why are the british such sheep then?
i don’t think we baa, necessarily
i lived in france for a bit, and there wasn’t the every-weekend-party with a few hundred people that happens here (not that i found around L’Herault, anyway)
i did go to a few very small, intimate, quality parties with up to about 100 people, and a couple of teks
i know which i preferred, but it seemed it was harder to have the former…
when les flics get heavy in france, they make our BIB look like prep school boys having a bun fight… the CRS are largely ex-french-foreign-legion
USE, i totally agree that some party organisers deserve more respect from society (press, media, OB, etc) but as long as there are plenty of ultimately destructive parties happening, we’re always going to be on the defensive
i think there’s a lot to do before anything like the de-criminalisation of fun happens in this country
to an extent the French are better at l’action directe
but that often means the opposition to the direct action from another group who do not agree is just as focused
for instance hippies might crack a squat and do loads of positive stuff with it – but then the local skinheads form a crew and evict them (not even because the owner asked them to, just because they want to fight their corner)
even my french friend (who is very liberal minded) said the strikes and protests are a fucking nightmare sometimes as people are so stubborn that the country can grind to a halt and nothing gets done – it also affects the economy, there is far worse unemployment and deprivation in France than in England
if the “proper” authorities are constantly having their hand forced by direct action it actually shows the country’s government and society is unstable – and everyone will “have a go” (essentially what happens), not just liberal activists whom we like but also extreme right skinheads and violent criminals
ever wondered why in Britain we just have Police, whilst in France and other countries there are also Gendarmes?
As for Frenchtek, however good the party was it caused massive environmental pollution (shit was left everywhere) and caused 3 of my friends to require emergency medical treatment, either through violence or illness from the caterpillars (a situation which could have been avoided.)
I would hope any British event would not have such dire consequences, even if it meant it was smaller.
as for possible events in Britain, one way of stopping commercial promoters whinging would be to set up a “community event license” whereby the size of event and numbers attending were limited to perhaps a few thousand at most (about the size of the Guildford Ambient picnic or the Henley Come Together festival); thus removing any argument that we are destroying the market for large commercial festivals.
festivals also require input to the local emergency planning committee (extra paperwork/costs) because of security risks – the effort requires increases with the potential size of the event.
Unfortunately this isn’t just Whitehall paranoia; a precedent has been set across the EU by the Russian incident in 2000/2001 where their summer festival was targeted by islamic suicide bombers (IEDs detonated without warning in the queue 🙁 )
Closer to home there have also been disruptive challenges to Reading and Glastonbury by organised gangs of right-wing activists who claim that Vince Power has links with the IRA. – all sorts of mad stuff, one fake IED, organised fights on the dancefloor (foiled by the cops!), fence being cut to let in “hard men” etc, this operation co-ordinated using military radios “borrowed” from the local regiment (one of the scanner enthusiasts on the web heard all this and couldn’t believe the frequency he was logging, it was clearly a MOD restricted access channel that a civillian could not easily buy a set for!)
With this in mind (and from bitter experience over 14 years of raving) I do not think it is as yet possible to hold a Frenchtek scale event in Great Britain – it would be a logistical and security nightmare which could easily result in tragedy, unless the place was crammed full of stewards and even old bill and you had metal detectors at entry and very robust security measures (which would obviously increase the costs and make it impossible to have a free event)
Organised disruption aside, with any large musical event you are bringing large numbers of mostly male-dominated groups together, and with a legal event you would have a larger proportion of “litten tree townies” who may not be used to free party culture; or may be taking large amounts of drugs for the first time ( and as we know, drugs don’t always make everyone loved up)
All it would take would be a disagreement between two groups to escalate and things could get really dark – there is also that “fire in the belly” in all us men (even blokes like us who are liberal minded) which can so easily spill over into a lord of the flies scenario or mob rule… it happened at Leeds a few years back, at the 90s US Woodstock or for that matter the last Frenchtek where the English were attacked without warning following a minor dispute
but I think it would be within our capabilities to hold one or more smaller events without massive disruption or danger to anyone….
i think what it would take is just one, exemplary, well documented and attended rave. i’m not sure that i could organise anything larger than 300-500 people rave without it being beyond my control (ish, as in i wouldnt be able to sort that much litter, or justify that much shit.). but thats the whole fun of freeparties, that they are under no control but work… to be fair, i think the tek seems pretty good prorave evidence, which we should use at a later date. i suspected that the tek might be a steart beach repeat, proper eco-disaster. glad to be wrong. ithink we can agree we should take on the media before we take on the government. i love getting ahead of myself.
im sick of being on the defensive, and i recon that if we divided the freeparty scene with some pigeon holes, it might not be a totally shit idea, as we could try and seperate the positive and negative raves in the public perception. of course, it might be a totally shit idea, im stoned. i need to get my personal shit together before i can sort out anythin els atm, just got a new job, our crew still needs its own van and genny, we cantg afford to keep hiring.
you’re right we have a long way to go. just preparing for the future innit.
the tek wasn’t an eco disaster and went remarkably well for the numbers present (only 1 incident of violence which is on par with the smaller licensed festivals held in the SE)
but it still appeared to cause annoyance to the locals who complained to the cops, the council and BBC.
OTOH the councillor there had a rather disappointing and insular attitude towards visitors to his area; he called the ravers “intimidating” and I know for a fact none of the English attendees would have been in the slightest bit hostile to locals.
Furthermore, every month or so a lot of Welsh people descend upon Reading to attend the Rugby match at our local stadium.
They arrive at Reading station in some number waving the red dragon flags, and are often “boisterous” and “in drink”.
But I do not find them in the slightest intimidating; they are merely going to watch a sporting event they enjoy and do not cause any other disruption or trouble. I certainly do not go whinging to the local council, TVP or BBC Radio Berkshire about their presence!
When they arrive here, they purchase items stuff from local shops and businesses – and the same would have applied to the tek (I am pleased to see that no one is boasting about “drive-offs”, shoplifting and all the other stuff which gave old-skool ravers a bad name) – most every one of those vehicles would have filled up their tanks at least once the Welsh side of the Servern, and that is substantial revenue to the local economy..
I can appreciate your view – as your crew have only been involved in parties fairly recently, but sadly you are carrying the can for mistakes made many years ago. TBH the old skool ravers weren’t as concious as today about the disruption and damage to the areas, because there were more potential venues and more places to run! We only got away with free parties because the cops didn’t have enough resources to stop them, not because the locals thought they were a good thing….
Now we have to admit our mistakes and move on
if we got organised about this, we could form a pretty decent lobby group, alongside some of the heads from squatjuice, and make the case for legalising them.
if we could sort out rubbish collection, site allocation and toilets, i recon that would be half the battle. thereis the drugs issue, but clubs are legal, and as long as it isnt to blatant they stay open.
check out this beast from gerard la rouge off sj:
All we need to do is get 1000 ravers to say its their religion. then we need to decide who or what we worship. I.E music or sound waves. WE worship on sundays for example so raves could start a 12 n that would count. If they made fucking jedi a religion then ravin cant be much harder. Mean we prove that despit the laws, we want to continue with our cult. Why the fuck not turn it to a religion!!
Hi use
the royals are just decoration, the primeminister writes the queens speech, so what else do they do, except visit foreign countries and embarrase us all?
just because we have a monarchy, doesn’t mean we are primarily a monarchist state. the french got rid of their monarchy because they were trying to run the country, and being bastards about it. we just told ours to shut up, and they have.
if the queen had any clout, id be inviting her to our raves and writing her letters. my housemate wrote to the queen saying it was shit he got nicked for growing medicine nesseccary to his wellbeing (ganj) and she wrote back saying she’d look into it. and do what? fuck all.
the royals are more than decoration, they are wealthy land owners on extremely large tracts of land and they have extremely larges residences and life styles that our taxes maintain, they are heads of armies and in stringently involved in the oldest of secret societies.
The Queen is in a very influential position as head of the aristocracy which consists of large extended families that hold all the highest positions of the Civil Service, the judiciary the foreign office and the Police and in government and between them they own most of the land in the countryside and towns. The Queen is more than the head of a band of Gangsters and Robber Barons, she is the symbol of how crime can pay and is the head of the sickness that this country suffers. The denial that she has power.
You mention that the PM writes her speech and such but our Civil war that took much of the power of the King was not about freedom or liberty. Many people that took part in the civil war who believed that paid with their lives after the war. It was about spreading the right to govern the masses to the other influential upper classes.
There are many knock on problems that having an aristocracy cause us, the prices of land and houses, the amount of time we must spend to pay for a roof over the heads or the time we must spend away from families causing all sorts of problems regarding health and crime on the streets. The common view that they are a spent force and just decoration is why we are in this hole IMO and at each other over problems because we are in denial of their true power.
TBH you are going to get nowhere trying to get freedom to party if you don’t know the enemy you face.
this thread starts with the question “getting raves legalised ” and “the french have done it, so why cant we?”
this is a bit confusing and I think the question needs to be clearer.
Raves are legalized and licensed. I assume you mean Getting freeparties legalized but even so they are not illegal unless they are deemed so by a superintendent after considering the circumstances, which in itself is fair and I can see the arguments for him having the job, or they break the public entertainments act. The problem comes that some people in this country are more equal than others 😉 , have more status and privilege and move in exclusive circles of power, its natural that they will use this influence and power and put pressure on the people in positions to stop a party or to pursue organizers for PEL violations.
People are animals, what makes us human is being held back by the animalistic behaviour of the pack, leaders and the herd, this mentality is not a safe way for humans to act and it is messing with our heads, anyway it’s the recipe and its trouble.
the problem of violent crime that worries GL cant be stopped by us from happening at a party, we can take measures to avoid some of it, we can react to it but we cant stop it because ultilmatly its a social problem.
Anyway I think that there is a greater problem to be sorted out and you are not going to get anywhere until it is. Tbh I think the problem will go away when the cause is sorted out and that’s where efforts should lie. 🙂
nice one elraveon, of course you are right, the queen is an extremely influential person internationally, and is involved in all the “old boys” network and masons and merchant venturers etc, but in terms of affecting the passing of specific laws on british soil, i recon she either has no power or interest. yes she owns a shit load of britain, but i doubt she cares as long as she has more money than she can spend.
you are right that the aristocracy are the ruling body, in that they dictate laws as they are the most listened to, they control economics as they own so much land, buisness and spending power. the weird thing im finding at the mo is that its the house of lords, not commons, which is defending the common man, so im no longer sure that all the landed gentry are scum. if we could be allowed to communicate with them to try and reason with them to help others out, instead of rinsing all their stolen money on pussy and bentlys, then maybe they could be useful. but they are kept in their ivory towers, and we are separated from them on more levels than i could name.
anyhoo, so you clarify that some types of rave events are legal, and in fact what im suggesting isnt original, i mean look at the repercussions of the cja. lots of “sperclubs” which were designed to keep the ravers happy. of course they lasted about as long as a icecube in the microwave, because the powers that be saw what we did with the places, and most of the owners couldnt control the local mafias.
so, what i am on about, specifically, is getting legal outdoor event sites oked by the govt, which would be allowed to be used at certain times of year (mayday, halloween, solstice etc). what that could mean is that we could spend more time on the parties and less time worryin about the law. i thik this is a perfectly reasonable request, by the people of the nation to be able to use the land they are encouraged to use in the day, at night.
as far as i can see, the main problem would be with keepin the numbers down. most people dont go top raves because theyre pussys. look at fat boy slims fuckup on brighton beach.
bottom line, we have a right to use the land we live on, and teh reason why we arent is because teh two sides who need to talk it over, teh authorities and the rave crews, wont talk to each other. thats all i want. dialogue.
hello..
sorry for not introduce myself and post this directly.i will do it alter, just dont want ot loose the thought !
i think it really depends which media you are contacting.
we are doing a huge demonstartion next week in strasbourg, interantionalwide and hopefully with a lot of people attending and we contected the press before with a statement that is not to misunderstand.
also we contaced medias, programms that we actually know are interested in cultural, social stuff….its all up to you being offensive and dont wait till the media pick you out
the queen
rupert murdoch
who has the bigger influence on ‘topic of the day’ ie. national thinking?
the queen
rupert murdoch
who has the bigger influence on ‘topic of the day’ ie. national thinking?
the queen
rupert murdoch.
That’s a complicated question. And I am not clear where you stand or if you were genuinely asking but I’ll give you my answer.
Any one powerful person is only as powerful as the people he or she aligns with and that goes for the Queen or Rupert Murdoch or Hitler for that matter.
That said, as to “who has the bigger influence on ‘topic of the day’ i.e. national thinking?”
The acceptance of a queen and all the feudal baggage that goes with it stamps its mark on the mentality and hypocrisy that people base their daily lives. The legacy of this feudal past still influences many aspects of people’s lives including the housing market for one example and the denial that this is wrong mess’s with how people see what is right and wrong and its not hard to control what people think when their whole lives are based on a lie.
The queen is a figurehead for a feudal system of legitimized gangsters who have privilege and still exert influence and hold power and still extort payment from their tenants and subjects. She heads a government of lies and system of class and the denial of which influences the way people doublethink their daily lives away.
Rupert Murdoch is a man of this system bought and sold and is a minion compared to the Queen.
fair enough
but Prince Charles often goes on about the need to be more in tune with our environment etc
i don’t think many people tak any notice
if Murdoch is backing a war for oil, many people will believe him
winning over the media would be good for all of us… but it’s not going to happen; free parties represent ideas that Murdochs ecomonic power would be threatened by
i would argiue that the queen is more of a minion than rupert murdock. he owns his empire, where as who really knows what the queen thinks? she has been conditioned from birth to play a certain “role” and while she does perpetuate the feudal inequalities in society, i dont know that she as a person agres with them. when i look at her, i see a very scared, very weak person who cant be herself. a lot like most of britain really.
murdock can directly influence people with more force than her, as he has direct control of his monopoly/empire, where as she has to run thing s past her advisers, who are there to make sure the british public dont get rid of her, and by default, them. tony blair has way more power than her. he is the biggest threat to peace happiness and prosperity in this country as far as i can work out. except maybe murdock, who has blair in his pocket.
just type in “rupert murdock” into google and see what you get….
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