Principles of the Paint Brigade

PRINCIPALS OF THE PAINT BRIGADE
by Tim Thompson

A Statement to the Magistrates Court (amended)

On the 22^nd of July, 2012, a daring and intrepid guerrilla for the peoples Paint Brigade carried out our first attack, directed against BBC Television Centre. Armed with the weapon of the Paint Brigade, a solitary guerrilla activist made his way on foot to BBC Media Village, centred at White City, London. With white aerosol paint, the words 'Pigs', 'child abusers' and 'LIARS' were daubed across the windows of the oppressors. The activist responsible then signed this graffiti as an original work of modern art, by deliberately leaving fingerprints on the can of paint, with a statement of defiance leaving the paint at the scene of the crime. A week later an arrest had not yet been made, so the London Paint Brigade decided to react by organising a second attack. For this we were arrested, and this Manifesto documents the political views of the peoples Paint Brigade cause.

A direct action attack with white paint can be seen as being a statement in art if it is a Paint Brigade action.

The London Paint Brigade are a new organisation of artists and guerrillas, upholding political tactics through use of white paint. The concrete walls that surround the general populous who live in the city, are enforced as an act of oppression. The London Paint Brigade are now established to change this. We stand to support graffiti action; and the weapon we have chosen to fight with is the armourlite of white paint.

At present, graffiti exists as a political statement as to art and the oppression of the people. Graffiti is the direct guerrilla statement of the artist; it is a graphical statement applied to the canvas of our oppression. It is an expression of art which is defiance against the walls of our imprisonment.

Over the past years, graffiti has become a statement in itself. Serious artists have spent days with aerosol paint, creating works of serious beauty. But our oppressors cannot accept this. The law exists to persecute this revolutionary action against them. The resistance are imprisoned, and works of creative brilliance are taken off the walls in order to justify the concrete walls of our oppression.

This being just one aspect of an oppressive State who have already gone too far, the London Paint Brigade believe that we have no choice but to take action. We have declared paint as our statement to take action, and we have chosen white paint as our statement to oppose oppression as our weapon of guerrilla warfare. White paint has been chosen then, as a direct action statement towards the end of the State oppression of human creative thought.

The London Paint Brigade are a new guerrilla faction fighting through a strategy of direct action through use of white paint. The Police, the media and the Spectacle have long been the enemy of the working people. The London Paint Brigade declare action, then, to oppose the oppression of human thought. Whilst a Police vehicle might once have controlled the free protest of the people, the London Paint Brigade intend to paint it white. Whilst the walls of Media Village still dictate oppression, the London Paint Brigade daub our slogans on their windows. The means of control are now threatened by a massive autonomous movement declaring action through use of white paint.

White paint is our chosen weapon of creative expression. We here declare an open invitation to the working people to join. Those in agreement with this Manifesto are invited to offer solidarity to our guerrilla cause. We openly ask for this working class solidarity. If you agree with our cause, take action. Support the London Paint Brigade. Join us through autonomous action through use of white paint.

The London Paint Brigade believe that graffiti should be legal. If authority are to be overthrown, then the artists must take control of our own communities. We must re-claim our own autonomy through turning the concrete walls of our oppression into art statements. Those who impose control dictate absolute obedience; this being the reason that painting the streets is so highly illegal.

Graffiti manifests in society in different forms, but always has a sound meaning in working class culture. Murals in many colours that take days to create are a serious expression of street culture. Those who create them have created serious works of beauty, with those artists having credibility on the street on a serious scale. Other forms of graffiti have important social meanings as well, though, with it often being the case that those unwelcome in working class communities are often told through use of aerosol paint.

So what right does State authority have to dictate the expression of the artist? Murals are sprayed off walls and activists are imprisoned because the State have to impose control. Every action of the individual is in some way controlled, and if authority choose to repress the artist, then they have the power to do so. Strikes are broken and Banks protected, and the oppression of the artist is an equal act of control.

The London Paint Brigade declare action, then. If uniformed Police will control the people on demonstrations, then the revolutionary movement threaten to throw white paint at them in order to liberate the expression of the people.

The London Paint Brigade are a 'bona fide' guerrilla organisation. Our initiation is to be given a criminal conviction for a Paint Brigade action. Everyone who is working class is welcome to take up the spray can to support this philosophical statement. But at the same time we are serious and mean war.

Turning up at a riot scene to throw bottles of white paint, political slogans on the windows of the BBC in white paint, or detonating an explosive designed to splatter pressurised white paint, are the actions of the PAINT guerrilla. However, if we stand as a guerrilla faction, we do need to uphold a serious initiation if we are to be recognised as a serious political cause. Whilst different causes have their own initiations, the Paint Brigade see it as tactical to emulate the etiquette of the Animal Liberation Front.

Whilst small scale, the initiation of the ALF is to gain a conviction on the criminal record of an activist, for an action to support the ALF cause. The opinion of the London Paint Brigade, is that this is an initiation that works. Whilst everyone is welcome to support our cause, those who are initiated can be recognised as actual guerrillas. This works to support Paint Brigade activists in prison, and the Paint Brigade demand that our initiation be recognised under European law.

Our strategy and demands revolve around the Internet. In recent media, there has been reported a frightening new situation involving right wing fanatics killing masses of people in order to draw attention to new Internet Manifesto's.

To cut things short, the London Paint Brigade have taken our own directions to these massacres by the European far-right. We have used the media focus on our own actions. The attack on the BBC that this Manifesto was written to discuss, has upheld the same statement because of the BBC hate campaign against us. Without violence, WWW.SATANOPERATOR.CO.UK is now on the same level of the Manifesto's of mass killers, and this is because of the actions of the State against us.

This is where we declare ourselves the Militia of the peaceful. Because of our actions we have posed an alternative to mass killings, and in doing so we have introduced a strategy of defiance and comedy. In this we think we have saved lives. Our object now is to discredit the media as comical in their abuse against us, and our strategy is through guerrilla action using white paint.

Further, this strategy depicts our view of the Internet as current social influence. If authority claim that the autonomous organisation of Cyberspace will not overthrow their system, then the Paint Brigade will prove this wrong.

The Paint Brigade stand to initiate revolution as major social change. War through use of white paint is threatened to front a new society where the Internet is the global unity of the people.

The movements who have inspired the Paint Brigade are Banksy, the Situationist movement, and the Italian Actionist movement. The recent emergence of Banksy in 21^st Century society, was a mass movement of defiance on the part of the working classes. Banksy was the first to clearly issue a political statement that graffiti should be respected as a representation of art. Using the concrete walls of our oppression as his canvas, Banksy created statements on the walls to declare working class communities as those who have the right to control our own lives as artists. Further to this his work was massively respected. Banksy delivered this as his personal artistic statement. In doing so he became a hero.

French Situationism is also an influence behind the ideas of the Paint Brigade. We accept the ideas of the Situationist left if we have any statement to issue beyond this Manifesto. If the SI have defined their terms with the works of Guy deBord, then the Paint Brigade support the artists as the revolutionary movement against the Spectacle. And if we can here define ourselves as being artists, our medium is guerrilla action through use of white paint; our canvas being the physical oppression of the State. If the Situationist International need a guerrilla army, then we tell our oppressors to expect war through art in terms of white paint.

If the political rhetoric so far written does not clearly define our statement of intent, then the actions of the Italian Actionist movement also have to be respected as a statement in modern art, who have clearly influenced Paint Brigade thinking.

The Italian Actionist movement were an early 20^th Century art movement, established to oppose the authority of Mussolini. Being a serious group of thinkers, the Actionists upheld a strategy of throwing blood at State buildings. This was the first time that an action such as this could be considered art, and the actionists organised a mass political resistance through upholding strategies of modern art as direct action.

These are the main philosophies upheld by the Paint Brigade in defining our political values. These modes of thought justify a statement in art to damage property. We stand here to define ourselves as the next serious statement in modern art; standing as the next statement to define the history of art to be a thing of the past.

The London Paint Brigade guerrilla action against the BBC stands as being our first action in order to threaten the working class overthrow of the State.

The BBC were targeted as being a considered action against those who represent the worst of those who uphold the State. All legal broadcast in some way supports the State as being deliberate political brainwashing, and the London Paint Brigade have targeted them as our first action. We have accused them of monitoring thought and of trying to justify child sex abuse against one of our members as political control. We have followed every avenue available to us to protest against this. Guerrilla action is therefore justified, as if authority cannot be challenged legally, such action is an obligation and the only justified statement to protect the innocent. The London Paint Brigade have had no choice in taking action, then, as this is the only way that our demand to be legally represented against Human Rights violations, will be considered.

On a warm afternoon in July 2012, a London Paint Brigade activist approached the offices of the BBC, at the Media Centre at White City, London. Approaching ten glass windows, our activist shook a can of white aerosol paint, and took off the plastic cap. Raising his spray paint against the windows of the oppressors, slogans appropriate to the sickening evil of the State were daubed across these windows as a statement of defiance defined as art. Our activist for the peoples revolution then waved to CCTV, and upheld assignment to sign his work, by deliberately leaving fingerprints on this can of white aerosol paint, and deliberately leaving the paint at the scene of the crime.

Five days later, the Police had still not made an arrest under their 'anti terrorism' laws. In a plan of stealth and cunning, the State had assumed that if this was an act of guerrilla war, then our activist would have to uphold a repeat action in order to define the first legitimate Paint Brigade action. We saw past this cunning, and the same guerrilla activist was assigned to repeat the action, in order for his arrest to represent the stage to promote the London Paint Brigade statement.

With these views being the Principals of the Paint Brigade, this Court is defined as those who enforce our oppression. The walls of this city are the psychological walls of our oppression. With this being a first offence and a justified action against a State who do not uphold their own laws, this Court is declared as the vocal point for the Paint Brigade to openly put forward these political views.

So if this is what the Court will accept as an open admission of guilt, then so be it. But the London Paint Brigade will declare you as the oppressors and the enemy of the working people. The artists have here declared war on the Spectacle. This Court can deal with the conscientious actions of the working people as you choose to do so. But any form of oppression that you issue against us will be considered as an act against the artists as the movement of the working people. As we have said: the Paint Brigade declare war on the State.

IMSI. THE PAINT BRIGADE 2012.