Category: London

Lon­don

Events at the Vortex Social Centre: Jan 22nd to Jan 27th

Vor­tex Social Cen­tre
139–141 Stoke New­ing­ton Church Street
Stoke New­ing­ton
N16

MON 22 Jan
8pm — Olympic Action Group meet­ing
Con­cerned about the finan­cial cost and neg­a­tive devel­op­ment plans for Lon­don 2012? Feel strong­ly that 2012 will be dam­ag­ing to you, your com­mu­ni­ty or the envi­ron­ment?

Vor­tex Social Cen­tre
139–141 Stoke New­ing­ton Church Street
Stoke New­ing­ton
N16

MON 22 Jan
8pm — Olympic Action Group meet­ing
Con­cerned about the finan­cial cost and neg­a­tive devel­op­ment plans for Lon­don 2012? Feel strong­ly that 2012 will be dam­ag­ing to you, your com­mu­ni­ty or the envi­ron­ment?
Join our group of like-mind­ed peo­ple, with the aim of sup­port­ing each oth­er and devel­op­ing ways to chal­lenge the neg­a­tive Olympic effect.
All wel­come

TUES 23 Jan
7pm — Cafe and cin­e­ma night.
Hot food, drink and anti-copy­wright cin­e­ma. Dona­tion.

WEDS 24 Jan
10am — 12pm Babies@Play.
New parent/baby group, come along for tea/coffee chat and play­time for babies. Bring your toys and ideas to share. Every wednes­day. Free.
10.30am — Court appear­ance for the evic­tion of the social cen­tre.
Clerken­well and Shored­itch Coun­ty Court
29 — 41 Gee Street
Lon­don
EC1V 3RE
All wel­come to attend.
7pm — Social Cen­tre gen­er­al meet­ing.
Come and get involved in the run­ning of the social cen­tre, pro­pose new intia­tives and cam­paigns

THURS 25 Jan
7pm — No Star­bucks in Stok­ie.
Anti Star­bucks cam­paign meet­ing to ensure the social cen­tre isn’t demol­ished for Star­bucks. All wel­come.

FRI 26 Jan
7pm — Cafe and cin­e­ma night.
Hot food, drink and anti-copy­wright cin­e­ma. Dona­tion.

SAT 27 Jan
8pm — Live jazz Upstairs at the Social Cen­tre.
Old jazzers relive the glo­ry days of the orig­i­nal Vor­tex. Dona­tion on the door.

Pho­to­graph­ic exhi­bi­tion:

Lon­don Social Cen­tres in Picures
Pho­to­graph exhibiton of the last five years of lon­don social cen­tres and a brief back­ground to each one.

Protest
Small col­lec­tion of pho­tographs from acclaimed pho­tog­ra­ph­er Guy Small­man cov­er­ing major demon­stra­tions across Europe over recent years.

We hope to open dai­ly from mid­day onwards for cof­fee, tea, soft drinks, cake and bis­cuits. Volu­enteers are always need­ed to help out. If you are inter­est­ed pop in and speak to some­one. Alter­na­tive­ly come to the meet­ings on Wednes­day.
See you there.

occupiedsocialcentre@hushmail.com

Critical Masses This Friday (& others)

This is the first crit­i­cal mass of 2007. Lets start as we mean to go on and make it a big one!

We cycle round the city to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle:
It’s for any­one that rides a bike;
Its a cel­e­bra­tion of get­ting round the city with­out pol­lut­ing it;

This is the first crit­i­cal mass of 2007. Lets start as we mean to go on and make it a big one!

We cycle round the city to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle:
It’s for any­one that rides a bike;
Its a cel­e­bra­tion of get­ting round the city with­out pol­lut­ing it;
Its about every jour­ney being an adven­ture instead of just sit­ting on a bor­ing bus or in a stress­ful car;
Its about cyclists rid­ing togeth­er to demand more respect from oth­er road users;
Its a way to meet oth­er cyclis­tas;
At rough­ly the same time on Fri­day hun­dreds of cities around the world do the same thing…all get togeth­er for crit­i­cal mass. its beau­ti­ful to know that as you ride with your mates through your own city that all around the world thou­sands of peo­ple are doing the same thing…

Rides in the UK this Fri­day include:
* Brighton — Gath­er 18:00 at the Lev­el (BN2 3FX)
* Cam­bridge — Maybe gath­er 18:30 Cam­bridge Mar­ket Square
* Leeds (This mon­th’s call­out) — Gath­er 17:30–18:00 Mil­le­ni­um Square
* Lon­don — Gath­er 18:30 Water­loo Bridge, by the Nation­al Film The­atre
* Man­ches­ter (videos of pre­vi­ous rides) — Gath­er 18:00 Cen­tral Library
* Not­ting­ham — Gath­er 17:30 Savoy cin­e­ma on Der­by Road in Lenton
* Oxford — Gath­er 17:45–18:00 Corn­mar­ket end of Broad Street out­side The Oxford Sto­ry
* Read­ing — Gath­er 17:30, Read­ing Town Hall

Please leave a com­ment if your ride has been left off (or is incor­rect).
————————————————————————
York Crit­i­cal Mass

In order not to clash with oth­er rides in the vicin­i­ty, York Crit­i­cal Mass is on the first Fri­day of every month mean­ing that the next ride is next Fri­day on 2nd Feb­ru­ary. Assem­ble at 5pm out­side Cost­cut­ters at the Uni­ver­si­ty or 5:30pm out­side York Min­ster. See you there!

Birm­ing­ham Crit­i­cal Mass: Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 2nd

Brum’s crit­i­cal mass is also on the first fri­day of the month, Fri­day 2nd Feb­ru­ary.
We meet up at Pigeon Park (St. Philip’s Cathe­dral) at 5:30pm and set off at 6pm.
The rides are get­ting more pop­u­lar and more cre­ative. There’s now a mobile soundsys­tem and for win­ter crit­i­cal mass’ rid­ers bring along fairy lights to illu­mi­nate the ride.
Sub­scribe to the list below if you want to get more involved!
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/brumcriticalmass

Glas­gow CM

This Fri­day at 5:30, George Square.
http://www.citystrolls.com/strolls/pages/critical.htm
=============================================
For list of UK rides & links, see also http://criticalmass.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Critical_Mass_rides#United_Kingdom

New London Social Centre

139–141 Stoke New­ing­ton Church Street N16 (old Vor­tex Jazz bar)

Open­ing day Sat­ur­day 20th Jan
map:  http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=533113&Y=186502&A=Y&Z=1
— - — - — -
On Sat 6th Jan a group of local peo­ple, along with oth­ers, occu­pied 139–141 Church Street with the inten­tion of open­ing it up as a social cen­tre. Pre­vi­ous­ly the home of the famous Vor­tex jazz club the build­ing is set to be demol­ished by noto­ri­ous land­lord Richard Mid­da to make way for a Star­bucks on the ground floor with lux­u­ry apart­ments above.

139–141 Stoke New­ing­ton Church Street N16 (old Vor­tex Jazz bar)

Open­ing day Sat­ur­day 20th Jan
map:  http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=533113&Y=186502&A=Y&Z=1
— - — - — -
On Sat 6th Jan a group of local peo­ple, along with oth­ers, occu­pied 139–141 Church Street with the inten­tion of open­ing it up as a social cen­tre. Pre­vi­ous­ly the home of the famous Vor­tex jazz club the build­ing is set to be demol­ished by noto­ri­ous land­lord Richard Mid­da to make way for a Star­bucks on the ground floor with lux­u­ry apart­ments above.

This devel­op­ment high­lights the con­tin­ued ero­sion (and unique char­ac­ter) of Church Street as a com­mu­ni­ty hub, where cor­po­rate logos increas­ing­ly pro­lif­er­ate while the cost of hous­ing in Hack­ney esca­lates beyond the means of most ordi­nary peo­ple. Again and again rich prop­er­ty devel­op­ers and the dom­i­nat­ing pow­er of cap­i­tal deter­mine our social, liv­ing and cul­tur­al needs — as with the evic­tion of the orig­i­nal Vor­tex pri­vate greed always wins out against com­mu­ni­ty need.

Social cen­tres are a means where­by peo­ple can come togeth­er to cre­ate, con­spire, com­mu­ni­cate and offer a col­lec­tive chal­lenge against this dom­i­na­tion.

Stoke New­ing­ton has always had a rich rad­i­cal tra­di­tion: Mary Woll­stonecraft writer, philoso­pher and ear­ly fem­i­nist worked in New­ing­ton Green, the Angry Brigade plot­ted against the state from Amhurst road, as well as the The Rad­i­cal Dairy social cen­tre being sit­u­at­ed round the cor­ner in Kynas­ton road. We hope to con­tin­ue this tra­di­tion.

The idea of social cen­tres is not only to occu­py social space but to cre­ate a crit­i­cal vis­i­ble pres­ence in the com­mu­ni­ty where peo­ple can engage with rad­i­cal ideas and events and encour­age par­tic­i­pa­tion in cre­at­ing those events.

Already planned is a reg­u­lar café, cin­e­ma and jazz nights, an exhi­bi­tion space for local artists, a parent/baby group and reg­u­lar ben­e­fits. We intend it to be a meet­ing space for all man­ner of local cam­paigns as well as polit­i­cal events. We invite you to par­tic­i­pate and con­tribute to the suc­cess of the new social cen­tre as a rad­i­cal way of organ­is­ing our­selves.…..

The Social Cen­tre meet­ing every Wednes­day 7pm, all wel­come.

PS Richard Mid­da has issued court papers (court date: Jan­u­ary 24th 10.30 am at Shored­itch coun­ty court) to take repos­ses­sion of the build­ing. We intend to fight against the pro­ceed­ings and invite peo­ple to get involved in the cam­paign to pre­vent Mid­da turn­ing Church Street into anoth­er cor­po­rate won­der­land.

Come on Sat­ur­day to find out more.
2pm — Cafe serv­ing cof­fee, tea, cold drinks, cake
5pm — Social Cen­tre Pre­sen­ta­tion. Find out who we are and what’s going on with the place
7pm onwards hot food, drink and chilled music

web­site: www.londonsocialcentre.org.uk
email:  occupiedsocialcentre@hushmail.com
tel: 07960641707

Activist Mediation Network Launched!!!!!

Want to learn medi­a­tion skills?
Inter­est­ed in help­ing sup­port activist groups engage with inter­nal dis­agree­ments and con­flict, to make them more effec­tive?
Want to tack­le con­flicts in your per­son­al life that inter­fere with your activism?

Want to learn medi­a­tion skills?
Inter­est­ed in help­ing sup­port activist groups engage with inter­nal dis­agree­ments and con­flict, to make them more effec­tive?
Want to tack­le con­flicts in your per­son­al life that inter­fere with your activism?

Our launch events will be train­ing days:

North­ern Launch -
Leeds on 10th March 2007, from 11am — 5pm

South­ern Launch
— Lon­don on 17 March 2007, from 11am — 5pm.

The aims of these days are:

To train peo­ple in con­flict res­o­lu­tion skills that they can use in their own lives and activist work
For peo­ple inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing with us to receive train­ing and to meet with us to dis­cuss tak­ing it fur­ther.

If you have a spe­cif­ic con­flict or sit­u­a­tion that you would like to dis­cuss with us, then please get in con­tact and we’ll see if we can help.

Activist Medi­a­tion to the res­cue! (not real­ly!)

Details of the train­ing days:

Book­ing essen­tial: Please email activist­medi­a­tion [at] aktivix [dot] org
Cost: We are ask­ing for a £10 dona­tion to fund expens­es and help set up a trav­el fund to help with our medi­a­tion work. If mon­ey would pre­vent you from attend­ing, then get in touch.
Creche: We are not pro­vid­ing creche facil­i­ties, but if child­care issues are pre­vent­ing you attend­ing, please get in touch and we’ll try and sort some­thing out.
Access: Both venues are wheel­chair acces­si­ble, and have acces­si­ble toi­lets. For oth­er access needs, please con­tact us.
Lunch: Not pro­vid­ed. Please bring your own.
Trans­port and Accom­mo­da­tion: Get in touch if you have any issues or can offer a lift.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion have a look at our web­site www.activistmediation.org.uk
or tele­phone us on 0845 223 5254, and get in touch.

Back­ground

For the last few years we have both been involved in main­stream medi­a­tion, and using these skills at var­i­ous activist camps and sit­u­a­tions (Cli­mate Camp, Earth First!, Rad­i­cal Routes, Tri­dent Ploughshares). We have also been asked to work with oth­er activist groups to help them resolve inter­nal con­flicts. There is obvi­ous­ly a need for this work to be done on an ongo­ing basis, and so we have decid­ed to set up an activist medi­a­tion net­work. The aim is not for us to solve con­flicts, but to skill share and offer impar­tial medi­a­tors in order to help groups and indi­vid­u­als resolve their own con­flicts.

STOP E$$O DAY! 5–6th April

24 hour protest at the offices of Esso called by Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change. www.campaigncc.org and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal groups/

STOP ESSO!
EXPOSE EXXON DAY
24 hours of protest at Exxon (Esso) HQ, 5.00 pm Thurs­day 5th April to 5.00 pm

24 hour protest at the offices of Esso called by Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change. www.campaigncc.org and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal groups/

STOP ESSO!
EXPOSE EXXON DAY
24 hours of protest at Exxon (Esso) HQ, 5.00 pm Thurs­day 5th April to 5.00 pm
Good Fri­day, April 6th
Mass Action 2.00 pm Fri­day
For trans­port from Cardiff to this event, email this address
FAT CATS PARTY
Cli­mate Vic­tims’ Vig­il
Music, Street The­atre, Work­shops, Speak­ers to be announced…..
“CLIMATE DISINFORMATION IS GENOCIDE”

Come and tar­get the ulti­mate Glob­al Warm­ing Vil­lain

April 5th is the day of the release of the “Cli­mate Impacts” sec­tion of the new IPRCC (UN pan­el of sci­en­tists’) Report. Exxon­Mo­bil (trad­ing under the name “Esso” in the UK) Head­quar­ters is South of Lon­don, about 20–30 min­utes walk from Leather­head Rail­way sta­tion (trains from Water­loo). It is North of Leather­head, just inside the M25. For loca­tion see the map here:
 http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=518050&y=156725&z=4&sv=518050,156725&st=4&ar=Y&dn=856
or for a more close-up map see here :
 http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=517750&y=156750&z=1&sv=517750,156750&st=4&ar=N&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf&ax=516841&ay=156108

More details as they become avail­able :  http://www.campaigncc.org
PLEASE PASS THIS EMAIL AROUND TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE

Exxon is the ulti­mate Glob­al Warm­ing Villain…….

Exxon is the world’s largest oil com­pa­ny, mak­ing $ 1,000+ a sec­ond, and the high­est annu­al prof­its for a com­pa­ny ever, in 2005 ($ 36 billion)…….

Exxon has used its vast wealth to back the Bush admin­is­tra­tion in the US. It has used the influ­ence that that buys it to ensure that the US con­tin­ues to block progress towards an inter­na­tion­al emis­sions reduc­tion treaty – the only real­is­tic way to bring down the glob­al total of green­house gas emis­sions and pre­vent the cat­a­stroph­ic desta­bil­i­sa­tion of glob­al climate…………………….

Exxon funds a vari­ety of right wing, neo-lib­er­al, think tanks like the “Com­pet­i­tive Enter­prise Insti­tute” which lob­by against action to fight cli­mate change, and are influ­en­tial in shap­ing Repub­li­can par­ty policy………

Exxon is the com­pa­ny most close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the cli­mate and ener­gy poli­cies of the Bush admin­is­tra­tion in the US, which are iden­ti­cal to those rec­om­mend­ed by Exxon……….

Exxon has run a cyn­i­cal cam­paign of dis­in­for­ma­tion on cli­mate change, fund­ing a pro­fes­sion­al “denial indus­try” that has – in all prob­a­bil­i­ty — delayed effec­tive glob­al action on cli­mate change by years……………….Some ele­ments of that “indus­try” are iden­ti­cal to those pre­vi­ous­ly fund­ed by the Tobac­co indus­try to under­mine the sci­ence that proved the health dam­age done by smok­ing…..
Exxon has a delib­er­ate pol­i­cy to con­fuse the sci­ence of cli­mate change, exag­ger­ate uncer­tain­ties and under­mine the sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus. It funds the tiny minor­i­ty of odd­ball sci­en­tists who ques­tion glob­al warm­ing so that they get huge­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate media expo­sure and appear to rep­re­sent a sub­stan­tial body of respectable sci­en­tif­ic opinion………

Exxon was even con­demned, in Sep­tem­ber 2006, by the Roy­al Soci­ety for fund­ing bogus science……

Exxon asked the White­house (in a let­ter pub­lished in the New York Times) to remove Bob Wat­son (whose views they did­n’t like) from chair­man­ship of the IPCC (the UN pan­el of cli­mate sci­en­tists) and the White­house did just that…………….

Exxon rec­om­mend­ed that Har­lan Wat­son be appoint­ed as the US chief nego­tia­tor at the UN Cli­mate Talks and the White­house did just that. Wat­son has been wreck­ing the nego­ti­a­tions ever since…………….

Exxon mar­gin­al­ly soft­ened its anti-envi­ron­men­tal stance after the retire­ment of Lee Ray­mond as CEO (now employed by Bush to pro­duce a report giv­ing advice on future ener­gy pol­i­cy !) but con­tin­ues to fund cli­mate dis­in­for­ma­tion and remains the main­stay of the lob­by­ing machine against action on cli­mate – not only in the USA but also Europe – see, eg, this arti­cle from the Inde­pen­dent from Decem­ber 2006 at
 http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2054654.ece

It funds the “Inter­na­tion­al Pol­i­cy Net­work” to argue against action on cli­mate in the UK.
Exxon……etc…etc… ( see fur­ther our web­site  http://www.campaigncc.org/stopexxon.html
US anti-Exxon coali­tion  http://www.exxposeexxon.com/ detailed analy­sis  http://www.exxonsecrets.org/ )

As ever more peo­ple die in droughts, floods and hur­ri­canes — and the world hur­tles ever faster towards cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe — we can­not afford a com­pa­ny that acts the way that Exxon­Mo­bil does….

CardiffCCC@hotmail.co.uk
http://www.campaigncc.org

activists lock down Alcoas’ London offices

Late on New Years Day activists tar­get­ed 2 Alcoa front com­pa­nies, (Kawneer in cen­tral Lon­don and ASA in North Lon­don.) Both com­pa­nies had their front access doors locked shut with D‑locks and chains, and were left grafit­ti mes­sages that they should leave Ice­land straight away.

Alcoa graffiti
Alcoa London lockedLate on New Years Day activists tar­get­ed 2 Alcoa front com­pa­nies, (Kawneer in cen­tral Lon­don and ASA in North Lon­don.) Both com­pa­nies had their front access doors locked shut with D‑locks and chains, and were left grafit­ti mes­sages that they should leave Ice­land straight away.
They are destroy­ing the last pris­tine wilder­ness in Europe right now, as well as trash­ing oth­er com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems all over the world.
See www.savingiceland.org for a mas­sive amount of resources and infor­ma­tion.

This is a clear mes­sage to all heavy indus­tries — this year, 2007 will be a year of dis­sent and rev­o­lu­tion­ary change. We will no longer hold back, the future of our world and our peo­ples is at enor­mous risk and the time to act is now!
No longer will we allow these multi­na­tion­als to destroy with impuni­ty, hid­ing behind the anonymi­ty of glob­al cap­i­tal­ism.
These are the first drops of a storm that you have reaped and which will inten­si­fy! We will tar­get you every­where and at any time. You will pay for your dirty dol­lars with inse­cu­ri­ty. We are com­mit­ted to shut you down!

It is also a mes­sage to our move­ments. We have been warn­ing of hav­ing lit­tle time left to make change, for too long. That time has run out and the time to act is NOW
We see noth­ing to cel­e­brate in the pass­ing and start­ing of anoth­er year unless it is to her­ald a year of mon­u­men­tal, rev­o­lu­tion­ary change; where a sys­tem based on sense­less, self­ish, greed is destroyed and sys­tems based on respect, respon­si­bil­i­ty and coop­er­a­tion are sup­port­ed to flour­ish.

we are all ‘the peo­ple’
where is every­where
and
now is the time

LOVE+RAGE

22/12/06: Anti-consumer Christmas Carols, London

Fes­tive delay, but final­ly here:
A sev­en minute video cov­ers the bru­tal attacks by a group of crazed and dan­ger­ous­ly drunk Christ­mas Car­ol singers as they ram­paged their way from Carn­a­by Street onto Oxford Street, storm­ing the most splen­did insti­tutes of “cheap and afford­able” con­sumer church­es.

Fes­tive delay, but final­ly here:
A sev­en minute video cov­ers the bru­tal attacks by a group of crazed and dan­ger­ous­ly drunk Christ­mas Car­ol singers as they ram­paged their way from Carn­a­by Street onto Oxford Street, storm­ing the most splen­did insti­tutes of “cheap and afford­able” con­sumer church­es.

Nike­Town, Sel­f­ridges, Deben­hams and Top­shop — all fine estab­lish­ments with clean employ­ment rights records and high­ly paid staff mem­bers, with guar­an­teed pen­sion schemes, were sub­ject­ed to bas­tardised fes­tive dit­ties by a vis­i­bly dan­ger­ous crowd of thugs, rude legal observers and cru­el cam­era­men, none with the least amount of con­cern for pub­lic safe­ty.

A cru­el and vicious stunt that should not be copied by any­one, any­where in the world.

221206: Anti-Con­sumer_­Car­ol­s_Lon­don — video/x‑ms-wmv 18M

New Year London Stunt Action by Saving Iceland

On new years day 2007 a group of activists climbed ST PAULS cathe­dral and the Tate Mod­ern simul­tan­ious­ly to hang ban­ners, as well as on the mil­le­ni­um bridge to kick start a year of decent against heavy indus­try in Ice­land and Trinidad.

On new years day 2007 a group of activists climbed ST PAULS cathe­dral and the Tate Mod­ern simul­tan­ious­ly to hang ban­ners, as well as on the mil­le­ni­um bridge to kick start a year of decent against heavy indus­try in Ice­land and Trinidad.
Heavy Industry banner hang

PRESS RELEASE
1 Jan­u­ary 2007

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTESTORS ARE TO HOST A STUNT ACTION IN LONDON

On new years day, cam­paign­ers from the group SavingIceland.org climbed St.Pauls Cathe­dral and the Tate Mod­ern as part of the SavingIceland.org cam­paign, a group ded­i­cat­ing to chal­leng­ing the destruc­tion of Europe’s last remain­ing great wilder­ness­es, in Ice­land. This is to be a protest against the destruc­tion of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad and the Ice­landic wilder­ness­es, the last of their kind in Europe, both at the hands of the alu­mini­um indus­try.

The Ice­landic gov­ern­ment is sac­ri­fic­ing its glacial rivers and geot­her­mal resources in order to pow­er alu­mini­um smelt­ing facil­i­ties. It is to destroy some of Iceland’s great­est nat­ur­al trea­sures and pol­lute its waters. This will cause con­sid­er­able dam­age to its tourism and fish­ing indus­tries. The Trinida­di­an gov­ern­ment is sell­ing its vast reserves of nat­ur­al gas to cre­ate an off-shore alu­mini­um smelter that many fear will under­mine the liveli­hoods of entire com­mu­ni­ties who are depen­dant upon fish­ing.

Tomorrow’s action is part of an ongo­ing inter­na­tion­al cam­paign in sup­port of local resis­tance against heavy indus­try in both Ice­land and Trinidad.

SavingIceland.org has been involved in the organ­i­sa­tion of two protest camps held in Ice­land and numer­ous sol­i­dar­i­ty actions staged across the globe. It is cur­rent­ly coor­di­nat­ing its third protest camp on the island, com­menc­ing on 6th July 2007.

More infor­ma­tion:
http://www.savingiceland.org

PLANE STUPID Newsletter #6

PLANE STUPID Newslet­ter #6

“This is a deeply trau­ma­tized com­mu­ni­ty which has been lied to for years and years

Plane Stupid logo 2PLANE STUPID Newslet­ter #6

“This is a deeply trau­ma­tized com­mu­ni­ty which has been lied to for years and years
by the avi­a­tion indus­try and one polit­i­cal par­ty after anoth­er. There is a litany of
bro­ken promis­es. I won­der just how you might feel if you had endured all this for
years! I am so angry I am almost incan­des­cent with rage at the immoral­i­ty of it
all.” — A res­i­dent of Har­mondsworth, near Heathrow

~ VICTORY FOR STOP STANSTED CAMPAIGN! ~

After a sus­tained and long run­ning cam­paign by the com­mu­ni­ty near Stanst­ed, the
Uttles­ford Dis­trict Coun­cil have blocked the pro­posed plans for expan­sion of the
exist­ing run­way. BAA how­ev­er is refus­ing to accept the demo­c­ra­t­ic rul­ing and is
tak­ing it to a pub­lic enquiry. A cam­paign fund has been launched to fight the
enquiry. www.stopstanstedexpansion.com

~ OCCUPATION AGAINST BRISTOL EXPANSION ~

On the 4th Decem­ber, activists from South West Cli­mate Action occu­pied North
Som­er­set Envi­ron­ment and Plan­ning Offices to protest against plans for expan­sion of
Bris­tol air­port. Pho­tos and report at www.indymedia.org.uk

~EASYJET SHUT IN DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SHORT HAUL FLIGHTS! ~

On Novem­ber 6th, activists from around the coun­try came togeth­er to take
action against short haul flights. Plane Stu­pid activists shut down the Lon­don HQ of
Easy­Group, the own­ers of low-cost car­ri­er Easy­jet, and Lon­don Ris­ing Tide vis­it­ed
the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, pre­sent­ing them with a giant cheque for their £9.2
bil­lion annu­al sub­sidy.

In Cam­bridge, Man­ches­ter, Read­ing and Lon­don, there were protests out­side
trav­el agents, while Leeds Brad­ford air­port was plas­tered with anti-avi­a­tion
stick­ers. Robin Hood air­port received a vis­it from Robin and his Mer­ry Men,
dou­bly-angry because the air­port has been oppos­ing local wind farm appli­ca­tions.
Activists in Man­ches­ter dropped a ban­ner, and in Southend a trav­el agents was shut
when a pro­tes­tor locked her­self to the front door.

30 trav­el agents across the UK had their front doors chained shut
by activists who left signs on the win­dows read­ing, “Closed for a total
rethink. See www.planestupid.com”

A mem­ber of staff at Flight Cen­tre said, “Plane Stu­pid are caus­ing may­hem here
today, every­one is get­ting all aer­at­ed and vexed.” We’ll give them “aer­at­ed and
vexed!” What about the 182 mil­lion peo­ple to die in Africa this cen­tu­ry alone
because of cli­mate change, or the res­i­dents of ‘hacked off’ Har­mondsworth?

The day of action came as new research from HACAN Clearskies shows that 100,000
flights from Heathrow each year are to short haul des­ti­na­tions that are eas­i­ly
reach­able by the more sus­tain­able train alter­na­tive.

Reports and pho­tos at www.indymedia.org.uk

~ COURT REJECTS ASBOS FOR NEMA 25 ~

Lough­bor­ough Mag­is­trates Court reject­ed calls from the Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice to
slap ASBOs on the 24 Plane Stu­pid activists who they described as “high­ly orga­nized
extrem­ists” that were arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the shut down of Not­ting­ham East
Mid­lands short haul air­port in Sep­tem­ber.

In an appar­ent move aimed to avoid hav­ing the case heard by a jury, the charge of
pub­lic nui­sance was dropped, as was the charge relat­ing to an alleged breach of the
avi­a­tion and secu­ri­ty act.

Cam­paign­er for Plane Stu­pid, Ellen Rick­ford, said, “The same day that we learn the
gov­ern­ment is push­ing ahead with its air­port expan­sion pro­pos­als, they try to use
ASBOs to stamp out peace­ful protest. Well, it seems their plans were as doomed as
the avi­a­tion indus­try.”

17 activists got one year con­di­tion­al dis­charges (the min­i­mum sen­tence avail­able)
and each was charged £70 in costs. The 5 charged with crim­i­nal dam­age in addi­tion to
aggra­vat­ed tres­pass were giv­en vary­ing lev­els of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. One per­son was
referred to Crown Court due to unre­solved legal issues and anoth­er had his case
adjourned until Jan­u­ary 31st. One oth­er activist was unable to attend court due to
ill­ness.

Help us pay our fines! Donate via: www.planestupid.com

~ TOP 100 GREEN CAMPAIGNERS OF ALL TIME ~

Vet­er­an green cam­paign­er and staunch sup­port­er of Plane Stu­pid, John Stew­art, has
been named by the Envi­ron­ment Agency as the 82nd most influ­en­tial green activist of
all time! Just one posi­tion behind Mahat­ma Gand­hi, Plane Stu­pid is mighty glad he’s
on our side and proud that he’s often been our spokesman!

~ MARKETING GURU PREDICTS END OF SHORT HAUL AIR TRAVEL ~

In a cov­er-sto­ry fea­ture of Mar­ket­ing Week­ly Mag­a­zine, trig­gered by our nation­al day
of action, a PR guru is quot­ed as say­ing that he thinks short haul bud­get air trav­el
will go the same way that coal did in the 80s because, “they are unnec­es­sary,
out­dat­ed and there­fore fac­ing decline.” Too right!

~ AVIATION INDUSTRY PUBLISH “TEN REASONS TO KEEP FLYING” ~

Respond­ing to Plane Stu­pid­’s “10 rea­sons to ground the Plane” — the avi­a­tion
indus­try’s PR peo­ple at www.cheapflights.co.uk have come up with, “10 rea­sons to
keep fly­ing!” This comes after the Stern report sin­gled out avi­a­tion as one of the
most sig­nif­i­cant caus­es of cli­mate change.

~ ‘ETHICAL MAN’ JOINS PLANE STUPID ON LONDON CLIMATE MARCH ~

Around fifty Plane Stu­pid-ers marched togeth­er with Air­port­Watch cam­paign­ers and
Stanst­ed res­i­dents on the Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change (CaCC) march to Trafal­gar
Square on Novem­ber 4th. There was an 8ft long wood­en plane on storks, big ban­ners
and tons of peti­tion­ing. March­ing with Plane Stu­pid was News­night’s ‘eth­i­cal man’
and Seize the Day’s Theo and Shan­non. Pho­tos avail­able soon on the web­site…

In the mean­time, see www.indymedia.org.uk

~ POLITICS ROUND-UP ~

Gor­don Brown snubbed sci­en­tists and cam­paign­ers calls for tough new green tax­es and
instead opt­ed in his pre-bud­get report for the pathet­ic polit­i­cal ges­ture of
increas­ing air pas­sen­ger duty by £5. This news came less than a week after a report
from BA boss, Rod Edding­ton, who was hired by Gor­don Brown and paid by us the
tax­pay­er, to (shock) sug­gest air­port expan­sion was a good thing. So we now know that
indus­try boss­es sup­port their own plans. Fan­cy that!

~ DO YOU WANT US TO SPEAK IN YOUR AREA? ~

Plane Stu­pid speak­ers have appeared at the Lib Dem Region­al Con­fer­ence along with
Shad­ow Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter, Chris Huhne; at the LSE along­side Stop Cli­mate Chaos
direc­tor, Ashok Sin­ha; at stu­dent union venues includ­ing in Lon­don and Sus­sex; and
at local Green­peace and FoE meet­ings across the UK. If you want us to come and talk
in your area, get in touch. info@planestupid.com

————————————————————-EVENTS
———————————-

CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION MEETINGS

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful cli­mate camp at Drax, plans are afoot for the next camp
which will be at a dif­fer­ent location.get involved with putting plans into action.

www.climatecamp.org.uk

PLANE STUPID BENEFIT GIG/FILM SHOWING

On Fri­day 26th Jan­u­ary, Brix­ton Jamm presents The Alabama3. Tick­ets avail­able soon
via www.planestupid.com

——————————————————— RESOURCES
——————————

~ PLANE STUPID: A year in review ~

On Novem­ber 29th, Plane Stu­pid had its first anniver­sary. For a reflec­tion on the
incred­i­ble momen­tum we’ve built up over the last year, with video footage and pho­tos
for down­load, see www.planestupid.com

~ PLANE STUPID Blog ~

Plane Stu­pid has estab­lished a blog at www.myspace.com/planestupid. Its first blog
entry includes, “The arm­chair envi­ron­men­tal­ist’s guide to off­sets… or ‘How to save
the world for 38p!’)”

~ LEGAL RESOURCE FOR ACTIVISTS~

Expe­ri­enced cam­paign­ers are offer­ing free advice and train­ing to grass­roots groups
includ­ing legal skills and more. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

~ THE SHEILA McK­ECH­NIE AWARDS ~

The Sheila McK­ech­nie Awards pro­vide cam­paign devel­op­ment pack­ages to grass­roots
cam­paign­ers. Up for grabs is a ‘Trans­port Award’.anyone want­i­ng to apply should see:
www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk

UK social centres gathering, 27th January Bradford

Sat­ur­day 27th Jan­u­ary @ The 1in12 Club, Brad­ford
A day of work­shops, dis­cus­sions & ideas

To be fol­lowed by an evening of enter­tain­ment from the May­hem Cabaret fea­tur­ing…

The Sex Patels Punk meets Bol­ly­wood

Sat­ur­day 27th Jan­u­ary @ The 1in12 Club, Brad­ford
A day of work­shops, dis­cus­sions & ideas

To be fol­lowed by an evening of enter­tain­ment from the May­hem Cabaret fea­tur­ing…

The Sex Patels Punk meets Bol­ly­wood
Span­ner Anar­cho ska punk from Bris­tol
BeyONdTV Keep­ing Under­ground Media Ugly

Plus ben­e­fit Cock­tail bar, cheap entry & more enter­tain­ment through­out

All Wel­come, more details to fol­low. Con­tact the club on 01274 734160
or socialcentrenetwork@lists.riseup.net