We Are Many

Posted on September 1, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in 3. Films, The 5% Campaign • Tagged TPFF, We Are Many

Amir Amirani’s film We Are Many was in the research and making for more than nine years. Addressing the illegality of the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent undermining of democratic processes, it sets alongside the power of public protest and mass mobilisations of the anti-Iraq war movement – a movement that was to inspire the Egyptian uprising of 2011; a movement of more than 15 million people, in 800 cities, in 70 countries who marched to protest the imminent invasion of Iraq; a movement which shaped a generation.

Tipping Point Film Fund was the film’s first funder in late 2010 and was an executive producing partner throughout. It was a lead partner on a Kick-starter campaign that raised $92k for the production costs and worked with Amir across fundraising, production, editing, and release in UK cinemas in 2016, as well as the film’s outreach on related peace issues. Find out more here.

WE ARE MANY is available on iTunes and Google Play.

Continue reading →

The Power of Us

Posted on August 7, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in 3. Films • Tagged Crowdfunding, The Power of Us, TPFF

Developed by TPFF with support from The co-operative

The Power of Us, a new film about co-operation, is fully developed and seeking production funding.
Continue reading →

King Assassination Project (Working Title)

Posted on July 26, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in 3. Films, Uncategorized • Tagged Martin Luther King Jr.

In summer 2018 we began filming for our ‘King Assassination Project’. The film will look at more than 40 years of controversy surrounding the case. More importantly – and uniquely –offers an opportunity to put the case that King’s assassination was a direct result of the threat posed from his latter years activity(1965-68) as he led the civil rights movement into anti-Vietnam War and Economic Justice coalition building.

We are indebted to the support of our friends and colleagues at Sands Films Studios, our production partners on this film, along with a number of major donors who have underwritten the first phase of production.

In April 2018, the world marked the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King and in summer 2018 we began filming for our ‘King Assassination Project’. The film will look at more than 40 years of controversy surrounding the case. More importantly – and uniquely –offers an opportunity to put the case that King’s assassination was a direct result of the threat posed from his latter years activity(1965-68) as he led the civil rights movement into anti-Vietnam War and Economic Justice coalition building.

It is the story of King we have never been told. It dives deep into the root causes, planning and aftermath of the assassination of one of the towering political figures of the 20^th century; a story of resonance today for African Americans in particular and, in general for all those around the world who are concerned with social justice.

********

WHY MLK STILL MATTERS – AND WHY THIS FILM NOW

MLK is a man whose time is now. His call for an end to poverty, racism and militarism is arguably way more prescient now than in 1967. This film would both bring a thorough and up to date telling of the MLK assassination as well as shed light on MLK’s relevance for today. This project has grown out of our research on MLK as part of our collaboration with colleagues in the USA to finds ways to internationalise the work of Dr King at the end of his – in particular his Poor People’s Campaign and associated Economic Bill of Rights. Article written to mark 50^th Anniversary

https://mlkglobal.org/2018/04/03/if-you-think-you-know-martin-luther-king-think-again/

Mark Mandela’s centenary & commit to supporting BDS

Posted on July 18, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in 1. Recent Posts • Tagged Make Apartheid History, Mandela Day, Nelson Mandela

‘The Triple Evils of economic exploitation, racism and militarism are forms of violence that exist in a vicious cycle. They are interrelated (and), all-inclusive…’’

Martin Luther King 1967

Today July 18^th we mark the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth.

In 2018 the world marks anniversaries of three inter-linked movements that spanned the 20^th and into the 21^st century.

Civil Rights, Anti-Apartheid and Palestine Freedom Struggles

Mandela Centenary 1918-2018

Palestine Nakba -‘Catastrophe’ 1948.

MLK Assassination 1968

All three struggles faced King’s ‘triple evils’: racism and far right organising; bearing the brunt of a massive security and military establishment; economic exploitation. But the power of effective domestic and international solidarity economic, academic, cultural and sporting boycotts is also a critical part of their shared story.

In 1948, the same year as the Palestinian Nakba which saw zionist militia ethnically cleanse more 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland and destroy more than 500 palestinian villages, South africa formally adopted the apartheid regime.

“Apartheid was an extension of the colonial project to dispossess

people of their land. That is exactly what has happened in Israel and the occupied

territories; the use of force and the law to take the land. That is what apartheid

and Israel have in common.’’

Ronnie Kasrils, the Jewish South African cabinet minister and former ANC guerrilla, Jerusalem, February 2009.

“Expelling people from their homes is a war crime. As well as preventing them from returning. Israel didn’t just commit a war crime in 1948 but continues to commit one to this day.’’

Salman Abu Sitta, Author of Atlas of Palestine 1948

MANDELA, the ANC & the PLO

June 1961 Letter From Underground, Nelson Mandela wrote:

“The histories of our two peoples, Palestinian and South African, correspond in such painful and poignant ways, that I intensely feel myself being at home amongst compatriots’’
“We identify with the PLO, because just like ourselves they are fighting for the right of self determination.”

“Yesterday’s South African township dwellers can tell you about today’s life in the Occupied Territories… More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail… If apartheid ended, so can the occupation. But the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

CIVIL RIGHTS FREEDOM RIDERS INSPIRE THE PALESTINIAN MOVEMENT

MARTIN LUTHER KING & MANDELA

In 1955, at the age of 25, young Memphis pastor Martin Luther King was asked to become the churches lead on the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It took more than a year, but it was successful in its aim to desegregate the buses. Economic boycotts were to become a critical tool in King’s strategy – right up to the end. In his final ‘mountaintop’ speech, the night before he was murdered, he was calling for the boycott of Coca-Cola.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr City Temple London 7^th December 1964

Clearly there is much in Mississippi and Alabama to remind the South Africans of their own country… great leaders, like Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, are among the many hundreds wasting away in Robben Island prison… It is in this situation, with the great mass of South Africans denied their humanity, their dignity, denied opportunity, denied all human rights; it is in this situation, with many of the bravest and best South Africans serving long years in prison, with some already executed; in this situation we in America and Britain have a unique responsibility, for it is we, through our investments, through our governments’ failure to act decisively, who are guilty of bolstering up the South African tyranny…. If the United Kingdom and the United States decided tomorrow morning not to buy South African goods, not to buy South African gold, to put an embargo on oil, if our investors and capitalists would withdraw their support for that racial tyranny that we find there, then apartheid would be brought to an end. Then the majority of South Africans of all races could at last build the shared society they desire.

BOYCOTT DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS

This movement is led by Palestinian civil society and inspired by the South African apartheid movement and boycott effort. It calls for BDS until Israel complies with international law with regard to occupation of land, discrimination against Palestinians and refugees right of return. Ending Israeli apartheid is at its heart.

In 2012, Mandela’s party, the African National Congress (ANC) which is also the ruling party of South Africa, formally endorsed and adopted as part of its official policy, the Palestinian call for Boycott,Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

The BDS Movement in the USA is growing year on year as well as across Europe

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Martin Luther King Jr

’Only through hardship, sacrifice, and militant action can freedom be won…’’

Nelson Mandela

It’s time to MAKE APARTHEID HISTORY – Once and For All.

Find out more

Read Solidarity, People Power and 10 years of BDS

Read 10 things you should know about BDS

https://waronwant.org/stop-arming-israel

A birthday that really matters. Our NHS at 70. And it’s just possible that it’s could be ‘taken back’

Posted on July 5, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in 1. Recent Posts • Tagged Newsletter

THE NHS REINSTATEMENT BILL MATTERS – and it’s going to happen if Labour are elected

In 1945, Attlee promised an NHS and delivered an NHS. Clear-sighted, principled political vision, deep compassion & economic courage ensured a healthcare system free at point of delivery for generations to come.

To fund it, in shattered post-war Britain, Attlee went cap in hand to ask for loans from a hostile American Congress, strongly opposed to the NHS and the ‘featherbedding of socialists’.

Despite this, on 5 July 1948 Clem Attlee and Nye Bevan delivered us a precious institution. It was the jewel in the crown of a massive programme of policies that would transform the face of British society. The optimism about the creation of the NHS is illustrated in many of the public information films of the time – we’ve made a little archive selection below.

But in 2018 we’re losing the NHS to privatisation and underfunding – this year alone £9bn of contracts have been handed over to private providers, often in community health services or patient transport and when a private provider doesn’t win a contract they can sue the NHS (as did Virgin).

Don’t let them take it away from us..

DO YOUR BIT FOR THE NHS. Celebrate its birthday in two simple but significant ways

Now, in this 70^th year, the NHS Reinstatement Bill is now Labour Party Policy.

Get your MP to support We Own It’s #NHSTakeBack Campaign Pledge.

https://weownit.org.uk/act-now/nhstakeback-action

.Ask your MP to support NHS Bill http://www.nhsbill2015.org/mp-support-2017/

More info below on both the NHS Bill & Take Back Pledge

AN NHS FOR THE WORLD

Back in 1945, they could have hardly have known how the concept of their NHS would capture the world’s imagination. Even now, in the midst of being undermined, underfunded and ‘made to fail’, it is held up as gold standard. Our friends at Health Poverty Action, who work on health justice international development campaigning, argue that ‘Every country should have an NHS.’ The Guardian published their letter last week and here is their short 5 point plan video. The NHS means everything to British people and, increasingly, to many in the global south, who see it as beacon of hope – the health service model to emulate.

The NHS cannot be allowed to die.

Attlee, Bevan and all who fought so hard to bring our NHS into life, for us, would be so, so proud of this fight back.

Please join it.

http://www.nhsbill2015.org/mp-support-2017/

https://weownit.org.uk/nhstakeback

Keep fighting for our NHS

Deb, Kev, Ho-Chih & all at TPNS

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FILM & ANIMATION – NHS ARCHIVE 1948

Clem Attlee on the NHS Audio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3EMjoRPh1U

Public Information Films / Animation NHS 1948
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFhEB3gG8HA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tymq5CefW-E

‘Here’s Health’ – 30 min b&w archive documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHoBdd1caH4

Nye Bevan on the founding of the NHS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCAyUxY0Cm0

BBC Welsh Greats: Nye Bevan BBC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyLLUgsqHys

MORE ABOUT THE NHS BILL –A TURNING POINT IN THE SAVING OF THE NHS

Campaigners are set to play a leading role in shaping Labour legislation to reverse the 2012 Health and Social Care Act and end the fragmentation and privatisation of the NHS. That was the positive outcome of a constructive meeting called in Westminster by Labour’s Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary Jonathan Ashworth MP on June 27

It was agreed that while this work needed to be done, in the short term, as Eleanor Smith and others argued strongly, a declaration of intent and principle is needed from Labour in this 70^th anniversary year of the NHS.

Jonathan Ashworth and Eleanor Smith would publicly sign up to show their support for the ‘NHS Takeback’ pledges, based on the Reinstatement Bill, that is promoted by the We Own It campaign
https://weownit.org.uk/nhstakeback.
Labour will seek the earliest opportunity – if possible before the summer recess – to table a shorter version of the Reinstatement Bill as a 10 minute Bill, to be moved by Eleanor Smith. This would echo the Takeback pledges and the NHS Reinstatement Bill as previously tabled.
Further detailed meetings will take place beginning immediately – between the Leader’s office, the shadow health team and the drafters of the Reinstatement Bill, but also on a wider level to draw in and engage with campaigners, trade unions and other significant stakeholders – to draw up more detailed Labour legislation based on the Reinstatement Bill. Meetings will also take place with other committees as appropriate with the aim of developing an agreed draft Bill by the end of 2018 suitable for inclusion in a Queen’s Speech.
Campaigners will continue to work with and advise Jon Ashworth and the shadow health team in responding to any NHS England proposals for new legislation or amendments to the Health & Social Care Act that might be tabled by the current government. Joint efforts to expose and challenge privatisation and encourage those such as the Wigan strikers who are actively fighting it will continue.

The unique and historic nature of this meeting and these agreed proposals was stressed by Jonathan Ashworth and recognised by the meeting. This unprecedented level of collaboration is a result of years of hard work on the ground by campaigners.

The result will be a stronger and broader campaign in Parliament and across the country for legislation that will restore and improve the NHS as a publicly owned, publicly funded, publicly provided and publicly accountable service.

http://www.nhsbillnow.org/labour-commits-to-legislation-to-reinstate-the-nhs/

Find out more

NHS Bill and Reinstatement
http://www.nhsbillnow.org/our-aim/
http://www.nhsbillnow.org/the-bill/
https://www.facebook.com/nhsbill/

The We Own It Pledge
https://weownit.org.uk/act-now/nhstakeback-action
http://www.nhsbillnow.org/nhs-takeback/

NB
Is the pledge the same as the Reinstatement Bill? No. The Reinstatement Bill is a comprehensive plan for legislation that would take back our NHS. The pledge has 5 key principles for a public NHS – it reflects the demands in the Bill but it’s much simpler. If MPs sign up to the pledge, they’re not signing up to the Bill. But they might want to sign up to both, because the Bill is the best way of putting the pledge into action.

As the NHS turns 70, let’s make it our major export

Posted on July 4, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in #MLKGlobal, Attlee Nation, What interests us • Tagged NHS, Privatisation, UK

‘As we celebrate the NHS here, we must not underestimate its symbolism beyond our borders. As the People’s Health Movement, the global network of health activists, made clear in evidence to my recent consultation, the health service does not just impact on the lives of people in the UK. It is a beacon of hope to millions of people around the world who are fighting for their own access to healthcare. Its very existence demonstrates that universal, publicly funded healthcare is possible.

This was always its intention. As Nye Bevan said on the day the NHS was brought into existence: “The eyes of the world are turning to Great Britain. We now have the moral leadership of the world.” Continue reading →

Our letter in the Guardian: “The world would be a better, healthier place if every country had an NHS.”

Posted on June 25, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in 1. Recent Posts

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/25/wishing-the-nhs-an-even-longer-life-as-it-turns-70

As the NHS turns 70, we are right to celebrate it – and not only because it provides efficient and equitable healthcare here in the UK. The NHS is a beacon of hope to millions of people around the world, demonstrating that universal, publicly funded healthcare is possible. The world would be a better, healthier place if every country had an NHS.

But as things stand, the UK often undermines other countries’ attempts to build their own NHS. We undermine poor countries’ ability to build a decent tax base by supporting tax havens and enabling British companies to shift profits out of those countries. We promote and enforce privatisation through trade and investment agreements, threatening our NHS too. We promote private finance initiatives (PFI) for healthcare projects around the world, despite knowing that PFI has made our NHS more unsustainable. We fail to rein in big pharmaceutical companies that charge too much for drugs. And despite all this, we continue to blame the governments of poor countries for not investing enough in their healthcare systems (and indeed some that can should invest more) – ignoring our own significant role in diminishing their potential health budgets.

As the NHS turns 70, we must ensure not only that our NHS exists for another 70 years, but that we do everything in our power to promote affordable, public healthcare around the world, learning from what we have done right (and wrong), to ensure everyone, everywhere has access to an NHS.
Continue reading →

Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent’s Stealth Takeover of America

Posted on June 7, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in #MLKGlobal, What interests us • Tagged Capitalism, Democracy, Economics, Neoliberalism, Politics

By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst, Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website

Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual lynchpin of the Koch-funded attack on democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean

Ask people to name the key minds that have shaped America’s burst of radical right-wing attacks on working conditions, consumer rights and public services, and they will typically mention figures like free market-champion Milton Friedman, libertarian guru Ayn Rand, and laissez-faire economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.

James McGill Buchanan is a name you will rarely hear unless you’ve taken several classes in economics. And if the Tennessee-born Nobel laureate were alive today, it would suit him just fine that most well-informed journalists, liberal politicians, and even many economics students have little understanding of his work.

The reason? Duke historian Nancy MacLean contends that his philosophy is so stark that even young libertarian acolytes are only introduced to it after they have accepted the relatively sunny perspective of Ayn Rand. (Yes, you read that correctly). If Americans really knew what Buchanan thought and promoted, and how destructively his vision is manifesting under their noses, it would dawn on them how close the country is to a transformation most would not even want to imagine, much less accept.

That is a dangerous blind spot, MacLean argues in a meticulously researched book, Democracy in Chains, a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction. While Americans grapple with Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency, we may be missing the key to changes that are taking place far beyond the level of mere politics. Once these changes are locked into place, there may be no going back.
Continue reading →

Cannabis: Regulate it. Tax it. Support the NHS. Promote public health.

Posted on June 5, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in Rethink the War on Drugs, What interests us • Tagged Cannabis, War on Drugs

A new report by Health Poverty Action.

The so-called ‘war on drugs’ was always built on shaky foundations. Now countries and jurisdictions around the world are dismantling it piece by piece and building a new, 21^st century approach to drugs that puts public health first.

Read the report

Nowhere are the foundations of this new approach to drugs more obvious than in the global movement towards regulated, legalised cannabis markets. And despite the US being the ostensible leader of the ‘war on drugs’, it has been US states at the forefront of this move. The results from the US so far are generally positive: confounding critics whilst bringing in additional tax income to fund public services.[1] And this is just the start: in the summer of 2018 Canada will become the first G7 country to legalise cannabis.

Regulating and legalising cannabis is an idea whose time has come.

Sign the petition

It is time to accept that prohibition is not only ineffective and expensive, but that regulation could – if it is done well – protect vulnerable groups and support public health. It would also generate both taxes (at least £1 billion annually, but potentially more) and savings, which taken together would mean more resources for health, harm reduction and other public services.

It is time for the UK government to catch up with the global shift and take the responsible approach by bringing in a regulated, legal market for cannabis.

To do this the UK government should

move primary responsibility for cannabis policy and all other domestic (legal and illegal) drug policy to the Departments of Health (DH) and International Development (DFID)[2];
bring together a panel of experts to develop the most effective model for a regulated market; and,
establish a Cannabis Regulatory Authority to implement their recommendations.

It is time to act.

Read the full report here:

[1] Transform, (2015) ‘Cannabis regulation in Colorado: early evidence defies the critics’ Available online: www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/cannabis-regulation-colorado-early-evidence-defies-critics

[2] Health Poverty Action (2018) ‘Building a 21st Century Approach to Drugs’ Available online: https://www.healthpovertyaction.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Building-a-21st-century-approach-to-drugs_briefing2018.pdf

Media Coverage

Print/online

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/02/legalise-cannabis-treasury-3bn-drugs

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/legalising-cannabis-fund-nhs-budget-weed-health-poverty-action-a8381166.html

Making cannabis legal ‘could bring £3,500,000,000 to the UK’

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/707069/Legalise-cannabis-free-the-weed-NHS-budget-taxes-referendum-Home-Office-Health-Poverty-Act

http://uk.businessinsider.com/a-legal-cannabis-market-could-offset-nhs-deficit-2018-6

Broadcast

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b4yzrm from 46:50

Opinion

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/02/why-we-must-legalise-cannabis-public-health

How legalising cannabis could save the NHS

Spring Round-Up

Posted on May 21, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in 1. Recent Posts • Tagged Newsletter

Spring News

Dear friends, supporters and colleagues,

Below is our Spring news round-up with all our latest film, events and campaigning information. We hope there’s something of interest for everyone.

Best wishes
Deborah, Ho-Chih & TP team

FILMS

From Montgomery to Memphisis a rarely-seen documentary directed by the highly respected Hollywood director Sydney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Serpico).

Lumet co-directed and co-produced the film with another Hollywood luminary, Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The clips trace King’s life and accomplishments from the 1955 bus boycott to his 1968 assassination.

As part of our MLK Global project, we have purchased a licence from the distributor Kino Lorber enabling us to tour the film around the UK throughout 2018 and beyond. All events will be free admission. Our next screening will be on Saturday 23^rdJune in central London, details below.

And staying with Dr. King, we are underway with our in-house developed ‘King Assassination Project’ which looks at more than 40 years of controversy surrounding the case. Filming starts in London in June. To mark the 50^th anniversary of the assassination we wrote this article to both illustrate King’s journey post 1963 and at same time suggest that to better know the facts of his murder is to better appreciate the power – and danger – of his activism 1965-68.

We are also working with producer / director Michael Oswald and John Christensen (Tax Justice Network) on their follow-up to ‘The Spider’s Web’ as they raise the production budget for a fascinating film that will explore the origins of the neoliberal project.

If you would like to know how you can support our film fund work- these and other projects – please email Deborah@tippingpointfilmfund.com

EVENTS

MAKE APARTHEID HISTORY
1948-2018: Palestine’s 70 year commemoration of the Nakba

Israel was founded 70 years ago, on 14th May 1948. Palestinians commemorate the next day, 15th May, as their ‘Nakba’ – day of catastrophe. This Arabic term refers to the mass expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from British Mandate Palestine during Israel’s creation (1947-49) when between 750,000 and one million Palestinians were expelled and made refugees by Zionist paramilitaries, and subsequently Israeli forces, during Israel’s creation in 1947-49.

Our Make Apartheid History campaign marked the 70^th anniversary of the founding of Israel by sharing our interview with MAH supporter (and Stop the War President) Brian Eno. In it, he talks about ‘being born on the same day as the founding of Israel.

MAH also filmed a number of NAKBA week events: @70 Celebration of Contemporary Palestine Culture’ curated by Gazan author, playwright Ahmed Masoud and ICAHD UK’s annual conference, founded by Jeff Halper. Both Jeff and Ahmed are MAH contributors. Visit our extensive MAH Video Gallery for more interviews.

As Israel marked its 70 years and ‘celebrated the Trump administration’s opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, IDF forces massacred 62 Palestinians in Gaza, bringing the death count since Israel began firing on the Great Return March to at least 110. More than 12,000 have been injured; many so severely that they will require the amputation of limbs.’ (PSC). This attack was on Palestinian people, trapped in Gaza, exercising their right to protest their’ Great Return March’.

You can donate to Medical Aid for Palestine Appeal here. The numbers of casualties rushed to desperately under-equipped hospitals is recorded in this hard-to-read twitter feed from MAP CEO Aimee Shalan.

Palestinians will continue their Great Return March, which will culminate in a huge mobilisation in Gaza on June 5^th to mark the 51^stanniversary of Israel’s occupation of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. PSC are calling for a national day of demonstrations across the UK on the same day. Details will be confirmed soon. https://www.palestinecampaign.org/

MLK GLOBAL
Film & Discussion ‘From Montgomery to Memphis’

Date: Sat 23 June 5pm. Venue: Bloomsbury Baptist Church.

In 1961, on one of his visits to the UK, Martin Luther King, himself a Baptist, preached at the historic central London Bloomsbury Baptist Church. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference led the American civil rights movement – a movement which King would later lead into coalition with both anti-war and anti-poverty campaigners. MLK was becoming the moral conscience of America – indeed the world. Join us for the film and a line-up of fantastic speakers who will explore why King was such an outstanding leader and why his analysis is as relevant now as 1968. Email info@tippingpointfilmfund.com to be added to the reservation list (email subject: RSVP MLK + the number of seats required.)

ATTLEE NATION

This year marks 70 years since the founding of the NHS. Just this week Jonathan Ashworth, Shadow Health Secretary, announced that the NHS had just reached the record of delivering 53 million babies since 1947. And on another Attlee government achievement, this article is an excellent summary by Anthony Broxton of the story of rail nationalisation under Attlee and up to the present day via privatisation and the renewed call for re-nationalisation.

Last October, we launched our Attlee Nationproject with our Attlee Remembered mini-festival of films, talks, discussion and theatre. Festival photos and videos here.

Ken Loach on the importance of Attlee and knowing our history

We may know the term ‘Thatcher’s Children’ but the truth is that every single one of since 1945 has been a beneficiary of Attlee’s government – one that embodied the ‘pay it forward’ or ‘generosity towards the future’ ideal. To know how Attlee and his government delivered the huge programme of reform after the devastation of WW2 is to know what courage of commitment to social change looks like; the long-lasting impact such reform can deliver; and why we need that level of commitment to social reform once more.

CAMPAIGNS

FROM PINK TO PREVENTION

Stopping Breast Cancer Before It Starts: environmental & occupational links to the disease.

As we have come to profoundly realise, Brexit is going to touch every conceivable aspect of life. Over the past 12 months our campaign has been part of the lobby to ensure the UK stays inside the EU Chemical Regulatory regime known as REACH. Helen Hayes MP has been incredibly supportive of our work on this. She hosted our Westminster Portculllis House event ‘Brexit and Breast Cancer’, and recently submitted a Written Parliamentary Question on this same issue to Secretary of State for the Environment Michael Gove, on behalf of From Pink to Prevention and our partner The Alliance for Cancer Prevention.

Earlier this year, in February, we met again with senior staff at the leading UK breast cancer charity Breast Cancer Now. Our primary task in our discussions with the organisation remains two-fold: to keep the pressure up for them to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific evidence that links environmental and occupational risk to breast cancer and leading on from that, to carry this information in all their public-facing information materials. We argue it is to deny women the full picture on breast cancer risk to be ‘airbrushing’ this aspect of the disease out of the picture.

Every May 27 we mark Rachel Carson Day – a visionary scientist, campaigner and author of The Silent Spring.

“We poison the gnats in a lake and the poison travels from link to link of the food chain and soon the birds of the lake margins become its victims. We spray our elms and the following springs are silent of robin song, not because we sprayed the robins directly but because the poison traveled, step by step, through the now familiar elm leaf-earthworm-robin cycle. These are matters of record, observable, part of the visible world around us. They reflect the web of life or death that scientists know as ecology.”
Rachel Carson

This Rachel Carson Day we will be sharing our FPTP toolkit. Please share! Ongoing awareness raising is vital, given the decades of resistance by the ‘cancer establishment’ (government, research breast cancer charities and industry) to address the issue.

THE FIVE PERCENT CAMPAIGN

A framework through which reverse runaway military spending.

Increasingly, the links between UK foreign policy, military spending/defence and the fall-out for international development are becoming clear. The campaign by CAAT & OXFAM and the subsequent court case continues to be highly effective at drawing attention to UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The UK has licensed over £4.6 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since the bombing of Yemen began in March 2015. We see arms sales to all sides in Syria by the many foreign powers with a geo-political interest in the region. SIPRI (the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) reported in March 2018 that ‘most states in the Middle East were directly involved in violent conflict in 2013–17. Arms imports by states in the region increased by 103 per cent between 2008–12 and 2013–17, and accounted for 32 per cent of global arms imports in 2013–17.’ And the international outrage at Israel’s recent attack on protestors in Gaza saw Save the Children recently speak out as a campaign to halt UK arms sales to Israel gets more attention. The UK has sold $445m of arms to Israel including sniper rifles.

And below, Andrew Feinstein , author of The Shadow World, describes how the British arms trade impacted on South Africa’s development.

The arms trade drives the gargantuan amount spent on ‘defence’ every year – $1.6 trillion in 2010 alone…It accounts for almost 40 per cent of corruption in world trade. The very small number of people who decide on multibillion dollar contracts, the huge sums of money at stake and the veil of secrecy behind which transactions take place (in the interests of ‘national security’) ensure that the industry is hard-wired for corruption. I experienced this first hand as an ANC Member of Parliament in South Africa’s nascent democracy. At the time that our then President, Thabo Mbeki, claimed we did not have the resources to provide life-saving medication to the over five million people living with HIV/AIDS, we spent $10 billion on weapons we didn’t need and barely use today. About $300 million in bribes were paid to senior politicians, officials, go-betweens and the ANC itself. The British company BAE Systems contributed $180 million of the bribes and received the biggest contract, even though the jet it sold had not made an initial shortlist and was two and a half times more expensive than the plane desired by the air force. The time has come to lift the veil on this shadow world, to demand that our taxes are not used to develop another deadly weapon for the material benefit of a tiny self-serving élite, but are rather employed to enhance the lives of those who go hungry, who are without work or who suffer the deadly consequences of the trade in arms’.
Andrew Feinstein, former ANC MP

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1948-2018: a 70 YEAR COMMEMORATION OF the NAKBA

Posted on May 13, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in 1. Recent Posts • Tagged Make Apartheid History, Nakba

MAKE APARTHEID HISTORY

1948-2018: a 70 YEAR COMMEMORATION OF the NAKBA

Israel was founded 70 years ago today, on 14th May 1948. Palestinians commemorate the next day, 15th May, as their ‘Nakba’ – day of catastrophe.

This Arabic term refers to the mass expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from British Mandate Palestine during Israel’s creation (1947-49) when between 750,000 and one million Palestinians were expelled and made refugees by Zionist paramilitaries, and subsequently Israeli forces, during Israel’s creation in 1947-49.

Brian Eno is a supporter of Palestine . He was born on the same day as the founding of Israel. Here he speaks to MAH of his support for Palestine and in particular, his reasons for backing the BDS campaign.

NAKBA 2018 -CALENDAR EVENTS

Every May, along with so many other organisations and projects around the world, Make Apartheid History commemorates the ‘Nakba’. MAH is recording both ICAHD and @70 cultural events.

May 14-20^th

https://www.palestinecampaign.org/events/70-celebration-contemporary-palestinian-culture/

@70: A CELEBRATION OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN CULTURE

A week-long festival of theatre, dance, films and talks commemorating the Palestinian experience of dispossession and loss of a homeland.

May 19^th

https://www.palestinecampaign.org/events/icahd-2018-uk-annual-conference/

Israeli Committee Against House Demolition UK Annual Conference

May 20th

https://www.palestinecampaign.org/events/psc-returnconf/

The PSC Right of Return conference – @70: Palestinian Refugees and the Right of Return – aims to provide the tools and education necessary for activists in the UK to continue to campaign for the right of return of Palestinian refugees, as enshrined in International law.

ABOUT MAH

Make Apartheid History has an extensive video gallery from a wide range of contributors. MAH connects civil rights, anti-apartheid and Palestinian struggles. This year, 2018, has three momentous anniversaries: 100 years since the birth of Nelson Mandela, 70 years since the Nakba and 50 years since the murder of Martin Luther King.

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#MLKGlobal launched on MLK Day!

Posted on January 16, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in #MLKGlobal, 1. Recent Posts

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” Rev Martin Luther King Jnr (1963)

On January 15^th 2018, MLK Day, we launched our new MLK Global website and statement calling for action on an end to poverty, racism and militarism in our lifetime. We do this in the lead up to the 50^th anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King’s structural analysis of race, economy and war & his solutions were way ahead of his time and remain a correct analysis of our world in 2018. The same ‘Triple Evils’ he talked of in 1967/68 are still interconnected today, only now they are global: $2trillion global military spend; greater levels global inequality; racism and far-right rising. MLK Global says we need global civil society to unite again around Dr. King’s call for an end to racism, poverty & militarism in our lifetime. https://mlkglobal.org/…/an-end-to-poverty-racism-militarism/

MLK Global believes that Dr. King’s analysis of the underlying structures that reinforce inequality speaks to peoples across the global north & south who share a deep desire for long-overdue change. MLK Global wants to see a renewed awareness of his 5-point Economic Bill of Rights, re-envisioned for today. Economic inequalities, racism, militarism & climate change are destroying families, communities, nations and the very planet we live on. The time to fulfil Dr. King’s vision of a “radical redistribution of power” is now. https://mlkglobal.org/…/dr-kings-econ-bill-of-rights-reviv…/

You can read more about the background to our statement https://mlkglobal.org/background-to-mlk-global-statement/

and find the Statement and Endorsees here https://mlkglobal.org/mlk-global-statement/.

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind.”

4 April 1967, Riverside Church, Beyond Vietnam speech

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Time to to re-empower cooperative enterprise

Posted on January 14, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in What interests us • Tagged co-op, Economy

What lessons can we take from this sad story? One, obviously, is that it’s high time for Congress to take a hard look at the laws governing co-ops. It needs to be made clear that no corporation gets the legal privileges of a co-op unless it truly represents the little guy without any conflicts of interests. While there is nothing wrong per se with co-ops becoming vertically integrated, the law should ensure that the money co-ops make on all their operations goes back directly to their members.

Another lesson is that monopoly begets monopoly. Gary Hanman wasn’t wrong when he told farmers that the increasing concentration of ownership among agribusinesses meant that farmer co-ops had to grow bigger, too. But he didn’t tell them that as their traditional co-ops merged and consolidated into the Goliath that became DFA, they were creating a new oppressor. This dynamic is what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis meant when he referred to “the curse of bigness.” Continue reading →

Dr Strangelove warned the oil industry about global warming 60 years ago

Posted on January 7, 2018 by TPNS • Posted in What interests us • Tagged Climate change, Oil, USA

Four others joined Dunlop at the podium that day, one of whom had made the journey from California – and Hungary before that. The nuclear weapons physicist Edward Teller had, by 1959, become ostracized by the scientific community for betraying his colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer, but he retained the embrace of industry and government. Teller’s task that November fourth was to address the crowd on “energy patterns of the future,” and his words carried an unexpected warning:

Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. I will start by telling you why I believe that the energy resources of the past must be supplemented. First of all, these energy resources will run short as we use more and more of the fossil fuels. But I would […] like to mention another reason why we probably have to look for additional fuel supplies. And this, strangely, is the question of contaminating the atmosphere. [….] Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon dioxide. [….] The carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you can’t smell it, it is not dangerous to health, so why should one worry about it?

Carbon dioxide has a strange property. It transmits visible light but it absorbs the infrared radiation which is emitted from the earth. Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect [….] It has been calculated that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. All the coastal cities would be covered, and since a considerable percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe.

Continue reading →

Xmas Greetings! Our 2017 Highlights

Posted on December 28, 2017 by TPNS • Posted in 1. Recent Posts, News and Analysis

Dear friends, supporters and colleagues,

An end of year round-up is always interesting – a mixed sense of have made progress yet realising the scale of any given issue is so great that there is always so much further to go..

In 2017, we made progress on existing work and launched some new projects… Below are some links to our 2017 highlights.

Wishing you peace and happiness in 2018.

From everyone at Tipping Point

Continue reading →

The World Inequality Report

Posted on December 27, 2017 by TPNS • Posted in #MLKGlobal, What interests us • Tagged Inequality, World

by Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy, Oxfam International

This week saw the launch of the first ‘World Inequality Report’ written by the team at the Paris School of Economics and based on the data collected by over 100 researchers behind the World Incomes Database. The summary is very short and full of fantastic charts, well worth taking a look at. They have pioneered the use of tax data and other sources to recalculate the incomes of those at the top, which are hugely underestimated. They have now done this for enough large countries to make some conclusions about global trends, which is the basis of the report.
Continue reading →

The largest transfer of wealth in living memory

Posted on December 12, 2017 by TPNS • Posted in Attlee Nation, Blog, What interests us • Tagged Housing, Housing Bubble, Inequality, UK

Continue reading →

Artists’ letter on Trump and Jerusalem

Posted on December 12, 2017 by TPNS • Posted in Make Apartheid History, News and Analysis, What interests us • Tagged Israel, Middle East, Palestine, USA

The Guardian reports (10th December) President Macron’s comment that recent US moves on the status of Jerusalem are a threat to peace. They are much more than that.

In recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Donald Trump seeks to achieve through a declaration what Israel has been trying to do for fifty years through force of arms: to erase Palestinians, as a political and cultural presence, from the life of their own city.

The Palestinian people of Jerusalem are already subject to municipal discrimination at every level, and a creeping process of ethnic cleansing. In addition to the continuing policy of house demolitions, in the last fifteen years, at least thirty-five Palestinian public institutions and NGOs in occupied East Jerusalem have been permanently or temporarily closed by the occupying forces. Cultural institutions have been a particular target.

At the same time Israeli authorities and entrepreneurs have spent millions in clearing Palestinian neighbourhoods to create ‘heritage’ projects that promote a myth of mono-ethnic urban identity, said to stretch back 3000 years.

We reject Trump’s collusion with such racist manipulation, and his disregard for international law. We deplore his readiness to crown the Israeli military conquest of East Jerusalem and his indifference to Palestinian rights.

As artists and as citizens, we challenge the ignorance and inhumanity of these policies, and celebrate the resilience of Palestinians living under occupation.
Continue reading →

Jeremy Corbyn’s Geneva speech in full

Posted on December 12, 2017 by TPNS • Posted in Attlee Nation, The 5% Campaign, What interests us • Tagged Corbyn, UK

Speaking at the United Nation’s Geneva headquarters today, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, said:

Thank you Paul for that introduction. And let me give a special thanks to the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. Your work gives an important platform to marginalised voices for social justice to challenge policy makers and campaign for change.

I welcome pressure both on my party the British Labour Party and on my leadership to put social justice front and centre stage in everything we do. So thank you for inviting me to speak here in this historic setting at the Palais des Nations in Geneva a city that has been a place of refuge and philosophy since the time of Rousseau. The headquarters before the Second World War of the ill-fated League of Nations, which now houses the United Nations.

It’s a particular privilege to be speaking here because the constitution of our party includes a commitment to support the United Nations. A promise “to secure peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all”.

I’d also like to thank my fellow panellists, Arancha Gonzalez and Nikhil Seth, and Labour’s Shadow Attorney General, Shami Chakrabarti, who has accompanied me here. She has been a remarkable campaigner and a great asset to the international movement for human rights.

And lastly let me thank you all for being here today.

I would like to use this opportunity in the run- up to International Human Rights Day to focus on the greatest threats to our common humanity. And why states need to throw their weight behind genuine international co-operation and human rights both individual and collective, social and economic, as well as legal and constitutional at home and abroad if we are to meet and overcome those threats.
Continue reading →