Pollok Free State.

           Pollok Free State was a long bitter struggle to save part of Pollok Estate being carved into a motorway to suit the corporate bodies that transport goods for profit, destroying ancient trees & habitat of hundreds of species in the process. Of course the cry from the powers that be was, "it will be good for the economy" and screw the planet. we are fortunate that Spirit of Revolt Archive, has a large collection of photos and documents of the struggle at https://spiritofrevolt.info/simon-yuill-collection/ SoR-25-2-1. All free to view.

 

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info

Resistance.

  

     For September Read of the Month, we at Spirit of Revolt bring you a fascinating booklet of the occupation of Mainshill Woods in Lanarkshire to prevent opencast coal mining destroying the woods. It is from The Hetherigton Collection, T SOR-2.  It details tactics, strategies and survival techniques. Excellent drawings and descriptions. A wealth of useful information. A must read.

READ ON LINE:

Visit ann arky's home at http://strugglepedia.co.uk   

Death For Profit.

      I wrote the following article ten years ago, if you read it, can you tell me, what has changed for the better? If anything I believe it has got much worse, as the greed driven system of capitalism is still hell bent on profit and growth before human welfare.

        We all know that the corporate greed machine is capable of and indulges in the rape and plunder of the planet, and those who are informed are aware of the thoughtless damage it will inflict on individuals in its pursuit of profit. However, how many are aware that it is also poisoning the world’s population and future generations it its drive to fatten shareholders bank balances?
       In the years prior to World War 2 the annual worldwide use of pesticides was almost nil. At present it now runs at about 500 billion tons and increasing year on year. One result of this is that there are, in America alone, approximately 315,000 cases of pesticide poisoning a year. The symptoms of pesticide poisoning are varied and many, some being, memory loss, altered personality, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, headaches, wheezing cough, hyperactivity in children, liver damage, kidney damage, constipation, diarrhoea, severe muscle weakness, decrease sperm count, loss of sex drive and cancer. The worldwide death rate from pesticide poisoning is over 200,000 a year and rising.
      The Environmental Protection Agency states that 30% of all insecticides, 60% of all herbicides and 90% of all fungicides are carcinogenic. Still the march of pesticide production and use thunders on, seeking ever wider and wider markets in search of ever fatter and fatter profits..
       In her book “Silent Spring” published in 1962, Rachel Carson states, “Can anybody believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poison on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life.” Today we produce pesticides at a rate of more than 13,000 times faster than we did in 1962.
       A recent study presented at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society stated, “Remnants of Prozac are flushed from the body and travel in wastewater that reaches streams and rivers — (and) cause female mussels to release their larvae before they’re able to survive on their own.”
       It is now obvious that the corporate world, in its avaricious and never ending pursuit of profits, is poisoning the world. It is your children that are being slowly poisoned, being deprived of their full potential, being dragged into a life of illness and pain, being made intellectually inferior, and of course subsequent generations will suffer even more so unless we can call a halt to this insanity in search of profit.
        Only when we destroy this insane system of profit before the welfare of the people, put an end to the stupidity and greed of the capitalist system and restructure our world on a basis of mutual aid and sustainability will this murder of future generations stop.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Profit Or A Future?

       It is amazing to think that activists were fighting to save the forests in the 1990's, and here we are in 2020 and watching probably the biggest forest on the planet being logged and burnt. We seem to have learnt nothing, the corporate parasite class are still plundering and destroying the planet for no other reason than greed for profit. It is obvious that this would not be able to continue without the blessing of the various states involved. The state and the corporate body are two sides of the same coin, and dialogue and negotiations seem to have failed to stop their plundering and destruction. It will take organisation, solidarity and direct action by the majority of the people to crush this system and bring this murder of the planet and killing of the human species to an end.
     I personally have never been at ease with the policy of spiking trees, however I wasn't there fighting that particular battle, perhaps if I had been, my opinions might have been different.

       The following article is from It's Going Down:  

      This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of the bombing of Earth First! organizers Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney.

      The 30th anniversary of the bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney is May 24, 2020. Usually, Judi’s comrades in the Bay Area commemorate that event every year by going to the place where the bomb exploded under Judi’s car seat as she drove through Oakland, to mark the moment, as well as bringing people together for discussions of radical activism and solidarity. This year will be different in the time of the pandemic. But the date will be marked, nonetheless, as a memory against forgetting.

Judi Bari said, many years ago:

Starting from the very reasonable, but unfortunately, revolutionary concept that social practices which threaten the continuation of life on Earth must be changed, we need a theory of revolutionary ecology that will encompass social and biological issues, class struggle, and a recognition of the role of global corporate capitalism in the oppression of peoples and the destruction of nature.

I believe we already have such a theory. It’s called deep ecology, and it is the core belief of the radical environmental movement.

      Her perspective and analysis shed light on why she was considered dangerous to the corporate status quo and targeted. On May 24, 1990, a pipe bomb planted in the car of Earth First! activist Judi Bari exploded, sending her and fellow activist Darryl Cherney to the hospital in Oakland—Judi with life-threatening injuries, since the bomb had been hidden directly under her driver’s seat. Judi and Darryl were on their way to a roadshow event, organizing for Earth First! Redwood Summer. That explosion, and the subsequent attack on Earth First! as well as Judi and Darryl, by the FBI and Oakland police would forever change the face of forest activism in the redwoods and elsewhere. The bomber was never found, partly because the FBI never conducted a serious investigation, choosing instead to blame and harass Earth First! activists, attempting to frame Bari and Cherney for bombing themselves. A lawsuit filed by Judi and Darryl against the FBI and OPD for violation of Constitutional rights was ultimately successful in 2002, vindicating Darryl and Judi, but coming five years after Judi’s untimely death from breast cancer at the age of 47.

       Redwood Summer was a mass mobilization of students and others who came from across the U.S. to protest the deforestation of the redwood region in Northern California, being decimated by the corporate chain saw. It was modeled after civil rights mobilizations in the south in the 1960s. The summer of civil disobedience and protest in the forests did proceed, in spite of the monumental disruption caused by the bombing and attempts to frame and tear apart Earth First!, and changed the face of direct action organizing at the time.

         There was a planned exhibit dedicated to Judi at the Mendocino County Museum that would put the bombed car and other artifacts of the time on display, to have opened May 1. The pandemic has postponed all of that, but we encourage people to watch the feature-length film, Who Bombed Judi Bari? on YouTube. It tells the story of the bombing, Redwood Summer, Earth First! and much more.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Bicycle Wins.

 

        Away from the hypocrisy, lies, deceit, farce, illusions and downright insanity  of the party political scene, This from Not Buying Anything, is obviously created by a man after my own heart. Like the writer, I learnt to drive before the legal age, I could drive before I left school, thanks to my ol' man.

        I read once that a bicycle is the most efficient form of transportation in the known universe. I am sure it is not far from the truth. I have always thought that bicycles were magic machines.
Riding a bicycle can be up to 5 times more efficient than walking, and can produce the equivalent of about 950 miles per gallon. Number crunchers carefully calculate such things with wonderful equations such as:

P = gmVg(K1+s) + K2VaVg
and
E = 1/2mv2 + 1/4mv2 = 3/4mv2

Oooo, it's science. Here is some more:

One hundred calories can power a cyclist for three miles,
but would only power a car 280 feet (85 meters)

         I have always been impressed with sensible cycling peoples in India, China, and many European countries. As a kid I saw photographs of large Indian and Chinese cities teeming with bicycles, while private vehicles were as rare as persistent killing smog events.
In recent years China has been making the shift from being a 'bicycle kingdom' to one dominated by cars. How sad it is to see former cycling nations make the shift from a sustainable source of transportation to one completely unsustainable.

  Member of Environment's Angels bicycle gang

        I started out on unsustainable transportation quite early. I bought my first car before I was old enough to drive it legally. The day I got my driver's licence I ceased to walk or cycle if I could drive instead.
That was a big mistake because I came to miss the freedom, enjoyment, and simplicity of walking and biking. But I was destined to return to my beloved cycling eventually.
Part of the problem has been that the auto industry has us sucked right in to the whole car mystique. We feel like we can't live without them, that we are somehow incomplete without hauling our two tons of glass, metal, and rubber around with us everywhere we go.
However, increasingly aware recent generations are not as enthusiastic about car ownership, and the sales of cars is projected to fall in some markets in the future.

        I am also increasingly unenthusiastic about driving. While we still own a vehicle, we only drive it about 3000 km a year, well below the average of 20,000 km.
I find driving less enjoyable than I used to, and instead of being a 'freedom machine' it is beginning to feel more like an anchor.

 Bicycle cargo carrier from Denmark hauls up to 100kg of freight

        For shorter trips (below about 20 kms return), I usually ride my bicycle. It keeps me fit, saves money, and is more sustainable. And it is fun.
        Based on the principles of energy efficiency and sustainability, there is no contest. No car can deliver 950 miles per gallon. Nor will you burn much fat while driving.
The bicycle wins.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Late World Poetry Day.

 

      Considering it was the day before my birthday, I guess I must be getting old, I missed World Poetry Day, it was yesterday March 21st. However, as they say, better late than never.

Just Imagine!

If only we could find the imagination

to see this world as one rich colourful nation,

not a collection of camps, insular and small

always eager to mount a border brawl

sending forth an army of fruit growers

to shed the blood of some seed growers,

holding high a coloured rag

proclaim, "the blood I shed is for this flag",

believing this justifies the countless dead

across nature's beauty spread.

Can't we learn from yesterday's errors

borders breed false fears and foolish terrors;

each flag waving hand sows the seeds

of tomorrow's pointless brutal deeds.

If only we could find the imagination

to see this world as one rich colourful nation,

all free to walk our chosen path

free from fear of the stranger's wrath.

A brother, rich or poor we can accept

a different coloured skin is cause to reject,

smile at a brown eyed sister with reddish hair

yet mock one who walks a jungle path, bosom bare.

Shower with praise and welcome embrace

anyone from our spurious race,

greet with snarl and angry glare

those strange people from over there;

then useing our culture as some kind of shield

guarantee our future in isolation sealed.

If only we could find the imagination

to see this world as one rich colourful nation. 

A new Dawn.

Today we live in a peace

midst a thousand pygmy wars;

a humanity bankrupt by its past

dragged wearily through darkness and despair

yearns for a day that's cast

long, warm and fair,

a dawn that sees humankind discard

its class, its nation and prepare

to grind outworn creeds to dust,

so mankind naked is revealed,

then moving with common cause,

share

what such a dawn may yield.

Our Children's Inheritance. 

Blind to the future's unrisen dawns

we change nature to industrial debris.

Lead our children to a terrifying land

there to let them do or die.

Consign our children's children

to

poisoned air, a sterile earth,

set hungry faces fishing on some odious fishless sea.

Bequeath them a silent world

where

no feathered friend wings and sings

no hare, no fox runs free; by our efforts guarantee,

no wondrous woodlands, no wild forests,

no blushing bloom of spring,

no clear streams, no rolling meadows,

no fresh breezes blowing in on a bounteous sea.

How can we meet their trusting eye

when our legacy they acquire;

children

who by our actions will receive

a thorn in every kiss, from every mouth a lie.

What will our heart reply when asked,

"Why no harmony with nature?"

"Why has the truth been masked?"

         I can hear you say, "OK, so you missed the day, but there was no need to go into overdrive!!"

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Spaceship Earth Has No Escape Capsule.

 

         Two policies that will, in my opinion, eventually destroy the planet for human habitation, one is the illusion of perpetual growth, and the other is the continuous wars that are engineered to support that illusion. At the moment practically the whole of the Middle East is a hell-hole of bloodshed, destruction and unbelievable misery for millions of ordinary people, and this is just one strand of what has been continuous wars imperialism has foisted on the planet. These wars are to hold/gain or increase control over resources to feed that illusion of continuous growth, or they are to protect markets, create or capture new markets, or to prevent another force from gaining ground in that field. The driving force is capitalism's insatiable insane philosophy of "perpetual growth", a policy of rip the planet apart  to feed the greed of the corporate world. Where and when will it stop, will the corporate world one day say, well I think we have done enough damage, let's start to try to repair the mess we have created? If that's what you believe, you will be a spectator to humanity's destruction. The when and where is up to the ordinary people, the world belongs to all life that lives on, and depends on, the planet for survival, and if we don't stand up and fight for it now, our home will be lost forever. Just remember, spaceship Earth has no escape capsule.

Global Fuckin Warming from subMedia.tv on Vimeo.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Where Do We Live When We Finally Screw The Planet?

 

       A call for all you environmentalists, Earth Firsters, etc., to share you ideas, actions, hopes and fears. Magazines like Earth First can only survive because of people like you, if you like and want the magazine, then put pen to paper, of course today it might be finger to keyboard, but you know what I mean.

From Tarcoteca, a Call from Earth First:

We want your writing!
For a semi-regular zine of activist reflections and actions.

       This is an invitation for articles offering a critical analysis and reflections on Earth First! and related environmental and social justice direct action movements, how we organise and the actions we take. Contributions can be about actions in the UK or international. We also welcome book reviews, activist resources, short rants, illustrations, cartoons, poems and photographs. We suggest 500 – 2000 words for articles, but contact us if you want to do something longer.
        We aim to have a zine in print and online by the Earth First! winter moot 2017. All articles will be copyleft and you can choose whether to write anonymously. Deadline November 30 2016.
      Also contact us if you want to join our editorial collective or offer us funding. zine@earthfirst.org.uk or contact us if you want to send an article by snail mail.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

US Prison System And Environmental Damage.

          An interesting article by a comrade in America who visited us in Glasgow a few years back, and we organised an event where he and his partner held a chat, questions and answers evening. He and his partner are long-term "eco-warriors, and the chat was about the attack on the environment and their tactics to fight this toxic looting and plundering of our planet. Still fighting, he draws connections between the American prison system, apart from the damage to the humans incarcerated in these monstrosities, and the damage they do to the environment. 

This by Panagioti Tsolkas, in "The Campaign To Fight Toxic Prisons".

       The United States Bureau of Prisons is trying to build a new, massive maximum-security prison in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky — and there’s a growing movement to stop it.
        The prison industry in the US has grown in leaps and bounds in the past 20 years— a new prison was built at an average rate of one every two weeks in the ’90s, almost entirely in rural communities. As of 2002, there were already more prisoners in this country than farmers. The industry seems like an unstoppable machine, plowing forward at breakneck speed on the path that made the world’s largest prison population.
       Today, about 716 of every 100,000 Americans are in prison. Prisoners in nations across the world average at 155 per 100,000 people. And in the US, Southern states rule the chart. Viewing these states as countries themselves, Kentucky ranks at lucky number seven.
        “Sounds terrible…” you may be thinking, “But what does it have to do with the environment?”
          Well, this seemingly impenetrable multi-billion dollar bi-partisan government-driven industry does have a weak point: it’s a well-verified ecological mess. For a 10-year period of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Prison Initiative, prison after prison that the EPA’s inspected in the Mid-Atlantic region was plagued with violations. Violations included air and water pollution, inadequate hazardous waste management and failing spill control prevention for toxic materials.
          Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that the Bureau of Prisons’ latest plan for a new maximum-security federal prison is on a former mountaintop removal coal mine site, which is still being drilled for gas, and which is located amid a habitat for dozens of endangered species. Where else but Appalachia?
         The proposed half a billion dollar facility is to be located in Kentucky’s Letcher County. If built, this would be the fourth new federal prison in eastern Kentucky, and the sixth federal prison built in Central Appalachia, since 1992, making the region one of the most concentrated areas of prison growth in the country.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

The Murder Of A Planet.

        It is now obvious that the corporate world, is destroying the planet. Ground water is contaminated, rivers are polluted, oceans and seas are poisoned, glaciers are melting, forests are stripped bare. Natural habitats disappear under a carpet of tarmac and industrial constructions, more and more species become extinct. All this is done for profit to benefit the few. If we continue as we are doing, it is only a matter of time before the species responsible for this insane destruction of our planet will join the ever growing list of extinct species.
       Where does the state stand in all this? Take a glance around and it becomes obvious. Where resistance to this killing of the planet grows and gets in the way of corporate profit, the state apparatus, as the corporate world's hit squad, moves in and attempts to crush that resistance to the corporate greed and insanity.

       This appeal for solidarity from the Hambach Forest, where mining is set to destroy the entire forest.

 Info

            Short facts about the lignite mining in Rhineland (Germany)
           In the Rhineland in Germany, the company RWE is running 3 lignite mines where they extract around 100 Mio. t of lignite each year. Furthermore they run 5 power plants where the coal is being burned in order to produce energy. This industry causes aroung 100 Mio. t CO² per year, sets free a lot of fine dust as well as heavy metals, radioactive elements and other pollutants.
         To preserve the mines from flooding with water the ground water level of the region is being lowered to a depth of around 500m, which brings heavy consequences for the nature.
In addition many villages are being „relocated“ which means that the people there are forced to move and the land is being destroyed and contaminated.
       For the biggest nowadays running mine there – the mine ‚Hambach‘ – the forest ‚Hambacher Forst‘ is being cut since 1978. The plan of the company is to completely clearcut the forest until 2018.

The world's is largest digger at the RWE mine in Hambach Forest.

Second Day of Evictions! Support needed!

        Yesterday morning the meadow occupation was surrounded by police. This turned into a huge police operation: All main paths in the forest were cleared, fixed and broadened,, all barricades and tripods destroyed. Until today three unoccupied occupations were evicted (Crusty Town, Pizza, Molly). Police forces are still present all around, chasing people who try to build new barricades.

       This is an urgent call-out for all kinds of support! What has happened the last two days is a massive attack! Because all the roads are cleared and passable for big machinery it’s important to protect the forest occupations NOW!

         Come to the Hambach forest, we need food, water, blankets and most of all more people with fresh energy!

15.03.2016

19:30 For now the situation is calm again, seems like the cops left the forest.
17:10 Police chases activists who are trying again and again to barricade the roads.
17:00 Cops cut a rope in Oaktown and peppersprayed one other. This is hindering
food/water supply, climbing up or down is impossible now.
14:30 evicted until now: Crusty Town, Molly, Pizza (all platforms were not occupied at that time)
the meadow is surrounded again by cops, some on horses
tunnel near Molly is destroyed
11:00 copcars are patrolling in the forest

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

"The Anti-Humanity" Award.

        If there was an award, perhaps we could call it "The Anti-Humanity" award, for the most destructive section of capitalism, it would be a very difficult to come to a decision as to where that award should go.    

    We have the various mining industries, including fracking, ripping apart ecosystems and poisoning the environment. We have the garment industry, cheap labour and appalling conditions in sweatshops across the world. We have the nuclear industry with its Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, to mention a few. Then there is the financial Mafia, plundering countries and devastating living standards of millions. Let's not forget the multinational forestry companies, ripping the heart out of indigenous communities in country after country. The contestants are all so devastatingly destructive to human life that it is difficult to imagine how we let it get this bad.

      This extract is from Earth First and highlights just one area where the forestry industry is destroying the environment and killing people, but the people are fighting back.

 Forestry Companies: The Ugliest Face of Capitalism in Wallmapu

      The forestry companies represent the worst aspect that Capitalism has shown to Mapuche community members in Wallmapu. Their extreme extractive activities have only generated disaster for communities, including toxic fumes, the dissapearance of rivers, brooks and streams, as well as the extinction of the natural flora and fauna of the area which serve as food and medicine for the Mapuche People. These are the main effects, among others, of the industry financed by the Chilean State through Law 701.

       Moreover, the enormous extensions of land currently held by the Forestry companies lie on stolen land from Mapuche communities. These corporate properties are directly related to the territorial plunder of the Mapuche People.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PANAGIOTI.

        In Glasgow in February 2012 I arranged an Earth First talk/discussion/meeting with two America Earth Firsters, Panagioti and his partner Carla. The evening was a great success. They have been life long campaigners in trying to get us all to treat our precious planet with more respect. As usual I am a bit late with the birthday wishes, it was Panagioti's birthday on the 28th December, happy birthday comrade. It appears it will be a double whammy for him and Carla as the birthday will be followed by the birth of their first child. Congratulations.

This from Earth First Magazine:

        If industrial civilization were to collapse any time soon–and its looking like it could happen any day now–it’d be in no small part due to the rather outrageous and tireless misadventures of a little known biocentric biped called Panagioti. 
    Though he has no formal education past 10th grade — “diploma-free and proud” as he’d say — you’d be hard pressed to find a smarter and more politically influential animal amongst the more radical environmental milieu, especially in the South. He’s also a real sweetheart, a soon-to-be-father, my best friend and all around nice guy and superhero.

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A SAD SOLSTICE EVENT.

      The winter solstice brings about many strange and some memorable events, some joyous, some sad. It was during the 2005 winter solstice that on of the Earth Liberation Front, anarchist, environmentalist movement, took his own life while in Prison. We should always remember those who believed so passionately that they couldn't be bound by the state. Remember Bill Rodgers, a.k.a. Avalon, committed suicide in prison on the 21st. December 2005.

This from Wikipedia:

       Bill Rodgers a.k.a. Avalon (died December 21, 2005), co-proprietor of the Catalyst Infoshop in Prescott, Arizona, USA, was one of six environmental activists arrested December 7, 2005 as part of the FBI's Operation Backfire. He was charged with one count of arson for a June, 1998 fire set by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) at the National Wildlife Research Center in Olympia, Washington. He was found dead in his jail cell on December 21, 2005. According to police, Rodgers committed suicide using a plastic bag.[1]

Government claims

      The FBI has claimed that Rodgers was a criminal "mastermind" and the anonymous author of Setting Fire with Electrical Timers, an Earth Liberation Front Guide,[2] which explained in detail how to create an incendiary device known as a "cat's cradle". Authorities said that once the guide was published they no longer were able to tell with certainty when the ELF cell connected to Rodgers was responsible for an arson.

Death

       Rodgers wrote a suicide note[3] which he mailed to a number of his friends:

To my friends and supporters to help them make sense of all these events that have happened so quickly: Certain human cultures have been waging war against the Earth for millennia. I chose to fight on the side of bears, mountain lions, skunks, bats, saguaros, cliff rose and all things wild. I am just the most recent casualty in that war. But tonight I have made a jail break—I am returning home, to the Earth, to the place of my origins. Bill, 12/21/05 (the winter solstice.)

Many activists blamed two co-operating witnesses for Rodgers' arrest, both of whom are alleged to have been very close friends and members of the same ELF cell as Rodgers and agreed to become informants for the FBI.[4]

Continuing influence

      Rodgers has had a continuing impact on various anarchist and radical environmentalist movements. A number of acts of civil disobedience have been dedicated to his memory. Among these have been the removal of 28 beagle puppies from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Independent University of Madrid [5] and the burning of a partially constructed development in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

ann arky's home.

SCOTT CROW ON CIRCLED "A".

The latest from Circled A:

       Scott Crow is a community organizer, writer, strategist and speaker who advocates the philosophy and practices of anarchism for social, environmental, and economic aims. For almost two decades he has continued to use his experience and ideas in co-founding and co-organizing numerous radical grassroots projects in Texas, including Treasure City Thrift, Radical Encuentro Camp, UPROAR (United People Resisting Oppression and Racism), Dirty South Earth First! and the Common Ground Collective, the largest anarchist influenced organization in modern U.S. history to date. In addition to grassroots organizing, he has worked for regional and national organizations, including Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Ruckus Society and A.C.O.R.N. With his partner, he produced the documentary film Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation. These political activities lead to him being labeled a “domestic terrorist” by the FBI beginning in the late 90s with investigations that continued for almost a decade.

(http://thecircleda.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/circleda_20_11_12.mp3)

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WE ONLY HAVE ONE EARTH.

        One call that is universal from all sane and reasonable people is that we develop the world in a sustainable manner. However our corporate fascists, who control the world at the moment, it is a matter of rape and plunder the planet as fast as possible for maximum profit, it's a case of rip the world apart to fatten greed driven shareholders. One of the worst offenders in this destruction of the wee orb on which we live, for the sole purpose of wealth, is the oil industry and they are determined to take that record further by means of the devastating "tarsands extraction". Fortunately the opposition is growing and in America and Canada, Earth First is leading the battle against this insane greed driven policy.

This is an appeal for support:

Friends, comrades, and allies:

In the heartland of Texas, camped in the backwoods among armadillos and water moccasins and deeply rooted small farmers and ranchers, we at Tar Sands Blockade are engaged in what may be the largest direct action battle of our time. We are mobile, skilled and powerful, and though we number in the dozens, the magnitude of what we face demands a call to action. As many of you know, Tar Sands mining is the most ecologically destructive project on planet Earth, and the Keystone XL pipeline is a major piece of infrastructure that will allow for greater Tar Sands extraction and profit. The pipeline is proposed through over 2100 miles of farmland, forest and prairie in eight states and provinces and likely oil spills from this threaten much of North America’s water table including the massive Ogllala aquifer. For more on the issue visit http://stoptarsands.org/.

       TransCanada is a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation with the government on their side. They have a history of leakages from their pipelines. We are aligned against this enemy in an unlikely coalition of allies: local residents fighting eminent-domain land seizures, forest defense veterans, conservatives concerned about corporate/government intrusion on family lands, liberals concerned about climate change, and radical blockaders directly doing battle with the behemoth.
       Our adversary is everywhere. They are building this pipeline as we speak, in many different places at once. Clearing crews are mowing down swaths of trees, some over a century old, and tearing up farmland right next to people’s homes and water sources. It’s a massive project but we still anticipate stopping them at some key points that can ideally shut down the entire
operation. We can’t fight them everywhere but are trying our damnedest, and need a lot of help.
       We are utilizing a true diversity of tactics in this fight, including community cookouts, lockdowns, public rallies, meme warfare, arboreal dwellings, roving bands of mischief-makers, and more.
We need all skill sets, including: videographers and media specialists, medics, chefs, vehicle mechanics, tree-sitters and riggers, lockdowners, forest scouts, community organizers, welders, carpenters, and badasses of all trades.
       The most important thing is to come down here and plug in, but other ways to help include publicizing the Tar Sands Blockade on Facebook, Twitter etc., donating and/or raising funds and supplies including climbing gear, holding teach-ins in your bioregion, organizing solidarity actions against TransCanada and their enablers, and just generally spreading the word to help us increase our numbers as quickly as possible.
       We are a small crew of Earth First!ers and eco-anarchists engaged in tactical elements of the larger Tar Sands Blockade campaign. We’re requesting help from you, our comrades, to come join us as quickly as possible. If you have questions or want to discuss this at all, please email noneshallpass@riseup.net.
See y’all in the woods!

ann arky's home.

GLASGOW EARTH FIRST, AUDIO.

          The audio file of the Earth First talk/discussion held in Glasgow on May 20 It is now on-line and can be listened to at Radical Glasgow, Just follow the link HERE and then click on Earth First Glasgow, enjoy. Comments and feed back would be welcomed.

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