Kepler-186

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/grangemouth-crisis-billionaire-ineos-boss-2468322.amp Grangemouth crisis: Billionaire Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe tells workers to agree to his terms or face the sack AS the owner of the refinery celebrated his birthday, the 1,400 strong workforce were warned they have until 6pm on Monday to accept the cuts or the plant may close. From 2013. Lobbied Osborne.

Quality, nice one. Also recommend Bureau of Lost Culture, two episodes in particular: one on Cambodian rock n roll pre Kymer Rouge, and one about founder of Rock against Racism.

Listened to this mini series within the Irish History Podcast about Irish involvement in the Spanish Civil War. 10 episodes that covers all aspects including International Brigade volunteers, the blueshirts, and details of events in Spain.

“And yea as thou does thy Saturday big shop dig deep for it is through this exchange of credit for product thou will verily see God in all his glory. Blessed be those who keep the tills ringing. Amen.”

About Manchester but applies across the UK. https://www.bigissue.com/news/environment/hostile-architecture-design-manchester/ How gentrification and hostile architecture has pushed out the working class Gentrification has pushed out poor and working-class residents from Manchester’s city centre, concealing the consequences of hostile design BRONTË SCHILTZ 13 Oct 2023 Stevenson Square, Manchester SHARE City centres have to be more inclusive and accessible for everyone. Manchester’s Northern Quarter has a reputation for bohemianism; home to record shops and independent music venues, the Quarter is lined with street art celebrating the city’s uniqueness. But beneath the veneer of progressivism lies a harsher reality: the area is fast becoming a poster child for gentrification, pushing out poor and working-class residents and concealing the fatal consequences of inequality. This is the subject of The Modern History of the Northern Quarter, a walking tour run by placemaker Hayley Flynn under the name Skyliner. Flynn delved into some of the most striking examples of the area’s failures to protect its residents and visitors amid rising costs of living – an increasing problem in city centres across the UK. There is hostile design all around us, invisible until we learn where to look. Wholesale Fish Market Once a thriving covered space, Wholesale Fish Market is now an open, empty square. “When it was a market, sex workers would come here because it was busy and they felt safe, and it’s always been an anchor for working-class people,” Flynn says. “There was a night asylum entrance, so if you were homeless, you could come and sleep here. “But now, it’s a really barren space – and it’s been designed that way. The gate’s open today, but that’s hugely rare. [The council] lock it as much as they can and there are signs about CCTV, but the planning permission was granted based on this being public realm.” Accessing the space requires a code, but when Flynn requested it for her tours, she was told by residents of the surrounding flats that “we can’t because of homeless people” who might seek solace on the market’s benches, if they knew they were there. “It’s a hostile design – if you’re stood by the gate, you can’t see that there’s anywhere to sit because the benches are hidden,” says Flynn. In the centre of the square, now in a state of disrepair, a plaque reads: “In Memory of Julie Margret Jones Found July 1998 Sadly Missed R.I.P. All Our Love Mum & Family.” “Julie Jones was a sex worker, and her body was found here,” Flynn says. “Effectively, the council used her death to say, something bad happened here; they used sex workers and homeless people, working-class people, as leverage, and because that gate is almost always closed, her family can’t even come to her official plaque.” William Fairburn Way On the corner of William Fairburn Way and Copperas Street, adjacent to the market, the corner of a residential building is lined with tasteful wood panelling – but if you look on Google Earth, you will see an open space bracketed by pillars and covered by a first-floor balcony. “Two homeless people died there in the last couple of years,” Flynn explains, resulting in the proprietors covering the space so that people could no longer shelter there. “I just find that so tricky – that the default is: ‘If they’re not here, the problem is removed.’ There’s such an onus put on city design as a means to fix all the problems and push them aside.” Thomas Street Opened by Prince Charles in 1981, social housing was built on the roof of Manchester Arndale shopping centre, which “near enough doubled housing figures for the city centre”, Flynn says. At this time, local businesses were closing, unable to compete with the Arndale, and the area was falling into disrepair – and disrepute. But as creatives moved into the new housing, the council made efforts to rejuvenate the area. This included the construction of an art trail. Back when the trail was first in development, “There was a plan to introduce benches and things that you need to improve an area,” Flynn says. “But that was too expensive, so they fell back on just the art. But people came back and said, ‘You have to put some benches in or you’re not having the art,’ and where that happened on a big scale was here” – on the corner of Thomas Street and John Street. Today, though, there are no benches to be seen. “One set of benches was set fire to a few years back,” Flynn explains, “and all of them were then removed. Because it was a homeless person who did that, the council said that they can’t have space here, so now people rest on the wall.” This notion of punishing a large demographic – in January, 7,407 people were known to be experiencing homelessness in Manchester, or 1.35% of the local population – for the actions of an individual is prevalent among the decisions that lead to hostile planning of city centres. The square now features a statue of a broom to celebrate the city’s street sweepers. “So all these pieces of art are about people without much money,” says Flynn, noting the irony. Brightwell Walk Nearby Brightwell Walk is home to social housing built in the late 1970s. “Some of the residents have been here since they were built,” Flynn says. “But because of right to buy, a lot of them became privately owned, and a lot of those became Airbnbs – and that’s a huge issue. “Aside from removing social housing, it’s pushing social tenants out because these units are really small, but the Airbnb listings say, ‘Sleeps upwards of 10 people’, so they’re not explicitly saying, ‘Come and party,’ but they are saying that.” Nearby, a stretch of sheltered ground big enough for someone to sleep under is blocked off with a metal gate and filled with litter. Beside it is a key safe of the type used for Airbnb properties. Stevenson Square Stevenson Square (main picture) was once the epicentre of Manchester’s radical politics. “This was the official meeting place for the suffragettes,” Flynn says. “Any protest started here. “It was also known as Speakers’ Corner, because in the Victorian era, there was a tax on paper so poor people couldn’t afford newspapers, so people would set up a stage here and read the papers every day. We’re only a radical city because of Stevenson Square.” But now, it is commercialised, inaccessible and even dangerous. The streets are lined with boards advertising trendy bars, but seating is reserved for money spenders, and the arrangement leaves the uneven pavement unusable for wheelchair users, parents with pushchairs and others with limited mobility. “The pedestrianisation has left it less accessible than it ever was,” Flynn says. Bus stops were even sold to bars to make space for additional seating. That has resulted in the removal of bus shelters, taking away the only free seating “in what is supposedly a public square”. Flowerbeds now take the place of former benches, but “they are regularly used to stash knives in,” Flynn says. “What’s the danger of having a bench? There’s nothing more antisocial than not allowing people space to rest.” Flynn notes the city’s attachment to Factory Records and Haçienda nightclub owner Tony Wilson’s infamous quote: “This is Manchester, we do things differently here.” “We do: we do things worse,” she laughs. “We don’t learn from the mistakes of other cities.” To learn more, visit theskyliner.org

Wonder what the right wing online shock troops WhatsApp group is like, and who gives them their orders?

The Media Show and The World Tonight on BBC R4 were both excellent tonight. Worth a catch up on Sounds. There was an Interview with a former Israeli soldier who’d been a hostage of Hamas for 5 years, and an explanation as to why BBC weren’t using the term “terrorist” in its reporting. I didn’t catch all of The Media Show, but it did cover the misinformation aspect and the EU calling out Musk and X/ Twitter.

The Battle Over "Cop City" The years-long fight over a planned police training center in an urban forest near Atlanta has pitted community, climate, and justice activists against law enforcement. The result has been violence, arrests—and a renewed crackdown on protest. By The Politics of Everything Since its approval by the Atlanta City Council in 2021, the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center—more commonly referred to as Cop City—has been a flashpoint of controversy. The $90 million facility is set to be built within a large forest adjacent to predominantly Black and poor neighborhoods; in protest, activists have taken up residence in the forest to try to stop its construction. In January, conflict between police and protesters turned deadly. On episode 72 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to New Republic senior contributing editor Molly Taft about the Cop City protest as an environmental justice movement and New York magazine senior writer Sarah Jones about the novel applications of law used to charge protesters with serious crimes. [clip]: Cop City will never be built, that’s it, hey hey! Cop City will never be built! Cop City will never be built! Alex Pareene: Cop City is the name protesters have given to a planned complexof police and fire training facilities in Atlanta. The plans for the center are vast: It will sit on 85 acres within a 1,000-acre forest. Laura Marsh: It will have classrooms and a shooting range and a place to practice high speed chases. But it will also have elements of an actual town. A mock streetscape with hotels and convenience stores and apartments, where police will act out “real world crisis situations.” It will also have a barn and pasture for police horses. Alex: The Atlanta City Council approved a lease agreement for construction of the center, officially named the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in 2021, despite considerable public testimony against the plans. Laura: The fight against Cop City combines environmental and social justice activism. And the protesters have been met with a severe crackdown. Alex: In January, as tensions escalated at the site, a protester was shot dead and a state trooper was wounded. By March this year, prosecutors had charged 23 people with domestic terrorism. And in September, they indicted 61 protesters on RICO charges. Laura: Today on the show, we’re talking about this plan for a mock city in the woods, what it shows about climate activism and social justice and at the same time, the suppression of protest. I’m Laura Marsh. Alex: And I’m Alex Pareene. Laura: This is The Politics Of Everything. Alex: Cop City is to be built on land the city owns in the Weelaunee Forest, also referred to as the South River Forest, which is seen by many as a critical part of Atlanta’s environmental infrastructure. The fight against Cop City has garnered national attention, both from climate activists and social justice activists who argue that the center’s location also adversely affects nearby poor and predominantly Black neighborhoods. TNR contributing senior editor Molly Taft joins us to give some more context to the Cop City battle, both within the civic history of Atlanta and the climate justice movement more generally. Molly, welcome to the show. Molly Taft: Hi. Thank you for having me. Alex: Tell us very broadly, what is the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, what is it for, and why does Atlanta think they need it? Molly: So, the city of Atlanta wants to build a big police training facility in a green space known as Weelaunee Forest. The facility is going to cost around $90 million. It’s going to be huge. Among the training features, there’s going to be a fake town to ostensibly train police officers in actions. It’s just a big cop playground, basically. I’m sure that’s not how they would describe it. So, they announced this facility in 2021, and the city at the time said that they needed this because of recent rises in homicide rates. There’s a lot of back and forth about those statistics, but that’s what the city said it needed it for and there’s two big issues here. One is that obviously, Atlanta, like most of the rest of the U.S., went through a big reckoning in 2020, with the George Floyd protests and the Black Lives Matter movement. Locally, about three months after George Floyd was killed, there was another killing of a citizen, Rayshard Brooks, by a cop in Atlanta. So, Atlanta has had its own reckoning with police presence, in obviously a historically Black city. And the other issue here is the location. The Weelaunee Forest has a long history: It was in the early 1800s, the site of the Muscogee Creek people, a tribe that lived there before they were pushed out. Most recently, for much of the twentieth century, it was actually a prison farm. Some experts have recommended that it be added to the National Register of Historic Places and actually, Stokely Carmichael was briefly held there during the civil rights period. So it’s got a lot of history and it’s a big green space, and a lot of the green spaces in the city are in white neighborhoods, and this one happens to be in a neighborhood that’s primarily Black. The building of a cop training facility of this size and stature in a space that is for a Black community in a city that doesn’t have a lot of green spaces is obviously—there’s a lot of layers. There’s a lot of issues with that. Alex: It encompasses so many different things, doesn’t it? I’m sure it’s true in Atlanta, because it’s true in almost every American city. You can look at a map of most major American cities and trees alone can tell you a lot about who lives where in an American city. I guess one of the interesting things about this facility, obviously, we said the City Council approved it, it’s not just being built with public money. It’s a sort of quasi privately funded thing, isn’t it? Molly: Yes, I’m very glad you pointed that out. Originally, the plan was a third public money, so the city would pay for it, but a bunch of funds are coming from the Atlanta Police Foundation. And this is one of those pro-police nonprofits that have cropped up in a bunch of cities. This particular nonprofit has gotten a lot of money and support from some pretty high-profile organizations. So past donors have included Bank of America, Chick-fil-A, Coca-Cola. On their current board, there’s representatives from Home Depot, AT&T, Delta Airlines, and one really notable contributor to the foundation is the Cox Foundation, which is the charitable arm of Cox Enterprises, the media conglomerate that also owns the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, which is the major paper in the area. Alex: Right. Molly: Yeah, and the AJC has been criticized for its coverage of the planned training center as well as the protests in response to it. So there’s a pretty clear tangle of interest going on here. Alex: Yeah, these private police foundations are pretty wild when you actually dig into them. It seems a little improper for these huge sums of corporate money to be going directly to and in this really unaccountable, undemocratic way, to just be going into the hands of the police. Molly: It’s a good way to pay a lot of money to police forces and have it be significantly less accountable than public funds Alex: Exactly. Laura: I want to go back to the forest itself for a minute. What are the criticisms from the community of the changes that Cop City will bring? Molly: I think that what’s important to keep in mind about green spaces is they’re not just pleasant places for recreation, although, of course, they are. Green spaces in cities are also really important climate-wise, like Alex mentioned. Trees are carbon sinks so they can help bring down emissions more generally, but also, areas in cities without trees or other green spaces have been found to be significantly hotter during the summer. It’s called the urban heat island effect. It gets hotter when there’s more concrete, more steel, more development around. And so at its very base, taking away green spaces, which is often what happens in lower-income communities and communities where people of color live, that’s a direct consequence for them as the cities get hotter. And Atlanta’s hot already and it’s very humid. I think it’s important to note that not all of the forest is going to be earmarked for this project. It’s a relatively smallish percentage, but still, the fact that they decided to—I think in some people’s eyes—take away what could be a more valuable resource to a community that doesn’t have these spaces there, is really what a lot of the issue is with folks who live there and folks who are opposed to this project. Alex: It’s almost like it’s not even just taking away the existing forest but removing other potential uses of it. Molly: And then also there’s the symbolism of having what many people would probably consider a weapon of the state on the site of a former prison that incarcerated a lot of people of color. Alex: Speaking of the symbolism of it, I think it’s really important to remember that it’s going to contain, basically, this mock village, right? As if to make really obvious the subtext of what these police are training for, it seems to me anyway, which is really making plain what the powers that be think of the role of the police in a community like Atlanta. Molly: Yeah, and I just did confirm there have been some activist reports on the ground that parking lots and trailheads have been dug up as part of this construction process and a land swap that the city also did with another private company that is enabling them to build this facility. So, there are actually resources being taken away from the community in this green space. Laura: After the City Council approved the plan, environmental activists moved to prevent Cop City from being built. There was confrontation, some of them violent. One ended with the shooting of an officer but also with the death of a protestor named Tortuguita. Can you tell us about what they did and how the city responded? Molly: So in 2021, the City Council approved these plans despite pretty widespread community protest, and that initiated some activists setting up camp inside the site itself. So, they built an encampment in the forest, on the site, to attempt to basically prevent construction from happening, and they call themselves forest defenders. Laura: Which is actually a pretty tried and true tactic for environmental protestors. Molly: Yeah, it’s a tactic that’s not unusual. What is unusual is the scale of the police response. So, there were arrests all throughout 2022. [Police] kept coming into the site and disturbing the encampment. In January of this year, there was a police raid that ended in the death of Manuel Terán, who was known to friends and fellow protesters as Tortuguita. So, what happened after this raid in January is the initial police report came out claiming that they were shooting at an officer. But activists and protesters in the area immediately began pushing back on this narrative and basically said that Tortuguita was unarmed and was sitting in a defensive position when they were killed. This led to widespread unrest throughout the city. The governor called in the National Guard. And I think this is what has worked well for the powers that be in Atlanta, is the response has been very slow. So national media attention kind of waivers. There was a lot of attention on the initial death, but their official autopsy results were not released until April and the autopsy results—and these were the official ones from the city—showed that [Tortuguita] had 57 gunshot wounds and no gunpowder residue. A private autopsy done by their family showed that they died in a defensive position. The Guardian reported that this is the first killing of an environmental defender in the United States, which is pretty notable. Alex: The first state killing or police one. Molly: Yeah, the first death of someone defending an environmental project in the United States. It’s actually just remarkable when you consider just how little it filtered up through the national media. I think that speaks to how the cop city story is being told on a national level. Laura: Do you think part of that is the gappy local media coverage? Molly: Well, I want to be clear, there are some really great local outlets doing reporting on the ground that have been on the story since day one. But I also just think that the national media, first of all, they don’t know how or they don’t have time to interrogate local stories where there’s a significant cop narrative that needs to be investigated. And secondly, the folks who are living in the forest and defending it, their asks encompass so many things: They encompass asks about police brutality, they encompass asks about community, they encompass environmental asks. And it gets complicated, and it gets messy, and people don’t have the time or inclination to really dig into what’s actually going on when it’s a complex narrative like this. Laura: You mentioned the governor calling in the National Guard. I just want to break down the response. So, it was local law enforcement initially coming to the camp and then how was the response stepped up? Molly: So, the raid was on January 18. That’s when Tortuguita— they were fatally shot. There were protests in downtown Atlanta a couple days later on the 21st, and the governor declared a state of emergency on the 26th. And then the bodycam footage wasn’t released until February 8, so it was several days later, and after all of these protests had happened and people had been arrested, and then the autopsy results were released. So again, it was just a serious drawing out of what was going on. Laura: And so even though it seems like the death of this protester points to excessive use of force, they stepped up the response instead of pulling back. In the months since then, has there been any change? Molly: I think if anything, they are getting more aggressive. If you just look at the actions taken since Tortuguita’s death, January to now, so in March, 35 people were arrested at the training center site, and some of them were charged with felony charges. Then in May, and this one’s really mind-blowing, police raided the homes of nonprofit executives whose organizations are connected to resistance efforts and then they charged three nonprofit folks with charity fraud—basically, some really serious charges for essentially, helping to financially support some of these resistance efforts. Laura: You cover a range of environmental and climate issues. How would you say this response compares with other big protests that we’ve seen in the last few years? Molly: I think it is remarkable in the violence that is being shown to protesters, but I also think it’s important to situate it as part of a larger trend. So back in 2016, the Dakota Access Pipeline protests got national attention like we hadn’t seen before. And in the wake of that, right-wing interests basically made it their job to make environmental protest as criminal as possible and they’re just very good at this. The American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, which is affiliated with the Koch brothers, basically shopped around versions of a bill that would criminalize pipeline protest. At this point, 17 Republican-controlled states have now passed something like this, and so protesters can face prison and fines, for stuff like protesting pipelines or construction sites. A lot of the ways they do this is by marking these sites as critical infrastructure—so something that should be protected by the state, even though they are essentially private projects. And we saw a little bit of this in Minnesota. There was a protest against a pipeline owned by the company Enbridge, and like Dakota Access, this was a Native-led protest and their relatively peaceful actions were criminalized. A lot of people went to jail, a lot of people were charged. So Cop City is unique for some of the reasons I mentioned. It’s difficult for people to wrap their head around because I think they just can’t see as direct of a connection with saving a public green space versus not building a pipeline, right? You can’t do the math, like this pipeline will release XYZ— Alex: will contribute this much carbon. Molly: Yeah. A lot of green groups really like those numbers because it basically helps make the case. But because it is less cut and dry, it’s the environmental issue that is going to become really important. We are all going to start fighting more locally for stuff like this. As the world gets hotter, it’s going to become even more important to have green spaces, and I think it’s really chilling what the state and the city is doing to crack down on this. Laura: Molly, thank you so much for talking with us. Molly: Thank you guys for having me. Laura: You can read The New Republic’scoverage of Cop City at newrepublic.com. Alex: After the break, we’ll examine the novel and disturbing legal strategies used against Cop City protesters. Laura: In September, the office of the attorney general for the state of Georgia announced that it was bringing RICO charges against 61 protesters of Cop City. The RICO Act was passed in the 1970s to help fight organized crime, and although harsh crackdowns on public protest are nothing new, using provisions of the RICO Act against environmental protesters is. Sarah Jones wrote about this new effort to criminalize dissent for New York Magazine. Sarah, welcome to the show. Sarah Jones: Thanks for having me. Laura: So the state is trying to portray the protesters of Cop City as this dangerous group of conspirators. Can you tell us who they actually are? What’s the origins of this group? Sarah: Right, so the origins of this group, I think, come a little bit out of the 2020 uprisings and seem to be pulling from a lot of different activist networks in the city. And I think the movement against Cop City was building on, especially, the uprising around the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. So, we’re talking about people who the state is characterizing as anarchists in order to make this argument that they’re therefore dangerous. From what I can tell, it’s a much more politically diverse group than that. I don’t think they all identify as anarchists at all, nor do they necessarily hold the same beliefs, follow the same practices, what have you. It’s like any typical left-wing effort in that way. Laura: OK, so just to break down some of the terminology that’s being used in these charges. One thing is that they refer to a group called Defend the Atlanta Forest, but as you flag in your piece, that isn’t really a group, can you just explain what’s going on there? Sarah: Yeah, so it does repeatedly refer to Defend the Atlanta Forest, which it does characterize as a group or an organization, as opposed to what it actually seems to be, which is a group of social media accounts and activists that are behind those accounts. But they don’t, as far as I can tell, belong necessarily to the same organization with this banner. Alex: Right. There’s not like a formal group with membership roles here or something. Laura: And I guess the idea of portraying it as a more cohesive, organized group is to create the impression that this is some highly disciplined conspiracy. Sarah: I think that’s exactly right. Laura: Let’s get into what those charges actually are.You highlight in the piece that one of the charges involves an $11.91 reimbursement for glue, which is characterized as an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Can you just take us through the indictment and some of the accusations that are made in that? Sarah: So there were a lot of pretty small dollar charges along those lines. I picked one of the lowest dollar amounts to make a point, but none of them were particularly large and they were often like buying forest tools, buying kitchen materials, glue, which I’m not sure how that was going to be used. But of course, in the tone of the indictment, it’s this nefarious scary thing. So I think it was all to make the argument that, first of all, these people are occupying the forest when they shouldn’t be. So there’s this conspiracy to make sure that they can dig in for the long haul, here in the forest [such as] conspiracy to put up flyers in different places, just really trying to drive home the idea that these people were all well-connected, that they had money, and were involved in this conspiracy. Alex: Yeah, but isn’t it just a conspiracy to engage in legal protest? Sarah: Yeah. Alex: How does the state justify, or how do they claim that this was a criminal conspiracy? Sarah: They tried to link the 61 people who were named in the indictment to certain acts of vandalism, for example. Specifically I think the claim was over like the vandalization of construction equipment. Laura: The things that are listed are really not what you would expect to see listed in a RICO prosecution because most people are used to thinking of RICO as charges that are used to prosecute the mafia. Were there any warning signs that they were going to take this direction? Sarah: It didn’t come as a surprise to activists, no, they were expecting that something like this was going to drop. The RICO indictment itself, I would argue, was part of this escalating assault on protest and left-wing political activity around Stop Cop City. A number of people have been charged with domestic terrorism based on really flimsy evidence, like the police were looking for people in muddy shoes and muddy clothing. And they were arguing that that was proof that they’d help repel the police from a part of the forest. And in fact, a number of them were also there for a concert. So, how you’re distinguishing between people who were part of one group and who were part of the second group is actually quite difficult. This is part of a long-running attack on the activism around Cop City. Laura: I want to go back to protestors being characterized as radicals and anarchists. Tell us more about what you think that framing is doing and how it is taking the idea of someone who cares about the environment to something else that seems to be ominous. Sarah: Right. The fact that the indictment really starts out with this argument that’s a political argument about anarchism, I thought it was really interesting and is part of one of the most disturbing things about the indictment. I think they’re playing on people’s fears, absolutely. There is definitely a stereotype that I would argue is not realistic or accurate that people who are anarchists themselves are violent and represent a threat to the state … not true of anarchists in general. Alex: That would be news to most of the anarchists I’ve known. Sarah: Yeah, same. That’s what I was thinking as I was writing this. Alex: It’s funny because it’s a very turn of the twentieth century kind of fearmongering too though, right? Sarah: It really is. Alex: There’s a rich history here of fearmongering about anarchism in this country. Sarah: Right and then proceeding from this place to then argue that the practices of solidarity and mutual aid and collective action are all part of this conspiracy are really disturbing. Laura: The thing that seems particularly worrying is that if you can characterize these things in criminal terms, you could just say anything about anyone because there’s no logical link and doesn’t seem to be grounded in actual evidence. If you can do that, then how can anyone ever protest anything legally? Sarah: Right, and I think that’s the point, isn’t it? I don’t think a lot of these charges are going to stand, but the point was to chill political activity. Laura: What effects have you seen since the indictment came out on that front? Sarah: People are definitely afraid, and I would argue maybe that chilling effect is there, I think it would be unrealistic for it not to, but the movement to stop Cop City has not gone away, it’s still there. Alex: What is the public justification, the local political justification for doing this, because I think that it’s clear that a lot of people in Atlanta do not particularly want Cop City. How are local officials justifying this crackdown on people protesting? Sarah: So, there have been a lot of arguments put forward in defense of Cop City and the development in general. One of them was that this is necessary to improve police morale and protect public safety in the area, which is what we commonly hear in any defense of expanding the police. That’s not so unusual, but the activist Micah Herskind had an interesting piece in Scalawag Magazine where he was essentially arguing that it was a way to say that Atlanta was open for business, signal to other corporate elites and upper-class white communities that it’s safe for them to open up new real estate markets for developers. The idea that locals would be somehow against those goals is really threatening to them and puts them in the position where they have to argue that all these activists are out-of-state agitators and they can’t possibly be from the local communities. Alex: We’ve seen that argument from local officials all over the country for the past several years, in New York, in Minneapolis, wherever there has been protest. Especially police officials and local politicians have been very quick to blame these sort of amorphous and terrifying out-of-state agitators, which I always find really interesting. Sarah: Yeah, it’s just unbelievable the idea that there would be just these roving bands of anarchists with enough money to come in… Alex: To travel the nation. Laura: Also something that I think really interesting in the piece you wrote is that there is a danger when an indictment like this comes out that the media will just report that 61 people have been charged with conspiracy. It almost ties them with the brush of being guilty because you can just report this as what the prosecution says. Sarah: Right. I think this is the way the media approaches a lot of criminal justice issues where there is this tendency to just believe whatever prosecutors or the police are saying about a given case. I would like to think that maybe in the wake of the 2020 uprising, the press is a little more critical, but I think it varies wildly from outlet to outlet and reporter to reporter, whether or not that’s the case. Alex: It always seems to me that there are lessons that the national media in particular, doesn’t just refuse to learn, but that they forget, right? I think one of them is around trusting essentially what the police say. I mean, I actually knew some of the protesters against the 2008 Republican convention in St. Paul charged with felony terrorism, which again, was a terrifying thing to face. Then by the time it actually went to a courtroom, all the felony charges were thrown out, but it makes people much less likely to want to actually go out there and protest things. Laura: How do you keep going when everything you do has now been recast as a form of criminal activity? Sarah: I think it’s a good question, and I’m not sure what I would do as an activist in their position. The RICO indictment was designed to be so sweeping that as you said, it’s just criminalizing legitimate forms of political activity making it really hard for people to go forward. It’s especially targeting the active occupation, which is really central to left-wing protest. I don’t think that, like I said earlier, that the movement against Cop City is going anywhere. But perhaps it’s going to enter more of a regrouping stage as they figure out what they do next. Laura: Why do you think environmental protests have caused such a crackdown in this case? We’ve seen crackdowns with pipeline protests too. What do you think is happening there? Sarah: Building off of that piece in Scalawag Magazine, I would argue that it’s because environmental activism is really challenging a lot of financial interests in a direct way, and I think it causes especially elected to Democrats—it forces them in a difficult position and reveals, I think, how meaningless a lot of their stated positions are. Whether it’s a commitment to police reform, whether it’s a commitment to environmental justice, and I think it becomes an embarrassment for them. And I would guess that’s part of the crackdown. Alex: Yeah, I think there’s something to that. I think that one reason the crackdown in particular against environmental protests has been so severe is—not to psychoanalyze too much—but almost a sense of guilt. Sarah: Yeah. I’d like to think they’re capable of feeling shame. Yeah, I was kind of optimistic on my part. Alex: Yeah, maybe we’re completely off base, but I know how I would feel if I was in their position. Sarah: Right. Alex: Sarah, thank you so much for talking to us today. Sarah: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was great. Laura: Read Sarah Jones’s article, “The Cop City Indictment Prosecutes Dissent,” at nymag.com

“There’s a line being drawn round the world today, full of fear and suspicion, insecurity and hate.”

Geoffrey Boycott. Doesn’t need much explanation really. When those whatever they were protesters were flying drones around Heathrow the police had deployed sniper and he took to Twitter to moan why they hadn’t shot them down straight away. Some wag replied “maybe they’re just playing themselves in for a few hours, Geoffrey.”

Iain Dale. Took great delight in helping instigate the return of casual labour and therefore zero hour contracts and beat up an OAP. Grade A self serving cunt. Mates with Nick Ferrari. Pretends to like the unmentionable as it plays well with a demographic. The Le Saux of white van drivers.

AI facial recognition: Campaigners and MPs call for ban. “policing minister Chris Philp said he wanted officers to be able to access a wider range of databases for images besides those on its national database, which is limited to those who have been arrested.” https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67022005.amp

Tip of the iceberg when it comes to local government across the country. Shameful shit.

Today’s long read from The Post about Liverpool City council investing in luxury supercar brand BAC. Not sure if it’s paywalled as I use the app. The usual suspects involved. I’m honestly of the opinion that they (Tory govt.) banked on this happening and it was a case of being given enough rope. Last week it was announced Melodic Distraction was closing after 9 years. Chased out of the Baltic into the “Fabric” district off London Road. They had some great shows on and showcased artists and genres you might not think of. Great shame all the money that’s been wasted couldn’t have supported them. Still, Eurovision filled up the tills. https://open.substack.com/pub/liverpoolpost/p/how-liverpool-city-council-blew-almost?r=7i95q&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

Yeah agree with that, went to see it last night and really enjoyed it.

They’ve just done a lowlight reel on Politics Live of the main speeches from Tory conference. Jesus, Braverman is scary. Obviously had a few dollars bunged her way over in D.C. and a quick makeover. Pure alt right talking points. Hunt’s glee at targeting claimants was palpable. A scion of one of the oldest English coloniser families dealing to the undeserving poor. Transport secretary Harper went even further into the realms of the cosmic scally fringe. Seriously dangerous shit. The fact Truss is even given a platform is like an open goal for Labour. 50 billion quid down the swannee. Rinse and repeat. Sunak? The 0.1% candidate. In thrall to the descents of the Chicago Boys. Freeports to crush workers rights and sell more public land to offshore developers. Classic Robocop shit.

Probably be Archbishop of Canterbury in 5 years.

10 minute whine on social media about getting jibbed by Falange TV.

It’s definitely not a blokey bloke’s name.

All good points Gnash. My main point is the people in the background who’ve pushed the Brexit agenda and will have wargamed the possible outcomes are now in charge, and are irrevocably altering the playing field of what is acceptable public discourse. It’s tied up with the global right and well funded groups like the Atlas Foundation. It’s leftists job to oppose these head the ball Yank cunts so if it meant better the devil you know and EU membership then so be it. That’s not to say the EU was a perfect institution. But the economic case alone showed the advantages in terms of the 4% or so drop in GDP and subsequent inflation.

His ringtone is California Love Tupac and Dr Dre.

Interesting to see Global (owners of LBC) at the Tory conference with a stand. In a few places round here these massive black 2001 looking monolith screen points have appeared to spew their (LBC) messages out. Nothing says thriving community like takeaways, vape shops, Cash converters and 20 alkies playing with a flyaway next to a 10 ft globally integrated media platform and closed office blocks.

I spoke to my neighbour earlier. She’d lived for a long time down in Kent and her lad is still living down there on the coast. He’s just moved into a rented property. He moved in and it was unfit for human habitation. She fired up to find out who the landlord was. I guessed straight away: Tory councillor. She blew him up over the phone and he ended up putting her lad up in a Premier Inn 850 quid a month rent for a two bed where one “bedroom” didn’t have windows and was akin to a cupboard. Turns out he’s got about 30 properties including a load in Liverpool.

Name: Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt Nationality: British Date of birth: 1 November 1966 Role: Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (old info) Jeremy Hunt is a British Conservative Party politician serving as the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs since 9 July 2018 and Member of Parliament (MP) for South West Surrey since 2005. Jeremy Hunt was born in Lambeth Hospital, Kennington, the eldest son of Admiral Sir Nicholas Hunt, who was then a Commander in the Royal Navy assigned to work for the Director of Naval Plans inside the recently created Ministry of Defence, by his wife Meriel Eve née Givan (now Lady Hunt), daughter of Major Henry Cooke Givan. Hunt is a descendant of Streynsham Master, a pioneer of the East India Company.