Anti-Capitalist Summer Special

Kauaeranga valley, Coromandel: On November 28, just two days after the general election in the beautiful, native forest covered valleys of the Coromandel peninsula resistance to John Key's new National Government and the corporate plunderers they bring with them was already beginning.

50 locals, Coromandel Watchdog and Green MP Catherine Delahunty escort from the valley of waterfalls, walking tracks and mountainbike trails, surveyors from gold mining giant Newmont.

Coromandel Watchdog co-ordinator Renee Annan told the media, “The public needs to know that the mining companies are still intent on mining Schedule Four land and that despite the victory in 2010, exploration activities cannot be legally stopped on this land. That is why we are taking non-violent direct action. Today's peaceful protest is just the first of many unless Newmont leave our area.”

Despite the election of a right wing Government the massive swing to the Greens and the rise of the Mana Movement show that hundreds of thousands of people are uncomfortable with the snowballing ecological destruction, the increasing wealth of the richest 1% and the unchecked power of corporations to pollute and exploit in John Key's "Brighter Future".

National plan to allow more deep sea oil drilling, more fracking, more carbon emmissions, more coal and gold mining, more road building and more urban sprawl. The clean, green New Zealand is becoming a country of oil spills, habitat destruction and smog ridden urban skylines. Just like the residents of the Kauaeranga valley there will be thousands of people prepared to get involved in campaigns and struggles to defend our environment - urban, rural and wilderness. These people will be Maori and Pakeha, from small towns and big cities, students and workers. United against a Government and the capitalist system that treats our whenua as an unlimited resource and our tangaroa as an infinite garbage can.

This new environmental movement has the potential to bring down the Government, pointing out to ordinary farmers and workers how the big business interests that control National are eating our future by despoiling the planet. Corporate capitalism is incompatible with planet earth. People and planet before profit. We need a revolution against the polluters.

Plus: Articles on Election '11, Marton lock out, Glen Innes housing struggle, Egyptian revolution and the radicalisation of hiphop.

Download the full Anti-capitalist here.