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The current set of Poems on the Underground contains two poems that relate directly to the 90th anniversary of the Armistice at the end of the first world war – the war often misnamed The Great War. We chose On Receiving News of the War by Isaac Rosenberg to celebrate the short life of a very promising poet and painter. And to draw attention to the savagery and brutality of war. Rosenberg joined the army as a private to supplement his family’s small income. He was killed in April 1918. He…

Why should Peace News, a paper devoted to peacemaking, concern itself so much with economic issues? Over the period of our editorship we have come back to class politics again and again and again.

Dan Clawson’s wonderful essay “Fusing our power” back in May 2007, at the start of our editorship, showed how activists from the new social movements have begun to revitalise parts of the US trade union movement, turning them from narrowly-focused bureaucratic monoliths into whole-person…

A very long time ago, in 1994, I managed to use my membership of the Royal Horticultural Society to obtain the freedom of an imprisoned peace activist!

There had been a protest in Farnborough, against the sale of Hawks to Indonesia, and my daughter had been arrested for filling British Aerospaces’ fountain with red dye and taken to the police station. I was asked to go up there and try negotiate her release since she refused to give her date of birth.

At the reception desk, I…

Cageprisoners is a human rights organisation that raises awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the “War on Terror”. It has the backing of both Muslim and non-Muslim lawyers, activists, former detainees, families of prisoners and academics.

Its aim is to educate the public by being a comprehensive resource of information on Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the “War on Terror”, highlighting their plight and…

Sitting in front of a panel of MPs and lords for the second time this year, Peace News abandoned etiquette and spoke plainly. The problem with giving evidence about the law on protest we said, is that parliament, the judiciary and the police have failed to take the action they should have - against the illegal invasion of Iraq, or those causing devastating climate change, for example.

In such circumstances, it is difficult to be forced to discuss “the policing of protest”, when…

I don’t think November is a favourite month for campaigning by any means. It is easy to feel discouraged when the days are wet, windy, cold and dark, whether you are marching in the rain, listening to speeches hoping your comrade’s umbrella doesn’t poke you in the eye, sitting down dangerously near a puddle or trying to climb a wet fence.

I recommend the musical protests favoured by East London Against The Arms Fair as more suited to the season. We are holding two this month. (…

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On 17 September, the Department of Health announced that it had identified nine personality types of heavy drinkers who are at risk of liver damage and other alcohol-related illnesses. By pure chance, on that same day, Peace News announced that it had identified nine very similar personality types of “heavy activists” who frequent meetings rather than pubs, and who are at risk of brain damage and other activism-related conditions.

The nine personality types are:

“De-…

The Network for Peace (NfP) was set up in 2001 to continue the work of the National Peace Council, one of the oldest peace organisations in the UK.
NfP is an organisation-based network. Individual members are welcome, but we do not involve ourselves in organising actions or events (apart from our annual meeting – held in the spring).
Our member groups are wide-ranging; from the religious peace organisations; local and regional CND groups, small local peace groups, to larger…

In the current edition of the always interesting Fourth World Newsletter*, there is a page which brought me up short.

Titled A Bill of Rights for Future Generations, it originates from Adbusters** – a Canadian “radical arts journal” – and something about the directness and simplicity of its composition lifted my spirits during a bleak spell of unrelieved wind and rain.

Its authors may be radical and arty but they’ve pleasingly compressed their thoughts and feelings into…

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has sparked enormous enthusiasm throughout the world – and a fair amount back home in the United States – as a symbol of change. Many progressive-minded people are hoping that he will bring about genuine reform in domestic and foreign affairs.

Our opinion, to be blunt, is that Barack Obama is another Tony Blair.

It is difficult to remember at this point – steeped as we are in the blood and lies of the Iraq war – the excitement…

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I am from a large and close family, and while most are supportive of our peace work, there have been occasions of conflict. I hate falling out with anyone, but in particular with people I am close to. So when one family member told me I shouldn’t be taking our small children on a large anti-war demo, I was very upset. We had a painful discussion about it, I stood my ground, and later I was touched when that person came to a vigil I was organising. She still disagrees with me, but I think we…

A “Transition Initiative” is a community working together to address this BIG question: “for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?”
An Initiating Group raises awareness, connects with existing groups in the community, builds bridges to local government, forms groups to…

Climate Camp has rightly been described as both “the world’s most organised protest” and “the most important protest of our time”. The severity of the climate crisis that is looming is not easy to imagine. If we do see a temperature rise of 4C above pre-industrial levels, up to half the world’s species could die out, and our descendants will face apocalyptic consequences.

The Camp is the confluence of several streams of organising going back decades. It demonstrates, among other…

In September we are inevitably reminded of 9/11. The frustration of the US regime at its inability to punish dead people has resulted in a desire for revenge that appears insatiable. Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo and then the “war on terror” seem to threaten everyone, anywhere in the world. We must not forget the Americans who were bereaved on 9/11 who pleaded that their grief should not be used as an excuse to cause the same to others, or the jailed military refusniks or the American anti-…

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We – Pat V T West, Dennis Gould, Jeff Cloves – first performed together as RiffRaff Poets in St Ives in 1970. The reading was in a pub where Pat’s performance was sexually provocative, verbally explicit, and unfazed by boozy male hostility. In short she was sensational and no one who was there that can ever forget her. So, it was with great sadness we learned of her anticipated but precipitate death in a Bristol hospice on 14 June. Our friend and companion poet at so many RiffRaff gigs has,…