Campaigning in to the Future

Happy I am.

At long last we are all able to start moving on from Lockdown, with many individuals having had a second jab. Myself included.

With so such about to be fully opened again such as the essentials of an intellectual life – Libraries, Bookshops, music stores, and museums – It now feels like we can start to fully think again.

What Next for campaigning?

The big problem with a lot of campaigning is that it is reactive rather that proactive.

Do please keep this in mind as this year progresses, as there is a lot which needs to be focused upon right now.

Which issues Next ?

At this stage I could make a long list of actions which need to be done, but instead which I’ll just list the very few which are high priorities or which very few people are working on right now.

– Reversing the Brexit Disaster.

– Stopping the Nukiller Power Industry.

– Banning and dismantling all Nukiller Weapons.

– Pedestrianising our city Centres, while building a new tram and Canal system, as we campaign to block the use of all extreme energy person vehicles.

Sorting Out Our Organising Priorities.

Having spent the last year watching others talking about issues online, or just talking about issue to each other, can we realistically expect to pick up on our previous campaigns ?

That is a question which needs thinking about.

Aspects Of 500

Aspects of Information work and Usage

So here I am

– Retired but still practising Library and Information work.

– Information Provider.

– Information worker..

– With aspects of my life to be found online

&

– An archive in Amsterdam

It’s a good combination to have.

Yet some of the same kind of activity has been done about me by the state.

Spycop[s]

The Infamous Special Demonstration Squad [ SDS ] was established during 1968.

It was established to infiltrate politically active groups and report their activities to the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, but it has now emerged that the information which these spycops gathered was being passed on to MI5.

I and many of the political campaigning groups I was involved in were the subject of SDS reports.

Greenpeace [ London ] which I have been involved with for many years was infiltrated by at least Three Spycops.

Trying to find out

So here I am

– Trying to find out just how extensive the state spycops built files on me

&

– A Core Participant in the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

Not that the inquiry is opening up that many of the files about myself, my friends, and the various campaigns which I was involved in.

What is known ?

So just what has the inquiry revealed about me which I didn’t know already ?

That I and my mates were spied upon?

I knew that already.

The true and cover names of the various spycops ?

Most of the ones we do know about are in the public domain, including the notorious Bob Lambert who went by the cover name of Bob Robinson while he was spying on me.

Open the files

The inquiry is slowly releasing some information about just who was spied upon to some core participants, but it is far from complete.

While we are still demanding a full list of all the spycop cover names, and those campaigning groups they spied upon.

In the meanwhile: – 

The documents I have received do include my individual Special branch file number, but not what is included in it.

500

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of what the inquiry has revealed, is that the SDS reports were passed on to MI5.

These files are rubber stamped with the number 500.

I am thinking to get a badge made with a drawing of a rubber stamp with the number 500 on it.

Practical Campaigning – Ethical Issues.

I’m Just so pleased that I was taught about ethics at school, even if I can only remember just some of the principals of it all.

Now what strikes me is that more people should of been taught them, as some of those principles apply to why we all need to have the vaccine.

The same kind of Ethical principals apply to the need to be Vegan.

It is all very well talking about personal choice, and the principal of Human Rights, but what about if these choices impact upon other people or life upon this planet?

I guess in many ways it is an aspect of just why we need to engage in joined-up-campaigning.

This is one of the aspects of life that I mentioned in my article A few thoughts about the One in Seven which has just been published within the latest issue of Information For Social Change [ ISC ].

Yet

One of the side effects of lockdown has been the chance to think about the kind of society it would be ideal to live in, even though most of us have had to deal with the practical issues which face us all.

It also has been many of us the chance to think What Next? & Where Do I Want To Go Next ?

Yet

The coming few months will be very busy with the end of lockdown.

The first thing is that Part two of Tranche One of the spycops public inquiry is taking place next month, and I am hoping to learn about the activities of the spycop[s] that I knew during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Though the inquiry is redacting so much information that it is very hard going to get anything which is really useful out of it.

Then comes all of the active campaigning which needs picking up on again, and the chance to meet other activists in order to work out what we can do next.

Some things which need doing are very obvious, but we will need to build up an activist base once more. As and when these activities will be posted on the Close Capenhurst Campaign website.

Whatever Next ?

Here is how we now seem to start Every Day.

And Today’s Crisis is …

Just reading the newspapers or listening to the radio news it seems to be that way.

Brexitland

We have now moved from the Shambolic world of politics, to an everyday story of a dystopian folk, or life under the Rabid Right Wing Tory Government.

The list of what is going or has gone wrong within the last year would take just too many hours to list.

All I will say is that the whole Brexit disaster can be summed up as a totally predictable mess.

Planetary Disaster

Next we have the ongoing radioactive and planetary mess which needs to be cleaned up, but again this is just too long to list.

Nukiller New Build, Radioactive or Chemical Waste dumps, the failure to tackle global warming, create a safe sustainable transport, etc, etc.

The list goes on and on and on and on.

Yet there are still too few activists working to reverse this unfolding disaster.

While there is still a shocking lack of attention paid to recycling, or stopping to produce those items which are very difficult to recycle.

Eating and Riding Our Way to Disaster

If we are what we eat, then we also live in an environment which is the product of our eating and travel habits.

It always amazes me just how many can not see that being vegan and campaigning for pedestrian rights is so tied up with creating an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, or how it matches up within the concept of Joined-up-campaigning.

If

If all of the above seems to be the product of some highly depressing thinking about what we face right now, then you are right to do so.

Yet

Yet there is still a lot which we can all do right now, while planning for some major changes and mass demonstrations once the present pandemic is over.

May Day

May Day is an ideal time to stand up against the Rabid Right Wing Tory Government.

May the 9th is Europe Day.

That is an ideal day to engage up campaigning against the Brexitland Disaster.

In between Time

This is now an ideal moment to read up upon all those various issues which we do need to get back to active campaigning upon later on in the year.

While looking at all those lifestyle changes which we need to make.

The present dire situation we are in is one of the worst we have ever experienced.

Yet very soon the cry will start : –

Today’s Solution is ––

The True Nature Of Spycop Activities

Aspects Of Spycop Activities.

Being spied upon by the state is something which all radical activists have known about for years.

The growing evidence about SDS spycops infiltrating, followed by manipulating the work of many campaigning groups and political organisations is truly shocking.

As is the way that many of them engaged in manipulative sexual activities with unsuspecting individuals while undercover.

That is something which is refereed to as rape by the state.

Coming to light.

Last Monday the Spycops public inquiry starred the first of its evidential hearing.

Rather than me repeat and comment upon what has been said during these hearing, I would recommend you all to read about them upon the COPS [Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance] website.

 

Open Up The Files

Think that your not living in a free country ?

All I can say is that those who live within the EU are so lucky to be away from the dysfunctional totalitarian nightmare which is now the norm within Brexitland.

Brexit is making for a social, economic, and ecological disaster.

It is also starting to impact upon our civil liberties.

Spycops and History

Meanwhile the spycops public inquiry is still refusing to open up all the files that they have received from the SDS.

It means that those of us who are the victims of spycop activities are still not able to find out just what happened to us.

That’s what they did to me, my mates, friends, comrades, other CPs [Core Participants] in the inquiry, all those who have been refused CP status, and the many thousands of other individuals they spied upon or kept files on.

Those are political policing files which go back to 1968.

While such files as have been released to us have been heavily redacted.

Some 30 years ago there was a banner taken upon one of the many peace marches which have been held over the years. It read ‘Historians for the right to future work’.

That’s something which might also be said about the need to see all the SDS Spycop files.

So open up the files !

Meantime

In the meantime I have just signed this public statement.

Undercover Policing: Statement from Victims

The Other Agenda

Right Now

What applies to politics applies to life too.

That is, to take the Overview, but keep an eye on the details.

With so many of the campaigns I’m involved with that’s very much the case.

Yet there is also something else which goes with that.

The need for to have a very wide ranging general knowledge in order to deal with any subject one might be asked about.

This is very much the case with all of the anti Nukiller and spycops campaigning I’m doing right now. That’s the work which I’m having to very much focus upon right now.

Which brings on to just why we all want answers from the Undercover Policing [ Spycops ] Public Inquiry.

Bob Lambert

One of the most shocking aspects of the whole spycops issue which deserves a lot more attention, is how they manipulated the campaigning work of the various groups they infiltrated.

That’s exactly what spycop Bob Lambert did with Greenpeace [ London ].

He moved the emphasis of the group away from focusing upon anti militarist and anti Nukiller campaigning, to that of mainly working upon animal rights activists, and thus the whole Mucklibel set of trials.

The most important questions being how much was that a spycop policing policy, and how much damage has it done to our other ongoing campaigning ?

Changing The Way

Preamble

The last 6 months have been a time of many social and economic changes. These have presented us all with many new challenges and opportunities to make changes for the better.

Yet we are still have politicians and the like who do not see that. Thus they think about our ‘getting back to normal’, with no real concept of what has occurred or is happening right now. It’s not just a case of them not knowing, but one of them having no visionary ideas about what needs to be done.

The bottom line being that most of these so called ‘decision makers’ are unable to make any realistic decisions, as they lack both imaginative, creative, or pragmatic ways of thinking.

Thus they look backwards to the past, while coming up with ‘solutions’ for the future. That’s even when many of those ideas have proven to be disastrously dangerous and totally unworkable.

Building Nukiller reactors, the Brexit disaster, and creating more space to be used by extreme energy personal vehicles being good examples of it all.

Difficult.

We are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis which is going to be difficult to solve.

Thus what we need now is some imaginatively pragmatic thinking.

We need to do the same.

What we also need to do is apply such creative and pragmatic thinking to the way we work towards creating positive social change.

Changing the way we protest.

One of the constant cries of the left and those we organise protests is ‘ Just one more push’ as they work towards having larger and larger marches or demonstrations.

What experience has taught us is that just does not work.

The Met and other police forces have become very good at isolation demonstrations, while the transport authorities re-routing buses away from them.

Then the press just ignore BiG Demonstrations as EVERYDAY events.

They just don’t impact upon public awareness in the way they used to do.

Protests that work with our strengths.

What many people perceive as being our greatest weakness is in fact our greatest strength.

These are our ability to organise very small pickets, protests, and leafleting sessions with a minimum of time or effort.

Many long term activists have been doing do for years now.

A stock of leaflets, a few flags, a couple of masks, two or three people, is all we need.

Best still with such small numbers we have the ability to chat with those works who are going in or out of the building we are picketing.

Using Our Strengths during the next few months.

What we can do and do well are: –

– Hold pickets which comprise of 4 or 5 people with 2 metre banners held between us.

That gives a lot of social distancing.

– Use the Smiling Sun and the other flags we have got.

That makes for a good visual impact even with so few a number.

&

– Then if you can get hold of them,

wear face masks which make political or campaigning points.

There are a lot of EU flag ones to be purchased, and which we can use in our campaigning to stop the Brexit Disaster.

We may just be small in number who can get together for to protest,

but that does not stop us from making a BIG IMPACT.

Conscientious Objectors At Walton Prison.

Remembering the Conscientious Objectors held in Walton Prison.

Background information.

Merseyside Peace Network held an event outside of Walton Prison on March 2nd 2016 in order to mark the date conscription was first introduced in Britain during 1916, and to honour all the Conscientious Objectors which were incarcerated in the prison.

A second event was held on November 11th 2018 to mark the end of World War One, and remember them once more.

The Merseyside peace Network was planning to revisit Walton prison on September 18th, both to remember the Conscientious Objectors who were incarcerated in the prison, and all those who died in it during the Merseyside Blitz.

Now due to the need to social distance because of the corona virus, this event has been cancelled.

The prison was hit by bombs on three separate occasions

– On the night of September 18th / 19th 1940.

A bomb hit K Wing. Twenty Two of the inmates were killed.

– On the night of April 26th / 27th 1941

A bomb damaged both the Chapel and Gym.

– On the night of May7th / 8th 1941 a bomb hit E block.

Two Conscientious Objectors were killed.*


Desmond Ernest Bray, from Alvechurch, Warwickshire, a worker for Birmingham PPU.


Kenneth Coney, described as “young”, from Coulsdon, Surrey.

 ‘They were booth allocated noncombatant service by their respective CO Tribunals, and both accepted medical examination, inevitably leading to call-up to the Non-Combatant Corps. They were sent to Dingle Vale Barracks, a makeshift conversion of Dingle Vale Schools, on the outskirts of Liverpool. There they refused orders, leading to courts-martial and imprisonment.

– Desmond Bray was serving his second sentence, 6 months

– Kenneth Coney was serving his third sentence, not known, but would likely have been at least 6 months.

The effect of the bombing was to completely destroy their bodies, so they could not be buried. Because of that, they are formally commemorated on the Commonwealth War Grave Commission Memorial, naming hundreds of soldiers not able to be given graves, erected at Brookwood, Surrey.’

 

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS WHO SERVED SENTENCES IN WALTON PRISON, LIVERPOOL

World War One

Thomas ABBOTT

Maurice H ANDREWS

Percy Reginald BAINTON Continue reading Conscientious Objectors At Walton Prison.

Crisis & Solution[s]

Old Thinking – New Thinking

I’ve been thinking a lot of late about the kind of dystopian solutions which various politicians have been coming up with, and about finding solutions to the current multiple messes we are all in.

Of course it’s very easy to see how fiscally and scientifically illiterate most of them are, but there is much more to it than that.

Most policy makers look at the world from within their own social class, or political party perspective.

Yet it goes way beyond that, as the majority of them are neither lateral thinkers or possessed of much imagination.

As a friend of mine said to me recently about both society and the economy is going: “ We are in to new territory”.

Thus a lot of new imaginative thinking needs to be delivered, and in a very short amount of time.

We have to do that thinking.

We have to be pragmatic.

We have to be the ones to sort out our global mess, as none of our lords and masters, or any of the policy makers are capable of doing so.

A Multi Faceted Crisis

Just the ecological crisis includes the housing, transport, energy, land use and farming, but that in turn impacts upon many different social and economic issues.

Yet we still think about solving them all in isolation, or as separate campaigns.

While many of the radical political groups or organisations view what can be done in terms separate solutions., such as dealing with unemployment first, rather than question just what kind of employment that might be.

As I keep on saying.

We need both Joined-up-thinking, and joined-up-campainging.