Aotearoa is Under Attack

This is what democracy looked like, Mayday 2010, Auckland, Aotearoa. Click on the picture to enlarge.

"Aotearoa is under attack- STAND UP- FIGHT BACK!" echoed through Queen Street yesterday as over 50,000 people joined one of the biggest protests in New Zealand's recent history.

The National-Act-Maori Party Government wants to move the bulldozers into Schedule 4 Parks and reserves- beautiful parts of Aotearoa they want to ruin to dig up gold, silver and coal. Until now, this Government has got away with attack after attack, but the Mayday protest marks a turning point in the popular mood.

As well as the mining industry, many protesters targeted the National party's greed, and capitalism's willingness to destroy nature in pursuit of short term, shiny profits. A colourful and energetic Red Bloc led hundreds of people in explicitly anti-government, anti-capitalist chants, celebrating People Power and Democracy on the streets, and that only revolution could end this rotten system.

Without anti-capitalist, direct action politics, this huge movement of anger will be led into the dead ends of letter writing and submissions to parliamentarians. This is what happened with the movement against GE, and we should not repeat the same mistakes twice.

Strikes, mass blockades, green bans and sabotage of the bulldozers and mining equipment must be the weapons used to defend Aotearoa. The argument for where this movement goes now has begun- but it has given a huge shot of energy to people who have been fighting in the trenches of other campaigns against this rotten government.

Power to the People!

Video from Stuff HERE
Video from TV3 News HERE