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Deer Hunting with Jesus

Dispatches from America's Class War

 Reviewed by Jill Brasell

(The Spark February 2009)

Journalist and blogger Joe Bageant grew up among the working-class people of Winchester, Virginia, and a question has evidently itched him ever since he escaped from (and then returned to) that community. Why do the working class reject liberalism, and instead hold tight to ideas that work against their own interests?

Deer Hunting with Jesus (Three Rivers Press, New York, 2007) is a series of loosely connected essays that attempts to answer that question. Bageant is a sharp observer and the book is a thought-provoking and often entertaining read as he takes a bottom-up look at globalisation, home ownership, healthcare, guns, Abu Ghraib, Christian fundamentalism and what he calls “the American hologram”.

Continue reading “Deer Hunting with Jesus”

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“Two States” – a Zionist solution

Below we publish the text of a talk given by Mike Walker at a recent Workers Party public forum in Christchurch.

If we are to believe the hype true liberation and self determination for the Palestinian people will be forthcoming with what is commonly referred to as the “two state solution”. This supposed “solution” would leave the racist structures of the Israeli state in place and therefore the fundamental cause of the ‘conflict’ also in place. This proposal would confine Palestinians to less than twenty per cent of the land mandated by the British in 1947 and would leave the situation of Palestinians driven from their homes in what is now Israel unresolved. It would render invisible the alienated enclaves divided by checkpoints, barriers, the annexation wall and a brutal military occupation in the West Bank; combined with the Gaza strip, which has been called the largest concentration camp in the world. This represents the Palestinian Bantustan.

It is crucial as we look at the current situation in Palestine to keep in mind the “two state solution” and to contextualise the history with an emphasis on the history of Zionism and the conduct of Zionist leaders since the creation of the state of Israel.

Continue reading ““Two States” – a Zionist solution”

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Make National’s “Fire at Will” law a dead letter!

dalek

A forum to discuss plans for resisting the new 90-day legislation, the National-led government’s Xmas present to workers, is being held on Wednesday, February 4 at the WEA (Workers Educational Association) building, 59 Gloucester St, Christchurch, starting at 7pm.

Speakers include Andrew Mckenzie (Alliance; and a lawyer specialising in labour issues); Byron Clark (Workers Party; youth union activist); Fay Birch (cleaner and worker-advocate, specialising in personal grievance issues). Other union speakers have been invited.

The meeting is organised by the Workers Party and the Alliance Party.

All welcome!

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Review: Teamster Rebellion

Teamster Rebellion is a classic, and highly recommended for anyone interested in strengthening the union movement as we head into recession. First in the Teamster series, this compelling account of the 1934 strikes in Minneapolis sheds light on the rewards of worker militancy. Author Farrell Dobbs was one of the central leaders at the time, and he lays out the various strategies and pitfalls of the strike with admirable clarity.

Dobbs makes it clear that the biggest setback for workers in the Great Depression was a bureaucratic union movement. In fact, membership in unions actually declined in the early days of the Depression. Dobbs describes the “business unionism” of the American Federation of Labour, involving strict division of crafts, a minimum of strikes and suppression of dissidence.

Continue reading “Review: Teamster Rebellion”

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Fuck John Key

(Music by Chuck Berry)

 On the plutey side of Auckland where the salaries swell

In a half acre mansion in the middle of Parnell

Created out of value stole from you and me

There lives a little arsehole that they call John Key

He learned how to play the figures really well

To help the bosses screw the workers down to hell

GO – GO JOHNNY  GO – GO JOHNNY  GO -GO JOHNNY  GO – GO – GO JOHNNY  GO –TORY FUCK OFF

He came into power by saying he’d tax much less

And doing that would fix the economic mess

Exploiters at the top are going to benefit

While all the rest of us sink lower in the shit

We didn’t used to live in bloody paradise

But no rights for ninety days just tightens up the vice

( chorus)

Now some say the way to lose this Tory germ

Is voting Labour back to have another term

Well, we tried that tactic back in ’84

The slash we got from Rogernomics still feels raw

Don’t let any yuppie bastard fool ya

We need a change of system, not a change of ruler

( chorus)

 Don Franks 2009

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Water Metering: Letter to the Capital Times

This is a response to a Capital Times article, Hold Your Water (Vol  34  No 11) which argued for compulsory water metering as a conservation measure. Unfortunately the article is not online.

Your article Hold Your Water argued for water metering as a conservation measure. However, domestic water metering is symptomatic of an approach to conservation that shifts the costs of bad infrastructure onto consumers.

Like any user-pays system, water metering hits those on lower incomes hardest. There are alternatives. Fitting houses with rainwater tanks can conserve up to 40% of potable water, without significantly limiting real consumption. If you add greywater recycling and drycomposting toilets to the equation, households can conserve up to 70%. However, these measures don’t have the ongoing financial benefits that meters do.

Continue reading “Water Metering: Letter to the Capital Times”

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Christchurch WP forum: Solidarity with the Palestinians!

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The brutal Israeli invasion and occupation of Gaza has led growing numbers of people around the world to question whether Israel can ever act in any way other than what we’ve seen in Gaza in recent weeks. Come along to this month’s Workers Forum and hear about how the state of Israel was set up through the dispossession of the Palestinians and about their continuing struggle for liberation.

Speakers: Paul Hopkinson and Mike Walker

Wednesday 28 January, 7pm
Workers Educational Association, 59 Gloucester St (opposite City Art Gallery)

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Innocent man shot and killed by police in Auckland

Jared Phillips

On Friday 23 January, Halatau Naitoko – a 17 year old Pacific Island father – was shot in the chest by police who were in pursuit of an armed bag snatcher. The shooting took place on the North-Western motorway where the suspect attempted to switch get-away vehicles. Naitoko was driving a van, doing courier work.

The lack of clarity and contradictory nature of the information around the events is troubling. Some reports indicated that shots came from the offender throughout the pursuit but not at the scene of the fatal shooting. Police in early reports on the following Saturday implied that the offender was firing shots at the scene of the fatal shooting.

The Herald on Sunday reported that the Auckland Assistant Police Commissioner told a press conference that the suspect’s shotgun had one shell in the bridge, indicating a shot had been fired, while witnesses are reported to have said that shots had been fired throughout the pursuit. Some sources say that the suspect fired upon a police helicopter, however, the police could not confirm it.

It took the police over 24 hours following the incident to publicly admit that the fatal bullet was from a police weapon. The events still do not make sense to the public who should not have to wait around for a full inquiry before accurate details are made available.

Naitoko’s fiancé Stephanie Cook told the Herald on Sunday that ‘I am so angry, they should have been more careful. It is going to take more than an apology. They have taken away my daughter’s father – she is never going to know him… I am so angry I hope they get what’s coming to them.’ In the same report Naitoko’s father is quoted as saying ‘I want justice… I am angry he has lost his life for no reason at all. They could have used different methods to get the guy’.

In its statements the New Zealand Police are appealing for public sympathy. While it is undoubtedly true that the police who were directly involved in the shooting will be regretful, this is not a reason to defend the police over the issue. Just as Naitoko’s fiancé and father have done, progressive forces, community leaders, and others must denounce the shooting. A strong signal of outrage needs to be sent to the government and the police force. If the police force is not criticised we can only expect a steady escalation of police powers and a normalisation of, or desensitising to, these kinds of incidents.

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Barack Obama – another Martin Luther King?

– Don Franks

The son of murdered black civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. has often been asked: did you think you’d ever live to see a black US president?

“People are surprised when I say yes”, says Martin Luther King III. “But I’m sure my father would have said the same if he was alive today. Without that faith and that sense of possibility he would have had no reason to fight in the first place.”

A spirit of faith and hope has accompanied Obama’s election campaign. A Gallup poll on announcement of Obama’s victory shows that a massive 70% of Americans believe they will be better off by the time the new president finishes his term in four years time.

Seldom has the election of a capitalist politician aroused such euphoric public celebration. Obama’s inaugural speech drew a record crowd of close on two million. In the afterglow of the inauguration ceremonies floods of Obama memorabilia continue to be snapped up at three times the volume of the previous record setter Bill Clinton. Continue reading “Barack Obama – another Martin Luther King?”

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Stop the use of lèse-majesté in Thailand – Defend freedom of speech

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John Moore from the Workers Party, who has lived and worked in Thailand, gives details of an international campaign to stop the use of lèse-majesté in Thailand.

The Thai government is currently cracking down on dissent, and is using laws to ‘protect’ the monarchy to squash critical voices in Thai society. Such laws are known as lèse-majesté and frame criticism or insulting of a monarch as treason. Thai Marxist and academic Giles Ji Ungpakorn is facing lèse-majesté charges for the writing of his book A Coup for the Rich. A pdf version of this book can be found here.

A petition/open letter has been initiated by Thai activists calling for the scrapping of lèse-majesté laws and that the Thai government drop all proceedings in lèse-majesté cases.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn has been a ceaseless critic of the military’s intervention into politics in Thailand. He has accused the current government of gaining power through a coup. The elected Peoples Power Party government was recently deposed through a court order. The current Democratic Party led government was put together with the aid of the head of the military, and has full military backing.

Giles has been a consistent critic of authoritarian measures used by Thai state forces. He has championed the cause of workers and the rural poor in Thailand. He has also campaigned against the brutal military intervention against ethnic Malay insurgents in the South of Thailand.

The Workers Party is happy to play a part in offering solidarity to Giles and to help with the international campaign against the use of lèse-majesté in Thailand.

Below is the open letter/petition which Giles Ungpakorn is asking people to sign:

Continue reading “Stop the use of lèse-majesté in Thailand – Defend freedom of speech”