Socialist Aotearoa

The stink of corruption hangs around the political elite. Can you smell it? Banksy's lies over donations. The dirty deals made by Banks and Key with SkyCity. The ACC scandal. Every year a new revelation of John Key using his political position to bolster his prortfolio. Let's kick 'em while they're down. Turn up the heat on the streets. Let's wipe the grins off the faces of the Epsom mafioso.

 3 News Here.    Stuff news Here.   One "News" Here. You know a demonstration is going to be big when you get the message to come from multiple sources- facebook invites, viral videos, mass txts, guerrilla street postering and the old trusty leaflet handed to you by a human being, staffing a campaign stall at a rugby match or outside a transport hub weeks before the event.   When the Facebook clicktivists meet the new urban street revolutionaries. You know a demonstration is going to be big when the List of Endorsers starts to take up space that makes your paragraph look too big- and starts to include not only the biggest trade unions and the major political parties of the Left, but also those primary extra parliamentary campaigning organisations and movements who actually provide the bulk of activist muscle to mobilise bodies on the street. And on the glorious day- you know a demonstration is going to be big when you see young kids holding their homemade placards,

What Parliament Does, The Streets Will Undo  Media Release Socialist Aotearoa 11.45am 28/04/2012 Socialist Aotearoa will join with other concerned Aucklanders today at 3pm on Queen Street to voice our opposition to the privatisation and commercialisation of New Zealand.  "From teachers marching against charter schools and tangata whenua fighting deep sea oil drilling, from Grey Power members opposing asset sales to university students concerned about tertiary education, today is about uniting the fight against the National Government," said Socialist Aotearoa spokesperson Joe Carolan. "Workers are under attack across the country as the Government and multi-national corporations conspire together to screw down wages and conditions for everyone from actors and nurses to meat workers and wharfies. We need to stand together to fight back," continued Mr. Carolan.  This Government has gone mad on the smell of the free market. More pokies in SkyCity, more oi

From the Quebec student strike to the resistance to asset sales. We will be discussing how to fight neo-liberalism in 2012.

As the Aotearoa is Not for Sale hikoi winds across the North Island we need to keep building the resistance to privatisation of state assets, attacks on workers' rights, deep sea oil drilling and mining conservation land. The fightback in Aotearoa links locked out meat workers with conservationists, tangata whenua with trade unions, revolutionaries with centre leftists, state house tenants with rural schools and Grey Power with students. This is a fight for all of us against the National Party. The movement started small but is quickly growing. People are taking the initiative to organise actions in provincial towns and on campuses around the country. It's a good start. We can stop the asset sales, TPPA, oil drilling and farm sales but we are going to need more united action, • Combined union stopwork protest meetings should be held over Winter to organise and back the Grey Power, Labour and Green Party plan to lead a petition campaign to call for a referendum on asse

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund has $227,049 invested in GenCorp Inc , a corporation which is a leading manufacturer of depleted uranium weapons for the US military. Over the last week  Independent journalist Robert Fisk is currently in Fallujah, Iraq reporting on the horrible birth deformities which have been caused by the use of depleted uranium weapons in the city in 2004. In his first report Robert Fisk brought us the story of one baby, Sayef, born with deformities in Fallujah, For little Sayef, there will be no Arab Spring. He lies, just 14 months old, on a small red blanket cushioned by a cheap mattress on the floor, occasionally crying, his head twice the size it should be, blind and paralysed. Sayeffedin Abdulaziz Mohamed – his full name – has a kind face in his outsized head and they say he smiles when other children visit and when Iraqi families and neighbours come into the room. But he will never know the history of the world around him, never enjoy the fre

Student groups have held demonstrations in Montreal and across Canada every day since an indefinite strike was declared in February 2012 against government plans to increase tuition fees by 75 per cent. The media and government have attempted to divide them, the police have attacked them but the strike wave continues. There has been solidarity from students on campuses across Canada, the Canadian Federation of Students and the Canadian Association of University Teachers. Tactics have included shutting down the universities, occupying banks, blockading corporate offices and powerful street mobilisations. On the 22nd of March 2012 (with numbers of over 200,000) Canada saw its largest demonstration since the 2003 protest that stopped Canada from entering the Iraq War. The sheer size of the strike is already building broader movements, from April 22nd Earth Day protests to May Day workers protests. Some are calling the movement “printemps érable” – which translates as “Maple Spr

“a bayonet is a weapon with a workin' man  on either end”  Betray your country- serve your class!   Don't sign up for war, my friend. What is it good for? Absolutely Nothin'.  Go find the young men never to fight again Bring up the banners from the days gone by Sweet moderation- Heart of this nation Desert us not, we are Between the wars     And now every April I sit on my porch And I watch the parade pass before me  And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march  Reliving old dreams of past glory  And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore  The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war  And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"  And I ask myself the same question... The sun shining down on these green fields of France  The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance  The trenches have vanished long under the plow  No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now  But here in this graveyar

Imagine it is early morning on Auckland’s waterfront. It’s one of those fine early mornings when the sun is rising behind Rangitoto and the sea, sky and city are a kaleidoscope of colours as ferries criss-cross the sparkling waters of Waitemata carrying in the early bird workers to the CBD. Imagine you are walking to work along Tamaki Drive. As you approach Teal Park you see an old man in an old-fashioned suit with a big grey beard leaning against the sea wall railing. He’s got his hand in his pockets and his head down, lost in thought. As you walk past him he looks up straight away and his shining eyes catch yours. He starts talking quickly in heavily accented English, ‘Comrade! I’ve been waiting all morning for you!’ Completely surprised you stop and ask, ‘And who the hell are you mate?’ ‘Me? Who am I? I am Karl Marx! I’m a philosopher, a historian, an economist and a revolutionary! I was born in Germany in 1818 but I’ve lived in Paris, Brussels and London mostly. Not many countries

After the Aotearoa is Not for Sale demonstation finishes in Queen St on Saturday April 28th, many of us are catching the train en masse from Britomart, out to the frontline of State Assets theft in Glen Innes, to demonstrate our solidarity with the local tenants there who are being evicted from their homes.  Below are some reasons why you should support civil rights, democracy and state housing.  In Stalinist Russia, political dissidents were banned from whole cities or areas, forced into internal exile.  The Police in Glen Innes are attempting to do the same, to break solidarity with the local residents.  As well as John Minto, three activists from Socialist Aotearoa were targetted and arrested by the police when they moved on picket lines late in the night.  Eyewitnesses say that the cops deliberately went for what they preceived as the leadership.  Local residents were not arrested yet - they were subject to brutality. Anger spilled onto the streets the next day,

 Now endorsed by Labour, Greens, Mana, NZ First, Unions Auckland, the CTU Runanga Kaimahi Maori, the Unite Union, the EPMU, MUNZ, Actors Equity, New Zealand Nurses Organisation , the Service and Food Workers Union, Greenpeace, Global Peace and Justice Auckland, Occupy Auckland, the Hikoi to stop Asset Sales and Socialist Aotearoa. Join the protest: https://www.facebook.com/events/334873306563769/  

This was always how it was going to end for the National Party. With lines of cops attacking residents protesting the privatisation of Glen Innes. With cops putting some people in hospital and using bail conditions to prevent some people from returning to Glen Innes. With casino capitalists doing dodgy deals up at SkyCity. With picketlines stretching across the country's ports, freezing works and rest homes. With provincial councils declaring themselves frack free zones. With a funeral for Maui's dolphin. With a hikoi of resistance heading south from Te Reinga. John Key's war on working people and the planet will come to a shuddering halt this Autumn. On Hope Street, Aotearoa. On Hope Street, people are asking each other, "What kind of country do we want to live in?" "Not a country run for corporate profit and plunder," is the answer that echoes from Moerewa to Invercargill . In just five days time a hikoi of hope and resistance will leave Te Reinga Wa

Defend Civil Rights, Housing and State Assets- Defend G.I. meet at 530pm this evening Weds 18th April at Glen Innes Public Library, Line Road then march to Glen Innes Police Station- drop the charges. stop the evictions. we will not be moved. Vicious scenes of savage police brutality in Glen Innes. Four comrades, including John Minto, arrested so far- been taken to Auckland Central Police Station. Local housing leader Yvonne badly wounded in the head, lying on the ground in a seizure. Chaos and state violence is how National wants to steal our State assets. "police brutality in glen innes. yvonne has been hurt real bad- pushed by cops hard and had a seizure. cops stomped all over her and wouldnt allow any help. people all split up. Yvonne still lying on the road, massive head injury. Cops also went hard for John Minto with a vicious attack- we can't find him anywhere. Women punched and grabbed in the throats. Chaos and state violence." "8 of us arm in arm, tried to

Media activist Vinny Eastwood hosts an Ideological Heavyweight Match pitting the ideologies of Revolutionary Socialism against Libertarian Capitalism.

Right now, in working class Auckland, the Government is physically stealing and destroying some of our most fundamental state assets- housing. Another reason to join the protests on Saturday April 28th. Defend GI- Www.aotearoaisnotforsale.com

Rain-maker’s song for Whina I’ll not forget your joints creaking as you climbed into the bus at Victoria Park to bless the journey. When you broke down in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer, I thought that what you left unsaid hung more tangibly uncertain above us all than some intangible certainty that we would all get a comfortable berth in the hereafter. Saint Christopher in the rain at night, just before Mangamuka Gorge. People wearing Saint Christopher badges getting off the bus and helping to put an overturned vehicle right side up. No one hurt. I finger the cheap badge you gave me of the saint. Will it be, alright ? A couple of days later in bright sunshine, we hit the road leaving Te Hapua behind. And all the way south – to the ‘head of the fish,’ I picked up some hard truths embedded in your hilarious speeches on the maraes : No more lollies !We been sucking the pakeha lolly for one hundred and fifty years. Look at what’s happened. Look at what we got left. Only two million acre

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam. Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam? Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting

Mana members and supporters stopped trucks from removing empty houses on Monday from Glen Innes as resistance to social cleansing continues in Auckland. During the protest Jimmy O'Dea, a veteran of the State Housing Action Coalition of the 1990s and the occupation of Bastion Point was injured. But the trucks retreated from Silverton Ave saying the demolition was too political for them. The Glen Innes community has vowed that not one house will be destroyed in Glen Innes by this smash and grab National Government and Mana, Socialist Aotearoa and other sections of the fighting left in Auckland will be right beside them every step of the way. Mana put out this media release today, Mana supporters are deeply upset that veteran activist Jimmy O’Dea was injured this afternoon and taken to hospital trying to stop the removal of state houses from Glen Innes. The house is at 25 Silverton Ave Glen Innes. “Jimmy is a diamond of a man who put himself in harm’s way in front of the house remova

Right Wing Resistance - The latest incarnation of New Zealand's violent Nazi Movement. Have we forgotten Oslo already? Have we forgotten Auschwitz already? Have we forgotten Barcelona? Have we forgotten Blair Peach? The Nazi movement are on the move in Christchurch. Over a hundred marched two weeks agoand they've saved enough money to buy a tractor for their planned white only farm. They regularly post online pictures of them with various weaponry from guns to axes. They've attacked Labour Party meetings. The attacks on Asians in Christchurch keep on coming according to the Sunday Star-Times latest expose of Right Wing Resistance , Jared Peck, shaved head and skull tattoo on his neck, was sentenced last year to two years in prison after he and a group of other men attacked at least five Asians on Riccarton Rd. A Japanese man returned home and told people they should be cautious about travelling to New Zealand. A Chinese victim was attacked three-on-one and had his jaw bro