Category: Transport

Caltrans Case Against Tree Sitter Dismissed

Falcon-300x274 10th June Long-stand­ing tres­pass charges against Mark Her­bert, aka “Fal­con,” who perched in an old oak tree in April, 2013, above the hill west of High­way 101 that Cal­trans is now

Falcon-300x274 10th June Long-stand­ing tres­pass charges against Mark Her­bert, aka “Fal­con,” who perched in an old oak tree in April, 2013, above the hill west of High­way 101 that Cal­trans is now exca­vat­ing for soil to con­struct the much-protest­ed Willits Bypass, where he observed and report­ed on devel­op­ments, were dis­missed entire­ly on May 29th by Judge Ann Moor­man in Uki­ah Supe­ri­or Court. Fal­con was charged with tres­pass 602K, “enter­ing any lands, whether unen­closed or enclosed by fence, 1) for the pur­pose of injur­ing any prop­er­ty or prop­er­ty rights or with the inten­tion of inter­fer­ing with a law­ful busi­ness…”

The Dis­trict Attor­ney told the court that no one had sub­poe­naed the CHP offi­cer from the Spe­cial Weapons and Tac­tics unit who super­vised the arrest of Her­bert, the wit­ness who was sup­posed to tes­ti­fy. Unlike oth­er tree sit­ters, includ­ing War­bler, the young woman whose orig­i­nal tree sit sparked the Bypass protests, Her­bert was not extract­ed by force, but agreed to come down when request­ed to do so.

Herbert’s attor­ney, Ed Den­son, said “Judge Moor­man indi­cat­ed the case was almost a year old and she dis­missed it. The CHP inves­ti­ga­tion was very per­func­to­ry and it should have been clear to the inves­ti­gat­ing offi­cer that Her­bert had com­mit­ted no crime. The evi­dence shows that no inten­tion on Herbert’s part to inter­fere with any law­ful busi­ness or occu­pa­tion. “

Den­son elab­o­rat­ed: “Herbert’s case dif­fered from that of all the oth­er tree sit­ters, but the CHP failed to note that. Their report said his tree was north of 101, but the videos clear­ly show it was on a hill well south of 101 out of the con­struc­tion area. No one from Cal­trans or the CHP had even come to his site to ask him to come down until the day he was arrest­ed by a team of 24 offi­cers. He then vol­un­tar­i­ly descend­ed from the tree. It was clear that his pur­pose in doing the tree sit was to be a wit­ness to the events occur­ring across the high­way dur­ing the CHP block­ade of the media pre­vent­ing report­ing on the extrac­tion of the sit­ters. Her­bert was a spokesper­son for the effort to save the val­ley while the oth­ers were pre­vent­ed from con­tact with the pub­lic. Had the CHP thought things through, the tax­pay­ers could have saved thou­sands of dol­lars.”

The D.A. had almost a year to pre­pare and still was not ready to pros­e­cute the case. A ral­ly to sup­port Her­bert and fel­low activist Will Par­rish was held on the cour­t­house steps at noon. Par­rish, who writes for the Ander­son Val­ley Adver­tis­er, stopped work on the Cal­trans Bypass for more than eleven days last June and July by occu­py­ing a wick drain tow­er on the north end of the project, lead­ing final­ly to his arrest and the arrests of sev­er­al oth­er activists try­ing to sup­ply him with food and water denied him by CHP offi­cers on site.

Parrish’s hear­ing on resti­tu­tion demand­ed by Cal­trans in the amount of $150,000 has been post­poned to July 17. Assis­tant Dis­trict Attor­ney Sequiera said the case has become con­fus­ing and he is insist­ing now that Cal­trans sup­ply their own lawyer to appear in court on the case, which will also be over a year old by the time of the hear­ing.

Sabotage on the High Speed Railway Track Bologna-Milan

luogo_sa2 4th June From the local media we learn that in the night between 19th and 20th May, cop­per and fibre optic cables were cut along the high speed rail track in Bologna, and two cock­pits were

luogo_sa2 4th June From the local media we learn that in the night between 19th and 20th May, cop­per and fibre optic cables were cut along the high speed rail track in Bologna, and two cock­pits were set on fire. In the area graf­fi­ti NO TAV were left.

From the press we learn that over 40 high speed trains were delayed up to 30 min­utes, and con­se­quent­ly also a dozen local trains were delayed.

luogo_sa3

Nantes, France: Call for a Demo and Decentralized Solidarity Actions Against Repression of the Anti-airport Movement

17-mai8th May 2014 On Feb­ru­ary 22nd, 2014, more than 50,000 peo­ple gath­ered in Nantes for the biggest anti-air­port demon­stra­tion ever.

17-mai8th May 2014 On Feb­ru­ary 22nd, 2014, more than 50,000 peo­ple gath­ered in Nantes for the biggest anti-air­port demon­stra­tion ever. As it was declared ille­gal by the pre­fec­ture, it quick­ly faced stun­ning repres­sion; hun­dreds of over-armed cops sur­round­ed the demo while a huge anti-riot wall blocked the cen­tral street of the city (le cours des 50 otages). It was the first time in Nantes’ social strug­gles his­to­ry that a demo couldn’t pass by there. Politi­cians and media talked about “loot­ings” and “dev­as­ta­tions”, deplor­ing the vio­lence after a group of demon­stra­tors attempt­ed to walk the orig­i­nal route.

How­ev­er, the Pow­er and its accom­plices failed to men­tion the extreme feroc­i­ty in the crack­down on this demon­stra­tion. On Feb­ru­ary 22nd, hun­dreds of peo­ple were hurt by police weapons. At least three of them lost an eye from rub­ber-bul­let shots. A lot of peo­ple breathed tear gas, were shak­en up from stun grenades, or wound­ed from dis­per­sion grenades, or repulsed by water can­nons.

 

A few weeks lat­er, on March 31st, media exul­tant­ly declared a first “drag­net” fol­low­ing a spe­cial police force’s inves­ti­ga­tion. Nine com­rades had their hous­es searched and were arrest­ed in the ear­ly morn­ing. Two of them were imme­di­ate­ly released, as one of them was not even in Nantes on the day of the demon­stra­tion. Four oth­ers couldn’t pre­pare their defense since they were sent to the court through the imme­di­ate arraign­ment pro­ce­dure. Sen­tences are as heavy as the records are emp­ty: indeed, the only real evi­dence the pros­e­cu­tion had were the con­fes­sions of the accused. Three of them have been con­demned to prison terms with­out remis­sion. Dur­ing this par­o­dy of a tri­al, judge Tchalian did not hes­i­tate to dou­ble the prosecutor’s req­ui­si­tions and put our com­rade Enguer­rand direct­ly in prison. One year in prison with­out remis­sion for some stones and smoke cans.

The pur­pose of the repres­sion from police and the jus­tice sys­tem that the anti-air­port move­ment is now fac­ing is only to ter­ror­ize those who revolt and start fight­ing against capitalism’s hold on our liv­ing spaces. It is to psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly touch a social move­ment, to muti­late and incar­cer­ate some of us to reach all the oth­ers. The sen­tences and muti­la­tions of the 22nd of Feb­ru­ary are not only an appli­ca­tion of laws or peace­keep­ing techniques—they are deeply polit­i­cal. This real state ter­ror­ism express­es clear­ly what must be expect­ed for those who resist.

Today, Enguer­rand, Quentin, Damien, Emmanuel, Philippe, J. and G. are its vic­tims. It could have been any one of us. Accord­ing to the State and its so-called jus­tice, tak­ing part in a demon­stra­tion is suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy the loss of an eye or a prison term.

We shouldn’t step back as we are fac­ing such vio­lent repres­sion. By doing so, we would only prove their case. The best sup­port we can give to our wound­ed and incar­cer­at­ed com­rades is to keep on fight­ing. Our strug­gle has nev­er been so pow­er­ful, and we have nev­er been so close to real­iz­ing a future with­out con­crete. More than ever, we must keep on fight­ing and not give any­thing up in the strug­gle against the air­port and the world that pro­duces it.

Against the assas­sin Pow­er that muti­lat­ed and incar­cer­at­ed, we have a weapon that it can­not take back. In a let­ter, on April 8th, Enguer­rand stat­ed: “The strength of activist sol­i­dar­i­ty can­not be defeat­ed,” and indeed, we agree. Actions in sup­port of those wound­ed and accused in the strug­gle have already been diverse and numer­ous, mod­eled on the diver­si­ty with­in the move­ment. Infi­nite are the poten­tial actions. Orga­nize a con­cert or a fundrais­er to finan­cial­ly sup­port the accused and their fam­i­lies. Call for a demon­stra­tion (“peace­ful­ly hel­met­ed”? —a ref­er­ence to the “Flash­balles” song) to express revolt against police crimes. Cov­er the walls with paint­ed slo­gans or posters to make sure that no one ignores what is hap­pen­ing…

Every ini­tia­tive is wel­come to bring reas­sur­ance to our com­rades and remind the Pow­er of our rage and deter­mi­na­tion. Against the con­niv­ing silence of the media spec­ta­cle, we can only rely on our­selves to make “jus­tice” a mean­ing­ful word again. We strong­ly encour­age every sol­i­dar­i­ty action against repres­sion of the anti-air­port move­ment, no mat­ter whether it hap­pens in Nantes or any­where else, today or any­time.

No jus­tice, no peace!
Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the wound­ed and the accused!
No to the air­port and its world!

DEMONSTRATION Sat­ur­day, May 17th, 2014 at 3pm – Nantes pre­fec­ture

To write to the sup­port com­mit­tee for Enguer­rand or to sign this call: soutien.enguerrand(at)riseup.net

BREAKING THE FRAME

A GATHERING ON THE POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY

2nd — 5th May 2014

Unstone Grange, Der­byshire

YOU NEED TO BOOK ‑SEE BELOW

Organ­ised by Lud­dites 200, Cor­po­rate Watch, and Sci­en­tists for Glob­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty

A GATHERING ON THE POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY

2nd — 5th May 2014

Unstone Grange, Der­byshire

YOU NEED TO BOOK ‑SEE BELOW

Organ­ised by Lud­dites 200, Cor­po­rate Watch, and Sci­en­tists for Glob­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty

Tech­nol­o­gy can bring some ben­e­fits for ordi­nary peo­ple, but its devel­op­ment is almost entire­ly con­mtrolled by cor­po­rate, mil­i­tary and tech­no­crat­ic elites, so it usu­al­ly serves their inter­ests and rein­forces their pow­er.

The pol­i­tics of food, ener­gy, work, gen­der, peace, eco­nom­ics, health, etc are all shaped by choic­es about tech­nol­o­gy made by those elites. The whole way our soci­ety devel­ops is mas­sive­ly influ­enced by tech­nol­o­gy, yet ordi­nary peo­ple nev­er have a prop­er say in it.  We’re always left react­ing to the tech­nocrats’ lat­est plan, whether it’s drones, inter­net sur­veil­lance, GM food, frack­ing, design­er babies or nuclear pow­er.

We think all these issues are linked. So it’s time for a more joined up and more proac­tive approach, one which address­es the root caus­es of prob­lems and is not lim­it­ed by the dog­ma that tech­nol­o­gy equals progress.

  • We want to cre­ate a new pol­i­tics of tech­nol­o­gy based on bring­ing togeth­er the insights of dif­fer­ent move­ments and learn­ing from each oth­er.
  • We want a human-scale tech­nol­o­gy that serves real human needs, not cor­po­rate bot­tom lines.
  • We want demo­c­ra­t­ic con­trol of tech­nol­o­gy.

An world fac­ing envi­ron­men­tal melt­down and mas­sive inequal­i­ty ‑both caused byb 200 years ofn indus­tri­al cap­i­tal­ism- needs bet­ter solu­tions than more dan­ger­ous tech­no-fix­es such as cli­mate engi­neer­ing.

Whether you’re a tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics cam­paign­er, trade union­ist, envi­ron­men­tal­ist. altech devel­op­er, artist or just plain con­cerned, BREAKING THE FRAME IS NOT TO BE MISSED.

YOU NEED TO BOOK

www.breakingtheframe.org.uk      

email: luddites200@yahoo.co.uk

(020) 7426 0005

Accom­mo­da­tion is either in the con­fer­ence cen­tre OR camp­ing (which is cheap­er).  The con­ces­sion­ary rate for camp­ing is £36, which includes all meals for 4 days (it’s a bank hol­i­day week­end).

BUT if £36 is more than you can man­age, we’re com­mit­ted to mak­ing sure nobody is left out for lack of mon­ey.  So get in touch now.  Rich peo­ple can make extra dona­tions, of course!

Cycling guerrillas in Olomouc

Writ­ten for Edin­burgh Crit­i­cal Mass.

Writ­ten for Edin­burgh Crit­i­cal Mass.

My home­town Olo­mouc is a stu­dents´ city in Moravia, in the east of the Czech Repub­lic. The city has about hun­dred thou­sand res­i­dents and is locat­ed in the flood­plain of the Mora­va Riv­er. The flat ground makes the city ide­al ter­rain for cycling, but a major obsta­cle for cyclists is insuf­fi­cient sup­port­ing cycle infra­struc­ture. Often a seg­re­gat­ed cycle path will sud­den­ly ter­mi­nate at a bus stop or a pave­ment. With dis­con­tin­u­ous cycle lanes and absent inter­con­nec­tions rid­ing through the city cen­ter is a frus­trat­ing expe­ri­ence. Some town „squares“ are actu­al­ly road junc­tions or park­ing spaces in prac­tice so they need renam­ing. Uhel­ná Street is renamed to Uhel­né car park in the pic­ture below.

A local senior cycling advo­ca­cy group called Olo­moučtí kolaři demand­ed improve­ments to the cycling infra­struc­ture from the city coun­cil. Their voic­es had not been heard for many years. In ear­ly 2011 an open group of young cyclists inspired by Crit­i­cal Mass decid­ed to make demands for the infra­struc­ture loud­er and they ini­ti­at­ed grass­roots bike rides. I dare to say that it was the first case of reg­u­lar bike rides orga­nized non-hier­ar­chi­cal­ly in the Czech Repub­lic. Bike rides in oth­er Czech cities (Prague, Brno, Ostra­va, Pilsen) and gen­er­al­ly in the East­ern Europe are com­mon­ly called “Crit­i­cal Mass“, but they are orga­nized in a dif­fer­ent way than in most Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries. Czech bike rides are for the most part orga­nized by envi­ron­men­tal or cycling NGOs; routes of bike rides are well planned in col­lab­o­ra­tion with police and often politi­cians and even cor­po­ra­tions par­tic­i­pate on events. Hence these actions can attract much more peo­ple. For exam­ple „Prague Crit­i­cal Mass“ orga­nized by group called Auto*mat attracts about 5 000 cyclists two-time per year (April and Sep­tem­ber) and dozens of par­tic­i­pants in oth­ers months. In Olo­mouc we decid­ed to devel­op more anar­chist and spon­ta­neous style rides with­out for­mal orga­niz­ers.

   

The first Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride hit the streets of the city on the last Thurs­day of March 2011. Have a look at this video show­ing more than twen­ty cyclists cel­e­brat­ing non-motor­ized traf­fic.

This one was the first of many. Since then Olo­mouc Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides took place on the last Thurs­day of each month. The meet­ing point was in front of the dor­mi­to­ry on the play­ground in Šmer­alo­va Street, and cyclists used to assem­ble at 6:00 pm and start at 6:15 pm. Usu­al­ly 15 – 50 cyclists par­tic­i­pat­ed in a bike ride, but some­times espe­cial­ly dur­ing sum­mer hol­i­days there were only about three cyclists at the meet­ing point. In this case they often aban­doned the ride and decid­ed on an alter­na­tive plan. Sim­i­lar­ly from Decem­ber to Feb­ru­ary Crit­i­cal Mass­es did not hap­pened because of unfriend­ly weath­er dur­ing win­ter months.

In May 2012 a local group of Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al joined in with the Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride in a sym­bol­ic protest against oil extrac­tion in Nige­ria by Shell. One of three Shell petrol sta­tions in the city was closed for a short time (pho­to below).

In April 2013 about 50 cyclists who were in a good mood were stopped by police offi­cers at one of high streets in the city (pho­to below). They asked for orga­niz­ers, but after a while con­fused offi­cers left the scene and Crit­i­cal Mass went ahead.

After one year of Crit­i­cal Mass­es, a dif­fer­ent style of cycling action appeared. Unknown push­ers mod­i­fied five bill­boards adver­tis­ing cars into pro-cycling and anti-car mes­sages. Adbusters spread a wit­ty on-line man­i­festo stat­ing that the action was done in protest over occu­pa­tion of streets and squares by four-wheeled vehi­cles. Thanks to social media the man­i­festo was read by many thou­sands. One of the bill­boards (pho­to below) stat­ed: Death is cool — 2 549 dead on roads dur­ing two years.

Over the course of time it became obvi­ous that Olo­mouc Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides were attract­ing just a dozen or so cyclists and it was most­ly an enjoy­able event for a bunch of friends. It can be seen as a suc­cess for just that, but it most like­ly didn´t make enough pres­sure on the city coun­cil. Also the few altered bill­boards might not change a lot on the streets. This may explain why more pow­er­ful and empow­er­ing actions have devel­oped. Why should we wait for build­ing new facil­i­ties by author­i­ties if we can do it by your­self? This ques­tion could have been asked by those who made con­crete ramps up to high kerbs for cyclist at dif­fer­ent places across the city in sum­mer 2012. Besides spread­ing a procla­ma­tion of full of crit­i­cism about city coun­cil inac­tiv­i­ty, anony­mous activists had start­ed to do some­thing more tan­gi­ble for cycling.

In the sum­mer of 2013 oth­er cycling facil­i­ties appeared in the city. The first was dec­o­rat­ed home made cycle racks at a guer­ril­la gar­den in the city cen­ter in June. This instal­la­tion inspired oth­er activists who bought and posed cycle racks on pub­lic space in front of a new­ly opened shop­ping cen­ter in Sep­tem­ber. See the pho­tos of cycle racks at the guer­ril­la gar­den and in front of the shop­ping cen­ter.

A love­ly instance of direct action was car­ried out by cycling guer­ril­las who paint­ed 30 meters of miss­ing cycle lane in a park. They inter­con­nect­ed a cur­rent cycle path and a street road. The anony­mous painters used an orig­i­nal paint spe­cif­ic for hor­i­zon­tal road signs and as far as I know the cycle lane has still not been over­laid by com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices, hence it is still in oper­a­tion for more than half a year. Before the cycle lane was paint­ed police offi­cers had penal­ized cyclists at that stretch, but now that does not hap­pen any­more. Now cyclists pass through with­out fear of get­ting fines in July 2013 (pho­to below). Again the cre­ators spread an on-line com­mu­nique which crit­i­cized author­i­ties about cycling infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment in the city.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly Olo­mouc Crit­i­cal Mass­es stopped in sum­mer 2013 and since this time bike rides have not been hap­pen­ing because the per­son that was the most active burned out. But that is the risk of infor­mal hier­ar­chy. In any case whether there are rides or not there is still a com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple around Olo­mouc Crit­i­cal Mass who still meet with each oth­er for open com­mu­ni­ty veg­an din­ers, dump­ster div­ing, guer­ril­la gar­den­ing, food not bombs events, and oth­er activ­i­ties. Seeds are sowed and there are many who can hold the baton. Hope­ful­ly Olo­mouc Crit­i­cal Mass will be res­ur­rect­ed in a spring.

 Yours fel­low mass­er from Czech

Earth First! Direct Action Manual Is Ready for Print

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al. To sup­port this pub­li­ca­tion, pre­order your copy or donate today.

After sev­er­al years in devel­op­ment, the Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al is ready to go to press. A group of front­line activists has assem­bled over 300 pages of dia­grams, descrip­tions of tech­niques and a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the role direct action plays in our cam­paigns in defense of the Earth.

We are now in a three-week fundrais­ing cam­paign to ensure that this crit­i­cal book gets out to peo­ple who can use it. You can pre­order your copy and get some extra thank you gifts for your ear­ly endorse­ment by donat­ing today. More impor­tant­ly, though, we have offered a chance for you to help us spread this knowl­edge. Every dona­tion over $50 gives you the chance to send a free copy of the man­u­al to a cam­paign of your choice. The more you give, the more man­u­als we can put in the mail.

The man­u­al will be print­ed in the com­ing month with long­time Earth First! part­ner, The Gloo Fac­to­ry. This com­mu­ni­ty-mind­ed, union print shop has sup­plied Earth First! and its affil­i­ates with stick­ers and mer­chan­dise for decades and remains com­mit­ted to using a high stan­dard for recy­cled and reclaimed mate­r­i­al, as well as sup­port­ive work­er con­di­tions.

The man­u­al was first print­ed near­ly two decades ago and has been out of print since its ini­tial dis­sem­i­na­tion. Though many of the con­sid­er­a­tions for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and inter­ven­tion have remained tried and true, new ele­ments have altered the ways we put these tac­tics into action. The Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al will con­tin­ue the role of safe and effec­tive actions in stop­ping the destruc­tion of the plan­et.

Sup­port this effort today!

Reclaim the Power gathering 8–9 February

After an incred­i­ble day of idea gen­er­a­tion and vision­ing at the last gath­er­ing, it’s time for con­crete pro­pos­als and deci­sions about our next steps.


Loca­tion: Oxford
Time: Sat­ur­day 8th Feb­ru­ary 11am ­­– Sun­day 9th 4pm
Address: TBC
Crash Space/Social: Pro­vid­ed. Fur­ther details TBC.
Meals: Pro­vid­ed, dona­tion cost TBC
Trav­el Pool: Avail­able. Please book trav­el tick­ets in advance so that this can sup­port the most peo­ple.
Notes from Man­ches­ter Vision­ing Day are here: http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3

In ear­ly Decem­ber a large num­ber of peo­ple came togeth­er to dis­cuss the rad­i­cal visions they had for the future – visions that Reclaim the Pow­er, as a net­work, could help bring about.

It was a very open day of dis­cus­sion with a clear struc­ture, but with no pre-planned agen­da. Every­thing we talked about was gen­er­at­ed by par­tic­i­pants, and a huge num­ber of dif­fer­ent ideas were placed on the table.

So what next? Well, the idea is that all of that dis­cus­sion feeds into a month of cre­ative pro­pos­al mak­ing before the next gath­er­ing. This will be a space for short and medi­um-term deci­sion mak­ing where we work out what we’re doing in the next few months – and how this fits in with long term visions.

Rough pro­pos­al area groups formed at the Decem­ber gath­er­ing, includ­ing:

1. How to chal­lenge cor­po­rate pow­er
2. Move­ment and diver­si­ty
3. Ener­gy and fos­sil fuels
4. Pos­i­tive solu­tions

If you would like to link up with these groups and input into pro­pos­als for next steps, just con­tact info@nodashforgas.org.uk and you will be put in touch with a group con­tact.

This said, all pro­pos­als are wel­come! If you’re work­ing on your own, out­side these groups, then great. The more ideas the bet­ter.

The pro­pos­al dead­line is the 31st Jan­u­ary 2014. Please try and fol­low this rough four point list when writ­ing them, as it is essen­tial that all the pro­pos­als be con­sid­ered on an equal foot­ing.

1. What is it?
2. How does it link to long-term strate­gic aims?
3. Time­line?
4. Resources need­ed? (inc, peo­ple, costs, skills)

Spe­cif­ic venue and agen­da details to fol­low soon. In the mean­while, please check http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3 to see the dis­cus­sions and out­comes of the last agen­da.

See you soon,

RTP Gath­er­ings Team

info@nodashforgas.org.uk

 

Earth First! Winter Moot 7–9 March 2014: programme up

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want 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.

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want 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.

Evening Fri­day 7th — after­noon Sun­day 9th March 2014, Not­ting­ham

Cost scale £20 to £30. This includes full veg­an meals and accom­mo­da­tion.

It will be an indoor floor sleep­ing space so bring a warm sleep­ing bag and mat. Train to Not­ting­ham then tram to Bea­cons­field street– walk to the end turn right on to Glad­stone St — 245 Glad­stone St, Not­ting­ham NG7 6HX — www.earthfirst.org.uk

Full map/travel details

For offers of help or ques­tions email themiddle@earthfirst.org.uk

 

Programme

Friday

16.30–17.30 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop
17.30–18.30 Film

18.30 Din­ner

20.00 Ben­e­fit Gig

Saturday

8.30–9.30 Break­fast
9.30–10.45 Intro go round of cam­paigns

10.45–11.00 Break

11.00–12.00 Future of Earth First Part 1
12.00–13.00 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop

13.00–14.00 Lunch

14.00–14.30 Lush/fundraising work­shop
14.30–18.15 Cam­paign Work­shops (tim­ings to be finalised to include Frack­ing, Nuclear, Roads and Coal)
18.15–18.30 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing han­dover

18.30 Din­ner
20.00 DJ??

Sunday

9.00–10.00 Break­fast fry up
10.00–10.30 Tidy up of venue
10.30–11.30 Feed­back go round
11.30–12.30 Future of Earth First Part 2
12.30–14.00 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Plan­ning (and time of oth­er work­shops to run in par­al­lel)

14.00–15.00 Lunch
15.00 End

Bath — arson at car showroom

8th of Jan­u­ary — incen­di­ary device on delay left at Kia car show­room, Low­er Bris­tol Road, Bath. Dam­age to the build­ing facade. A brand new 4‑x-4 and three cars also con­sumed by the flames. A direct attack on exploita­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries who prof­it from chok­ing our world, who also make sta­tus sym­bols for our class ene­mies.

8th of Jan­u­ary — incen­di­ary device on delay left at Kia car show­room, Low­er Bris­tol Road, Bath. Dam­age to the build­ing facade. A brand new 4‑x-4 and three cars also con­sumed by the flames. A direct attack on exploita­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries who prof­it from chok­ing our world, who also make sta­tus sym­bols for our class ene­mies. This sec­tion of the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion has them in our sights.

With the cops cleared of the exe­cu­tion of Mark Dug­gan that start­ed the riots of 2011, as good a time as ever to re-ignite the streets.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the ene­my, the 32 year old man arrest­ed for the action has no rela­tion to our group.

Active sol­i­dar­i­ty with:
- the stir­rings of new strug­gle against road build­ing pro­grams in the UK (traces of which we saw in Combe Haven), specif­i­cal­ly with the ones who won’t take the path of lib­er­als and paci­fists next time
- Swiss anar­chist Mar­co Camenish (who is on hunger strike and refus­ing work since the 30th of Decem­ber) and also infor­mal anar­chist pris­on­ers Alfre­do Cospi­to and Nico­la Gai in Italy
- Hen­ry Zegar­run­do (who we recog­nise as a kin­dred spir­it through his let­ters) tar­get­ed by the Boli­vian pros­e­cu­tors, those on the run, and the anar­chist and indige­nous peo­ples still fight­ing the high­way devel­op­ment

Peren­ni­al Resis­tance ELF-FAI

Bris­tol — Tolu­ca — Jakar­ta — Moscow — Buenos Aires — Mel­bourne — keep the fires burn­ing

CHP Removes Willits Bypass Protester from Tower

3 July 2013 An envi­ron­men­tal pro­test­er who had been perched 50 feet up a piece of con­struc­tion equip­ment out­side Willits for more than a week has been removed a

3 July 2013 An envi­ron­men­tal pro­test­er who had been perched 50 feet up a piece of con­struc­tion equip­ment out­side Willits for more than a week has been removed and arrest­ed by the CHP.

Will Par­rish, 31, of Uki­ah was arrest­ed Mon­day after being cut loose from a lock­ing device he had con­nect­ed to one of two 100-foot wick-drain installers being used on the High­way 101 bypass project out­side Willits.

The $210 mil­lion bypass is being built to skirt the city of Willits, where traf­fic reg­u­lar­ly slows to a crawl as High­way 101 nar­rows to two lanes through down­town. Pro­po­nents say it’s nec­es­sary to reduce traf­fic con­ges­tion and restore the city’s small-town feel. Oppo­nents say it is a cost­ly and ugly mis­take that will hurt streams and fish­eries and increase flood­ing.

Parrish’s protest had pre­vent­ed the wick-drain installers from oper­at­ing since June 20. Work resumed on Tues­day, Cal­trans said.

More than 30 arrests have been made among pro­test­ers since April.

On Mon­day, CHP offi­cers, act­ing on a request from Cal­trans, which owns the prop­er­ty, used cher­ry-pick­er-type lifts to reach Par­rish.

“We had a team go up and first made sure he was OK and didn’t need med­ical atten­tion,” said CHP Capt. Jim Epper­son. “After we were sure he was OK, we hydrat­ed him — gave him some Gatorade.”

Offi­cers then cut his lock­ing device and brought Par­rish down.

He and anoth­er pro­test­er, Aman­da “War­bler” Sense­man, were arrest­ed on tres­pass­ing charges, Epper­son said. Sense­man sat in a tree for two months ear­li­er this year as a protest against the bypass.

Cal­trans spokesman Phil Fris­bie said Par­rish was “putting him­self and oth­ers at risk and delay­ing con­struc­tion by tres­pass­ing.”

“And with the ongo­ing hot weath­er fore­cast­ed, we are also con­cerned about his health and safe­ty,” he said.

Protest leader Fred­die Long said one tree-sit­ter remains in an ash grove north of where Par­rish was perched. So far, that per­son hasn’t been con­front­ed, Long said.

The 5.9‑mile bypass is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed in the fall of 2016.