Activism U.K.

activism_uk @ 2008-05-20T23:22:00

2008-05-20T22:22:22Z

MPs reject 20 week abortion limit

An attempt to cut the 24-week upper limit for abortions to within the first 20 weeks of a pregnancy has been rejected overwhelmingly by MPs.

Tory MP Nadine Dorries' proposed cut was defeated by 332 votes to 190. MPs also voted down plans for a 12 or 16 week limit.

Petition against the tattooing of animals for aesthetic purposes in the UK

2008-05-12T23:11:47Z

I'm sorry if you've already seen this and apologies for cross-posting everywhere but I really wanted to spread the word about this petition. It can only be signed by UK citizens. It is against the tattooing of animals for aesthetic purposes. Not only does that cause pain to the animal without any just cause but it can also lead to further complications such as infections and severe allergic reaction. This is completely cruel and unnecessary and I hope some people will sign.

Here is the petition:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/banpettattooing/

I'm sorry if this is inappropriate, though I checked the user info of all the communities I posted to. Please delete if so.

activism_uk @ 2008-05-08T16:58:00

2008-05-08T16:01:10Z

heya,

its a bit quiet here so I thought I would post a question.

How important do you feel it is to be an activist for enviromental awareness as well as political awareness?

For me the two things are inseperable, but would be interested to hear your views. :)

What Better Time? Issue Three!

2008-03-08T18:56:17Z

What Better Time? is the monthly newsheet of the Scottish Climate Activists. March edition is out now. Its available online, and luckily for all you LJers its an LJ!
whatbettertime
This months edition looks at biofuels, the M74 and more!

Hope you like it! x

activism_uk @ 2008-02-19T19:01:00

2008-02-19T19:01:46Z

"I'm not sure if everyone is aware of this, but Ebay is making drastic changes for people who sell and buy on Ebay. If one looks at it from the surface, the changes don't seem too bad. But if you look a little deeper, they're really very scarey."

Recieved from friend this morning:

2008-01-24T17:13:47Z

See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it

We are paying £1 .10 for a litre of petrol. So, Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP & then Shell (because of their appalling pollution history on land and in the seas).

If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!!

WE COULD REACH THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLEBY SPREADING THE WORD!!!

NOT BUY PETROL FROM EXXON/ESSO/BP/SHELL. How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.

AND PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO AN ACCEPTABLE RANGE.

Buy your petrol from the Supermarkets or from small suppliers.

BOYCOTT THE BIG COMPANIES (EXXON/ESSO/BP/SHELL) AND THE SMALL COMPANIES WILL FOLLOW SUIT.

No to Fortress Europe!

2008-01-18T21:53:00Z

There are few things that anger me more than our treatment of immigrants in this country. Especially asylum seekers.

CLICK HERE for an appeal against "fortress Europe". The site has reports and photos from various detention centres in Europe (none from the UK, but I can promise you myself that Dungavel is not a nice place). Keep in mind when you look that these are jails that are not officially called jails, intended for people who have not had a trial, and in the vast majority of cases have done nothing wrong apart from trying to escape persecution in other countries. Whole families of innocent people are locked up in these places, sometimes for years.

For anyone who opposes racism, this is an important issue to be aware of. Please spread the word of this campaign in the interests of raising awareness!

x crossposted everywhere I can think of

Cross Posted

2007-11-21T22:49:37Z

This year's women-only Reclaim the Night march is rapidly approaching. It's on Saturday 24 November 2007. Assemble in Trafalgar Square at 6pm.

The march will be followed by a mixed rally for men and women in the University of London Union with speakers, music and bands until late.

Reclaim The Night Dot Org

Anyone from Northern Ireland?

2007-10-29T22:08:23Z

What do you know about Christian Identity and their presence in Northern Ireland?

Fathers 4 Justice

2007-10-04T21:11:43Z

I havnt seen this mentioned on here before, but what do people think of Fathers 4 Justice? And if any of you have experience, what do you think about Family Law in this country?

I made an Amnesty International pledge at PledgeBank.

2007-07-30T10:07:12Z

It's not, strictly speaking, restricted to the UK, though I'm in Birmingham, and that's where I'll be putting up flyers and stuff.

It says: "I will do something for Amnesty International every day for a month but only if 19 other people will do the same."

Because I woke up feeling terrifyingly productive and cheerful and let's-fix-the-world and stuff. It would be ever so cool if you would all sign up to it.

Honestly, I'm going to this whether 19 other people sign up or not. But obviously it would be super-cool if 19 people did.

The URL is http://www.pledgebank.com/onemonthamnesty, and further details are below the cut. I've also made a blog to keep track of the pledge, with hopefully-useful links down the side, at http://onemonthamnesty.blogspot.com.

Every day for a month (pick a month, any month), I'll do something for Amnesty International, and I'd like you to do the same. It might be something as simple as clicking on the free donation button at http://stopviolence.care2.com/. It might be putting up a poster or rambling about Amnesty International to a friend in the pub. It might be adding your face and your voice to the Control Arms campaign (http://www.controlarms.org/). It might be writing a letter, fax or email to help someone, somewhere, right now (http://www.amnesty.org/actnow/).

I want to do this, and I want you to do this, because it's important. Because Amnesty International are a great organisation. Because I'm making puppy-dog eyes at you, personally, right now. But mostly, because there's a lot of really bad things happening in the world, and we can help stop that. We can be the people who stood up and spoke out, not the people who sat down and shut up.

Also posted in amnestyint.

Climate Camp stencils...

2007-07-19T12:36:13Z

Hello,

From Aug 14th-21st 2007 there will be a Camp for Climate Action at London Heathrow, opposing its planned expansion. There'll be workshops on everything from the science of climate change to how to build your own wind turbine. The Indendent described last year's camp as "A blend of Glastonbury and open-air science seminar." There'll also be direct action against the expansion of Heathrow airport.

www.climatecamp.org.uk

Some folks have made stencils to put up to promote the camp. If you'd like to put some up, that would be awesome. If you're doing the simple 'foot' one, and feel especially cheeky, you can use cress seeds and water to make a fully 'green' stencil...(they'll take on tarmac, brick or pretty much anywhere.)

If you'd like to crosspost the image around, that would be ace...

x

No Borders Camp 2007

2007-06-22T15:54:35Z

Against Borders, Nations and Deportations, no one is illegal

From Wednesday, September 19, 2007 to Monday, September 24, 2007 At Gatwick Airport London

An Invitation to the first No Border Camp in the UK. This camp will be a chance to work together to try and stop the building of a new detention centre, and to gather ideas for how to build up the fight against the system of migration controls.

Gatwick Aiport - The Border Point

Gatwick is a border in the middle of Britain. People arrive here everyday. People are forcibly deported from here everyday. It is a place where people are imprisoned for unlimited lengths of time without trial, where people are forced to hide underground and be invisible, where people are treated as criminals for the 'crime' of crossing the border.

In Britain, the government has recently announced its intention to build a new detention centre, near Tinsley House, another detention centre at Gatwick airport. This will be another in a long line of barbarous prisons across the world, imprisoning people who migrate. Unless we stop it from being built.

Not far from Gatwick there are other border fortifications: the immigration reporting centre at Croydon, the airline companies who charter deportation flights and the ID Interview centre in Crawley. And a few miles away are the border posts at Dover and Folkstone, where fear of detection by the border police forces people to risk their lives hiding under lorries, or in suffocating containers.

While the physical borders get fortified, governments also tighten up the internal controls: from international databases to video surveillance, biometric ID cards to electronic tagging. Just recently, the UK government has announced the introduction of the Sirene System.
This will grant Britain access to the SIS (Schengen Information System), a EU wide police database for refugees and migrants, planned to be extended to keep protesters from moving around.

A Tactics Laboratory

How does daily life, from the need to work for survival to the welfare system, reinforce these borders? How can we fight against the common acceptance of borders, the idea of an inside and outside? How can we claim freedom of movement as a basic right? How do we assert our ability to decide whether to go or stay, according to our needs and desires, not the needs of the state or the economy? How can we escape control, and start building a movement powerful enough to challenge the divisions between people?

We need to share knowledge with those who have broken these borders, the hackers who escape control, those who survive without work and money, those who fight the detention system , those who question identities, those who have learnt to organise themselves without hierarchy or divisions.

Camp(aign)ing Against Borders

This camp is continuing the tradition of the No Border camps across the world since the late 1990s, and like the camps taking place this year in the Ukraine in August and on the US/Mexican border in November. It will be a space to share information, skills, knowledge and experiences. A place to plan actions together against the system of borders which divides us.

We are aware that the struggles for "no borders" reach far beyond "open borders". Without borders the idea of states will become obsolete, without states the national economies will be history. In a world without borders, nobody will ask for papers anymore.

The camp will also be a laboratory of political and practical
self-organisation. The camp will consist only of people's contributions to this. We are aware of the borders which divide ourselves from each other, be it sex, class, race, nationality, or whatever. The border camps are experiments in how to overcome these artificial and
separating identities.

No Borders

No Borders is a network of groups struggling for the freedom of movement for all and an end to all migration controls. We call for a radical movement against the system of control, dividing us into citizens and non-citizens.

We demand the end of the border regime for everyone, including ourselves, to enable us to live another way, without fear, racism and nationalism.

(more info inc. planning meetings see http://noborders.org.uk/index.html )

We move, we meet. We talk, we fight.

Come camp with us. Please pass on this invitation.

Comix, Postcards and Activism,

2007-06-16T20:52:14Z

Environmental justice activism through the sequential arts of comix. 'Read By / Best Before End' is an exciting new project I hope to debut in August at Caption and Climate Camp. Its an anthology aimed at bringing together people who have never drawn comix before and those who have. I'm also looking for a co-ordinating team. If you're interested in utilising the potential of what comics can achieve when married with lobbying, have a look here.

For anyone living in Belfast...

2007-04-10T19:36:34Z

The date has been announced for this years May Day demonstration organised by the Belfast and Districts Council of Trade Unions. It'll be held on Satyrday 5th of May. As with previous years there will be a march through the town centre by local trade unions, leftist political parties, campaign groups and any individuals who happen to feel like going along. There will then be stalls, speeches and live music in St Georges Market.

No times have been announced yet, but I'll post again when the details have been confirmed. Alternatively, once the times are known they'll be announced on the Communist Party of Ireland's website (http://www.communistpartyofireland.ie/) and will probably be on the BDCTU's site (not sure of the address).

I wasn't able to make it to very much of last year's May Day event, but what I did see was very impressive and well worth going to.

New Rule

2007-04-05T18:25:50Z

Lie detectors will be used to help root out benefit cheats

What next?

FOI News

2007-04-05T14:51:46Z

Step forward on Freedom of Information

Controversial government proposals to limit the use of the UK’s Freedom of Information Act have been delayed pending further consultation.

This is a significant step forward for campaigners such as the World Development Movement who have been campaigning against the changes, arguing that the government’s proposals would significantly hinder the ability of individuals and organisations to scrutinise the government.

Consultation on the proposals has been extended to June, and the government has changed the tone of the consultation to ask whether any changes are needed at all.

Tim Jones, from the World Development Movement said: “The World Development Movement makes frequent use of the Freedom of Information Act. The proposed changes would have severely limited our ability to hold government and the corporations they work with to account. Only last month, for example, we used the act to uncover the details of Severn Trent Water International’s involvement in the failed water privatisation in Guyana.”

Maurice Frankel, Director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, welcomed the announcement saying: “This raises the strong possibility that the government will eventually decide to leave the current arrangements untouched. If it does decide to make any changes they are likely to be far more limited than the highly damaging restrictions which had been proposed.

“The decision will now be deferred until after Tony Blair stands down. It is extremely unlikely that Gordon Brown, who is promising to 'renew' the government, would attempt to do so by neutering the FOI Act in the way that had been proposed.”

The UK Freedom of Information Act is a valuable tool for scrutinising the actions of the UK government. World Development Movement activists have taken part in online actions against the government’s proposed changes. Earlier this month, WDM was asked to give evidence to the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee of MPs on how the proposed changes would affect campaigning organisations like WDM.

Further detail can be found at: Freedom of information [.pdf file]
Memorandum by the World Development Movement to the Constitutional Affairs Committee.

Campaign for Freedom of Information

Nick Wright
Press officer, World Development Movement
0207 820 4900, 07711 875 345
Email: nick@wdm.org.uk

Greenpeace prove they're ineffective liberals....again

2007-04-05T02:50:49Z

Greenpeace Condemn Sea Shepherd
Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

First they launch a campaign where Greenpeace activists eat whale meat, then they show up in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary to offer aid and assistance to the damaged Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru and now the Greenpeace ship Esperanza has berthed in Yokohama, Japan with a message for the Japanese people.

And that message is that they love Japan, but please don't kill whales in the Antarctic Sanctuary and oh, by the way, we have no connection with, and we condemn the activists of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Gee, I wonder what happened to the aggressive in their face media savvy hard hitting environmental organization that I co-founded way back in 1972. Back then we shut down whalers on the high seas and equated eating whale meat with cannibalism.
Greenpeace is wrong when they say there is no connection between Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd.

Not only am I a co-founder of Greenpeace and Greenpeace International in 1979, the ship we confronted the Japanese whalers with is named the Robert Hunter, also a co-founder and the first President of the Greenpeace Foundation. In fact the late Robert Hunter is THE founding father of Greenpeace and without his vision, there would be no Greenpeace Foundation today and all those hired crew on the Esperanza would not be so well paid and sitting down to their steak and seafood dinners on the Esperanza each day. (Greenpeace ridicules the vegetarian menu of the Sea Shepherd ships)

This year I had Emily Hunter on the crew of our ship the Robert Hunter. The daughter of Robert Hunter was also joined by Rod Marining, another co-founder of Greenpeace.

What was really shocking is that none of the crew on the Esperanza appeared to have even heard of Robert Hunter.

Despite this, Sea Shepherd provided Greenpeace with the daily coordinates to find the Japanese whaling fleet. They took their time arriving, having stayed in Auckland milking the public for donations as the Sea Shepherd crew undertook high profile confrontations with the whale killers. The Greenpeace ship Esperanza arrived just in time to make a show of offering assistance to the damaged whaling ship.

And now they are in Japan. For the last few days they have been whining about the fact that the Japanese refused to allow them to dock. The issue was that the agent they had hired had withdrawn his services in protest. Officially they were allowed to dock and they have. But they got some ink out of the incident.
Sea Shepherd would not be allowed to dock and we would not be expected to be allowed to dock.

The difference is that Sea Shepherd is a direct threat to Japanese whaling interests and Greenpeace is not. The other irony is that New Zealand and Australia deny docking privileges to the whalers so why would anyone be surprised that the Japanese would retaliate.

Lets hope that the Japanese don't appeal to Australia and New Zealand to be treated the same way Japan is treating Greenpeace. We don't want Japanese whaling ships docking in New Zealand and Australia.

I wish Greenpeace all the success in the world in their efforts to initiate a "debate" over the whaling issue in Japan. It's their money and they can spend it how they see fit although I anticipate lots of debates in the sushi bars accompanied by large volumes of sake.

They can all toast their hosts, eat whale meat to show they are not opposed to Japanese culture and they can come together on the one thing they disagree with and that is both the whalers and the Greenpeacers condemn Sea Shepherd.

And so they should, because we are a threat to both. The only thing making more money off whaling than the Japanese whalers is the Greenpeace Foundation. Last year Greenpeace brought in tens of millions of dollars from their millions of members to "save the whales".

There is lots of money in saving whales if you invest the money into direct mail campaigns, television and internet advertising and door to door solicitation campaigns. That is where Greenpeace funding primarily is directed - towards raising more funds in order to pay the wages and the operating expenses of what has become one of the largest feel good organizations in the world. Let's face it Greenpeace has become the generic environmental organization and people feel when they join Greenpeace that they are part of the solution and not part of the problem.
This is somewhat similar to when Pope Rodrigo Borgia once promised heaven to large donors to the church. It's now special ecological dispensation.

But the fact is that the strength of any movement lies in diversity and it is the diversity of tens of thousands of small grass roots organizations and individuals that is making the difference. As activists struggle in the field financially, the larger organizations rake in hundreds of millions of dollars pretending to address the issues but not wanting to rock the boat for fear of offending part of their donor base.

I know of what I speak. Not only am I a founding director of Greenpeace, I was also a Board member of the Sierra Club USA (2003-2006) and I saw incredible waste of funds and a smoke and mirrors approach of appearing to address problems but not doing very much at all.

The best way to tell the difference between the Sea Shepherd approach to whaling and that of Greenpeace is this: When Greenpeace shows up in Antarctica, they film whaling and buzz the whalers in inflatable boats. The whalers simply continue whaling looking at Greenpeacers as a minor annoyance. When Sea Shepherd ships show up, the whalers stop the killing and they run.

When people ask us why we don't have video images of whales being killed our answer is that since 1977, the year I left Greenpeace, I have not seen a whale die. I saw plenty of whales die when I was with Greenpeace and I was forced to watch frustrated and helpless as the whales screamed in agony and died in their own blood and we were forbidden to interfere.
Greenpeace accuses Sea Shepherd of being violent yet in 30 years of operations we have not injured a single person nor have we had a single crewmember seriously injured. We have not been convicted of a single felony. Greenpeace has had numerous felony convictions and they have had activists killed and injured.
But Greenpeace is desperate to appease the Japanese and towards this end they are condemning the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as an eco-terrorist organization and trying to convince the Japanese whalers that there is no connection between Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace.

There is a connection and that is the fact that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is the original Greenpeace Foundation the way it was before the six figure executive salaries and the thirty million dollar luxury ships that they can no longer afford to lose.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is not interested in touring Japan, sharing whale meat and sake with whale killers and we are not interested in entering years of fruitless debates with the Japanese public over whaling. The majority of the Canadian public is against the seal hunt yet it continues.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is interested in simply upholding international conservation law by directly intervening against criminal whaling operations.

We are not interested in protesting whaling or profiting on the save the whales movement. We are interested in only one thing and that is shutting down the whalers.

If Greenpeace wishes to condemn that objective and to condemn our interventions, that is their choice, but that kind of approach is not going to save a single whale but it may get some drinks bought for them in Tokyo this week.

http://www.seashepherd.org/

activism_uk @ 2007-02-22T19:29:00

2007-02-22T19:29:58Z

Please sign this petition to stop them from banning photography in public places!!

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Photography/

URGENT ACTION ALERT - help halt the Aberdeen bypass

2007-02-08T15:23:29Z

URGENT ACTION ALERT - help stop destructive road proposal

*********************************************************

Along with local communities, Friends of the Earth Scotland, WWF Scotland,
the Woodland Trust and many other groups are opposing plans to construct the
environmentally-damaging Aberdeen bypass.

What is the problem?
This £300 million road will simply encourage more car traffic and increase
climate pollution. It would also cut a swathe through 46 km of countryside -
much of it designated greenbelt and rich in important wildlife.

What should happen instead?
Plans for this road should be shelved. The money should be spent on
sustainable alternatives instead.

What can I do?
We need your help to halt this destructive scheme and put Scotland's
transport policies back on a sustainable footing.

No matter where you live in the world, we need you to formally object to
this road scheme by Friday - the 9th February 2007.

OBJECT to this road NOW at: http://www.raidltd.co.uk/wpr/ObjectRO.html

Thank you

*please pass this message on*

*********************************************************
URGENT ACTION ALERT - help stop destructive road proposal
*********************************************************
For more information visit: http://www.stopthebypass.com
*********************************************************
STAY INFORMED: http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/yourworld
*********************************************************

Please

2007-02-03T02:28:31Z

I stood up for choice today along with several students at Hood College, an historic WOMEN's liberal arts college. We woke today to find a horrible, distasteful prolife protest in the middle of campus. The campus did not want to allow this, but the group threatened to sue them if they did not. It was so offensive targeting nonchristians and rape survivors. We quickly organized a well recieved counter rally that we led for 7 hours in the cold until they took the displays down. The problem is that these people have taken the voice of women away on this campus and I was wondering what some of your ideas would be to take it back? We have to come up with away that does not offend people since that would serve only to divide us more. Any suggestions would be so appreciated! Thank you so much<3

*You can find videos of the counter protest on youtube if you search HOOD COLLEGE. The night videos are the best. PLEASE leave some love and ideas as it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you Thank you.
Namaste<3

activism_uk @ 2007-01-29T19:24:00

2007-01-29T19:28:07Z

Hi, bit of a weird one here but does anyone know if Tesco's toiletries are animal friendly. I can't find any signs on the items and I e-mailed them several times and got no reply. Just wanted to know as a friend of mine mentioned it and then we got talking about animal testing and then we also had a debate on the L'oreal buy out of The Body shop etc, anyway if anyone knows, please lmk.
Cheers

Calling all Irish, or those within the vicinity..

2007-01-26T23:25:48Z

Marijuana March Confirmed!

When:
Sunday 6th May 2007
2pm

Where:
Meeting at Parnell Square, Dublin

This march will be the first form of official protest against cannabis prohibition in Irish history. We encourage everyone to come along and voice your opposition to our failed and hypocritical cannabis laws!

Anti-fascist stickers

2007-01-11T18:51:11Z

Around Birmingham I've been seeing these stickers - black, with a white eye logo, and saying something about "fascist watch" and keeping the BNP off our streets. I want some. Peeling off National Front stickers (they're all over Wolverhampton like a damn herpes outbreak) and drawing over swastikas is all very well, but they're creating a climate of intimidation and exclusion just by being (temporarily) there and visible, and I would like to play them at their own game with some anti-fascist propaganda. Make it clear that they're the ones who aren't welcome. It's just embarrassing to be a white chick with no hair and army boots at the moment.

So, does anyone have any idea where I can get them? I've tried all the obvious places - Anti-Nazi League, Searchlight, Stop The BNP - and I can't find them. Or anything similar, really.

GREETINGS DUCKLINGS...

2007-01-09T22:11:33Z

After an absorbing little chatter with my chums at white_racialism I seem to have uncovered a fixation with Nietzche that the far right seems to have, what do the left feel about this rather dubious and unsound philosopher? Is there another guru for the left (other than Marx and Engels)?