News In Brief
After the success of the Direct Action Conference in Brighton last year there will be another one this year on 23rd November, again to take place in Brighton. It will include a wide variety of talks, workshops and discussions that will not just be the stereotypical ‘alternative’ or ‘green’ ones. Anyone wanting more details or with anything to offer in the way of help contact: 01273 685913.
A new campaign has started up called ReMeDiaL (Revolutionary Money Defacement League). Its stated aim is the overthrow of the techno-industrial capitalist system, but in the meantime the group intends to scrawl messages of resistance on all bank notes in circulation.
As mentioned in a recent Action Update there is to be a US Earth First! Roadshow coming over next summer to tour around talking about various subjects including forest issues, industrial culture, and wilderness defence. They want people who will help to organise venues for the roadshow to visit. Anybody who thinks that they will be able to do this get in touch with the Action Update so that a list can be collated of people who can help.
Nike has just had a television commercial made for hiking shoes that was filmed in Kenya with Samburu tribespeople. In the advert the camera closes in on one tribesman who speaks in his native language and as he speaks the slogan 'Just Do It' appears on screen. Except Lee Cornk, an anthropologist at the University of Cincinnati, says the tribesman is really saying, “I don’t want these.” Nike’s Elizabeth Dolan says, “We thought nobody in America would know what he was saying.”
On the 12th March 1996 Simon Sunderland was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for graffiti on mostly derelict and now demolished sites in Sheffield. His plans to go to art college have been destroyed and his future employment prospects greatly diminished. Simon’s art did nobody any harm and brightened up grim spots of the city, is that worth sending him to prison for? For more information about the campaign to free Simon contact: Free Simon Sunderland Campaign, 18 Wentworth Road, London SE5 8HW. Also please write to him in prison at: Simon Sunderland RR1591, HMP Everthorpe, E Wing, Brough, North Humberside, HU15 IRA.
The minutes of the workshop on ‘The New Age and Conspiracy Theories’ that took place at the Earth First! Gathering in Wales in June are available from: Open Eye, BM Open Eye, London, WC1N 3XX. Enclose an SAE and a donation to cover photocopying costs.