Thursday, 7 December 2017

Alan Lodge Photographer Festival Traveller Stonehenge Environmental Direct Action

‘One Eye on the Road’

These pages, photographs and information, formed part of my initial efforts in using the internet to show you my work. It was originally hosted at GreenNet. I had taken it down years ago, concentrating on my more recent projects and photography. The latest of which can be seen from my ‘main’ page at: Digital Journalist and a ‘collected’ page of Indymedia news postings.

This sub-site, contains the text and pictures from the period around the early 1970’s to the late 1990’s. The years in which my tribe developed the gatherings around the country that became the Free Festival Circuit. ‘New Age Travellers’, assorted hippies, punks, urbanites , festival goers and general people then found themselves labelled as the ‘Peace Convoy’. Quite central to this life was the gathering for the summer solstice at Stonehenge. [some say Glastonbury as well]. The authorities watching some of these developments with some alarm, became increasingly belligerent and attacked these gathering with some violence. One of the more famous examples was the attack on the Peace Convoy by 1600 policemen from 5 police forces on the Wiltshire / Hampshire border. It became known as the Battle of the Beanfield and it will never ….. I say never be forgot by many of us. The following few years got increasingly unpleasent with the force and application of increasingly oppressive law … leading to the Public Order Act 1986.

All seemed lost and many were dispersed and many other going abroad, to Europe and beyond. But I think the ‘scene’ got another boost when a new musical style based on repetitive beats 🙂 became popular. The free party scene didn’t just arrive, it was adapted and build on the free festival and traveller scene of the years before. Thousands again were able to get together culminating in events like Lechlade and Castlemorton Common in Worcestershire. The Tory party of the time then thought that yet more laws were required and the CJA, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 was then enacted. It seemed as though only the mega-commercial pop concerts were what’s left for our attendance, if you could afford it that is!

Oasis Trailer

Wednesday, 6 December 2017

Jane Birkin et Serge Gainsbourg - Je T'aime,...Moi Non Plus

Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

Passing Clouds: 364 people object to landlord’s bid for new venue at old Dalston arts hub - Hackney, Stoke Newington and Shoreditch News - Hackney Gazette

Passing Clouds, before and after being repossessed. (Picture: www.samr.co).

The proposals – which include an extra storey on the roof – were submitted at the end of July by Landcom North London, which is linked to Landhold Developments, the firm that bought the building in 2014 and evicted the arts group last year.

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But ahead of a town hall planning meeting next week, 364 letters of objection have been sent to Hackney Council, largely from people calling for Passing Clouds to return.

Planning papers reveal the Dalston venue would stay as a “hub for music activities for the public”, as required by the Asset of Community Value (ACV) status it was granted by the council last year.

The report reads: “The venue would host live music most nights downstairs as well as cultural events throughout the week with a focus daytimes on community led projects.

Passing Clouds protesters on the march last year. Picture: Polly Hancock

“During the day there is the potential to record and film live performances for use on an internet channel in the live space.”

The venue has been closed since Passing Clouds went out fighting in summer 2016. Bailiffs had been sent in to change the locks overnight in June but hundreds of members of the arts community descended onto Richmond Road to take it back.

They were finally evicted in the autumn following huge protest marches – and the chances of them moving back in look remote if plans are granted.

“They want a 400 per cent rent increase,” Passing Clouds’ former boss Eleanor Wilson said. “They may be able to get it from someone else but there is no way it would be able to stay a community asset. The rent needs to be affordable for the community.”

Landhold Developments said it had repeatedly held meetings with Passing Clouds and invited them to submit a proposal to rent the building again.

A spokeswoman added: “In the two years we have owned the property we have not received a business proposal or any financial information to evidence their ability to rent the premises.

“It is our intention to obtain planning permission for the previous use and then seek to offer the premises on a new full repairing and insuring lease [where the tenant is responsible for repair and maintenance] to music and leisure operators.”

Honduras: Protesters Defy Military Crackdown and Flood the Streets to Protest Alleged Vote-Rigging | Democracy Now!

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Honduras: Protesters Defy Military Crackdown and Flood the Streets to Protest Alleged Vote-Rigging

STORYDECEMBER 04, 2017

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Honduras

GUESTS

Zenaida Velasquez

Honduran human rights activist and one of the founders of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras.
Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle

member of La Voz de los de Abajo and one of the founding members of the Honduras Solidarity Network. He has been in Honduras for over a week leading a human rights observation delegation.

Tensions are rising in Honduras, where security forces have opened fire on protesters over the weekend, killing at least three people and injuring dozens more. On Sunday, tens of thousands of people poured into the streets to protest what many are calling an electoral coup d’état against opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla. Protesters accuse the electoral commission of rigging the vote in favor of incumbent President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is a close U.S. ally. For more, we speak with Zenaida Velasquez, a Honduran human rights activist and one of the founders of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras. We also speak with Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle, a member of La Voz de los de Abajo and one of the founding members of the Honduras Solidarity Network. He has been in Honduras for over a week leading a human rights observation delegation.

Kosheen - Catch

Tuesday, 5 December 2017

Background — Mission Lifeforce

Background — Mission Life-force

HOW OUR MISSION STARTED

Identifying ecocide as a crime is not new - Sweden’s prime minister Olaf Palme highlighted it at the time of the Stockholm Declaration in 1972, and it was further discussed in the decades preceding the drafting of the Rome Statute in the 1990s, though it did not make the final draft (except as applied specifically to wartime environmental harm).

It was researched in depth from 2009 by UK barrister Polly Higgins (below), who proposed it into the United Nations International Law Commission in 2010 as a fifth Crime Against Peace (as the Rome Statute crimes were called). She has advocated its crucial importance ever since. Polly Higgins has familiarised the world with the term “ecocide” in contexts ranging from international diplomatic circles to NGOs and cultural forums to journalists and grass roots activists, inspiring a worldwide awareness of the potential of a law of ecocide. [...continued below]

Mission LifeForce came into existence in 2017 to enable the next stage of putting that law in place by financing those States who can take it forward, while simultaneously creating the opportunity for

conscientious protectors standing up for frontline communities to be heard in a court of law
judiciary to recognise ecocide as a missing crime

You can read more about Polly, and about ecocide law and its history here.

Presenting your Earth Protectors Defence in Court

Monday, 4 December 2017

Opus III - It's A Fine Day

The British officer that helped make Libya an extremist hotbed has just been appointed as NATO chief | Evolve Politics

The British officer that helped make Libya an extremist hotbed has just been appointed as NATO chief

Stephen Delahunty

20th September 2017

The UK’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach has been elected as the NATO Alliance’s senior military officer.

He will become the first Briton to hold the position for 25 years when he takes over the role in June next year. He was also the first Commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command during the intervention in Libya in 2011.

Phoenix Rising

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