Category: Other

Oth­er

Autumn EF! Action Update out — and advance notice of the Winter Moot, 22–24 February (gathering of eco-activists), Nottingham

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here

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The EF! Win­ter Moot will hap­pen from 22nd — 24th Feb­ru­ary 2008, in Not­ting­ham — more details near­er the time, as this is just advance notice.

It’s a gath­er­ing for envi­ron­men­tal activists — in the past, it’s been a chance for peo­ple involved in all kinds of eco­log­i­cal direct action to get togeth­er for a week­end indoors to chat about where things are at in the UK, and so improve all aspects of how we work togeth­er, in order to take direct action in defence of the earth.

Con­tact 0845–0223 5254 for more info

Protest shackles Total Oil petrol station (& 7th November action call-out)

On 1st Novem­ber pro­tes­tors gath­ered at the 24-hour Total petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road in cen­tral Lon­don. They were call­ing for Total Oil to pull out of Bur­ma due to their fund­ing of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime. The protest began at 5pm to coin­cide with rush hour.

London Total shackled protestOn 1st Novem­ber pro­tes­tors gath­ered at the 24-hour Total petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road in cen­tral Lon­don. They were call­ing for Total Oil to pull out of Bur­ma due to their fund­ing of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime. The protest began at 5pm to coin­cide with rush hour.

The protest con­sist­ed of ban­ners, plac­ards, leaflets and a peti­tion. One pro­tes­tor wore shack­les to sig­ni­fy the oppres­sion of the Burmese peo­ple.

With­in 10 min­utes of the protest begin­ning staff closed the sta­tion, block­ing off the fore­court and switch­ing off the lights. Even the accom­pa­ny­ing shop was shut. When it became appar­ent that the protest was con­tin­u­ing the police were con­tact­ed. One offi­cer arrived and after con­sult­ing the staff told the demon­stra­tors that there were not allowed onto the fore­court and risked arrest if they “inter­fered” with the busi­ness’s trade by block­ing the entrance or lock­ing onto any of the pumps. (It should be not­ed that none of the pro­tes­tors had entered the fore­court or caused any “inter­fer­ence”.)

After an hour the sta­tion re-opened. The protest con­tin­ued until 7.00pm.

http://www.totaloutofburma.blogspot.com

A world­wide day of action against French oil giant Total’s invest­ment in Bur­ma has been called for Wednes­day 7th Novem­ber, the day the com­pa­ny’s quar­ter­ly results are pub­lished. Total’s con­tin­ued involve­ment in the oper­a­tion of the Yadana gas pipeline in the south of the coun­try, in part­ner­ship with Chevron-Tex­a­co, is opposed by the coun­try’s demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-elect­ed leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest or deten­tion for 12 years. The pipeline earns the regime hun­dreds of mil­lions of pounds in rev­enue every year, with only a tiny frac­tion reach­ing the Burmese peo­ple. The main cus­tomer for the pipeline is Thai­land.

“Common Ground” Community Garden Finally Evicted

Report on Thurs­day 18th Octo­bers evic­tion of Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den.

It seems it was “fourth time lucky” for Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil bailiffs today, when they final­ly realised that it’s not a good idea to inform anar­cho-com­mies (and oth­er assort­ed rev­o­lu­tion­ary repro­bates) 2 weeks in advance if you want to evict them from coun­cil land. Arriv­ing unan­nounced at 9.00am this morn­ing, they began by evict­ing our squat­ting neigh­bours, giv­ing us enough time to form an impromp­tu resis­tance of 3 peo­ple.

Report on Thurs­day 18th Octo­bers evic­tion of Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den.

It seems it was “fourth time lucky” for Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil bailiffs today, when they final­ly realised that it’s not a good idea to inform anar­cho-com­mies (and oth­er assort­ed rev­o­lu­tion­ary repro­bates) 2 weeks in advance if you want to evict them from coun­cil land. Arriv­ing unan­nounced at 9.00am this morn­ing, they began by evict­ing our squat­ting neigh­bours, giv­ing us enough time to form an impromp­tu resis­tance of 3 peo­ple.

This reporter arrived at 10.00am, to find approx­i­mate­ly 8 police, 4 bailiffs, 4 coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tives and a bunch of burly builders board­ing up build­ings. Coun­cil bailiffs had kicked a large hole in our gar­den fence, which they left unguard­ed. After a short con­sul­ta­tion we decid­ed to climb through it, sit in our gar­den and peace­ful­ly resist. This reporter is ashamed to say that his resis­tance last­ed a mat­ter of min­utes, before he was con­vinced to leave the gar­den rather than face the pos­si­bil­i­ty of arrest. The resilience of his com­rades was some­what more respectable.

Leav­ing the gar­den, he dis­cov­ered that the 8 police had left just as the fun seemed to be start­ing, beg­ging the ques­tion “why had they come in the first place?”

Bailiffs and coun­cil employ­ees attempt­ed to use diplo­ma­cy (a facet for which they are not well known) to con­vince the remain­ing two gar­den­ers to leave. Both refused, and there ensued a minor kafuf­fle. A charm­ing gen­tle­man, sport­ing a fash­ion­able red coat (pic­tured) blocked our pho­tog­ra­ph­er from tak­ing any pic­tures of this. At one point, he even attempt­ed to steal the cam­era prompt­ing the ques­tion “What the fuck are you doing?”. He imme­di­ate­ly desist­ed in his klep­to­ma­ni­ac-like actions, but refused to stand aside and allow fur­ther pic­tures to be tak­en of this inci­dent.

By this time, there was but one com­rade remain­ing in the gar­den. Coun­cil employ­ees and bailiffs, unsure what to do about this final poten­tial men­ace, decid­ed to call for back-up. After a wait of 15 min­utes, a riot van arrived con­tain­ing 2 of Thames Val­leys finest, aka da Five‑0, da Fuzz, da Filth, da Feds aka PC 5479 A Hunt, PC 5292.

The offi­cers of the law entered the gar­den and a new arrival from our group fol­lowed them. He was asked to leave, with the promise of some con­ver­sa­tion, which he did not get. Once again we were down to one soli­tary indi­vid­ual, peace­ful­ly refus­ing to leave. The offi­cers of the law asked him to move on; he refused. This called for extreme solu­tions: one police man got on the phone and asked his boss what he should do. The answer was clear­ly “do noth­ing”, for that is what they did….

It seemed that no police or bailiffs actu­al­ly want­ed to arrest our “last man stand­ing”. Per­haps they realised the poten­tial dan­ger that they would be putting them­selves in (for he is a 3rd dan black belt in origa­mi…), but more like­ly there was nobody that was pre­pared to be “the one that arrest­ed a gar­den­er”. In any case, it even­tu­al­ly fell to a gen­tle­man from the coun­cil to forcibly pick him up and remove him from the gar­den. This sig­nalled the end of our resis­tance, and we called it a day.

At the time of going to press, sev­er­al ideas are being float­ed about to keep up the momen­tum and build upon the com­mu­ni­ty spir­it that Com­mon Ground has cre­at­ed so far. Need­less to say, this is not the last that Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil will hear from us, and it may not be the last time we set foot in our gar­den

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Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den — on squat­ted land in Sil­ver Street, Kates­grove — was evict­ed Fri­day morn­ing. This is the third evic­tion attempt, the pre­vi­ous two, which the coun­cil announced in advance, were met with strong local resis­tance.

At about 9am on 18th Octo­ber 2007 coun­cil offi­cials, bail­liffs, police and PCSO’s arrived, and coun­cil offi­cials broke down the door to num­ber 6 Sil­ver Street (ex-Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre). Police and offi­cials entered the prop­er­ty and evict­ed the two peo­ple liv­ing there. They also broke a hole in the gar­den fence.

Around this time a cou­ple of local res­i­dents, who have worked and relaxed in the com­mu­ni­ty gar­den over the past 10 months, arrived on the scene, ask­ing ques­tions and attempt­ing to take pho­tographs of the event. After the evic­tion teams plans to “board-up” the gar­den were over­heard, two more local peo­ple who have worked in Com­mon Ground arrived.

Three peo­ple entered the gar­den and sat at a table, before coun­cil offi­cials entered and told them to leave. An argu­ment fol­lowed as the res­i­dents demand­ed that the com­mu­ni­ty should be asked what it want­ed to hap­pen to the site, rather than a devel­op­ment being imposed with­out con­sul­ta­tion, while coun­cil offi­cials sim­ply replied “its pri­vate prop­er­ty” — as if this is more impor­tant than social and envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns or local democ­ra­cy. When told “This isn’t right and you know it!”, offi­cials replied “You may have a moral argu­ment, but by the law this is right”. Sure­ly there is some­thing wrong with law when it con­flicts with what is moral­ly right or with local democ­ra­cy?

One coun­cil offi­cial began to get aggres­sive and pulled one per­son­’s seat from under­neath them, throw­ing it across the gar­den. He then start­ed shov­ing the res­i­dent and squar­ing up to him, while the res­i­dent stood his ground and asked the offi­cial his name. Even­tu­al­ly, two res­i­dents had to leave the gar­den for per­son­al rea­sons, while one remained. Offi­cials asked him to leave again, before ask­ing the police, who had left, to return.

The Police once again asked the res­i­dent to leave, to avoid “embar­rass­ment”, only to be told “I’m not embar­rassed to defend this gar­den”. Even­tu­al­ly, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions between the coun­cil and the police, a reluc­tant coun­cil offi­cial was told to use rea­son­able force to evict the per­son. The pro­test­er was phys­i­cal­ly lift­ed and dragged out of the gar­den, before builders fit­ted boards over the gar­den gate and over the hole in the fence.

This is def­i­nite­ly not the end, and Com­mon Ground Col­lec­tive will dis­cuss var­i­ous options over the week­end.

The Coun­cil have stat­ed in press releas­es and in the recent full coun­cil meet­ing that offers of alter­na­tive land had been reject­ed ‘out of hand’ by the gar­den­ers. This is a mis­lead­ing state­ment. Com­mon Ground gave care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion to the offers and, as a group, agreed to con­tin­ue defend the gar­den where it is, and push for a local demo­c­ra­t­ic process where the com­mu­ni­ty would decide what hap­pens to the site long term.

How­ev­er, indi­vid­u­als involved in Com­mon Ground have begun engag­ing in dis­cus­sion with local coun­cil­lors and the Kates­grove Res­i­dents Asso­ci­a­tion to dis­cuss the via­bil­i­ty of cre­at­ing oth­er com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens on the land offered by the coun­cil. It should be point­ed out how­ev­er, that both alter­na­tives are not with­out imme­di­ate prob­lems as one is very small and slopes down to the riv­er mak­ing it poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous, and the oth­er is not whol­ly owned by the coun­cil. The iden­ti­ty of the part own­er in the lat­ter case is seem­ing­ly unknown. But all options will be con­sid­ered and pur­sued as far as they can go.

Thanks for all sup­port we have recieved over the last year, we’ll be back!

katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/common_ground_garden

24-hour Total petrol station shuts due to protest

18.10.2007
Dur­ing the Thurs­day evening rush hour, the 24-hour Total petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road in Lon­don shut down due to the pres­ence of pro­tes­tors call­ing for Total to pull out of Bur­ma.

London 24 hour Total demo18.10.2007
Dur­ing the Thurs­day evening rush hour, the 24-hour Total petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road in Lon­don shut down due to the pres­ence of pro­tes­tors call­ing for Total to pull out of Bur­ma.

Fif­teen pro­tes­tors began their peace­ful protest at 5.00pm with ban­ners and leaflets inform­ing motorists and pedes­tri­ans of Total’s links with the Burmese dic­ta­tor­ship. Sev­er­al cam­paign­ers talked to motorists who drove in to buy petrol. Many motorists were sup­port­ive and vowed not to buy Total again.

How­ev­er Total com­plained to the police (after about an hour and a half) and the cam­paign­ers were asked to leave the fore­court. Short­ly after­wards the sta­tion was shut down com­plete­ly. Employ­ees moved cones and bins to block vehic­u­lar access to the sta­tion and the lights were switched off, includ­ing the 24-hour sign!

The petrol sta­tion remained closed until the protest fin­ished.

http://www.totaloutofburma.blogspot.com/

Burma activists ‘lock on’ to Total

16.10.2007
Three direct activists have today shut down a busy Total fill­ing sta­tion in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma’s non­vi­o­lent strug­gle for democ­ra­cy.

London Total 116.10.2007
Three direct activists have today shut down a busy Total fill­ing sta­tion in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma’s non­vi­o­lent strug­gle for democ­ra­cy.

Under a ban­ner say­ing “May all beings be hap­py – Free Bur­ma ” the activists have locked them­selves togeth­er and begun to med­i­tate, lock­ing togeth­er the hoses, turn­ing off the pow­er and block­ing the entrance to the premis­es in Lon­don’s Maryle­bone Road.

The group have tar­get­ed Total to high­light the com­pa­ny’s role in prop­ping up one of the world’s most bru­tal dic­ta­tor­ships. The Burmese mil­i­tary rulers rou­tine­ly tor­ture pris­on­ers, use rape as a weapon of war, and have forcibly dis­placed almost one mil­lion peo­ple from their land – includ­ing to make way for a 63 kilo­me­tre gas pipeline built by Total.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democ­ra­cy leader, has said that “Total has become the main sup­port­er of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime.” She told the French week­ly Le Nou­v­el Obser­va­teur that “Total knew what it was doing when it invest­ed mas­sive­ly in Bur­ma while oth­ers with­drew from the mar­ket for eth­i­cal rea­sons”. She added, “the com­pa­ny must accept the con­se­quences. The coun­try will not always be gov­erned by dic­ta­tors.”

Matthew Her­bert, one of the activists, said: “All the peo­ples of Bur­ma will be free. There is no force as pow­er­ful as the non­vi­o­lent resis­tance of a unit­ed peo­ple, espe­cial­ly when the cause is as just and urgent as this. As Aung San Suu Kyi says, Total will be held account­able. Today’s action plays just one small part in that reck­on­ing.”

A fel­low activist, added: “The author­i­ty to rule comes from the peo­ple them­selves, the peo­ple of Bur­ma have had enough, they are with­draw­ing their con­sent to be con­trolled. This action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma strug­gle for free­dom and a mes­sage to Total to with­draw from Bur­ma now.”

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact 07796 430141

Activist Film Festival is seeking submissions

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Beyond TV 8 flierUnder­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Sub­ject: Polit­i­cal Activist videos want­ed
From: under­cur­rents

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS OF FILMS

FOR BEYONDTV FESTIVAL NOVEMBER 2007

What is BEYONDTV?
From Novem­ber 28 to Decem­ber 2, 2007, Rad­i­cal media char­i­ty, Under­cur­rents will host the 8th annu­al BEYONDTV fes­ti­val of polit­i­cal doc­u­men­taries, ani­ma­tions and music videos from inspir­ing media direc­tors.

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Impor­tant Note: We do not screen dra­mas using actors

BEYONDTV will be host­ed at the Dylan Thomas Cen­tre and Tal­iesin Cin­e­ma Swansea from Novem­ber 28 — Decem­ber 2, 2007

More details at http://www.beyondtvfestival.info
beyondtv@undercurrents.org

Under­cur­rents
Old Exchange
Pier st
Swansea
SA1 1RY
UK

Samhain bagpipe gathering at Tara, plus action days 31st October ‑5th November

Samhain Bag­pipe Gath­er­ing
Feis-Teamhrach (The Great Feast of Tara)

Come cel­e­brate the Celtic New Year at Tara

Samhain
Samhain Bag­pipe Gath­er­ing
Feis-Teamhrach (The Great Feast of Tara)

Come cel­e­brate the Celtic New Year at Tara
Hill of Tara, near Navan, co Meath, Ire­land.

Relight­ing the Ancient Bea­con fires & Samhain Shindig

Bring your feast­ing food that you want to eat and share

Wed Oct 31st Light­ing Taras 7 Bea­cons And Feast
Thurs 1st/Fri 2nd Nov DAYS OF ACTION
Sat Nov 3rd Fire, Music and Ban­quet
Mon 5th (and every Mon) direct action Route walk.

Vig­il camp 00353 861 758557 Action camp 00353 861 537146

Call­ing all musi­cians, bards, per­form­ers & poets
Bring your flutes, whis­tles, drums and voic­es to the Halls of Tara. Big call out to all
BAGPIPE play­ers to gath­er on the Wed and Sat.
Call­ing all Peo­ple to join in the Defense of TARA
Act now to pre­serve this world her­itage site!

Fliers/posters to down­load at www.tarapixie.net

For direc­tions to Tara check the web­sites below
www.savetara.com www.tarawatch.org
www.tarapixie.net

SAVE IRELAND’S TARA VALLEY!

Eric McDavid US Green Scare prisoner — found guilty & update

It has been two weeks since the jury found Eric guilty, and we are still try­ing to regroup and get ready for the next round. While this is going to be a long process – one which will require your help and sup­port in a vari­ety of ways – there is one thing that sim­ply can­not be put off.

It has been two weeks since the jury found Eric guilty, and we are still try­ing to regroup and get ready for the next round. While this is going to be a long process – one which will require your help and sup­port in a vari­ety of ways – there is one thing that sim­ply can­not be put off.

The jail is still deny­ing Eric veg­an food. After endur­ing a two-week hunger strike in March 2006, Eric was final­ly giv­en veg­an meals on April 24, 2006. This last­ed for 15 full months. Then, with­out any warn­ing or rea­son­able expla­na­tion, the jail cut off Eric’s veg­an meals one week before his tri­al began. Since that time, he has been sur­viv­ing off the few options he can pur­chase from com­mis­sary (peanut but­ter, beans, chips…) and the lit­tle food he can pull off of the meal trays they bring him (usu­al­ly bread and fruit – some­times oat­meal in the morn­ing). Clear­ly, this is not enough to con­sti­tute a healthy, bal­anced diet. It is the jail’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide Eric with the food he needs to remain healthy and strong. This is obvi­ous­ly some­thing they are com­plete­ly able to do, as they did so for 15 months with no prob­lems.

Eric has been con­tem­plat­ing what cours­es of action are open to him in this mat­ter, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, his options have become even more lim­it­ed. The suit that Eric filed against the jail to secure veg­an meals was dis­missed by the judge, great­ly dimin­ish­ing any hope he had for redress in the courts. A hunger strike could be extreme­ly risky due to the bout of peri­cardi­tis for which he was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal in April. It is unclear whether his heart could han­dle the strain a hunger strike would put on his body – he could quick­ly end up back in the hos­pi­tal, poten­tial­ly with a VERY seri­ous heart con­di­tion.

Because Eric’s options are so lim­it­ed, in the jail and in the courts, he needs sup­port from the out­side more than ever. This seems to be the only hope for change. In the mean­time, Eric con­tin­ues to lose weight, and his health will soon begin dete­ri­o­rat­ing. Please call the jail imme­di­ate­ly and request that Eric be giv­en veg­an meals…again. When you call, be pre­pared to sit through a lot of ring­ing and pos­si­bly trans­fers. The per­son who made the deci­sion to cut off Eric’s food before tri­al is Lt. Ilg, and the per­son who over­sees him is Scott Jones. Feel free to request to speak to either of these peo­ple when call­ing the jail.

It’s always help­ful to have Eric’s x‑reference num­ber handy when call­ing the jail, in case the per­son you are speak­ing with asks for it. Eric’s x‑ref is: x‑2972521. You can call the jail at :

916–874-6752
916–874-6905

Below are some things you might sug­gest while talk­ing to the jail:

1)The jail fed Eric veg­an food for 15 months with no prob­lems. There is no rea­son they can­not con­tin­ue to do so.

2)The jail is respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing Eric with a healthy diet. Eric has made it clear that he will not eat food that is not veg­an. As such, they will be respon­si­ble for any health prob­lems that Eric suf­fers due to his lack of nutri­tion.

3)The jail can­not claim they are unable to pro­vide Eric with veg­an food due to asso­ci­at­ed costs. This is sim­ply false. The jail is paid thou­sands of dol­lars by the feds to house fed­er­al inmates (such as Eric). They are prof­it­ing from Eric’s incar­cer­a­tion (and let’s face it, veg­an food is sim­ply cheap­er to begin with…)

In an affi­davit filed with the court in March 2006, Eric wrote, “…my veg­an beliefs and moral­i­ty are ani­mat­ed by the way of liv­ing which shows a respect for all life, rec­og­niz­ing the rights of liv­ing crea­tures; extend­ing to them the com­pas­sion and kind­ness exem­pli­fied toward peo­ple. It is a tru­ly eth­i­cal rela­tion­ship between humans and oth­er liv­ing crea­tures. My veg­an lifestyle is based upon my own health and my own eth­i­cal and moral under­pin­nings which I have arrived at con­sci­en­tious­ly and I am firm­ly con­vinced it is the right and appro­pri­ate way to live. It is health­i­er for me and the plan­et I live on. It is as sin­cere­ly held to me as oth­ers hold their own reli­gious beliefs.” Through­out his time in the Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, Eric has main­tained his integri­ty and resolve to live his life in the most eth­i­cal and com­pas­sion­ate way pos­si­ble. Let’s do our part to sup­port him and ensure that he does not suf­fer for doing so. Please call the jail and request that Eric be giv­en veg­an meals imme­di­ate­ly. And then call again, and again, and again – until this sim­ple demand is met.

Last­ly, thanks to an out­pour­ing of sup­port, Eric is cur­rent­ly very well off on books. At this point, he’s ask­ing that peo­ple please hold off on send­ing any addi­tion­al books until he’s able to get through the ones he cur­rent­ly has. We will post an update as soon as he’s able to receive more. As far as finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions, the best way to con­tribute to Eric is to donate to his legal defense; we are prepar­ing to file an appeal and need to raise funds as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. We are cur­rent­ly able to cov­er Eric’s com­mis­sary needs. Thank you again for keep­ing Eric in your thoughts and doing so much to help him through this very dif­fi­cult time.

Let­ter from Eric 10/5/07
Dear friends,

Below is a let­ter from Eric. We want to keep this short, and leave you with his words, but just a quick note: last night Mark filed a 28-page motion for a new trial/to acquit based on the errors made through­out the tri­al. Most of these have been dis­cussed in pre­vi­ous alerts and court reports, with the excep­tion of one. When the court issued it’s answers on Thurs­day morn­ing to the ques­tions the jury asked Wednes­day after­noon, the judge told the jury not to write down the answers, as the jury would be issued a type-writ­ten response upon their return to the jury room. The answer giv­en to the first ques­tion in court (whether or not Anna was a gov­ern­ment agent in August 2004) was an unequiv­o­cal “yes.” How­ev­er, the answer giv­en to the jury upon their return to the delib­er­a­tion room was a type-writ­ten “No.” This clear­ly could have had alarm­ing impacts on the ver­dict they decid­ed upon in Eric’s case…

A let­ter from Eric…

i’ve been told that my con­duct has been seen by some as inspi­ra­tional, i’m grate­ful to be able to pro­vide a source of strength to those in my fam­i­ly who find them­selves in a time of need — more so as being a part of their process of growth and self cre­ation… but my behav­ior is, in a sense, self­ish­ly borne — my intent orig­i­nates from a per­spec­tive which encom­pass­es my fam­i­ly and their future gen­er­a­tions… though, the term “fam­i­ly” i don’t uti­lize in a con­ven­tion­al or every­day sense — the bub­ble has expand­ed beyond the cus­tom­ary… it holds with­in it the micro and macro, all those with whom i have shared that mut­ed and unblink­ing stare of under­stand­ing — be it on the streets, at a skill­share or class, con­cert, speech or march, ral­ly, home-demo or a real­ly free mar­ket — at a con­ver­gence cen­tre, library, camp­site, crit­i­cal mass, on an on-ramp, along­side of a high­way, at a rest stop, from a train, in a for­est, a city park or square, or at a stream, riv­er, lake, hot-spring or beach… this bub­ble also includes each and every one of those indi­vid­ual places — unique unto them­selves in appear­ance, local­i­ty, time and energy/personality ~ as well as the non-humyn inhab­i­tants there­in, who aid in the con­tin­u­al self-cre­ations of those envi­ron­ments… keep­ing that self­ish­ness close to my Heart and mind is some­thing i aim for — know­ing that all my life i have been con­di­tioned by our soci­ety to the con­trary… dur­ing my ten days of “dis­ci­pli­nary iso­la­tion” last fall an idea made itself known to me ~ it was to cre­ate with that which is pro­vid­ed, not nec­es­sar­i­ly to its par­tic­u­lar pur­pose, but to my own… this includes the pain which resides with­in my Heart due to the sep­a­ra­tion between us… i’ve come to see ener­gy as the most mal­leable aspect of this real­i­ty, and the emo­tions that surge through our bod­ies can be uti­lized for any num­ber of means and ends… pain­less stag­nant can fes­ter into hate and reac­tion — but uti­lized with a con­scious and open intent it could nur­ture the cat­a­lysts required to move through our thresh­olds… hate is the death of joy and reac­tion is noth­ing more than uncon­scious reflex brought about by a cer­tain stim­u­lus (per­ceived or not) which induces pre­dictable respons­es — in most cas­es, con­ced­ing to the terms and def­i­n­i­tions of the ini­tia­tor, allow­ing the stim­u­lus to have affect, sig­ni­fies it’s suc­cess… con­scious cre­ations with the cycles of growth and health do not fit into the matrix of cause and effect — their qual­i­ties and forms flow through the rigid struc­tures that seek to encap­su­late, reform, define… … i object to being pigeon­holed (phys­i­cal­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly) by cleav­ing to some mar­shal or war­rioresque mantra that many have cho­sen when con­front­ed with sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances — what they chose is for their own per­son­al path, what they’ve per­ceived as nec­es­sary for their sur­vival… from where i stand, it feels that if i fol­lowed that train of thought i would be adher­ing to a path too well-worn ~ and don’t get me wrong, i hon­or and respect those that have come before me who con­tin­ue to adhere to the wis­dom in their hearts, but those known trails can also be used by oth­ers that have scout­ed them for weak­ness­es ~ if expe­ri­ence has taught me any­thing, it’s been to stick to the deer trails or cre­ate my own… anoth­er of my recent lessons has been to rec­og­nize the benef­i­cent qual­i­ties of shape-shift­ing, as defined by ter­ry tem­pest williams = “this has noth­ing to do with incon­sis­ten­cy. it has to do with seiz­ing the moment, per­ceiv­ing what is nec­es­sary in that moment … know­ing what each occa­sion demands, and stand­ing our ground in the places we live…” … but this is nei­ther the time nor the place to ful­ly delve into such things, for this let­ter has anoth­er intent… … … through­out this expe­ri­ence i have been in awe of the lov­ing sup­port giv­en by fam­i­ly, known and unknown from around the coun­try and the world, who have nour­ished me dur­ing this part of my jour­ney ~ i’ve received such an inun­dat­ing amount of mail that i haven’t been able to respond to it all ~ there is no con­cept that can ade­quate­ly express my thanx and appre­ci­a­tion to you all… … to all of those unknown and unnamed beau­ti­ful indi­vid­u­als who have aid­ed me on this case, i am impa­tient­ly wait­ing to thank you prop­er­ly with a huge hug… … chris­tine, i haven’t for­got­ten about the veg­an din­ner i promised… … to my coun­sel mark, who’s exper­tise in his field is unques­tion­able — his abil­i­ties, pas­sion, and deter­mi­na­tion pro­vide a well­spring of strength, espe­cial­ly know­ing that he con­tin­ues to fight for me — as he said on the 27th “it’s only the open­ings of the third quar­ter” ~ the notion of grat­i­tude does­n’t begin to encom­pass the feel­ing in my heart, my friend, much love… … to jed, my investigator/case manager/Elder, your ener­gies vest­ed into this case have been the bedrock of ground­ed explo­ration, bal­anc­ing the some­times fren­zied and bois­ter­ous antics that accom­pa­ny markus’ high ener­gy nature, thank you my friend… … i’d also like to thank bob, my first inves­ti­ga­tor, for his time, com­pa­ny and aid work­ing on the hours upon hours of tran­scripts with me over that first sum­mer (which my part­ner and sis­ter painstak­ing­ly gleaned from the shock­ing­ly abhor­rent qual­i­ty of fbi record­ings)… … the actions and aid of sac pris­on­er sup­port have and con­tin­ue to tran­scend any and all of my ideas con­cern­ing pris­on­er sup­port groups and have been mon­u­men­tal in this expe­ri­ence on every con­ceiv­able front — too much love… … the Love, Sup­port, and Under­stand­ing of my Par­ents and Sis­ters goes beyond scope, sim­i­le, and metaphor — i Love you all … … and i Feel and Know in my Heart, Body, and Soul that my sur­vival has been impact­ed to an inex­press­ible degree by the Love and Sup­port of my Part­ner ~ and the inter­twin­ing of Our Paths has brought a Depth and Qual­i­ty of Life i had nev­er before imag­ined to exist — my Thanx tran­scend lan­guage and my Love, only a Begin­ning… … …

my Thanx and Love 2 U All

This is far from Over

D

find your joy

More info at http://www.supporteric.org/
More info on the Green Scare at http://greenscare.org/

Lancaster anti-supermarket protest camp & update

New protest camp goes up in Lan­cast­er with local res­i­dents in sup­port — nobody wants a super­mar­ket with a huge park­ing here!

New protest camp goes up in Lan­cast­er with local res­i­dents in sup­port — nobody wants a super­mar­ket with a huge park­ing here!
Lancaster Tesco site occupation 1
Lancaster Tesco site occupation 2
Lancaster Tesco site occupation 3
News Release
From: Lan­cast­er Cit­i­zens’ Alliance
For imme­di­ate release
Mon 8 Octo­ber 2007

Angry res­i­dents occu­py pro­posed super­mar­ket site

This morn­ing Lan­cast­er res­i­dents moved on to coun­cil owned land in Scot­forth — the site of a pro­posed super­mar­ket, rumoured to be Tesco’s. Locals are shocked by secret moves in the Coun­cil’s Cab­i­net to sell off land at Law­son Bridge, off the A6. Their mes­sage: they will not allow the coun­cil to sell off their town for what they call “dodgy devel­op­ment”.

Says local res­i­dent Deirdre Mason: “The coun­cil may love the idea of Tesco’s, Cen­tros Miller and the Bail­rigg Sci­ence Park, but local res­i­dents are con­cerned about the threat to local busi­ness­es and the unique char­ac­ter of the city! These devel­op­ments will be the death of Lan­cast­er. Time to say ENOUGH! to all these sor­did schemes. Let’s send a clear mes­sage to all these devel­op­ers: they are not wel­come in our town.”

The occu­pa­tion will last for 24 hours and will be fol­lowed by a protest out­side the Cab­i­net meet­ing tomor­row (Tues­day 9th Oct) at Lan­cast­er Town Hall from 9.30am onwards.

Res­i­dents are con­cerned about the way the Coun­cil is sell­ing off Lan­cast­er piece­meal, lead­ing to a town crip­pled by grid­lock, and hav­ing only “clone town” shops that are to be found in any high street in the coun­try. “The coun­cil is blink­ered when it comes to recog­nis­ing the his­tor­i­cal val­ue of our town, the
vibran­cy and high qual­i­ty of the local traders.” says Stephen Dick­in­son of Scot­forth. “They sold off our mar­ket — it’s now half dead. Now they want to see off the rest of the town cen­tre with Cen­tros Miller’s pro­posed mon­stros­i­ty and this mega super­mar­ket in Scot­forth. The time has come to say ‘Enough!’. It’s
time for our coun­cil­lors to lis­ten to us!”

-ENDS-

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please con­tact Deirdre Mason at the protest camp on:
07798 745613

Pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties:
Mon 1pm at the protest camp, Law­sons Bridge, Scot­forth Road, Lan­cast­er
Tues­day 10am at Lan­cast­er Town Hall

Notes for the Edi­tor:
1 The land threat­ened by super­mar­ket devel­op­ment and cur­rent­ly under occu­pa­tion is near Law­son’s Bridge, between the rail­way line and the A6 (Scot­forth Road). Lan­cast­er City Coun­cil owns about 5.5acres there, imme­di­ate­ly to the south of Ray’s Dri­ve.

2 The land is cur­rent­ly rent­ed to a farmer for use as pas­ture. It is also well used by Scot­forth res­i­dents for dog-walk­ing and oth­er kinds of recre­ation, and there is a com­mu­ni­ty wood­land area at the north­ern end which is threat­ened by the devel­op­ment.

3 Lan­cast­er Coun­cil Cab­i­net will be dis­cussing the pro­posed sale in their Cab­i­net meet­ing on Tues­day, 9th Octo­ber. The meet­ing takes place at Lan­cast­er Town Hall at 10am.

——————————————————————————————-

Update — The fight car­ries on (and we will win!)

At this morn­ing’s Cab­i­net meet­ing of Lan­cast­er City Coun­cil coun­cil­lors vot­ed 8–2 to go ahead with start­ing the process of flog­ging the land for a super­mar­ket. This despite an over­whelm­ing dis­play of pub­lic out­rage. Hun­dreds of peo­ple wrote to the Cab­i­net Coun­cil­lors over the week. Scot­forth Parish Coun­cil decid­ing unan­i­mous­ly to oppose the super­mar­ket in an emer­gency meet­ing last night night and mak­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion to the Cab­i­net this morn­ing. Dozens of res­i­dents camp­ing out in the threat­ened field. A well attend­ed ral­ly this morn­ing. All this hap­pened in the space of five days — since we found out about the pro­posed deci­sion.

Cab­i­net Coun­cil­lors this morn­ing had the guts to refuse even to con­sult peo­ple pri­or to the sale.
The Con­ser­v­a­tive leader of the Coun­cil, Cllr Roger Mace said “we’ve had lots
of emails so there has been a con­sul­ta­tion already”. At this point sev­er­al mem­bers of the pub­lic could no longer con­tain their anger — shout­ing “that was us con­tact­ing you, not you con­sult­ing us” and storm­ing out.

Lib Dem Coun­cil­lor for Scot­forth East (which bor­ders onto Law­son’s Bridge)
John Gilbert said that “start­ing to mar­ket the land will allow con­sul­ta­tion
to take place” and “the pub­lic can con­sult all they want” (sic).

This ridicules any pre­tense of a demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem (with the notable excep­tion of our Green Coun­cil­lors who blew the whis­tle on the issue and joined in with the protest).

How­ev­er we are only at the start of this process and already hun­dreds of peo­ple are furi­ous about the plans and deter­mined to resist them every step of the way. We have already fought off two plan­ning appli­ca­tions for this site and we shall do so again.

In the mean­time, maybe we all need to recon­sid­er the way we shop — kick the habit and stop shop­ping at Tesco/Asda/Sainsbury’s/etc. Get to know your local shop keep­ers, sup­port inde­pen­dent small shops, set up food co-ops, before it is too late and they as well as your green fields are gone for­ev­er. These super­mar­ket giants are rid­ing rough-shod over com­mu­ni­ties and the envi­ron­ment every­where.

To find out more about these issues vis­it: http://www.tescopoly.org/

Oh, by the way, we’ve not for­got­ten about the mon­strous Cen­tros Miller plans for our city cen­tre either. We’re just as deter­mined to see them off too! More info here: http://www.itsourcity.org.uk/

ENOUGH Is ENOUGH!

Greenpeace protesters raid coal power plant

Green­peace cam­paign­ers have staged a dawn protest at a pow­er plant which could be the site of Britain’s first new coal-fired sta­tion for 20 years.

Greenpeace Kingsnorth actionGreen­peace cam­paign­ers have staged a dawn protest at a pow­er plant which could be the site of Britain’s first new coal-fired sta­tion for 20 years.

More than 50 activists said they want­ed Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown to reject the pro­pos­al for the Kingsnorth site, on the Hoo Penin­su­la, in Kent.

They also aim to take the plant off the Nation­al Grid.

E.ON UK said pro­test­ers had been at the gates with some inside the facil­i­ty, but insist­ed it was still oper­a­tional.

Kent Police said it sent nego­tia­tors to the scene after being called at about 0600 BST on Mon­day.

Reduced emis­sions

A state­ment said: “It is thought that 23 Green­peace pro­test­ers are cur­rent­ly on pow­er sta­tion prop­er­ty and sev­er­al of them have chained them­selves to gen­er­a­tors.

“Police have closed sur­round­ing roads and have already moved on 30 peo­ple from the out­skirts of the site.”

E.ON UK announced in Octo­ber 2006 that it planned to build two new coal units at Kingsnorth, say­ing they would be clean­er and more effi­cient than the cur­rent ones with “state-of-the-art tech­nol­o­gy” reduc­ing car­bon diox­ide emis­sions.

There is a team who are scal­ing the 250m-high (820ft) smoke stack
Pro­test­er Joss Gar­man

Green­peace said more than 13,000 objec­tions had been sent to Med­way Coun­cil, but “in the next cou­ple of weeks the deci­sion will go to Gor­don Brown”.

The cli­mate cam­paign­ers said their mes­sage to the prime min­is­ter was: “Don’t bot­tle it on cli­mate change.”

They scaled fences at the site just after 0500 BST on Mon­day.

One pro­test­er, 22-year-old Joss Gar­man from north Lon­don, said he and oth­ers had climbed up coal con­vey­ors, pressed the emer­gency stop but­tons and chained them­selves to the belts.

Mr Gar­man described the action as a form of “peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence” which could last for days rather than hours.

“There is anoth­er team who are scal­ing the 250m-high (820ft) smoke stack, and they’ve got enough sup­plies to last for a few days,” he said.

A view inside the Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion
About 23 pro­test­ers got inside the facil­i­ty on Mon­day morn­ing

Mr Gar­man claimed the new coal units planned for Kingsnorth would do lit­tle to reduce car­bon emis­sions.

“This pow­er sta­tion [cur­rent­ly] wastes over two-thirds of the ener­gy that it pro­duces… although it will be slight­ly more effi­cient, this new plant will still lose over half the ener­gy it will cre­ate.”

He added that pro­test­ers hoped to have tak­en the pow­er sta­tion off the Nation­al Grid lat­er on Mon­day, but claimed there would be no black­outs as a result.

E.ON UK spokesman Jonathan Smith said: “They’re in a num­ber of places inside the pow­er sta­tion, but they aren’t actu­al­ly caus­ing it to stop run­ning just yet.

“These peo­ple are not qual­i­fied to be in our pow­er sta­tion… we’re work­ing very close­ly with the police to try to ensure a safe and swift end to this protest.”

Mr Smith also said the pro­pos­als were for a “clean­er coal devel­op­ment”.

“The new units will be car­bon cap­ture-ready, which means they would have the pipework on them to actu­al­ly cap­ture the car­bon diox­ide and to store it under­ground once that tech­nol­o­gy is proven.”

The com­pa­ny esti­mates the two new units will reduce car­bon emis­sions by about two mil­lion tonnes a year.