Category: Nuclear

Call out for workshops for EF! Summer Gathering 2011

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

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

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

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

Do You Remember Fairmile?

Join the Silent Vic­to­ries Bike Ride.

Silent Vic­to­ries is a free 10 day long bike ride around the South West of Eng­land from the 1st ‑10th July that will vis­it places saved by direct action and analyse wider polit­i­cal ques­tions around what makes social change.

Join the Silent Vic­to­ries Bike Ride.

Silent Vic­to­ries is a free 10 day long bike ride around the South West of Eng­land from the 1st ‑10th July that will vis­it places saved by direct action and analyse wider polit­i­cal ques­tions around what makes social change.

The ride is pass­ing the site of the Fair­mile Road protest against the com­ple­tion of the A30. Were you there? We are par­tic­u­lar­ly look­ing for peo­ple with mem­o­ries of the A30 protests to join the ride and share mem­o­ries, reflec­tions and learn­ing.

On the ride we will:
— vis­it beau­ti­ful places in fine com­pa­ny,
— learn from com­mu­ni­ties that have suc­cess­ful­ly pro­tect­ed their area from destruc­tion
— sup­port ongo­ing cam­paigns
— inves­ti­gate alter­na­tives spaces
— dis­cuss issues and learn from each oth­er
— go swim­ming and eat lots of veg­an food

All wel­come, to learn, teach, share and take action.

To sign up to par­tic­i­pate please con­tact: silent.victories@gmail.com

Stop the next generation of nuclear power stations with a blockade at Hinkley Point

Join us at Hink­ley on 3 Octo­ber 2011

Hink­ley Point is the first of eight pro­posed sites for nuclear new build to go ahead. We stopped them here before, and we can do it again. If they fail at Hink­ley, it is unlike­ly the “nuclear renais­sance” will have the momen­tum to con­tin­ue.

Join us at Hink­ley on 3 Octo­ber 2011

Hink­ley Point is the first of eight pro­posed sites for nuclear new build to go ahead. We stopped them here before, and we can do it again. If they fail at Hink­ley, it is unlike­ly the “nuclear renais­sance” will have the momen­tum to con­tin­ue.

The cat­a­stro­phe is still unfold­ing at Fukushi­ma, but the British gov­ern­ment is con­tin­u­ing with its plans for build­ing new nuclear pow­er sta­tions – nuclear new-build. While oth­er coun­tries at least put a mora­to­ri­um on new nuclear, or even make plans to phase out nuclear ener­gy com­plete­ly, in Britain it’s as if Fukushi­ma didn’t hap­pen. Like a mantra, gov­ern­ment and the nuclear indus­try keep repeat­ing that Fukushi­ma could not hap­pen in Britain because there are no earth­quakes of that mag­ni­tude. We heard sim­i­lar excus­es after Cher­nobyl (1986) and Three Mile Island (1979). But nuclear acci­dents can and do hap­pen – even in Britain; the dis­as­ter at Wind­scale in 1957 released mas­sive lev­els of radi­a­tion into the atmos­phere. If we con­tin­ue to use and expand nuclear pow­er, there will cer­tain­ly be more cat­a­stroph­ic acci­dents, not to men­tion all the oth­er enor­mous prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with nuclear pow­er pro­duc­tion, even when it is work­ing ‘nor­mal­ly’.

Nuclear pow­er is not nec­es­sary, not safe, not sus­tain­able

More back­ground at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/

We can stop new nuclear

The gov­ern­ment and the nuclear indus­try want us to believe that nuclear new-build in Britain is a done deal. They want to dis­cour­age us from protest­ing – the mes­sage they want us to swal­low is clear: oppo­si­tion is futile, and we will be going ahead any­way!

How­ev­er, that could­n’t be fur­ther from the truth. Yes, the gov­ern­ment has intro­duced a frame­work which effec­tive­ly will sub­sidise new nuclear at our expense – as elec­tric­i­ty con­sumers and tax­pay­ers. Yes, the gov­ern­ment has effec­tive­ly deprived local com­mu­ni­ties from hav­ing a say in the plan­ning process for new nuclear and oth­er major infra­struc­ture projects thus dump­ing a cru­cial cor­ner­stone of local democ­ra­cy.

But nuclear new-build in Britain is already behind sched­ule and has faced legal and oth­er set­backs. Pub­lic con­cern is mount­ing fol­low­ing the Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter. If we can stop the build­ing at Hink­ley, we can stop the whole process. Now is the time to mobilise and take action.

New-nuclear in Britain is far from being a done deal, and we can still stop it!

NEW NUCLEAR — STOP IT AT HINKLEY!

The action:
A non-vio­lent block­ade of Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set

On 3 Octo­ber 2011 we will – with hun­dreds of peo­ple – non-vio­lent­ly block­ade the access to Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion for one day.

While the block­ade will be the key focus, there will be plen­ty of roles and activ­i­ties for peo­ple who do not wish to risk arrest. So every­one who is anti-nuclear can come and join us on the day to express their oppo­si­tion in many dif­fer­ent ways. We will pre­pare our­selves for this block­ade with non-vio­lence train­ing, and we will not be deterred by police try­ing to pre­vent our non-vio­lent action.
The block­ade will be inclu­sive, allow­ing peo­ple from all walks of life and with a wide range of expe­ri­ence in non-vio­lent action – or no expe­ri­ence at all – to par­tic­i­pate. We will organ­ise a safe envi­ron­ment for every­one, built on trust for each oth­er, but also on our deter­mi­na­tion to stop nuclear new-build.

In the days before the block­ade, there will be local actions in Bridg­wa­ter. There will be a camp and local accommoda­tion for peo­ple over the week­end and non-vio­lence train­ing will be pro­vid­ed.

* Call­out for action — http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/10

* Sign one of the pledges at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/pledges.

This is impor­tant, as it shows the strength of the cam­paign, and helps us to organ­ise the block­ade.
Web: http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk
Face­book: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-New-Nuclear/228971750452013
Phone: 0845–2872381

Stop New Nuclear is a cam­paign to stop new nuclear pow­er sta­tions and is an alliance of Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment, Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK, Kick Nuclear, Stop Hink­ley, Sizewell Block­aders, Shut­down Sizewell, South West Against Nuclear, and Tri­dent Ploughshares

Donate: We need your sup­port. Please donate at
http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate

Sizewell Camp 2011, 22–25 Apr

Skill Share, Net­work, Protest and Remem­ber
Pow­er for the peo­ple, not prof­its for the few

Fri 22 – Mon 25 April
with NATIONAL DEMO — SAT 23 APRIL

Spend East­er week­end camp­ing on the beach at Sizewell, on the pic­turesque Suf­folk coast, east­ern Eng­land, to show your oppo­si­tion to new nuclear pow­er and high­light the need for sus­tain­able ener­gy solu­tions.

Skill Share, Net­work, Protest and Remem­ber
Pow­er for the peo­ple, not prof­its for the few

Fri 22 – Mon 25 April
with NATIONAL DEMO — SAT 23 APRIL

Spend East­er week­end camp­ing on the beach at Sizewell, on the pic­turesque Suf­folk coast, east­ern Eng­land, to show your oppo­si­tion to new nuclear pow­er and high­light the need for sus­tain­able ener­gy solu­tions.

The week­end will also mark the 25th anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl nuclear dis­as­ter. It includes a protest at the pow­er sta­tion entrance, A pub­lic meet­ing, skill-shar­ing and info work­shops, wood­land and beach walks, veg­an grub and net­work­ing. Now is the time to take action against new nuclear build. Come and join us to say: Nuclear pow­er? No thanks!

Con­tact:
camp@sizewellcamp.org.uk
http://sizewellcamp.org.uk

The camp is organ­ised by activists from the Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work

Resistance to ‘Factory of Death’ continues

On Mon­day sev­er­al actions took place against the gov­ern­men­t’s nuclear weapons and their plans to devel­op new ones. The focus was AWE Alder­mas­ton, the mil­i­tary base near Read­ing where these weapons are devel­oped and main­tained.

On Mon­day sev­er­al actions took place against the gov­ern­men­t’s nuclear weapons and their plans to devel­op new ones. The focus was AWE Alder­mas­ton, the mil­i­tary base near Read­ing where these weapons are devel­oped and main­tained.

Activists from Tri­dent Ploughshares had been hold­ing an “Alder­mas­ton Sum­mer Gath­er­ing” for sev­er­al days shar­ing infor­ma­tion and leaflet­ting near­by vil­lages. Co-incid­ing with this, folks from the Catholic Work­er move­ment were hold­ing a “Faith and Resis­tance” retreat in Oxford cel­e­brat­ing the 30th anniver­sary of the first Ploughshares action.

As the day began around twen­ty TP folks block­ad­ed one of the main gates into the base, includ­ing four who “locked-on” with arm tubes. They left with­out any arrests after suc­cess­ful­ly blockad­ing for two hours.

Soon after­wards, 3 of the Catholic Work­ers cut through the perime­ter fence and broke into the base, “open­ing it for dis­ar­ma­ment”, while oth­ers car­ried out a vig­il at the gates of the base. They were arrest­ed, held until evening, charged with crim­i­nal dam­age, and may also face SOCPA charges.

Successful Hinkley Demo

Sep­tem­ber 13, 2010
Pro­tes­tors blocked the Hink­ley Point main gates for almost an hour this liunch-time as they demon­strat­ed against the pre­ma­ture destruc­tion of upto 435 acres of open land and wildlife habi­tats before major con­sents are approved for the two giant reac­tors pro­posed by EdF.

Sep­tem­ber 13, 2010
Pro­tes­tors blocked the Hink­ley Point main gates for almost an hour this liunch-time as they demon­strat­ed against the pre­ma­ture destruc­tion of upto 435 acres of open land and wildlife habi­tats before major con­sents are approved for the two giant reac­tors pro­posed by EdF.

A large group of cam­paign­ers, togeth­er with local res­i­dents includ­ing chil­dren, held ban­ners and plac­ards in front of Hink­ley Point, pre­vent­ing any traf­fic move­ments. The Hink­ley main gates were forced to shut from 11.45 to 12.45pm and no traf­fic entered or left dur­ing that time. Some of the pro­tes­tors wore face paint images of sun­flow­ers, the Stop Hink­ley logo and anti-nuclear signs. Oth­ers dressed as nuclear ‘boffins’ and with a loud­hail­er led a march through the ear-marked green­field site.

The ‘nuclear boffins’ high­light­ed bad­ger setts which had been cement­ed over or had been cov­ered with met­al grills, beau­ti­ful old wood­lands and indi­vid­ual trees des­tined to be bull­dozed and they walked down some of the scores of sunken lanes criss-cross­ing the fields lined by ancient hedgerows brim­ming with wildlife.

At the coast the tour-guides showed where the so-called ‘tem­po­rary’ jet­ty will be built over the 200 mil­lion year old fos­sil-filled rocky beach.

At the beach des­ti­na­tion of the march, one cam­paign­er read aloud a poem on the need to respect nature and its part in glob­al ecol­o­gy.

Crispin Aubrey, spokesman for Stop Hink­ley who mar­shalled the demon­stra­tion, said: “There is obvi­ous strong feel­ing against destroy­ing this beau­ti­ful area. Despite being close to the exist­ing pow­er sta­tions there are large expans­es of beau­ty and tran­quil­i­ty. It’s wrong for EdF to jump the gun by trash­ing the area such a long time before it receives major con­sents for the two reac­tors.”

The protest was part of a two day Action Week­end. Yes­ter­day a series of talks and work­shops took place in Bridg­wa­ter for cam­paign­ers around the region. Three nation­al-lev­el speak­ers gave talks:

Green­peace

Ben Ayliffe, nuclear cam­paign­er for Green­peace said: “Green­peace is opposed to new nuclear pow­er sta­tions because they would make a min­i­mal con­tri­bu­tion towards reduc­ing green­house gas emis­sions, they have mul­ti­ple dan­gers from long-lived radioac­tive waste through to nuclear pro­lif­er­a­tion, and they are a dis­trac­tion from real solu­tions such as renew­able ener­gy.”

“In par­tic­u­lar we see two major prob­lems — waste dis­pos­al and eco­nom­ics – both could sink the pro­pos­al for Hink­ley C,” he said.

“The coali­tion gov­ern­ment has said that there will be no sub­si­dies for new nuclear plant. Eco­nom­ics could be the thing that makes it impos­si­ble for Hink­ley C to go ahead. No nuclear pow­er sta­tion has ever been built with­out pub­lic sub­sidy.”

On waste he said that the amount EDF were being asked to pay for dis­pos­ing of the radioac­tive lega­cy from Hink­ley C was not enough to cov­er the true cost. “It amounts to a £1 bil­lion sub­sidy to the com­pa­ny per year, accord­ing to our cal­cu­la­tions,” he said.

He also referred to delays and cost over-runs on sim­i­lar projects in both Fin­land and France, where the first reac­tors like the one pro­posed for Hink­ley C are being built.

The Green­peace strat­e­gy was to chal­lenge the process of approv­ing new nuclear pow­er sta­tions all the way. This includ­ed expos­ing the risky eco­nom­ics, pro­mot­ing the alter­na­tives and legal chal­lenges.

Health

Pro­fes­sor Chris Bus­by talked about stud­ies that he, and Som­er­set Health author­i­ty in the eight­ies, had shown that there was a high­er inci­dence of can­cers round Hink­ley Point and oth­er nuclear pow­er sta­tions. He said the inter­na­tion­al mod­el used by reg­u­la­tors to esti­mate the effects of radi­a­tion on human health is being wide­ly chal­lenged, and a for­mer head of the inter­na­tion­al radi­a­tion com­mis­sion accept­ed that their mod­el did not stand up in the case of a seri­ous acci­dent.

“Our stud­ies have shown raised lev­els of can­cer along the down­wind coast from Hink­ley to Burn­ham-on-Sea. Health offi­cials have object­ed to our find­ings on spu­ri­ous grounds includ­ing ran­dom clus­ters in oth­er areas but year on year we keep find­ing an entrenched prob­lem near Hink­ley. The offi­cials have got it wrong.”

Alter­na­tives

Neil Crump­ton, for­mer Friends of the Earth ener­gy cam­paign­er, pre­sent­ed an alter­na­tive vision of the UK’s elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply in which nuclear pow­er was mar­gin­alised and new sources of renew­able ener­gy, such as con­cen­trat­ed solar pow­er import­ed from North Africa, were devel­oped on a large scale. He also dis­missed the sug­ges­tion that the lights would go out with­out nuclear, list­ing the many oth­er options, includ­ing gas-fired plants, which were queue­ing up to fill any gap in sup­ply.

“Friends of the Earth and oth­er organ­i­sa­tions are con­fi­dent we can put for­ward a rea­son­able low car­bon ener­gy net­work based on cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy. More than that we can very soon tap resources like Clean Coal Tech­nol­o­gy and solar-pow­er from the Sahara to boost our own abun­dant nat­ur­al ele­ments of wind, tide and wave dri­ven elec­tric­i­ty.”

Jim Duffy

Stop Hink­ley Coor­di­na­tor

www.stophinkley.org

07798 666756

Quotes from Crispin Aubrey who coor­di­nat­ed the Action week­end: 01278 732921 / 07920 523673

Pro­fes­sion­al pho­tographs for the media avail­able imme­di­ate­ly from

Simon Chap­man: 07889 747916

http://www.stophinkley.org

Stop Nuclear Power Network UK Gathering

Date for your diaries:

Sat­ur­day 23rd and Sun­day 24th Octo­ber

Bris­tol
_______________________________________

Meet peo­ple from your region that are tak­ing action, make plans togeth­er and build sol­i­dar­i­ty with peo­ple who live next door to Hink­ley.
_______________________________________

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Stop Hink­ley

Date for your diaries:

Sat­ur­day 23rd and Sun­day 24th Octo­ber

Bris­tol
_______________________________________

Meet peo­ple from your region that are tak­ing action, make plans togeth­er and build sol­i­dar­i­ty with peo­ple who live next door to Hink­ley.
_______________________________________

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Stop Hink­ley
Hink­ley C in Som­er­set near Bris­tol, could become the first nuclear pow­er sta­tion built in Britain for 20 years, Stop Hink­ley is a com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign to stop dead­ly nuclear sites being built near their homes.www.stophinkley.org

Action against EdF
EDF is one of the largest elec­tric­i­ty com­pa­nies and ful­ly owned by the French state. In Britain, EDF is push­ing hard for nuclear new build, and wants new reac­tors at four sites, the first being Hink­ley C. www.boycottedf.org.uk

Cam­paign against the rerere-CON­sul­ta­tion
The gov­ern­ment is tak­ing its pro-nuclear pro­pa­gan­da on tour around the UK for the third time this Autumn in an attempt to escape legal chal­lenges to its nuclear ambi­tions. We plan to be there, let­ting every­one know the Green­washed, prof­it dri­ven agen­da they are spew­ing out.

More info com­ing soon.

Sign up to our mail­ing list by email­ing stopnuclearpower-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

Stop Nuclear Power gathering, 23–24 October 2010

Sat 23 — Sun 24 Oct 2010, Bris­tol

Meet, make plans, take action

Sat 23 — Sun 24 Oct 2010, Bris­tol

Meet, make plans, take action

Stop Nuclear Pow­er is a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als tak­ing action against nuclear pow­er. If EdF get their way, Hink­ley C will become the first nuclear pow­er sta­tion built in Britain for 20 years and will sit next to two oth­er radioac­tive and dan­ger­ous sites. Stop Hink­ley is a long run­ning com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign to stop dead­ly nuclear reac­tors oper­at­ing near their homes.
Their strug­gle is our strug­gle. Let’s sit down togeth­er in Bris­tol and make some plans togeth­er.

Hink­ley is the bat­tle­ground, if they get one in there, it opens the door for at least nine oth­er nuclear pow­er sta­tions across the coun­try. This Autumn, the gov­ern­ment is tak­ing its pro-nuclear pro­pa­gan­da on tour around the UK. We’ll be there. Come to the gath­er­ing or send us an email to find out how you can get involved.

www.boycottedf.org.uk

Info for the week­end:

Meet­ing space dur­ing the day on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day tbc but will be in Bris­tol.
Crash space is avail­able on a dry, warm and qui­et floor space.
If you need a bed please get in con­tact with us as soon as pos­si­ble and will try and help you out.
Lunch and din­ner will be done com­mu­nal­ly on Sat­ur­day and lunch on Sun­day.

For a tele­phone num­ber to con­tact dur­ing the week­end send us an email.

Please help by let­ting us know you are com­ing so we can plan for space, food and logis­tics.

Email: nonewnuclear@aktivix.org

Bath Bomb #32 Out Now

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!

Issue #32

free/donation

August 2010

“Fast, aggres­sive, and it wants your sand­wich!”

Armagge­don Out­ta Here

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!

Issue #32

free/donation

August 2010

“Fast, aggres­sive, and it wants your sand­wich!”

Armagge­don Out­ta Here

An unpalat­able mod­ern-day truth is that human life, far from being sacred, is deemed expend­able, almost an incon­ve­nience, when the col­li­sion of pol­i­tics, pow­er and eco­nom­ics pro­vokes con­flict. Then, the big­ger the con­flict, the greater the num­ber of lives wast­ed.

This month marks an espe­cial­ly poignant anniver­sary. In 1945, U.S. Pres­i­dent Har­ry S. Tru­man took the deci­sion to drop atom­ic bombs on Japan: ‘Lit­tle Boy’ was det­o­nat­ed over Hiroshi­ma on August 6th in that year ; on August 9th, ‘Fat Man’ was explod­ed over Nagasa­ki. Both cities were near-oblit­er­at­ed.

The tens of thou­sands who died instant­ly were most­ly civil­ians. The ‘ratio­nale’ for these acts of mass slaugh­ter, if it is even pos­si­ble to dig­ni­fy them with that term, was that Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki had con­sid­er­able indus­tri­al and mil­i­tary sig­nif­i­cance, and that their anni­hi­la­tion would put an end to Japan­ese prospects of ter­ri­to­r­i­al aggran­dis­e­ment , ter­mi­nat­ing their involve­ment in World War II.

The body-count from both atroc­i­ties was a trag­ic coda to the tal­ly of the total lives squan­dered in the entire six-year con­flict. The Amer­i­can pro­pa­gan­da machine sought to spin what was in effect mass mur­der into a moral and mil­i­tary ‘suc­cess’, claim­ing that if the Japan­ese had­n’t sur­ren­dered after two of their cities had thus been blown to pieces, then a land inva­sion would have undoubt­ed­ly had to be car­ried out to achieve the same effect, cost­ing the lives of thou­sands of U.S. troops.

It shows just what a moral vac­u­um the U.S. high com­mand were liv­ing in when they had to skulk behind a hypoth­e­sis to avoid cop­ping the blame for what in any­one else’s lan­guage would be inter­pret­ed as a cold-blood­ed war crime.

The bomb­ing of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki was, and still is, inde­fen­si­ble. You can nev­er ‘save’ lives by tak­ing them. We all need to be remind­ed of the hor­rors which took place in Japan in ear­ly August 1945, because the nuclear mon­ster that was unleashed upon the world then is still with us. It lurks off the British coast in the form of the Tri­dent sub­ma­rine fleet.

To tout the pow­er-plant used by these weapons-in-wait­ing, as Cameron’s gov­ern­ment is now doing, as a domes­tic ener­gy source,  shows that politi­cians con­tin­ue to bam­boo­zle the pub­lic with smoke­screens while they har­bour fan­tasies of nuk­ing their way to world dom­i­na­tion. 

To blow bil­lions on an unnec­es­sary arma­ment upgrade at a time of swinge­ing pub­lic ser­vice cuts would be laugh­able were it not such an obscen­i­ty.

*

Join The Resis­tance!

Con­sid­er­ing the state’s mas­sive attack on ordi­nary peo­ple, with cuts to jobs, ser­vices, pen­sions and ben­e­fits, the time has come to fight back. We should not be expect­ed to pay for the crises caused by politi­cians and bankers. We are not all ‘in this togeth­er’ – the rich politi­cians in the Cab­i­net and the bankers with their bonus­es are not affect­ed. Mem­bers of B.A.N., along with oth­ers in the trade unions, are set­ting up an anti-cuts cam­paign in Bath, fight­ing to pro­tect every job and defend pen­sions, ser­vices and ben­e­fits from cuts. The cam­paign is open to all those affect­ed by gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy. We need to organ­ise and fight back togeth­er.

The cam­paign will be organ­is­ing a big pub­lic meet­ing at the end of Sep­tem­ber, and hopes to attract sup­port from all affect­ed groups. If you wish to get involved, con­tact johnbamphylde[at]yahoo.co.uk or phone 07908 355456.

More info is to fol­low in next mon­th’s issue, but here are some impor­tant dates for your diary: the next Bath Anti-Cuts Com­mit­tee meet­ing is at the Bell, Tues­day 24th August, 8pm; Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber will be a nation­al day of action out­side the Tory Par­ty Con­fer­ence in Birm­ing­ham; Wednes­day 20th Octo­ber will be the day of bud­get announce­ment; and Sat­ur­day 23rd Octo­ber will be a region­al day of action against the planned cuts.

And here are some web­sites to check out, too: http://www.righttowork.org.uk, and http://www.coalitionofresistance.wordpress.com.

*

Fight And Unite!

Some anar­chists argue that the main trade unions are bureau­crat­ic, their lead­ers have sold out and they have lit­tle rel­e­vance to work­ing class peo­ple. They argue that anar­chists should form their own unions. How­ev­er, many young peo­ple find unions bor­ing and do not real­ly under­stand what they are. Oth­ers argue back that unions are still work­ers’ organ­i­sa­tions, that they could still be the force to take on the cap­i­tal­ist state, and that work­ers should join and fight with­in unions to make them more demo­c­ra­t­ic and com­bat­ive.

At the Bath Social­ist Forum meet­ing on Mon­day 30th August, at 8pm, we will be dis­cussing the way for­ward for work­ers in trades unions, pre­sent­ed by John Bam­phylde of Bath Trades Coun­cil. The fol­low­ing meet­ing, on Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, will be pre­sent­ed by film-mak­er Ken Loach. The meet­ings take place at St James Wine Vaults, and all are wel­come.

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Killer Faces Unem­ploy­ment!

A dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ing is to be held against P.C. Simon Har­wood on the grounds of gross mis­con­duct with regards to an attack on Ian Tom­lin­son on April 1st 2009. It is con­sid­ered like­ly the out­come will be imme­di­ate dis­missal.

I pose this ques­tion, does­n’t it seem a bit extreme to take away this man’s occu­pa­tion sim­ply for a light shove? After all, to push from behind is all part and par­cel with polic­ing a large-scale protest. Cer­tain­ly, Tom­lin­son was­n’t dead imme­di­ate­ly after the inci­dent, so why then should Mr Har­wood be sub­ject­ed to mix with the doleys and scroungers?

A few indi­vid­u­als are claim­ing the P.C. to be guilty of manslaugh­ter and hence deserves to lose his liveli­hood. These peo­ple are clear­ly revenge-bent or deranged as it is well known that there has been a long (and nat­u­ral­ly there­fore thor­ough) inves­ti­ga­tion by the C.P.S., which decid­ed there was no case. Irrefutably trust­wor­thy patho­log­i­cal evi­dence has shown the man died of nat­ur­al caus­es. Fur­ther, the video footage does­n’t even show the man hit­ting the ground, let alone gain­ing injuries. Sure­ly only one con­clu­sion can be reached, that P.C. Simon Har­wood is unde­ni­ably inno­cent.

Clear­ly, it was a high­ly volatile sit­u­a­tion and a police offi­cer can­not be blamed for get­ting a bit touchy-feely. If peo­ple get so het up about this, then with the home office more and more con­cerned about P.R., in the end we’ll have a police force too scared to catch any crim­i­nals.

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Agri-Cul­ture Shock

Tran­si­tion Bath are start­ing up a new scheme in Bathamp­ton, work­ing with the Hugh­es fam­i­ly to restore a six acre area of land to organ­ic pro­duc­tion, and hope to bring togeth­er locals to explore how this can be done. Tran­si­tion Bath are a local envi­ron­men­tal­ist group aim­ing to build a sus­tain­able future using the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty, in the face of declin­ing nat­ur­al resources and increas­ing costs. They hope to make the tran­si­tion to a low car­bon, local econ­o­my, whilst cre­at­ing pos­i­tive, self-reliant com­mu­ni­ties. This project should turn out to be the first Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture (C.S.A.) scheme in the city – a part­ner­ship between farm­ers and the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty, pro­vid­ing mutu­al ben­e­fits for both, and recon­nect­ing peo­ple to the land. Whether you would like to grow your own, meet oth­er locals, or get involved in a project to help reduce food bills and food miles, why not come along to the end of Hol­combe Lane, near Hol­combe Farm, Bathamp­ton, at 1pm, on Sun­day the 15th August for a bar­be­cue and fruit pick. All dona­tions to Tran­si­tion Bath will be much appre­ci­at­ed. For more info, con­tact Jamie Col­ston at jamiecolston[at]gmail.com, or ring 01225 851377.

Anoth­er exam­ple of the link between eth­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, the com­mu­ni­ty and the food we eat, has been going on down at the River­side Youth Cen­tre on Lon­don Road since 2001. The Lon­don Road Food Co-op is a vol­un­teer-run, not-for-prof­it mem­bers’ co-oper­a­tive, open­ing Wednes­days from 4–7pm at the end of the lane behind the for­mer Porter Butt pub. Mem­ber­ship is afford­able and paid annu­al­ly on a slid­ing vol­un­tary scale between £3 and £10, and mem­bers get access to a whole host of organ­ic, fair­ly trad­ed and veg­an-friend­ly whole­foods and gro­ceries, with­out the price mark-up you will see in oth­er stores. In the past the co-op has also oper­at­ed a week­ly veg, fruit, egg and bread scheme, which it hopes to revive. In the mean­time, though, this is a great lit­tle friend­ly project, and is keen to attract mem­bers and vol­un­teers. If you do want to find out more, why not pop along, or give them a call on 07837 784715?

http://www.transitionbath.org

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Food Fayre Thought

Lazi­ly aping our arti­cle from last month, in case you did­n’t catch it, Sat­ur­day the 4th Sep­tem­ber will mark the day of the sec­ond annu­al Bath Veg­an Fayre! Run­ning from 12 mid­day til 4pm down­stairs at Man­vers Street Bap­tist Church, free entry, expect hours of free veg­an savoury and sweet delights, as well as a sprin­kling of talks and con­ver­sa­tion, with a (non-dairy) creamy after-taste of nutri­tion­al and eth­i­cal info. In a deli­cious dash of déjà vu, there will also be a ben­e­fit gig at the Hob­gob­lin on Fri­day 27th August, from 8pm, fea­tur­ing bands and D.J.s, £3 entry. Helpers for both would be much appre­ci­at­ed! E‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk, or ring 07717 130954 for fur­ther info. And again, don’t for­get Bris­tol’s grass­roots veg­an fayre/fair, tak­ing place on Sat­ur­day 30th Octo­ber in a venue near you.

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

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UPCOMING EVENTS

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

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

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

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

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

Bathamp­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture bar­be­cue & fruit pick, Sun­day 15th August, 1pm, Hol­combe Lane, Bathamp­ton, e‑mail jamiecolston[at]gmail.com/ tel Jamie 01225 851377 FFI

Region­al hunt sabo­teurs get togeth­er, Sun­day 15th August, 1pm, Bris­tol Downs

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

Cli­mate Camp Ire­land, Thurs­day 16th to Mon­day 20th August, Vic­to­ria Bridge, Coun­ty Tyrone, http://www.climatecamp.ie

Que­bec Cli­mate Action Camp, Wednes­day 18th August to Sun­day 22nd August, http://www,climateactionmontreal.wordpress.com/climatecam

Fam­i­ly Fun Day – Out­door Cook­ing work­shop, Thurs­day 19th August, 12–3pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, £15 per fam­i­ly (suit­able for over 7s), book­ing essen­tial: http://www.bathford.net/broadlands.php

Camp for Cli­mate Action UK, Thurs­day 19th August to Tues­day 24th August, Edin­burgh, http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions

talk: ‘The Venus Project’, Sat­ur­day 21st August, 1–5pm, Vic­to­ria Rooms — The Audi­to­ri­um Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol, Queens Road, Clifton, Bris­tol, BS8 1SA, £16.02 entry; http://thevpinbristol.eventbrite.com

Cli­mate Camp Ger­many, Sat­ur­day 21st August to Sun­day 29th August, Erke­lenz- Borschemich, http://www.klimacamp2010.de

film: ‘The War Game’, Sun­day 22nd August, 2.30pm, the Arnolfi­ni, Bris­tol; http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/films/details/716

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ing, Mon­day 23rd August, 8–9pm, The Bell, tel Justin 07854 062336

Bath Anti-Cuts Com­mit­tee meet­ing, Tues­day 24th August, 8pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Bath Stop the War meet­ing, Wednes­day 25th August, 7.30pm, Friends Meet­ing House, York Street, Bath, BA1 1NG; http://www.bathstopwar.org.uk

Fam­i­ly Fun Day – Build Your Own Pond work­shop, Thurs­day 26th August, 12–3pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, £15 per fam­i­ly (suit­able for over 7s), book­ing essen­tial: http://www.bathford.net/broadlands.php

Bath Veg­an Fayre ben­e­fit gig, Fri­day 27th August, 8–11pm, Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade; more details tbc

Bath Stop The War Coali­tion vig­il: vote with your mon­ey against Tri­dent, Sat­ur­day 28th August, 11.30am-12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard, oth­er Bath human rights/trade & development/ justice/trades union organ­i­sa­tions are invit­ed to sup­port Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride, Sat­ur­day 28th August, 1pm, Kingsmead Square, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Cli­mate Jus­tice Action meet­ing at the Nether­lands Earth First! Gath­er­ing, Sat­ur­day 28th August to Sun­day 29th August, Utrecht, http://www.climate-justice-action.org

Bath Ani­mal Action info stall, Sun­day 29th August, 2–4pm, Stall Street, e‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk

Tran­si­tion Bath Social, Mon­day 30th August, 7.15pm, the Love Lounge/ back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street; bring food to share; http://www.transitionbath.org

Bath Social­ist Forum meet­ing, Mon­day 30th August, 8pm, upstairs St James Wine Vaults, pre­sent­ed by John Bamphylde/Bath Trades Coun­cil

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

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 2nd Sep­tem­ber, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

Kil­ter the­atre : ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Thurs­day 2nd to Fri­day 3rd Sep­tem­ber, St Wer­burgh’s City Farm, Boil­ing Wells, Bris­tol, BS2 9YJ, 7.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

Bath Veg­an Fayre, Sat­ur­day 4th Sep­tem­ber, 12–4pm, Man­vers Street Bap­tist Church, free entry

Kil­ter the­atre : ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 4th Sep­tem­ber, St Wer­burgh’s City Farm, Boil­ing Wells, Bris­tol, BS2 9YJ, 2.30pm & 7.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

Kil­ter the­atre : ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sun­day 5th Sep­tem­ber, St Wer­burgh’s City Farm, Boil­ing Wells, Bris­tol, BS2 9YJ, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 8th Sep­tem­ber, 8.30pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

Kil­ter the­atre : ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Thurs­day 9th to Fri­day 10th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 7.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

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

Kil­ter the­atre : ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 11th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 2.30pm & 7.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

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

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

Kil­ter the­atre : ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Thurs­day 16th to Fri­day 17th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 7.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

Kil­ter the­atre : ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 18th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 2.30pm & 7.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

Region­al South West Ani­mal Rights Coali­tion meet­ing, Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, 12–5pm, The Fac­to­ry, Cave Street, cen­tral Bris­tol

Kil­ter the­atre : ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues),

Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

Kil­ter the­atre : ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Thurs­day 23rd to Fri­day 24th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 7.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

Kil­ter the­atre : ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 25th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 2.30pm & 7.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bris­tol Free Veg­an Food Fair, Sat­ur­day 30th Octo­ber, more details tbc

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

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

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The Only Good Boss Is A Dead Boss?

B&NES Coun­cil has man­aged to well and tru­ly shit on its work­ers once again through its recent adver­tise­ment of a new job role to fill. After cut­ting loose 70 staff in the last cou­ple months, and plan­ning at least anoth­er 300 job loss­es in the near future, the cre­ation of the new Head of Prop­er­ty post, with its wage pack­et of between £71,166 and £76,638 per year, tells those for­mer employ­ees exact­ly what the coun­cil thinks of them. The cre­ation of this man­age­r­i­al role could only hap­pen once the rank and file, who actu­al­ly do the work rather than just fan­ny around sack­ing peo­ple, had been let go. Set to man­age (i.e. leave them all board­ed up for years then flog) the coun­cil’s port­fo­lio of 1,000 build­ings, many in retail, worth more than £500 mil­lion, this has left union offi­cials furi­ous with the coun­cil chiefs. But here at the Bath Bomb, con­sid­er­ing the cal­i­bre of inhu­man slith­er­ings and evo­lu­tion­ary dead-ends infest­ing the rest of B&NES’s Prop­er­ty Ser­vices depart­ment, we won­der what sort of two-faced rep­til­ian abom­i­na­tion they’ll dredge up to fill that role, and which car­ni­val freak show will soon be miss­ing its star attrac­tion?

Bath Activist Net­work are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce the Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als and greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, e‑mail bathactivistnet[at]yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

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Gull War Syn­drome

There’s an epi­dem­ic going on! You may or may not have heard about the killer seag­ulls roam­ing the streets of bath. Or, EVEN WORSE the mur­der­ous fox­es patrolling EVERY CITY IN THE UK!!! look­ing for pets and chil­dren to eat. The nation­al press have brave­ly sol­diered on to warn the gen­er­al pub­lic of these men­aces, one Bath pho­tog­ra­ph­er took his life in his hands to get a pic­ture of the gull men­ace close up.

Bath land­lords are feel­ing the need to join brave vig­i­lante groups to oil the eggs and stop the demon spawn escap­ing. Unfor­tu­nate­ly these brave souls have neglect­ed to think about why wild ani­mals would chose to move into urban areas.

The only rea­son that wildlife can sur­vive in cities is our atti­tude to waste. Pigeons, gulls and fox­es all sur­vive on the dis­gust­ing amount of food waste scat­tered all over. ‘Gull pre­ven­tion mea­sures’ in one part of Bath sim­ply move the prob­lem to the next street. If home­own­ers, land­lords and the coun­cil made a con­cert­ed effort to get rid of the birds they could do so eas­i­ly. All it takes is to clean up our waste.

The dis­pos­able cul­ture we live in means that a huge amount is thrown out, a lack of ade­quate recy­cling facil­i­ties (along with pure lazi­ness on many peo­ples part) means that waste is left on our streets for days before being col­lect­ed. Along with ani­mals being able to sur­vive on all of this, it also pos­es risks to them. The fact that food waste, when not com­post­ed, is mixed in with oth­er rub­bish means that ani­mals are at risk of chok­ing, poi­son­ing, and numer­ous oth­er hor­ri­ble deaths — lead­ing to the sight of rot­ting corpses on our streets. Sure­ly not good for the tourists?

In order to ensure humans are kept away from this dan­ger­ous wildlife entire­ly, we need to make our cities unin­hab­it­able to these men­aces. Clean­ing up after your­self – rather than toss­ing the blame at any old scape­goat – should do it.

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From Our Unclothed Cor­re­spon­dent

“On Sun­day 13th June, I took part in the first prop­er ‘Bris­tol World Naked Bike Ride’, to protest against oil depen­den­cy, in favour of curb­ing car cul­ture and to have car- free Sun­days in the city and a cel­e­bra­tion of body free­dom. By rid­ing nude, pro­test­ers demon­strate the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of cyclists on the busy streets. It also feels good and lib­er­at­ing.

We met at the Full Moon pub, Stokes Croft, Bris­tol at 12 noon, and it was a love­ly hot sun­ny day so peo­ple start­ed strip­ping off before­hand in the beer gar­den, as you had to stay dressed inside the pub.

The ride head­ed off about 1pm, most of the cyclists were naked includ­ing myself, some were body-paint­ed, oth­ers had small cos­tumes on, it’s a clothes-option­al protest, but the more that are nude the bet­ter. There was no police pres­ence.

Spec­ta­tors lined  some of the route cheer­ing and enjoy­ing the event which went through Broad­mead, Cas­tle Green, the Cen­tre, Bald­win St, Old Mar­ket and Col­lege Green, where we stopped for a pho­to call before head­ing back to the Full Moon where many remained naked out­side until leav­ing late after­noon.

The protest was a great suc­cess, with good pho­tos on Bris­tol Indy­media, and the local press. The World Naked Bike Ride is an inter­na­tion­al event and this year there were rides in Lon­don, Brighton, Southamp­ton, York, Sheffield and­Man­ches­ter, it’s grow­ing. It’s also show­ing that there is noth­ing wrong with the human body and being a free spir­it.”

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Hit­ting The Books

Con­tin­u­ing with the cur­rent plug­ging craze, the Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair fol­lows hot on the Bath Veg­an Fayre’s heels, on Sat­ur­day 11th Sep­tem­ber. There is a def­i­nite growth of anar­chist and alter­na­tive book­fairs hap­pen­ing through the U.K. and abroad, which shows both increased co-oper­a­tion between dif­fer­ent anar­chist trends, and a grow­ing inter­est in find­ing an alter­na­tive to the fail­ures of cap­i­tal – not too sur­pris­ing, con­sid­er­ing the state our econ­o­my and plan­et is in! The event will fea­ture two floors of stalls, work­shops, books, zines, mer­chan­dise, and talks, plus a rad­i­cal his­to­ry zone, film room, creche and veg­an café. Tak­ing place at Hamil­ton House, 80 Stokes Croft in Bris­tol, from 10.30am to 6pm, the fair (they obvi­ous­ly did­n’t quite have the gump­tion to go with ‘fayre’) is free and acces­si­ble to all, and is guar­an­teed to open both eyes and wal­lets.

http://www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

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Don’t Think We’re Alone Now

For our Bris­tol read­ers, ‘The Auton­o­mist’, Bris­tol’s new rad­i­cal news sheet and direc­to­ry, is out now: get it online at http://www.bristolautonomist.blogspot.com!

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I Would Have Got Away With It Too, If It Was­n’t For You Hedd­lu Kids

The long-await­ed Welsh Cli­mate Camp/Climate Camp Cym­ru went into action on Fri­day 13th of this month, focus­ing once more on the pol­lut­ing evils of the coal extrac­tion indus­try, and set up near the Selar and Nant-Helen (due for expan­sion) open­cast coal mines, in Glyn-Neath in South Wales. Both mines are owned by Celtic Ener­gy. The Selar mine itself destroyed a Site of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est (SSSI) back in the 1990s, for added eco­cide – trash­ing vital marsh this­tles, and fail­ing to rehome the colony of rare marsh frit­il­lary but­ter­flies. For the camp itself, as with pre­vi­ous camps, a pos­i­tive agen­da of decen­tralised, renew­able pow­er sys­tems, com­mu­nal liv­ing, eco-action plan­ning and skill­share work­shops were all on the cards.

How­ev­er, the Welsh police put paid to all that the next day, pre­ma­ture­ly evict­ing the site and 30 or so activists present, draw­ing on a mas­sive out­lay of mount­ed police and at least 15 riot vans full. Maybe Fri­day the 13th was­n’t such a good day after all?

On relat­ed news, the 13 remain­ing defen­dants of April’s Ffos-y-fran coal train block­ade were con­di­tion­al­ly dis­charged at Merthyr Tyd­fil Crown Court on the Fri­day; the oth­er five had their charges dropped in July. A life­long restrain­ing order bar­ring them from the vicin­i­ty of Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion and the Ffos-y-fran mine hangs round their necks. They were greet­ed out­side court by more mount­ed police, two riot vans and the flash­es of BBC and ITV pho­tog­ra­phers. Ahh, the price of fame.

http://www.bristol.indymedia.org.uk/article/693181

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

Trashing, dashing, bashing, mashing: the new EF! Action Update

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

Maybe you’re in need of a break. But if you’re not, and are just champ­ing at the bit, the return of AUn­tie MIffy’s prob­lem page might help, address­ing what to do if there’s no local group near you. There’s an arti­cle about the begin­nings of EF! in this coun­try, look­ing for­wards to the next 20 years, to help inspire. If you need sup­port to get things going where you live, do get in touch. And if all that’s not enough, here’s a quo­ta­tion, from Paul Wat­son, the Sea Shep­herd cap­tain:

“Future gen­er­a­tions will not have the chance and those that came before us did not have the vision nor the knowl­edge. It is up to us — you and I.”

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