Category: Capitalism / Globalisation

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update 2011

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Woolsey­bridge Farm — a love­ly site in Nor­folk with lots of trees and a lit­tle stream. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 miles NNE of Diss. Diss has reg­u­lar train ser­vices and a whole­food shop.

If you can come down to help set up please do, we start on August the 5th, if you can stay a few days after the gath­er­ing to help bring it all do that’d also be grand.

Site phone num­ber 1 is 07551689365 or try num­ber 2 on 07866797016.

Here’s a detailed map

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And here’s the work­shop sched­ule:

Wednes­day

11:30–1

Nation­al Bargee Trav­ellers Asso­ci­a­tion

Infor­ma­tion and dis­cus­sion ses­sion on the cur­rent strug­gle of trav­el­ling boat dwellers to keep their homes in the face of harass­ment and unlaw­ful enforce­ment by British Water­ways. Come along if you live on a boat, or if you want to know how you can help the boat­ing com­mu­ni­ty fight back!

Frack-Off! An intro­duc­tion to the threat of hydraulic frac­tur­ing.

Frack­ing is a night­mare! Tox­ic and radioac­tive water pol­lu­tion. Tap water you can set on fire. Run­away cli­mate change. To pro­duce expen­sive gas that will soon run out. So why are we doing it? This will be a detailed prac­ti­cal, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop aimed at bring­ing peo­ple up to speed on the issue, the specifics of which areas of the UK are direct­ly under threat and par­tic­u­lar­ly, where to find organ­ised resis­tance.

Squat Electrics

Deal­ing with our shit- Men against the Patri­archy. An open dis­cus­sion on the ways in which men can unlearn the arse­hole patri­ar­chal behav­iours they’ve picked up by being alive in this soci­ety, and rein­force with­in the rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ment.

2–4

Pop­u­lar Edu­ca­tion & Train­ing

Skill-share for Train­ers! Inter­est­ed in pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion & train­ing? Come learn & share pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion exer­cis­es & games designed for group par­tic­i­pa­tion and hor­i­zon­tal learn­ing. Find what col­lec­tives are work­ing in the UK (& beyond!) and the work they are doing.

Oh Fuck it’s the Apoc­a­lypse

work­ing on the basis that the col­lapse of indus­tri­al soci­ety is fair­ly immi­nent, and that we need to plan for it. To this end we’re look­ing at sus­tain­able liv­ing, per­ma­cul­ture, etc, with a sur­vival­ist angle; at ways to sur­vive a col­lapse and build a more sane soci­ety from the ruins; and dis­cussing how this analy­sis affects our oth­er activism and pri­or­i­ties. We’re a bit like Tran­si­tion Towns with an Edge and a Clue.

Using Radios- A begin­ners guide to using radios dur­ing actions.

Set­ting up a Tri­pod- Nev­er put up a tri­pod before, want a use one on an action. Here’s your chance to find out how.

4–6

Squatting,Direct Action and New Laws

Film: ‘Gasland’

When a doc­u­men­tary film-mak­er is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-coun­try odyssey uncov­er­ing a trail of secrets, lies and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. A recent­ly drilled near­by Penn­syl­va­nia town reports that res­i­dents are able to light their drink­ing water on fire. This is a US doc­u­men­tary, how­ev­er shale extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ is now head­ing to the UK.

Tin­kers Bub­ble

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Thurs­day

10–1130

Intro to Con­sen­sus

Con­sen­sus is wide­ly regard­ed as one of the most empow­er­ing and cre­ative ways of mak­ing deci­sions in a non-hier­ar­chi­cal group, but it isn’t always easy. This par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop pro­vides an intro­duc­tion or refresh­er to what it’s all about and how to make it work.

Rec­c­ing

Struc­tured and facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion to share skills and tips for suc­cess­ful rec­cies for action. Includ­ing a check-list of what to find out, inter­net and phone search­es, site vis­its, tricks and dis­guis­es for get­ting info, secu­ri­ty tips etc.

Intro to EF!

Lon­don Olympics

Resist­ing the Lon­don 2012 Olympics (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Counter Olympics Net­work)
What can we do to resist the Olympics in Lon­don next year? Peo­ple are aware of the prob­lems with the games — sur­veil­lance, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, pri­vati­sa­tion, job inse­cu­ri­ty etc and the ben­e­fits to cor­po­ra­tions. Come and dis­cuss these and how we can resist, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from peo­ple who have resist­ed oth­er Olympics.

How to plan a kick ass action:

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

1130–1300

Bank­ing & finance

Lock­ing on

Prac­ti­cal work­shop for learn­ing dif­fer­ent lock-on tech­niques for block­ades and oth­er actions. Arm-tubes, d‑locks, chains, hand­cuffs, super­glue and more!

20 years of EF! Look­ing for­ward

Fight Frack­ing

Shale gas extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ has been pol­lut­ing drink­ing water and the cli­mate in the US, where it has caused numer­ous health prob­lems. It’s been blamed for mini-earth­quakes in Black­pool and there are plans for projects across the UK, includ­ing in South Wales, Lan­cashire, Som­er­set, Kent, Sur­rey and Scot­land. Join an open dis­cus­sion & plan­ning ses­sion on how we can resist these projects.

Infil­tra­tion- Activist Trau­ma

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Deal­ing with Con­flict

An intro­duc­tion to under­stand­ing and deal­ing effec­tive­ly with dis­agree­ment and con­flict in our groups. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Intro to Anar­chy

Smash Edo

Anti-cuts and Against Aus­ter­i­ty

An open dis­cus­sion on how we’re cur­rent­ly work­ing against the cuts, what are we learn­ing about the sit­u­a­tion, what is prov­ing to be effec­tive, do we need to unlearn cer­tain behav­iours that have dom­i­nat­ed activist cir­cles in order to broad­en and con­nect the resis­tances cur­rent­ly occur­ring.

Men­tal Health

4pm- 6pm

Action Plan­ning for a kick ass action

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

Self-Defence for Paci­fists

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

Shell to Sea

Trou­ble Shoot­ing in meet­ings

A work­shop on trou­bleshoot­ing and improv­ing your meet­ings.

Pup­pet show

Per­for­mance and dis­cus­sion of a pup­pet show cel­e­brat­ing the his­to­ry of envi­ron­men­tal direct action in the UK.

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Fri­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Affin­i­ty groups

Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop explor­ing how and why work with oth­ers for action, includ­ing inspir­ing case stud­ies of suc­cess­ful autonomous actions.

Basic bike main­te­nance.

An infor­mal work­shop on brakes and gears, can also cov­er tru­ing wheels and look at oth­er repairs with no or few tools, by Bicy­col­o­gy.

Intro to EF!

Facil­i­tat­ing Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Work­shops

Have you got skills or infor­ma­tion you’d like to share? Or maybe you want to sup­port peo­ple to learn from each oth­er, or share expe­ri­ences? Devel­op skills, confidence& under­stand­ing to facil­i­tate fun, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry & dynam­ic work­shops.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty is a Weapon

1130–1pm

Intro to Direct Action

Direct action is about tak­ing things into our own hands instead of ask­ing the rich and pow­er­ful to do the right thing. Empow­er your­self to go out and make change hap­pen!

Intro to indus­tri­al Agri­cul­ture and GM

Anar­cho-Fem­i­nist

Black Fish

The Black Fish is a new­ly found­ed Euro­pean based con­ser­va­tion organ­i­sa­tion that takes action on the issues of whal­ing, indus­tri­al fish­ing and marine ani­mals in cap­tiv­i­ty. Using edu­ca­tion, inves­ti­ga­tion and non-vio­lent direct action, The Black Fish has set out on a mis­sion to change atti­tudes towards our pre­cious oceans and work to pro­tect the unique life with­in them.

2–4pm

Sus­tain­ing Resis­tance- A work­shop to explore how we can make our activism more sus­tain­able and effec­tive in the long term. Find­ing sources of per­son­al sup­port to help us stay inspired, nour­ished and cre­ative for the long haul and iden­ti­fy­ing how we can chal­lenge dam­ag­ing cul­tures of over­work and burnout in our activist groups.*

Doing Actions with­out get­ting caught

Prac­ti­cal work­shop cov­er­ing var­i­ous aspects of doing actions with­out get­ting caught, includ­ing get­ting to your tar­get with­out detec­tion both in the day and in the dark, foren­sics and dress sense, get­ting togeth­er mate­ri­als, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, get­ting away. Parts of the work­shop will involve phys­i­cal prac­tise, please wear suit­able clothes for crawl­ing through bush­es…

Women’s Self Defence

The lud­dites 200 year anniver­sary and tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics today

Cel­e­brat­ing the 200 Anniver­sary of the Lud­dite Upris­ings: Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­tics Then and Now (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Luddites200 Organ­is­ing Forum
In 1811-12 Arti­san cloth work­ers in the Mid­lands and North of Eng­land rose up against fac­to­ry own­ers who were impos­ing new machines and putting them out of work. Since the 1950s the Lud­dites have been paint­ed as fools opposed to all tech­nol­o­gy and progress, but in fact the Lud­dites were very selec­tive in their attacks, break­ing only machines they thought were ‘hurt­ful to Com­mon­al­i­ty’. What can the Lud­dites teach us about the ongo­ing use of tech­nol­o­gy to replace work­ers’ jobs, as well as issues like GM food and nuclear pow­er? Can we escape the myth that tech­nol­o­gy always brings progress?

Activist Trau­ma

4–6pm

Get­ting over Fences

Priv­i­lege and Oppres­sion

Pow­er and priv­i­lege play out con­tin­u­ous­ly in our group dynam­ics. This work­shop will explore the roles we each play as priv­i­leged and as oppressed in our move­ment and in wider soci­ety.

Dale Farm

this is the biggest unlaw­ful Trav­eller site in the UK. Res­i­dents own their land but have been repeat­ed­ly refused plan­ning
per­mis­sion and Basil­don Coun­cil have now gath­ered £18million in order to evict them. After years of fight­ing their evic­tion through the courts they have now been served their papers, and have until the 31st August to leave. this work­shop will out­line the his­to­ry of the cam­paign, dis­cuss plans for resist­ing the evic­tion and, if there is enough inter­est, organ­ise a work­ing par­ty to vis­it Dale Farm to help them pre­pare for evic­tion.

Coal Action Net­work

Intro to what’s hap­pened so far with CAN. Dis­cus­sions about what peo­ple would like from the network/website and where peo­ple think coal cam­paig­ing is going. How to get involved in CAN.

Tripods

Doing Actions with­out Get­ting caught part 2

We’ll be prac­tis­ing how to move in the dark with­out being spot­ted. Please wear dark clothes suit­able for crawl­ing through the bush­es and a torch if you can. Meet at 8.30 sharp at the gate tent. The prac­tise will fin­ish by 10pm.

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Sat­ur­day

10–1130

Facil­i­ta­tion

If you’ve nev­er facil­i­tat­ed a meet­ing before, or want to brush up your skills and gain con­fi­dence, this work­shop is for you.

Intro to EF!

Basic land nav­i­ga­tion

An intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion with map and a com­pass for total begin­ners or improvers. Please bring a com­pass if you have one . Also, an overview of very sim­ple route find­ing using the sun, stars and oth­er nat­ur­al signs.

Envi­ron­men­tal and Autonomous Edu­ca­tion for young peo­ple

A dis­cus­sion about var­i­ous alter­na­tive edu­ca­tion projects for young peo­ple, a space to share ideas, expe­ri­ences and rethink the ways in which we engage in these projects.

Coal Action Scot­land- What’s going on in the Val­leys at the moment and how can peo­ple get involved.

11.30am- 1.00pm

Build­ing Strong Groups- Share ideas and learn from oth­ers for mak­ing your group more acces­si­ble, inclu­sive and sus­tain­able.

Organ­is­ing the next win­ter moot and sum­mer gath­er­ing

Enjoyed this gath­er­ing? Thought this gath­er­ing was crap? Come along and start work­ing out how next years gath­er­ing could turn out.

Nutri­tion 101

May­day Indy­media

What is indy­media and how does it work? This work­shop, run by mem­bers of the col­lec­tive which looks after the indymedia.org.uk web­site, will attempt to answer your ques­tions about indy­media and will give you the infor­ma­tion you need to report your news effec­tive­ly on the uk site [and the local sites Birm­ing­ham, Sheffield and Oxford?], includ­ing writ­ing mid­dle col­umn fea­tures for the uk front page to give promi­nence to your cam­paigns and actions. Find out about the edi­to­r­i­al guide­lines and mod­er­a­tion, as well as how to raise queries and how to start up an indy­media col­lec­tive in your local area.

Rewil­d­ing

Facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Who Cares?

Open dis­cus­sion based around recent arti­cle pub­lished on Cease­fire enti­tled “Who Cares?” which talked about the fail­ures of the rad­i­cal move­ment with­in the UK to engage with child care in a way which relat­ed to anar­chist pol­i­tics.

Know your rights: Legal and arrest work­shop

Cov­ers basic law for activists and the arrest process. If you’ve
nev­er been nicked before or you want to brush up on your knowl­edge, this is for you. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Anti-Nuclear- Cam­paign update and info ses­sion

Using Radios

Sav­ing Ice­land and Samaren­dra Das: The Glob­al Crimes of the Alu­mini­um Car­tel

Behind the shin­ing image of alu­mini­um is a dark side of envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phes, the arms indus­try and cul­tur­al geno­cide. A joint pre­sen­ta­tion by Sav­ing Ice­land and Indi­an author/activist Samaren­dra Das. It will include cur­rent threats to the Ice­landic high­lands, one of Europe’s last great wilder­ness­es, the his­to­ry and future of the cam­paign and the fal­lac­i­es of hydro and geot­her­mal ener­gy. Samaren­dra Das will speak about the present strug­gle of Adi­va­sis against com­pa­nies such as Vedan­ta and the real facts behind the alu­mini­um indus­try.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Self-Defence

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

‘The True Cost of Coal’

The Bee­hive Design Col­lec­tive (part of the Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca Net­work) cre­ate portable murals of col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly pro­duced illus­tra­tions with an amaz­ing­ly engag­ing cen­tral nar­ra­tive. ‘The True Cost of Coal’ will take you on an inter­ac­tive visu­al tour of the con­nec­tions between Coal Min­ing, Cli­mate Change, the Ever Expand­ing Cap­i­tal­ist Econ­o­my, and the Strug­gle for Jus­tice in Appalachia, North Amer­i­ca and through­out the world.

GM Cam­paign- Cam­paign update and info share.

Com­mu­ni­ty Defence: Build­ing our own Exarchia’s

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Sun­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Region­al Meet­ings

Dsei

DSEi is the worlds largest Arms Fair, as many EFers know. This year it’s from Sep­tem­ber 13–18. It’s not sim­ply about the arms trade. It’s about pub­lic ser­vices “cuts”: the envi­ron­ment: bank­ing and investors: the con­flicts in the Mid­dle East and North Africa. Not to men­tion the bor­ders that stop peo­ple flee­ing con­flict There’s a call for a mass block­ade of the DLR on the Tues­day. Pre­vi­ous Days of Action- and oth­er days in the week ‑have includ­ed street par­ties, Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides, die-ins, mock sales of “arms”, legs and even a tank; splash­ing fake blood across the entrances, engag­ing with arms deal­ers on the trains and plat­forms, invad­ing the car park and rail entrance, block­ing the roads, lock­ing on to the trains, even swim­ming in the dock! And vis­it­ing the investors offices of course. And in ther run-up- your local arms fac­to­ry. Will be talk­ing about all this — Not to men­tion that vis­it to your local arms fac­to­ry!

11.30am- 1.00pm

Action Update

Gath­er­ings Col­lec­tive

Basic Plant I‑d

Dis­cus­sion about Veg­an­ism

Direct Action Train­ing

Come and get active in this inter­ac­tive and hope­ful­ly fun work­shop where we’ll be look­ing at some fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks for tak­ing non-vio­lent direct action to fight suf­fer­ing, and prac­tis­ing dif­fer­ent non-vio­lent ech­niques to hold occu­pa­tions, block­ade, break out of ket­tles, de-arrest peo­ple, and to deal with oth­er police tac­tics, like snatch squads, hors­es and dogs. We’ll also give lots of oth­er tips for deal­ing with pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions and for affin­i­ty group actions, includ­ing some key legal infor­ma­tion which you should know when you’re tak­ing action, and some tips about deal­ing with the media. And we’ll look at some of the val­ues and atti­tudes which are key to tak­ing NVDA, like non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing and con­sen­sus (and oth­ers). We’ll hope­ful­ly be able to adjust the work­shop to cov­er what you want, and to answer all your ques­tions.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Gath­er­ing Feed­back Show

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Kids’ space and activ­i­ties

If you do not have a kid, we might still need your help, so read
on.……

The kids’ space is designed as a place where chil­dren and those car­ing for them can relax, play and eat. The space con­tains books, toys and craft mate­ri­als.

The kids’ space is NOT a creche and does­n’t have staff or facil­i­ties to care for chil­dren.

Par­ents and car­ers are respect­ful­ly remind­ed that they will need to col­lect chil­dren at meal times/breaks and that they much keep adults in the kids space informed of where they can be found; please also fill in the forms in the kids kitchen regard­ing food aller­gies etc.

If you do not have a child at the gath­er­ing, but would like to help in kids space, please talk to the col­lec­tive. Help with read­ing sto­ries, play­ing games, art and crafts always wel­come.

Kid’s kitchen

This pro­vides meals suit­able for and at appro­pri­ate times for chil­dren. Kids meal tick­ets cost £2 or £3 a day for 2 meals (the low­er rate is for tod­dlers); please buy these at the gate tent. This is the first time we have sold kids meal tick­ets and hope­ful­ly this will cov­er the cost of meals, but we may need to ask for help if this is not enough to cov­er our costs.

Even those with­out chil­dren can help by with cook­ing and wash­ing up in the kids space, please vol­un­teer if you can.

Games and activ­i­ties

Dur­ing the morn­ing (approx 10 am ‑noon) there will be activ­i­ties and work­shops for kids in one of the work­shop spaces.

In the after­noon (after lunch), there will be games in the top mead­ow for chil­dren and adults togeth­er. Again, any help with these very wel­come — just ask the collective/kids space crew.

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Pub­lic Trans­port

The site is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by pub­lic trans­port, you can get the train either to Diss or Nor­wich and then catch the bus route no 1 (Sim­monds) from Diss to Nor­wich. Or you could walk or cycle — it’s only 1.5miles away from Diss train sta­tion. Please come by pub­lic trans­port if at all pos­si­ble! .

We will run pick-ups from the train sta­tion for any­body who can’t use the bus ser­vice or for larg­er groups of peo­ple. If you need a lift please let us know well in advance (and not in the mid­dle of the night, when you’re at a train sta­tion some­where!). !

Wheel­chair users intend­ing to use Diss sta­tion will need to book assis­tance with the train oper­a­tor. There are no lifts so sta­tion staff have to assist mobil­i­ty impaired cus­tomers across the track. Appar­ent­ly the sta­tion is not manned 24 hours a day and the gate for the cross­ing is kept locked — so do phone and book to be sure .We have been told the bus ser­vice includes some low-floor bus­es with easy access for pushchairs, peo­ple with mobil­i­ty impair­ments etc.

Hitch to Nor­wich or Diss; from Nor­wich hitch south on the A140 to Dick­le­burgh. It is then a 3 ‑4 mile walk or hitch to the site; on the Dick­le­burgh bypass (don’t go into Dick­le­burgh vil­lage) is a right turn to Shim­pling and Burston; fol­low this road through Burston vil­lage, past the vil­lage green and out of the vil­lage. There is a sharp left turn, then down a hill to a sharp right turn. Site is on the right just over a lit­tle brick bridge.

From Diss either walk or bus, or car­ry on up the A140 to the turn­ing on the Dick­le­burgh junc­tion as above (only this time the junc­tion is on the left).

[some even more detailed info includ­ing post-code, from pre­vi­ous year, at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html]

efsummergathering2011@riseup.net

The swoop cometh! Glos eco-village:meeting list.

Greet­ings all,

The begin­ning is nigh…

Hope­ful­ly this will be the last meet­ing list, so the next thing you’ll hear from us will be the swoop info.. any­one want­i­ng to help out with the swoop, on the day- please get in con­tact now… Oth­er­wise you’ll only be giv­en short notice as to the date/location etc…

Greet­ings all,

The begin­ning is nigh…

Hope­ful­ly this will be the last meet­ing list, so the next thing you’ll hear from us will be the swoop info.. any­one want­i­ng to help out with the swoop, on the day- please get in con­tact now… Oth­er­wise you’ll only be giv­en short notice as to the date/location etc…

We could do with a few more peo­ple on the ground, with a knowl­edge of the area to help out on the day- So get in touch if you would­n’t mind help­ing to guide peo­ple in, and with some of the organ­i­sa­tion­al aspects on the day and short­ly before the swoop.

I’ll need some help get­ting the mes­sage out a few days before- spread­ing the news through activist networks/list and via SM…

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Wednes­day 13th Glouces­ter @ 1:30pm, Meet in Glouces­ter City, pub or park!
Web 13th… For­est of Dean @ 3pm — Off to the For­est of Dean for a for­age-about and nature walk. We’ll try to spot some Deer, or Wild­boar, as we dis­cuss the project.
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Sat­ur­day 16th Glouces­ter City @ 1:30pm — A con­tin­u­a­tion of last months gueril­la gar­den­ing [see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/06/480854.html ] weath­er per­mit­ting- if not, we’ll go to a park or pub for the meet­ing.
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Wednes­day 20th West Lon­don, var­i­ous sites @ times tba — Net­work­ing with oth­er eco-vil­lages, recruit­ing some extra hands for the day. Core groups mem­bers, want­i­ng to move over short­ly before the swoop of the main site- will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so then. These peo­ple will then be able to help oth­er mem­bers of the core group, with any geographic/logistical ques­tions that arise on the day. (it is easy to get lost, round ‘ere)
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Get in touch for fur­ther details, and con­tact info…

Oth­er news…
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Rad­i­cal Artists call-out… Any artists/ painters/ decorators/ spray-painter­s/ Art teach­ers want­i­ng to take the class out and do some­thing exciting/ any oth­er cre­ative­ly mind­ed peo­ple at all, want­i­ng to help turn an ugly, unloved space into a vibrant and beau­ti­ful free­space, WE NEED YOUR HELP. Email the address giv­en with “rad­i­cal artist here” (or some­thing sim­i­lar) in your emails title, and come down to help us bring some col­or to an oth­er­wise drea­ry area.
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A plan to join forces with some of the more active wood­land pro­tec­tion cam­paign­ers around Glouces­ter­shire is cur­rent­ly being worked on. Any­one net­worked with local or nation­al wildlife pro­tec­tion groups, for­est con­ser­va­tion activists ‑not of the arm­chair vari­ety- or any oth­er rad­i­cal tree-top-camper, please put me in touch with them regard­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­tect an area of mixed/native wood­land from fur­ther felling.
————————————————
I’ve start­ed set­ting up a social media type web­site to allow peo­ple already involved, or inter­est­ed in this project and oth­ers sim­i­lar in nature, to com­mu­ni­cate, share knowl­edge, net­work and col­lab­o­rate on projects ‑it’ll have a forum, media/file shar­ing, wiki, subgroups/ friends fea­tures. I’m look­ing for any­one inter­est­ed in help­ing out with this, I’ve got every­thing I need bar enough time to get a work­able beta up-and-run­ning any-time close to the swoop, so if you’d like to get involved ‑as much, or as lit­tle as you can- drop me an email.
————————————————

Peace and Love,

Apok
admin [AT]] apokaluptein [dot]] org [dot]] uk

Mobile Guerilla Garden

A con­voy of shop­ping trol­lies plant­ed up with veg­eta­bles and flow­ers sal­vaged from a demol­ished com­mu­ni­ty gar­den back in May took to the streets of Brighton on Sat­ur­day (July 9).

A con­voy of shop­ping trol­lies plant­ed up with veg­eta­bles and flow­ers sal­vaged from a demol­ished com­mu­ni­ty gar­den back in May took to the streets of Brighton on Sat­ur­day (July 9). Shop­pers were encour­aged to grow their own and sup­port local inde­pen­dent gro­cers and boy­cott Tesco and Sains­buries who are tak­ing over the city cen­tre in a super­mar­ket war.

The Mound com­mu­ni­ty gar­den — 15 veg beds — was destroyed by Lit­tle­hamp­ton-based devel­op­ers Har­g­reaves ltd on May 19. They cyn­i­cal­ly avoid­ed all con­tact with gar­den­ers, ignored clear­ly sign­post­ed wildlife con­ser­va­tion areas and actu­al­ly dug over a pond con­tain­ing newts and tad­poles.

Out of all this the Mound gar­den­ers col­lec­tive have stayed togeth­er and kept var­i­ous plants and flow­ers saved from the gar­den which are now being stored in the mobile trol­lies at a secret loca­tion.

Sat­ur­day’s action was in sup­port of the Wild­catz Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre — a recentl­ly occu­pied emp­ty mobile phone shop which is now a free caff & shop/debating & anti-cuts cham­ber — and the No More Super­mar­kets in Kemp­town cam­paign.

After a pit­stop out­side the Churchill Sq-based Wild­catz the trol­lies — sev­en in all — dodged their way through crowd­ed high streets to the new­ly opened Sains­buries in Kemp­town where a pro-local food and anti-super­mar­ket demo took place for the rest of the after­noon.

The gar­den­ers are call­ing for Brighton’s ‘green’ coun­cil to put their mon­ey where their mouth is and with­draw Har­g­reaves plan­ning per­mis­sion and in doing so pro­mote green spaces in city cen­tres

Peo­ple before Prof­its Gar­dens before Super­mar­kets!
http://brighton-mound.org.uk/

Call out for workshops for EF! Summer Gathering 2011

This year’s Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place in East Anglia this year, start­ing on the 10th of August and run­ning for five days. With six work­shops tents we have space for over 100 dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops. The spaces are fill­ing up fast, but there is still time to book a spot.

This year’s Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place in East Anglia this year, start­ing on the 10th of August and run­ning for five days. With six work­shops tents we have space for over 100 dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops. The spaces are fill­ing up fast, but there is still time to book a spot. So if you’ve got an idea you wish to high­light, whether it’s relat­ed to eco­log­i­cal defence or social resis­tance here is your chance. The gath­er­ing is attend­ed by hun­dreds of indi­vid­u­als inter­est­ed and par­tic­i­pat­ing in strug­gles around the UK and Europe.

To get in touch just email efsummergathering2011announce@riseup.net with a blurb of for you work­shop or dis­cus­sion and we’ll do our best to fit you in.

For month­ly email updates for the gath­er­ing sub­scribe to efsummergathering@lists.riseup.net

Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Luddite Uprisings: Technology Politics Then and Now

Cel­e­brat­ing the 200th Anniver­sary of the Lud­dite Upris­ings: Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­tics Then and Now

Date: Wednes­day June 8th, 7pm

Venue: Fem­i­nist Library meet­ing room, 5a West­min­ster Bridge Road, Lon­don SE1 7XW, Near­est tube Lam­beth North,

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=154817494584557

Organ­ised by: Luddites200 Organ­is­ing Forum luddites200@yahoo.co.uk www.luddites200.org.uk

Cel­e­brat­ing the 200th Anniver­sary of the Lud­dite Upris­ings: Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­tics Then and Now

Date: Wednes­day June 8th, 7pm

Venue: Fem­i­nist Library meet­ing room, 5a West­min­ster Bridge Road, Lon­don SE1 7XW, Near­est tube Lam­beth North,

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=154817494584557

Organ­ised by: Luddites200 Organ­is­ing Forum luddites200@yahoo.co.uk www.luddites200.org.uk

No admis­sion charge, dona­tions wel­come. Please con­tact organ­is­ers about dis­abled access.

In 1811-12 arti­san cloth work­ers in the Mid­lands and North of Eng­land rose up against fac­to­ry own­ers who were impos­ing new machines and putting them out of work. Since the 1950s the Lud­dites have been paint­ed as fools opposed to all tech­nol­o­gy and progress, but in fact the Lud­dites were very selec­tive in their attacks, break­ing only machines they thought were ‘hurt­ful to Com­mon­al­i­ty’.

What can the Lud­dites teach us about the ongo­ing use of tech­nol­o­gy to replace work­ers’ jobs, as well as issues like GM food, nuclear pow­er, repro­duc­tive tech­nol­o­gy and sur­veil­lance? Can we escape the myth that tech­nol­o­gy always brings progress? On the anniver­sary of the first action against a GM crop site in Britain, come and dis­cuss the issues with speak­ers from the Luddites200 Organ­is­ing Forum, Stop GM, a trade union activist, and the Stop Nuclear Net­work.

PLUS! Lud­dite enter­tain­ment and CAKE

Shell to Sea campaigners target Shell executives in Ireland

The folks in suits final­ly got a taste of the con­flict they’ve been orches­trat­ing in Co. Mayo, Ire­land for the past decade.

The folks in suits final­ly got a taste of the con­flict they’ve been orches­trat­ing in Co. Mayo, Ire­land for the past decade. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Shell and their team of expert wit­ness­es who are pre­sent­ing the plan­ning appli­ca­tion for the Cor­rib Gas onshore pipeline to the Irish plan­ning board were pre­vent­ed from leav­ing the oral hear­ing Thurs­day night by pro­test­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

Thurs­day was a long day for Shel­l’s expert wit­ness­es, boss­es, and exec­u­tives. The plan­ning board­’s oral hear­ing into the Cor­rib Gas pipeline has been ongo­ing in Co. Mayo for the past four weeks, and local res­i­dents have been ques­tion­ing Shell experts on details sur­round­ing the pro­posed onshore pipeline.

At 10pm, exhaust­ed and with long jour­neys ahead of them Shell del­e­gates exit­ed the front doors of the hotel to dis­cov­er that pro­test­ers had board­ed their bus, hold­ing plac­ards and ban­ners with mes­sages read­ing “Ener­gy should­n’t cost the earth”and “Shell: destroy­ing the world, one com­mu­ni­ty at a time.”

At one stage when four high up Shell peo­ple tried to leave in a car, two pro­test­ers met them at the road and blocked their car with a ban­ner read­ing “Shel­l’s lies cost lives.” The annoyed dri­ver attempt­ed to dri­ve through the ban­ner and in the process ran over one per­son­’s foot. No seri­ous injury was sus­tained and the dri­ver refused to make any apolo­gies for his actions.

After delay­ing the Shell suits for over an hour, one mem­ber of the protest explained that “it was so sat­is­fy­ing to final­ly see these peo­ple at the top, who are nev­er held account­able sud­den­ly be con­front­ed with their own respon­si­bil­i­ty for this project and the dev­as­ta­tion it has caused to the com­mu­ni­ty”

Bath Bomb #33 Out Now!

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #33
free/donation
Sep­tem­ber 2010

“More rusty barbed wire than cut­ting edge”

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The First Cut Is The Deep­est

Whilst we’ve nev­er claimed to be the cut­ting edge of jour­nal­ism, the Bath Bomb has become privy to a series of unpleas­ant plans from coun­cils in the south­west:

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #33
free/donation
Sep­tem­ber 2010

“More rusty barbed wire than cut­ting edge”

*

The First Cut Is The Deep­est

Whilst we’ve nev­er claimed to be the cut­ting edge of jour­nal­ism, the Bath Bomb has become privy to a series of unpleas­ant plans from coun­cils in the south­west:

Somerset’s most ded­i­cat­ed N.H.S. pro­fes­sion­als are being “strong-armed and rail­road­ed” into defect­ing from the Pri­ma­ry Care Trust to join social enter­prise ven­tures, with­out the chance of a prop­er con­sul­ta­tion. But at a meet­ing filled with angry health vis­i­tors, school nurs­es, local hos­pi­tal and oth­er work­ers in Bridg­wa­ter on Wednes­day 1st Sep­tem­ber, they vot­ed “No!” to pri­vati­sa­tion. Their cam­paign is now seek­ing pub­lic sup­port for the P.C.T. meet­ing at Wyn­ford House, Lufton Way, in Yeovil on Wednes­day 15th Sep­tem­ber from 10am, where the deci­sion is expect­ed to be made.

Employ­ment Min­is­ter Chris Grayling has start­ed a cru­sade to force the 260 young Inca­pac­i­ty Ben­e­fit claimants in B.&N.E.S. (and a fur­ther 530 in Wilt­shire) into work – regard­less of whether they’re fit to or not. There are already wider moves to slash the Wel­fare Bill, and expand the con­tro­ver­sial Work Capa­bil­i­ty Assess­ment health test, but Grayling some­how seeks to frame this witch-hunt as a form of phil­an­thropy: “Thou­sands of young peo­ple with their lives ahead of them just parked on sick­ness ben­e­fits with no way out.” A big man with a big heart.

Three out of sev­en youth key work­ers in the Bath area are to be cut, along­side their youth cen­tres. Youth work­ers who have been col­leagues for years are now being turned against each oth­er, anx­ious­ly com­pet­ing to not put a foot wrong and lose their jobs, or be ‘matrix’ed. Whether crime rates will go up as deprived kids are alien­at­ed even fur­ther, is hard to say.

Waste man­age­ment ser­vices in the vil­lage of Old Wel­ton are to be cut and shipped out to Bath. As they share the Trans­fer Sta­tion site with oth­er pub­lic ser­vices, there is expect­ed to be a knock-on ‘tip­ping point’ effect where more ser­vices are sent off to the big city, even­tu­al­ly drain­ing the area of a large por­tion of its employ­ment, and its econ­o­my.

Mean­while G.M.B. union work­ers in Bris­tol are being ille­gal­ly threat­ened with dis­ci­pli­nary action for shar­ing news of intend­ed cuts with their unions.

But peo­ple aren’t just gonna sit and take it: a noisy 40-strong demo out­side Bris­tol City Coun­cil took place on Tues­day 7th Sep­tem­ber, with many a union ban­ner and speak­er. Sat­ur­day the 4th saw the Bath Stop The War Coali­tion find unan­i­mous con­sen­sus from the 90 bal­lot­ed on their reg­u­lar vig­il, who would rather cut Tri­dent than ser­vices. On Wednes­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber, from 7.30pm, a ‘Fight the Cuts’ pub­lic meet­ing will take place, down­stairs at Friends Meet­ing House on York Street. Though speak­ers will be present from the tra­di­tion­al unions – such as the N.U.T., G.M.B., Uni­son, U.C.U. and Bath Trades Coun­cil – we need a wider pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion from oth­er affect­ed peo­ple, so we can sort this crap out! You owe it to your­self to come along!

Who knows? Per­haps we might take a livre out of France’s book, where 2.5 mil­lion took to the streets on Tues­day the 7th, against Sarkozy’s aus­ter­i­ty plans. No to Job Cuts! No to Pen­sion Cuts! No to Ser­vice Cuts! Cut Tax Eva­sion! Cut I.D. Cards! Cut Tri­dent! Cut the Pay Gap! Cut a Tory! Vive La Strike!

http://bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/260–25s-sickness-benefit-B-NES/article-2602689-detail/article.html
http://bristol.indymedia.org.uk/article/693333

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Tory Scum, Out Of Brum!

ACTION STATIONS! ACTION STATIONS! EVERYONE TO THE STREETS! Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber will be our first chance to show our anger at the Con-Dem cuts. As the Tories kick off their par­ty con­fer­ence in Birm­ing­ham, they will be met by thou­sands of angry pro­test­ers from the diverse sec­tions of soci­ety that are being forced to bear the brunt of the cuts onslaught. The mes­sage will be clear: this cri­sis was caused by the rich, and we refuse to pay for it with job loss­es, pay reduc­tions, ser­vice cuts and hiked V.A.T., while the toffs at the top con­tin­ue to line their pock­ets. Plans for the protest are shap­ing up nice­ly, with many unions, com­mu­ni­ty groups and oth­ers gear­ing up to make some noise. Those angry pranksters over at Class War have booked them­selves a team at the Tory Par­ty pub quiz, and are call­ing for as much help (with the ques­tions of course!) as pos­si­ble. There is also a ‘direct action’ bloc shap­ing up, which promis­es to dis­rupt pro­ceed­ings nice­ly. So, whether you want to peace­ful­ly protest, or have some­thing a bit more live­ly in mind, there will be some­thing for you on the day. This will be the start of a mas­sive cam­paign against the cuts and there will even be trans­port run­ning to the demo from Bath — leav­ing at 9am from Lau­ra Place foun­tain (though details may change), tick­ets are £10 waged or £5 unwaged, and to get yours, e‑mail either bathagainstcuts[at]yahoo.co.uk or tel 07908 355456.

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Get Shorty

Kil­ter, Bath’s unique out­door the­atre com­pa­ny, plants the seeds of change with their play­ful, engag­ing ‘Roots Replant­ed’ show, inves­ti­gat­ing food-secu­ri­ty in the fast approach­ing post-oil world. Elope to the Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments from Fri­day 10th to Sun­day 12th of this month, down the bean-rows, for an inti­mate tale of love and veg­eta­bles. Times are 6.30pm Thurs­day to Sat­ur­day, and addi­tion­al show­ings at 2.30pm on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. Or catch them lat­er at Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm or Bloom­field Allot­ments at Bear Flat. Book­ings can be made by ring­ing 01225 386777.

On invi­ta­tion from Frome Friends of Pales­tine, “Israel’s bravest, most prin­ci­pled” his­to­ri­an Ilan Pappe will be speak­ing at the Mason­ic Hall on North Parade on Fri­day 17th Sep­tem­ber at 8pm. His talk will exam­ine the ongo­ing his­to­ry of Zion­ism, from its roots in the racist soils of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry to the sit­u­a­tion today. His book The Eth­nic Cleans­ing of Pales­tine, effec­tive­ly cost him his job at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Haifa four years ago. Admis­sion is £5.

B.&N.E.S. Coun­cil seem to final­ly be doing some­thing right, as, from 4th Octo­ber, week­ly col­lec­tions of food waste will reach 72,000 house­holds, con­vert­ing the £48+ per tonne tax­pay­er bur­den to agri­cul­tur­al com­post in Glouces­ter­shire. With any luck, the £400,000 imple­men­ta­tion cost will come straight from John Everit­t’s pock­et? And maybe sort­ing out a por­tion of the annu­al 20 mil­lion tonnes of super­mar­ket and indus­try U.K. waste will be next, right?

A gang of racists attacked the Indi­an Cur­ry Nights restau­rant in Augus­ta Place, off Upper Bris­tol Road, on Tues­day 24th August. Two wait­ers were minor­ly hurt, and a win­dow was tar­get­ed by thrown rocks. Con­sid­er­ing attacks on take­aways and mosques in the city over the last cou­ple of years, per­haps it’s way past time that local anti-fas­cists stepped it up?

Police Sergeant Mark Andrews showed his true colours back in July ’08, when he smashed 59-year-old Pamela Somerville’s face against the cell floor at Col­erne cop­shop. Recent­ly sent down this week for six months for Actu­al Bod­i­ly Harm, for once a cop­per has paid a price for his actions. But can we all rest easy now that the friend­ly bob­bies have cleaned them­selves up once more? Or are cas­es like Andrews and (Ian Tom­lin­son’s killer) Simon Har­wood per­haps not just a cou­ple of bad eggs, but instead symp­to­matic of a wider insti­tu­tion­al vio­lence, and near-com­plete free­dom from con­se­quence, infect­ing the whole of the force?

Rad­i­cal cam­paign­ing groups such as Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide have called for an inter­na­tion­al day of action against the coal indus­try on Tues­day 12th Octo­ber; more details to fol­low

http://www.kiltertheatre.org
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5245/is_7840_231/ai_n29412429/
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Council-gears-food-waste-scheme/article-2604136-detail/article.html
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Police-appeal-waiters-attacked-Bath-park/article-2603995-detail/article.html
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Police-officer-faces-sack-cell-brutality-woman-59/article-2607007-detail/article.html

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GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress[at]yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request. And for more info on any of our sto­ries, check out http://www.thebathbomb.blogspot.com

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Fash In The Pan

The August bank hol­i­day week­end was due to be a big day for the British far-right, with two high-pro­file demos designed to put racist thug­gery firm­ly back on the map; but unfor­tu­nate­ly for them, it was­n’t to be.

The week­end start­ed off with media rev­e­la­tions that, far from being a grow­ing dynam­ic par­ty, as fuhrer Grif­fin would have us believe, the fas­cist B.N.P. is in fact falling apart. On the verge of bank­rupt­cy due to finan­cial mis­man­age­ment, lack of sup­port and a cost­ly law­suit (filed by Unilever when Grif­fin used the Mar­mite logo in a par­ty broad­cast), the rats are well and tru­ly flee­ing the ship. First to go was Richard Barn­brook, ama­teur gay porn direc­tor and the B.N.P.‘s sole mem­ber on the Greater Lon­don Assem­bly, who quit after call­ing for a “full inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion” into cor­rup­tion in the par­ty. He was fol­lowed short­ly by Lee Barnes, the par­ty legal offi­cer and ‘unsteady’ Eddy But­ler, for­mer Nation­al Front full-timer and B.N.P. press offi­cer, both of whom assert­ed that Grif­fin was exer­cis­ing a dic­ta­to­r­i­al stran­gle­hold over the par­ty. Just to prove them wrong, Grif­fin expelled a fur­ther 30 high-rank­ing par­ty mem­bers for chal­leng­ing his abil­i­ty to lead the par­ty. So, with the B.N.P. slid­ing off the scene, the stage was set for the thick-as-shit boot boys of the Eng­lish Defence League to take the far-right lime­light.

They intend­ed to do this with a mass march through Brad­ford on Sat­ur­day 28th, in the hope of ignit­ing fur­ther Asian riots to jus­ti­fy their anti-immi­grant agen­da. Deter­mined to cause a ruckus, the E.D.L. banned women from the demo, pre­dict­ed a turnout of 5,000, and dubbed the demo “the big one”. In the event, the ‘Bat­tle of Lit­tle Big One’ was a dis­ap­point­ing washout, with only 700 fas­cists being dwarfed by sev­er­al thou­sands of com­mu­ni­ty and anti-fas­cist activists, who told the E.D.L. in no uncer­tain terms that they would not be goad­ed into full-scale riot­ing. How­ev­er, that did­n’t stop a few naughty lads and ladies smash­ing up the E.D.L. coach­es as they fled the scene. The high point of the day came when a sym­pa­thet­ic cop­per forced a lone E.D.L. skin­head into a crowd of locals, despite his tear­ful protes­ta­tions. Appar­ent­ly no-one saw exact­ly what hap­pened, but an ambu­lance was observed speed­ing away from the scene short­ly after­wards!

So, on to bank hol­i­day Mon­day, and sun­ny Brighton, where fringe fas­cist group the ‘Eng­lish Nation­al Alliance’ had called a ‘March for Eng­land’ (their stat­ed tar­gets were mus­lims, immi­grants, stu­dents and paci­fists — nice!). They pre­dict­ed a turnout of over 300 patri­ot­ic war­riors, which turned out on the day to be around 50 jug-eared Burber­ry mod­els scream­ing racist slo­gans at any­one unfor­tu­nate enough to be in earshot. The turnout then pro­ceed­ed to get turned over by 300 assem­bled anti-fas­cists who dis­rupt­ed the march con­tin­u­ous­ly until the police called full-time and escort­ed the fas­cists home for their own safe­ty!

What was billed as being a week­end that would put racist pol­i­tics back on the map, end­ed in two woe­ful­ly under-attend­ed demos, vast­ly larg­er anti-fas­cist counter-events, unan­i­mous rejec­tion of the fas­cists by local com­mu­ni­ties and the vir­tu­al dis­in­te­gra­tion of the far-right’s bright­est star, the B.N.P. It may be too ear­ly to cheer, as a dying beast still has fangs, but the news is encour­ag­ing and sug­gests that a few hard shoves could boot these groups to where they belong — the dust­bin of his­to­ry.

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Bath Activist Net­work 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 and greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, e‑mail bathactivistnet[at]yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

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UPCOMING EVENTS

 

draw­ing class­es: ‘Remem­ber­ing the Present’, Mon­days & Tues­days, Stokes Croft Muse­um, 81–83 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, http://www.stokescroftmuseum.info

 

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road, http://www.londonroadfoodcoop.blogspot.com

 

exhi­bi­tion: ‘Remem­ber­ing the Present’, Wednes­days, Thurs­days & Fri­days, 11am-3pm, Stokes Croft Muse­um, 81–83 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, http://www.stokescroftmuseum.info

 

Bathamp­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Grow­ers work­day, Thurs­days, 10am-dusk, Mill Lane, Bathamp­ton, e‑mail thelostplot[at]googlemail.com/ tel Chris 07792 444628

 

Bathamp­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture project: fruit pick­ing, Thurs­days and Sun­days, http://www.transitionbath.org/bathampton-csa-news

 

Bath Stop The War Coali­tion vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard

 

Brad­ford-On-Avon peace vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, by the peace stat­ue oppo­site West­bury Gar­dens by the Town Bridge, Brad­ford-On-Avon

 

exhi­bi­tion: ‘Remem­ber­ing the Present’, Sat­ur­days, 12–4pm, Stokes Croft Muse­um, 81–83 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, http://www.stokescroftmuseum.info

 

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­days, 10.30am, starts Abbey Church­yard, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, http://www.bathrys.org.uk/ tel Hazel 01225 469199

 

one year part-time ‘Prac­ti­cal Sus­tain­abil­i­ty’ course, starts Sep­tem­ber 2010, Bris­tol; explor­ing per­ma­cul­ture design, organ­ic hor­ti­cul­ture, wood­land man­age­ment, green build­ing, eco­log­i­cal inter­ac­tions, ener­gy, group dynam­ics, re-local­i­sa­tion, cre­at­ing change, com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and more; http://www.shiftbristol.org.uk

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Fri­day 10th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

‘Bris­tol Green Doors’: 52 peo­ple will open their homes show­cas­ing ener­gy waste reduc­tion, Sat­ur­day 11th to Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, http://www.bristolgreendoors.org

 

Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, Sat­ur­day 11th Sep­tem­ber, 10.30–6pm, Hamil­ton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol; e‑mail bristolanarchistbookfair[at]riseup.net; http://www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

 

Stop Hink­ley ‘C’ talks and work­shops, Sat­ur­day 11th, 11–5pm, Trin­i­ty Hall, St Sav­iours Avenue, Bridg­wa­ter, http://www.stophinkley.org

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 11th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 2.30pm & 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Stop Hink­ley ‘C’ protest/guided tour, Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, 12 mid­day, Hink­ley Point pow­er sta­tion, near Bridg­wa­ter, http://www.stophinkley.org

 

‘The Atmos­phere Of Heav­en’:  his­to­ry walk, Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, 12 mid­day, walk begins 3 Rod­ney Place, off Cliftin Down Road, Bris­tol, http://www.brh.org.uk/misc/gas.html

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

film: ‘Grass’, Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, 7.30pm, Pier­ian Cen­tre, 27 Port­land Square, St Pauls, Bris­tol, £5 entry, http://www.pieriancentre.com

 

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Mon­day 13th Sep­tem­ber, 8–9pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street, e‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk; http://www.bathanimalaction.blogspot.com

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Thurs­day 16th to Fri­day 17th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Taunton Wom­ens Refuge punk ben­e­fit gig, Thurs­day 16th Sep­tem­ber, 7pm, Road­house, taunton, free entry, feat. Rat Attack, As We Sink!, Fights & Fires, Sub­gen­er­ates & Bats About Bats; http://www.tauntonwomensrefuge.org.uk

 

‘Wild Food in Autumn’ walk & for­ag­ing course, Fri­day 17th to Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Char­mouth, Brid­port, Dorset, £215 residential/£145 non-res­i­den­tial, http://www.monktonwyldcourt.co.uk/

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 18th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 2.30pm & 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Bris­tol Free Veg­an Food Fair ben­e­fit gig, Sat­ur­day 18th Sep­tem­ber, 7.30pm, the Black Swan pub, 438 Sta­ple­ton Road, Bris­tol, feat Dad­dy Long Bones, Budd, Mol­ly Sam­son, Ren, D.J. Dub Simi­an & The Long Dead Beat, £3/£4 entry

 

Region­al South West Ani­mal Rights Coali­tion meet­ing, Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, 12–5pm, Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Co-op, 14 Robert­son Road, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, e‑mail regionalarc[at]googlemail.com

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Seed Sav­ing work­shop, Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, 2.30–5pm, put on by Bath Organ­ic Group, places are lim­it­ed, tel 01225 319117, £2.50 entry

 

‘The Glob­al Cir­cle of Peace’: mul­ti­me­dia work of art to cel­e­brate U.N. World Peace Day, Tues­day 21st Sep­tem­ber, 6.30–8.00pm, Kingston Parade Gar­dens, http://www.theglobalcircleofpeace.com

 

two-day work­shop: ‘Hold­ing the Vision’, Wednes­day 22nd to Thurs­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber, 10–4.30pm, Bris­tol, £45–75 entry, with Starhawk; e‑mail shiftbristol[at]yahoo.co.uk; http://www.starhawk.org

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Thurs­day 23rd to Fri­day 24th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

‘An Old Home Fit for the Future’: vis­it to vic­to­ri­an eco-effi­cient house, Fri­day 24th Sep­tem­ber, 3–7pm, 16 Pul­teney Gar­dens, Wid­combe, Bath, BA2 4HG,  http://www.transitionbath.org/old-home-fit-for-the-future

 

Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride, Sat­ur­day 25th Sep­tem­ber, meet 1pm, Kingsmead Square, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

 

‘An Old Home Fit for the Future’: vis­it to vic­to­ri­an eco-effi­cient house, Fri­day 25th to Sun­day 26th Sep­tem­ber, 11–6pm, 16 Pul­teney Gar­dens, Wid­combe, Bath, BA2 4HG,  http://www.transitionbath.org/old-home-fit-for-the-future

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 25th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 2.30pm & 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Bath Ani­mal Action info stall, Sun­day 26th Sep­tem­ber, 2–4pm, Stall Street, e‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk; http:///www.bathanimalaction.blogsppot.com

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sun­day 26th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Tran­si­tion Bath Social, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 7.15pm, the Love Lounge/ back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street; bring food to share; http://www.transitionbath.org

 

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 7.30pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

 

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ing, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 8–9pm, The Bell, tel Justin 07854 062336

 

Bath Social­ist Forum meet­ing, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 8pm, upstairs St James Wine Vaults, pre­sent­ed by Ken Loach

 

speak­ers & dis­cus­sion: ‘Cli­mate Jus­tice: Think Glob­al, Act Local’, Tues­day 28th Sep­tem­ber, 7–9pm, Uni­tar­i­an Meet­ing House, Brunswick Square, Bris­tol; F.F.I. e‑mail Katharine[at]wdm.org.uk / tel Katharine 020 7820 4900; http://groups.wdm.org.uk/bristol

 

No Bor­ders Camp Bel­gium, Wednes­day 29th Sep­tem­ber to Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber, Brus­sels, http://www.noborderbxl.eu.org/?lang=en

 

‘Low Car­bon Bath Con­sul­ta­tion’: Thurs­day 30th Sep­tem­ber, 6.30–8.30pm, Build­ing of Bath Col­lec­tion, The Count­ess of Huntington’s Chapel, The Vine­yards, Paragon, Bath, for a book­ing, e‑mail gkillick[at]bptrust.org.uk, or ring 01225 338727

 

Nation­al March for Farmed Ani­mals, Sat­ur­day 2nd Octo­ber, 12pm start, Cavendish Square, Lon­don

 

anti-Tory demon­stra­tion, Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber,  Tory Par­ty Con­fer­ence, Birm­ing­ham more details tbc

 

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 7th Octo­ber, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at the Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, http://ww.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

 

Legal fees ben­e­fit punk gig: ‘SUBVERT 2010 — A Fes­ti­val Of Resis­tance’, Fri­day 8th to Sun­day 10th Octo­ber, Bris­tol, feat Hel­lkrush­er, Rui­dosa Immu­ni­di­cia, War All The Time, Ignosy, The Wankys, The Extin­guish­ers & Bul­letrid­den, as well as veg­an cafés/ stalls/ films/ work­shops & pic­nic; more details tbc

 

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber, 8pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

 

Region­al day of action against the cuts, Sat­ur­day 23rd Octo­ber

 

Lon­don Anar­chist Book­fair, Sat­ur­day 23rd Octo­ber, 10am-7pm, Queen Mary’s, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don, Mile End Road, Lon­don, http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk

 

Bris­tol Free Veg­an Food Fair, Sat­ur­day 30th Octo­ber, 12–5pm, Broad­mead Bap­tist Church, Union Street, Bris­tol, BS1 3HY, http://www.bristolanimalrights.org.uk/veganfoodfair

 

Coali­tion of the Resis­tance Con­fer­ence, Sat­ur­day 27th Novem­ber, Lon­don, more details tbc

 

Camp for Cli­mate Action Aus­tralia, Wednes­day 1st to Sun­day 5th Decem­ber, Bayswa­ter Pow­er Sta­tion, http://www.climatecamp.org.au

 

Cli­mate Camp Aotearoa, Thurs­day 16th to Tues­day 21st Decem­ber,  Welling­ton New Zealand, http://www.climatecamp.org.nz/node/51

 

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‘Fat­cat Boss­es Get The Cream’ Shock­er!

Insult has been added to injury once again, as a G.M.B. union sur­vey scru­ti­nised 151 coun­cil and met­ro­pol­i­tan accounts and dis­cov­ered how 129 chief execs are paid more than £150,000 a year. It went on to note how two earned more than £300,000, and 76 earned between £200,000 and £300,000. In the south­west, B.&N.E.S. Coun­cil head hon­cho John Everitt net­ted a com­fy £211,859 this year, includ­ing pen­sion con­tri­bu­tions and expens­es; though his rivals at Corn­wall Coun­ty and Bris­tol City did bet­ter. Life’s hard, eh?

And this is at a time when coun­cils claim to be hard up, slash­ing jobs, ser­vices, and hand­ing out pay freezes like they were sweets to kids. Stand­ing there shiv­er­ing in the play­ground, in their plas­tic mac. Local gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Bob Neill makes an inter­est­ing point: “We need to stamp out a cul­ture of dupli­ca­tion, which is why, in many cas­es, coun­cils should be look­ing towards shar­ing chief exec­u­tives.” But actu­al­ly stamp­ing on the guy seems a bit harsh; instead of cut­ting the 300 out of 7,000 coun­cil jobs, sure­ly it would make more sense to cut just one… After all, the dole queue is nice this time of year, John.

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Grub Street Mee­ja

Pity the shit-upon peo­ple of Bath, whose local lose-papers, the Bath Com­ic and the West­ern Dai­ly Piss, are two of the apolo­gies for jour­nal­ism in the city.

Time was when the Com­ic would give reg­u­lar and gen­er­ous cov­er­age to anti-war, anti-coun­cil and anti-devel­op­er stunts, but since the lat­est edi­tor took over, it looks as if any­thing like­ly to rock the boat gets packed off on an extend­ed Hol­l­i­day. The big trou­ble with the Com­ic is that it has its head well and tru­ly up the rec­tums of cor­po­rate crooks and shys­ters like B.&N.E.S., Bath Rug­by, First­Bus, Crest Nichol­son (West­ern River­side), Mor­ley Fund Man­age­ment (South­gate), and oth­ers. Proof that the Com­ic had aban­doned any pre­tence of seri­ous news report­ing and had achieved full Beano sta­tus, came with its hilar­i­ous but read­er­ship-insult­ing ‘Attack of the giant seag­ulls’ front-page last month.

The Piss, part of the same bar­rel-scrap­ing North­cliffe out­fit should, after the appoint­ment of ITS lat­est, yes-man edi­tor, be renamed the West­ern Mil­i­tary Gazette or West­ern Dai­ly War, as all this cur­rent bunch of r‑slickers do is pump out the same tired Cameron-lov­ing war­mon­ger­ing pro­pa­gan­da dri­v­el as their sta­ble­mate the Dai­ly Fail.

All the Com­ic and Piss are good for is wip­ing your arse on; the only fault there is that the print comes off on your bum.

The glossies are no bet­ter. Bath Life, a crim­i­nal waste of newsprint, is stuffed full of estate agent waf­fle and oth­er adver­tis­ing, and page after page of ‘Invi­ta­tion Only’ bash­es fea­tur­ing dozens of Bath Z‑z-z lis­ters grin­ning gorm­less­ly for the cam­eras in a pre­ten­tious par­o­dy of Coun­try Life’s soci­ety columns. Pub­lish­ers guilty of this rub­bish are Media Clash, the same bunch of brown-nosers who churn out the coun­cil’s spin-rag ‘Con­nect’. Some­one should tell them that con­nect­ing is not enough; they should try switch­ing on as well.

As for what lit­tle of inter­est the free­bies Bath Mag­a­zine and Folio con­tain, you’d be bet­ter off buy­ing Venue, which does arts and alter­na­tive far bet­ter. It is pub­lished by the Piss/Comic group, but, hey, nobody’s per­fect!

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If I Had A Ham­mer…

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful acquit­tal of the nine ‘Decom­mis­sion­er’ activists who smashed up Brighton-based bomb fac­to­ry E.D.O./I.T.T. (see B.B. #31), the Smash E.D.O. cam­paign is call­ing for one last shove to close the fac­to­ry all togeth­er. For six years, the com­pa­ny, which sup­plies bomb com­po­nents to Israel, Afghanistan, the U.S.A. and any­one else who has enough cash, has been under relent­less assault from activists, who have block­ad­ed, protest­ed, smashed and exposed the com­pa­ny’s dodgy deal­ings time and time again. The demo has been called for Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber, and promis­es to be a lit­tle on the tasty side, and as the name ‘I.T.T.‘s Ham­mer­time’ sug­gests, peo­ple may have more than wav­ing plac­ards in mind! Peo­ple have been request­ed to get down and stay at the con­ver­gence space from the night before, but also to help fli­er for the event in their home towns before­hand. For more infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign, check out http://www.smashedo.org.uk, or drop them an e‑mail at smashedo[at]riseup.net.

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Cru­el­ty-Free: You Can’t Say Fayr­er Than That

The sec­ond annu­al Bath Veg­an Fayre 2010 filled a hole on Sat­ur­day 4th Sep­tem­ber, with over 150 pass­ing through the doors. Held at Man­vers Street Bap­tist Church in the cen­tre, free of entry fee and cru­el­ty, the event last­ed from 12 til 4pm. Oth­er­wise, the day stuck to much the same recipe as the pre­vi­ous year: with a tan­ta­liz­ing spread of steam­ing soups, nib­bles, cakes, sweets and savouries – some nut-free, some wheat-free, all meat and dairy-free – fill­ing the bowls and bel­lies of queues of hun­gry fayre-goers. The tea and fruit juices flowed like nev­er before, whilst the tables were filled with relaxed con­ver­sa­tion and ingest­ed edu­ca­tion. As well as the over-bur­dened info tables (with every­thing from nutri­tion, envi­ron­men­tal ethics, recipes, ani­mal rights, med­ical sci­ence and updates for cam­paigns against Noah’s Ark Zoo, hunts, foie gras out­lets and ani­mal labs), free sam­ples table, read­ing cor­ner and chil­dren’s area, there was also a prize raf­fle. Pun­ters includ­ed the usu­al sus­pects of dread­ied and alter­na­tive veg­gie types on the make for free pick­ings, for starters, but also a healthy flow of the unini­ti­at­ed from the street.

By the end of the day, many a hap­py scav­enger got their just desserts, and were heard utter­ing the immor­tal words: “I had no idea veg­an food could taste this good!” Hey, even veg­gies need more than a diet of inde­scrib­able slop every now and again. Next up is the Bris­tol Free Veg­an Fair at Broad­mead Bap­tist Church on Sat­ur­day 30th Octo­ber, from 12 til 5pm, and their ben­e­fit gig at the Black Swan on Sta­ple­ton Road, on the 18th of this month.

http://bathanimalaction.blogspot.com/p/today-uk-is-home-to-around-300000.html
http://www.vegansociety.com/home.php
http://www.bristolanimalrights.org.uk/

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Cycle-logy 101

Ped­al­phile activists group Bicy­col­o­gy will be crank­ing things up a gear in Bris­tol next week­end, with a trio of car-free fun days for all the fam­i­ly. On Sat­ur­day 18th Sep­tem­ber, they’ll be ‘Doing it with­out a car’ at Mina Park in St Werburgh’s; go sam­ple their col­lec­tion of bike acces­sories, book your ride in with the women bike mechan­ics for free advice and safe­ty checks, or get down to some D.I.Y. cre­ative ses­sions — turn tyres into bike belts, bike chains into bracelets or cob­ble your­self togeth­er a last minute carnie cos­tume. All this just in time for the next day’s ‘Bris­tol Bike Car­ni­val’ — start­ing in the city cen­tre at 12 mid­day, expect day­g­lo, dinosaur skele­ton pup­pets and two-wheeled gonzo weird­ness. Then, after a day’s rest, Tues­day will be ‘Food is our Fuel — Cycle for your Sup­per!’ An explo­ration of mod­ern agri­cul­ture, its prob­lems and its solu­tions, this three-hour long gen­tle cycle starts at 6pm out­side Tesco Metro in Broad­mead, and heads out of the city for black­ber­ry and wild food pick­ing – hot food and drinks will be pro­vid­ed on dona­tion. Bring your bike, lights, ruck­sack or pan­nier, and accom­pa­nied chil­dren.

And in relat­ed Bath news, a bike refurbishment/homelessness fund-rais­ing project has recent­ly re-opened, called ‘ReCY­CLEd’, at 35 Corn Street. E‑mail bikes[at]julianhouse.org.uk, for details.

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Toys Tory

While the resis­tance against the Con-Dem cuts is shap­ing up nice­ly, the same can­not be said for the cut-crazy coali­tion who have been hit in recent weeks by a string of embar­rass­ing fallings-out. Tories attack­ing Tories, Tories attack­ing Lib-Dems and Lib-Dems attack­ing both each oth­er and the Tories (although we don’t think any­one has noticed or cared). The first of the cracks began to show when odi­ous Osborne informed the press that nuke pro­gramme Tri­dent would have to be fund­ed by the defence bud­get, rather than the tra­di­tion­al fun­ders, the Trea­sury. It turns out Osborne had let every one know his plans – except the Min­is­ter for Defence, Liam Fox. This news came to the delight of T.V. jour­nal­ists as Fox brand­ed the propo­si­tion “ridicu­lous”, assert­ing that after a 20% bud­get cut, there was no way the M.o.D. could pay for Tri­dent. Osborne shot him down on live T.V. as a lit­tle bick­er­ing match erupt­ed before the very eyes of bor­der­line orgas­mic tel­ly journos. The spat has yet to be resolved.

This was quick­ly fol­lowed by bout #2, fea­tur­ing High­er Edu­ca­tion Min­is­ter David Wil­letts in the blue cor­ner vs. Devey boy him­self in the, umm­mm, oth­er blue cor­ner. This time the argu­ment was over milk. Now, some of you may remem­ber that one of Thatch­er’s less pop­u­lar deci­sions was the removal of free milk from schools; so what has Wil­letts done? In the image of the Tory God­moth­er, Wil­letts proud­ly told the assem­bled press pack that under-fives no longer deserved their free milk, and that it was to be cut. After a rapid apol­o­gy at the foot of this Thatch­er shrine, Cameron popped his head out of the door of Down­ing Street to con­tra­dict his edu­ca­tion min­is­ter, prompt­ing oppo­si­tion M.P.s to notice that “This is a coali­tion in chaos, mak­ing pol­i­cy on the hoof. The Gov­ern­ment does­n’t seem to have a clue.” As if Cameron did­n’t have enough trou­ble keep­ing his own house in order, the Lib-Dems have also start­ed hav­ing a pop, with many Lib-Dem M.P.s (in fact almost all of them that don’t have a cab­i­net seat) promis­ing a rebel­lion over Con-Dem V.A.T. increase plans, with promi­nent Lib-Dem­mers such as Charles ‘5 years on the wag­on’ Kennedy and Simon Hugh­es pub­licly crit­i­cis­ing Con-Dem pol­i­cy. To add anoth­er dol­lop of the stinky stuff on the smoul­der­ing feck pile that is the coali­tion, Clegg has crawled out of David’s cosy ori­fice to take the reigns while the Camerons sun them­selves. Like a naughty school­boy, Clegg took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tra­dict key Con-Dem poli­cies relat­ing to immi­gra­tion, Tri­dent and hous­ing ben­e­fits, some­thing that he has been warned about in the past. Looks like some young upstart will be get­ting an Eton-style bot­ty-thrash­ing when dad­dy Cameron rolls back into town!

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The Filth And The Fur­ry

As men­tioned back in B.B. #30, the U.K. Gov­ern­ment has per­formed a spec­tac­u­lar U‑turn on its pol­i­cy regard­ing bovine tuber­cu­lo­sis, and has cho­sen to go ahead with a nation-wide bad­ger cull. Last week, Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary Car­o­line Spel­man approved the cull for T.B. hotspots, hand­ing the license to kill over to indi­vid­ual farm­ers’ dis­cre­tions.  These wannabe 007’s of the Nation­al Farm­ers Union lob­by will need to prove that a cull is nec­es­sary before being allowed to kill and/or vac­ci­nate (shoot and gas first, a spoon­ful of med­i­cine lat­er?) any­thing black and white in a 50 square mile zone; what sort of proof required is yet to be dis­closed, but a sham of a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion is expect­ed lat­er this month. At least this might stop farm­ers from rolling gunned down bad­gers onto high­ways in the mid­dle of the night, as imi­ta­tion road­kill.

The Welsh Assem­bly were pushed into a U‑turn of their own, of sorts, back in July, when the Bad­ger Trust and oth­er ani­mal ‘wel­fare’ activists won their legal chal­lenge on a tech­ni­cal­i­ty, push­ing kill-crazy plans back for months. These pro-culling deci­sions fly in the face of the ten-year Inde­pen­dent Sci­en­tif­ic Study Group on Cat­tle T.B., who con­clud­ed in 2007 that culling could­n’t mean­ing­ful­ly con­trol the dis­ease, and that car­ri­er bad­gers would dis­perse the dis­ease over a wider area. This posi­tion has been loose­ly cor­rob­o­rat­ed by Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don and the Zoo­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Lon­don. But screw all that, the Con-Dems say – let’s shoot us some varmints! Yee­haw! In a “care­ful­ly man­aged” and “sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly-led” man­ner, of course.

As ever, ani­mal right­sies are much-need­ed to save our fur­ry friends – check out http://www.badger-killers.co.uk, or con­tact bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk for ideas.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7982848/Farmers-to-be-handed-powe
rs-to-cull-badgers.html
http://www.bathanimalaction.blogspot.com

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First Class News!

In a heart­en­ing bit of news just in, a pub­lic sur­vey has found that sev­en out of every eight peo­ple oppose the pri­vati­sa­tion of the postal ser­vice (one of the Tories’ key poli­cies) and would pre­fer it to be kept pub­lic. Bil­ly Hayes, head of the posties’ union said “This poll reaf­firms what we already knew — the British pub­lic do not want their postal ser­vices sold off. The union and the com­pa­ny have worked hard to agree a ful­ly fund­ed mod­erni­sa­tion plan and that work needs sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment.” How­ev­er, the will of the pub­lic con­tra­dicts Tory plans to put a bill before Par­lia­ment demand­ing the pri­vati­sa­tion of the ser­vice. Will this be anoth­er case of the Tories ignor­ing the opin­ions of the aver­age per­son and try­ing to plough ahead with their agen­da of cuts and pri­va­ti­za­tion? We sus­pect so, so if you like your postal ser­vice pub­lic, lets get ready to fight for it!

*

And now, to the dis­claimer: as any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of all con­trib­u­tors. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat upon. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer do not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect the opin­ions of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor.

Monday’s actions from the Camp for Climate Action

Mon­day Morn­ing Cli­mate Camp Action Roundup

For the lat­est, see the Camp for Cli­mate Action twit­ter and the North­ern IMC time­line.

Mon­day Morn­ing Cli­mate Camp Action Roundup
Camp cop RBS stand-off
For the lat­est, see the Camp for Cli­mate Action twit­ter and the North­ern IMC time­line.

Sum­maris­ing some of the mate­r­i­al from twit­ter and IMC time­line.

Today Mon­day 23rd actions against cli­mate change and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land are tak­ing place across Edin­burgh, as well as at their Gog­a­r­burn HQ.

Oil explo­ration com­pa­ny Cairn Ener­gy, off Loth­i­an Road, have tak­en deliv­ery of an oil-like sub­stance from a giant pig, unfor­tu­nate­ly cre­at­ing a 60 litre oil spill. (Obvi­ous­ly Cairn would­n’t be respon­si­ble for such a thing).

Down in Lei­th, the Forth Ener­gy place is the tar­get of agro­fu­els-relat­ed action, with 7 peo­ple atop the build­ing.

The Nichol­son Street branch of RBS is block­ad­ed by folk with signs read­ing “ask me why I won’t bank with RBS”. As at mid­day the two hour long block­ade had result­ed in the bank shut­ting its doors.

And at RBS in South Gyle the exec­u­tive car park is blocked by 7 peo­ple with super­glued hands.

A report has just come in that demon­stra­tors have pitched a tent out­side RBS on North Bridge.

Mean­while the main RBS bank in St Andrews Square is being guard­ed by police, includ­ing a CCTV van, and pri­vate secu­ri­ty. In a neo-lib­er­al ver­sion of 1984 the pub­lic are only being allowed in if they show secu­ri­ty the cor­rect bank card!:

UPDATES 3pm Five arrests at Forth Ener­gy. Action con­tin­ues at RBS Nichol­son Street, with lock-ons and demo out­side. Pro­tes­tors on Roy­al Mile high­light destruc­tive RBS-backed Tar Sands project in Cana­da. Del­e­gates from the indige­nous peo­ple direct­ly affect­ed denounce that “RBS are killing our peo­ple.” More info on Tar Sands project and actions today against it

—

Press release of the day’s actions so far: RBS Oper­a­tions Closed for the Day as Activists Tar­get Sites around Edin­burgh — August 23, 2010

Action Round-up for the Cli­mate Camp day of mass action tar­get­ing RBS
and the fos­sil fuel indus­try: Mon­day 23 August

Activists at the Camp for Cli­mate Action are cel­e­brat­ing a suc­cess­ful day tar­get­ing var­i­ous cli­mate crim­i­nals- hold­ing direct actions, demon­stra­tions and street the­atre con­fronting the role of finan­cial insti­tu­tions like RBS in bankrolling cli­mate change.

A group of pro­tes­tors occu­pied the head offices of Forth Ener­gy, a com­pa­ny plan­ning to build four new bio­mass pow­er sta­tions in Scot­land. Three pro­tes­tors chained them­selves to the front of the build­ing, two occu­pied the inside of the office, and two more dropped a ban­ner from the roof of the office. Five arrests were made.

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, sev­en pro­tes­tors block­ad­ed the RBS exec­u­tive carpark at the Gyle Indus­tri­al Estate by super-glu­ing them­selves togeth­er.

A group of demon­stra­tors dropped a two metre long pig­gy bank brand­ed with the RBS logo filled with 60 litres of oil-like sub­stance (molasses) out­side the head­quar­ters of Cairn Ener­gy, a com­pa­ny which is com­ing under fire for its Arc­tic oil drilling oper­a­tions. The Green­peace ship Esper­an­za is cur­rent­ly engaged in a sit­u­a­tion with the Dan­ish Navy off the coast of Green­land with regards to Cairn Energy’s drilling oper­a­tions.

A group of pro­tes­tors, includ­ing Fringe per­form­ers, shut down the Nicol­son Street RBS branch. Three indi­vid­u­als super-glued them­selves across the front door­way, while anoth­er group played music and danced while hand­ing out leaflets. There were three arrests.

After the pre­vi­ous group of pro­tes­tors was removed by police, a group of “tar-cov­ered” pro­tes­tors shut down the Nicol­son St RBS branch a sec­ond time, as sev­er­al activists locked them­selves onto the build­ing.

Activists lay siege to RBS HQ with a six metre tall mock siege tow­er on wheels with a life-size papi­er mache rhi­noc­er­os head mount­ed on the front.

A ban­ner was dropped from a build­ing read­ing “oil tar sands = envi­ron­men­tal chaos”, there were two arrests.

Anoth­er ban­ner was dropped over the A8 which read “RBS: using our mon­ey to fuck the plan­et”

Above a tent protest by North Bridge, demon­stra­tors scaled two storeys of scaf­fold­ing to drop a ban­ner which read “RBS funds and prof­its from cli­mate chaos”

Actions in pre­vi­ous days have includ­ed:

* Hun­dreds of activists in boil­ers suits stormed the RBS head­quar­ters, cat­a­pult­ing oil-like sub­stance (molasses) onto the build­ing and attempt­ing to get inside the build­ing. There were two arrests.
* A group of activists caused the clo­sure of RBS bank branch­es in town by per­form­ing a spoof song-and-dance ver­sion of Lady Gaga’s num­ber one hit “Pok­er­face”, rewrit­ing the lyrics to talk about RBS’ fund­ing of fos­sil fuels. They invad­ed an RBS-spon­sored stage on the Roy­al Mile and per­formed the rout­ing for passers by.
* A group of 40–50 street the­atre activists exposed how RBS’ PR masks the real­i­ty of its invest­ments by per­form­ing “Green­wash Guer­ril­la” street the­atre at Gog­a­r­burn and the Roy­al Mile.
* On Sat­ur­day, sev­er­al hun­dred activists launched an incur­sion into the RBS HQ com­plex and held a dance par­ty in the foy­er as one activist gained access to the recep­tion area and super­glued her­self to the front desk.

So far, there have been 14 arrests through­out the dura­tion of the camp (from Wednes­day evening through Mon­day after­noon).

The Cli­mate Camp have expressed bewil­der­ment as to police claims of oil being spilled on a main road, and have no knowl­edge who was respon­si­ble for it if the inci­dent did take place.

Har­ry Reynolds who took part in the actions said:

“No one came to work today at the RBS Gog­a­r­burn head­quar­ters. Since we had already effec­tive­ly shut that down, we decid­ed to con­cen­trate our ener­gies tar­get­ing RBS and its fos­sil fuel affil­i­ates in the Edin­burgh city cen­tre. We’ve done a lot to dis­rupt RBS dirty ener­gy oper­a­tions today, but we are com­mit­ted to keep­ing up the pres­sure until we man­age to cut off the flow of cap­i­tal from the banks to the fos­sil fuel indus­try.”

Natal­ie Swift, a spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp, com­ment­ed on the day of action:

“Today we have seen peo­ple tack­ling RBS’ respon­si­bil­i­ty for the bil­lions of pounds it pro­vides to envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive and dan­ger­ous fos­sil fuel projects. We are being failed by the gov­ern­ment and finan­cial insti­tu­tions, and we are cre­at­ing a vibrant social move­ment that takes direct action against the caus­es of cli­mate change when politi­cians and bankers fail to do so.”

Pho­tos:
Pho­tos of the camp and actions are avail­able at:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010/photography
They will be updat­ed through­out the day with fur­ther pho­tos from actions.

Videos:
The mak­ing of the Tro­jan Pig used at Cairn Ener­gy action
http://www.youandifilms.com/2010/08/ribs-the-trojan-pig-makes-a-mess-at-cairn-energy/
Rais­ing a Ruckus- a short film cov­er­ing the site take and the first
incur­sion into RBS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATJwdb4b2Tc&feature=player_embedded

Twit­ter:
Updates from actions through­out the day of action, includ­ing pho­tos
and videos, are avail­able on the Cli­mate Camp Twit­ter stream:
twitter.com/climate camp

Press releas­es from through­out the day can be found at:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/press

Main­stream TV footage
—

Tar Cov­ered Cli­mate Activists Shut Down Bank

A group of ‘tar’ cov­ered activists from the Camp for Cli­mate Action have locked them­selves to the RBS branch on Nichol­son Street, shut­ting the bank down. This is the sec­ond time that the Nichol­son Street bank branch has been shut down by protests today, as sev­er­al activists who had block­ad­ed the bank entrance by super­glu­ing them­selves togeth­er in front of it had just been removed by the police, result­ing in three arrests.

Anoth­er group of activists is demon­strat­ing with ban­ners and leaflets out­side the bank branch and on the streets of Edin­burgh today tar­get­ing RBS branch­es and spon­sored events to expose the extent of Fes­ti­val spon­sor RBS’s involve­ment in cli­mate crimes.

The activists are call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um on all new invest­ment and loan financ­ing in Tar Sands and oth­er fos­sil fuels projects. Roy­al Bank of Scot­land is the UK’s largest investor in com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the Tar Sands and financed 7.5 bil­lion US dol­lars worth of loans between 2007 and 2009. One of these com­pa­nies is Enbrgide, whose con­tro­ver­sial pro­posed North­ern Gate­way Pas­sage would be laid through British Colum­bia, across more than fifty First Nation ter­ri­to­ries and pris­tine eco-sys­tems.

The Gate­way project will cross over 1000 rivers and streams. No oil extrac­tion is safe and secure but giv­en Enbridge has a his­to­ry of spills from its pipelines this project pos­es a seri­ous risk to endan­gered salmon pop­u­la­tions which use these rivers to spawn. Any spill will also con­t­a­m­i­nate the plants and ani­mals that local First Nations depend upon for food and med­i­cine.

The action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with First Nation peo­ples who expe­ri­ence the harsh­est and most imme­di­ate effects of RBS’s invest­ments. The activists are con­cerned that any con­t­a­m­i­na­tion could mir­ror the hor­rif­ic health impacts, includ­ing rare can­cers, seen in First Nation com­mu­ni­ties who live near Tar Sands extrac­tion zones. Two mem­bers of the First Nation com­mu­ni­ties have been at Cli­mate Camp this week, speak­ing of the destruc­tion of their ter­ri­to­ry and the trag­ic human cost of the Tar Sands mega project.

Jas­mine Thomas, a mem­ber of the frog clan from Saik’uz, which is part of the Car­ri­er Nation, said “Tar Sands is a glob­al phe­nom­e­non. It is the largest indus­tri­al project in the world. It is also the dirt­i­est. Tar Sands pro­duces three times as much CO2 per bar­rel as con­ven­tion­al oil. There’s enough under­ground to push us over the edge into run­away cli­mate change. It should be every­one’s con­cern”.

Daniel Bal­la, one of the activists involved, com­ment­ed “We feel com­pelled to take action against RBS as it is now 84% owned by the UK tax­pay­er. Peo­ple may be unaware that the insti­tu­tion using vast amounts of pub­lic mon­ey is invest­ing in the most destruc­tive car­bon-emit­ting indus­tries in the world. Since the bank was bailed out by the British Gov­ern­ment, 99% of RBS’s financ­ing of the ener­gy sec­tor has been pumped into fos­sil fuels. The future RBS is cur­rent­ly fund­ing will be fur­ther pol­lut­ed,
oil-addict­ed and incur a trag­ic loss of Indige­nous Peo­ples and degra­da­tion of the envi­ron­ment”.

—

RBS branch shut down with super­glue and music

Peo­ple opposed to Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s invest­ments in oil tar sands have super-glued them­selves to its Edin­burgh Nichol­son Street branch, sit­u­at­ed at the cen­tre of the City. They were joined by per­form­ers angry at RBS’ spon­sor­ship of the Edin­burgh Fringe.

One par­tic­i­pant, Jen­ny South, said “Cli­mate change kills 400,000 peo­ple every year. RBS invests in oil from Cana­di­an tar sands – the most cli­mate-bust­ing fuel on the plan­et, and one which is dev­as­tat­ing local indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties. We are stand­ing togeth­er with those com­mu­ni­ties to resist this 21st cen­tu­ry atroc­i­ty, to make a pas­sion­ate call for cli­mate jus­tice, and to has­ten a much-need­ed fos­sil fuel-free future.”

The action is one part of a mass day of direct action called by The Camp for Cli­mate Action, which has been camped oppo­site RBS’ glob­al head­quar­ters in Gog­a­r­burn for the last week.

ENDS

For more infor­ma­tion about Cli­mate Camp and RBS’ invest­ment in tar sands vis­it www.climatecamp.org.uk

—
Cairn trojan pigCairn trojan pig 2Cairn trojan pig 3
Cli­mate Camp art activists cause ‘oil’ spill out­side Cairn Ener­gy

An ‘oil’ spill was caused out­side the offices of Cairn Ener­gy in cen­tral Edin­burgh this morn­ing. Activists tar­get­ed the Scot­tish ener­gy com­pa­ny because it used pub­lic mon­ey from RBS to help it start drilling for oil off the coast of Green­land last month.

The art activists who met at the Cli­mate Camp car­ried a two metre long pig­gy bank brand­ed with the RBS logo filled with 60 litres of an oil like sub­stance towards Cairn Ener­gy’s offices. Trig­gered by a gold­en coin rep­re­sent­ing the pub­lic mon­ey used to bail out the bank, the RBS ‘pig­gy bank’ unleashed its con­tents, believed to be molasses, cov­er­ing the entrances and the street. Activists also sprayed ‘oil’ on the out­side of the build­ing with fire extin­guish­ers.

It was revealed yes­ter­day that Cairn Ener­gy received £117 mil­lion of loans and equi­ty last year from RBS, almost half of which direct­ly enabled the drilling off the Green­land coast to start. This drilling is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­tro­ver­sial because the area has­n’t been exploit­ed for oil before and has only been made pos­si­ble as cli­mate change has caused ice­bergs in this region to melt. The BP Deep­wa­ter oil spill has clear­ly shown the dan­gers of off­shore drilling and it’s argued that Cairn don’t have the expe­ri­ence to deal with acci­dents in the pre­vi­ous­ly pris­tine and extreme­ly envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive Arc­tic. (A spill in the area would be almost impos­si­ble to clean up due to the thick ice.)

Alex Wil­son, one of the activists who under­took the action said:

“RBS does­n’t just spon­sor the Edin­burgh Fringe, it spon­sors the oil com­pa­nies who destroy the lives of hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple around the world through oil spills, war, drought and floods.

“Risky drilling in the Arc­tic by Cairn Ener­gy has only been made pos­si­ble by finan­cial involve­ment by RBS. This is an out­ra­geous use of over a hun­dred mil­lion pounds of pub­lic mon­ey giv­en the eco­nom­ic and cli­mate crises that we are fac­ing.”

The activists say that this is the start of a new focus on tak­ing direct action against the oil indus­try. A mass day of action dubbed ‘The Crude Awak­en­ing’ is already being planned and is set to take place in Octo­ber in Lon­don.

Rachel Stone said:

“We have got the oil indus­try in our sights. We will be tar­get­ing the pumps, air­ports and fac­to­ries that oil flows through. We will be tak­ing direct action to switch off oil because it is at the heart of the cli­mate cri­sis that we are all fac­ing.”

ENDS

For more infor­ma­tion, inter­views or print qual­i­ty pho­tos please call 07040 900 905

Pho­tos: http://tweetphoto.com/40862372

Notes to edi­tors

* Accord­ing to Bloomberg fig­ures released yes­ter­day Cairn Ener­gy received £117 mil­lion in equi­ty and loans.
* For more infor­ma­tion on the Camp for Cli­mate Action see www.climatecamp.org.uk.
* For more infor­ma­tion about the Crude Awak­en­ing – day of action in Octo­ber go to www.crudeawakening.org.uk

—

DAY OF MASS ACTION BEGINS WITH CAR PARK BLOCKADE AND OFFICE OCCUPATION

The day of mass action tar­get­ing RBS and the fos­sil fuel indus­try is kick­ing into full swing as two groups of pro­tes­tors stage direct actions at the site of two cli­mate crim­i­nals. Sev­en pro­tes­tors have super­glued them­selves to the exec­u­tive car park of the RBS indus­tri­al estate, while anoth­er group of sev­en have tak­en over the offices of Forth ener­gy in Lei­th.

PROTESTORS RISK ARREST TO DROP BANNERS AND OCCUPY FORTH ENERGY HEAD OFFICE UNTIL DEMANDS ARE MET

Video live stream of the action is avail­able at qik.com/sinbad68

Leith—A group of 7 activists have just tar­get­ed the office of the head­quar­ters of Forth Ener­gy. Two have scaled the roof of the build­ing and have hung ban­ners read­ing ‘BIO MASS HEALTH HAZARD’ and ‘BIO MASS = CLIMATE CHANGE’. Three are inside, and two have chained them­selves to the front of the build­ing. The activists, part of the Cli­mate Camp out­side of RBS head­quar­ters in Edin­burgh, are tar­get­ing Forth Ener­gy because of their plans to build four envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive bio­mass (wood-burn­ing) ener­gy pow­er sta­tions in Scot­land. The office takeover began at 8 am this morn­ing.

Loca­tion: 1 Prince of Wales, Dock, Lei­th, EH6 7DX

Why are envi­ron­men­tal activists risk­ing arrest by tak­ing such dras­tic action? Forth Ener­gy, which labels itself a ‘green’ ener­gy com­pa­ny, is mis­lead­ing­ly push­ing bio­mass as a solu­tion to cli­mate change. In real­i­ty these pow­er sta­tions will increase car­bon emis­sions, pol­lute local air, increase defor­esta­tion and lead to the dis­place­ment of native peo­ples in the glob­al south. Wood burned in the pro­posed Lieth, Grange­mouth, Rosyth Port and Dundee Port sites will be fed pri­mar­i­ly from wood chip freight­ed in from abroad.

Bio­mass pow­er sta­tions are more cli­mate dam­ag­ing than tra­di­tion­al fos­sil fuel pow­er sta­tions because of the destruc­tion of vir­gin wood­lands that they inevitably require. If built these pow­er sta­tions will mean even more wood imports from abroad and even more destruc­tion of rain­forests and old growth forests to be replaced with plan­ta­tions of euca­lyp­tus in places like South Amer­i­ca. For exam­ple, the smoke­stack CO2 emis­sions from a bio­mass pow­er sta­tion are com­mon­ly around 1.5 times greater than those from a coal pow­er sta­tion with the same ener­gy out­put.

In addi­tion to harm­ing the glob­al cli­mate, these pow­er sta­tions will severe­ly impact the health of the com­mu­ni­ties where they are built. All bio­mass burn­ing releas­es sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ties of nitro­gen oxides, sul­phur diox­ide, car­bon monox­ide, volatile organ­ic com­pounds and haz­ardous air pol­lu­tants (HAPs). Such pol­lu­tion increas­es the risks of res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, heart dis­ease, can­cer and pre­ma­ture mor­tal­i­ty includ­ing infant mor­tal­i­ty and mis­car­riage. Lei­th pow­er sta­tion alone would gen­er­ate nitro­gen oxide and par­tic­u­lates equiv­a­lent to 100,000 more cars while Edin­burgh and Grange­mouth pow­er sta­tions are 200m to the near­est home and Dundee pow­er sta­tion just 100m.

Demand for import­ed wood will also mean native peo­ples and peas­ant farm­ers could be dis­placed from their land and intim­i­dat­ed, killed, injured or enslaved to make room for new mono cul­ture wood plan­ta­tions as rou­tine­ly hap­pens in many devel­op­ing coun­tries.

Despite all the sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence to the con­trary, the UK and EU gov­ern­ments class bio­mass pow­er sta­tions as renew­able, green ener­gy. Forth ener­gy will receive £300 mil­lion in sub­si­dies annu­al­ly for their four bio­mass pow­er sta­tions and this is to be fund­ed through an increase on util­i­ty bills.
Mary­la Hart, spokesper­son for the group of Cli­mate Camp activists “Bio­mass is exac­er­bat­ing cli­mate change, destroy­ing pre­cious forests and pulling mon­ey away from real, sus­tain­able solu­tions like ener­gy effi­cien­cy mea­sures, wind, solar and tidal pow­er. Forth Ener­gy can expect grow­ing oppo­si­tion until they scrap the idea of bio­mass alto­geth­er’.

For more infor­ma­tion about bio­mass and the cam­paign against it, please vis­it www.biofuelwatch.org.uk, http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/Biomess.

Notes to edi­tor:
— The four pow­er sta­tions which will pro­duce a total 560MW will burn a total of 5.6 mil­lion tones of wood a year.
— The four pow­er sta­tions would burn approx­i­mate­ly the equiv­a­lent of 2/3 of all the wood the UK cur­rent­ly pro­duces every year.
— The UK’s total demand for wood for pulp, paper and bio­mass is already alto­geth­er unsus­tain­able as the UK relies on net imports for over 80% for its wood and wood prod­ucts.

Sunday stroll through RBS’ HQ and other climate camp actions so far — updated

For the lat­est action & oth­er news from the Camp for Cli­mate Action, read their twit­ter.

Mid Sun­day after­noon (22.8.10), 100s of peo­ple attempt­ed to stroll over the bridge from the Cli­mate Camp to the HQ of RBS. Police tried to stop them.

For the lat­est action & oth­er news from the Camp for Cli­mate Action, read their twit­ter.

RBS Sunday strollRBS HQ windows smashedMid Sun­day after­noon (22.8.10), 100s of peo­ple attempt­ed to stroll over the bridge from the Cli­mate Camp to the HQ of RBS. Police tried to stop them.

From the North­ern Indy­media time­line:

August 22, 2010 17:29 — Cli­mate Camp pro­tes­tors have now crossed the bridge and marched on to RBS build­ings.

August 22, 2010 17:17 — Green­wash gueril­la activists are going across the main bridge.

August 22, 2010 17:11 — two hun­dred activists in green­wash gueril­la out­fits are march­ing onto the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land Head Quar­ters site.

August 22, 2010 13:50 — “Bring­ing three vans down Gog­ar Sta­tion Road”

August 22, 2010 13:39 — Most of the Cli­mate Campers have moved away, but 4 or 5 are being searched on Sta­tion Road while head­ing back to the main Camp area. Legal Observers are with those Campers who have been stopped.

August 22, 2010 13:36 — Forty Police are now present in the same area as the Cli­mate Campers who are try­ing to enter RBS grounds. Police are now threat­en­ing to invoke Sec­tion 60 on any­one wear­ing a face mask.

August 22, 2010 13:32 — Cli­mate Campers are mov­ing back through the hedge.

August 22, 2010 13:30 — Twelve Police are stood behind the crowd.

August 22, 2010 13:27 — Push­ing match has end­ed. Police are watch­ing Cli­mate Campers dance!

August 22, 2010 13:26 — Police do not have a rea­son for why they are not let­ting Cli­mate Campers cross the bridge. No com­mand­ing offi­cer present to give a rea­son. Push­ing match between Campers and police has begun.

August 22, 2010 13:23 — Police and two vans have met Cli­mate Campers on the bridge and are try­ing to pre­vent them cross­ing the bridge.

August 22, 2010 13:22 — For­ward Intel­li­gence Team (F.I.T.) of the Police have joined the Cli­mate Campers. Police have made attempts to stop the group enter­ing RBS land. We think the police have been unsuc­cess­ful in stop­ping the Cli­mate Campers gain access to the land.

August 22, 2010
There are also a cou­ple of videos avail­able online, one of which appears to show Campers on top of the RBS build­ing (and anoth­er video, slight­ly ear­li­er).

Sunday RBS invasion 1Sunday RBS invasion 2Sunday RBS invasion 3From the Camp twit­ter feed:

* After a pro­longed stand off with the police we are now in a mass ple­nary hear­ing from two Cana­di­an #tarsands activists. #cli­mate­camp 2 min­utes ago via Tweet­Deck
* In an unre­lat­ed inci­dent two activists were also arrest­ed. Molasses rep­re­sent­ing dirty oil was flung at RBS HQ in cater­paults #cli­mate­camp 3 min­utes ago via Tweet­Deck
* dur­ing the ear­li­er site incur­sion two win­dows were smashed by activists angry about RBS fos­sil fuel invest­ments #cli­mate­camp #tarsands
* Overheard_it Over­heard police say­ing an offi­cer had lost their radio in scuf­fles with #Cli­mate­Camp pro­test­ers about 1 hour ago via twit­ter­feed Retweet­ed by cli­mate­camp
* Sophi­aCR Bal­loons full of ‘oil’ just burst on the RBS build­ing. #cli­mate­camp about 3 hours ago via txt Retweet­ed by cli­mate­camp and 4 oth­ers
* Pic­tures from our incur­sion onto RBS HQ. Cur­rent­ly a stand off and bridge and peo­ple up tripods too http://tweetphoto.com/40722969 about 2 hours ago via Tweet­Deck
* Mass incur­sion at RBS HQ. Hun­dreds threat­ened with arrest if they don’t cross back over the bridge #cli­mate­camp

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Lady Oily GagaActivists Force RBS Branch­es to Close Over Week­end
August 22, 2010

* Cli­mate pro­test­ers use super­glue and stink bombs to close branch­es
* Lady Gaga song per­formed on hijacked Fringe stage

The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land came under attack from pro­test­ers this week­end, who are demon­strat­ing against its invest­ment in dan­ger­ous fos­sil fuels.

Activists super­glued shut RBS branch doors on Fri­day night, and graf­fi­tied RBS logos around the city. RBS branch­es were forced to close on Sat­ur­day as Cli­mate Camp pro­tes­tors tar­get­ed city cen­tre branch­es.

One set of pro­test­ers per­formed ‘Dirty Oil’, a spoof ver­sion of the Lady Gaga song ‘Pok­er­face’ with the words changed to high­light RBS’ invest­ments in the Tar Sands. The St Andrew’s Square branch was closed to pre­vent activists per­form­ing inside. The group lat­er hijacked an RBS-spon­sored stage at the Edin­burgh Fringe.

The song includ­ed the lyrics:

“It’s get­ting hot, the plan­et’s near­ly shot
We’ll make ’em stop, we’re putting up a block.
Can’t deny, can’t deny that tar sands is dirty oil
Tar Sands is dirty oil.”

A dif­fer­ent group set off stink bombs in RBS branch­es, forc­ing them to close for the day.

Ruth McTer­nan from the Cli­mate Camp said:

“These invest­ments are fill­ing the atmos­phere with the stench of car­bon and has­ten­ing cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, so we gave RBS a sam­ple of their own smelly emis­sions.”

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Greenwash Guerillas 2Greenwash Guerillas 3Police Search Street The­atre Activists Under New Pow­er
August 21, 2010

A group of street the­atre activists plan­ning on demon­strat­ing against RBS lat­er today have been stopped and searched by Loth­i­an and Bor­ders Police under Sec­tion 60.

A team of 30–40 peo­ple gath­ered at the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land HQ in Gog­a­r­burn, Edin­burgh this morn­ing. Dressed in white foren­sics bio­haz­ard suits and car­ry­ing “green­wash detec­tor” probes they enact­ed street the­atre to poke fun at RBS’ attempts to spin their image away from their sta­tus as the oil and gas bank.

The pro­test­ers were searched under a sec­tion 60 pow­er which has been in place on Edin­burgh and sur­round­ing area since 10.30 am on Sat­ur­day morn­ing and will remain so for 48 hours. The group were stopped and searched for offen­sive weapons just out­side the Cli­mate Camp at Gog­a­r­burn. For­ward Intel­li­gence Teams took pho­tographs of the pro­tes­tors. All refused to give their details and there were no arrests.

This move accom­pa­nies the instal­la­tion of flood­lights on the roof of RBS HQ, and the intro­duc­tion of mount­ed police in the area sur­round­ing the camp.

The pro­tes­tors from Camp for Cli­mate Action plan on head­ing into the Roy­al Mile at 3pm for more green­wash bust­ing.

Char­lotte Wirth, one of the pro­tes­tors who was stopped and searched, said:
“Street the­atre is a great way to high­light how what RBS says about its envi­ron­men­tal record doesn’t match up with the real­i­ty. RBS is financ­ing bil­lions of pounds worth of coal, oil and gas both across the world and here in the UK.

“It’s ridicu­lous that the police are using stop and search pow­ers across Edin­burgh on street per­form­ers just because our mes­sage is polit­i­cal.”

More pho­tos

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Activist super-glued to RBS front desk as 150 Cli­mate Campers mount an incur­sion into RBS
August 20, 2010

At noon today, approx­i­mate­ly 150 activists breached the secu­ri­ty between the Cli­mate Camp (which is on the grounds of Roy­al Bank of Scot­land head­quar­ters) and the build­ings com­plex which hous­es the head­quar­ters.

As the activists com­plet­ed their tour of the grounds, one pro­tes­tor dis­guised as a banker gained entry to build­ing and super-glued her hands to the front desk. She was arrest­ed, and an ambu­lance was called to facil­i­tate removal.

The activists invit­ed the bankers to lunch to find out more about the Cli­mate Camp and the role of RBS in financ­ing cli­mate chaos at the many work­shops and train­ings planned for this week­end, before the day of mass action.

The activists man­aged to enter the revolv­ing doors of the RBS build­ing, where they held a dance par­ty and held a ban­ner declar­ing “we won‘t pay for their cri­sis”. They then moved to the front of the build­ing, where there were speech­es about RBS’ destruc­tive invest­ments into fos­sil fuels.

One of the speak­ers said:
“This is a call to action because RBS is financ­ing fos­sil fuel projects around the world. They are know­ing­ly dis­plac­ing and endan­ger­ing com­mu­ni­ties, destroy­ing ecosys­tems and lead­ing us towards cli­mate chaos. We’re hear to join with those com­mu­ni­ties in oppos­ing a finan­cial sys­tem which pri­ori­tis­es prof­its for the few over all of our futures”

Climate Camp Have Occupied land near Gogarburn RBS HQ

Update, Thurs­day 19th:
The to-be-dra­mat­ic “Swoop” to occu­py the site of Cli­mate Camp in Edin­burgh was­n’t so dra­mat­ic. As the site, in RBS’s back gar­den, had been tak­en the night before, many peo­ple were already onsite and much (all?) risk tak­en out of the swoop process.So four sep­a­rate meet­ing places to avoid con­tain­ment were replaced with a sin­gle one, sun­ny St Andrews Square, where around 60 heav­i­ly-laden campers gath­ered, chat­ted and then left to go to the site. On the X48 bus, much to the relief of those with an Edin­burgh A‑Z.

RBS climate camp tripod entranceCamp for Climate Action set-up by RBS HQUpdate, Thurs­day 19th:
The to-be-dra­mat­ic “Swoop” to occu­py the site of Cli­mate Camp in Edin­burgh was­n’t so dra­mat­ic. As the site, in RBS’s back gar­den, had been tak­en the night before, many peo­ple were already onsite and much (all?) risk tak­en out of the swoop process.So four sep­a­rate meet­ing places to avoid con­tain­ment were replaced with a sin­gle one, sun­ny St Andrews Square, where around 60 heav­i­ly-laden campers gath­ered, chat­ted and then left to go to the site. On the X48 bus, much to the relief of those with an Edin­burgh A‑Z.

As of 4pm, campers were busy set­ting up. Mains water is being arranged with the co-oper­a­tion of the Coun­cil. Mar­quees are being erect­ed and kitchens tak­ing shape. The entrance to the Camp pro­vides a view over the back win­dows and lawn of RBS’s glob­al HQ, carved out of the green belt scant months before its hubris­tic col­lapse. There was­n’t too much activ­i­ty vis­i­ble there in the after­noon. Police and secu­ri­ty guards are post­ed at each entrance but there’s a marked lack of ten­sion com­pared with pre­vi­ous years.

Those with time are encour­aged to come along and help set-up for the Cam­p’s offi­cial start on Sat­ur­day.

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18.8.10
At 9.15PM tonight Cli­mate Camp took the site on RBS HQ. Get on site as fast as you can! Defence help urgent­ly need­ed. Come to RBS Gog­a­r­burn Gar­dens, off Gog­ar Sta­tion Rd. x

Three cli­mate activists were arrest­ed by Scot­tish police as they took the site for the Camp for Cli­mate Action in Edin­burgh which set up very close to the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land Head­quar­ters at Gog­a­r­burn Gar­dens off Gog­ar Sta­tion Road just after 9pm yes­ter­day evening.
It is under­stood that the three who were arrest­ed have all been released with­out charge.

Loth­i­an Bus No. 48 can be tak­en there from Princess Street going North/West going towards West End of princes street.
Looks like the 10, 16 and 35 will all take you ten min­utes’ walk from where cli­mate camp is hap­pen­ing (get off at the ‘RBS HQ’ stop)!
RBS is a 30 minute walk from Edin­burgh park sta­tion

At night when Num­ber 48 not run­ning one can take the N22, goes a longer route but ends up near­by.