HENRY FOWLER, assistant general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), reports on Day 2 from the GFTU’s residential Summer School at the Workers’ Retreat, Quorn Grange Hotel
Latest editorial
Speaking truth to empire: William Blum
ALISON BANVILLE salutes the remarkable impact of the man who comprehensively chronicled US interventions
[Thomas Good/NLN]
Assistant general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions HENRY FOWLER reports on day 1 from the GFTU’s residential Summer School at Quorn Grange Hotel
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ON December 9 William Blum died. He was one of the great truth-tellers of this or any other era and an example of everything a real journalist should be.
Blum began working for the US State Department as a computer programmer in the mid-’60s but the man who declared that he wanted to “take part in the great anti-communist crusade” had the scales fall from his eyes as the Vietnam war unfolded and he quit, founding The Washington Free Press, one of the New Left’s first independent newspapers.
Bill held a passionate determination to tell the truth about US foreign policy aims, and this he did for the rest of his life. Two of his books in particular should be required reading for us all, but especially for anyone with aspirations to be a journalist (rather than a state stenographer as most end up).
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