Paganarchy Press

As any reader of this blog or UK Indymedia must surely know by now, the UK Government has created SOCPA. The Serious Organised Crimed And Police Act. This law outlaws all protest within 1km of the UK parliament building and effectively outlaws freedom of speech within the zone. No matter how many times I tell people about it, I still get a shock as I realise the extreme audacity the people who make up the UK Government have...

As we know, the "authorities" busted up the free festival movement in the 1980's culminating in events like the Battle Of The Beanfield where a whole convoy of peaceful hippy travellers was beaten to a pulp by the police of the day. Then throughout the 1990's many police taskforces were mobilised with the sole aim of busting up free parties and raves. Many many excellent and self-organised parties were ruined by the police and many sound systems were wrecked by their policy of destruction. It seems all things carnivale and beautiful have been the target of the modern-day would-be overseers.

Now they've taken their attempts at consolidation of power to the next level - they've started outlawing protest. They've started with just a small area (1km around parliament square) but most people who have thought about this realise that the area is going to get bigger, and bigger... and bigger. In fact Schnews reports random Sussex superintendant Gray "claimed that you have to inform the police of any protests by law." which is patently false - but it certainly looks like that's the direction they are trying to take us in.

However, upon careful reading of the Serious Organised Crime And Police Act, it became apparent that the law only applies to human protestors - step up the teddys!

In honour of the many years of love we have given the likes of paddington and pooh, big ted and mr sock; in honour of all the nights we lay in bed cuddling our furry stuffed friends; in honour of a very basic right all sentient beings should have - the teddy bears have organised their own protest demanding that humans be given back the very basic right of free speech! Hooray The Teddys! We knew we could count on you!

With the teddy bears on our side, we can't lose. They are loving, caring, outspoken and committed to real grass-roots based freedom and democracy. In fact they care more about the core issues than most humans living in London care.

Thinking about it, it is pretty weird to think that the government has called the legislation banning protesting the "serious organised crime and police" act. What's serious organised crime about protesting I ask you? We can only guess that those in control are deeply, deeply scared of us. They are deeply scared that our ideas of anti-authority, freedom, peace and rebellion will spread. They are scared that we will disobey their orders and dance in the streets with wild abandon. They are scared that they will no longer be able to control us and our movements and our thoughts and our dreams.

However, the more draconian laws like this they bring in, the more people realise that the law serves no purpose at all. The more they take away our rights, the more we realise it is them who are making a mockery of the legal system. The more they lie about war, profit and climate change, the more lies they need to keep telling. They so deeply fear people knowing the truth about what they are doing that they can't possibly turn back now - but their deepest fear is that we will all one day realise that they are little more than insignificant old fools and that we no longer have to do what they say; that their only power is *our* fear.

That's the real power of (r)evolution - the decision to choose to disobey them and instead celebrate the carnival of life... just like the teddys have done.

More teddy pics are up on indymedia.