Issue Two of the ‘Roadblock Report’ Now Out!

3/7/2008
Issue two of the inde­pen­dent newslet­ter of the I‑69 cam­paign is now out for your down­load­ing, print­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing plea­sure.
You can find both the first and the sec­ond issue on the web­site of Road­block Earth First! http://stopi69.wordpress.com/resources or on the media archive sec­tion of the I‑69 Media Office’s web­site http://i69mediaoffice.wordpress.com/media-archive

3/7/2008
Issue two of the inde­pen­dent newslet­ter of the I‑69 cam­paign is now out for your down­load­ing, print­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing plea­sure.
You can find both the first and the sec­ond issue on the web­site of Road­block Earth First! http://stopi69.wordpress.com/resources or on the media archive sec­tion of the I‑69 Media Office’s web­site http://i69mediaoffice.wordpress.com/media-archive
In this issue:

- let­ter from the edi­tors about media/independent media
‑break­ing news sto­ries about
• the tree sit evic­tion,
• Bloom­ing­ton torch march,
• retal­ia­to­ry actions across Indi­ana,
‑action reports on:
• home demos,
• sol­i­dar­i­ty demos,
‑updates on
• the nature walks on the route,
• the com­mu­ni­ty bar­bq,
‑opin­ion pieces about
• the flood­ing in Indi­ana,
• a response to alle­ga­tions of vio­lence in office demos.
‑I-69 Lis­ten­ing project inter­view
‑Crit­i­cal thought piece on the future of the ‘anti-glob­al­iza­tion move­ment.

The sec­ond issue is for­mat­ted in 8.5”X11”, to be dou­ble sided. Email road­block­re­port (at) yahoo.com if you would like a dif­fer­ent for­mat.

As well, the I‑69 Media Office is announc­ing the launch of its new web­site, i69mediaoffice.wordpress.com . The I‑69 Media Office is an inde­pen­dent clear­ing­house for anti-I-69 infor­ma­tion and action report­ing. Please explore our ‘under con­struc­tion’ web­site for more infor­ma­tion on what we do.

Brighton squatted social centre eviction

88 LONDON ROAD SOCIAL CENTRE EVICTION

88 LONDON ROAD SOCIAL CENTRE EVICTION

At 7am this morn­ing the anar­chist social cen­tre at 88 Lon­don Road, Brighton was forcibly evict­ed, despite resis­tance. The Vic­to­ri­an church had been occu­pied since the Squat­ting Days of Action on the 4th and 5th of April. The space was intialy opened as part of a two day inter­na­tion­al event, com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing autonomous spaces and high­light­ing the impor­tance of squat­ting and glob­al net­work­ing.

Since then, the com­mu­ni­ty at 88 Lon­don Road had suc­ces­sive­ly resist­ed one pri­or evic­tion attempt from police. The space was being used as a social cen­tre for grass­roots move­ments, free cafes, work­shops and a lot of oth­er pos­si­ble projects for the ben­e­fit of the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Two of the occu­p­ing mem­bers of 88 were arrest­ed when they pro­longed the evic­tion by climb­ing to the rafters, clam­ber­ing into a car­go net and hang­ing high above the injus­tice below. The whole evic­tion was over by mid­day and the coun­cil spent the rest of the after­noon board­ing up an amaz­ing space that held so much poten­tial.

we will be back.….…

http://www.myspace.com/88londonroadsquat

Wembley Summer Camp Open: Squat The Land, Smash School Privatisation

Teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers in Wem­b­ley, Brent, North West Lon­don, have re-squat­ted the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and are call­ing out for peo­ple to join them, squat the land and join the largest protest against

Wembley Tent CityWembley treehouseTeach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers in Wem­b­ley, Brent, North West Lon­don, have re-squat­ted the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and are call­ing out for peo­ple to join them, squat the land and join the largest protest against the pri­vati­sa­tion of the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem.

Brent local teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers have made a call out for peo­ple to help squat the land at Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground on Bridge Road, next to Wem­b­ley Park under­ground sta­tion, and join the largest and most promi­nent cam­paign against the accel­er­at­ing pri­vati­sa­tion of the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem, the brain child of ex-prime min­is­ter Tony Blair.

Peo­ple are asked to join the Tent City Occu­pa­tion or just vis­it, help build net­works, share infor­ma­tion and knowl­edge on non-vio­lent-direct-action, and when the con­struc­tion work­ers arrive, which could be as ear­ly as this week, help in and exe­cute non-vio­lent-direct-action to halt the project.

On 03 June 2008 Brent Town Coun­cil approved the child char­i­ty Ark pro­pos­al to begin the con­struc­tion of the pri­va­tised Wem­b­ley Acad­e­my School.

The meet­ing held by coun­cil heads at Brent Town Hall, descend­ed into farce, as the local com­mu­ni­ty, angry that they were ignored dur­ing all pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions with the coun­cil and Ark, were threat­ened with removal from the plan­ning meet­ing and the Acad­e­my plan­ning appli­ca­tion deci­sion to be made in secret, which would have been an ille­gal move on the part of the coun­cil.

That plan­ning meet­ing approved the tem­po­rary hous­ing of 200 school pupils in huts while the Ark Acad­e­my is built around them over the next two years, putting chil­dren in dan­ger on a con­struc­tion site, cranes over­hang­ing the por­ta­cab­ins and tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion, just so the mon­ey flow from UK tax­pay­er to the pri­va­tised school investor, and the prof­it, can start by Sep­tem­ber 2008.

One rea­son the Wem­b­ley Acad­e­my open­ing date was moved for­ward from Sep­tem­ber 2009 to 2008 was because local oppo­si­tion against the Acad­e­my and the pri­vati­sa­tion of UK edu­ca­tion has been so mas­sive in Brent, Ark thought that advanc­ing the school start date would crush the resis­tance.

Con­nec­tions are being made with the Bat­tersea Crane Dis­as­ter Group, the Con­struc­tion Safe­ty Cam­paign and the Pim­li­co school teach­ers who are also fight­ing the pri­vati­sa­tion of their school by ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist, and Tory par­ty fun­der, John Nash and his com­pa­ny Sov­er­eign Cap­i­tal.

Pim­li­co school pupils are already being put at risk, as 1050 chil­dren are being edu­cat­ed while the school is demol­ished around them. Cranes are already over­hang­ing their class rooms and con­struc­tion debris and dust believed to con­tain asbestos is sweep­ing across the play­ground into class­rooms.

But this sit­u­a­tion, autho­rised by local and nation­al gov­ern­ment, will see 200 chil­dren being edu­cat­ed in the mid­dle of a con­struc­tion site. With the cur­rent safe­ty record of UK con­struc­tion sites, it draws seri­ous con­cern for the well­be­ing of the stu­dents.

But anoth­er con­cern is pri­vate invest­ment tak­ing over the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem, instill­ing their pri­vate, cor­po­rate, and reli­gious indi­vid­ual beliefs in the edu­ca­tion sys­tem.

The Vardy Foun­da­tion, set up by Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ist Reg Vardy, already has its hands on sev­er­al UK Acad­e­mies and has since erad­i­cat­ed evo­lu­tion from the schools, teach­ing only cre­ation­ism.

The Wem­b­ley Ark Acad­e­my will be run by french/swiss and mul­ti­mil­lion­aire Arki Bus­son — long-term friend of Tony Blair — who is known to hold what can only be described as strict Catholic beliefs.

Ark is set to run 12 UK Acad­e­my schools, six of which will be opened by Sep­tem­ber 2008.

As con­struc­tion work begins and the resis­tance turns to non-vio­lent-direct-action to halt the project, con­struc­tion could begin as ear­ly as this work, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and police are expect­ed to be employed to force evic­tion on the pro­tes­tors.

The teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers of Brent have asked for all to come, squat the land, save the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and sur­round­ing green space for the local com­mu­ni­ty and wildlife, and halt the fur­ther gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of Wem­b­ley.

Bring your mum, your broth­er, your dog — squat this land, join the protest, make a stand and to say no to the pri­vati­sa­tion of UK edu­ca­tion. Say no to edu­ca­tion for prof­it. Join the Wem­b­ley Park Tent City Occu­pa­tion.

Make a stand. Say no to pri­va­tised edu­ca­tion. Get on the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Under­ground line to Wem­b­ley Park, bring a tent, bring a friend, and make a stand.

All pho­tos cour­tesy of free­lance jour­nal­ist Jason N. Parkin­son
All Stills © Jason N. Parkin­son 2008 All Rights Reserved

Tent City Occu­pa­tion (see here for con­tact details)

http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/

—-

Pre­vi­ous cov­er­age

Anti-Acad­e­my Teach­ers Take To The Trees

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/380945.html

Wem­b­ley Teach­ers Say No To Pri­va­tised School­ing

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/wembley-teachers-say-no-to-privatised.html

200 School Pupils In Huts On A Con­struc­tion Site

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/200-school-pupils-in-huts-on.html

Save Our Schools 22-minute film avail­able on Reel News issue 13

http://www.reelnews.co.uk/

Climate Camp Bike Ride

Peo­ple will be rid­ing to the cli­mate camp, start­ing from Glas­gow, descend­ing souther­ly pick­ing up thou­sands en route.

The final leg, Lon­don to Kingsnorth is on sun­day 3 August meet­ing under Water­loo bridge (south­side) at 9am
For more info on the route and how to get involved e‑mail climatecampbikeride@lists.riseup.net
Up the the veloru­tion.

Peo­ple will be rid­ing to the cli­mate camp, start­ing from Glas­gow, descend­ing souther­ly pick­ing up thou­sands en route.

The final leg, Lon­don to Kingsnorth is on sun­day 3 August meet­ing under Water­loo bridge (south­side) at 9am
For more info on the route and how to get involved e‑mail climatecampbikeride@lists.riseup.net
Up the the veloru­tion.

Coal Gets Left In The Ground A Bit Longer

Activists occu­py­ing Bodge House / Lodge House / Prospect Farm (all the same place) to obstruct its destruc­tion for open­cast coal extrac­tion had a court vic­to­ry on Mon­day.

Activists occu­py­ing Bodge House / Lodge House / Prospect Farm (all the same place) to obstruct its destruc­tion for open­cast coal extrac­tion had a court vic­to­ry on Mon­day.

Har­worth Estates (Agri­cul­tur­al Land) Lim­it­ed, the new green­wash name for the out­fit for­mer­ly known as Har­worth Min­ing Inter­na­tion­al Lim­it­ed were sent pack­ing by the judge with a flea in their ear. They could­n’t prove they actu­al­ly owned the place or had prop­er­ly end­ed the farmer’s ten­an­cy. If they do the all home­work set by the judge prop­er­ly, they’ll be allowed to try again on 18th July.

Mean­time, the occu­pa­tion goes on.

pre-Climate Camp street medic training — Leeds- 18–20th July 2008

The UK Action Medics are run­ning a 2 1/2 day street medic train­ing in Leeds dur­ing the run-up to Cli­mate Camp. It will be a 20 hour course that will teach you the basics of gen­er­al First Aid, as well as skills to deal with med­ical sit­u­a­tions spe­cif­ic to direct action, such as deal­ing with chem­i­cal weapons and the police.

The UK Action Medics are run­ning a 2 1/2 day street medic train­ing in Leeds dur­ing the run-up to Cli­mate Camp. It will be a 20 hour course that will teach you the basics of gen­er­al First Aid, as well as skills to deal with med­ical sit­u­a­tions spe­cif­ic to direct action, such as deal­ing with chem­i­cal weapons and the police. We will also be offer­ing sec­tions specif­i­cal­ly tai­lored to sit­u­a­tions like­ly to arise at this year’s Cli­mate Camp, such as water safe­ty and pub­lic health. The course will involve sce­nar­ios and hands-on prac­tice and, although we can­not offer you any offi­cial accred­i­ta­tion, the 2 1/2 day train­ing is the min­i­mum stan­dard for mem­ber­ship of the Action Medics, and will equip you for a wide range of sit­u­a­tions, from hypother­mia to baton wounds.

The train­ing will be on the 18th-20th of July, which is Fri­day to Sat­ur­day. There will be 3 or 4 hours on Fri­day evening and two full days on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. Veg­an food will be pro­vid­ed, as well as accom­mo­da­tion if need­ed — we ask for a dona­tion of £30 to cov­er costs, although this will be less if we can find a venue for free.

The venue is as yet uncon­firmed, but the train­ing will take place in cen­tral Leeds, and we can give you direc­tions from the train/bus sta­tion. It is essen­tial to book a place so we know how many peo­ple are com­ing — please email medics@climatecamp.org.uk to do this, or with any ques­tions.

The Action Medics will be run­ning a medic space at this year’s Cli­mate Camp. Your help would be wel­come – we require that vol­un­teers have either tak­en:

a) our week­end Action Medics train­ing & CPR train­ing
OR
b) First Aid At Work, with expe­ri­ence of sce­nar­ios and CPR train­ing

If you’d like to be involved, please email us at medics@climatecamp.org.uk

www.actionmedics.org.uk

Products expropriation from supermarket (Athens, 1/7/2008)

“Anoth­er nov­el rob­bery of foods was realised at Marinopou­los super­mar­ket on Evdok­sos street, Neos Kos­mos. Unknown per­sons entered the super mar­ket as mere cus­tomers, filled their trol­leys with foods and left the store with­out pay­ing. Con­tin­u­ous­ly, they dis­trib­uted the foods at the peo­ple shoop­ing in a near­by open mar­ket, throw­ing leaflets with slo­gans against cost­li­ness…”

“Anoth­er nov­el rob­bery of foods was realised at Marinopou­los super­mar­ket on Evdok­sos street, Neos Kos­mos. Unknown per­sons entered the super mar­ket as mere cus­tomers, filled their trol­leys with foods and left the store with­out pay­ing. Con­tin­u­ous­ly, they dis­trib­uted the foods at the peo­ple shoop­ing in a near­by open mar­ket, throw­ing leaflets with slo­gans against cost­li­ness…”

Trans­la­tion from: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=887219

Today around 12:30 an inter­ven­tion was realised at Marinopou­los super­marked on Evdok­sos street, at Neos Kos­mos. The peo­ple’s behav­iour was encour­ag­ing and sup­port­ive. A typ­i­cal exam­ple of that is that dur­ing the expro­pri­a­tion, out­side the store peo­ple gath­ered with their wheel-carts wait­ing for the prod­ucts dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Fol­low­ing is the text dis­trib­uted at the open mar­ket.

Every day that pass­es we expe­ri­ence intense­ly the con­se­quences of the increas­ing raise of prices the cap­i­tal is enforc­ing on soci­ety, the same time that wages and pen­sions remain at the same poor lev­el, lead­ing us below sur­vival lim­its. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, every kind of experts and respon­si­bles, cry out for the con­tin­u­ous raise of prices sug­gest­ing “boy­cottage” styled solu­tions that lead to the illu­sion of a stronge reac­tion to the prob­lem.
We select to react tak­ing prod­ucts of basic needs from shelves of large super­mar­ket chain stores and dis­trib­ut­ing them freely to those that they belong to.
We do not regard our action as rob­bery, because these prod­ucts are the fruits of our own exploit­ed work and belong to all of us.
This action isn’t altru­is­tic, but a sym­bol­ism with the aim to encour­age the social ensem­ble to an uncon­strained, free cir­cu­la­tion of goods and the con­scious eras­ing of the cash desks, over­com­ing the legal lim­i­ta­tions. For the gen­er­al­i­sa­tion of the chal­leng­ing of state and cap­i­tal.
Our choice to act with our faces cov­ered does­n’t mean in any case to fright­en the peo­ple, but to our per­son­al secu­ri­ty against those that think our action is ille­git­i­mate.

Ini­tia­tive of anar­chists for the free cir­cu­la­tion of goods

Note: It is the fourth of this kind of expro­pri­a­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly, there were Sklaveni­tis on 31/5 and Veropou­los and DIA on 13/6

Activists disrupt work at site of opencast coal mine

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.
All remained until the police arrived, which was a con­sid­er­able time lat­er. How­ev­er, the spon­ta­neous action clear­ly delayed their work, as the site fore­man spent much time talk­ing to the police etc.

Con­cerned of Smal­l­ey
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/leaveitintheground/

London, Brighton & Manchester Critical Masses commemorate dead cyclists

June’s Crit­i­cal mass in Lon­don saw a slight­ly dif­fer­ent route. As always we met at South­bank and man­aged to leave at 7.15pm.

June’s Crit­i­cal mass in Lon­don saw a slight­ly dif­fer­ent route. As always we met at South­bank and man­aged to leave at 7.15pm.

Fol­low­ing the killing of Marie Vesco on the A23 her friends, ram­pART and Food Not Bombs asked peo­ple to ride to Brix­ton, where she served free food every Sun­day after­noon with Brix­ton Food Not Bombs.

Approx­i­mate­ly 600 cyclists left Water­loo going South via Lam­beth North, then Elephant& Cas­tle, going round a few times stop­ping the traf­fic. Via the Oval we went to Brix­ton, where we stopped at Win­drush Square. By now there were maybe 300–400 cyclists left (there was a bit of North-Lon­don snob­bery). Dif­fer­ent peo­ple spoke about Marie and how they missed her. How she died and why she worked with Brix­ton Food­Not­Bombs and how giv­ing out free food was so impor­tant to her. There was a min­ute’s silence for her.

Then we cycled North again, police stopped us halfway up towards Stock­well. They had tried to dic­tate the tem­po pre­vi­ous­ly, but rogue cyclists broke through, stopped the traf­fic ahead of the police line and in that way forced the police to let the Mass go (Health and Safe­ty and all…).

They man­aged to block Stock­well Road and we did­n’t quite get the momen­tum of break­ing through. To the cop­pers’ sur­prise the tip of the Mass turned around, cycling back on them­selves and turn­ing off the main road fur­ther down (Sid­ney Road I think). We made our way to the Oval, cycling past the Crick­et knobs, some of which were using bad lan­guage, when we came in sight. Oth­ers were sup­port­ive.

Vaux­hall Bridge end­ed up being a bit of a split­ter were we lost a few peo­ple. Going across the bridge, past Par­lia­ment we hit the square, encir­cling it a cou­ple of times, until some­thing hap­pened with the sound sys­tem (as always) not quite sure what. music stopped. Rais­ing bikes, block­ing road, we then went to see the queen. The whole ride took about two hours and a bit. Nice atmos­phere, good mix of peo­ple and bikes and so good to have some music on the way (three sound sys­tems).

What hap­pened with the sound sys­tem on the North side of Par­lia­ment Square was that the police stopped it play­ing and rid­ers strong­ly object­ed to this ban which caused a long traf­fic holdup.

The cycle police keep on tar­get­ing Crit­i­cal Mass sound sys­tems in the SOCPA zone around Par­lia­ment while doing noth­ing to stop sound sys­tems in cars, bus­es and lor­ries. Also the SOCPA leg­is­la­tion is cur­rent­ly under review and oth­er police are tend­ing not to enforce it.

video of ride.

More videos:

cycling down brix­ton road

through brix­ton high street

out­side the ritzy, enjoy­ing some tunes, before a min­utes silence in mem­o­ry of Marie Vesco

rid­ing up the mall

bring­ing the mass & some music to the queen
============

Yes­ter­day the Brighton Crit­i­cal Mass month­ly bicy­cle ride was done in the mem­o­ry Marie Vesco — the young French woman who had been killed on her way from Lon­don to the Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade, that was held on the 4th of June. We, at Crit­i­cal Mass decid­ed to com­plete her jour­ney to EDO MBM (ITT) bomb fac­to­ry that she could not make.

The usu­al meet­ing place The Lev­el, 6 p.m. saw police wait­ing for some sort of a demo. There were: 2 police vans full of cop­pers, 1 CCTV UNIT van, 6 motor­bikes, and none of the police on bicy­cles.

The ride had com­menced as have rode onto Lewes Road escort­ed by police motor­bikes. For a while it felt as if we were prime min­is­ters escort­ed to some impor­tant meet­ing.

When we had reached the bot­tom of the Home Farm Road there were few police wait­ing for us. We then went to the fac­to­ry to be aston­ished by the police pres­ence at the fac­to­ry. There were at least 40 offi­cers with dogs wait­ing for some sort of a riot.

We have held one minute silence for Marie and went back to town where after a half an hour police had left us alone.

Over­all a suc­cess.

video of ride.

============

This month Man­ches­ter crit­i­cal mass had a one minute silence to hon­our two pas­sion­ate cyclists that were killed this month by motorists, and to remem­ber all our cycling com­rades that have been killed on the roads.

NORMAN FAY
Nor­man Fay died on Fri­day, June 20. He was cycling to the York cycle ral­ly when a motorist col­lid­ed with him.

“He was just 72 so it’s come as a real shock.

Nor­man had a well deserved rep­u­ta­tion for fine crafts­man­ship and engi­neer­ing, and had an infec­tious love of all things cycling. His bikes have been many peo­ple’s intro­duc­tion to cycling and his exper­i­men­ta­tion with dif­fer­ent cycle forms appealed to hard core enthu­si­asts and occa­sion­al rid­ers alike. I’ve been the lucky own­er of a cou­ple of his bikes, one of which I bought when I was 18 and I still have but is sad­ly gath­er­ing dust in the hut.

Both Nor­man and his late wife Mar­i­on were both found­ing mem­bers of South Tyne­side Friends of the Earth.

Whilst he died rel­a­tive­ly young in mod­ern terms, his con­tin­ued cycling proved that you’re nev­er to old to get on your bike. Maybe it’s time I dust­ed off mine.

A true local hero.”

MARIE VESCO

Marie Vesco was killed by a car on Wednes­day 4th June while cycling to Brighton. Active in var­i­ous Lon­don social cen­tres, Whitechapel and Brix­ton Food Not Bombs, she now had plans to open a new social cen­tre.

Marie was part of a group of twelve cyclists who left Brix­ton in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing to join the Smash EDO demo. They were on the A23 by Burgess Hill when an impa­tient gas guz­zling imbe­cile swerved across two lanes straight into Marie, then anoth­er car hit her. She died instant­ly, there was noth­ing her friends could have done. The dri­ver of the sec­ond car got straight on his phone as soon as he came to a halt — not for an ambu­lance but to call his lawyer. He then start­ed push­ing Marie’s mates around. One dri­ver has been arrest­ed.

On the arson of Sprider store (Athens, 28/6/2008)

“After put­ing off the fire, fire­men found gas can­is­ters inside the store, a fact lead­ing invsti­ga­tions to an arson case, and police takes over…”

Sprider shop burnt“After put­ing off the fire, fire­men found gas can­is­ters inside the store, a fact lead­ing invsti­ga­tions to an arson case, and police takes over…”

Com­mu­nique sent via e‑mail to directactiongr@yahoo.gr:

On June 28, 2008 we chose to strike one of the well-known Sprid­er chain stores, at Lykovris­si. This choise was­n’t ran­dom at all.

We live an every day life turned into an are­na of com­pe­ti­tion as well as accu­mu­la­tion and demon­stra­tion of life­less objects. The expen­sive car, the classy out­fit, the new mobile phone and fast inter­net are the mod­ern val­ues of your world. The con­sumer crowds grum­bles over cost­li­ness while they buy off at their shop­ping ther­a­py a piece of “joy” and a ster­ile image of suc­cess and show-off. In our days, humans seek for an iden­ti­ty at the new acces­sories of their mobile phones, their cars’ cov­ers and fash­ion trends. And every­thing seems cool.

It is enough for one to choose, of Sat­ur­day night’s dilem­ma between Kolon­a­ki or Psyrri area, the right dress, the appro­pri­ate mobile phone and most of all that fake smile, to impress every­body around.

When it comes to every­day life, the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, lone­li­ness, the slow sui­cide of alien­ation, the servi­tude to a job, the cops’ orders, the reporter’s truth, the boss­es’ exploita­tion… Who cares about all that? Besides, they’re not even a life-style trend to be adver­tised and fol­lowed faith­ful­ly.

Thus, all of you faith­ful con­sumers, titled with mis­ery and pro­pri­etors of the lie can keep dress­ing up your fan­cy noth­ing­ness tis­sued with all the shades of com­pro­mise and indif­fer­ence. We instead have cho­sen for our­selves the col­ors of war: As long as our life suf­fo­cates in the tis­sue of com­mer­cial adver­tise, use­less objects, styl­ish orders and all the sym­bols of a con­sumer par­adise, our rage with con­sious­ness will keep search­ing for break-outs.

We had writ­ten in our com­mu­nique con­cern­ing our pre­vi­ous strike against the Aiga­leo Police Sta­tion, that we do not need an inci­dent or a con­cur­rence to get to action. Now though, we come with an event. On July 11, 2008 the com­rades Mar­ios Tsoura­pas and Chris­sos­to­mos Kon­tore­vithakis face a jury, for their arson­ist attempt against a munic­i­pal police car, an action they have claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for, and stand up to it.

All we have to say on that, is that the mate­r­i­al dam­ages and the total destruc­tion of this lux­u­ri­ous store are illus­tra­tive of our wil­ful­ness, in case of our com­rades impris­on­ment con­tin­ues.

Gangs of Con­science

Note: You can read the pre­vi­ous claim of the Gangs of Con­science (Sym­mories Syni­di­sis) on their attack against Aiga­leo Police Sta­tion here:
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/2008/05/attack-against-police-station-plus.html