Google says Palestine was never on Google Maps after claims it had been 'airbrushed' away.

There was outrage online recently after Google appeared to delete Palestine from its Maps service after a glitch caused the West Bank and Gaza to briefly disappear,but the internet giant was forced  to explain that the country "has never been" on the service. 
Palestine, although recognised as a country by the United Nations, has never been on Google Maps. Instead of being demarcated with a solid line that denotes a country border, Google instead defines the Gaza Strip and the West Bank with a dashed border - the mark it uses to outline disputed territories.
Google was forced to explain that it doesn't define Palestine as a country separate from Israel on Maps after a petition signed by 250,000 people described the company's "airbrushing" of Palestine as "deeply offensive" and called for the internet giant to put Palestine on its map.
If you search for Palestine on Google maps, you might be surprised to find that it is not marked on the widely-used mapping tool, Palestine has not been removed because it was never there in the first place. Due to its ongoing conflict with Israel, Palestine was not shown on Google Maps five months ago, when the petition – which has only picked up serious momentum recently – was created.
Despite their misplaced anger, tens of thousands of people have flocked to sign the petition to add Palestine to Google Maps. The petition states that, in failing to recognise Palestine, ‘Google is making itself complicit in the Israeli government’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine’ But if you search “Palestine” in Google Maps today, you’ll get the same result you would have gotten five months ago, when a guy named Zak Martin began the petition on the subject: The map view defaults to a demarcated, but unlabeled, region stretching from Hebron in the south to Jenin in the north, and from Jerusalem to the Jordanian border. if you click on any of the cities in this region, Google does label them as Palestinian, and the Wikipedia-sourced Knowledge Box that pops up describes Palestine as a “de jure sovereign state.” That language has been in effect since 2013, when Google — following the lead of the United Nations —  changed its designation to “Palestine” from “Palestinian territories.”

 Still, even if the current outrage is misplaced — and people are outraged, check out #palestineishere — it does raise some interesting questions about the power of mapping technologies like Google’s. In their attempts to dispassionately document the physical world online, tech companies often end up shaping our understanding of it, too.

The Palestinian Journalists Forum (PJF), in a statement released on Friday in the Middle East Monitor, condemned Google’s decision to remove Palestine from its maps, saying it “is part of the Israeli scheme to establish its name as a legitimate state for generations to come and abolish Palestine once and for all.”
The group says the removal of Palestine’s name from the Google Maps was a blatant attempt to undermine Palestinian statehood forever and claims the move is just another attempt to distort history and geography.
“The move is also designed to falsify history, geography as well as the Palestinian people’s right to their homeland, and a failed attempt to tamper with the memory of Palestinians and Arabs as well as the world,” the statement added.
In addition, the group demanded that Google reverse the name changes made on July 25, noting that the move was “contrary to all international norms and conventions.”
In 1947, after millions of Jewish people were killed and displaced by the Nazis during the Holocaust, the United Nations' member states overwhelmingly voted to create a Jewish state in what was then Palestine. Palestinians resisted the move, but by December 1947, the first clearing' operations were conducted against Palestinian villages by Jewish forces. A bloody and deeply contentious fight over the land between Jews and Arabs has ensued to this day.
While Palestine has been recognised by the UN as its own state since 2012, it is now largely regarded as territories occupied by Israel.Most of the areas claimed by the State of Palestine have been occupied by Israel since 1967 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War. Its independence was declared on November 15, 1988, by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Algiers as a government-in-exile.As of September 2015, 136 (70.5%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations and two non-member states have recognized the State of Palestine. Many of the countries that do not recognize a State of Palestine nevertheless recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.The omission of Palestine remains a grievous insult to the people of Palestine and undermines the efforts of the millions of people who are involved in the campaign to secure Palestinian independence and freedom from Israeli occupation and oppression.

This is an important issue, as Google Maps are now regarded as definitive by people around the world, including journalists, students and others carrying out research into the Israel-Palestine situation.While the fact that Google never defined Palestine on Google Maps certainly doesn’t make the situation any better, it is interesting to see how quickly social media can mobilise people towards a cause – even when they aren’t presented with exactly all the facts.Whether intentionally or otherwise, Google is still making itself complicit in the Israeli government's ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The internet's indignation is not delegitimized by the misperception that this is a recent change, given the source of it comes from Palestine's exclusion. For these reasons Google Maps decision to never include Palestine in the first place should continually be questioned since as one of the world's top go-to GPS navigations, it holds accountability as to how the world interprets states, nations, and our overall worldview. Google can try to can remove Palestine from the maps but it will never remove it from our hearts.

Further to this post being written I now have much more accurate information  from Zac Martin dated  31/5/19  which you can access here it is well worth reading. Apologies for the inaccuracies contained in above post,

 https://www.facebook.com/notes/google-put-palestine-on-your-map/googles-response/2348385032103825/

Kenneth Patchen (13/12/11 -8/1/72) - The Artists Duty

 So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame
To extend all boundaries
To fog them in right over the plate
To kill only what is ridiculous
To establish problem
To ignore solutions
To listen to no one
To omit nothing
To contradict everything
To generate the free brain
To bear no cross
To take part in no crucifixion
To tinkle a warning when mankind strays
To explode upon all parties
To wound deeper than the soldier
To heal this poor obstinate monkey once and for all

To verify the irrational
To exaggerate all things
To inhibit everyone
To lubricate each proportion
To experience only experience

To set a flame in the high air
To exclaim at the commonplace alone
To cause the unseen eyes to open

To admire only the absurd
To be concerned with every profession save his own
To raise a fortuitous stink on the boulevards of truth and beauty
To desire an electrifiable intercourse with a female alligator
To lift the flesh above the suffering
To forgive the beautiful its disconsolate deceit

To flash his vengeful badge at every abyss

To HAPPEN

It is the artist’s duty to be alive
To drag people into glittering occupations

To blush perpetually in gaping innocence
To drift happily through the ruined race-intelligence
To burrow beneath the subconscious
To defend the unreal at the cost of his reason
To obey each outrageous inpulse
To commit his company to all enchantments.

(Reprinted from one of my favourite books:-
The Journal of Albion Moonlight - Kenneth Patchen
New Directions Press, 1961.

No more Hiroshimas, No more Nagasakis: Ban nuclear weapons!

On August 6, 1945 the US dropped an atomic bomb ("Little Boy") on Hiroshima in Japan. Three days later a second atomic bomb ("Fat Man") was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. These were the only times nuclear weapons have been used in war. Combined it resulted  in the deaths of over 400,000 people. This is exactly what these horrific weapons are designed to do-indiscriminately kill vast amounts of people.
There are more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the worlds arsenal now, ready to destroy the world. In the coming months, governments will decide if negotiations of a treaty banning nuclear weapons should start or not. I hope that the majority of the states in the world are ready to support a resolution at the UN General Assembly to start negotiations of a new treaty banning nuclear weapons. The holdouts for supporting the ban treaty are the nuclear weapons states, as well as those countries that are part of the U.S. nuclear alliance around the world including NATO states, and in the Pacific, Australia, South Korea, and Japan.We should keep pressuring our Governments to urge them that nuclear weapons should not be used against any nation under any circumstances.The following video has been produced by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Let us remember. Let us learn. Let us make sure this never happens again.It should be unthinkable today that the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should ever be repeated.

Memorial events are planned across the UK for Hiroshima Day. See tinyurl.com/HiroshimaDay

Paul Robeson (9/4/1898 – 23/1/76) and the people of Wales

                            Paul Robeson at Welsh National Eisteddfod, Ebbw Vale, 1958

It's the week of the National Eisteddfod here in Wales, so I thought i'd mark the occasion with this post about an individual who has made a lasting positive contribution to our nation,and a contnuing source of inspiration and strength for me  Paul Robeson.
Robeson, son of a former slave, was born in Princeton in 1898, just two years after the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation. Robeson grew up during a period of overt racism, confronted by continual racist abuse,but always managed to rise above it and went on to achieve much success at every level of his life.Not only was he an exceptional athlete, cultural scholar, a polyglot who spoke over a dozen languages, actor and singer, he was also a man dedicated to the causes of freedom and social justice, as a fearless political activist he was hounded and persecuted in the U.S for his opinions. His name and historical contribution are still silenced in most textbooks in the U.S.A , where he was was caught up in the midst of the  McCarthy witchhunts.
Yet all around the world, especially here in Wales, his voice still carries much resonance, gives us some hope.His first contact  with Wales came in 1928, when he was performing in 'Showboat' in the West End. Whilst in his hotel he was attracted  by the sound of singing from outside. The singing was coming from unemployed  miners who had  marched to London to draw attention to the hardship and suffering endured by thousands of mining families in South Wales. He went outside to meet them, listened to their plight, recognised a shared suffering, and a mutual bond was born.Robeson said it was the “first time he felt human dignity” because of the lack of racial prejudice.He was once recorded as saying about Wales: “It was there I first understood the struggles of white and negro together – when I went down into the coal mine in the Rhondda Valley, lived amongst them.”
He joined them on hunger marches in 1927 and 1928, and  was to visit Wales many times,  performing at Neath, Swansea, Caernarfon and Cardiff in support of causes as varied as the victims of the 1934 disaster at Gresford Colliery, near Wrexham, to the Welsh casualties of the Spanish civil war.In 1938, he sang and addressed a massed audience in the Pavillion, Mountain Ash, at the International Brigade Memorial Service, organised to commemorate the 33 Welshmen who had been killed in the Spanish Civil War.He addressed the audience thus :- 'I am here because I know these brave fellows fought not only because I know these brave fellows fought not only for me but for the freedom of the people of the whole world, I feel itI is my duty to be here.'
 In 1940 he starred in the film Proud Valley, set in South Wales, that captured the harsh realities of Welsh coal miners' lives.He starred as a Black American coal miner and singer who gets a job there and joins a male voice choir.In 1950, he had his passport confiscated for eight years when US authorities attempted to stunt his influence at the height of McCarthyism, owing to his alleged un-American activities. Yet, amazingly, he still managed to perform to more than 20,000 Canadians watching from across the border as Robeson sang on US soil..In 1957 Robeson participated in the Miners’ Eisteddfod in Porthcawl by means of a transatlantic telephone link to a secret recording studio in New York, being unable to travel because his passport had been withdrawn by the US Government because of his outspoken left wing and anti-racist views which he used to speak out against injustices.The South Wales miners added their voice to an international petition that eventually forced the US Supreme Court to reinstate his passport in 1958. 
On 4th August 1958 this allowed him to attend the National Eisteddfod of Wales in Ebbw Vale,where he was presented with a Welsh hymn book to mark his visit,he sat alongside Aneurin Bevan a long term friend and delivered an address to the people of Wales.Significantly was the first man to be granted permission to speak English on the llwyfan (eisteddfod stage) He spoke of the importance of his Welsh links:"You have shaped my life - I have learned from you.I am part of the working class.Of all the films I have made the one I will preserve is Proud Valley"
He spent the last years of his performing life abroad, but returned to the US when ill-health led to his retirement in 1963 some say exasperated by the persecution he had experienced over the years.
He lived the final years of his life in seclusion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and died there on January 23rd, 1976. He is fondly remembered because he not only stood up for the injustices that African-Americans faced, but also was able to empathize and connect with other people’s struggles, he funded Jews escaping Nazi Germany, spoke out against the fascists in Spanish Civil War, campaigned against colonialism in African countries and stood with laborers in the United States and proudly with the people of Wales, an internationalist who identified with the most important issues of freedom and social justice of his time, and practiced what he preached. Because of all this and his constant solidarity with the Welsh people he remains forever etched in the nations heart. A powerful rich courageous presence in our collective history.Here  is  his rich  voice singing a beautiful English Language version of the Welsh National anthem.

Paul Robeson - Land Of My Fathers
 

Paul Robeson : Welsh Transatlantic Concert

End the punitive punishment of whistleblower Chelsea Manning

After years of inhumane treatment, and years of abuse having been held in conditions that the UN considers to be torture, Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, the Guardian columnist and whistleblower who is currently in prison serving a 35-year sentence ( narrowly escaping the death penalty)  for exposing some of the U.S. government's worst abuses, attempted to take her own life on July 5th, 2016 in her cell at Fort Leavenworth military prison.
The fact that she is not scheduled for release until 2045 isn’t enough of a punishment, the ACLU announced last week that Chelsea  had been charged with a series of bizarre sounding petty and bizarre charges to threaten her with indefinite solitary confinement while possibly denying her any chance of receiving parole that could make the terms of her imprisonment even more punitive..

These new charges include:-

1) Resisting a group of prison guards called "the force cell move team" (Chelsea was unconscious when this team arrived, which makes this charge particularly absurd.)
2) Prohibited property (for the items she used to attempt to take her own life.)
3) Conduct which threatens (for somehow putting the prison at risk while attempting to take her own life, quietly, in her own cell.)

These latest examples of abuse and neglect are quite frankly obscene,but just what Chelsea has come to expect, as she has been systematically mistreated by the U.S. government ever since she was first taken into custody in 2010 which have repeatedly generated outrage among human rights advocates across the globe.Following a 14-month investigation into Manning’s treatment by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, the U.N. accused the U.S. government of holding Manning in conditions that constituted “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,” particularly with regard to the extended use of pretrial solitary confinement considers to be  and which the UN considers to be a form of torture.
The harsh measures the military has employed during Manning’s detention have led to suspicions that the government is attempting to make an example of her over her whistleblowing activities for her role in releasing to Wikileaks key State Department Cables about the Afghanistan and Iraq war and the Collateral Murder video exposing U.S. war crimes, killing of civilians and lies to the public.It included images and transcripts that appeared to reveal human rights abuses being committed by US forces and their allies in the Iraq war – information she felt was in the public interest. Without her, the information would never have come to light .Unlike countless others who saw similar evidence but looked the other way, Manning took action with much bravery but Chelsea wasn’t hailed as a hero – instead, this whistleblowing cost her dearly and those atop the U.S. military machinery still find her actions unforgivable.Washington and the powers that be are determined to make an example of her, to warn and intimidate other would-be whistleblowers. From the president on down, the chain of command is functioning to wreck the life of Chelsea Manning. We should not let that happen.
Fight for the Future, a non-profit that advocates for civil liberties and free speech, has created a petition at FreeChelsea.com to pressure the Secretary of the Army to dismiss these absurd charges, the Army should be told that there is no excuse to further punish Chelsea or to prevent her from excercising her right to free speech.
If convicted of these bizarre "administrative offenses," that are effectively charging her for attempting to end her life, she is facing indefinite solitary confinement for the rest of her prison term (another 30 years), "maximum security" classification (in the same facility), and nearly a decade before she can ever be classified as a "minimum security" prisoner.
It is unnecessarily cruel to threaten Chelsea with additional punishment while in this very vulnerable state. They are trying to silence her important voice for good. In a statement released by Manning after her 2013 guilty plea on espionage charges, she asked for a pardon and said that she had been motivated by moral outrage over details of U.S. military killings and torture of civilians in Iraq. “In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture,” she said. “If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society.”
It should be noted that Chelsea is a transgender woman being forced to serve out her sentence in an all-male prison, which is in itself dehumanizing and exhausting emotionally. She is currently being denied medical treatment for her gender dysphoria, which experts have stated is the only course of treatment through which she would no longer be suicidal and Manning has faced a constant battle to receive the most basic gender-affirming care in the face of repeated denials from the military.
This is not the first time the government has harassed Chelsea with outrageous charges while in prison. Last year, they threatened her with solitary confinement for minor "infractions" including possession of LGBTQ reading materials and an expired tube of toothpaste.The punitive tactics that have been employed against her include stripping her naked in her cell on a nightly basis, extended solitary confinement, and denial of medical necessities like eyeglasses.
RootsAction and Fight for the Future and other groups gathered more than 100,000 petition signatures in response, and the outcry generated managed to keep her out of solitary confinement. Now we need to do it again. Please, sign the following petition and spread the word to stop this inhumane, outrageous act of punishment. Chelsea is depending on us. We can’t let the US government get away with this shameful abuse of power.

  Please sign the Petition to the Secretary Army to drop these charges against Chelsea: FreeChelsea.com

The following is a link to the Chelsea Manning Support Network, where you can find more details about her case:-

https://www.chelseamanning.org/ 

Our dreams can change the world.

Dreams - exciting, frightening, bewildering!  That other world, from which neither rich nor poor, young nor old, are debarred. I am sorry for the people who never dream. They miss something - an exciting little jaunt down the mysterious byways which lead off the long, straight roads of existence in which we are frequently held back from simply participating in the changes for which we crave.
Dreams come in all shapes and sizes. Some of us quietly dream of one day giving up our jobs to pursue a passion we’ve long kept hidden. Others dream on a grand scale about all the ways they could change the world,the removal of injustice and oppression if only they had the chance. But how many people actually have the courage to go after their dreams, no matter how big or small? Instead, many of us sleepwalk through each day, simply going through the motions, when we could be seizing the opportunity that each new morning brings and living the life we’ve always wanted. 
For me, one of the strangest aspects of  dreaming is the way in which a whole series of exciting  events can be crammed into what  must barely have been a few seconds.But some of us dream while still awake. If people dreamed strongly enough another world could be possible. We would see people before profit, peace instead of war. The economic disparity and vast difference in the quality of living often makes me dream that there could be a more even distribution of wealth on the planet, that would give every single person a chance to break free from the barrier that is global capitalism.
We don’t necessarily need a big platform to make a difference; neither do we have to be a charismatic world leader to have a major influence on others. We can instigate meaningful changes within our small spheres of influence, in solidarity with others we can inspire the spirit of unity, hope and peace for a better world.
We must be willing to speak up and stand up for what we believe is right. If we remain silent because of our timidity, we will allow the consensus flow of reality to carry on ad-infinitum, we must continue to question and challenge absolutely everything — including, when it proves necessary, our own assumptions.
As much as we witness daily the unfairness and wrong-doing in the world, there are also lots of wonderful acts of kindness combined with resistance that are being demonstrated by both individuals and groups. It’s critical that we avoid getting hypnotized by the media, specifically the news channels, which tend to paint a grim picture of the current circumstances on our planet. That stop us from seeking out ways to be free.
But our dreams can change the world, a starting point can be the rejection of a world that we feel to be wrong, negation of a world we feel to be negative. This is what we must cling to. So dare release your dreams onto the streets, let them ring out loud, dream the impossible, and never settle for less than total translation of the impossible into reality. Free Free, Palestine, from the rivers to the sea, another world is not impossible, dare to make your dreams come alive, bring forth your deep yearnings of love, faith and hope with perseverance, guts and passion finding and developing solutions to consequences of injustices in our lives. At the end of the day our shared humanity and hopes are greater than the forces that divide us. All power to the imagination.

Vanishing Acts

After the fires of solstice have burned low
The constancy of summer returns,
Honey bees buzzing again
Zig-zagging foragers of time,
Freely dancing in communication
Round and round our gardens,
As the days warm and glow
They ravish flowers, suck on sweet nectar,
Release their tiny footprints onto leaves
Beautiful winged creatures of sanctity,
All of them endangered now
Because of chemicals and pesticides,
And the garden pest known as man
Releasing a barrage of poisons,
Intent now on making mischief
Hurrying this planet towards extinction.

Lowkey ft Mai khalil - Ahmed

The above is a  powerful video  by Lowkey ft. Mai Khalil  Kareem Dennis (born 23 May 1986), better known by his  stage name is an English rapper, and political activist of Iraqi descent known for his controversial lyrics on real life issues.In the song Lowkey delivers a conscious message in his lyrics, contains devastating truths about war, migration and the underlying systemic issues that surround them Here in this song he potrays what's been going on in the world today. Young lives are being taken away everyday. The song 'Ahmed’ is an emotive, moving dissection of the Syrian refugee crisis and the mass desensitization that we’ve seen in its aftermath.
Please Share this to anyone you know that's willing to listen..For all the  children and refugees experiencing the flames of wars in middle east. Listen now with your hearts and minds.

Father Miguel hidalgo y Costilla (8/5/1753 -30/7/1811) - Folk hero and Father of the Mexican Revolution

Father Miguel hidalgo y Costilla  Mexican  insurgent Catholic priest  who became known as the "father of Mexican independence," was born on May 8, 1753, at his father's hacienda near Guanajuato, Mexico of pure Spanih blood making him a criolla. Under the strict Spanish caste system of the day, Hidlgo's rights a  criolla were far less than those of a person born in Spain known as peninsulars, but slightly better than those of an Indio or a person born of mixed Spanish and Indio blood known as mestizo. Hidalgo grew shocked and outraged by the impoverished and oppressed condition of the people there.  His dissatisfaction with Spanish rule would grow and lead him to form an army of more than ninety thousand poor farmers and others who shared his sentiments to fight for independence from Spain.
A Roman Catholic, Hidalgo’s father made sure his sons were well-educated.  Miguel Hidalgo studied with the Jesuits and later in Mexico City where he learned Latin but also various indigenous languages.  Hidalgo was ordained as a priest in 1799.  He taught and eventually became Dean of the Colegio de San Nicholas in Michoacan. His espousal of Enlightened ideas imported from Europe eventually led to his removal from this college and transfer to the Dolores parish.  Hidalgo’s ideas about the priesthood were certainly revolutionary for the times; he did not support the ideal of clerical celibacy openly living with a mistress and fathered several children in his life.  He was forced to appear before the Inquisition for his beliefs but was not found guilty.  While in Dolores, Hidalgo often disregarded Spain’s class system and frequently socialized with Creoles, Mestizos, and Indigenous people.

Despite his traditional education for the priesthood , Hidalgo rejected or questioned many of Catholicism's  most fundamental tenets, including the Virgin birth, clerical celibacy  and the existence of hell. Until 1809 he pursued his priestly functions and exerted himself to introduce various forms of industry among his parishioners at Dolores. After Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808, the colonies, unwilling to accept a French ruler, loudly proclaimed Ferdinand VII as king. The societies they formed professed loyalty to Spain, but authorities suspected they were designed to prepare for independence.

The local parish priest was one of the most influential in the community and Father hidalgo often served as the host for social gatherings in his home where he would speak to a elect group of friends and potential conspirators about whether it was the duty of the people to obe y an unjust tyrant or overthrow him. The unjust tyrant he was referring to was Charles IV, the present king of Spain.

Not only did Father Hidalgo observe injustice and cruelty in his daily work with the poor, he also strongly opposed many of the king's policies. For example, rather than encouraging the growth of the colony as his father,  had done, Charles1V exploited the country's wealth with schemes like his plan to use the charitable funds of the church to help pay for his European wars. 
Hidalgo and several of his friends engaged in preparations which the authorities considered treasonable. Warned by the arrest of a friend, Hidalgo gathered several hundred of his parishioners, and on  September 16, 1810,  Father Hidalgo rang the church bell to announce revolution against the Spanish. Reaching out to the crowd from the pulpit in what has become known as the "Gritto de Dolores", (the Cry of Dolores) calling upon the people to  revolt against the European-born Spaniards who had overthrown the Spanish Viceroy and  announced his intention to declare independence from Spain and exhorted the crowd to join him. The people responded by shouting 'death to the Gauchupines" A name given to the Peninsulares.

Many flocked to join him, and he soon had an army of 600 men, the uprising pitted the poor indigeneous indians and and mixed mestizo groups against the privileged classes and pushed them into a violent and bloody battle for freedom from Spain.

 Hilgado's declaration  launched a decade long struggle that ended 300 years of colonial rule, established a independent Mexico anf gelped cultivaye a unique Mexican identity.  The anniversary of Hidalgo's  call is celebrated as  the country's birthday. 

Joined by Ignacio Allende as their military commander, and with Father Hidalgo at their head, the army of the people marched for San Miguel, gathering strength as it marched. The revolutionaries surprising the authorities with their intensity took San Miguel with little trouble and the local militia men joined them. The rebellion snowballed with astonishing rapidity. Looting and pillaging Spanish residences and public buildings, armed with machetes, slings, and farming implements, the crowd had become an impassioned mob of thousands.
Around noon on September 28, the ragtag army reached the provincial capital of Guanajuato, where they had their first sustained encounter with the Spanish military. Overrunning the town by sheer force of numbers, the crowd slaughtered some 500 Spaniards, burning, pillaging, looting the granary, and wreaking widespread havoc. Over the next month, the army continued on its rampage, taking the provincial capitals of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, and Valladolid before heading toward Mexico City, the heart of Spanish power in the Americas. On October 30, 1810, at Monte de las Cruces on the outskirts of Mexico City, Hidalgo’s 80,000 to 100,000-strong army defeated a much smaller but formidable Spanish force sent to stop them. At this point, Hidalgo made what many consider his most momentous and enigmatic decision.
Instead of following the advice of his lieutenants and sentiments of the crowd and descending into the colony’s capital city, he opted to retreat. Scholars continue to debate his reasons, though most consider that he found intolerable the prospect of the mass slaughter that would surely follow.
From this point the movement rapidly lost momentum, as his makeshift army divided and desertions mounted. Hidalgo lost heart and retreated. His forces were decisively defeated at Aculo on November 7, 1810, and at the bridge of Calderón on Río Santiago on January 17, 1811.Father Hidalgo and Allende were forced to flee north, but once in Texas they were betrayed by local insurrrection leader Ignacio Elizonda and turned over to the Spanish authorities. The Spanish sent them to Chihuahua to stand trial where they were found guilty and sentenced to death. Allende was executed by firing squad on June 26, 1811, shot in the back as a sign of dishonor, but Father Hidalgo, as a priest, had to undergo a civil trial and answer to the inquisition as well. He was eventually stripped of his priesthood and executed  as a rebel on July 30th. The heads of both Hidalgo and Allende were preserved and hung on the walls of the granary at Guanahuato as a warning to those foolish or brave enough to follow in their footsteps.
Even though the  revolution had failed, it opened the people eyes to the possibility of freedom and the priests martyrdom allowed others to pick up his mantle. The struggle for independence continued for several years until a group of liberals forced the king to make changes that frightened the conservatives in Mexico City. The conservatives finally joined forces with the followers of Father Hidalgo to defeat the Spanish, and on August 24, 1821, a treaty was signed granting Mexico independence from Spain. Mexicans celebrate national independence on September 15–16, in commemoration of Hidalgo’s Grito de Dolores, even though actual independence did not come until 11 years after the revered priest’s fateful cry. Every year at midnight on September 15 Mexicans led by their President, shout the Grito, honouring the crucial and impulsive action that was the catalyst for the country;s bloody struggle for independence. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla is today remembered and revered as the father of his country and is seen as the great hero of Mexico's' long struggle for Independence and champion of the downtrodden and oppressed. His insurgency lit the fire for revolution, he remains an icon of liberation. His remains lie in Mexico City in a monument known as 'the angel of Independence along with other revolutionary heroes  and though he never lived to see an independent Mexico ,he is regarded as the 'father ; of the nation ad is t focus of the annual celebration on 15/16,

Hidalgo is immortalised by the works of Diego Rivera) and art associated with the Mexican muralist movement and memorial statues that have become tourist attractions.  Many travellers to Guanajuato make a point to visit the legendary place where Hidalgo first made his cry for independence.

Tony Benn - 10 min History Lesson for Neoliberals

Tony Benn as one of the leading light in Britain's Labour Party  opposed the conservatism of Tony Blair's New Labour, and was a strong voice for socialism and a prominent supporter of the struggles for justice,  In the 1980s, when Benn seemed to have a realistic chance of aspiring to the Labour leadership, he was constantlyattacked and vilified by the right-wing press in the same way that Jeremy Corbyn is today.Truth, fairness and common sense stamped upon in pursuit of wealth and power. He was a not your typical politician but Benn who died a few years ago leaves a powerful legacy and principles that live on.
The following speech is ten minutes of  his wisdom.
 
Tony Benn - 10 min History Lesson for Neoliberals

See more Tony Benn videos and other great speeches at http://www.counterfire.org