I’m sure your thoughts are with Japan. If not, read now. The death count is unbearable, the initial Hollywood-style video footage has become merely a prelude to the suffering which is happening in its wake. In Haiti last year, the earthquake brought with it artificial disasters: US imperialism. the squabbling cash divisions of NGOs, everything [...]
Guest post from Danny Chivers, one of six defendants whose charges were dropped in Nottingham Crown Court this week, following revelations about an undercover police officer who had infiltrated the UK’s environmental protest movement. Here, Danny explains the extraordinary events that led to the collapse of his trial, and what they tell us about the [...]
There’s a song by the short-lived and under appreciated British rock band The Jeevas, fronted by Kula Shaker singer Crispian Mills, called How Much do You Suck and it goes a little bit like this: How much do you have to suck To lose a popularity contest to Saddam Hussein You’d have to be a [...]
In the Huffington Post, the co-founder of 350.org has written a piece titled ‘David Brought A Slingshot, Not A Suit‘, in which the environmental organiser reveals his true colours. It’s too late for lobbying, he cries. That just didn’t work. It’s time to move on from matching the oil companies dollar for dollar. It’s time [...]
This piece is part diary, part analysis, about the Edinburgh Climate Camp, and I’ve *tried* to write it in a way that’s of interest to people with no knowledge of the camp as well as people who went along. If you want to know why we went to Edinburgh, give my pre-camp post a glance. [...]
Guest post by Roland Miller McCall Australia went to the polls today after the most mundane election campaigns anyone can remember. Neither Labor nor the Coalition opposition has engaged with the big issues nor proposed a vision for Australia’s future. In recent days the debate has descended into high farce with the defining issue of [...]
For the last two years or so, I have been engaging in a dastardly plot to destroy the Tory party. Yes, by writing silly outraged-liberal letters to my Conservative MP – to which she must respond – on matters she ultimately doesn’t care about, I’ll hopefully waste enough Tory time and resources to destroy the [...]
In a week’s time, about 1000 people from across the country are going to set up a protest camp in or near Edinburgh. Targetting the Royal Bank of Scotland, it’ll probably be the first big protest against a major bank that the UK has seen in this crisis. In 2008, RBS wasn’t just the biggest [...]
This is the full version of an article I co-authored with Ambika Hiranandani and Roland Miller McCall which was first published in this month’s New Internationalist It is said that the cow is the mother of all civilisation. Of all the images of India, few are more enduring or endearing than that of the cow, [...]
This week I want to write about three things: a film I watched (Milk), one protest I did go to (the Party at the Pumps) and another I didn’t (the Big Gay Flash Mob). What ties these things together is the idea of an activist community. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected politician [...]
