John Simkin

September 14, 2009

If any teacher wants to use first-hand experiences of the Spanish Civil War in their teaching I would highly recommend Jason Gurney's "Crusade in Spain". It is a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the book was only published after his death in 1973.

You will find extensive extracts from the book here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUgurneyJ.htm

September 14, 2009

25 Feb 1911
FA Cup 3rd Round

West Ham v Manchester Utd 2-1. 27,000

Very brief footage that suggests West Ham were playing at home in White shirts:

The poster of the footage has incorrectly dated it as 1912. However the clip apparently matches a photo in a recent ex-Hammer magazine article.

I think it's possible that West Ham were required to change their shirts on the day because of a clash of colours. I don't know if Man Utd had played West Ham ( still a Southern League team) before and may not have been aware of a potential clash between red & claret.

Just over 69 years later, West Ham won the toss to choose colours for the FA Cup Final against Arsenal. We chose to wear White shirts which had proved 'lucky' in the semi-finals against Everton (and also against Arsenal & Ipswich in the succesful 1975 campaign). I suppose it's unlikely but maybe the 'lucky White shirt' tradition went back even further...all the way to February 1911 ?

You might be interested in this email that I received from Grant Hole:

I have e-mailed Historical Kits with my discovery that South West Ham FC were nicknamed 'Pink Uns' and am waiting for a reply. I have also e-mailed John Hellier and again am awaiting a reply.

Right, while I'm waiting for e-mail replies lets have an overview of the situation with club strips. I am 100% happy with all but three of the strips cataloged on the Historical Kits site.

The three I'm unhappy with are 1) the 1899 claret and blue in the modern combination. 2) The 1900/1 Castle blue over white shorts and black socks. And, 3) the 1901-3 Castle blue shirt with claret band over white shorts and claret socks.

1. I would be surprised if this claret and blue kit in the modern combination appeared as early as 1899. I think the modern combination of claret and blue is *probably* an evolution from Castle blue shirts - to Castle blue shirts with a claret band - to claret shirts with Castle blue sleeves. That evolutionary process puts claret shirts in the modern combination not before 1903 when surprise surprise the first pictures of them appear.

I think this 1899 business is due to the Charlie Dove sprint race story which I havn't seen any good evidence for, the kit on HK is marked corroboration needed and is partly attributed to Wikipedia, and the Villa historians say as far as they're concerned there's no link between WHU and Villa kit.

2. Castle blue shirts over white shorts and black socks. This is a logical progression from the Castle blue shirts, white shorts, and scarlet socks 100% known to have been worn by Thames Iron Works 1897-9. I think this is more *likely* than the pink shirts which would have needed to have appeared from no known background. Add to this that it is *likely* that South West Ham FC wore pink kit from their nickname of 'Pink Uns' which provides good scope for confusion.

I would like to know the reasons why pink kit was listed by HK, and why that was changed to blue - I havn't seen good evidence for either.

3. Castle blue shirts with a claret hoop, over white shorts and claret socks. Again I think this is a logical progression, Castle blue shirt to which the claret of the ironworks has been added, in recognition of both Castle and ironworks - Again I havn't seen good evidence though.

Some good evidence is needed either for pink or Castle blue, and the 1899 modern combination of claret and blue needs to be subject to greater question.

September 14, 2009

And no I don't think it is Nazi policy if the state provides healthcare and I never stated as much. What I stated was Barrack Obama's proposed healthcare legislation was a replay of the Nazi healthcare policy of Adolph Hitler. Now that's the real issue/question old Girl. Not some rehashed meaningless statement of the type you make. You mistate the facts and then attempt to argue based on your mistaken conception of the issue at hand.

In the LaRouche video reference is made several times to Hitler’s T4 program that was introduced in October 1939. The LaRouche organization claims that the T4 program is similar to the way the NHS works. Therefore, the video goes onto to use phrases such as “Nazi NHS” and Obama is described as advocating “Hitlerian health reforms”.

Of course, people in Britain find this kind of attack deeply offensive. My father, like millions of other British citizens, fought the Nazis from 1939. We were not like the Americans who only decided they did not like fascism until after they were bombed at Pearl Harbor.

The video does not give us any details of Hitler’s T4 program. This is understandable as it has nothing to do with the NHS or Obama’s health-care reforms. In October 1939, Hitler produced details of the T4 program under the title, “The Destruction of Lives Unworthy of Life”.

The camouflage organization created for the medical killing of adults was known as the Reich Work Group of Sanatoriums and Nursing Homes. It operated from the Berlin Chancellery, at Tiergarten 4, hence the "T4" code name. In time, word of the Nazi T4 program (medical killing on a vast scale) filtered down into the general population, and resistance began to emerge. Himmler argued: “If operation T4 had been entrusted to the SS, things would have happened differently, because when the Fuehrer entrusts us with a job, we know how to deal with it correctly, without causing useless uproar among the people.”

Early in 1941, Hitler agreed to let Himmler use T4 personnel and facilities to rid the camps of “those most seriously ill, physically and mentally”. This became known as “prisoner euthanasia”. Hitler gave orders on 24th August 1941 to bring an end to T4. What was discontinued was only the visible dimension of the project: the large-scale gassing of patients. T4 officially ceased as a program, but that turned out to be still another deception. Widespread killing continued in a second phase, sometimes referred to in Nazi documents as “wild euthanasia” because doctors could now act on their own initiative concerning who would live or die. As you can see, T4 has nothing to do with the NHS or Obama's health-care policies.

For more information on this I suggest you read Robert Jay Lifton’s “The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide” (1986)

Several times the video refers to NICE as being the organization that administers the “British Nazi health-care system”. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on the promotion of good health and the prevention and treatment of ill health. According to the video it is NICE that decides who is to live or die in Britain. I image this is reference to one of the roles that NICE plays in the NHS:

“NICE is asked to look at particular drugs and devices when there is confusion or uncertainty over the value of a drug or device or when prescribing practices vary across the country - so that patients may be receiving different prescribed treatments, depending on where they happen to live, rather than on the state of their health.”

The role of NICE is to look into the claims made by the multinational drug companies. For example, over the last few years these corporations have claimed that they have developed a new drug that helps deal with a particular health problem. These drugs are nearly always incredibly expensive. For example, the cost of this drug for a patient could amount to as much as £100,000 a year. Obviously, the NHS has to consider if it can afford to prescribe such drugs. NICE has upset several multinational drug companies by advising NHS doctors not to prescribe these drugs. There is nothing to stop doctors from prescribing private patients these drugs. Of course, this rarely happens as the private health insurance companies refuse to pay for these drugs. That is why it is so important for these drugs companies to persuade NICE to give their approval so that they can fleece the taxpayer.

The video uses the testimony of some patients complaining about the NHS. Any large institution will not satisfy all its customers. As I have posted earlier, my 95 year old mother has had marvelous treatment from the NHS (she is old enough to remember what health-care was like before the NHS was introduced in 1948). My wife also received excellent treatment for 12 years while suffering from cancer.

The NHS is far from being perfect. It is under-funded and I would like to see more money spent on health-care and less on nuclear weapons and the invasion and occupation of foreign countries. However, as a means of protecting people, regardless of income, it takes some beating. Anyway, it appears to be far superior to the one that exists in the United States. For example, the World Health Organisation ranks Britain's healthcare as 18th in the world, while the US is in 37th place.

Can we go back to the topic of this thread: "The Far-Right Conspiracy Against the NHS". In future, I will delete postings that have nothing to do with the topic.

September 14, 2009

I thought it might be worth reviving this thread as Juan Almeida Bosque died of a heart attack on Friday:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/1...osque-communism

President Raul Castro led the ceremony at Havana's Revolution Square, sombrely placing a pink rose in front of a large photograph of Almeida. Flags flew at half-staff throughout the country.

There was no sign of Castro's older brother, former leader Fidel Castro, who has not been seen in public since turning over power to his brother in 2006.

He released a statement later yesterday afternoon, writing: "I didn't know, neither did any of us, just how much pain news of his passing would bring."

"I was a privileged witness of his exemplary conduct during more than half a century of heroic and victorious resistance," he added.

September 12, 2009

Kenny Rankin died recently. You can find him on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POqkAwjU7o0

September 12, 2009

Members might be interested in reading this:

While we’re discussing whether a special prosecutor should be named to investigate and prosecute CIA officials for violations of federal laws against murder, kidnapping, and torture, why not use the occasion to do the same in the matter of George Joannides? For it would be difficult to find a better example of obstruction of justice and fraud on the part of the CIA than the Joannides matter.

During the Kennedy administration, Joannides was serving as the CIA’s head of the psychological warfare branch of the CIA’s JM/WAVE operation in Miami. As such, he was the CIA contact for a group of anti-Castro Cubans known as the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil, or the DRE. Joannides was the conduit for the CIA’s funding the sum of $25,000 per month to the DRE.

A few months before the Kennedy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald had an encounter with the DRE. While he was handing out pro-Castro literature in New Orleans, he was accosted by the head of the DRE, which resulted in Oswald’s being arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. A few days later, Oswald debated the head of the DRE on a New Orleans radio station. Immediately after Kennedy’s assassination, the DRE made headlines by publicizing Oswald’s pro-Castro activities.

For some reason, the CIA kept Joannides’s relationship to the DRE secret not only from the Warren Commission but also from the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations, which investigated the Kennedy assassination.

Equally interesting is what the CIA did in the 1978 investigation: It summoned Joannides out of retirement to serve as the CIA’s liaison to the House committee, again without disclosing that Joannides had played an important role with the DRE.

In fact, the CIA succeeded in keeping the Joannides information secret for 38 years, when a journalist named Jefferson Morley published a story about him in a Miami newspaper.

A common misconception regarding the law of fraud is that fraud requires an affirmative misrepresentation of a material fact. Not so. Fraud also occurs when there is an intentional failure to disclose a material fact.

The Joannides connection to the DRE was clearly a material fact that warranted exploration, especially given Oswald’s encounter with the group and the group’s publicized attempts to link Oswald to Castro immediately after the assassination. As John Tunheim, the U.S. federal judge who chaired the Assassination Review Records Board in the 1990s, put it, “Had the Review Board known the truth about George Joannides everything bearing his name would have been made public. He was central to the time period, and central to the [Kennedy] story. There is no question we were misled on Joannides for a long time.”

G. Robert Blakely, a former federal prosecutor who ran the House committee investigation, stated that the CIA had told him that Joannides would “help facilitate the committee’s work.” Blakely stated, “I was not told that he had an undercover role with the committee. I would not have dealt with him in any capacity that was not fully open. Had I known that he would not have been a facilitator, he would have been under oath as a material witness.”

Why did the CIA select Joannides to serve as liaison to the 1978 congressional investigatory committee? Why call him out of retirement to serve in such a capacity rather than simply appoint an active CIA official? The obvious question arises, Was he chosen to serve as a barrier rather than a facilitator?

Joannides died in 1990, before his role in the Kennedy case became public, which enabled him to avoid ever having to testify under oath about his DRE-related activities in the months prior to the Kennedy assassination.

However, the Joannides controversy is still not over. Forty-five years after the Kennedy assassination, and 15 years after Congress mandated the release of all U.S. government records relating to the Kennedy’s assassination, the CIA steadfastly refuses to release all of its files on Joannides’s activities in the months leading up to the Kennedy assassination. The CIA’s rationale? National security, of course. In other words, according to the CIA, if people were permitted to read the details of Joannides’s activities in the months leading up to the assassination some 45 years ago, the security of the nation would be at stake.

That, of course, is palpable nonsense.

Fortunately, however, there are still journalists in the world with steadfast determination to seek the truth. One of those people is Jefferson Morley, a former journalist at the Washington Post and the author of the excellent book Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA.

In December 2003, Morley filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in federal district court to force the CIA to open up and disclose the Joannides files, which he has pursued despite almost six years of stonewalling by the CIA. That lawsuit is still pending, and the CIA continues to stonewall.

In fact, most of the facts in my article are based on the series of articles that Jefferson Morley has written over the years regarding this matter. I highly recommend reading every one of them, for they make fascinating reading. They are linked below.

Clearly, the CIA knowingly and intentionally refused to reveal a material fact — to wit, Joannides’s relationship to the DRE and his activities with the DRE in the period of time leading up to the assassination — to the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, thereby preventing them from examining him under oath. Moreover, the CIA’s decision to call Joannides back from retirement to serve as liaison to the House committee had to have been designed for him to serve as a barrier rather than a facilitator, as the CIA had falsely represented him to be.

Given the manifest evidence of fraud and obstruction of justice on the part of the CIA with respect to the JKF-Joannides matter and the longtime reluctance of the Justice Department to do anything about it, this is clearly a case for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and seek criminal indictments. Is there any chance of that occurring? Of course not. This is the CIA we’re talking about. If the CIA can get away with violating laws against murder, kidnapping, and torture, it will certainly be permitted to get away with violating laws against obstruction of justice and fraud.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0908e.asp

September 12, 2009

On related noted, I just got a link to a commentary by Jacob Hornberger, president of the libertarian Future of Freedom Foundation, who makes the case in a new Web ommentary that a special prosecutor should investigate Joannides' role in the assassination of President Kennedy.
(See http://www.fff.org/comment/com0908e.asp)

Hornberger notes a key point about the Joannides story:

"A common misconception regarding the law of fraud is that fraud requires an affirmative misrepresentation of a material fact. Not so. Fraud also occurs when there is an intentional failure to disclose a material fact"

The Jacob Hornberger link does not work. Try this one:

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0908e.asp

September 11, 2009

The Sunday Times chief foreign correspondent, David Holden was murdered in December 1977 soon after arriving in Cairo to report on Israeli-Egyptian peace-talks. At first, the authorities told the editor, Harold Evans, that Holden had probably been murdered by a taxi-driver. The motive was that Holden had made sexual advances towards the man.
Evans sent three of his top journalists to investigate Holden’s death. They soon discovered that the original theory was clearly wrong. Holden’s body was found on a piece of waste ground. He was on his back, his feet neatly together, his arms folded across the chest. All marks that might suggest his identity or nationality had been removed, including the maker’s label in his jacket.

The manner of his death was equally methodical. He had been shot once from behind with a short-cartridge 9mm automatic. The range was so close that his jacket was scorched. The killer had aimed his gun down-ward so that the bullet would pierce Holden’s heart.

Research by the police discovered that Holden had not been picked up by a registered taxi-driver at the airport. Eventually, a white Fiat had been found abandoned. In the boot they found Holden’s suitcase and his portable typewriter. They also found his notes for the book he was writing on Saudi Arabia. Missing were his passport, his camera, any exposed films and any material he had accumulated on his trip. As the officer in charge of the case remarked: “It looks as if the killers knew what they were looking for.”

The airport was teeming with security men. Therefore, he could not have been forced into the car. It is assumed the only reason he willingly got into the car was because he trusted the people whom he met at the airport.

A second Fiat car was found abandoned. This one included the cartridge case matching the 9mm bullet. Holden’s bloodstains were also found in the car. The headrest on the passenger seat had been removed to make it easier for the gunman to shoot Holden from behind. The missing headrest was found in the first car.

Nearly a month later, a third Fiat was found with documents from the murder car. All three Fiats had been stolen in identical fashion. The first car had been stolen on the day following Holden’s decision to take the assignment. The car that contained his belongings was stolen the day after Holden agreed to report on the peace-talks. (He initially refused the assignment because he was working on a book about Saudi Arabia.)

The other two cars were stolen on the day that Holden booked his flight from Jerusalem to Cairo. The journalists investigating the case came to the conclusion it was a well-planned assassination.

One of the surprising aspects of the case was that the killers appeared to have precise details of Holden’s movements. For example, Holden appears to have been followed as he went via Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank before arriving in Cairo.

It was initially assumed that the Holden had been killed by Fatah hardcore rejectionists, who were attempting to sabotage Sadat’s peace initiative. However, this made no sense as Holden was seen as someone sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Fatah’s chairman, Yasser Arafat, told them that the Sunday Times had been regarded as a “friend of the cause” because it had campaigned against the ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

Another theory was that Holden was a victim of mistaken identity. David Hirst of the Guardian had angered Sadat by writing several articles about corruption in the Egyptian government.

About a month after the killing of Holden, an intelligence source told one of the Sunday Times journalists that: “the killers knew exactly when Holden would arrive in Cairo because they got the information from the horse’s mouth”. In other words, the organisation responsible for his death had a spy within the offices of the Sunday Times.

Evans also discovered that incoming messages about the case were being stolen from the telex room. Evans called in Scotland Yard and it was decided to set-up a sting operation. The police’s C-10 surveillance unit hid infrared cameras to monitor office movements. Police officers also worked undercover at the Sunday Times. Evans points out in his recently published autobiography: “We then baited the trap.” Department heads were told there had been a breakthrough by senior reporter Paul Eddy who was working in Cairo on the case. However, the cameras failed to pick up anyone stealing Eddy’s messages being sent to the telex room. Evans points out in his autobiography: “I began to think I’d made a mistake letting the Foreign Office know that we’d detected the thefts. What if our own secret intelligence service (MI6) had played some role in the abduction of Holden?”

Further research showed that when Holden was on the way to Cairo he had a meeting with two American archaeologists, John and Isobel Fistere in Amman. Holden had originally met the Fisteres in Beirut in 1963. They were with Kim Philby just before he fled to the Soviet Union. It was generally believed that the Fisteres were keeping watch on Philby on behalf of the CIA. Later the Fisteres denied eyewitness accounts that they spent time with Holden. According to them, they only met with him briefly in the hotel press centre. The journalists also discovered that Holden had a meeting with an academic at Birzeit University. Later it was revealed that he was a paid agent of the CIA.

The Sunday Times then discovered that the CIA had a file on Holden that contained 33 documents. This dates back to a close relationship he had with Leo Silberman, a former communist who was a supporter of Israel but also an anti-Zionist. According to Silberman’s brother, the two men had been lovers. This came as a surprise as Holden, who was married to Ruth Lynam, a photojournalist, was known to be a very active heterosexual. Silberman died in 1960.

The investigating journalists became convinced that Holden had been working for the CIA. This was linked to his reporting of CIA involvement in Cuba and Chile. For example, his reports in 1973 strongly denied that the CIA was involved in the overthrow of President Allende.

In 1988 the Sunday Times was told by a senior US diplomat in the Middle East that Holden had been killed on the orders of the CIA but it had been carried out by Egyptian agents.

After looking at all the evidence Harold Evans become convinced that the CIA was involved in the death of Holden. He had been informed that the Holden case was the “liquidation of an asset”. This belief was increased when the CIA and FBI blocked efforts to see American intelligence files on Holden under the US Freedom of Information Act. Instead, the CIA argued that Holden had been killed by Egyptian terrorists who wanted his press credentials.

The question remains why? By 1977 Holden was clearly not willing to be part of Operation Mockingbird. However, that is no real reason to kill him. Unless, of course, he was willing to write about how the CIA had been manipulating the foreign press since 1947.

I received this interesting email on David Holden:

Very intrigued by your elegant entry on Holden, which I'd like to refer to in a footnote to the Wikipedia article that I am battling to get retained in toto on Wikipedia. The original entry on Holden was written by a semi-literate fool. It was corrected by me, My version was then bowdlerized to remove anything remotely anti-Zionist, which left it a little nonsensical. I've just thrown my version back into the fray.I question several of your assertions, beginning with your reconstruction of Holden's itinerary en route for Cairo, but I certainly do not necessarily disagree with even the most outrageous of them. I might add that I was living in Cairo at the time and knew all the currently resident British journalists and diplomats. One of the former told me he knew that who dunnit, but was afraid to say.

September 11, 2009

Have a look at this video. An amazing use of the internet. I wonder how many men looking at this video will claim to be the father.
http://spartacus-educational.blogspot.com/

We didn't have an e-help conference in Denmark did we??

We had a Virtual School meeting in Denmark and visited Copenhagen. Dalibor took us to a "ladyboy" restaurant but unfortunately Karen wasn't there.

September 11, 2009

I received this interesting email on David Holden:

Very intrigued by your elegant entry on Holden, which I'd like to refer to in a footnote to the Wikipedia article that I am battling to get retained in toto on Wikipedia. The original entry on Holden was written by a semi-literate fool. It was corrected by me, My version was then bowdlerized to remove anything remotely anti-Zionist, which left it a little nonsensical. I've just thrown my version back into the fray.I question several of your assertions, beginning with your reconstruction of Holden's itinerary en route for Cairo, but I certainly do not necessarily disagree with even the most outrageous of them. I might add that I was living in Cairo at the time and knew all the currently resident British journalists and diplomats. One of the former told me he knew that who dunnit, but was afraid to say.

September 11, 2009

Have a look at this video. An amazing use of the internet. I wonder how many men looking at this video will claim to be the father.

http://spartacus-educational.blogspot.com/

September 11, 2009

Out now the new look Autumn issue of HerStoria Magazine autumn issue is packed with great articles and features.

‘The ref was tackled by a flock of infuriated beings in petticoats supposed to be women’. We look at the history of women football fans from the 19C.

‘She acquired a Chinese toy whose figures, when wound up,performed obscene acts’. A profile of England’s most provocative Queen.

Hemlines and Handicaps. The history and significance of ladies’ golfing attire—the first of a regular column on the social history of dress.

Whore, harlot or witch? Did early modern witch trials really resemble early soap operas?

Pre-Raphaelite model turned first woman in Whitehall –we introduce you to a remarkable woman.

Activist with Attitude. A new series on ‘Radical Lives’, beginning with a Pankhurst who doesn’t get the attention paid to her mother and sister – but who should.

'They wouldn’t do it if they could get married’. HerStoria asks why the idea of women doctors was so shocking to so many Victorians.

Walking with Suffrage in Huddersfield. HerStoria’s regular women’s history walk.

Dressing Emma. Costume design on the new BBC Austen adaptation.

September 11, 2009

Russia: Haunted by Stalin

Eastern Bloc: After the Cold War

Canada: Wolfe's Men in Quebec

Wootten Bassett: Return of the Fallen

George III: Not So Mad After All?

Journalism: Radical Times

Katherine Grey: Heir to Elizabeth

Three Centuries of Cricket

Vercingétorix & his Failure

Terry Deary: History Made Horrible?

John Piper: Art in Dark Times

The Caucasus: Georgian Dreams

http://www.historytoday.com/

September 11, 2009

As Monty Python once said: "What did the Romans every do for us?" Well, they were the first in Britain to bring in the idea that all children should be educated in schools. This idea was dismissed by the early Christian Church as they thought it was unwise to allow the peasants to learn to read. It was important for the Church leadership that the peasants did not read the Bible. Otherwise they would have discovered all those dangerous ideas promoted by Jesus Christ. The British monarchy agreed and it became illegal for peasants to be taught to read and write.

In the second century BC schools began to emerge in Rome. They were very small and were usually only one room. As well as reading and writing, children were taught elementary arithmetic. The Roman numeral system made arithmetic difficult and most sums were done by moving beads on a counting frame called an abacus.

The Romans were strong believers in corporal punishment. One popular saying was: "A man who has not been flogged is not trained." The main form of punishment was being hit with a leather whip. Terence disagreed with this approach and argued: "The man who keeps to the path of duty through fear of punishment will be honest just as long as he thinks he'll be found out. If he think's he can get away with something undetected, then he'll be back to his tricks. But the man who is attached to you by affection is anxious to treat you as you treat him, whether you're there or not... A man who can't do this should admit that he cannot control children."

Quintilian, an important Roman educationalist in the 1st century AD, was also against corporal punishment. He wrote in AD 96: "Study depends on the good will of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion... He must be engaged in competition and should be allowed to believe himself successful more often than not, while he should be encouraged to do his best by such rewards as may appeal to his tender years... I disapprove of flogging - although it is the regular custom - because it is... an insult, as you will realise if you imagine its infliction at a later age."

Quintilian also argued that children would do better at school if both the child's parents had also been educated. He was probably the first educationalist to realise that it is the mother, rather than the father, who plays the most important role in the education of the children. This encouraged some fathers to spend money on their daughter's education, but from the evidence that we have this was still fairly rare.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ROMeducation.htm

September 11, 2009

Catatonia - Dead from the waist down

Well worth looking for Cerys Matthews' latest CD Don't Look Down.

September 11, 2009

I have produced a new section on the Romans in my history encyclopaedia:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Romans.htm

At the moment it contains 46 biographies and 26 individual topics. It will grow considerably over the next few months.

Another good source from the Romans is Schools Wikipedia:

http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/r/Roman_Empire.htm

September 10, 2009

Diamanti must be in with a chance of playing. I'd like to see Hines given an opportunity as he seems to be scoring for fun at the moment.
Managers seem reluctant to bring young players on too quickly so he may have to wait a while yet. Perhaps 20 minuts or so towards the end ?

This is one aspect of Zola's management I do not like. His idea of using substitutes is to bring on a different striker for five minutes at the end. That is what happened to Freddie Sears last season. I think this does more harm than good.

September 10, 2009

This idea that the CIA controls the "US Media" is another red herring. Take a look for example at Lord Conrad Black's "Hollinger Corporation"
Internationally, Hollinger became the world’s third-largest newspaper empire, with more than 500 titles. As well as the Telegraph Group, it included the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, numerous American papers, and newspapers with more than half of all Canadian daily newspaper circulation.

Black controlled all of this, including the newspaper group’s publicly listed company, Hollinger Inc., via Ravelston, Black’s own private equity vehicle, which owned 78 percent of Hollinger Inc., Hollinger International’s parent company. Through a complicated minority share holding, he also controlled Hollinger International.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/sep2004/holl-s16.shtml

The case of Lord Beaverbrook has even more profound and enduring implications, given that two of the leading financial-political propagandists for today's neo-conservative revolution in Washington -- press magnates Lord Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch -- are Beaverbrook proteges. The Australian Murdoch, on graduating Oxford, did an apprenticeship at Beaverbrook's London Daily Express, which Murdoch referred affectionately to as "Beaverbrook's brothel."

For Black, the connection ran deeper -- through the wartime British secret intelligence high command. Conrad Black's father, George Montagu Black, worked directly under the Beaverbrook chain of command during World War II, when Beaverbrook was Minister of Aircraft Production, and when Black and Edward Plunkett Taylor ran the Canadian front company War Supplies, Ltd. out of the Willard Hotel in Washington, coordinating all British-American-Canadian military procurement arrangements. The $1.3 billion garnered by Taylor and Black from their wartime "private" arms deals provided the seed money for G.M. Black's postwar launching of the Argus Corp., which, today, is the Hollinger Corp. media cartel of Conrad Black.

I do not understand the logic of this argument. Just because Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch have a great deal of influence does not mean that the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird does not exist. In fact, there is a great deal of evidence that the CIA have infiltrated British newspapers. Harold Evans, who was editor of the Sunday Times, argues in his recently published autobiography, that his chief foreign reporter, David Holden, was under the control of the CIA in the 1970s. He uses the example of his reporting in Chile as an example of this. What is more, Evans’ argues that when Holden refused to follow orders the CIA had him murdered in Egypt.

September 10, 2009

And no I don't think it is Nazi policy if the state provides healthcare and I never stated as much. What I stated was Barrack Obama's proposed healthcare legislation was a replay of the Nazi healthcare policy of Adolph Hitler. Now that's the real issue/question old Girl. Not some rehashed meaningless statement of the type you make. You mistate the facts and then attempt to argue based on your mistaken conception of the issue at hand.

In the LaRouche video reference is made several times to Hitler’s T4 program that was introduced in October 1939. The LaRouche organization claims that the T4 program is similar to the way the NHS works. Therefore, the video goes onto to use phrases such as “Nazi NHS” and Obama is described as advocating “Hitlerian health reforms”.

Of course, people in Britain find this kind of attack deeply offensive. My father, like millions of other British citizens, fought the Nazis from 1939. We were not like the Americans who only decided they did not like fascism until after they were bombed at Pearl Harbor.

The video does not give us any details of Hitler’s T4 program. This is understandable as it has nothing to do with the NHS or Obama’s health-care reforms. In October 1939, Hitler produced details of the T4 program under the title, “The Destruction of Lives Unworthy of Life”.

The camouflage organization created for the medical killing of adults was known as the Reich Work Group of Sanatoriums and Nursing Homes. It operated from the Berlin Chancellery, at Tiergarten 4, hence the "T4" code name. In time, word of the Nazi T4 program (medical killing on a vast scale) filtered down into the general population, and resistance began to emerge. Himmler argued: “If operation T4 had been entrusted to the SS, things would have happened differently, because when the Fuehrer entrusts us with a job, we know how to deal with it correctly, without causing useless uproar among the people.”

Early in 1941, Hitler agreed to let Himmler use T4 personnel and facilities to rid the camps of “those most seriously ill, physically and mentally”. This became known as “prisoner euthanasia”. Hitler gave orders on 24th August 1941 to bring an end to T4. What was discontinued was only the visible dimension of the project: the large-scale gassing of patients. T4 officially ceased as a program, but that turned out to be still another deception. Widespread killing continued in a second phase, sometimes referred to in Nazi documents as “wild euthanasia” because doctors could now act on their own initiative concerning who would live or die. As you can see, T4 has nothing to do with the NHS or Obama's health-care policies.

For more information on this I suggest you read Robert Jay Lifton’s “The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide” (1986)

Several times the video refers to NICE as being the organization that administers the “British Nazi health-care system”. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on the promotion of good health and the prevention and treatment of ill health. According to the video it is NICE that decides who is to live or die in Britain. I image this is reference to one of the roles that NICE plays in the NHS:

“NICE is asked to look at particular drugs and devices when there is confusion or uncertainty over the value of a drug or device or when prescribing practices vary across the country - so that patients may be receiving different prescribed treatments, depending on where they happen to live, rather than on the state of their health.”

The role of NICE is to look into the claims made by the multinational drug companies. For example, over the last few years these corporations have claimed that they have developed a new drug that helps deal with a particular health problem. These drugs are nearly always incredibly expensive. For example, the cost of this drug for a patient could amount to as much as £100,000 a year. Obviously, the NHS has to consider if it can afford to prescribe such drugs. NICE has upset several multinational drug companies by advising NHS doctors not to prescribe these drugs. There is nothing to stop doctors from prescribing private patients these drugs. Of course, this rarely happens as the private health insurance companies refuse to pay for these drugs. That is why it is so important for these drugs companies to persuade NICE to give their approval so that they can fleece the taxpayer.

The video uses the testimony of some patients complaining about the NHS. Any large institution will not satisfy all its customers. As I have posted earlier, my 95 year old mother has had marvelous treatment from the NHS (she is old enough to remember what health-care was like before the NHS was introduced in 1948). My wife also received excellent treatment for 12 years while suffering from cancer.

The NHS is far from being perfect. It is under-funded and I would like to see more money spent on health-care and less on nuclear weapons and the invasion and occupation of foreign countries. However, as a means of protecting people, regardless of income, it takes some beating. Anyway, it appears to be far superior to the one that exists in the United States. For example, the World Health Organisation ranks Britain's healthcare as 18th in the world, while the US is in 37th place.

September 9, 2009

West Ham's reserves beat Birmingham City 6-0 last night. This included a Zavon Hines hat-trick and two from new signing Alessandro Diamanti (both stunning free kicks). I wonder if Zola will play Hines and Diamanti against Wigan on Saturday?

http://www.kumb.com/article.php?id=2700

September 9, 2009

The Sunday Times chief foreign correspondent, David Holden was murdered in December 1977 soon after arriving in Cairo to report on Israeli-Egyptian peace-talks. At first, the authorities told the editor, Harold Evans, that Holden had probably been murdered by a taxi-driver. The motive was that Holden had made sexual advances towards the man.

Evans sent three of his top journalists to investigate Holden’s death. They soon discovered that the original theory was clearly wrong. Holden’s body was found on a piece of waste ground. He was on his back, his feet neatly together, his arms folded across the chest. All marks that might suggest his identity or nationality had been removed, including the maker’s label in his jacket.

The manner of his death was equally methodical. He had been shot once from behind with a short-cartridge 9mm automatic. The range was so close that his jacket was scorched. The killer had aimed his gun down-ward so that the bullet would pierce Holden’s heart.

Research by the police discovered that Holden had not been picked up by a registered taxi-driver at the airport. Eventually, a white Fiat had been found abandoned. In the boot they found Holden’s suitcase and his portable typewriter. They also found his notes for the book he was writing on Saudi Arabia. Missing were his passport, his camera, any exposed films and any material he had accumulated on his trip. As the officer in charge of the case remarked: “It looks as if the killers knew what they were looking for.”

The airport was teeming with security men. Therefore, he could not have been forced into the car. It is assumed the only reason he willingly got into the car was because he trusted the people whom he met at the airport.

A second Fiat car was found abandoned. This one included the cartridge case matching the 9mm bullet. Holden’s bloodstains were also found in the car. The headrest on the passenger seat had been removed to make it easier for the gunman to shoot Holden from behind. The missing headrest was found in the first car.

Nearly a month later, a third Fiat was found with documents from the murder car. All three Fiats had been stolen in identical fashion. The first car had been stolen on the day following Holden’s decision to take the assignment. The car that contained his belongings was stolen the day after Holden agreed to report on the peace-talks. (He initially refused the assignment because he was working on a book about Saudi Arabia.)

The other two cars were stolen on the day that Holden booked his flight from Jerusalem to Cairo. The journalists investigating the case came to the conclusion it was a well-planned assassination.

One of the surprising aspects of the case was that the killers appeared to have precise details of Holden’s movements. For example, Holden appears to have been followed as he went via Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank before arriving in Cairo.

It was initially assumed that the Holden had been killed by Fatah hardcore rejectionists, who were attempting to sabotage Sadat’s peace initiative. However, this made no sense as Holden was seen as someone sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Fatah’s chairman, Yasser Arafat, told them that the Sunday Times had been regarded as a “friend of the cause” because it had campaigned against the ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

Another theory was that Holden was a victim of mistaken identity. David Hirst of the Guardian had angered Sadat by writing several articles about corruption in the Egyptian government.

About a month after the killing of Holden, an intelligence source told one of the Sunday Times journalists that: “the killers knew exactly when Holden would arrive in Cairo because they got the information from the horse’s mouth”. In other words, the organisation responsible for his death had a spy within the offices of the Sunday Times.

Evans also discovered that incoming messages about the case were being stolen from the telex room. Evans called in Scotland Yard and it was decided to set-up a sting operation. The police’s C-10 surveillance unit hid infrared cameras to monitor office movements. Police officers also worked undercover at the Sunday Times. Evans points out in his recently published autobiography: “We then baited the trap.” Department heads were told there had been a breakthrough by senior reporter Paul Eddy who was working in Cairo on the case. However, the cameras failed to pick up anyone stealing Eddy’s messages being sent to the telex room. Evans points out in his autobiography: “I began to think I’d made a mistake letting the Foreign Office know that we’d detected the thefts. What if our own secret intelligence service (MI6) had played some role in the abduction of Holden?”

Further research showed that when Holden was on the way to Cairo he had a meeting with two American archaeologists, John and Isobel Fistere in Amman. Holden had originally met the Fisteres in Beirut in 1963. They were with Kim Philby just before he fled to the Soviet Union. It was generally believed that the Fisteres were keeping watch on Philby on behalf of the CIA. Later the Fisteres denied eyewitness accounts that they spent time with Holden. According to them, they only met with him briefly in the hotel press centre. The journalists also discovered that Holden had a meeting with an academic at Birzeit University. Later it was revealed that he was a paid agent of the CIA.

The Sunday Times then discovered that the CIA had a file on Holden that contained 33 documents. This dates back to a close relationship he had with Leo Silberman, a former communist who was a supporter of Israel but also an anti-Zionist. According to Silberman’s brother, the two men had been lovers. This came as a surprise as Holden, who was married to Ruth Lynam, a photojournalist, was known to be a very active heterosexual. Silberman died in 1960.

The investigating journalists became convinced that Holden had been working for the CIA. This was linked to his reporting of CIA involvement in Cuba and Chile. For example, his reports in 1973 strongly denied that the CIA was involved in the overthrow of President Allende.

In 1988 the Sunday Times was told by a senior US diplomat in the Middle East that Holden had been killed on the orders of the CIA but it had been carried out by Egyptian agents.

After looking at all the evidence Harold Evans become convinced that the CIA was involved in the death of Holden. He had been informed that the Holden case was the “liquidation of an asset”. This belief was increased when the CIA and FBI blocked efforts to see American intelligence files on Holden under the US Freedom of Information Act. Instead, the CIA argued that Holden had been killed by Egyptian terrorists who wanted his press credentials.

The question remains why? By 1977 Holden was clearly not willing to be part of Operation Mockingbird. However, that is no real reason to kill him. Unless, of course, he was willing to write about how the CIA had been manipulating the foreign press since 1947.

September 9, 2009