Class War - July 2012.
http://autistici.org/tridnivalka/
We present here a text we found on the Italian blog Finimondo (http://www.finimondo.org/) that our group T?ídní válka / Class War / Guerre de Classe also translated in Czech. We want to emphasize here the contempt we feel not only for the exploiting capitalist class, but also for all the reformers of this world of misery. This is what emerges from this leaflet and more especially with regard to the critique of the novice politicians who scour and contain the so-called movement of "indignados" and other "Occupy" so that both of them don't overstep the limits that reformism tries to give to them as a referential framework.
But this being said, we don't proclaim our belonging neither to any 99%, nor to this 1% that the text of Finimondo puts forward in somewhat provocative way as a class reply to pacifism, legalism, democratic illusions, which are developed and propounded by these movements as powerful limits of their own. The historic class struggle, class war, direct action that the proletariat always carried on, cannot under any circumstances, never, be reduced to this miserable arithmetic. No curve, no statistic, no figure, no percentage will never be able to express neither the suffering of humanity, nor the reply that our class has inflicted on this whole misery, and will inflict much more in the near future. Misery based on wage labour, extraction of surplus value, private property of production means, man's exploitation by man, production and consumption of commodities we don't possess but that on the contrary possess us...
What matters for all revolutionaries (whether they claim to be anarchist or communist it is not important at this level of the analysis), it is to grasp all movements of struggle of our class, the proletariat, as the intrinsic contradiction between revolution and counterrevolution, between forces that push to overthrow and destroy the capitalist social relations on one hand (social relations guaranteed by the State with its police, its army, its religion, its politics, its bosses, its unions, its press, its intellectuals...), and forces that assure the preservation of this hell on the other hand.
Of course, none of the social forces subverting this world are rigid or develop in a linear way, and even lesser none of them have a clear revolutionary perspective since the beginning of a struggle movement. Obviously, all struggles of our class is first and foremost a struggle against the existing living and working conditions, the conditions of reproduction, imposed by capital's necessities and its dictatorship. Therefore it is always fundamentally about a struggle against exploitation. It is also clear that often proletarians start their struggles while only denouncing "abuses" or "excesses" of capitalism, whereas other more radical proletarians put forward the very foundation of capitalism as the fundamental reason of the evils afflicting the humanity...
But it would be dangerous for the development of our struggles aiming at overthrowing this world and eradicating this merchant tumour to dig from these differences an insurmountable gap between different sectors of one and the same universal class carrying the same chains and having only one and the same interest, i.e. to break these chains and to free together the whole of the human race...
Class War - July 2012.
http://autistici.org/tridnivalka/
This presentation and comments are simultaneously published in three languages: Czech, English and French, not because we have efficient translators but for internationalism's sake on one hand, and because it's the result of a common activity of comrades speaking these different languages on the other hand.
(The text "We Are the 1%" can be read in English at the following address: http://www.finimondo.org/node/585).
Read more >>Sixteen anti-nuclear protesters - half of them Japanese - gathered outside the Japanese embassy in Piccadilly, London on Friday morning (10 August), for the second week running, in a demonstration organised by London-based group Kick Nuclear. This was in solidarity with weekly demonstrations taking place outside the Prime Minister's offices in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan against the restarting of nuclear reactors as the Fukushima crisis continues. The weekly numbers taking part in those protests have now swelled to well over 70,000.
All images are Copyright (c) 2012 Kick Nuclear, but may be reproduced free of charge for non-commercial use if credited. For larger, high resolution versions, please e-mail. More photos
See also:
film of anti-nuke protest at japan embassy - by Rikki
Upcoming actions and events:
- Friday 17 August, 9.30-11.30am - Anti-nuclear solidarity protest at Embassy of Japan, 101-104 Piccadilly, London W1:
- 23 August - 1 September - Buddhist-led peace walk towards a nuclear-free future, Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment, Berkshire to Hinkley Point nuclear power station, Somerset.
- Tuesday 28 August, 7.30-9.30pm - Kick Nuclear open night
- with guest speaker from Indian anti-nuclear movement
Venue: London Action Resource Centre (LARC) - (ground floor)
62 Fieldgate Street, (corner of Parfett Street), Whitechapel, London E1 1ES
Nearest Stations:- Whitechapel / Aldgate East / Aldgate / Shadwell: Map
This event is open to new folks and old hands alike to come and discuss the latest from the murky world of nuclear energy and nuclear new build, share news about protests and actions that have been taking place in the UK and elsewhere, and plot how we can put a few spanners in the works.
Come and join us!
- Tuesday 25 September - Benefit gig: David Rovics - Songs of Social Significance, with support from The Noo and Mr Creedy - presented by Kick Nuclear and friends
Doors 7pm
Tickets: £5 on the door
Venue: London Action Resource Centre (LARC) - (ground floor)
62 Fieldgate Street, (corner of Parfett Street), Whitechapel, London E1 1ES
Nearest Stations:- Whitechapel / Aldgate East / Aldgate / Shadwell
Map: http://tinyurl.com/czzkpdg
(Listen to and download David Rovics songs for free at http://www.davidrovics.com )
- Stop New Nuclear camp and mass action against nuclear new build at Hinkley Point, Somerset, 5-8 October 2012.
Dateline: Court One, Westminster Magistrates Court, London, UK, 11:45 Wed 08 Aug 2012 – In a political trial targeting public protest, all sixteen defendants arrested during in an OccupyLSX banner drop at Panton House on Wed 30 Nov 2011 were today ACQUITTED OF ALL THE CHARGES laid against them by the Crown Prosecution Service. After five days in court, a shed load of jubilant innocent people celebrated outside the doors of Westminster Magistrates Court, and afterwards with booze in a local hostelry. The criminal charges brought against them under section 5 of the Public Order Act in an anti-public-protest political trial failed to be proved to the satisfaction of District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe, sitting alone on the bench of Court One.
There's more to follow, but I wanted to get the Great News of this Victory For The Right To Protest out into the public domain while it's Fresh-&-Tasty. Many congratulations to the Panton House 16 on their total victory in court today, and many thanks to their defence team of barristers and solicitors, who succeeded brilliantly in demonstrating the fatal weaknesses in Crown's case against these valiant victors for freedom.
Up the Revolution,
Tim Dalinian Jones
Footnotes
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Acquiring These Photos
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Some CM participants have been emailed by Met police.
Recently some participants in London Critical Mass have been receiving emails from Liaison.team@met.police.uk in which the police have attempted to influence the route of the ride and confer with what they seem to regard as CM organisers. All of which is contrary not only to the Law Lords ruling but is impractical as no one can influence the CM ride in advance of the day and even then attempts to do so on the day cannot be guaranteed. This has been pointed out to the police more than once but they seem to have difficulty in understanding it.
Here is one such email.
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"Dear Sir/Madam
I am a police officer and work at New Scotland Yard and previously attempted to make contact with you re your Critical Mass rides. I am emailing again in the hope that someone may speak with me regarding future cycle rides by Critical Mass so that, jointly, we can work together to avoid the events the 27 July when large numbers of cyclists were arrested.
It was clearly a challenging night for all. It appears that people, not normally involved in the ride, may have taken part and disrupted what is normally a peaceful and lawful event and in the name of Critical Mass. I also know that there is concern from Critical Mass participants that the event will now become 'criminalised'.
There is no intention or want to stop Critical Mass cycling and I firmly believe it would be beneficial if we could speak together to talk about future rides so there is dialogue and understanding about what you do and how and also about what the MPS is trying to achieve.
I would be grateful if someone could contact me as we do want to work with you on future planned rides.
Kind regards..."
*********************************
This is the Law Lords Judgement...
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldjudgmt/jd081126/metro-1.htm
and pay special attention to 'section 11 of the Public Order Act 1986'.
Read more >>
Though, for most, the London Inter-Bank Offer Rate (Libor) interest rate fixing scandal appears to be distant and far too complex to understand, its potential consequences may be as economically devastating as a world war.
The Libor is used to set payments on $800 trillion worth of financial instruments. It sets the prices that people and corporations pay for loans and receive for savings. Given that the fraud impacted $10 trillion in consumer loans, the Libor scandal will likely leave a long list of previous financial scandals that contributed to the Great Recession look like child’s play.
It also pulls back the curtain on the mechanisms behind the world economy, its anti-social priorities, its willingness to gamble away the future of billions of people, and the government’s collusion in these operations. The Libor scandal reveals that the “invisible hand” Adam Smith spoke of in explaining how a capitalist economy regulates itself has been transformed into the trained hand of a swindler.
The Libor and Its Problems
The Libor sets interest rates that banks charge one another to borrow on a daily basis. Sixteen (now eighteen) large banks submit their assessment of what they anticipate credit would cost them. The four lowest and four highest calculations are thrown out, and the interest rate is determined as the middle figure among the remaining assessments.
While the method that the banks use to determine the figure they report to Libor is largely arbitrary, it is, nevertheless, assumed that they won’t take advantage of the process to game the system. This is a rather remarkable leap of faith since there are billions of dollars of profit if the banks can find a clever way to sidestep the rules. In contrast to popular knowledge, the Libor expects honor among thieves.
Clearly, this is naive in the extreme. It has recently been revealed that for years the banks worked with one another to submit interest rates to the Libor lower than their actual borrowing costs, thereby covering up the shaky condition they were in. Of even greater consequence, it is now acknowledged that the banks were rigging the Libor since 2005 to make the most profit from their bets on derivatives, and regulators knew it was happening.
So far, London-based Barclays Bank has been fined $455 million by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the U.S. Department of Justice and the UK Financial Services Authority. This is likely a fraction of the money they made from their fraud. Its chief executive, Bob Diamond, was forced to resign, no doubt, with a handsome severance package even if he does have to give up some on the advice of the bank’s board.
Barclays Bank is just the tip of the iceberg. In several countries, 20 big banks are under investigation, including such behemoths as Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, RBS and UBS.
Current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Chairman Ben Bernanke have had to defend the Fed’s response when it first became aware of the fraud in 2008. While Geithner said he was “aggressive” in expressing his concerns, this on-going scandal did not come to light until four years later.
Why the Regulators Failed to Regulate
The explanation for this contradiction is that the fraud the banks were committing was producing outcomes in line with the Federal Reserves own policies, though they were concerned about how flagrantly it was being done. In “The Meaning of Libor-gate” Paul Craig Roberts explains:
It is the prospect of ever-lower interest rates that causes investors to purchase bonds that do not pay a real rate of interest. Bond purchasers make up for the negative interest rate by the rise in price in the bonds caused by the next round of low interest rates. As the Federal Reserve and the banks drive down the interest rate, the issued bonds rise in value, and their purchasers enjoy capital gains.
As the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are themselves fixing interest rates at historic lows in order to mask the insolvency of their respective banking systems, they naturally do not object that the banks themselves contribute to the success of this policy by fixing the Libor rate and by selling massive amounts of interest rate swaps, a way of shorting interest rates and driving them down or preventing them from rising.
The lower Libor is, the higher is the price or evaluations of floating-rate debt instruments, such as CDOs [Collateralized Debt Obligation], and thus the stronger the banks’ balance sheets appear.
Does this mean that the U.S. and UK financial systems can only be kept afloat by fraud that harms purchasers of interest rate swaps, which include municipalities advised by sellers of interest rate swaps, and those with savings accounts?
The answer is yes, but the Libor scandal is only a small part of the interest rate rigging scandal. The Federal Reserve itself has been rigging interest rates. How else could debt issued in profusion be bearing negative interest rates?
Later in the article Roberts succinctly points out:
Imagine the Federal reserve called before Congress or the Department of Justice to answer why it did not report on the fraud perpetrated by private banks, fraud that was supporting the Federal Reserve’s own rigging of interest rates (and the same in the UK.)
The Federal Reserve will reply: “So, you want us to let interest rates go up? Are you prepared to come up with the money to bail out the FDIC-insured depositors of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, etc.? Are you prepared for U.S. Treasury prices to collapse, wiping out bond funds and the remaining wealth in the U.S. and driving up interest rates, making the interest rate on new federal debt necessary to finance the huge budget deficits impossible to pay, and finishing off what is left of the real estate market? Are you prepared to take responsibility, you who deregulated the financial system, for this economic Armageddon?
Obviously, the politicians will say NO and continue with the fraud. The harm to people from a collapse far exceeds the harm in lost interest from fixing the low interest rates in order to forestall collapse. The Federal Reserve will say that we are doing our best to create profits for the banks that will permit us eventually to unwind the fraud and return to normal. Congress will see no better alternative to this.
In short, the Federal Reserve and other political structures have been left to act as subordinate partners in the big banks’ schemes — the tail is wagging the dog.
The Magnitude of the Problem
The level of gambling that is being tolerated without a care by the wheeler and dealers of Wall Street is almost beyond comprehension. For instance, it has been estimated that the world’s annual gross domestic product is valued between $50 trillion and $60 trillion. This is peanuts compared to the exposure of the worlds financial markets to such speculation tools as derivatives. Paul Wilmott has estimated the total amount of derivatives being played in the markets is $1.2 quad-trillion. That is 20 times the amount of money currently in the global economy. As noted earlier, the amount of financial instruments pegged to the Libor alone is $800 trillion.
Despite the obscuring complexity and mathematical models used to justify such inflated figures, the fact of the matter is that they are still inevitably tied to the real economy of production and consumption. The farther they stretch into the stratosphere from this ground level, the more violently they snap back to earth with catastrophic consequences for working people. The Libor scandal combined with the government sanctioned gambling help to create greater economic crises around the bend.
There is no accountability for this mad lust for short-term, even if illusionary, profit at the expense of the economy’s long-term health. Those responsible are sheltered from the devastation they wreak with the hand out line of “too big to fail” and workers’ tax dollars.
This should be no surprise because these crooks own both the Republican and Democratic parties. What better evidence for this than, after being bailed out, the banksters are again continuing their speculative orgy and scandals while workers continue to suffer from the effects of the Great Depression. If the U.S.’s political parties had the least amount of independence from the financial elite, they would have jailed those responsible for the economic crisis, confiscated their funds, sharply raised taxes on the rich, and used this increased revenue for job creation, fully funded education, Medicare for all, and rebuilding our decaying infrastructure.
In addition to denying workers of revenue for these fundamental needs, those behind the Libor scandal have also used their interest rigging to rob already cash strapped municipalities and other local governments. While there are many examples of this that are dealt with in Pam Marten’s “Wall Street’s Biggest Heist Yet? How the High Wizards of Finance Gutted Our Schools and Cities,” one is enough to get the picture of how it worked:
According to the June 30, 2011 auditor’s report for the City of Oakland, California, the city entered into a swap with Goldman Sachs Mitsui Marine Derivatives Products in connection with $187.5 million of muni bonds for Oakland Joint Powers Financing Authority. Under the swap terms, the city would pay Goldman a fixed rate of 5.6775 percent through 2021 and receive a variable rate based on the Bond Market Association index (that was the predecessor name to the SIFMA index). In 2003, the variable rate was changed from being indexed to the Bond Market Association index to being indexed at 65 percent of the one-month Libor rate.
The city is still paying the high fixed rate but it’s receiving a miniscule rate of less than one percent. According to local officials, the city has paid Goldman roughly $32 million more than it has received and could be out another $20 million if it has to hold the swap until 2021. A group called the Oakland Coalition to Stop Goldman Sachs succeeded in getting the City Council to vote on July 3 of this year to stop doing business with Goldman Sachs if it doesn’t allow Oakland to terminate the swap without penalty. It called the vote “a huge victory for both the city of Oakland and for the people throughout the world living under the boot of interest rate swaps.”
Thanks to grass roots pressure, Oakland was fortunate enough to get out of paying the termination fees on the abusive interest rates swaps. This is not normally how it works. According to a March 2010 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) report, from 2006 -2008 the banks have been paid $28 billion in termination fees so state and local governments could get out of similar arrangements. Clearly the requirement to pay such termination fees to get out of abusive interest rate swaps should be voided on a federal level.
The Way Forward
In addition, many, in response to the Libor scandal have called for the re-instatement of the Glass-Steagall Act, which was repealed under President Clinton. This Act did help to prevent some of the worst current excesses. However, the situation with fraud has reached such monstrous proportions today that such a measure seems to be entirely inadequate. The shattered system of bank regulation cannot be put together by relying on the political players who are holding the hammers and profiting from deregulation. Starting out, any reform movement as a lobbying exercise is a complete dead end.
It will take an independent mass social movement to exercise the necessary force to abolish this kind of financial fraud. When the streets are regularly filled with millions united in protest accompanied by strike action aimed at helping the vast majority of working people, the roadblocks to reform are pulverized.
The Libor scandal points out the need for fundamental change in the banking system. While there will be some fines imposed and tweaks made, they will not even begin to clean the rot. The problem is that the interests of the bank owners are the polar opposite from the interests of workers and society in general. Their profit is our loss. You can’t control a system you do not own. The banks need to be placed under public ownership and their current private owners locked out.
activists staged a solidarity protest outside the london japanese embassy this morning as tens of thousands protested outside the prime minister's residence in japan
japanese activists and the uk anti-nuclear group 'kicknuclear.org' organised a solidarity protest outside the japanese embassy in piccadilly this morning, as japanese people hold weekly demos outside the prime minister's residence on friday evenings in japan.
the government there has begun restarting reactors after a closure of around 50 facilities for safety checks following fukushima.
at fukushima itself, things are bad, with water, pumped to cool three of the reactors that would otherwise meltdown, continues to leak into the ground and out to the pacific. meanwhile steam releases particles of highly dangerous radioactive elements such as causium and even plutonium into the atmosphere.
while germany is closing down its entire nuclear programme, japan and some western countries continue to expand, producing plutonium for their weapons programmes, thought to be a large reason for the heavily-subsidised industry.
the protests in london start at 9am each week and this short film gives a flavour of the morning and includes a couple of interviews.
http://vimeo.com/46891653
japan embassy london from rikki indymedia on Vimeo.
Read more >>
Its been 7 weeks since we arrived on the disused land at the ex-Brunel university, Runnymede Campus. Since then we have been busy building an eco-village community based on sustainable methods. This is our latest regular report.
Read more >>Caught up between the excitement of the London Olympics and the upcoming tenth anniversary of the Iraq war, the mainstream media has largely failed to note that on 20 June, a London pensioner was handed a 15-year prison sentence in Iraq for "funding terrorist groups" in a trial that lasted all of 15 minutes.
Please take action for Ramze Shahib Ahmed: sign Amnesty's petition/ write to your MP & Foreign Office/ write to the Iraqi government
Record Breakers: British Pensioner Sentenced to 15 years in 15-minute trial in Iraq
By Aisha Maniar
Caught up between the excitement of the London Olympics and the upcoming tenth anniversary of the Iraq war, the mainstream media has largely failed to note that on 20 June, a London pensioner was handed a 15-year prison sentence in Iraq for "funding terrorist groups" in a trial that lasted all of 15 minutes.
Having been acquitted in each of his previous eight trials since last year, Ramze Shihab Ahmed, 70, a pensioner of Iraqi origin from north London, was sentenced to 15 years for "funding terrorist groups" following a 15-minute trial on 20 June 2012. Part of the evidence against him was obtained through torture, of Mr Ahmed and others, and his lawyer was unable to challenge the prosecution's arguments.
Ramze Shihab Ahmed travelled to Iraq in late 2009 to find his imprisoned son and was himself arrested in December that year. He then "disappeared" in detention and his family did not know where he was being held until March 2010 when he called his wife briefly and told her he was being held at Muthanna Airport, a secret detention facility near Baghdad. Shortly after this, in April 2010, he was transferred to Al-Rusafa Prison. Human Rights Watch published a report later that month on allegations of abuse they collected from prisoners who had been held at Muthanna: "Detainees in a secret Baghdad detention facility were hung upside-down, deprived of air, kicked, whipped, beaten, given electric shocks, and sodomized." One of them was Ramze Shihab Ahmed:
"Detainee D, a formal general in the Iraqi army and now a British citizen, who is in a wheelchair, was arrested on December 7, after he returned to Mosul from London to find his son, who had been detained. His jailers refused him medicine for his diabetes and high blood pressure. "I was beaten up severely, especially on my head," he told Human Rights Watch. "They broke one of my teeth during the beatings. ... Ten people tortured me; four from the investigation commission and six soldiers. .... They applied electricity to my penis and sodomized me with a stick. I was forced to sign a confession that they wouldn't let me read."
The confession obtained in this way has been partly used in his trial and conviction.
His case has been supported by Amnesty International since 2010 which has obtained and examined the court documents and described the proceedings as "grossly unfair". Kate Allen, Amnesty UK director, said ""This is deeply disturbing news. Ramze seems to have been convicted partly on the basis of a confession that was allegedly beaten out of him.
"The sentence comes on the back of what has already been a living nightmare for Ramze - of secret detention, alleged torture and then a prolonged trial that was itself grossly unfair.
"We need to see this dubious verdict set aside and Ramze either given a proper appeal or for him to be released and allowed to return home".
More than 6000 people have written to the Foreign Office through Amnesty's campaign over the past two years, demanding Mr Ahmed be lawfully charged or released and an investigation into the allegations of torture. The Foreign Office has also been supportive of the case; it has raised it on numerous occasions with Iraqi officials, most recently last month, when William Hague met Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on his visit to London.
Amnesty International believes that his detention is politically motivated, particularly following the arrest of a number of Iraqi Sunnis, including officials and the trials of former army officers; Ramze Shihab Ahmed is Sunni and ex-army. Following his continued detention after his eighth acquittal in May this year, Kate Allen said, "This is looking more and more like a politically-motivated effort to persecute Ramze, a Sunni and a former military man [...] Unless the prosecution can demonstrate a legitimate reason to detain Ramze, they should put an end to his ordeal and release him."
Ramze Shihab Ahmed's lawyers are appealing his conviction, seeking that the evidence obtained through torture be disqualified. The appeal process can take up to one year. Amnesty UK is continuing to support Mr Ahmed and his family and has started a petition on its website: www.amnesty.org.uk/ramze for which it is seeking at least 5,000 signatures, to be delivered to the Iraqi Embassy in London later this summer. Please add your name to the petition. Please also write to the Foreign Secretary William Hague (address and e-mail address below) and your own MP (find them at www.theyworkforyou.com) raising similar points, that the UK must press for a fair appeal for Mr Ahmed, press for his release to this country and an investigation into his allegations of torture.
You can write to William Hague at:
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street,
London, SW1A 2AH
E-mail: private.office@fco.gsi.gov.uk
You can also e-mail the Human Rights Committee of the Iraqi Council of Representatives (COR) at hrc@parliament.iq and
humanrightscom2007@yahoo.com asking for a fair appeal hearing for Ramze Shihab Ahmed. The Committee chair is Dr Salim Abdulla Al-Jabouri.
Arbitrary and unlawful arrests are not uncommon in Iraq, nor are secret prisons and the use of torture within the prison system. Overcrowding and detention of children is also common. Amnesty International believes that as of 2010, over 30,000 prisoners were being held without trial in Iraqi jails.
Please read pages 34-36 of this Amnesty International report for more information about Ramze Shihab Ahmed's case: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_20724.pdf
The abuse of prisoners following the handover of power back to the local authorities has been a concern in both Iraq and remains one in Afghanistan.
News source: Amnesty International UK. Many thanks to Amnesty International UK for its assistance. The author does not in any way represent Amnesty International UK.
Read more >>A cyclist was killed yesterday 1st of August as he negotiated the roads next to the Olymics complex, by a bus hired by LOGOC to shuttle Olympics press around.
There has been a call for a vigil and a mass ride to get to the site of the crash starting on 10th August at 6.30 under Waterloo Bridge.
Those who were arrested and bailed in the last Critical Mass may want to continue reading or seek independent advice.
Should you ignore police bail conditions? (pre-charge)
Many people arrested on the student protests have had conditions imposed by the police when given bail, usually “not to attend protests” or to “stay out of Westminster”. There are legal methods of challenging these conditions on the grounds that they breach the European Convention on Human Rights in particular Article 10 “Freedom of Expression” and Article 11 “Freedom of Assembly”. However, these can be expensive and time consuming. So we say- just ignore them. Here’s why.
Why the cops put everybody on bail.
In the good old days if the police nicked you they would charge you with the most serious offence they could think of and either take you to court in the morning or let you out with a court date a few days or at most a couple of weeks later. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) got fed up of this as they were always having to reduce the charges to something more realistic. So now, the cops aren’t allowed to charge anything except really minor stuff e.g. drunk and disorderly. Instead, they prepare a file of evidence that is sent to the CPS who then decide what the appropriate charge is. Aside from laziness, incompetence and inefficiency both cops and CPS have positive reasons to slow the process down. The cops like keeping people on bail because it’s a punishment in itself, especially if there are conditions attached, while the CPS get paid however long it takes. This leads to people being on bail for months and even years with disruption to their lives and ongoing psychological pressures. We need to resist this individually and collectively.
Breaching Bail Conditions is not a criminal offence!
What many people don’t know is that breaking bail conditions is not the same as failing to surrender to bail (turning up on the date given on your bail sheet whether to a court or to return to a police station). Failure to surrender is a crime (Section 6 Bail Act 1976). Although it should be said, the courts take failure to surrender to the cops far less seriously than skipping court and CPS guidelines state that failure to answer police bail should not be prosecuted at all where the substantive case is dropped.
Breaking conditions imposed when you are give bail is not a crime. If you break bail conditions you can be arrested (Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 section 46A (1A)). BUT and here’s the good bit, they can only release you on bail again with the same conditions or charge you, and then either bail you or take you to Court the next day. Now some people may be afraid that the Court will remand them. BUT the Courts can only remand people who’ve been charged with an offence. And that is what the cops don’t want to do because if you’re charged you have to be told what you’re suspected of doing and what the evidence is against you. This will help your defence by enabling you to gather information and witnesses to the incident and demand disclosure of the police’s own misconduct. We suspect that the cops are not planning to arrest anyone for breaching bail just hoping to put people off demonstrating. In any case it’s almost unheard of for people to be remanded just for breaking police bail conditions.
Time to fight back.
Being on bail also results in people feeling they cannot comment or campaign about the case. Defence lawyers are by training cautious about their clients saying anything that could harm their defence, and given the daft things some folk say you can see why. However a robust defence campaign that firmly puts the blame on the police (as with the Trafalgar Square Defence Campaign for the Poll Tax demonstration in 1990) is a vital part of everyone’s individual cases and defying police attempts to prevent future demonstrations by bail conditions is an important step towards this. Moreover, keeping up the pressure with more demonstrations and broadening them to link with other struggles will increase the political and logistical pressure against this police victimisation of protesters.
2011
My personal experience during the mass detentions of cyclists the las 27th July, during the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
Read more >>nearly a thousand people representing a smorgasbord of campaign groups marched together under the banner of the counter olympic network (CON) on saturday in east london. the march was followed by speeches in wennington green.
click on image for larger version. 'some rights reserved' - free for credited non-commercial use, otherwise contact author for permission
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from midday on saturday, as people assembled on the slopes of mile end park, they were joined by an intrusion of police liaison officers in their baby-blue tabards, disarmingly chatting and joking with the more gullible members of the crowd, while carrying out their usual agenda of surveillance and intelligence gathering. meanwhile, a samba band tuned up, people made homemade banners, and friendly connections were made between the myriad campaign groups representing that day.
shortly after 1pm, the march set off from grove road, heading east along bow road. at the front were several members of DPAC (disabled people against cuts) in wheelchairs, their beef being with ATOS, the private firm contracted by government to "assess" disability allowance eligibility, and sponsor of the para-olympics. ATOS has ruled people with terminal cancer as eligible to work, and even suggested one person in a coma should not receive benefit. they receive massive amounts of public money to bother and terrify the most vulnerable in our society.
the negative effects of the olympics reach out in so many ways and touch so many people - it was extraordinary to see so many groups with a common focus - among them, unions, anti-cuts groups, anarchists, local campaign groups from displaced communities, those invaded by olympic facilities or missile bases, civil rights and right to protest groups, police monitoring groups, anti-corporate campaigners against G4S, Dow chemicals, and BP, and of course the socialists with their newspapers.
as the march stretched out along the bow road, it was clear there were several hundred going on to a thousand people there, and there were also (given the UK media virtual black-out on anti-olympic protests) a surprising number of journos, although most were from overseas press.
as the march approached bow roundabout, it peeled off to the left along fairfield road and past the bow quarter buildings, where a controversial missile base has been stationed on top of the water tower above residential buidlings. there was quite a long wait there while the back of the march caught up. soldiers on the top of the tower watched, one with binoculars, as the protest chanted down below, "seb coe, hey ho, get your missiles out of bow".
eventually the protest continued through some back streets to emerge on roman road heading back west.
there was an incident near the rear of the march as someone tampered with the white cordon tapes that hemmed people in, and he was detained by police and searched. many on the march waited or ran back to show solidarity and support and demand his release. after a few minutes, police, who claimed they'd seen him with a knife but couldn't produce one in the search, released him, and the crowd fed into wennington green at around 3pm.
there, a small makeshift stage was set up, and people listened to a string of speakers, while the 'woodcraft folk' provided some entertainment for kids.
first speaker was brian richardson who spoke among other things about racism in sport, then ruth tanner from 'war on want' told us about olympic sponsor adidas's 34 pence per hour wages to indonesian workers providing the olympic kit.
next up was naomi who was one of the cyclists arrested last night on the peaceful critical mass bike ride. she told a harrowing story of her arrest and subsequent treatment by police, then quoted olympic black power activist john carlos and got the crowd chanting "i am not afraid of offending my oppressor".
chris nineham spoke on behalf of the 'olympics missile campaign', and pointed out the records already broken by team GB. the record number of arrests at an olympic opening, the highest ever ticket prices, and the record militarisation of the games.
next up was john mcdonnell who said he was there to show solidarity with the victims of dow and atos. he said it was time to reclaim the olympics, kick out the corporations and make it about sport again. he also said it was time to campaign to change the system. quite why he's a labour MP i've never understood - he certainly doesn't speak for the labour party, and instead says many sensible things.
gail chester spoke on behalf of the counter olympics network and then she introduced julian cheyne who told us about the counter-olympics torch relays (http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12559), and officially handed over the vancouver torch to representatives from nosochi2014.com who told us about the plight of the circasian people exiled from their lands by genocide and erased from history by the russians. two circasians showed us a traditional dance and we heard some of their language. they will parade the torch at the sochi winter olympics before passing it on again to activists in rio for 2016.
we then heard from rio activist teresa williamson, who is concerned among other things that the 2016 olympics will see further displacement of the poor there in the guise of regeneration. she informed us that while the favelas are portrayed as the worst slums, in fact many of the more established favelas are a cheap place to live, with reasonable sanitation, internet access, and community solidarity - they are afraid the olympics will wipe them away and destroy their communities.
police were apparently getting itchy about an overrun of the agreed protest time, and organisers felt it necessary to cut short many more of the planned speakers, finishing with a performance from the bp-or-not-bp.org 'reclaim shakespeare company'.
The Lea towpath from Homerton to Bow has been closed from July 3rd until September 10th as a so-called “security” measure for the Olympics. LOCOC have put some diversion signs to guide cyclists along an alternative route.
About twenty people set off on Sunday to follow this route, highlightning how dangerous it is. The police diverted this ride to a safer route, but every day cyclists do not have this privilege.
About twenty people set off at 1.30 from the blocked tow path, under the A12, and on to the route signposted by LOGOC, accompanied by six police on bikes and a van. Experienced cyclists were not surprised at the missed posts. The ride could roughly follow the route thanks to the map of the new route that one of them had managed to get hold of, stopping at every turn.
At the end of Addington Road and turning left on to Bow Road, the suggested route by LOGOC is so dangerous for cyclists, the riders decided to follow an alternative route themselves and the police took on stopping the traffic and redirecting the group to ensure their safety.
The police decided to leave the group on Abbey Lane Cycle parking facilities. The ride went back to the starting point, this time trying to follow the suggested route as a lone rider would do without police presence, and ended up at the A12 end of the tow path closure for a group photo, though with a much smaller group than when it had started.
for more than a year, the critical mass bicycle ride has had minimal or no policing. that all changed on friday, with a massive police operation in place and draconian conditions imposed to try and prevent riders from entering any part of north london. despite the deployment of police from several forces alongside the met, and even a fly-by from a lynx armed forces helicopter, hundreds of cyclists defied the ban, out-witted the police, and cycled as far as the olympic village, causing far less disruption than that caused by police trying to enforce their potentially unlawful ban.
click on image for larger version. 'some rights reserved' - free for credited non-commercial use, otherwise contact author for permission
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as the mass assembled from around 6pm on the south bank under waterloo bridge, there was already a FIT team, several 'police liaison officers' including chief inspector sonia davis from hackney's counter-terrorist operations office, a dozen or more cycle cops, and a couple of dozen uniformed police including a contingent from south yorkshire police.
numbers at first seemed lower than normal, but by 7 had built up to several hundred.
as an armed forces lynx helicopter hovered overhead, the police drove a large range rover vehicle into the crowd to make indecipherable announcements over a poor loudspeaker system, while officers mingled with the cyclists handing out their section 12 warning letters.
soon after 7, with some chants of "whose streets, our streets", the cyclists set off, and began their customary loop around the imax cinema and onto waterloo bridge. there, police ran across the road, blocking the procession, and a large police van parked across the carriageway.
arguments ensued, including the fact that police were overstepping their own conditions by not allowing bikes onto the bridge, considering that it was actually south of the river!
after several minutes, with the bridge closure creating far more "disruption to the life of the community" than the critical mass would normally cause, much of the mass moved on east. however, some remained, continuing their pressure on police, and eventually the bridge was reopened to traffic, and a few cyclists did get across.
there were more serious confrontations at blackfriars bridge, including an altercation with a transport officer (4125) who so lost control that a police medic had to restrain him at one point! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz1HNoK6UBs AND http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfftgb4KOlE&feature=youtu.be).
several hundred cyclists waited at london bridge, while police deployed vans and TSG officers at the south side of the bridge. there, there were more serious confrontations, and some TSG officers appeared intent on violence. suddenly, police were trying to clear a path for a large black 4x4 with tinted reflective windows designed to prevent photography. peering in, people realised the driver (with a minder) was none other than david beckham, on his way to the olympic opening ceremony.
police became quite violent towards cyclists in the path of the vehicle, but with so many cycles in such little road space it was actually hard to move even for those who felt they wanted to comply. after several minutes of inching forward, some of the front cyclists moved away and the car slowly set off down tooley street. as police ran to catch up, the front bikes stopped again, slowing beckham's progress, but seeing an opportunity, in a rather dangerous move he accelerated, skidding off to the right, narrowly missing a pedestrian and a cyclist, then sped through a red light and drove on east.
by now, the mass had split somewhat, with some having set off back west, and another group heading to try tower bridge. there, police once again blocked the route with vehicles and bodies, causing massive traffic disruption once more, and further disruption to the life of the community. however, as numbers in the cycle group had diminished here, some were allowed across the bridge in ones and twos on foot.
by now, with small numbers making it over at various points, a sizeable group began riding north of the river in defiance of the police orders, by the time it was heading east along bethnal green road (without causing anything more than the usual fleeting traffic jam), it numbered at least a couple of hundred.
despite the thousands of troops and combined uk police forces along with helicopters and undercover surveillance deployed in london, this group of cyclists continued east, apparently followed by one sole police van containing three officers, which was having difficulty overtaking the mass.
more police started appearing along roman road, and the mass turned south by mile end park, and then east again towards the bow fly-over and to within a stone's throw of the olympic stadium. just before the fly-over, the police attempted a cordon forcing the cyclists north past bow quarter, but concerned they were heading into a possible police kettle they decided to ride around and through the cordon and continue east. numbers were dwindling, but still around one hundred.
it was close to 9pm and the authorities were finally mobilising and closing in. i counted 30 police vans, with many TSG, sirens blazing, bringing up the rear of the cyclists, and a group of sixty or seventy were finally cordoned at the junction with warton road, a further couple of dozen making it on towards stratford station, where they too were held.
outside the cordons, other arrests took place. one young muslim man was rear-handcuffed, and despite telling police he'd been fasting all day, was made to sit in the road for nearly half an hour without any water. he kept explaining his predicament, and was also physically sick in the road. clearly in great discomfort, he was still refused help, and when someone tried to give him some liquid an officer violently intervened, spilling the juice on the ground. another girl tried to take details and enquire after his condition and police then arrested her, also using rear cuffs.
within the kettle, no food, drink or toilet arrangements were provided, and people sat or stood around on the concrete for around 90 minutes before a slow process began of handcuffing or cable-tieing each person, photographing them, and escorting them on to one of three single decker buses that had arrived. as the first bus filled with police and arrestees, the second was used for bicycles, pretty much thrown in on top of each other, and the third bus for the rest of the detainees.
meanwhile, the group held at stratford had been loaded into some vans, with others escorted in handcuffs on foot, and they passed by the kettle west towards the fly-over. they'd been told they were being taken to charing cross police station, but presumably some more transport was on its way, although i'm not sure how long they were walked for.
it has emerged that in all, 182 people were arrested that night, the majority under suspicion of having knowingly breached the section 12 conditions imposed on critical mass, but some for other public order offences and alleged assaults elsewhere along the route. some were taken to charing cross, but many found themselves in edmonton or in croydon. there were no toilet facilities provided on the buses and the arrestees were aboard these in handcuffs for hours, then made to sit on concrete for a further three hours, before finally being given something to drink.
none were allowed to leave with their bicycles, instead being told the bikes were in charlton and that they'd have to phone to arrange retrieval. the first bikes have been returned today.
it seems that all were given bail conditions which ban them from cycling in newham, or going near any olympic venues or routes, and of attempting to interfere with the passage of olympic paricipants.
legal background
last year, in may, the metropolitan police lost an appeal in the high court which finally established that the mass is a 'commonly or customarily held procession' as described in the public order act, and so, exempt from prior notification as required by section 11 of that act. however, this does not exempt it from possible use of section 12 or (theoretically) 13.
section 13 allows the possibility of a ban (signed by the secretary of state) where police can show a real risk of serious disorder - highly improbable for CM.
however, section 12, allowing the imposition of conditions, has a lower threshold, including the slightly open "risk of serious disruption to the life of the community", and this is what was used on friday.
in order to comply with human rights legislation, it is important that any conditions applied are proportionate and necessary.
since the police have shown themselves keen to control the critical mass previously, the fact that they haven't used section 12 before would suggest they were not over-optimistic about its likelihood of being upheld in the courts.
however, with the "special circumstances" of the olympics, they might have a stronger case for this particular ride. but conditions banning the ride from the whole of north london and beyond would seem to be quite an excessive interpretation of "proportionate or necessary" and might form the basis of a legal challenge for the cyclists detained on friday if they face court or later decide to challenge the police via compensation claims or judicial reviews later on.
also, given that the ride always takes place on the last friday of the month means that the police had five years to plan for this, and yet the letter handed out to cyclists gave no detail on how the police had arrived at the belief there would be serious disruption.
when the law was drafted, there were concerns and warnings that the new extension of power should be used carefully and that the police should weigh up whether by imposing conditions based on avoiding serious disruption, they might be causing a more serious problem of serious disorder in response to their actions. this may well have been the case on friday, both because the police caused far more disruption to the community themselves by closing off london bridges to all traffic for significant periods of time, and also because their actions significantly increased the incidents of scuffles and other disorder throughout the evening (unlikely to have occured had the mass gone ahead as normal).
the kettling of cyclists without food or water, their prolonged detention in handcuffs aboard the buses without toilet facilities, and further detention on concrete floors with little or no food or water, were all serious contraventions of the authorities' duty of care.
section 12 of the public order act used to be a 'non-arrestable' offence, only requiring a verified name and address for delivery of a fine. in 2005, the SOCPA act made most offences arrestable under certain prescribed conditions, and the one given to suspects on friday/saturday was "in order to allow the prompt and efficient investigation of the offence or of the conduct of the person in question". however, no-one has reported being interviewed, so it is very hard to see what "investigation" the police carried out before releasing people, and this alone may be grounds for challenge and compensation.
as of sunday night, only three people have actually been charged with offences.
Read more >>The Calais Olympic opening Day celebrations
Hi, yesterday, the 28.07.2012, saw the opening of Games without Borders in the French Port town of Calais. Here, only 21 miles from the English Coastline ( on clear days, you can see the white cliffs of Dover), life or, I should say, survive around 150 to 200 Migrants daily repressions by French and, when in the port area, English authorities. Yesterday, we had enough. So, we started the Calais Olympics. With around 60 Migrants, NO Border activist and other associations, we had a mix of Demonstration, Sport and Fun. Here a summary of the Day. At 13.30 was Food Distribution at the former French Customs house, afterwards assembly. At around 14.30, we started marching. First stop was the police station, where we was greeted by French Riot Police, CRS. They behaved and, after putting Stickers with the Names of two Migrants ( Ismael and Nurdin) who died not long ago under suspicious circumstances up, we continued our marsh to the Town Hall. There, a wedding was under way, so, the boys in blue hold us well in distance. After delivering our message, we then continued to a nearby Park. There, we had a couple of games, for example Badminton, Football and so on and a great 400 meter run. Some people had tee shirts with UKBA, CRS or PAF ( French Border Police) on and tried to stop the runners. After around one hour, we decided, to walk on. Back on the road, lots of plan less cops and we entered the centrum of Calais. And on we went, a noisy, leaf letting crowd in the middle of tourists and calaisians alike. It was great. Then, we arrived on the Tourist Beach. There, we swam a couple of rounds, watched from police on a boat. Every time, the police boat came nearer, Migrants hold in unison their hands up. What was the police thinking? That we swim to England? Who knows. Well, later we got Food, Soft drinks and Beer. The Day ended with nice Music, swimming and a lot of new friendships.
Read more >>Between thirty and fifty people were arrested today en-masse as a result of their participation in the traditional monthly critical mass.
The helicopter was already tracing circles above Waterloo Bridge at 6.30pm. The mass left the meeting point earlier than the usual 7.30pm. A van with police inside was emitting some unintelligible words and there were police on bikes, too, something unseen in years now, even since the House of Lords decided that the mass was indeed not a protest.
Some people crossed Blackfriars Bridge, some others Southwark Bridge. London Bridge was blocked by police to traffic when the Critical Mass arrived there. A police officer said to all there: “Guess what's waiting for you on Tower Bridge!” There were some scuffles and what looked like an arrest. A small portion of the mass sneaked through the line on the pavement, which was then joined by the rest in the City.
The mass then proceeded without major incidents until Rick Roberts Way. All riders that had reached thispoint were kettled under section 12 of the "Public Order Act", for disobeying the order apparently given by police to stay South of the river, and about an hour later, arrested, taken to a police station in Central London in a bus hired by police, and have their bikes put on another bus.
Yesterday the Council in its infinite and omnipotent wisdom decided to carry out another* aggressive attack on the popular Heygate Community Gardens, near Elephant and Castle, by spitefully destroying the colourful and thought-provoking artworks that have been brightening up the dull spaces within the now empty estate that the council plans to demolish.
As part of people’s amazing efforts to keep the place public and enjoyable local artists have been welcomed it to use the old walls of houses as canvases to paint murals, graffiti and street art on. These were a collection of lovely, considered and sometimes wry artworks created for the benefit of all. Yesterday,under the direction of Andrew Ashaye (Heygate & Aylesbury Case Management Officer), the Council aggressively decided to return the walls back to uglier and now badly painted over blank walls once again.
It was noticeable that they mostly singled out for painting over the large and thoughtful pieces around the Community Gardens and pond. However the rest of the estate is still covered with scribbles, tags, obscenities and so on but these remained up after the Council had done it’s paint slapping. We ask the questions: What possible offence can be caused by the Heygate murals and with what mindset does the Council operate with to come and destroy local artists work without even any warning or debate?
LET THEM KNOW THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE: We suggest that if you feel that this was an unnecessary, wholly unaccountable and aggressive act that you make your feelings known to those who carried it out and to CC in your email Peter John and Fiona Colley, who are the leading Council lights in the Regeneration Dept.
Write to:
Andrew Ashaye – andrew.ashaye@southwark.gov.uk
Peter John – peter.john@southwark.gov.uk
Fiona Colley – fiona.colley@southwark.gov.uk
For more than two years local people have been using the green spaces within to put into practice what the Council has been twiddling their thumbs about and that is how can the space within the Estate be used for community benefit whilst the bureaucratic stages of regeneration grind ever slowly on. Called ‘interim use’ it means that instead of sealing up the giant forest within the Heygate to await demolition in two or three years time, the space is maintained for exactly the sort of the thing the Heygate Community Gardeners have been doing there all along.
Not only does the act of growing flowers and vegetables, giving out free allotments, keeping chickens, running a pond, having growing and planting days, seed swaps and also showing films and having small social events maintain exactly the kind of things that grows communities, it also acts as a deterrent to crime inside the Estate. Leaseholders living on the estate have not been burgled since the community activity started something that had been a regular occurrence before.
All of this local effort and hard work comes from a desire to actually see the Heygate site as still part of the public space of The Elephant area and to maintain the enjoyment to be had at wandering amongst the 400 plus mature trees inside. As part of these acts of growing and nurturing, the work done by artists inside the estate has been welcomed and enjoyed by all involved in the Community Gardens. They were an integral part of keeping a community spirit alive against the whims and anti-social behaviour the Council engages in that pretends to care about community benefits but by it’s actions shows nothing but contempt for local people and how they make this a much needed reality here and now.
Full report with pics here.
—
* REPEAT AD NAUSEUM, AD ABSURDUM!
In March 2012, the Council came to the gardens and stole the pump for the pond and were threatening to remove all the exhibition stands and other objects by which we thought they meant the chairs and tables people use. It was pointed out to them that that ‘the council’s time and resources might be better spent on things including basic estate maintenance and cleaning‘. They argued that they would ‘continue to monitor the general health & safety on the site prior to demolition works taking place to ensure that the site also remains safe for the remaining residents‘. We had to laugh as the remaining residents are the only ones doing any actual looking after the site whilst the Council does nothing to the collapsing walls, holes in the paving and so on.
In the wake of the English Revolution, 1649 saw rural eco-socialist communes created, at St George's Hill in Surrey and elsewhere, by Gerard Winstanley and the Diggers, aka the True Levellers [1] – centuries before 'ecology', 'socialism', and 'commune' were coined and became attractive radical beacons of hope for a better future for all. In 1871, the Parisian Communards created a city-wide urban commune [2], and English libertarian socialist William Morris moved in to Kelmscott Manor on the River Thames, where he'd be inspired to write his 1890 masterpiece: a post-revolution sci-fi novel called ‘News from Nowhere' [3] – of liberty, depopulated cities, love, agrarian commune villages, and happiness, all set in a moneyless, stateless, nationless, class-free, and ecologically harmonious global egalitarian community. In 2012, a Diggers Eco-Village commune was founded by the River Thames at Runnymede [4] – a 'Come & Try It' beacon of hope for the kind of low environmental impact future our species and our biosphere so urgently need to co-create. How large a part will it play in helping make a post-capitalist eco-socialist global community into a 21st century reality? And will YOU, dear reader, Come & Try It out for size and comfort, rest and happiness?
ECOLOGICAL REVOLUTION — IT'S BEEN A LONG, LONG TIME COMING
“I was born by the river
In a little tent
And just like the river
I've been running ever since
It's been a long, long time coming
But I know a change gonna come
Oh, yes it will”
~ Sam Cooke, from ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ (1963)
» music video with lyrics, 3:13 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-X9JkM9Bgo
On 15 June 2015, folk will be commemorating the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta – The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, and of the Liberties of the Forest – born by the river in a little tent, at Runnymede, Surrey, UK, and signed reluctantly by King John of England on 15 June 1215. Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects (the feudal barons) in an attempt to limit his powers by law and establish/protect their rights. For more info, see:
» Magna Carta 800th Anniversary website – http://magnacarta800th.com
So at Runnymede, there’s at least an 800ish-year-long heritage of the hoi polloi contending against the powers that be, and winning liberties for the common people through collective struggle. But what of Surrey as a county?
“Digger — any of a group of agrarian communists who flourished in England in 1649-50 and were led by Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard. In April 1649 about 20 poor men assembled at St. George's Hill, Surrey, and began to cultivate the common land. These Diggers held that the English Civil Wars had been fought against the King and the great landowners; now that Charles I had been executed [on 30 Jan 1649 – TDJ], land should be made available for the very poor to cultivate. (Food prices had reached record heights in the late 1640s.) The numbers of the Diggers more than doubled during 1649. Their activities alarmed the Commonwealth government and roused the hostility of local landowners, who were rival claimants to the common lands. The Diggers were harassed by legal actions and mob violence, and by the end of March 1650 their colony was dispersed. The Diggers themselves abjured the use of force. The Diggers also called themselves True Levellers, but their communism was denounced by the leaders of the Levellers.”
~ Encyclopaedia Britannica, quoted in ‘The English Diggers (1649-50)’
» lots more Diggers info – http://www.diggers.org/diggers/digg_eb.html
Like me, you may have first heard of the Diggers of 1649 from the lyrics of the socialist anthem ‘World Turned Upside Down’, beautifully written by Leon Rosselson in 1974 by adapting the inspiring words of Gerrard Winstanley [1], and popularised as a single released by Billy Bragg in 1985. The song gives a richly detailed yet succinct lyrical summary of one one of the most radical factions to emerge from the 1640s English Revolution – and here’s a live festival rendition by Billy himself:
• Billy Bragg – "World Turned Upside Down"
— playing live at the Women Chainmakers Festival, Dudley, on 15 Sep 2007
» live music video, 3:24 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stmiyeLsErw
» lyrics – http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858584509/
So the county of Surrey can proudly claim, within its heritage, that 363 years ago it saw the foundation of the capitalist epoch’s very first rural eco-socialist commune, at St George's Hill. And what of the River Thames, whose meanderings have formed the Runnymede water-meadows?
The first great European exemplar of an urban commune was created by the Parisian working class in 1871 [2], and in that year the magnificent English libertarian socialist William Morris moved in to Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire, several score miles upstream on the River Thames from Runnymede. While cognisant of the class war thrown up by the industrial revolution, Morris was inspired – by the potential for peace, rest, and happiness inherent in rural living – to write his masterpiece of a post-revolution, futurist, sci-fi novel: 'News from Nowhere' (1890) [3] – of liberty for all, depopulated cities, love, agrarian commune villages, and happiness, all set in a moneyless, stateless, nationless, class-free, and ecologically harmonious global egalitarian community.
"Go back again, now you have seen us, and your outward eyes have learned that in spite of all the infallible maxims of your day there is yet a time of rest in store for the world, when mastery has changed into fellowship — but not before. Go back again, then, and while you live you will see all round you people engaged in making others live lives which are not their own, while they themselves care nothing for their own real lives — men who hate life though they fear death. Go back and be the happier for having seen us, for having added a little hope to your struggle. Go on living while you may, striving, with whatsoever pain and labour needs must be, to build up little by little the new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness."
~ William Morris, from 'News from Nowhere', his post-capitalist future-glimpsing novel
» about – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_nowhere
The ‘fellowship, and rest, and happiness’ I enjoyed during my 2.5 day stay with the Diggers-2012 in their Runnymede Eco-Village have inspired me to spread the word of their bold 21st century re-igniting of that radical spark, which was first lit by Surrey’s Diggers-1649 – and to tell of the glimpse-of-our-future-happiness feelings provoked by visiting their eco-socialist commune (much the same as Morris’s protagonist William Guest did in 'News from Nowhere’, on his return to 19th century Britain, from his glimpse of a post-revolutionary new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness).
• Diggers-2012 Runnymede Eco-Village
» website – http://diggers2012.wordpress.com
DECLARATION OF THE DIGGERS-2012
“We: peaceful people, declare our intention to go and cultivate the disused land of this island; to build dwellings and live together in common by the sweat of our brows.
We have one call: every person in this country and the world should have the right to live on the disused land, to grow food and to build a shelter. This right should apply whether you have money or not. We say that no country can be considered free, until this right is available to all.
With our current system in crisis we need a radically different way of growing our communities. We call on the government and all landowners to let those who are willing, make good use of the disused land. Land that is currently held from us by force. By our actions, we seek to show how we can live without destroying the planet or ourselves. Free from the yoke of debt and rent, our labors can be directed to the benefit of all.
Though we may be oppressed for our actions, we will strive to remain peaceful. But we are committed to our cause and will not cease from our efforts until we have achieved our goal.”
~ Diggers-2012, on their own website, 20 May 2012
» source – http://diggers2012.wordpress.com/about/
“Their aim is simple: to remove themselves from the corporate economy, to house themselves, grow food and build a community on abandoned land. Already the crops the settlers had planted had been destroyed once; the day after my visit they were destroyed again. But the repeated destruction, removals and arrests have not deterred them.
The young men and women camping at Runnymede are trying to revive a different tradition, largely forgotten in the new age of robber barons. They are seeking, in the words of the Diggers of 1649, to make “the Earth a common treasury for all … not one lording over another, but all looking upon each other as equals in the creation.” The tradition of resistance, the assertion of independence from the laws devised to protect the landlords’ ill-gotten property, long pre-date and long post-date the Magna Carta. But today they scarcely feature in national consciousness.”
~ George Monbiot, from ‘The Promised Land’, 16 Jul 2012
» article – http://www.monbiot.com/2012/07/16/the-promised-land/
WHEN INJUSTICE BECOMES LAW, RESISTANCE BECOMES DUTY
Diggers-1649
“When these clay-bodies are in grave, and children stand in place.
This shews we stood for truth and peace and freedom in our days;
And true born sons we shall appear of England that's our mother,
No Priests nor Lawyers wiles t’embrace, their slavery we'll discover.
…yet my mind was not at rest, because nothing was acted, and thoughts ran in me, that words and writings were all nothing, and must die, for action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing.”
~ Gerrard Winstanley, from ‘A Watch-Word to the City of London and the Armie’, 1649
» many more wise words – http://www.rogerlovejoy.co.uk/philosophy/diggers/quotes.htm
Diggers-2012
“My cause is the right to live and to grow food on the land which is unused and without causing harm, harmoniously and sustainably. There is sufficient land in this country to live freely and low impact in this country. To be honest I do not feel I have broken any of my own concept of what is right and wrong. I accept that my actions may cause alarm to the large land owners of this country and in a way it is strange that Alarm has been criminalised.”
~ Simon Moore, resident of Runnymede Eco-Village, from the dock of Guildford Magistrates Court, 12 Jun 2012
» source – http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12396
• Double Eviction Attempts: FAIL
? being a multi-person story-telling of the failure of the High Court, police and security personnel to evict Runnymede Eco-Village on either Wed 11 or Thu 12 Jul 2012 (more video links are in the ‘Video Coverage’ section below)
» video, 7:36 – http://bambuser.com/v/2822559#t=58s
Like the Diggers-1649, our courageous Diggers-2012 are facing hostility and harassment from those who believe that they can and do own parts of our home world. In Europe and elsewhere, land ownership has for so long been a fundamental right claimed through the use of violent force by the ruling classes of successive economic epochs (from Roman patricians, through feudal aristocracies, to capitalist corporate bodies) that most folk just take it for granted as a well-known “fact” that common people are permanently excluded from making a living for themselves on unused/disused land. But the Diggers-1649 and the Diggers-2012, through both their words AND more importantly their actions, do challenge and contend against such an institutional “fact” – since it is, after all, merely a story, told by a bunch of tyrants, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Nearly all of our human ancestors, and all of our universal human psychology, originate in a time when much more wise stories about our relationship to our home world were common currency; for example…
NO MAN HAS ANY RIGHT TO BUY AND SELL THE EARTH FOR PRIVATE GAIN
Let’s lend an ear to wiser and older stories of humankind walking softly on the Earth, and also to the horror provoked in such wise story-tellers by the obnoxious violence with which the white European ruling class seized the land which had supported the story-tellers’ people for millennia. These tales happen to come from First Nations folk of North America, but indigenous hunter-gather peoples of all continents possess similar, parallel, analogous wisdom.
"One does not sell the land people walk on."
~ Crazy Horse
"My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away.”
~ Black Hawk
“What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth, for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs only to him?”
~ Massasoit
“They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one: they promised to take our land and they took it. It was not hard to see that the white people coveted every inch of land on which we lived. Greed. Humans wanted the last bit of ground which supported Indian feet. It was land – it has ever been land – for which the White man oppresses the Indian and to gain possession of which he commits any crime. Treaties that have been made are vain attempts to save a little of the fatherland, treaties holy to us by the smoke of the pipe – but nothing is holy to the White man. Little by little, with greed and cruelty unsurpassed by the animal, he has taken all. The loaf is gone and now the White man wants the crumbs.”
~ Luther Standing Bear
» native American quotes source – http://www.adl.org/education/curriculum_connections/NA_Quotes.asp
“We come to work the lands in common, and to make the waste grounds grow. This Earth divided we will make whole, so it will be a common treasury for all. The sin of property we do disdain – no man has any right to buy and sell the Earth for private gain. By theft and murder, they took the land; now everywhere the walls spring up at their command.”
~ Billy Bragg / Leon Rosselson / Gerrard Winstanley / Diggers-1649
» lyrical source – http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858584509/
In the vast geological time-span of modern human existence (c. 200,000 years), the relatively short-lived skim of class-riven societies (c. 7,000 years) – in which “owning” the huge majority of the productive land is the violence-enforced privilege of a ruling elite – can be seen as an unnatural, unjust and merely temporary aberration of our species’ long-term history. If we are to play our part in creating a future society fit for our evolved human psychology, and in which we consciously fit ourselves into our planet’s ecosphere, rather than vainly attempting to dominate and thereby destroying it, then we necessarily need to abolish the “sin of property” in land ownership by the ruling class.
“If we go to prison we'll just come back … I'm not saying that this is the only way. But at least we're creating an opportunity for young people to step out of the system.”
~ Gareth Newnham, Eco-Villager
However, no ruling class ever voluntarily gives up the “rights” it has won through violence. So it is always a task for we 99%ers – the common people – to challenge and to contend against the oft repeated “WE Own This Land!” story, as told by the 1% boss class, and reinforced by the organisational expressions of their violent class rule – the courts, bailiffs, police, and privatised “security” forces. Runnymede Eco-Village is a fine example of the common people doing just that – demonstrating by the propaganda of the deed that another story (eg: “This Earth divided we will make whole, so it will be a common treasury for all”) leads to a way better and far greater future for people and planet. That’s why some of us see this marvellous Eco-Village as such a grand beacon of hope for humankind’s future – and also as a wonderful place to be, in its own right.
A NEW DAY OF FELLOWSHIP, AND REST, AND HAPPINESS
“Coopers Hill Woods – A natural haven
With carpets of flowers in the spring, sunny glades in the summer, and fabulous fungi in the autumn, the wooded slopes of Coopers Hill are wonderful to visit in any season. Leave the woods at the top of Coopers Hill for magnificent views across the river and meadows below.”
~ from the National Trust’s Runnymede website
» the countryside – http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/things-to-see-and-do/page-2/
By accident of birth, I was lucky enough to be born and raised in the Cheshire countryside, and (in my teenage years) to have the freedom to give free rein to my exploratory curiosity – by roaming freely, inflatable boat in rucksack, over the wooded sandstone hills of Frodsham and Helsby, and the woodland tributary valleys of the River Weaver. So I discovered experientially, and early on in life, what I later found to be true for our species as a whole: one of the reasons we find so much beauty, majesty, and happiness in woodland-near-water is that this habitat formed a major part of our evolutionary adaptive environment, particularly in the east African rift valley, and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Our sense of belonging in highly biodiverse riverine woodland is a direct consequence of countless generations of our ancestors actually belonging to this kind of habitat, and making a living there by their own self-sufficient labour, as part of a hunter-gatherer tribe.
As you may detect from the photos above, I found it soooo easy to fall in love with the deciduous temperate forest ecosystem that covers the River-Thames-facing side of Coopers Hill. Through the interweaving of our species-memory (of our belonging as woodland creatures), and happy childhood memories (of tree-covered Cheshire hillsides), I experienced an unequalled sense of habitat-connected bliss while wandering through Coopers Hill Woods. And that’s as nothing compared to the uplifting feelings of belonging and connectedness that arose during my stay at the Runnymede Eco-Village.
A common feature of Eco-Village Open Days is an open-ended and egalitarian discussion concerning land rights. On Sat 07 Jul 2012, our discussion took place in the open air, at the Magna Carta Monument, just 400m down the hill from the Eco-Village. I did my best to record what was said with a view to publishing that audio track here, but despite the recording software appearing to have captured 1.5 hours worth of sound, on retuning home the recording was significant by its absence, and even an undelete utility app failed to find it – so my apologies to all for this technical mishap.
During our land rights discussion, I highlighted how open, free-ranging, radical discussion circles are a common feature of grass roots revolutionary change throughout the capitalist epoch, from the Levellers choosing which issues to raise during the Putney Debates in the English Revolution [5], via the English Chartists, Parisian Communards, and Russian Soviets, to the global Occupy movement of 2011 ? 2012 ? on-going. Afterwards, while sitting together around the village longhouse fire, not only did the Eco-Villagers suggest to me that formal meetings within the Eco-Village were kinda unnecessary, because open, free-ranging, radical discussion was happening all the time – but that’s what I discovered to be very much a living truth of village life. The majority of my stay was taken up by sitting in a circle of Eco-Villagers around the fire in the communal longhouse, the constituent members of which varied over time, chatting and discussing about everything under the sun, including but not limited to…
• practical and operational camp experiences, including group process
• forest stewardship – the National Trust forest stewards are both pleased and impressed by the Eco-Village’s intentionally low environmental impact, and by the villagers’ care for the forest ecosystem in which they have chosen to embed themselves
• land ownership and land rights
• inclusivity, and how to increase it, especially around women’s participation
• science as a collective progressive process cf. “personal science”
• liberation struggles, and particularly mad pride (personal interest: I have bipolar disorder)
• spirituality, religion, agnosticism, and militant atheism
• quantum mechanics, and especially the Higgs mechanism (following the Higgs boson success reported by two of CERN’s LHC detector teams)
• Eco-Village history, including police relations
• a whole bunch of other stuff my old brain cannot recall in the moment
Inspired by the outcome of one villager asking another one afternoon, “Who are you?”, on a clear and dark Sunday evening, I facilitated a go-round based discussion where each person asked the person to their left that simplest of questions, “Who are you?” Only in very rare circumstances indeed have I ever encountered a group of people so willing to share of themselves so deeply, with such clarity, honesty, and vulnerability, while including in their circle of trust a newcomer who is actually facilitating their sharing. An obvious conclusion is that village life had already forged immense bonds of trust, solidarity, and community among the Eco-Villagers, to an extent I’ve previously encountered only in groups who’ve been together much, much longer. But their openness to not only welcoming in a newcomer (albeit one demonstrating useful prior experience in camp life, group process, and radical history-&-politics), but also allowing such a newcomer to facilitate an egalitarian, deep-&-meaningful, group discussion on personal identity was uniquely wonderful to behold.
Another villager reported welling up with tears of joy on realising just how much of communal life he’d been deprived of for so long, in comparison to the rich sense of authentic human community he’d experienced as an Eco-Villager. And I too was overcome by tears of joy when it came time to leave, because it only took a couple of days of being there to realise that the Runnymede commune is re-discovering the hugely significant benefits – emotional, psychological, and (dare I say it) spiritual – of communal, self-sustaining, collective life in a temperate forest habitat. On that basis alone, I highly commend to you, dear reader, a multi-day stay at Runnymede Eco-Village – or even better, why not take up residence there and grow the village, even as it helps you to grow?
“We invite everybody to join us, especially those who have become dispossessed due to the unequal and cruel nature of our system of crises.”
~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404
If you want to avoid the nauseatingly awful, weeks-long, corporate culture domination festival that masquerades as ‘London 2012 Olympics’, what better way than an extended stay with the authentically grassroots Diggers-2012 at their Runnymede Eco-Village?
CONTACTING RUNNYMEDE ECO-VILLAGE
For example: about your impending visit, stay, intention to become a resident villager – or owt else, really (support, donations, you name it):
• Phone – 07963 475 195 or 07905 283 114 – mobile phone / text message
• Email – diggers2012 at yahoo dot co dot uk
» Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/Diggers2012
» Twitter – http://twitter.com/freetheland/
“Please bring camping equipment – tent, sleeping bag, cup, supplies etc. – if you wish to join the camp. Whilst scouting around the area we have discovered ample disused land on which to grow food and communities.”
~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404
FINDING YOUR WAY TO RUNNYMEDE ECO-VILLAGE
Please see these 13 images above for maps, aerial photography, terrain views, etc., &c. to help you find your way to Runnymede Eco-Village. The six short links in these captions will take you to the relevant cloud-based mapping resources for the related images. You can click on the images above for a full-resolution edition, which you could then print out or copy to a tablet or phablet, in order to show a taxi driver or a bus driver where you’re after going.
02. Eco-Village Location – Up Close – http://goo.gl/maps/hlXQ
03. Eco-Village Location – Far Out – http://goo.gl/maps/fGrZ
04. Eco-Village Location – Map – http://goo.gl/maps/BkIf
05. Eco-Village Location – Over Coopers Hill
06. Eco-Village Location – Up Coopers Hill
07. Eco-Village Location – Landscape and Lanes – http://binged.it/N1MYOB
08. Eco-Village Location – Street Map – http://binged.it/OaUIbd
09. Eco-Village Location – OS map – http://binged.it/N1MIPn
10. Eco-Village by Rail – London Waterloo for Egham Station – a Well Connected Terminus Station
11. Eco-Village by Rail – Egham Station, only 37 minutes from London Waterloo
A1. Cycle parking under the spreading cedar tree
A2. Runnymede Air Forces Memorial
A3. Magna Carta Monument
“The nearest train station is Egham, about 25 mins walk.”
~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404
Egham overground rail station is only 37 minutes down the track from London Waterloo overground rail terminus station, which connects directly with:
• Waterloo East overground rail station
• Waterloo underground station:
— Bakerloo line
— Northern line
— Jubilee line
— Waterloo & City line
Here are three cloud-based journey planner apps which can help you plan your visit to Runnymede Eco-Village:
• Transport for London – Journey Planner
» automated journey planning – http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk
• National Rail Enquires – Journey Planner
» automated journey planning – http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/planjourney/search
• Transport Direct – Route Planner
» automated route planning – http://www.transportdirect.info
“If you want to get nearer the camp by public transport you can get on the Slough bus from Egham town and get off at the stop before the top of Priest Hill, Englefield Green. That saves you a walk up a steep hill and is ten mins from the camp.”
~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404
YOU DON’T ONLY HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
How about these 1075 words of George Monbiot, climate activist, writer, public intellectual, and all round good egg? George visited Runnymede Eco-Village in the week of the double-eviction FAIL in mid-July 2012, and published this piece via the Guardian’s Comment Is Free section:
• ‘After 800 years, the barons are back in control of Britain’, by George Monbiot, Comment Is Free at The Guardian, Mon 16 Jul 2012
— “The Magna Carta forced King John to give away powers. But big business now exerts a chilling grip on the workforce.”
» article – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/barons-in-control-of-britain
And there are many more reliable reports of Runnymede Eco-Village too. For instance…
• ‘Windsor Eco-Occupation (regularly updated)’ by rikki, Indymedia London, 10 Jun 2012
» video-led reports – http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12379
• ‘Olympic ASBO arrest @ Windsor Eco village’ by Dean, Indymedia London, 11 Jun 2012
» photo-led report – http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12392
• ‘Update! Olympic ASBO arrest Released!!!’ by Dean, Indymedia London, 11 Jun 2012
» photo-led report – http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12396
• ‘Latest From the Diggers - Join Us!’ by Lucca, Indymedia London, 13 Jun 2012
» photo-led report – http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404
Video Coverage
» Live Broadcasts – http://bambuser.com/channel/Diggers2012
» YouTube Channel – http://www.youtube.com/diggers2012
» Interviews – [to follow, once editing is complete – TDJ]
And What Is More…
If you come across other info sources and articles about Runnymede Eco-Village, please do add links to them in a comment below this feature.
And of course there is also plenty of info from the Eco-Villagers themselves via their own web presence:
• Diggers-2012 Runnymede Eco-Village
» website – http://diggers2012.wordpress.com
» Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/Diggers2012
» Twitter – http://twitter.com/freetheland/
VISITING RUNNYMEDE
While the Runnymede Eco-Village is undoubtedly by far the most engaging occurrence in the Runnymede area, nevertheless if you’re planning to visit, stay, or become a resident, then there are other attractions you may desire to check out.
Natural Beauty
• ‘Langham Pond – Runnymede’ by Alan Bostock
— pictures of the site of special scientific interest
» photo gallery webpage – http://www.runnymede2015.com/langhamponds.htm
• Runnymede Visitor Information – National Trust
» website – http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/
History Lynx
• Magna Carta
The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, and of the Liberties of the Forest – granted (under considerable duress) by King John at Runnymede on 15 June 1215
» full text – http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/magna2.html
» Magna Carta 800th Anniversary website – http://magnacarta800th.com
• Runnymede Air Forces Memorial
“The Air Forces Memorial, or Runnymede Memorial, in Englefield Green, near Egham, Surrey, England is a memorial dedicated to some 20,456 men and women from the British Empire who were lost in operations from World War II. All of those recorded have no known grave anywhere in the world, and many were lost without trace. The name of each of these airmen and airwomen is engraved into the stone walls of the memorial, according to country and squadron. It is a Grade II* listed building and was completed in 1953.”
~ Wikipedians, from ‘Air Forces Memorial’
» illustrated article – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Forces_Memorial
Poetry Corner
• “The Reeds of Runnymede”, by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
— A poem commemorating the signing of Magna Carta at Runnymede, Surrey, on 15 June 1215
» poem – http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_runnymede.htm
MISSING IN INACTION
As ‘regular readers’ of mine may have realised, this is my first piece of photovideojournalistic activism since…
• State Deploys ‘Divide & Conquer’ Tactics on 09 Nov [2011]
» photo-red action report – https://london.indymedia.org/articles/10950
I’ve been ‘missing in inaction’ due to a major episode of severe bipolar depression, brought on my the British state’s attempts to screw over sick and disabled people by attacking our rights to benefits – to try to help lower our ‘burden’ on the profits of the UK capitalist class. Any road up, I’ve successfully negotiated the privatised assault on my living standards by ATOS, and emerged victorious, to renew my championing of a way better and far greater future for people and planet than the permanent crises by which decadent and decomposing global capitalism are jeopardising our survival.
This feature took waaay longer to create than I anticipated, so I thank my Eco-Village comrades for their forbearance (no doubt many stopped wondering ‘Whatever happened to that Indymedia piece we were promised by Tim?’ some time ago) – I’m finding slow-&-high-quality to be the radical antithesis of the time-is-money quick-&-dirty approach, and far better suited to keeping me sane. I can but hope that you agree that it was well worth the wait.
Up the Revolution,
Tim Dalinian Jones
Acquiring These Photos
The pix above are auto-downsized versions for onscreen webpage display. If you would like the free, edited, full-sized versions (up to 3072x2304px, 7.1Mpx, typically c. 3 MB) just click on an image: bingo! You can also right-click on an image and choose ‘Open Link in New Tab' (or similar) to open a full-sized version alongside the report webpage. If you'd like to take a copy of the full-sized image version, right-click on it and choose ‘Save Image As...' (or similar). Share and Enjoy!
All these photos are 'CopyLeft'
This means you are free to copy and distribute any of my photos you find here, under the following license:
• Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
» Human-readable summary - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
» Attribution: tim.dalinian.jones@gmail.com
Footnotes-&-Lynx
[1] Gerard Winstanley and the Diggers, aka the True Levellers
» about Gerard Winstanley – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrard_Winstanley
» about the Diggers – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers
» the Digger Archives – http://www.diggers.org/top_entry.htm
[2] In 1871, the Parisian Communards created a city-wide urban commune
» about the Paris Commune – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune
» about the Parisian Communards – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communards
» History of the Paris Commune – http://www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/
[3] English libertarian socialist William Morris, and his 1890 masterpiece post-revolution sci-fi novel 'News from Nowhere'
» about William Morris – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morris
» about 'News from Nowhere' – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_Nowhere
• ‘News from Nowhere’ eBook at Project Gutenberg – “Offers 40,000 free eBooks to download”
» free access, free to download – http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3261
• ‘News from Nowhere’ at LibriVox – “Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books”
» free audiobook download – http://librivox.org/news-from-nowhere-by-william-morris/
[4] The Diggers-2012 Eco-Village commune by the River Thames at Runnymede
» website – http://diggers2012.wordpress.com
[5] The Putney Debates in the English Revolution – a series of discussions from March to November 1647, between members of the New Model Army, a number of the participants being Levellers, concerning the makeup of a new constitution for England.
» about – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putney_Debates
And as the giant in ‘Twin Peaks’ was wont to say, “It is happening again…”
Subject: [Campaignforrealdemocracy] Urgent Ideas Request - October Levellers' Event
From: Mark Barrett via lists.aktivix.org [marknbarrett at googlemail dot com]
Date: 14 July 2012 [Bastille Day! – TDJ]
Dear Friends and Occupiers :)
Levellers Event - Urgent Request for Ideas
Following GA endorsement for the concept back in December, you may have heard some of us (from the Occupy London Economics, Real Democracy Working Groups, and Commons Grouping) are attempting to facilitate a 21st Century Putney Debates* / Levellers' Event this coming October.
As part of the preparation, I'm casting around for everyone's ideas on what this event should be about. For the first stage, everyone who wishes the event to be a success is invited to say, in three sentences what they would like to happen, and what they want from the Levellers' event.
This request for input in three sentences is stage one in a three stage planning process being developed by Sean B of EWG, using Agile.
So, if you are inspired by the idea of holding an event inspired by this please get in touch with your ideas on what it should be about, and what you would like to get out of it. In case you're wondering the request for three separate bullet point-like sentences is important for the collaborative Agile process which Sean and John B both know all about.
Anyway, this is getting kind of urgent as we are nearly in August. Also I will be away for Ramadan, so please help us get the show on the road in good time by sending something back by latest Wednesday evening so then I can process the responses and send them all in one batch to Sean for stage two to go forward with all your wonderful ideas in the mix!
More info on the history of the Putney Debates* is set out below.
Love and Solidarity
Mark
[*The original Putney Debates, groundbreaking in their time started at St Mary's Church (Giles Fraser's old parish) on October 28th 1647. They ran until November 11th, considering the future of the English Constitution after the removal of the King from the old political order. And of course the Levellers, who sought a democratic constitution based on an 'Agreement of the People,' were famously excluded from the final political settlement. You can read more about them here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putney_Debates ]
_______________________________________________
Campaignforrealdemocracy mailing list
[6] Eco-villager quotes – published in:
• ‘After 800 years, the barons are back in control of Britain’, by George Monbiot, Comment Is Free at The Guardian, Mon 16 Jul 2012
» article – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/barons-in-control-of-britain
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