Grow Heathrow is recruiting!

info@transitionheathrow.com" <info@transitionheathrow.com>

At the heart of resistance to the third runway in the village of Sipson, lies Grow Heathrow. Here an alternative to the cancerous growth of tarmac and pollution is lived everyday.  Each subversive seed planted by these guerilla gardeners inoculates the community and land against certain death. Each relationship established builds bridges of hope for life. Each heart that falls in love with the land is connected to a body willing to defend it.

Amidst fresh proposals for a third and fourth runway, Grow Heathrow is under threat of eviction. We’re looking for bold spirits to occupy Grow Heathrow during the busy summer months. Some areas of land are not under threat of eviction and we need help to develop these as our defensive base.

Whether it’s for a few days, a few weeks or a few months, your presence is welcome.

We have restored three 40m long greenhouses where we grow vegetables, run workshops and host open days. We harness energy from two homemade wind turbines and some solar panels, have bicycle, metal and wood workshops, as well as a yurt and a straw bale house. And we’re organising with local residents to transform the Heathrow Villages into a radical self-sufficient community.

We can share skills in the following areas:

◦  Organic food growing and permaculture design
◦  Sustainable building
◦  Off-grid energy production
◦  Media and communications
◦  Website/graphic design
◦  Accounting/book keeping
◦  Metal/wood work
◦  Bicycle mechanics
◦  Running social enterprises/co-operatives
◦  Fundraising

Spread the word and email us at info@transitionheathrow.com to let us know when you’re thinking of coming. For more information, go to our website www.transitionheathrow.com.

You can find us at Grow Heathrow, Vineries Close, Sipson, London UB7 0JG. Travel to West Drayton in TfL zone 6 in 20 minutes by train from Paddington, 30 minutes from Reading or Oxford. Go to www.transitionheathrow.com/directions for more details.

The Battle for Balcombe is heating up! Call out for more help this weekend

The Battle for Balcombe is heating up! Call out for more help this weekend
to stop Cuadrilla fracking in Sussex.

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Urgent Call Out: Day 3 Of Fracking Blockade - Reinforcements Needed
From:    "The Great Gas Gala!"
Date:    Fri, July 26, 2013 5:36 pm
To:      info@greatgasgala.org.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Event: The Great Gas Gala! - Day 3
Location: Lower Stumble, Balcombe, West Sussex
Time: As early as you can get there
Date: Sat 27th

Over 10 arrests, blockade temporarily broken but camp still going strong
and big push to get more people down for Day 3.

As Day 2 of the Great Gas Gala winds down it's looking like Balcombe 1 -
Cuadrilla 1 with all to play for. The main difference between the
opponents being that the people of Balcombe are fighting for their health
and environment while Cuadrilla is trying to make a quick buck out of
destroying other people's communities. Yesterday more than 250 people
stopped Cuadrilla bringing any equipment onto the site. Today more than 90
police waded in to break up the blockade by force and escort trucks onto
the site.

The camp outside the site is still going strong though, with people
refusing to be intimidated by this police thuggery. People are staying
overnight but more support is needed. Car-loads of people arriving from
all over UK. Come down for the night and weekend! Come now if you can but
if not tomorrow morning as early as you can. Day 3 (Sat) is shaping up to
be the biggest yet in the fight to keep fracking out of Sussex. Battle for
Balcombe far from over!

Cuadrilla need to bring dozens more trucks on to the site to set up their
rig over the next few days and then keep it supplied while they drill.
They had been planning to start drilling by Saturday and have already been
significantly delayed. Drilling would take at least 6 weeks and their
temporary planning permission runs out in September, so they are .

Coming from Brighton? Jump on the FREE Frack Off bus at 9am tomorrow (Sat)
morning at Old Steine bus stop (near RBS).

See [http://greatgasgala.org.uk/] for more details and directions to the
site etc. Please bring essentials such as food, water, and appropriate
clothing/sun protection. Picnics, cakes, tea-making facilities, friends,
banners, games, music, instruments, knitting (yellow and black – gasfield
free community colours!), blankets, chairs, tables, gazebos, small tents,
plastic cutlery/plates. You get the picture. Try to avoid bringing
alcohol, drugs, anything which could be construed as a weapon, glass etc.

Cuadrilla, who are mired in planning issues in Lancashire where their
first test well triggered an earthquake, are seeking to open a second
front in Sussex. Cuadrilla's planned test well at Balcombe would be just
the beginning of a tidal wave of destruction, sweeping across the South
East. The licence blocks held by Cuadrilla and Celtique Energie in Sussex
could see thousands of wells drilled and fracked, plus associated
pipelines, compressor stations and processing plants.

For updates on what happened already see:

* Updates From Great Gas Gala - Day 2
(http://frack-off.org.uk/latest-news-from-great-gas-gala-day-2/)
* Updates From Great Gas Gala - Day 1
(http://frack-off.org.uk/latest-news-from-the-great-gas-gala/)

For an overview of the situation at Balcombe please see these articles:

* Fracking In Balcombe: A Community Says No
(http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-in-balcombe-a-community-says-no/)
* Fracking Sussex: The Threat Of Shale Oil & Gas
(http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-sussex-the-threat-of-shale-oil-gas/)

Candidates for Green Party Executive elections 2013

                  Ballots will go out with Green World the Green Party Magazine in August to all members of the party.

 

You can vote Reopen Nominations for candidates you don't like.

Sam Coates as Elections Coordinator,  would greatly improve our election work and I hope he is elected.

 

I would be very happy with Peter Barnett as Internal Comms but will vote for my friend Simon Hales, an ex-anti roads activist I think he is just what the executive needs with the campaign against fracking becoming so vital and he has the IT/comms skills.

The following valid nominations for Green Party Executive posts to be elected to serve for two years (2013-2015) have been received:

Chair. Richard Mallender

Equality & Diversity Co-ordinator: Shan Oakes & Jack McGlen (job share)

Finance Co-ordinator: Michael Coffey

Internal Communications Co-ordinator:
Peter Barnett
Simon Hales

Local Party Support Co-ordinator: Emily Blyth

No valid nominations were received for: Policy Development Co-ordinator, Publications Co-ordinator.

The following valid nominations for Green Party Executive posts to be elected to serve for one year (2013-2014) have been received:

Chair: Richard Mallender

Elections Co-ordinator:
Sam Coates
Geoff Smith & Sam Riches (job share)



The booklet containing candidate statements is attached. Ballot papers will be distributed with Green World. The deadline for the return of ballot papers is 12noon on Friday 30 August.

(I am currently International Coordinator of the Green Party)

Derek Wall

Emma Goldman: A New Declaration of Independence

Emma Goldman: A New Declaration of Independence (1909)

by Emma Goldman
(Published in Mother Earth, Vol. IV, no. 5, July 1909.)

When, in the course of human development, existing institutions prove
inadequate to the needs of man, when they serve merely to enslave,
rob, and oppress mankind, the people have the eternal right to rebel
against, and overthrow, these institutions.

The mere fact that these forces -- inimical to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness -- are legalized by statute laws, sanctified by
divine rights, and enforced by political power, in no way justifies
their continued existence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all human beings,
irrespective of race, color, or sex, are born with the equal right to
share at the table of life; that to secure this right, there must be
established among men economic, social, and political freedom; we
hold further that government exists but to maintain special privilege
and property rights; that it coerces man into submission and
therefore robs him of dignity, self-respect, and life.

The history of the American kings of capital and authority is the
history of repeated crimes, injustice, oppression, outrage, and
abuse, all aiming at the suppression of individual liberties and the
exploitation of the people. A vast country, rich enough to supply all
her children with all possible comforts, and insure well-being to
all, is in the hands of a few, while the nameless millions are at the
mercy of ruthless wealth gatherers, unscrupulous lawmakers, and
corrupt politicians.

Sturdy sons of America are forced to tramp the country in a fruitless
search for bread, and many of her daughters are driven into the
street, while thousands of tender children are daily sacrificed on
the altar of Mammon. The reign of these kings is holding mankind in
slavery, perpetuating poverty and disease, maintaining crime and
corruption; it is fettering the spirit of liberty, throttling the
voice of justice, and degrading and oppressing humanity. It is
engaged in continual war and slaughter, devastating the country and
destroying the best and finest qualities of man; it nurtures
superstition and ignorance, sows prejudice and strife, and turns the
human family into a camp of Ishmaelites.

We, therefore, the liberty-loving men and women, realizing the great
injustice and brutality of this state of affairs, earnestly and
boldly do hereby declare, That each and every individual is and ought
to be free to own himself and to enjoy the full fruit of his labor;
that man is absolved from all allegiance to the kings of authority
and capital; that he has, by the very fact of his being, free access
to the land and all means of production, and entire liberty of
disposing of the fruits of his efforts; that each and every
individual has the unquestionable and unabridgeable right of free and
voluntary association with other equally sovereign individuals for
economic, political, social, and all other purposes, and that to
achieve this end man must emancipate himself from the sacredness of
property, the respect for man-made law, the fear of the Church, the
cowardice of public opinion, the stupid arrogance of national,
racial, religious, and sex superiority, and from the narrow
puritanical conception of human life.

And for the support of this Declaration, and with a firm reliance on
the harmonious blending of man's social and individual tendencies,
the lovers of liberty joyfully consecrate their uncompromising
devotion, their energy and intelligence, their solidarity and their lives..