose of piecing, is neither forwards or backwards, but in a sliding direction, constantly keeping his right side towards the frame. In this position he continues during the day, with his hands, feet, and eyes constantly in motion. It will be easily seen, that the chief weight of his body rests upon his right knee, which is almost always the first joint to give way.
I have frequently worked at the frame till I could scarcely get home, and in this state have been stopped by people in the streets who noticed me shuffling along, and advised me to work no more in the factories; but I was not my own master. During the day, I frequently counted the clock, and calculated how many hours I had still to remain at work; my evenings were spent in preparing for the following day - in rubbing my knees, ankles, elbows, and wrists with oil, etc. I went to bed, to cry myself to sleep, and pray that the Lord would take me to himself before morning.
The Death of Daniel Morgan: The man who tried to expose the NoW scandal
in Political Conspiracies
Posted
This BBC programme is essential if you want to understand the corrupt relationship between the News of the World and the police.
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/r4report/r4report_20110818-2030a.mp3