Category: Unnecessary Developments

Eco-arsonists for the liberation of the Earth in Mexico

13th June — 13th July

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More
EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City
EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

13th June — 13th July

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More
EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City
EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

Eco-Arson­ists Com­mit Mul­ti­ple Actions Against Banamex, Sco­tia­bank, & More

Com­mu­nique:

“Week­ly Report of eco-arsonists.mexico

Com­mu­nique:
Sat­ur­day, June 13th, fol­low­ing the call to action, attacks against the own­ers of cap­i­tal began. Sat­ur­day, the 13th the win­dow of a bank belong­ing to Sco­tia­bank was stoned, caus­ing mobi­liza­tion by the police in Tlal­pan when the alarm was acti­vat­ed. Sun­day, June 14th an incen­di­ary device was placed at the ATM of a Banamex locat­ed in Mil­pa Alta, which was foiled by the police, how­ev­er in this dis­trict where noth­ing has hap­pened before they no longer sleep in peace; para­noia has been cre­at­ed since sim­i­lar attacks were car­ried out against a BBVA in recent days caus­ing a huge impact on the dis­gust­ing author­i­ties in this com­mu­ni­ty; the police at the ser­vice of the rich did­n’t delay, since then a patrol has been guard­ing the entrance of the BBVA and its sur­round­ings; so as a response anoth­er incen­di­ary device was placed in the hood of a PGJ [Procu­raduría Gen­er­al de Jus­ti­cia] patrol car out­side the dis­trict com­mand head­quar­ters. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it was detect­ed and the action was inter­rupt­ed, but although the goal of burn­ing the patrol was not achieved, pan­ic was cre­at­ed and there is chaos in the streets of this com­mu­ni­ty; where what that they were not expect­ing has hap­pened; now their para­noia will not allow them to sleep. Wednes­day night, June 17, the Tlal­pan road­way was illu­mi­nat­ed with the abo­li­tion­ist fire of eco-arson­ists; the ATM of a BBVA out­side the entrances to the metro was left unus­able when an incen­di­ary device was left. On the same night, near the Metro Chaba­cano there was a sec­ond fire at a Sco­tia­bank ATM; the third attack was at a Banamex near Tax­queña where an explo­sive device was placed at the ATM. The same night a false bomb was left in anoth­er Banamex in Xochim­il­co. On that night it was once again demon­strat­ed that we are every­where, and now we are dogs infect­ed with rage. Thurs­day, June 18, a Banamex ATM in Ciu­dad Neza was burned by an incen­di­ary device; a threat­en­ing note was left on a sheet of paper, demand­ing free­dom for Amadeu Castel­las and claim­ing the action.
We will not stop our­selves, they will not stop us, we will con­tin­ue attack­ing the sym­bols of cap­i­tal­ism, the mur­der­er, tor­tur­er, spon­sor of the destruc­tion of the earth, there will be no turn­ing back; for each banker we have an incen­di­ary device, for each jail­er a bomb; that their mon­ey burns in flames of the abo­li­tion­ist fire of the eco-arson­ists.

We are your worst ene­my, your num­ber one ene­my!

We will be the dog that barks and that bites you!”

»

EpLT Sets Fire to Lux­u­ry Cars Near Mex­i­co City

Com­mu­nique:

“INCENDIARY ATTACKS ON CARS IN MEXICO

Sat­ur­day, July 4, around 11:30 at night in a place in the south of Mex­i­co City where things seemed to be calm, where there was peace and order on the streets, all those who are our ene­mies had slept qui­et­ly for quite some time yet now they do not; those who passed by in their lux­u­ry cars on the nau­se­at­ing black­top now may not do so; those who have left their con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing cars out­side their homes with­out wor­ry that some eco-arson­ist would attack, now they can be wor­ried because as night fell on Sat­ur­day, July 4, a day before the elec­tions in Mex­i­co we entered the house of a wealthy destroy­er of the earth and we placed an incen­di­ary device at two of his lux­u­ry cars and we stealth­ily slipped away with­out a trace oth­er than the abo­li­tion­ist fire. As expect­ed the police, at the sound of their mas­ter’s voice, act­ed imme­di­ate­ly, imple­ment­ing a mobi­liza­tion in the streets in search of the eco-arson­ists and once again we made a mock­ery of them. We passed before their faces and they could­n’t imag­ine even if they want­ed to that we were their ene­mies, twen­ty min­utes lat­er the fire­fight­ers extin­guished the fire but the cars were already burned.

We will con­tin­ue attack­ing with­out mer­cy! We will not let them sleep in peace!

We will not stop until we see civ­i­liza­tion burned!

ECO-ARSONISTS FOR THE LIBERATION OF THE EARTH (EpLT)”

»

EpLT Sets Fire to Sabri­tas Com­pa­ny Office Near Mex­i­co City

Com­mu­nique:

“INCENDIARY ATTACK AT DISTRICT OFFICE IN MEXICO

On Mon­day night, July 13, at 12:30 we decid­ed to attack the offices of a dis­trict in the south­west of Mex­i­co City. These offices are respon­si­ble for admin­is­ter­ing and orga­niz­ing the pol­lu­tion and destruc­tion of the wood­lands in this com­mu­ni­ty for the Sabri­tas com­pa­ny, pro­duc­ers of trans­genic veg­eta­bles used in junk food. This com­pa­ny has plant­ed fields near the com­mu­nal wood­lands. An incen­di­ary device was left at the door of the build­ing, work­ing suc­cess­ful­ly with­out leav­ing any trace; the abo­li­tion­ist fire con­sumed almost the entire wood­en door, leav­ing the roof and walls marked with black smoke. The author­i­ties have let pass unno­ticed all the actions that have been tak­en by the eco-arson­ists for the lib­er­a­tion of the earth; they know per­fect­ly well why we do it, that we have one objec­tive and that our sab­o­tages are not just an act of van­dal­ism. We will not stop attack­ing the destroy­ers of the earth!

For the lib­er­a­tion of the earth! Total destruc­tion of civ­i­liza­tion!

Eco-arson­ists for the lib­er­a­tion of the earth EpLT”

»

Source — http://www.elfpressoffice.org

More broken promises and lies as the fight to save Mainshill Wood continues.

The threat from Scot­tish Coal is grow­ing, just as the front line against new coal looks for­ward to its one month birth­day (com­plete with pic­nic). So get down here! Its now or nev­er!

The threat from Scot­tish Coal is grow­ing, just as the front line against new coal looks for­ward to its one month birth­day (com­plete with pic­nic). So get down here! Its now or nev­er! The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is extreme­ly grate­ful for the con­tin­u­ing sup­port from the local com­mu­ni­ty and will be cel­e­brat­ing its one month birth­day on Sun­day 19th July with a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic at 3pm to which every­one is wel­come.

Local res­i­dents awoke on Mon­day morn­ing to the news of yet anoth­er appli­ca­tion for an exten­sion at Poniel [1], a Scot­tish Coal mine in the Dou­glas Val­ley, some­thing that com­mu­ni­ties had been assured would not hap­pen, and which new plan­ning pol­i­cy guards against…Mainshill defences

Poniel Open Cast Coal site, a few hun­dred metres away from Main­shill, will be extend­ed by 100,000 tonnes over a six month peri­od. This bro­ken promise is yet anoth­er exam­ple of the dis­re­gard shown to com­mu­ni­ties and the envi­ron­ment in the pur­suit of prof­it.

Across the val­ley at Main­shill, envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion and dis­as­trous health impacts will result from the open cast­ing of the 350ha site to extract 1.7million tonnes of coal which will cause 4.98million tonnes [2] of car­bon emis­sions when burnt, exclud­ing the huge emis­sions released through the extrac­tion process [3].

Rather than respond­ing to the objec­tions made against these plans, Dou­glas and Angus Estates and its own­er Lord Home (cur­rent­ly being inves­ti­gat­ed for alleged fraud [4]) pre­fer instead to make unfound­ed alle­ga­tions in a recent media state­ment against the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp [5] and con­tin­ue to deny com­mu­ni­ties, through sham con­sul­ta­tion, of their health, self deter­mi­na­tion and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice.

At the pub­lic hear­ing attend­ed by sev­er­al mem­bers of the camp who also live in the local com­mu­ni­ty, only two of the 700 peo­ple who object­ed were allowed to speak against the pro­pos­al. To pre­vent the cast­ing aside of these objec­tions and to obstruct the work already begun on site, the occu­pa­tion of Main­shill Woods through direct action has been under­tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Prepara­to­ry work for the mine such as the tree felling and bore sam­ple drilling work under­tak­en by Apex already has been glossed over by the Estate and con­tra­venes 7 con­di­tions of the plan­ning approval regard­ing stud­ies to ascer­tain the pres­ence of cer­tain endan­gered species such as bad­gers and bats, which the occu­piers know to be present on site.

The Estate has mis­re­port­ed the unearthing of an 11KVA under­ground pow­er cable accus­ing the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp of almost caus­ing a “major dis­as­ter”. It was in fact Apex and Scot­tish Coal who endan­gered the lives of those on site and the local com­mu­ni­ty by dri­ving heavy machin­ery over the shal­low­ly buried and unmarked cable. Any heavy machin­ery could cause death to the occu­piers since the site is now com­pre­hen­sive­ly defend­ed with tree­hous­es and tun­nels.

The Estate and Scot­tish Coal’s per­sis­tent prof­i­teer­ing from coal has been defend­ed with ref­er­ence to car­bon cap­ture and stor­age tech­nol­o­gy, how­ev­er even the indus­try says that CCS is 20 years away. Only a small per­cent­age of emis­sions can be cap­tured using CCS tech­nol­o­gy at present [6]. CCS is a smoke­screen for min­ing new coal, and evades the dra­mat­ic reduc­tion in con­sump­tion inte­grat­ed with localised renew­able solu­tions and col­lec­tive com­mu­ni­ty action which is required giv­en cur­rent sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus regard­ing cli­mate change.

The com­mu­nites which would suf­fer the envi­ron­men­tal injus­tice and neg­a­tive health impacts result­ing from coal extrac­tion should have con­trol over their local envi­ron­ment. If the plan­ning sys­tem con­tin­ues to side with the coal indus­try, futher direct action will be the only rea­son­able response.

ENDS

For more infor­ma­tion please see: http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk or phone
the site for inter­views on 07806926040

Notes to Edi­tors
[1]
http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info/news.asp?intent=viewstory&newsid=18504
[2] Car­bon com­bines with oxy­gen in the atmos­phere dur­ing com­bus­tion,
pro­duc­ing car­bon diox­ide, with an atom­ic weight of (12 + 16 x 2 = 44
kg/kmol). The CO2 released to air for each kilo­gram of incin­er­at­ed coal is
there­fore 2.93kg.
[3] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826520.100-capturing-carbon.html
[4]
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/coutts-bank-chairman-lord-home-named-carroll-trust-case‑0
[5] The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has been occu­py­ing Main­shill Woods since
18/6/09 in order to resist Scot­tish Coal’s plans to devel­op a new open
cast coal mine.
[6] Cor­po­rate­Watch Tech­nofix­es Report down­load­able at
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3126

Pitched battles over open refuse dump outside Athens

8th July

Pitched bat­tles between locals of Gram­mati­co, out­side Athens, and riot police forces over the con­struc­tion of an open refuse damp with locals dig­ging trench­es, build­ing bar­ri­cades and torch­ing bull­doz­ers; scores have been wound­ed as bat­tles con­tin­ue amidst spread­ing fires.

8th July

Pitched bat­tles between locals of Gram­mati­co, out­side Athens, and riot police forces over the con­struc­tion of an open refuse damp with locals dig­ging trench­es, build­ing bar­ri­cades and torch­ing bull­doz­ers; scores have been wound­ed as bat­tles con­tin­ue amidst spread­ing fires.

More than 1500 locals of the Black Moun­tain vil­lage of Gram­mati­co, out­side Athens, have erect­ed bar­ri­cades and dug trench­es in order to stop the begin­ning of an open refuse damp (XYTA) con­struc­tion in their area. The locals torched the com­pa­ny’s bull­doz­ers after riot police forces arrest­ed and beat the resist­ing may­or, refus­ing to take him to the hos­pi­tal to treat his wounds.

One of the local coun­cil mem­bers has been declared: “There are fires every­where and strong police forces. We are afraid of a mas­sacre. The police is using bru­tal force and we have scores of wound­ed cit­i­zens. The riot police forces (MAT) have reached our last bar­ri­cade. If they man­age to cross it, then the sit­u­a­tion will be out of con­trol. How­ev­er this will prove hard, as it is our strongest bar­ri­cade. We have dug the earth plant­i­ng trac­tors and bull­doz­ers in it. All the vil­lage is here and is ready to fight”. Many peo­ple have been arrest­ed dur­ing the clash­es, and sev­er­al police­men have been wound­ed by pro­jec­tiles. The fire brigade has deployed 3 air­plane, 3 heli­copters and over 15 fire engines in order to fight the fires caused by the riot police mind­less use of tear gas and “blast and flash” grenades and are threat­en­ing a chil­dren sum­mer camp near­by.

The con­struc­tion of XYTA around the coun­try has cre­at­ed a chain of vio­lent envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles, whose pro­to­type is Lefkim­mi, a Cor­fu vil­lage which has been resist­ing State plans for 18 months, los­ing one com­rade in the bat­tles with the police.

Victories in Virginia, US of A

In the past sev­er­al months, three efforts that Earth First! (EF!) has con­tributed action and ener­gy to in Vir­ginia have gained sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ries. In each of these cas­es, our involve­ment has been rel­a­tive­ly small com­pared to the efforts of oth­er groups, and all cred­it is due to them for doing the un-sexy, demand­ing work of drag­ging these indus­tries through the courts and reg­u­la­to­ry process­es where these vic­to­ries were ulti­mate­ly won. While we envi­sion and work to cre­ate a world where destruc­tive projects are stopped by sheer force of grass­roots direct action, we do indeed believe in using every tool in the tool­box.

Dominion BlockadeIn the past sev­er­al months, three efforts that Earth First! (EF!) has con­tributed action and ener­gy to in Vir­ginia have gained sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ries. In each of these cas­es, our involve­ment has been rel­a­tive­ly small com­pared to the efforts of oth­er groups, and all cred­it is due to them for doing the un-sexy, demand­ing work of drag­ging these indus­tries through the courts and reg­u­la­to­ry process­es where these vic­to­ries were ulti­mate­ly won. While we envi­sion and work to cre­ate a world where destruc­tive projects are stopped by sheer force of grass­roots direct action, we do indeed believe in using every tool in the tool­box.

Here’s a brief syn­op­sis of some of those tools being put to work over the past two years:

The first action tak­en by the cur­rent incar­na­tion of Blue Ridge Earth First! (BREF!) was a demon­stra­tion at the home of a devel­op­er dri­ving efforts to build a Wal-Mart in Blacks­burg, Vir­ginia. There was nev­er a long-term direct action strat­e­gy hashed out to defeat this project. While an emerg­ing com­mu­ni­ty group devel­oped sup­port and momen­tum towards leg­is­lat­ing and lat­er lit­i­gat­ing their oppo­si­tion into law, our action served chiefly as a reminder that civ­il dis­course with those who would des­e­crate our com­mu­ni­ties for a buck is no virtue. The demon­stra­tion was also the com­ing-out par­ty for a new EF! chap­ter ready to give some teeth to the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment in the hills of Vir­ginia.

As BREF! shift­ed our focus to oth­er projects, efforts to stop the Wal-Mart through any well-man­nered, gov­ern­ment-sanc­tioned and tru­ly bor­ing means nec­es­sary, per­sist­ed and ulti­mate­ly reigned tri­umphant by way of appeal­ing a local zon­ing ordi­nance all the way to the Supreme Court of Vir­ginia. While the parade of Earth First!ers mak­ing mer­ry in devel­op­er Jean­nie Stosser’s front yard played a small part in the whole turn of events, it is nonethe­less a grat­i­fy­ing vic­to­ry for our more well-behaved allies and a pleas­ant reminder that, when pres­sure builds, it even­tu­al­ly breaks.
On the moun­tain­top removal (MTR) front, a bit­ter­sweet vic­to­ry was won on May 7, when the Army Corps of Engi­neers, respond­ing to a prompt by the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA), rescind­ed a per­mit for A&G coal’s Ison Rock mine. Over the past sev­er­al years, the South­ern Appalachi­an Moun­tain Stew­ards, a local com­mu­ni­ty group has clogged reg­u­la­to­ry process­es and spo­ken out loud­ly against this mine. In 2004, A&G’s fail­ure to con­form to the laws for exact­ly how a moun­tain is sup­posed to be destroyed result­ed in a boul­der rolling off of a MTR mine and killing a three-year old boy asleep in his bed, prompt­ing Kat­u­ah Earth First! to chain, lock and glue the gates to that mine closed. In 2007, this same cor­po­ra­tion was the tar­get of sab­o­tage at one of it’s Wise Coun­ty moun­tain-top removal sites by a group call­ing itself the “Com­mit­tee to Defend the Land and Peo­ple.”

The Ison Rock mine would have totaled 1,300 acres in scope and would have buried three miles of streams. This is the first time that a MTR per­mit has ever been rescind­ed due to inter­ven­tion by a fed­er­al reg­u­la­to­ry body—evidence that the mount­ing and increas­ing­ly mil­i­tant oppo­si­tion to MTR of the past sev­er­al years is hav­ing an effect on pol­i­cy deci­sions. The EPA and Army Corps rea­soned that the sprawl­ing mine would vio­late the Clean Water Act if it dumped min­ing waste into streams, a prac­tice that always accom­pa­nies MTR oper­a­tions known as “val­ley fills.” The bit­ter­ness of this win comes with the fact that, short­ly after Obama’s EPA rescind­ed this and five oth­er per­mits, the coal indus­try applied pres­sure for the admin­is­tra­tion to give word on 42 oth­er pend­ing MTR per­mits, which result­ed in the EPA declar­ing that they’re all fine to pro­ceed. Why are six MTR/valley fill mines in vio­la­tion of the clean water act and 42 aren’t? Pol­i­tics. They’re throw­ing us a bone here. We’ll take that bone, and then we’ll beat them sense­less with it. All MTR buries streams! Until all MTR per­mits are revoked, we won’t stop!

In anoth­er case of the Clean Water Act final­ly being enforced, Domin­ion Power’s plans to add a third reac­tor to its Lake Anna nuclear plant were thwart­ed by a law­suit brought forth by the Blue Ridge Envi­ron­men­tal Defense League (BREDL) in Feb­ru­ary. Lawyers for BREDL, an orga­ni­za­tion sup­port­ing envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice strug­gles through­out the south­east, proved in court that oper­a­tions at the plant are rais­ing tem­per­a­tures in Lake Anna to over 100 degrees in the sum­mer­time. This is the same pow­er plant where EF!, Ris­ing Tide and oth­ers staged a sit-in dur­ing last summer’s South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action.

In the near­ly two years that our small EF! col­lec­tive has exist­ed, we’ve made a delib­er­ate effort to exe­cute direct actions with a tim­ing and sen­si­bil­i­ty that work con­cur­rent­ly with the cam­paigns of our friends, neigh­bors and allies who have the stom­ach to tan­gle up the state with­in the para­me­ters of its own pro­ce­dures. We do not have the time, taste, exper­tise or resources to spear­head these efforts our­selves but we see how they can be uti­lized effec­tive­ly. The prob­lem with any vic­to­ry won by virtue of state approval is that the state retains the pow­er to reverse that judg­ment. By bypass­ing the “des­ig­nat­ed chan­nels” to express our dis­sent and employ­ing actions that direct­ly dis­rupt the oper­a­tions we oppose, we demon­strate a readi­ness among the gen­er­al pub­lic to reject the rules of our oppres­sors and defend our­selves as is our nat­ur­al right. This pres­ence rein­forces the truth that favor­able gov­ern­ment actions are forced by the will of the peo­ple rather than being hand­ed down by the benev­o­lence of the rul­ing class. If we treat these wins as the end of a sto­ry and allow the hard-earned and slow­ly-built grass­roots pow­er that pro­duced these vic­to­ries to whith­er, then this is as close to jus­tice as we will ever get. If, instead, we under­stand them as mark­ers in the move­ment towards achiev­ing all pow­er to all peo­ple, then onward. It is the prop­a­ga­tion of this sen­ti­ment as well as the spe­cif­ic points of impact result­ing from our actions that we con­tribute to the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment in the moun­tains of Appalachia.

Activists strike at Chorlton Tesco, Manchester

4.7.2009
Man­ches­ter res­i­dents con­cerned about the pres­ence of a Tesco store in Chorl­ton cov­ered the shop in a hard hit­ting mes­sage to locals and the com­pa­ny late last night. They sprayed “Tesco is a virus” and “Tesco destroys places” in large let­ters across the front of the busi­ness.

Tesco is a virus4.7.2009
Man­ches­ter res­i­dents con­cerned about the pres­ence of a Tesco store in Chorl­ton cov­ered the shop in a hard hit­ting mes­sage to locals and the com­pa­ny late last night. They sprayed “Tesco is a virus” and “Tesco destroys places” in large let­ters across the front of the busi­ness.

Those who graf­fi­tied the super­mar­ket say they did so because they are con­cerned about the effect of stores such as this on the local area. They are also angry about Tesco’s record on work­ers rights, both abroad and at home, and their mas­sive con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change.

The new Tesco is prov­ing dam­ag­ing to small local busi­ness­es, many of which have been around for many decades. Far from increas­ing choice, the intro­duc­tion of Tesco has just added to Tesco’s stran­gle­hold and is push­ing out all of the area’s vari­ety and vital­i­ty.

Dan, one of those involved in last night’s activ­i­ty said, “It’s pret­ty hor­ri­fy­ing that 1 out of every 3 pounds spent on gro­ceries in Britain is spent in Tesco. This kind of uni­for­mi­ty is not what we want, it’s destroy­ing the vibran­cy of local com­mu­ni­ties.”

The planned open­ing of the Tesco was the sub­ject of much anger in the local area and kick-start­ed a cam­paign against its con­struc­tion called Keep Chorl­ton Inter­est­ing (It should be stressed that none of those involved in this cam­paign were respon­si­ble for this action). Despite oppo­si­tion from hun­dreds of local res­i­dents, inde­pen­dent retail­ers, coun­cil­lors and the local MP, the nation­al plan­ning inspec­torate over­turned the deci­sion by the Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to refuse the appli­ca­tion.

Tesco’s record on work­ers rights is shock­ing. War on Want, the anti-pover­ty char­i­ty, showed last year that work­ers in one of Tesco’s fac­to­ries in India were being payed £1.50 a day and forced to work 60 hour weeks.

Barak Oba­ma recent­ly weighed into the debate and attacked Tesco for refus­ing to allow work­ers to unionise in its stores in a let­ter to its boss Ter­ry Leahy.

On top of all this Tesco is a major con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change: its shops are ener­gy-inten­sive, food is flown in from thou­sands of miles away, and the com­pa­ny’s demand for prod­ucts like palm oil is destroy­ing vast tracts of the rain­for­est.

“Tesco will tram­ple on any­one or any­thing for a quick buck. All they care about is their prof­it mar­gins. Well, we say, it’s time we fought back and that’s just what we’ve start­ed to do here,” said activist, Dan.

The group say they will be will­ing to act in a sim­i­lar way in the future if it helps to high­light the true nature of Tesco. Man­ches­ter res­i­dents con­cerned about the pres­ence of a Tesco store in Chorl­ton cov­ered the shop in a hard hit­ting mes­sage to locals and the com­pa­ny late last night. They sprayed “Tesco is a virus” and “Tesco destroys places” in large let­ters across the front of the busi­ness.

Those who graf­fi­tied the super­mar­ket say they did so because they are con­cerned about the effect of stores such as this on the local area. They are also angry about Tesco’s record on work­ers rights, both abroad and at home, and their mas­sive con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change.

The new Tesco is prov­ing dam­ag­ing to small local busi­ness­es, many of which have been around for many decades. Far from increas­ing choice, the intro­duc­tion of Tesco has just added to Tesco’s stran­gle­hold and is push­ing out all of the area’s vari­ety and vital­i­ty.

Dan, one of those involved in last night’s activ­i­ty said, “It’s pret­ty hor­ri­fy­ing that 1 out of every 3 pounds spent on gro­ceries in Britain is spent in Tesco. This kind of uni­for­mi­ty is not what we want, it’s destroy­ing the vibran­cy of local com­mu­ni­ties.”

The planned open­ing of the Tesco was the sub­ject of much anger in the local area and kick-start­ed a cam­paign against its con­struc­tion called Keep Chorl­ton Inter­est­ing (It should be stressed that none of those involved in this cam­paign were respon­si­ble for this action). Despite oppo­si­tion from hun­dreds of local res­i­dents, inde­pen­dent retail­ers, coun­cil­lors and the local MP, the nation­al plan­ning inspec­torate over­turned the deci­sion by the Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to refuse the appli­ca­tion.

Tesco’s record on work­ers rights is shock­ing. War on Want, the anti-pover­ty char­i­ty, showed last year that work­ers in one of Tesco’s fac­to­ries in India were being payed £1.50 a day and forced to work 60 hour weeks.

Barak Oba­ma recent­ly weighed into the debate and attacked Tesco for refus­ing to allow work­ers to unionise in its stores in a let­ter to its boss Ter­ry Leahy.

On top of all this Tesco is a major con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change: its shops are ener­gy-inten­sive, food is flown in from thou­sands of miles away, and the com­pa­ny’s demand for prod­ucts like palm oil is destroy­ing vast tracts of the rain­for­est.

“Tesco will tram­ple on any­one or any­thing for a quick buck. All they care about is their prof­it mar­gins. Well, we say, it’s time we fought back and that’s just what we’ve start­ed to do here,” said activist, Dan.

The group say they will be will­ing to act in a sim­i­lar way in the future if it helps to high­light the true nature of Tesco.

Call-out for support: Mainshill Solidarity Camp eviction granted!

Come resist Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home, and defend com­mu­ni­ties and the cli­mate!

Come resist Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home, and defend com­mu­ni­ties and the cli­mate!Net
Come visit!

In a far­ci­cal court hear­ing this morn­ing in Lanark Sher­iff Court the evic­tion order brought by Lord Home, the landown­er (and chief exec of RBS pri­vate bank­ing firm) and Scot­tish Coal, the UK’s largest open cast pro­duc­er against the occu­piers at Main­shill Wood was grant­ed. Despite hav­ing just two work­ing days to seek legal advice and work on a defence the Sher­iff refused to allow the occu­piers more time.

The evic­tion order comes into effect imme­di­ate­ly owing to the “vast costs being incurred” by the con­tract drilling work being pre­vent­ed at the site by campers, accord­ing to Lord Home­’s solic­i­tors.

The Chair­per­son of Dou­glas and Gle­spin Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil had pre­pared a state­ment to present to the court in sup­port of the occu­piers and rais­ing seri­ous con­cerns about the timescale of the evic­tion order. The Sher­iff, how­ev­er, would not even allow the state­ment to be heard, say­ing only: “Giv­en that you’re a lay per­son, I’ll cast my eyes over it”.

Tracey Mitchell from Dou­glas said of the pro­ceed­ings: “It was damned ridicu­lous and mon­ey talks”. John Brozy, a for­mer min­er and for­mer jus­tice of the peace also from Dou­glas said: “the occu­piers have giv­en us new heart and made locals under­stand that they’re not alone”.

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is deter­mined to stop this coal mine from going ahead. We knew all along that this would be Lord Home­’s response – not engag­ing with us or the com­mu­ni­ty, but using his mon­ey and court bailiffs to remove us with­out get­ting his hands dirty. We will not go until we are force­ful­ly removed or until we have won.

Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home are on the back foot – the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has brought a huge amount of atten­tion to what they’re doing in South Lanark­shire, and what they’ve been get­ting way with for years. The com­mu­ni­ty is fired up and even more deter­mined to stop this project. We can win this! The last thing Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home need is an expen­sive and drawn-out evic­tion – what we need is for as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to join us and come to the camp.

The site is beau­ti­ful, full of wildlife and well defend­ed, with unprece­dent­ed lev­els of com­mu­ni­ty sup­port. This is the front line in the strug­gle against new coal and for com­mu­ni­ty self-deter­mi­na­tion over the inter­ests of big busi­ness and wealthy land own­ers.

Join us! See http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk for infor­ma­tion about the camp and how to get here, and http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/ for reg­u­lar updates.
no thanks!
barricade

Mainshill Solidarity Camp presented with eviction papers

At 17:00 in the after­noon on Wednes­day 24th of June occu­piers of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in south Lanark­shire were hand­ed evic­tion papers by a sher­iff offi­cer. The Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp has been sum­moned to appear at Lanark sher­iff court on Mon­day the 29th at 9:45 am.

At 17:00 in the after­noon on Wednes­day 24th of June occu­piers of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in south Lanark­shire were hand­ed evic­tion papers by a sher­iff offi­cer. The Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp has been sum­moned to appear at Lanark sher­iff court on Mon­day the 29th at 9:45 am.

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was estab­lished on Fri­day 26th in the Dou­glas Val­ley in South Lanark­shire to show sup­port to the local com­mu­ni­ty who are oppos­ing a new open­cast site from being built in the area. Tree-hous­es and oth­er struc­tures in the wood­land have been put in place to show Scot­tish Coal that they are seri­ous about pre­vent­ing the open­cast site from going ahead.

”Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home have no right to evict us from this wood’ Said Anna Key a care work­er and one of the campers cur­rent­ly liv­ing on the Site. ”Plan­ning per­mis­sion states that they have to car­ry out an envi­ron­men­tal sur­vey from Spring until Autumn before they can start work. Because they have com­menced drilling oper­a­tions and tree felling we have been forced to occu­py the site to stop this ille­gal work from hap­pen­ing.”

On Sun­day the 28th the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp are hold­ing a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic at 3pm to which every­one is invit­ed. Many peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty will come down to drink tea and eat cake with the campers, learn how to climb trees and paint ban­ners to make the site look wel­com­ing.

The sol­i­dar­i­ty camp intends to do all it can to stop the new open­cast mine from going ahead and has the full sup­port of the local com­mu­ni­ty. Come along to the pic­nic on Sun­day to get involved!

Bath Bomb #23 Out Now

THE BATH BOMB
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #23
free/donation
June 09

“Nick Grif­fin: if you’re read­ing this, we’re in your house”

Pulling A Fash One: Bath 3, BNP 0

THE BATH BOMB
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #23
free/donation
June 09

“Nick Grif­fin: if you’re read­ing this, we’re in your house”

Pulling A Fash One: Bath 3, BNP 0

The BNP went three goals down on Fri­day the 22nd May in the con­tin­u­ing grudge match between them­selves and the peo­ple of Bath. This time the venue was the pres­ti­gious BRL­Si, on Queen Square. Near­ly 100 peo­ple from a vari­ety of back­grounds (includ­ing antifa, anar­chists, greens, IWW, social­ists and a good num­ber of pissed off Batho­ni­ans) respond­ed to a call out from Bath Activist Net­work to protest a hus­tings meet­ing fea­tur­ing the fas­cist BNP.

The demo was a huge suc­cess, see­ing the front doors block­ad­ed for near­ly two hours, pre­vent­ing the meet­ing from going ahead. The major­i­ty of speak­ers due to rep­re­sent their par­ties pulled out of the meet­ing and opt­ed to speak on the street instead, many mak­ing the deci­sion to do so on the night. A tiny mob of eight fas­cists, most from out of town, turned up and made a piti­ful attempt to force their way in before giv­ing up and spend­ing the rest of the night moan­ing to the police (one of whom had an anti-BNP leaflet mys­te­ri­ous­ly taped to his back). Bris­tol-based BNP mem­ber Clive Court­ney was arrest­ed after shov­ing a local man to the ground.

The block­ade end­ed when the 50 police who were even­tu­al­ly draft­ed in demand­ed that the demo move out of the pub­lic view — pro­test­ers unan­i­mous­ly refused, and the pick­et was vio­lent­ly bro­ken up, allow­ing the fas­cists entry to a desert­ed build­ing, as the real democ­ra­cy was in full swing on the streets! While address­ing the emp­ty room, BNP Chip­pen­ham MEP can­di­date Jere­my Wother­spoon denied being racist, said he recent­ly ‘shook hands with a negro’ (his words, not ours).

In an inter­est­ing side note, mem­bers of the pub­lic let pro­test­ers know that the police were describ­ing them as ‘scum’ and activists have some inter­est­ing video footage of angry, rotund Bris­tol BNP high-up Mark War­ren-Clut­ter­buck hav­ing a pri­vate chat and a laugh with senior police. The BNP request­ed that once the block­ade was end­ed, they should be allowed to move in en masse — a request that the police were all too will­ing to facil­i­tate. The back-pat­ting and obvi­ous mutu­al sup­port between the cops and Nazis was sick­en­ing, but on the night the facts spoke for them­selves — pub­lic sup­port was over­whelm­ing­ly in favour of the block­ade, and the ‘no plat­form for fas­cists’ posi­tion.

The BNP still fea­tures hate­mon­ger activists con­vict­ed of bomb­ings, mur­der and assault, inter­nal­ly calls for a reduc­tion in demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion-mak­ing in the par­ty, and only per­mits white eth­nic, ‘indige­nous’ Brits to join as full mem­bers. It is impos­si­ble for the BNP to pub­licly adver­tise, or hold a meet­ing with­out pro­tec­tion from the police and a huge and angry reac­tion from the vast major­i­ty of the pub­lic. Well done to every­one who turned up and showed once again that the BNP are not wel­come in civilised soci­ety, let alone Bath. It’s just a shame that the BRL­Si orga­niz­ers tooth­less­ly felt oblig­ed to pro­vide the BNP the cred­i­bil­i­ty they so crave by invit­ing them; hope­ful­ly, there won’t be a next time. And if you do have any info on BNP activ­i­ty in your area, email either bathac­tivist­net [at] yahoo.co.uk, or phone 08451 265011.

http://bristolantifa.org
http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/inyourtown/corsham/4365146.Corsham_family_stands_as_BNP_candidates/

Eco Bat­tle For Bathamp­ton: Round 2

News has reached us that B&NES Coun­cil has made the pub­lic-friend­ly deci­sion of approv­ing the mas­sive­ly unpop­u­lar drain on finan­cial and envi­ron­men­tal resources that is the park and ride at Bathamp­ton Mead­ows. The park and ride, part of a ludi­crous­ly expen­sive, environmentally/socially destruc­tive and mas­sive­ly flawed trans­port pack­age, is to be built on the ancient mead­ow­lands which are part of the Cotswolds AONB (Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty) and con­tain two ancient mon­u­ments. The loca­tion is poor­ly-cho­sen and the coun­cil them­selves have con­ced­ed that the traf­fic eas­ing effects of the park and ride will be ‘min­i­mal’.

Maybe the coun­cil have for­got­ten the headache that was caused last time the author­i­ties tried to bull­doze the nat­ur­al habi­tats sur­round­ing Bathamp­ton. In 1994, a large tree camp was set up to oppose the Bathamp­ton A36/A46 link road, cost­ing the author­i­ties thou­sands in secu­ri­ty costs and putting the project way behind sched­ule. The same looks set to hap­pen again, with local activists hon­ing their eco-defence skills. Rest assured that if the bull­doz­ers roll in, so will scores of angry locals and activists deter­mined to fight for the mead­ow inch by inch. The council’s dis­re­gard for the envi­ron­ment looks set to ignite a bat­tle that will be giv­ing them seri­ous headaches for years to come. You can still write let­ters of objec­tion to the scheme, and a tem­plate let­ter can be found at http://www.savebathamptonmeadows.org.uk, and, short notice, push a ‘call in’ for a pub­lic enquiry by the 23rd of this month.

Stop the press: at a recent pub­lic meet­ing, we have just heard that the Gov­ern­ment Office for the South West have just ini­ti­at­ed an ‘Arti­cle 14’, a mod­est-sound­ing bit of jar­gon that indi­cates that they now require more time to con­sid­er the scheme – so nothing’s set in con­crete yet.

Debt Advice Cen­tre Opens In Twer­ton

The Bath ‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay’ cam­paign has opened a drop-in cen­tre for advice on debts, ben­e­fits, bailiffs and gen­er­al help with the reces­sion – and pos­si­bly any oth­er prob­lems you may have! Pop round the Twer­ton social cen­tre (4 Day Cres­cent, Twer­ton) on Wednes­days between 4pm and 7pm, for a friend­ly cup­pa and a chat with one of our help­ful trained vol­un­teers.

EVENTS

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

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

debt advice drop-in, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, Twer­ton social cen­tre, Day Cres­cent

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

anti-foie gras demo, Fri­days, meet Queen Square 7pm

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

Bub­bling Under, Sun­day 21st June, 1–4pm, Porter Cel­lar, George Street

Calais No Bor­der Camp, 23rd-29th June, France

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 22nd June, venue TBC, 7.30pm, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Tran­si­tion Bath talk on pub­lic trans­port issues, Wednes­day 24th June, 8pm, Wid­combe Social Club

Tran­si­tion Drinks, Wednes­day 24th June, 8pm, upstairs at The Raven

anar­cho-punk gig, Fri­day 26th June, 8pm, The Porter Butt, Lon­don Road, Bath, feat. Cit­i­zen Fish, A heads, Sur­ren­der, Filthy Habits

ani­mal sanc­tu­ar­ies ben­e­fit gig Sat­ur­day 27th June, 7.30pm, The Plough, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, feat Babar Luck, Rat­face & Tracey Cur­tis, £4 entry

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­day 28th June, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, www.rysbath.org.uk/Hazel 01225 469199

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Wednes­day 1st July, 7.30–8.30pm, back­room of The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 2nd July, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade

Bath Friends of the Earth meet­ing, Mon­day 6th July, 8pm, Still­point, Broad Street Place, Broad Street

Film: ‘Wed­ding in Galilee’, Tues­day 7th July,7.30pm, Mason­ic Hall, Frome, £5/£3 con­ces­sions; pre­sent­ed by Frome Friends of Pales­tine — part of Frome Fes­ti­val

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 8th July, 8.30pm, the Porter, George Street

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 11th July, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 11th July, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, email broad­land­sor­chard­share [at] googlemail.com or phone 07532 472 256

Dan­ish Cli­mate Camp, Den­mark, Sat­ur­day 11th July – Sun­day 19th July, http://camp09.dk

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­day 12th July, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, www.rysbath.org.uk/Hazel 01225 469199

Bath Green­peace meet­ing, Mon­day 13th July, 7.30–9pm, Still­point, Broad Street Place

Tran­si­tion Open Forum, Tues­day 14th July, 7pm, Wid­combe Social Club

French Cli­mate Camp Mon­day, Mon­day 3rd August – Sun­day 9th August, France, http://www.campclimat.org

Belgian/Dutch Cli­mate Action Camp, Mon­day 3rd August — Sun­day 9th August, near Antwerp, http://www.klimaatactiekamp.org

The Camp for Cli­mate Action in Scot­land, Mon­day 3rd – Tues­day 11th August, Scot­land, http://climatecampscotland.org.uk

Cym­ru Cli­mate Camp, Thurs­day 13th – Sun­day 16th August 2009, Merthyr Tyd­fil, South Wales, http://climatecampcymru.org

Greek No Bor­ders Camp, Tues­day 25th August – Mon­day 31st August, Lesvos, Greece, http://lesvos09.antira.info

The Camp for Cli­mate Action 2009, Thurs­day 27th August and Wednes­day 2nd Sep­tem­ber, Lon­don, http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, Sat­ur­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, The Island, Sil­ver Street, Bris­tol, 10.30am-7pm, http://www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

Bris­tol Co-Mutiny: Social Change Not Cli­mate Change gath­er­ing, Sun­day 13th Sep­tem­ber – Sat­ur­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, http://www.comutiny.wordpress.com

Inter­na­tion­al Day of Cli­mate Action, Sat­ur­day 24th Octo­ber, http://www.350.org/ oct24

Exclu­sive: Dirty Don’s Dodgy Expens­es

With the ample evi­dence pour­ing out of the cash trough that is West­min­ster to attest to the cor­rupt nature of the vast major­i­ty of our MPs, it may come as no sur­prise to many of you that our own ‘Dodgy’ Don Fos­ter MP is also appar­ent­ly on the take. Our favourite every­man has been claim­ing a stag­ger­ing £380 per week allowance for his sec­ond home (£230 above the nation­al aver­age, and work­ing out to a huge £19,760 per year). In addi­tion to this, Mr Foster’s ‘mis­cel­la­neous’ claims per year total over £5,000 and have risen by 60% since 2001. Obvi­ous­ly as Don gets more and more used to rub­bing shoul­ders with the show­er of cheats and liars that pass them­selves off as our lead­ers, he gets more and more com­fort­able with help­ing him­self to a plush life using our cash. But, on a salary of a mere £65,000 a year, can we blame poor Don for claim­ing an addi­tion­al total of £92,000, includ­ing expens­es, sec­re­tar­i­al ser­vices and ‘mis­cel­la­neous’ expens­es in 2007?

As if this weren’t enough, Don makes a nice lit­tle earn­er for his polit­i­cal career by accept­ing huge wedges of cash; £99,015.09 in 2007 alone to be exact, from a shady char­ac­ter with his roots in white col­lar crime. The super rich and super crooked Paul Stras­burg­er is a local mil­lion­aire, own­er of no less than three local estate agents and by far the largest bankroller of the local Lib Dems. While huge­ly dis­taste­ful, being a mil­lion­aire and a land shark is not tech­ni­cal­ly a crime. What IS stray­ing towards the ille­gal how­ev­er is Strasburger’s deal­ings with a cer­tain Michael Brown, anoth­er bankroller of the Lib Dems. While on the run for theft and mon­ey laun­der­ing (Brown is now hid­ing out in the Caribbean) police took an inter­est in search­ing the home of Stras­burg­er who had put his house for­ward as Brown’s bail address. This is just anoth­er exam­ple of big busi­ness scratch­ing the back of politi­cians – the old boys’ club in action – and adds to the image we are see­ing more and more of the rich and polit­i­cal class­es sneer­ing at us while they rob for the poor and keep for them­selves. Yet still, we can’t hold Don and his Dodgy big busi­ness pals sole­ly respon­si­ble; after all, when in Rome…

…And The BNP Are At It, Too!

Wonk-eyed Nazi Nick Grif­fin has gone to great lengths to dis­tance his par­ty from their white suprema­cist, fas­cist image, dress­ing the par­ty up as an alter­na­tive to cor­rupt main­stream politi­cians. But while the par­ty has tem­porar­i­ly un-stiff­ened their arms, and tries not to be open­ly racist (an attempt foiled by even the light­est scruti­ny), a brief look over their expens­es claims show them to be just as bad as the rest. In Bark­ing and Dagen­ham, sev­en BNP coun­cil­lors attend­ed only 27% of meet­ings while still pock­et­ing their full £9,801 allowance. A BNP coun­cil­lor in Sandwell attend­ed none of the meet­ings at which he was expect­ed and took the full allowance while the party’s 2007 accounts failed their audit as sev­er­al grand of expen­di­ture was not prop­er­ly record­ed. They have also been in trou­ble recent­ly after being caught claim­ing some paid-up par­ty mem­bers were self employed to avoid pay­ing income tax and NI con­tri­bu­tions. So, as well as being obvi­ous­ly racist (Nick Grif­fin recent­ly expressed a hope of ignit­ing a racial war while address­ing a KKK ral­ly in the USA, and has pub­lished books deny­ing the Holo­caust), vio­lent and gen­er­al­ly repres­sive and obnox­ious, it turns out that the BNP are just as cor­rupt as the rest of them, and have been join­ing all the oth­er par­ties in wal­low­ing in unearned piles of our cash. Bas­tards, the lot of ‘em!

Nobody Wins Euro Elec­tions

The recent Euro­pean elec­tions were a resound­ing defeat for main­stream polit­i­cal par­ties – and anoth­er exam­ple of how unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment actu­al­ly is. Labour suf­fered their biggest set­back since the birth of Tony Blair, UKIP strug­gled to keep the votes they already had, whilst left­ist main­stream par­ties such as the Greens made sig­nif­i­cant gains. How­ev­er, the real win­ner was Nobody. Europe-wide, an incred­i­ble 57% vot­ed for Nobody – 65% in the UK – an aston­ish­ing man­date for social change on a scale unseen since the incep­tion of the Lib­er­al par­ty in the 1870s.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, and to the dis­gust of a dis­il­lu­sioned elec­torate across the con­ti­nent, the EU REFUSED to acknowl­edge these votes, and declared that all the seats fair­ly won by Nobody would be REDISTRIBUTED amongst the oth­er par­ties. And so we have a sit­u­a­tion where par­ties such as the BNP, who took LESS votes in this elec­tion than the last, have tak­en seats in the EU Par­lia­ment for the first time in his­to­ry.

In France in 2007 the state’s refusal to rec­og­nize a 16% vote for Nobody led to riot­ing in most major cities. Ear­li­er this year, the Ice­landic government’s refusal to allow Nobody to take posi­tions of pow­er demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly theirs con­tributed to the pop­u­lar over­throw of that gov­ern­ment. With the anger cur­rent­ly brew­ing across Europe, can sim­i­lar upris­ings be far away?

Art With A Cap­i­tal ‘F’

Those das­tard­ly john­nies from B.A.D. (Bath Arts Dic­ta­tor­ship) have been up to their old tricks again. This lot make up the secre­tive lit­tle cabal of the Bath Fes­ti­vals com­mit­tee who hide them­selves away in their suite of rooms atop the city’s Tourist Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, busi­ly mas­sag­ing their fan­tasies and egos, lay­ing down the law to you, the Bath pub­lic, on vot you vill and vill not enjoy, ja?

Their lat­est two fin­gers-up to pub­lic opin­ion came in the form of a pair of mon­strous and ugly mashed-wire-coathang­er ‘sculp­tures’ by Glouces­ter ‘artist’ Sophie Ryder, which were dumped in Abbey Square in ear­ly April. These met­al hor­rors have no link what­so­ev­er to Bath, oth­er than as a shop win­dow for Ms Ryder’s oth­er out­put, cur­rent­ly on sale at extor­tion­ate prices in the city’s Vic­to­ria Art Gallery. Are we see­ing yet anoth­er B&NES-sponsored exam­ple of steal­ing from the poor to give to the rich?

In arguably one of the best and most enjoy­able dis­plays of direct-action ad hoc pub­lic com­ment since the Bush shoe-throw­ing episode, both beasts were pulled (or pushed) over at East­er week­end. The only thing which marred this dis­play of sound artis­tic judg­ment was their mirac­u­lous res­ur­rec­tion by crane soon after­wards. How much pub­lic dosh was wast­ed on hoist­ing them back on their plinths?

Was it just coin­ci­dence that Bugs Bun­ny and pal Bul­ly from TV pro­gramme ‘Bulls­eye’ pitched up at the same time as the Bath Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val? As they formed a back­drop to the com­e­dy stage itself, how could any­body take them seri­ous­ly? So is there a bunch of cul­tur­al wor­thies, not a mil­lion miles from Kingston Build­ings, extract­ing the urine?

Care In The Co-Mutiny

Activists and groups, dream­ers and schemers from across the south­west are com­ing togeth­er from the 12th to the 20th Sep­tem­ber in Bris­tol for a week of themed autonomous days of action and prac­ti­cal skill shares, pro­mot­ing an alter­na­tive fair­er and more pos­i­tive future, in con­trast to the cur­rent night­mare sce­nario of cor­po­rate greed, social injus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. If you want to get involved and join the Co-Muti­neers – you know you do – email comutiny [at] riseup.net.

http://www.comutiny.wordpress.com

Nobody Takes You Seri­ous­ly Until You Have An Insane Arch-Neme­sis

Bath Ani­mal Action’s cam­paign against foie gras – over­priced liv­er from tor­tured ducks and geese, pro­duced under such appalling con­di­tions that only obscure EU trade laws allow its sale in the UK – remains defi­ant and com­mit­ted in the face of one of the most ret­i­cent restau­ra­teurs yet.

Upmar­ket tapas restau­rant Mini­bar are still refus­ing to remove foie gras from their menu, despite bogus claims of eth­i­cal con­cerns, poor sales of the dish, and con­fes­sions to the Chron­i­cle that they have a “ter­ri­ble night” and lose mon­ey when­ev­er pro­test­ers vis­it. The rea­son for this appar­ent­ly sui­ci­dal devo­tion to cru­el cui­sine may be relat­ed to a small, bald­ing and clear­ly unsta­ble man claim­ing to co-own the restau­rant. His com­bi­na­tion of abuse, mock­ery and delib­er­ate­ly run­ning down an activist with his expen­sive 4x4 has bright­ened up sev­er­al dull nights already.

Despite an increas­ing­ly diverse and des­per­ate array of respons­es – push­ing an activist in the road, claim­ing to have proof that the food was eth­i­cal­ly pro­duced and then refus­ing to show it, the afore­men­tioned vehic­u­lar assault, repeat­ed and ground­less threats of arrest from an open­ly one-sided police farce, and being bored to death for hours by an idiot who could bare­ly hold an opin­ion for five min­utes, let alone an argu­ment – the cam­paign­ers have vowed to fight for a foie-gras free Bath!

www.banfoiegras.org.uk/
www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/foiegras/index.html

Upping The Veg-Ante

Last month’s Bris­tol Veg­an Fayre – an annu­al cel­e­bra­tion of veg­an food, health and ani­mal-cru­el­ty-free ethics – went shin­ing­ly on the 30th and 31st May at Bristol’s Har­bour­side. Open to peo­ple of all dietary deci­sions, the food and drink flowed freely, par­tic­u­lar­ly the free sam­ples of choco­late and deli­cious fake meats, and there were stun­ning dis­plays of Sikh sword­fight­ing, and a sol­id line-up of reg­gae and rock over both days. Also on offer were info stalls on nutri­tion, char­i­ties, ani­mal res­cue cen­tres and cam­paign­ing groups – although unfor­tu­nate­ly there were slight­ly few­er ven­dors and high­er costs this year, and a more com­mer­cialised atmos­phere than pre­vi­ous­ly: with stalls reflect­ing the social issues con­nect­ed to veg­an­ism being rel­e­gat­ed to out-of-the-way spots in favour of com­pa­nies intent on tap­ping into the bur­geon­ing veg­an mar­ket. Still, a some­what more grass­roots veg­an fayre is planned for Bath in late Summer/early Sep­tem­ber, so keep your eyes peeled.

http://www.bristolveganfayre.co.uk

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 to 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

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by e‑mailing bath­bomb­press [at] yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request.GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by e‑mailing bath­bomb­press [at] yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request.

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

For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries see www.thebathbomb.blogspot.com

Mainshill Wood Occupied

19.6.09
URGENT: No Open Cast Here! Join the fight against open cast coal min­ing, cli­mate chaos and com­mu­ni­ty destruc­tion! Come to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp

Last night activists occu­pied the site of Main­shill Wood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties in the UK suf­fer­ing from the impacts of open cast­ing and resist­ing new mines.

Mainshill open cast19.6.09
URGENT: No Open Cast Here! Join the fight against open cast coal min­ing, cli­mate chaos and com­mu­ni­ty destruc­tion! Come to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp

Last night activists occu­pied the site of Main­shill Wood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties in the UK suf­fer­ing from the impacts of open cast­ing and resist­ing new mines.

Scot­tish Coal have been giv­en per­mis­sion to mine 1.7 mil­lion tonnes of coal from Main­shill in South Lanark­shire, a deci­sion by South Lanark­shire Coun­cil and lat­er Scot­tish Min­is­ters that enraged local res­i­dents who for years have cam­paigned against this mine. There are four oth­er mines in the area, mak­ing it one of the most heav­i­ly mined areas in Europe.

This new coal mine is only one of 20 such oth­ers to have recent­ly been giv­en plan­ning per­mis­sion in Scot­land. If we are to have any chance of lim­it­ing dan­ger­ous cli­mate change and pro­tect­ing com­mu­ni­ties from car­bon-inten­sive indus­tries we must take mat­ters into our own hands.

We have tak­en this autonomous and free space for those who wish to cre­ate pos­i­tive, cre­ative and
egal­i­tar­i­an solu­tions to eco­log­i­cal col­lapse, cli­mate change and envi­ron­men­tal injus­tice. Prof­i­teer­ing com­pa­nies, land own­ers and gov­ern­ments will not mine for new coal here!

Sup­port Us

We need:
Peo­ple – to hold this site we need peo­ple to join us. The site has a safe spaces pol­i­cy and wel­comes all who share our desire to live in a space free from hier­ar­chy, oppres­sion, dis­crim­i­na­tion and coal mines!
Climb­ing equip­ment – any you can donate will be put to good use
Build­ing mate­ri­als — suit­able bits of wood, rope, polyprop, pal­lets
Food — lots of it!
Mon­ey — run­ning a camp can be expen­sive, if you can donate to us please do
Oth­er equip­ment — head torch­es, tools, con­tain­ers, tarps, water­proofs, sleep­ing bags

How to get to the camp:
Bus­es run to Dou­glas from Lanark and Hamil­ton. Both Lanark and Hamil­ton have train and bus sta­tions and are easy to get to from either Glas­gow Cen­tral Train Sta­tion or Buchan­non Street Bus Sta­tion. From South of the bor­der, going to Glas­gow is the eas­i­est way to get to Dou­glas. Bus­es from Lanark to Dou­glas are much more fre­quent!

Bus from Lanark:

The Ser­vice Num­ber 9 (William Stokes & Sons) runs from Lanark — Gle­spin, stop­ping in Dou­glas (ser­vice every 49mins past each hour). Get off at the Egger­ton Bridge stop just before Dou­glas — you’ll see the camp on your left just after the M74 under­pass!

Bus from Hamil­ton:

The X50 (Hen­der­son Trav­el — http://www.henderson-travel.co.uk/) Hamil­ton-Gle­spin runs Hamil­ton, Inter­change — Les­ma­hagow, Church Hall — Rig­side — Dou­glas, leav­ing Hamil­ton at 17:05 (one ser­vice per day)

From Dou­glas:

The bus will stop before Dou­glas at Egger­ton Bridge and you will see the camp on your left after the M74 under­pass. If you miss this stop get off in Dou­glas and walk North East back up the A70 for 1km and the camp will be on yout right just before the M74.

Hitch­ing:

If you hitch, the camp is right next to the M74 which runs from Glas­gow to Carlisle. Get dropped of at junc­tion 12 and walk South West down the A70 towards Dou­glas and the camp is a few hun­dred metres on your left. Hap­pen­don ser­vices are close to junc­tion 12 — if you end up there­walk South down the B7078, turn right onto the A70 towards Dou­glas, which takes you under the M74 and as above.

If you need a ride…

…from some­where close by call the site phone and we’ll try to sort you out.

Con­tact Us

Call the site phone on: 07806 926 040

Protester erects fake phone mast

18 June 2009
A man has put up a fake phone mast in a bid to stop a real one being built next to his garage in Hamp­shire.

Sean Den­man reject­ed £4,500 from Voda­fone to erect a mast at his ser­vice sta­tion in Ever­ton Road, Hor­dle.

Fake phone mast protest18 June 2009
A man has put up a fake phone mast in a bid to stop a real one being built next to his garage in Hamp­shire.

Sean Den­man reject­ed £4,500 from Voda­fone to erect a mast at his ser­vice sta­tion in Ever­ton Road, Hor­dle.

The phone giant turned its atten­tion to a pave­ment adja­cent to the garage but was ini­tial­ly refused per­mis­sion.

How­ev­er, the plan was agreed on appeal but Mr Den­man has blocked con­struc­tion by weld­ing a pole and a box to a car which over­hangs the pave­ment.

Voda­fone said it was still look­ing to start work at the site, by the end of March 2010, and would take advice on any obstruc­tion at the site before work was due to start.

The firm said it would need a plan­ning agree­ment if it want­ed to move its mast to avoid Mr Den­man’s con­struc­tion.

In a state­ment, Voda­fone said: “The pro­posed radio base sta­tion… is required to improve the 3G cov­er­age to our cus­tomers in the area.

This loca­tion was cho­sen after con­sid­er­a­tion of 15 alter­na­tives as it pro­vides a back­drop of street fur­ni­ture, against which the pro­posed tim­ber tele­graph pole will not be visu­al­ly intru­sive.

“We are cur­rent­ly final­is­ing our build plans and it is our inten­tion to devel­op this site this finan­cial year.”

Mr Den­man said: “I had to get land sur­vey­ors to mark down where this con­struc­tion would go.

“Not hav­ing com­plete right of way, I decid­ed I can’t put any­thing on the pave­ment so took a car, weld­ed on a box and pole which over­hangs by the cor­rect amount cov­er­ing where the mast and box would go.

“They [Voda­fone] feel they can put their con­struc­tion any­where and make up any excuse.

“I am not against it, but not in this sort of place.”

‘Anten­nae need­ed’

New For­est Dis­trict Coun­cil and the parish coun­cil had pre­vi­ous­ly refused the plan­ning appli­ca­tion.

Chris Elliott, head of plan­ning at the coun­cil, said: “The coun­cil is con­cerned that so many phone mast appeals like this are being allowed by plan­ning inspec­tors because of the gov­ern­men­t’s com­mit­ment to 3G tech­nol­o­gy.”

The plan­ning inspec­tor had agreed the pro­pos­al, with a report stat­ing: “The appel­lant [Voda­fone] has demon­strat­ed the need for the anten­nae to pro­vide 3G cov­er­age in the Hor­dle area.”

The inspec­tor added that “giv­en gov­ern­ment tele­coms plan­ning pol­i­cy… the need for this facil­i­ty is suf­fi­cient to out­weigh the lim­it­ed harm to the char­ac­ter and appear­ance of the area.”