Rev Billy, Chelsea Manning & International Racism – On Saturday twenty seventh July 2013 I adopted the superb Reverend Billy and the Cease Procuring Choir right into a department of HSBC to protest over their help for fossil fuels, went to a vigil supporting whistleblower Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning after which a march and rally towards International Racism and Injustice
Rev Billy at HSBC Victoria,
For those who’ve not come throughout Reverend Billy and the Cease Procuring Choir, a radical efficiency neighborhood based mostly in New York Metropolis led by Billy Talen you have got missed one thing. They carry out guerrilla theatre actions which amuse and entertain whereas additionally highlighting the intense issues the world is going through and calling for motion.
The efficiency in London was one among many at numerous JP Morgan Chase and HSBC banks in 2012 and 2013 which had begun in New York, a “radicalized midsummer cloud forest dream” towards the help given to fossil fuels and local weather chaos by the banks and the Metropolis of London.
Golden Toads had develop into extinct of their dwelling in Costa Rica, one among many species which have already develop into extinct due to local weather change. The message of the efficiency “was a easy one. Fossil Fuels are killing life on this planet. Already many species have suffered extinction, and the persevering with big funding in fossil gasoline use backed by the banks and the inventory change is driving local weather change, threatening us all with extinction.“
As I wrote “London’s banks and the London Inventory Trade are taking part in a key position within the destruction of life on the planet, with over £900 billion of Fossil gasoline shares on the London Inventory Trade – 1 / 4 of the worth of all of the holdings and representing fossil gasoline reserves of over 200 time the UK’s annual carbon emissions. Burning of all these reserves would create disaster. Between 2010-2012 … the highest 5 UK banks raised £170 billion for fossil gasoline firms, and the most important of those was the HSBC.”
On My London Diary you may learn how I met the group as they educated for the efficiency reverse New Scotland Yard after which extra in regards to the efficiency which in addition to the Golden Toads folks additionally performed moneys, eagles and jaguars and had been joined by a gorilla. with the Rev Billy preaching in regards to the want for the banks to repent and alter their methods because the animals dropped useless on the department flooring.
One member of the crew was there to reassure the financial institution workers and clients that there was no menace to them or property and that the performers would go away as quickly because the occasion completed. And so they did, abandoning just some leaflets and small swimming pools for water on the ground from the massive ice eggs the Golden Toads had introduced with them to assist cool the planet down.
After leaving the financial institution the efficiency carried on for a couple of minutes on the large pavement exterior. A few cops arrived and went contained in the Financial institution to speak with the workers, and by the point they got here out the Rev Billy and others had been leaving to rejoice a profitable motion at a café and bar in Victoria station.
Extra at Rev Billy at HSBC.
Free Bradley Manning Vigil – St Martin’s, Trafalgar Sq.
Folks had been begining to reach to participate in a silent vigil on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields on Trafalgar Sq. as part of the worldwide day of motion by the Bradley Manning Help Community.
Bradley – now Chelsea – Manning’s court-martial for passing categorised paperwork to Wikileaks had begun over a month earlier and an inevitable ‘responsible’ verdict was anticipated shortly.
The paperwork had uncovered quite a lot of unlawful and immoral actions by the US and different governments and Manning had been celebrated in international locations internationally and awarded the Sean MacBride Peace Prize.
On July thirtieth 2013 Manning was sentenced to 35 years within the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, however in 2017 her sentence was commuted by President Obama to seven years and he or she was launched. In 2019 she was once more imprisoned for a 12 months for contempt of courtroom after refusing to testify at a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
In opposition to International Racism and Injustice – US Embassy to Whitehall
Black Activists Rising In opposition to Cuts (BARAC) UK organised a march and rally towards International Racism and Injustice in solidarity with households of Trayvon Martin, Stephen Lawrence, Azelle Rodney, Jimmy Mubenga and lots of others to focus on the fact of racism and search justice, each within the UK and US.
The occasion started with a rally exterior the US Embassy, then nonetheless in Grosvenor Sq., led by Zita Holbourne and Lee Jasper, founders and nationwide co-chairs of BARAC, an anti-austerity, anti-racist campaigning organisation, with numerous different activists and poets talking.
The occasion was supported by a variety of anti-racist teams together with Operation Black Vote, the Nationwide Black College students Marketing campaign, International Afrikan Congress, PCS, RMT Black Members, Counterfire, UAF, Love Music Hate Racism, Lambeth TUC, Lambeth Folks’s Meeting.
The protest was partly due to the worldwide outcry over the acquittal in Florida of the assassin of Trayvon Martin below the Florida ‘Stand Your Floor’ legislation. Nevertheless it was a protest towards world racism and injustice, with a specific emphasis on a number of well-known instances on this nation.
One was the try by the Metropolitan Police to smear each the Lawrence household and its supporters via a covert police surveillance unit whereas failing to correctly examine the racist homicide of Stephen Lawrence.
Lee Jasper said “We march for Jimmy Mubenga, Mark Duggan, Kingsley Burrell, Smiley Tradition and Azelle Rodney. We march for justice and equality within the fiftieth anniversary 12 months of Dr Martin Luther King’s 1968 March on Washington. The reality is that his dream is a threadbare imaginative and prescient right here within the UK the place racism is on the rise amplified by austerity.”
Extra at In opposition to International Racism and Injustice.
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Tags: anti-austerity, Anti-Racist, Azelle Rodney, BARAC, Billy Talen, carbon emissions, Chelsea Manning, Metropolis of London, local weather change, extinct species, extinction, fossil fuels, Free Bradley Manning, International Racism, Golden Toads, gorilla, HSBC, HSBC financial institution, Injustice, Jimmy Mubenga, Kingsley Burrell, Lee Jasper, London, march, Mark Duggan, Metropolitan Police, peter Marshall, police, protest, racism, Rev Billy, Reverend Billy, Smiley Tradition, species loss, Stephen Lawrence, inventory change, Cease Procuring Choir, Trayvon Martin, US Embassy, Victoria, vigil, Zita Holbourne
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