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Climate change: reform or revolution?

Text of the Workers Party leaflet for New Zealand Climate Camp 2010, by Ian Anderson.

This leaflet is for people who’ve figured out that climate change is happening, and that it’s driven in large part by industrial greenhouse gas emissions. If you’re here, you want to stop it in its tracks.

Despite the attempts of industrial capitalists to distort the flow of information, the findings of climatologists remain consistent. Since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century, greenhouse gas emissions have rapidly increased, driving a long-term process of global warming.

Resources were sucked out of the countryside and the developing world to fuel economic growth, while workers were packed into polluted and cramped living spaces. This transformation continues to this day, as capitalists seek new blood and soil to develop; from Iraq to Mount Aspiring.

This leaves one central question: what is to be done? It is possible to match human and environmental need. We just have to figure out how.

Continue reading “Climate change: reform or revolution?”

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Nepali Maoists Rally for Nationwide Strike

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNYg-IH9Xow]

Thousands of Maoists held a torch procession on December the 5th in preparation for a nationwide Banda (closure) the following day. The action was called in retaliation of an incident in Kailali district on Friday. Police had used deadly force in removing thousands of Maoist aligned landless squatters from forest land.

For regular updates, follow Revolution in South Asia.

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Student Occupations Spread Across California: An Analysis

Originally posted on Advance the Struggle, reposted from Kasama.

For the Workers Party campaign against political trespassing by Victoria University, click here.

“These protests represent a political eruption in a time when militant struggle is bubbling up to the surface.  It’s becoming progressively clearer that proposing such militancy is not premature…but also prove that it isn’t wise to push heroic yet isolated occupation attempts…  We have witnessed the first convergence of occupation with mass protest and observed the fiery radical effect the synthesis has had on its participants.  The only way to challenge society’s problems is to first understand that the rich and powerful will stop at nothing. Capital brings only impoverishment for our class while their class accumulates incredible amounts of wealth. Our struggle has to win by beating back and altering the relationship of class forces, which will not be easy. But this recent wave of occupations and militant protests throughout California represent a new cycle of struggle that gives hope and insight to such a possibility in the near future.”

Behind Every Fee Increase is a Line of Cops

Fully armed, a line of 10 swat team police marched up to the picket line. Half-stunned by their presence, the crowd of supporters hesitatingly jeered the cops. In unison and on command the pigs charged forward and shoved the picketers to the ground. Throughout the day there were various refusals to accept these attacks; they ranged from hurling verbal abuse at the cops with chants like “Fuck the Police,” to acts of physical resistance such as refusing to sit down at the urging of cops and fellow protesters, to minor incidents of exchanging blows with the pigs.

Some of these bold acts of resistance were deplorable to those protestors whose go-to chants were “Peaceful protest! Peaceful protest!” as the pigs violently attacked students.  One chant was even directed to the cops themselves: “We are fighting for your kids! We are fighting for your kids!” This brings into sharp relief the widespread confusion about the role of the state in the anti-budget cut movement.

Continue reading “Student Occupations Spread Across California: An Analysis”

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Challenge international “terror” legislation

Reprinted from an article by Rebellion (Danish language site.)

The court case against Rebellion (Denmark) for support to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is now approaching. The demand is imprisonment. The court case takes place at Copenhagen City 6. Court, December 3 and December 7, 2009 and January 8, January 15, 2010. The judgement will be announced on February 8, 2010.

The aim of Rebellion (Denmark), formed in 2004, is to challenge ‘terrorist legislation’, both in Denmark and internationally.  

Terrorist legislation seeks to undermine progressive organisations, resistance movements, trade unions and solidarity movements throughout the world.

We appeal for support from all to:

– Defend the right of peoples to resist illegitimate government and foreign occupation!

– Defend the right of peoples to take up arms against oppression where all other means have been exhausted!

Rebellion (Denmark) is accused of the transferral of substantial funds to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has for decades been engaged in the struggle of the Palestinian people, in a legitimate conflict with occupation forces. We support the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in its struggle for a secular and democratic state for all. It can in no way be defined as a ‘terrorist organisation’.

In Denmark, there is an increasing challenge to ‘terrorist legislation’, a growing defiance that Rebellion (Denmark) has striven to create and is itself a part of.

Through present terrorist legislation, states have attempted to curb the freedom of expression and the political rights of their citizens. The right to extend moral and material support to resistance and liberation movements throughout the world is threatened. 

Rebellion (Denmark) appeals to all movements for democracy and international solidarity to join us in challenging national and supranational terrorist legislation and the so-called ‘global war on terror’.

 

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Doing the “drains up” on a tragedy

The Spark November 2009
Mike Kay

 The disappearance of two year old Aisling Symes in the west Auckland suburb of Henderson on 5 October dominated the headlines over the next few days. There was mounting speculation that the toddler had been abducted. TVNZ sent their Sensing Murder “medium” Deb Webber to “assist” the Symes, a move that drew widespread criticism. In reply, the TV station stated: “We’re not trying to push a psychic message to make money and get ratings.” The British aristocrat Lord Ashcroft offered a $50,000 reward for her safe return (considerably less than the $200,000 he’d put up for the return of the stolen Victoria Cross medals) Continue reading “Doing the “drains up” on a tragedy”

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Tim Shadbolt joins trespass protest

PRESS RELEASE:

Invercargill mayor and 1960s protest figure Tim Shadbolt and distinguished NZ film-maker Gaylene Preston have added their names to the list of those calling for the administration at Victoria University to lift the two-year trespass ban it imposed recently on Wellington workers’ rights activists Joel Cosgrove and Heleyni Pratley.

Cosgrove, a former students association president, and Pratley, a former student executive member, were trespassed for taking part in a protest against fee increases by the University Council. At the protest Cosgrove threw one egg, which he later cleaned up, and Pratley held a sign calling for free education.

The pair were then arrested and charged with trespass when they tried to deliver a petition signed by academics and trade union figures calling for the trespass order to be lifted.

“It seems that Victoria is keeping up its reputation as the most uptight University in New Zealand. I remember in the late 60s we had a University Arts Festival there and a small group of us went to sleep in the Common Room and were all arrested for trespass. Universities should be the last bastion of free speech and democracy,” said Mayor Shadbolt, in a message of support to the campaign to get the trespass orders lifted.

Cosgrove and Pratley have welcomed the support, saying that the longer the administration maintain the trespass order the more draconian and silly it makes the University appear. END

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It is 8 years since NZ troops joined the US led invasion of Afghanistan

The SPARK interviews long serving anti-imperialist activist and Workers Party secretary Daphna Whitmore

Spark: It’s been 8 years since New Zealand troops were sent to Afghanistan – why did the Labour-Alliance government send them in the first place?

It needs to be understood in the context of New Zealand’s involvement with US and British imperialism. New Zealand is a partner in this bloc, and Labour enthusiastically signed up to the so-called War on Terror. When it comes to involvement in military adventures Labour governments have been just as warmongering as National.

Daphna Whitmore
Daphna Whitmore (left)at May Day march 2009

The Alliance Party split over the issue of support for the invasion of Afghanistan, with the majority of its members rejecting the war. It highlighted the problem of being in government with an outright capitalist party like Labour.

Spark: New Zealand companies aren’t trying to make major sales in Afghanistan – why all the risk and expense over such a long period of time?

 In its last term the Labour government did scale back the involvement, recalling the SAS and sending instead “reconstruction” forces. This tended to obscure the reality – that these are military forces, participating in an occupation. It dressed it up to look like it was simply a humanitarian mission. Continue reading “It is 8 years since NZ troops joined the US led invasion of Afghanistan”