Category: Transport

Roll Back The Tracks Bike Ride

What do you need to bring?

– bicy­cle 🙂
– bicy­cle pan­niers
– tent, sleep­ing mat and sleep­ing bag
– headlamp/flashlight
– pow­er bank for charg­ing elec­tron­ics
– bot­tles for car­ry­ing drink­ing water
– a seal­able tup­per­ware for car­ry­ing food and eat­ing out of, mug and cut­lery
– toi­letries and med­ica­tion
– clothes to stay warm and dry
– first aid kit
– a basic cycle repair kit if you have one
– ban­ners and flags to attach to your bike! (no XR ban­ners please)
– cash for dona­tions for food.
We are look­ing into con­tin­u­ing the bike ride along the sec­ond leg of the pro­posed route from Birm­ing­ham to Leeds from the 20th to rough­ly the 27th of August. For this leg, you will also need:
— camp­ing stove & gas
— cook­ing equip­ment

Camping Sites

We have tried where pos­si­ble to get per­mis­sion to use camp­ing sites. How­ev­er, in some places we will be tres­pass­ing, and as such, facil­i­ties will be min­i­mal. We have select­ed places that we feel are suit­able to camp for the nights of the 15th-19th.
On the night of the 20th, we will be wild camp­ing in a park in Brum cen­tre, and from then on, wild camp­ing in loca­tions that we have not yet vis­it­ed, and there­fore we can’t guar­an­tee they will be bril­liant places to camp.

Food & water

On the first leg of the ride from Man­ches­ter to Birm­ing­ham, we will have a cater­ing team fol­low­ing us in a vehi­cle. With vol­un­teer sup­port from us, they will pro­vide one cooked, veg­an, evening meal each day, and pro­vide the ingre­di­ents for us to make our own break­fast and packed lunch­es.
Vol­un­teers in the kitchen will need to wear a face mask and observe phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing.
Dona­tions for food are great­ly appre­ci­at­ed, though no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.
On the sec­ond leg, we will NOT be catered for, so if you are cycling from Brum to Leeds, you will need to buy your own food and cook for your­self.
Most of the camp­ing sites have run­ning water near­by. How­ev­er, you need to have at least 2 1L drink­ing bot­tles with you on the ride, and to fill them up when­ev­er pos­si­ble on route to camp­sites. Stay hydrat­ed!

Toilets

At some of the camp­sites, there are toi­lets. Where there are not toi­lets, we will have a bike trail­er toi­let cubi­cle in tow, and a spade. Col­lec­tive­ly, we will have to dig a pit for every­one to poo in. If the idea of poop­ing in a pit gross­es you out, then make sure you use pub­lic toi­lets on route.

Checking your bike is ready to join Roll Back the Tracks

Lots of dif­fer­ent bikes can make this trip, but it needs to be in good work­ing order.

Please make sure you have at least one water bot­tle hold­er on your bike. You also need to think about how you will car­ry your lug­gage. You need either a pan­nier rack bolt­ed to your bike frame to car­ry pan­nier bags with your belong­ings, or you’ll need to bring bike pack­ing bags to car­ry lug­gage direct­ly on the frame. Please don’t come with a back­pack of all your stuff, you will be sweaty and uncom­fort­able quick­ly. Full sus­pen­sion moun­tain bikes are not rec­om­mend­ed.

If you don’t cycle reg­u­lar­ly, or you are bor­row­ing a bike for the trip check that the bike fits – take it for a test ride of a few hours to see how com­fort­able it is. You need to be able to stand over the frame with­out it touch­ing you between your legs and be able to com­fort­able reach the han­dle­bars and brakes.

Check your brakes

Rim brakes (the brakes act on the metal circular part of your wheel)

• pull on the brakes one at a time to ensure that they can stop the bike
• check there is plen­ty of rub­ber across the whole of all the pads (espe­cial­ly if your brakes are noisy)
• check that the brakes just touch onto met­al and not onto the rub­ber of the tyre
• check that when you pull the brake lever (the part in your hand when rid­ing) the lever does­n’t touch the han­dle­bars.

Disk brakes

• Check that the front and the back brake stops your bike (rather than when both are pressed at the same time).
• Check the rotary wheel is straight and firm­ly attached.
• If the brakes are ring­ing you need to get them adjust­ed.

Wheels

• Check that quick release wheels are prop­er­ly tight­ened. You should be able to read the word ‘closed’ when they are;
• oth­er­wise, check that wheel nuts are tight, espe­cial­ly if you remove your front wheel.
• Clean the brak­ing sur­face if you have rim brakes – use wash­ing up liq­uid in water and a rag.
• Check the tyres are ful­ly inflat­ed. The pres­sure is writ­ten on the side of your tyre.
• Check the tyres still have a pat­tern across the sur­face and do not bulge.
• Check that the brakes haven’t rubbed a grove in the rub­ber of the tyre.
• Check that the wheel runs in a straight line – do this by lift­ing one end of your bike and push­ing the wheel round fast, it should move smooth­ly and not rub.
• Look at your wheels to ensure all the spokes are there and squeeze them in pairs to check they are of a sim­i­lar tight­ness.

Frame

• Make sure there are no cracks or big dents in the frame.
• Check the bolts attach­ing mud guards, water bot­tles and the pan­nier rack are all tight.
• Can you move the han­dle­bars flu­id­ly?
• Could they be too loose? Put the front brake on, turn the front wheel 90 degrees and then see if the front of the bike rocks if you push for­ward on the turned han­dle­bar. If so, it needs tight­ened.

Gears

• Look at your chain and every­thing it touch­es. Dirty? It real­ly is worth­while using an old tooth brush to clean each link and con­tact point before re-apply­ing oil to each link and then remov­ing any excess with a rag.
• Move the ped­als and ensure they can freely turn round com­plete­ly.
• Check that the bike can go into all of its gears. There are going to be hills, so you’ll need a range of gears.

Got a creaking bike?

Can you work out where it is com­ing from? If stand­ing up to ped­al makes it stop check your sad­dle, if it is worse when you ped­dle hard it is like­ly your bot­tom brack­et.

Got a prob­lem with one or more of these areas? If yo don’t know how to fix it find a friend who does or take it to an inde­pen­dent bike shop – but watch out they may not be able to do this at short notice.

Please bring a spare inner tube with you in case you get a punc­ture, the size is writ­ten on the side of your tyre. If you don’t know how to change a flat tyre still bring a spare inner tube and we can fix it togeth­er.

Hav­ing a ful­ly work­ing bike is your respon­si­bil­i­ty.
We are meet­ing togeth­er on the 14th at Rye­bank Fields Protest Camp in Man­ches­ter to check bikes. Please bring a bike which is in full work­ing order as we may sad­ly have to ask you not to come if you’re bike isn’t up to the job and we can’t get parts to fix it.

How can you help?

• Know of any­where we (max 50 rid­ers) could sleep in the fol­low­ing areas?
◦ North Cheshire
◦ Birm­ing­ham Cen­tre (ide­al­ly near Dig­beth)
◦ West Leices­ter­shire
◦ Sheffield
◦ Leeds
• Involved in a crit­i­cal Mass or cycling group in Brum, Not­ting­ham, Sheffield or Leeds? Help us organ­ise some cyclists into a crit­i­cal mass!
• Have you got a bike sound sys­tem you could bring on part of the ride?
• Do a work­shop on route. Sing a song round the camp­fire.
• Get cre­ative and make some flags or ban­ners for our bikes!
• Vol­un­teer in the kitchen.
• Tow the bike trail­er toi­let for a few hours.
• Spare some change? We are try­ing to raise 2000 pounds to fund the project. can you help either by donat­ing or shar­ing? Here´s the link to the crowd­fun­der:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/roll-back-the-tracks

Drop us an email on rollbackthetracks@riseup.net to RSVP or for more info.

 

Ende Gelände #breakfree2016 action round-up

Between 13–15 May 2016 more than 3,500 peo­ple took part in a huge series of Ende Gelände (lit­er­al­ly: ‘here & no fur­ther’) direct actions to shut down Europe’s biggest source of CO2 emis­sions, fol­low­ing a cli­mate camp.

Between 13–15 May 2016 more than 3,500 peo­ple took part in a huge series of Ende Gelände (lit­er­al­ly: ‘here & no fur­ther’) direct actions to shut down Europe’s biggest source of CO2 emis­sions, fol­low­ing a cli­mate camp.

The Wel­zow-Süd open­cast coal mine in the Lusa­tia coal fields in Ger­many was shut down and the pow­er plant Schwarze Pumpe – Europe’s 10th largest emit­ter of CO2 – was cut off from all coal sup­plies.

Ende Gelände: Day 1 - Climate activists shut down one of Europe's largest opencast lignite mines

Many entered the mine, oth­ers blocked coal trains and con­vey­or belts trans­port­ing coal to the pow­er plant. Swedish ener­gy com­pa­ny Vat­ten­fall reduced the pow­er plant’s capac­i­ty by 80 per cent. After more than 48 hours, the activists stopped the block­ade on Sun­day 15 May 2016.

The mass action Ende Gelände (‘here and no fur­ther’) demands an end of coal now.

Pic­tures: 1 | 2 | 3

More info

Next Ger­man cli­mate camp in the Rhineland (note clash with EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing)

 

Attacking UK’s coal transport system — Severing the lines that feed the machine

Sev­er­ing the lines that feed the machine is not impos­si­ble. When peo­ple take up civ­il upris­ing in the UK, if peo­ple are able to shove their oblig­a­tions to one side to open up an avenue, they main­ly have the abil­i­ty and pos­si­bil­i­ty to be able to grasp their will for some­thing new.

Sev­er­ing the lines that feed the machine is not impos­si­ble. When peo­ple take up civ­il upris­ing in the UK, if peo­ple are able to shove their oblig­a­tions to one side to open up an avenue, they main­ly have the abil­i­ty and pos­si­bil­i­ty to be able to grasp their will for some­thing new. The war is not over when those moments stop, it sparks up in lit­tle rap­tures here and there, show­ing that we are not crushed, things can be brought to a grind­ing halt again, even for a split sec­ond.

It just takes a few bright spir­its and we see it clear, when the smug con­fi­dence of author­i­ties is knocked, a few pins get hit out and things can be seen in a dif­fer­ent light. Out of synch and off bal­ance, every­thing no longer appears struc­tural­ly sound, life feels more up for grabs.

The new hori­zon peaked through our cloudy day, Sun­day 6th March, and we hope this uncom­pli­cat­ed act of sab­o­tage we have under­tak­en expos­es the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of their com­plex matrix.

We took a risk assess­ment and as night just start­ed to close in we entered the 1st rail­way tun­nel, we cut both lines with a portable disc cut­ter, we did­n’t imag­ine de-rail­ing a loco­mo­tive but wreck­ing dis­rup­tion and eco­nom­ic dam­age (time is mon­ey). We entered a 2nd and did a fur­ther two cuts, mark­ing them all with pink paint, and leav­ing a ban­ner as a warn­ing.

The line in ques­tion runs through the Avon Gorge from Roy­al Port­bury Dock over from Avon­mouth, it’s freight only (no pas­sen­gers), 70% of the UK’s import­ed coal for pow­er gen­er­a­tion comes through these docks. This line is a bot­tle-neck to the coun­try’s dis­per­sal. Most of it from USA where they blow apart moun­tains to get it out and Rus­sia from the Shor and Teleut ances­tral lands laid waste in Siberia, also places like Indone­sia which dri­ve back the forests for sprawl­ing mines and plan­ta­tions. That’s to keep fac­to­ries run­ning and city lights on, when we’ve got a feel­ing for escap­ing the work pris­ons and regain­ing the stars. Oth­er loads car­ried on the line include con­struc­tion aggre­gate and new built vehi­cles on their way to the show room. More high-speed train­lines are com­ing to the UK, more roads, more ancient wood­land and wildlife wiped out in the fren­zy of progress.

After see­ing the firey activ­i­ties against the coal flow in the Ham­bach for­est of Ger­many since New Years — don’t give up the fight!, or the cut­ting of the coal belt in Scot­land some years back by per­sons unknown when the bat­tles against coal min­ing raged, we realise we’re not orig­i­nal. It’s not even the first time for eco-sab­o­tage ambush­es on that line from Port­bury or the trou­ble­some car­go, over the years. We see attacks fol­low­ing attacks on train­lines in dif­fer­ent coun­tries, it’s with­in reach to hin­der the cir­cuits pow­er­ing the giant, we just have to har­ness our courage, keep an eye peeled for soft spots, maybe start­ing small but always dream­ing big. Right now we’re read­ing about eco­nom­ic dam­age this month from train­line sabo­teurs in the north of Spain, we affirm our sol­i­dar­i­ty and respect too for the anar­chists there with show­case court cas­es or police atten­tion oth­er­wise, we laugh to hear about the row­dy spir­its that keep up when repressed for the fight to reject domin­ion. Maybe the sparks kicked up in the train tun­nels even reflect­ed over the Alps and beyond to light the sky for those in dark cells for try­ing to stop high-speed cap­i­tal­ism and also its nano-world tech­nolo­gies.

Join­ing our strength with the near and dis­tant tribes, refusal and attack! Block the flows, up the fight­ers!

Toward a life that’s wild and free from coal, quar­ries, cars or cops. Avon Gorge sab­o­tage group “Sand In The Gears”, sign­ing out.….

Plane Stupid kick off Red Lines COP21 direct action

The main road entrance to Heathrow air­port, Lon­don, was blocked by cli­mate change activists for four hours ear­ly on Thurs­day morn­ing, caus­ing a traf­fic tail­back sev­er­al miles long.

The main road entrance to Heathrow air­port, Lon­don, was blocked by cli­mate change activists for four hours ear­ly on Thurs­day morn­ing, caus­ing a traf­fic tail­back sev­er­al miles long. Three mem­bers of anti air­port expan­sion cam­paign group Plane Stu­pid parked a vehi­cle across both lanes of the inbound tun­nel and locked their bod­ies to it, unfurl­ing a red ban­ner quot­ing David Cameron’s elec­tion promise: “No Ifs, No Buts: No Third Run­way”. David Cameron has promised a deci­sion by the end of the year on whether to build anoth­er run­way at Heathrow.

This action rep­re­sents an ear­ly entry for the Cli­mate Games, send­ing a clear mes­sage to the UK gov­ern­ment that expand­ing avi­a­tion is a no-go for the cli­mate; were it to go ahead the UK would undoubt­ed­ly miss its emis­sions tar­gets as set out under the 2008 Cli­mate Change Act.

Nor will avi­a­tion expan­sion ben­e­fit the major­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion or busi­ness­es, as is often claimed. The demand for air­port expan­sion is being dri­ven by rich fre­quent  fly­ers. Last year, less than half of peo­ple in Britain flew. Of those who did, a mere 15% of fly­ers took 70% of our flights. As well as noise and air pol­lu­tion, poor peo­ple are pay­ing the price in droughts, flood­ing and storms so that the rich can cook the plan­et with fre­quent leisure flights. Whilst we might hope that David Cameron might live up to his pre-elec­tion promise — “no ifs, no buts, no third run­way” — we can’t rely on it. Part­ly after being forced to take non-vio­lent dis­obe­di­ent action where all oth­er options were exhaust­ed, we stopped a third run­way before and we’ll stop it again this time too.

#Red­Lines

At the COP21 talks this year in Paris, the theme for the mass day of action on Decem­ber 12th (D12) is Red Lines. These block­ades will rep­re­sent lines that can­not be crossed if we are to stay with­in the 2C rise in glob­al tem­per­a­tures. Fail­ure to stay with­in this thresh­old will take us down a road where even if we reduce emis­sions to zero, feed­back loops will mean that emis­sions will con­tin­ue to rise: cli­mate chaos.

In real­i­ty there are many Red Lines we should not cross, but gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions seem intent to do so. In the UK this includes the avi­a­tion indus­try, which if it con­tin­ues to grow at its cur­rent rate will by 2050 emit all of the car­bon it is safe for the UK to emit. Beyond this, oth­er red lines that are close to being crossed nation­al­ly include increas­ing uncon­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuel extrac­tion through frack­ing and a government’s ‘dash for gas’ to build pow­er sta­tions rather than renew­ables. Inter­na­tion­al­ly, there are sim­i­lar con­cerns as well as a clear need to stop lig­nite coal min­ing in Ger­many and the Tar Sands in Alber­ta, Cana­da. Whilst there are many such exam­ples of indus­tries that can­not con­tin­ue, over­all the sci­ence dic­tates that the fos­sil fuel indus­try must tran­si­tion to renew­ables and most of the car­bon must be kept in the ground.

Beyond the Paris con­fer­ence

Unlike the cli­mate talks in Copen­hagen, many activists are going to Paris with low expec­ta­tions. We know that the heads of state and busi­ness lead­ers won’t come up with a sat­is­fac­to­ry deal to pre­vent cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe. Nao­mi Klein writes in ‘This Changes Every­thing’ that cli­mate deals always come in sec­ond place to trade deals as cor­po­rate prof­it and per­pet­u­al eco­nom­ic growth are ide­o­log­i­cal­ly untouch­able in our neolib­er­al era. With this in mind, the aim for many activists is to see the Paris talks as a way for us all to net­work between strug­gles and to show on day 12 that if our ‘lead­ers’ won’t do it, then we can stop cli­mate chaos  our­selves. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, with the recent events in Paris, march­es have been banned out of fears over safe­ty, which may mean that our mobil­i­sa­tions might not be as big or as effec­tive as we hoped.

How­ev­er, giv­en that we know that the solu­tions to the cli­mate cri­sis won’t come from the COP, let’s see this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty rather than a prob­lem. Let’s get out and take action wher­ev­er the real #Red­Lines are: the dirty fos­sil fuel indus­tries, the unsus­tain­able, unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic mega-projects. #Cli­mateGames starts tomor­row. In this game we have noth­ing to lose but our fears. We have our whole futures to win. Ask­ing our ‘lead­ers’ to solve our prob­lems has left us with the hottest years on record, year after year.  We are the solu­tion we’ve been wait­ing for.

We are not fight­ing for nature. We are nature defend­ing itself.

Earth First! Summer Gathering, August 2015

Update: see earthfirstgathering.org for an inspir­ing and excit­ing pro­gramme and more.

Excit­ing plans are tak­ing shape.  Get involved by com­ing along to the EF! Win­ter Moot in Bris­tol.

Email: sum­mer­gath­er­ing AT earthfirst.org.uk

Update: see earthfirstgathering.org for an inspir­ing and excit­ing pro­gramme and more.

Excit­ing plans are tak­ing shape.  Get involved by com­ing along to the EF! Win­ter Moot in Bris­tol.

Email: sum­mer­gath­er­ing AT earthfirst.org.uk

Earth First! Winter Moot (Bristol): 20th-22nd February 2015 /full programme

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want­i­ng to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

Shar­ing sto­ries, skills, tac­tics, updates & analy­ses of the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal move­ment

Cost scale £20 to £30 . This includes full veg­an meals and accom­mo­da­tion. Arrive Fri­day evening (pro­gramme starts at 7pm), leave Sun­day (ends by 4pm). It will be an indoor floor sleep­ing space so bring a warm sleep­ing bag and mat to…

Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre 14 Robert­son Road Eas­t­on Bris­tol BS5 6JY
Train—To Sta­ple­ton rd , two stops from Bris­tol TM then 7min walk —

Earth First! is a net­work of peo­ple and cam­paigns who fight eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and the forces dri­ving it. We believe in non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing of Direct Action, to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants. EF! is not a cohe­sive group or cam­paign, but a con­ve­nient ban­ner for peo­ple who share sim­i­lar philoso­phies to work under and doing it our­selves rather than rely­ing on gov­ern­ments or indus­try.

For info or offers southwest.earthfirst@riseup.net www.earth­first.org.uk

Down­load the (ready-to-print) fly­er

 

Pro­gramme sub­ject to change:

Starts 7pm Fri­day with din­ner, fol­lowed by films & an intro to EF!

On Sat­ur­day, break­fast is before the 9:30am start with cam­paigns round-ups and legal & secu­ri­ty work­shops.  After lunch we’ll be look­ing at strate­gic think­ing (see below) and at 5 explor­ing the rela­tion­ship between Reclaim the Pow­er and EF!

On Sun­day we’ll con­tin­ue those explo­rations from 10am.  After lunch, there’ll be a work­shop on sus­tain­able activism, and a chance to get involved in organ­is­ing the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing.  Please stay for that if you can and get involved. 

 

Work­shops include:

“Intel­li­gent Resis­tance: strat­e­gy and its imple­men­ta­tion in the mod­ern world”

Sum­ma­ry: Strong strat­e­gy has always been a key ele­ment of suc­cess­ful resis­tance move­ments. Whether it be the anar­chist move­ments of rev­o­lu­tion­ary Spain, or the con­tem­po­rary fight against frack­ing, a sol­id strat­e­gy is proven to be indis­pens­able.‘Intel­li­gent Resis­tance’ is a basic intro­duc­tion to strate­gic thought and action and looks to pro­vide those in atten­dance with a prac­ti­cal set of the­o­ret­i­cal tools to take away and apply to their own move­ments and prac­tice.

“Sus­tain­ing Resis­tance: avoid­ing ‘Burn out”

This is a taster work­shop from a much longer ten day work­shop and offers a range of tools, col­lec­tive and per­son­al, which can make our activism more effec­tive and help us avoid burn out stay­ing in for the long haul.

Reclaim the Pow­er meets Earth First!”

How can Earth First! and Reclaim the pow­er coex­ist in the future strug­gles and is there a need for col­lab­o­ra­tion between oth­er camps or a con­sol­i­da­tion of resources?

Legal Defence Mon­i­tor­ing:

A taster ses­sion in how to be an effec­tive LDM on actions and demos.

Cam­paigns go-round:

Dates for your diary and what resis­tance is going on around the world and your back yard..

Earth First! Summer Gathering 2014 — exact location & other practicalities added

Updates: Exact loca­tion has been releas­es — see here. 

Trav­el - book your trav­el to Cas­tle Cary or Bru­ton train sta­tion, then it’s a bus jour­ney and 20 minute walk.

Updates: Exact loca­tion has been releas­es — see here. 

Trav­el - book your trav­el to Cas­tle Cary or Bru­ton train sta­tion, then it’s a bus jour­ney and 20 minute walk.

Bus times are : 8.14am — 9.44am — 11.44am — 12.33pm — 2.14pm — 4.33pm (last bus).  There’s no Sun­day ser­vice so we will timetable a shut­tle bus to return.

Cycling: Bru­ton is bet­ter if you are cycling as it is a mile short­er, and there is also a bus from there too. The last bus from here leaves lat­er.  (Bus times from Bru­ton are: 9:09am — 10:39am — 12:12pm — 1:39pm — 3:54pm — 5:39pm)

We will post the exact address three weeks before the gath­er­ing.

Refresh­ments — ‘This year there is no bar on site. Peo­ple are wel­come to bring their own but we ask that there’s no drink­ing before dinner/7pm. Any­one caus­ing a nui­sance or break­ing our Safer Spaces pol­i­cy will be asked to stop and/or leave. There will be a cafe & snack bar on site.’

Dogs — ‘This year dogs are wel­come, but please get in touch in advance, and keep them on a lead at all times on the site.’  Fur­ther info

—————-

28th-31st August 2014, in the South West.…

A place for peo­ple involved in rad­i­cal green direct action to come togeth­er.…
to talk.…share skills.…learn.…listen.…play.…rant.… find out whats going on.…
scheme.…live outdoors.…hang out.…laugh.…
expe­ri­ence non hier­ar­chi­cal, low impact, fam­i­ly friend­ly liv­ing.

An activist camp that spans 5 days and con­sists of a pro­gramme of work­shops through­out each day facil­i­tat­ed by peo­ple like you and me who think they have a skill or a lev­el of knowl­edge in a sub­ject that is valu­able to share with oth­ers to improve their activism.

Is this camp for you?  Whether you’re just start­ing out in the world of direct action or you’re an old (glued and paint-stained) hand at it, you’re wel­come here.

More info here

Action dates & gatherings now working again!

The action dates and protest gath­er­ings page is once again work­ing!  Apolo­gies, we acci­den­tal­ly delet­ed it!

If there’s any eco­log­i­cal actions that are open­ly adver­tised, protest camps or cam­paign gath­er­ings, that you want to add to it, do it through the sub­mit report link and in the sub­ject, make it clear it’s to add to the cal­en­dar.  Thanks.

The action dates and protest gath­er­ings page is once again work­ing!  Apolo­gies, we acci­den­tal­ly delet­ed it!

If there’s any eco­log­i­cal actions that are open­ly adver­tised, protest camps or cam­paign gath­er­ings, that you want to add to it, do it through the sub­mit report link and in the sub­ject, make it clear it’s to add to the cal­en­dar.  Thanks.

anarchists claim string of fires in east bristol

Just before sun­rise this morn­ing we launched a tar­get­ed arson spree along Glebe Road — which meets the main east Bris­tol thor­ough­fare of Church Road — and burned out cor­po­rate, lux­u­ry, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and hunt-scum vehi­cles.

Just before sun­rise this morn­ing we launched a tar­get­ed arson spree along Glebe Road — which meets the main east Bris­tol thor­ough­fare of Church Road — and burned out cor­po­rate, lux­u­ry, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and hunt-scum vehi­cles. Wild­fire in the arter­ies of the city-prison! To break the lie of social peace and inten­si­fy the hos­til­i­ties!

Emer­gency ser­vices were too slow to catch the respon­si­ble as the emp­ty street was bright­ened from end to end as by torch­es. In a few words, the select­ed vans and cars were active com­po­nents of the life they rep­re­sent and also enforce.

Vir­gin Media sup­ply tele­vi­sion and also inter­net, and a nation­al fibre optic cable net­work. To keep us enmeshed in the mod­ern infor­ma­tion econ­o­my and the spec­ta­cle of celebri­ties, video games and adver­tis­ing is their busi­ness. Destroy what domes­ti­cates and stu­pe­fies us!

A car as fan­cy as a Quat­tro is an extra spit in the face for the prop­er­ty-less as well as the earth. In wealthy areas or parts under­go­ing gen­tri­fi­ca­tion they’re com­mon­place, in Eng­land as in Argenti­na, Syd­ney as in Berlin, and there to be picked off at our leisure.

BWS’s secu­ri­ty vehi­cle in ash­es is one less to aid their task across the UK of keep­ing the haves from the have-nots by threat or force and of expand­ing the matrix of sur­veil­lance cam­eras we pass under hun­dreds of times in a day. Min­ions of the estab­lished order have cho­sen their side! Insur­rec­tion­al action against the con­structs of author­i­ty above us, around us, with­in us.

Either an active fox hunter or a sup­port­er and pro­mot­er of killing wild ani­mals sole­ly for enter­tain­ment — either way, own­er of a heavy-duty 4x4 bear­ing pro-hunt stick­ers — got their incen­di­ary gift too. Some call blood­sport uncivilised, but it’s real­ly per­fect­ly reflec­tive of the dis­dain for the non­hu­man, upper class enti­tle­ment and also cross-class col­lab­o­ra­tion which is the basis and con­tent of civil­i­sa­tion. Let’s make the rich and their ter­ri­er-boys the hunt­ed, let’s harass them in city or coun­try­side.

This deed coin­cid­ed with the call for col­lec­tive action in sup­port of our caged broth­er G. Pom­bo da Sil­va (Spain), who’s resist­ing his forced trans­fer to a max­i­mum secu­ri­ty mod­ule. Hope­ful­ly our flam­ing regards will also make it through the prison bars to the wan­der­ing she-wolves A. Trudeau and F. Rouiller along with com­pa C. ‘Chi­vo’ López (Mex­i­co) — they all face charges over Molo­tov attacks against State and Cap­i­tal­ism. We’re also think­ing of the unnamed ani­mal lib­er­a­tion fight­er who pros­e­cu­tors have tried to link to the anar­chist paper Upprors­Bladet (Swe­den) and the co-con­vict­ed who also had the sense to stay silent before the cops. While A. Cospi­to and N. Gai, G. Iaco­v­ac­ci and A. Antonac­ci will all be tried next on July 4th, we take aim to light up their jail cells with the warmth of our sol­i­dar­i­ty. Pris­on­ers to the streets, run­ning wild and free!

ABOUT THE ACCUSED IN BRISTOL
We learned from the scum-press news­pa­pers that ear­ly on June 12th an indi­vid­ual was stopped in their vehi­cle by police in the Bradley Stoke area and sus­pect­ed of going equipped to com­mit a crime, then arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of four counts of arson. This was in the con­text of four coor­di­nat­ed sab­o­tages in the days before which took down many phone sig­nals and also radio ser­vices — all of which had already been claimed by Live Wires, FAI/ELF, as report­ed in the scum-press and car­ried by anar­chist counter-infor­ma­tion pages (although hid­den once again by the mod­er­a­tors of Bris­tol Indy­media).

After the resound­ing silence so far from the local anar­chist move­ment, the first thing we want to state is that — although none of our­selves, our wider net­work or fleet­ing affini­ties know who this per­son is or any­thing about their sym­pa­thies or com­plic­i­ties — the repres­sive move by the State aims to dis­cour­age sim­i­lar actions and we will not stand com­pla­cent. Either police made an uncon­nect­ed arrest in efforts to shed some of the crit­i­cism they’ve come under in the region­al and nation­al media for fail­ing to stem the flow of anar­chist attacks in their area, in which case it was a fruit­less provo­ca­tion as action con­tin­ues, or that indi­vid­ual real­ly did set out to some­how fight the sys­tem that night — sin­gu­lar­ly, in the con­text of decen­tralised infor­mal groups open to any­one such as FAI or ELF, or anony­mous — in which case they’re a poten­tial com­rade and we would defend them as such.

It seems for now that police have lit­tle inter­est in the arrest­ed indi­vid­ual as accord­ing to the scum-press they’re out on bail after ques­tion­ing, but we call on any­one with more infor­ma­tion to release it if they see fit. Mean­while, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the live wires and who­ev­er shares their moti­va­tions to do the same!

Infor­mal anar­chist federation/Earth lib­er­a­tion front
Rogue fire brigade.

Three More Vehicles Sabotaged in Italy’s No TAV Struggle

14th June We receive from anony­mous mail and trans­mit:

“Genoa—In the night of 3rd June 2 exca­va­tors and 1 con­crete mix­er were sab­o­taged at the Ter­zo Val­i­co Erzel­li yard.

To stop it is up to us

To stop it is pos­si­ble

Let’s sab­o­tage every­thing

No TAV Ter­zo Val­i­co”

 

14th June We receive from anony­mous mail and trans­mit:

“Genoa—In the night of 3rd June 2 exca­va­tors and 1 con­crete mix­er were sab­o­taged at the Ter­zo Val­i­co Erzel­li yard.

To stop it is up to us

To stop it is pos­si­ble

Let’s sab­o­tage every­thing

No TAV Ter­zo Val­i­co”

 

[See this arti­cle for more info on the No TAV move­ment]