Venezuela’s revolution faces crucial battles

 Pro-Cavez students rally in February

Federico Fuentes
in Caracas
Green Left Weekly


Decisive battles between the forces of revolution and counter-revolution loom on the horizon in Venezuela.

The campaign for the September 26 National Assembly elections will be a crucial battle between the supporters of socialist President Hugo Chavez and the US-backed right-wing opposition.

But these battles, part of the class struggle between the poor majority and the capitalist elite, will be fought more in the streets than at the ballot box.

So far this year, there has been an escalation of fascist demonstrations by violent opposition student groups; the continued selective assassination of union and peasant leaders by right-wing paramilitaries; and an intensified private media campaign presenting a picture of a debilitated government in crisis — and on its way out.

Chavez warned on January 29: “If they initiate an extremely violent offensive, that obliges us to take firm action — something I do not recommend they do — our response will wipe them out.”

The comment came the day after two students were killed and 21 police suffered bullet wounds in confrontations that rocked the city of Merida.

Chavez challenged the opposition to follow the constitutional road and a recall referendum on his presidential mandate if they truly believe people no longer support him.

Under the democratic constitution adopted in 1999, a recall referendum can be called on any elected official if 20% of the electorate sign a petition calling for one.

He said if the capitalists continued down the road of confrontation, he would “accelerate the revolution”, which has declared “21st century socialism” as its goal.

International Women’s Day: Auckland Events

Mellow Yelllow blog has listed these International Wom*n’s Day Events in Auckland:

* Shakti: Equality, Justice, Peace & Empowerment

* AUSA/Campus Feminist Collective/Oxfam: International Women’s Day Lunch 


* Coalition against Violence to Women and Children: Flash Mob


Full details here

Ploughshares trial begins Monday

 

The trial of the Waihopai Ploughshares team is set to begin in Wellington on 8 March 2010, and the Wellington Ploughshares Support Group now has a range of activities planned to take place before and during the trial.

This page provides information about the planned activities.

Visit the Ploughshares webstie: http://ploughshares.org.nz/

Federated Farmers want poll tax, user pays and no rates

By Pat O’Dea


With the planned rise in GST to 15% tied to income tax cuts, the wealthy are continuing – with the help of their friends in parliament – to transfer the central tax burden away from themselves and onto the rest of the community.

Following success at central government level, the battleground for neo-liberal restructuring and deregulation of the economy is set to move to the local government level.

Hoping to take the advantage of Rodney Hide’s enforced amalgamation and centralisation of councils, right wing business lobby group, Federated Farmers are lobbying for a Maggie Thatcher type poll tax, which they call a “Residents Tax”, to replace rates on property.

The Fed president Don Nicolson sess this as the next step in changing what he calls the “three Fs” for councils: form, function, funding. With changes in form and function well under way, Nicolson says, “I do look forward to taking this third ‘F’ out of the shadows and into the light of day.”

If they are successful in dominating the new council bodies, the Feds and other right wing lobbyists, will seek to fund a huge rates cut for themselves, by imposing a poll tax on every single adult, including pensioners and beneficiaries. They are also demanding much more user pays for council services.

From Nicolson’s speech:

We want local government to get its tax income from every resident and not just those who are considered to be ‘landed’.

The ‘landed’ should not be expected to subsidise the rest of the community as a result of a theoretical value placed on their property.

Our future must be one where everyone pays for activities where everyone benefits equally – perhaps through a fixed charge on every adult resident.

I believe if it looks like a tax, feels like a tax and impacts your wallet like a tax, then let’s stop calling it rates. Let’s call a spade a spade.

A Residents’ Tax is our preferred outcome as it impacts 100 percent not just 64 percent. Our starting point is that every adult should pay a Residents’ Tax. Handing over your hard-earned money to a local council changes the psychological stake you have in a community. That includes beneficiaries too. Building community wellbeing starts with having an investment in a place. That place being your community.

The not quite overt message from Federated Farmers, is that the bulk of the urban and rural working poor are bludgers on the farm and business owners. As race and class are often very much intertwined you can detect the silent dog whistle behind these statements.

Marx’s Ecology and The Ecological Revolution

An interview with John Bellamy Foster by Aleix Bombila for En Lucha (Spain).
From MRzine

John Bellamy Foster, is editor of Monthly Review, 

and author of Marx’s Ecology and The Ecological Revolution.

En Lucha: In your book Marx’s Ecology you argue that Marxism has a lot to offer to the ecologist movement. What kind of united work can be established between Marxists and ecologists?

JBF: I think it is important to recognize that Marxists and ecologists are not entirely different groups. Of course it is true that there have been Reds who have been anti-ecological, and Greens who have been anti-Marxist. But it is not uncommon for the two to overlap, and increasingly to converge. Many socialists are environmentalists and many environmentalists are socialists. Indeed, there is a sense in which Marxism and ecology, both classically and today, lead to the same conclusion. For Marx, the goal was the creation of a society in which the metabolic relation between humanity and nature (i.e. production) was rationally regulated by the associated producers. The original title of my book that you refer to was supposed to be Marx and Ecology, but I changed it to Marx’s Ecology because of the depth of Marx’s ecological conceptions.

I would argue that a critical Marxist approach, especially in our time, requires an ecological worldview, while a critical human ecology requires an anti-capitalist and ultimately socialist orientation (i.e., a Marxist one). In terms of united work that Marxists and ecologists can share, I would say social justice and environmental sustainability: saving humanity and saving the earth. You can’t expect to achieve one without the other, and neither is possible under the existing system. Probably the strongest single voice for an ecological relation in the world today is Evo Morales, the socialist (and indigenous) president of Bolivia. After the failed Copenhagen conference on climate change, Fidel Castro said that we used to think we were in a struggle simply to determine the society of the future, but we now know we are in a struggle for survival. We have reached a point where historical materialists are taking global leadership in defining the ecological needs of humanity.

Hey, Labour MPs, why not support GST off food?

by Vaughan Gunson

I was scrolling down Scoop's top 30 stories for the day and got quite excited by this headline: "Labour Wellington MPs want to Axe the Tax". What tax? Must be GST. I'd better read on.

Yes, Wellington Labour MPs do want to "Axe the Tax", but they only mean the portion that National is planning to increase GST by, from 12.5% to 15%. I should have known not to get too excited by a headline. Never-the-less, Labour MPs are getting out there in response to the groundswell of public opinion against any hike in GST.

Judging by the language these Labour MPs are using and the basic food examples in their media release, it would be reasonable to assume these MPs would support removing GST from food. A demand that's proven to be hugely popular with people (see the front page story in the Whangarei Leader for a snap-shot of the mood on the street: Take GST off food, 16 Feb).

Connect with this grassroots mood and you've got a campaign that could undermine the whole neo-liberal tax structure. A mass campaign for GST-off-food would, if successful, be a mortal blow to one of the pillars of neo-liberalism, as GST certainly is.

But Labour has so far been very reluctant to embrace this popular demand. Is it because GST-off-food strikes at the very heart of neo-liberalism? To roll back GST would mean campaigning against the powerful proponents of this regressive tax: the big corporates operating in NZ. Is this a step too far for the Labour Party leadership?

Phil Goff says Labour won't support Maori Party MP Rahui Katene's private members bill to remove GST from healthy foods. And Goff won't even commit to reversing National's GST increase if Labour were the government. What does this mean for the "Axe the Tax" bus? Does it get parked away after the Budget in May?

Prime minister John Key has challenged Labour to campaign on reversing the GST increase at the next election. Key has framed the debate in these terms: you either have an increase in GST or an increase in personal income tax. This has put the Labour leadership in a bind.

But only if Labour wants to accept how the debate is currently framed, because there are circuit-breaking options. Most clearly, a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), or Robin Hood Tax, as it's been so-named by the campaign originating in Britain.

Instead of the GST-income tax trade off, let's target the mega-wealthy. A small percentage tax on financial transactions (say 0.5% or 1%) would raise billions of tax revenue from the banks and other big corporates, including the global financial speculators who buy and sell the Kiwi dollar, one of the world's most traded currencies. (For more on why a FTT is an idea whose time has come, read these recent articles by John Minto, Finlay MacDonald and Barry Coates.)

So a circuit breaker for Labour MPs exists, but do they have they have the guts to take it? A tax on financial transactions would hit the big banks and other global financial overlords that have run amok with the world economy since the mid-1970s. In campaigning for an FTT you're buying a fight with some powerful global forces. 

But it's a fight that must be fought if any kind of tax justice for grassroots people is to be achieved.

With the banks and other financial "fat cats" on the back foot following the financial implosion and their widely perceived role in causing it, there's an opportunity to go on the offensive. That's not to underestimate the size of the task. To roll back GST and force the introduction of a FTT would require serious and sustained campaigning by broad forces, in order to win the active support of the majority of New Zealanders. So that when the inevitable opposition from powerful political and economic forces comes there's a mass base from which to push the cause of tax justice.

Is Labour going to be part of this struggle, or not? Will the axe stay out, or will it be left in a cupboard in one of the corridors of parliament?

Here's a challenge to Labour: why not keep the axe out and support the campaign to remove GST from food, which would be a decisive first step towards tax justice in New Zealand.

So Labour Party people, what do you say?

International Women’s Day discussion

Next Monday, March 8 is International Women’s Day. To celebrate, UNITYblog has invited a bunch of feminists / woman activists to share their thoughts on International Women’s Day and the women’s movement in Aotearoa. We asked the following questions (but noted that we were happy to receive anything related to these topics): 1. What (if anything) does International Women’s Day mean to you? 2. Is there a feminist or women’s movement in Aotearoa New Zealand? If not why not? If so, what is it doing? 3. What are the biggest issues and challenges facing women and feminism in Aotearoa New Zealand today? The first few responses will be posted next Monday, with more over the next couple of days, depending on how many we get.

General strike shuts down Greece

By Matthew Cookson reporting from Athens for Socialist Worker UK The usually bustling pavements of central Athens are almost deserted today [Wednesday]. More than two million people have walked out on strike in Greece – from a total workforce of five million. The 24 hour general strike unites both public and private sector workers against the government’s austerity measures. All flights in and out of the country have been cancelled, and schools, council offices and ministries are closed. Few buses or trains are running, and those that are have mostly been approved by strikers to allow workers to join protests. More than 30,000 people joined two separate marches. They shattered the unusual quiet in central Athens with angry chants as they marched on parliament. Workers are furious at the centre-left Pasok government which won last year’s general election after it promised not to freeze wages. Marchers shouted, “No sacrifices! Make the rich pay for the crisis!” Yiannis Anastakis, who works at the Olympic Stadium, told me, “Before the election the government said completely different things. Now it wants to cut salaries, and they are already very low. Most people take home around 700 euros [NZ$ 1,360] a month. “The people who have money in Greece don’t pay taxes. But the government won’t take money from the rich—instead it looks to get more from the low paid.” Post and telecoms workers, engineers, unemployed people, electricity workers, students, council workers and other marched together. A large group of African and Bangladeshi migrants joined the protest, demanding citizenship rights and an end to police harassment. African migrant workers joined the protests Police fired tear gas and batoned protesters around Syntagma Square, near the parliament buildings. A group of demonstrators flung red paint at the police squads. The police attack split the demonstration in two, but demonstrators defied the police and the march continued. Public and private sector workers struck together against the government’s aim to make massive cuts that will severely hit workers’ living standards. The Greek government’s budget deficit currently stands at 12.7 percent of Greece’s annual gross domestic product. The government wants to slash it to 2.8 percent. Early this morning, I joined a picket by trade unionists and students at the Metika metal company offices in Athens. Panos from the engineers’ union said, “The government says it is against the crisis, but in reality it is attacking the rights of working people. “We are also here because Metika has fired three workers, who were active in the union, in its factory in Volos.” Banners across the company’s gates read, “Stop the stability programme. Ban the sackings” and “No sacrifice for their profits.” Yiannis said, “The EU complains that Greeks have a very good life in comparison with other countries. This is completely untrue. Many of us have to do two jobs to survive. Look at the people here. Tell me that they are all rich.” The general strike is not the end of the fight in Greece. Different groups are planning their own strikes, while there are plans for more national days of action in the near future. Workers on the street (All pictures Guy Smallman) Greek activists speak out ‘We have agreed on an all-out strike to stop the government measures from being passed. We believe that if they push the cuts through in our sector, all workers’ wages will be cut. And on top of that, the government is raising the retirement age. It’s unacceptable that the cost of living also goes up so we work until we’re 80 and die before we even touch our pensions. All across the EU the message from governments is that public spending and wages must be slashed but that capital’s profits don’t get touched.’

Makis Daskalopoulos, worker at the General Secretariat for Information Systems

‘We’re fighting back, despite the rain, the police special forces and the tear gas. The government says we must be patient so it can impose stability measures. We say disobedience! We won’t let them take back the rights we fought for with blood.’

Giorgos Panagakis, unemployed nurse

‘People are outraged. Their blood is boiling! Now there is a mood to escalate the strikes. We shouldn’t pay for the crisis, the ones who caused it should pay.’

Vagia Gouma, public sector worker at the ministry for the environment, physical planning and public works

For more background on the econic and social crisis agcross Europe, see this feature from Socialist Worker UK: Europe – the gathering economic storm

Histories of the four Internationals

Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez [right] has called for the formation of a Fifth International to unite socialists around the world. The previous internationals were places of debate and action, established to strengthen the international socialist movement. Dan Swain of the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has writen a breif history of each one, arguing that we “can learn an enormous amount by studying them”.

The First International was forged in struggle On 28 September 1864, delegations of workers from different countries met in London to form the International Working Men’s Association. This was later known as the First International. The Second International: From class war to imperialist slaughter Divisions over the question of revolution led to the break up of the First International. The same problem was also of decisive importance to the fate of the next attempt to unite socialists across borders. The Socialist International, known as the Second International, was established in 1889. The Third International: Revolutionary hope crushed by Stalinism When the parties of the Second International voted to support the First World War many socialists were left uncertain about what to do next. From the carnage of the war, however, came a beacon of hope that inspired millions across the world. A revolution in Russia put workers in control in October 1917. The success of the revolution inspired the creation of Communist Parties across Europe. The Fourth International: Keeping the flame alive Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the Russian revolution, opposed Joseph Stalin’s increasing stranglehold on the Soviet Union and the Third International. As a result he was exiled from Russia. In 1938 he gathered together a small number of his supporters to form the Fourth International. You can read the full articles here on UNITYblog.

North Island Climate Camp planning hui, this weekend

The Climate Camp movement is holding its first major get together since the first Climate Camp Aotearoa, which was held in Wellington last December. What: North Island Climate Camp planning hui When: Saturday 26th Feb [9.00am start] and Sunday 27th Feb Where: 135b Dey St Hamilton East Contact Louise to confirm attendance: (07) 8566857 or email globalaroha@gmail.com Proposed agenda: 1. Camp debrief and the feedback form to look at and learn from. 2. Feedback from Jan 30 movement mapping climate conference in Wellington 3. Safer space, conflict resolution process revised 4. Possible name change eg. climate justice aotearoa or structure change?(having issues explaining ourselves as a ‘climate camp’ group while doing local project stuff…) 5. Helping set up new members / groups eg. hamilton, Dunedin 6. Funding Sources 7. The NZ Climate Movement / How we fit in [or not / or whatever] 8. Campaigning Opportunities [community / project opposition based] 9. Campaigning Opportunities [issue based] 10. Allies [existing / new groups] 11. Agriculture and Climate / Agriculture and Emissions Trading – our response 12. Researching for Climate Justice [and agriculture?] 13. Future actions/camps 14. Considering a climate justice speaking tour?

Robin Hood Tax video

John Minto:Drop GST – we need a financial transactions tax

By John Minto Stuff / Frontline It’s time to drop our goods and services tax and adopt a financial transactions tax. This was not an option proposed by the 13 comfortable men on the Government’s Tax Advisory Group but it’s an idea whose time has come. We all know GST disproportionately hurts those on low and middle incomes who work hard, live week to week and spend most of their income. An FTT, on the other hand, would impact most heavily on the likes of currency speculators and similar financial wheelers and dealers who gamble with wealth created by others. It’s an idea which is growing in popularity among developed countries in the northern hemisphere, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown leading the charge. He hopes to progress the idea at the coming G20 meeting and a grassroots movement has begun to take shape to push the idea. The driving force in Europe has been the financial crisis whereby taxpayers spent thousands of billions bailing out their financial sectors. It’s not surprising that punishing corporate greed has been one driver popularising FTT in the north and there’s no reason New Zealand should be left behind. Some form of FTT already has support from the Alliance, the Maori Party and the Greens as well as support from some exporters. Two weeks ago the managing director of Sanford, Eric Barratt, told the company’s AGM the Government should start taxing those who speculate in New Zealand currency. He put it bluntly: “It is high time New Zealand as a country started earning some income from these currency traders that costs shareholders in Sanford and other trading companies many millions of dollars each year. “A tax on non-trade-related currency transactions could not only earn significant income for the Government it could also result in our exchange rate moving closer to its realistic value and thereby add significant value to the wealth of New Zealanders.” Barratt’s idea of a tax on currency transactions (without penalising trade in goods) is usually referred to as a Tobin tax. The Alliance, on the other hand, supports a broader financial transactions tax which would be simpler to administer and which would tax all financial transactions at a very low rate. In a media release last week Alliance Party spokesperson Victor Billot says the party supports such a tax on all withdrawals or purchases at a rate of just two cents per $100. He rightly says this would have no impact on ordinary people (2c or 3c on the grocery bill) but would raise large sums from financial transactions such as those associated with speculation on our dollar. It’s important to realise our dollar is consistently among the 10 most traded currencies in the world and each year it is swapped at volumes which dwarf our annual GDP. (Prime Minister John Key made his millions speculating against the value of currencies such as our dollar - I’m waiting for a reporter to ask him where he thinks his millions actually originated!) Exporters would benefit because speculative trade keeps the value of our dollar artificially high, which means less income from what we sell overseas. An FTT would lower the value of the dollar, increase returns from exports and increase the price of imports. Each of these brings value to our economy. There are those who say FTT will not be really effective unless it is applied internationally but such objections are red herrings from vested interests. FTT is not a panacea but its benefits would include: reducing the artificially high value of our dollar; helping exporters and local producers; taxing the parasitic activity of the unproductive financial sector as well as enabling a dramatic reduction in the iniquitous GST. FTT is a tax whose time has come.

When Snow Melts: Vancouver’s Olympic Crackdown

By Dave Zirin Edge of Sports News Flash: Winter Olympic officials in tropical Vancouver have been forced to import snow – on the public dime – to make sure that the 2010 games proceed as planned. This use of tax-dollars is just the icing on the cake for increasingly angry Vancouver residents. And unlike the snow, the anger shows no signs of abating. As Olympic Resistance Network organizer Harsha Walia wrote in the Vancouver Sun, “With massive cost over-runs and Olympic project bailouts, it is not surprising that a November 2009 Angus Reid poll found that more than 30 per cent of [British Columbia] residents feel the Olympics will have a negative impact and almost 40 per cent support protesters. A January 2010 EKOS poll found that almost 70 per cent believe that too much is being spent on the Games.” 

Officials are feeling the anger, and the independent media, frighteningly, is paying the price. Just as Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman was held in November for trying to cross the border for reasons that had nothing to do with the Olympic Games, Martin Macias Jr., an independent media reporter from Chicago, was detained and held for seven hours by Canada Border Services agents before being put on a plane and sent to Seattle. Macias, who is 20 years old, is a media reform activist with community radio station Radio Arte where he serves as the host/producer of First Voice, a radio news zine.
 
I spoke to Martin Macias today and he described a chilling scene of detention and expulsion. “I was asked the same questions for three and a half hours in a small room. They told me I had no right to a lawyer. I went from frustrated and angry to scared. I didn’t know what the laws were or how the laws had been changed for the Olympics. I kept telling them I wasn’t going to Vancouver to protest but to cover the protests but for them that was one and the same. This is bigger than me. We need to ask who is exactly ordering this kind of repression. Is it the government? The IOC? Why the crackdown?”
 
Then insult on top of injury when they deported Macias and insisted he pay his own way out of the country. “They wanted me to buy a $1,300 plane ticket back to Chicago. I said ‘no way’ and now I’m in Seattle.”
 
Martin’s story is not unique. Two delegates aiming to attend an indigenous assembly taking place alongside the games were also detained and turned away.
 
For people with just a passing knowledge of our neighbors to the north, it must all seem quite shocking. When we think of human rights abuses and suppression of dissent, Canada is hardly the first place that comes to mind. But there actually is a long history in Canada of this kind of abuse of power. The latest chapter in that history has been written during the pre-Olympic crackdown of 2010. Now as protestors and independent, unembedded journalists gather for the February 10-15 anti-Olympic convergence, as tax dollars go toward importing snow, the need to silence dissent becomes an International Olympic Committee imperative.
 
As Chicago’s Bob Quellos, who entered Vancouver successfully after accompanying Macias, said to me,
 
“Walking the streets, residents here are very clear about who is responsible for the billions of dollars of Olympic debt they will be paying off for generations. They are outraged that the over $1 billion that is being spent on security has placed a cop on almost every corner of Downtown Vancouver. And they are outraged by the government’s priorities. For example, while Vancouver’s Downtown East Side struggles with poverty similar to third-world countries and social programs continue to be gutted, VANOC is spending an untold amount of money helicoptering in snow to the Olympic venue of Cypress Mountain that would otherwise be a mud hill due to the warm weather.” 

It’s not hard to deduce why the snow is melting: it’s the heat on the street.
 
[Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.] See also: The Vancouver Olympic Blues

Michael Albert: Fifth International?!

By Michael Albert 


Znet January 21, 2010 
 To be a contender, “21st Century Socialist” vision needs elaboration, advocacy, and program. To improve focus and increase power, worldwide anti-capitalist organizations, projects, and movements need shared coherence and mutual solidarity. To fulfill these needs, Venezuela’s President Chavez recently announced to widespread support and also some critical response that a gathering in Caracas this April would establish a new International. [See Historic decision to form socialist Fifth International] But what might this new International look like? What might it accomplish? How might people, such as those reading this essay, and particularly people in grassroots movements around the world, relate to it?

Keep reading

Proposal for a Participatory Socialist International

From Znet

We, the undersigned, endorse the idea of a new International and urge that its creation include assessing, refining, augmenting, and then implementing as many of the following points as the International’s participants themselves, after due deliberation, decide mutually agreeable: 

1. A new International should be primarily concerned (at least) with: • economic production, consumption, and allocation, including class relations • kinship nurturance, socialization, house keeping, and procreation, including gender, sexuality, and age • cultural community relations including race, nationality, and religion • politics including relations of law and legislation • international relations including matters of mutual aid, exchange, and immigration • ecology including relations with the natural environment and other species And that the new International should address these concerns without elevating any one focus above the rest, since (a) all will critically affect the character of a new world, (b) unaddressed each could subvert efforts to reach a new world, and (c) the constituencies most affected by each would be intensely alienated if their prime concerns were relegated to secondary importance.
 

2. Our vision for a Participatory Socialist future should (at least) include that: • economic production, consumption, and allocation be classless - which includes equitable access for all to quality education, health care, food, water, sanitation, housing, meaningful and dignified work, and the instruments and conditions for personal fulfillment • gender/kinship, sexual, and family relations not privilege by age, sexual preference, or gender any one group above others - which includes ending all forms of oppression of women while providing day care, recreation, health care, etc. • culture and community relations among races, ethnic groups, religions, and other cultural communities protect the rights and identity of each community up to equally respecting those of all other communities - which includes an end to racist, ethnocentric, and otherwise bigoted structures while simultaneously securing the prosperity and rights of indigenous people • political decision making, adjudication of disputes, and implementation of shared programs deliver “people’s power” in ways that do not elevate any one sector or constituency above others - which includes participation and justice for all • international trade, communication, and other interactions attain peace and justice while dismantling all vestiges of colonialism and imperialism - which includes canceling the debt of nations of the global south and reconstructing international norms and relations to move toward an equitable and just community of equally endowed nations • ecological choices not only be sustainable, but care for the environment in accord with our highest aspirations for ourselves and our world - which includes climate justice and energy innovation
 3. The guiding values and principles informing internal strategic and programmatic deliberations of an International highlight at least the following values which includes implementing whatever structural steps prove essential to organizationally embody the values as well as possible in the present: • solidarity, to help align worldwide movements and projects into mutual aid and collective benefit • diversity, to spur creative innovation, respect dissent, and recognize that minority views thought to be crazy today can lead to what is brilliant tomorrow • equity, to seek wealth and income fairness • peace with justice, to realize international fairness and fulfillment • ecological sustainability and wisdom, to seek human survival and interconnection • “democracy” or perhaps even a more inspiring conception of “people’s power,” “participatory democracy,” or “self management,” to foster participation and equitable influence for all
 4. That a new International be the greatest sum of all its parts, including rejecting confining itself to a single line to capture all views in one narrow pattern. To achieve this the new International should: • include and celebrate “currents” to serve as vehicles for contending views, help ward off sectarianism, and aid constant growth 
 • establish that currents should respect the intentions of other currents, assume that differences over policy are about substance and not motive, and pursue substantive debate as a serious part of the whole project
 • afford each current means to openly engage with all other currents to try to advance new insights bearing on policy and program. 
 • guarantee that as long as any particular current accepts the basic tenets of the International and operates in accord with its norms and methods, its minority positions would be given space not only to argue, but, if they don’t prevail, to continue developing their views to establish their merit or discover their inadequacies
 5. Members of the new International would be political parties, movements, organizations, or even projects, where: • members, employees, staff, etc., of each new International member organization would in turn gain membership in the International
 • individuals who want to be members of the International but have no member group that they belong too, would have to join one
 • every member group would have its own agenda for its separate operations which would be inviolable 
 • at the same time, each member group would be strongly urged to make its own operations consistent with the norms, practices, and agendas of the International,establishing solidarity but also autonomy. 
 • member groups would have a wide range of sizes - but since the International’s decisions would not bind groups other than regarding the collective International agenda, a good way to arrive at decisions might be serious discussion and exploration, followed by polls of the whole International membership to see peoples’ leanings, followed by refinements of proposals to seek greater support and to allow dissidents to make their case, culminating in final votes of the membership 6. Programmatically, of course what a new International chooses to do will be contextual and a product of its members desires, but, for example: • a new International might call for international events and days of dissent, for support campaigns for existing struggles by member organizations, and for support of member organizations against repression, as well as undertake widespread debates and campaigns to advance related understanding and mutual knowledge... 
 • more ambitiously, an International might also undertake, for example, a massive international focus on immigration, on ending a war, on shortening the work week worldwide, and/or on averting climatic catastrophe, among other possibilities. It might prepare materials, undertake education, pursue actions, carry out boycotts, support local endeavors, etc.
 • general program would be up to member organizations to decide how to relate to, yet there would be considerable collective momentum for each member organization to participate and contribute as best it could in collective campaigns and projects since clearly one reason to have an International is to help organizations, movements, and projects worldwide escape single-issue loneliness by becoming part of a larger process encompassing diverse focuses and united by agreements to implement various shared endeavors. === To Endorse please: Click Here!

Major union support for minimum wage campaign

Picket outside Auckland Central National MP Nikki Kaye's office, 13 February

The $15 minimum wage campaign initiated by Unite Union has been given a boost with one of the country's biggest unions, the Engineering,Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) coming out in support of the CIR petition. The latest issue of Metal, the EPMU's journal, carries a front-page article on the campaign and a copy of the petition. According to the article, the EPMU’s national executive is "throwing the union’s weight behind" the campaign, and urges members to support it. The campaign has gained wide public support, particularly with the recent announcement that the National Government plans to raise GST to $15. So far, over 100,000 signatures have been collected, but around 300,000 are needed by May 7 to force a referendum. The support from the EPMU - hopefully to be followed by other major unions - gives the campaign a better chance of reaching its goal. To get copies of the petition, or to help the campaign, go to www.unite.org.nz or call Joe Carolan on 029 445 5702.

Tamil refugees holding out for justice

By Jay Fletcher Green Left Weekly After four months, the conditions on a cargo vessel at Port Merak holding more than 240 Tamil refugees have become increasingly squalid. The refugees’ boat had been travelling towards Australia when the Australian government requested Indonesia intercept it. Almost half of those onboard are United Nations recognised refugees and all are fleeing persecution by the Sri Lankan government. Stuck at Merak, the refugees won’t leave the boat due to Indonesia’s poor treatment of asylum seekers. But Australia won’t help them either. Sara Nathan, a Tamil activist living in Sydney, and Pamela Curr, from Melbourne’s Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, along with Canadian activist Jessica Chandrashekar, visited Indonesia over January 25-29 to try to alleviate the dire situation.

Keep reading

"$15ph not 15% GST" picket outside National MP's Whangarei office

by Vaughan Gunson

20 people joined a picket outside Whangarei National Party MP Phil Heatley's electoral office as part of nationwide pickets called by the Campaign for a Living Wage.

Linking the campaign to lift the minimum wage to $15ph with popular opposition to a GST hike resulted in a pretty good turn-out for a Whangarei action. And there were heaps of toots of support from passers-by.

The Green Party, Socialist Worker, the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) and the Progressive Party were represented on the picket, along with other local activists and workers.

The picket had good media coverage, with a story in the local paper the night before, a radio story the day after, and a follow up photo in the local paper. The action has given a boost to the minimum wage campaign in Whangarei, as well as broad left cooperation in general.

Christchurch minimum wage protest

Up to 20 people joined Unite’s “National has no love for workers” protest outside list MP Nicky Wagner’s Christchurch office on Saturday February 13. The protest was part of a national day of action. The protest bought together many of those who have been actively supporting Unite’s petition to have the minimum wage raised to $15 per hour and pegged to two thirds of the average wage. Following the protest, half a dozen people collected signatures inside the nearby South City shopping mall. Then an informal planning meeting was held. With only a few months to go, and with 150,000 to 200,000 signatures still required, activists agreed to step-up their efforts, with greater coordination between the groups involved. Petition collectors will continue to target large public events, such as concerts, motor sports and sports events, as well as doing more to engage some of the many other groups who have expressed verbal support for the campaign.

COMRADES IN THE CAFE #1: Marxism & popular culture

Socialist Worker Auckland presents: * COMRADES IN THE CAFE *

An informal get-together for socialists, radicals, revolutionaries & troublemakers to relax & shoot the breeze.

Columbus Cafe cnr Onehunga Mall & Princes Street, Onehunga 3 pm, Sunday 21st February - 1st SESSION - Daphne Lawless will give her thoughts on what happens when Marxism collides with popular culture. You are invited to loudly but politely disagree. This (hopefully) is the first in a monthly series. RSVP daphne@randomstatic.net or 027 220 9552.