Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

By Joseph Kenny | jkenny@archstl.org | twitter: @josephkenny2

Reggie Griffin, a Missouri death row exoneree, told the crowd about his story on May 20 at an event at the St. Louis Galleria Lush store. Griffin along with fellow exoneree, Joe Amrine, were both convicted of murders they did not commit and spent years on death row before being exonerated.

Kathryn Ziesig | kathrynziesig@archstl.org

Joe Amrine selected the music for his funeral service.

He wasn't sick, nor was he elderly. He was on Missouri's death row awaiting lethal injection.

In November 2001, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon asked the Missouri Supreme Court to set an execution date for Amrine and nine other men on death row. The court complied in six cases, but delayed in Amrine's case. By then a groundswell of support built for his exoneration in part because of a documentary, "Unreasonable Doubt: the Joe Amrine Case," by a group of university graduate students.

The Missouri Catholic Conference, public policy agency of the state's bishops, distributed the video widely in their efforts to seek Amrine's release. The bishops' agency advocated on Amrine's behalf and now uses his example in citing reasons to oppose the death penalty.

Convicted in 1986 of the murder of fellow prison inmate Gary Barber at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Amrine, now 60, was released from prison in 2003 after the Missouri Supreme Court overturned his conviction and death sentence. He'd spent 17 years on death row after being sent to prison originally in 1977 on a robbery charge. Three fellow inmates who had testified against him later recanted, admitting that they lied in exchange for favorable treatment. Six other inmates had testified earlier that Amrine was in another area of the prison playing cards when Barber was stabbed.

Amrine and fellow exoneree Reggie Griffin visited St. Louis May 20 to speak at a public event at the St. Louis Galleria hosted by Lush Cosmetics and the Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. The talk was consistent with views of Pope Francis, who last year encouraged all people to work not only for the abolition of the death penalty, but also for the improvement of prison conditions, "so that they fully respect the human dignity of those incarcerated."

Rita Linhardt, senior staff associate for the Missouri Catholic Conference and chair of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said serious concerns have been raised about the death penalty as public policy because of wrongful convictions, questions of fairness and the costs of the death penalty. For every nine executions in this country, one person who received a death sentence was found to be wrongly convicted. Reasons innocent people are convicted, she said, include ineffective assistance of counsel, flawed evidence, faulty eyewitness testimony and police and prosecutorial misconduct.

Exonerations highlight flaws in the death penalty, Linhardt said: "We can see where mistakes are made."

Faith was a factor in his survival, Amrine said: "It would be hard for anyone to be on death row and not somehow get some faith. You gotta believe in something to survive on death row."

He appreciates the position the Catholic Church has taken against the death penalty and wants to see more follow its lead. "We need Christians, Muslims and everyone to come up and say they're against the death penalty under any circumstances," he said.

Amrine once was in favor of the death penalty but his experience showed him that it sometimes is imposed on innocent people, and "it can't be applied equally."

Griffin, 56, grew up in St. Louis and was sentenced to 20 years in prison for first-degree assault, robbery and possession of drugs and stolen property. While at the Moberly Correctional Center, he was accused of the murder of inmate James Bausley, who had been stabbed in the prison yard. Griffin denied he'd been in the yard at the time but was convicted in 1988 on the word of two jailhouse informants who received reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony.

In 2011, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the death sentence because prosecutors had withheld a sharpened screwdriver recovered from another inmate immediately after the stabbing. Both of Griffin's co-defendants consistently said the third person involved in the crime was that inmate, not Griffin.

Griffin, released from prison in 2013, said that "none of the things that happened for me and to me could not and would not have happened without the grace of God."

Amrine and Griffin African American men who were convicted by all-white juries in trials that lasted just a few days give two or three talks a week and have been to several Catholic schools, mostly in the Kansas City area. They'll be in St. Louis Sept. 28 to speak to student representatives of Catholic high schools at the Cardinal Rigali Center in Shrewsbury. Amrine said he speaks out because "the Lord blessed me to put me out here. He wasn't through with me. We speak out against the death penalty, gangs, drugs, lawyers ... I did 26 years, he did 33. That qualifies us as experts."

For someone wrongfully convicted, Griffin said, "when the state seeks the death sentence against you, you have a chance of losing your life. If the evidence comes out after you're executed, they can't bring you back."

The Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN) has launched a new initiative, named the National Catholic Pledge to End the Death Penalty. "Due to growing public opposition to the death penalty and especially in the aftermath of last month executions in Arkansas, CMN has launched this pledge to amplify the Church's work to end the death penalty," said Karen Clifton, executive director of CMN.

Catholic Mobilizing Network maintains the pledge as an important initiative that lifts up the value of all human life. The pledge is a way to lift up the call of the Catholic Church and Pope Francis in particular to end the use of the death penalty and promote a more restorative criminal justice system.

In the recent session of the Missouri legislature, the Missouri Catholic Conference supported three bills that would have ended capital punishment in Missouri. The Catholic Conference, the public policy agency of the U.S. bishops, referred to the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" (paragraph 2267) and stated that "the death penalty undermines respect for human life and errors in the judicial system can lead to the execution of innocent people."

The proposed legislation stalled in the legislative process. Two of the bills in the House were read for a second time and the Senate bill was referred to a committee.

For information:

The National Catholic Pledge to End the Death Penalty, http://www.catholicsmobilizing.org

Missouri Catholic Conference Messenger on the death penalty, http://www.stlouisreview.com/bMF

Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, http://www.madpmo.org

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, http://www.stlouisreview.com/bML

Joe Amrine and Reggie Griffin are two of 159 inmates in the United States and four in Missouri who have been exonerated after landing on death row.

Last month Bishop Frank J. Dewane, chairman of the U.S. Catholic bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, decried plans by the sate of Arkansas to execute seven men in 11 days, saying that justice and mercy are better served by commuting their sentences to life imprisonment.

At a recent event in St. Louis in which Amrine and Griffin told their story, Maggie Baine of St. Joseph Parish in Cottleville explained that changing public policy on the death penalty is a cause she deeply cares about. Pope Francis made a passionate plea for a moratorium on executions during the Year of Mercy, reminding listeners that "Thou shalt not kill" (the fifth commandment) applies not only to the innocent but to the guilty as well. Baine said she agrees fully with Church teaching.

"For the innocent and well as guilty people, we believe there's not a reason to end their lives," Baine said.

The Pew Research Center reported last fall that the share of Americans who support the death penalty for people convicted of murder now is at its lowest point in more than four decades.

During a debate last year in the Missouri Senate, Sen. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial, said he too is guided by his Catholic faith and the need to be consistent in his pro-life beliefs to protect all human life, even those guilty of murder. He also raised concern about executing an innocent person. "All it would take is one mistake," Wieland said. "We're not operating it as a zero percent margin of error."

"One sign of hope is that public opinion is manifesting a growing opposition to the death penalty, even as a means of legitimate social defense. Indeed, nowadays the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person. It is an offense to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person; it likewise contradicts God's plan for individuals and society, and his merciful justice. Nor is it consonant with any just purpose of punishment. It does not render justice to victims, but instead fosters vengeance. The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" has absolute value and applies both to the innocent and to the guilty."

Pope Francis' message to 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty on June 22, 2016

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From death row to freedom - St.Louis Review

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn promised yesterday (22 May) that, if his party wins the general election, it would abolish tuition fees for students starting this September. For students already part-way through their studies, their fees would be scrapped from 2018.

Harriet Harriss, senior tutor in interior design and architecture at the Royal College of Art, said Labours pledge to get rid of university tuition fees would be a positive U-turn on the mental crisis facing architecture education.

Last year an AJ surveyof architecture students uncovereda worrying landscape of stress-related illness, with just over a quarter (26 per cent) of respondents recording that they were receiving or had received medical help for mental health problems.

Harriss said that the need for some students to get a job alongside their studies, in order to meet their fees and living expenses wasmaking their lives impossible in terms of stress because they dont get any time off.

She added that abolishing tuition fees would allow people from poorer backgrounds to access architecture education.

She said: We need a diverse architectural profession and the only way we can do that is through having a diverse educational system. Architecture should serve the interests of everyone in society, but it cant do that if its professional members are not diverse.

In England, students currently have to pay up to9,250 a year in tuition fees. In 2012, the Coalition government controversially tripled tuition fees to 9,000 a year following the2010 Browne Review.

Nam Kha Tran, a Part 2 architecture student at the University of Sheffield, said he welcomed the pledge to abolish tuition fees.

He said: The knock-on effect of students needing extra financial support, whether this be through employment alongside studies or increased borrowing as well as the increase in the cost of living pervades all current issues, including mental health and wellbeing.

We need a government prepared to fundamentally question the value we place on education. A vote for the Conservatives furthers the discussion of education as an economy, rather than a right for all and maintains a system that traps many but suits few.

Tuition fees were originally introduced in UK universities under the Labour government in 1998, when students were required to pay up to 1,000 a year for their education. In 2004, these fees were increased to up to 3,000 a year for students in England.

Joe Brennan, a Part 2 architecture student at theRoyal College of Art, said scrapping tuition fees would allowpeople from disadvantaged backgrounds to go into architecture.

He added: Theres a lot of people at the RCA who also work part-time, which inevitably results in stress and anxiety. Architectureis famous for being an intense, long and expensive course, so the added expenditure is always a burden.

I had to take up a part-time job. It has put on a lot of pressure on me

He added: From personal experience this year my final year and the year where youre most needed to work all the time I had to take up a part-time job. It has put on a lot of pressure on me.

Kevin Singh, director of the Birmingham School of Architecture and Design, also said he backed Labours manifesto pledge.

He said: Education is a right, not a privilege, addingthat, while there was some evidence that students are taking their studies even more seriously in the full fee regime, scrapping fees would further the cause for a more diverse profession, which needs to reflect modern society more closely.

In terms of whether Labour would be able to implement its pledge, he said: Id ask whether the country can afford not to. Education is the basis of any thriving economy and society.

Harriss said she believed Labour could afford to abolish tuition fees, and this was shown by the calculations published in its manifesto.

Its a question of priority, she said. Were allowing ourselves to be conditioned into thinking the only way to pay off debt and progress our society is to kill the welfare state, including the NHS and education.

She added: Other countries in Europe that do not have such stringent austerity measures are actually recovering at a faster rate than we are.

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Abolition of tuition fees would be 'positive U-turn' for students' mental health - Architects' Journal

Rent controls and the abolition of mortgage interest relief are among proposals outlined in the Green Partys manifesto, out today.

It says the party wants to bring in these controls to introduce a living rent and more secure tenancies for all, along with mandatory licensing for PRS homes.

Other proposals included in the document include plans to:

Alan Ward, chairman of the RLA said: Rent controls do not work and reduce the supply and quality of homes. Similarly,licensingschemesmean good landlordsmust fork out for costly licences, while the criminals continue to operate.

Landlords are already struggling to cope with the reduction of mortgage interest relief (MIR) to the basic rate of 20%, with many making a loss or forced out of the market altogether.

Abolishing MIR altogether would be disastrous. There is an army of small landlords in this country providing much needed homes to rent and they should be supported, not punished.

Green by nature,these naive proposals wouldforce landlords out of business and remove homes from the market leaving tenants to struggle.

To read the full manifesto click here.

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Rent controls and abolition of MIR among Greens' proposals - Residential Landlords Association (press release) (blog)

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The Trump administration budget would sharply cut safety net programs for the poor.

President Donald Trump is proposing a $4.1 trillion federal budget that targets food stamps and Medicaid. It also relies on rosy projections about economic growth to balance the budget within 10 years.

The cuts are part of a budget blueprint for the upcoming fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. It protects retirement programs for the elderly and provides billions of dollars more for the military.

The rest of the government bears the bulk of the reductions.

The plan is outlined in White House summary documents. It will be officially released on Tuesday.

The politically perilous cuts to Medicaid, college loans, food stamps and federal employee pension benefits guarantee Trump's budget won't go far in Congress.

That's despite the fact Republicans control both the House and Senate.

Among the cuts:

Medicaid would be reduced by more than $600 billion over 10 years by capping payments to states and giving governors more flexibility to manage their rosters of Medicaid recipients. Those cuts are paired with the repeal of Obamacares expansion of the program to 14 million people and amount to, by decades end, an almost 25 percent cut from present projections.

A 10-year, $191 billion reduction in food stamps almost 30 percent goes far, far beyond prior proposals by congressional Republicans. The program serves about 42 million people.

The budget lands as Trumps GOP allies in Congress are grappling with repealing and replacing Obamas health care law and looking ahead to a difficult rewrite of the loophole-clogged tax code. Trying to balance the budget isnt in the plan in Congress, but conservative Republicans are pushing for some action this year on spending cuts.

That includes cuts to pensions for federal workers and higher contributions toward those pension benefits, as well as cuts to refundable tax credits paid to the working poor.

On taxes, Trump promises an overhaul that would cut tax rates but rely on erasing tax breaks and economic growth to avoid adding to the deficit. It would create three tax brackets 10 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent instead of the current seven.

The budget adds details to the earlier blueprint, which proposed a $54 billion, 10 percent increase for the military above an existing cap on Pentagon spending, financed by an equal cut to nondefense programs, which meant slashing medical research and foreign aid. Law enforcement and border security would get increases, however.

At least one Cabinet-level official, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, said Monday he would work with Congress to ensure money for the 17 national laboratories and other projects.

During a tour of Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee, Perry said he has not been in the job long enough to go through the budget line item by line item.

But Perry, who once called for the abolition of the department, has become an outspoken proponent of the departments importance, particularly the national labs.

Hopefully we will be able make that argument to our friends in Congress that what DOE is involved with plays a vital role, not only in the security of America but the economic well-being of the country as we go forward, Perry said.

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Trump's proposed $4.1 trillion budget cuts deeply into safety net programs, Medicaid - New York's PIX11 / WPIX-TV

Activities for Labour Day 2017 got off to an early start on Tuesday (May 23) in the parish of St. James, with a wreath-laying ceremony in honour of National Hero, the Right Excellent Samuel Sharpe.

Mayor of Montego Bay, His Worship Homer Davis, and Acting Custos of the parish, Claudette Bryan, headed the list of city officials, civic and business leaders and residents who were on hand for the tribute held in Sam Sharpe Square.

Mayor Davis, in his address, said there could not have been a more fitting way to kick off the Labour Day activities than to honour the memory of a son of the soil whose hard work and sacrifices contributed to a free and liberated Jamaica.

Today marks 185 years since Sam Sharpe was hanged in this very square, he pointed out.

Its important that as we celebrate Labour Day, we also remember the legacy left behind by this great Jamaican and the role he played in the subsequent abolition of slavery, he added.

Following the Sam Sharpe Square ceremony, the focus turned to the Montego Hills Police Station, which was the Labour Day parish project.

The facility was renovated to include installation of new bathroom fixtures and windows; painting of the entire building; and bushing and cleaning of the yard.

Over in Barrett Town, volunteers turned out in their numbers to carry out work on the post office, police station, basic school and community centre.

Minister of Tourism and Member of Parliament for East Central St. James,Hon. Edmund Bartlett, who participated in the workday, said he was happy with the large turnout of volunteers. The spirit of volunteerism is alive and well in Barrett Town, he noted.

Mr. Bartlett announced that Cabinet had approved $120 million to rehabilitate all the roads leading into Barrett Town, and the project should begin within the next four to five weeks.

In addition to the removal of zinc fences, which we recently did throughout the community, this road repair should greatly improve both the infrastructure and aesthetic appeal of Barrett Town, he pointed out.

Major work was also undertaken in Norwood, where volunteers turned out to patch roads and rehabilitate the community centre.

Residents also carried out work at the Montego Bay Transport Centre, a number of schools, and on roads throughout the parish.

A total of 63 projects were registered for St. James for Labour Day, which was observed under the theme Restore. Preserve. Beautify.

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Sam Sharpe Tribute Kicks off Labour Day Activities in St. James - Government of Jamaica, Jamaica Information Service

sier on every employee. Talking backis called nsubordination,just as if aworker is a naughty child, and it notonly gets you red, it disqualies youfor unemployment compensation. Wi-thout necessarily endorsing it for themeither, it is noteworthy that children athome and in school receive much the sa-me treatment, justied in their case bytheir supposed immaturity. What doesthis say about their parents and tea-chers who work?The demeaning system of dominati-on Ive described rules over half the wa-king hours of a majority of women andthe vast majority of men for decades,for most of their lifespans. For certainpurposes its not too misleading to callour system democracy or capitalism or better still industrialism, but its re-al names are factory fascism and oceoligarchy. Anybody who says these peo-ple are frees lying or stupid. You arewhat you do. If you do boring, stupidmonotonous work, chances are youllend up boring, stupid and monotonous.Work is a much better explanation forthe creeping cretinization all around usthan even such signicant moronizingmechanisms as television and educati-on. People who are regimented all theirlives, handed o to work from schooland bracketed by the family in the be-ginning and the nursing home at theend, are habituated to heirarchy andpsychologically enslaved. Their aptitu-de for autonomy is so atrophied thattheir fear of freedom is among theirfew rationally grounded phobias. Theirobedience training at work carries overinto the families

they

start, thus repro-ducing the system in more ways thanone, and into politics, culture and ever-ything else. Once you drain the vitalityfrom people at work, theyll likely sub-mit to heirarchy and expertise in ever-ything. Theyre used to it.We are so close to the world of workthat we cant see what it does to us.We have to rely on outside observersfrom other times or other cultures toappreciate the extremity and the pa-thology of our present position. Therewas a time in our own past when thework ethic would have been incom-prehensible, and perhaps Weber was onto something when he tied its appea-rance to a religion, Calvinism, which ifit emerged today instead of four cen-turies ago would immediately and ap-propriately be labeled a cult. Be thatas it may, we have only to draw uponthe wisdom of antiquity to put work inperspective. The ancients saw work forwhat it is, and their view prevailed, theCalvinist cranks notwithstanding, untiloverthrown by industrialism but notbefore receiving the endorsement of itsprophets.Lets pretend for a moment thatwork doesnt turn people into stulti-ed submissives. Lets pretend, in de-ance of any plausible psychology andthe ideology of its boosters, that it hasno eect on the formation of charac-ter. And lets pretend that work isntas boring and tiring and humiliatingas we all know it really is. Even then,work would

still

make a mockery ofall humanistic and democratic aspira-tions, just because it usurps so muchof our time. Socrates said that manu-al laborers make bad friends and badcitizens because they have no time tofulll the responsibilities of friendshipand citizenship. He was right. Becauseof work, no matter what we do we keeplooking at out watches. The only thingfreeabout so-called free time is that itdoesnt cost the boss anything. Free ti-me is mostly devoted to getting rea-dy for work, going to work, returningfrom work, and recovering from work.Free time is a euphemism for the pecu-liar way labor as a factor of productionnot only transports itself at its own ex-pense to and from the workplace butassumes primary responsibility for itsown maintenance and repair. Coal andsteel dont do that. Lathes and typewri-ters dont do that. But workers do. Nowonder Edward G. Robinson in one ofhis gangster movies exclaimed, Workis for saps!Both Plato and Xenophon attribu-te to Socrates and obviously share withhim an awareness of the destructive ef-fects of work on the worker as a citizenand a human being. Herodotus identi-ed contempt for work as an attributeof the classical Greeks at the zenith oftheir culture. To take only one Romanexample, Cicero said that whoever gi-ves his labor for money sells himself andputs himself in the rank of slaves.Hiscandor is now rare, but contemporaryprimitive societies which we are wontto look down upon have provided spo-kesmen who have enlightened Westernanthropologists. The Kapauku of WestIrian, according to Posposil, have a con-ception of balance in life and accor-dingly work only every other day, theday of rest designed to regain the lostpower and health.Our ancestors, evenas late as the eighteenth century whenthey were far along the path to our pre-sent predicament, at least were awareof what we have forgotten, the undersi-de of industrialization. Their religiousdevotion to SSt. Monday- thus esta-blishing a

de facto

ve-day week 150-200 years before its legal consecration was the despair of the earliest fac-tory owners. They took a long time insubmitting to the tyranny of the bell,predecessor of the time clock. In fact itwas necessary for a generation or two toreplace adult males with women accu-stomed to obedience and children whocould be molded to t industrial needs.Even the exploited peasants of the

an-cient regime

wrested substantial timeback from their landlords work. Accor-ding to Lafargue, a fourth of the Frenchpeasants calendar was devoted to Sun-days and holidays, and Chayanovs -gures from villages in Czarist Russia hardly a progressive society likewiseshow a fourth or fth of peasants daysdevoted to repose. Controlling for pro-ductivity, we are obviously far behindthese backward societies. The exploited

muzhiks

would wonder why any of usare working at all. So should we.To grasp the full enormity of our de-terioration, however, consider the ear-liest condition of humanity, without go-vernment or property, when we wande-red as hunter-gatherers. Hobbes surmi-sed that life was then nasty, brutish andshort. Others assume that life was adesperate unremitting struggle for sub-sistence, a war waged against a harshNature with death and disaster awai-ting the unlucky or anyone who was un-equal to the challenge of the struggle forexistence. Actually, that was all a pro-3

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The Abolition of Work | Marxism | Occupational Safety And ...

Fine Gael leadership candidate Leo Varadkar at a 5k run in Dublin on Sunday. Photograph: Gareth Chaney/Collins

The contest for the leadership of the biggest political party in the State, and ultimately the taoiseachs office, will not be marked by policy gulfs between the two candidates.

They are, after all, from the same centre-right party. However, there is a difference in tone between Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar and that is the clearest guide of how their policy approach will differ in office.

That will not happen immediately, since the policy structures already set by the programme for government agreed with Independents and underpinned by the confidence and supply agreement with Fianna Fil will have to be followed.

What Coveney and Varadkar will be arguing over is realistically the policy platform of the next Fine Gael manifesto, and the approach of the next government led by the party, if there is one.

Varadkar is due to set out his policy approach today but there have been some small indications of it already. Coveney set out his stall yesterday and firmly wrapped himself in the Just Society social reform tradition of Declan Costello and Garret FitzGerald.

He also favours increased spending on infrastructure and the creation of a greener economy through initiatives such as greater public transport networks, including high-speed rail links. His manifesto follows on from work he has undertaken in his ministerial portfolio on rebalancing population growth away from Dublin and towards the regions.

On taxation, he wants to move away from previous Fine Gael policy of abolishing the universal social charge (USC) in favour of changing the bands at which people enter the higher tax bracket and a gradual reduction in the higher tax rate.

Coveney has also taken the same approach as Fianna Fil leader Michel Martin and wants Fine Gael to publish a White Paper on a united Ireland, by the end of the year.

On abortion, he says the current regime has to be changed but is uncomfortable with some of the proposals made by the Citizens Assembly, which suggested abortion should be available in without restriction up to 12 weeks.

Coveneys Fine Gael would almost move into Fianna Fil territory of caring social policy, while Varadkars approach is expected to be liberal in the economic and social sense. He too favours greater spending on infrastructure.

But he has been evasive on his position on abortion. At his campaign launch, he said only that the current system had to be changed but did not give any views on how it should be done.

He has previously sought to cast himself in the centre-right mould of David Cameron and Angela Merkel and has lately associated himself with Emmanuel Macrons brand of centrist politics. One passage from the speech at his campaign launch on Saturday drew the most attention.

Fine Gael will be the party that represents those who get up early in the morning, work hard and want more for their children and their community. We will work to create a country with sound public finances, where work, talent, enterprise and inventiveness are rewarded and individual freedom and liberty are respected.

It echoed a speech given in 2012 by Camerons then chancellor, George Osborne, who spoke of fairness for those leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, although it did not contain Osbornes attack on those on benefits.

So far, we know Varadkar too would inch away from the policy on the abolition of USC but would instead propose a wider reform of the taxation system by merging it and PRSI to create a system of social insurance.

On announcing his taxation policy in recent weeks, Varadkar created Osborne-style dividing lines by saying society had too often been divided into one group of people who pay for everything but get little in return due to means tests, and another group who believe they should be entitled to everything for free and that someone else should pay for it.

Tone will be important more important than specific policies in this campaign because it indicates a candidates governing philosophy, and represents a sign of things to come.

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Contest between Varadkar and Coveney hinges on tone - Irish Times

Exhibition at The Hub gallery

KUWAIT: Twelve years have passed since Kuwaiti women got the right to participate in the political battle in Kuwait; this date, the 16th of May, coincides with the launching of one of the most important creative exhibitions that show a collection of artistic work and photographs representing women in order to encourage them to obtain their full rights as well as a support and show solidarity with the abolition of Article 153 of the Kuwaiti Penal Code.

This article allows men to get away with killing their mothers, daughters, sisters and wives if they suspect them of sexual impropriety with a light punishment of a prison sentence for a period not exceeding three years or a fine of KD 15 or one of these penalties, and this is contrary to the principles of Islamic law.

Dr Al-Anoud Al-Sharikh, Sheikha Al-Nafisi, Lulu Al-Sabah, Amira Behbehani and Sundus Hussain are the organizers of this exhibition. They are the ones who initiated this idea to demand the cancellation of this article and its negative consequences on human rights in general and womens rights in particular.

The exhibition will last for a week in the hall of The Hub Gallery located on the Arabian Gulf Street Sharq. It will include paintings, jewelry and sculptures created by a group of young Kuwaiti and Arab artists to promote this awareness campaign in all segments of Kuwaiti society in the hope of achieving justice and equality between men and women and the exclusion of violence in any way.

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Abolish Article 153: expressive exhibition at 'The Hub' gallery - Kuwait Times

Support to Tulip Siddiq

ON May 10 I was at a very well attended meeting of Unite Community Camden Branch.The only item on the agenda was the general election.

It was decided that we give every possible support to Tulip Siddiq and do all within our power to prevent a return of the current Conservative government.

We believe it knowingly advocates policies on the NHS which amount to the murder of innocent civilians, closing 6,000 beds, shutting countless A&Es, restricting NHS staff pay (in effect imposing wage cuts), and resulting in a catastrophe for the NHS. It must be stopped.

Tulip has proved time and again that she will buck the system. She has no problem ignoring the party whip when she regards it necessary, and will usually speak out when she believes it justified.

This is why I am delighted that she is strongly criticising Camden Council for its despicable attacks upon the Netherwood day centre resource and the ridiculous waste disposal scheme, along with attacks upon facilities for special needs resources (Charlie Ratchford Shoot-Up Hill etc). And the so-called transport charge, in effect an attack upon the needy.

Tulip fully supports the removal of all anti-union laws (particularly important to us in Unite of course). Ridding us of these appalling laws will greatly assist workers to fight unscrupulous employers.

Naturally Tulip will be supporting the manifesto, the most radical seen for many a long year.I also expect her to make very clear the absolute necessity to Camden that they must follow the manifesto on council housing. Plans must be prioritised immediately when Labour take power on June 9.

Tulip, as did Glenda Jackson, fully supports Republic, the organisation dedicated to removing the monarchy.Other issues I am confident Tulip will be extremely active on are:

The abolition of the Work Capability Assessment by private contractors. The end to benefits sanctions. Ending the continuous reassessment of people with disabilities as they remain on Personal Independence Payment. Axing the 2016 Housing and Planning Act. Halting the ongoing privatisation of NHS services. Improving investment in education and schools. Providing fully-funded adult social care. Ending the pay freeze for public sector workers. Ending the bedroom tax. Ending the new restrictions on Housing Benefit which will affect thousands of people living in sheltered accommodation. Abolishing tuition fees. Protecting the triple lock on pensions.

Unite Community Camden is fully supporting Tulip, and I urge all others to help safeguard our country from the party of death, greed and destruction.

TERENCE FLANAGAN Unite Community Camden Branch (in a personal capacity)

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Unite Community Camden Branch backs Tulip Siddiq - Camden New Journal newspapers website

Workers began dismantling the Robert E. Lee monument in New Orleans on Friday, and will soon place it in temporary storage with three other such memorials. Once finished, their work will complete the most sweeping change to a major citys Civil War commemorative landscape since the initial calls to lower Confederate battle flags and remove Confederate monuments in 2015, following the murder of nine black churchgoers by Dylann Roof at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

While calls to extract all four New Orleans monuments have been accompanied by controversyincluding heated protestthe removal of the Lee monument may be the most difficult for the core defenders of Confederate heritage to accept. It may also be difficult for others who do not embrace a neo-Confederate agenda. Unlike Jefferson Davis, P.G.T. Beauregard, and other icons similarly honored in stone, only Lee managed to transcend his place in a slaveholders rebellion to achieve mythical status on par with other vaunted historical figures.

The Stubborn Persistence of Confederate Monuments

It should come as no surprise that the generals popularity achieved its greatest ascendency in the South. Even before the end of the war, Lee became the symbol of the Confederate struggle for independence owing to his impressive string of battlefield victories.

Following his sides defeat, Lee quickly came to occupy a central place in the Lost Cause explanation of the waran interpretation that, among other things, deified Confederates as embodying the virtues of bravery, sacrifice, and Christian morality. He epitomized the virtues of the Christian gentleman and appeared almost Christlike in Southern iconography. In the hands of Lost Cause writers, his military record and personal character served as the model of perfection for the next generation of white southerners. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, those writers used Lee to distance the Confederacy from its commitment to preserve slavery and white supremacy. Lee, it was argued, abhorred the peculiar institution and in the case of his own slaves exerted a gentle and humane touch.

By the early 20th century, monuments to the Confederate chieftain adorned public spaces in New Orleans; Baltimore; Dallas; Austin; Marianna, Arkansas; Richmond and Charlottesville, Virginia; and even the Gettysburg battlefield. In 1909 Virginia added a statue of Lee to the Capitol buildings Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. Motorists traversed roads from northern Virginia to Louisiana that were named after Lee, and children throughout the South were educated in buildings named in his honor.

These details probably come as no great shock to many Americans, but what may be surprising is the extent to which the memory of Lee resonated and was even embraced by individuals beyond the former Confederate states. Lees image could be found on any number of products marketed throughout the country, including cigars, tobacco, pancakes, and whiskey. In 1920 an advertisement in the pages of the New York Tribune for a new electric vacuum powered washing machine featured an image of Lee and his loyal body servant, or camp slave.

Many Northerners shared in the white Souths reverence for Lee, who became a powerful symbol of national reunion and a model for the youth of the nation to emulate. Just five short years after his surrender at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, the New York Herald declared upon Lees death that here in the North we have claimed him as one of ourselves and extolled his virtue as reflecting upon us. Such sentiments only became more prevalent through the Gilded Age.

To mark the centennial of Lees birth in 1907, Charles Francis Adams of Bostongrandson of John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of John Adamsdelivered an address at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where Lee became president after the war and where he was eventually buried. There is not in our whole history as a people, Adams wrote of Lees demeanor at the surrender ceremony at Appomattox, any incident so creditable to our manhoodso indicative of our racial possession of character. Marked throughout by a straightforward dignity of personal bearing and propriety in action, it was marred by no touch of the theatrical, no effort at posturing. Lee, dignified in defeat, carried himself with that sense of absolute fitness which compelled respect.

Adams held up Lee as a model of masculine white superiority in an age of social Darwinism and just as the nation was emerging as an imperial power. According to historian Nina Silber of Boston University, Adams honored Lee as a man of action, as a soldier who proved his masculinity by his willingness to fight for his commitment, irrespective of the cause. The ability to extol Lees virtues apart from addressing the cause for which he fought was made possible, in part, by the nations embrace of a Civil War memory that celebrated the bravery of the white citizen soldier and a public acceptance of sectional reunion.

Historian and Richmond newspaper editor Douglas Southall Freeman reached a national audience in the 1930s with his four-volume, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography R.E. Lee. Freeman interpreted Lees personal character and military career as embodying the spirit of the Souths collective identity. Charles Willis Thompson concluded in the pages of The New York Times Book Review: You rise from the completed work with the conviction here is Lees monument. Dr. Freeman has left nothing for any after-sculptor to carve. The Christian Science Monitor struck a similar chord in its description of Freemans Lee as a man in whom character and intellect were so balanced that he is like a Greek temple. Freemans work helped ensure that Lee would remain in the pantheon of national heroes.

Lees national reputation remained secure right through the period following the Second World War. In 1955 the federal government designated Arlington House Lees former home, located on the very ground that contains the remains of thousands of black and white Union soldiersa national monument. Dwight Eisenhower told a national TV audience that Lee was one of the four great Americans whose portraits the president displayed in the Oval Office. In response, a dentist from New York wrote Eisenhower a note to remind him that Lees best efforts were directed at the destruction of the Union. But Eisenhower pushed back in a letter of his own, claiming that Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our nationselfless almost to a fault, noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history."

Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, the president continued, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained. For Eisenhower, Lees character could continue to serve to rally Americans around a national standardthis time, at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

In 1975, in a ceremony at Arlington House that Eisenhower would no doubt have approved, President Gerald Ford signed a resolution that restored Lees U.S. citizenship. In his speech, Ford stated what many Americans had already come to believe: General Lees character has been an example to succeeding generations, making the restoration of his citizenship an event in which every American can take pride. But even as the audience applauded, cracks in the Lee edifice were becoming increasingly visible.

His iconic status was challenged on two fronts. The first involved new scholarship on slavery that challenged deeply engrained myths and helped to highlight emancipation and the abolition of slavery as central themes of the Civil War. As a result it became increasingly difficult to commemorate the Confederacy without identifying the preservation of slavery and white supremacy as its central goal. Lee may have expressed some doubts before the war about the morality of slavery, but he felt it was a greater evil to the white man than to the black race. And recent research reveals that he could be an especially violent taskmaster, especially toward his own escaped slaves.

Lees war record points to a commitment to white supremacy as slavery began to unravel by 1863. Lee described Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation as a savage and brutal policy and urged the government to make every effort to save the honor of our families from pollution [and] our social system from destruction. Five months later, while marching into Pennsylvania in a campaign that culminated in the three-day Battle at Gettysburg, Lees army rounded up suspected fugitive slaves to stem their tide from the Upper South. Lees fears surrounding the effects of emancipation were on full display outside of Petersburg, Virginia, on July 30, 1864, where his men executed upward of 200 black Union soldiers both during and after what became known as the Battle of the Crater.

The rise of this new scholarship was accompanied by more determined political action that emerged from the civil-rights movement. In recent decades, changes in the racial and ethnic profile of local governments throughout the former Confederate states for the first time has made possible a more inclusive discussion about what existing monuments mean to their communities and which individuals and events deserve to be remembered and commemorated in public spaces. The ongoing debate in cities and towns across the South over Confederate iconography is a testament to this dramatic shift.

Shortly after the dedication of the Lee monument in Richmond in 1890, John Mitchell, the editor of the Richmond Planet, noted that, He [the African American] put up the Lee monument, and should the time come, will be there to take it down. Mitchells protests and those of others throughout much of the 20th century went largely unheard owing to a Jim Crow system that Confederate monuments themselves helped to cement. Now a major city is taking the general down from atop his pedestal. For Lee it represents another chapter in the slow decline of a once-revered national icon, but for the city of New Orleans it offers an opportunity for the first time to think carefully as a community about how its past can inspire it to move forward.

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Robert E. Lee Topples From His Pedestal - The Atlantic