BP and Culture – time to break it off!

A week of action to kick BP out of our cultural spaces
14–20 April 2011

A week of action to kick BP out of our cultural spaces
14–20 April 2011

In the week between BP’s AGM and the one-year anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, we are calling for actions and creative interventions to show the true nature of BP’s damaging activities around the world, and to persuade our most prestigious galleries and cultural spaces to liberate themselves from BP’s dirty money.

Sponsorship of galleries, museums and other cultural spaces is one of the most important ways BP tries to protect its reputation and buy our acceptance. By breaking off BP’s relationship with our most prestigious cultural institutions, we strike a blow to BP’s precious brand, topple BP’s powerful position in our society, and reclaim our public spaces. On the anniversary of the Gulf spill, let’s reveal the sticky black stuff behind BP’s shiny green logo, and pile on the pressure to kick BP out of our cultural spaces for good.

Creative interventions will be popping up at sponsored galleries and institutions throughout the week, so watch this space, or better yet plan your own!

This week of action is called by Art Not Oil, Climate Camp London, Climate Rush, Indigenous Environmental Network, Liberate Tate, London Rising Tide and UK Tar Sands Network

More info including events list, targets and resources:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction
Facebook event: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198819640150485

INCLUDING…
The Great BP-sponsored sleep-in

Sunday 17 April 2011, 2PM at Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG

To mark the one year anniversary of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill, join us for ‘The great BP-sponsored sleep-in’, a 4-minute flashmob art installation inside Tate Modern. Imagine the turbine hall of this former power station filled with BP-branded sleeping figures, who will soon wake from their BP-sponsored coma to sound the climate alarm.

BP’s greenwash is sleepwalking us into the climate crisis. BP sponsors galleries like Tate to try and clean up its tarnished image, and distract us from its devastating activities around the world. Every pound of dirty oil money accepted by Tate helps legitimise a long legacy of environmental destruction and human rights abuses. It’s time to take off the blindfold, rub the sponsorship sleep from our eyes, and give Tate and BP a wake-up call.

This family friendly event will highlight BP’s sponsorship to the public, and show that we are not prepared to stand by as the Tate helps BP greenwash its image… and allow us all a few minutes to dream of a future free from oil spills and oil sponsorship of the arts.

SIX STEPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SPONSORED SLEEP-IN
1. Synchronise your watch using this website:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fullscreen.html?n=136
2. Enter the building before 2PM
3. Choose your sleep-in spot – café, corridor, lift, gift shop, and of course exhibits are all fair game, but please pick somewhere on Levels 1 (turbine hall level), 2 or 3 (this is where our camera crews will be to film the fun).
4. At exactly 2.15PM, unpack your BP branded sheet, pillow, pyjamas, sleep mask, teddy bear, alarm clock or any other sleep related props (see here for ideas and downloadable props:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction/resources) and start the sleep-in!
5. Exactly 4 minutes later, the flash mob will be over as alarm clocks sound the wake-up call throughout the gallery. Take off your sponsored blindfolds and bedding, leave them behind if you wish, and head outside to…
6. Post-slumber party on the South Bank. Listen to speakers from BP-affected communities from the Gulf of Mexico and the Canadian Tar Sands, help engage gallery-goers with leaflets and vox pop video messages, and enjoy live music and a pedal-powered sound system.

So join us on April 17th, and show the Tate that we won’t take oil sponsorship of the arts lying down!

More info: http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction/flashmob
Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137704989634221

Cut the crap – GM in Germany

1/4/2011

KWS has again planted genetically-modified sugar beet H7-1 in a field, despite vociferous protests. Today, Friday at noon, we unloaded about 16 tonnes of manure in front of the headquarters in Einbeck, under the slogan: “KWS – keep your GM crap.”

1/4/2011

KWS has again planted genetically-modified sugar beet H7-1 in a field, despite vociferous protests. Today, Friday at noon, we unloaded about 16 tonnes of manure in front of the headquarters in Einbeck, under the slogan: “KWS – keep your GM crap.”

Images of the action here!
Video here!
Our press release: here!

Climate Camp – South Coast: Ressurection for the Insurrection

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Location: TBA, Sussex
Dates: approx 23rd Apr – 1st May
Web: http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/
E-mail: southcoastcamp@riseup.net
Twitter: SC_ClimateCamp
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207935279226157
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Location: TBA, Sussex
Dates: approx 23rd Apr – 1st May
Web: http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/
E-mail: southcoastcamp@riseup.net
Twitter: SC_ClimateCamp
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207935279226157
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Imagine another world. A world where people matter, where the outstanding issues of the day, climate change, community resilience and workers rights are addressed and we can look forward to a more radical and sustainable future.

Imagined it? Good. Now come to the South Coast Climate Camp this Easter and help us build it.

The South Coast Camp for Climate Action will take place from the Easter weekend through to the May Day celebrations somewhere on the beautiful South Downs in Sussex. Through living, eating and working together, we hope the camp will act as a positive catalyst for change, transforming both the camp community and the communities around it.

We aim to create a safe space where people can meet, share ideas, plan actions and then go do them.

At the end of the week we shall, as tradition dictates be taking part in a mass action. This will form part of Brighton’s May Day celebrations where many direct action groups from around the country are converging in the seaside resort for a very special day of direct action.

Workshops are invited from, UK Uncut, Plane Stupid, SolFed, Smash EDO, No Borders, Grow Heathrow, Transition Towns, the Rebel Clown Army and many more. Skill shares will be held on permaculture, guerilla gardening, workers rights and tactics of resistance, cooking, building rocket stoves, bee keeping & community organising: among other stuff.

We will share the knowledge and experience we have gathered over many years with local community groups to leave a lasting legacy; a truly radicalised community. The camp itself is just the sowing of the seed.

**** After the site has been liberated the location will be announced on the website, twitter, facebook etc. Please help spread the word about the camp and get in touch if you can offer any help. ****

Stop GM Gathering, Ireland

Dear Friends,
In mid-February, the EU proposed a relaxing of the legislation around the presence of GM ingredients in food stuffs and animal feed in Europe. This move was supported by Brendan Smith, then Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, without a mandate from the people of Ireland.


Dear Friends,
In mid-February, the EU proposed a relaxing of the legislation around the presence of GM ingredients in food stuffs and animal feed in Europe. This move was supported by Brendan Smith, then Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, without a mandate from the people of Ireland.

It is now time to harvest the growing momentum of concern among the people of Ireland.

Food Action and GM-Free Ireland invite you to participate in ‘Keeping Ireland GM Free/StopGMO – Gathering Momentum’ an all-Island gathering. This will take place on Sunday, 10th of April 2011, at the Dublin Food Coop. The aim of this all day event is to:

1. facilitate networking between food groups, farming groups, community gardeners, social justice and environmental, groups, policy makers, scientists, medical profession, and individuals,
2. develop strategies for:
* building resistance against the push from the GM sector lobbying at a government level
* the communication of information around the use of genetically modification and its implications
* inter-agency work that will strengthen the GM Free movement in Ireland

The programme for the day is yet to be finalised but will be confirmed prior to the event. A vegan, wholefood lunch will be provided and we invite attendants to give a suggested donation of €5.

If you would like to attend, please click here to complete the Registration Form.

If you need further details, please contact stopgm@riseup.net, 0857296088.

In appreciation, Food Action
http://stopgmevent.wordpress.com/

Protests delay destructive Amazon dams

25.3.11
The construction of the Madeira dams in the Brazilian Amazon has been delayed, following violent protests at the Jirau dam site last week.

Construction workers reportedly set fire to buildings and more than 40 buses at the site, and ransacked shops and cash-points, in protest against low pay and bad working conditions.

The protests brought the dam construction to a stand still.

25.3.11
The construction of the Madeira dams in the Brazilian Amazon has been delayed, following violent protests at the Jirau dam site last week.

Construction workers reportedly set fire to buildings and more than 40 buses at the site, and ransacked shops and cash-points, in protest against low pay and bad working conditions.

The protests brought the dam construction to a stand still.

The Jirau and Santo Antonio dams, part of the Madeira River hydroelectric complex, will damage vast areas of land, upon which numerous tribal peoples depend for their survival. The Indians did not give their consent for the dams to be built.

Domingos Parintintin of the Parintintin tribe said, ‘We hope that the project will be stopped, because it is our children who will suffer the consequences. They will no longer have enough fish or enough game to feed themselves’.

The uncontacted Indians living in the area are extremely vulnerable as they depend completely on their forest, and they have little resistance to outside diseases, which threaten to drive them to extinction.

A report in the Folha de São Paulo, one of Brazil’s biggest newspapers, warned of an ‘explosion of criminality’ in the area, particularly homicide, sexual exploitation and drug trafficking, as the dam construction has attracted thousands of immigrants. More than 37,000 construction workers are reported to be building the two dams.

This huge wave of immigration is putting pressure on the land and increasing the risks faced by the uncontacted Indians.

French company GDF Suez is leading the consortium building the Jirau dam.

A banquet of possibilities…the 12th OKasional cafe is on it’s way

March 21, 2011

We are holding regular meetings in the next few weeks before we open up again in a new location, so get in touch to find out when and where our next meet up is. It’s a proper banquet of possibilities so come share your ideas and enthusiasm, join a working group, and get involved.

March 21, 2011

We are holding regular meetings in the next few weeks before we open up again in a new location, so get in touch to find out when and where our next meet up is. It’s a proper banquet of possibilities so come share your ideas and enthusiasm, join a working group, and get involved.

We are taking bookings for workshops already beginning on the 11th of April so hit us up with your proposals…

give us a shout at our email mcrokcafe@gmail.com

OK-UPY & DEFY.X
http://okcafe.wordpress.com

The Unfair Fare Dodge! A railway adventure

16 April, 12 noon

16 April, 12 noon

Dressed as The Railway Children (as much tweed as you can manage!) we will hold a rally at Monument station before taking red flannel petticoats and flags to the railway platform. From there you’re invited to join the Unfair Fare Dodge as we pay a reasonable fare for a 30 mile journey (we’ll pay the amount you would pay for the equivalent journey in Europe). Our government plans to increase fares a massive 31% over the next 4 years. To cut carbon emissions, we need to cut – not increase – train fares. We can do something about that.

Organised by Climate Rush
More info: http://www.railwayadventure.wordpress.com

The Climate Renegades are GO GO GO!

At a time when cuts and austerity are grabbing the headlines, the need for action on climate change has never been greater. Floods, heatwaves, energy shortages, rising food prices – these are just the start if we don’t take action now.

At a time when cuts and austerity are grabbing the headlines, the need for action on climate change has never been greater. Floods, heatwaves, energy shortages, rising food prices – these are just the start if we don’t take action now.

This summer the Climate Renegades will tour the country to support grass-root and community struggles, both embryonic and established, based upon local needs and wishes. Are you part of a local campaign against cuts and/or climate change that wants to do something big this summer? Or perhaps you are someone who has skills to offer? If so, read on…

We are a roaming collective of experienced environmental activists with skills to share. We are looking to hold events that raise awareness of the need for action on climate justice, enable independence from a constricting economic system, and empower communities under threat. These events will create a space for collective creativity and free expression, will promote and utilise non-violent direct action as a viable tactic for inspiring radical change, and will act as space for a free exchange of skills, knowledge and ideas.

Climate Renegades is one of a few projects that came out of the Camp for Climate Action’s Space for Change gathering.

We wish to promote progressive change from people coming together within and across communities in the face of dominant powers, to confront problems and take their fate into their own hands. Through a diversity of tactics we wish to support this change.

We find repression and abuse of social struggles by concentrated power – be that state, big business or ‘revolutionary’ Political parties. For this reason, we share a tradition and commitment to active anti-hierarchy and collective decision making.

Climate Renegades is not envisaged to form a movement or a model for future years. Our role is one of facilitating and developing the strength of campaigns, enabling the visioning of common solutions and highlighting the importance of environmental struggles in this time of forced austerity.

For more info, e-mail us or check out our Facebook group!

climaterenegades@riseup.net
http://www.facebook.com/help/?mail_sent#!group.php?gid=116697736256

BANK FIREBOMBED BY ELF, RUSSIA

anonymous report:

“A group of ELF activists reports a bank firebombed on the night of March the 12th. Windows broken and 4 molotovs (3 litres of gasoline total) thrown inside the office made for a nice and bright firestorm.

anonymous report:

“A group of ELF activists reports a bank firebombed on the night of March the 12th. Windows broken and 4 molotovs (3 litres of gasoline total) thrown inside the office made for a nice and bright firestorm.

Bank we have chosen to attack plays major role in providing financial support for deforestation project in Khimki forest: it loaned out about 29 billion rubles to the contractors responsible for toll highway construction that has already killed acres of forest north of Moscow.
We express tender solidarity with anarchists from Belarus who suffer from state repression for taking an active position against destruction of our forests (they are blamed for a firebombing attempt at russian embassy in Minsk, Belarus). And we call for decentralized actions against Sberbank of Russia, Vinci company and Belarus government offices overseas on March the 15th (or later, never mind the date) on behalf of our belarus comrades.

ELF-Russia”

Arson at National Institute of Forestry, Agricultural, and Livestock Research in Mexico

6 March 2011
anonymous report (translation by This Is Our Job):

6 March 2011
anonymous report (translation by This Is Our Job):

“We, the Earth Liberation Front, take responsibility for the arson at the Mexican Valley Experimental Field in Texcoco, Mexico State. The field belongs to the National Institute of Forestry, Agricultural, and Livestock Research (INIFAP), which is dedicated to the research and development of “improved technology” in the areas of agriculture, animal husbandry, and forest exploitation. For example, INIFAP has been responsible for the production of over 100 new genetic varieties of plants since 2005, greatly increasing the country’s crop production and therefore its demand for land to be deforested and polluted with pesticides and herbicides.

This year, INIFAP opened the National Center for Genetic Resources (CNRG), which is responsible for storing genetic samples of every species endemic to Mexico and Latin America.

The Scientists in this field argue that their project is beneficial to ecosystems, but if we analyze it, these people are really dedicating their lives to the creation of new types of organisms in the name of progress. If we leave such a great variety in their hands, will anything ever be out of their reach? INIFAP also carries out forestry research, which it uses to promote the increased deforestation of wild habitats. For example, two weeks ago INIFAP published an article about the timber industry, an institution that had developed “ecological” (note the quotes) furnaces for drying logs in the mountains north of Puebla. In its article, INIFAP made its hopes clear that these furnaces would lead to growth in the region’s forestry industry, thus threatening an environment in which all kinds of species coexist.

Therefore, we claim the following ecotages inside and outside this federal institution:

1. Leaving an incendiary device—made from three litres of gasoline, fuses for detonation, and air freshening pellets as delays—among hundreds of sacks of herbicide in a warehouse inside their facility.

2. Leaving another incendiary device—fueled by four liters of gasoline—at the entrance to the main building near the experimental field.

3. Leaving two incendiary devices inside two greenhouses outside and behind the facility.

4. Also leaving behind declarative and threatening graffiti—like “THIS TIME IT WAS FIRE, NEXT TIME IT WILL BE BOMBS,” “ELF,” “INIFAP = DESTRUCTION OF WILD NATURE,” “FLT,” “MORE GMOS, MORE FIRE,” among others—on the windows, floor, and walls of the main building; the walls of the other buildings; an INIFAP van; and the power generator.

We’ve struck again. We made use of months of thorough investigation to study the target, taking into account the shifts of the guards, who must have certainly been surprised to find out we were there that morning of February 27—leaping over their security fence, running through their parking lot, and turning our existence into a threatening aggravation to the projects of those who dream of total domestication. We infiltrated the institution itself as well as its fields, where the greenhouses were located. We shifted into action once again, our fire reigniting to damage and destroy the property of those who believe they own the planet on which we survive as the degenerate species of the technological-industrial system.

Keeping our imprisoned anticivilization comrades Adrián and Braulio in mind, we’re absolutely ready to make this type of attack a clear message to industries and institutions that implement technological development.

In another sense, the attack was a symbolic act directed at science and technology. To us, the action may have been of very little or no importance, but it was still necessary, since from our perspective it’s deplorable to sit around like mere passive spectators waiting for things to change. We don’t believe that this action is going to change reality right away, as that would make us either naive or overly pragmatic. But it does function as a desperate act of expression through which we signify that the reality we live in must be negated in its totality, and that the best negation is the destruction of whatever gives meaning to the establishment: “social peace,” normality, institutions, respect for property, etc. In this case, the destruction was directed at one of the major parts of modernity’s system of domination: techno-science. This time, the attack was on a federal government institution responsible for forestry research and biotechnology, among other things. As a pretext for its existence, we’re told that it is seeking a better life for the human beings who live in this country, creating acceptance of this kind of research among the populace. But, as we all know, there are also negative aspects, which to us have greater impact and are more unacceptable and than the benefits: the artificialization and domination of wild nature, especially of potentially free beings including human beings, plus the denial of the necessary autonomy for free human self-determination. On the one hand, the state grants itself the right and the obligation to provide its inhabitants with the means for their survival. On the other hand, the state isn’t even necessary, since it causes alienation whenever its subjects doesn’t find themselves directly immersed in activities that serve to satisfy their survival needs. This leads to numerous psychosocial problems, and of course generates the market as an intermediary, which in turn functions through the standardization of the massive present-day consumption that is deteriorating the environment. This is very much related to the institution we attacked, which attempts to make excuses for continuing its scientific barbarism by creating new technologies—in this case, biotechnologies that claim to solve the problems that science itself causes, fostering the idea that such ecosystem deterioration doesn’t matter as long as we have the science to fix it. Thus, a vicious circle is created that attempts to solve problems with more problems, under the pretence of a “better life.”

Our proposal is to negate the artificial reality that civilization has constructed, not indirectly, but by seeking a way of life that doesn’t involve domination—the most autonomous way of life possible within wild ecosystems and without intermediaries, especially those that are mere deceptions like science and modern dominating technology. Of course, this proposal won’t be accepted by most people, which is fine and even desirable, since among the problems posed by forms of social organization are the dominating structures conceived by mass societies. Therefore, we trust that people who have a truly critical and radical conscience will reflect on the real problems confronting us and act accordingly.

We continue to be the burning rage of a dying planet.

—Earth Liberation Front, Mexico”