[GJM] [From: Robert Searle] 'Life in prison? Bring it on'

[Nick St Clare]

Dear Robert and All:

please see http://www.ecotort.gn.apc.org

read ALL of it.......

and realise that non-violent eco-protest is REASONABLE, PRUDENT, AND 
WELL-INTENTIONED; and is therefore NOT CRIMINAL.

furthermore, non-violent eco-protest is PROTECTING LIFE AND PROPERTY, 
and is UPHOLDING THE LAW which is to uphold the police vow of office.

Are the 'Authorities' really intending to arrest and prosecute 
eco-protesters for upholding the police vow of office?

.... that could be rather embarrassing for them, poor souls!








robert searle wrote:
> Dear All,
>
>        A few weeks ago I was in the high street in Slough, and met a small band. It turned out to be a small political group protesting about the possible creation of a new runway at Heathrow, and the potential health, and environmental problems it could cause. Unfortunately, it did not attract much public support as far as I could see. But people did have sympathy for the cause including myself, and even posed with the band for a group photograph.
>
> Later on along with two friends I met a number of the protest group at the Rew Cow public inn. I made the ("facile")point that the Climate Change was a natural phenomenon, and should not ideally be confused with GLOBAL WARMING which is a more serious matter altogether in which the earth could be burnt to cinders!!. 
>
> Anyway, one of the protesters was a certain young lady by the name of Tasmin Omond. She seemed pleasant enough, and I was suprised to see her picture on the front of the Guardian, and also inside in an article along with her fellow activists. I include that very article here on discussion group. It might be of interest.
>
> Another person I met at the protest band, and again at the Red Cow was someone called Barry whom I apparently knew back in my teens when I lived in Stoke Poges.
>
>
> Robert Searle   http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics
>
>  
>
>
> --- On Sat, 31/5/08, Guardian Unlimited <noreply at guardianunlimited.co.uk> wrote:
>
>   
>> From: Guardian Unlimited <noreply at guardianunlimited.co.uk>
>> Subject: [From: Robert Searle] 'Life in prison? Bring it on'
>> To: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk
>> Date: Saturday, 31 May, 2008, 11:49 AM
>> Robert Searle spotted this on the guardian.co.uk site and
>> thought you should see it.
>>
>> -------
>> Note from Robert Searle:
>>
>> ..
>> -------
>>
>> To see this story with its related links on the
>> guardian.co.uk site, go to
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/31/activists.prisonsandprobation
>>
>> 'Life in prison? Bring it on'
>> Plane Stupid's 'Westminster Five' say their
>> Commons protest put Heathrow's third runway in doubt
>> Decca Aitkenhead
>> Saturday May 31 2008
>> The Guardian
>>
>>
>> We're in the most "ridiculous situation",
>> marvels Graham Thompson. "The public are saying
>> climate change can't be that bad, otherwise the
>> government would do something. And the government is like,
>> well, it is that bad, but we can't do something because
>> the public's not ready for it. And the government goes
>> to campaigners and says, you have to prepare the public so
>> they're ready so we can act. And we go to the public,
>> and they say well obviously it's not that serious
>> because the government aren't acting yet. 
>>
>> "I mean, for God's sake," Thompson adds, head
>> in hands, half-laughing. "Will someone do
>> something?"
>>
>> What Thompson, and four other members of the environmental
>> network Plane Stupid, decided to do in February was to
>> scale the roof of the Houses of Parliament to demonstrate
>> against the planned third runway at Heathrow airport. They
>> still do not know if they are going to be prosecuted, or
>> whether their protest will be remembered as a tipping point
>> in the fate of the third runway. What they did, however, was
>> place the anti-aviation debate firmly on the political map. 
>>
>> "If you go back a year, the third runway was
>> inevitable," he says. "Lots of people were saying
>> it's disastrous in terms of climate change, but it's
>> inevitable. Now it's not inevitable. And we would claim
>> some of the credit for that."
>>
>> Plane Stupid has no official leader or formal hierarchy, or
>> media figurehead. It is a loose association of autonomous
>> regional groups, which have staged illegal protests across
>> the UK. Today most of its members will be demonstrating at
>> Heathrow, alongside an anti-airport expansion coalition in
>> which Kensington and Chelsea borough council rub shoulders
>> with the World Wildlife Fund. This legal carnival has been
>> coordinated by Plane Stupid member Tamsin Omond, 23. But
>> the group's ambitions for mass civil disobedience are
>> deadly serious, it warns, and imminent. 
>>
>> The "Commons Five" have been on bail since
>> February. But when we meet this week at a north London cafe
>> they laugh about the bail terms, which ban them from coming
>> within a mile of Westminster. "Was it a square mile or
>> a radius?" says Leo Murray, 31, who is studying
>> animation at the Royal College of Art. They have been
>> granted an exemption: travelling through on public
>> transport. "But what about on my bike?" Olivia
>> Chessel, 20, asks mockingly.
>>
>> Plane Stupid was founded in 2005 by Thompson, 34, Joss
>> Garman, 33, and Richard George, 27. They had been involved
>> in anti-war protests or May Day and Reclaim the Streets
>> movements, before becoming convinced that climate change
>> posed the most urgent threat. But none of the existing
>> environment NGOs at the time were targeting aviations'
>> contribution to that change. 
>>
>> Plane Stupid's first action was to disrupt a London
>> conference of industry heads, letting off helium balloons
>> tied to rape alarms. In 2006, it blockaded the runway at
>> East Midlands airport for 4 hours. In 2007, a high court
>> injunction barred Murray and anyone else who "aids,
>> abets or incites direct action against Heathrow in concert
>> with Plane Stupid" from the climate camp at the
>> airport. Last autumn, its activists handcuffed themselves
>> to the terminal at Manchester, gate-crashed a Commons
>> select committee meeting on airport expansion, and shut
>> travel agencies along the route of a climate change march.
>>
>> More than audacity, what captured people's attention
>> was the smart articulacy of young activists who confounded
>> the eco-warrior stereotype. "That's far from
>> accidental," Murray says. "We just recognise that
>> it's extremely counter-productive to play into
>> people's stereotypes. I mean, I only own a suit for
>> when I'm on TV or in court. Some people in the activist
>> movement were certainly suspicious of ... how prepared we
>> are to play the game ...  At this stage, direct action is
>> mostly a tool of PR."
>>
>> Notwithstanding this media-friendly pragmatism, the
>> network's philosophy appears to be guided by anarchist
>> principle. "We're much more of a disorganisation
>> than an organisation," George says, adding that a
>> condition of membership is a willingness "to get
>> nicked".
>>
>> Each group in the network meets every week or two to plan
>> actions, and every member's opinion is accorded equal
>> value. Despite the recent infiltration of the London group
>> by an Armani jeans-wearing mole, meetings remain open and
>> all decisions must be reached "by consensus".
>> Meetings, Omond concedes wryly, seldom tend to be brief.
>>
>> But in operational terms, the organisation sounds
>> practically corporate. 
>>
>> "You do a risk analysis on any idea before embarking
>> on anything," says Murray. "We look through the
>> laws, and the possible outcomes, and the cost benefit. We
>> do R&amp;D all the time, and some ideas turn out not to
>> be viable, or not likely to give enough bang for our buck.
>> For example, the parliament action, in terms of coverage,
>> would clearly have been worth a custodial [sentence]."
>>
>> The one golden rule of every action is to target the
>> aviation industry, not its customers. "I fully
>> appreciate that at the moment, for an ordinary person
>> making choices on their personal circumstances, which is
>> exactly what you would expect people to do, flying from
>> London to Edinburgh makes sense, because of gross
>> distortions in the travel market," Murray says. Urging
>> anyone to alter his or her "consumption behaviour"
>> is a total waste of time, he continues. "We need to
>> change the conditions of choice - not individuals'
>> minds about things."
>>
>> What Plane Stupid are campaigning for is the removal of
>> that choice - by the closure of all short-haul flight
>> routes. But what about long-haul flights? These would be
>> acceptable, only if they were "necessary". But
>> who would be the judge of that? "We're not policy
>> wonks," says Murray. "But we're calling for
>> some kind of demand constraint."
>>
>> It seems clear that what they are calling for is
>> prohibitive long-haul airfares. But when pressed on the
>> "equitability" of this solution - the rich would
>> be able to continue flying, the poor wouldn't - they
>> keep retreating behind the same disclaimer: "We are
>> not a thinktank."
>>
>> Given their critique of consumer power and alternative
>> theory of empowerment suggest serious and radical political
>> engagement, this seems a rather disingenuous fudge.
>> Thompson's justification: "For us, there is a
>> problem with making unnecessary enemies." In other
>> words, they pick their fights carefully.
>>
>> "I can say you have to limit emissions by this amount,
>> otherwise your grandkids are going to be dead," he
>> says. "If you have a different way of limiting it to
>> the way I'd limit it, let's talk about it."
>>
>> The striking feature of these activists is their
>> politically aware upbringing. Murray's first memory is
>> of the Greenham Common protests; Chessel remembers the CND
>> marches; Omond was raised a Christian and now works as a
>> church administrator. These are the sort of morally
>> principled, highly motivated young adults politicians today
>> dream of. Why have they committed themselves to a single
>> interest? 
>>
>> "In a situation where you need massive, urgent
>> systemic change, we don't really have the system to
>> achieve it," says Thompson. "Electorally,
>> everyone is fighting over the middle ground. So the mere
>> fact that you're not a moderate means you can't be
>> listened to. That means anybody who had the answer to
>> climate change would automatically be excluded from the
>> debate. This is why you can't just think, if I vote for
>> the greenest party at the election, I'll have done what
>> I needed to."
>>
>> "From the individual's point of view," Murray
>> says, "direct action makes perfect sense. It's a
>> rational, proportionate, responsible thing to do." 
>>
>> "And it's incredibly powerful," Thompson
>> adds. "If you look at the number of people who marched
>> against Iraq, if you'd had 1% of that number taking
>> direct action, they could have physically stopped the war.
>> With 10,000 people sitting in the road at strategic points,
>> you can bring the country to a halt."
>>
>> Is that the long-term ambition for Plane Stupid? "I
>> don't want to have to get to that point ... [but] if
>> that's what we'll have to do then that's what
>> we'll do."
>>
>> Plane Stupid is not the first cause to attract politically
>> conscious activists who distrust party politics. But the
>> urgency of climate change does seem to have overridden all
>> the usual fatal distractions and disappointments, thus far,
>> at least. The group's campaign, acknowledges Omond,
>> "doesn't yet have an iconic site but Heathrow is
>> begging to be it ... Like a black woman sitting on a white
>> person's bus. Civil disobedience is going to be the
>> next big political wave."
>>
>> Before Copenhagen, where the next major global climate
>> conference will be held in late 2009, Ormond predicts there
>> will be a place, at least in England, "where people of
>> all different creeds are saying we're here, taking a
>> form of direct political action". Is there an action
>> they are not prepared to risk? "The reality of direct
>> action is being prepared to put yourself on the line, and
>> we need real casualties," Omond says. "If
>> it's life imprisonment for going airside, if that's
>> the penalty our society deems acceptable for someone
>> protesting against a contributor to climate crisis ... then
>> bring on life imprisonment."
>>
>> Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008
>>
>> If you have any questions about this email, please contact
>> the guardian.co.uk user help desk: userhelp at guardian.co.uk.
>>     
>
>
>       __________________________________________________________
> Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
> A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discussion mailing list
> Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net
> http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net
>
>   

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://globaljusticemovement.net/pipermail/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net/attachments/20080531/1bb55d65/attachment-0001.html