Rooftop protest defies Raytheon with Christmas dinner

by coherent Fri Dec 26, 2008 00:38

Thanks for the articulate article attached to this direct action, which i also wholeheartedly support. It seems unfortunately rare nowadays for direct action to come attached with someone who can actually write without having to scream 'pigs', with excessively capitalised ranting attached, which is usually also barely literate even in this day and age of spellcheckers.

It gives me hope that activism, whether of the direct action variety or not, hasn't entirely descended into the pit of raucous, sneering anti-intellectualism that is nowadays unfortunately common on sites like BIM and elsewhere.

by charlie brown Fri Dec 26, 2008 16:09

I second that. I'm getting a bit tired of anarchists who can barely spell screaming 'pigs', and smashing up police vehicles, etc. Not the spelling is always an issue, and not that i'm always against targeting the police, but this article is an increasingly rare exception to the illiterate gutter anarchism that keeps appearing here.

Going a bit off-topic, but i suspect the illiterate anarchists on here are Sex Pistol type fans, who don't realise that the Sex Pistols were a manufactured boy band intended to give anarchists the most self-destructive, self-marginalising idols Malcolm Mclaren (a fully fledged elitist member of the establishment) could conjure up, so as to discredit anarchism as fully as possible.

And still anarchists are falling for the establishment creation that the Sex pistols are to this day.

by tarnished anarchist Fri Dec 26, 2008 20:24

Very true about the sex pistols. Everytime I see an 'anarchist' do a john lyndon, childish eyepopping sneer, and 'fuck off' as if they're playing to the cameras, I know i'm seeing the right wing caricature of anarchism that they wanted every anarchist to adopt so as to destroy it. And destroy it they did. Anarchism ate itself, and continues to eat itself in that infantile image.

Very similar to how so many socialists managed to adopt the right wing loony left cariacture that the right also helped create for them to adopt, with all the excessive finger pointing, and politically correct moral judgementality in place of an economic agenda.

Funny how the left has adopted all the right wing caricatures that they helped implant into it.

But to get back on topic, yes, this is a very good article. That it is good and is also direct action is even better :)

by Stig Sat Dec 27, 2008 16:14

Let's keep showing the Bristol War Machine that they are not allowed to break these national and international laws and treaties. If the politicians won't help we'll have to take it into our own hands and as its bit of a challenge to climb the houses of parliament we'll have to take on our local weapons manufacturers.

When are Smash Raytheon going to have a public meeting?

I want to get involved but just don't know how!

Nice Work Tho People Keep It Up.

by santa Sat Dec 27, 2008 17:18

total respect for doing this...
just one tactical question...
why on xmas day? clearly nobody will be working, press don't give a shit, in fact i'd be surprised if there's anyone within a mile radius of that business park. what is the aim of doing it on xmas?

by Ed Hill Sat Dec 27, 2008 21:46

Why Christmas day - to maintain the morale of the rooftop protesters. They get bored out of their brains when there's no-one else around. And we wouldn't want them to think world and the activists of Bristol had forgotten about them. Plus a fair number of people are happy to “escape Christmas” to do something useful.

Getting involved - a rooftop protest is by nature somewhat spontaneous and of unpredictable timescale. But public meetings take quite a while to organise and publicise. However a local antiwar group is considering one in the spring on the issue of Bristol’s massive involvement in the Arms business.

Keeping in touch, on this and everything else in our area – make Bristol Indymedia your “homepage”

by santa Sun Dec 28, 2008 18:05

i understand supporting them on xmas is important, i'm just questioning the point of the occupation carrying on thru xmas in the first place. it's a purely strategic question, as in "what are the aims of being up there on a day that there is nobody else around, raytheon probably aren't working, the media don't care, etc?"

by the way i totally support the action, just interested to discuss the strategy

by anarchist606 Mon Dec 29, 2008 13:54

this story has been picked up by US based outlet truthout - well done!

by Reindeer Mon Dec 29, 2008 15:40

Hi Stig!
How to get envolved...
Come to the vigils at raytheon thurs 3-6pm
sat 1-3pm and meet us
Or go and visit anytime and chat to protesters.

by Anarchist606 Mon Dec 29, 2008 18:04

More coverage of the protests...