Act responsibly - don't vote!

WITH the general election drawing nauseatingly close, Worthing Anarchists are calling on all citizens to exercise their democratic right – NOT to vote!

With public trust in the political parasites at an all-time low and the country descending into economic meltdown, it is likely that the turn-out will be one of the lowest on record.

This is YOUR chance to be part of a HISTORIC moment and bang your own personal nail into the coffin of the establishment.

Below are some pretty sound reasons for boycotting the ballot box. Why not pick out your favourite from the list and have it tattooed onto your forehead in the run-up to election day?

* It makes no difference. Whoever you vote for, the Government always gets in.

* Not only does the Government always get in, but it also carries out exactly the same policies as it would have done if the election had gone ‘the other way’.

* Voting gives you the completely misleading impression of having had some sort of say in the way the country is run.

* Voting is not an expression of power, but an admission of powerlessness.

* Voting for anyone other than the BNP won't stop the BNP, it is the anti-working class policies of the mainstream parties that give rise to the BNP.

* People say you should vote because people died fighting for the right to vote, but people died fighting for Hitler. That is no argument at all.

* Why vote for someone to rule your life when you can fight to rule your own life?

* Who better knows the issues that affect your life and your community, you or some professional politician?

* Some say “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain” but the opposite is true - by voting you give your support for this corrupt system so can’t complain about how awful the whole thing is!

* The opposite of voting isn’t dictatorship, it’s real democracy where we all have a say in how our lives are run.

* If you don’t vote it dosen’t make you apathetic and ignorant - it means you’re intelligent enough to see that the political institutions are rotten to the core and need to be replaced!

* If you vote, you are basically putting your cross in the box marked “Yes, I am stupid and gullible enough to fall for this pitiful and charmless charade.”

* They’re all a bunch of lying gits that you wouldn’t trust to go down the road to get you some beer and not spend all your cash on caviar and marshmallows for an obese sewer rat with a gambling addiction.

* If voting actually changed anything, it would have been reclassified as terrorism by now and attacked by a squadron of unmanned nuclear-armed drones.

* All politicians essentially belong to the same political party – the Fat Cat Party. They just split it up into different factions so we think we’re getting some kind of choice. Then laugh at us behind our backs. Bastards!

* Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.

* Voting is not as much fun as rioting.

* Non-voting really pisses off politicians. Tony Blair once famously said he’d rather people voted for the Tories than not vote at all. That pretty much sums it all up, really.

* Non-voting really pisses off the sort of liberal tits who imagine signing petitions amounts to meaningful radical activity. “You have to exercise your right to vote!” they tell us. “No we don’t. Fuck off!” we politely reply.

* Nobody listens to your views. Nobody cares about your life, your environment, your future. And that’s why you should always Vote Nobody!

What anarchists elsewhere are saying:

Yorkshire

London

Hackney

Ireland

USA

Save Titnore Woods

“Ownership” of land is one of the key things that allows exploitation and oppression to exist in society. Not to mention that the very notion is utterly perverse. No one can own land it belongs to all of us and to itself. By us I do not mean humans, there is no God in the sky who can give us dominion over the Earth and the animals. The land belongs to all of us; the plants and animals (including humans) that together create a complex and diverse eco-system, which can and should benefit all of us. Before the enclosures, when the elite in society forcefully removed good working folk from the land so they could use it to make themselves even richer, the land was held in common and used for the good of the whole community.
The proposed development at Titnore Woods is no different. The elite in society are trying to claim ownership of the land to exploit it for their own profit and gain and to do so they will violently remove the people living in Camp Titnore. The development will cause irreversible environmental damage, destroying the last ancient woodland in the area and by bringing in more people to the area despite the lack of jobs forcing them to commute and thus causing even more pollution and traffic chaos to the surrounding area. Not to mention that most of the development will be large expensive housing, which will bring in rich commuters who with their vast spending power will push the prices of goods and services up in Worthing, forcing out local residents who may have lived here all their lives and gentrifying the area.
So we urge as many of you as possibly can to attend the protest outside the council meeting, deciding to the future of Titnore Woods. This is our last chance to try and convince the Council to reconsider, if we fail it will be – TO THE TREES!!!

Protest: Monday, March 15, 2010
Time: 1:30pm - 2:00pm
Location: Outside Assembly Hall, Stoke Abbott Road, Worthing

Worthing Anarchists have been heavily involved in the campaign to save Titnore Woods since its humble beginnings. So here is a brief history of the campaign:

December 2001:
The Porkbolter reveals direct action campaign is being planned to save Durrington’s Titnore Woods from development.

Protect Our Woodland! is set up by campaigners against Titnore development.

May 26th 2002:
First Save Titnore Woods! protest sees 350 people block Titnore Lane, in the face of incredibly heavy and hostile policing.

September 1 2002:
Protest/delegation visits Somerset family, Titnore landowners, off A27 at Durrington.

September 13 2003:
Protest outside exhibition on Titnore development at Durrington Community Centre, complaining about lack of promised public meeting on issue.

April 19 2004:
Angry opposition to Titnore development plans at public meeting in Pavilion Theatre, Worthing.

July 10 2004:
Save Titnore Woods! march from Montague Place, to Teville Gate.

June 19 2005:
Protesters evicted from stormy meeting at Assembly Hall as Worthing council Okays original Titnore plans.

September 4 2005:
Emergency Titnore rally at Northbrook Park, Durrington, culminating in burning of John Prescott effigy in Titnore Lane, blocking traffic.

October 29 2005:
Draconian over-policing at Vigil for the Death of Democracy protest against Titnore development, A259 Northbrook College roundabout.

May 28 2006:
Protest camp set up in Titnore Woods, in daring dawn occupation. Still there at time of writing. Regular support stalls held in town centre from that date onwards.

July 6 2006:
100 people attend packed meeting at Charles Dickens pub, Heene Road, Worthing, addressed by Titnore campers.

August 12 2006:
Titnore Woods day of action with mass cycle ride and town protest.

October 7 2006:
Mass protest walk to Titnore Woods from Durrington rail station.

December 2006:
Titnore supporters collect Christmas food donations for camp in town centre.

May 2 2007:
‘T-Day’ celebration of Camp Titnore’s first birthday, Worthing town centre

September 15 2007:
Open Day at Camp Titnore

(Actions from the last couple of years will be updated shortly)

The last time Worthing Anarchist were involved in a protest Camp it was against the Arundel bypass ‘bypass’ which would have gone straight through the middle of Binstead Woods. The camp prevented that from happening. So that’s 1-0, we don’t intend to let our undefeated record go down without a fight!

Remember Gaza

Worthing Anarchists are supporting the Smash Edo demonstration happening in Brighton on Monday.

The protest is called Remember Gaza, in January 2009 for three weeks the Israeli military dropped bombs on Gaza killing 1,400 Palestinians, 314 of whom were children.

This heinous and disproportionate crime did not go unopposed, all over the country, and the world, demonstrations took place. See this video of the protest in London

On January 18^th 2010 on the anniversary of the massacre, we will gather in Brighton to remember the people of Gaza.

As the smash edo website puts it;

“We will not allow those who supported their pain and profited from their suffering to go unchallenged. We will not let this genocide be forgotten. On the first anniversary after their deaths, we will rise up. We will take to the streets. We will remember...

Assemble at 1pm, wear black...”

Meeting Point for the Demo

The SmashEDO Remember Gaza Mass Demo will be meeting in front of the Wild Park Cafe at 1pm on Monday 18th January

How to get there...

By Bus
23, 25, 24, 28, 29(A+B) from St Peter's Church bus stops.

To get to St Peter's Church from Brighton Train Station; turn left through underpass in front of station onto Trafalgar Street. Walk to the end of Trafalgar Street. Turn left onto York Place, cross to traffic island for bus stops. Remain on the bus past Brighton University's Moulsecoomb campus. Get off the bus at the first stop after the viaduct, just past Home Farm Road. You will see the Wild Park Cafe on the left.

By Train
You can catch the train from Brighton Station to either Moulsecoomb or Falmer and walk along the Lewes Road.

From Moulsecoomb Station:
Walk down Queensdown School Road to Lewes Road, turn left. After about 500 metres
walk under the railway viaduct, go past Home Farm Road on your left and you will see
the Wild Park Cafe on the left.

From Falmer Station:
Walk under the underpass to the A27 and turn Left. Carry on on the Lewes Road and
you will see Wild Park Cafe on your right.

By Bike/On Foot
From Brighton Station; walk through underpass in front of station onto Trafalgar
Street. Walk to the end of Trafalgar Street. Turn left onto York Place, continue
straight and then turn right past the taxi rank. Keeping 'The Level' on your left,
keep going straight onto Lewes Road. From here, follow the Lewes Road out of
Brighton towards Falmer. Go under the railway viaduct, go past Home Farm Road on
your left and you will see the Wild Park Cafe on the left. There are cycle lanes and
pavements along the road from Brighton to Falmer.

For more info: Remember Gaza website

Gil - a true anarchist

IT IS with great sorrow that we record the death of our comrade Gil (Michael Gilbert).

An anarchist for some half a century, he was a stalwart of the Worthing anarchist scene for numerous years and a good friend of many of us.

Despite the restrictions of his failing health, he continued to take part in a range of political activities and managed to get up to the Anarchist Bookfair in London in October.

Although well versed in anarchist theory and history, it was not the writers and theoreticians whom Gil most admired - it was the men of action.

Men like Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary, Nestor Makhno, the Ukrainian anarchist guerrilla and Buenaventura Durruti, the inspiring anarchist fighter in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-1939.

The attitude of all these heroes can be summed up in the anarchist slogan "It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!", which Gil heartily endorsed.

Gil certainly didn't live on his knees. As well as his political involvement, he was a relentless crusader against every aspect of petty repression, discrimination and exploitation that he encountered in his day-to-day life.

A thorn in the side of the uncaring authorities, he was also a guardian angel for many people who came to rely on his guidance and support.

It was this practical dedication to mutual aid, to human solidarity, that made Gil such a genuine and exemplary anarchist.

Even when he died, after a heart attack, it was while doing a favour for a friend - dying on his feet, helping other people.

He will be hugely missed.

Gil's funeral is at 2pm on Wednesday January 13 at Worthing Crematorium, Findon (Buses 1 and 23 from Worthing town centre) and all friends and comrades are invited by his family.

Shameful history of Worthing police

A major case of injustice in Worthing has been publicised by our friends at the radical local newsletter the Porkbolter. We reproduce it here and give our support to its sentiments.

THE WORDS ‘police’ and ‘injustice’ seem to have a magnetic attraction for each other these days.

Whether it’s the shooting of an innocent Brazilian electrician for the heinous offence of looking vaguely (from half a mile away, with your brain disengaged) like a terrorist suspect or the fatal attack on a newspaper vendor who had the brazen audacity to want to walk home from work through the City of London, the Dixon of Dock Green image of the honest and fair-minded copper is looking further from reality every day.

But how many Worthing people remember that in 1975 this town was the scene of one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice ever seen in this country, in which the role of leading local policemen was, to say the least, rather dubious?

Paddy Nicholls ended up serving an incredible 23 years in jail for a ‘murder’ that in the end was proved not to have even happened.

The Porkbolter reported back in July 1998 that Mr Nicholls had been released from prison after being cleared of the murder of neighbour Gladys Heath - new pathologist reports showed she had died from a heart attack, not at the hands of Mr Nicholls, who found her in a collapsed state.

Funnily enough, this was also the finding of the original pathologist’s initial report, but for unknown reasons he suddenly changed his mind and decided she had been murdered...

And we quoted former Detective Superintendent Laurie Finley - a police officer who stood up to his own force to expose the truth - as declaring: “This has discredited the police, the medical profession and the law. A lot of people must have got an awful lot on their conscience. This was a deadly serious miscarriage of justice.”

Mr Finley, who had always maintained Mr Nicholls was innocent, has disturbingly revealed that he took early retirement from the police in 1976 when he was told “people were out to get him”.

Mr Nicholls’ release made national TV and radio news and was the main front page story in The Guardian on June 13 1998, as well as page 3 in The Times. Funnily enough, though, it wasn’t important enough to make the front pages of our local rags, being relegated to pages 8 and 19 of the Worthing Herald and Worthing Guardian (which was then the rival town newspaper).

So what happened next? Well, we recently spoke to a member of Mr Nicholls’ family who explained that when he left prison after 23 years, at the age of 69, he was a broken man in poor health, as you might expect. He had been made to suffer more, getting no parole, just because he refused to admit to something he hadn’t done. There’s justice for you.

Like Mr Finley, Mr Nicholls knew certain persons would be ‘out to get him’ in Worthing and used his compensation money, when it came through, to move to Greece, where he died in 2005. The enormity of what happened to him is hard to grasp. As Mr Nicholls said just after winning his appeal in 1998: “They have taken a third of my life, haven’t they?”.

Nobody was ever brought to justice over what happened to this innocent man. As is usual with situations that embarrass the powers-that-be, it was pushed to one side with the hope that it would quickly fade from the public’s memory.

But we say that Paddy Nicholls, and the way he was treated by the police and the courts, must never be forgotten by the people of Worthing.

WORTHING Anarchists will be attending a two-day Gathering Against the Prison Society in Brighton on October 31 and November 1.

It is being staged at The Cowley Club at 12 London Road.

The discussions and presentations wille reflect the struggle for liberation, inside and outside of the prison walls and are organised by random anarchists and the Anarchist Black Cross.

As the economic crisis hits deeper and people get organised and angry, the state needs media diversions like the War on Terror, escalating political repression, paramilitary policing, new prisons & immigration detention centres, biometrics, surveillance, relentless imperialist incursions - all to maintain the class divisions that ensure continued economic exploitation. The UK State, leading others, is about to proceed on a major prison building project, whilst more and more our societies already resemble open prisons. It all has to go.

This is a call for debate and exchange, to reflect and agitate...

Provisional Timetable

Sat 31/Oct

9.30 Breakfast

10.30 Introduction of the event and of people.

11.20 Campaign Against Prison Slavery
Forced labour, long a feature of prisons around the globe, has many functions: as punishment, to extract reparations for the cost of imprisonment and even simply as a means of keeping prisoners physically exhausted so they are less likely to rebel. However, it is increasingly being used both as an integral component of prison control and discipline regimes and as a method of generating capital from a section of society that up till now has been held to have no intrinsic labour value.

- - --.--

Talk with the anarchist comrades from Portugal
"It doesn't seem realistic to us to talk about an anti-prison struggle in Portugal. There is an ongoing tension and struggle against this prison-society. We commit to fighting not just one repressive aspect of it. The problems are everywhere and our enemy is this whole system. With this we don't mean that we haven't targeted prisons or fought in solidarity with rebellious prisoners. It is quite clear for us that prisons are a fundamental pillar of the state's repressive system. They are a direct threat for all of us.
And so, we've had experiences of aiming our attack against the penitentiary system.. It is about these experiences and their context in a larger/global struggle that we would like to talk. We're interested in sharing the practice we had and the reflections that came from that practice so far. We want to debate the theory and the methods we choose, so that we determine the way we want this struggle to be. We're also interested in mentioning some specific cases because of their unexpected outcome- both positive and negative."

13.00 Lunch + Break

14.00 Feedback from Greece
Revolutionary solidarity in theory and in practice. An anarchist comrade from Athens speaking about the increasingly repressive aftermath of the December uprising and also about the outcome of the November 2008 prisoners hungerstrike. There will be an overview of the cases of bankrobbing anarchist prisoners Giannis Dimitrakis and Gorgos Voutsis-Vogiatzis, and details of the mass repressive measures taken against immigrants.

15.00 Presentation from anarchist comrades from Berlin, Germany
Some comrades from Berlin are going to give a brief overview about the situation there for what concerns the increasing of acts of attack against state and capital and the reaction to it by the agents of repression: one of the examples are the ongoing trials against several comrades and the widening of social control. Partly-privatization within german prisons and other developments within the prison world are going to be touched, as well as moments of resistance against it, both from the outside as on the inside.

16.00 Discussion

- - --.-- Close

20.30 Benefit Gig "All Cops Are Brothers" w/ Spanner, Crowzone & Jesus Bruiser. Donations entry.

- - --->

Sun 1/Nov

10.30 Breakfast

11.20 Open Session (...)



- - --.-- Lunch + Break

--.-- Open Session (...)

- - --.-- The Shape of Things to Come
Presentation by Tony Bunyan of StateWatch.org, about new European security architecture, biometrics & surveillance technologies and the open prison society.

- - --.-- Combating the open prison : Closing Discussion
Our modern consumer capitalist societies are becoming increasingly like open prisons, watched and spied on, monitored and databased, the average UK citizen is in a prison of monstrous proportions. We need a social and libertarian revolution for a world where we control the direction of our own lives.

Revolt on the streets of Europe

RESISTANCE is ramping up against the corrupt capitalist system all over Europe.

On October 6 and 7 riots broke out in Istanbul as angry protesters took to the streets to oppose the IMF meeting in the Turkish city.

And on Saturday October 10 it all kicked off in Poitiers, central France, at a protest against the transfer of prisons to a new prison built in the area (see photo).

Said a report on German Indymedia: "The demonstration was not the main action of the day and local officials had anticipated that only 80 people would participate in actions. But the authorities were surprised by the arrival of a group of 250 protesters determined to do battle. They not take the control of the demo they were the demo.

"The parade first took the direction of the prison before turning around and attacking police who tried to follow. The procession set off towards the city center, forming a sort of block two banners with reinforced front and rear.

"The militants attacked all banks, insurance agencies and a business run by Bouygues (builder of prisons). A trader who tried to intervene was slightly injured. A policeman was more seriously hurt after being hit by a hammer to the head. "

The report carried in the USA's Washington Post sounded like a return to Cold War rhetoric, with its talk of "ultra-leftists" out to destroy our (capitalist) way of life...

It wrote: "The wanton destruction, which lasted for about 90 minutes early Saturday evening, was a dramatic reminder that France and other European nations, below their surface of stability and wealth, harbor tiny bands of ultra-leftist activists who still want to combat the market economies and parliamentary democracies on which the continent's well-being is founded.

"The violence seemed to have been carefully planned, police said. They discovered caches of masks, hammers, batons and smoke bombs at several points in the city center, apparently hidden in advance for use during the riot. Once it broke out, police said, the protesters used canvas tarps to protect themselves from rubber anti-riot projectiles used by police. "

Tarps, eh? Useful tip.

Although this was a major media event in France, with the usual indignant questions being asked by the right-wing press about who on earth these upstarts were and how they could ever have impinged on their complacent reality, it seems to have been totally ignored by the UK media - even though it is not exactly very far away!

Perhaps that is the problem - France is close enough to us that a wave of insurrection could easily cross the Channel and kick off here as well.

Remember 1789? Well, not literally of course, but you may well have read about the way the French Revolution inspired a generation of English radicals and scared the shit out of the authorities.

Is another storm of revolt on the way to these shores?