Elections Plea and Various other bits and bobs.

Hey

Hope you are all keeping happy and are applying your sunscreen in this beautiful (and unprecedented) heatwave. Just a few bits and bobs that are coming up in the next few days that I’d like to let you know about

European Election Day Tomorrow

Everywhere you turn it is impossible to escape the recession, from our newspapers, to the television, hell they’re even commenting about it on Hollyoaks. Fascists thrive on misery and depression, they have had a long history of capitalising on peoples misfortunes and using it to grow their regimes. The most common example of this would be in post WW1 Germany. Although we have not experienced this level of fascism in the uk, we have seen many examples through the years of Fascists capitalising on hard times, most recently the growth of the national front in the midst of the minors strikes. The BNP however, is a new beast. The same level of racism, homophobia and ignorance, but shined up in suits and disguised as politicians. The european elections are tomorrow and the BNP are using the leverage of the recession and the wave of political distrust to power their campaign. It is up to us as responsible citizens of this great country to make sure that we do not have any members of the far right representing us in the European Parliament.

It’s hard to feel the motivation to vote, especially when daily, we are seeing abuse of our parliamentary system in the expenses scandal. However we must not lie idle and let the BNP creep into a European seat. The prestige and finances this will give them, will only add fuel to their fire, a fire that we MUST extinguish. Democracy is difficult if we waste our votes (although I can sympathise with the reasons why.) The BNP only need 9% of the vote to gain a seat and this looks like a very real possibility. This figure will be much harder to reach if we make sure we visit the polling stations tomorrow. Unfortunately in situations like this, a wasted vote works in favour of parties like the BNP, NF and UKIP. I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, its certainly not my place. However I urge you to take 30 minutes out of your day tomorrow to visit the polling station. This is a percentage game and if we play the percentages by using our votes, we might just be able to keep fascists from representing us in europe.

LMHR Festival

Thanks to everyone who came on Saturday and made the Love Music Hate Racism festival in Stoke a fantastic success, massive thanks to Lee, Weyman, Allison and all at LMHR, Stoke Council, Kick Racism out of Football and Stoke City FC for all their hard work. Hopefully the impact will lead to a growing in the already fantastic grass roots community in Stoke.

Satellite Soundsystem on Thursday

The next installment of our Afro/Brazilian/European beats night is on thursday at the Fly on new oxford street. We’re starting at 10pm and will feature 3 hours of new and old skool world beats to have a dance to, or to chill to. Entry is 100% free and should be a really nice vibe. Nearest tube is Tot. Court Road, come down and have a drink/dance with us, if you have no plans for Thursday night

Southend Festival This Saturday

I have been given the great honour of curating a day at the Southend festival this Saturday. I’ve picked some of my favourite bands from southend and around the uk and will be comparing/playing a few acoustic numbers in between sets It kicks off at 3pm in the highstreet up by the Cinema/Victoria Plaza, hopefully the sun will be out. Line up is as follows:

Tellison
Man Like Me
Lions
Caleb
Notes
A Week of Summer

Either way I know it’ll be a great day! For more info please visit:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=105253286139

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Have a good day and if you fancy keeping in touch I’m addicted to twitter over at www.twitter.com/forgetcape

Take Care

Samx