Get the Goat this Christmas
Every year I’ve taken to buying a goat from World Vision instead of sending Christmas cards to my online friends and supporters. This year is no exception: you’ll find the official e-card here.
Thank you for your support and friendship through the past year.
A very Happy Christmas to you all, and my very best wishes for the year to come.
A Request
I’m sharing this year’s goat with the SPCK/SSG Bloggers. I hope most of you are familiar with the SPCK/SSG situation: it’s taken up a lot of my time this year, time that would most likely have otherwise been spent on developing UKCBD and this blog. I make no apology for that, but I do regret the need for it.
The only thing needed for evil to succeed is for those who know better to do nothing. Make no mistake about it: the Brewers are evil men. They took SPCK on trust and they have violated that trust: they have betrayed employees and suppliers. They have attempted to stifle free speech. They have reneged on a covenant, a covenant that they freely entered into and signed in the presence of a witness, to maintain shops as outlets for Christian literature. They have attempted a fraudulent bankruptcy filing on the USA courts. Their treatment of their employees has driven at least one man to a nervous breakdown; another committed suicide. All of these points are matters of public record and can be independently verified.
Yet they continue to operate so-called ‘Christian’ bookshops around the UK whilst people who should know better continue to trade with them, supplying them with books and other products that enable them to continue their devious business practices.
So to my request: please show your support for and solidarity with the former SPCK/SSG employees and suppliers who have not been paid — whose Christmas celebrations are blighted because of the Brewers — by reading and signing the two petitions to rescue the Durham and Chichester shops from the Brewers:
If you have already signed those petitions, thank you. Please spread the word and ask your colleagues and friends to read and sign them too.
Luke’s account of the nativity includes these words from Mary:
The Lord has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
Let’s make 2009 the year in which workers and suppliers are paid and in which the Brewers are brought down, brought to book for their crimes and sent away empty.
Thank you.
