"Why Misogynists Make Great Informants"

"In January 2009, activists in Austin, Texas, learned that one of their own, a white activist named Brandon Darby, had infiltrated groups protesting the Republican National Convention (RNC) as an FBI informant. Darby later admitted to wearing recording devices at planning meetings and during the convention. He testified on behalf of the government in the February 2009 trial of two Texas activists who were arrested at the RNC on charges of making and possessing Molotov cocktails, after Darby encouraged them to do so..."

A very interesting and important article from Make/Shift magazine. Read the full piece here.

A reply on Palestine!

As with the Refugee Council pledge on asylum, the prize for quickest response goes to Marc Ramsbottom, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Manchester Central. If nothing else, this guy's got an effective campaign office.
Having sent a second round of the PSC's automated election lobbying messages to all candidates who'd supplied emails - I think a couple of days ago, lost count now - this arrived in my email inbox this morning. He says he can't sign the pledge - which seems a little odd, since six of his Lib Dem colleagues have, according to the PSC's list here. However:

Dear Sarah
Thank you for your question. As described in the Manifesto, we seek peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, involving two separate Israeli and Palestinian states which both recognize each other and are internationally accepted, following the borders before the Six-Day War. We will also push Britain and the EU to pressure Israel and Egypt to end the Gaza blockade. We also support an International Arms Trade Treaty to regulate the sale of arms to dangerous regimes and would stop British arms from being sold to states which use them for internal oppression.
Therefore, in answer to your questions, we will call on Israel to relinquish the territories you mention. We will lobby to end the siege in Gaza. In accordance with our manifesto, if Israel is shown to be using arms for internal oppression, we will not sell British arms to Israel. We would also go further, addressing the factors causing such conflict. If elected, the Foreign Secretary would actively work for both the establishment of two separate states in acceptable borders, and for an International Arms Trade Treaty including an international ban on cluster munitions. As we have already agreed policies for the Party in the Manifesto, we are unable to sign pledges outside this. However, as you can see, we specifically support the goals which you are understandingly concerned about.
Marc
Cllr Marc Ramsbottom
Liberal Democrat Councillor - City Centre Ward

On the Refugee Council pledge, I still have nothing in the post from Tony Lloyd, despite an email saying I would be getting something 'in the next few days' - ten days ago. I also have zilch from the Tory Suhail Rahuja, but then he might not have got round to clearing out his inbox to know what messages he's actually got...
On other issues, this morning we get confirmation - thirty years late - that anti-fascist campaigner Blair Peach was indeed murdered by a copper who then, along with his mates, lied about it. Well, golly gee.

I've voted!

... in the Manchester local elections, at least - where the choice in Moss Side was between the Big 3, the Greens and an independent who I can find no policies for online and who hasn't been round canvassing, so has somewhat missed the boat. My early vote is because for some historical reason I can't remember, I have a postal ballot, and once you have one of these it seems to be automatic (isn't this one of the reasons it's potentially open to fraud? Surely I could die or emigrate and Beloved Husband, who has a rough idea of my signature, and possibly an even rougher one of my date of birth, could just keep on voting...anyway).
I'm not saying who I voted for. Suffice to say it wasn't the Tories, whose execrable leader is currently smarming his way down the airwaves at me, although the R4 callers are poking him with sharp enough sticks to stop me haring down the stairs for the Off button. He's currently trying to justify his regressive, socially conservative attempt to bribe people into matrimony.
For some bizarre reason, the Conservative Party has forked out for phone box advertising in Moss Side, which is affording me mild amusement each time I leave the house, seeing how much more of the ads have been peeled off, especially from the one by the cashpoint where I guess bored people have a bit of a rip while they're queuing.
Certain items haven't yet arrived in the post. One is my General Election ballot papers, which is fair enough; I'm not expecting them till next week. The other is the letter from Tony Lloyd, giving his position on asylum and immigration, which I was told a full week ago now had been posted.
And absolutely no reply to a SECOND shot at emailing all my candidates from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign lobbying website. The list was interesting: the PSC seems to have acquired the emails for Tony Lloyd and Suhail Rahuja (if he's bothered to clear his inbox out), but doesn't yet have contacts for 3 candidates I didn't know about - those from the Workers Revolutionary Party, the vile UKIP, and one from Socialist Equality. What the PSC site does have is a list of which candidates have signed up to their pledge - a list dominated by Greens (although NOT including Manchester Central candidate Gayle O'Donovan), with some from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Respect, small numbers from various independents and devolved national parties, and none at all from the Tories (although it does say they've had some responses from Conservatives, which implies some have had the decency to get back saying why/why not).
Finding this list, I headed to Wikipedia, where I found out some interesting and generally unpleasant additional facts about Manchester Central. Firstly, that we have the second highest unemployment of any constituency in the country. And secondly, that as well as a Socialist Labour one I hadn't previously noticed and the creepy UKIP, we have a candidate from the fucking fascist BNP scum, some lowlife called Tony Trebilock. Mr Trebilock, unsurprisingly, doesn't seem keen to divulge much about where he lives, and I can't imagine he'll be showing his face in Moss Side too much...

Tony Lloyd on refugees... perhaps

In the latest installment of the Refugee Council Election Pledge saga (Manchester Central strand) I have an email reply from Tony Lloyd's office, in response to my reminder email, saying:

Thank you for your e-mail. A reply from Tony about this issue was posted to you yesterday, you should receive it in the next few days.
Yours sincerely,
George
Office of Tony Lloyd

The email was dated Friday 16th, and the letter hasn't arrived yet. Given the standard of postal services in Moss Side that could just mean it's been delivered to any of the six houses either side of mine. I await it with bated breath...
Still nothing from Suhail Rahuja for the Tories, although maybe that's because it's taking so long to clear out his full inbox...
Not one of the candidates has replied to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign message. I don't know if that's a technical problem, or a political one.
On a wider Manchester stage, the Tory council candidate for Manchester City Centre, Yan Zhang, who was supposed to be speaking at this evening's Manchester Climate Forum meeting scrutinising what the future of Manchester city council's action on climate change might be, has pulled out. No replacement seems to have been forthcoming - perhaps because most Tories have nothing useful or sensible to say on climate change, viz:

Tackling climate change not a priority for Tory candidates
"The new generation of Conservative MPs due to take power after the election does not share David Cameron’s professed commitment to tackling climate change, a survey being published this week suggests. “Reducing Britain’s carbon footprint” was rated as the lowest priority, out of 19 policies, by 144 Conservative candidates responding to the survey of the 240 most winnable Tory target seats... The results of the survey by the Conservativehome website, to be unveiled at a conference on the Tory manifesto on Wednesday, suggest a gap might be opening up between the leadership and rank-and-file MPs and activists on the issue." Financial Times, January 2010

Manchester Central: the story continues

Well, I've had replies from the Liberal Democrat and Green Party candidates for Manchester Central, but this afternoon I got a reminder email from the Refugee Council suggesting that I might want to re-contact any candidates which had not got back, asking them to sign the pledge on racism and asylum, and if they didn't feel able to, why not.
Having received a glossy leaflet with a rather scary picture of David Cameron looking all intense and moooooooody on one side, and telling me that "Suhail is always keen to hear your concerns, either about local or national issues, and can be contacted in the following ways..." on the other.




So, I used the email on the leaflet to drop him the suggested reminder. Seconds later I got a reply! Blimey, that's quick, I thought. But it said:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yourheartland.org.uk.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.
:
Mail quota exceeded.

So, not keen enough to have a flunky clear his inbox out then...
Sent the same reminder to Tony Lloyd on his shiny new gmail address too...

Manchester Central candidate mithering update

A new reply to my Refugee Council-facilitated candidate-prodding in my email inbox this morning, this time from Gayle O'Donovan, the Green Party candidate. She says:

Dear Sarah Irving,
I have already signed up to this pledge, as it is quiet close to my heart. Please continue to raise this with other candidates as it is an important issue.
Best Wishes
Gayle O'Donovan
www.greengayle.com

With all this reasonableness on asylum issues coming from Manchester Central candidates, you'd wonder why the whole system in this country is in such a racist mess... Oh right, the Labour and Tory blokes haven't got back yet.

Meanwhile, here's a neat little roundup from the Guardian green page of where all the parties are on cycling, with the 'reliably daft' (to put it politely) UKIP wanting to make bike riders get off and walk at busy junctions.

ei: UK's discriminatory criminalization of dissent

ei: UK's discriminatory criminalization of dissent

Posted using ShareThis

Mithering Manchester Central candidates...

It's barely worth being interested in the upcoming general election if you live in Manchester Central constituency. As Beloved Husband put it, Tony Lloyd could be “like that German bloke at Liverpool Airport and he'd still get elected.”
But being an interfering type, and various campaign groups having decided to make use of web form technology to persecute parliamentary candidates, I've been helping out.
First, there was the Palestine Solidarity Campaign's lobbying tool to contact MPs asking them to sign up to pledges on issues such as a ban on settlement goods and action on the Gaza blockade. When I did this on about Thursday only Green candidate Gayle O'Donovan and Liberal Democrat Marc Ramsbottom had made email addresses available, so only they got that message from me. Tony Lloyd's parliament.uk address won't work once purdah starts, so they didn't have one for him; I sent the PSC his personal website contact address which will no doubt have pleased him immensely (he always used to be very good at replying to the various human rights, environmental and Palestine-related postcards and email forms he had off me, but I think I've become too annoying and he's given up, or he's got a new admin person who isn't as on the ball as the previous one). They didn't have one for the Tory candidate, Suhail Rahuja, either. Having gone back for another look, the PSC have apparently managed to find an email for him too, so anyone using the form now will get all four of them. I haven't had a response from the two who should have had the initial message, though.
Secondly, there is the Refugee Council's Asylum Election Pledge, asking candidates to “reject racism and xenophobia, and to remember the importance of refugee protection in debates about immigration policy.” Again, the pledge organisers didn't seem to have been able to find Mr Rahuja's email address – 'Tory candidate not interested in constituent's view shocker'? - but had the other three listed.
Encouragingly, on this one I got an emailed reply from Marc Ramsbottom before 24 hours were up, and even more encouragingly he had this to say:

Dear Sarah
Thank you for your email about the campaign by the Refugee Council.
I have signed up to support this campaign at their website and in particular support the right of asylum seekers to be able to work and support themselves and their families.
Thank you for contacting me about this issue.

So, not only responsive but talking some much-needed sense on the subject, something rare in the generally racist, alarmist and repugnant political discourse on asylum in this country. So, one up to Mr Ramsbottom (although I believe OA may have less positive things to say about Manchester Lib Dems' new manifesto position on climate change in an upcoming issue of Manchester Climate Fortnightly. And I will be posting any more replies I get...

Police floor WW2 veteran

As well as reports of heavy-handed policing of the demo against the fascist EDL in Bolton last Saturday, this video has come out of riot police splatting an 89-year-old WW2 veteran who was there to protest against racism. Nice one, lads, 'just doing your duty':

Signs o' the times

It was very odd the other morning to witness the Mail and the Express using the word Bigot in big headline letters to describe the execrable Nick Griffin of the BNP in the wake of his BBC TV debut. Mainly because the gap between the views on immigrants and women regularly espoused by said papers is usually pretty damn close to those of Mr Griffin. But I supposed they prefer their reactionary racism to be spouted by people at least one remove from out-and-out fascism, so they need to put some clear blue water between him and themselves. Weird to watch though.
On the subject of clear blue water - and, indeed, borderline fascism - a lurking cold, brain fatigue (the Leila Khaled book is due in in a week) and the NHS's ongoing slowness in offering any solution to my knackered hip have driven me once again into the arms of NCIS. A truly appalling show, but my goodness Mark Harmon is some quality eye candy. Hence the gratuitous pic. Just look at those lovely twinkly eyes.
Brian Candeland of Manchester Green Party has some good points to make about the decline of the local press here, as well as also pointing out the fallacy of assuming that because it's a less tangible Thing, the internet doesn't have a whopping environmental impact. To add to his info, I'll point out that the average server has similar climate change emissions to that bugbear of environmentalists, the SUV.
I suspect that Candeland and other Manchester G/greens will have their work cut out on coming months opposing Tesco's plans for one of its biggest grounds in the UK, being plotted in collusion with the corporate whores at Lancashire Cricket Club. There's a new campaign website here and I suspect that if Trafford council are stupid enough to let the proposals through the planning stage, this will turn into a big campaign - as one south Manchester environmentalist, a veteran of the Newbury and Manchester Second Runway direct action campaigns and now aspiring to a quiet life and parenthood (if those two are remotely compatible), said a while back, "Oh God, I hope it doesn't go through, or I'll have to go and sit on diggers and down tunnels again, won't I?" Well, there was an opening demo last week, and probably loads more to come. I'll be with you, guys, just as soon as I get that new hip...

Tories in Manchester...

On tonight's Channel 4 news coverage of the closing day of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, I just saw Alan Duncan fulminating against a tweeted question about Dave C's homophobic friends in Europe.
Duncan's concentration on the fact that he, as a gay man, doesn't feel threatened was unfortunately typical of Tories – in the upper classes, you've always been able to get away with behaviour outside of bourgeois respectability, because the highest strata of society is always cushioned by its money and privilege, even if it does things that get less affluent people – at best – ostracised and - at worst - kicked to death.
The question had been put online by that nasty little Manc Labour hack Kevin Peel, who was probably thrilled to get a pasting from a Tory on primetime TV. On this occasion, though, I have to acknowledge that he has a point, given the extremely unpleasant nature of the some of the right-wing, racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, misogynistic etc etc etc characters that Cameron's MEPs are hobnobbing with in the European Parliament.
I have to confess that, currently being a cripple with little incentive to head into the city centre this week, Conservative Conference has largely passed me by. I did actually want to go to one of the fringe meetings (quite an embarrassing confession, that) – one on future Tory Middle East policy, run by the Conservative Middle East Council and CAABU, the Council for Arab-British Understanding.
Unfortunately, it was behind the security cordon and therefore I would have had to fork out an eye-popping two hundred quid to get there. Which given that the Tories are trying to insist on their accessibility and relevance seems a little steep. It's also disappointing on CAABU's part. I used to be a member, and I always got the impression that they're rather desperate for members, and their research and other work is quite interesting. But my joining a few years back seemed to coincide with them giving up any attempt to run events outside London, and I am increasingly sick of the capital's assumption that it's the centre of the bloody universe and we should all be heading down there on a regular basis if we want to have any decent cultural, intellectual or political experiences. It is, therefore, a pity that their first non-London event in quite some years was in such a patrician and pricey environment.
So I just got to indulge in a little cheap schadenfreude last Friday at the 'we've still got a few places left...' round-robin from CMEC, apparently trying to drum up a little trade for their event-beyond-the-barricades.
So, as the Tories clear out, Manchester gets ready for a visit from a really, really nasty bunch of dirty little fascists.

Another very useful website

Here's another in my very occasional series of links to Extremely Useful websites. In this case, one which allows you to convert any hideous .pub (evil Microsoft) files that annoying people might send you into nice easily-opened PDFs. A big hand for www.pdfonline.com!
I should of course be saying something about the fact that we now have an effing BNP MEP for the North-West - despite, actually, the BNP getting fewer votes than last time.
It's hard to actually work out what to say though, partly because I'm so angry and disgusted that the BNP have got in, and partly because I'm so furious with ego-driven cretins like No2EU, who unfortunately normally sensible people like Attila the Stockbroker were bigging up at the otherwise excellent Billy Bragg/David Rovics/ Attila/Alun Parry gig at the Picket in Liverpool a few weeks back.
23,000 people voted for No2EU. 5,000 votes was the gap in the NW between the Green Party and the BNP. Even Respect had the sense and decency to stand aside, recognising that the Greens were the best chance of keeping the BNP out. But no, a bunch of idiots had to split the Left vote. Half of them don't even seem to know what they were campaigning for - Marc found a bunch of them flypostering in Moss Side a couple of days before the election and tried to engage them on this, and just got a mouthful. Well, No2EU, I hope your little ego project was worth the hundreds of thousands of pounds Nick Griffin is going to be getting in funding over the next few years. Nice one lads.

Waiting for the results...

Well, the European election results come out this evening, which means we'll finally know if the North-West has subjected itself to the shame of electing a BNP MEP.
Whilst the Tories have been the biggest beneficiaries of disillusionment with New Labour (not sure quite why that sweep has been so comprehensive; it was Conservatives who had perpetrated some of the most laughable expenses gaffs, like duck islands and that prick Steen from Totnes chastising the proles because apparently we're all just jealous of his mansion), the BNP has picked up a few new county council seats in the likes of Lancashire and Leicestershire.
My dad, standing for the Lib Dems and subjecting himself to an even greater-then-usual kicking from the Tories in leafy Herts, also got an enhanced level of punishment from the Greens (good!) and the BNP (bad!).
My mum's comment on much of this, made while arguing with a Telegraph-reading uncle while on one her escapes from the depths of Croydon, was that anyone who is a grandparent (and I guess also a parent, aunt, uncle, brother or sister) should first and foremost be choosing their votes on the grounds of climate change policy. Which was hideously pertinent in the week that the Carteret Islands became the first to be systematically evacuated because of the effects of climate change. Something that remained barely commented on in the general media.
Meanwhile another contact, a fan of Friend Sharyn's Gaza blog, observed that she'd written to her UKIP MEP (now sacked) about the issue of Palestine/Israel/settler produce labelling and received a letter back from his assistant saying that she was clearly a terrorist sympathiser and that the correspondence was now closed. Now that's constituency relations for you!
And by way of an update to the last post I did here, the billboard agency which hosted the Israeli Tourist Agency ads which obliterate the West Bank and Gaza into a big glowing yellow Israel outline have bowed under the weight of letters to the ASA, themselves and the Underground and are taking them down. One small victory...
In the West Bank itself another young man has been shot dead in the peaceful protests against the Wall at Ni'lin, while the liberal media creams itself over Obama's Cairo speech. Here is an account of the young man's funeral, from Ma'an News Agency:

Clashes erupted as the funeral procession for the Ni’in man killed by Israeli forces Friday were prevented from reaching the burial grounds in the village on Saturday morning.
Hundreds of mourners including several Palestinian leaders, clergy and political activists, left the Ramallah hospital with Yosef A’qel Srur’s body and took to the streets to accompany the man, shot in the chest with a live bullet by Israeli soldiers, to his grave.
The procession chanted slogans affirming their belief in non-violent resistance and dedication to the struggle against the wall.
The slain man was a 37-year-old father of three young children. Three others were injured by live bullets at the event, and were taken to hospital for treatment.
When the funeral procession arrived to the entrance to the village, four Israeli military checkpoints were set up. Mourners were forced out of their vehicles and walked the rest of the way to the village, said Salah Al-Khawaja, coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Ni’lin.
According to Al-Khawaja, Srur spent four years in an Israeli prison for his participation in the non-violent protests, and had been arrested several times and charged fines totaling over 1000 Israeli shekels (250 US dollars). During one home invasion, Israeli forces broke into Srur’s apartment and shot his brother in the eye. Though he was rushed to the hospital he lost the eye and is partially blind.
Srur participated in the rallies each week for years.

Chomsky delivers a more realistic analysis of Obama's speech here, while the irascible but excellent Robert Fisk comments on what exactly the POTUS got to see of the Middle East. I wonder where Fisk will be off to if, as seems horribly likely, the Independent becomes the first national casualty of the crisis of the newspapers busy killing off our local press. Friend Ruth bumped into an old colleague from Ethical Consumer the other day who now works on a Manchester local paper. She still has her job, but other people don't and she has to do their work too - with no extra pay.
I guess that's the market for you.

European elections

Now there's a title to inspire, eh? But this year's euro-elections in the North West need to be taken very seriously indeed, in that there is a very real danger that the execrable Nick Griffin, ex-National Front member and now leader of the fascist BNP, will get in. Now, the BNP may be busy pretending to be a respectable party but they are still a bunch of vile little racists (not to mention their views on anyone else who isn't white, male and conforming to their narrow and basically fundamentalist views on society - I wouldn't fancy being a single mum under them, or a women looking for reproductive choices.)
It genuinely seems that the best bets to keep these bastards out are a) a good turnout overall, and b) a high level of votes for the Green Party. The latter argument is strong enough that Respect have, to their credit, stood aside and asked left-wing voters who would have supported them to vote Green instead. So here are a few pertinent links, such as a few apposite words from the chair of Manchester Green Party, the campaign site for Peter Cranie, Green candidate in the European elections and some links to Unite Against Fascism groups in the North-West. I did want to include a link to Manchester No Borders here but can't actually find anything from them on the subject...