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WAKE UP!! IT'S YER OFFENCE IS THE BEST FORM OF ATTACK...

SchNEWS, Issue 693, Friday 2nd October 2009

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WHO ARE YA?

AS SchNEWS LOOKS THE WRONG WAY AT THE ENGLISH DEFENCE LEAGUE

Seemingly coming from nowhere, the EDL and their allies have grabbed
headlines and created a very public right-wing street presence for the
first time in many years. Although they’ve had a sound thrashing
everywhere they’ve raised their heads since their first
announced demo in Birmingham in August, (see SchNEWS 687) they keep
coming back for more.

In fact their latest flyer takes advantage of the beatings
they’ve received – with the slogan “It’s not
racist to oppose Radical Islam” the image (taken during the
Birmingham fighting), is of a grey haired geezer having the Union Jack
pulled off him by a snarling mob of Asian youth. In a high profile
grab for attention they’re planning demos in Manchester on Oct
10th, Swansea on the 17th and Newport on the 24th. They’re
coming to town near you, soon.

So are the EDL racist, fascist or what? They’ve made a big deal
about how they have black members and in a recent photo opportunity
(for the Daily Star), they publicly burned the swastika flag and
brandished a sign defending “Israel’s right to
exist”. In that sense they’re doing a lot to distance
themselves from the lunatic far-right’s obsession with the evil
hand of the Jew being behind every disaster that befalls the white
race. This has caused a certain amount of amusing kerfuffle on
Stormfront, (our favourite race-hate website) with the white
supremacist wi-fi warriors really not knowing whether to sieg heil or
stay away. The EDL have even taken to brandishing the Israeli flag at
their demos.

But the EDL aren’t the first organisation on the right to trade
in the tired old horse of anti-semitism for the brash new nag of
Islamophobia. The BNP took much the same route a few years ago. Back
in 2004 Nick Griffin penned a column explicitly distancing himself
from what had been the orthodoxy of his fellow-travellers on the
far-right (only ten years ago Nick was as raving a holocaust-denying,
anti-semite as one could hope to meet in a dark alley). The tabloid
hysteria and public reaction following 9/11 and 7/7 created an
environment in which campaigning against radical Islam was likely to
be far more fruitful. Since then the BNP’s focus has been on
Muslims, with Nick Griffin referring to Islam as ‘a
cancer’. The party has even had a Jewish candidate in Epping
Forest.

Some criticism of “radical Islam” is obviously entirely
valid – and indeed there’s probably a few hundred nutters
in the country who would like to see the victory of a global caliphate
and the introduction of sharia law, but they’re hardly
representative of the Muslim community as a whole. In fact they
probably see the EDL as a brilliant recruiting tool. But strangely,
the EDL haven’t chosen to stand outside Finsbury Park mosque;
instead they’ve taken their cause to the centre of major cities
with large Muslim populations and waited for it to kick off.

Could this all be part of an overall strategy? Who benefits from
images of radicalised Asian youth fighting with outnumbered white men?
The perception that some kind of race-war is taking place on the
UK’s streets can only benefit the BNP. As long as the resistance
to the EDL is perceived as coming entirely from Muslim youth then this
becomes a persuasive narrative for many. A ‘strategy of
tension’ could pay dividends for white nationalists. The 2001
Oldham riots were sparked by National Front activists in Asian areas
(See SchNEWS 313). As coverage of the EDL in the mainstream press
didn’t start until their Birmingham demos, not many people are
aware of the ruckus in Luton back in May (See SchNEWS 670), when
pre-cursors to the EDL overturned cars and smashed windows in Asian
areas. That’s why the youth are out in numbers to confront
them.

As the far-right seemed to break up into one main party (the BNP)
seeking electoral success, and a bewildering variety of splinter
groups (compared to the loony far-right the left is just one big happy
family), many were left wondering – where are the footsoldiers?
A crucial part of any fascist party’s route to power lies
through control of the streets or, as Nick Griffin once put
it,“well-directed fists and boots”. A BNP that devotes
itself exclusively to ballot box politics isn’t likely to end up
in government. On the other hand being publicly associated with a gang
of boneheads probably isn’t going get you invited on to Question
Time. The BNP also publicly disassociated themselves from the
instigators of the Oldham trouble, while privately congratulating
them.

Searchlight have uncovered numerous behind-the scenes links between
the BNP and the EDL, with BNP organisers taking a leading role. That
at least would explain the EDL’s public hatred of the National
Front, long the BNP’s political rivals. Certainly a glance at
the EDL’s forums suggests that there is no chance of them
forming their own political party. With Casuals United they are trying
to recruit from the football terraces as though it’s like the
70s when anti-IRA sentiment was the single issue that bound the
feuding football tribes together.

How much of a threat are the EDL? Potentially, given the anti-Islamic
propaganda spewed out by the tabloid press, they could act as a potent
recruiting tool for the far-right, sparking riots which lead to
greater voter turnout for the BNP. But it’s questionable how
many of their footsoldiers are really ideologically committed to the
project and, if met with a robust response now, they may disappear as
quickly as they came.

* See www.antifa.org.uk



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PRESS GANGED

AS COPS USE JOURNALISTS FOR EVIDENCE GATHERING

Earlier this week Sussex Police forced Brighton’s local rag The
Argus to hand over footage of the Brighton Mayday demo (see SchNEWS
675). Pushing a ‘special procedure production order’
through Lewes Crown Court, under section 9 of the Police and Criminal
Evidence Act, the police got the courts to grant an order for
“all media containing moving and/or still images...published and
unpublished of the march/procession/assembly/demonstration and
subsequent disturbances which took place in Brighton, East Sussex on
May 4, 2009.”

After crossing the hurdle of their own stupidity (the police had to
resubmit their application to the courts as they’d made crucial
mistakes in their original submission), Sussex’s boys in blue
found it fairly easy to persuade the judges that it was necessary to
dump on journalistic integrity from a great height in order to find
the culprits responsible for kicking over some bins and redecorating
the front of McDonalds and Barclay’s.

According to the legal team at Newsquest (The Argus’ dark
overlords) it’s ‘fairly standard’ for the police to
request/demand/threaten footage and information from journalists, with
700 demands like this made every year. What’s different about
this case is that, as anyone who was at the Mayday demo (or saw it on
telly) will know, the entire event from beginning to end was already
filmed by FIT cops and took place in some of the most CCTV’d
areas of the UK. Presumably, the police want to use The Argus’
footage to identify protesters. In other words, force the media into
operating as a conscripted FIT team.

We spoke to Argus crime reporter Ben Parsons about the implications
for both the press and protesters of this latest police boot stamping
on the fragile neck of civil liberties. Parsons said:

“It puts us in a difficult position. We act in a spirit of
co-operation but not collaboration with the police. The line we
(Argus/Newsquest) take is that we won’t just hand stuff over
because they ask for it, they have to go through the formal legal
process. We don’t send our cameramen out to act as extra eyes
for the police. It’s not how we see our role, we’re not
data gathering source for the police.”


The EDO decommissioners who targeted the Brighton-based arms factory
back in January (See SchNEWS 663) have had their court case adjourned
until May 17th 2010, due to delays in finding legal aid and the
prosecution’s seeming reluctance to provide evidence.

Despite this, the planned week of solidarity events is going ahead
during 17th - 26th of October. The line-up includes:

* Sat 17th - Decommissioners solidarity demo in Bristol. Meeting
opposite Hippodrome at 2pm

* Launch demo of Target Brimar, Manchester see
 http://targetbrimar.org.uk

* Mon 19th - Rally outside Brighton Town Hall 12 noon-2pm calling on
Brighton and Hove Council to condemn EDO.

* Thurs 22nd - Rally 12noon-2pm outside the Foreign Office, London,
demanding an end of arms exports to Israel.

* Fri 23rd – Bass Not Bombs benefit gig, Bristol, featuring
Lowkey, Ironside, Dub Revolution and more.

For more see www.smashedo.org.uk



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GIVEN A BARAK-ING

Ehud Barak, Israeli defence minister and ‘genius’ behind
the 28 day aerial bombardment of Gaza’s refugee camps last
winter (See SchNEWS 661), showed his face at the Labour Party
Conference in Brighton this week. But it wasn’t just Gordon
Brown who was welcoming him to Britain; he also arrived to a team of
UK lawyers - acting on behalf of their Palestinian counterparts -
applying for an arrest warrant against him for his involvement in the
killing of 1,400 people in ‘Operation Cast Lead’.

Citing the precedent of the ICC ruling which issued an arrest warrant
for Sudan’s president for war crimes in Darfur, legal teams
applied for a warrant through the City of Westminster magistrates
court this week. But Attorney Tayab Ali confirmed on Tuesday (29th)
that the application had been denied, with the judge citing the
immunity tendered to senior foreign officials, not to the mention the
fact that he was hobnobbing with Gordy down in Brighton.

However his presence didn’t go entirely unnoticed. With little
more than 12 hours notice a national demo was called, and some 50
people turned up late Tuesday night (29th) to protest against an even
more unwelcome than usual guest at the party conference.

* See www.palestinecampaign.org


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ON YER DENMARKS....

The run up to December’s COP 15 climate summit in Copenhagen
(7th - 18th), kicked off last Saturday (26th) with around 1,500
demonstrators taking part in a mass demo and attempted sabotage of a
coal fired power plant on the eastern edge of the city. Protesters
marched in two blocks designed to be adaptable to changing police
manoeuvres, culminating in a huge rally in front of the Amager power
station, whilst another group cut a hole in the boundary fence and got
onto the site. According to safety regulations, this should have
caused production to stop, but not wanting to break the habit of a
lifetime, the power station carried on regardless of the potential
risk to human health.
Seen as a trial run for the Reclaim Power! march on 16th December by
law enforcement and activists alike, police used new anti-protest
laws, arresting an estimated 100 people in mass
‘preventative’ arrests and injuring many with baton-happy
tactics. Under this mass arrest technique, police kettle protesters
and arrest them one by one. These unlucky comrades are then sat in
long lines and forced to wait for the vans to arrive to cart them off
to the local cop shop.
The Danish press sided with the work of the demonstrators, and the
group who organised the action, Shut It Down, announced that although
the plant didn’t grind to a halt as planned, they were happy
with their achievements and saw it as an affirmative step towards the
internationally planned action in December. See  http://shutitdown.dk


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VESTAS INTERESTS

It’s been eventful at Vestas recently with police busting
barricades, arrests and court appearances.

Last week police managed to remove the majority of the wind turbine
blades from the site after breaking up the protest camp early in the
morning. Arriving before protesters had a chance to lock on or get up
a tripod, cops handed out dispersal agreements, including a map
showing the area recipients were banned from entering for three
months.

Threatened with arrest and bail preventing them from returning, they
moved out. Three hours later the blades were loaded onto waiting
barges. Cops and heavies were swarming around the area all day,
snuffing out any chance of direct action.

The week before, police arrested four activists who had scaled a
crane in an attempt to stop removal of the blades (see SchNEWS 691).
Their court hearing took place on Tuesday (29th). After the four
pleaded not guilty and elected to have a jury trial, the date was set
for March 16th next year. The judge also eased some of the draconian
bail restrictions previously imposed banning them from the Isle of
Wight completely and preventing them from even seeing each other.

The next day was the turn of James Beecher, up on charges of
aggravated trespass and going equipped to cause criminal damage, after
being nabbed climbing into a wind turbine blade with ‘Save
Vestas’ stickers, tape, glue and cable ties. James also elected
for a jury trial and was released on bail until November 27th.

Vestas workers and activists also made it to Brighton last weekend as
the (Indian) Summer of Mild Irritation descended on the Labour Party
conference, taking place spitting distance from SchNEWS HQ (although
despite our best efforts nobody managed to land a greenie on Lord
Mandy). Trying to bring the campaign to the assembled grumpy trots and
miffed liberals, one worker addressed the crowd from the sound system
van while another spoke at the post-protest meeting.

Back on the Isle of Wight, demonstrators are regrouping. The camp at
the magic roundabout is still going strong and actions continue. In
recent days activists have set up a Vestas theatre, with the site
gates as the stage and po-faced security guards as the starring
thespians.

As ever there is still plenty to be done and more support is urgently
needed. “The campaign is definitely not over,” Jackie told
SchNEWS, “it’s just changed its direction.”

* See www.savevestas.wordpress.com


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ALL SIZEWELL THAT ENDS WELL

This Tuesday five anti-nuclear blockaders were acquitted at Lowestoft
magistrates. Charged with aggravated trespass during a demo at
Sizewell B nuclear power station on July 24th last year, the five were
acquitted when the prosecution failed to provide evidence that they
were on private land ... mainly because they were in fact on a public
road.

And sadly they never even got to bring out their expert witness to
give evidence about the recent German studies (the KiKK study) which
found that all types of cancer as well as leukaemia occurred
significantly more frequently in the vicinity (within 5 km) of nuclear
power plants... See  http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com

* Nuclear power campaign strategy weekend 21-22 November, London
(venue to be announced) To book your place, help organise or get more
details email  nonewnuclear@aktivix.org or ring 01524 383 012 and leave
a message.


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693 SCHNEWS IN BRIEF

Attempting to draw attention to the continuing crisis in Calais (See
SchNEWS 692), a group of migrants began a hunger strike on Wednesday
(30th). The migrants, from Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, Palestine, and
Egypt, have vowed to continue the strike until Western countries offer
them asylum. Benjamin, an asylum seeker from Iran said: “The
police tell us we cannot be here but we have nowhere to go. The world
is ignoring us so we are making our suffering public by going on
hunger strike in full view.”

* New social centre open in London at 7 Giltspur St EC1 A9 - nearest
tube St Pauls. According to them “No to fascism and domination
by system of false money” - Ring 07961244310 or just knock and
ask for Frank.

* Oct 13 - Beat The Bankers! Manchester - Bring pots and pans to make
some noise against the bankers who have brought the economy to its
knees, and it’s the poor who will pay. 5.30pm outside Northern
Rock, Albert Square, Manchester.

* Oct 17-18 - The Great Climate Swoop - Mass blockade of one of the
UK’s biggest coal fired power stations at Ratcliffe-on-Soar,
Nottinghamshire 07932 096677 www.thegreatclimateswoop.org


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AND FINALLY

Two physicists in Zurich claim to have worked out exactly who the
global super elite really are. Stefano Battiston and James Glattfelder
undertook a complex analysis of the world’s financial markets as
they were in 2007, covering 48 of the richest economies. They worked
through the tangled web of stock purchases, company ownership and
indebtedness to major banks and venture capitalists and the like to
ascertain where they’d end up if they kept
‘followin’ da money’ – what they call the
“backbone” of the economy.

Glattfelder was quoted as saying: “You start off with these
huge national networks that are really big, quite dense. From that
you’re able to ... unveil the important structure in this
original big network. You then realize most of the network isn’t
at all important.”

Their methodology accounted for secondary ownership - owning stock in
companies who then own stock in another company - in an attempt to
quantify the potential control or influence a given enitity might be
able to exert on a market.

They define “backbones” as being whoever own 80% of a
country’s market capital and, amazingly (shock, horror,
surprise), they consisted of shockingly few big fish shareholders.
And fewest of all were found in (...wait for it) the US, UK and
Australia.

They were apparently surprised that their findings
‘unconvered’ that nearly everything is really owned by a
few super powerful hedge fund owner types. The biggest they identified
was US-based Capital Group Companies – with a trillion dollars
under their control they’ve got their fingers in all the major
pies in 36 of the 48 countries surveyed. Fidelity Investments is
another in the trilllion dollar club. Between them they own sizable
chunks of nealry every big UK corporate. Their PR is not existent
– the message to enquiring journalists: “I’m sorry,
but we do not discuss our holdings, our philosophies or our
strategies.” But at least we know who they are now.

The scientists are next going to work on a paper tentatively entitled
“Ursine defecation in arboreal environments.”


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Disclaimer

SchNEWS warns all readers, look out for things that go BNP in the
night. Honest.

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