<div>Hi Marki! </div>
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<div>Thanks for this. It's also being reported today in mainstream press a whole list of examples of local councils putting charges up on everything they can including allotment tenancies- see eg front page of Sunday Times. Another opportuniity to unite at the local leve and let's nopt let any Labour councilors pull the wool over our eyes about where their eventual allegiance will lie..</div>
<div> </div>
<div>See for example piece in SW : <a href="http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=23498">http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=23498</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Calling for a call from libertarian local anti-cutrs groups for militant people's assemblies at, and in local town halls on budget days let's put the heat on those so-called working class labout party councillors (and the rest of 'em!) </div>
<div> </div>
<div>In solidarity</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Mark</div>
<div>PS while I'm at it, tangentially, an interesting summary from CPGB of where the SWP, including critique of Right to Work at the local level, might be at these days: <a href="http://cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004216">http://cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004216</a> </div>
<div>"The centrality of the SWP’s ‘recruit at all costs’ strategy is directly reflected in the way it attempts to mobilise against the cuts. Not least through Right to Work, which the SWP “helped to initiate” in 2009. Wherever workers organise locally against the cuts, RTW must be there, the CC urges. “Of course, we should push for RTW speakers at all anti-cuts activities, and for affiliation to RTW of anti-cuts groups, but this isn’t enough - we have to build a separate RTW presence locally” (my emphasis). Why? The reason is not stated, but the answer is clear enough. Because RTW is controlled by the SWP and is viewed as a recruiting conduit." Let's see RTW proved us wrong !</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 8 January 2011 12:02, MarkiB <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mark@tlio.org.uk">mark@tlio.org.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
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<p>City council rent bombshell for allotment holders<br><br>Published: January 08, 2011 by Radfordian <br>Ref: <a href="http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/articles/854" target="_blank">http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/articles/854</a><br>
<br>Nottingham City Council is holding a consultation of changes to allotment<br>tenancies, rent levels and plot allocation. They claim that the review<br>"aims to encourage more people to get involved with growing food in<br>
Nottingham." In fact, the changes would involve the trebling of rents for<br>allotments in Nottingham.<br><br>A skim read of the proposed changes to tenancy agreements does not reveal<br>anything too controversial. In fact, a lot of the proposals are good ones<br>
(in principle) because they aim to deter the passing on of allotments to<br>friends when there are people on the waiting list for new ones.<br><br>However, it is my view that these are not the core aims of the review. By<br>
far the biggest change to the current system is the proposed changes to<br>rents for plots. The current figures, listed in a table in the consultation<br>are: Ground rent - 7p/sqm, water charge - 6p/sqm (it doesn't say what the<br>
units are). However, they are proposing a gradual increase in grount rent<br>so that, by 2016 it will be 20p/sqm for ground rent and 15p/sqm for water.<br>This is a 180% increase for ground rent and 150% increase for water. These<br>
figures are well beyond the rate of inflation and will make allotment<br>holding and growing your own food a much more costly activity. <br><br>Given the massive cut to their budget, it's not surprising that NCC are<br>
looking for ways to make money, especially as they claim to be trying to<br>provide enough allotments for the increasing numbers of residents who want<br>one. However, passing that cost on to existing allotment holders seems<br>
extremely unfair. Allotment holders, after all, are usually the people who<br>can't afford houses with gardens and grow their own food to supply their<br>food needs.<br><br>All allotment holders are being sent a consultation pack which they can<br>
use to object to the proposed changes. Given NCC's past record on<br>consultations (ignoring the results they don't want, rigging them so they<br>get the results they do) I don't imagine we'll get much positive<br>
interaction through bureaucratic routes. However, I'm sure there are more<br>creative ways we could protest this unequitable move.<br><br></p></div>
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<div style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 12px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 15px; PADDING-TOP: 15px; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">Diggers350 - an e-mail discussion/information-share list for campaigners and members of THE LAND IS OURS landrights network based in the UK <a href="http://www.tlio.org.uk/" target="_blank">http://www.tlio.org.uk</a><br>
<br>The list was originally concerned with the 350th anniversary of The Diggers (& still is concerned with their history). The Diggers appeared at the end of the English Civil war with a noble mission to make the earth 'a common treasury for all'. In the spring of 1999 there were celebrations to remember the Diggers vision and their contribution. <br>
<br>TASH FROM THE HILL<br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWk9rRJsk5I" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWk9rRJsk5I</a><br><br>THE LAND MAGAZINE<br>Simon Fairlie still produces The Land magazine every 6 months or so. <br>
Subsription is £18 (£15 unwaged) or £4 for a single edition<br>Contributions are welcome <a href="http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/" target="_blank">http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/</a><br><br>You can find out more about the Diggers and see illustrations at: <a href="http://www.bilderberg.org/land/" target="_blank">http://www.bilderberg.org/land/</a><br>
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<div style="MIN-HEIGHT: 0px; COLOR: #fff">__,_._,___</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>
<div>"I am going to ask you something. Why are you being educated? Do you understand my question? Your parents send you to school. You attend classes, you learn mathematics, you learn geography, you learn history. Why? Have you ever asked why you want to be educated, what is the point of being educated? What is the point of your passing examinations and getting degrees? Is it to get married, get a job and settle down in life as millions and millions of people do? Is that what you are going to do, is that the meaning of education? Do you understand what I am talking about? This is really a very serious question. The whole world is questioning the basis of education. We see what education has been used for. Human beings throughout the world - whether in Russia or in China or in America or in Europe or in this country - are being educated to conform, to fit into society and into their culture, to fit into the stream of social and economic activity, to be sucked into that vast stream that has been flowing for thousands of years. Is that education, or is education something entirely different? Can education see to it that the human mind is not drawn into that vast stream and so destroyed; see that the mind is never sucked into that stream; so that, with such a mind, you can be an entirely different human being with a different quality to life? Are you going to be educated that way? Or are you going to allow your parents, society, to dictate to you so that you become pad of the stream of society? Real education means that a human mind, your mind, not only is capable of being excellent in mathematics, geography and history, but also can never, under any circumstances, be drawn into the stream of society. Because that stream which we call living, is very corrupt, is immoral, is violent, is greedy. That stream is our culture. So, the question is how to bring about the right kind of education so that the mind can withstand all temptations, all influences, the bestiality of this civilization and this culture. We have come to a point in history where we have to create a new culture, a totally different kind of existence, not based on consumerism and industrialization." <br>
J. Krishnamurti<br><br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_525001&v=eX4toR2cogA&feature=iv#t=2m6s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_525001&v=eX4toR2cogA&feature=iv#t=2m6s</a> </div>
<p>"We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet /Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.” <br></p><br>