Skip to content or view screen version

A DECLARATION FROM THE Poor oppressed People OF ENGLAND

Reverend Peter Nichols | 15.02.2013 20:54 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Workers' Movements | South Coast | World

A DECLARATION FROM THE Poor oppressed People OF ENGLAND, DIRECTED To all that call themselves, or are called Lords of Manors, through this NATION; That have begun to cut, or that through fear and covetousness, do intend to cut down the Woods and Trees that grow upon the Commons and Waste Land



Global warming is out of control threatening humanity with extinction, and the mainstream news media is censoring the truth about what is happening to the earth to support the capitalist system that just wants to carry on with business as usual in the face of the catastrophic consequences of climate change.

The environmental movement in Britain has been relatively quiet since the road protests of the 1990s and the subsequent fiasco of the Camp for Climate Action from 2006 to 2010 which undercover police officers infiltrated and effectively took over control of the whole organisation before destroying it completely.
Since then the Tory government has resurrected all the “zombie roads” which were declared dead by Margaret Thatcher at the end of the 1990s, and now the eco-warriors have ended up with the curious case of the stage-managed middle class road protest at Combe Haven Valley near Crowhurst village in East Sussex.

Local residents have been fighting the planned Bexhill to Hastings link road through the site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 for 20 years, and the East Sussex County Council finally decided to cut down the trees just before Christmas 2012.
Frantic efforts were made by the local resistance in an alliance with some of the eco-warriors and a new generation of activists to try to save the trees and to stop the diggers and the bulldozers from turning up and building the new road.

Old grannies from Bexhill organised “photo-shoots” in the trees in January 2013 and some of them moved into treehouses to try to stop the council from chopping the trees down, but the grannies were viciously dragged out by their hair, assaulted, injured, arrested, strip-searched, and locked up in the cells by the police.
The well organised local campaign made sure that all the violence and horror was recorded in great detail by the television channels and the newspapers, but after Christmas and New Year 2013 things calmed down a bit and more liaison was done with bailiffs, police, and security to try to avoid any further injuries or bloodshed.

Some of the original road protesters from the 1990s joined in with the local protest near Adams Farm and they were building treehouses and digging tunnels and working closely with the local residents' groups.
Sitting Bull was so cold in his tunnel during the eviction of the base camp that the bailiffs actually offered to let him come out for a few hours and then go back in again, before they dug him out to rapturous applause from the locals and the glare of the media spotlight with TV and press photographers treating him as if he was the next Swampy.

For the second eviction at the Decoy Pond camp the local residents' campaign known as Combe Haven Defenders actually arranged and paid for free buses from all over Britain to bring middle class protesters to sit in the trees and be evicted for more photo opportunities for the news media before being bussed back home again.
The road protesters were initially welcomed with open arms by Combe Haven Defenders but unfortunately it wasn't long before the cracks began to show, and some of the local organisers decided that they didn't want homeless people to come to the camps because they said that we had drink, drug, and mental health problems.

Combe Haven Defenders said that they didn't have the resources to look after homeless people but they would be happy to welcome people with climbing skills who could come and live in the trees on their behalf to try to stop them from being cut down.
A local historian has claimed that Combe Haven Valley is the location of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the local residents have taken a case in the High Court to try to get the destruction of the area halted for archaeological research.

The local people appear to have been hoping that all the publicity would help to stop the road from being built, but it looks as if the stage-managed photo opportunities with old grannies, minor celebrities, and middle class protesters who were bussed in for the eviction will not be good enough to stop the imminent destruction of Combe Haven Valley.
The local residents in the Bexhill and Hastings areas seem to be more concerned about the unfortunate effect that the new road will have on their own homes and their own backyards than they are about any environmental impact or the damage to the earth, and this attitude was also very common during the road protests in the 1990s.

Genuine environmental campaigners on the other hand are very concerned about the environment and about global warming and the future of the human race itself as the burning of fossil fuels is causing the earth to heat up alarmingly, melting the polar ice caps, and raising the sea levels causing worldwide flooding.
There have always been different reasons for opposing the new roads with the local residents usually being against them because they will lose their homes or destroy their scenic backyard where they walk their dogs or picnic in the countryside, and then of course there is all the extra traffic that will end up roaring past their houses.

Environmental campaigners don’t want any new roads to be built because they will destroy the natural environment and cause more pollution, adding to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causing global warming and killing the human race.
These different issues are important and they are not mutually exclusive, and everyone is entitled to have their voices heard, and there shouldn't be any competition for publicity in the news media between the eco-warriors and local people.

During the 1990s the road protest sites were not under the control of the local residents and everyone was welcome to speak to the news media about their own views, ideas, and opinions, without being censored or told what they could say or what they could or couldn't do at the protest camps.
It is very unfortunate that the Hastings Alliance has publicly referred to the eco-warriors as being “tree-hugging crazies,” and Combe Haven Defenders have rejected homeless people from the protest camps because they say that many of us have “drink, drug, and mental health problems” and they cannot afford to look after us.

The fact is that a lot of the eco-warriors are technically and legally homeless although we are not all drunks, drug addicts, and lunatics, but we are on the front lines of the environmental protests living in squats, social centres, living vehicles, and in tree houses and tunnels at the protest sites because that is how we live full-time.
The part-time middle class activists do not seem to understand that the working class activists like us are desperately trying to save the human race from being driven to extinction by the burning of fossil fuels which are making the earth uninhabitable, and our whole way of life is based on being transient and always moving to where we are most needed.

The eco-warriors did not ask anybody to look after us at Combe Haven because we have our own resources and we have our own support network, and it has always been us who have been providing help and assistance and financial aid to the local people fighting the destruction of their local environment, and not the other way around.
During the road protests in the 1990s we didn't mind all the middle class media tarts coming to our protest camps and engaging in what we called “two's-up on your lifestyle” and talking to the news media about their concerns for their falling house prices, but we did make it clear that they shouldn't expect us to act like the boy scouts and take orders from them.
The eco-warriors never obeyed the local residents and we didn't do what they might have been claiming that we would do, even though we always agreed that they could say what they liked to the mainstream news media as long as they didn’t expect us to do what they said.
(“Don’t tell me what to do, I'm not an anarchist”.)

The middle class defenders of Combe Haven obviously don’t understand the working class way of life and they assume that we're all drunks, drug addicts, and lunatics which is simply not the case, but the eco-warriors have always been happy to help vulnerable people when necessary, even people like the besieged local residents of Bexhill.
It also seems to be a bit ridiculous for the local residents of Hastings to be referring to us working class road protesters as “tree-hugging crazies” as opposed to the “tree-loving grannies” who live close to the site of the new road.

Environmental activists should not be fighting amongst ourselves when there are far more important enemies to confront.
There should be solidarity between all the protesters and not this kind of in-fighting and points scoring and abusive insulting language and discrimination that is verging on racial hatred and prejudice which is already far too common.
We should all be united in the common cause of saving the human race, and not accusing each other of having the wrong motives or having drink and drug problems or being “tree-hugging crazies” with no sane cause for our protests.

Issues like these should be able to be resolved without making unpleasant public statements that homeless people are not welcome at the road protests because they might drink, take drugs, or have mental health problems.
That kind of language and attitude is pompous, arrogant, rude, insulting, and offensive to those dedicated people like ourselves who spend our lives fighting against the destruction of the earth, not because we are homeless but because we are happy to be on the front lines of the protests wherever they happen to be.

Meanwhile the corrupt and crooked British government is working towards passing a new law to make squatting in commercial property illegal, presumably so that they can round up all the squatters and lock us up in prison.
This is happening at the same time as the annual Comic Relief campaign to raise money for the homeless and the dispossessed, which always seems to end up in the pockets of the celebrities who front for the Evening Standard and the BBC, while many of the homeless languish in prison waiting for the gas chambers to be built for us to enjoy.

The government has already made it illegal to squat residential property and the police have been arresting squatters and the judges have been sentencing homeless people to prison for squatting in empty flats and houses for the first time.
The corrupt capitalist system is trying to pick off protesters, dissenters, the homeless, the unemployed, minority groups, one by one driving us to destitution and despair along with all the rest of the sick, disabled, and other vulnerable people.

However the eco-warriors plan to mobilise an army of the homeless and the unemployed and the dispossessed at Combe Haven Valley, the site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 to resist and fight back in self defence against the building of the Bexhill to Hastings link road.
This will be a final showdown with our evil government that has robbed us and destroyed our homes and our livelihoods.
If they are going to kill us one by one we might as well defend ourselves while we can, and if we're all going to die we might as well die together, fighting for a cause that we truly believe is worth dying for, in the hope that others will survive.

Our government treats us like animals that they think deserve to be butchered in the capitalist slaughterhouse, and they cannot see that we are actually human beings with feelings and hopes and dreams, the same as everybody else.
The only real difference between the eco-warriors and the crooked politicians is that we actually do care about the future of humanity and the survival of future generations, even if all they care about is money, money, and even more money.

In this remarkable age of miracles and wonders probably the most important discovery of the 21st century is the fact that humanity will be extinct by the end of this century as a result of the burning of fossil fuels, but so far nobody else seems to be too bothered about the imminent end of all life on earth, which is possibly the most extraordinary thing of all really.
Global warming is causing climate change which is becoming irreversible, making the planet uninhabitable, causing the sixth mass extinction in history, and driving the human race itself to extinction, a bit like a ghastly global psycho drama, or as Rupert Murdoch once said “it's all show business”.

The eco-warriors are making a movie about the coming end of the world, and it is entitled “Can You Save the Human Race?” and it is in the form of a reality TV show for the children to show the younger generation how their world is being destroyed so that future generations will not be able to survive for much longer.
Unfortunately the capitalist system looks like it is going to kill us all in the end, but our films of the road protests and the demonstrations against the corruption of the banks, corporations, and governments, and the destruction of the earth, do have a happy ending where the kids all live happily ever after.

However there are alternative endings to this tragic narrative which the United Nations scientists in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have already warned us very starkly about during the 1990s.
Three to four billion people will die from drowning, hunger, and disease when the worldwide flooding being caused by increasing temperatures, melting polar ice and rising sea levels, swamps all the low-lying coastal areas of all the countries on the earth about 2050, according to the scientists.

The scientists have said that as global temperatures increase hundreds of millions of environmental refugees will have to flee from the worldwide flooding and there will be local wars over oil, land, food, and water, which could end with a global nuclear World War Three holocaust wiping out the whole of humanity.
Since the 1990s greenhouse gases have been increasing inexorably and global temperatures have kept rising alarmingly, with irreversible global warming looking more and more likely all the time.

At the UN climate conference in Doha in December 2012 scientists predicted an increase in temperatures of between four and six degrees Celsius within 40 years, which will make the extinction of humanity this century inevitable.
Other scientists are predicting an increase in global temperatures of as much as ten degrees Celsius with stifling heat drying up all the water supplies, and the methane hydrate at the polar regions melting and exploding with the force of 10,000 nuclear arsenals, and resulting in all life on earth dying out even sooner than the end of this century.

According to this rather depressing scenario which has been predicted by the thousands of United Nations climate scientists, the story of humanity on the earth will end with a big bang (not so much a theory, more a way of death), and no doubt everyone will go to heaven and we will all live happily ever after.
“Can You Save The Human Race?” however is not just a reality TV show for the children, it is also a 14,000 page report which offers the eco-warriors' ideas, projects, and answers for saving humanity from its empty fate.

There is not much time left to close down the alien capitalist banks, corporations, and governments that are killing us all, and middle class road protests where stage-managed evictions of the camps are arranged with the police and bailiffs with photo opportunities of bussed-in protesters for the press and TV stations may not be the right answer to global warming.
A genuine Revolution with millions of homeless and unemployed and dispossessed people rising up to stop all the new roads and to arrest the government for their crimes against humanity will probably be necessary to save the human race.

The alliance between the working class eco-warriors and the concerned middle class of Middle England has always been very strong, and we must all unite and join forces once again if we are going to be able to fight back together against the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced.
Let us do our best to resolve our minor differences in a spirit of harmony and goodwill and move forwards together to a brighter future for all humankind while we still have time to do so, and maybe we should always keep in mind that ensuring the survival of future generations must forever be uppermost in making our decisions and actions.

Personally I think the road protesters need our own organisation something like a workers' union which could be called Eco-Warriors United or Working Class Heroes, or simply the Poor Oppressed People of England, mainly to differentiate ourselves from middle class residents who are worried about their houses, and to establish our own rights and obligations.
Or maybe all the social outcasts of society who have been rejected as unsuitable to be road protesters by Combe Haven Defenders should learn to speak Middle English and turn up at the Bexhill to Hastings protest saying things like “Jolly good show old chap, got the blighters on the run have we?
“Pip pip, tally ho!”

Could you imagine all the working class homeless and unemployed eco-warriors joining in with the old grannies of Bexhill and singing the Eton Boating Song, or maybe we could make up some new words for our own song to try to disguise our anti-capitalist leanings:
“The working class can kiss my arse
“The middle class are just a farce
“I'm so hungry I could eat a horse
“Let's all join the ruling class...
“Let them eat rats, let them eat rats, or what about dogs and cats?” (chorus).

A DECLARATION FROM THE Poor oppressed People of England...
This is a call-out to all the eco-warriors, squatters, travellers, the homeless and the unemployed, in fact everyone who is ready, willing, and able to join the New Model Army being mobilised on the site of the Battle of Hastings to fight back in self defence against the new Bexhill to Hastings link road and to get ready to arrest the government for their evil crimes.
The next phase of the Second Battle of Hastings will begin soon and preparations are underway for the eco-warriors to dig themselves in along the route of the new road all the way from Crowhurst village near Bexhill to Hastings in East Sussex.

All the environmental groups and organizations in Britain, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Earth First! Rising Tide, Plane Stupid, and the Climate Change Coalition have been asked to help recruit an army of environmental campaigners to JOIN THE REVOLUTION, including the homeless and the unemployed who have been dispossessed by this evil government.
The middle class activists who are concerned about the destruction of the earth by global warming have a moral duty and a responsibility to provide real support to the eco-warriors who are on the front lines of the battle against climate change.

Just because some of the local residents in Bexhill and Hastings have been calling the eco-warriors “tree hugging crazies” and “drunks, drug addicts, and lunatics” does not mean that we have to take orders from the middle class, and if we really do want to be able to fight back against the 190 new roads that are being planned we will need an army of homeless people.
If you can't help in any other way at least get out on the streets in your own towns and cities and invite all the homeless people you can find to come to East Sussex and join the eco-warriors who will help to teach survival skills and provide the vulnerable with all the support that they will need to stop the roads and overthrow our corrupt and crooked government.

The military industrial banking corporate political complex is systematically attacking the citizens and trying to destroy the environmental movement wherever we rise up, with the Working Class Heroes being violently assaulted and robbed by Enfield council to the middle class grannies being dragged out of trees and strip-searched by the police at Combe Haven.
Defend yourselves against the evil alien monsters - Join the Revolution – Planet earth needs you.
A HORSE, A HORSE, MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE
OCCUPY THE EARTH
STOP BILDERBERG CAMPAIGN

Reverend Peter Nichols
- e-mail: earthaidcampaign@gmail.com

Comments