We’ve been a bit quiet this week and will likely suspend next week’s newsletter because our 7 year old workhorse laptop has effectively died and we’re constrained by an even older desktop for a while. As its manufacturer now classes it as vintage, the cost of repair is uneconomical and we need to upgrade to a machine more fitting to our current work.
Rest assured we’ll be back with all cylinders firing soon, but please help us now with a donation if you are able, as we already run on a sub-zero budget and this will be a major expense.
Remember that all donors receive a secret link to watch the documentary ‘SOCPA – The Movie’ which charts the battle between legendary Parliament Square anti-war protester Brian Haw and the government. Watch the trailer here.
On this day 20 years ago, the government chose to ignore the voices of millions who marched in protest at the plans to wage war on Iraq. So today is a poignant moment to catch this movie, as Brian’s protest was first about the sanctions on Iraq, and then that horrific war.
Over the decades, it has become clear that the spoils of the Iraq war went to multi-national fossil-fuel companies, whose own scientists already knew they were reaping havoc on the climate.
Just like 20 years ago, rather than responding to science and protest, the government is again acting in the interests of those same companies, while clamping down on any dissent. In Brian’s day they introduced the SOCPA legislation to try and stop his peaceful protest, while now they are pushing through the Public Order Bill (amid other repressive legislation), which would effectively have made the anti-war march of February 15th 2003 unlawful, and will likely lead to many more climate protesters sentenced to prison.
