>>>Here's what I consider a little taste of "blowback" ... oh: "petrol" is Britlandic for what in American is "gasoline". A<>E<>R <<< From http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000118613908976&rtmo=3mHmwrwM&atmo=rrrrrrvs&; pg=/et/00/9/9/nblok109.html }}>Begin ISSUE 1933 Saturday 9 September 2000 'We could bring this country to its knees' By Nigel Bunyan Press releases - Farmers' Union of Wales Lorry drivers threaten M-way traffic HAVING not slept since the previous dawn, Brynle Williams, unofficial leader of the Stanlow oil refinery blockade in Cheshire, was becoming irritable. "Don't even begin to think that this is all we can do," he said. "If we really wanted to, we could bring this country to its knees. "Here alone we could very quickly bring in 100 tractors as well as blocking the railways. The police could do nothing to stop us, and they know it. But that's not what we are about. All we want is to see an unfair tax lifted." Mr Williams, 51, a farmer from Cilcain, near Mold, insists that for all his suffering, most recently from escalating fuel costs, neither he nor his fellow protesters are about to mimic their French counterparts. "Here we appreciate the rule of law. We've been getting on very well with the police and we'll carry on doing so." By late morning the situation had developed into an amicable stand-off, involving around 30 pickets. One lorry bore the message: "How can we survive when you're screwing us, Mr Blair?" On its tailboard was written: "This is only the start of things to come, so give in now Mr Blair." Mr Williams, vice-chairman of the Farmers' Union of Wales, claimed it would be an "astute political move" for the Prime Minister to reduce the tax on fuel. He said: "I don't want to see any militancy at all. But you can be sure we won't be giving up until something is done." End<{{ From http://news.excite.com/news/r/000909/11/energy-germany?printstory=1 }}>Begin German truckers block traffic in fuel price protest Updated 11:39 AM ET September 9, 2000 By Emma Thomasson BERLIN, Sept 9 (Reuters) - German truck drivers and farmers brought traffic to standstill in the northern town of Hildesheim on Saturday in a protest against rising fuel prices. Police said some 100 trucks had blocked streets in the town for about three hours following a protest on Friday evening in the northern town of Uelzen where 40 trucks, five tractors and five buses had massed to mark a visit by Transport Minister Reinhard Klimmt. Protesters in Hildesheim had fastened placards to their trucks with slogans such as: "Nowhere are drivers so squeezed as in Germany" and "Oil prices are ruining us." Klimmt, who on Friday said the government would not reduce controversial "ecology taxes" on fuel and noted petrol was still considerably cheaper in Germany than elsewhere in Europe, later addressed some 100 demonstrators in Uelzen. Opposition parties and motorists organisations have been turning up the pressure on the Berlin government to ease energy taxes since mass action by French protesters this week won concessions from Paris. French truckers and farmers slowly began lifting their blockades on Saturday after choking fuel supplies across the country. Paris has offered the protesters a 15 percent cut in diesel fuel taxes, but the drivers want a 20 percent reduction. Finance Minister Hans Eichel said on Saturday Germany would not answer higher oil prices with cuts to energy taxes, noting that taxpayers were already due to get major relief next year when a government tax reform programme kicks in. Speaking to journalists on the fringe of a meeting of finance ministers in Versailles, Eichel said anybody who had cut energy taxes "had already lost" and was just handing money to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's centre-left government, which rules in coalition with the Greens, plans to increase petrol taxes by six pfennigs (2.6 U.S. cents) per litre each year through 2002 to fund reductions in state pensions contributions. The conservative opposition warned that Germans would copy their French neighbours and take to the streets if the government did not cut fuel taxes. "The government must at least forego the next step of the ecology tax to counteract the weakness of the euro," said Dirk Fischer, transport spokesman for the Christian Democrats. The Environment Ministry said it understood consumers' anger, but said the best thing drivers could do was save petrol by driving more slowly or switching off their engines when stopped at traffic lights or held up in traffic jams. New! Help Add URL Advertise with us Jobs@Excite Press Releases Copyright � 2000 At Home Corporation. All rights reserved. Excite, @Home, and the Excite and @Home logos are registered service marks of At Home in the U.S. and other countries. Disclaimer and Privacy Statement End<{{ From http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Transport/2000-09/fuel090900.shtml }}>Begin Revolt against fuel prices continues By Severin Carrell, Andrew Buncombe and John Lichfield in Paris 9 September 2000 Farmers and hauliers are threatening to blockade motorways, fuel depots and ports across Britain as part of a growing campaign against rising fuel prices. Their warnings came as the protests that closed a fuel depot in Cheshire on Thursday spread yesterday to include a slow convoy of 100 lorries blocking the A1 near Gateshead, Tyne and Wear and a blockade of a fuel depot at Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. Petrol stations in north-west England told customers fuel supplies could run out as a result of a picket by farmers and lorry drivers of the fuel depot at Shell's Stanlow refinery near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. Shell executives told 60 tanker drivers to stay in the depot after the protest ended, saying they had been threatened. The decision halted the supply of 1.8 million litres of fuel to several hundred petrol stations. The protest at Hemel Hempstead, involving four trucks parked across the entrance of Buncefield's depot, prevented 20 tankers taking fuel to local petrol stations. Protesters said their action would continue "indefinitely." Yesterday lorry drivers, farmers and union leaders said the protests were a foretaste of a campaign in autumn emulating the blockades by French hauliers, farmers and taxi-drivers. David Handley, chairman of Farmers for Action UK, which helped arrange the Stanlow protest, said: "I would suggest to you this is going to be the winter of unrest." Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, the transport minister, said these protests were unfair and unnecessary. "People have the right to a peaceful demonstration, but they don't have the right to interrupt the vital supplies in the country, or put the livelihood and convenience of other people at risk." The French campaign, which affected British lorry drivers and holiday-makers, is expected to continue this weekend and threatens to paralyse large areas of provincial France. Lionel Jospin, the Prime Minister, has to decide whether to mobilise troops to confront hauliers who yesterday refused to accept a slightly improved tax-cutting package offered by his government. It was accepted by one body representing small truck companies but rejected by another for middle-sized firms. Some hauliers insisted on maintaining the protests, in solidarity with taxi-drivers, private ambulance crews and others. Several refinery sieges were lifted last night but members of the small truckers' federation, the FNTR, rejected instructions to lift barricades which have sealed off 102 oil refineries and depots since Sunday. In Britain, the Road Haulage Association ( RHA) attempted to distance themselves from the sporadic incidents around the country but confirmed it would press ahead with a drive-slow protest into Edinburgh on Tuesday. The RHA Scotland protest, which was organised last month and has been authorised by the police and city council, is expected to draw support from across Britain. In a statement, it said: "At this moment, French hauliers are blockading fuel depots, thereby preventing deliveries to fuel stations. Outcome of this action? Success! We talk again and again about the industry's plight, but what we want is action. What is more, we want it now." The RHA said it would not condone illegal actions but it still demonstrate at Labour's annual party conference in Brighton in two weeks. It has also brought forward to next month a "funeral march" in London which was originally planned for November. Leaders of a small truckers' union which claims to represent 10,000 drivers also said they were helping to stage a European Union-wide campaign of blockades and protests against fuel prices, vehicle taxes, low wages and the �2,000 fines for bringing illegal immigrants into Britain. Douglas Curtis, head of communications with the United Road Transport Union, said he had forged links with continental drivers' unions, including French drivers unions which has so far opposed the direct action hitting France. He claimed the first European day of action would take place on 2 October. End<{{ A<>E<>R Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The libertarian therefore considers one of his prime educational tasks is to spread the demystification and desanctification of the State among its hapless subjects. His task is to demonstrate repeatedly and in depth that not only the emperor but even the "democratic" State has no clothes; that all governments subsist by exploitive rule over the public; and that such rule is the reverse of objective necessity. He strives to show that the existence of taxation and the State necessarily sets up a class division between the exploiting rulers and the exploited ruled. He seeks to show that the task of the court intellectuals who have always supported the State has ever been to weave mystification in order to induce the public to accept State rule and that these intellectuals obtain, in return, a share in the power and pelf extracted by the rulers from their deluded subjects. [[For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Murray N. Rothbard, Fox & Wilkes, 1973, 1978, p. 25]] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
