Category: Capitalism / Globalisation

THE BATH BOMB
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #31
free/donation
July 2010
‘Where news goes to die’

George’s Mar­vel­lous Med­i­cine!

Won­drous news this month as we dis­cov­er that the chan­cel­lor has heal­ing hands rivalling those of the good Lord Jesus. Osborne claims he has the abil­i­ty to cure the dis­abled and reduce the bankers’ debt in the process. Praise be.

It would seem irre­spon­si­ble, uncar­ing and cru­el to ignore the wel­fare for those most vul­ner­a­ble in our soci­ety, espe­cial­ly in the cur­rent cli­mate. Thank­ful­ly, the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty think, with a dose of George’s mar­vel­lous med­i­cine, one in five peo­ple pre­vi­ous­ly con­sid­ered inca­pable of work will be able to mirac­u­lous­ly attain and keep gain­ful employ­ment. This will cut the deficit and bring noth­ing but hope and hap­pi­ness to those unfor­tu­nate enough to be hand­i­capped.

Despite the lev­el of unem­ploy­ment being so trou­bling, the Tories assure us that those com­ing off sick­ness ben­e­fits will have an easy time find­ing work. It does­n’t mat­ter if they’ve spent long peri­ods out of work; that sure­ly won’t affect employ­ers’ deci­sions. Cer­tain­ly, it won’t influ­ence those already on the dole. That’d be ridicu­lous.

Enough irony.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Con-Dem don’t appear to under­stand the def­i­n­i­tion of inca­pac­i­ty, seem­ing to believe that there are those who are unable and yet, at the same time, able.

Fur­ther issues are seen with the pen­sion age due to rise to 66 and lat­er to 70 and so on. Sim­ply the increase by one year will mean 200,000 extra peo­ple will die with­out reach­ing retire­ment age. It’s cer­tain­ly worth not­ing that those with big salaries and big bonus­es can and do retire ear­li­er with the free­dom their dirty mon­ey brings them. Even more so, high­er wages mean high­er life expectan­cy. The Con­ser­v­a­tives promised no cuts to pen­sions and yet sure­ly these sub­stan­tial­ly are.

In France, there is cur­rent­ly large scale indus­tri­al action over their increase to 62, sure­ly 66 is just tak­ing the piss.

This mon­th’s bud­get deliv­ers freezes on child ben­e­fit and pub­lic sec­tor pay (con­sid­er­ing infla­tion, essen­tial­ly a cut in both). It brings annu­al­ly decreas­ing state ben­e­fits in line with the cost of liv­ing and fur­ther hits on the poor by rais­ing V.A.T. to 20 per­cent. Mean­while, cor­po­rate tax is reduced to leave more mon­ey with the C.E.O.s and share­hold­ers. Clear­ly, Con-Dem could have raised tax­es in order to tack­le the deficit, espe­cial­ly of those with could have raised tax­es in order to tack­le the deficit, espe­cial­ly of those with more mon­ey than they know what to do with, yet they’ve ignored this avenue. Instead the Tories are seek­ing out ways to direct­ly attack the poor­est and most vul­ner­a­ble to keep their bank­ing friends’ pock­ets lined. Cunts!

It’s A SHSEI-ing Shame

Whilst we have giv­en a fair chunk of cov­er­age to the woes of one com­mu­ni­ty activist ini­tia­tive get­ting repeat­ed­ly bounced off the pave­ment by Bath’s pow­ers-that-be, anoth­er local scheme has also been tak­ing it in the chops, but on the qui­et. The brain­child of one Mr Lawrence Buabeng, Snow Hill Skills and Enter­prise Ini­tia­tive, has been slog­ging through coun­cil nego­ti­a­tions for the last four years. Whilst gov­ern­ment direc­tives and strate­gies have been blath­er­ing on about emo­tive touchy-feely terms like ‘com­mu­ni­ty empow­er­ment’, ‘help­ing peo­ple to help them­selves’ and ‘stronger, safer com­mu­ni­ties’, on the ground they offer the exact oppo­site. S.H.S.E.I. is a case in point.

Whilst the scheme has put togeth­er a com­pre­hen­sive, step-by-step and ambi­tious plan (a term its detrac­tors often use against it) to com­bat workless­ness, ill health, and lack of com­mu­ni­ty cohe­sion, it also seeks to regen­er­ate a visu­al­ly-neglect­ed area and recon­nect its peo­ple to their own his­to­ry. Specif­i­cal­ly, it is made up of those peo­ple itself, and aims for ful­fill­ing work, offer­ing the skills and prac­ti­cal train­ing to get it. It also imple­ments local­ly account­able, cost-effec­tive pub­lic ser­vices. Though Lon­don Road is one of the main arter­ies into this World Her­itage city, it is the UK’s third worst pol­lut­ed road and absolute­ly lit­tered with board­ed-up shop fronts. The fact is that the home­less, unem­ployed, ex-offend­ers, and drug-depen­dent who make up a size­able pro­por­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty often have a poor work­ing rela­tion­ship with insti­tu­tion­al bod­ies. When an afflu­ent, phil­an­thropist out­sider rolls in to tell you how to improve your lot, the dis­em­pow­er­ment, the patro­n­is­ing arro­gance, the dis­trust and inequal­i­ty leave a sour taste.

Start­ing off with a film-mak­ing work­shop for youth (four films are already avail­able at http://www.ilovesnowhill.com), the scheme also aims at re-open­ing the gar­den behind Car­o­line House, tak­ing back three build­ings for the com­mu­ni­ty (main­tain­ing them to exact­ing envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards, and put them to use as Her­itage, Skills & Enter­prise Cen­tres), pro­mot­ing child- and elder­ly-care schemes, and explor­ing alter­na­tive eco­nom­ics. The first stage sur­vey of local needs was done for free this spring, whilst the coun­cil’s sur­vey of 170 peo­ple in 2002 gob­bled up around £30,000. The results of the first 100 have been damn­ing, dis­play­ing a 45% rate of localised unem­ploy­ment. The scheme has seen sup­port from a dizzy­ing array of insti­tu­tions: B&NES Her­itage and Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment offi­cer, the local MP, the Local Improve­ment Advi­sor, British Trust for Con­ser­va­tion Vol­un­teers, Somer Hous­ing, Bet­ter Bath Forum, Job Cen­tre Plus, Gen­e­sis Trust, Bath Abbey Home­less Ini­tia­tive, North East Som­er­set Arts and Bath Spa Uni, as well as those local denizens at the bot­tom of the lad­der.

But no, it seems the coun­cil would rather sweep any prob­lems under the car­pet: though Snow Hill has four times as many Job-seek­ers as the nor­mal rate, it is divid­ed neat­ly between the afflu­ent wards of Lam­bridge and Wal­cot, so no one has to get upset by damn­ing sta­tis­tics. For its part, the Lon­don Road Part­ner­ship seeds its mem­bers into com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings to witch-hunt local youth. The Coun­cil seems to be wait­ing for the uppi­ty poor folk to either die off (as two of the S.H.S.E.I. sub-com­mit­tee already have) or do what they’re sup­posed to do, like get a habit or a jail sen­tence. This jus­ti­fies an ever-increas­ing gold-rush of police resources as the upper ech­e­lons mat­ter-of-fact­ly step up the class war. At the same time, they scav­enge the choic­est morsels of the scheme, rather than give cred­it to the dis­ad­van­taged who have put in years of sol­id, unpaid work.

The first hint of back-stab­bing was when B&NES’s Paul Pen­ny­cook all but promised a sum of £45,000 for a workless­ness ini­tia­tive in the area at the turn of the year; but when the cash did arrive, instead of it going to the exist­ing, local­ly-based scheme, it instead fell in the hands of Re:Generate — a team of well-mean­ing young and pol­ished com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­tants from Shrews­bury, cyn­i­cal­ly being used by their high­er ups to under­mine and mar­gin­alise the active com­mu­ni­ty, (who already do work in more need­ed areas like White­way, Twer­ton and Keyn­sham) and instead sink fund­ing into a spate of jum­ble sales.

Things start­ed get­ting ugly from there on in. Although the offi­cial route has­n’t led to many results so far, a com­plaint was lodged with the local author­i­ty ombuds­man, and law suits were ini­ti­at­ed. Alex Schlesinger, chair of the Lon­don Road Part­ner­ship and antiques empo­ri­um emper­or, threat­ened to return fund­ing to sender or waste it on court fees, rather than use it for the scheme — paint­ing him as a self-serv­ing, self-sat­is­fied do-good­er refus­ing to actu­al­ly do any good for those who count. 3 and 4 Long Acre got squat­ted to push the coun­cil in the right direc­tion, but things got even ugli­er when Joanne Long, from B&NES Prop­er­ty Ser­vices, reared her.…face? and start­ed court pro­ceed­ings. The evic­tion took place on Thurs­day the 8th of this month. Prop­er­ty Ser­vices man­age­ment of the build­ing, or mis-man­age­ment, inci­den­tal­ly, bor­ders on crim­i­nal neglect: back in April, they erect­ed scaf­fold­ing round the out­side of the build­ing to car­ry out a sur­veyance, and ‘deal’ with the rain dam­age; how­ev­er, when we say ‘deal’, we mean they did­n’t both­er to patch up the holes in the roof which admits reg­u­lar streams of rain (and the floor­boards are par­tial­ly rot­ten inside, which the squat­ters took pains to reverse), but just put up board­ing to con­ceal the moss grow­ing on the out­side of the brick­work. Rather than return the build­ings over to the needs of the com­mu­ni­ty, they’d rather flog them off to the high­est bid­der, in a des­per­ate bid to pay off coun­cil debts from oth­er mis­takes.

We could go on — we often do, but the sor­ry saga involves a lot more dou­ble-stan­dards, co-option, per­jury and lies. S.H.S.E.I. still has­n’t giv­en up, and if peo­ple of integri­ty want to sup­port it in any way — be it prac­ti­cal, finan­cial or polit­i­cal — drop them an e‑mail at lawrencebuabeng[at]googlemail.com .

Nice Work If You Can Skel­lett

Although the times are hard, it’s nice to know that some folks are get­ting by. Col­in Skel­lett, for exam­ple, own­er of Great West­ern Enter­pris­es, is doing quite nice­ly. G.W.E. spe­cialise in pro­vid­ing busi­ness ser­vices (invent­ing this sea­son’s hottest buzz­words, and oth­er impor­tant stuff) for local coun­cils like B&NES. He was bust­ed by the Lon­don Police Fraud Squad back in 2002 for accept­ing a sup­posed £1 mil­lion bribe for sell­ing off his com­pa­ny Wes­sex Water to Malaysian-owned YTL Pow­er (appar­ent­ly, the mon­ey was pay­ment for the con­sul­tan­cy role he played in the buy-out). It turns out this chair­man of the Ini­tia­tive for Bath and North East Som­er­set just can’t get enough (monop­o­lies, that is). Still on Wes­sex’s board of direc­tors, he also helped out Busi­ness West after their finan­cial trou­ble two years back, by acquir­ing them. Busi­ness West pro­vide busi­ness ser­vices too, for com­pa­nies in the west-coun­try. How­ev­er, G.W.E. also owns the freema­son-like Bath and Bris­tol Cham­ber of Com­merces, who rep­re­sent the inter­ests of large busi­ness­es like banks, super­mar­kets, lawyers and pub­lic trans­port groups.

Then con­sid­er the shin­ing exam­ple of Orwellian dou­ble­s­peak that is ‘Future Bath Plus’. Half-owned by B&NES Coun­cil, they pro­mote Bath’s tourism and World Her­itage rep­u­ta­tion, and have let loose a city cen­tre man­ag­er intent on threat­en­ing pos­i­tive com­mu­ni­ty schemes like the Bath FreeShop. They are also the vehi­cle through which Bath’s Busi­ness Improve­ment Dis­trict scheme is brought in. B.I.D.s, which, if vot­ed in, pop an extra tax levy onto all local busi­ness­es, with the stat­ed aim of pro­mot­ing ‘all’ busi­ness­es in the area, osten­si­bly. The B.I.D. is like­ly to boost CCTV sur­veil­lance and pseu­do-cop pres­ence in the city cen­tre, pri­vatis­ing pub­lic space, and sweep­ing away the home­less, the eth­nic minori­ties and the polit­i­cal­ly active who might just ren­der the high street too unseem­ly for our beloved tourists’ del­i­cate sen­si­bil­i­ties. First seen in this coun­try in Lon­don in 2006, 22 of them have spread now, with par­tic­u­lar out­cry in Ply­mouth, where vast amounts of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey has been chan­nelled into the pro­mo­tion of the B.I.D. com­pa­nies’ direc­tors, inter­ests whilst com­peti­tors have been high and dry. It’s the same sto­ry of cor­rup­tion through­out the so-called North East Tri­an­gle of Bris­tol, Swin­don and Glouces­ter. Oh, and did we men­tion that our Col­in is the chair of Future Bath Plus?

So, Skel­lett, a close friend of B&NES Coun­cil’s CEO John Everett, is send­ing G.W.E. all over the south-west, accu­mu­lat­ing heaps of tax­pay­er cash through a mul­ti­tude of dis­guis­es, whilst vul­ner­a­ble pub­lic ser­vices face wave after wave of ‘inevitable’ cuts. B&NES claim that last year G.W.E. earned £40,000, but if you include the funds tossed Future Bath Plus and Busi­ness West­’s way, it’s look­ing clos­er to £1.5 mil­lion. Any­one else smell a rat?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_improvement_district”
http://www.bbc.co.uk

A Class (War) Act!

So, the bud­get has been announced and, as expect­ed, it hits the poor­est hard­est, while leav­ing the rich — the same peo­ple who caused the cri­sis — laugh­ing at the rest of us. There is expect­ed to be a min­i­mum of 600,000 redun­dan­cies sole­ly from the pub­lic sec­tor. In Bath alone, the largest employ­ers, B&NES, the MoD, and the Uni­ver­si­ties, are all fac­ing heavy loss­es, with at least three hun­dred coun­cil jobs on the chop­ping block in the next three years. Along with the all-out assault on aver­age peo­ple, Cameron and his Eton chums have decid­ed to reduce the amount of tax paid by cor­po­ra­tions and the ultra rich. But while the old school tie brigade get ready to dish us out a kick­ing, many ordi­nary peo­ple are get­ting pre­pared to bash back. Bob Crow, leader of the 85,000 strong RMT union summed it up best by say­ing “The trade unions must form alliances with com­mu­ni­ty groups, cam­paigns and pen­sion­ers’ organ­i­sa­tions in the biggest show of unit­ed resis­tance since the suc­cess of the anti-poll tax move­ment. Wav­ing ban­ners and plac­ards will not be enough — it will take direct action”. He has also called for ‘gen­er­al and coor­di­nat­ed strike action’ — a call which is being tak­en up by thou­sands around the coun­try prepar­ing to fight back against the dev­as­tat­ing Tory cuts. Already, there have been a spate of protests and actions up and down the coun­try. Where bet­ter to ignite the fight­back in earnest than the Tory Par­ty Con­fer­ence in Birm­ing­ham on Octo­ber the 3rd? Protests are being organ­ised that look set to involve thou­sands of angry peo­ple, and it looks like a coach will be going from Bath. So, if you fan­cy let­ting lord Snooty and the rest of the Thatch­er clones know what you think of their cuts, why not drop B.A.N. an email at bathactivistnet[at]yahoo.co.uk. In the mean­time, anti-cuts cam­paigns are spring­ing up left, left and cen­tre, so keep your ear to the ground and take a bit of inspi­ra­tion from our mate Bob Crow, who end­ed his recent speech with a clear mes­sage to all of us — “Don’t fear them — fight them!”

Cli­mate Camp Coun­ters Cym­ru Coal

There will be a Camp For Cli­mate Action tar­get­ing coal in South Wales this August, from the 13th to the 17th.

The direct action net­work will con­verge at a venue in Cardiff on Fri­day the 13th August, from which peo­ple will be tak­en to the camp itself. “Coal is one of the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuels in terms of car­bon. We will take action against open­cast coal min­ing because it trash­es the land, destroys our plan­et and wrecks the health of local peo­ple. Clean coal is a dirty joke”, said spokesper­son Cerys Jones.

Last year’s camp was held next to Ffos-y-fran in Merthyr Tyd­fil, the largest open­cast coal mine in the UK. The camp involved work­shops on cli­mate sci­ence, direct action train­ing, a solar-pow­ered cin­e­ma, com­post toi­lets, solar-heat­ed show­ers, grey­wa­ter sys­tems and wind pow­er.

As part of the con­tin­u­ing cam­paign res­i­dents are now tak­ing Miller Argent to court on the issue of ‘pri­vate nui­sance’. Due to the con­stant clouds of coal dust res­i­dents are unable to open win­dows, or hang wash­ing out. Also, of the 18 coal train block­aders, as men­tioned last month, five have now had their cas­es with­drawn.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the camp, e‑mail: media[at]climatecampcymru.org, or give them a call at 07077 076147.

http://www.risingtide.org.uk
http://www.stopffosyfran.co.uk
http://coalaction.org.uk
http://www.climatecampcymru.org
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/aug/12/climate-camp-cymru-blog
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8270681.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/26/coal-protest-ffos-y-fran

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

UPCOMING EVENTS

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road
Bathamp­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Grow­ers work­day, Thurs­days, 10am-dusk, Mill Lane, Bathamp­ton, e‑mail thelostplot[at]googlemail.com/ tel Chris 07792 444628
Bath Stop The War Coali­tion vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard
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
Bris­tol & South Wales Hunt Sabo­teurs punk & thrash ben­e­fit gig, Fri­day 9th July, 7.30pm, The White Hart, White­hall Road, Bris­tol, feat. Kismet H.C., Death Job, Mutiny Plot and This Ends Here, £5
Intro­duc­to­ry Per­ma­cul­ture Week­end, Sat­ur­day 10th to Sun­day 11th July, Bath City Farm, £50, http://www.transitionbath.org
Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 10th July, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street
Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 10th July, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, http://www.bathford.net/broadlands.php
work­shop: Activist Comms/Radio Train­ing, Sat­ur­day 10th July, 12–4.30pm, Bris­tol Cas­tle Park, sug­gest­ed dona­tion £2; please let us know if you’re plan­ning on com­ing — either e‑mail nickkassam[at]hotmail.com, or text 07796 864 649; bring food for a pic­nic and some­thing water­proof
film & dis­cus­sion: ‘Stop that train!’: direct actions on the rail­ways against cli­mate chaos and nuclear pow­er, Thurs­day 8th July, 6.30pm, Kebele Social Cen­tre, 14 Robert­son Road, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol; host­ed by Bris­tol and Bath Ris­ing Tide
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru plan­ning gath­er­ing, Sat­ur­day 10th July, the Wyn­d­ham Street Cen­tre, 3–5, Wyn­d­ham Street, Cardiff, South Glam­or­gan CF11 6DQ; e‑mail info[at]climatecampcymru.org
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru comms train­ing, Sun­day 11th July, Cardiff, e‑mail l3wis85[at]gmail.com
Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Mon­day 12th July, 8–9pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street, e‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk
cul­ture fes­ti­val: ‘A Taste of Pales­tine’, Tues­day 13th July, 7.30pm, Mason­ic Hall, Frome, £7.50/£4 con­ces­sions, includ­ing food
Bath Mad Pride, Wednes­day 14th July, 2–4pm, Abbey Court­yard; danc­ing, games & enter­tain­ment
work­shop: ‘Organ­i­sa­tion­al Resilience’, Wednes­day 14th July, 9.30am‑5.30pm, the Cre­ater Cen­tre, Smeaton Road, Bris­tol, slid­ing scale pay­ment from £50; http://www.response-ability.org.uk
com­e­dy: Ivor Dem­bi­na’s ‘This Is Not A Sub­ject For Com­e­dy’, Wednes­day 14th July, The Gra­nary, Frome, £5
Raw food work­shop, Wednes­day 14th July, 7pm, the Abun­dant Life Well­ness Cen­tre, 36 New King Street, £10; pre-book­ing essen­tial as num­bers lim­it­ed to 12, tel 01225 318060
Bath Stop the War meet­ing, Wednes­day 14th July, 7.30pm, Friends Meet­ing House, York Street, Bath, BA1 1NG; http://www.bathstopwar.org.uk
Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 14th July, 8.30pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street
read­ings & food: ‘Arab Writ­ing Today’, Thurs­day 15th July, 7.30pm, Trin­i­ty Hall, Frome, £8
Tolpud­dle Mar­tyr’s Fes­ti­val, Fri­day 16th July to Sun­day 18th, Tolpud­dle, Devon; http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/index.php?page=martyr-s-festival
Two Tun­nels group open day, Sat­ur­day 17th July; walks will start every half hour between 10am and 4pm at the Tuck­ing Mill (south­ern) end of the tun­nel; http://www.twotunnels.org.uk
work­shop: ‘Per­ma­cul­ture Allot­ment Gar­den­ing Tech­niques’, Sat­ur­day 17th July, 1–7pm, Roy­ate Hill Allot­ments, Bris­tol, slid­ing scale pay­ment from £20; http://www.shiftbristol.org.uk
‘Wild Walk’ for­ag­ing day, Sun­day 18th July, 2pm, meet point tba, £10; tel Jonathan to book: 07740 706232
Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 19th July, 7.30pm, Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street
gig & work­shop: ‘Sur­vival Tales’, Wednes­day 21st July, 7pm, Eas­t­on Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Kil­burn Street, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, BS5, £5/suggested dona­tion entry — please book in advance: contact[at]survivaltales.uk; http://www.survivaltales.org.uk; with Eirlys Rhi­an­non
gig & work­shop: ‘Sur­vival Tales’, Thurs­day 21st July, 7pm, Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Co-op, 14 Rober­ston Road, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, £5/suggested dona­tion entry — please book in advance: contact[at]survivaltales.uk; http://www.survivaltales.org.uk; with Eirlys Rhi­an­non
con­fer­ence: ‘A Sec­ond City Remem­bered: Rethink­ing Bristol’s His­to­ry, 1400–2000’, Fri­day 23rd July to Sat­ur­day 24th July, Muse­um of Bris­tol, The Old Coun­cil House, Corn Street, Bris­tol; orga­nized by the Region­al His­to­ry Cen­tre, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West of Eng­land
Peace News Sum­mer Camp, Fri­day 23rd July to Tues­day 27th, Oxford­shire; http://www.peacenewscamp.info
Bath Ani­mal Action info stall, Sun­day 25th July, 2–4pm, Stall Street, e‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk
Tran­si­tion Bath Social, Mon­day 26th July, 7.15pm, the Love Lounge/ back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street; bring food to share; http://www.transitionbath.org
Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ing, Mon­day 26th July, 8–9pm, The Bell, tel Justin 07854 062336
Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride, Sat­ur­day 31st July, 1pm, Kingsmead Square, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk
Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, Wednes­day 4th to Mon­day 9th August, Der­byshire, £20–30; five days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers; e‑mail summergathering[at]earthfirst.org.uk FFI
Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 5th August, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com
film: ‘A Grin With­out a Cat: Scenes of the Third World War 1967–1977’, Sat­ur­day 7th August, 7.30pm, the Arnolfi­ni, Bris­tol, http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/films/details/710
film: ‘Novem­ber’, Thurs­day 12th August, 6.30pm, the Arnolfi­ni, Bris­tol, £3.00/£2.00; http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/films/details/711
film: ‘Lit­tle Dieter Needs to Fly’, Fri­day 13th August, 6.30pm, the Arnolfi­ni, Bris­tol; http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/films/details/712
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru, Fri­day 13th August to Tues­day 17th, http://www.climatecampcymru.org
talk: ‘The Venus Project’, Sat­ur­day 21st August, 1–5pm, Vic­to­ria Rooms — The Audi­to­ri­um Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol, Queens Road, Clifton, Bris­tol, BS8 1SA, £16.02 entry; http://thevpinbristol.eventbrite.com
Camp for Cli­mate Action, Sat­ur­day 21st to Tues­day 24th August, Edin­burgh, http://www.climatecamp.org.uk
film: ‘The War Game’, Sun­day 22nd August, 2.30pm, the Arnolfi­ni, Bris­tol; http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/films/details/716
Bath Veg­an Fayre ben­e­fit gig, Fri­day 27th August, Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade; more details tbc
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
Bath Veg­an Fayre, Sat­ur­day 4th Sep­tem­ber, Man­vers Street Bap­tist Church, 12–4pm, free entry
Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, Sat­ur­day 11th Sep­tem­ber, 10.30–5.30pm, Hamil­ton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol; e‑mail bristolanarchistbookfair[at]riseup.net; http://www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org
Region­al South West Ani­mal Rights Coali­tion meet­ing, Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, 12–5pm, The Fac­to­ry, Cave Street, cen­tral Bris­tol
anti-Tory demon­stra­tion, Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber, Tory Par­ty Con­fer­ence, Birm­ing­ham more details tbc

Paint­ed Lions As White Ele­phants

Bath’s ele­gant and impos­ing 30s-era Churchill House in South­gate was smashed up, and a giant trash-can stuck in its place. The back of the old Tech col­lege build­ing in Low­er Bor­ough Walls was ripped off by a cow­boy ‘devel­op­er’, leav­ing the rest of it jacked up with a met­al gird­er after he did a run­ner. Only some ugly scaf­fold­ing stops the aban­doned Corn­mar­ket in Wal­cot St. from falling down. The last remain­ing Geor­gian-peri­od lido in the coun­try, the Grade II list­ed Cleve­land Pools, just off Lon­don Road, is falling to bits as a result of years of delib­er­ate coun­cil neglect.

B&NES’s ludi­crous response to this dere­lic­tion is to dump 100 iden­tik­it plas­tic lions on the streets of the city in some lame excuse for ‘street art’, and try to flog the idea to the pub­lic under the ban­ner of ‘Pride in our City’. The spin-doc­tors from B.U.M. (Bath Urban Mafia) must have laboured for min­utes to come up with this oh-so-clever dou­ble mean­ing.

These same coun­cil P.R. hacks describe the dum­mies as ‘pub­lic art’, yet, in the tra­di­tion of Bladud’s Pigs, Sophie Ryder’s hideous giant bril­lo pads, and the decade-old Earth from the Air exhi­bi­tion, they don’t both­er ask­ing the Bath pub­lic what THEY want.

By snub­bing local res­i­dents yet again, they were ask­ing for trou­ble, and they got it. Some of the beasts were smashed up not long after being unloaded, which would seem to show that extreme cen­sor­ship rules, K.O.

Not every­one is tak­en in by the B&NES moral spiel either; the three char­i­ties which are appar­ent­ly to ben­e­fit when the beasts are auc­tioned lat­er in the year, are Off the Record, the Quar­tet Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion, and the May­or’s relief fund for Bath. Yet the self-same fund­ing areas for young peo­ple, the home­less and the needy are the first to be sav­aged when cuts are made. A £3.4 mil­lion butcher­ing of chil­drens’ ser­vices, to be spread over a three-year peri­od, was announced by B&NES in 2009. So maybe this is why B.U.M. uses smoke and mir­rors to flaunt the lions as some kind of tes­ti­mo­ni­al to their alleged con­cern for the wel­fare of the vul­ner­a­ble in Bath, by using them as giant char­i­ty beg­ging bowls in this pathet­ic pub­lic­i­ty stunt.

Smash­ing News!

After well over a year of wait­ing, the E.D.O. Decom­mis­sion­ers’ tri­al has come to an end, with the result being a unan­i­mous NOT GUILTY ver­dict for all sev­en defen­dants. The Decom­mis­sion­ers are activists who, at the height of Israel’s 2009 geno­cide jol­ly (aka oper­a­tion ‘Cast Lead’) took things into their own hands and smashed up the Brighton fac­to­ry of arms man­u­fac­tur­ers E.D.O./I.T.T., caus­ing upwards of £200,000 of dam­age and destroy­ing heaps of records and research doc­u­ments. The com­pa­ny have long sup­plied Israel with bomb release mech­a­nisms and oth­er nas­ties that they need to main­tain their bru­tal stran­gle­hold over the peo­ple of Gaza. The E.D.O. Sev­en used the defence that by crip­pling the weapons fac­to­ry, they were pre­vent­ing ille­gal war crimes from tak­ing place in Pales­tine, thus mak­ing their actions legal by virtue of pre­vent­ing a big­ger crime from occur­ring. After hear­ing evi­dence direct from Pales­tine and reams of human rights reports, the judge decid­ed that the E.D.O. Sev­en had a point, acquit­ting all. This effec­tive­ly deems the Israeli occu­pa­tion of Gaza ille­gal, E.D.O./I.T.T. immoral and com­plic­it in war crimes, and sets a prece­dent for sim­i­lar action in the future. Whichev­er way the court case had gone, the E.D.O. Sev­en have set an exam­ple for us all — when the pow­er­ful active­ly aid war crimes, it is the job of ordi­nary peo­ple to step in and jam a span­ner in the works and a brick through the win­dow of the war machine.

http://www.smashedo.org.uk

Pre-emp­tive Incar­cer­a­tion For Bath’s ASBO Bas­tards

We here at the Bath Bomb were inter­est­ed to hear about Avon & Som­er­set Con­stab­u­lary’s pre­dic­tions for the future of the city’s youth, with their open day last month. As well as teach­ing up to 2,000 would-be crims how to com­mit unarmed rob­bery with repli­ca firearms, Dis­trict Super­in­ten­dant Gary Davies explained how “This police sta­tion belongs to the peo­ple.” They then pro­ceed­ed to baton charge infants and throw them in the cells, demand­ing char­i­ty bribes from the fam­i­lies to secure their release. Giv­en a stark taste of things to come should she put a foot wrong in the ever-increas­ing­ly dystopi­an police-state of her next sev­en­ty years, nine year-old Abby weep­ing­ly begged her sneer­ing goalers for free­dom. The ter­ri­fied tyke lat­er con­fessed about her cell: “I did­n’t like it. It was quite scary and not very big. I am not going to com­mit a crime as I don’t want to be locked up.”

There Is Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Plans are cur­rent­ly sim­mer­ing away for anoth­er free Bath Veg­an Fayre in the city, to take place on Sat­ur­day the 4th of Sep­tem­ber. The one last year was a great hit, with around 150 folks com­ing through the doors, much chuffed at the qual­i­ty of cru­el­ty-free fare fill­ing their bel­lies. The event was very much a local­ly-focused and a non-cor­po­rate affair, empha­sis­ing that even with the health, ethics and envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits of a plant-based diet, exploita­tion of humans is also on the ‘bad’ list. Many were dis­ap­point­ed by the angle that the Bris­tol Veg­an (sor­ry, ‘Eco Veg­gie’) Fayre took this year, jack­ing up the prices and the pol­ish, and mar­gin­al­is­ing cam­paign­ing groups away to a quar­an­tined-off sep­a­rate enclo­sure, so that peo­ple won’t be dis­tract­ed away from all the con­sumerism to be done. This year, the Bath Veg­an Fayre will take place at the Bap­tist Church Hall on Man­vers Street, but oth­er plans are still pret­ty much open. If you can help organ­ise or improve the event in any way, please get in touch with Bath Ani­mal Action — e‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk, or ring them on 07717 130954.

The fol­low­ing month, on the 30th of Octo­ber, Bris­tol Ani­mal Rights Col­lec­tive will put on a sim­i­lar event. A ben­e­fit gig to raise funds is also expect­ed to take place at the Hob­gob­lin pub on the 27th of August — more details to be con­firmed.

Rich Jus­tice

Five employ­ees work­ing at the South African Roy­al Marang Hotel have been caught steal­ing var­i­ous items, and a small sum of mon­ey from some of Eng­land’s mil­lion­aire foot­ball play­ers. It is report­ed the items includ­ed under­wear. The employ­ees were sen­tenced to pay­ing a fine of £524, fol­lowed by three years of prison. This from a ‘World Cup Court’, a very spe­cial kind of court indeed, where the rich get all their stuff returned in one day, and the poor despair for three years after an after­noon’s hijinks.

Jail sel­dom is called for. What resti­tu­tion or repa­ra­tion could the fact of a per­son being jailed accom­plish? Do we have some kind of nat­ur­al duty to spend time behind bars once in a while? No. The ori­gin of the prison sys­tem lies in a medieval con­cep­tion of jus­tice. That is, jus­tice as pun­ish­ment. Jus­tice as an attempt to con­trol the pop­u­la­tion’s behav­iour, and make it fit in the ‘cor­rect’ mould.

Of course, the ‘cor­rect’ mould is arbi­trar­i­ly defined by the author­i­ties, so that we are today incar­cer­at­ing not only actu­al crim­i­nals, who may pose a threat to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion were they roam­ing free. But also, and most­ly, peo­ple who either did not do any­thing wrong, or peo­ple whose vic­tims will clear­ly not gain any­thing from them being in jail. How­ev­er, those un-unionised prison labour­ers do make a lot of cheap con­sumerist tat, so it’s not all bad.

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

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