This Crazy World.

This Crazy World

In this crazy world

                    half dead from dereliction

                    half brutalised from deprivation

                    half drowned in a sea of greed

                    half devoured by perpetual need.

Where

                    war shrieks from East to West

                    famine seldom seems to rest

                    hunger stalks the layman's life

                    poverty kills with a silent knife.

We find

                    a pompous pampered arrogant clique

                    live a life that's smooth and sleek

                    far removed from want and fear,

                    bought with another's sweat and tear.

Yet            

                    not a word do the speak

                    to aid the fallen or the weak

                    preferring to kneel at luxury's shrine

                    repeating their mantra, "This is mine".

Now watch them

                    peddle lies of tongue and pen

                    slyly hoard their plunder then

                    with spurious sanctimonious phrase 

                    shed crocodile tears at man's malaise.

Where

                    is it written that masses must sweat

                    deprivation and misery a constant threat

                    covering the world in measureless wealth

                    so the few can plunder with avid stealth?

In friendship

                    let's clasp each human hand

                    with compassion try to understand

                    our differences, our hopes, our fears

                    dragging mankind from this sea of tears.

Creating

                    a world where justice flowers

                    the many reap the fruits of their toiling hours

                    a world of sharing, tending the others need

                    an end to privilege, plunder and greed. 

ann arky's home.

Dirty Fuckin' Hippies.

     It's an old one, but nice to hear. "Peace man" flower power, oh where have all the flowers gone!!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

       ann arky's home.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Circled A Radio, Arrest And Protest.

    Some interesting and informative information from Circle "A" Radio.

Donnacha talks to two journalists and trade union activists, Ewa Jasiewicz - still
under injunction over her arrest at the No Dash for Gas
(http://www.nodashforgas.org.uk/)  protest at the EDF West Burton power station -
and Jason N. Parkinson - who has just settled his second fight against police
production orders (http://londonphotographers.org/tag/production-order/)  - about
their successful court battles and how they fight continues. 

Listen HERE: 

ann arky's home.

Disintegrating Society.

       This is a chapter taken from The Barbarian Review, a collective writing project done by various foreign people in Athens: a few persons passing through a brief period of time, in a very special city. This is a very interesting collection of writings, well worth a visit.

A Kaleidoscope of Memory-Images

      Not a theoretical directive from a bureau pretending to direct affairs, but rather another voice added to a chorus, another emanation in addition to all the others.

*

We are sitting in the Parko, drinking beer as usual.

– Yeah, I know what you mean, he says – Like starting from here we can change the world.

Exarcheia comes from the heart.

*

Rakomelo in the cafe to celebrate the end of the world in 2012.

– Maybe it really will end, we confide with half-hope to one another, almost coughing over the warmed-up liquor. The barman calls back to us our claim about the end of the world in yet another toast.

– No, no, interrupts an old customer in the back, clacking his worry beads as he slowly rises with effort and shuffles over to pay. – No, it is the end of paradise, he says somewhat cryptically. With good humour, the barman tries to correct him, but he is adamant: it is the end of paradise, not the world. And with that, he somewhat unsteadily goes out the door into the night. Yes, we reflect, he is in the right: the end of the working class paradise, the neoliberal paradise, the middle class social-democrat paradise, the scientific progress paradise, all the variations of the Christian heaven come down to earth. We are here at the vanishing of paradise: the social contract, the welfare state, democracy and all that. A new toast:

– Goodbye paradise, hello disaster! little glasses go up – To the catastrophe!

Yes, let us have a toast to this, our new era of storm clouds!

*

      Merkel comes to visit. Athens is waiting. The sky is gray and apocalyptic: not the apocalypse of imagination, thunder and lightning, but the gray mournful waning of the world in its own banality. There is besieged Syntagma surrounded by its riot police, the shops all shuttered and closed, the walls covered with graffiti, and a hateful, angry feeling in the air. The surveillance camera on its gigantic concrete pole is watching the events with silent malevolence. There is something universally ugly, almost frightfully shabby about the scene: Athens is not a beautiful city any more, the riot police are standing there with tear gas at the ready representing the governmental views and projects, the shoppers have all retreated for a brief time, the leftists are chanting their meaningless slogans while slowly trying to filter away from the fighting, and meantime we are collecting chunks of marble and stones. All together now: the riot police are forced back aways under a hail of projectiles, hoots, and derision. More tear gas is the response. Clashes start to spread around the big mob in the center of the square.

       It was not even such a big riot, so far as Athens is concerned, and yet anywhere else in Europe it would be sensational. Even so, it was special for the vision it distilled: here is the contemporary world, the modern era, that of a barely functioning coalition government determined to end the hedonistic apathy that was its only real support. When materialistic doctrines underlie a society, as they have only just done for the past two centuries in the West, there is no love possible between ruler and ruled, no organic connection in the society. This emptiness was especially evident on that day: this is what is left of all the fantastic promises of the past two centuries- a young mob throwing rocks at the universally despised police forces on streets littered with debris and ever-renewed tear gas, the leftists desperately trying to call an uncaring elite to old promises extorted from them under threat of civil war, and this same elite determined to annihilate its own society to save itself. And above all the vacant surveillance camera watching over the fray, the promise and practice of a new totalitarianism but one that is finding its pretensions and power everywhere falling short of its own mad desires, that finds everywhere only a lack of respect and consideration. Empty streets and running rioters, police hurriedly tramping along, Maalox and stun grenades, leaving behind them deserted, smashed storefronts surrounded by chunks of rubble: Welcome to the 21st century.

ann arky's home.

Corporate Gain From Misery.

       I recently posted an article, "No Human Being is Illegal", highlighting the desperate plight  of immigrants on hunger strike in the Netherlands. What we should remember is that this is not a new phenomena, this harsh treatment is widespread, has been going on for years and is a day and daily occurrence in country after country.  It is also big business, companies like G4S make millions from certain human beings being classified as "illegal" and herding them like cattle, depriving them of any rights. It is a sad indictment of any society that makes corporate bodies rich on the back of people's misery. This world belongs to its people, not the political and corporate institutions that at present control our lives.

       The following extract is from an old article from Tiger Beatdown, sent to me by Loam at Arrezafe. Nothing has changed in the intervening time, except that the likes of G4S have made lots more cash.

       "I am a Non Western, South American immigrant in a society that is increasingly determined to get rid of those like me. Media constantly reminds me that we are practically non human. That our rights should be eroded further in the name of safety. Politicians build careers using the rhetoric of hatred against those like me. I was punched in the face, I was elbowed in the stomach on two different occasions by two White Supremacists who objected to my looks and my speaking another language with a friend. Racial slurs were hurled. And still, I know I don’t have it as bad as others. In the grand scheme of things, I am privileged. I am a documented resident. At least, I am not one of the thousands currently in detention camps awaiting deportation. Then my life would be under the control of a corporation that actually makes a profit out off the lives of those who are dehumanized the most. If I was undocumented, my life would be in the hands of someone like this guy, featured in The New York Times this past week:

      Nick Buckles, the chief executive of G4S, would not discuss the company. But last year he told analysts how its “justice” business in the Netherlands blossomed in one week after the 2002 assassination of a politician with an anti-immigrant and law-and-order agenda.
“There’s nothing like a political crisis to stimulate a bit of change,” Mr. Buckles said.

     That’s what undocumented immigrants are: a bit of political change. Except that the security guards working for the company that Mr. Buckles represents had a big degree of responsibility for the gruesome death of eleven asylum seekers who were awaiting deportation in a detention center at Schiphol Airport in The Netherlands on Thursday, October 27^thof 2005. Apparently, the kind of change Mr. Buckles aims for does not include preserving the wellbeing of people whose only crime was to seek an opportunity to better their lives. When detainees raised the alarm and cried for help, when flames were taking over the detention center, the guards working for Mr. Buckles’ corporation ignored them. They were left to die. Nine men and two women. Their bodies now an “opportunity for corporate growth”.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

Workers Know Your History, Sacco and Vanzetti.

     Workers know your history, it is a mirror of the brutality of the state, an institution that will attempt to crush any resistance to its authority.

        It was on May 12th. 1926, that the Massachusetts Supreme Court, against world opinion, upheld the the guilty verdict on two anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti, they were both executed on  August 23rd. 1927.

ann arky's home.

Murder By Legislation.

      The present government in pandering to the dictates of the financial Mafia have introduced numerous savage attacks on the living conditions of the ordinary people. Among some of the most brutal are, the ATOS attack on the disabled, the closing of Remploy factories, workfare slave labour legislation and the bedroom tax. This latter piece of legislation from the warped mind of rich well housed, Iain Duncan Smith, has just claimed its first death. Stephanie Bottrill forced to pay extra council tax because of spare rooms, in a house she had lived in for 18 years, couldn't take any more and threw herself in front of a lorry, she left a letter saying she could no longer afford to live and blamed the government for her death. I can't formulate my thoughts into words that would be adequate for this outrageous crime perpetrated on a 53 year old woman living alone. However, some people can:

ann arky's home.

No Human Being Is Illegal.

    Across the world people are on the move and most are not tourists. As country after country feels the pain of religious faction fighting, in most cases, fueled and instigated by Western military interference, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to mention a few, who can blame people for trying to find a better life for themselves and their families. Then there is the factor of the "developed" states, to aid and abet their corporate masters, waging brutal and devastating wars across the globe, for power, markets and resources. Let's not forget the fact that they also install and prop-up vicious regimes that will play ball with those corporate masters. 

     All this forces ordinary people to flee their own country for refuge elsewhere. People as a whole don't want to just uproot and move across the world, like you and I, where we live has all kinds of ties and associations, culturally and family. It is desperation that drives immigration, Though the corporate West is responsible for vast swathes of this suffering that drives the immigration, we don't treat those immigrants with any degree of care or compassion. As a rule, states mark out immigrants as scroungers, criminals and nerd-do-wells, then herd them into refugee camps and heap more misery on already miserable lives. Immigrants are human beings just like you and I, they care for their families, they fall in love, they grow old, they just want a decent life, but at this juncture in their lives, they desperately need help. No human being is illegal, this world belongs to the people.

This article from Indymedia:

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Hunger and thirst strikes in the Netherlands
 2013-05-10 01:15
CALL FOR SOLIDARITY WITH HUNGER AND THIRST STRIKERS IN DETENTION CENTERS IN
THE NETHERLANDS public indictment against the system of repression we call Fortress Europe.
     About 60 asylum seekers in detention center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, have been in hunger strike for four days now. 18 of them also stopped drinking since Wednesday 6th of May. They are protesting against the asylum policy that criminalizes refugees: they get thrown out on the streets without money or shelter and they get detained in prisons for up to 18 months. The refugees on hunger strike demand not to be treated as criminals anymore. They clearly stated they want freedom and protection. 

     Wave of hunger strike Wednesday May 1st, twenty refugees in detention center Schiphol went on hunger strike. While the guards brutally broke down the strike in Schiphol, by putting the hunger strikers in isolation cells, about 80 refugees in detention center Rotterdam started a hunger strike on Monday 6th of May. One day later, fifty women in detention center Brugge (Belgium) also went on hunger strike. A thirst strike is even more dangerous than a hunger strike: the latter can last for 40 days before people get in a critical situation, whereas a person who does not drink will be dead after one week. Government arrogance The Dutch government has shown an unbelievable arrogance in this matter. At first, they did not respond to the demands of the refugees at all. One parliament member of the ruling party People's Party of the Freedom and Democracy (VVD) even went as far as to say the refugees “were taking the government hostage” by going on hunger strike. 

     Then, as late as Thursday 9th May, they “provided” a worthless “offer”. In return for the end of the hunger strike, the government “offered” to shorten the usual 17 hours a day detainees are locked inside their cell with a few hours. The hunger and thirst strikers of course rejected this ridiculous proposal and they will continue with their protest. But things are getting very serious right now. As of Friday the third day without water begins for the refugees who have no other means of getting their voice out than to go on a hunger or thirst strike. Refugees searching for a better life get thrown into a Kafkaesk bureaucracy of having to provide proof that doesn't exist in order to get their permit to stay. Once rejected, undocumented refugees get thrown out on the streets and get denied basic human rights, such as food, shelter, work and health care. Racist police hunt them down and jail them. In detention, refugees are stripped from their dignity, their autonomy, their lives and their future. Once deported, no one ever hears from them again. Right now, refugees in detention center Rotterdam are directly and unmistakeably demanding their rights and their freedom. The government will have to respond very quickly and adequately, if they don't want to be held responsible for dozens of deaths.
      Call for solidarity We are strongly calling for solidarity from our friends throughout Europe. Solidarity with the hunger and thirst strikers in special; and with refugees in general. The state is aimed at excluding everyone who is not directly exploitable by capital. Make it known how this insane migration policy of repression destroys the lives of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Show your solidarity by spreading this message. Print this letter and glue it everywhere, preferably to walls that symbolize exclusion by Fortress Europe: parliament
buildings, embassies, deportation offices, immigration offices, etc. etc. Letter removed? Glue it again. Everywhere.
TOGETHER WE CAN FIGHT FORTRESS EUROPE!

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/05/509312.html

ann arky's home.

The Cost Of An Uncivilised Society.

      As George Gideon Oliver Osborne, the George was added by himself at the age of 13, continues his slashing at social spending and spouting about financial prudence, it seems these prudence factors only apply to us lesser mortals. When it comes to war, it is acceptable just to throw money away. As the British troops prepare to pull out of Afghanistan, it would appear that the MOD has some 11,000 20ft containers jam-packed with equipment, including vehicles, lying around Afghanistan, but intends to bring back just over half of them. The rest will just simple be abandoned, who knows how many millions/billions of your tax money will end up being shuffled between local Afghanistan wheelers and dealers in black market equipment.

     Then again in another sign of financial prudence, a communications system developed for use in Afghanistan has been delayed to such an extent, that it won't be ready until after British troops are set to withdraw from the country in 2014. Let's not forget that other macho toy of the state, the F-35 jet fighter, estimated cost around the £250 billion, estimated running costs over 30 years will be in the region of £625 billion. Assuming they don't crash or get blown out of the sky, that would of course increase the cost considerably as I assume they would be replaced.

     Meanwhile the Gideon gang are closing day centres, cutting disability allowance, slapping a bedroom tax on the ordinary people and forcing people to work without wages, for multinationals. All because, they claim, we can't afford all the decencies of a civilised society. We can certainly afford all the obscenities of an uncivilised society. One super-duper 1,300mph jet fighter, £61.1 million, would translate into how much affordable social housing? One rather noisy destruction emitting tank, £4.1 million, how many existing homes could be properly insulated? Of course we should remember that the UK is now a drone nation, one drone, £2.9 million, how many free school meals? One thing we should always remember, war kills ordinary people but corporations get richer.

     We would do well to remember George Orwell's 1984, in which the government impoverishes the people with its endless military campaigns against those faceless enemies. 

ann arky's home.

 

Solidarity, Our Strongest Weapon.

      Another link in that chain of solidarity, ann arky has linked to Loam at Arrezafe

       In solidarity we can change our world and turn it away from this needless sea of tears.

A NEEDLESS SEA OF TEARS.

Though we live in a world of callous commerce

and know justice

is an altar where the caring are sacrificed,

see freedom as a river that runs parched

in the fierce desert of poverty,

our thoughts cannot be chained

our dreams will not be caged.

 We will think beyond the profit race

dream beyond the market place

in friendship clasp each human hand

with compassion try to understand

our differences, our hopes, our fears,

dragging this world from its needless sea of tears.

ann arky's home.

Religion, A Vicious Master.

      Islam, like all religions, is an institution of repression and will go to any extremes to to denigrate all those who don't conform to their narrow strict dictates. In Burma those nice Buddhists are burning and pillaging the Muslims, in vast swaths of the Middle East the various factions of Islam are slaughtering each other. We all know what the Zionists are doing to the Arabs around Israel, and let's not forget what the Catholics and Orthodox Christians did to the Muslims as Yugoslavia disintegrated, all in the name of their faith. They all spout peace and love, but practice bitter rivalry that doesn't draw the line at murder, rape, mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing. Religion has been and still is, a major player in the endless slaughter that plagues this planet. Any good claimed by religion can be done by normal human beings without the aid of their many brutal and duplicitous gods, and all the harm and horror done by human beings in the name of their many brutal and duplicitous gods, has to be laid at the feet of those religious institutions, even although they are carried out by confused and deranged human beings.

Photo from arrezafe

Some very brave young women:--

ann arky's home.

The Mask Is Slipping.

      The following is an extract taken from a post on the Anarchist Federation Scotland site. I believe it is well worth being read as widely as possible and repeated in as many places as possible. It allows us to see the real face behind the mask of the so called "democratic" state. Here in the UK the mask hasn't quite slipped, but we have had glimpses of that vile face of greed and repression that lurks just out of sight, and should be aware that the mask will come off and we will have, what I refer to as "bare-knuckle" capitalism, similar to what the people of Greece are experiencing at present. A dying beast can be a dangerous beast.

     ------The financial surplus that would buy off the people, then, no longer existed and the state was failing to maintain control through propaganda.  So instead its mask slipped and it began using all of its violent repression methods against all rebellious social spaces. It was more than obvious that from this stage on any form of resistance would be made illegal and repressed.  The main receiver of the state’s violent repression was of course the anarchist movement, as an example of what would happen to anyone that was willing to question the established oppressive system. The incidents of the massive state repression against the anarchist movement in Greece are innumerable.

Current developments
    The social war in Greece is now at its peak and the once ‘democratic’ state has stopped pretending and been transformed into a totalitarian regime that has as its only purpose to establish the regime necessary in neoliberal conditions for the local and foreign capitalist to exploit in the maximum possible level the social wealth and the people of Greece. A full analysis of the repressive violent attacks of the state to the movement would probably need a lot of pages starting from the new established legislation that label terrorist any form of political action that the authoritarians don’t like – even a political document that questions the capitalist structures can with the new legislation be considered as act of terrorism - to the countless attacks on squats and protests that have led to the imprisonment of hundreds comrades. Such an organised and massive attack towards a social movement hasn’t been seen before in a ‘democratic’ state, let us mention that only in the last few months the state has attacked more than ten anarchist squats and dozens of comrades have been imprisoned.------

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

IWW Appeal.

An appeal from IWW:

SUPPORT YOUR BUS DRIVERS!

END METROLINE RACE TO THE BOTTOM:

REINSTATE OSCAR ALVAREZ

      Oscar Alvarez has been a London bus driver for 8 1/2 years. He reached the 10th position nationwide in Blackpool Best Bus Driver of the Year 2007 competition which to date is still unbeaten by any Metroline driver.

      Now he has been unfairly sacked following a disagreement with a car driver who cut up his bus endangering herself and others. Oscar was simply defending the safety of his passengers and other road users.

      Oscar is also a union activist defending his colleagues from a race-to-the-bottom attack on their terms and conditions - coincidence? Gerry Downing, another union activist, was recently sacked for similar reasons but has now won his job back. Other drivers in similar incidents have not been sacked.

TAKE ACTION: SEE OUR 3 EASY WAYS TO HELP

PLEASE HELP OSCAR

1. JOIN OUR EMAIL CAMPAIGN

Copy the model letter below and email it to Metroline:

• Sean O’Shea (Chief Operating Officer) soshea@metroline.co.uk
• Jaspal Singh (Chief Executive) jsingh@metroline.co.uk
• Nina Johnson (Senior HR Advisor) njohnson@metroline.co.uk
• Metroline Head Office info@metroline.co.uk

MODEL LETTER:

Dear Mr. Sean O’Shea,

Re: Compassionate appeal – Mr Oscar Alvarez

      I am writing to you as a member of the public and Metroline bus passenger to express my deep concern about the dismissal of Mr Oscar Alvarez, ex Metroline driver from the West Perivale Garage. Rather than gross misconduct it seems to me that Mr Alvarez actions should be construed as an attempt to correct the driving behaviour of another driver who had not only endangered her own safety, but also that of her baby and other road users. My understanding is that Mr Alvarez is an excellent driver; indeed has won a national award for good driving on behalf of Metroline. It is my firm belief that his action does not amount to gross misconduct and so I am requesting that you accept his appeal for reinstatement.

Yours sincerely

[Your name]

[ PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR E-MAIL TO london@iww.org.uk ]

2. PHONE METROLINE

Urge them to reinstate Oscar. Please focus on Oscar’s great record as an outstanding driver and on the very weak merits of his case.

• Directors Office: 020 8218 8844 Comments: 0845 300 7000
  
  
  3.   SPREAD THE WORD & BUILD THE CAMPAIGN

• You can do this by
• Leafleting Metroline: Session dates and times will be posted at http://tiny.cc/REINSTATEOSCARNOW
• Keeping up to date via our website https://www.iww.org.uk/ and FB page http://www.facebook.com/london.iww
• Sharing this by e-mail with your contacts

• Thanks…

  An injury to one is an injury to all!  

  
  

  
  ann arky's home.
  

   

Sheffield Anarchist Book Fair.

Worth a visit if you are in the area. Educate, communicate, organise.

Sheffield anarchist book fair.

9 05 2013

ann arky's home.

Austerity And Environmental Devastation.

      Spain, like Greece, is at the sharp end of the financial Mafia's rape and plunder campaign. Stratospheric unemployment, slashing of social services and a fast-track to a sweatshop economy. With the "austerity" comes the devastation as the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) complicit corrupt politicians surrender the environment to the corporate world all in the name of that magical "growth",  but, like the people of Greece, the people of Spain are also fighting back. Protests, strikes and all forms of direct action are an ever increasing part of life.

This from Loam:

      Circumventing security systems, today a Greenpeace activist has jumped on the roof of the super-protected Spanish Parliament and deployed a banner in defense of the battered Spanish coast.

ann arky's home.

Fascist Army Unleashed.

       Is this film proof that the police in Greece are among the most brutal, racist and out of control police force in Europe. Police violence is a widespread daily occurrence, and during this financial plunder and rape of Greek society, their brutality goes unchecked. When the Greek Junta was ousted in 1974, the one part of their filth that was not cleaned up was the Greek police force. It is the same vicious, fascists element that it was from 1967 to 1974. It is a fascist army and it has been let of the leash to instill fear among the local population.

       On 2nd February 2013 Cheick Ndiaye's body was found on the rail tracks of Thissio metro station in central Athens. A friend, who was a witness states he saw Cheick being pushed to his death by two municipality police officers who were chasing him. Cheick was a migrant from Senegal.

This film is part of an ongoing research project in Athens.

crisis-scape.net/

"It was racism that killed him" from Ross Domoney on Vimeo.

ann arky's home.

Waiting For The Barbarians.

      No it's not another poem-a-day month, it's just that I like poetry. I find this poem by Constantine Cavafy 1864-1933 fascinating, so relevant of today with the various states, "enemy without", its manufactured fear of the other, who are never as refined as us!! This translation is by Edmund Keeley.

Waiting For The Barbarians.

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

ann arky's home.

Open Media, Or Censorship.

This Speaks for itself.

Having trouble viewing this email? Click here.

We now know the controversial international agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), threatens to criminalize your online activity including use of your favorite websites. A new chief negotiator named Michael Froman has just been announced. Will you send him a message at this pivotal moment before Big Media lobbyists get to him?

“The Biggest Global Threat to the Internet”: That’s how legal experts describe the controversial international agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).¹

The TPP agreement threatens to criminalize use of your favorite websites—including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and your favourite blog—and even your online comments.² But you can stop it if you act now >>>

A man named Michael Froman has just been appointed as the new TPP chief negotiator. Froman now has a unique ability either to put this secretive, global Internet criminalization plan to an end – or to cement it into place for generations.

The question is: Who will Michael Froman hear from in his first week on the job? You, or the Big Media conglomerates that see the Internet as a threat?

Legal experts are now warning that under the TPP, normal online activities “could lead you to be cut off from the Internet, have your computer seized, be fined up to $150,000, or even land you in prison.”³

Will you *click here* to send a message to Michael Froman at this pivotal moment? We must speak up before Big Media lobbyists convince him to criminalize use of the Internet.

We can do this,

Steve and Josh, on behalf of your OpenMedia team

P.S. After you participate in this time-sensitive action, please help us continue to push this campaign by chipping in whatever you can now—every bit really does help our small team succeed. Thank you for supporting this community in its time of need.

Footnotes

[1] Recent analysis by lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation called the TPP the biggest global threat to the Internet. Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation.

[2] Provisions in leaked drafts of the TPP could prohibit use of “temporary copies”, which according to policy experts at InternetNZ, are crucial: “The Internet—and computing—fundamentally depends on making temporary copies.”

The EFF writes that if this proceeds, “anyone who ever views content on their device could potentially be found liable of infringement”.

[3] The quote comes from the EFF’s Maira Sutton writing in the Daily Dot.

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