“We are not going to strike. We are not even having a sit-in strike. Nobody and nothing will come in and nothing will go out without our permission. And there will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying because the world is watching us, and it is our responsibility to conduct ourselves with responsibility, and with dignity, and with maturity.”
Reid’s principled leadership was essential in gaining the support of the majority of Glasgow’s residents. A demonstration in support of the union saw 80,000 people march through the city. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were amongst those who donated to the cause of the workers, giving £5,000, which was a substantial amount of money at the time. Reid and the shipbuilders won, and the Edward Heath government backed off on cutting the shipyard’s subsidies.
Another speech, one Reid made to students as rector of Glasgow University on “rejecting the rat race,” is a legendary piece of rabble-raising oratory. The New York Times printed the speech in full and declared it to be on par with the Gettysburg Address. It’s been republished lately in several British papers (here from The Independent) on the occasion of Reid’s death on August 10th and the memorial service held for him today. I highly recommend reading it. It’s surely as relevant today as it was when he first spoke these words. Fans of great writing and speechification, take note, you’ve not heard these thoughts expressed in quite this same way ever before and these words will move you and stay with you for a long time. Seriously, considering the shape the economies of the West are in and what this shitstorm has meant for the common and uncommon man alike, I think this should be considered MANDATORY READING right about now.
I can vividly recall listening to a BBC radio broadcast in 1983, during the apocalyptic miner’s strike going in Britain at the time. I was sitting in the sunny backyard garden of a squat where I lived in the Brixton area of south London. Jimmy Reid was the main guest. It was thrilling for me, as an American, to hear someone say such… Communistic things on the radio. One of the other people who lived there, a Scot himself, made a big deal of it and bought some beers and rolled some joints, insisting that I listen with him in quiet contemplation of what the heroic Jimmy Reid had to say. I was glad I listened and you’ll be glad, too, if you click here and read the entirety of Reid’s “rat race” speech yourself.
Here is an excerpt from Jimmy Reid’s famous speech. It’s a pity it’s not on YouTube, but there is a clip of a young Reid in his fiesty prime embedded below.
To the students [of Glasgow University] I address this appeal. Reject these attitudes. Reject the values and false morality that underlie these attitudes. A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts, and before you know where you are, you’re a fully paid-up member of the rat-pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. Or as Christ put it, “What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?”
Still irresistible, a working-class hero’s finest speech (The Independent)
Final farewell for Glasgow shipyard leader Jimmy Reid (includes video of comedian Billy Connolly’s eulogy and additional links to more reporting on Reid’s life) (BBC News)
On Inauguration Day 1989, Washington DC-based club manager and booker Robert Egger opened the DC Central Kitchen in order to use job training, meal distribution, and supporting local food systems to help fight poverty, hunger and homelessness in the nation’s capital.
It was about five months after a certain repugnant blowhard named Rush Limbaugh took his show into national syndication. Last week, that blowhard had this to say about non-profit organizations:
Egger’s thoughtful response—after the jump—should encourage all you Dangerous Minds readers to donate to the DC Central Kitchen today…watch till the end…
Like many of you, I am sick to death of watching ill-educated and misinformed Tea party-types attempting to hijack the notion of “what our Founding Fathers would have wanted” in favor of what they and their ignorant brethren actually want. Whenever someone pulls out the “Founding Fathers” card these days, I recoil immediately because I know I am dealing with an intellectually dishonest scoundrel from the get-go, as this is usually an admission that what they have to say is totally bogus and very often has next to nothing to do with actual history. Referring to what the Founding Fathers would have wanted has become a fall-back straw-man argument of the historically-challenged Glen Beck set and it’s being rendered meaningless the more and more often it gets repeated by ignorant people wanting to shoot their mouths off on TV and at Tea party rallies regarding issues they know nothing about.
The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people.
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
Not very ambiguous is it? Even something like the above would probably still fail to faze the Facts? Who Cares About Facts? brigade of the Republican party. If you are going to invoke the matter of what the Founding Fathers would have wanted, you simply can’t pick and choose from history willy-nilly to suit your argument and be considered credible. But whether they are misinformed or simply lying, however you slice it, when these folks start to evoke what they Founding Fathers would have wanted, they are almost always just plain wrong.
But Yéle [Jean’s charity] needed a way to account for $250,000 that Mr. Jean, through the check to Telemax, had used to help cover the costs of a carnival float, Mr. Rawal said.
If this guy is elected president of Hati, something that seems highly likely to happen, the inevitable next chapters will include all kinds of financial malfeasance, rampant cronyism and who knows what other fuckery? But what will happen after a year or two of President Fugee spending relief money to glorify himself is easier to predict: International relief organizations and nations will simply refuse to deal with Haiti and the people will rot.
What’s good for Wyclef Jean is not synonymous with what is best for the people of Haiti.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the spectacle of seeing an egomaniacal pop star trying to get into politics as much as the next guy (I can’t wait for Sting to decide that he should be the UK prime minister, for instance), but this isn’t about the schadenfreude, it’s about how poorly Haiti will fare should this moron get elected.
Thank you Chris Campion!
Star’s Candidacy in Haiti Puts Focus on Charity (New York Times)
Dangerously close to those America : Love it or leave it bumper stickers the oldsters used to have in response to student protests in the 60s and 70s. Funny how the tables have turned.
