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US paper features travellers' battle
1:55am Wednesday 26th March 2008
Comments (26)THE Dale Farm traveller site has made international headlines.
The plight of 86 families fighting to stay in illegally-built homes at the Crays Hill site has been reported by the US capital's most famous newspaper, the Washington Post.
The paper recently ran a lengthy article, critical of Basildon Council's eviction plan, written by Iain Guest, founder of human rights organisation, the Advocacy Project. The Washington-based lobby group is campaigning to help the travellers remain on the Dale Farm site.
In it, Mr Guest warns the health care and education of Dale Farm travellers would be "brutally interrupted" if they were evicted.
He points to the success of a local anti-smoking clinic in getting 200 travellers to quit within six months and says such benefits would be lost if the council moved families on.
The travellers' High Court battle features in a ten-minute film posted on the YouTube website by he Advocacy Project.
In the film, elderly Dale Farm traveller Michael Slattery talks of handcuff scars he still bears from the time he was evicted from a site in Hertfordshire.
He adds: "When they put us out of here where in the name of God are we going to go?
"If somebody came to your home, putting you out, what would you do?"
Dale Farm spokesman Mary Anne McCarthy, 76, adds in the film: "There are a lot of cancer patients, ill people and people in wheelchairs.
"They say you can get a doctor anywhere, but what if you're terminally ill and need treatment every second day, you have to have an address."
Your Say YourEcho
Kim Gandy, Rayleigh says...
5:26am Wed 26 Mar 08
They HAVE an address. The Crays Hill site has homes built on it with tarmaced roads. It even has a postcode.
And some of them are on the electoral roll.
Just fot those who just haven't got it yet. The site is illegal. It is illegally built with no planning permission.
There are related issues like water, electricity, drainage etc.
All being forked out for by YOU.
When I lived at Crays Hill there were constant power cuts and drains on the supply.
In fact there are all sorts of anomalies about living at Crays Hill, to numerous to mention here.
They have enough money to buy themselves proper homes so why don't they?
Calling themselves travellers, then illegally building on green belt and being a drain on local resources just isn't cutting it.
It doesn't endear them to the local population.
Until they are honest and integrate properly into the community and stop pretending to be what they are not (certainly NOT travellers), you will continue to read this sort of opinion on this website and in the letters pages.
We are all being made fools of and it defies belief that there are STILL people out there who genuinely believe these people are homeless.
Cr@p.
evilc, essex says...
7:21am Wed 26 Mar 08
If they know the facts they call a Spade a Spade and Lawbreakers get what they deserve without all the chorus of protests like here and that is why in the USA a Life sentence means a life unlike here it is 9 years in cells of luxury! Prisoners rights are not listened to with the view 'They had the Choice' Don't break the Law !!!
So given all the facts about the travellers 'Outlaw' ways of life the yanks will not give them a second thought!!
Do not under estimate the silent major majority of Yanks.
They would NEVER put up with Law breakers of this type like we do encouraged by our 'Namby Pamby Do gooders'
Our easy tollerant ways created by Do Gooders is destroying us.
mike b, Billericay says...
7:56am Wed 26 Mar 08
I wanted to post a response,putting the record straight and expressing an opinion or two of my own but the "comments" option on the article is now closed.
Clearly,the Washington Post,once famous for exposing Watergate,no longer has room for truth.
Do Gooders No Good, says...
7:57am Wed 26 Mar 08
Gordon Liddy, says...
8:07am Wed 26 Mar 08
Not healthy.
Andrew, Shoeburyness says...
8:29am Wed 26 Mar 08
Be polite, make salient points. It is no good just sending insults and whines.
Jim Brady Executive Editor email address: executive.editor@was
hingtonpost.com
James McCord, Out there says...
8:31am Wed 26 Mar 08
Gordon Liddy wrote:Lots of people are obsessed,Gordon especially where you come from......
Someone is in danger of looking like they're obsessed with these travellers... Not healthy.
the undertaker, crays hill says...
8:42am Wed 26 Mar 08
I for one am going to build an air raid shelter.
As now those yanks are on to us , we can expect a squadron of B 52's carpet bombing the surrounding area of dale farm to liberate the squatters.
Then expect the invasion of ground troops to mop up the ones the civilians havent killed.
Then they can install a puppet council to pull their strings......Oh but i forgot dale farm has no oil....!
America talking about human rights...! I have heard it all now,is this the same country what wants to police the world and annihilate any country that stands in its way.
The same country that encourages and uses drug money to support a regime of their choice.
The same country that has caused misery and bloodshed where ever it pokes its nose in.
And they want to lecture us on human rights.
mike b, Billericay says...
9:01am Wed 26 Mar 08
Andrew wrote:I did that after reading the article.
So, email the Washington Post\'s Editor, (re: The Traveller\'s Travails by Iain Guest 3/9/08) and explain the errors in the story and its one sided nature. Be polite, make salient points. It is no good just sending insults and whines. Jim Brady Executive Editor email address: executive.editor@was hingtonpost.com
By the way,I'm not in the business of insults and whines and usually,I'm polite.
pansypotter, Benfleet says...
9:54am Wed 26 Mar 08
quote
Mac, Billericay says...
12:36pm Wed 26 Mar 08
npost.com/wp-dyn/con
tent/article/2008/03
/07/AR2008030702850.
html
Mac, Billericay says...
12:48pm Wed 26 Mar 08
et.org/resource/1140
http://www.advocacyn
et.org/resource/953
Alfred Baldwin, over here says...
1:05pm Wed 26 Mar 08
James McCord wrote:Yes that's true, but most of them aren't THIS obsessed.
Gordon Liddy wrote: Someone is in danger of looking like they're obsessed with these travellers... Not healthy.Lots of people are obsessed,Gordon especially where you come from......
Real danger of starting to look seriously cranky.
a cousin, over there says...
1:14pm Wed 26 Mar 08
Alfred Baldwin wrote:I agree but obsession for a mate of mine is due to him being mugged for $200k....
James McCord wrote:Yes that's true, but most of them aren't THIS obsessed. Real danger of starting to look seriously cranky.Gordon Liddy wrote: Someone is in danger of looking like they're obsessed with these travellers... Not healthy.Lots of people are obsessed,Gordon especially where you come from......
Stay out of it yanks, says...
3:58pm Wed 26 Mar 08
One day the yanks will learn to keep their noses out of other people's business.
Liberal, says...
9:15pm Wed 26 Mar 08
bellyaching ...
bleeding hearts...
downright idiots...
She has a very poor opinion of the human race or at least that bit of it which is not fully onboard with the thoughts of the leaderene Kim. Perhaps she just likes splashing vitriol and invective over those who are not of a like mind.
Kim Gandy, Rayleigh says...
10:42pm Wed 26 Mar 08
mike b wrote:Where is it please? I did a search and couldn't find the article.
The Washington Post article is still on their website - unsurprisingly it's full of one-sided tosh. I wanted to post a response,putting the record straight and expressing an opinion or two of my own but the "comments" option on the article is now closed. Clearly,the Washington Post,once famous for exposing Watergate,no longer has room for truth.
I think we all should write to the WP.
Kim Gandy, Rayleigh says...
10:44pm Wed 26 Mar 08
Andrew wrote:Sorry, hadn't got this far down. Will do that right now.
So, email the Washington Post's Editor, (re: The Traveller's Travails by Iain Guest 3/9/08) and explain the errors in the story and its one sided nature. Be polite, make salient points. It is no good just sending insults and whines. Jim Brady Executive Editor email address: executive.editor@was hingtonpost.com
Kim Gandy, Rayleigh says...
10:47pm Wed 26 Mar 08
Liberal wrote:And YOUR opinion on this issues is?
I see Kim gandy is having her usual Mosley moment.However pusilanimous... bellyaching ... bleeding hearts... downright idiots... She has a very poor opinion of the human race or at least that bit of it which is not fully onboard with the thoughts of the leaderene Kim. Perhaps she just likes splashing vitriol and invective over those who are not of a like mind.
Your name is?
Can't supply both of these? Don't bother posting here.
Most people here are of like mind, or have you not noticed that.
We always expect Rent A Leftie or in your case Liberal Leftie, at times like this.
But it's all grist to the mill because others here, whose opinions are based on fact, can see just how uninformed others really are.
Liberal, says...
11:25pm Wed 26 Mar 08
Are these facts she sets great store in, the same sort of facts that she quotes when mis-informing
(at best) readers as to the number of votes she polled at previous elections.
It's good to see that integrity and truthfullness has not gone out of politics.
Another liberal, says...
9:18am Thu 27 Mar 08
Keep digging Kim.
Andrew, Shoeburyness says...
3:07pm Thu 27 Mar 08
No problem, after they sold Britain down the river by bending over for Gordon Brown and the Liebour Party with their useless fence sitting at the Lisbon Treaty Referendum vote, they have no chance of ever being taken seriously in this country.
Leftie, says...
3:26pm Thu 27 Mar 08
Andrew wrote:Offending people isn't a problem - just by breathing, we seem to offend the illustrious Gandy. God forbid that we should actually post an opinion, for fear of being buried under a flurry of posts filled with the same old "leftie wittering" bollix.
Typical Liberals, too afraid that they might 'offend' someone to have an opinion. They can't argue the point, so they attack the person. No problem, after they sold Britain down the river by bending over for Gordon Brown and the Liebour Party with their useless fence sitting at the Lisbon Treaty Referendum vote, they have no chance of ever being taken seriously in this country.
I agree, attacking the person shows you have no argument - but I disagree that it's just the Liberals on here doing that. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Not sure I get the second para. No true liberal would vote for Labour in its current state... and I don't remember any of us individual British subjects being asked about Lisbon. Even Gordon wouldn't turn up, so how on earth do we get a say in it?
Now I'll just crawl back in my pusillanimous hole, eat my muesli, read the Guardian, and bury my head in the sand. Apparently.
Andrew, Shoeburyness says...
3:31pm Thu 27 Mar 08
If the Liberals had had the courage to vote for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty a few weeks ago, then the people of Britain would have been able to have their first say on Europe since 1973.
But instead they abstained because it was a Tory proposal, and so they sided with Gordon McStalin in denying us our 'say in it'.
The Lib-Dems, what a waste of tacpayers money they are.
Leftie, says...
5:18pm Thu 27 Mar 08
Agreed. They are useless.
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Kim Gandy, Rayleigh says...
5:18am Wed 26 Mar 08
What in God's name does this have to do with outsiders?
And do these travellers think that there aren't people in the wider community that need urgent hospital treatment too?
Is "human rights" an inclusive thing? Or is it just minorities that have them?
When are these people going to stop exploiting their elderly and young - thrusting them in the front line when the bailiffs come instead of doing what the rest of us would do, keeping them away from vehicles, fighting etc?
When are they going to stop laying it on thick for the benefit of the bleeding hearts brigade. At one Basildon hearing, I saw a woman hobble into the hearing room with a stick, exaggerating her every move. On leaving the building, she swung the stick over her shoulder and strode swiftly towards the car park.
Come on. Only a pusilanimous, bellyaching minority of bleeding hearts - and downright idiots - still believe these people are in genuine need.
The rest of us know they are leeching off decent, taxpaying citizens.
Otherwise why aren't we seeing them integrating into the community, going out to work, helping out at school fetes, doing volunteer work even.
You know, stuff the rest of us do.