These are the souls of the broken factories

The subject slaves of the broken crown

The dead accounting of old guilty promises

These are the souls of the broken town (Sting).


Dear G8,


It's very difficult to write this letter...But we'll take the plunge, because your business is no longer merely your business: once again, mankind is your business. Let's talk, then, not only about what you're doing to other people, but about what you're doing to yourselves.

You're gutting our Constitutions. Already your home can be entered without your knowledge or permission, you can be snatched away and incarcerated without cause, your mail can be spied on, your private records searched. Why isn't this a recipe for widespread business theft, political intimidation, and fraud? We are told all this is for our own safety and protection, but we don't want to be slaves.

You want to possess our souls as well as our bodies, in a totalitarian state unknown of in any democracy, parallel only to the so-called (by yourselves) dictatorships you are intent on fighting for the sake of "freedom". Indeed. Your terror bills and new legislation are aimed at reducing even more our discrimination powers: what was food and circus for the Romans is consumerism and soap for us. But even if we agree to be subjects to a crown, we don't agree and will never agree to be your slaves.


You may have thought you were right in choosing to hold your summit in a nation where another high percentage of population did agree to go to war; you thought –but you were wrong—that such a nation would not wake up and rebel and dissent against further surveillance in the new imperialist-fascist state, because we wouldn't see the need. But you were wrong: We don't want your wars, neither in the past, the present or the future. We reject your program of infinite progress for a few and unsustainable poverty for most. As we believe that a better world can, should and will be possible if only we will let it.


We reject your policies of insanity-driven arrogance, of greed before people's needs, and profit before Nature's survival. In fact, we want to live in peace and freedom, but neither in your freedom that means slavery, nor in your peace that means fear inside and endlessly waging war on other peoples.


We don't want this or the other G8 countries to be coordinating spaces for your military actions and airports for your military aircraft --as we believe that a better world can, should and will be possible if only we will let it.


And so people in this country are calling on you, G8, to disband, we are calling for you to stop your deadly itinerary throughout Great Britain, to not come to Sheffield nor to Gleneagles: to leave and get out.


And please... never to come back.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to:

Margaret Atwood, Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco, Jacques Lacan, Liberty UK, Greenpeace, No2ID, DefyID, Make Poverty History, Save Local Works, Dissent, Peace in the Park, UK Social Fora, European Social Forum, Word Social Forum, the SWP, Stop the War Coalition, the Green Party, People & Planet, the people of Venezuela, the people of Fallujah, Trapese, Circa, the Infernal Noise Brigade, the Samba Band, Rhythms for resistance, Seeds for change, the Creative Network, International Women Social Forum, the NATO (Northern Artist Tactics organization), No a la Guerra, Indymedia, the British Communisty Party,


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If you wish to find out more, see

 http://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/g8-sheffield

for info.

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(PGA).

The Hallmarks are as follows:

1. A very clear rejection of capitalism, imperialism and feudalism; all trade agreements, institutions and governments that promote destructive globalisation.

2. We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism of all creeds. We embrace the full dignity of all human beings.

3. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker.

4. A call to direct action and civil disobedience, support for social movements' struggles, advocating forms of resistance which maximise respect for life and oppressed peoples' rights, as well as the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism

5. An organisational philosophy based on decentralisation and autonomy.

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