Assassins, Plots and Regicide
Oct. 17th, 2008 05:25 pm
If you're in or around Bristol in the next week and a half, you might want to pop along to one or many of this year's Bristol Radical History Week events.
Fun for all the family!
I expect anyone of a Bristolish persuasion reading this will already know it's happening, from quercus and elsewhere: Zombies invading Babylon Circus in the Slavers' Quarter tomorrow:
In recent times government & commerce tried to turn us into mindless consumers,
time to show them what horrors their policies have spawned.
Saturday 27th September 2008
Assemble at the Bandstand in Castle Park, Bristol
at 11:00am, shamble & lurch from noon.
A protest against over-consumerisation and the homogenisation of city centres.
A homage to George A. Romero’s classic film Dawn of the Dead.
An absurd and amusing day out for all your family and friends.
I thought it worth a repeat as I just read the datapoint that "[m]edium-sized cities seem are more apt to suffer from “placelessness”—the debilitating condition that saps a community of civic and economic vitality due to a lack of distinctive local character and lively public spaces" and "inflict huge damage on themselves, such as bulldozing the heart of downtown to build a parking ramp, high-rise hotel, convention center, corporate headquarters, or stadium."
Bristol, of course, still does have a sense of place: in Easton, in St Pauls, in Totterdown, on North Street and Gloucester Road. But for how much longer as enclosure of public spaces and destruction of communities by demolition and the ethnic cleansing of gentrification continues? How many shops have closed, replaced by wine bars and worse, in the last couple of years on those two streets I mentioned?
In case you haven’t read this already at the Bristol Blogger or Bristol Radical History, something for you to drag yourself out of bed for tomorrow:
Stop the Gentrification of Central Bristol
By Roger BRHGSaturday 12th April: Protest Against Gentrification of Central Bristol
11.00am Albany Green, St. Pauls and 2.00pm Broadmead (Centre)
Bristol is undergoing massive attacks on our free spaces and culture by property developers and their friends in the City Council. Across the city green spaces, pubs, clubs and amenities are being closed and sold off with little consultation with the communities affected.
So if you oppose the…
* Threat of closure of the clubs and pubs on Stokes Croft (Clockwork, Lakota, Blue Mountain, Junction)
* The threatened sell off of Castle Park to the developers
* The loss of playing fields and green spaces city-wide
* The ‘private streets’ of Cabot Circus
* The dispersion orders on College Green
* The removal of the Bristol-Bath cycle path
* The loss of pubs and meeting spaces in our communitiesOn Saturday 12th April there will be street protests against the gentrification of Central Bristol. There will be two meeting points:
11.00am Albany Green, St. Pauls: Join the ‘Bristol Space Invasion’ Carnival Parade as part of a europe wide weekend of action against the privatisation of public space
Joining with…
2.00pm Broadmead (Centre): ‘Save Stokes Croft from Gentrification’ party parade going to College Green
After the parades come along to Bristol Space Invasion Autonomous Zone featuring Art, performance, cinema, open-mic and live music - ALL FOR FREE! - Call 07528 953 230 or 07591 631 230 on the day for details of precise location.
Please show your opposition to the destruction of our places, spaces and culture, before its too late.
See you there….
Save Stokes Croft and Bristol Space Invasion
ETA there's more at Bristol Indymedia. This ain't just Bristol; it's an international weekend of action against commodification and enclosure of public space.
Check out what's happening where you live!