Crude Awakening info update

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Have you been think­ing it’s about time a whole load of peo­ple got togeth­er to take mass action against oil in cen­tral Lon­don? We thought so. And so it fol­lowed that the Crude Awak­en­ing was launched. The mobi­liza­tion is now in full swing and every­one is invit­ed to help pub­li­cize and pre­pare. There is loads to do….please have a read through this email and get involved!

The email is in three parts:

Upcom­ing events and how to get involved
Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions
The call out — please copy and paste and help this get all over the Inter­net!

1. How to get involved and build up events you are all invit­ed to.

Events already planned are list­ed bel­low:

In Lon­don……

17th Sep­tem­ber, net­work­ing meet­ing at 6pm just inside the entrance to the Brunei Gallery at SOAS, a meet­ing for peo­ple inter­est­ed in help­ing to do out­reach in the Lon­don area the Cli­mate Camp out­reach group are meet­ing.

There is going to be a Lon­don coor­di­nat­ing and plan­ning meet­ing for the Crude Awak­en­ing very soon, and the details will be announced short­ly.

Thurs­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber at 7.30pm, Cli­mate Action Film Night, Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre, Whitechapel (for address see www.londonarc.org)

An evening of films and dis­cus­sion about cli­mate activism and the oil indus­try, host­ed by Lon­don Ris­ing Tide.

A screen­ing of two short films of recent actions against BP and Shell by Ris­ing Tide and friends, plus Petrop­o­lis, a visu­al­ly stun­ning and dis­turb­ing doc­u­men­tary about the Cana­di­an Tar Sands. Fol­lowed by a brain­storm­ing ses­sion on tak­ing direct action against the oil indus­try in Lon­don — includ­ing all the lat­est info on the Crude Awak­en­ing, an oily mass action hap­pen­ing on Sat­ur­day 16th Octo­ber. For any­one who believes in cli­mate jus­tice and wants to help make it hap­pen; any­one hacked off with the greed and irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of oil giants like BP; any­one back from the Cli­mate Camp and look­ing to get involved local­ly… every­one welcome.…and there’ll be cake!

The Crude Awak­en­ing Lon­don Rab­ble Rouser – a mass out­door team game, warm­ing us up for the big day– date, place and time to be announced.

Sat­ur­day 2nd Octo­ber. MOLASAPULTPARTY FUNDRAISER .… Venue TBC, more details to fol­low short­ly

Sat­ur­day the 2nd and Sun­day the 3rd Octo­ber Stilt mak­ing work­shop for the stilt block on the mass action!.…
This time we’re think­ing big, we’re think­ing high, we’re think­ing tall.… and we’re going as a Stilt Bloc.

Yep, thats right! On stilts!

So in order for this to hap­pen we’re hav­ing a skill share week­end in Lon­don to build stilts and learn how to walk on them. The week­end is Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd Octo­ber, 10am to 6pm.

And even if you don’t want to be up high, each stilt walk­er will need a bud­dy stay­ing on the ground so there’s a place for every­one, young and old, big or small, high or low.….. we need you at this week­end too!!!

Its all free and lunch is includ­ed.…

We need RSVPs so we know num­bers. Email: stilt.bloc@gmail.com

Oh and its MEXICAN DAY OF THE DEAD theme.….

In Man­ches­ter….

Sat 9th Oct — Mass Action train­ing

Tue 12th Oct — Pub­licly announced rouser for CJA inter­na­tion­al day of action

Crude Awak­en­ing mobil­i­sa­tion

We hope that there will be loads more to fol­low but this is what is lined up so far. If you are plan­ning a build up event let us know so we can adver­tise it please.

There is a huge amount to do to mobi­lize quick­ly for an event this big. Maybe you could organ­ise a film show­ing or talk (we can prob­a­bly send a speak­er if you email us). You could put on an affin­i­ty group or action train­ing work­shop, or host a fundrais­er. You could book a coach and fill it. You could run a work­shop so peo­ple can build prac­ti­cal stuff , for exam­ple a load of dis­pos­able bikes to bring along (email us to let us know if you do make lots of use­ful stuff). You could have a stall and hand out fly­ers at your fresh­ers fair (again email for mate­ri­als). You could make a sten­cil and graf­fi­ti adver­tise for it all across your city/ region. Unless every­one gets involved there is a real dan­ger we won’t get the num­bers we need.
The Crude Awak­en­ing is now on crab­grass! Join it, join a work­ing group and lets get plan­ning! https://we.riseup.net/thecrudeawakening (crab­grass is a lit­tle bit like face­book for activists and is a way of organ­is­ing on line). And sign up for more infor­ma­tion by email and text alerts on the web­site. www.crudeawakening.org.uk. Our face­book page is a lit­tle slow to get off the ground but it will soon be buzzing.

Please also raise The Crude Awak­en­ing as an agen­da point at the next organ­is­ing meet­ing at your Social Centre/ Friends of the Earth Group/ Union/ Cli­mate Camp neighbourhood/ Hous­ing Coop etc. Get peo­ple talk­ing and excit­ed and com­mit­ted to the idea that they are going! If you are not already in a group or affin­i­ty group you are of course still total­ly wel­come. You will prob­a­bly want to make con­tact with some like mind­ed folk to talk things through and make some plans before the big day. For exam­ple you could go to climatecamp.org.uk or risingtide.org.uk and find your local active group, or email us and we can try to sign­post you on. At the least try to get a cou­ple of mates to come with you, so that you have some sup­port as a group of friends (known by activists as an affin­i­ty group).

2. Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions

Q. Nei­ther the web­site nor the fly­er gives much info. What is going on?

A. As you have prob­a­bly twigged there is also a delib­er­ate sense of mys­tery around the action. So often with recent mass actions we have said exact­ly where we are going to go, and the police have had as much time to pre­pare as us, mak­ing things much more dif­fi­cult for peo­ple who want to be involved in mass and effec­tive direct action . With this project we are exper­i­ment­ing a lit­tle bit. The 10 tar­gets are left unspec­i­fied, giv­ing the action more chance of being suc­cess­ful. But at the same time we can open­ly adver­tise that we all need to be in Cen­tral Lon­don so we can get loads of peo­ple togeth­er at the same place at the same time for the mass action. And those peo­ple need to be ready to take action and to have fun. This is not a march and it’s not a camp. This is an action that needs prepa­ra­tion and we can all be involved in most of that preparation….although the tar­gets will be a sur­prise until much lat­er.

We can’t be sure that this mix of secret and pub­lic plan­ning will work, but we can give it a go, have some fun and maybe make some progress…..but maybe, just maybe we have got it total­ly nailed and this will be the best mass action in Lon­don ever! If you don’t show up there it will be dif­fi­cult for you to know. Our advice is don’t miss it 😉

Q. So what do I need to do to pre­pare?

A. Peo­ple need to be ready to move, and to stand their ground. Don’t bring with you any­thing that you can’t eas­i­ly walk with or get on a tube with. But do bring with you stuff that will help you and your affin­i­ty group hold a space in what ever way you feel you want to. Whether you want to bring arm­tubes, dis­pos­able bikes or a huge slow mov­ing met­al and wood­en tow­er with a papi­er-mâché rhi­no head (that can fit on and off a tube!?); diver­si­ty of tac­tics and affin­i­ty group plan­ning are key to this work­ing. Peo­ple can also pre­pare stuff to make this action look beau­ti­ful; pup­pets, masks, ban­ners, a portable molasses fondue……you get the idea.

Q. Why Oil?

A. For a whole host of rea­sons. Here are just a few…..
Because oil com­pa­nies search for new oil reserves to make them­selves rich­er while our cli­mate spins into cri­sis.
Because the UK gov­ern­ment starts wars for oil.
Because of human rights abus­es and mur­der in West Africa.
Because of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon spill.
Because of the destruc­tion of wilder­ness in the Arc­tic and the coast of Rosport in Ire­land.
Because of UK pub­lic mon­ey being used by bailed out banks to fund new oil projects.
Because Lon­don is brim­ming with oil mon­ey, oil spon­sor­ship and oil com­pa­nies.
Because glob­al ener­gy resources are the peo­ples com­mons.
Because oil com­pa­nies and the filthy rich peo­ple who prof­it from them have no place in a sus­tain­able future.
Because Copen­hagen failed and now it’s down to us.
Because oil has had it’s day and it’s time we pulled the plug.

Hope that that made things a lit­tle clear­er. And more spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion will be sent out soon. If you are still strug­gling with the idea, it is a bit like the Great Cli­mate Swoop of 2009, except where we are going is kept secret. Remem­ber, you are being asked to come and move around Lon­don, so stay mobile, be cre­ative, be prepat­ed and be ready to stand your ground. So talk in your affin­i­ty group about the ways in which you are going to be able to hold a space and equip­ment and mate­ri­als that you might want to bring along to help you. The action is open, and will be shaped by the peo­ple who are there. Only the tar­gets and how we are get­ting to them are secret.

3. The call out – please copy and paste and help get this all over the Inter­net!

THE CRUDE AWAKENING

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Floods in Pak­istan, drought in Rus­sia, huge glac­i­ers break­ing up in Green­land…

Our cli­mate sys­tem is rapid­ly slid­ing into cri­sis, as oil com­pa­nies destroy peo­ple’s lives and the envi­ron­ment to keep suck­ing up their prof­its.

Oil sat­u­rates every aspect of our lives. Oil prof­its lubri­cate the finan­cial mar­kets and its spon­sor­ship clings like a bad smell to our cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions. It flows through pipelines to the pumps, air­ports and fac­to­ries of our cities.

The fail­ure of the UN COP15 process showed us – if there was ever any doubt – that gov­ern­ment and indus­try can’t tack­le cli­mate change. It’s up to us and it’s time to up the ante.

As a move­ment, our actions against coal and avi­a­tion have made a real dif­fer­ence. Now oil’s time is up.

Togeth­er, on Octo­ber 16, let’s give the oil indus­try a Crude Awak­en­ing.

Meet in cen­tral Lon­don. Be ready to move. Be ready to stay and stand your ground.

Be cre­ative. Be pre­pared. Be there.

Find out more, get involved and sign up for text alerts at www.crudeawakening.org.uk
Face­book: http://bit.ly/c6S0kg
Twit­ter: @crudeawake

Part of the CJA glob­al week of action for cli­mate jus­tice
Sup­port­ed by: Space Hijack­ers, Cli­mate Camp, Plane Stu­pid, Ris­ing Tide, Lib­er­ate Tate, Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Insur­rec­tionary Imag­i­na­tion, UK Tar Sands Net­work

Hope to see you on the streets,
Crude Awak­en­ing
crudeawakening.org.uk