Smart Ass. By Terry Messman.

How America Kicked Ass of Smart Ass John Bird.

By Terry Messman in the US.

Edited & Comments

By Uncle Monty in the UK.

Part-2 of 2.

***

At the Seattle, USA, founding convention of the

North America Street Newspaper Association

(NASNA) - NASNA (nasna_news) on Twitter.

Big Issue representative Ruth Turner told the assembled

street paper editors of “The Big Secret of Big Business.”

"There is so much money, money, money available from

advertising," Turner said with great relish. "It's money for

nothing." It was a revealing self-portrait of an acquisitive

corporation ruled by the profit motives of Big Business.

***

For although The Big Issue (in the UK) is sold by

homeless people, in truth it is a multinational corporation

that cultivates advertising more than it fosters activism.

As we saw in Los Angeles, it is more likely to emulate the

hostile take-over strategy of big corporations than to

demonstrate the kind of mutual support and solidarity

that must be the hallmarks of the homeless movement.

***

Founded and funded by the Body Shop corporation, The

Big Issue (in late 1990’s) launched a major bid to take over

the large "market" for street newspapers it perceives in Los

Angeles, arrogantly shouldering aside existing street

paper, “Making Change”, produced by the Jennafer (neé

Waggoner) Yellowhorse, a homeless woman and

dedicated nonviolent activist.

By Jennafer (neé Waggoner) Yellowhorse.
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/246/0/

***

The Big Issue is charged by her with violating the Charter

of the International Network of Street Papers (INSP)

- International Network of Street Papers - which

prohibits members from staging hostile or competi-

tive infringements on another street paper's territory.

She wrote to Big Issue Editor/Publisher John Bird: "Does

not your INSP Charter state a member will not invade

the established selling area of an existing charter member?

My paper is a member of NASNA. NASNA is a member

of the INSP. This means "Making Change" is an INSP

member whose territory you are violating. How can

we not see your moves and your motives as hostile?"

By ignoring its own INSP Charter, The Big Issue has

triggered deep resentment in some homeless

advocacy circles. NASNA's Executive Committee met

after Jennafer Yellowhorse’s strong stand and agreed

that it was "unanimously opposed to The Big Issue setting

up in Los Angeles." The NASNA body discussed ways of

"turning up the heat on the Big Issue," including "mobili-

zing allies in the global street paper movement to register

protest, arranging a picket of their London headquarters,

and registering complaints with their major funders." The

Executive Board of the National Coalition for the Homeless

also approved a resolution opposing The Big Issue's actions.

***

Robert Norse: A Dedicated and Fercious Foe of

The Big Issue Much Like Uncle Monty Now Is ...

***
The Big Issue Editor Bird wrote to NASNA that he was

"very disturbed" by its opposition to his Los Angeles

venture, and quickly reached for legal muscle to protect

his business interests. Bird wrote: "It would seem that

we have so outraged NASNA that we are now threatened

by you. I am not sure of the legality - or otherwise - of

your threats (to protest the Big Issue), but I shall cer-

tainly be taking legal advice as to whether you are

within the law to make such threats.

***

"Uh oh! Big Lawyers! Big Trouble! Big Legal Bills! Big

Business As Usual!. The fight between The Big Issue and

its small opponent is hardly a fair one. It is an unseemly

spectacle to have such a large, well-funded company run-

ning roughshod over a homeless woman who puts out a

grass-roots newspaper with next to no funding, no ad-

vertising, and no corporate deep pockets to draw on.

The Big Issue, on the other hand, is a multi-million-

dollar corporation founded and funded by The

Body Shop in London in 1991.

***

This is not the first time The Big Issue has tried to seize

the market in a U.S. city. It made similar unsettling moves

in San Francisco in 1994 and New York in 1997. Paul Boden,

director of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, told

the London paper in no uncertain terms that he would con-

sider any attempt to set up a Big Issue clone in the Bay Area

an unacceptable attack on the Coalition's STREET SHEET.

In New York, the Big Issue was planning on driving the

"Street News" out of business, an especially cold-blooded

proposition considering that Bird acknowledges getting the

idea for his paper from the New York street paper.
***
An Ex-Big Issue Vendor Clasps Hands W/Uncle Monty.

***
NASNA Chair Tim Harris attended the General Assembly

of the International Network of Street Papers in London in

1996. In an article about the conference, Harris reported

the thinking behind the Big Issue's cravingto grab The

Big Apple." Bird claimed that New York's "Street News"

- Search By Street Paper - Street News Service -

which has inspired The Big Issue and numerous other

papers since it began in 1989, is on the verge of complete

failure because the paper is 'unreadable.' The New York

paper has, in recent years, focused editorially on poverty

issues, but has been racked by internal difficulties. While

no formal announcement was made, several lower-level

Big Issue staff confirmed rumors that The Big Issue

plans to begin a competing paper in New York, probably

before the summer of 1997."

***

To my ears, this strategy sounds similar to a vulture

carefully keeping a death watch on the weakest animal

in the herd, but in the world ofventure capitalism such

behavior is all too often the norm. Gordon Roddick,

chairman of The Body Shop and co-founder of The Big

Issue, reportedly held talks with Bird about funding a

competing paper in New York in October, 1997, with

moves into Los Angeles and San Francisco to follow.

The New York attempt was thwarted, but the move

into LosAngeles, alas, proceeded. Because of these

repellent machinations, I personally will never again

buy anything from The Body Shop. I join "Street

Sheet" editor Paul Boden'scall for people to refuse on

principle to purchase The Big Issue. The paper and its

corporate backer must be held accountable for this

Machiavellian marketing strategy.
***

The Big Issue identified the largest market where they

perceived some weakness in an existing street paper,

and went after it in a nill-disguised takeover bid. New

York City was the largest market with a seemingly

weak paper. But the prediction of the impending demise

of the New York "Street News" was premature. The Big

Issue ran headlong into the steadfast fighting spirit of

"Street News" editor Indio Washington. The result?

"Street News" is still going strong, so Bird took the

traveling, colonizing roadshow to the West Coast, where

Los Angeles beckoned with the second largest media mar-

ket in the country, and only atiny street paper edited

by Jennafer Yellowhorse in the way. A push-over.

***
Coming Soon: Uncle Monty's "So How Did John Bird

Enter The US With A Criminal Record?" Good Question!

***
But Jennafer Yellowhorse is a dedicated activist who stands

up for the human rights of homeless people, and has been

arrested for her principled acts of civil disobedience, most

recently for occupying the vacant Flamingo Motel. Her

paper, “Making Change”, is born out of the struggles of

homeless people in Santa Monica and Los Angeles. The Big

Issue is born out of a London-based corporation's grandiose

ambitions to colonize new territories to further the expan-

sionist drive of a paper "empire." Yellowhorse’s paper,

and her entire activist life, is based on advancing the

human rights of homeless people and conducting the

kind of hard-hitting reporting on justice issues practiced

by most North American homeless advocacy papers.

***

The Big Issue, on the other hand, is a paper that, as Bird

himself wrote in a letter to NASNA , has "an editorial balance

of 20% social matters and 80% general interest." This means

that by his own estimate, The Big Issue consists dispro-

portionately of entertainment fluff, rock star bios and

celebrity coverage. Add in all the column inches devoted

to advertising, and a true picture emerges of where

The Big Issue's heart is - and isn't. They concocted their

"editorial balance" as shrewdly as they crafted their move

into Los Angeles. Infotainment sells, and bland editorial

content doesn't offend advertisers or challenge the public

with too much hard-hitting reporting about "difficult"

subjects.
***

A Manipulative Big Issue Badged Vendor

Cajoles Celebrity To Give Him More of

What She's Already Given him ...

***

USA Today and People Magazine also feature entertain-

ment journalism and eschew outspoken political advocacy,

but they do not promote themselves as a street newspaper,

nor do they compete with grass-roots homeless papers, nor

try to knock them out of business. In his article about the

INSP conference, Harris reported that Bird said he was

committed to spreading his paper's model of "general interest

entertainment journalism and corporate support," and that

the major function of street newspapers is to be a "business."

***

"The Big Issue is not a homeless paper," Bird said. "It never

has and never will be. It is a paper sold by homeless people.

While we have a ghetto in the paper for the homeless called

'Streetlights,' we want to break people out of that." It is in-

sufferably demeaning for Bird to dismiss the one part of his

paper where homeless people express themselves as a

"ghetto" that they must break out of - presumably so they

can write about more commercial subjects such as Mad-

onna, Oasis, or people addicted to playing The Lottery.
***
There is an urgent need for the kind of passionate,

politically committed journalism practiced by "Making

Change" and many North American street papers. The

real threat posed by The Big Issue is that with its big

budget and big corporate backing, it will engulf and

devour smaller papers and replace their crusading re-

porting with its dumbed-down entertainment journal-

ism (and its 20% reporting on what Bird blandly

calls "social matters").

***

The most important goal of homeless newspapers is not

to attract more advertising revenue but to fearlessly

tell the truth about the injustices suffered by poor people

and to build a movement to safeguard basic human rights.

A street paper with a conscience must join in solidarity

struggles with the homeless community and promote

activist campaigns to win decent housing, jobs, welfare

entitlements, health care and disability rights. In his

letter to NASNA , Bird also wrote: "Many of your

members will no doubt see The Big Issue as a piece

of fluff, too slick by half. I would be very surprised

if it were different. Their vision of a street paper is

totally opposite to that of The Big Issue as it is

represented in its UK incarnation."

***

"A piece of fluff, too slick by half." Finally we can

agree on something. And don’t forget: THE BIG

ISSUE MEANS BIG BUSINESS AS USUAL ...

- F I N I S -

...

John Bird's magazine was a revolutionary and profitable

antidote to homelessness. But an LA launch has gone awry,

there are problems in London and, a former editor argues,

even its founding aims are open to question.
By Joanne Mallabar.

.

TBI's Los Angeles launch has thrown up accusations that

the company is operating like some acquisitive multi-national.

"If it were just about selling a product, we could have vendors

out there shifting toothpaste or detergent," says Jennifer

Waggoner, of the LA-based street paper "Making Change."

"Which is more important: sales or social justice?" One

way forward would be for TBI to re-radicalise itself: get

to grips with lobbying and campaigning; uncover the

voices and trends in street culture before they appear in

print elsewhere. Surely TBI is about providing a voice for

all the people - not just the visibly disenfranchised - who

by choice or circumstance find themselves outside

mainstream society. Unless it changes, TBI's future may

be uncertain. John Bird's sheer force of will has held to-

gether an organisation full of contradictions. If it is to

survive beyond its founding father, then TBI must con-

sider radical alternatives, beginning perhaps with a

re-examination of its aims. No one ever said it would

be easy "helping the homeless to help themselves".

.

Source: HAS THE ISSUE BECOME TOO BIG?

Joanne Mallabar is a former editor and acting

director of The Big Issue, where she worked

for five years from 1992.
***

John Bird Doesn't Give A Damn What

Folkz & Hard-Hitting Critics Think or

Say About Him. All He Does Is Run To

The Bank Laughing At Them Every Day ...

***

Pop Goes The Weasel. By Uncle Monty.
The Cork Street Open Exhibition refers to John

Bird as “Sir John Bird, Founder of the Big Issue,

Art Enthusiast & Artist” But Bird is NOT knighted

and hopefully never will be. Therefore, he should
not be referred to as “Sir John Bird.” True, he

holds the MBE medal, but that’s about it. The Cork

Street Open Exhibtion needs to correct such mis-

information regarding Bird’s non-existant British

knighthood. Elsewhere, he is also referred to as

“Dr. John Bird,” but I don’t know how he comes to

hold such a title. Curiously, no date of birth is

given at the online bio of the soon-to-be 65 year

old Bird come next year and who was born, we

are told, at London’s Notting Hill of poor Irish

parents in 1946 and in the same year as

Bill Clinton’s birth at Hope, Arkansas.

***

As for John Bird's attempted invasion of

America, I am curious as to why his opponents

there never raised the serious issue of how Bird

first entered the US with that criminal record of

his. Had they done so, they may well have brought

things to a faster close at an investigation by the

then US Immigration & Naturalization Service

(INS) against Bird himself. I'll shortly have a

piece of mine about that serious issue of Bird

entering the US with his British criminal record

that usually bars such foreigners from being

granted a US visa in the first place. More

about such coming soon ...

.

Plus, next "The Falcon Connection" is all about

Colorado's latest scam called "In Trust Domains"

under a bogus "Arthur Simmons," whose at the

same home territory as America's poisonous cunt

of Loveland. The cunt in question is the vicious

creep and ally of The Big Issue sods Peter & John

Bird. More about "Arthur" and "The Cunt" is on

the way ... Stay turned to read all about Falcon!!

Perhaps next the Feds will be knocking quietly

on someone's door for all we know. If they do,

I shall let you all know ... for sure. They're good

themselves at kicking ass, too, are those

FBI agents! Right, cunt? And, how about you,

Arthur? I hear you also hang around Colorado

Springs much like the cunt. Yep? U bet!

.

Gladly written, Uncle Monty.

+20th Sunday after Trinity, 2010.
...

Feedback & Comments

allaboutthebigissue@britain.com
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Also: "Doing Dvořák." By Uncle Monty.

http://thebiggerissue.org/

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