John Simkin
-
Posts
15,705 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Store
Posts posted by John Simkin
-
-
I probably didn't really explain myself clearly, Andrew. Using the quote function is fine - it's just you should delete the image in the quote.
Andrew, do you have any other ideas about how we could reduce our bandwidth usage without compromising on the utility of the Forum? We've established the Photobucket site that members can use but I don't know if that reduces bandwidth.
Other members - any ideas?
Andy Walker tells me that the problem was probably caused by a Finnish IP. It has now been denied access to the Forum. The problem is caused by software that repeatedly asks for pages on the Forum. The volume of this automated system creates such a demand that it uses up bandwidth so fast that it eventually brings down the forum. The only solution to the problem is for one of the administrators to ban the offendeding IP.
-
samey in austria/europe---bandwidth limit exceeded.
KK
That is true. The problem is that we do not know why our bandwidth limit was exceeded. I pay a lot of money to make sure we have plenty of bandwidth. The last time this happened was because we suffered a "denial of service" attack.
-
Before the assassination of JFK the case that the world's intellectuals took note of was the execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. They kept up the campaign for 50 years and on 23rd August, 1977, Michael Dukakis, the Governor of Massachusetts, issued a proclamation, effectively absolving the two men of the crime. We have already passed the 50 years mark but maybe America will eventually elect a politician that will bring justice to Lee Harvey Oswald.
On 15th April, 1920, Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli, in South Braintree, were shot dead while carrying two boxes containing the payroll of a shoe factory. After the two robbers took the $15,000 they got into a car containing several other men and were driven away.
Several eyewitnesses claimed that the robbers looked Italian. A large number of Italian immigrants were questioned but eventually the authorities decided to charge Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco with the murders. Although the two men did not have criminal records, it was argued that they had committed the robbery to acquire funds for their anarchist political campaign.
The trial started on 21st May, 1921. The main evidence against the men was that they were both carrying a gun when arrested. Some people who saw the crime taking place identified Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco as the robbers. Others disagreed and both men had good alibis. Vanzetti was selling fish in Plymouth while Sacco was in Boston with his wife having his photograph taken. The prosecution made a great deal of the fact that all those called to provide evidence to support these alibis were also Italian immigrants.
Vanzetti and Sacco were disadvantaged by not having a full grasp of the English language. Webster Thayer, the judge was clearly prejudiced against anarchists. The previous year, he rebuked a jury for acquitting another anarchist Sergie Zuboff of violating the criminal anarchy statute. It was clear from some of the answers Vanzetti and Sacco gave in court that they had misunderstood the question. During the trial the prosecution emphasized the men's radical political beliefs. Vanzetti and Sacco were also accused of unpatriotic behaviour by fleeing to Mexico during the First World War.
In court Nicola Sacco claimed: "I know the sentence will be between two classes, the oppressed class and the rich class, and there will be always collision between one and the other. We fraternize the people with the books, with the literature. You persecute the people, tyrannize them and kill them. We try the education of people always. You try to put a path between us and some other nationality that hates each other. That is why I am here today on this bench, for having been of the oppressed class. Well, you are the oppressor." The trial lasted seven weeks and on 14th July, 1921, both men were found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death. The journalist. Heywood Broun, reported that when Judge Thayer passed sentence upon Sacco and Vanzetti, a woman in the courtroom said with terror: "It is death condemning life!"
Bartolomeo Vanzetti commented in court after the sentence was announced: "The jury were hating us because we were against the war, and the jury don't know that it makes any difference between a man that is against the war because he believes that the war is unjust, because he hate no country, because he is a cosmopolitan, and a man that is against the war because he is in favor of the other country that fights against the country in which he is, and therefore a spy, an enemy, and he commits any crime in the country in which he is in behalf of the other country in order to serve the other country. We are not men of that kind. Nobody can say that we are German spies or spies of any kind... I never committed a crime in my life - I have never stolen and I have never killed and I have never spilt blood, and I have fought against crime, and I have fought and I have sacrificed myself even to eliminate the crimes that the law and the church legitimate and sanctify."
Many observers believed that their conviction resulted from prejudice against them as Italian immigrants and because they held radical political beliefs. The case resulted in anti-US demonstrations in several European countries and at one of these in Paris, a bomb exploded killing twenty people.
It was also argued that the conviction was a result of the Red Scare. In 1919 Woodrow Wilson appointed A. Mitchell Palmer as his attorney general. Palmer had previously been associated with the progressive wing of the party and had supported women's suffrage and trade union rights. However, once in power, Palmer's views on civil rights changed dramatically.
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 progressives such as Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, Oswald Garrison Villard and Charles Beard. It was also revealed 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. 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.
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.
When the May revolution failed to materialize, attitudes towards Palmer began to change and he was criticised for disregarding people's basic civil liberties. Some of his opponents claimed that Palmer had devised this Red Scare to help him become the Democratic presidential candidate in 1920.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAredscare.htm
The anarchist movement in America at this time was incredibly small at this time. What is more, they tended to follow the neo-pacifist views of Peter Kropotkin rather than those of Sergi Nechayev, who favoured terrorist activities.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkropotkin.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSnechayev.htm
There was also no link between anarchism and communism. In fact both groups hated each other with a passion. At this time the Bolsheviks were busily arresting and executing anarchists in Russia. The most interesting example of Nestor Makhno, who along with his anarchist followers, had played an important role in overthrowing Tsar Nicholas II and then winning the Civil War against the White Army and their foreign supporters.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSmakhno.htm
The leaders of the American Communist Party decided to use this case as propaganda. Liberals, fearing the threat to their own civil rights, also joined in the campaign.
In 1925 Celestino Madeiros, a Portuguese immigrant, confessed to being a member of the gang that killed Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli. He also named the four other men, Joe, Fred, Pasquale and Mike Morelli, who had taken part in the robbery. The Morelli brothers were well-known criminals who had carried out similar robberies in area of Massachusetts. However, the authorities refused to investigate the confession made by Madeiros.
Important figures in the United States and Europe became involved in the campaign to overturn the conviction. John Dos Passos, Alice Hamilton, Paul Kellog, Jane Addams, Heywood Broun, William Patterson, Upton Sinclair, Dorothy Parker, Ben Shahn, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Felix Frankfurter, John Howard Lawson, Freda Kirchway, Floyd Dell, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells became involved in a campaign to obtain a retrial. Although Webster Thayer, the original judge, was officially criticised for his conduct at the trial, the authorities refused to overrule the decision to execute the men.
Eugene Debs, the leader of the Socialist Party of America, called for trade union action against the decision: "The supreme court of Massachusetts has spoken at last and Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, two of the bravest and best scouts that ever served the labor movement, must go to the electric chair.... Now is the time for all labor to be aroused and to rally as one vast host to vindicate its assailed honor, to assert its self-respect, and to issue its demand that in spite of the capitalist-controlled courts of Massachusetts honest and innocent working-men whose only crime is their innocence of crime and their loyalty to labor, shall not be murdered by the official hirelings of the corporate powers that rule and tyrannize over the state."
By the summer of 1927 it became clear that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti would be executed. Vanzetti commented to a journalist: "If it had not been for this thing, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, justice, for man's understanding of man, as now we do by accident. Our words - our lives - our pains - nothing! The taking of our lives - lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler - all! That last moment belong to us - that agony is our triumph. On 23rd August 1927, the day of execution, over 250,000 people took part in a silent demonstration in Boston.
The United States system of justice came under attack from important figures throughout the world. Bertrand Russell argued: "I am forced to conclude that they were condemned on account of their political opinions and that men who ought to have known better allowed themselves to express misleading views as to the evidence because they held that men with such opinions have no right to live. A view of this sort is one which is very dangerous, since it transfers from the theological to the political sphere a form of persecution which it was thought that civilized countries had outgrown." That's right, the same man who protested against the Warren Commission report.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsacco.htm
-
I will let you know as soon as I find out why we were down for the last couple of days.
-
Malcolm Blunt has suggested that "Mr Carroll and Mr Parker may care to look at Peter Wronski's work on this subject....he has Oswald getting his visa a day earlier... based on Russian Government 1992 releases which Yeltsin gave to Bill Clinton on his visit to the U.S."
-
[/i]Leigh, ends this section of his book by mentioning QJWIN, and the Lumumba assassination, in which a fatal virus, designed to mimic a tropical disease was flown in for him [QJWIN] in the diplomatic pouch, accompanied by syringe, mask and surgical gloves.
Perhaps, I am reading too much into his writing, but the manner in which Leigh mentions QJWIN, in my mind seems to be an effort on his part to imply that if Gaitskell's death was, in fact murder, maybe the answer was in the opposite direction from the KGB.
If, as one CIA agent said "assassination was the ambience of the time," referring to the early 1960's, intrigue and skullduggery were certainly not out of place, either.
Interesting post. I used to teach David Leigh's son when the family lived in Brighton. He is still a top journalist working for the Guardian.
It is true that some members of MI5 and the CIA thought that Wilson was a Soviet spy. He was definitely the most left-wing PM that Britain has had, although he moved to the right once he was in power. The claims that he was a Soviet spy was daft and that is now recognized by historians. It was just an attempt to undermine Wilson when he was in power. The British establishment always react in this way to the election of a Labour prime minister.
According to the CIA they paid large sums to the right-wing of the Labour Party after their landslide victory in 1945. Gaitskell, who was not a socialist, received some of this money. It was Gaitskill, probably under orders from the CIA, who was responsible for undermining the NHS that resulted in Wilson and Bevan resigning from the government. I cannot see what motive the CIA had for killing Gaitskell. I suppose the KGB might have done it in order to create panic in the CIA.
-
Jim McIlroy
Published by Resistance Books
2004, 60pp, ISBN 1876646497, Pamphlet
$5.95
''The Australian Labor Party is the single biggest block to the development of the socialist movement in this country. It has held the great majority of the working class in the straitjacket of parliamentarist reformism for the last 100 years — although today this hold is increasingly being called into question.
Under the slogan "Socialism In Our Time", radical and socialist elements played an important role in the initial push for a Labor Party, but were defeated by a combination of the parliamentarians and the trade union bureaucracy.
By the early 20th century the ALP had become entrenched as a reformist, parliamentarist party, accurately described by Lenin in 1913 as a "liberal capitalist party" — a political agency of the capitalist class within the labour movement.
Yet despite the clear record of the past century and the ALP's ever-more rightward trajectory today, some sections of the left continue to mistakenly regard Labor as some sort of workers' party, albeit with a procapitalist leadership.
Jim McIlroy's Marxist analysis of the ALP's formation shines a bright light on the party's real nature and helps illuminate the way forward for the socialist movement.''
The same is true of the UK. In opposition they are left of centre but once in power they become extremely right-wing.
What about your new PM? My newspaper claims she is a left-winger and that her great hero is Aneurin Bevan. He kept to the left and the main figure behind the NHS. He even resigned over the introduction of prescription charges.
-
Does anyone know anything about this new book?
http://jfkanalysis.com/book.php
“JFK. Analysis of a Shooting,” is an expert, detailed and comprehensive analysis of the assassination of President Kennedy. The work takes into account all the elemental factors that lead to a complete understanding of the shooting, and which will eventually serve to establish the undisclosed facts behind the tragic event. In its process of discovery the writing scrutinizes each shot taken at the motorcade. Additionally, it considers the caliber of the rifle used in the shooting. It takes into account the relative speed (in feet per second), and the inherent power of the bullets fired at the President. It analyzes the position of the alleged gunman and its relationship to his target. It also explorers the extent of every bullet wound, as it relates to the shot that caused it. In addition, the work probes the Zapruder film, as a visual record of the event, to denote the crucial frames that expose previously unrevealed facts of the shooting. And finally, the work reviews the trajectory of every single shot taken at the motorcade, from point of impact back towards the suspected point of origin, and their angles of entry into their targets. The book denotes, through conclusive interpretation of the evidence gathered, logical reasoning, and concrete ballistic principles that a total of five shots were fired at President Kennedy. Additionally, it also explains why it can be concluded that none of the shots fired at the President actually originated from the Texas School Book Depository Building, Oswald’s alleged sniper position.
Like all the other elements of our world bullets are also bound by the proven laws of physics. For instance, they are directly affected by gravity and wind deflection. Bullets also possess an inherent amount of momentum once fired, denote a tangible trajectory, and are ultimately stopped by resistance. Though the assassination of President Kennedy has been previously debated in a variety of forums, no one has ever rendered a complete analysis of the technical and ballistics aspect of the shooting. “JFK. Analysis of a Shooting,” fills in that void in an expert, detailed, and thorough fashion.
By taking into account the ballistics, medical and film evidence gathered the writing answers the questions that needed to be asked regarding the event. What do the bullets fired tell us regarding their impact points and trajectories? What do the injuries incurred by President Kennedy and Governor Connally reveal regarding the bullets that caused them? What conclusive physical laws were violated in the official account of the shooting?
The biggest and most consequential truth that the book exposes is the fact that in lieu of the compound evidence gathered, from a logical and ballistics perspective, it can be construed and ultimately proven that Lee Harvey Oswald did not fire a single shot upon the Presidential motorcade. Mr. Martin feels that for the ultimate benefit of us all it is without question, and undeniably so, morally forthright to exonerate an innocent man.
-
For the past 14 years Sunmaster has provided cheap holidays to hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers. Sunmaster allows you to get you the holiday you want at the very best price. As Sunmaster are independent from any tour operator you can be assured of an unbeatable choice of cheap holidays ranging from short trips to Europe to lazy beach breaks in the Caribbean to safari holidays in Africa!
-
It is virtually impossible for any government to survive the recession. That is why the Labour Party lost last month. However, as the governor of the Bank of England said before the election: "The party that wins the election will be removed next time and will not serve again for a generation." After the Conservative/Liberal Democrat budget yesterday, I am sure he is right.
-
The peace movement in the UK during the First World War has not received very much coverage. A great deal was done to suppress the movement. For example, in February 1915 an international meeting of women met in Amsterdam. Several women that had been involved in the struggle for the vote before the war took part, including Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Chrystal Macmillan, took part. Emmeline Pankhurst (WSPU) and Millicent Fawcett (NUWSS) accused the women of treason and urged their supporters not to attend.
Over 180 women from Britain were refused permission to travel to the meeting. Even so, fifteen hundred delegates representing Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Britain, Hungary, Italy, Holland, Norway, Sweden and the United States managed to overcome their government's attempt to stop them reaching Amsterdam.
At the meeting the women discussed ways of ending the war. Delegates also spoke about the need to introduce measures that would prevent wars in the future such as international arbitration and the state nationalization of munitions. As a result of the conference a Women's Peace Party was formed. Other women who joined this party included Sylvia Pankhurst, Charlotte Despard, Helena Swanwick, Olive Schreiner, Helen Crawfurd, Alice Wheeldon, Hettie Wheeldon and Winnie Wheeldon.
The biggest scandal of the First World War was the government's attempts to fit-up one of its leaders, Alice Wheeldon, with an attempted murder charge. However, that needs its own thread.
-
About five years ago a friend went to work in Shanghai creating golf courses for the new rich in China. As they took the land from the peasants to make the golf courses he argued that they were close to revolution. It never happened. When I visited China the thing that struck me was the total power of the state. There will be uprisings but I fear that state capitalism (there is nothing socialist about the system that they have)is there to stay.
-
A much better performance from England this afternoon. Could have won by 2 or 3.
I have to say that the USA deserved to qualify. They've had a couple of perfectly good goals disallowed, hit the woodwork twice but ultimately grabbed their place in the next round in the nick of time.
By winning the group USA now have a very good chance of progressing some distance into the competition. For England it's going to be a hard slog ... starting with Germany. If we can overcome them Argentina almost certainly await.
Slightly better but still not good enough. I agree about the USA. I fully expect Germany to win.
-
Interesting article by Ray McGovern:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/062210d.html
Obama is No Harry Truman
After publication of the Rolling Stone article, some pundits are predicting McChrystal will be fired — as he should have been last fall. [see, for instance, “Should Obama Fire Gen. McChrystal?”]
The general is now back in Washington to face the music. Reportedly, he has prepared a letter of resignation. But Obama might prefer a well-orchestrated minuet with the general rather than a requiem. Maybe McChrystal is even expecting a chorus of “he’s a jolly good fellow” from the “intimidated” President
That’s not how it’s always been. When Gen. Douglas MacArthur issued an unauthorized statement containing a veiled threat to expand the Korean War to China at a time when Truman was preparing to enter peace negotiations with North Korea and China, MacArthur was fired in place.
One strike and MacArthur was out — because Truman could take the heat. In contrast, Obama has shown himself to be an accommodating fellow on issue after issue. It seems far from certain he would fire the White House groundskeeper, even if caught urinating on the flowers in full view of summer tourists.
Little can account for Obama’s promotion of McChrystal to his current post, except for a strange blend of cowardice tinged with ignorance. McChrystal had been Vice President Dick Cheney’s right-hand man in running Special Forces hit-squad assassins and torturers in Iraq.
For these endeavors, McChrystal has accumulated a fearsome following of what might be called the “worst of the worst” among both the U.S. military and Blackwater-style mercenaries. Here is Hastings on McChrystal’s entourage:
“The general’s staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators, and outright maniacs. There’s a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. … they pride themselves on their can-do attitude and their disdain for authority."
For good measure, Hastings adds a troubling vignette. Someone apparently called his attention to what Hastings calls “a piece of suspense fiction” written by McChrystal for the literary magazine at West Point while he was studying there. Hastings includes a description of the short story:
“The unnamed narrator appears to be trying to stop a plot to assassinate the President. It turns out, however, that the narrator himself is the assassin, and he’s able to infiltrate the White House: ‘The President strode in smiling. From the right coat pocket of the raincoat I carried, I slowly drew forth my 32-caliber pistol…I had succeeded.’”
To be on the safe side, though, Obama may wish to put on a bulletproof vest before he meets with McChrystal on Wednesday.
The Unspeakable
Obama might be forgiven for fearing for his own personal safety, particularly if he has read James Douglass’s book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters.
Kennedy inherited a senior military that then-Under Secretary of State George Ball called a “sewer of deceit.” They lacked confidence in Kennedy’s steadfastness before the menace of Communism, and salivated over how to maneuver the young president into military confrontations. These included operations to provoke war with Cuba, the Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam — you name it.
The senior military and the CIA bitterly resented Kennedy’s adamant refusal to be mouse-trapped into ordering U.S. forces to rescue those Cuban counter-revolutionaries marooned on the beach of the Bay of Pigs and send in U.S. troops to get rid of Fidel Castro once and for all.
A lesser-known challenge to Kennedy came in early March 1962, when JCS Chairman Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer proposed a plan called “Operation Northwoods” to justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. Working from declassified documents for his book Body of Secrets, James Bamford gave the following concise description:
“Operation Northwoods, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere.
“People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.”
Kennedy rebuffed the JCS, creating still more bad blood that eventually would help seal his fate, in my opinion.
In his book, James Douglass lists some of the other grievances held against the young president by the super-patriot Joint Chiefs of Staff, who thought of themselves as self-appointed, authentic guardians of the United States against the Communist threat — not the Constitution they took an oath to defend, if it got in the way.
During the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, the top military were aghast at Kennedy’s unwillingness to risk war with the Soviet Union by invading Cuba. After Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev found a way to stop at the brink of nuclear catastrophe, both saw more clearly than ever a mutual interest in preventing another such occurrence.
This led to a sustained backchannel dialogue from which the Joint Chiefs were excluded, and of which they were highly distrustful.
The kiss of death — literally, I am persuaded — came when Kennedy ordered the withdrawal of 1,000 U.S. troops from Vietnam by the end of 1963 and the bulk of the rest of them by 1965.
To the senior military that was proof positive that Kennedy was soft on Communism, which — if you can believe it — was an even more heinous offense in those days that being soft on terrorism is today.
-
Writing for The Huffington Post, David Colbert presents an interesting article on the Truman - MacArthur conflict.
Colbert quotes liberally from Merle Miller's book Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman.
Miller's book was the subject of controversy. Another historian with a book of his own on Truman, Dr Robert Ferrell,
claimed that Miller had fabricated many of Truman's quotes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-colbert/harry-truman-talks-about_b_621832.html
Another article on the Truman/MacArthur connection:
-
This story's gonna have legs.
http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2010/06/the-four-reasons-why-obama-has-to-fire-stan-mcchrystal.html
It reminds me of the conflict between Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur in April 1951:
-
Two days after the British government declared war on Germany, Millicent Fawcett declared that the NUWSS was suspending all political activity until the conflict was over. Although the NUWSS supported the war effort, it did not become involved in persuading young men to join the armed forces. Despite pressure from members of the NUWSS, Fawcett refused to argue against the war. Her biographer, Ray Strachey, argued: "She stood like a rock in their path, opposing herself with all the great weight of her personal popularity and prestige to their use of the machinery and name of the union."
The leadership of the WSPU began negotiating with the British government straight away about the war. On the 10th August the government announced it was releasing all suffragettes from prison. In return, the WSPU agreed to end their militant activities and help the war effort. Emmeline Pankhurst announced that all militants had to "fight for their country as they fought for the vote." Ethel Smyth pointed out in her autobiography, Female Pipings for Eden (1933): "Mrs Pankhurst declared that it was now a question of Votes for Women, but of having any country left to vote in. The Suffrage ship was put out of commission for the duration of the war, and the militants began to tackle the common task."
Annie Kenney reported that orders came from Christabel Pankhurst: "The Militants, when the prisoners are released, will fight for their country as they have fought for the Vote." Kenney later wrote: "Mrs. Pankhurst, who was in Paris with Christabel, returned and started a recruiting campaign among the men in the country. This autocratic move was not understood or appreciated by many of our members. They were quite prepared to receive instructions about the Vote, but they were not going to be told what they were to do in a world war."
After receiving a £2,000 grant from the government, the WSPU organised a demonstration in London. Members carried banners with slogans such as "We Demand the Right to Serve", "For Men Must Fight and Women Must work" and "Let None Be Kaiser's Cat's Paws". At the meeting, attended by 30,000 people, Emmeline Pankhurst called on trade unions to let women work in those industries traditionally dominated by men.
Most members of the Women's Freedom League, were pacifists, and so they become involved in the British Army's recruitment campaign. The WFL also disagreed with the decision of the NUWSS and WSPU to call off the women's suffrage campaign while the war was on. Leaders of the WFL did not believe that the British government did not do enough to bring an end to the war and in 1915 eastablished the Women's Peace Council for a negotiated peace. They were joined by former members of the NUWSS and the WSPU who were against the war. Members included Charlotte Despard, Selina Cooper, Margaret Bondfield, Ethel Snowden, Katherine Glasier, Helen Crawfurd, Eva Gore-Booth, Esther Roper, Teresa Billington-Greig, Elizabeth How-Martyn, Dora Marsden, Helena Normanton, Margaret Nevinson, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Mary Barbour.
-
I didn't know whether to post this here or under Football or Yachting.
The Annual J. P. Morgan yacht race, ah yes.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/20/bp-chief-yachts-gulf-oil-spill-burns/
If it's any consolation to the residents of the Gulf of Mexico, BP CEO Tony Hayward didn't win the yacht race he attended this weekend. His 52-foot yacht, named "Bob," finished fourth in its class.
Nonetheless, the decision by Hayward to return to England to attend JP Morgan's annual race around the Isle of Wight is the latest "PR gaffe" by the head of the oil giant blamed for the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.
"I think we can all conclude that Tony Hayward is not going to have a second career in PR consulting," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told ABC's "This Week."
As Hayward spent time sailing with his son during this Father's Day weekend, President Obama golfed with Vice President Joe Biden.
Emanuel didn't speak to the president's choice of down time over the weekend. But he did show his disdain for BP's head, who caused cringes last month when he said that he wished the crisis would end so he could get his life back
"To quote Tony Hayward, he's got his life back," Emanuel said in the interview airing Sunday.
Gulf residents were outraged by Hayward's decision to take the day off.
"That's the height of arrogance," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. "He is the CEO of BP and he testified in Washington before congressional committee the other day. Now he's gone over to be on his yacht over in England. I can tell you that yacht ought to be here skimming and cleaning up a lot of the oil. He ought to be down here seeing what is really going on, not in a cocoon somewhere."
But BP spokesman Robert Wine said the break is Hayward's first since the Deepwater Horizon rig that BP was leasing exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and setting off the undersea gusher.
"He's spending a few hours with his family at a weekend. I'm sure that everyone would understand that," Wine said.
It's questionable whether Hayward's day off will change much of the clean-up effort on the ground.
Thousands of boats are on the water trying to collect the oil -- either to use or to burn. About 50 miles off Louisiana's coast, a newly expanded containment system is capturing or incinerating more than 1 million gallons of oil daily, the first time it has approached its peak capacity, according to the Coast Guard. BP hopes that by late June it will keep nearly 90 percent of the flow from the broken pipe from hitting the ocean.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates told "Fox News Sunday" that not all of the 17,500 National Guard that are awaiting deployment have been put into operation. But even the Pentagon is limited in its ability to help.
"We have offered whatever capabilities we have. We don't have the kinds of equipment or particular expertise. I have authorized the mobilization of up to 17,500 National Guard troops in the four states that are -- that are most affected. We have a standing offer. If there's anything people think we can do, we absolutely will do it," Gates said.
The spill is causing 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil to contaminate the Gulf of Mexico each day. Over 62 days, that's anywhere from 2.1 million to 3.72 million gallons.
But one scientist said it would take the spill more than 700 million years for the amount of oil in the Gulf to equal the amount of water -- about 650 quadrillion gallons.
"This is not the death of the Gulf of Mexico," George Crozier, director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, told the Mobile (Ala.) Press-Register. "If you went Gulf-wide with this and stirred it up in the Gulf of Mexico, I'm not sure we could find it."
BP has also paid out $104 million to Gulf residents harmed as a result of the spill. It has also established a $20 billion fund, which Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, likened to a White House "shakedown" before retracting his comment in the face of outrage among his congressional caucus and others. Democrats have already put Barton's apology to BP into advertising for its midterm elections this fall.
Tony Haywood is a disgrace. I understand the plan is for him to draw the flak while the crisis continues. As soon as the situation appears to be looking-up, Haywood will be replaced.
-
Never mind JFK, the conspiracy to top all conspiracies is... how come Germany got to practise a full year with the much criticised World Cup Ball. Is it any wonder they gave the most convincing performance in the first round of matches ..?
No conspiracy, just money. The Jabulani ball was made available in February and was used at this year's Africa Cup of Nations as well as a number of domestic leagues, including Germany, Argentina and the United States. The ball was not used in the Premier League because it has a contract with rival manufacturer Nike. According to Adidas, altitude is the main factor affecting the way the ball behaves in flight.
-
Maybe you could invite Mr Swearingen to join? There may be some matters upon which he would like to comment.
I have invited him to become a member this morning.
-
Thank you for the link. The important sections include the following:
The below table shows ownership statistics as of 31st December 2009, as taken from the BP official website. As you can see it shows that UK ownership of BP is only marginally larger than US ownership. One large US investor could complete the swing. The simple fact is that BP Plc is NOT a British company, at least no more than it is an American company. It has effectively been Anglo-American since a 1998 merger with Amoco. Apparently BP employees some 96,000 permanent members of staff for the day-to-day operation of the business, of which 10,000 are British and 24,000 of them are American.
Benefical Owners Of BP
Percentage Shares
United Kingdom (40%)
United States (39%)
Rest of Europe (10%)
Rest of World (7%)
Miscellaneous (4%)
Another important section:
• Only 8 of the 126 people working on the Deepwater Horizon were BP employees.
• BP only held a 65% share in the well, Anadarko held 25%. Anadarko are a Texas based oil production company with 4000 employees.
• The rig itself was owned and operated by an American firm, Transocean. They have been questioned with regards to possible understaffing. On the night of the disaster there were just 18 employees on the rig, lower than any other retained record. None of these were engineers, electricians, subsea supervisors or mechanics.
• The failed 'blow out preventer' was made by another American firm - Cameron.
• The cement work carried out which was supposed to 'seal' the well was carried out by yet another American firm, Halliburton - once run by Dick Cherney.
• Before the Gulf of Mexico disaster, ExxonMobil was the worst oil-spiller in US history.
So, Americans, before being so quick to judge this not-very-British Company, consider where the liability should perhaps lay? If BP is brought down by the unwise Obama and a subservient witch hunt, consider the impact on your own pensions, your own unemployment rates, your own insurance premiums, and perhaps the accountability of your own fully American owned corporations in this unfortunate fiasco.
-
http://www.mmdnewswire.com/m-wesley-swearingen-8908.html
To Kill a President: Finally - an Ex-FBI Agent Rips Aside the Veil of Secrecy that Killed JFK by M. Wesley Swearingen seeks to uncover new information about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and identify the groups who conspired to kill him.
According to Swearingen, Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in assassinating Kennedy as was claimed by the FBI, the Warren Commission and other investigating bodies. Instead, he argues that rogue CIA agents acting in concert with the mafia and certain Cuban exiles plotted to kill Kennedy. Swearingen contends that the conspiracy was covered up by the FBI, an effort that continues to this day through the agency's unwillingness to disclose key details about the events surrounding Kennedy's death.
"I want to set the record straight," Swearingen says. "The truth is my inspiration. Upholding the Constitution and exposing government corruption is my sole purpose."
A 25-year veteran of FBI field work, Swearingen was employed by the bureau in 1963 when Kennedy was shot in Dallas. Citing internal sources and information not previously released to the public, Swearingen claims that Oswald was an FBI informant who was known to government officials prior to the assassination. He argues that the statements and actions of FBI and CIA personnel indicate a cover-up, one that he believes included CIA-trained Cuban exiles and American mobsters.
"Names are named, associations are made, reasonable conjectures are served and Swearingen comes across as the real deal," explains a Kirkus Discoveries review. "He virtually dares readers to prove him wrong."
About the Author
M. Wesley Swearingen is a former FBI agent and the author of FBI Secrets: an Agent's Expose. A U.S. Navy veteran who served during World War II, Swearingen later graduated from Ohio State University and joined the FBI while it was directed by J. Edgar Hoover. Following his retirement from the FBI in 1977, Swearingen was involved in several lawsuits against the bureau related to wrongful imprisonment and civil rights violations. A licensed private investigator, Swearingen has appeared in several documentary films about the FBI and earned the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice's President's Award.
wesswear@aol.com
-
I think the real problem is that many Brits feel uncomfortable with one of their iconic companies being so irresponsible, incompetent and responsible for such a serious disaster and thus try to shift the blame.
I can't imagine that any Brits feel uncomfortable about "one of their iconic companies being so irresponsible, incompetent and responsible for such a serious disaster". This is not the issue for the British. The only reason I raised the issue was that I have been so disappointed by Obama's behaviour during this crisis. I had hoped he was going to really change the way the world was led. Instead, with his comments about "kicking arse" he has returned to the mentality of George Bush.
I was also unimpressed with the way he dealt with the national health issue. It seems that Peter Lemkin was right about Obama and I find that very sad.
-
Interesting article about Rupert Murdoch in today's Guardian. I like the comment that content is king, but the internet is a republic.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/15/rupert-murdoch-paywalls-internet-content
Content is king, as we so often hear. The problem is, the internet is a republic; which means that the most exalted content has to muck in with everything else that's out there.
The biggest technology companies don't sully themselves with creating content: Google generates none (except Street View); nor does Microsoft, or Facebook, or Twitter. Even Yahoo, which has bought a company called Associated Content, is better known for the content on its photo sharing site Flickr. There's no room for kings among that democratic mess.
So how does Rupert Murdoch, a man who is fiercely certain of the value of content, restore it to what he sees as its rightful place as a money-earner in its own right? In effect, by making sure that it stays off the wider internet. BSkyB is a perfect example of controlling the endpoint of consumption: you need to have Sky's satellite dishes and Sky's receiver and Sky's encrypted card tied to a subscription to view it. Similarly, the Wall Street Journal, the newspaper that he coveted, lies behind a paywall on the web, and most recently in an iPad app (with, again, subscriptions). Fox is a cable channel, not an internet site. And it's interesting too that BSkyB and the Wall Street Journal rely on content that is fantastically time-sensitive: sports and finance. People will pay for access to those in a way they won't for the latest episode of House or a reality show.
It's instructive to compare Murdoch's success with that content with the biggest failed merger ever, of AOL and Time Warner. Those two couldn't work, because they were the internet equivalent of oil and water: one is an internet distribution company, and the other a content company. With no control of the endpoint, the losses were staggering. AOL has now been cut adrift, but not before Time Warner bled content and money all over the web.
Murdoch has experimented with the republican world of the internet, with MySpace, which News Corporation bought for $580m in 2005. Even that didn't work, because it couldn't keep people locked into the site, and when something more attractive came along, people left in droves: Facebook overtook it in 2007. When last seen, MySpace's visitor numbers were still plummeting, and nobody knows how to turn it around.
So having tried the republican model for content, and found it not to his liking, Murdoch is retreating once again to a kingdom. The paywalls being put up around the Times and Sunday Times are indicative of that thinking.
So if Murdoch has failed on the wider internet, does that mean it's impossible to make content work online? No; but you either need not to be worried about the direct cost, or confident that your strategy is definitely going to pay off in the medium and long terms. For the first example look at the BBC, where its multiple outlets TV, radio, the web are increasingly well-integrated: its TV and radio journalism feeds into web pages, while TV programmes are available again on the iPlayer, and radio is spread around the world over the net. The purpose there is clear to push the BBC brand, which is an end in itself that trumps simple profit-and-loss calculations, though even there it has had to cut back recently.
Then there are the newspapers, where the Guardian and the New York Times are competing to push their content out across the web via an API the side door to the database of stories and other content. Like the BBC's strategy, it's predicated on having no control of the endpoint, and instead having control of the feed of content, which means either charging for it or including adverts the same model as the print newspaper, in fact.
It may be that Murdoch will be able to largely ignore the internet and keep the kingdom of content of his properties for as long as he likes, providing he can retain the two must-haves of live sports and financial information. For others, the former king may instead have to live like the Swedish royal family, cycling around with everyone else, and distinguished only in name and history.
But Rupert Murdoch never did much like bicycles.
Thanks John Simkin
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
I will PM you on this.