Dateline: theguardian CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT 2009, Hotel Russell, London, UK, 08:30-09:30, Mon 15 Jun 09 – Despite climate criminal corporation E.ON’s efforts to bag billions of quid from the British State to build new filthy dirty coal fired power stations at Kingsnorth, north Kent and elsewhere, the Guardian still took its polluted money in sponsoring its Climate Change Summit. Whatever next?
* theguardian MULTICULTURAL SUMMIT 2009, sponsored by the BNP?
* theguardian GEOGRAPHY SUMMIT 2009, sponsored by the Flat Earth Society?
* theguardian ABORTION RIGHTS SUMMIT 2009, sponsored by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children?
The Greenwash Guerillas, London Brigade, Detection Platoon #1 could not let this obscenity go un-protested!
Vidz at YouTube
• Greenwash Guerrillas – 1. Action
» youtube.com/watch?v=NzEASynZxck
• Greenwash Guerrillas – 2. Interviews
» youtube.com/watch?v=M5A6NYpvArs
An excellent full colour spoof edition of the Guardian, using the newspaper’s own articles from the last year to expose the destructive role E.ON is playing in the UK’s fight against climate change, was available en mass for distribution to summit attendees, and a couple of plucky comrades infiltrated the venue early doors to distribute them.
Greenwash Guerillas actions work best without interference from the filth, but because this event had already attracted activist attention…
• Greenwash Alert – Guardian Climate Change Summit (17 Apr 09)
» www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/leedsbradford/2009/04/427737.html
…a Press Release was published in advance…
• Greenwash Guerrillas Targeting Guardian Climate Change Summit (14 Jun 09)
» www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/06/432268.html
…and sure enough Plod turned up mob-handed.
However… the cop-in-charge, a Sgt Saltmarsh – EK 10, was unlike any cop I’ve come across before – communicative, co-operative, open to compromise and negotiation, even charming, while at the same being controlling and coercive. As we donned our white ‘greenwash hazard’ suits in leafy Russell Square, he approached us and told us of the pen we’d be restricted to, on the opposite corner of a crossroads from the summit entrance to the Russell Rooms in the Russell Hotel, wherein the summit was being held. But… although he mentioned that our two infiltrator comrades were ejected from the venue, he said he’d made sure a copy of our spoof Guardian was on every attendees seat inside. Whether this was actually so remains unverified. And… I found it easy to negotiate freedom from being penned for media news gatherers (myself and a videographer documentary film-maker), such that when a couple of cop bottom-feeders tried to interfere with my recording the event on camera, I could say, “We’ve already secured a freedom arrangement for media workers with your sergeant – you need to speak to him,” which terminated their interference and put them on the defensive.
We initially occupied the wide pavement space outside the summit entrance, and lashed our TOXIC GREENWASH HAZARD banner to the railings flanking the Russell Rooms entrance. A hotel manager emerged and began taking it down – and in a later confab with Sgt Saltmarsh, got his smug grin wiped off his face (oh, for a sensitive rifle microphone!). While threatening us with arrests under Section 12, Public Order Act 1986, Sgt Saltmarsh agreed to compromise over the location of the protester pen, and got his underlings to drag crash barriers across Herbrand Street to opposite the Russell Rooms entrance. And two non-hazard-suited comrades were “allowed” to hand copies of our spoof Guardian to summit attendees as they arrived. But the modus operandi raison d’être of Greenwash Guerillas – consensually running e-scanners over arriving summit attendees, and interpreting the scanners’ “moop-moop-NEEK” noise as “TOXIC GREENWASH DETECTED”, as both a street-theatrical performance AND a serious conversation-starter – was completely negated by Sgt Saltmarsh’s impositions of Public Order Act conditions.
But… in conversations afterward, he intimated that his post-event intelligence report would emphasise how fluffy, peaceful, and (if only under the coercive threats of multiple Section 12 arrests) ultimately co-operative the Greenwash Guerillas were on this occassion. Who knows – maybe in future he’ll have no grounds for pre-judging our actions to entail a threat of “serious public disorder, serious criminal damage or serious disruption to the life of the community”, and we can protest without arrest threats? But I’m not holding my breath, so to speak – better by far to only send advance Press Releases embargoed until the action’s start time, or only send them at the action’s start time, so we’ve a higher chance of peaceful protest without ANY interference and obstruction from the filth.
Whatever Next?
I recommend another Government of the Dead protest production:
“New” Labour Zombie Lunchtime Lurch
• Date: Thu 18 Jun 09, 13:00 & lurching onwards to 15:00
• Rendezvous: “New” Labour Party HQ, 39 Victoria St, London, SW1H 0HA
• Shout Out: Brown barely survived the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting on Mon 08 Jun 09. Since he’s hanging on for grim death, we can look forward to a period of “Zombie Dead Man Walking” government in the run up to an election. Can we take the power to the streets? YES WE CAN!!
• Who-What: The Government of the Dead will be sending a whole lurch of zombies down there to “New” Labour Party HQ on Thu 18 Jun, from 13:00 lunchtime, when zombies could be hungry. Zombies are not known for their sense of direction, so they could head off to Parliament and Downing Street at a slow shuffle, or they might end up staggering across St James’ Park to Buckingham Palace, demanding to be dissolved and put out of their misery.
• Dress Code: this can be ordinary clothes, but torn up or bloodstained is a good look, especially with trendy blairite suits; on the other hand, why not go for the gothic?
• Makeup: green/white pale skin, good healthy look for a zombie, blood, wounds, sores all recommended; PVC glue gives good skin-peel effect.
• Locomotion: SLOW, gets there in the end.
» Location & Public Transport Map: tinyurl.com/NLZLL-map
» Facebook Event Page: tinyurl.com/NLZLL-FB
» Web: tinyurl.com/GotDead-future