Category: Unnecessary Developments

Coal Action Scotland InfoTour dates

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is going on tour! Check our list of dates below to see if we’re com­ing any­where near you. If you’d like us to to a talk where you are and its not on the list, email us at main­shill [at] riseup.net and we’ll get back to you as soon as pos­si­ble.

10th March
Brighton
7pm at the Cow­ley Club
Lon­don Road

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is going on tour! Check our list of dates below to see if we’re com­ing any­where near you. If you’d like us to to a talk where you are and its not on the list, email us at main­shill [at] riseup.net and we’ll get back to you as soon as pos­si­ble.

10th March
Brighton
7pm at the Cow­ley Club
Lon­don Road

12th March
Leeds
7pm at the Band­stand Com­mu­ni­ty Allot­ments
Wood­house Ridge, Mean­wood Road
15th March
Brad­ford
7pm at the 1 in 12 Club
21–23 Albion Street

16th March
Lan­cast­er
7pm at the Lan­cast­er Action Resource Cen­tre
78a Pen­ny Street

Lappersfort Forest Occupation expected to be evicted this week!

Updates Thurs­day 4th: the evic­tion has begun since this morn­ing; it is still unclear how far the evic­tion is going, and if there are still peo­ple present to resist. this night at 8pm man­i­fes­ta­tion in Bruges, at ‘t Zand.

Updates Thurs­day 4th: the evic­tion has begun since this morn­ing; it is still unclear how far the evic­tion is going, and if there are still peo­ple present to resist. this night at 8pm man­i­fes­ta­tion in Bruges, at ‘t Zand. Wednes­day 3rd: yes­ter­day, the fed­er­al police was seen in the neigh­bour­hood of the Lap­pers­for­est. Sev­er­al peo­ple were chased when they want­ed to leave or enter the for­est. There is con­stant patrolling in the sur­round­ing of the for­est. At this moment (Wednes­day 8:00), every­thing seems qui­et in the for­est.

The evic­tion is still expect­ed to hap­pen this week.

—

Accord­ing to a very reli­able source, the occu­pied part of the Lap­pers­for­est will be cut down this week. We don’t know the exact date (yet), but the evic­tion and chop­ping will prob­a­bly start at the begin­ning of the week. (This week!) Anoth­er indi­ca­tion is the fact that police have vis­it­ed the for­est three times last week.

What can you do?
— come to the for­est as soon as pos­si­ble
— pre­pare sol­i­dar­i­ty actions
— pre­pare actions at branch offices of GDF Suez, Fab­ri­com, Elec­tra­bel…
— send dis­pleased reac­tions to press and oth­er media.

If you come to join the evic­tion resis­tance, bring a rain­coat, warm clothes, a sleep­ing bag and maybe some blan­kets.

If you can’t make it to the inside of the for­est, come to the green bridge of Steen­brugge (on the road from Oost­kamp to Bruges), where there will be protest actions from the very start of the evic­tion. At night we gath­er at 8 pm on ‘t Zand in Bruges, for a demon­stra­tion.

No com­pro­mise in defence of the Earth!

–
http://lappersfort.freehostia.com

- E‑Mail: mgriks(at)gmail.com Web­site: http://www.ourmediaindymedia.blogspot.com

Climate Camp Invades Lewes Tesco

28.02.2010

Lewes Tesco protest28.02.2010
Cli­mate change activists teamed up with local res­i­dents to invade the Tesco super­store in Lewes, East Sus­sex on Sat­ur­day in protest at plans to increase the size of the super­mar­ket by 50%. More than 80 pro­test­ers took part, enter­ing the store and embark­ing on a game of Tesco Whirl. The idea is to grab a trol­ley keep it emp­ty and form up with oth­ers to cre­ate a giant con­ga chain.

The point of not actu­al­ly shop­ping was to high­light that for every £3.00 spent on retail in Lewes, £2.00 is spent in Tesco.

By increas­ing the size of the store, mon­ey will be drained from the inde­pen­dent shops, harm­ing the town’s local econ­o­my. But police had received a tip off about the action and were on hand to pre­vent some pro­test­ers enter­ing the shop while eject­ing those who attempt­ed to form a chain. Still a chain of 10 trol­leys at a time did form.

As activists were thrown out of the store a par­ty formed at the entrance with music and danc­ing from activists in endan­gered ani­mal masks.

Cli­mate Camp activist and Lewes res­i­dent Mari­na Pep­per said: “Tesco is more expen­sive than peo­ple realise, thanks to their mis­lead­ing adver­tis­ing cam­paigns. They also rip off farm­ers and destroy local com­mu­ni­ties by under­cut­ting and bank­rupt­ing com­pe­ti­tion lead­ing to high unem­ploy­ment and board­ed up town cen­tres.

“Tesco has a strong foothold in Lewes. It’s only the robust­ness of the local econ­o­my that has saved it so far. But these expan­sion plans are mad­ness and could spell the end, destroy­ing so much that our town holds dear – name­ly our inde­pen­dent shops which pro­vide us with choic­es as to how we shop and what we buy.

“This action today was only the launch of a cam­paign that will see Cli­mate Camp work­ing side by side with com­mu­ni­ty groups to ensure one way or anoth­er Tesco’s growth plans are thwart­ed. We implore peo­ple to con­tact their local coun­cilors, espe­cial­ly those on the plan­ning com­mit­tee and tell them a big­ger Tesco is unwel­come here. Ever y lit­tle extra will hurt.”

The activ­i­ties of mas­sive super­mar­kets like Tesco involve scan­dalous waste, pol­lu­tion and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion.

Super­mar­ket food trav­els vast dis­tances, prod­ucts are over pack­aged and cus­tomers trav­el ever greater dis­tances once local shops are dri­ven out of busi­ness. This leads to an increase in road con­ges­tion, acci­dents, noise, air pol­lu­tion and CO2 emis­sions which con­tribute to cli­mate change.

Super­mar­ket demands are also behind the con­tin­u­ing indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of agri­cul­ture. Big farm­ers are get­ting big­ger to sur­vive while small farm­ers are going bust. This leads to increased dis­ease among live­stock and cru­el fac­to­ry farm prac­tices.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion.

Tesco stores erode local choice as small­er, inde­pen­dent shops strug­gle to com­pete. Inde­pen­dent stores in the UK shut at the rate of 2,000 a year in recent years. Over 17,000 inde­pen­dent shops closed in Eng­land and Wales last year.

Large super­mar­kets like Tesco also:
• Siphon mon­ey away from local com­mu­ni­ties and towards dis­tant cor­po­ra­tions
• Increase traf­fic and con­ges­tion from lor­ry move­ments and cus­tomers
• Destroy local jobs and under­mine local job mar­kets
• Every large out­let caus­es the net loss of 276 local jobs on aver­age
• Gen­er­ate waste and over-pack­age their prod­ucts
• Exploit sup­pli­ers and dam­age the envi­ron­ment
• Cyn­i­cal­ly manip­u­late prices to fleece shop­pers

Tesco is the largest retail­er in the UK:
• Over £1 in every £7 (14.3%) of UK retail sales is spent at Tesco
• It has tak­ings of more than £1 bil­lion a week
• It made prof­its of over £3 bil­lion last year
• It has £30 mil­lion turnover in Lewes com­pared to £17m for all oth­er shops

southcoast@climatecamp.org.uk
http://climatecamp.org.uk/get-involved/local-groups/south-coast

Zapatistas reclaim Mother Earth

On 6th Feb­ru­ary 230 civil­ian Zap­atis­tas took part in an action to retake con­trol of their reclaimed lands at Bolon Ajaw, Chi­a­pas, Mex­i­co, which had been invad­ed and tak­en over since 20 Jan­u­ary by the para­mil­i­tary group OPDDIC, report the human rights group Fray Bar­tolome de Las Casas.

Zapatista solidarity grafittiOn 6th Feb­ru­ary 230 civil­ian Zap­atis­tas took part in an action to retake con­trol of their reclaimed lands at Bolon Ajaw, Chi­a­pas, Mex­i­co, which had been invad­ed and tak­en over since 20 Jan­u­ary by the para­mil­i­tary group OPDDIC, report the human rights group Fray Bar­tolome de Las Casas. The 25 Zap­atista fam­i­lies of Bolon Ajaw, part of autonomous munic­i­pal­i­ty Coman­dan­ta Ramona, were giv­en sol­i­dar­i­ty by Zap­atis­tas from fur­ther afield.

The human rights activists of Fray Bar­tolome present a detailed report which dis­miss­es claims by the state gov­ern­ment, OPDDIC and the mass media that on 6th Feb­ru­ary the Zap­atis­tas shot at OPDDIC mem­bers, killing one and injur­ing oth­ers. On the con­trary, report Fray Bartholomew, it was OPDDIC who at least four times opened fire on the Zap­atis­tas, wound­ing three Zap­atis­tas, includ­ing a six­teen year old.

Fray Bartholomew (Fray­ba) con­firm that the OPDDIC mem­ber killed and those wound­ed were shot by mis­take by fel­low OPDDIC mem­bers, as two dif­fer­ent OPDDIC groups opened fire on the inhab­i­tants of Bolon Ajaw, from oppo­site sides of the vil­lage. OPDDIC, linked to the PRI — the Insti­tu­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Par­ty which gov­erned Mex­i­co for many decades — have been involved in numer­ous attacks and harass­ment of Zap­atista com­mu­ni­ties over recent years.

Fray­ba give a detailed account of the sev­er­al clash­es which occurred dur­ing the day. Actions includ­ed the Zap­atis­tas repuls­ing an attempt by OPDDIC to retake the land, and the Zap­atis­tas break­ing out of an armed ambush and encir­clement by OPDDIC in order to go to the aid of the inhab­i­tants of Bolon Ajaw, who were being shot at by OPDDIC gun­men.

The Zap­atista Good Gov­ern­ment Coun­cil based at More­lia has also issued a full state­ment http://www.edinchiapas.org.uk/node/266 . This details the attacks by the OPDDIC para­mil­i­taries, nam­ing names, and hold­ing all three lev­els of gov­ern­ment — local, Chi­a­pas state, and the nation­al fed­er­al gov­ern­ment — respon­si­ble for the attacks against the indige­nous peo­ple and their lands. The state­ment describes how on 6th Feb­ru­ary OPDDIC shot at unarmed Zap­atis­tas, seri­ous­ly wound­ing one man in the stom­ach, how they com­plete­ly destroyed a Zap­atis­ta’s home, and smashed up sacred objects in the Bolon Ajaw church.

The Zap­atis­tas stress their will­ing­ness to hold talks over the prob­lems:
‘We, the Coun­cil of Good Gov­ern­ment, have nev­er closed the door on find­ing a good solu­tion to prob­lems, we always show good will..’

HOLIDAYS IN THE SUN

The Fray­ba inves­ti­ga­tion empha­sis­es that gov­ern­ment plans for major tourist devel­op­ments at the renowned local water­falls lie behind the attacks on the Zap­atis­tas. Near­by Agua Azul Falls are already heav­i­ly pro­mot­ed, fea­tur­ing in inter­na­tion­al tourist guides such as Lone­ly Plan­et, and Bolon Ajaw counts with five more as yet unde­vel­oped Falls which are even more beau­ti­ful.

These pro­posed devel­op­ments are part of a much big­ger tourist devel­op­ment plan. Enor­mous inter­ests are at stake in the Palenque CIP project, which cov­ers six munic­i­pal­i­ties in the north of Chi­a­pas around the world-famous Mayan tem­ples of Palenque. The state gov­ern­ment of Chi­a­pas is due to invest half of the mon­ey involved, the bal­ance pre­sum­ably com­ing from pri­vate invest­ment. The Project has been in devel­op­ment since 2007, and a major exten­sion of Palenque air­port is due this year.

The CIP Project empha­sis­es spe­cial­ist and lux­u­ry tourism, and long-stay vis­i­tors. A nat­ur­al theme park is planned for the Agua Azul Water­falls, with com­mer­cial areas and sig­nif­i­cant accom­mo­da­tion for ‘eco’, adven­ture and sport­ing tourism. But, inter­na­tion­al con­sul­tants point out, ‘before attract­ing invest­ment the State must find a solu­tion to the prob­lems of acquir­ing the land and the prob­lems of access.’

In oth­er words, for the state and busi­ness inter­ests, the Zap­atis­tas and their deter­mi­na­tion to defend Moth­er Earth are ‘a prob­lem’ stand­ing in the way of the real­i­sa­tion of mul­ti-mil­lion tourist invest­ments.

These planned tourist devel­op­ments are close­ly linked to a new high­way through Chi­a­pas, which threat­ens a num­ber of com­mu­ni­ties on its route from the colo­nial tourist cen­tre of San Cristo­bal de Las Casas to the mag­nif­i­cent Mayan tem­ples at Palenque. As well as Bolon Ajaw, the com­mu­ni­ties of San Sebas­t­ian Bacha­jon http://www.edinchiapas.org.uk/node/235 , near Bolon Ajaw, and Mitzi­ton near San Cristo­bal, both adher­ents to the Zap­atista-ini­ti­at­ed Oth­er Cam­paign, are among the com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing the new high­way in the face of state and para­mil­i­tary oppres­sion.

Fray Bar­tolome denounce the Chi­a­pas State author­i­ties for try­ing to blame the Zap­atis­tas and the Oth­er Cam­paign sup­port­ers of San Sebas­t­ian Bacha­jon for the vio­lence. They accuse the author­i­ties of ‘gen­er­at­ing the
con­di­tions for a mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion ordered by the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment against the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion.’

The lands at Bolon Ajaw were reclaimed by the Zap­atis­tas in the after­math of the 1994 upris­ing. Till then they had been in the hands of pri­vate own­ers who bru­tal­ly exploit­ed the local indige­nous peo­ple. Fray­ba detail the numer­ous attacks by OPDDIC on the Zap­atis­tas since 2003.

DEFENDING MOTHER EARTH

These lat­est events at Bolon Ajaw are note­wor­thy not only for the scale of the threats fac­ing the Zap­atis­tas, but for the exem­plary sol­i­dar­i­ty, courage, self-organ­i­sa­tion and self-dis­ci­pline dis­played by the Zap­atis­tas in tak­ing col­lec­tive direct action to defend ‘Moth­er Earth and its nat­ur­al resources’.

In Bolon Ajaw, in Montes Azules http://www.edinchiapas.org.uk/node/263 , in Mitzi­ton, in Sebas­t­ian Bacha­jon, in Chico­muse­lo http://www.edinchiapas.org.uk/node/262 and through­out Chi­a­pas and Mex­i­co a
war is being waged by the state, para­mil­i­taries and big busi­ness to once more rob the indige­nous and poor peas­ant peo­ples of their land and destroy Moth­er Earth for mon­ey.

In Chi­a­pas, and also in oth­er Mex­i­can states like Oax­a­ca and Guer­rero, the peas­ant and indige­nous peo­ples’ resis­tance and strug­gle for auton­o­my con­tin­ues — inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty is need­ed.

As the Fray Bar­tolome cen­tre state:
‘We issue an URGENT call to civ­il soci­ety, in Mex­i­co and inter­na­tion­al­ly, to all those com­mit­ted to the defence of human rights, to come out and denounce the clear increase in the actions of vio­lence against the civil­ian, peace­ful process of auton­o­my being devel­oped by the Zap­atista bases of sup­port and their Coun­cils of Good Gov­ern­ments which are civ­il author­i­ties.’

NOTES

If inter­est­ed in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Zap­atis­tas and peo­ple of Chi­a­pas and Mex­i­co con­tact Edin­burgh Chi­a­pas Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group edinchiapas@yahoo.co.uk
www.edinchiapas.org.uk
Plus UK Zap­atista site http://ukzapatistas.wordpress.com/
There have already been sol­i­dar­i­ty actions in var­i­ous towns and cities in the Span­ish State and in Mex­i­co.

Full state­ment by Zap­atista Coun­cil of Good Gov­ern­ment of More­lia on the events at Bolon Ajaw on 6th Feb­ru­ary, in Eng­lish http://www.edinchiapas.org.uk/node/266

Fray Bar­tolome site, info in eng­lish
http://www.frayba.org.mx/index.php?hl=en

Reg­u­lar reports from Chi­a­pas, main­ly Span­ish, some Eng­lish, on Indy­media Chi­a­pas
www.chiapas.indymedia.org

Full report by Fray Bar­tolome human rights group on the events at Bolon Ajaw on 6th Feb­ru­ary, in Span­ish
http://chiapas.indymedia.org/article_173362

Let­ter of protest to Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment about the evic­tion of Zap­atista com­mu­ni­ty in Montes Azules, Chi­a­pas, in Span­ish
http://www.europazapatista.org/spip.php?article2409

More info and protest let­ter in Eng­lish can be found at:
http://glasgowchiapassolidaritygroup.wordpress.com

Construction equipment destruction — Lancaster, PA

Lan­cast­er police are seek­ing the public’s help in find­ing the van­dals who caused about $30,000 dam­age to some heavy equip­ment near a con­struc­tion site over the week­end.

The van­dals spray-paint­ed mes­sages, broke win­dows, cut engine wires and did oth­er dam­age to a bull­doz­er and an exca­va­tor on Pave­ment Road near Nichter Road, police said.

Lan­cast­er police are seek­ing the public’s help in find­ing the van­dals who caused about $30,000 dam­age to some heavy equip­ment near a con­struc­tion site over the week­end.

The van­dals spray-paint­ed mes­sages, broke win­dows, cut engine wires and did oth­er dam­age to a bull­doz­er and an exca­va­tor on Pave­ment Road near Nichter Road, police said.

The inci­dent, dis­cov­ered Sun­day, appar­ent­ly occurred some time between Fri­day night and Sun­day.

http://www.buffalonews.com/437/story/959258.html

Support the Local Campaign Against Bradley Proposed Open-cast

This years EF! win­ter moot was held in Dip­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, which looks over the pro­posed site for an open-cast at Bradley. Mem­bers of the local cam­paign against the mine have asked if peo­ple who attend­ed the moot, (as well as those who did­n’t) would write in their objec­tion to the devel­op­ment.

This years EF! win­ter moot was held in Dip­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, which looks over the pro­posed site for an open-cast at Bradley. Mem­bers of the local cam­paign against the mine have asked if peo­ple who attend­ed the moot, (as well as those who did­n’t) would write in their objec­tion to the devel­op­ment.

UK Coal’s appli­ca­tion is expect­ed to be heard by the plan­ning offi­cials in the near future. The local cam­paign would appre­ci­ate it if peo­ple would write in let­ters of objec­tion to the fol­low­ing address, stat­ing the APPLICATION No. CMA/1/37

Mrs C.L.Teasdale
Plannng Devel­op­ment Con­trol Team
Regen­er­a­tion and Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment
Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil
Durham
DH1 5UQ

Appar­ent­ly let­ters hold more weight if you say that you have vis­it­ed the area.

The facts about this pro­posed mine:
UK Coal has applied to sur­face mine 556,000 tonnes of coal from a coal seem cov­er­ing 22,000 acres.
The cur­rent ver­sion of the appli­ca­tion is has not yet gone to the Plan­ning Author­i­ty.
The appli­ca­tion is being resist­ed by The Pont Val­ley Net­work www.pontvalley.net
If the appli­ca­tion goes ahead the res­i­dents are par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about the loss of their her­itage sites.
The final des­ti­na­tion for the coal is either the steel indus­try or a pow­er sta­tion gen­er­at­ing elec­tric­i­ty.
Burn­ing this coal will release over 2 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmos­phere.
UK coal say the mine will cre­ate 38 jobs. Mr Cory of UK Coal says that there will be no new jobs but peo­ple will be trans­ferred to this site.
The mine will need 3 lor­ry trips per hour, each way.
UK coal and oth­er sur­face min­ing com­pa­nies have appli­ca­tions at the plan­ning stages for a fur­ther 13 mines in the area and a fur­ther 5 have been grant­ed in the area.
The near­est planned site also cur­rent­ly at the plan­ning stages is Skons Park, which Hall con­struc­tion are apply­ing to extract half a mil­lion tonnes of coal fire clay. This appli­ca­tion was last refused in 2007 but Halls have since reap­plied this year.

The Bradley site is 10 miles south of New­cas­tle in a beau­ti­ful area. The pro­posed site can be seen from New­cas­tle and Cheviot on a clear day. A mine would scar the land­scape; cause habi­tat destruc­tion which would affect many species, includ­ing Great Crest­ed Newts and Red Kites; con­tribute to glob­al warm­ing; increase traf­fic local­ly and destroy the remains of wag­on-ways and bell pit and shaft mines in the area. Res­i­dents are also con­cerned that if the mine is giv­en the go ahead then they will see fur­ther exten­sions applied for and grant­ed.

For more infor­ma­tion about the site and to add strength to let­ters of objec­tion please see http://pontvalley.net under NOTT cam­paign on the left hand side.

Riot police arrest 23 in night raid on peaceful protest against the destruction of Zagreb pedestrian zone

11.02.2010
At 03.30 this morn­ing around 100 riot police arrest­ed 23 activists from Green Action and the Right to the City ini­tia­tive in Zagreb, Croa­t­ia. The raid took place just hours after 4000 peo­ple turned out in snowy con­di­tions to protest against turn­ing part of the pedes­tri­an zone into a ramp for an under­ground garage planned as part of the Cvjet­ni shop­ping cen­tre and lux­u­ry flats devel­op­ment in the old part of Zagreb.

11.02.2010
At 03.30 this morn­ing around 100 riot police arrest­ed 23 activists from Green Action and the Right to the City ini­tia­tive in Zagreb, Croa­t­ia. The raid took place just hours after 4000 peo­ple turned out in snowy con­di­tions to protest against turn­ing part of the pedes­tri­an zone into a ramp for an under­ground garage planned as part of the Cvjet­ni shop­ping cen­tre and lux­u­ry flats devel­op­ment in the old part of Zagreb.

The oper­a­tion aimed to remove the accom­mo­da­tion con­tain­er which the groups had put on Varsavs­ka Street pedes­tri­an zone as a 24-hour info-point in order to block the begin­ning of works on the ramp, which is still under legal dis­pute. Activists inside of the con­tain­er and on the roof peace­ful­ly resist­ed removal by lock­ing them­selves togeth­er using arm tubes, and were arrest­ed after the fire brigade cut the tubes. Around 50 more activists blocked the road exits of the lor­ry car­ry­ing the con­tain­er but were also removed by the riot police.

The police also hacked to pieces a five-metre high wood­en tro­jan horse which had been brought to the site for the pre­vi­ous evening’s protest as a sym­bol of pri­vate inter­ests and cor­rup­tion mas­querad­ing as urban rede­vel­op­ment.

“Using riot police against a small group of peace­ful pro­test­ers is a dis­turb­ing over-reac­tion to the civ­il offence of fail­ing to obtain per­mis­sion before tem­porar­i­ly plac­ing the con­tain­er in the pedes­tri­an zone”, said Teo Celakos­ki from Right to the City. “Yet the whole Cvjet­ni project is based on dubi­ous legal manoeu­vres such as the city author­i­ties’ deci­sion to declare it a project of pub­lic inter­est when it is clear­ly noth­ing of the kind”.

“The Croa­t­ian author­i­ties must con­cen­trate on tack­ling the real prob­lem of cor­rup­tion instead of shoot­ing the mes­sen­gers, added Tomis­lav Toma­se­vic, from Green Action. “The Euro­pean Com­mis­sion has repeat­ed­ly iden­ti­fied cor­rup­tion as a major remain­ing obsta­cle to Croa­t­i­a’s EU Acces­sion but if this project is any­thing to go by there is still a long way to go.”

Videos of removal of activists & removal of ship­ping con­tain­er

Con­tact: Tomis­lav Toma­se­vic. +385 98 719 253
http://www.zelena-akcija.hr/

Chhattisgarh (India): 19 Mining Trucks Set Ablaze

From the Dai­ly Mail

http://dailymailnews.com/0110/29/FrontPage/FrontPage8.php

Maoist sep­a­ratists set ablaze 19 trucks of Indi­an Govt

From the Dai­ly Mail

http://dailymailnews.com/0110/29/FrontPage/FrontPage8.php

Maoist sep­a­ratists set ablaze 19 trucks of Indi­an Govt
NEW DELHI—Over 100 Maoist guer­ril­las stormed into a min­ing com­plex of the state-run NMDC Ltd in Chhattisgarh’s restive Dan­te­wa­da dis­trict and set 19 trucks on fire in the ear­ly hours of Wednes­day. The armed Maoist sep­a­ratists raid­ed the min­ing com­plex of India’s largest iron ore min­er at Kiran­dul, about 400 km south of here, at around 2 am. “The rebels sneaked into Kirandul’s 11‑B deposit of the NMDC and burnt 19 trucks hired by NMDC for iron ore trans­porta­tion. This result­ed in pan­ic amongst the hun­dreds of NMDC staff engaged in min­ing in the hilly area,” Lakhan Thakur, in charge of the Kiran­dul police sta­tion, told media.…

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!

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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.

Climate Change Activists: Join the Vancouver Convergence

A coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activists led by GatewaySucks.org is call­ing on cli­mate change activists to join the con­ver­gence at the 2010 Olympic Games in Van­cou­ver.


A coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activists led by GatewaySucks.org is call­ing on cli­mate change activists to join the con­ver­gence at the 2010 Olympic Games in Van­cou­ver.

When the 2010 Win­ter Olympics start a cou­ple of weeks from now in Van­cou­ver, BC the ath­letes and spec­ta­tors will be joined by orga­ni­za­tions with some of the worst records on cli­mate change.

Gen­er­al Motors is a nation­al part­ner for the games, and one of the lead­ing cor­po­rate oppo­nents of effec­tive action on cli­mate change. Only two years ago, a vice-chair­man of GM called glob­al warm­ing a “total crock of shit.” GM is sup­ply­ing a large fleet of vehi­cles for the games, almost all of which are gas-guz­zling SUVs.

Petro-Cana­da, anoth­er Nation­al Olympic Part­ner, is the retail arm of the largest extrac­tor of Oil Sands bitu­men. The Oil Sands are Canada’s biggest ghg emis­sions point source.

RBC (the Roy­al Bank of Cana­da) in addi­tion to being a promi­nent Olympic spon­sor is the largest com­mer­cial bank fun­der of the Oil Sands,. Tran­sCana­da pipelines, whose pipelines con­nect to the Oil Sands, is also an offi­cial sup­pli­er.

The gov­ern­ment of British Colum­bia is the main fun­der and pro­mot­er of the games. They kicked off a mas­sive plan to add over 1,000 km of new high­way lanes (an increase of over 2,000,000 annu­al tonnes of CO2e emis­sions ) with the Sea-to-Sky High­way expan­sion for the Olympics. These plans include the con­tro­ver­sial Gate­way Pro­gram. It con­tin­ues to heav­i­ly sub­si­dize the oil and gas indus­try which result­ed in it being the only Cana­di­an province to see ghg emis­sions from indus­tri­al sources increase in 2008.

The Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment of Cana­da which con­sis­tent­ly earned “Fos­sil Awards” at the most recent inter­na­tion­al cli­mate talks also is a major fun­der for the Olympics.

These cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ments want to fool the world with their claim that these are the “Green­est Games Ever” despite the links to cli­mate change deniers, high­way expan­sion and the Oil Sands.

If you would like to endorse this call-out or get involved direct­ly please con­tact info@gatewaysucks.org.

MORE INFORMATION:

Con­ver­gence Info: http://olympicresistance.net/

Wel­com­ing Com­mit­tee: http://2010welcoming.wordpress.com/

Green Olympic Watch: http://2010greenwatch.org/

GatewaySucks.org: http://www.gatewaysucks.org/

2010 Cli­mate Crime Scene: http://2010climatecrime.org