The ’80s: The Thatcher-led Tory government rejected the welfare state, nationalisaton and the regulation of finance, and embraced free-market monetarism. Wapping: The Workers’ Story ***** Platform Films 2024
In January 1986 a momentous year-long industrial dispute began when Thatcher ally Rupert Murdoch plotted to move production of his papers overnight from Central London’s Fleet Street to a secretly equipped and heavily guarded at Wapping. ibid.
Those sacked by Murdoch who in their struggle against a ruthless employer came up against the power of the state. ibid.
‘You could barely see one end of the machine room from the other because of all the ink fly and the paper dust.’ ibid. Printer
‘Probably more like 15% earned a really good industrial wage.’ ibid.
‘They forget that there’s lots of other people in the buildings.’ ibid.
In 1972 mass industrial action by print workers shut down Fleet Street in support of five dockers jailed under Tory anti-union laws. ibid.
1969: Murdoch buys The Sun and The News of the World. ibid.
1981: Murdoch buys The Times and The Sunday Times. ibid.
1984: Murdoch applies for US citizenship.
‘They [Electricians’ Union members] were being bussed into Wapping and trained on site.’ ibid.
‘There was new technology on The Times and The Mirror but it had always been negotiated.’ ibid.
1986: All agreements and conditions of employment were terminated by News International. The print unions balloted for strike action with a 90% return and 82% in favour. ibid.
‘It wasn’t a strike, it was a lockout.’ ibid.
‘Large numbers of his members [journalists’ union] had voted the other way.’ ibid.
820 clerical workers were involved in the dispute, 47% of them women. ibid.
Picketing took place at Wapping and at Kinning Park in Glasgow where a new plant was secretly developed. Staffed by electricians, The News of the World printed there in January. ibid.
‘They [rozzers] were hate-filled. In the main they bought the Thatcher line completely, the ‘them and us’.’ ibid.
‘In that period none of us had any money whatsoever.’ ibid.
The strikers were sustained by the solidarity of thousands of people in the UK and abroad. ibid.
Picket leader and SOGAT executive member Mike Hicks was convicted of ABH against the police in December. ibid.
The dispute was called off in February 1987. SOGAT cited renewed legal action by the company, and the NGA followed with a similar announcement. ibid.
Orgreave Coking Plant, Yorkshire, 18th June 1984, Day 104 of the Strike: It was a beautiful morning. Not a cloud int’ sky. I can remember birds singing. Strike: An Uncivil War ***** comment, Netflix 2024
All the police guiding you in. Never seen this before. Because normally they’d stop you on the motorway and make you walk six, seven miles. ibid.
This was the arena of violence. They had set it up. Otherwise, they would never have let us in. ibid.
The miners’ strike of 72 and 74 were about wages … All the miners in the country came out on strike. ibid.
Mrs Thatcher is determined she is going to break the monopoly power of the trade unions. ibid.
Margaret Thatcher is preparing herself for what she knows will inevitably be a confrontation. ibid.
Behind the scenes they were creating a paramilitary police force. ibid.
The Government lies. And here is the document to prove it. ibid.
Mr McGregor had it in mind of the three years 1983/85 that a further 75 pits would be closed. ibid. Government document in national archives
It were about them beating you up. ibid. miner
For the first time in this country you see the use of the short shield and the baton, all straight out of the manual. ibid. comment
They had absolute permission to do whatever they wanted that morning. ibid. miner
By mid-morning the picketing had turned to rioting. ibid. TV news
It destroyed communities. ibid. miner
Behind those closed doors there’s been awful lot of suffering. ibid.
And they could do anything they wanted. ibid.
A few days after the miners marched back to work, the Home Office hosted a party with senior police officers and civil servants to celebrate the end of the strike. The guest of honour was Margaret Thatcher. ibid. caption
In 2016 the Conservative government ruled out an Inquiry into policing at Orgreave. 40 years on, the miners continue their search for answers. ibid.
[Mail online]: Were Aborigines the First Americans? Native tribes in Amazon found to be closely related to indigenous Australians: Genetic study finds three Native American tribes share more DNA with Australian Aboriginals than any other present-day population. Beyond Ancient Apocalypse lecture Graham Hancock, Logan Hall, Youtube 2024
‘Currently no-one has a good explanation of the Australo-Melanesian signal.’ ibid. Professor Willerslev
None of it is in North America. ibid.
New evidence from the Americas threatens to overturn the paradigm that places the origins of civilisation in the Middle East. ibid.
Rather abruptly around 11,500 years ago the Ice Age came to an end, and the whole fact of the Earth changed. ibid.
The Clovis culture were supposed to be the first inhabitants of North America. ibid.
Migration mystery: Who were the first Americans? ibid. New Scientist article 2013
The Clovis Police was a real real thing. ibid.
‘Rather than launching a major new search for more early evidence, the finds stirred fierce opposition and a bitter debate: ‘one of the most acrimonious – and unfruitful – in all of science’ noted the journal Nature … Today, decades later, the Clovis first model has collapsed. ibid. Smithsonian online
But the study also raises serious questions about the effect of the bitter decades-long debate over the peopling of the New World. Did archaeologists marginalise dissenting voices on this key issue? Smithsonian 8th March 2017
A few archaeologists were saying it but the majority were ganging up on them with the forces of the Clovis Police. ibid.
The Clovis First Theory is put to rest at Paisley Caves. EurekAlert! online article
We have still not got rid of that zombie yet. ibid.
‘Academic discussions of first people in the lands we know today as the Americas continue to be framed in agnotology, defined as ‘how knowledge has come to be’ and ‘how ignorance is produced through neglect, secrecy, suppression, destruction of documents, unquestioned tradition, and sociopolitical selectivity’. Educational materials framed in agnotology support colonization of the mind, teaching people to think in ways acceptable to the nation-state and not to question so-called scientific authorities.’ ibid. Paulette F C Steeves, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western World
‘After more than a century of professional archaeological investigations, we find no archaeological evidence to support the existence of an ‘advanced, global Ice Age civilisation’ of the kind Hancock suggests.’ ibid. Society for American Archaeology 2022
That changed completely with Gobekli Tepe, which is a deliberately buried site, buried 10,600 years ago … The story of Gobekli Tepe is just beginning. ibid.
Baalbek: Each of these three blocks weighs 900 tons … built into a wall and raised 30 feet above the ground. ibid.
Evidence of much earlier megalithic construction is hiding in plain view. ibid.
The Sahara Desert was green during the last Ice Age. ibid.
Gunung Padang, Java, Indonesia: This site originated more than 20,000 years ago. ibid.
I’m suggesting the possibility of a remote common source. ibid.
This theme of Seven Sages keeps coming up. ibid.
The myths speak repeatedly of the coming of the sages in context of a great cataclysm, a derangement of the heavens, cosmic serpents, a global flood, a time of cold and darkness. ibid.
There is only one epoch in the lifetime of anatomically modern humans that fits the bill. ibid.
The Younger Dryas – from 12,800 to 11,600 years ago. ibid.
What happens on Earth begins in the Sky. ibid.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s entire ten-year relationship played out in the public eye. What once started as a Hollywood love story quickly turned toxic, which pushed the A-listers from the silver screen to a televised courtoom drama in Fairfax, Virginia. Victim to Verdict with Ted Rowlands s1e5: Depp v Heard, Amazon 2023
Johnny Depp met an up and coming actress, 23-year-old Amber Heard. ibid.
Johnny and Amber face off in court. ibid.
‘They are both documenting each other on their cell-phones.’ ibid. comment
‘On my side of the bed was human fecal matter. ibid. Depp