Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Yes, the new edi­tion of the Bath Bomb is final­ly ready. Sto­ries from the dark under­bel­ly of love­ly love­ly Bath. Or some­thing like that:

The Bath Bomb — @nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #9
free/donation
April 08

Diana Ver­dict: 10 Years On, Still Dead

Seat­tle Was A Riot…

Sun­day the 20th April at the Porter Cel­lar saw a screen­ing of ‘Break­ing the Spell’: an hour-long look at the 1999 Seat­tle WTO protests and the anar­chists who trav­elled there to set a new prece­dent for mil­i­tant con­fronta­tion. Show­ing from 1pm til 4, free admis­sion, with a prac­ti­cal and fresh look at the old debate of paci­fism ver­sus polit­i­cal vio­lence, the film cap­tured a moment when world his­to­ry was up for grabs. Look out for the next offer­ing from Bub­bling Under, 3rd Sun­day of the month, same time, same place, always free and always fun!

www.moles.co.uk
http://www.crimethinc.com/

EDOn’t Believe It!

That’s right folks, last month saw Bath Activist Net­work and Bath Stop the War Coali­tion illic­it­ly screen­ing a copy of the film the cops tried to ban in that shady den of crime and sub­ver­sion oth­er­wise known as the Quak­ers’ Friends Meet­ing House. The film was ‘On The Verge’, telling the sto­ry of a ded­i­cat­ed crew of Brighto­ni­ans who have near­ly suc­ceed­ed in shut­ting down a bomb-build­ing fac­to­ry after 4 years’ cam­paign­ing. They have suf­fered con­tin­u­al police har­rass­ment, with over 40 arrests so far, and the both­er did­n’t stop when they took their new film on tour. Obvi­ous­ly not hap­py with expos­ing us to the idea that we have the pow­er to change soci­ety, the police have been scur­ry­ing round the coun­try bul­ly­ing small venues to make them drop the film [telling one woman they would take away her exhi­bi­tion license if she dis­obeyed]. The same hap­pened in Bath — the Bell, our orig­i­nal venue, got a call from a sweaty-palmed worm of a human being named Alan Bartlett. Alan, act­ing under orders of his police over­lords had threat­ened the pub out of show­ing the film. Nev­er­the­less, the film went ahead to a packed the­atre, num­bers dou­bled due to the con­tro­ver­sy caused by police and coun­cil bul­ly­ing. The film was inspi­ra­tional and the night was a great suc­cess. And as for our inept, toady friend Alan, and the wannabe film crit­ics that con­sti­tute the thin blue line… I’m guess­ing they havn’y heard the last of this just yet!

Our next chance to stick it to EDO MBM will fall on the 4th of June at the ‘Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade’ in Brighton, where red will be this sea­son’s fash­ion. For more on the demo, film and cam­paign, check out www.smashedo.org.

Don’t Be A Fos­sil Fool

The 1st of April was declared ‘Fos­sil Fools Day’ this year, with 35 demon­stra­tions against gas, oil and coal com­pa­nies up and down the coun­try. Ffos-y-fran, near Merthyr Tyd­fil in Wales, is the site of the UK’s biggest open-cast coal mine, and, at only 36m away from the near­est house, is poten­tial­ly in breach of new envi­ron­men­tal health regs. Coal is the least effi­cient of fos­sil fuels, and with the spec­tre of cli­mate change risk­ing inno­cent lives the world over, activists from Bath, Bris­tol, Oxford and across Wales decid­ed to take a stand. Or at least a nice lie down. Whilst some dis­rupt­ed the site of the mine itself, oth­ers block­ad­ed near­by Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion on the 3rd, owned by RWE npow­er, which process­es the coal from Ffos-y-fran, and pro­duces 7.4 mil­lion tonnes of Co2 a year. It also has a shock­ing dis­re­gard for health and safe­ty, work­ers revealed, fol­low­ing a death at work last June. From 5.30 am, 15 blocked the main access route with 4 locked-on to con­crete-filled suit­cas­es [!], 8 blocked the back road, and 2 scaled machin­ery. Oper­a­tions were screwed for up to 8 hours, with no vehi­cle access, mass tail­backs, and 50 staff get­ting a free day off! 15 were even­tu­al­ly dragged away for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass, but the mes­sage was clear­ly sent: prof­it from cli­mate change, and you will have to pay!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6746429.stm
www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk
www.stopffosyfran.co.uk

Bris­tol and Bath Rail­way Path: The Truth and the Rumours

First, the rumour that Bris­tol City Coun­cil were plan­ning to sup­port the devel­op­ment of part of the Bris­tol-Bath Cycle Path with a rapid trans­port bus route leaked out. Spec­u­la­tion fol­lowed that the mature trees cut down at Lawrence Hill had already been felled in prepa­ra­tion for the work. The wide­ly report­ed sto­ry that the scheme was to be shelved turned a protest ride along the pro­posed route from Fish­ponds to Col­lege Green into a mas­sive, colour­ful cel­e­bra­tion. 1,500 attend­ed this good-natured romp and parade in the spring sun­shine — an unprece­dent­ed turnout for a local issue. Among them were three march­ing bands, a ped­dle-pow­ered train, a mobile ‘con­sul­tan­cy wag­on’ — oh and not for­get­ting a sin­gle glad­i­a­tor. This was despite yet anoth­er rumour that the ral­ly had been can­celled! Every­one wants bet­ter pub­lic trans­port but to dis­place the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly com­muters and trav­ellers — cyclists and walk­ers — and destroy the only green cor­ri­dor for wildlife in East Bris­tol is ludi­crous. The plan direct­ly threat­ens Sus­trans most suc­cess­ful cycle path which has been their show­case route since it was ful­ly opened in 1986. Their response is that the bus rapid tran­sit route is ‘the right idea in the wrong place’. Yes, we need to tempt peo­ple out of their cars with big­ger, faster, stronger, cheap­er, more reli­able and inte­grat­ed pub­lic trans­port. On land the (usu­al­ly sin­gle-occu­pant) pri­vate car is the most inef­fi­cient means of trans­port­ing indi­vid­u­als from A to B imag­in­able.

As I write the coun­cil meet­ing to decide the fate of the plan is sched­uled for Tues­day 1st April. It is now con­fi­dent­ly pre­dict­ed that coun­cil­lors will scrap the pro­pos­als. How­ev­er, rumours abound among scep­ti­cal con­stituents that the plans might reap­pear at a lat­er date when the media spot­light is off the issue. Trans­paren­cy and scruti­ny? We’ll be watch­ing every move.

www.railwaypath.org

Human Free­dom, Ani­mal Rights…

We run a lot of ani­mal rights sto­ries in this hum­ble rag, and are often asked to jus­ti­fy their point: there’s more impor­tant things, aren’t there? With the anti-foie gras cam­paign, beyond the cru­el­ty of force-feed­ing water­fowl till they burst, what about the health impli­ca­tions of eat­ing dis­eased liv­er, no mat­ter the posh nom de plume? There are 2 nation­al anti-vivi­sec­tion demos this month, in Oxford on the 19th, and Hor­sham on the 26th [World Day for Lab Ani­mals!]: with no sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies ever being tak­en into the rel­e­vance of ani­mal test­ing results for human med­i­cine, and med­ical drug side effects being the fourth biggest killer in the UK, big phar­ma is lob­by­ing hard to put prof­it before lives. Meat and dairy-based diets are being increas­ing­ly linked to can­cer, heart dis­ease and dia­betes, whilst live­stock pro­duc­tion caus­es defor­esta­tion, high methane emis­sions, mass star­va­tion, water pol­lu­tion and short­ages: so the envi­ron­ment is stuffed, too. Blood­sports are intrin­si­cal­ly linked to land enclo­sure and wealth inequal­i­ties, as well as being bar­bar­ic. And then when you add on repres­sion in the UK, with ani­mal rights activists going down for years on trumped charges and ridicu­lous new laws com­ing out every year, then wor­ries about a police state become more and more valid… So, it’s not just all about fluffy bun­nies and pup­pies. FFI on local ani­mal rights activism, con­tact bathanimalaction@yahoo.co.uk.

Bath Activists Have Crack­ing Time In Chip­pen­ham

We here at the Bath Bomb are delight­ed to announce the open­ing of Chip­pen­ham’s newest squat­ted social cen­tre — the 78. The fol­low­ing account detail­ing the occu­pa­tion of the new cen­tre was recieved anony­mous­ly: “After being con­tact­ed by squat­ters in Chip­pen­ham, sev­er­al Batho­ni­ans made the rail trip to the town to see what was hap­pen­ing. The build­ing they had in mind is a love­ly old bun­ga­low with loads of poten­tial and real­ly friend­ly neig­bours. It had not been lived in for 30 years, but that did­n’t make get­ting in easy. After try­ing sev­er­al doors and win­dows, we came across a slight­ly chipped win­dow, giv­ing us enough room to use a twig to unhook the latch from the inside! Once in, we got busy chang­ing the locks and tidy­ing up the rooms and gar­den. The place had obvi­ous­ly been left in a hur­ry, as 1970’s tins of mushy peas and sar­dines greet­ed us in the ful­ly-stocked kitchen! The space is open to all and oper­ates a no-smok­ing, drink­ing or drugs pol­i­cy. Some of the projects to be run from the squat include com­mu­ni­ty gar­den­ing, peo­ple’s edu­ca­tion nights, free shops, dona­tion-based din­ner evenings and much more. The 78 should be up and run­ning soon, so keep your eyes peeled. We are only 10 min­utes by train from Chip­pen­ham and trains run past mid­night most nights — Bath Activist Net­work are look­ing for­ward to many nights of fun, food and edu­ca­tion in our new local squat, so why not get down there and check it out for your­self?”

Fight War, Not Wars

On 15th March activists from Bath joined a 40,000-strong demon­stra­tion in Lon­don against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the repres­sion of the Pales­tini­ans and a pos­si­ble attack on Iran. It is now five years since the coali­tion invad­ed Iraq on a lie. Since then, hun­dreds of British and Amer­i­can troops and thou­sands of Iraqis and Afghans have been killed or injured. Tor­ture, repres­sion and ill-treat­ment have become com­mon­place. Loads of mon­ey that could have been bet­ter spent on hos­pi­tals, schools, ben­e­fits and pen­sions have been wast­ed on the war. At home, due to ‘the war on ter­ror’, polit­i­cal, legal and civ­il rights built up over many years are being erod­ed by the state. War crim­i­nals Bush and Blair con­tin­ue their careers with no apol­o­gy for the death and desturction they have caused. If the coali­tion states like Israel, Britain and the USA attack Iran, march­es, strikes and direct action must be the answer by the peo­ple, the major­i­ty who have been against these mur­der­ous mil­i­tary adven­tures from the out­set.

To join the local Stop the War group, you can attend the vig­il out­side the front of the Abbey every Sat­ur­day 11.30–12.30

Squat’s All The Fuss About?

What do you think of when some­one says ‘squat­ter’? Chances are, the stereo­types of drug-fuelled, spe­cial brew swill­ing free­load­ers pops to mind, but this could­n’t be fur­ther from the truth. The prin­ci­ple behind squat­ting is sim­ple — good build­ings should not be left to rot while peo­ple have a use for them. As a rule, most squat­ters will only ‘crack’ a build­ing that has been emp­ty for some time, and is not in use. For exam­ple, Bath’s last three squats were the for­mer Stothert and Pitt site, a church that had been dis­used for three, and a shop near the pump rooms that had been dis­used for at least as long. The lat­ter two both oper­at­ed drink and drug-free poli­cies and pro­vid­ed com­mu­ni­ty rescources such as free shops, cheap food, free film nights and much more. Impor­tant­ly, they also pro­vid­ed peo­ple with a much need­ed place to live. This coun­try has a proud tra­di­tion of squat­ting, from the Dig­gers in 1649, to the poor fam­i­lies of Bath and Cor­sham who moved into desert­ed army bar­racks in the 1940’s.

Squat­ting is not about rip­ping peo­ple off or giv­ing any­one a hard time (except maybe cor­rupt coun­cil­lors, scum­my land­lords and prop­er­ty devel­op­ers) — it is about turn­ing unused build­ings into valu­able com­mu­ni­ty resources, tak­ing them from the devel­op­ers and spec­u­la­tors, and giv­ing them back to the peo­ple they belong to — all of us. Now for the legal bit! Squat­ting IS legal, so long as you fol­low some very sim­ple guide­lines. You MUST NOT cause crim­i­nal dam­age when enter­ing the build­ing. You must have sole access to the build­ing, so fit­ting your own locks is a must, and you should def­i­nite­ly have at least one per­son in the build­ing at all times, as, in the case of squat­ting, pos­ses­sion is very much 9/10ths of the law. When the land­lord finds you, he may try to get a Pos­ses­sion Order. Once this has been giv­en, it is ille­gal to stay in the build­ing, but if you pick the right place, that may not hap­pen for years, if ever. http://squat.net/

50 Years And Still Fight­ing

On the 24th March, Bath CND and Bath Stop The War Coali­tion hired a coach to join 5,000 pro­test­ers to cel­e­brate the 50th anniver­sary of the birth of CND. With this also being the anniver­sary of the first march to the nuclear facil­i­ty AWE Alder­mas­ton, they sur­round­ed the base by peace­ful­ly link­ing hands. Before the sur­round­ing of Alder­mas­ton, there was a ral­ly with guest speak­ers, includ­ing Vivi­enne West­wood, MPs Jere­my Cor­byn and Car­o­line Lucas, Bruce Kent, and CND Chair Kate Hud­son. The demo con­sist­ed of old, mid­dle-aged and young. There were some vet­er­ans from the very first march back in 1958, where 4,000 gath­ered in Lon­don on the cold­est week­end in mem­o­ry, for a 600-strong march to the site, brav­ing the snow. Fifty years on and some say ‘what has changed?’ Well, now the major­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion are opposed to nuclear weapon­ry rather than it just being a minor­i­ty view, and the Cold War is over. This year’s protest went well, leav­ing the perime­ter fence strung with mes­sages, com­mu­ni­cat­ing our dis­may at the mad­ness of the Gov­ern­men­t’s plans to renew the Tri­dent nuclear weapons sys­tem, flush­ing £5 bil­lion down that par­tic­u­lar drain.

Foie Gras News

The foie gras saga con­tin­ues with Beau­jo­lais in Chapel Row tar­get­ed for sell­ing the dis­eased liv­er of force-fed ducks. Sat­ur­day 29 March saw 5 activists brav­ing the rain, armed with leaflets and a peti­tion of over 500 sig­na­tures to get the vile stuff banned by Bath Coun­cil. The ami­able co-own­er of Beau­jo­lais stat­ed that she’d heard the eth­i­cal argu­ments but would con­tin­ue to sell it. When the police turned up and she realised we weren’t about to bug­ger off, she claimed to have stopped sell­ing it (despite the web­site list­ing). Chang­ing her sto­ry sev­er­al times with­in the space of half an hour, she lat­er told us she’d put it on the menu “just for us.” Nice lady, bit con­fused. Fol­low­ing the demo, a state­ment was post­ed on their web­site claim­ing that they only sell ‘faux foie.’ Make up your mind, woman!

www.banfoiegras.com/page.php?module=sustained&article_id=27>
www.ciwf.org.uk/campaigns/other_campaigns/exotic_foods.html>

EVENTS

Mon­day nights — Bath Hunt Sabs Meet­ing, 8pm, Bell
Wednes­days 4–7pm — Lon­don Rd Food Co-op, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre
Sat­ur­days 11.30am-12.30 — Bath Stop The War Vig­il, Abbey Court­yard
23rd April, tbc — Anti-sweat­shop demo, 2.30pm til 5pm, Top­shop in Bath
25th April, 9.30pm-4am — Ben­e­fit gig for Bris­tol No Bor­ders & Bris­tol Antifa, New Trin­i­ty Hall, Trin­i­ty Road, Bris­tol £7 entry
26th April, 11am — Nation­al SHAC demo, Hor­sham Park, Hor­sham, W Sus­sex
29th April, 7.30pm — ‘Bath: An Eco-City?’ debate, Bath Abbey
1st May, 7.30–9pm — Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, down­stairs at Hob­gob­lin
3rd May, tbc — Anti foie-gras demo, con­tact bathanimalaction@yahoo.co.uk
7th May, 7.30–8.30pm — Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, back­room of Bell
10th May, 12–3pm — Bath Freeshop, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street
11th May — Bath Ani­mal Action info stall, out­side Pump Rooms

For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries see www.myspace.com/bathbomb

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Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request.

Q: Who Are Bath Activist Net­work? A: 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, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute to this newslet­ter, 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…

—

update on Chip­pen­ham squat — April 24, 2008

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, on Mon­day, the would-be social cen­tre ‘the 78’ was evict­ed on a rushed through Inter­im Pos­ses­sion Order…