Red & Black T.V. ANOTHER ELECTION SPECIAL

Message from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Southampton Branch.

Dear All,

on Sunday 24th May we will be holding our annual sponsored walk.

The walk will be a slightly longer route than the last few years. We will meet at Shawford station at 10.20am and walk from there to Winchester station – an 8.5 mile route.

Please contact me if you are interested in participating and I’ll be able to provide you with a sponsorship form. If you are not able to attend please consider sponsoring one of the participants. Proceeds from this walk will be split equally between national Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Medical Aid for Palestinians, and our own branch group – Southampton Palestine Solidarity Campaign. This annual walk is our only income as a branch group and we rely upon this money for the events that we hold throughout the year such as paying speaker expenses for public talks that we hold, etc.

Kind Regards,

Adam Waterhouse

Branch Secretary – Southampton

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Autonomy film show in Bridport, Sat. 2nd May 2015.

Events organised by others.

23rd April.
Frome Friends of Palestine. Peace Building in our Community – Stories from three Palestinians. The Ammerdown Centre, Ammerdown Park, Radstock, Somerset, BA3 5SW Tel: 01761 433709

Between Frome and Radstock.

Bar opens 7.30, starts 8:00. Admission free.

​Sat 25th April.
38 Degrees NHS Day:  Meet Bucky-Do Square at 11am to leaflet and get signatures for petition*,  drawing attention to what is happening to the NHS and to encourage Election candidates to see the groundswell against privatization.​

*didn’t we do all that 5 years ago? – ed.

28th April
South Somerset Peace Group. Journalism and Solidarity, Passion and Bias. Minster Rooms, Ilminster. 7.30pm ; all welcome – £3 appreciated, including tea/coffee .

Election posters 2015.

Pdf files: Don’t vote…             COP-OUT                        FALANGE

Events around Mayday 2015.

We’ll probably add more as we hear of them, send us yours!

Why we celebrate May Day.

Bridport: Sat 2nd May 2015. Autonomy film show, The WI Hall, North Street, Bridport.

Brighton: Mayday weekend, 29 April – 4 May, Hosted by Brighton Solfed

29 Wednesday – Syndicalism and Education Sussex Uni Fulton building 113 = 6−8pm This event will feature an introduction to the current campaigns engaged in by SolFed, along with a discussion of contemporary issues pertaining to education and how they relate to workers’ control. The documentary “Street Politics 101” will also be shown.
01 Friday – MayDay
2 Saturday – Syndicalism in Brighton at the Cowley Club 4−6 pm
03 Sunday – Roast + Film and Discussion after at the Cowley Club 1−6 pm
04 Monday – Demonstration 12 0’Clock from Old Steine + picnic

Bristol: Friday 1st May. May Day Demo – Combat Workfare with Bristol Anarchist Federation

We’ve been lucky to mark International Workers Day (1st May) with some effective & fun demonstrations and direct actions for the past four years.

Last year we directly a large local organisation to end all involvement with workfare – picture of the demo is the one above! This year we hope to build on that, and our other anti workfare successes.

Boycott Workfare have called for a week of action that covers May Day, we aim to target a couple of companies who are profiting from the forced exploitation it represents – and hopefully help out some people affected by the schemes at the same time.

We’ll post more details nearer the time, yes we know its during the day on a workday but we also know a lot of you use any means at your disposal to avoid working on May Day! If you are forced into it you have our sympathy, if not see you on the streets again!

Gig afterwards

Cardiff: Radical Workers Bloc  Saturday 2nd May facebook

Caerdydd: Bloc Radicalaidd y Gweithwyr.

“THE DAY WILL COME WHEN OUR SILENCE WILL BE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE VOICES YOU ARE THROTTLING TODAY.”

– (August Spies on the scaffold before his execution)

South Wales Anarchists will be demonstating in Cardiff to celebrate this years May Day. Originally a pagan festival, the modern May Day bank holiday has its roots in the fight for the eight hour day and is celebrated across the globe as an International Workers’ Day to commemorate the anarchist trade union organisers who were executed in Chicago 1887. They were framed and wrongly accused of throwing a bomb at police breaking up a crowd in the Haymarket during a demonstration involving over 400,000 working in Chicago on May 4, 1886.

The anarchist idea did not die with these workers in 1887 and continues to be the inspiration for many fighting capitalism around the world. We call on all those struggling for a world of justice, dignity and freedom to come together and join us this May Day in Cardiff.

Bring your red and black flags and class struggle banners!

Meet at 12 noon at the southern end of St Mary St, under the railway bridge near the Great Western Wetherspoons. March starts at 12.30 through the streets of Cardiff City centre to…. somewhere with no bureaucrats’ speeches!!!

London: Reclaim the Beats – join the Fuck Parade! Class War 12V multi rig street party at 1 Commercial Street, London, from 6pm on Friday May 1.

Sisters Uncut Bank holiday action 4th May 2015, The Scoop. Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2DB

Direct action to prevent cuts to vital domestic violence services. Open to self-defining women only. This includes trans* and intersex women, as well as those with multi genders that include ‘woman’. We invite male allies to support us by creating hype on social media and by facilitating their sisters to go in any way they can. For more info on Sisters Uncut check out our FB page or our Twitter @sistersuncut.

Manchester: 0161 Festival Friday 1st, Saturday 2nd, Sunday 3rd May 2015 Facebook

Milano: NoExpo 2015

May 1, 2015: from Milan, capital of the crisis, to Europe.

After seven years of crisis the precarious pride has become rage and indignation against the burgeoning unemployment and the growth of poverty imposed by BCE & IMF  to most of the population with austerity policies, particularly in Italy, Greece and the rest of the Latin Europe. Social slaughter, plunder of wealth and common goods, the end of the public city are the bases upon which governments build their response to the economic crisis.

Make a week of it:

APRIL 28: INTERNATIONAL NO EXPO CAMPING. Until May 3 with debates and workshops
APRIL 29: THE CITY OF MILAN AGAINST THE FASCIST MARCH
APRIL 30: NATIONAL STUDENTS DEMONSTRATION
MAY 1: #NOEXPOMAYDAY
MAY 2: MOBILIZATIONS AGAINST EXPO
MAY 3: GENERAL ASSEMBLY for 6 months of mobilizations
FROM MAY 3: 6 months of meetings and conflict against and beyond the Expo paradigm.

Plymouth: TIME TO GET RID OF THE RICH – ANTI CAPITALIST BLOC – PLYMOUTH MAYDAY MARCH 2nd May.

Tyne & Wear:

Red & Black T.V. ELECTION SPECIAL 6 – Tories, Labour, neck and neck. Or are they?

Red & Black T.V. ELECTION SPECIAL 5 Trident, nuclear Armageddon is good for U.K.

Labour And The Tories, Not Just Fucking Wankers But Fucking Idiots Too

the void

Only a bunch of spivs and two-bit confidence tricksters like the current Tory front bench could have come up with a reckless get rich quick policy like extending right-to-buy to hosuing associaion properties.

Handing a small number of tenants a huge tax-payer funded give away whilst decimating the supply of desperately needed genuinely affordable housing is quite possibly the single most stupid fucking thing that any politicans could do in the midst of an escalating housing crisis.  And there is some stiff competition. Labour’s policies to build more homes no-one can afford or introduce regional benefit caps so no-one can pay their rent are equally fucking stupid.

A further cap on housing benefits will only lead to yet more homelessness and both parties want it.  The truth about the benefit cap that has already been introduced is that many people’s benefits haven’t been capped – their housing costs are simply…

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Support independent anti-capitalist Cubans of the Observatorio Critico.

Please share this campaign to raise money to support the trip of anarchist comrades from Cuba to Europe in June:

Gofundme – Observatorio Critico Cubano

Now that the border is opening after many years a time for change is coming, full of possibilities and danger for Cuban society and perhaps for all of us. We want to make our voices, our social views and proposals for self-managed co-operativism heard. We ask for your help to cover the expenses for our network of collectives and social initiatives in Cuba.

We are the Observatorio Crítico Cubano. Our projects include years of work for non-violence, the struggle against racism, LGBT rights, the recovery of our Indigenous and Black original heritage, Ecology, the development of Open Source computer culture, communities for mutual aid in mental health, support for childhood education by means of non-competitive and non-adult-centered child play, cultural research, promoting self-managed socialism, and the crafting of proposals for building Cuba’s future from an anarchist perspective.

We work towards a world where the public space is the birthright of all the people, not just a few powerful minorities. A world where those decisions, which affects the people, are not discussed and arrived at out of sight of the majority. In this world the highest praise is reserved for those initiatives where neighbors gather spontaneously to give their communities the best they have to offer, via the arts, ecological activism, the remembrance of historical and cultural traditions, the promotion of popular education. A world where the workers are the true owners of the means of production. Contrary to today’s prevailing logic, profits, manipulation and the rule of the mightiest are not prioritized; instead we advance dialog and the search for consensus on the important issues of social life. In this world we are building all consciences are respected, and in ecumenical fashion the representatives of the different manifestations of spirituality participate as equals.

What we are attempting:

In July this year we are organizing a tour of several European countries (France, Spain and maybe a couple more still to be decided) in order to take part in various international forums we have been invited to, where we will be able to show Cuba’s social and cultural reality, for the first time in many years, straight out of the hearts of the people of the Island and outside the official discourse of the Cuban government or international interests which seek to silence the people’s daily struggle for a better and more just world for ourselves and for humanity. For that we need your help.

What we need:

• Visas, custom duties and air fare to France for two members of our collective: 3000 EUR.
• Transportation for four people by land to three or four countries: 1000 EUR.
• Room and board expenses for those four people in those countries for the 20 days the tour will last: 1000 EUR.

Why we ask:

We receive no financing from any government, official institution, or NGO. We don’t want it either, in order to safeguard our total independence and not be subordinate to any external agenda. Occasionally we get small donations from collectives and people close to our principles, unconditionally and with no strings attached. Our activity doesn’t generate profits of any kind rather it is the opposite.

It is also well known that with the Cuban median salary ($20 per month) it is impossible to cover the large expenses a trip like this incurs.

What we will give in return:

• We don’t have material things to give in exchange, just our gratitude and good vibes.
• For those who wish to make their names public, we’ll have a list of appreciated donors in our website with the names of those people who helped make our effort real.
• Also, if you will allow us, we will include your email addresses in our distribution list, so that you will receive the newsletters our collectives publish.
• We will give you a recap of our trip, as well as a thorough report regarding the way donations have been spent.

Salud y Anarquia!

apoyoalobservatoriocritico – wordpress blog

Message from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Southampton Branch.

Cancellation of the conference on Israel and international law by Southampton University.

Dear All,

please read below a statement by our Chairman Professor Suleiman Sharkh and sign and share this petition calling upon the university to overturn this decision:

From PSC Southampton.

e-mail

Website

Blog

Dear Colleagues,

As some of you may know, I am one of the organisers of the conference. The conference was approved by the University back in 2014 and we followed all the procedures and collaborated fully from the start. We have been transparent throughout.

Some of you may wonder why I am involved in organising a law conference. The obvious answer is that understanding the law is essential to engineering and it is indeed part of our curriculum – it is a requirement of accreditation. My own research on smart electricity grids and smart metering involves understanding the legal issues that arise from the development of the technology, particularly with regards to privacy of the data collected by the smart meters.

Also, as many of you know, I am a Palestinian. I grew up in Gaza, but my family is originally from a town called Majdal Asqlan (now called Ashkelon by Israel). In November 1948, six months after the establishment of the State of Israel and after the wars have ended, the town was bombed and many people were killed. Those who survived were herded towards Gaza, crawling on their hand in knees in the thorny field. Since then we have lived in squalid refugee camps. I walked around in the sand soiled by the open sewers with my bare feet. I got my first shoes when I went to school at the age of six.

International Law was responsible for our misery. It was used to legalise the theft of our homes and it continues to be used to legalise the on-going oppression of my people by the State of Israel. The questions asked by the conference are therefore questions that I have been asking all my life. They are important questions that need to be answered. However answering these questions risks exposing the true face of Israel, and risks reminding the world of the uncomfortable truth about the crimes that were committed against the Palestinian people. As a result, the pro-Israel lobby exerted huge pressure on the University, which has resulted in the withdrawal of the permission to hold the conference.

The attached statement explains our point of view, and why the University’s Senior Management decision is wrong in law. This decision will have a direct impact on you and your freedom of speech.

I am a Southampton graduate. This is my University. Studying and working at Southampton is the best thing that happened to me. It broadened my mind, it showed me that there are alternatives to violence and hatred, namely respectful debate and love. I care greatly about the University and its reputation and hence the reason for deciding, with a very heavy heart, to take legal action to reverse the decision to cancel the conference.

The main press may give you the impression that this was going to be an anti-Semitic conference. This is absolutely not true. My fellow organiser, Professor Oren Ben-Dor is a Jew. We have many Jewish supporter. And I am glad that many Jews immigrated to Palestine to be a safe haven and I welcome more Jews to live in Palestine. My main aim is to achieve justice, freedom and equality for my people to live side by side with Jews and all people in historic Palestine (and I do not mind if it is called Israel). I want it to be a safer haven for Jews. I hope the conference will be a small step in that direction.

Finally, I want to assure you that there will be no spontaneous demonstrations or any violence from supporters of the conference. We will conduct our protests in a very dignified manner, within the law, with full collaboration with the Police and the University. I will never accept any harm to be done to the University and the wonderful people who work and study here, who keep it the fantastic place of scholarship and learning that it is.

Yours sincerely

Suleiman

Professor Suleiman Sharkh

Court hearing expected next week in challenge to UK university’s ban on Israel conference