GLOBAL PEACE AND JUSTICE AUCKLAND
NEWSLETTER #265 December 17, 2008

Website: http://www.gpja.org.nz/

WHAT’S ON IN AUCKLAND

6pm Thursday, Dec 18, Unite Office, 6a Western Springs Rd, Morningside

Campaign for Workers Rights in 09: Unite Union is calling a meeting for union activists and supporters of workers’ rights to come to an emergency meeting to start planning action for 09. The 90-day No rights Law and need to continue pushing for the minimum wage to go to $15 an hour are signals of the need for a coordinated effort. Many of the workers covered by the 90-day law will have no formal union representation

ANNOUNCEMENTS

COMMUNICATIONS AND CAMPAIGNS COORDINATOR

Closing date is 20th January. The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi is seeking to employ a suitable person to manage our communications. The role includes management of CTU media liaison, campaign coordination, production of resource material for CTU affiliated unions and maintenance of the CTU websites.

If you are interested in this Wellington-based position, please contact Sue Windsor for a copy of the job description on email: suew@nzctu.org.nz or ph 04 385 1334 ext 846.

BACK TO BASICS – CLASSES ON CAPITAL

I am proposing to start some classes around reading Marx’s Capital. There are a couple of useful study guides and video lectures on the web which can be used. In the context of the current economic crisis I think it is important to go back to basics of socialist economic theory. The group that does the course can also share material that is most useful in terms of analysis of the current crisis alongside the main study effort. Check out the following websites for an example.

http://www.marxisteconomics.com/index.php?id=160

http://davidharvey.org/

My suggestion is we start with a weekly schedule – say on a Monday evening starting at 6pm at the Unite office (with a possible break for the GPJA forums). Email mike@unite.org.nz if you are interested in the project.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

"Since world war two we've managed to create history's first truly global empire. This has been done by the corporatocracy, which are a few men and women who run our major corporations and in doing so also run the U.S. government and many other governments around the world." John Perkins, 2005, author of the book titled ' Confessions of and Economic Hit Man'

“The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their ‘vital interests’ are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the ‘sanctity’ of human life, or the ‘conscience’ of the civilized world”: James Baldwin - Source: page 489 of COLLECTED ESSAYS (1998), from chapter one of "The Devil Finds Work" (orig. pub. 1976)

BEST ON THE WEB

NEW ZEALAND

Police spying exposed - SST

GPJA: Police Stifle Democratic Dissent & Democracy

Wallace & Manning – Debate On State Spies Needed

Activists unhappy over spy allegations

Police Stasi tactics towards protestors undermine democracy – Greens

Gordon Campbell: National’s ‘Failure To Communicate’

Keith Rankin: Controversy Over National's Tax Cuts Listening to the tax debate in Parliament today (10 December 2008), most of the controversy has been about the lower threshold ($24,000) for the proposed Independent Earner Tax Credit (IETC). The IETC will be $520 per year ($10 per week) from April 2009

Exclusion of Cluster Munitions, Nuclear Companies

National doesn’t care about Kiwi battlers

Greenpeace: Young Pacific Islander Stands Up To World Leaders A young Pacific Islander has issued a challenge to world leaders at the UN climate change talks, telling them to stop paying lip service and show the political will to fast track negotiations.

Police Officer Speaks Out Against Taser

FEATURES

Climate Justice Now! Network: Radical new agenda urgently needed!

WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS

Citadel joins rush to lock up funds: Citadel Investment Group has joined the rush of hedge funds suspending redemptions to investors, a development that is in effect locking up hundreds of billions of dollars in cash during a volatile period in global markets.

Capitalist Fools By Joseph E. Stiglitz: Behind the debate over remaking U.S. financial policy will be a debate over who's to blame. It's crucial to get the history right, writes a Nobel-laureate economist, identifying five key mistakes-under Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II-and one national delusion.

John Bellamy Foster: The great financial crisis: causes and consequence

AFGHANISTAN

Anand Gopal, Making Sense of the Taliban

BOLIVIA

Bolivia Declared Free of Illiteracy After 1 Year, $37 Million Program

CANADA

The Coalition: Its Nature, Its Future and Our Perspectives By Bernard Rioux. An intolerable economic statement. The formation of a coalition of opposition parties claiming they want to bring down the government. A shuttered parliament, MPs flushed from it for two months at the prime minister’s whim. The House of Commons has been the setting for a parliamentary crisis the likes of which have never been seen in Canada. How should we analyze what has just happened and its consequences?

INDIA

The Monster in the Mirror By Arundhati Roy - The Mumbai attacks have been dubbed 'India's 9/11', and there are calls for a 9/11-style response, including an attack on Pakistan. Instead, the country must fight terrorism with justice, or face civil war.

IRAQ

Bush Gets The Boot - Iraqi Journalist Insults President Bush: Video

In Praise Of Muntather Al Zaidi - Whilst Bush was pontificating from his ass, Muntather Al-Zaidi, a 28 years old journalist, a leftist, from the independent anti-occupation, anti-sectarian TV, Al-Baghdadia, stood up and threw not one shoe but TWO pair of shoes at Bush, calling him at the top of his voice YA KALB - YOU DOG.

PALESTINE

New Palestine solidarity journal: Jafa -- A Bulletin in Solidarity with Palestinian Workers and Unions

Torture Speaks – Israel - Video By Al Jazeera: Since 1967, some 75,000, men and women have been in and out Israelis prison where they had been jailed for long periods of time. A large number of them say have been subjected to severe torture that left many of them physically and mentally handicapped.

UK

Tariq Ali: Brown's al-Qaida blame game: Gordon Brown is targeting Pakistan. His claim that 75% of UK terror plots originate there is now part of a common western stance that refuses to accept any responsibility for encouraging the growth of recruits to ­jihadi organisations.

USA

CHICAGO FACTORY OCCUPATION: The decision by hundreds of union members to occupy the Republic Windows and Door factory in Chicago is the kind of labour news story that even breaks into the mainstream media. For comprehensive coverage of this and all US labour news, make sure to visit our US news page regularly:

Workers of America: Wake Up! We All Need a Union! We workers of America, white collar, pink collar, blue collar, and no collar at all, have just gotten a wonderful example of the power of having a union. It¹s an example that should have every unorganized employee in America looking for a union organizer.

VENEZUELA

PBS' 'Chávez' Web Debut Proves Profitable

ENDS

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