Category: Transport

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.”

Print ver­sion
Oth­er issues and extra info

Earth First! Summer Gathering set-up plans announced

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We also have a mobile num­ber for set­up which is 07766 947852. This will be on-site from Sat­ur­day lunchtime, and may well get answered in the few days before­hand but please don’t try ring­ing until then — e‑mail will remain the main con­tact point until near­er the time — sum­mer­gath­er­ing -{at}- earthfirst.org.uk

What we need to know:

*Please can you let us know when you are com­ing? — this helps us plan foods, facil­i­ties and what jobs to do when.

*It is also help­ful if you can let us know if you have any par­tic­u­lar skills or inter­ests with respect to set-up — we might need dri­vers, so if you are over 25, hold a clean licence, are con­fi­dent dri­ving a 3.5 tonne Luton AND can bring along both parts of your dri­ving licence please let us know.

*Sim­i­lar­ly if you are arriv­ing in a vehi­cle and could poten­tial­ly pro­vide lifts, trans­port equip­ment en route or run errands from site once you arrive please let us know. In this case it is very help­ful if you are able/willing to sup­ply us with a con­tact phone num­ber.

How to get there

As you maybe aware that we do not announce the exact site of the gath­er­ing until one week before the main event, this means direc­tions will be avail­able on the web­site http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/ from Wednes­day, 27 July. We realise this will be short notice for peo­ple arriv­ing on the Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er to make things eas­i­er we will e‑mail direc­tions to set-up crew on that day (that still 4 days to check a map!).

The near­est train sta­tion is Der­by if you want to pre-book train tick­ets, you will also need to take a local bus ser­vice from Der­by (these are fre­quent). We are aim­ing to have a vehi­cle on site that can assist if peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ties between Der­by and the site, so hope­ful­ly every­one will be able to get there okay.

There may be a very small num­ber of lifts avail­able from the Not­ting­ham area across the week­end of Sat­ur­day 31st July/Sunday first of August. There may also be lifts from the Leeds area first thing on 31 July. Let us know if this may be of inter­est to you.

What to bring

*Every­thing you need to the gath­er­ing, tent sleep­ing bags etc. and espe­cial­ly a torch

*It may be wise to come a bit more self-suf­fi­cient in food and snacks than you would need to for the main gath­er­ing — we will have a basic kitchen but Veg­gies and the tuck shop are not arriv­ing until Wednes­day

*If you are able to bring any tools, espe­cial­ly for basic car­pen­try, these are often use­ful

Big thanks for offer­ing to help out

Do get in touch if you have any ques­tions

Love & rage

The EF! Gath­er­ing crew

summer camps in the UK & Merthyr coal train action sentencing — solidarity demo

The next month and a half are busy times if you like camp­ing and pol­i­tics! Peace News, EF! gath­er­ing, Welsh & UK cli­mate camps.…

Climate Camp Cymru 2010 logoThe next month and a half are busy times if you like camp­ing and pol­i­tics! Peace News, EF! gath­er­ing, Welsh & UK cli­mate camps.…

The Peace News Sum­mer Camp is almost upon us in sun­ny Oxford­shire, “an inclu­sive, demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-run five-day expe­ri­ence-in-minia­ture of the kind of world we are try­ing to bring about”. This year, fem­i­nism joins our stand­ing themes of peace and jus­tice.
http://peacenewscamp.info/

The EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is of course in ear­ly August in the beau­ti­ful Peak Dis­trict. “5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low- impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers. Meet and share skills with oth­ers who care. Plan actions and cam­paigns. Have fun. We’ve got over 80 work­shops, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘Where Next’ ses­sions planned, get in touch if you want to offer a work­shop! ”
A tonne of var­ied and amaz­ing work­shops and train­ing ses­sions, full details at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2010/front.html

And the Welsh Cli­mate Camp is in mid-August (see call­out below), “a basic ‘lite’ action-focused camp in South Wales; with its atten­tion fixed firm­ly on coal. This will be linked to a sis­ter-site /in­fo-shop in Cardiff which will act as a point of con­tact before and dur­ing the camp. Work­shops will be most­ly lim­it­ed to action-based train­ing and infor­ma­tion although there will be space to hear from com­mu­ni­ty cam­paigns and open dis­cus­sion forums through­out the camp.”
http://climatecampcymru.org/?page_id=1000

The UK Camp for Cli­mate Action is head­ing north to Edin­burgh at the end of August, “Our sus­tain­able and col­lec­tive­ly organ­ised base­camp will give you the chance to learn, train up, and meet like mind­ed indi­vid­u­als. Excit­ing action plans are cur­rent­ly in the plot­ting stages, so watch this space.”
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010

—-

Open cast is trash­ing the south Wales land­scape
It’s time to take action
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru
13 – 17 August

A momen­tum is build­ing. Last year we camped next to Ffos y Fran — one of the largest open­cast mines in Europe — for a week of work­shops and sus­tain­able liv­ing. This sum­mer we’re going back to basics with a light action-based camp, tar­get­ing coal some­where in south Wales.

Our cur­rent eco­nom­ic sys­tem is based on an addic­tion to fos­sil fuels and on max­imis­ing prof­it at the expense of peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. Fos­sil fuel cor­po­ra­tions can­not be allowed to progress unchecked. We need green jobs for Wales, not dirty destruc­tion.

On the 13th we’ll meet in Cardiff and make our way from there to the site.
Things to bring:

> Tent
> Sleep­ing bag
> Warm clothes and water­proofs
> Plate, bowl, mug and cut­lery
> and a bike could be use­ful too

Burn­ing coal is destroy­ing our cli­mate, while open­cast min­ing dam­ages the earth and the health of local peo­ple. We must leave it in the ground.

Join a grow­ing num­ber of ordi­nary peo­ple tak­ing direct action, and explor­ing alter­na­tives, to stop the mad­ness that is destroy­ing the earth. This August 13th ‑17th come to Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru.

www.climatecampcymru.org
info@climatecampcymru.org
07040 909 147

—-

Head­ing to Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru on August 13th? 13 peo­ple who block­ad­ed the rail­way at Ffos y Fran open­cast mine in April are being sen­tenced at Merthyr Crown Court that day at 2pm. Why not drop by around 1pm for a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo.

International bike ride links communities in resistance: Merthyr to Mayo cyclist

22.5.2010
Today, a 50-strong inter­na­tion­al bike ride begins the 400 mile jour­ney from a com­mu­ni­ty resist­ing Britain’s largest open cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil, Wales to Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, where local peo­ple have spent the last ten years fight­ing a Shell-led gas devel­op­ment. We aim to offer direct sup­port to these two local cam­paigns resist­ing the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

22.5.2010
Today, a 50-strong inter­na­tion­al bike ride begins the 400 mile jour­ney from a com­mu­ni­ty resist­ing Britain’s largest open cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil, Wales to Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, where local peo­ple have spent the last ten years fight­ing a Shell-led gas devel­op­ment. We aim to offer direct sup­port to these two local cam­paigns resist­ing the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

30 cyclists from the UK will join the “Madrid to Mayo” cycle ride in Cork, and many oth­ers from Ire­land are expect­ed to join on route. We will spend ten days trav­el­ing up the west coast of Ire­land, dis­trib­ut­ing a spe­cial­ly pro­duced news­pa­per, “Chang­ing Times”. Events are being held along the way, each night we’re being host­ed by dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions, and we’ll arrive in Mayo for the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp June Bank Hol­i­day Week­end Gath­er­ing at Glen­gad.

It’s gonna be a good laugh, but hope­ful­ly more than that — the line we are draw­ing from Merthyr to Mayo is a reminder that none of us can afford to see these places in iso­la­tion.

The ride begins today with an event in Merthyr Tyd­fil where local res­i­dents and the sol­i­dar­i­ty cyclists are shar­ing sto­ries, ideas, music and food.

“Our com­mu­ni­ties’ sto­ries are repeat­ed across the globe in the places where fos­sil fuels are sourced. Large cor­po­ra­tions move into areas regard­less of the wish­es of the affect­ed pop­u­la­tion; resources are extract­ed and, whilst the cor­po­ra­tions reap vast prof­its, the local peo­ple have to suf­fer the health and envi­ron­men­tal con­se­quences. And, as the fos­sil fuels are burnt they con­tribute to cli­mate change, affect­ing every­one.” — Merthyr res­i­dent, Alyson Austin.

Both com­mu­ni­ties have a long his­to­ry of resis­tance, and their efforts have result­ed in amaz­ing suc­cess­es. In Erris, Mayo, the cam­paign won a size­able vic­to­ry in Novem­ber last year, when Shell’s appli­ca­tion for their onshore gas pipeline was effec­tive­ly refused by the plan­ning author­i­ties; it is unclear when (or if) per­mis­sion will be grant­ed in the future. In Merthyr Tyd­fil, cam­paign­ers are cur­rent­ly tak­ing out a Group Pri­vate Nui­sance case against the min­ing com­pa­ny, Miller Argent. Sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of local peo­ple are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the legal action which aims to lim­it the mine’s impact on res­i­dents. Cli­mate activists recent­ly did a sol­i­dar­i­ty action by blockad­ing coal trains head­ed from the mine to Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion. In recent months, Mayo has seen string of actions local­ly, nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly in sol­i­dar­i­ty with polit­i­cal pris­on­ers Pat O’Don­nell and Niall Har­nett (more infor­ma­tion on the pris­on­ers and how to write to them, and the cam­paign in gen­er­al, on the shell to sea web­site.)

Please join us on the ride, for the gath­er­ing, and in con­tin­ued resis­tance against patri­ar­chal white-suprema­cist cap­i­tal­ist impe­ri­al­ism, and the fight for social and eco­log­i­cal jus­tice!

http://www.merthyrtomayo.org.uk

The new Action Update — full of of action news and analysis

In the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Newcastle flotilla blockadeIn the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Be inspired by our protest camp fea­ture and the recent Tit­nore vic­to­ry. And from across the seas, read about our broth­ers and sis­ters strug­gling against whal­ing ship sab­o­tage, coal port pirates, riots in Zagreb, min­ing firm occu­pa­tions in Bolivia, dam resis­tance in Brazil and much more.

“We are going to inher­it the earth . There is not the slight­est doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We car­ry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is grow­ing this minute.” — Dur­ru­ti

To down­load the lat­est EF!AU for print­ing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10print.pdf

To read the lat­est EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10.pdf

Massive “Climate Action Now” Banner unfurled

April 25, 2010

Mas­sive “Cli­mate Action Now” Ban­ner unfurled

DELTA, BC, CANADA — GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter) unfurled a mas­sive ban­ner today that reads “CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on land slat­ed for free­way con­struc­tion.

Climate Action Now!

April 25, 2010

Mas­sive “Cli­mate Action Now” Ban­ner unfurled

DELTA, BC, CANADA — GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter) unfurled a mas­sive ban­ner today that reads “CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on land slat­ed for free­way con­struc­tion.

His­toric homes are being demol­ished, and ancient indige­nous sites are under threat from the South Fras­er Perime­ter Road (SFPR) project here on the Fras­er Riv­er bank. The est. $2 bil­lion SFPR is part of the con­tro­ver­sial Gate­way pro­gram, which would great­ly increase green­house gas emis­sions in BC.

The action took place at Riv­er Road and Cen­tre Street in Delta. It coin­cides with the mul­ti-faith Pil­grim­age to Burns Bog, and is vis­i­ble from the pil­grim­age route across the Alex Fras­er Bridge. Pil­grims and activists aim to raise aware­ness about Burns Bog, a large, car­bon-seques­ter­ing peat bog also under threat from the SFPR free­way.

“Our neigh­bours are being forced out of their homes, and ecosys­tems are being bull­dozed,” says Delta res­i­dent Ernie Baatz. “Schools and pro­grams are being cut across the province to pay for this cli­mate chang­ing free­way. We have to stand up to this appalling waste.”

Baatz and fel­low activists also plant­ed trees at the site today, to high­light the area’s poten­tial as a river­front park, not a river­front free­way. Although prepara­to­ry work has begun on some sec­tions of the SFPR, no build con­tract is in place. A request for pro­pos­als was issued by the Min­istry of Trans­porta­tion in April 2009.

Today’s action is part of a week of events dubbed “Earth Action Week” by GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter). For the full list of events see www.gatewaysucks.org/earth-action-week-april-1826

Pho­tographs are avail­able at www.gatewaysucks.org/picture-links

Fol­low www.twitter.com/gatewaysucks for updates

For more infor­ma­tion about the Pil­grim­age to Burns Bog see www.pilgrimage2burnsbog.org

» Big shout out to UK roads activists past and present. You inspire us!

Upcoming action dates & activist gatherings, 2010 — updated

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010
Glob­al Min­ga for Moth­er Earth

12–16 Octo­ber 2010
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice, CJA call-out

13 Octo­ber 2010
It’s Ham­mer­time! — Smash EDO

16 Octo­ber 2010
Crude Awak­en­ing — big oil day of action in Lon­don City

23–24 Octo­ber 2010
Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK Gath­er­ing, Bris­tol

10–12 Decem­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

=========

Old dates from this cal­en­dar:

2010

15–17 Jan­u­ary 2010
Peace News Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

23–26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Main­shill Pre-Evic­tion Gath­er­ing

5–7 Feb­ru­ary 2010
EF! Win­ter Moot, North East Eng­land

12–14 Feb­ru­ary 2010
UK Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

19–21 Feb­ru­ary 2010
Camp for Cli­mate Action nation­al ‘where next?’ gath­er­ing, Bris­tol — region­al ones hap­pen­ing over Jan­u­ary & Feb­ru­ary (details here)

26–28 Feb­ru­ary 2010
No Bor­ders Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

14 March 2010
UK Tar Sands Cam­paign Gath­er­ing, York

11am till 6pm (Veg­an lunch by dona­tion)
With BP’s AGM just 1 month away, and 2 weeks of actions planned for 1st to 15th April, come and con­nect with oth­er UK-based Tar Sands cam­paign­ers, share ideas and cre­ate actions. We’ll be look­ing at strate­gies and actions for tar­get­ing Shell, BP and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land — Britain’s Dirty Three­some on Tar Sands invest­ment.

We’re meet­ing in Der­went Col­lege, York Uni­ver­si­ty, room D/056 — from the sta­tion or city cen­tre, take bus num­ber 4 to the very last stop, walk back about 50 meters, and the road entrance to the col­lege is signed on the left. D/056 is accessed from the out­side, beyond the din­ing hall and ponds.

1 April 2010
Fos­sil Fools Day

1–4 April 2010
The Hunt­ing­ton Lane Fos­sil Fools week­end con­ver­gence

1–15 April 2010
BP Fort­night of Shame
includ­ing Lon­don Mass Action

17–18 April 2010
Social Cen­tres in a Time of Cri­sis, Leeds
A week­end of work­shops, dis­cus­sions and social­is­ing for every­one with an inter­est in rad­i­cal autonomous social cen­tres

22–23 April 2010
anti-avi­a­tion 48 hours of stick­er-whack­ing, sub­ver­tis­ing, adbust­ing pan­de­mo­ni­um

23–26 April 2010
Anti-nuclear Camp, Suf­folk — see lat­est EF!AU for details

6–10 May 2010
Activist Tat train­ing week: putting up mar­quees, erect­ing and mend­ing flat pack toi­lets, as well as tech­ni­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal (pow­er, plumb­ing etc) skill­shar­ing

15 May 2010
Par­ty at the Pumps 2

21 May‑5 June 2010
Merthyr to Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty bike ride — Cli­mate Chains

5–8 June 2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Gath­er­ing, Ire­land

11–19 June 2010
World Naked Bike Ride — 11 June: Man­ches­ter, Southamp­ton; 12 June, Cardiff, Edin­burgh, Lon­don; 13 June: Brighton, Bris­tol; 19 June, Sheffield, York

18–21 June 2010
Out­door Skill­share, Scot­land

19 June 2010
Nation­al Gath­er­ing of the Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work, Lon­don

25 June-31 August 2010
Eco­topia Bike­tour, from Crit­i­cal Mass, Towards Car Free Cities Con­fer­ence, to the French & Ger­man cli­mate camps and much in between.

6–12 July 2010
Anti-Indus­tri­al Land Defence Action Camp, Cat­alo­nia
Go only if you can speak Cata­lan or Span­ish — http://acampadaderesistencies.blogspot.com

14–22 July 2010
Nordic cli­mate action camp, South­ern Swe­den

22 July‑1 August 2010
French Camp Action Cli­mat, near Le Havre

22 July‑2 August 2010
Swiss cli­mate camp Fr / De

23–27 July 2010
Peace News Sum­mer Camp, Oxford­shire

29 July‑4 August 2010
Bel­gian Cli­mate Camp, near Liege

4–9 August 2010
EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, Der­byshire

12–16 August 2010
Irish Cli­mate Camp, Coun­ty Tyrone

13–17 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru

21–24 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp tar­gets RBS in Edin­burgh: Action Days

21–29 August 2010
Ger­man Kli­macamp, near Erke­lenz

27–30 August 2010
Nation­al Ani­mal Rights Gath­er­ing, near Northamp­ton

27–29 August 2010
Dutch Earth First! Gath­er­ing and CJA meet­ing — Groen Front!

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

Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

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

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

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

EF! Summer Gathering poster 2010Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

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

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Find out more and join in!

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

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

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

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

Fossil Fools Day 2010

Cli­mate change is no laugh­ing mat­ter – but that doesn’t mean we can’t con­front the Fos­sil Fuel Empire with sub­ver­sive humour.

WHAT: Direct actions, prac­ti­cal jokes and throw­ing a span­ner in the works to stop the fos­sil fools.
WHERE: Your street, town or city.
WHEN: April 1st, 2010.

FFD graphic - bigCli­mate change is no laugh­ing mat­ter – but that doesn’t mean we can’t con­front the Fos­sil Fuel Empire with sub­ver­sive humour.

WHAT: Direct actions, prac­ti­cal jokes and throw­ing a span­ner in the works to stop the fos­sil fools.
WHERE: Your street, town or city.
WHEN: April 1st, 2010.

Last Decem­ber in Copen­hagen, the politi­cians sold us out to the fos­sil fools, cor­po­rate lob­by­ists and big banks. Now we’re left with “green cap­i­tal­ism,” a deeply unjust car­bon mar­ket and con­tin­ued assaults on our com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems. If we’re going to stop cli­mate chaos, the only real solu­tion is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

The stakes couldn’t be high­er: desta­bil­i­sa­tion of the glob­al cli­mate, local com­mu­ni­ties destroyed by dirty ener­gy extrac­tion and com­bus­tion, dev­as­tat­ing freak storms, droughts, floods, the list goes on …

This April 1st, join Ris­ing Tide in some cre­ative direct action … use the sim­ply sub­ver­sive to the down­right dis­rup­tive: office occu­pa­tions, ban­ner drops, clown­ish parades, road block­ades, spoof web­sites, sub­ver­tis­ing, street the­atre, leaflets, lock-ons or laugh-ins. What­ev­er works for you and your group.

Join us this Fos­sil Fools Day and hatch some hare­brained schemes that will strike a blow to cli­mate crim­i­nals every­where!

WANT MORE? Fos­sil Fools Day also marks the launch of the BP Tar Sands Fort­night of Shame: a two-week cam­paign cul­mi­nat­ing in actions sur­round­ing BP’s AGM on April 15th. The goal? To stop BP from going into the Cana­di­an Tar Sands – the biggest, dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel project on earth. Find out more: Tar Sands in Focus.. And a word to BP: be afraid… be very afraid.

NEED A HAND? If you would like ideas for actions, graph­ics for leaflets or web­sites, advice on deal­ing with the press, etc., send us an email and we’ll do our best to help out: info@risingtide.org.uk

For more infor­ma­tion see: Fos­sil Fools Day.

In the words of that mas­ter of pranks: “That’s All Folks”.

Bath Bomb #27 Out Now

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #27
free/donation
Feb 10

“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Bet­ter!”

B&NES Cuts It Fine

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #27
free/donation
Feb 10

“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Bet­ter!”

B&NES Cuts It Fine

In the ongo­ing saga of B&NES Coun­cil’s job-cut­ting bonan­za, plans have been revealed to go on a mas­sive redun­dan­cy spree, start­ing in April. Since the Bath Bomb got hold of con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ments and blew B&NES’ axing plans out of the water back in Novem­ber, they have been try­ing to gloss over and deny what will be a mas­sive attack on pub­lic sec­tor employ­ees and ser­vice users alike. It now appears that the cuts will come in three stages: pre­sum­ably a poor attempt at mak­ing the redun­dan­cies and ser­vice slash­es seem less numer­ous, start­ing in earnest this spring. In the mean­time, we have to sat­is­fy our­selves with 70 imme­di­ate redun­dan­cies, affect­ing sev­er­al key depart­ments of the coun­cil. In April, the attacks will be switched up a gear, with 400 loss­es planned. To add insult to injury, those work­ers lucky enough to keep their jobs will suf­fer a pro­posed two-year pay freeze being dis­cussed at West­min­ster (agreed on by all three main­stream par­ties) to recoup costs after their mates, the bankers, pissed the econ­o­my down the drain. 

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, redun­dan­cies so far won’t affect mid­dle or high man­age­ment, but are instead aimed at the ground-lev­el work­ers who pro­vide us with ser­vices and sup­port. Work­ers that remain in their depart­ments will also be expect­ed to shoul­der the work­load of their for­mer col­leagues. Coun­cil work­ers have told the Bath Bomb that if the planned redun­dan­cies go ahead, it will be lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble to run their depart­ments or pro­vide any com­pe­tent ser­vice to the pub­lic, as many of the job cuts affect work­ers with very spe­cif­ic skills and abil­i­ties, and depart­ments would be left too under­staffed to be fit for pur­pose. This lat­est round of attacks on coun­cil work­ers is cou­pled with mount­ing plans to pri­va­tize our pub­lic ser­vices and slash the effec­tive­ness of what remains. 

With this only being stage one of a three-pronged attack, we are left won­der­ing what will be left of our pub­lic ser­vices by the time B&NES have fin­ished maul­ing them. It’s not all doom and gloom though, with local activists, com­mu­ni­ty groups and unions gear­ing up to fight back and defend our jobs, our ser­vices and our com­mu­ni­ties from the greed-dri­ven onslaught being unleashed on us by these politi­cians — watch this space for news on the fight­back!

Char­lie Gets Fat While He Tight­ens Our Green Belt

Yes, this just in — famous envi­ron­men­tal­ist and every­one’s least favourite jug-eared par­a­sit­i­cal tax drain Prince ‘Last Tan­go in Paris’ Charles has decid­ed to sell off part of his vast green belt estate to be used for new hous­ing. Around 2,000 new homes are planned for Bath, half of which are to be on Crown-owned lands around New­ton St Loe. Con­ve­nient­ly for­get­ting his sup­posed ‘green cre­den­tials’ for a sec­ond, Char­lie has shown his roy­al streak by being won over by mas­sive amounts of a dif­fer­ent type of green – cash.

Local oppo­si­tion groups have already sprung up in protest at the plans, which will see yet more of our trea­sured green spaces dis­ap­pear under con­crete. We would­n’t mind so much, were it not for the abun­dance of dis­used and dilap­i­dat­ed build­ings in Bath that sore­ly need ren­no­va­tion and could pro­vide homes for thou­sands. But once again, we are see­ing that the roy­al fam­i­ly, who only clawed their way to the top through blood­shed and greed, are no friends of ours. What real­ly wor­ries us here at Bath Bomb, how­ev­er, is once all the green fields have been con­cret­ed over, where are we going to take our hors­es and hounds when the time comes to stick a tail on Char­lie and his degen­er­ate ilk and chase them down?

Keep your ear to the ground, as more news of plans to fight the devel­op­ment are pop­ping up all the time, and with the impend­ing con­cret­ing of Bathamp­ton Mead­ows, we’ve got a prop­er fight to get stuck into to save the green spaces around Bath!

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

In By The Cat­flap

The Black Cat, Bath’s best autonomous social space, is now up and run­ning again for the new year. The old Black Cat build­ing, on the Upper Bris­tol Road, was evict­ed late last year – and then almost imme­di­ate­ly reopened by a group of local res­i­dents. This new col­lec­tive ran the cen­tre until ear­ly Jan­u­ary, when the ‘own­ers’ of the build­ing used a back-door legal process to res­ur­rect their pre­vi­ous evic­tion order – despite such an act being fla­grant­ly unlaw­ful.

The two Black Cat col­lec­tives have now joined forces direct­ly to open a new cen­tre in Old­field Park. Sit­u­at­ed at the junc­tion of West Avenue and Cyn­thia Road, and mere min­utes from Old­field Park Sta­tion. Once again the cen­tre will house the Bath FreeShop, an exten­sive infos­hop (includ­ing copies of this fine pub­li­ca­tion), plus an inten­sive pro­gram of dance class­es, exhi­bi­tions, dub nights, debate clubs, film nights, cafes, open mic nights, and more. A suit­able venue is also being sought to hold a fol­low-up to the last cen­tre’s huge­ly suc­cess­ful ben­e­fit gig.

The Black Cat is open right now, unless you’re read­ing this between the hours of about 7pm and 1pm, and would love for you to drop by. They can be con­tact­ed at bathsocialcentre[at]googlemail.com, or on 07946 777609. The cen­tre is open most days from 1pm to 7pm, ear­li­er on Sun­days, and extra hours as need­ed for events.

http://bathsocialcentre.blogspot.com

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

Green Gueril­las Hit Bath

The last cou­ple of months have seen a num­ber of mys­te­ri­ous gar­dens spring­ing up in the Bath area, the most notice­able of these being an ongo­ing project on Park St, behind St James’ Square. The gar­den has been cre­at­ed by guer­ril­la gar­den­ers — peo­ple who, sick of see­ing use­able land left uncul­ti­vat­ed, have tak­en it upon them­selves to cre­ate more local food sources. They’ve cleared the over­grown area and plant­ed fruit trees and bush­es to feed the local pop­u­lace for free.

Any­one can be a gueril­la gar­den­er; just find a few seeds, a dis­used area and some mates, then pop along in a clan­des­tine fash­ion and plant your veg­gies. There are lots of dif­fer­ent rea­sons for guer­ril­la gar­den­ing — some peo­ple want to feed them­selves, some hope to pro­vide their com­mu­ni­ty with free and local veg, while oth­ers, such as the cheeky gar­den­ers who plant­ed gan­ja in the flo­ral dis­play at the police sta­tion a few years back, may have oth­er motives!

You don’t need to be part of a group or have much gar­den­ing expe­ri­ence to be a guer­ril­la gar­den­er, but if you want to hook up with a local group, check out the local Tran­si­tion Towns group at transitionbath[at]googlemail.com. Alter­nate­ly, there are oth­er com­mu­nal gar­den­ing schemes, such as the allot­ments in Vicky Park — with Bath peo­ple cul­ti­vat­ing more and more of the city every day, there’s nev­er been a bet­ter time to go green!

Wheely Good News

Cycling enthu­si­asts will be pleased to hear that Bath Cycling Cam­paign are relaunch­ing that old favourite, the Crit­i­cal Mass. A Crit­i­cal Mass is a cel­e­bra­tion of ped­al pow­er in which cyclists take to the streets en masse to high­light the fun and eco-friend­li­ness of the bicy­cle. It is a car­ni­va­lesque parade, so feel free to dress-up, dress down, or just dress plain old weird (non-fan­cy dress/ seri­ous ‘politi­co’ styles are are also wel­come!).

The Crit­i­cal Mass is a world­wide event that hap­pens reg­u­lar­ly in Barcelona, Lon­don and New York to name but a few, and is always great fun, so why not come and get involved? The last Bath Crit­i­cal Mass drew over 50 peo­ple and was a great suc­cess. The Mass is meet­ing at 1pm at Kingsmead Square on Sat­ur­day the 27th of March.

http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Smile, You’re On Cam­era!

In a humor­ous turn of events, the obnox­ious Bath police spy vehi­cle has got­ten itself into a spot of both­er recent­ly after being pho­tographed parked in a dis­abled-only space! While on her way out, a con­sci­en­tious mem­ber of the pub­lic manged to beat the cops’ per­son­al voyeur wag­on at its own game, snap­ping a few choice shots of the van in the dis­abled space. Bath police have since apol­o­gised and claimed that they were on “very urgent busi­ness“, but won’t say what; in oth­er words, they want­ed a bite to eat and felt above the law enough to deprive a dis­abled per­son of their spot while they went to get it.

So hope­ful­ly the sight of a few red-faced spy-cops will bring a smile to the face of all of us who hate police sur­veil­lance and the CCTV soci­ety, or just find it plain old irri­tat­ing that the cam-van’s threat­en­ing, sin­is­ter mot­to “smile, you’re on cam­era” is writ­ten in such a love­ly, friend­ly font!

EVENTS

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

Free sam­ba danc­ing class­es, Mon­days, 7–8pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

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

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

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

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

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­days, 10.30am, starts Abbey Church­yard, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, http://www.bathrys.org.uk/ Hazel 01225 469199

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

Antifas­cist ben­e­fit punk/ska/hip-hop gig, Fri­day 12th Feb­ru­ary, doors open 6.30pm, £6 entry, the Croft, 117–119 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, fea­tur­ing La Frac­tion, Left For Dead, Jakal and Reject­ed,
http://libcom.org/news/gentle-bonecrusher-life-death-ivan-khutorskoy-17112009

Orchard Man­age­ment Work­shop for all lev­els of expe­ri­ence, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 10–3.30pm, the Vine House, Bail­brook Lane, Sols­bury Hill, Bath, £15 includ­ing light lunch, book with Jim Dowling/e‑mail piltonman[at]googlemail.com/ tel 01225 481500

‘Incor­po­rat­ing Cli­mate Change into your Com­mu­ni­ty-Led Plan­ning Process’, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 11–4pm, Brunswick Room, the Guild­hall, Bath, re-mail sara_grimes[at]bathnes.gov.uk

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, http://www.bathford.net/broadlands.php

Allot­ment Fair, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 2–5pm, the Guild­hall, Bath, e‑mail alotta_thingsgoingon[at]yahoo.co.uk/ tel 01225 332246

EVICT THE BAILIFFS! Punk and folk ben­e­fit gig, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, The Plough, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, fea­tur­ing KilnAboy, The Autono­mads, Har­i­jan and Hack­saw

AWE Alder­mas­ton block­ade, Mon­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, start­ing 7am, there is already a car­load going from Bath (4 am start)

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, 7.30pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Talk by Alas­tair McIn­tosh: ‘Engag­ing the Pow­ers’, Mon­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, 7.30pm, 3rd Floor, Bush House (above the Arnolfi­ni) 72 Prince Street, Bris­tol, BS1 4QD, £3 entry, http://www.ecoshow.org.uk

Work­shop: ‘Com­mu­ni­ty Ben­e­fits of Renew­able Ener­gy’, Tues­day 16th Feb­ru­ary, 6–9pm, Coun­cil Cham­ber, The Hol­lies, Mid­somer Nor­ton, e‑mail sara_grimes[at]bathnes.gov.uk/ tel 01225 477548

Tue 16 Feb — Tran­si­tion Film: ‘Hawaii: Mes­sage in the Waves’, Tues­day 16th Feb­ru­ary, doors open 7.15pm, the Min­er­va Cen­tre, 8 Combe Park, Low­er West­on, Bath BA1 3NP, http://www.transitionbath.org

‘Junk Poet­ry’ open mic night, Thurs­day 18th Feb­ru­ary, 7.30pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Camp for Cli­mate Action nation­al gath­er­ing, Fri­day 19th-Sun­day 21st Feb­ru­ary, Bridewell, Bris­tol

Tran­si­tion Bath open review: ‘How are we doing?’, Mon­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, 7.15pm, back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street, Bath, bring food to share, http://www.transitionbath.org

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 24th Feb­ru­ary, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Film: ‘Mat­wan’, Thurs­day 25th Feb­ru­ary, 7pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 3rd March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

North Som­er­set Coun­cil Meet­ing on future of Bris­tol Air­port expan­sion, Wednes­day 3rd March, 6pm, Town Hall, West­on Super Mare, come along to the meet­ing and show coun­cil­lors your con­cerns, http://www.stopbia.com

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 4th March, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

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

Exhi­bi­tion: ‘Loss of Inno­cence: Gaza Chil­dren’s Art­work’, Mon­day 8th March-Wednes­day 17th March (not Sun­days), most­ly 10–4pm, St John’ Church, Frome, ffi e‑mail adam.stout[at]virgin.net

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 10th March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bath Stop the War Coali­tion pub­lic meet­ing, Wednes­day 10th March, 7.30pm, Friends Meet­ing House, York Street, Bath

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 10th March, 8pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

Rad­i­cal debate club: ‘When envi­ron­men­tal­ism becomes fas­cism’, Thurs­day 11th March, 7–9pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 17th March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bath tree-plant­i­ng project day, Sat­ur­day 20th March, more details tbc

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 24th March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bath Crit­i­cal Mass, Sat­ur­day 27th March, 1pm start, Kingsmead Square

Trapese Col­lec­tive course: ‘Tools for Social Change’, train­ing in grass­root organ­is­ing for social change, Sat­ur­day 27th March-3rd April, Rag­man’s Lane Farm, For­est of Dean, £175-£350, lim­it­ed places avail­able so book ear­ly! http://www.stuffit.org/trapese/ragm.pdf

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 31st March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 7th April, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Rad­i­cal debate club: ‘Rad­i­cal­ism & reli­gion’, Thurs­day 8th April, 7–9pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 14th April, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 21st April, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

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

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

Insane In The B&NES

Mean­while, back to oth­er news. The Save Bathamp­ton Mead­ows cam­paign to save, err, Bathamp­ton Mead­ows, recent­ly suf­fered a blow when B&NES Coun­cil gave them­selves per­mis­sion to pro­ceed with their four-stage Bath Trans­port Plan – includ­ing the wildlife-devour­ing Bus Rapid Tran­sit route, the expan­sion of two exist­ing Park & Ride schemes, and the sac­ri­fice of the Mead­ows to be glo­ri­ous­ly reborn as a new flood-prone P&R. The much-hat­ed A36/A46 link road plan still remains too, despite con­stant pub­lic denial. Though the Coun­cil’s com­plete lack of trans­paren­cy and demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion (66% of Batho­ni­ans object­ed to the Bathamp­ton scheme in Nov 08) defied all expec­ta­tions, and the traf­fic con­ges­tion and air qual­i­ty ben­e­fits (less than 1%, accord­ing to gov­ern­ment stud­ies) of the plan are implau­si­ble at best, B&NES’ true motive is clear as glass: mon­ey. Yep, the £5.75 mil­lion car­rot of gov­ern­ment grant has got them all wet, and res­i­dents or the envi­ron­ment can fuck off.

In response, the sev­en-year strong SBM lot host­ed a packed-out com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing in Bath­eas­t­on on the 27th of last month. The cam­paign is now psych­ing them­selves up for a pin­cer attack legal chal­lenge, tak­ing first the Sec­re­tary of State to court, and then B&NES… if they can afford it. To this end the ‘protest com­pa­ny’ VeraC­i­ty Ltd have been formed, and with court costs expect­ed between £10,000 and £30,000 (with even the send­ing of a let­ter cost­ing £500, those solic­i­tors get pricey!) they are now eager for investors to share out the bur­den of a quid each. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, most of these chal­lenges take six years, but VeraC­i­ty are only being giv­en three months.

B&NES have now start­ed tend­ing out for con­struc­tion, spin and archi­tects con­tracts with which to waste their mon­ey. With luck, any info about com­pa­nies show­ing inter­est will come to light either on our own blogspot, or the SBM one.

Whilst we here in the office have some doubts on the effi­cien­cy of wad­ing through all that red tape, this, var­i­ous NIMBY legalese and Com­pul­so­ry Pur­chase Order court­room bat­tles could very well be the key to save the eco­log­i­cal­ly-impor­tant mead­ows. And if not, here’s to hop­ing the VC does­n’t lead the cam­paign away from its direct action com­mit­ments.

http://www.vcbath.blogspot.com
http://www.newbridgematters.blogspot.com
http://www.response2route.co.uk/wordpress/?p=221
http://www.savebathamptonmeadows.org.uk

A Cen­sor­ble Response To Islam4UK

A lot has been made late­ly of the antics of the pro-Sharia Mus­lim group ‘Islam4UK’ (a front group for Al-Muha­jiroon led by Anjem Choudary), who advo­cate the turn­ing of Britain into an oppres­sive Mus­lim state, com­plete with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and flog­ging for pub­lic drunk­en­ness (amidst a host of oth­er gems). They also recent­ly received noto­ri­ety for the gov­ern­men­t’s ban­ning of their pro­posed Woot­ton Bas­sett demo — the repa­tri­a­tion town for British war dead. White nation­al­ists were quick to con­demn the march, but you don’t have to be a flag-wav­ing skin­head to oppose these nut­cas­es.

Since the open­ing of hos­til­i­ties in Iraq and Afghanistan, var­i­ous groups have sunk to using the parad­ing of war casu­al­ties in Woot­ton Bas­sett as a pro­pa­gan­da tool. While some rev­el in the body count to pro­mote anti-west­ern sen­ti­ment, oth­ers like the BNP use coffins and griev­ing fam­i­lies to fly nation­al­ist flags. The truth, though, is that dead sol­diers are nei­ther heroes nor mon­sters – they’re sim­ply men and women who have paid a harsh price for doing the dirty work of cor­rupt politi­cians.

Real­ly, the BNP and Islam4UK are both a threat to the work­ing class, and pan­der to a polit­i­cal elite who desire only to see us divid­ed along their lines of race, reli­gion, gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty, instead of class. Sure­ly we want to build a soci­ety based on tol­er­ance, respect and equal­i­ty, and must resist the author­i­tar­i­an regime envi­sioned by the far right? If so, then we need to wake up and treat these peo­ple — no mat­ter the colour of skin or the faith — like the fas­cists they are. And whilst we can’t con­done state con­trol and bans, it’s the job of our com­mu­ni­ties to crush them.

To Vote Or Not To Vote?

On Thurs­day the 11th of Feb­ru­ary, the Black Cat Cen­tre held a debate on the sub­ject of vot­ing. Should we vote? If so, for whom? If not, why not? I have been ask­ing around to get a feel of what peo­ple pass­ing through the cen­tre think, and the results are far from unan­i­mous. They range from not vot­ing as a cat­e­gor­i­cal imper­a­tive, to vot­ing for the Tories so the rev­o­lu­tion comes, with mid­dle-ground posi­tions as well, con­trast­ing nation­al elec­tion with local ones. The debate promised to be mighty inter­est­ing.

There is not enough space to explore this issue in depth, so I will use the lit­tle I have left to present the act of vot­ing under dif­fer­ent lights, which will hope­ful­ly allow us to have a con­struc­tive exchange. There can be two ends in vot­ing; vot­ing to rule the coun­try, and vot­ing to destroy the sys­tem. Those who pro­pose to vote, at least the ones I’ve spo­ken to, are refer­ring to the sec­ond one; and, you’ve prob­a­bly guessed, those who pro­pose that we don’t vote are refer­ring to the first; that is, some­one has yet to say that we should form a par­ty and win the elec­tions.

There is no dis­agree­ment, then, on the right to rule. It does­n’t exist. What the peo­ple I’ve spo­ken to dis­agree on is whether it does us any good, as an activist move­ment, that one par­ty or anoth­er is behind the wheel. Can it help us build the resis­tance? Or does vot­ing, as such, under­cut it?

Here EDO Again

For the last five years, Brighton-based bas­tards EDO/ITT have been the sub­ject of a con­cert­ed activist cam­paign ini­ti­at­ed when locals learned that EDO sup­plies the Israeli and US mil­i­tary with bomb release mech­a­nisms and oth­er nas­ties that have been used in Gaza, Iraq and else­where. Since the begin­ning of the cam­paign, EDO has been sub­ject to numer­ous protests, lock-ons, block­ades, van­dal­ism and oth­er actions and has seen their share val­ue plum­met, and gone through four direc­tors in as many years.

On Jan­u­ary the 18th, over 300 peo­ple gath­ered in Brighton to mark the first anniver­sary of the bom­bard­ment of Gaza that EDO made pos­si­ble. Through­out the day, activists, includ­ing Batho­ni­ans, dodged batons and police dogs to make their way to the EDO fac­to­ry, which they even­tu­al­ly did via a lit­tle-used foot­path. Upon the march reach­ing the fac­to­ry, sec­tions of the fenc­ing dis­ap­peared, allow­ing pro­test­ers entry to the site, where a brief skir­mish with the police ensued. From there, the demo, which by this point had been offi­cial­ly banned by the police, head­ed back into town to let Brighto­ni­ans know what grot­ty death mer­chants ped­dle their trade on their doorsteps. It was lat­er dis­cov­ered that, in antic­i­pa­tion of the protests, the fac­to­ry had been closed the entire day. To add to EDO’s finan­cial mis­ery, lat­er that night the fac­to­ry was vis­it­ed and heav­i­ly paint-bombed and lock-glued in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Gaza — not a bad day’s work! The cam­paign against EDO con­tin­ues, and you can find out more at http://www.smashedo.org.uk

In sup­port of the Brighton demo, BAN sup­port­ers and oth­ers pick­et­ed Bar­clay’s Bank in Bris­tol. Bar­clays was tar­get­ed because it is the main bank of arms com­pa­nies. 20 peo­ple gave out leaflets and held a ban­ner in sup­port of Eli­jah Smith, a Bris­tol-based anti-mil­i­tarist who has been remand­ed in cus­tody with­out a tri­al for a year fol­low­ing an event last year where EDO was sub­ject­ed to the sin­gle action that brought it clos­er to col­lapse. Sev­en ‘de-com­mis­sion­ers’ entered the fac­to­ry and destroyed almost every piece of equip­ment they could find. There has been a cam­paign to keep his spir­its up, includ­ing send­ing let­ters and gifts, and even loud gigs held out­side the nick by sup­port­ers! To send Eli­jah your sup­port, send him a let­ter at – Eli­jah Smith, VP 7551, Shep­pey Clus­ter (Elm­ley), Church Rd, Eastchurch, Sheer­ness, Kent, ME 12 4DZ.