Socialist Election Campaign launch Annalucia Vermunt Communist League candidate for Mayor of Christchurch

Central to the Communist League campaign will be the call for all working people to lend support to workers’ right to organise unions and to defend ourselves from the bosses’ assaults and Labour and National moves to unload the economic crisis of capitalism onto working people.

The resistance by meat workers at the Alliance Smithfield plant to defend union pay and conditions after demands by the bosses for boning room workers to take a 20% cut in pay is a fight all workers have a stake in. The recent strike by Richmond Fellowship workers to improve their pay and conditions, and the efforts by Nurse Maude workers to ensure they maintain pay parity with other nurses are examples of the resistance among working people to the bosses’ drive.

The campaign calls on working people to oppose U.S. and NZ military intervention against the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq. The latest moves against Sudan are part of Washington’s broader “war on terror” through which the US ruling families, with the support of their allies in Wellington, seek to strengthen their domination of the Mideast, as well as Africa and other parts of the world. Hands off Cuba and Venezuela.

We should oppose Washington’s and Wellington’s attempts to prevent countries like Iran and north Korea developing needed energy sources. The Communist League campaign backs efforts to unite working people to fight for: Jobs for all - For a massive public works programme; Support Maori rights to foreshore and seabed; Stop immigration deportations; Fight police brutality; Defend a woman’s right to choose abortion; Debt relief for working farmers.

The meeting will also launch an appeal for funds to cover the costs of the campaign.

7pm, Friday, August 27 Hosted by the Militant Labour Forum, ‘The Gloucester’ Arcade, 129 Gloucester St, Christchurch.

Issued by the Communist League Mayoral Campaign, PO Box 13-969, Christchurch

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>