[Dissent-bristol-info] Meeting resume/dayschool proposal

[John Mayford]

Ta MH for the notes - Ive chucked in a couple of comments
including setting up some of the G8 film interviews there

Update on booking: Cant do the Trinity as there is a 
provisional booking already.

So I have sounded out abd provisionally booked the Malcom X for April 2 and the 
cost would be £184 from 10 -6 - Sandra is calling me back this afternoon
 to check it though details. I havent yet mentioned  Tom's discount - will ask what we get for that price 
and check for chairs - catering ect

Question is - is Tom checking out St W still.

Will call him to check.

For info Have added stuff about the film and Sustainaible Development stuff Ive written about Sustainable 
Development - a draft and research stage - not factsheet ready

J

-----Original Message-----
From: MH [mailto:mhulot2003 at yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: 20 January 2005 00:19
To: Bristol Dissent Research & Info
Subject: [Dissent-bristol-info] Meeting resume/dayschool proposal


Bristol Dissent Info/research sub-group meet 18/1/05 -
resume

Present: 7/8 people

In no particular order:

1. Factsheets
Agreed we'd been slipping on these, and that we should
aim to circulate our drafts by end of January, in time
for all to read/comment on them before the next
sub-group meeting on TUESDAY 8 FEBRUARY, 6pm at Kebele
(can Paul 'book' the space for that night please).

2. Dayschool venue
John to approach Trinity Centre with formal request
for booking on 2 April, 10am to 6pm, on behalf of
Bristol Dissent. We need their clarification on use of
the upstairs for workshop meets; what catering
facilities are available (can we cook there?); would
they have over 100 chairs; cost of hire. There will
doubtless be a host of other queries.

Trinity is preferred choice. But John also to check
with Simba (?) regards Malcolm X centre -
cost/availability/reduced rates via Tom (St Pauls or
St Agnes groups).

Third possibility is St Werburghs Centre. Think Tom
was gonna check if he could get a reduced rate there
at all/availability.

Responses back to this list asap before we put the
outline proposal (below) on the main group list.

3. Dayschool proposal
Here's the outline for the day as discussed. I've also
lobbed in a few practicalities that came to mind -
comments please!

Possible name for the day: 'Bristol G8 Dissent
presents...Information for Action' - a day of workshops,
information, presentations & discussion.

Cost: free/donation

Kids welcome, but sorry no crèche

No animals/pets

No alcohol/non-smoking inside

Catering: cheap drinks/cake first thing; lunch for
100+ (hot or cold depends on facilities) at maybe 2
quid. (Tom to work up proposal).

Organising email: Bristol_g8workshops at riseup.net (Tim
awaiting confirmation it's set up).

Publicity: funky double-sided A5 flyer to publicise
event (plus use email lists, indymedia et etc); folded
A4 programme on day.

Outline for day:
10am or earlier - access building for setting up
10.30am - advertised start> mingle, info, stalls,
register(?)/join email list etc
11am - opening session> introduction; speaker from
Schnews (Tim to contact em) on why we oppose the
G8/capitalism; sort any problems.
12 - 1pm: 3 workshops>
Alternative to capitalism (John to organise; Nathan has confirmed ).
ART resistance (Tim speak to Martin)
Alternative media (Tom to arrange with BIMC &
Bristolian)

1 - 2pm: Lunch

2 - 2.45pm: 4 presentations>
Africa - debt & poverty (John to contact local
WDM/Jubilee)
Iraq - Jo Wilding (she has confirmed - John to contact Ewa) 
Zapatista - uprising & solidarity  (Tim to speak to
Ben/Kiptik)
No Borders/asylum seekers (?approach Columbian
solidarity/Josh?)

2.45 - 3pm: break

3 - 4.30pm: 3 workshops>
CIRCA/clown army - an introduction (Paul to approach
Jen via Tasha)
Direct action + legal - how & why (Tim to speak to Ben
& friends, plus LDMG re legal) ( I have contacts here too - if needed John)
Climate Change - causes & action (Tim to contact Mark
B @ London Rising Tide)

4.30 - close (5.30?): closing session, focus on
action, ideas, mingling etc.

Later - benefit/social!

Shot By Both Sides: Critical Views Of the G8 Summit

Synopsis

"Shot By Both Sides" is a political documentary allowing a voice for activists, organisers and pressure groups preparing to lobby the meeting of representatives of G8 summit. 
The G8 nations comprise US, Canada, Russia, France, Germany, UK, Japan and are meeting at time of War in Iraq, increasing evidence of environmental problems caused by Carbon Dioxide emission and another famine in Sudan.
In 1998 Peoples Global Action co-ordinated 400 social movements from around the world to protest in Birmingham. Mainstream media frequently represents politicians attending the summit, but fails to provide an opportunity for marginalised voices.
Shot By Both Sides provides a factual backdrop to the history, formation and powers of the summit, and it's relationship with the WTO and IMF. 
The film then provides an uncensored opportunity for those critical of the G8 summit on the key issues of developing nation debt, activists in the Anti War movement and environmentalist activists and then a look at alternatives to Capitalism including representatives from the Co-operative movement.
The film will seek balance through approaching representatives of media/govt ala Mark Thomas/Michael Moore . 
Once the film has been made the idea will be to distribute and screen as widely as possible in conventional and unconventional setting such as Railway Stations, Malls and Community venues
The film is being made by Action Time Vision, a workers co-operative involved in filmmaking, community workshop programmes and mobile cinema. 

Sustainable Development: Capitalist Economy and Co-operative  Economy.

It is important to evaluate the language used by the media, its purpose and message, whose point of view it advocates and the techniques it employs to persuade. For example what does "bogus Asylum Seeker actually mean? Some kind of fictitious human being?   All the time we are being subject to loaded language: Insurgents is being used to describe indigenous armed opposition to British and US troops in Iraq, the word terrorist was applied to the African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela when he was tried and imprisoned in 1962, but not to Winston Churchill who in 1926 ordered the gassing of Northern Iraq, then Mesopotamia, freedom fighter was applied to the French Resistance in WW2, Collateral Damage is now being used to apply to Civilian and innocent casualties of the war in Iraq and Sustainable is bandied around in environmental and economic contexts. All these definitions are loaded within meaning and imply a perspective, a political perspective: yet the media frequently attempt to portray themselves as objective reporters of fact, not facilitators of a position.

So language is used a tool of manipulation by politicians seeking to sell their message for votes and ultimately power, by businesses to fulfil their mission to sell products, by interest, pressure and activists to influence opinions. In media terms products will translate into sales, copy, ratings, listeners, viewers and hits.

Sustainability has been used in two totally different contexts. The Rio summit produced the term Sustainability in relationship for the finite resources of the planet, particularly in relation to for example use of fossil fuels in a fossil fuel based economy with the prospect of those fuels at some point running out. Environmental measures have been applied to the waste that is being produced by a consumption based economy that depends on more consumption. 


The other context that the term "Sustainability" is being applied to the context of Nation State economies. One of the foremost goals that drives democratic Governments is to create am low inflation high employment economy. Government will pursue that aim of creating jobs as the key aim, which in term means creating economic conditions conducive the largest power base, corporate employers.

It is not difficult to see the oppositional principle at work with an economy that is driven by consumption based Capitalist companies.
Capitalist companies compromise the democracies they operate in to render conception almost irrelevant, because they exist above all for profit everything else is secondary whether that be coexistence with the environment on which we depend or any kind of notion of equality or fulfilment by workers in work. Essentially Capitalist companies externalise any costs that may threaten profits. Legal systems reinforce this situation so that, for example in the English legal system the legal obligation of shareholders of companies is to maximise profits.

This is the logic that allows Co2 emissions and logging to threaten millions of people, because it is externalised as a cost in an economy where corporations are essentially failing to take responsibility for the effects of their products.

The overall situation of democracy comprised by vested interests is then reinforced with to return to the UK example many politicians operating as company directors and subject to lobbies such as the road lobby, or in the US, corporate sponsorship the source of finance of political campaigns through from the senate to the Whitehouse.

This is essentially why no economic development will ever be sustainable either in environmental or economic terms under Capitalism, without even beginning to address the notions of poverty, inequality or hierarchy. So remedial actions such as offered by the Green movement or in aid terms through NGOs such as Band
Aid whilst achieving significant gains, fail to address the underlying
Economic root causes, which in turn are linked to the same problem.

The Co-operative movement represents the opposite to Capitalism in terms of a non hierarchical forms of economic organisation that seek to social, community and environmental benefits along economic resource distribution.The co-op movement began in 1844 in its current recognisable form in Rochdale , when 28 weavers set up a Co-operative Society Shop owned by it's members. Instead of employing Capital to exploit labour for profit, in co-operative economic organisation labour employs capital to create profit within the framework of the 7 co-operative principles laid down by the Rochdale pioneers addressing hierarchy and a wider set of issues
1.	Voluntary and Open Membership
2. Democratic Member Control
3. Member Economic Participation
4. Autonomy and Independence
5. Education, Training and Information
6. Co-operation among Co-operatives
7. Concern for Community
160 years on in the UK there are currently approximately 1500 workers co-operatives, in Bristol around 90. The weavers organisation went on to become the Co-op Group who now own the Co-op Supermarkets, Bank, Unity, Smile, Funeral Directors and CIS insurance.
55 years on from the Cooperative Society in Rochdale In 1895 the International Co-operative Alliance was formed, as collective organisation began to spring up in Europe, America and Asian using those principles. Currently has approximately 750 million members worldwide across Africa, Asia, North and South America and Europe.
The ICA is both non political and far from flaws.Some of those ICA members are clearly coerced into Collective Action; for example 25% of Iran's industry is co-operative and 's question marks must hang over China 160 million out of the 750 million. This does not negate the model however : it reinforces the 4th principle of Autonomy and Independence.
 This model of collective and co-operative working occurs again and again in different cultural contexts from the Proudoun who defined Anarchy as a political perspective in 1840, The Anarcho Syndacilists of the Spanish Republician movement between 1870 and the present day, Palestinian Agricultural Co-op,s the Co-op movement here in the UK, agricultural and textile collectives in the Sub continent, the Chiapas region of Mexico: all examples that show an enduring economic model that represents a viable alternative to Capitalist economic organisation.  

It is only through autonomous economic organisation with a commitment a wider set of values such as rooted in the co-operative movement that the issue of sustainability will be addressed, because the power of the economy is far greater than the power of government, and real changes can only express itself in bottom up not top down development.

	
	
		
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