ANARCHY IN THE UK

This weekend a friend is staying with me in London before he heads out to Stansted aeroport to catch a flight to Estonia. However, he is taking a chance of having his holidays ruined by spoilt brat rich kids and hooligans who like to get attention by protesting, even when their protest is just ruining people's travels plans. Earlier this month the aptly named Plane Stupid brought 57 people to break the law at Stansted, and brought in turn 52 flights to a standstill. The BBC joked that this was unproductive, as it only takes one person with a bottle of water or other mundane item to bring on a security alert; if Plane Stupid wanted to really wreak havoc, they ought to get jobs as baggage handlers, the presenters joked.

Some questions that arise are: where are the undercover moles to tip off the authorities when Tamsin Omond decides to pull these attention getting stunts and mess up people's travel? Does MI5 or Special Branch not have an eye on these idiots? How were they so easily able to breach aeroport security in this age of uber security?

Tamsin Omond, the scion of one of the richest land owning families in England, seems able to disrupt other people's lives at her whim. And to make it worse, she has the support of the perverts at St. Mary's Church in Primrose Hill, where she has been made church administrator - despite concerns that she is into young girls. But this is the Church of England, where the likes of George Glover, a vicar friend of Tony Blair, rape 11-year-olds, so concerns about this rich brat grooming young girls for her bondage games go unheard. The local curate himself told me that the Bible is not what they go by in that church, so what is their law? Anarchy? Plutocracy?

So no surprise that basic science and the law of the land are not listened to by the Tamsin Omond crowd - do not expect them to wear hemp or use hemp based diesel or ethanol - these are not just attention getting stunts, they are real moves that are based on scientific facts. Hemp activists do not get the attention Plane Stupid does - we do not disrupt aeroports or disrespect the house of worship of any faith.

Real environmental activism does not need to be drama; it is best to have millions of people calmly and methodically working on real objectives. Stay clear of these clowns. Support your local hemp shops, or use a hemp bag next time you shop. By the way, I love doing this, I still have the one I got from Bobby Pugh of The Hemp Shop almost two years ago, the one that says: "Real Eco Bags are made from Hemp." This turns heads everywhere, from Bond Street to Primrose Hill, and people get the message without being stranded at an aeroport by selfish brats.

REVIEW OF WAR PLC

Stephen Armstrong's expose on the new growth industry, private security, is a must read. The author has chosen a worthy subject, researched it thoroughly, and written it up in a very readable manner. Before I go on, let me make a note, however trivial it may seem, about the cover, and give some credit to the artist. So many covers today seem like they are mass produced, but this one stands out from the crowd. On yet another seemingly trivial note, I am disappointed that after all the hard work of the author, the publisher did not spend the time to do an index; several pages at the end are blank, so there would have been no wastage of paper in preparing one. I will therefore give some relevant page numbers as I go along.

Armstrong's prologue sets the tone with the story of Black Hawk Down and how that changed US policy. It then introduces us to some leading players in the field, Tony Buckingham, Simon Mann, Sandline and Blackwater. The latter has earned $1billion from no contest US government contracts, and was responsible for 195 shootings in Iraq, including 16 civilians shot dead in September '07. In the first chapter Armstrong discusses the situation in Yemen in the '60s, putting on stage an array of characters: 'Billy' McLean, Julian Amery, David Stirling, King Hussein of Jordan and Saudi Prince Faisal. Some of these dodgy characters run around the Middle East with press passes from the Daily Telegraph and set themselves up to make money out of misery. David Smiley makes his entrance (p.14), and many African nations find themselves the scene of intrigue, while many Western mercenaries find themselves in jail. From these shadows there emerges the figure of Tim Spicer (p.37), who is the subject of the following chapter, along with Reverend David Cooper. Both are interviewed, and Armstrong gives a history of Sandline (Spicer's), Aegis ( Spicer's/ Cooper's) and Watchguard (Stirling's). Light is shed on darkness, especially in the Cooper interview (pp. 57-62), in which Armstrong asks Cooper about his views on faith and killing. Armstrong's question, I might note, is not quite accurate from a Biblical point of view, but, nitpicking aside, is a good one - how can a Christian go into a field that requires killing when the Bible states "thou shalt not kill?" Cooper puts a realist and human perspective on this, and brings to mind the centurion in Luke, who evoked respect from Christ. The man is no gung ho fanatic; he has seen battle first hand, ministering to wounded and dying soldiers. He takes his soldiering as a necessary evil, and opines that force used to prevent killing is justified; he takes no delight in this, but decries the glee over killing in the press, including the coverage on the sinking of the Belgrano. These bits of light are used to good effect, especially when discussing such a dark theme, and there is no shortage of darkness, including a look (pp. 68-69) at the Pentagon in the next chapter. Donald Rumsfeld's speech of 10 September 2001 is quoted, showing the hand taking tax monies away from the people to give to private security firms. Armstrong does not go into the incestuous relationships between politicians, the Pentagon, and these firms in the US, perhaps that will be the subject of a lengthy sequel? He does point out that after this point there has been no little growth among these entities, noting the development of Booz Allen Hamilton, Vinnel Corp., DynCorp, Halliburton, Brown & Root, etc. (pp. 70-95).

Mark Britten (not his real name) is the subject of Chapter 4; the nice liberal kid from Islington who ends up in Fallujah. Yet again the human side of these characters is portayed, more chairoscuro effect ensues, and we end up liking some guy who lives by the sword. The feel good effect is only spoiled in Chapter 5 by the reality that Armstrong relentlessly sticks to reporting; dead civilians, dead reporters, dead mercenaries, and US companies that refuse to pay out claims to grieving families. Much of this he was only able to get with help from Dahr Jamail, wary as the local population is of talking to Westerners. Chapter 6 brings us back to the West; a convention of security firms in London, which Armstrong attended. The British Association of Private Security Firms holds court with War on Want raining on the parade, but not able to stop the likes of Sir Malcolm Rifkind (p. 179), Tory MP for the Royal Borough. Rifkind's presence adds irony to the event, as he was a noted anti-war MP, but appeared in his capacity as non-executive chairman of Armor Group. Talk at the event was not only on far flung war torn countries, but on the future of security in London and the use of private security firms as de facto police. Armstrong reflects on this with one recent precedent: Katrina, where the likes of Blackwater and Instinctive Shooting International were running around licenced to kill. Are we ready for this?

Personally the most relevant part of the book was the interview with Russell Corn of Diligence, who owned up to the fact (pp. 237-240) that some 25% of 'activists' are actually infiltrators. No surprise that this too is a growth industry, or that many of these hired hands are the ones who incite violent acts in the groups they infiltrate. Earlier this year Ken Tobias, aka Toby Kendall, was outed from Plane Stupid (p. 240) as an operative from C2i.

This book is an essential tool for researchers, activists, journalists and the general public, which needs to be informed.

War PLC: The Rise of the New Corporate Mercenary by Stephen Armstrong is published by Faber and Faber in paperback at £14.99. ISBN 978-0-571-24125-5. 255 pp.

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PLANE STUPID FLYING LOW

The folks at plane stupid are at it again. Dan Glass made an ass of himself on their behalf late last month when he glued himself to Gordon Brown's sleeve. His congeners in the climate change camp then went to Kingsnorth in Kent to protest a coal powered energy plant, after meeting up at Heathrow, scene of previous anarchy on their part. Granted though, coal power is not ideal, but we cannot have all our eggs in the petrol basket - and that is what we are being forced into by these silly protests. Better some diversity than none, and also better to keep your own citizens employed. Activists on the dole may not grasp the economic concept that if their fellow citizens do not have jobs, they do not get their dole dosh.

They are not the only ones to miss simple concepts. In Recea, Romania Florina Serban was arrested for cannabis after police found hemp plants which she was growing for fibre to be used for carpets. The 71-year-old told the police what she was doing, but they did not listen. The pensioner assserted: "I don't know what cannabis is. For me it's just a plant to make carpets of." The Daily Mail ran the story but ommitted such details, as is usual for the press. Maybe we'll send them a copy of the September issue of the Ecologist in which there will be plenty of information for them to take on board.

In other news, Kim Hough of Australia has been cultivating 'baby hemp'. Years ago I told the hemp world that we ought to harvest hemp when it is young, to see if we can get finer fibres. And voila, here we are. BioRegional, instead of listening, spent obscene amounts of money on field trials in 2005 for mature hemp, and has not produced any clothing from it yet. There are also a number of retting techniques that I hope to experiment with, and between the harvesting time and the retting we are going to see hemp much improved. It does not take that much to come up with these ideas. What holds back progress is the idiot brigade of naysayers and poorly informed protesters who cause confusion in their desire to pull off stupid stunts.

If enough of us keep plowing away on real research, such as can be found in the Ecologist, the Journal of Industrial Hemp, Journal of Natural Fibres, etc., we will be making more than just carpets with coarse Romanian fibre. Expect garments as fine as silk, as earlier authors noted of hemp.

FLYING LOW

Just got back from the Vegan Fair, where I found some new hemp products. Hempower of Leicester was there, with a new label on their hemp bar, I am natural of Brighton displayed a handmade hemp cream, and Earth & Wear of Denbighshire was selling No Sweat hemp trainers (made in the US).

Sagar Shah and Chris Sanders showed up and took some pictures, will put up when ready. We walked around with the "Real Eco" hemp bags, and ran into someone from Chiswick who had just bought one of the limited edition bags, she in fact got 007.

Sadly, a number of vegans were wearing cotton, the cultivation of which kills people all over the world. Cotton is a thief, it takes all the water and leaves the land dry. Some promoters have the nerve to sell 'organic cotton' as if it were cool to steal people's water for this weed. It is an upstart at that, historical figures such as Christ did not wear it - since Europeans did not discover it until the 1500s. Now it is grown all over, the monocrop that destroys the environment. I left a few fliers about to draw attention to this.

But that is not picked up on in the press much, perhaps because they are adverising cotton on their environmentally destructive pages - made of wood pulp. Recently Medialens pointed out the hypocrisy of the journalists, especially those who work at the Guardian and The Independent, as they scream about climate change on one page whilst selling their readers trips all over the world. Sounds like Medialens was reading this blog, check out all the times I pointed this out, why did it take Medialens so long to pick up on this?I'll give them an email and see if they are as aware as they think they are. Good job though they made George Monbiot uncomfortable, and Johann Hari as well. The latter is out at Heathrow as the only invited journalist! A dubious honour indeed. The two of them and the hundreds of brat protesters, some of them calling themselves 'Plane Stupid' are a liability to an honest cause. I much support the right of the local people to limit Heathrow to its four terminals, but somehow this undignified mess that is calling itself democratic protest is an own goal. Public support is for the police, not loudmouth journalists and anarchists. These kinds have hijacked the issue, and we await their crash. More details will be found here from our undercover agents carrying Real Eco bags made of hemp and will be posted at this site and at schmoontherun.