Category Archives: Freedom

Can you spot a Tory election lie?

Experts have blasted a Conservative Party claim that maintaining freedom of movement would cost the UK millions of pounds.

Writing on Twitter, university academics have contradicted a Tory claim that Corbyns plan to continue free movement with EU countries would cost the Department of Work and Pensions over 4 billion in extra benefit costs over the next 10 years.

Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics at Kings College London said the Tory claims were economically and statistically illiterate.

He said: The governments own analysis shows that EU migrants contribute much more than they claim in benefits and that reducing EU migration means higher taxes or lower public spending.

Meanwhile, Steve Peers, Professor of EU, Human Rights and World Trade Law at the University of Essex said:

Were back to Vote Leave style misleading and xenophobic claims about EU27 citizens and benefits.

Yesterday, we reported that Vote Leave director and Johnson enforcer Dominic Cummings was encouraging Tory activists to hammer a xenophobic, anti-immigration line on the doorstep.

Join the fightback against this scaremongering.

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Tory claim about the cost of freedom of movement "illiterate" and "xenophobic", say experts - Scram News

KANSAS CITY, Mo The Midwest Innocence Project hosted a small gathering Friday to celebrate one of its exonerees, Ricky Kidd, who was enjoying his 100th day of freedom.

Three years ago this month, 41 Action News first brought Kidd's plight to light. He was behind bars for a double murder he didn't commit.

[RELATED: When innocence isn't enough]

Finally, on a rainy August afternoon, Kidd walked out of the prison where he'd spent more than half of his life, while serving 23 years as an innocent man.

EXCLUSIVE: Exoneree Ricky Kidd expresses gratitude on 100th day of freedom

"There was plenty opportunity to be paralyzed or feel debilitated, but I chose not to," Kidd said at Friday's celebration.

His newfound freedom has included a series of firsts, which included getting a new driver's license and taking an escalator ride.

Kidd has started to share his story through a speaker's series called "I am Resilience," which is still booking now.

"Everybody has a struggle, and I want to be able to teach them about the five keys to being able to discover their own resilience," Kidd said.

So far, it's a journey that's taken him to four states, and along the way he's learning new things about himself.

It was a hotel stay in New York City that made him realize he's claustrophobic.

"I was hyperventilating," Kidd said. "Never saw that coming; never saw that coming."

Above all, Kidd remains deeply grateful and appreciate of the people who helped get him to where he is today, including that initial 41 Action News stories about his struggle for freedom.

"This story would could very well be told from behind prison walls," Kidd said. "Less than 1% are ever successful on appeal, but I was among that, those numbers. I am grateful for that."

He'll share that gratitude Thursday with his family on Thanksgiving as a free man.

"It's my first year in 23 years I get to spend with my family and they get to spend with me and we get to laugh," Kidd said. "Then, I'm sure we'll cry, and I'm sure we'll get our bellies full, so I'm excited about that."

Some excitement is welcome after leaving a nightmare behind.

Link:

Ricky Kidd expresses gratitude on 100th day of freedom - KSHB

This past October I toured with the Rocky Mountain Rangers through Belgium and France.

We visited a variety of battlefields, cemeteries, and monuments to honour our fallen members and own our regimental history.

As I stood on the soil that witnessed terrible carnage and incredible heroism, I was overcome with gratitude for those men and women who answered the call to serve their nation.

While these battles happened over 100 years ago, I felt a connection between their sacrifices and my own present-day freedoms.

Connecting sacrifice with freedom is at the heart of the Christian faith, in particular, the Christian understanding of Jesus death.

While some people understand Jesus death as simply the unfortunate consequence of challenging the powerful, most Christians see Jesus death as more purposeful. Jesus death is sometimes spoken of as Gods victory over sin, death, and the devil. Elsewhere it is understood as the righteous taking the place of the unrighteous, the innocent taking the place of the guilty. We commonly speak of Jesus dying for you and me.

Understanding Jesus to be taking our place involves a few important assumptions. It assumes humanity has done wrong, it assumes God demands justice and it assumes someone could make restitution and right all this wrong.

It is not hard to see that humanity has committed many wrongs. In the past few decades, weve witnessed all sorts of crimes against humanity around the globe. In our own country, the Canadian government has acknowledged injustices on our soil, including the internment of Japanese Canadians and the creation of residential schools.

It is not hard to see where humanity has done wrong. We are particularly adept at noting the sins of our neighbours. We hear a story about a distracted driver flattening a pedestrian and we are furious.

Seeing our errors and mistakes is perhaps a little more difficult. We continue to text while we are driving until we are called out by our kids or pulled over by the police. Then, we are forced to reckon with the fact we are not so innocent, but maybe just fortunate we havent caused an accident.

That mistakes and deliberate wrongdoing demands punishment or restitution can be seen in our criminal-justice system and those government apologies already mentioned.

We want justice, not a slap on the wrist, for the person who plowed into the pedestrian. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission demanded more than an apology; it issued 94 distinct

calls to action.

But if we demand accountability from each other, we can begin to understand the Christian contention that we are also responsible to our creator.

Our responsibility to God would seem to stand ahead of any other responsibilities. If God created all things, any recklessness toward ourselves or the rest of creation would demand justice and restitution to the one to whom all life owes its very origin.

So, how can justice be served and restitution be made to God?

What Christianity asserts is that Jesus stands in our place. The first epistle of Peter argues: He [Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:2).

But for Jesus to stand in our place and bear the sins of the world he would need to be more than human. What Christians believe is that God lived and died among us in Jesus, so that all things could be made right.

This is sometimes hard to grasp.

And yet maybe, just maybe in this season where we have observed Remembrance Day, there is a way to begin to understand this. Just as we comprehend a connection between the sacrifice of long-past soldiers and our present-day freedoms, we might begin to imagine how Jesus death can reconcile us to God.

I did plenty of research before I embarked on my battlefield tour with the Rocky Mountain Rangers. Probably the most heartbreaking story I ran across was the Newfoundland Regiments tragic advance at Beaumont Hamel on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

After a battle lasting only 30 minutes, less than 10 per cent of the regiment was able to answer roll call. The dead included 14 sets of brothers, including four lieutenants from one family.

My battlefield tour didnt take me to Newfoundland Memorial Park. But Ive read that, at the entrance of the park, there is a memorial stone with this inscription:

Tread softly here! Go reverently and slow!

Yea, let your soul go down upon its knees,

And with bowed head and heart abased strive hard

To grasp the future gain in this sore loss!

For not one foot of this dank sod but drank

Its surfeit of the blood of gallant men.

Who, for their faith, their hope for Life and Liberty,

Here made the sacrifice here gave their lives.

And gave right willingly for you and me.

We are separated from these soldiers by time and geography.

In 1916, Newfoundland was not even part of Canada. Yet most of us can understand their deaths are connected to our freedoms.

As the inscription states, they gave their lives for you and me.

Two-thousand years ago, the Son of God was nailed to a cross in Palestine. Jesus stood in our place, dying for you and me so that we could live free from the guilt of all our mistakes and all our willful wrongdoings.

Rev. Steve Filyk is minister at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in South Kamloops (Sagebrush) and is also chaplain for the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a primary reserve infantry regiment of the Canadian Army headquartered in the JR Vicars Armoury in Kamloops.

KTW welcomes submissions to its Faith page. Columns should be between 600 and 800 words in length and can be emailed to editor@kamloopsthisweek.com. Please include a very short bio and a photo.

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Faith: Connecting sacrifice with present-day freedom - Kamloops This Week

Debra Des Vignes, founder and director of the Indiana Prison Writers Workshop, is always rooting for the underdog. Her family was often on the move during her youth, changing addresses every three or four years.

I felt like a nomad and an outcast most of my life, the new kid on the block, the new kid in school, said Des Vignes.

Des Vignes got her start as a TV reporter at ABC-7 in Los Angeles in the early '90s. This job required that she move frequently. She found herself embedded in various police departments as a crime reporter.

I was so used to being a reporter and telling the stories law enforcement angle, she said. But I knew there was more to the story. Having left the field TV news, now working in nonprofit communications, I called one of the facilities and asked, Are you looking for any volunteers? And all the Indiana Department of Correction facilities are in need of volunteers.

Des Vignes described the first time she entered the Plainfield Correctional Facility, in the summer of 2017, in order to teach a victim impact class.

You could hear a pin drop as I walked down the halls to meet the men in the class, she said. The first couple times you do it, it's just surreal; drab walls and they're all in Department of Correction jumpsuits. And then when you meet the men, there's laughter and there's joy you learn about everyday life in prison. You're hearing about the bunkmate conversations, the chow hall, solitary confinement, how they oftentimes feel alone, but are essentially are not alone.

Indiana Prison Writers Workshop instructor Tiffany Leininger (left) and Debra Des Vignes (right) with inmates at Putnamville Correctional Facility

The victim impact class that she was teaching had a pre-designed curriculum but she didnt stick to the script.

I decided to ask the guys to write something write a letter, just get their creative thoughts on paper, she said. What I realized is that there was a lot of raw talent in the room that had not been challenged. There was an interest in writing and expression. And so after that, I developed a program, the Indiana Prison Writers Workshop program; I met with some local authors and writers and developed a 12-week curriculum, turned it into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, filled out the required paperwork on a board of directors. All that set it in motion.

The Indiana Prison Writers Workshop was incorporated and recognized as a nonprofit in 2018.

On Nov. 8, Des Vignes took part in (Writes) of Passage, Moving Beyond Incarceration, a Spirit & Place Festival event. Other sponsors included The Indiana Womens Prison History Project and the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. Des Vignes, who is a community scholar with the IUPUI English Department Writing Program, is also part of the Prison Education program, one of the incubator projects being developed through the IUPUI Arts & Humanities Institute.

(W)rites of Passage, which won Spirit & Places 2019 Award of Awesomeness, took place at The Church Within. During the program, former inmates read aloud both the work that they had written, as well as the work of other program participants who are still incarcerated to a packed audience.

One of those workshop participants, Phil Roberts, read a short piece about seeing his daughter for the first time after being incarcerated for two years. During his incarceration he dreamed that she would recognize him, but this was not to be. After he stepped into the house of his daughters mother, he saw his daughter at the kitchen table: I take a few steps toward her and say, Can Dada have a hug? She runs off, scared, as if I am a complete stranger. Her mother encourages her to give me a hug. She replies, as tears well in her eyes, But, I dont want to.

Phil Roberts at podium during (W)rites of Passage event at The Church Within

After the event, Roberts talked about becoming involved in the Indiana Prison Writers Workshop.

I met Debra at Plainfield Correctional Facility where I was serving two years, he said. There was a message that came over the message system to ask if anyone was interested in joining a creative writing class, so I joined the class, and the class was every Sunday. From the first class, she gave us a writing prompt that said, If you were a bird, where would you go? What type of bird would you be? Who would you go see? Would you fly alone with another flock of birds? She gave us 15 minutes to do that writing prompt and I looked out the window. When she said go, I just disappeared. Really, It was like a sense of freedom. I mean, I turned into that bird and it gave me life.

Roberts took the workshop in 2017 and was released on Oct. 1, 2018.

Said Des Vignes, The first week he was released, I was able to be in contact with his family through an art function that we had, and he was able to reach out to Indiana Prison Writers Workshop. So I had lined up for him several speaking opportunities and different functions around town we spoke at several on incarceration.

Indiana Prison Writers Workshop also helped Roberts during his transition to life outside the prison.

I felt like without this class, I wouldn't have had the confidence to even try to write a cover letter so it really helped me out a lot, said Roberts. When I did eventually write one, I handed it to Miss Deb. I had let her proofread it and she was like, Oh man this is this is almost too good you know so and it really did help me a lot. I ended up getting the job.

He is currently employed in a plastics recycling facility.

The Indiana Prison Writers Workshop has received help from numerous nonprofit organizations and volunteers from the central Indiana community. This support comes in the form of curriculum development, financial support, inmate instruction, and publishing work of current and former inmates.

Emcee David Gaspar at podium during (W)rites of Passage

Partners and supporters include Flanner Community Writing Center, The Sun Magazine, IUPUI Arts & Humanities Institute, Indiana Writers Center, Central Indiana Community Foundation, and the Kurt Vonnegut Museum & Library.

Des Vignes emphasized that (W)rites of Passage was a collaborative endeavor.

We let the offenders really, in a way, run the event, letting their voices be heard, but also helping by attending planning meetings, she said. It was a nice collaborative effort with Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program and Indiana Women's Prison History Project. And so, the three entities, including myself, were able to compile great stories, and then pick the ones that we thought would really work for the event.

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The Indiana Prison Writers Workshop Gives Inmates the Freedom to Create - NUVO

This year, for a brief moment in the history of Australian journalism, every significant news organisation in this country put its competitive instincts and its differences to one side and united as one voice to stand against an unacceptable step down the road to authoritarianism. Authoritarianism unchecked can lead to fascism. Fortunately in this country were a long way from that yet, but a study of history amply demonstrates how fascism begins. Freedom is usually eroded gradually. It might happen over years, even decades. Its loss is not necessarily felt day by day, but we will certainly know when its gone.

So far the Morrison government has resisted the industrys appeal for fundamental protections of a free and robust press to be enshrined in legislation at the very least not placing journalists above the law but enshrining in a practical and meaningful way their special place as a crucial pillar of democracy.

Perhaps the government is intending to wait us out, waiting for the issue to go away in the hope that most people in this country are so consumed by bread and butter issues, so consumed by their own lives and personal struggles and challenges, that they wont care enough, when the chips are down, to support something as abstract as the spirit of democracy or the spirit of freedom because you cant cash in the spirit of something at the bank, as you might a tax cut.

So far the Coalition has resisted the industrys appeal for fundamental protections of a free and robust press

That is why we have to remain resolved to keep this campaign going, and not let it go, even after a few months, because those of us who have witnessed and experienced and reported on repression in other countries, some of them not too far from our own shores, understand the solid reality of democracy as well as the strength or weakness of its spirit. Some of our colleagues have paid the ultimate price for exposing abuses of democracy, and lost their lives.

Australias foreign minister, Marise Payne, recently chastised China on its human rights record, observing that countries that respect and promote their citizens rights at home tend also to be better international citizens.

I would add to that: countries that dont respect and promote their citizens rights at home are living in glass houses and have diminished their right to be taken seriously when they try to preach to neighbours from a high moral ground they have surrendered.

This also comes at a time when the spirit of freedom of information laws, if not the letter, is being abused and there are more allegations of corruption being investigated officially than ever before.

Theres another inconsistency that needs to be called out. This government is fond of saying, as it did in seeking to distance itself from the decisions by Australian federal police to raid the ABC and the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst that it cant interfere in police operational matters. Yet, in seeking to assuage the concerns of media companies and journalists after the raids, the attorney general, Christian Porter, promised that he would actually be prepared to become involved in the process to the extent of insisting on the director of public prosecutions getting his personal consent before seeking to prosecute a journalist.

Sorry Mr Porter, that is not reassuring. The judgements you might bring to bear will not be independent of the governments own self-interest, and we all know that self-interest of any stripe, political or otherwise, can be a powerful deterrent from doing the right thing. That is not understanding the spirit or the concept of free speech, nor materially guaranteeing free speech or a free press.

But we have to practice what we preach. Our work across the breadth of all media and all communities should speak for our integrity from the smallest story to the biggest. Individually and collectively. And if it doesnt that should make us uncomfortable, in the very least. Because if we are going to stand on our dignity and defend press freedom as a fundamental pillar of democracy, then we have to be sure that our actions are defensible, that we do what we say we do. And at the heart of the Walkley Foundations work is the protection and promotion of integrity in journalism.

There is one other issue I want to acknowledge tonight. In 2011 Walkley judges awarded a Walkley to Wikileaks, with Julian Assange as its editor, for its outstanding contribution to journalism. The judgement was not lightly made that Assange was acting as a journalist, applying new technology to penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup. Those inconvenient truths were published far and wide in the mainstream media. As we sit here tonight, Julian Assange is moldering in a British prison awaiting extradition to the United States, where he may pay for their severe embarrassment with a life in prison. Again, this government could demonstrate its commitment to a free press by using its significant influence with its closest ally to gain his return to Australia.

Another challenge our industry faces is the trend towards the polarisation of our craft the attempts by some to paint us as either of the left or of the right which has to be resisted, because I firmly believe that for the vast bulk of us, that is not how we practise our trade. We do not arrive in the nurseries of journalism as budding ideologues of left or right, nor do the vast bulk of us become that way as we develop.

I absolutely reject the Roger Ailes view of the world, that if youre not on the right then you must be on the left.

For journalists to call out the powerful of any political colour for their abuses of power is not about ideology. It is simply journalists doing their job, practising their craft.

Adele Ferguson was not reflecting some personal ideological hatred of capitalism when she called out corrupt behaviour within our banking and financial sector, forcing a royal commission on a reluctant government. And nor were the whistleblowers who helped her being ideological. They saw a wrong and followed their conscience with great courage to reveal it, paying a heavy personal price in the process.

There was nothing ideological about Chris Masters determination to bring into the light of day serious and deeply disturbing allegations of war crimes by elite Australian military forces in Afghanistan, first in his book and then with Nick McKenzie in further sustained investigative reporting. It was strong, compelling journalism of integrity.

When Hedley Thomas gripped the world with his Teachers Pet podcast, forced the re-opening of the Lynette Dawson case, leading to the arrest of her husband, was he driven by ideology? Of course not.

Or when Anne Connolly forced another royal commission, into aged care, with her exposes of the sickening abuses within that industry?

Joanne McCarthy wasnt under instruction from some secret socialist cell or driven by a hatred of Christianity when she exposed the pattern of endemic sexual abuse and attempted cover-ups perpetrated from within the Catholic church in the Hunter region.

Kate McClymont wasnt acting as a servant of either the conservative right or the Labor left when she doggedly and courageously exposed the entrenched corrupt practices of Eddie Obeid.

Abuse of power is abuse of power, no matter who the abuser is. Corruption in this country is corruption, no matter who the corrupt are, no matter what their politics.

This is a time of serious challenge for our craft across a broad front, at a time when democratic societies like ours are losing their trust in institutions pretty much across the board. The integrity reflected in the work were about to celebrate tonight is our bulwark against that erosion of trust and a reminder not only to the citizens of this country, but importantly to ourselves, of what were capable of, and of what we aspire to be.

Thank you.

Kerry OBrien is a journalist, former editor and host of The 7.30 Report and Four Corners on the ABC, and chair of the Walkley Foundation. This is an edited version of his opening speech for the Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism in Sydney on Thursday

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This government must be held to account on press freedom. It's not to be taken lightly - The Guardian

You are cordially invited to join us at TOS-Con 2020, in Newton, MA, July 29 through August 1.

The conference will be at the Boston Marriott Newton, on the south bank of the gorgeous Charles River, just 5 miles from Boston proper.

The location is serene, with trails galore, canoeing and kayaking, and a beautiful greenway for riverside picnics, conversations, games, and jam sessions. Its also just a short Uber ride from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Freedom Trail, Faneuil Hall, Fenway Park, the New England Aquarium, Boston Harbor, and countless other attractions.

Confirmed speakers so far include:

Lisa VanDamme Brad Thompson Timothy Sandefur Isaac Morehouse Jon Hersey Robin Field

Jason Crawford David Crawford Craig Biddle Andrew Bernstein Rajshree Agarwal

Additionalspeakers, presentation topics, social events, and other details will be announced soon.

Register now and save 20% to 50% with our steeply discounted early-bird pricing.

I look forward to seeing you and your friends at TOS-Con 2020the most life-enhancing conference of the year!

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Come to TOS-Con 2020: Philosophy for Freedom and Flourishing! - The Objective Standard

Last week, Israeli prosecutors charged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with three counts of corruption. At the core of the indictment is an accusation that Netanyahu accepted bribes in the form of positive press coverage (or more precisely, reduction in negative coverage). In exchange, Netanyahu allegedly advanced the interests of two powerful Israeli media organizations.

The unprecedented designation by prosecutors of press coverage as a currency for bribery has far-reaching implications on the freedom of the press, and could curtail journalists ability to report the truth.

For example, the morning after Netanyahus indictment, several prominent journalists and editors called for Netanyahus immediate resignation, thereby creating public pressure for his removal. If Netanyahu resigns, and one of those journalists later receives some sort of benefit from the new government, such as an exclusive interview, then according to last weeks precedent, that journalist could be exposed to charges of bribery.

Another challenge to freedom of the press that arose from last weeks indictment relates to journalists complex, multi-layer relations with their sources a process that certainly includes a lot of give and take. A journalists interaction with sources, including politicians, is now suddenly under scrutiny criminal scrutiny! With such restrictions, it is possible that many journalists headline-grabbing exposures, such as Watergate, would have not been uncovered.

There are those in Israel who dismiss this by arguing that the indictment has nothing to do with freedom of the press, but rather with Netanyahus corruption. For decades, alas, Israeli prosecutors and investigators sought to find wrongdoing by Netanyahu and his family. This is the best they could come up with, explained one commentator about the prime ministers indictment. Decades of searching for misconduct now resulting in such a bizarre charge could paradoxically be interpreted by some as a testament to Netanyahus integrity. Indeed, many around the world were quick to condemn the Israeli prosecutors action. For example, Mark Levin tweeted: Ive carefully reviewed these charges and theyre outrageous. This is an assault on freedom of the press and the investigation was corrupt.

But there is also another side to the story. Israel is a hub for global innovations: Turning air into water, saving lives through medical breakthroughs, generating cutting-edge ideas that alter long-held beliefs. In this realm, perhaps the revolutionary treatment of press coverage by Israeli prosecutors, who are revered around the legal world for their high professionalism, awakens the issue of the power of the press and brings it for debate in the global public square.

After all, the media shape peoples minds. Why should it not be held accountable? Should journalists and media outlets be investigated about what really motivates their coverage? For example, the BBC, which influences millions of British citizens, has long been perceived to have a positive bias toward the European Union (EU) and to give negative coverage to the Brexit campaign. It was then revealed that the BBC has allegedly been the recipient of millions of Euros from the EU. Similar realities exist with other news outlets around the world. Some are open about their bias and are even proud of it.

Decisions by journalists and editors can make or break the careers of politicians and influence the outcomes of elections. Nowhere is this more paramount than in the case of Netanyahu, who, along with his family, has been a subject of a smear campaign by the Israeli media for over 25 years now. The negative press has been so extreme that even Netanyahus arch-rival, Arab Joint List Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi, who was a close associate of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, came to Netanyahus defense in 2010. Tibi denounced what he labeled the inhuman treatment of Netanyahus wife. In an emotional speech from the podium of the Knesset, he stated: I will do whatever it takes to unseat you, but will never use attacks on your wife and family to do so.

With media outlets deploying their enormous power to achieve their objectives, such as to unseat Netanyahu or to reject Brexit, perhaps Israeli prosecutors taking the lid off the sanctity of the freedom of the press should not be brushed off so quickly.Granted, there are other problematic aspects of Netanyahus indictment, such as the allegation of selective enforcement (many politicians received positive coverage, but none were indictment). Alan Dershowitz, for example, argued earlier this year that to bring down a duly elected prime minister on the basis of an expansive and unprecedented application of a broad and expandable criminal statute, endangers democracy.

No matter what one thinks about the merits of the indictment, one thing is clear: A historic debate about the freedom of the press has been launched.

Gol Kalev analyzes trends in Zionism, Europe and global affairs. For more of his articles: europeandjerusalem.com.

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KALEV: Netanyahu's Indictment Could Be A Game-Changer For Freedom Of The Press - The Daily Wire

1. Freedom in route running has helped John Brown excel in Buffalo

John Brown has been the top wide receiver in the AFC this season. His 817 receiving yards rank first among all wide receivers and second overall only behind Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Part of that success has been the freedom Brown has to run more routes in Brian Dabolls offense.

"I've been running routes since high school. Certain offenses that I got put in they liked me to go deep, so I was doing what I was told to do. Now I'm here and they let me run routes, Brown said onWGR 550Howard and Jeremy show. Routes underneath, getting open on short routes, so I'm just happy that I'm able to show that I'm an all-around athlete as a receiver. Even though it came kind of late in my career, I'm still just thankful that I'm able to show that I'm not just a deep threat."

But Brown has to be on the same page as Josh Allen. The two have taken extra time during practice to get timing down in their first season playing together.

"We take time out, even at practice when the defense is going, we'll run a few routes, Brown said. He gives me a couple of signals, and I give him a signal back to let him know whether I like it or not. If he gives it to me, we show body language and things like that, but it's getting better every week."

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Bills Today | Freedom in route running has helped John Brown excel in Buffalo - BuffaloBills.com

The guides, who work for a nonprofit foundation, got so fed up with their working conditions that they voted to unionize in February. Their main demands: the ability to use microphones, to cancel tours during bad weather, and to call in sick without feeling they have to find their own replacements.

Whats more, their base pay $45 for a 90-minute public tour hasnt increased in 12 years, the guides said.

With the frigid New England winter approaching, improving their working conditions is an increasingly pressing matter. But as negotiations stretch into their ninth month, little progress has been made.

Unionization has been part of this country since the beginning, guides point out. Their union, the Bellringers Guild, is named for the workers association Paul Revere helped create in the mid-1700s when he was a bell ringer at the Old North Church.

How are we going to be talking about the Boston Tea Party and people overthrowing this oppressive authority without doing it ourselves? said Margaret Ann Brady, a 12-year guide who plays Mary Clapham, a widow who ran a boarding house near the Old State House.

Suzanne Taylor, executive director of the Freedom Trail Foundation, which employs the guides, did not directly respond to questions regarding the unions complaints, but she said in a statement that the foundation has been and continues to negotiate with our employees in good faith in order to reach an agreement for an initial collective bargaining agreement. We respect their right to collectively bargain and to free speech as we continue to work towards an agreement.

The tour guides are part of a wave of workers who have reached out to Unite Here Local 26 on their own in recent years, said spokeswoman Tiffany Ten Eyck. Millennials and professionals are bringing new energy to a movement that used to be largely working class. Public support for unions is at a 15-year high, according to Gallup, bolstered by a string of high-profile strikes, including Unite Heres national Marriott strike of 2018 that resulted in historic gains for Boston hotel workers.

The 30-plus guides work year-round, taking visitors to 16 historic sites along the 2 -mile Freedom Trail, including Paul Reveres house and the site of the Boston Massacre. During peak times, there might be more than 14 tours a day, with groups ranging from as small as one or two people in the winter to 50 during the summer.

More than 4 million people tour the trail every year, according to the foundations website, and the numbers keep growing. This year, some 21 million people will visit Boston, up 1 million from last year, according to the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau. And as the size of the tours grow, so does the pressure on guides. And that includes straining their voices to be heard over the din of a noisy city.

Providing portable microphones would solve this, the guides say, but the foundation owns only four and is reluctant to let guides use them. The nonprofit says it takes away from the historical experience.

The idea is absurd because if [visitors] cant hear, that takes them out of the experience, said Emma Wiegand, who has been a guide for four years and portrays Lydia Mulliken, the fiancee of Samuel Prescott, a doctor who was part of Paul Reveres midnight ride.

The honking horns and Dunkin Donuts shops along the trail also arent historically accurate, the guides point out.

Many of the professionally trained guides have side jobs, but the Freedom Trail work is often their primary source of income. In addition to stagnant base pay, they say, discounted tickets also take a toll. Guides receive $2 for each full-price ticket sold on public tours after the first 10 people, but they get only $1 when guests buy reduced-price tickets.

Between April and October, Wiegand estimated, she has lost $407 from discounted tickets.

Guides are also calling for clearer policies for canceling tours when theres lightning or extreme cold or heat. When Tim Hoover started giving tours in 2009, he said, guides were allowed to cancel tours when the temperature dipped below 20 degrees. But they no longer have that discretion.

The foundation directors response: We try not to cancel tours.

Working outside in foul weather can also lead to people getting sick, and tour guides said they are expected to find their own replacements when they are ill. As if thats not hard enough, they said, they are also expected to be entertaining.

You have to walk through freezing rain and make jokes about Benjamin Franklin, said Anna Waldron, a former Freedom Trail tour guide who said management made her come into work when she couldnt find a substitute.

The foundation abides by the state sick time law, Taylor said, which forbids employers from requiring employees to find their own replacements.

The tour guides arent asking for much, said Local 26s Ten Eyck just consistent policies that will preserve their health and safety and its offensive that the Freedom Trail Foundation isnt being more responsive.

In the meantime, guides have used their expertise in history and entertainment to spread awareness about their contract fight. Over the summer, they handed out fliers reading: We cant wait to tell you about the enslaved man who spearheaded smallpox inoculation. . . . We would just prefer to not be sick while doing it.

The guides emphasized they wouldnt be doing this if they didnt love their jobs.

We want to make this the best possible workplace for everyone, Brady said. We want the foundation to succeed.

On a recent sunny day, guide Gabriel Graetz , who plays renowned Colonial-era painter John Singleton Copley, led a tour of 40 people through the centuries-old downtown streets.

Part of being in a living, breathing city is you might get run over, he said, ushering the group to the side of the footpath as a large truck drove onto Boston Common.

Tereza Jurikova , a coordinator of educational tours in Prague, was impressed with what she saw.

I admire the dedication and enthusiasm, she said of Graetz. It seems like the hardest tour guide job Ive encountered anywhere during my travels.

Maysoon Khan can be reached at maysoon.khan@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @maysoonkhann. Katie Johnston can be reached at kjohnston@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ktkjohnston.

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Bostons Freedom Trail guides are staging their own rebellion - The Boston Globe

The fate of all these movements is uncertain, but they share a more unambiguous commitment to sovereignty than most global protest stories of the past few decades, and perhaps an understanding that national and cultural identity are vital weapons against authoritarian hegemonic powers. Smaller governments may not guarantee freedom and human rights, but big ones almost guarantee their absence.

Doubtless Hong Kongs courageous and improbably successful stand against China, the worlds rising hegemonic tyranny, has inspired many of the other movements making headlines today. It is remarkable to believe the protest movement in Hong Kong is barely eight months old because the world before China attempted to force a draconian extradition bill on its restless island possession seems like an entirely different place. Much that was once unthinkable or unimaginable has become possible since Hong Kongers rose up against Beijing.

The Hong Kong crisis illustrates the difference between independence and freedom. The Chinese Communist Party likes to accuse Hong Kong protesters of harboring separatist ambitions, but the boldest of their five demands is merely for a democratically-elected administration instead of stooges appointed by Beijing. The extradition bill that touched off the protest movement in March was an assault on Hong Kongs autonomy, a way for China to override the island citys legal system and drag its people into the politicized totalitarian hell that passes for a court of law in China.

The people of Hong Kong want a government responsive to their interests, preserving their autonomy their freedom without demanding full independence from China. This is also true of 2019s other big protest movements in places like Iraq, Iran, and Latin America. The corrupt regimes they are rising up against love to portray them as separatists or puppets of hostile foreign powers, but even in Iran, the impoverished frontier ethnic enclaves protesting against Tehrans gasoline price increases werent trying to break away from the central government.

On the contrary, Iraqi protesters consider themselves deeply patriotic. In addition to denouncing the corruption and inefficiency of their government, they are demanding an end to political meddling by a hostile foreign power, namely Iran. The Iraq protests have included remarkable scenes of devout Iraqi Shiite Muslims rising up against the aspiring Shiite hegemony across their border. Iraqis living in Shiite holy cities like Karbala are risking their livelihoods by standing up to Iran, which sends a constant stream of pilgrims through their hotels, restaurants, and shops.

The Iranians responded to the Iraq protests by sending terrorist masterminds like Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps star quarterback Gen. Qassem Soleimani over to Baghdad to murder people in the streets. It didnt work. The protests have continued even as the body count increases.

Iran is also losing influence in Lebanon, where protests began with relatively upbeat street theater but are now teetering on the brink of civil war. The people have lost confidence in a ruling class that took shape after the last civil war, promising to balance Lebanons religious and political tensions but delivering a combination of corruption, ineptitude, terrorism, and authoritarianism. Many Lebanese deeply resent Iran and Saudi Arabia using their country as a proxy battlefield, with the animus shifting decidedly against Iran and its terrorist proxies in Hezbollah as they use violence to protect their power.

Algeria has also been the scene of ongoing protests, for even longer than Hong Kong. The protesters managed to force President Abdelaziz Bouteflika out of office in April and keep him off the December ballot, but they are still marching in the streets because they view most of their ballot options as corrupt members of the old guard. As with the Iraqis and Lebanese, as with the people of Hong Kong, Algerians want an entirely new political system and seek to dethrone the elites that have ruled them for decades.

2019 saw protest movements appear across Latin America, with demonstrators calling for revolutionary change in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and most recently Colombia. Demonstrations are frequent in some of these countries and the demands of their various protest movements vary widely, with anger over corruption the strongest common thread, but it is unusual to see so many nations in the region descend into chaos at the same time. The success of the Hong Kong protest is frequently cited as an inspiration for unhappy citizens across Latin America to hit the streets.

In the Caribbean, protests in Haiti, Dominica, and Puerto Rico have been severe enough to keep cruise ships away, further damaging fragile economies. As with the protesters in Hong Kong, angry citizens in these embattled nations say they are willing to take the economic hit, even though poverty and joblessness are among their top complaints because they believe their futures will only improve once their corrupt and stagnant political systems are swept away.

The Western world has seen its share of protest movements as well, usually with a bit less chaos in the streets, although the yellow jackets of France have done their part to provide some fireworks, and there are American cities where street theater is now a common occurrence.

Perhaps the worldwide protests against corrupt and despotic regimes, including the astounding saga of Hong Kong, originated in a decade of growing unrest with the political class and wealthy elites of the West.

Clearly the Trump administrations trade war with China weakened Beijing enough to make sustained resistance possible in Hong Kong, but even before that, growing disillusionment with Western elites had produced justifiably cynical electorates that expressed their anger through Trumps election in 2016 and Brexit in the United Kingdom.

Hong Kong is surely the inspiration engine driving the worldwide protest movements of 2019, and leading Hong Kong activists have demonstrated keen knowledge of Western political crises throughout the new century. Among other signs of this, Hong Kong protesters are fond of the sameV for Vendettamasks everyone in the West dons when they demand a comeuppance for the rich and powerful.

The common refrain across all of the current protest movements is that they do not believe their political systems can resolve the problems of their nations. They want complete overhauls, no matter the cost, and most of the protests are making it clear that nobody from the old political order need apply for a job in the new system. They do not believe one more vote under the old rules, or one more round of programs from the old administrators, will make a difference.

Some of these protest movements are not sure what will make a difference, but they are united by their conviction that incompetence and corruption from old-fashioned graft to Hong Kongs administrators serving Beijings interests instead of their own people has erased the legitimacy of their elite.

Those complaints should sound very familiar to American ears. Be thankful that we have allowed our crisis of confidence in the elite to fill our streets with corpses and our hospitals with maimed civilians. Let us hope we can keep it that way.

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Hayward: Give Thanks for Your Freedom as Everyone from Hong Kong to Iraq Fights for Theirs - Breitbart