Category: Other

Oth­er

Stop the Tennessee Pipeline. 26th Feb

Gif­ford Pin­chot, the Penn­syl­va­nia tree-sit­ter that is blockad­ing the route of the Ten­nessee Pipeline from log­ging, stays strong and gives us this update from the trees:

Gif­ford Pin­chot, the Penn­syl­va­nia tree-sit­ter that is blockad­ing the route of the Ten­nessee Pipeline from log­ging, stays strong and gives us this update from the trees:

“Right now there is a march going on across the Delaware Riv­er to stop the pipeline. I wish I could join but I’m afraid that those trees around me wouldn’t still be stand­ing when I returned. It’s wet and rainy and there are no chain saws that I can hear, but I know they are run­ning some­where and so the fight must con­tin­ue. Ten­nessee Gas may not care about these hills and this  com­mu­ni­ty, the state and nation­al gov­ern­ment may not care, but we care and peo­ple who are being poi­soned by the gas indus­try, forced to sell their homes and relo­cate or live next to the destruc­tion wrought in the name of prof­its only the exec­u­tives will see…”

Pin­chot is still in the tree stand as tree crews cut toward him.  No tree crews have showed up on the Pike Coun­ty side of the clear­ing project yet this morn­ing, and activists are pre­pared to call OSHA (Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion) if log­gers attempt to com­plete the steep slope above Cum­mins Hill Road.  …

These actions are part of a cam­paign oppos­ing the Ten­nessee Pipeline in the Delaware Riv­er Basin. The direct action cam­paign is tak­ing place after near­ly two years of local polit­i­cal lead­ers and grass­roots oppo­si­tion in the courts, pub­lic com­ment, and protest. …

A Gang of Greek Activists Torch the Skouries Gold Mine — 24th Feb

Last Sun­day, 50 masked peo­ple armed with Molo­tov cock­tails stormed a gold mine in north­ern Greece. After torch­ing bull­doz­ers, trucks, and por­ta­cab­ins belong­ing to Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­ny El Dora­do and its Greek sub­sidiary Hel­lenic Gold, the group used tree trunks to block police and fire­fight­ers from reach­ing the site. If all that destruc­tion of machin­ery and reliance on the boun­ti­ful gifts of Moth­er Nature for pro­tec­tion sounds like the work of an incensed rat­tan bas­ket of eco­cam­paign­ers, that’s because it was. In fact, it was just one of many recent moments of dra­ma unfold­ing around the open­ing of a gold-min­ing site in Skouries, one of the old­est forests in Greece.

In 2003 Hel­lenic Gold, fol­lowed by El Dora­do, obtained the rights to mine the $12 bil­lions’ (£7.8 bil­lions’) worth of gold and cop­per snooz­ing beneath the moun­tain area. The deal saw the Greek state receive just €11 mil­lions’ (£9.5 mil­lions’) worth of com­pen­sa­tion for the mines, and, in addi­tion to los­ing the gov­ern­ment some mon­ey they could have prob­a­bly done with, pissed off all the local res­i­dents. Besides a part of the ancient for­est being uproot­ed, res­i­dents are also wor­ried about the mine’s effect on tourism, agri­cul­ture, and fish­ing. They’re all pil­lars of the local econ­o­my, and they’re all at risk of being dev­as­tat­ed by the pol­lu­tion a mine tends to churn out.

Last Octo­ber, in the largest protest yet against the pro­posed mine, riot police attacked demon­stra­tors, broke the win­dows of parked cars, dragged old women to the ground, attacked a left-wing politi­cian who was protest­ing out­side the police depart­ment, and threw tear gas at the crowds, the can­is­ters of which end­ed up burn­ing down part of the for­est. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, these tac­tics did lit­tle to appease the demon­stra­tors.

Since then, areas of the for­est have been cor­doned off with barbed wire, check­points are every­where, and pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards wear­ing full-face masks patrol the area harass­ing locals, demand­ing to see their iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. That last bit is ille­gal under Greek law, but minor issues like what’s legal and what’s not don’t seem to faze El Dora­do. The com­pa­ny claims that the mines will cre­ate more than 1,000 new jobs, their invest­ment bil­low­ing much need­ed oxy­gen into the gasp­ing lungs of an ail­ing local and nation­al econ­o­my.

The mine’s crit­ics, how­ev­er, claim that more jobs will be lost than gained due to the pol­lu­tion and envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion that comes from dig­ging into a moun­tain and build­ing a mine. And they may be right. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the Gre­co-Cana­di­an gold pan­ners, the num­bers just don’t add up. From the poten­tial $12 bil­lion to be made, Greece only gets the $11 mil­lion it secured in 2003 and a mere ten per­cent of rev­enue tax. So, once the mil­lions of tons of waste start to pile up and the local econ­o­my is dev­as­tat­ed, Greece stands to lose far more than it will make.

See­ing as the Greek sub­sidiary com­pa­ny is owned by Gior­gos Bobo­las, Greece’s mini-Murdoch—a man who owns lit­tle chunks of pret­ty much every main­stream media com­pa­ny in the country—reporting on the sto­ry has been spot­ty at best. Bobolas’s polit­i­cal con­nec­tions are what secured the involve­ment of police in such large num­bers, and oper­a­tions in the area over the last few months are on a scale that only tends to be bankrolled if the ben­e­fi­cia­ry holds the kind of polit­i­cal sway that Bobo­las does.

What did get report­ed was that Greek Min­is­ter of Cit­i­zen Pro­tec­tion Nikos Dendias’s going to Skouries and demand­ing arrests after Sunday’s attack. This result­ed in the deten­tion of 33 local activists with lit­tle jus­ti­fi­ca­tion oth­er than their pol­i­tics. Among them was Lazaros Tsokas—a mem­ber of SYRIZA, a Greek left-wing party—who was labelled an “abet­tor” and arrest­ed. Those detained accuse the police of tak­ing DNA sam­ples from them even though they were only charged with mis­de­meanours, which—again—is ille­gal under Greek law.

The police also attempt­ed to detain the two peo­ple who run antigold­greece, a blog that aims to expose Hel­lenic Gold’s cor­rupt deal­ings with local offi­cials. The author­i­ties have so far been unable to detect them, but one of the blog­gers, Maria Kadoglou, told me:

“The accu­sa­tions are unfound­ed. The atmos­phere here is already polar­ized between those who believe that the mine will be good for the area and those of us who oppose it. We’re try­ing to use legal meth­ods to stop the min­ing oper­a­tions, but the local author­i­ties take months to answer our peti­tions. When they do, the answers are irrel­e­vant and laugh­able. In the mean­time, the com­pa­ny has already set up camp and intim­i­dates the locals with the dra­con­ian secu­ri­ty meth­ods it uses.”

Many for­eign com­pa­nies are leav­ing Greece, look­ing abroad for access to cap­i­tal and more sta­ble tax codes. But if you have the right insid­er con­nec­tions, then tax exemp­tions and access to Euro­pean fund­ing schemes present an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get into Greece, exploit its shit­ty finan­cial sit­u­a­tion, and get out again sig­nif­i­cant­ly rich­er. While the news media feeds Greek fam­i­lies a jol­ly TV din­ner of xeno­pho­bia, immi­nent finan­cial melt­down, and dog-eat-dog par­ty pol­i­tics, the real crimes—the ones rip­ping every­one off—take place in the back­ground, in places like Skouries.

EDF suing climate activists for £5 million — protesters face losing homes Wed 20th

EDF suing cli­mate activists for £5million

Evi­dence of police/corporate col­lu­sion as police serve legal papers on activists on behalf of EDF, and hand over per­son­al data

EDF suing cli­mate activists for £5million

Evi­dence of police/corporate col­lu­sion as police serve legal papers on activists on behalf of EDF, and hand over per­son­al data

Key CCTV footage at police sta­tion may have been delet­ed

Counter-Ter­ror­ism Com­mand vis­it­ed activist at home

Home Sec­re­tary There­sa May ques­tioned in Par­lia­ment

For more infor­ma­tion, pho­tos, film footage and inter­views email
press@nodashforgas.org.uk or phone 07447027112. A new short film of two of
the activists speak­ing about the civ­il claim can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kTZgMIn4Go

Fol­low­ing the week-long shut-down and occu­pa­tion of EDF’s West Bur­ton gas-fired pow­er sta­tion last Octo­ber by cam­paign group ‘No Dash for Gas’, EDF has launched a civ­il claim for dam­ages against the group and asso­ci­at­ed activists for costs the com­pa­ny claims to have incurred – a fig­ure it puts at £5 mil­lion [1].

Should the claim suc­ceed, sev­er­al of the cam­paign­ers face los­ing their homes, and all could face  bank­rupt­cy or be forced to pay a per­cent­age of their salaries to EDF for decades to come. The amount of the claim rep­re­sents just 0.3% of EDF’s annu­al UK prof­its, which rose by 7.5% this year to £1.7 bil­lion [2].

This is the first time an ener­gy com­pa­ny has attempt­ed such a claim, and cam­paign­ers say it rep­re­sents the open­ing of a new front against peace­ful direct action pro­test­ers. If suc­cess­ful, it could have a chill­ing effect on oth­er groups – such as UK Uncut and Green­peace – who use civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to chal­lenge social and envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems.

Anea­ka Kel­ly, one of the No Dash for Gas defen­dants said: ‘This un-civ­il action by EDF is not about mon­ey – they know we don’t have this kind of cash. EDF just want to make sure that any­one who tries to stand up and chal­lenge their prof­i­teer­ing price hikes, shady gov­ern­ment lob­by­ing and cli­mate-trash­ing pow­er plants is quick­ly silenced by the threat of legal action.”

Six­teen cam­paign­ers occu­pied two chim­neys at West Bur­ton for a week in Octo­ber 2012, stop­ping near­ly 20,000 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions [3]. The activists – 21 in total — were con­vict­ed of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass at
Mans­field Mag­is­trates Court today. Sev­en­teen are due to be sen­tenced on March 20th, and the remain­ing four on April 2nd.

There is evi­dence that Not­ting­hamshire Police col­lud­ed with EDF against ‘No Dash for Gas’ by for­mal­ly serv­ing civ­il papers on the activists after their arrest, and by shar­ing their per­son­al data with the pow­er com­pa­ny. In one case offi­cers served the papers on the activists’ lawyer, in anoth­er they chased an activist down the street out­side the sta­tion and served the papers on him direct­ly, com­ment­ing, “I’m doing this as a
cour­tesy to EDF” [4]. Last week, the Home Sec­re­tary was ques­tioned in Par­lia­ment about whether this kind of prac­tice is rou­tine [5].

The cam­paign­ers believe that Not­ting­hamshire Police’s sup­port for the civ­il claim is part of a larg­er strat­e­gy to crack down on envi­ron­men­tal protest, as evi­denced by the use of extreme­ly oner­ous bail con­di­tions on
the activists after their arrest. They were not allowed to asso­ciate with each oth­er and most were sub­ject to home cur­fews from 9pm to 7am. Those con­di­tions were only lift­ed once the com­pa­ny had ordered its own civ­il legal strat­e­gy against the activists. FOI doc­u­ments obtained by No Dash for Gas show that a Spe­cial Advi­sor in the Depart­ment for Ener­gy was liais­ing with the police about those bail con­di­tions before most of the activists were even arrest­ed. [6]

In anoth­er inci­dent, Counter Ter­ror­ism Com­mand offi­cers vis­it­ed an activist at her home to ‘remind’ her of her bail con­di­tions and cau­tion her against going with­in 50 metres of E.ON’s Grain Island Pow­er Sta­tion.

Deeply con­cerned by police involve­ment in the unprece­dent­ed civ­il claim, the activists’ lawyer Mike Schwarz of Bind­mans wrote to the police ask­ing to view CCTV footage from inside the sta­tion, only to be told it had
prob­a­bly been delet­ed as footage was only kept for three months – despite the fact that this three-month dead­line had not yet passed.

Anea­ka Kel­ly from No Dash For Gas said: “The police are meant to be work­ing in the pub­lic inter­est, not act­ing as EDF’s pri­vate police force. If I want­ed to sue EDF over their pol­lu­tion or their price hikes, would
you expect the police to deliv­er the legal papers to EDF on my behalf, or hand over the names and address­es of their top exec­u­tives? Some­how, I don’t think so.”

The protest itself aimed to chal­lenge the Gov­ern­men­t’s plan to build up to 40 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions, which would see gas account­ing for over 50% of the UK’s pow­er gen­er­a­tion over the next three decades. The Gov­ern­men­t’s own Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change have said that a new “dash for gas” would make it impos­si­ble for the Gov­ern­ment to meet its legal­ly-bind­ing car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets, and thus would push us ever clos­er to the brink of unstop­pable cli­mate change [7].

The Com­mit­tee also point out that a greater reliance on gas would increase house­hold bills by up to six times more than a shift to renew­able ener­gy [8]. These com­ments were echoed this week by the Chief Exec­u­tive of Ofgem Alis­tair Buchanan, who warned that an increased reliance on gas will lead
to high­er prices in the near future [9]. Cam­paign­ers blame the lob­by­ing pow­er of big ener­gy com­pa­nies like EDF for the Gov­ern­men­t’s cur­rent pro-gas posi­tion [10].

The case is rem­i­nis­cent of the record-break­ing “McLi­bel” case, when the fast food chain McDon­alds sued two activists from North Lon­don from 1990–1997. Ewa Jasiewicz, anoth­er No Dash for Gas defen­dant said: ‘This is start­ing to look just like McLi­bel. It’s a David and Goliath bat­tle between pro­test­ers with noth­ing but their bod­ies to put in the way, and out-of-con­trol Big Ener­gy which has a busi­ness plan that will dri­ve up
bills, push mil­lions into fuel pover­ty and crash our cli­mate tar­gets. We will be resist­ing EDF’s claim every step of the way’.

ENDS

Notes for edi­tors

[1] Copies of the legal papers from EDF are avail­able — please email us on
press@nodashforgas.org.uk or phone 07447027112 to see them. The £5 mil­lion
fig­ure was pre­sent­ed in court today, in evi­dence from Graeme Belling­ham,
Project Direc­tor at West Bur­ton’s, who stat­ed that: ‘Delays to the final
com­ple­tion of the project has caused total loss­es to EDF in excess of £5
mil­lion’. See also
http://www.channel4.com/news/edf-sues-activists-for-5m-an-attack-on-peaceful-protest

[2]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/feb/14/edf-profits-rise-following-price-hike

[3] See
http://www.nodashforgas.org.uk/blog/press-release-campaigners-prevent-carbon-emissions-in-longest-ever-power-station-occupation.
The cam­paign­ers cal­cu­lat­ed that they were stop­ping 2,371 tonnes per day, and the action last­ed for sev­en days, so that’s 2371 x 7 = 19117 tonnes of CO2 saved.

[4] See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/feb/20/activists-police-edf-law-suit

[5] On Fri­day 8th Feb­ru­ary, Car­o­line Lucas (MP for Brighton Pavil­ion) put for­ward the fol­low­ing ques­tion in Par­lia­ment:

“To ask the Sec­re­tary of State for the Home Depart­ment, what her pol­i­cy is on (a) the pro­vi­sion of
infor­ma­tion by the police to pri­vate com­pa­nies that are plan­ning or tak­ing civ­il legal action against pro­test­ers, where those pro­test­ers may be sub­ject to crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, (b) the tim­ing of the pro­vi­sion of such infor­ma­tion and © pro­vi­sion of oth­er prac­ti­cal assis­tance by the police to com­pa­nies tak­ing civ­il pro­ceed­ings, includ­ing ser­vice or qua­si-ser­vice of court papers; whether her Depart­ment has estab­lished any for­mal pro­ce­dures or organ­i­sa­tions to (i) facil­i­tate the flow of any such infor­ma­tion and (ii) estab­lish com­pli­ance with or breach of any such pro­ce­dures and poli­cies; and if she will make a state­ment.”

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmordbk2/130212o01.htm#13_

The Home Sec­re­tary has not yet respond­ed.

[6] FOI doc­u­ments avail­able on request — please email us on
press@nodashforgas.org.uk or phone 07447027112 to see them.

[7]
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/tories-dash-for-gas-risks-climate-target-8120153.html

[8]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/13/gas-energy-bills-renewables

[9]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9878281/Ofgem-boss-warns-of-higher-energy-prices-in-supply-roller-coaster.html

[10] See for exam­ple
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/dirty_half_dozen.pdf

Statement from No Dash for Gas on today’s court appearance 20th Feb

Today, 21 No Dash for Gas activists appeared in court, to face charges of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass fol­low­ing the week-long occu­pa­tion of EDF’s West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion last October/November. All 21 chose to plead guilty, because they felt their time will be bet­ter spent cam­paign­ing against the gov­ern­men­t’s insane dash for gas, rather than being tied up in a pro­tract­ed court case.

Today, 21 No Dash for Gas activists appeared in court, to face charges of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass fol­low­ing the week-long occu­pa­tion of EDF’s West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion last October/November. All 21 chose to plead guilty, because they felt their time will be bet­ter spent cam­paign­ing against the gov­ern­men­t’s insane dash for gas, rather than being tied up in a pro­tract­ed court case. They are due to be sen­tenced on 20th March and 2 April.

The activists have issued the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“We under­took our care­ful­ly con­sid­ered protest action last Octo­ber out of a sin­cere belief that com­pa­nies such as EDF, in col­lu­sion with gov­ern­ment, are unac­count­able, unrep­re­sen­ta­tive and wrong in pur­su­ing gas as a dom­i­nant fuel in our coun­try’s ener­gy sys­tem.

We have no influ­ence over where and how our ener­gy is sourced, priced and deliv­ered in this coun­try. We believe that these deci­sions should be made demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly and in the pub­lic inter­est.

Six large multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions have a monop­oly over our domes­tic ener­gy sup­ply and some of their per­son­nel write pol­i­cy at the Depart­ment for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change. These com­pa­nies set the ener­gy agen­da in this coun­try, to the detri­ment of the pub­lic inter­est and legal­ly bind­ing car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets. We do not have the pow­er, access or cap­i­tal that these com­pa­nies have. Civ­il dis­obe­di­ence is one of the only means we have to inter­vene in this agen­da.

The major­i­ty of peo­ple in this coun­try want clean, renew­able, cheap­er ener­gy. We act­ed out of neces­si­ty and, we sin­cere­ly believe, in the pub­lic inter­est — to pre­vent an esca­la­tion in the cri­sis of cli­mate change that threat­ens the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of mil­lions of peo­ple and ecosys­tems in the UK and around the world.”

Today Marks 7th Year Anniversary of Eric McDavid’s Arrest

13th Jan 2013. Today marks the 7th Anniver­sary of Eric McDavid’s (also known as “D”) arrest. Eric was arrest­ed (along with Zachary Jen­son and Lau­ren Wein­er) on Jan­u­ary 13, 2006, as part of the government’s ongo­ing Green Scare cam­paign.

13th Jan 2013. Today marks the 7th Anniver­sary of Eric McDavid’s (also known as “D”) arrest. Eric was arrest­ed (along with Zachary Jen­son and Lau­ren Wein­er) on Jan­u­ary 13, 2006, as part of the government’s ongo­ing Green Scare cam­paign. All three were charged with “Con­spir­a­cy to dam­age and destroy prop­er­ty by fire and an explo­sive.” His arrest was the direct result of a gov­ern­ment infor­mant – known only as “Anna” – who spent a year and a half draw­ing him in and work­ing with the FBI to fab­ri­cate a crime and impli­cate Eric in it. Anna was paid over $65,000 for her work with the FBI. Eric was impris­oned for what amounts to thought-crime – no actions were ever car­ried out, and Eric was charged with a sin­gle count of “con­spir­a­cy” – a pow­er­ful legal tool often used by the state to crush dis­sent.

Below is his per­son­al cor­re­spon­dence fol­lowed by a cor­re­spon­dence from Jen­ny, his part­ner.

Learn more about Eric’s sto­ry or find out how to write to him at supporteric.org.

Let­ter from Eric McDavid,

7 yrs…  i can’t say it’s easy 2 put these words dn on paper – that it doesn’t pain me 2 look bk over these past 7 trips around the Sun… w/the process of the courts con­tin­u­ing n the final appeal stages; it’s end yet 2 show up on the hori­zon = no illu­sions, while still Danc­ing w/wishes… Love & Joy have also made their pres­ence known = the over­whelm­ing sup­port from all over the Earth ~ i wish 2 Thank every persyn/grp that has writ­ten & sup­port­ed me along this jour­ney – Ur intents, N which ever forms they’ve tak­en, have aid­ed & nour­ished me N remem­ber­ing who i am N a sit­u­a­tion &
envi­ron­ment bent on unrav­el­ing, dis­mem­ber­ing & remolding…along w/all the com­mu­nal Sol­i­dar­i­ty, i’m grate­ful 4 the sup­port of friends & fam­i­ly – & how i’ve been buoyed by the Love and Pas­sion­ate Patience of my Part­ner = i Love you J, you R my Joy…  …  i’m unable 2 ade­quate­ly express my feel­ings of Respect & Sol­i­dar­i­ty 4 all the folx Danc­ing w/the overt repres­sion across the con­ti­nent while stay­ing True 2 their Hearts…  2 the folx Danc­ing w/Grand Juries = bide Ur time, this is 1 of the few circ.s where time is on the SD of the oppressed…  w/N this cul­tur­al cli­mate the Path is not easy or sim­ple by any means – mak­ing it all the more impor­tant 2 find those unique, ever chang­ing, beau­ti­ful & sus­tain­able
ways 2 aid & nur­ture each oth­er… …. i’ll close wish­ing that each of U con­tin­ue 2 explore & heal Ur Hearts & com­mu­ni­ties; may U find the space & time over the com­ing yr 2 let Ur minds play w/new & safe com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, & Ur bod­ies w/self-defense…

Stay safe & have fun find­ing Ur Joy

N Sol­i­dar­i­ty
w/much Love
D

Let­ter from Jen­ny,

Hel­lo friends,

Tomor­row, Jan­u­ary 13th,  marks the 7th year of D’s arrest.  It’s strange
how life real­ly does move in cycles.  Glanc­ing at the note I sent you all
last year my eyes are greet­ed by good news.  After his move to Ter­mi­nal
Island last year – right before the New Year – D and I were final­ly
allowed to hold hands dur­ing our vis­its for the first time since his
arrest.  After 6 years.  It was a reminder of how pre­cious such seem­ing­ly
insignif­i­cant acts can be – and to remem­ber to nev­er take them for
grant­ed.

On New Year’s Eve this year I spent the day vis­it­ing D at Ter­mi­nal Island.
The vis­it start­ed nor­mal­ly – a much await­ed hug and kiss, slow­ly mov­ing
to our chairs, but let­ting our hands linger – fin­gers inter­twined as we
reached across the tiny table between us.  That last­ed about 30 sec­onds.
They called D up to the podi­um where they sit and watch…  I heard a
flur­ry of voic­es with under­tones of urgency, although nev­er hos­til­i­ty. 
When he came back he told me they weren’t allow­ing us to hold hands
any­more.  He tried once more to get them to check their own rules, but to
no avail.  After over a year of being grant­ed this glo­ri­ous priv­i­lege, it
was yanked from under­neath us.

So many things have been tak­en from us.

A mil­lion thoughts swim through your head at times like that.  I knew this
might hap­pen.  It’s always in the back of your mind – what they
can/might/will take one day.  I’m more pre­pared for it now than I used to
be – which is to say it’s slight­ly less dev­as­tat­ing when it hap­pens.

I spent much of the car ride home think­ing about loss.  Some­times it feels
like my heart has bro­ken so many times that the thing I am mend­ing bears
no resem­blance to the orig­i­nal.  That thought scares me.  But then I think
of the alter­na­tive.  A friend recent­ly told me that she always felt like
love should be a safe space…  I wish I could agree.  But that has nev­er
been my expe­ri­ence.  With love we throw our hearts wide open – which means
every­thing gets in.  The good, the bad, the ugly.  And some­times that
means we hurt like hell.  But oth­er times that means we get to expe­ri­ence
so much joy and beau­ty that we almost can’t stand it.  And that is what I
have expe­ri­enced with D.  And I would do it all over again in a heart­beat.

D is an amaz­ing indi­vid­ual.  His heart is big­ger than any i’ve ever known
and his mind pow­er­ful­ly cre­ative and beau­ti­ful…  and his com­mit­ment to
his friends, his fam­i­ly, and strug­gle is rock sol­id.  Being his part­ner
has been the most amaz­ing, beau­ti­ful jour­ney.  I wouldn’t trade it for
any­thing.

Even with all of the loss.

Some­times my heart gets so heavy…  but then I remem­ber our friends and
com­rades who have fol­lowed sim­i­lar paths.  Many of whom are now out here
with us, again.  And then I remem­ber all of you – who have been a part of
this strug­gle.  Who have been here with us every step of the way.  And
togeth­er we inch clos­er to that light at the end of the tun­nel…

Tomor­row is the 13th.  I’ll be dri­ving down to vis­it D again.  He called
me the day after our last vis­it to tell me they found the “memo” that
allows us to hold hands.  How strange that a piece of paper can dic­tate my
inter­ac­tions with my part­ner of 7+ years.  And that some­one mis­plac­ing
that piece of paper can be such a cause for pan­ic, sor­row and reflec­tion.
I’m glad they found it.  But D has told me it doesn’t seem to have fixed
the prob­lem…  either way,  I’m not hold­ing my breath.  Noth­ing is ever
cer­tain.  And even if they don’t have it fixed…I know that noth­ing can
stop us.  Because we have each oth­er.  And we have all of you.

To all of our friends and com­rades who have expe­ri­enced so much loss this
year – our unend­ing love, sup­port, and sol­i­dar­i­ty.  You are nev­er alone.

And to our friends and com­rades who have gained their free­dom – or at
least pieces of it – wel­come home.

With love and sol­i­dar­i­ty,
jen­ny

P.S.
Eric has been in prison a long time…and he has a lot more to go.  Please
let him know that you are still think­ing about him!  Let­ters, books,
dona­tions, fundrais­ers and sup­port events are still always need­ed.  For
more infor­ma­tion on how to write Eric a let­ter or how to donate to his
sup­port fund, please vis­it:  www.supporteric.org

Marie Mason Birthday Events Being Planned Across the World

12th Jan 2012. Marie Mason’s 51st birth­day is com­ing up on Jan­u­ary 26, 2013. We are ask­ing that folks hold events for Marie around her birth­day as part of what will be an annu­al time to cel­e­brate her life and keep her spir­its up while she remains impris­oned.

12th Jan 2012. Marie Mason’s 51st birth­day is com­ing up on Jan­u­ary 26, 2013. We are ask­ing that folks hold events for Marie around her birth­day as part of what will be an annu­al time to cel­e­brate her life and keep her spir­its up while she remains impris­oned.

 We know that the mid-win­ter hol­i­days are a busy time for every­one, but they are a sad time for the pris­on­ers who remain inside – and every­one wants some cheer on their birth­day! So we hope that folks can find time to plan a small event for Marie, such as a let­ter-writ­ing or birth­day par­ty. (If time per­mits, we rec­om­mend that you might want to hold let­ter writ­ings a week or more ear­li­er so the cards can reach her before the 26th.)
 
Some peo­ple are con­fused about Marie’s mail sit­u­a­tion. It is true that she can only send let­ters to a pre-approved list of 100 peo­ple. How­ev­er, she can receive let­ters from any­one and so she will be able to receive all these birth­day wish­es. (Please be sure that the sender’s first and last name are on the enve­lope, that let­ters are all in Eng­lish – she can receive let­ters in oth­er lan­guages but will be delayed – and that cards do not have glit­ter or oth­er things added to them.)
 
Last, if you are plan­ning a pub­lic event for her birth­day, please tell us and we’ll include the infor­ma­tion on the web­site. Sev­er­al cities have start­ed mak­ing plans, includ­ing NYC, Philadel­phia, Min­neapo­lis, Bal­ti­more, Bloom­ing­ton, Lake Worth and Haifa (Israel).  A cur­rent list­ing of events can be found here.  If you are orga­niz­ing an event and would like it list­ed on the site email us at supportmariemason@gmail.com
 

About Marie Mason

Marie Mason is a lov­ing moth­er of two and a long-time activist in the envi­ron­men­tal and labor move­ments. In March 2008, she was arrest­ed by fed­er­al author­i­ties for charges relat­ed to two acts of prop­er­ty destruc­tion that occurred in 1999 and 2000; no one was injured in either of them. She accept­ed a plea bar­gain and was sen­tenced on Feb­ru­ary 5, 2009 to just under 22 years. She is now serv­ing the longest sen­tence of any “Green Scare” pris­on­er.

The “Green Scare” is the name giv­en to the recent arrests of ani­mal rights and envi­ron­men­tal activists who have been charged with acts of eco­nom­ic sab­o­tage. Fed­er­al author­i­ties have sought out­ra­geous sen­tences (often Life in prison) and have pub­licly and legal­ly labeled the activists as “ter­ror­ists” – despite the fact that no one has been killed or injured in any of the acts.

Sup­port­ing Marie Mason does not mean agree­ing with the actions that she took — but it does mean oppos­ing the fear-mon­ger­ing tac­tics of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and the out­ra­geous sen­tences they have imposed.

The orig­i­nal call out for Marie’s birth­day can be found at www.supportmariemason.org, along with her cur­rent address, art­work, inter­views, let­ters and more ways to get involved.

Another ELF case set for trial in Eugene: Rebecca Rubin

11th Jan 2012.

11th Jan 2012. Alleged ELF activist Rebec­ca Rubin, who turned her­self in last month at the Cana­di­an bor­der, plead not guilty today in a Eugene Court. Accord­ing to a state­ment from her lawyer, “Rubin has not been co-oper­at­ing with
author­i­ties in terms of help­ing inves­ti­ga­tors find two oth­ers accused in the case.” 

Her tri­al is set for March 19.

Let­ters of sup­port can be sent here for the time being:

Rebec­ca Rubin #2033855
Lane Coun­ty Adult Cor­rec­tions
101 West 5th Avenue
Eugene, Ore­gon 97401–2695

For a com­plete descrip­tion of mail reg­u­la­tions, check here.

The fol­low­ing is from an Asso­ci­at­ed Press arti­cle pub­lished today:

Canadian woman pleads not guilty to ecoterrorism fires that did $40 million damage around West

A woman who turned her­self in after a decade as a fugi­tive in the largest ecoter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tion in U.S. his­to­ry has plead­ed not guilty to con­spir­a­cy and arson charges in fed­er­al court.

Rebec­ca Rubin, a 39-year-old Cana­di­an cit­i­zen, was ordered to remain in cus­tody dur­ing the hear­ing Fri­day in Eugene, Ore.

Tri­al was set for March 19.

A fed­er­al indict­ment accus­es Rubin of being a mem­ber of cells of the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front… Inves­ti­ga­tors blame the group based in Eugene for 20 fires around the West that did $40 mil­lion in dam­age.

She turned her­self in to the FBI last Novem­ber at the Cana­di­an bor­der with Wash­ing­ton state. At the time, her lawyer said she want­ed to get the case behind her.

Australian miner Whitehaven Coal hit by hoax

7th Jan 2013.

7th Jan 2013. Shares in Aus­tralian min­er White­haven Coal fell almost 9% after a fake press release claimed one of the fir­m’s lenders had with­drawn fund­ing.

The release, from an anti-coal action group claim­ing that ANZ bank had with­drawn A$1.2bn ($1.3bn; £784m), prompt­ed the min­er to sus­pend trad­ing in its shares.

Once the hoax was uncov­ered, White­haven shares recov­ered the loss­es.

Oth­er Aus­tralian firms have fall­en vic­tim to hoax­es in recent months.

The state­ment said that ANZ had with­drawn fund­ing for White­haven’s pro­posed Maules Creek mine due to “rep­u­ta­tion­al risks and analy­sis of the returns on this mine in the cur­rent cli­mate of high volatil­i­ty in the coal export mar­ket”.

Investors then sold shares in the com­pa­ny, fear­ing that the mine may be pulled.

Once the hoax came to light, ANZ issued its own release say­ing it had made no state­ment on White­haven and remained “ful­ly sup­port­ive” of the com­pa­ny.

Jonathan Moy­lan from Front­line Action for Coal, which issued the hoax state­ment, said envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns had prompt­ed the press release.

For more info on Front­line Action for Coal and their con­tin­u­ing protest camp and actions, see here

FAI/ELF COMMUNIQUE FOR TV & RADIO BLACKOUT

As part of the ongo­ing anar­chist war for total lib­er­a­tion, we car­ried out a hit on the Bathamp­ton radio and TV relay sta­tion. Fires were set at four points of the struc­tures, and we left undis­turbed. As a result of the sab­o­tage, on top of caus­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of pounds worth of dam­age, we region­al­ly shut down all TV chan­nels on Free­view as well as all nation­al ana­logue and dig­i­tal radio sta­tions. Addi­tion­al­ly it took down Voda­phone and oth­er mobile net­works, dam­ag­ing police com­mu­ni­ca­tions and oth­er dig­i­tal ser­vices. 80,000 homes and busi­ness­es in the area were affect­ed.

 

The enter­tain­ment indus­try is an impor­tant tool to manip­u­late human behav­iour. With­out a steady sup­ply of dis­trac­tions it would be much hard­er to per­suade peo­ple that their lives are sat­is­fac­to­ry, to con­vince them to keep going to work or in what­ev­er way to repro­duce the sys­tem. So to deprive the net­work of the abil­i­ty to offer this essen­tial means of escape from chron­ic mod­ern stress, anx­i­ety, frus­tra­tion and dis­sat­is­fac­tion is to under­mine the smooth run­ning of soci­ety, how­ev­er tem­porar­i­ly.

 

There are many soft tar­gets and many lo-tech meth­ods avail­able for us mal­con­tents who glad­ly choose con­flict over dis­pair. This gives rise to the prospect of rebel­lion with thou­sands of faces, with infi­nite rea­sons to block­ade and destroy what­ev­er stands between us and our goals. We want to expe­ri­ence har­mo­ny as a liv­ing plan­et, face to face encounter as inti­mate cir­cles of proud and free-think­ing indi­vid­u­als, and a chance to mould an exis­tence filled with wild play and fierce joy. Our first response when faced with today’s crush­ing dom­i­na­tion and a sub­servient soci­ety will always be out­breaks of dis­or­der, refusal and beau­ty.

 

Our com­rades from far and wide who also car­ry this fight share our thoughts so close­ly that often their words could be ours. So when they are kid­napped and held far away from us our deter­mi­na­tion is only fur­ther fuelled. Fol­low­ing many actions in Italy the state has unleashed a wave of repres­sion against anar­chists and their projects (Oper­a­tions Ardire, Man­gia­fuo­co, Ixo­di­dae, Thor…), some across bor­ders, accus­ing some of attacks of the FAI (Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion) and rais­ing a tro­phy for the media-judi­cial cir­cus: Nico­la Gai and Alfre­do Cospi­to, who they claim are FAI / Olga Cell. But if the pros­e­cu­tors thought for one minute that they had dis­man­tled the group even in Italy with their oper­a­tions, anoth­er cell soon proved them wrong with an attack on the bank­ing sys­tem in the cap­i­tal, fol­lowed by grid sab­o­tage in Indone­sia, gun­shots in Mex­i­co, lib­er­a­tions in Rus­sia, bomb­ing in Greece, mass arson in Argenti­na, to name but a few. The new anar­chist guer­ril­las laugh in the faces of the pow­er­ful because the repres­sion is only throw­ing petrol on the fires of the open lead­er­less resis­tance.

 

We are on the side of every­one who has burnt stuffy text­books and tak­en the offen­sive to rean­i­mate an anar­chy that had turned to dust in so many throats. Any rebel’s cap­ture becomes yet anoth­er motive to strike, as we have before and will again, as a reminder of the social cost of their impris­on­ment.

 

This action car­ried out eight years to the day since Xosé Tar­rio (a dig­ni­fied pris­on­er of Spain’s FIES iso­la­tion units, against which a series of attacks last decade were lat­er claimed by the first gen­er­a­tion of the FAI) died in the cells, leav­ing his blood on the hands of the jail­ers, courts and cops.

 

FAI / ELF,

New Hori­zons of Burn­ing Rage

 

report in main­stream media:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256525/Bathampton-arson-attack-transmitter-site-leaves-80–000-homes-TV-radio.html

Freedom and Solidarity to Marie Mason on her 51st Birthday (USA)

Marie Mason is an eco-pris­on­er con­demned with a long prison pun­ish­ment by the Amer­i­can regime.

Marie Mason’s 51st birth­day is com­ing up on Jan­u­ary 26, 2013. We are ask­ing that folks hold events for Marie around her birth­day as part of what will be an annu­al time to cel­e­brate her life and keep her spir­its up while she remains impris­oned.

Marie Mason is an eco-pris­on­er con­demned with a long prison pun­ish­ment by the Amer­i­can regime.

Marie Mason’s 51st birth­day is com­ing up on Jan­u­ary 26, 2013. We are ask­ing that folks hold events for Marie around her birth­day as part of what will be an annu­al time to cel­e­brate her life and keep her spir­its up while she remains impris­oned.

We know that the mid-win­ter hol­i­days are a busy time for every­one, but they are a sad time for the pris­on­ers who remain inside – and every­one wants some cheer on their birth­day! So we hope that folks can find time to plan a small event for Marie, such as a let­ter-writ­ing or birth­day par­ty. (If time per­mits, we rec­om­mend that you might want to hold let­ter writ­ings a week or more ear­li­er so the cards can reach her before the 26th.)

Some peo­ple are con­fused about Marie’s mail sit­u­a­tion. It is true that she can only send let­ters to a pre-approved list of 100 peo­ple. How­ev­er, she can receive let­ters from any­one and so she will be able to receive all these birth­day wish­es. (Please be sure that the sender’s first and last name are on the enve­lope, that let­ters are all in Eng­lish – she can receive let­ters in oth­er lan­guages but will be delayed – and that cards do not have glit­ter or oth­er things added to them.)

Last, if you are plan­ning a pub­lic event for her birth­day, please tell us and we’ll include the infor­ma­tion on the web­site.

Sup­port Marie Mason
www.supportmariemason.org

Marie Mason #04672–061
FMC Car­swell
Fed­er­al Med­ical Cen­ter
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127

Source: Sup­port Marie Mason