No 38, August 2001
YOUTH REVOLT!
KIDS in West Sussex schools are
rebelling against the sinister CCTV systems that watch over their every move.
A dramatic mass walk-out at a Horsham secondary school has already made
headlines and the wave of revolt is set to spread. Students in Worthing are
now said to be getting together to plan similar protests and schools and
colleges are bracing themselves for conflict at the start of the next school
year. Rumours are suggesting that the morning break on Friday September
28 has been chosen as the moment for a walk-out across Worthing schools.
The uprising in Horsham happened on Wednesday June 27 at Tanbridge School, for
11 to 16 year olds. Students told the West Sussex County Times
(June 29) that more than 100 pupils walked out in protest at spy cameras. One
said: "There is no privacy. We cannot go anywhere without being watched.
We’ve just had enough of them." A horrified West Sussex County
Council tried to claim the walk-out had never happened but, as a
letter from a father of a pupil commented in the following week’s paper
Denying there was a walk out when clearly there was and many, many students
including my own son witnessed it, seems to be downright worrying." Downright
worrying. That just about sums up the loss of personal freedom we are all
experiencing these days. But the fact that a new generation are beginning
to fight back can only be described as downright encouraging!
Fat cats against beauty
ONE of the best things about living
in Worthing and West Sussex is that it is such a visually appealing area. From
Cissbury Ring, for instance, you cannot fail to be impressed by the vista laid
out before you. The green ridge of the Downs stretches out to the east, the
unspoilt downlands across to Chanctonbury Ring to the north, a view across
Salvington Hill and Highdown on to the Isle of Wight across to the west and to
the south the red brick of the town bordering the shimmering blue sea.
It’s so pretty you could print postcards of it. But all this scenery
does not go down at all well with those ever-so important persons who make up
the so-called Business Community and their puppets on the councils. Last year
we had the new signs placed on the roads leading into Worthing replacing the
description of "seaside resort" with the Blairspeak term "centre for
business". And now we have had an explicit admission from the self-same
Business Community that they are out to destroy everything that most of us
like about this humble corner of the universe. The game was given away by
Dr Norman Boyland, former vice-president of controversial
multinational drugs company SmithKline Beecham and a key member
of the local establishment - he is Deputy Lieutenant of West
Sussex and chairs Sussex Innovations Ltd, Sussex
Learning and Skills Council, the board of of governors at
Northbrook College and the West Sussex Economic
Forum. It was in his role with the WSEF that he announced
(Worthing Guardian, June 8) his determination to horribly alter
the familiar face of West Sussex. He warned: "Too many cling to an outdated
Victorian postcard image. We’re going to change that." Some might
think that the Business Community had already gone some way to fulfilling this
blatant threat - town centre monstrosities like the seafront multi-storey car
park, the Guildbourne Centre and Teville Gate, plus the greenfield sprawl of
Durrington, Lyons Farm and so on. But that’s obviously not enough. For a
clue as to what the Business Mafia have in mind for us all we might look at
the June 2001 issue of Sussex Enterprise Business News - The Voice of
Sussex Business. Here Sussex Enterprise chief executive Ken
Caldwell declares he is "delighted" that the South Downs at Goodwood
are to be cruelly despoiled by having a car factory built on them
(it’s Rolls Royce, so that’s a superior quality of despoliation
we’re talking about). Though he cannot help conceding that there are
"some significant environmental issues to be considered", he says these are
completely outweighed by the need for "a prosperous local economy along the
south coast" - in other words, another opportunity for his fat cat chums
to get richer at whatever cost to the community and environment. We could also
look at comments made by the superbly named Lieutenant Colonel Tex
Pemberton, county cabinet member for strategic environmental services.
The Worthing Advertiser reported (July 4) that he was getting
impatient about the time being taken on the local transport study looking at
improving overall transport links, including rail and bus routes. He fumed:
"The study is holding up work on improvements, such as the Arundel
bypass, which will be required whatever the outcome. It is not just the
residents of West Sussex that want something to happen urgently," said the
Lt-Col. Who else’s views could he possibly be interested in, we
wonder... "We know that it is also an urgent priority within the
business community". Well who’d have thought it! Closer to home, the
council has recently given the go-ahead for businessmen to demolish the
popular seafront pub The Litten Tree and replace it with flats.
The 19th century building is even in a conservation area, but of course
that can’t be allowed to stand in the way of Progress and a fast buck.
Building factories on the Downs, pushing new roads across the countryside,
demolishing all the attractive old buildings in town - these are the weapons
of the business dictators in their unholy war to create a Brave New Sussex of
which nobody would ever want to be sent a postcard.
Benefit gig
The Ego-Warriors are proud to present the
porkbolter gig, a fund-raiser for the Cowley Club (Brighton social centre) and
The Pork-Bolter at 8pm Thursday September 20, 2001 @ The Lounge Bar, Bath
Place, Worthing (by back door of Woolworth’s, was Frog Pond).
Featuring punk sensations Becomes the Water of Death, plus support act and
DJs. Free entry!
Politicians murder democracy
ANTI-ELECTION protesters caused
a stir outside several polling stations in Worthing on the afternoon and
evening of June 7. They handed out slips of paper, remarkably similar to the
official voting cards issued by the authorities, advising people to spoil
their ballot papers. Said a spokesman for the activists: "We had a lot of good
responses from people who appreciated the sense of humour and could also see
what we were getting at - that the whole election system is a trick and a
fraud. The best thing is to stay away all together, but our aim was to catch
people who were already on their way to vote and dissuade them from actually
endorsing any of these political con-artists." The objectors’ efforts
didn’t go down so well with the election officials, with one particular
jobsworth apparently displaying some highly entertaining signs of indignation
- the sort of reaction that makes it all worthwhile. And a measure of the
action’s success was perhaps revealed by the next week’s issue of
the Worthing Guardian, which reported (June 15) that locally
there had been "a rise in spoilt or void votes, with a number of cards
voting for no one at all and others scrawled with various blunt opinions on
the election itself." The paper also confirmed that turnouts in both
Worthing constituencies were well down, reflecting the national picture. More
people stayed away from the polls than at any election since 1918. Only one
in four of the electorate voted for Tony Blair and his New Labour cronies
- hardly the popular mandate they like to pretend they have received. But at
the end of the day, all that matters to any politician is power - the
views of the people they represent is only of peripheral interest once every
four or five years. And once safely back in the driving seat of our happy
democratic island paradise, Mr Blair demonstrated that it was "business as
usual" in every sense of the phrase. Before the public knew what had hit them
he awarded himself a £47,000 pay rise (try asking your boss for that!),
postponed the long-awaited Freedom of Information legislation for three or
four years and rushed full steam ahead into another round of Thatcher-style
privatisations (they’re called "reforms" in Blairspeak) of everything
from the London tube to hospitals and schools. A MORI survey has since shown
that privatisation is even more unpopular than the poll tax used to be (The
Guardian, July 12). But, of course, nobody had the chance to vote against
privatisation at the election because all the main parties are in favour of
it! This contempt for public opinion is at the heart of the arrogant
global political and economic system that Mr Blair represents. That’s
why our Government expects us to host America’s Star Wars
missile system that will protect only the USA and make England a prime target
for Uncle Sam’s many enemies! That’s why voters in Eire who
rejected the EU’s Nice Treaty are going to have to vote
again (and again and again?) until they give the answer their rulers
want to hear! That’s why Tony Blair won’t admit the existence of a
principled boycott of the polls ("apathy") or the fact that hundreds of
thousands of outraged and alienated human beings across the world are
revolting against the greed and destruction of the capitalist system ("an
anarchists’ travelling circus with the sole purpose of causing as much
mayhem as possible")! That’s why he thinks it’s OK for police to
shoot protesters dead and why he would have no moral qualms, if it came to it,
about having his own paramilitary goon squads murder anyone in the country
that made a serious challenge to the power and domination of money and greed
over humanity and justice.
Porky Pie’s Top Tip of the Month!
HOW TO BE A DEFENDER
OF DEMOCRACY:
- Bomb countries that don’t agree with you.
- Shoot protesters who don’t agree with you.
- Dismiss all your critics as "terrorists".
Victory in Hastings!
CONGRATULATIONS to all those who
mobilised ready to fight the threatened Hastings bypass, now chucked out by
the Government. A Pork-Bolter representative joined a walk along
the proposed route a few weeks back and was appalled at the thought of such an
overwhelmingly beautiful piece of countryside being destroyed. The fact that
eco-groups were getting organised to fight this road all the way, plus the
fact that they were getting considerable support from locals, including the
affected landowners, is thought to have been a key factor in the
Government’s decision not to go ahead. The Battle of Hastings won
without an arrow being fired! The course of history can be changed! More
info on the SCAR website - http://www.scar-uk.fsnet.co.uk
Victory in Brighton!
CONGRATULATIONS to the Brighton
binmen for winning their battle against their privatised employers
Sita, who tried to impose street cleaning rounds that were
described by the GMB union as "impossible". 11 staff who refused to go along
with the rounds were suspended and then more than 100 union members who
protested about the suspensions were sacked. So the binmen occupied the depot
and won massive support from the Brighton public, with clothes, food and
blankets donated. Anti-capitalist activisits joined in the battle with one
chaining himself to the underside of a dustcart to stop it leaving the depot.
A picket was held of Worthing’s Options job agency
opposite the pier to protest at its part in recruiting scab workers. In the
end, Brighton council had to side with the strikers. They ended Sita’s
contract and forced it to pay compensation. The staff have their jobs back.
A stunning victory for direct action
Sex shop scandal horror
PROTECTOR of public morality
Anthony Anthonies has discovered a pernicious array of obscene items on
display at a Worthing shop. Reported the saintly anti-smut campaigner: "I was
horrified on entering a certain supermarket, which shall remain nameless, to
discover items of an overtly sexual nature on display in front of women and
children. Imagine my horror on seeing whipped cream and all kinds of
differently shaped vegetables openly for sale. I well know from personal
experience how the minds of adult men can be horribly corrupted by contact
with large cucumbers. I am now seeking sponsorship for The Anthony
Anthonies Trolley Dash in which I will rush around the shop amassing
all sexually explicit items and then disappear without paying for them."
Way out west in Goring
WELL howdy pardner! We sure do have
some mighty swell noos for y’all this month. Yes sirreee! Seems how our
old buddy John Vaughan of Goring has gone and got hisself
hitched over Nevada way. Remember the fella? Wrote real fine letters to the
Worthing Guardian back in the Fall. Get rid of them hootin
tootin human rights, he said. We gotta build us a six-lane highway over them
there Downs. And bring back the good ole’ British empire. And now I
guess we know why ole Vaughan came over the way he did. Yip, he’s a
red-neck boy just like you and me! Listen up to what they writ in the
Worthing Herald (June 26): "Worthing residents John Vaughan and
Maureen Allen went way out west to be married at the Pioneer Saloon, at
Goodsprings, Nevada, USA. The bridegroom wore western clothes for the ceremony
at the near ghost town that was once a thriving mining town." There’s
even a fetchin’ photy-graph of ole Vaughan in his costoom. Yeee-ha
John-boy! You’re one hell of a cowboy!
PORK-SCRATCHINGS
WE were interested to hear our old chum West
Worthing MP Peter Bottomley rush onto BBC radio to defend
Lord Archer when the fellow Tory was jailed for four years for
perjury. Nice to know that Bumley sticks by his friends in times of need - and
nicer still to know exactly what kind of people those friends are...
* * *
THREE big events are coming up in Worthing. On Bank Holiday Monday, August
27, pro-cannabis campaigners are staging Worthing’s first annual
Big Smoke at 4pm by the sea at the "Field of Dope", Beach House
Green (next to the Aquarena). On Tuesday September 4, Worthing
eco-action are holding a meeting about the anti-G8 protests and
repression in Genoa, at The Downview pub opposite West Worthing railway
station, from 7.45pm. Then on Thursday September 20 there is our very
own benefit gig (see above.
* * *
FANCY attending some Egyptian Dance classes? Then pop down to
the Sidney Walter Centre in Sussex Road, Worthing, on Friday evenings from
7pm. Cost is £3. Contact 01903 231775 for details and if you’re
interested in classes for children.
* * *
RUPERT the Bear, a visitor to the Worthing Pavilion on Monday
July 30, is not as nice as he looks. It turns out (The Guardian, June
30) that the Invesco Perpetual Rupert the Bear children’s
fund invests millions in cigarette company Imperial Tobacco. Watch out
kids! Rupert wants you to die of lung cancer!
Resistance is criminal
"CRIMINAL thugs calling themselves
‘Resistance fighters’ have been engaging in violent acts across
the country, putting lives of men and women and children at risk, damaging the
economy and compromising national security. These anti-social troublemakers
are not motivated by any positive ideals or aspirations, but have the sole
purpose of causing as much mayhem as possible. Make no mistake, they must and
will be crushed in the name of stability and progress!" from The Daily
Collaborator, Paris, Greater Germany, 1942.
Keep yourself in the pig-ture - subscribe!
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No copyright. No friends of Jeffrey Archer.
and finally ...
Let’s Take the Law Into Our Own Hands!
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