Category: No Borders

Bath Bomb 29 Out Now

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #29
free/donation
Apr ’10

“An unstop­pable jug­ger­naut of jour­nal­is­tic intent”

Hard Pressed To Avoid ‘Em

As men­tioned back in the appar­ent­ly nigh-orac­u­lar Bath Bomb #11, Tesco have final­ly admit­ted their schemes for the old Bath Press site on Low­er

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #29
free/donation
Apr ’10

“An unstop­pable jug­ger­naut of jour­nal­is­tic intent”

Hard Pressed To Avoid ‘Em

As men­tioned back in the appar­ent­ly nigh-orac­u­lar Bath Bomb #11, Tesco have final­ly admit­ted their schemes for the old Bath Press site on Low­er

Bris­tol Road. The five-acre site was bought by Tesco’s Lon­don-based front group St James’s Invest­ments in 2008, though Tesco always straight-

faced­ly main­tained the devel­op­ers were noth­ing to do with them. After sniff­ing round the city for decades, they’ve now final­ly sub­mit­ted an

appli­ca­tion for a super­store in Bath, and spokesman Quentin Web­ster claims that a series of pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions are on the cards for lat­er in the

year; although they pre­sum­ably won’t take “fuck off” for an answer.

Var­i­ous stud­ies spell out super­mar­ket encroach­ment as bad news for jobs and small retail­ers, as well as the envi­ron­ment: when large super­mar­kets

are built on the edges of city cen­tres, oth­er gro­cers lose between 13% and 50% of their trade – yet more shop clo­sures – and, accord­ing to the

Nation­al Retail Plan­ning Forum in ’98, each new super­store accounts for the loss on aver­age of 276 full-time posi­tions in an area. Mean­while,

whilst the city hous­es only 80,000 or so, the super­mar­ket plague is due an out­break soon: Sains­burys, Tesco and a Lidl all in one long row on

Low­er Bris­tol, two Sains­bury Express­es in the cen­tre, Sainsbury’s Local on Moor­land Road, a Tesco Express on Bath­wick Hill and anoth­er in West­on,

a Mor­risons on the Lon­don Road and yet anoth­er Sains­burys in Odd Down!

The hot­ly con­test­ed Tesco Express at Bath­wick Hill quick­ly closed down neigh­bour­ing indie Bath­wick Stores, as feared, but only time will tell for

the future of the unique, bustling vil­lage high street vibe of Moor­land Road; hope­ful­ly, there’s fight left in them yet.

Put Out For The Night

Anoth­er month, anoth­er move at the Black Cat, Bath’s increas­ing­ly itin­er­ant social cen­tre. Attempts to nego­ti­ate with the Coun­cil to arrange a

lease failed ear­ly in the month, with Coun­cil offi­cials dis­miss­ing the pro­pos­als out of hand – and throw­ing in some per­son­al insults to boot – and

tak­ing the cen­tre straight to court. The first evic­tion attempt, on Fri­day 26th March, was eas­i­ly seen off by a large pub­lic demo out­side. The

show of sup­port was suf­fi­cient that the bailiffs did­n’t even get out of their car before dri­ving off.

After a week­end of bar­ri­cad­ing (with help from the recent­ly evict­ed Tesco occu­pa­tion in Stoke’s Croft) and an excel­lent cel­e­bra­to­ry dub night,

bailiffs returned in force ear­ly on Mon­day morn­ing. With full police sup­port, a cher­ry pick­er and a pair of bolt crop­pers alleged­ly cost­ing £450,

it took them over two and a half hours to clear the build­ing – their biggest obsta­cle being a bleary-eyed but deter­mined rooftop occu­pa­tion by a

man in a dress­ing gown.

Although sad­dened, the Black Cat Col­lec­tive suf­fered no arrests and only minor injuries (sus­tained when bailiffs removed a vital escape lad­der

from the roof), and have tak­en a much-need­ed week out. They’re now back again with a new build­ing at 100 Wal­cot St, open 12–7pm every day from

12.04.10.

The pub­lic reac­tion has been vocal and strong, with many peo­ple crit­i­cis­ing the cost of the evic­tion – an alleged £30,000 – when the Cen­tre had

repeat­ed­ly offered to pay a small amount of rent. The Col­lec­tive have vowed to keep up pres­sure on the Coun­cil to pro­vide com­mu­ni­ty-con­trolled

social spaces. If that sounds like some­thing you sup­port, there’s a peti­tion online at www.petitionspot.com/petitions/
black­cat­bath, or drop by the cen­tre to find out how you can help out.

Prop­er Tea Is Theft?

Ethos Café of Wal­cot Street is yet anoth­er vic­tim of B&NES Prop­er­ty and Legal Ser­vices’ stitch-ups, of which the Black Cat also recent­ly fell

foul.

In the con­tin­u­ing greed-inspired trans­for­ma­tion of Wal­cot Street from its ‘arti­sans quar­ter’ char­ter ori­gins to Bland Iden­tik­it Shop­ping Strip

#43712, the Coun­cil have forced out Ethos in the same way as they did the Hat & Feath­er, Dool­lallys, Wal­cot Rec, Crock A Doo­dle Doo, Speak­ing

Tree, Wal­cot­mart, and indeed, even the much-loved Wal­cot Nation Day fes­ti­val. Rent for the petite, indie caff had shot up from £11K to £12K per

annum, with strings attached to an inflex­i­ble 12-year lease, kick­ing the charm­ing fair-trade Wal­cot reg­u­lar to the streets – even though its

high­er-turnover neigh­bours face only £10K each.

Com­plete­ly lack­ing in co-oper­a­tion and account­abil­i­ty as ever, unelect­ed Prop­er­ty Ser­vices’ Sarah ‘Iron Lady’ Marsh­man toed the Coun­cil line of

refus­ing to meet their clients even halfway; not only do they “not nego­ti­ate with squat­ters”, they appar­ent­ly don’t nego­ti­ate with what they view

as legit­i­mate busi­ness, either – unless they’re super­mar­kets. Nev­er mind the fact they’re refus­ing to reim­burse Ethos for the cen­tral heat­ing they

installed, or any of a host of oth­er improve­ments. But then again, they equal­ly mugged the own­ers of Glas­stone Records for the roof­ing, win­dows

and dis­abled toi­let they had to put in at River­side Busi­ness Park. The phrase ‘rob­ber barons’ comes to mind.

But with B&NES’ appar­ent going-out-of-busi­ness-as-usu­al plans for Bath’s small­er and less social­ly-destruc­tive com­pa­nies, and board­ing going up on

vacant units up and down Lon­don Road, Wal­cot Street and through­out the rest of the city, we won­der to our­selves: who’s next?

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­il­ly reflec­tive of each

con­trib­u­tor. 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 nec­es­sar­il­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor.

Maybe May­day Melee?

Ah, spring. A time of flow­ers, warmth, swal­low migra­tions and frol­ick­ing bun­nies. A time to look back and realise the class war is as alive as

ever, and the boss­es still screw us. Since before the Chica­go Hay­mar­ket Riot of 1886 when mar­tyred anar­chists and work­ers won the eight-hour cap

on the work­ing day, May­day has long been asso­ci­at­ed with work­place strug­gle. And today, with PCS civ­il ser­vants, Unite/BA cab­in crew, UCE uni and

col­lege lec­tur­ers (plus stu­dent sup­port), NASUWT and NUT teach­ing staff up and down the coun­try on strike or close (be it over low pay, insult­ing

redundancy/pension mea­sures, or edu­ca­tion cuts), things are no dif­fer­ent. Indeed, con­niv­ing man­age­ment at Net­work Rail struck below the belt at

the RMT and TSSA recent­ly, whin­ing to the High Court about the legit­i­mate strike votes being invalid; it just goes to show that whilst the rail­way

sig­nal work­ers and main­te­nance staff want a safe and effi­cient ser­vice, the boss­es just want prof­its — no mat­ter the cost, to work­ers’ rights or

even cus­tomers’ lives.

In light of all this, Bath Trades Coun­cil and friends plan a May­day cel­e­bra­tion/aware­ness-rais­ing day of protest on Sat­ur­day May the 1st. Meet­ing

at 12.30 out­side the Abbey, the event is still very much in the plan­ning stage, so please get in touch to help make it some­thing pow­er­ful:

bathactivistnet[at]yahoo.co.uk. Musi­cians are espe­cial­ly in demand! We may not be danc­ing round a Beltane may­pole, or danc­ing on the ruins of

multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions, but you got­ta start some­where.

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by email­ing 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

Bor­der­ing On Insan­i­ty

An agency of crazy white peo­ple in the UK pledges to kid­nap and deport brown peo­ple, unless they either have the one cor­rect piece of paper they

require, or they’re actu­al­ly Euro­peans: in which case it’s fine.
The Rajpoot cur­ry house in Argyle Street was raid­ed by these mob­sters on the 24th of March, with two peo­ple kid­napped and ques­tioned by white

nation­al­ists in a build­ing called a ‘police sta­tion,’ even though most things done there are ille­gal.

Thanks to some cun­ning inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism, the Bath Bomb can now reveal that the cra­zies appear to work for an orga­ni­za­tion called the ‘UK

Bor­der Agency,’ a col­lec­tive of fanat­i­cal sta­tists who think their per­mis­sion is required in order to enter UK ter­ri­to­ry.

Although the Agency has not yet pro­duced evi­dence that it owns the 94,060 square miles of land stand­ing for the British ter­ri­to­ry, it still

behaves as if it was so. Region­al crazy white per­son Jane Far­leigh warns in the Chron­i­cle: ‘If peo­ple choose to flout the law, we will find them

and look to remove them from the coun­try.’

Appar­ent­ly unaware that the British ter­ri­to­ry is an open-field nat­ur­al resource and not the Bor­der Agen­cy’s pri­vate prop­er­ty, Ms Far­leigh wants

all of you to help her track down peo­ple who think lib­er­ty is a right, so she can then deport them, and the laws of Nazi Ger­many be final­ly

obeyed. But in Britain.

You can help that orga­ni­za­tion of cra­zies fail by feed­ing them false infor­ma­tion, at 01275 841500.

Beneath The Paving… The Beach?

A bizarre-Bath style crime­wave is strik­ing fear deep into the heart of Batho­ni­ans, alleged­ly. As report­ed in the Chron, a ring of illic­it,

pseu­do-Sit­u­a­tion­ist, pave­ment-thieves have struck the city, caus­ing rifts in the city’s crim­i­nal under­world. With 10m stretch­es of gran­ite

pave­ment slabs being prised up in Lans­down, Sion Hill, and through­out the city, is noth­ing sacred? Police, fear­ful of poten­tial bricks to the

skull, are urg­ing res­i­dents to report any sus­pi­cious work­men activ­i­ty or deliv­ery trucks capa­ble of shift­ing heavy loads in the area. What­ev­er

next – elder­ly women’s grand piano rob­beries? The tak­ing of lib­er­ties? The tak­ing of piss?

Come Shell Or High Water

As a fol­low-on from the nation­al ‘Fos­sil Fools Day’ of envi­ron­men­tal action against pol­lut­ing big busi­ness, mem­bers of Bris­tol & Bath Ris­ing Tide

vis­it­ed the Shell garage on Muller Road, East­ville, on the morn­ing of Sat­ur­day 3rd April, lay­ing tem­po­rary pipelines and hold­ing plac­ards. They

went there to high­light the repres­sion expe­ri­enced by com­mu­ni­ties in Ire­land, cur­rent­ly com­bat­ing Shell’s attempts to build an onshore

exper­i­men­tal high pres­sure pipeline and gas refin­ery.

The com­mu­ni­ty in Erris, Coun­ty Mayo, has seen con­tin­ued harass­ment and intim­i­da­tion by the Gar­dai police and Shell secu­ri­ty for over a decade. In

Feb­ru­ary, fish­er­man Pat O’Don­nell was sen­tenced to sev­en months for ‘breach of the peace’ and ‘obstruct­ing a Gar­da’, after his boat was board­ed

and sunk by masked men. Hys­ter­i­cal­ly, as Shell’s pipe-lying ship ‘the Soli­taire’ oper­at­ed off the coast, Irish Navy gun­boats and Air Force spot­ter

planes joined police and pri­vate secu­ri­ty to con­trol the 100-strong demo ashore. But the tales of dodgy shit just keep on com­ing: Shell secu­ri­ty

staff have been dis­cov­ered recent­ly in Boli­vian ter­ror­ist groups, try­ing to desta­bilise the region and kick-start civ­il war.

Con­struc­tion of the gas refin­ery has already result­ed in the pol­lu­tion of local drink­ing water, with untreat­ed waste chem­i­cals like lead,

mer­cury, arsenic and radon being pumped into Broad­haven Bay, despite its ‘Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion’ sta­tus. Yet despite the scale of state

repres­sion there, the cam­paign just won’t pipe down, hav­ing already set the pipeline’s com­ple­tion date back from 2003 to 2013.

http://www.shelltosea.com/node/21

http://risingtide.org.uk/node/336
www.indymedia.ie/article/96167

EVENTS

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ings, 2nd and 4th Mon­day of the month, 8pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Debt advice drop-in, Tues­days, 4–7pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road

The Lost Plot work­day, Thurs­days, 10am-dusk, Bathamp­ton

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

Black Cat Cen­tre gen­er­al meet­ing, Sun­days, 1–3pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

‘Fort­night of Shame’: two weeks of action against BP’s invest­ment in tar sands extrac­tion, now to15th April, con­tact bristol[at]risingtide.org.uk

FFI

Horse Rac­ing Aware­ness week demo, Fri­day 9th April, West­gate Street, con­tact bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk FFI

Bris­tol Indus­tri­al Work­ers of the World meet­ing, Fri­day 9th April, starts 7pm (8.30–10pm open to non-mem­bers), GWRSA, out­side Bris­tol Tem­ple Meads

train sta­tion, e‑mail bristoliww[at]riseup.net FFI

Bris­tol Eco-Vil­lage pub­lic meet­ing, Fri­day 9th April, 7.30pm, Hamil­ton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 10th April, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 10th April, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford,

http://www.bathford.net/broadlands.php

talk: ‘The Chartists and Their Lega­cy’, Sat­ur­day 10th April, 2pm, New Room (Wes­ley Chapel), 36 The Horse­fair, Bris­tol, BS1 3JE

‘Defend our Pub­lic Ser­vices’ march and ral­ly, Sat­ur­day 10th April, Lon­don, tick­ets for coach avail­able, http://www.10410demo.co.uk

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Mon­day 12th April, 8–9pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

talk: (Steve) Mills & (Ian) Bone, Mon­day 12th April, 7.30pm, The Stag & Hounds, 74 Old Mar­ket Street, Bris­tol

AstraZeneca anti-vivi­sec­tion demo, Tues­day 13th April, 3.30–6pm, AstraZeneca Avlon Works, Sev­ern Road, Hallen, Bris­tol, BS10 7ZE; if you need

trans­port or fur­ther info, e‑mail barc[at]hotmail.co.uk

skill­share: ‘Freeskilling — Con­scious Com­mu­ni­ca­tion (Non-vio­lent Com­mu­ni­ca­tion)’, Tues­day 13th April, 7pm, Bet­ter Food Co. Cafe, St Wer­burghs,

Bris­tol

talk: ‘Thomas Spence — the For­got­ten Rev­o­lu­tion­ary’, Wednes­day 14th April, 7.30pm, The Scout Hut (Ben­jamin Per­ry Boat House), Red­cliffe Wharf,

Bris­tol

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 14th April, 8.30pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

Rad­i­cal Debate Club: ‘Migrants and Bor­ders’, Thurs­day 15th April, 7pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, Wal­cot Street

ben­e­fit gig against home­less­ness in Taunton, Thurs­day 15th April, 7–11pm, the Road­house, Taunton, free, feat Clay­ton Bliz­zard, 51st State, Rat

Ban­dits and Two Minute Hour; http://www.anonpromo.co.uk

talk: ‘Vote, Protest And Riot’, Thurs­day 15th April, 7.30pm, GWRSA, out­side Bris­tol Tem­ple Meads train sta­tion

course; ‘Design & Build a Com­post Loo’, Fri­day 16th to Sun­day 18th April and Fri­day 23rd to Sun­day 25th April, Monk­ton Wyld Court, nr Char­mouth,

Brid­port, Dorset, DT6 6DQ, phone 01297 560342 or e‑mail info[at]monktonwyldcourt.org

Bris­tol Eco-Vil­lage BIG SWOOP!, Sat­ur­day 17th April, loca­tion tbc, e‑mail bitsofwood[at]riseup.net to get involved

Update and dis­cus­sion on the plan­ning process, Sun­day 18th April, 11–3.30pm, £5 ada­vanced book­ing essen­tial by 5th April, e‑mail afrelmira[at]

googlemail.com

Bris­tol Con­ven­tion of the Left plan­ning meet­ing, Mon­day 19th April, 6.30–8.30pm, Hamil­ton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol

Green Light lec­tures: ‘Ener­gy Futures and Glob­al Cool­ing’, Mon­day 19th April, doors open 7pm, BRLSI, 16–18 Queen Square, £3 entry/£1.50

con­ces­sions

talk: ‘Votes for Ladies: The Suf­fragette Move­ment 1903–1914’, Mon­day 19th April, 7.00pm, Hamil­ton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol

‘An Agen­da for Human­i­ty: Peace, Jus­tice and Envi­ron­ment’ meet­ing with elec­tion can­di­dates in Bath, Wednes­day 21st April, 7.30pm, Friends Meet­ing

House, York Street, e‑mail postmaster[at]bathstopwar.org.uk FFI

talk: ‘Every Cook Can Gov­ern: From Athens To West­min­ster?’, Wednes­day 21st April, 7.30pm, CWRSA, out­side Bris­tol Tem­ple Meads train sta­tion

‘Get Your Stick­er On’ Plane Stu­pid sub­ver­tise chal­lenge, Thurs­day 22nd to Fri­day 23rd April, loca­tion tbc, e‑mail info[at]planestupid.com

gig: ‘The Lib­er­ty Tree’, Fri­day 23rd April, 7.30pm, The Thun­der­bolt, The Olde Turnpike,124 Bath Road, Tot­ter­down, BS4 3ED, £7 door, feat Leon

Rossel­son and Robb John­son

Camp Against Nuclear New Build, Fri­day 23rd to Mon­day 26th April, Sizewell, Suf­folk, http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net

‘STOP The Cuts’ com­mu­ni­ty day and march, Sat­ur­day 24th April, 12 noon start, meet at Bar­ton Hill Set­tle­ment or Bea­con Cen­tre, Bris­tol

Bris­tol Rad­i­cal His­to­ry Walk, Sat­ur­day 24th April, start 7.30pm, Cen­tral Fer­ry Land­ing, next to the water­fall in-between Anchor Road and Broad

Quay, Bris­tol

World Day for Lab Ani­mals march in Lon­don, Sat­ur­day 24th April, coach 8.30am, leav­ing Bris­tol Tem­ple Meads train sta­tion, £10 tick­et

Mock Elec­tion bon­fire night and music, Sun­day 25th April, 7.30pm, Boil­ing Wells Project, St. Wer­burghs City Farm, Boil­ing Wells Lane, St.

Wer­burghs, Bris­tol, BS2 9YJ; feat The Blue Sequoias, Who’s Afear’d and the Surfin’ Turnips; bring and burn an effi­gy of your most despised pub­lic

fig­ure!

Bath Social­ist Forum, Mon­day 26th April, 8pm, upstairs at St James Wine Vaults

Ken­net and Avon Users Forum, Thurs­day 29th April, 7pm, Ken­net and Avon Canal Trust, Canal Cen­tre, Devizes Wharf, Couch Lane, Devizes, SN10 1EB

May­day demo, Sat­ur­day 1s May, 12.30 out­side Bath Abbey

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 6th May, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade,

http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

Intro­duc­to­ry Per­ma­cul­ture Week­end, Sat­ur­day 8th to Sun­day 9th May, £50, for book­ings e‑mail afrelmira[at]googlemail.com

Bris­tol Eco Veg­gie Fayre, Sat­ur­day 29th to Sun­day 30th May, the Amp­ithe­atre, Water­front Square, Bris­tol Har­bour­side,

http://bristol.ecoveggiefayre.co.uk/

‘Adapt­ing to Cli­mate Change’ week, 7th-11th June, see http://www.oursouthwest.com/climate FFI

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

Sheikh, Rat­tle And Roll

In sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Pales­tin­ian neigh­bour­hood Sheikh Jar­rah, cur­rent­ly being bull­dozed and fac­ing oth­er repres­sion, actions took place up and

down the coun­try on the 17th March; and Bath was no dif­fer­ent. From 12 til 2.30pm, a typ­i­cal­ly-Bathon­ian size demo (six peo­ple!) took place

out­side Bar­clays Bank on Mil­som Street. With Bar­clays being the UK’s largest investor in the arms trade, with hold­ings of over £7.3bn, they are

also man­u­fac­tur­ers of clus­ter bombs and deplet­ed ura­ni­um muni­tions, and invest in mur­der­ous out­fits like Thales and Raytheon, who arm the Israeli

Defence Force. To go on, they also pro­vide ‘mar­ket-mak­er’ ser­vices to everyone’s favourite ITT/EDO, home of the ‘Pave­way’ mis­sile laser-guid­ance

sys­tem that has so dev­as­tat­ed Pales­tine and Iraq. On the day, con­cerned folks from Bath Activist Net­work and oth­ers dis­trib­uted leaflets, with two

scal­ing a lad­der to the low­er roof to unveil a ban­ner claim­ing ‘Bar­clays: Glob­al Deal­ers in Death’, in the face of burly but con­fused secu­ri­ty

guards. Most of the pass­ing pub­lic received the demo well, with only a cou­ple of idiots advo­cat­ing war as a way of solv­ing argu­ments and as being

vital for human evo­lu­tion.

Bath Bomb Dic­tio­nary Cor­ner: mar­ket-mak­er (n) a cor­po­rate mid­dle-man, pur­chas­ing shares from a sell­er and hold­ing them until such a time as a

buy­er becomes avail­able

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, email

bathactivistnet[at]yahoo.co.uk or see our web­site: www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

The­o­ry Cor­ner: On Law­ful Rebel­lion And Resis­tance

There’s been a lot of talk recent­ly about pro­duc­ing a claim of right and declar­ing our inde­pen­dence as indi­vid­u­als, which we can do under arti­cle

61 of the Magna Car­ta. This is an approach to resis­tance that was cho­sen, among oth­ers, by mar­ket anar­chist Mike Gogul­s­ki, who, after hav­ing fled

from fas­cist Amer­i­ca, decid­ed to send a form of cit­i­zen­ship renun­ci­a­tion. Oth­er renun­ciants include mem­bers of the nation­al­ist UK Inde­pen­dence

Par­ty.

While escap­ing the state’s grasp­ing hands is cer­tain­ly legit­i­mate, anar­cho-syn­di­cal­ist Michael Bind­ner has argued that this was far from enough in

the long term. One is free, an entire class remains in sub­jec­tion. Also at issue is the abil­i­ty of a per­son to renounce cit­i­zen­ship. Hence whether

arti­cle 61 is mean­ing­ful, for instance, for the poor who actu­al­ly need ben­e­fits to sur­vive?

This author is also annoyed at the pos­i­tivism of the whole affair. That is, one is allowed to be left alone, not because he has a right to, but

because it was writ­ten down cen­turies ago. What if it had­n’t been includ­ed in the Magna Car­ta? Too bad, let’s go get tea now?

Law­ful rebel­lion is a good tool if you already are a most­ly inde­pen­dent indi­vid­ual, like cap­i­tal­ist Gogul­s­ki above; but it is not found­ed in law

because gov­ern­ing with­out con­sent is not law­ful any­way. There­fore, the process is here stood on its head: where­as your con­sent should be required

before you get cit­i­zen­ship, you have to go to the length of renounc­ing it. Since liv­ing under the gov­ern­ment was nev­er val­i­dat­ed by any process

where refusal was pos­si­ble and mean­ing­ful, it fol­lows that no one is tru­ly a cit­i­zen, yet.

There­fore, renounc­ing cit­i­zen­ship is a recog­ni­tion that one was actu­al­ly a cit­i­zen – I’m a hostage; also, that the Magna Car­ta cre­ates our rights

– my rights are nat­ur­al and do not depend on an old piece of paper; final­ly, that the gov­ern­ment respects our rights – when what it does is

writ­ing down what we will have and what we won’t.

For those rea­sons, I find law­ful rebel­lion dis­turb­ing to say the least, and enjoin every­one to build up free com­mu­ni­ties instead; the very act of

which will make an actu­al cit­i­zen out of you, rather than a hostage pas­sive­ly pay­ing bills and insert­ing a piece of paper in a box every few

years.

Lap­pers­fort Gets Evict­ed — Who Threw The First Bank Note?

On the 4th of March, the Bel­gian author­i­ties evict­ed the occu­piers of the Lap­pers­fort for­est, in the name of the prop­er­ty rights of Fab­ri­com, the

‘own­er’ of that for­est. The for­est has been occu­pied since 2001. It was a strong­hold of activist resis­tance, and a won­der for all those who

cher­ish nature and self-suf­fi­cien­cy.

Beyond the pain and the rage, I would be inter­est­ed to know who Fab­ri­com ‘bought’ the for­est from? And how was it ‘their’ for­est? How do you even

sell a for­est? How do you own it? I wish we were back in the day when com­mon sense had a chance in this world.

Today, in the case of the Black Cat, we see the same fol­ly in the form of the pub­licly-owned Newark Works. I believe you will find this phras­ing

is incor­rect. The pub­lic stands in the same rela­tion to this build­ing as Fab­ri­com did to the Lap­pers­fort for­est: they are out­siders. They have

nev­er touched the Works and they prob­a­bly nev­er will, not in the col­lec­tive fash­ion that is entailed by the word ‘pub­lic’. Use and home­steading

being the basis of own­er­ship in land, it fol­lows occu­piers and squat­ters were more the own­ers than their remote (but wealthy) oppo­nents.

It is also wrong to assume that the pub­lic chose to buy this build­ing; the Coun­cil did. A minor­i­ty of indi­vid­u­als pre­tend­ing to rep­re­sent the

pub­lic, against the very plain fact that an indi­vid­ual is a world unto them­self, and there­fore unable to be ful­ly and accu­rate­ly rep­re­sent­ed by

any­one.

How did the Coun­cil get their hands on the two and half mil­lion pounds for the pur­chase? Well, they seem to have a sys­tem in place where­by they

sim­ply state the amount of mon­ey they need, and take it, with­out leav­ing the tax­pay­ers free to refuse, with only vague promis­es of change every

few years.

This act of theft obvi­ous­ly can­not be con­sid­ered legit­i­mate; there­fore, the Coun­cil does not own the mon­ey that was used to acquire the Newark

Works, even on the flawed rep­re­sen­ta­tive sys­tem terms. So let’s give a toast to the wealthy thieves who believe throw­ing bank notes at peo­ple

gives them a title in land.

And Now A Word From Our Spon­sors…

Anti-avi­a­tion cam­paign­ing group Plane Stu­pid have issued a ‘Get Your Stick­er On!’ 48-hour sub­ver­tis­ing com­pe­ti­tion to take place in towns up and

down the land from Thurs­day the 22nd to Fri­day 23rd of April. As cur­rent­ly con­test­ed over the pro­posed expan­sion of Bris­tol Air­port, the indus­try

loves to pre­tend that they are just respond­ing to the pub­lic’s desires by offer­ing ever more flights, ever more noise and ever more emis­sions.

But, like tobac­co adver­tis­ing, fly­ing pro­mo­tion needs to become a thing of the past. Until then, let’s sub­ver­tise! For the begin­ners amongst you,

you can down­load designs from Plane Stu­pid­’s Flickr site to stick over exist­ing adverts – or of course DIY­our­self. They then advise to take some

pics, set up a tem­po­rary anony­mous address at an inter­net cafe, and e‑mail your hand­i­work to info[at]planestupid.com. The group who stick­ers the

most images in 48 hours wins prizes!

And words from the wise: “Use your head, and remem­ber to dress well for the occa­sion – caps and scarfs are just the thing for sub­ver­tis­ing sea­son.

Some offi­cers of the law may be con­vinced that sub­ver­tis­ing is bor­der­line ille­gal, so take a friend as look­out, keep an eye open for CCTV and

don’t get caught.”

http://www.nobristolairportexpansion.co.uk/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/planestupid
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/manchester/2007/12/388098.html?c=on
http://www.bugaup.org/

http://www.graphicattack.org.uk/

Earth First! Summer Gathering, 4th — 9th Aug 2010, Derbyshire — location & programme announced/set-up plans & call-out

Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme

EF! Summer Gathering poster 2010Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme
Want to do some­thing to stop our plan­et from get­ting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

What’s hap­pen­ing?
Over 80 work­shops, dis­cus­sions, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘where next’ ses­sions:

*Share and learn skills for kick-ass actions on land and water.
Small boat han­dling and blockad­ing using kayaks / Blockad­ing — tripods, lock-ons/ Fences / Climb­ing skills / Action recon­nais­sance / Secu­ri­ty for Activists / Strat­e­gy and tac­tics / How to research cor­po­ra­tions /

*Net­work cur­rent cam­paigns against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion
Open-cast min­ing / Genet­ic engi­neer­ing / Agro­fu­els / Sav­ing Ice­land / Cli­mate actions / Pipeline resis­tance in Ross­port / Anti-nuclear / Air­port expansion/ Tar Sands

*Think about eco-cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tive ways of organ­is­ing
Deep green ethics / Anar­chist eco­nom­ics / Anar­chist his­to­ry / Rad­i­cal Pol­i­tics / Work­ing with­out leaders/ Con­sen­sus deci­sion-mak­ing

*Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy / Restora­tion ecol­o­gy / Flo­ra and Fau­na iden­ti­fi­ca­tion / Veg­an Cake mak­ing / Pow­er from solar and wind / wild food / Squat­ting / Bike main­te­nance

As well as inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns round-up, net­work­ing and plan­ning for future actions.

Cost and prac­ti­cal things
£20–30 accord­ing to what you can afford.
The gath­er­ing is in Der­byshire, the exact loca­tion will be announced the week before. More info on our web­site.

Find out more and join in!

Email us if you can offer a work­shop, want to help out with the gath­er­ing or if you would like posters and leaflets to dis­trib­ute.

We have now a stack of fresh­ly print­ed posters adver­tis­ing the gath­er­ing. If you’d like to send you some to stick up in your area or to take to events, fes­ti­vals and the like, please email us. Alter­na­tive­ly you can also down­load the files and print your own. They are fair­ly large files! EF! gath­er­ing poster (A4)

We are now look­ing for peo­ple to run work­shops and dis­cus­sions at the gath­er­ing. Please con­tact us if you can offer some­thing. Have a look at our pro­gramme page to see the kind of thing we’re look­ing for.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ NOSPAM _ @ _ NOSPAM earthfirst.org.uk

Come to the Peace News Winter Gathering, 15–17 January

Join peo­ple from across the spec­trum of the British peace move­ment for a week­end of explo­ration, cel­e­bra­tion and empow­er­ment — learn­ing from oth­er move­ments, strug­gling with chal­leng­ing issues, and cre­at­ing greater cohe­sion and sol­i­dar­i­ty in a seg­ment­ed peace move­ment.

Join peo­ple from across the spec­trum of the British peace move­ment for a week­end of explo­ration, cel­e­bra­tion and empow­er­ment — learn­ing from oth­er move­ments, strug­gling with chal­leng­ing issues, and cre­at­ing greater cohe­sion and sol­i­dar­i­ty in a seg­ment­ed peace move­ment.

Work­shops will be reflec­tive (learn­ing from recent activist ini­tia­tives in Gaza, Copen­hagen and Calais), strate­gic (for exam­ple, devel­op­ing plans to counter the war in Afghanistan) and prac­ti­cal (plan­ning for actions in Not­ting­ham itself, and at Alder­mas­ton the fol­low­ing month). Decades of activist expe­ri­ence will be rep­re­sent­ed, along with fresh faces and new­blood.

The Gath­er­ing will be fol­lowed on Mon­day 18 Jan­u­ary by a mass non­vi­o­lent direct action against the arms trade request­ed by and organ­ised by par­tic­i­pants in the Gath­er­ing (not under the con­trol or direc­tion of Peace News).

Peace News Win­ter Gath­er­ing 2010 has devel­oped out of Peace News Sum­mer Camp 2009, which cre­at­ed a real sense of lib­er­a­tion for par­tic­i­pants. The Gath­er­ing is a space of mutu­al respect in which activists from dif­fer­ent groups and move­ments, who hold diverse views on fun­da­men­tal issues, can share expe­ri­ences, infor­ma­tion and insights, and can learn more about each oth­er.

More details includ­ing pro­gramme at http://peacenewsgathering.info/

MOVEMENT #1 — No Borders Newsletter

The new free month­ly newslet­ter fea­tur­ing news and updates from the No Bor­ders Net­work and beyond.

Down­load the .pdf

Join the mail­ing list

MOVEMENT 1The new free month­ly newslet­ter fea­tur­ing news and updates from the No Bor­ders Net­work and beyond.

Down­load the .pdf

Join the mail­ing list

The re-nam­ing and re-launch­ing of the newslet­ter is part of an attempt to to cre­ate a more reg­u­lar and broad based peri­od­i­cal, draw­ing in oth­er groups, organ­i­sa­tions and indi­vid­u­als that work for free­dom of move­ment and equal­i­ty for all.

More details

Bath Bomb #26 Special Edition Out Now

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #26
free/donation
Nov 09

“A noisy con­science ham­mer­ing away on the shoul­der of Bath”

Shock Exposé: B&NES To Slash 90% Of Pub­lic Sec­tor Jobs

Bath Bomb small logoTHE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #26
free/donation
Nov 09

“A noisy con­science ham­mer­ing away on the shoul­der of Bath”

Shock Exposé: B&NES To Slash 90% Of Pub­lic Sec­tor Jobs

Bath Bomb has received a shock­ing set of doc­u­ments that reveals B&NES Council’s plans to cut its work­force by 90% from 6,000 work­ers down to just 600. To make it worse, the ‘lucky’ 600 will have their job descrip­tions tak­en away, mean­ing they could be col­lect­ing bins one day and deal­ing with your coun­cil tax claim the next. On the 8th of Octo­ber, unions were invit­ed to a meet­ing with the coun­cil in which they were told that they could expect the mas­sive job loss­es as part of a pack­age that includes the mass pri­va­ti­za­tion of pub­lic ser­vices and jobs in the Bath area.

The pro­pos­al to pri­va­tise 90% of coun­cil ser­vices and jobs is not just a mas­sive assault on work­ers, it is also the most wor­ry­ing attack on the peo­ple of Bath and the ser­vices they receive yet from a coun­cil that is increas­ing­ly show­ing itself to be inter­est­ed in prof­it and greed over the needs of B&NES res­i­dents. This thrust to pri­va­tise ser­vices will lead to a dec­i­ma­tion of the care pro­vid­ed for those most in need. There will be no pub­lic account­abil­i­ty, no secu­ri­ty of ser­vices, and of course, no care at all for those who can­not afford it. If this pro­pos­al goes ahead in any form, it will mean the end of local gov­ern­ment and all the vital pub­lic ser­vices that go with it, and the intro­duc­tion of care and social ser­vices run by for-prof­it com­pa­nies who put their own prof­its above the needs of the ser­vice users.

As recent his­to­ry has shown us, pri­va­ti­za­tion has nev­er brought about greater effi­cien­cy and mon­e­tary sav­ing for the end user (trains, bus­es and ener­gy com­pa­nies any­one?) – it has always led to a sad shad­ow of a ser­vice, hang­ing the peo­ple who rely on the ser­vices out to dry while pri­vate com­pa­nies line their pock­ets. This is not just the sack­ing of many thou­sands of work­ers, it is the sack­ing of pub­lic ser­vices in Bath, and fight­ing to make sure that these crazy, greed-dri­ven plans nev­er go ahead will be one of the great­est chal­lenges the peo­ple of Bath have ever faced. A mas­sive cam­paign aimed at fight­ing back against the Council’s plans involv­ing local trade unions, com­mu­ni­ty groups and local activists is already gain­ing momen­tum. To get involved, con­tact bathac­tivist­net [at] yahoo.co.uk

What the pro­pos­als mean:

• 5,400 coun­cil employ­ees sacked, or hand­ed over to pri­vate com­pa­nies
• Our pub­lic ser­vices pri­va­tized
• No account­abil­i­ty in local ser­vices
• Pub­lic ser­vices slashed, or cut alto­geth­er
• Pub­lic ser­vices only for those who can afford them

What we can do to stop the pro­pos­als:

• Send a let­ter of com­plaint to the Coun­cil
• Email us to get involved in the fight back
• Email local trade unions to send them your sup­port
• Let coun­cil work­ers know that you sup­port them

News From The Pick­et Lines

Local activists have been gear­ing up to sup­port the posties in what looks set to be a long bat­tle between work­ers and man­age­ment. The posties are out on strike as a result of a series of attacks by Roy­al Mail and the gov­ern­ment that would see postal ser­vices slashed, work­ers’ con­di­tions changed for the worst and the pri­va­ti­za­tion of the post ser­vice. This is not just a fight for jobs and con­di­tions, but for front­line postal ser­vices such as post offices and reg­u­lar deliv­er­ies which Roy­al Mail man­age­ment are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly try­ing to destroy. If we allow the postal ser­vice to fall into pri­vate hands, it will go the same way as the trains, the bus­es and the ener­gy com­pa­nies – more cost for a worse ser­vice, all for the sake of pri­vate prof­it.

Octo­ber the 22nd saw the start of two days of postal strikes, includ­ing a 50-strong pick­et line at the Man­vers Street post depot in Bath. The strik­ers were sup­port­ed by local activists from the Trades Coun­cil, Bath Activist Net­work and the Bath I.W.W Branch who brought down sol­i­dar­i­ty dona­tions and snacks for the strik­ing work­ers. The strikes look set to con­tin­ue, so why not show your sup­port by pop­ping down to the pick­et lines with some snacks or cof­fee or by pop­ping a mes­sage of sup­port near your let­ter­box. This is not just a fight for jobs, it is a fight to save a vital pub­lic ser­vice – if the posties lose, it could be week­ly deliv­er­ies and £1 stamps by next year!

Hel­phire Help Them­selves, We Suf­fer

To any­one not liv­ing in a man­sion and dri­ving a Bent­ley, the government’s claims that the reces­sion is over comes across as a sick joke. Sure, the econ­o­my may have sta­bilised, and the bankers are once again pock­et­ing wedges of our cash (like they ever real­ly stopped), but what does it mean for the rest of us? Politi­cians across the spec­trum are start­ing to think about where all of that mon­ey they gave to the banks will come from, and CEOs are won­der­ing how to claw back their prof­it loss­es, and they are all reach­ing the same answer — cuts! All three par­ties have announced that they intend a whole­sale round of pub­lic sec­tor cuts if elect­ed, all promis­ing mea­sures such as a one third cut in the num­ber of fire­fight­ers, £2 bil­lion off the edu­ca­tion bud­get, the pri­vati­sa­tion of the postal ser­vice, green­light­ing more odi­ous ‘acad­e­my’ schools and the whole­sale dis­man­tling of the NHS. Boss­es, on the oth­er hand, are going redun­dan­cy mad, with local firm Hel­phire shed­ding hun­dreds of jobs over the past year, and hun­dreds more in the pipeline as just one exam­ple of a pat­tern repeat­ed up and down the coun­try.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us pick­ing up the tab for greedy, cor­rupt politi­cians, bas­tard bankers and scum­my boss­es who are all in the rich man’s club togeth­er, while they let us suf­fer. This does­n’t have to be the way though; fight­ing trade unions such as the I.W.W, FBU, RMT and the CWU are lead­ing a fight­back local­ly and nation­al­ly to ensure that we, as work­ers and ex-work­ers get what we deserve. Our advice — join your sector’s union, join the IWW (a mil­i­tant union for all work­ers that is grow­ing by the day), get involved in the fight­back for what you deserve — don’t bear the brunt of a reces­sion that you had no part in cre­at­ing, and next time you see your boss, take that old school tie and fuck­ing choke him with it! Is the reces­sion over? Of course not, so get involved in the local cam­paign against reces­sion, or for debt, bailiff, rent or employ­ment advice by con­tact­ing bathac­tivist­net [at] yahoo.co.uk

http://www.iww.org.uk

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. For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries see www.thebathbomb.blogspot.com

Direct Action Sta­tions At Bathamp­ton Mead­ows!

The Gov­ern­ment Office of the South West have denied a pub­lic enquiry into the con­cret­ing of Bathamp­ton Mead­ows, mean­ing the Council’s orig­i­nal green(ha ha)light for the project still stands. It also looks like the ‘Rapid’ Tran­sit route, which ploughs through a nature reserve and dozens of back gar­dens (acquired by Com­pul­so­ry Pur­chase Orders — forc­ing the gar­den own­ers to hand over the land) has got the go-ahead. The Mead­ows are home to bats, fox­es, bad­gers, herons and cor­morants, not to men­tion being a beau­ti­ful green space right on our doorstep, and not for­get­ting the fact that con­cret­ing over impor­tant flood­plains has led to tragedy else­where (includ­ing the mas­sive floods in Glouces­ter­shire a cou­ple of years back).

This deci­sion is pret­ty bad news, but it is what we expect­ed from greedy and cor­rupt politi­cians. The bat­tle is not over, but now we are fight­ing on more famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry — direct action and protest. There will hope­ful­ly be a pub­lic meet­ing very soon involv­ing BAN and oth­er groups opposed to the plans, so let’s start dream­ing up some schemes to save the Mead­ows now! As is often the case, appeal­ing to the good side of politi­cians has failed (large­ly due to politi­cians not hav­ing a good side), so now it is up to the enraged pop­u­la­tion of Bath, who put ecol­o­gy and com­mu­ni­ty before prof­it, to jam a span­ner in the works of this stu­pid and eco­ci­dal scheme once and for all!

http://www.response2route.co.uk/wordpress/?p=221
http://www.savebathamptonmeadows.org.uk/

Posh Par­a­sites Pooh Pooh Punt

In between rant­i­ng, pro­pa­gan­dis­ing and gen­er­al­ly get­ting on the nerves of Bath’s well-to-do, some of us at Bath Bomb HQ like noth­ing more than a gen­tle stroll down the canal to unwind. On our way down, we find friend­ly faces, decent con­ver­sa­tion and beau­ti­ful boats dot­ting the tow­path. One of the most spec­tac­u­lar boats belongs to a Mr Ian Gill, who has cov­ered his home in elab­o­rate carv­ings and designs. Mr Gill is also a cen­tral part of Bath life, get­ting involved in var­i­ous local cul­tur­al and char­i­ta­ble events — an all round decent bloke, with a very inter­est­ing boat. But, the boat is not just inter­est­ing, it is an eco boat! In an attempt to low­er his eco­log­i­cal impact, Mr Gill punts his engine­less boat from place to place, gen­er­al­ly between Bathamp­ton and Bath so that he is close to his work. But British Water­ways (boo hiss) and an array of local snobs (big­ger boos and hiss­es) have decid­ed that the boat is an ‘eye­sore’ and that he is not trav­el­ling far enough to be con­sid­ered a ‘con­tin­u­ous cruis­er’ (this issue start­ed when he was too ill to move his boat). So now the NIMBY brigade, backed up by BW, are attempt­ing to boot Ian off the cut. If we allow them to get rid of our artis­tic friend, we will not only see some­one lose their home, but we will lose anoth­er lit­tle bit of what makes Bath such an inter­est­ing and quirky place to live. Ian’s boat is cov­ered in ban­ners and peti­tions, so next time you take a stroll down the beau­ti­ful Ken­net and Avon, why not stop to sign and give sup­port to a bloke who is the vic­tim of the prej­u­dice that is all too com­mon in some areas of our fair city.

Enough Room To Swing A Cat

It’s been a long time com­ing, but activists in Bath are soon hop­ing to open up a rad­i­cal social cen­tre in the heart of the city. Locat­ed at a large for­mer­ly com­mer­cial build­ing on Upper Bris­tol Road left aban­doned by its own­ers since at least 2001, the renamed Black Cat cen­tre (in hon­our of the indus­tri­al tra­di­tion of the ‘wild­cat strike’ for bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in these hard times) is due for open­ing soon. Although com­mer­cial­ly unmar­ketable due to its loca­tion and state of repair, the build­ing is per­fect for uses such as this.

But what is a social cen­tre? Well, a social cen­tre can mean many things to many peo­ple; in this case, Black Cat will be a con­sen­sus-run counter-cap­i­tal­ist ini­tia­tive, where every­one has an equal stake and an equal say, offer­ing up a liv­ing exam­ple of a world based on sol­i­dar­i­ty, mutu­al aid and co-oper­a­tion, rather than self­ish­ness and author­i­ty. Oper­at­ing as eco-friend­ly and free as pos­si­ble, the space is open for use by all the local com­mu­ni­ty, for non-com­mer­cial and pro­gres­sive pur­pos­es. Estab­lished so far is a per­ma­nent FreeShop, an info-stall for local events and cam­paigns, a rad­i­cal lend­ing library for your edu­ca­tion­al needs, and sam­ba danc­ing class­es, but oth­er things are in the pipeline: legal rights self-edu­ca­tion ses­sions, read­ing groups, art work­shops, nature walks, and dona­tion-based com­mu­ni­ty cafe, among oth­ers. If you or your group needs an afford­able meet­ing space, ther­a­py room, art stu­dio, rehearsal space, exhi­bi­tion venue, or if you have any oth­er such schemes you’d love to become real­i­ty, get in touch: bath­so­cial­cen­tre [at] gmail.com

Black Cat’s is sched­uled for its open­ing night on Fri­day the 20th Novem­ber, with a gig fea­tur­ing folk artists Robb John­son, Tracey Cur­tis and Cos­mo, and a com­mu­ni­ty open day on the Sat­ur­day.

EVENTS

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ings, 2nd and 4th Mon­day of the month, 8pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Debt advice drop-in, Tues­days, 4–7pm, Black Cat social cen­tre, Upper Bris­tol Road

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road

The Lost Plot work­day, Thurs­days, 10am-dusk, Bathamp­ton

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.rysbath.org.uk/ Hazel 01225 469199

Bath postal office work­ers’ pick­et, Sat­ur­day 31st Novem­ber, from 4.30am(!), Man­vers Street entrance to the sort­ing office,

Free Veg­an Food Fayre, Sat­ur­day 31st Novem­ber, 12–4pm, Broad­mead Bap­tist Church, Union Street entrance Bris­tol

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 5th Novem­ber, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Mon­day 9th Novem­ber, 8–9pm, back­room of The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Tran­si­tion Open Forum, Tues­day 10th Novem­ber, 7.15pm, Wid­combe Social Club, http:// www.transitionbath.org

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 11th Novem­ber, 8pm, Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 14th Novem­ber, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 14th Novem­ber, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, email broad­land­sor­chard­share [at] googlemail.com or phone 07532 472 256

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 16th Novem­ber, 7.30pm, The Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Bath Friends of the Earth meet­ing, Wednes­day 18th Novem­ber, 8pm, The Cork, West­gate Build­ings, http://www.bath-foe.org.uk

Black Cat social cen­tre open­ing night, Fri­day 20th Novem­ber, time tbc, Upper Bris­tol Road

The Big Kebele Par­ty ’09, Sat­ur­day 21st Novem­ber, 9–2am, Eas­t­on Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Chelsea Road, Bris­tol, £6 entry, http://www.kebelecoop.org

Tran­si­tion Drinks, Wednes­day 25th Novem­ber, 8pm, upstairs at The Raven, http://www.transitionbath.org.uk/events.html

The­o­ry Cor­ner: Debt Con Gone?

A work­shop at last month’s Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair brought out some inter­est­ing ideas about debt. At the Gle­nea­gles G8 meet­ing of the indus­tri­al world’s so-called lead­ers in 2005, it was agreed that 18 of the world’s poor­est coun­tries would be for­giv­en $40 bil­lion of their offi­cial state debt. Even though that orig­i­nal sum was incurred arm­ing para­mil­i­tary police forces to crush demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ments in those coun­tries, or was squan­dered on build­ing Sub-Saha­ran pala­tial swim­ming pools and oth­er lux­u­ries for the rich, it was the com­mon peo­ple that suf­fered through debt, with IMF adjust­ment pro­grams wip­ing away their pub­lic ser­vices and self-suf­fi­cien­cy, oblig­at­ing them to sell away neces­si­ties like food and tex­tiles for rock-bot­tom prices to the west. The IMF didn’t send bailiffs round to Idi Amin’s son. Wip­ing that finan­cial slate clean was unar­guably the right thing.

And yet when a sim­i­lar­ly delib­er­ate process is used to destroy the lives of peo­ple here, with more and more pet­ty laws send­ing high­er pro­por­tions to prison, the sell-off of pub­lic trans­port and under­min­ing of hos­pi­tals, edu­ca­tion and wel­fare, the smash­ing of unions and com­mu­ni­ty, and the increas­ing pre­car­i­ous­ness of mod­ern work­ing con­di­tions, no one real­ly bats an eye­lid. We get a sec­ond or third job, we get wast­ed on the week­end, we take out a loan on a widescreen TV, all in a bid to tem­porar­i­ly side­step the anx­i­ety and stress that’s on its way. Rather than being paid suf­fi­cient wages, we’re encour­aged to bor­row more and more. An excess of cap­i­tal is cre­at­ed by exploit­ing a resource – us – and then lent back to that same exploit­ed resource to gen­er­ate inter­est, and tie us into a web of mort­gages, loans, crip­pling repay­ments, repos­ses­sions and red let­ters. And if you escape this, it’s not down to being more respon­si­ble or a bet­ter per­son, it’s just a mat­ter of pure chance.

The Cit­i­zens Advice Bureau report­ed in Feb­ru­ary 2009 that the aver­age client owes near­ly 17,000, a 66% increase since 2001. Thus, the aver­age debt lev­el is 18 times the person’s month­ly income, and would take 93 years to clear at an afford­able rate – lead­ing to men­tal break­down, rela­tion­ship dis­in­te­gra­tion, and sui­cide: a death sen­tence, in effect. Repos­ses­sions are up 36% from last year, 20 homes are repos­sessed each week, and bailiffs vis­it 50 a day for coun­cil tax alone – using loud knock­ing, shout­ing and neigh­bours as a weapon to embar­rass peo­ple on their vis­its; when what real­ly should hap­pen is that neigh­bours come out in their mass­es to see these vul­tures off – bailiffs should be too scared to stick around. Wip­ing all per­son­al debt would lib­er­ate mil­lions and is unar­guably the right thing to do. So begs the ques­tion: how do we do it?

http://www.eb-da.org/?p=105

One Down…

Ger­man ener­gy giant E‑on have repeat­ed­ly put off mak­ing a deci­sion as to whether to build a new coal pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth. Now they’re say­ing their plans are put off indef­i­nite­ly, cit­ing the reces­sion as a con­cern. Couldn’t have any­thing to do with those pesky activists, could it?

E‑on’s head office has been invad­ed; they were forced to aban­don their grad­u­ate recruit­ment dri­ve last year after protests at sev­er­al cam­pus­es; Kingsnorth’s cool­ing tow­ers have been dam­aged by Green­peace; last year a week­long camp was held there by the Camp For Cli­mate Action, dur­ing which activists tried to break in by land and by boat; last Fos­sil Fools Day some­one snuck in all on their own and pressed the big red off but­ton!

It’s very like­ly that Kingsnorth will nev­er be built. We can’t afford to for­get though, that there are still plans to build sev­en oth­er coal plants around the coun­try – an EU deci­sion is immi­nent as to whether to grant fund­ing for a Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age (CCS) demon­stra­tion plant at Hat­field, near Don­cast­er, which is wide­ly expect­ed to get approval. Aside from the fact that “cap­tur­ing” emis­sions and “stor­ing” them under the ground sounds pret­ty dodgy, the tech­nol­o­gy won’t be com­mer­cial­ly avail­able for at least 20 years, yet it’s being used as an excuse to press ahead with new coal. We don’t have time to wait for CCS – we need to dras­ti­cal­ly cut emis­sions now.

This is why we need to stop coal, and the deci­sion on Kingsnorth shows that we can do it. We’ve got a big job ahead of us, but through­out his­to­ry changes have been made by ordi­nary peo­ple doing extra­or­di­nary things.

http://www.wdm.org.uk/campaign-success-eon-shelves-plans-dirty-coal-kingsnorth

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 to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, email 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 does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

Co-Mutiny On The Briz­zle

As well as all the actions a‑sailing the sev­en days of the Bris­tol Co-Mutiny, work­shops and oth­er such trea­sures were sight­ed. The flag­ship of the fleet was unmis­take­ably the con­ver­gence space, a squat­ted church at Park Place in cen­tral Bris­tol, home port to film exhi­bi­tions and per­for­mances, a kids’ space and freeshop, and reg­u­lar dona­tion-based slap-up din­ners. Of the work­shops, they were many and var­ied, encour­ag­ing sus­tain­able liv­ing and self-empow­er­ment, one way or anoth­er: high­lights include plant iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, knitting/spinning, sound tech and break danc­ing! Shiv­er me tim­bers, but there were anar­chic mad­ness, too. A 50-strong ‘No-Bor­ders’ demo and work­shop took place at the Trin­i­ty Road police sta­tion (from where asy­lum seek­ers often get detained with­out warn­ing while sign­ing in), and 60 salty seadogs board­ed the cen­tre for the Anar­chist Olympics day.

On the Wednes­day, a mot­ley crew of cli­mate refugees and upset pen­guins invad­ed Bris­tol air­port, leaflet­ing pas­sen­gers, and tum­my-div­ing on the lug­gage racks. While busi­ness­men fly short-haul to their meet­ings, thou­sands of peo­ple around the world are being dis­placed by the effects of cli­mate change. Bris­tol Air­port plans to expand must not be allowed to go ahead, savvy?

Things came to a head on Fri­day the 18th Sep­tem­ber with ‘Repos­sess the Banks’, designed to illus­trate the glar­ing inequal­i­ties in our soci­ety that lead to work­ing peo­ple being kicked out of their homes because of the bank­ing cri­sis, whilst those respon­si­ble get paid avast bonus­es with our booty, and also called for com­mu­ni­ty con­trol of all the banks, espe­cial­ly those now kept afloat by pub­lic invest­ments. On the day, over 100 gath­ered bedecked in snap­py car­ni­val masks to make mer­ry in a tour of Bristol’s finan­cial dis­trict. Police were ini­tial­ly wrong-foot­ed in a hec­tic, impromp­tu coal-dump­ing stunt in BT (fun­ders of coal extrac­tion), and retal­i­at­ed with sud­den and sav­age bru­tal­i­ty, drag­ging faces across con­crete and pan­ick­ing their hors­es, against a mod­est sal­vo of paint bombs and cus­tard pies. But once the smoke cleared, the good ship Co-Mutiny set sail, and the hun­dreds involved fond it an edu­ca­tion­al and fun event well worth repeat­ing in the future.

http://comutiny.wordpress.com/
http://bristolnoborders.wordpress.com/
http://www.nobristolairportexpansion.co.uk/

Crap Local Cops Let BAN Meet Cameron!

Fri­day the 18th Sep­tem­ber saw everyone’s least favourite toff scum­bag David Cameron (you know, that bloke who wants to bring back fox­hunt­ing, slash pub­lic spend­ing, give more of our cash to the bankers, dis­man­tle the NHS, con­crete over Bathamp­ton Mead­ows etc. etc.) vis­it Bath for an ‘open’ meet­ing. In fact, to get into this open meet­ing, you had to pre-book, pro­vide ID (despite the Tories alleged­ly being against ID) and sub­mit to var­i­ous secu­ri­ty checks and approval from the local Tory branch leader.

These best laid plans were ruined how­ev­er by an anony­mous whis­tle blow­er who con­tact­ed BAN with the time and loca­tion of the meet­ing. This infor­ma­tion was then ‘acci­den­tal­ly’ plas­tered all over the inter­net, and before long, both BAN and the Save Bathamp­ton Mead­ows crew had called protests. The turnout was pret­ty decent, involv­ing around 20 assort­ed mal­con­tents and a large police pres­ence. The protest gained sup­port from the gen­er­al pub­lic, but not the lads and ladies queu­ing to get into the meet­ing, lit­er­al­ly all of whom were obvi­ous­ly from a cer­tain class (we’ll give you a clue, it was­n’t work­ing or mid­dle!).

The protest passed peace­ful­ly, and as the BAN con­tin­gent were about to call it a night, a posh comb-over in a suit (evi­dent­ly the bloke who put on the event) appeared behind a locked gate and told the cops to make sure that no BAN­ners got inside. The police smug­ly replied that they had the sit­u­a­tion under con­trol, and the BAN activists, who had been prepar­ing to go home, smelt a chal­lenge. As it hap­pened, dodg­ing secu­ri­ty was more than easy, and with­in min­utes, and right under the noses of the dozy plod, two activists were over the wall and into the ‘Cameron com­pound’. As heck­ling was about to begin, the BAN­ners were accost­ed by a posh prat in a tweed suit, issu­ing com­mands in what was either posh speak that the rest of us aren’t privy to, or gib­ber­ish! How­ev­er, the hand­cuffs and equip­ment on his belt got the mes­sage across, and BAN, being rea­son­able folks, left the build­ing, stop­ping only to ask the cops who had promised not to let them in for the keys to the gate. Much hilar­i­ty fol­lowed as the cops got con­fused about the law, rant­ed about foie-gras and des­per­ate­ly tried to con­coct a rea­son to arrest the activists. Hav­ing set alarm bells ring­ing at Cameron’s Eton reunion and con­found­ed the local cops (again), the protest fad­ed into the night for a well-earned pint! Thank god we weren’t the bad type of ter­ror­ists, or there would have been a lot of red faces and embar­rass­ing ques­tions in the Bath cop shop!

Review: Bath Bus Sta­tion

Direct­ed by: Mul­ti
Star­ring: First Bus
Dura­tion: Prob­a­bly not many years
Clas­si­fi­ca­tion: Not suit­able for per­sons of 15 years of age or over (or under)
Genre: Road Movie/Horror
Black and white
Eng­land, 2009

In the absence of an ush­erette I found myself a charm­less­ly util­i­tar­i­an met­al seat. How­ev­er, from there I couldn’t see whether the main star – the X39 to Bris­tol – was about to make an appear­ance because it was behind a large map and opaque doors. By the time I’d gone to find out when the lead­ing role was due some­one else had nabbed my seat. Dur­ing the inter­val there were no toi­lets because they only open dur­ing office hours.

There was no kiosk for pop­corn or indeed any kind of refresh­ments – just a vend­ing machine with over­priced, tooth rot­ting multi­na­tion­al juice which was in any case out of order. Rub­bish on the ground because there were no recy­cling bins. Rules, reg­u­la­tions and sur­veil­lance. Three days after it opened the First empire struck back by putting the tick­et prices up. What kind of a show is this?

Stars out of ten: NONE

Any­one who has had a brief encounter with the new Bath bus sta­tion will know it is bad and ugly when it could have been so good. Just imag­ine, gen­tle pas­sen­ger, if there was a com­mu­ni­ty-con­trolled pub­lic trans­port sys­tem in a soci­ety where resources were direct­ed into social­ly use­ful projects. What a tech­ni­colour clas­sic Bath bus sta­tion could have been! The Edwar­dian façade of the much-loved Churchill House retained as a rotun­da with geot­her­mal heat­ing. On the roof-top a café with stun­ning views over the Riv­er Avon and the city of Bath. Room inside the build­ing for trans­port help and book­ings ser­vice, acces­si­ble twen­ty-four hour toi­lets (flushed with rain water and with urine har­vest­ing facil­i­tat­ed of course) and per­haps a small exhi­bi­tion space. The con­course built along the river­side with roof gar­dens and solar pan­els above pro­vid­ing elec­tric­i­ty for real-time elec­tron­ic infor­ma­tion dis­plays. Local art­work on the mod­el of the Lis­bon metro where paint­ing and sculp­ture trans­forms the space for com­muters. Oh and dry secure stor­age for bicy­cles and… sor­ry, got to go now, I’m about to be kicked out for loi­ter­ing.

What A Bunch Of Hunts

Well, here we go again, anoth­er year, anoth­er hunt sea­son. Hunt ban or no hunt ban, the last two months have seen hunts up and down the coun­try engag­ing in ‘cub­bing’ – ear­ly morn­ing for­ays into our delight­ful defor­est­ed coun­try­side, ille­gal­ly teach­ing the new year’s batch of young fox­hounds to get a taste for fox-flesh. Like­wise, hunt sabo­teurs have been equal­ly busy, get­ting up at sil­ly o’clock, dis­rupt­ing the hunts, mask­ing fox scents, call­ing away the packs and avoid­ing hunt vio­lence. How­ev­er, from Novem­ber 1st, hunt­ing sea­son offi­cial­ly starts, horse-rid­ing, horsey-teethed, shiny red coats and all.

Super­fi­cial steps were tak­en with the woe­ful­ly weak hunt ban of Feb­ru­ary ‘05, but if the Tories get in, even that will go, and sabs will be need­ed more than ever. If you have what it takes to save our wildlife, give Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs a call: 07854 062336, or come to the meet­ings on the sec­ond and fourth Mon­day of the month, 8pm at The Bell on Wal­cot Street.

http://www.hsa.enviroweb.org/

Spirit of Freedom Prisoner Listing Oct 2009

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Octo­ber 2009)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Octo­ber 2009)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Octo­ber 2009 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. Unfor­tu­nate­ly we have to start this newslet­ter with some bad news. Lit­er­al­ly in the last few days ELP has learnt of the jail­ing of two new eco-pris­on­ers, one is Swe­den, one in Amer­i­ca.

Last month Swedish eco-activist, Jonatan Strand­berg was informed that his appeal against the length of his prison sen­tence was unsuc­cess­ful and he was
informed he would be return­ing to prison. We were informed that Jonatan would be return­ing to prison at the start of this week and today we received the depress­ing news that Jonatan is now in prison.

ELP has been proud to know Jonatan for a few months now (ever since his first arrest) and we have always admired the way he has remained true to his beliefs and tak­en a very accept­ing view of the fact he might have to return to prison. How­ev­er despite his own dif­fi­cul­ties Jonatan has also worked hard for pris­on­er sup­port, writ­ing to new pris­on­ers and encour­ag­ing those who found them­selves behind bars to stay focussed on the pos­i­tive.

In the same way Jonatan has helped the pris­on­ers whilst he was on the out­side it is now our turn to help Jonatan and we very much hope peo­ple will send him let­ters of sup­port.

Besides Jonatan’s impris­on­ment, ELP has also learnt of the jail­ing of an Amer­i­can envi­ron­men­tal­ist, Stephen Mur­phy, who is accused of involve­ment in an attempt­ed arson on a town house con­struc­tion site in 2006. The day after the attempt­ed arson con­struc­tion work­ers dis­cov­ered that at least one of their con­struc­tion vehi­cles had been van­dalised and ELF slo­gans writ­ten on it. Stephen is cur­rent­ly held in Texas but is expect­ed to be trans­ferred to Los Ange­les in the next few weeks where the alleged attempt­ed arson occurred.

Also, with regards to new pris­on­ers, British ani­mal rights activist, Dean Cain, has been returned to prison fol­low­ing the breach­ing of his parole con­di­tions. Dean was on parole for his involve­ment in activ­i­ties at a rab­bit farm which breeds rab­bits for vivi­sec­tion.

ELP has also learnt that Amer­i­can ani­mal rights activist, Jor­dan Hal­l­i­day, who recent­ly served time in prison for refus­ing to tes­ti­fy before a Grand Jury, has been indict­ed on con­tempt charges and there­fore may soon return to prison again. His tri­al is due to start in Novem­ber 2009.

Also, as a num­ber of ELP sup­port­ers will be aware, ear­li­er this month the long-term Amer­i­can envi­ron­men­tal pris­on­er, Jeff ‘Free’ Leurs was released from prison. This took every­one by sur­prise, not least Free. How­ev­er his release proved to be an admin­is­tra­tion error and he was quick­ly returned to prison. ELP is dis­gust­ed that Free has been returned to prison, espe­cial­ly as he is due for release in a cou­ple of months any­way, and we feel that his treat­ment is noth­ing but psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture.

Oth­er pris­on­er news, the British ani­mal rights pris­on­er John Smith has asked to have his name removed from all pris­on­er sup­port lists.

But hap­pi­ly ELP does have some pos­i­tive news amongst all the neg­a­tive news. British ani­mal rights activist, Sean Kirt­ley, who was jailed for run­ning a LEGAL cam­paign group which protest­ed against vivi­sec­tion, has been released from prison. This is fan­tas­tic news and ELP wish­es Sean all the best for the future.

And on that note, we shall end this edi­to­r­i­al news update. But before we go we shall repeat what we always say — All of the pris­on­ers list­ed below wel­come let­ters of sup­port. Regard­less of what lan­guages you speak, regard­less of where you live in the world, your let­ters of sup­port real­ly do make the world of dif­fer­ence to the pris­on­ers. So please sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

If any­one notices any of ELP’s pris­on­er details is out of date or we do not list a pris­on­er who we should list, please let ELP know as soon as pos­si­ble.
ELP is run by a small group of vol­un­teers and although we try to ensure our lists are accu­rate, we admit we do make mis­takes. So help us help keep the lists accu­rate by let­ting us know of any changes we need to make.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Bor­der Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Daniele Casali­ni, Via Casale 50/a, 15040 San Michele (AL), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of rob­bery to fund a sub­ver­sive organ­i­sa­tion. (Daniele is a veg­an).

Francesco Gioia, Via Casale 50/a, 15040 San Michele (AL), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of rob­bery to fund a sub­ver­sive organ­i­sa­tion. (Francesco is a veg­e­tar­i­an and Straight Edge).

Niall Har­nett, Castlerea Prison, Har­ris­town, Castlerea, Co. Roscom­mon, Repub­lic of Ire­land. Sev­er­ing 4 months for non-pay­ment of a fine. The fine was issued fol­low­ing Mau­ra’s involve­ment in an anti-Shell petrol com­pa­ny protest. (Diet unknown).

Mau­ra Har­ringon, Dochas Cen­tre, Moun­tjoy Gaol, North Cir­cu­lar Road, Dublin 7, Repub­lic of Ire­land. Serv­ing 8 months for non-pay­ment of a fine. The fine was issued fol­low­ing Mau­ra’s involve­ment in an anti-Shell petrol com­pa­ny protest. (Diet unknown).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Marie Jeanette Mason, #04672–061, FCI Wase­ca, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1731, Wase­ca, MN 56093, USA. Serv­ing 21 years and 10 months for her involve­ment in an ELF arson against a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing car­ry­ing out Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied crop tests. Marie also plead­ed guilty to con­spir­ing to car­ry out ELF actions and admit­ted involve­ment in 12 oth­er ELF actions. (Marie is a veg­an).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097, FCI Vic­torville, Medi­um II, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, 63794–053, USP Mar­i­on, US Pen­i­ten­tiary, PO Box 1000, Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Steve Mur­phy #39013177 FCI Fort Worth, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 15330, Fort Worth, TX 76119, USA. On remand accused of attempt­ed arson and crim­i­nal dam­age at a town house con­struc­tion site in 2006. The FBI claim the action was done under the ban­ner of the ELF. (Diet unknown).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Justin Solondz (Address Unknown). Amer­i­can Green Scare defen­dant accused of direct action activ­i­ty in Amer­i­ca. Arrest­ed in Chi­na. Exact loca­tion cur­rent­ly unknown. (Diet unknown).

Jonatan Strand­berg, Box 248, 59323, Väster­vik, Swe­den. Serv­ing 15 months impris­on­ment after admit­ting dam­ag­ing a com­mu­ni­ca­tion tow­er used by the Depart­ment of Defence, cut­ting the cables on a crane used in cre­at­ing urban sprawl, and dam­ag­ing a vehi­cle used in the log­ging indus­try. (Jonatan is a dia­bet­ic and fol­lows a paleo diet, demand­ing local­ly sourced food).

Michael Sykes 696693, Richard A. Hand­lon Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, 1728 Blue­wa­ter High­way, Ionia, MI 48846, USA. Serv­ing four to ten years for anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age to a util­i­ty pole, spray-paint­ing polit­i­cal graf­fi­ti and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

Bri­ana Waters 36432–086, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route 37, Dan­bury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

Jon­ny Able­white TB4885, H.M. Prison, Hewell Lane, Red­ditch, Worcs B97 6QS, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Jon is a veg­an).

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Guys Marsh, Shaftes­bury, Dorset, SP7 0AH, Eng­land.
Serv­ing 4 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Cold­in­g­ley, Shaftes­bury Road, Bis­ley, Wok­ing, Sur­rey GU24 9EX, Eng­land. Serv­ing 9 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Send, Rip­ley Road, Wok­ing, Sur­rey, GU23 7LJ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 9 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nat is a veg­an).

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Fran­k­land, Bras­side, Durham, Coun­ty Durham DH1 5YD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 10 years for “con­spir­a­cy to com­mit arson” against Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion depart­ment. (Mel is a veg­an).

Dean Cain WJ 4309, HMP Pre­ston, 2 Rib­ble­ton Lane, Lan­cashire, PR1 5AB, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing his parole con­di­tions, whilst on parole for his involve­ment in a raid on a rab­bit farm which breeds rab­bits for vivi­sec­tion. (Dean is a veg­an).

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Ter­mi­nal Island, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 3007, San Pedro, CA 90731, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Jake is a veg­an).

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

Alex Hall, Inmate #2009–06304, Davis Coun­ty Jail, 800 West State St., Farm­ing­ton, UT 84025, USA. On Remand accused of raid­ing a mink farm. Also accused of breach­ing bail con­di­tions whilst on bail. (William is a veg­an).

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Kevin is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Gavin Medd-Hall WV9475, HMP Cold­in­g­ley, Shaftes­bury Road, Bis­ley, Wok­ing, Sur­rey GU24 9EX, Eng­land. Serv­ing 8 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gavin is a veg­an).

Heather Nichol­son VM5859, HMP Fos­ton Hall, Fos­ton, Der­by, Der­byshire, DE65 5DN, Eng­land. Serv­ing 11 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Heather is a veg­an).

Kevin Olliff, #1300931, TTCF 161 D‑Pod, 450 Bauchet St., Los Ange­les, CA 90012, USA. On remand accused of stalk­ing. Exact details of the indict­ment have not yet been revealed but the charges appear to relate to a per­son employed by an edu­ca­tion­al facil­i­ty so may be linked to vivi­sec­tion. (Kevin is a veg­an).

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

William James Viehl, Inmate #2009–05735, Davis Coun­ty Jail, 800 West State St., Farm­ing­ton, UT 84025, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing plead­ed guilty to raid­ing a mink farm. He is due to be sen­tenced in Novem­ber. (William is a veg­an).

Nicole Vosper VM9385, HMP Bronze­field, Wood­hthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of black­mail­ing Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nicole is a veg­an).

Dan Wad­ham, A5705AA, HMP Camp Hill, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5PB, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an).

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials. (Diet unknown).

OTHER ANTI-WAR PRISONERS

Eli­ja Smith VP 7551 HMP Lewes, 1 Brighton Rd, Lewes, Sus­sex, BN7 1EA, Eng­land. On remand accused of dis­arm­ing a weapons fac­to­ry, which, amongst oth­er things, makes Hell­fire Mis­siles. The action was in protest at Israel mil­i­tary action against Gaza. (Diet unknown).

THE LECCE DEFENDANTS
The Lec­ce Defen­dants have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Alek­sey Bychin, SIZO 47/2, ul. Akademi­ka Lebe­de­va, dom. 39, 195005 St. Peter­burg, Rus­sia. Serv­ing 5 years for defend­ing him­self against neo-nazis.
(Diet unknown).

Andrei Mergen­ov, FGU IZ 64/1 OKB 2 komn. 73, Up. Kutyako­va 107, 410601 Sara­tov, Rus­sia. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (Diet unknown)

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, Bnr: 441/08/5, JVA Plötzensee, Lehrter­str. 61, 10557 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties. (Diet unknown).

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland.
Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self. (Tomasz is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

OTHER PRISONERS

Pavel Deli­don, ul. Timiryazeva‑1, FGU IK‑7, 309990 Val­uy­ki Rus­sia.
Anarchist/Animal Rights activist jailed for attempt­ing to obtain wages owed to him, but which had not been paid to him by his employ­er. IMPORTANT: Pavel can only receive let­ters writ­ten in Russ­ian. He is pun­ished by the prison if he receives a let­ter not writ­ten in Russ­ian so please, only send let­ters writ­ten in Russ­ian. (Diet unknown).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they did­n’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915, CCC, 3151 Lit­ton Dri­ve, Chill­i­cuthe, MO 64601, USA. Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions includ­ing assault and mur­der. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

http://www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk/

EARTH FIRST! WINTER MOOT: 5th — 7th Feb 2010, County Durham — exact location released, & other info (incl. for cyclists)

EARTH FIRST! WINTER MOOT
6pm Fri 5th — Sun 7th Feb 2010
North-east Eng­land

“A week­end of net­work­ing, reflec­tion, strate­gic dis­cus­sions & cam­paign plan­ning for any­one involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action who believes in non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and direct­ly con­fronting the forces respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants”

EF! earth fist logoEARTH FIRST! WINTER MOOT
6pm Fri 5th — Sun 7th Feb 2010
North-east Eng­land

“A week­end of net­work­ing, reflec­tion, strate­gic dis­cus­sions & cam­paign plan­ning for any­one involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action who believes in non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and direct­ly con­fronting the forces respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants”

Venue:
The Win­ter Moot will be tak­ing place at the Dip­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Front Street (A692), Dip­ton, Stan­ley, Coun­ty Durham, DH9 9DR. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on get­ting there can be found via the How to get there link (now includ­ing cycling direc­tions).

New poster to down­load
New fly­er to down­load

Details of EF! Win­ter Moot announced:

The Earth First! Win­ter moot is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple who feel affil­i­a­tion with the ideas behind Earth First! to net­work, dis­cuss and reflect on the UK eco­log­i­cal direct action move­ment and to plan for the future. Earth First! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. We believe we can make a real dif­fer­ence by doing it our­selves rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try.

This years Earth First! Win­ter Moot will be tak­ing place in Co. Durham on the week­end of 6/7th Feb­ru­ary. As well as eval­u­a­tions and updates from a num­ber of eco­log­i­cal cam­paigns from around the coun­try, this year we will have a themed event — The Cri­sis: eval­u­a­tion, analy­sis and pos­si­ble respons­es. We will be explor­ing the inter­ac­tions between the var­i­ous eco­log­i­cal, finan­cial and resource crises, exam­in­ing our own con­cep­tions and expe­ri­ences of cri­sis, then tying it alto­geth­er to find a way for­ward using non-hier­ar­chi­cal approach­es.

We will also be host­ing a dis­cus­sion on how Earth First and the Camp for Cli­mate Action inter­sect, to deal with quite a num­ber of issues that emerged at the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, includ­ing issues of gen­er­a­tional under­stand­ing, anar­chism vs. lib­er­al­ism, are we seper­ate net­works, and how can we go for­ward togeth­er in the future. This debate will be tak­ing from 6.15–7.30pm on the Sat­ur­day evening of the Moot, and is open to all.

Every­one wel­come

If your cam­paign (local or nation­al) is inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the feed­back please get in touch.

The venue will be acces­si­ble, and par­ent-friend­ly. Veg­an food pro­vid­ed. Sug­gest­ed dona­tion for the week­end is £20. The venue will be announced one week before­hand so keep an eye on the web­site for details; how­ev­er, for those who want to pur­chase advance tick­ets, the near­est sta­tion will be New­cas­tle-upon-Tyne.

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it http://earthfirst.org.uk/ & http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2010moot/front.html
Tel: 0777 114 2131

1. It is in doors with com­mu­nal sleep­ing areas (no camp­ing — we’re not that mad 🙂 )

2. The actu­al venue will be announced a week before hand, so please check the web­site then, or email us.

For enquiries, offers of facil­i­ta­tion & help, ideas for work­shops and TO LET US KNOW YOU ARE COMING! email : wintermoot@earthfirst.org.uk

More about the Moot
The EF! Win­ter Moot is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple who feel affil­i­a­tion with the ideas behind Earth First! to net­work, dis­cuss and reflect on the UK eco­log­i­cal direct action move­ment and to plan for the future.

Fol­low­ing a pop­u­lar dis­cus­sion at 2009’s EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing 2010’s Moot also aims to hold dis­cus­sions on the theme of “ready­ing our­selves for unpre­dictabil­i­ty and insta­bil­i­ty in the UK and glob­al­ly”. The cur­rent & impend­ing crises of eco­nom­ics, ecol­o­gy, ener­gy & soci­ety fun­da­men­tal­ly alter the ter­rain of strug­gle; this in turn impacts both the prac­tice and pos­si­bil­i­ties for a rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal move­ment.

2010’s Win­ter Moot is to be held in Coun­ty Durham, an area with a large num­ber of open­cast coal mines, both active and at the appli­ca­tion stage. The week­end will include oppor­tu­ni­ties to meet with activists involved local­ly in cam­paigns against these.

Cost includ­ing veg­an food & crash-pad accom­mo­da­tion £20-£30 (depend­ing what you can afford-but please don’t blag-even the organ­is­ers will pay).

If you have par­tic­u­lar accom­mo­da­tion, access or dietary needs or are bring­ing chil­dren it would help us to know as soon as pos­si­ble so we can plan suit­able facil­i­ties; who­ev­er you are please do try & drop us an email at least a week in advance so we can gauge how many to cater for.

www.earthfirst.org.uk

Hot off the press and packed with Direct Action — the new Earth First! Action Update is out!

Rebel­lion, a spark in search of a pow­der keg — the new Action Update is out, the quar­ter­ly round-up of eco­log­i­cal direct action from the UK and beyond.

What’s in this issue?

EF! gathering '07 logo (rabbit/fence)Rebel­lion, a spark in search of a pow­der keg — the new Action Update is out, the quar­ter­ly round-up of eco­log­i­cal direct action from the UK and beyond.

What’s in this issue?
Old King Coal meets his Match, but the Nuclear Empire Strikes Back! Read tales of flotil­las, bish­op-bash­ing, block­ades and occu­pa­tions as the Rebel Alliance takes on the Empire. The rebels have also been hang­ing around in nets and on plat­forms, occu­py­ing and lock­ing-on at coal ter­mi­nals, and pas­sion­ate­ly attack­ing pow­er sta­tion fences around the world, try­ing to shut ’em down. Main­shill protest camp con­tin­ues to pro-active­ly resist open-cast min­ing — they climb, occu­py, and by night, anony­mous pix­ies sab­o­tage. Who knows when they sleep — with a strong alliance with local vil­lagers, they wel­come YOU to come and play any­time, with a gath­er­ing at the end of Octo­ber.

Want more? Radio-tow­ers top­pled, dams and trucks seized, naked oil streaks and green smears in defence of the wild, a shit dumped with shit…resistance to peat min­ing, genet­ic engi­neer­ing, log­ging and Shell in Ire­land, and for Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry and work­ers on the Isle of Wight.

Still not enough? Stop­ping Tesco, cli­mate cam­paign­ing suc­cess­es, run­way inva­sions, more eco­tage, and the EF! Win­ter Moot, plus con­tacts and upcom­ing dates.

To down­load your copy go to this web­site:

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_oct09.pdf

If you want paper copies to dis­trib­ute, con­tact us at: actionupdate@earthfirst.org.uk or pick up a bunch from our stall at the Anar­chist Book­fair in Lon­don. To print your own, down­load from http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_oct09print.pdf

Want­ed: We are very skint! Please send us some dosh to help us pay for the print­ing.
Cheques can be made out to Earth First! Action Update, and post­ed to The Base­ment, 78a Pen­ny St, Lan­cast­er LA1 1XN

Love and Rage
Your Action Update col­lec­tive

Calais: Solidarity Needed!

Around 2000 migrants liv­ing in squats and camps in Calais, France, are under threat of evic­tion and depor­ta­tion as the French immi­gra­tion min­is­ter has vowed to destroy their homes. Reports (includ­ing a state­ment by the French immi­gra­tion min­is­ter) sug­gest large-scale clear­ances of camps could take place this week.

Around 2000 migrants liv­ing in squats and camps in Calais, France, are under threat of evic­tion and depor­ta­tion as the French immi­gra­tion min­is­ter has vowed to destroy their homes. Reports (includ­ing a state­ment by the French immi­gra­tion min­is­ter) sug­gest large-scale clear­ances of camps could take place this week. Activists, locals and migrants are work­ing to oppose police bru­tal­i­ty, depor­ta­tions and the destruc­tion of the camps.

Calais is just one of many points across Europe where repres­sion against migrants is at its most vis­i­ble. Here, around 2000 peo­ple, unable to cross the bor­der into Britain, are per­se­cut­ed by French police; beat­en, harassed, forced to sleep rough in near­by woods, & attacked dur­ing the night.

Peo­ple are urgent­ly need­ed in Calais to sup­port the migrants in their fight for free­dom of move­ment. Come and do some­thing real­ly mean­ing­ful and direct­ly effec­tive now!

Check out Calais Migrant Sol­i­dar­i­ty http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/ for info on con­tact­ing peo­ple there, what to bring, where you can stay. (You can get a fer­ry cross­ing for £10!)

More back­ground infor­ma­tion on the sit­u­a­tion in Calais at http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009

Sol­i­dar­i­ty call-out http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/09/438182.html

CoMutiny on it’s way — are you heading to Bristol? 12th-20th September

Less than a month to go and peo­ple must be curi­ous as to what Comutiny is and who is involved. EVERYONE IS INVOLVED! Every­one is invit­ed to take part dur­ing the week in what­ev­er way they/their group feel best!!

Co-Mutiny final posterLess than a month to go and peo­ple must be curi­ous as to what Comutiny is and who is involved. EVERYONE IS INVOLVED! Every­one is invit­ed to take part dur­ing the week in what­ev­er way they/their group feel best!!

In Bris­tol and sur­rounds, a diverse bunch of enraged cre­ative, dream­ers and schemers, builders and gar­den­ers, work­ers, stu­dents and unem­ployed have been drawn togeth­er by the com­mon threads of our indig­na­tion at how a com­bi­na­tion of cor­po­rate greed, social injus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion is lead­ing us all towards cli­mate chaos and finan­cial col­lapse.

We invite you to con­verge on Bris­tol for an upris­ing of autonomous actions and events from 12th – 20th of Sep­tem­ber 2009.

The pro­vi­sion­al CoMutiny timetable is avail­able now. There is more time to add any events/actions/skillshares/performances/happenings so please send the infor­ma­tion to: bristolcomutinyworkshops@riseup.net

http://comutiny.wordpress.com/