10 July
'Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom - that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom.' John Scopes
Today in 1925, the Scopes ‘Monkey’ trial opened. John Scopes, a high school teacher, was prosecuted by the Tennessee State for teaching evolution based on Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. This was in defiance of the recently introduced Butler Act which forbade the teaching, in any state-funded educational establishment in Tennessee, ‘of any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.’
After eight days of intensive arguing, Scopes was found guilty and the monkeys lost out in Tennessee.
…I have never known what freedom is. I keep on working for it and hoping for it and wanting it, but I know that I never shall have it. In this, no doubt, my life has been like the life of every being that ever lived … I remember reading a while ago a statement of Anatole France. He said that the chief business of life is “killing time.” And so it is. What is the difference if we gather all the facts of the universe into our brains for the worms to eat? They might give the worms indigestion …’
Clarence Darrow, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer for the defence
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Greenwash
Alethea Warrington describes how the fossil fuels industry hopes to change its image but not its practice
Frontline workers and Covid-19: a carer’s account
Ndella Diouf Paye writes about her experiences working as a carer for a private company
The state of things to come
Politicians, the state, and the market have failed to come to terms with Covid-19. Can 'people power' navigate a way out of the crisis? K Biswas introduces the TNI Covid Capitalism Report
Pints, patriotism and precarity
Oli Carter-Esdale explores the weaponisation of the pint and asks: where next for the hospitality sector?
UK, hun?
Materially, the UK is not a nation – with fewer common experiences than ever before, from schools and policing to borders and governance – argue Medb MacDaibheid and Brian Christopher
What key work really means
While economic activity slowed down during the Covid-19 crisis, accumulation of wealth continues for capitalists at the cost of key workers’ health and wellbeing, writes Notes From Below
