launch of radical newsheet — the Bath Bomb

Today, sev­en activists from Bath Activist Net­work set up shop in the mid­dle of Bath to raise aware­ness and encour­age peo­ple to attend the upcom­ing. Cli­mate Camp

Through­out the day we gave out hun­dreds of leaflets, stick­ers, newslet­ters and free cake. We unfurled a ban­ner and chalked art­work on the pave­ment (a com­mu­ni­ty sup­port offi­cer threat­ened to get some prop­er cops to arrest an activist for crim­i­nal dam­age, but we rang the coun­cil, who told us we were wel­come to chalk over as much pave­ment as we liked, leav­ing a slight­ly red faced cop!). We received loads of sup­port, loads of peo­ple were voic­ing dis­gust at the injunc­tion, and plea­sure that it was crap as far as injunc­tions go. Every­body knew about cli­mate camp and our argu­ments, and it seems to be a major talk­ing point at the mo. All in all a good and pro­duc­tive day — look­ing for­ward to the camp!

We also took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to start dis­trib­ut­ing our new month­ly newslet­ter ‘Bath Bomb’, giv­ing a rad­i­cal per­spec­tive on all the news and coun­cil sleaze in Bath! To get a copy e‑mailed every month, e‑mail bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk

See y’all in the fields!

bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

***************************************************************
***************************************************************

The Bath Bomb is here!

The first edi­tion of what should turn out to be our month­ly alter­na­tive news sheet, right now as plain text — a work in progress!:

*The Bath Bomb * Issue 1 July/August ’07 * @nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute! *

“All the news the Chron did­n’t choose!”

(For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries, see www.myspace.com/bathbomb)

Bath — 1, BNP — 0

As many read­ers will be aware, Nick Grif­fin, the leader of the Nazi BNP was due to speak at Bath Uni recent­ly. He was invit­ed by BNP youth leader Dan­ny Lake, a Bath Uni stu­dent.

Fac­ing mas­sive oppo­si­tion to the speech, the Uni banned Grif­fin from talk­ing. How­ev­er, local Antifa (anti fas­cist action) mem­bers got word that Grif­fin was being snuck into town to give a talk to a hard­core of BNP mem­bers at a secret loca­tion. Thanks to a well placed mole, Antifa found the loca­tion, and informed the man­ag­er, who was more than hap­py to can­cel the event (Lake had booked under the fake char­i­ty name ‘British Her­itage’!).

With only 2 hours’ notice, 20 activists were scour­ing the streets, look­ing for Nazi Nick and his bone­head mates. Upon get­ting word that the ‘fash’ were mov­ing toward Rev­o­lu­tion bar, the venue was occu­pied by anti-fas­cists with the full sup­port of the staff (one of whom was heard to say ‘do what it takes, just keep those bas­tards out!’). They then moved off to the Lit­ten Tree. Antifa went in after them and after a short ‘debate’, ‘per­suad­ed’ them to leave the pub. At this point, the old bill turned up and pre­vent­ed activists from chas­ing the flee­ing fas­cists. Luck­i­ly, well-placed spot­ters were able to fol­low.

They were found in Vicky Park, where, out num­bered 3 to 1 by anti-fas­cists, they had a five minute pic­nic before piss­ing off home. An inspec­tion of their cars revealed that none were from Bath, and had been shipped in from far and wide to give the impres­sion of hav­ing sup­port­ers.

The BNP are a nazi organ­i­sa­tion, led by a holo­caust deny­ing Hitler wor­ship­per with a track record of racial vio­lence. Bath organ­is­er Dan­ny Lake has been arrest­ed twice for harass­ing fam­i­lies attend­ing mul­ti­cul­tur­al events, and has a best mate in prison for bomb­ing a mosque. They’ve been shown once, and we can show them again — fas­cists are not wel­come in Bath!

Dis­eased Liv­er, Any­one?

Although hushed up in the Chron, in recent months, ani­mal rights groups in Bris­tol and Bath have been get­ting busy. ‘Paté de foie gras,’ a French import for the idle rich, is a cru­el culi­nary treat – ducks and geese spend life­times trapped in cages, dai­ly force-fed corn through painful tubes rammed down their throats, stom­achs expand­ing to burst­ing point, before their liv­ers are served on a plate. The tor­tured birds are often rid­dled with infec­tion, and eat­ing foie gras is linked to dis­eases like CJD and Alzheimer’s. Its man­u­fac­ture is also banned in the UK.

Two demos per­suad­ed Bistro No. 5 to drop it from their menu, so the cam­paign moved on to Le Petit Cochon, in Mar­garet Build­ings – and what fun they had! The high­ly excitable staff had no prob­lems with kick­ing off, scuf­fles inside and out, bro­ken glass and upend­ed tables being the order of the day. As thedin­ers gaw­ped on, head chefand own­er Christophe charged out, push­ing and shov­ing any­one with­in reach, shout­ing “I love ducks! I f**k ducks!” After the bes­tial­i­ty con­fes­sions died down, this larg­er-than-life char­ac­ter plant­ed a kiss on one pro­test­er, and then with­drew. Two weeks lat­er, seem­ing­ly calmed down, he claimed to have dropped foie gras. Or had he, the lying cad? Our rov­ing reporter went under­cov­er to dis­cov­er the truth, and eas­i­ly exposed the not-so-cun­ning ruse: the
restau­ran­t’s still sell­ing the putrid stuff, so watch this space for fur­ther break­ing news…

Every Lit­tle (Trick in the Book) Helps

After try­ing to worm their way into Bath for years, Tesco’s final­ly seem to be get­ting their way. With rejec­tion after rejec­tion at Lon­don Road and Odd Down, yet again they were turned down at the for­mer car show­room site John Tallis, at Bath­wick Hill. But, nev­er known for play­ing fair, what with all the farms and oth­er small-scale sup­pli­ers they’ve ripped off and destroyed over the years – pay­ing sup­pli­ers 4% less than any oth­er super­mar­ket – they went cry­ing off to a gov­ern­ment plan­ning inspec­tor, who over­turned the coun­cil’s deci­sion.

So, now we’ll be stuck with yet anoth­er Tesco’s Express. Whilst com­pa­ny spokes­peo­ple lie through their teeth, claim­ing that their stores give “oth­er local busi­ness­es a boost”, the truth is that with their con­stant price goug­ing, local shops like Bath­wick Stores, Tuck Time and oth­er estab­lished small stores are like­ly to soon go under. Indeed, rough­ly 50 inde­pen­dent shops are squeezed out of the UK every year by big super­mar­kets like these. So, soon, local roads will be clogged with deliv­ery trucks, road safe­ty will hit blood-stained rock bot­tom with inad­e­quate road-cross­ings, and more local jobs will be cut, because super­mar­kets employ two thirds less staff than small­er stores. So here’s to big­ger dole queues!

Well, whilst doing our best to sup­port local shops, when the new Tesco’s arrive, let’s make sure we give them all a big wel­come: plant­i­ng con­crete-crack­ing Japan­ese knotweed should be just the thing!

Events List­ing

Mon­day nights Bath Hunt Sabo­teur meet­ings 8pm back room of Bell
11th Aug Bath Free Shop @ Stall Street 12–3pm
14th—21st Aug Nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action nr Heathrow
5th Sept Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing back room of Bell 7.30–8.30pm
6th Sept Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing down­stairs Hob­gob­lin 7.30–9pm
11th-14th Sept Dis­arm DSEI @ The Excel Cen­tre in Lon­don
19th-24th Sept No Bor­der Camp nr Gatwick
21st Sept Left­ism ben­e­fit club night for Bris­tle mag­a­zine @ The Crown 9–2am

Who Are Bath Activist Net­work?

We are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

Get out Yer Life­jack­ets for the West­ern River­side Yup­pie Flood!

Yup, the coun­cil have done it again and sold off the west­ern river­side area to be turned into lux­u­ry flats.

There is major cause for con­cern on all fronts. A flood plain will be destroyed, mak­ing localised flood­ing immi­nent, bad­ger, owl and king­fish­er habi­tats will be destroyed, many Bath res­i­dents will have their views ruined by huge apart­ment build­ings, and we’ll have to deal with an influx of more yup­pies.

There are also plans to demol­ish the his­toric Bath Press to make way for a super­mar­ket to cater for the new res­i­dents. The 200 work­ers of the press, many of whom had put in 30-plus years were told to get out with next to no warn­ing to make way for the new devel­op­ment.

Crest Nichol­son, the devel­op­ment com­pa­ny (who make a cushy side­line evict­ing fam­i­lies from house­boats to build pricey water­side flats for…. you guessed it — yup­pies!) have kind­ly offered to make 20% of the hous­ing ‘affordable’…cheers! That means that Batho­ni­ans from the sur­round­ing area aren’t ever going to see inside these flats! Instead of putting effort into pro­vid­ing bet­ter facil­i­ties and con­di­tions for ordi­nary peo­ple, the coun­cil are ignor­ing our needs and cater­ing for the rich to make a quick buck.

As numer­ous oth­er ‘tourist’ cities across the world have shown us, flood­ing our com­mu­ni­ties with rich com­muters will have dis­as­trous effects – push­ing house prices up, suck­ing resources from the com­mu­ni­ty while putting noth­ing back and build­ing cof­fee bar after f**king cof­fee bar!

There are a mil­lion good argu­ments against this devel­op­ment, but the same old good rea­son for the coun­cil­lors – prof­it. Actions against the devel­op­ment are due to start soon, we’ll keep you post­ed!

Flights of Fan­cy?

Whilst cli­mate change is seem­ing­ly on every­one’s lips, for the British air­line indus­try, it’s (big) busi­ness as usu­al. Despite hot air from Num­ber 10 about ‘car­bon emis­sions reduc­tion tar­gets’, air pas­sen­ger num­bers are planned to dou­ble over the next 20 years; nev­er mind the fact that planes pol­lute 10 times worse than trains. This week, the British Air­port Author­i­ty is des­per­ate­ly push­ing through a new law to crim­i­nal­ize up to 5,000,000 mem­bers of green groups round the coun­try. The planned injunc­tion, lucra­tive work for silk-tongued lawyers, will not only ban pro­test­ers from areas inside and around Heathrow, but also from the Pic­cadil­ly line, M4 and M25.

But who are these heinous eco-ter­ror­ists that BAA is so afraid of? Earth First!? Al Qae­da? Erm, no. It’s groups like Friends of the Earth, the RSPB, The Cam­paign for the Pro­tec­tion of Rur­al Eng­land and No Third Run­way Acton Group, based in the vil­lages of Har­mondsworth and Sip­son: mem­bers include the Queen, Prince Charles and hun­dreds of BA staff, so they’re pre­sum­ably banned, too.

All this palaver is an attempt to nip this mon­th’s nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action in the bud – a week of edu­ca­tion, work­shops and activism, set to pitch up near Heathrow. The event is expect­ed to attract huge num­bers of rent-a-cops: just like the OTT polic­ing we saw back here in April, for the Bath Cli­mate Camp. And if this ridicu­lous ban does go through, it will be yet fur­ther proof that the courts are sim­ply hired flunkies at the cor­po­ra­tions’ beck and call. These peo­ple are ful­ly pre­pared to bull­doze over an entire vil­lage for a new run­way, putting sil­ly pipedreams like ‘eco­nom­ic growth’ before peo­ple’s lives.

How­ev­er, it’s not all doom and gloom: oth­er planned air­port expan­sions up and down the coun­try are now being beat­en back: Man­ches­ter, Coven­try, Luton, and Birm­ing­ham schemes were all reject­ed, and maybe soon Bris­tol Air­port will join ’em!

Join the Dots – from Local Dis­pute to Nation­al Dis­as­ter?

Lost his­to­ry, increased pol­lu­tion, unin­hab­it­able homes, not being con­sult­ed on local issues?

At the moment we may feel like a divid­ed pop­u­lace at the mer­cy of gov­ern­ment, coun­cil and cor­po­ra­tions. But if we link small local dis­putes over devel­op­ment across the coun­try, cre­at­ing net­works to oppose them, we will begin to see the change we crave.

Take Bath, for exam­ple – West­ern River­side Devel­op­ment, Tesco’s at Bath­wick Hill, the recent demo­li­tion of Churchill House despite mass protest… And fur­ther from home at Heathrow, where peo­ple are fight­ing against the third run­way, pro­tect­ing the beau­ti­ful old vil­lages they stand to lose. As a mem­ber of NOTRAG (a local group oppos­ing the run­way) says: “if it hap­pens to us, who’s next?”

“Democ­ra­cy only works if vot­ers are active and informed” All it takes for us to be more in con­trol, is for us to pull togeth­er local­ly and nation­al­ly, learn­ing from each oth­ers’ actions and to fit cam­paigns into our ordi­nary lives, next to the wash­ing up or get­ting the din­ner, to remind the gov­ern­ment that we are all part of that gov­ern­ment too. These lit­tle bits will reap huge ben­e­fits – for you, your neigh­bours, your chil­dren and even the world!

Some things you could do: attend local meet­ings, or, if you’re part of a group, link up with oth­er groups over a com­mon goal, get involved in protests, cre­ate your own. If you oppose the new Tesco’s, what would you like in its place? Make that hap­pen instead. And if the Tesco’s does get built, don’t shop there! Think neigh­bour­hood watch on a grander scale – being aware of what’s going on in your area, sup­port­ing those around you and try­ing not to leave any­one out, is enough. Share the work so it does­n’t over­whelm and keep morale up by shar­ing the deci­sion not to take ‘no’ for an answer.

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions are avail­able on request