Road fighting is not dead! In England anyway... |
by Squersh | |
05 November 2008 | |
![]() The occupation by local activists was purely a strategic one to deter central government decision makers who might provide construction funding for the local authority project, but we unintentionally sparked off the beginnings of a thriving and often lively community and counter-culture within the seaside town.
Many of the past and present occupants have also arrived via the mainstream environmental movement. Experience gained from many campaigns both won and lost over the years has helped our understanding that overall the world situation continues to deteriorate, as the issues we voiced begin to gather apace and run out of control.
Years ago when I worked in the auto industry, there was a marketing term known as 'white space' which defined an unoccupied gap in the market. I think about the definition often and consider that Bling has now joined the handful of others in the environmental equivalent of this phrase. Events had overtaken us and our single issue message to the point where we felt compelled to take the leap to become overtly and explicitly counter-cultural in all that we do. Another way of saying this is that we couldn't hold back any longer for fear of challenging the business as usual mindset. Thanks to the thinking of people like Jan at Culture Change, plus our hard earned experiences from the road, we knew that the western industrialised system as it is currently configured could not and should not be saved.
Whatever your passion, we hope that you find your Camp Bling equivalent. squersh on behalf of the Camp Bling road protest: www.campbling.org / This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ------------ Press release:
Camp Bling 'Save Priory Park!' road campaign FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
Camp Bling announces emergency relaunch on third anniversary. 'The global situation has changed dramatically since the protest site was first set up specifically to stop the road - both in terms of the overall environmental impacts and accelerating pace.' (www.campbling.org)
The camp are set to go live with new website: http://www.campbling.org on the anniversary date, to support their objective to stop the road widening, whilst at the same time taking a dramatic new turn to discuss critical issues such as consumer culture, peak oil production, mass extinction, and the appropriate response to these and other crises. (1) Resident Gavin said, 'we could not have predicted how quickly the world was going to change when we first set up Camp Bling three years ago. Now we feel compelled to address the fundamental need for lifestyle change during the coming crash, as western society overshoots the ecological limits of the earth.’
People are invited to visit both the virtual world of the new website, plus the real one of the road protest as the Blingers dig in for a fourth winter, with a comprehensive revamp and ongoing building work planned, and support therefore still very much required from the local community. ------------
1) See 'Tipping points' page at http://www.campbling.org/ for latest background data and definition of peak oil theory. ------------
squersh
From COMMON SENSE AND SURVIVAL, By William Kotke
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