activism

Categories under activism

Spying (310)

Protest mode on Section 92A

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:36 am, February 23rd, 2009 - 4 comments

This Saturday, February 28th, Section 92A of the Copyright Act is due to come into force. It is currently unworkable. This website has voluntarily been taken down in protest against this clause. In its current form the clause will allow for arbitrary disconnection from the net on an accusation. That will result (at best) with […]

Copyright protest pics

Written By: Tane - Date published: 2:40 pm, February 19th, 2009 - 47 comments

A reader has sent in some pics from today’s protest at Parliament against the ‘guilt by accusation’ copyright law. Looks like quite a striking protest, and not a bad turnout for such short notice. You can click on the thumbnails below for full size. UPDATE: In the comments Trevor Mallard and Clare Curran report that […]

Protest against copyright law

Written By: Tane - Date published: 12:29 pm, February 18th, 2009 - 17 comments

Creative Freedom NZ has organised a protest against the “guilt by accusation” copyright law tomorrow in Wellington: When: 12:00, Thursday 19 February Where: Parliament forecourt Wear: Bright colours, with a black placard. Please head along and show your support for natural justice. [Hat tip (in fact nicked verbatim from) No Right Turn] [Update, time has […]

Grassroots healthy

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 12:15 pm, February 16th, 2009 - 12 comments

It’s great to see a lot of grassroots activity around the Left at the moment. No Right Turn has set up the Progbills wiki. It’s open-source legislation, that works similarly to Wikipedia. You can go on and contribute to formulating draft Bills on left-wing issues, small bite-size pieces of draft legislation that would be ideal […]

Always look on the bright side

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 11:23 am, February 5th, 2009 - 22 comments

Israel – a failed democracy

Written By: lprent - Date published: 8:30 am, January 9th, 2009 - 86 comments

The following quoted text is a e-mail response by Mike Treen from Global Peace and Justice Auckland to someone who was complaining about the campaign to boycott an Israeli tennis player. Hopefully Mike won’t get too upset with me for giving this a wider airing. It appeared in the GPJA NEWSLETTER #269, January 8, 2009 […]

Police nurture a unwise form of direct democracy

Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:00 am, January 7th, 2009 - 27 comments

The Economist has an fascinating article “Rioters of the world unite“. It is partially about the demonstrations, protests, and outright riots in Athens and other parts of Greece at the end of last year. It is also partially concerned with a rising trend in new ways to not organize, and still be politically effective. The […]

Animal right activists, farming and the police

Written By: lprent - Date published: 4:06 pm, December 21st, 2008 - 44 comments

On ABC last night there was a excellent video “Animal rights campaigner spreads message“. It is worth watching for people who (unlike me) haven’t been seen some of the material before. It concerns a animal rights activist in aussie, wealthy backers, and a certain amount of bloody silly self-righteousness from groups that don’t enforce their […]

Have the police been inciting?

Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:04 pm, December 21st, 2008 - 52 comments

There is a slowly emerging twist in police spy scandal. The question of incitement and provocation from an agent of the police. Bearing in mind that it is an obvious escalation of paying people embedded deep in any activist organisation, it is something that an agent’s handlers should have been aware of and taken steps […]

Howard Broad: Incompetent, dishonest or about to fire some people?

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 2:59 pm, December 20th, 2008 - 48 comments

Let us assume, for a while, that Broad didn’t know the detail of SIG’s activities with Gilchrist If his staff were doing their job he knew about the story before Saturday, but let’s pretend they didn’t and the Police weren’t asked for comment until um… midday Saturday. Unlikely I know, but let’s give him the […]

Bill Ralston on police spying

Written By: lprent - Date published: 2:09 pm, December 18th, 2008 - 8 comments

Bill Ralston usually gets stirred by posters at The Standard for what he says. I’ve generally liked him after seeing him give some politicians a degree of ribbing at the annual foreign policy conference in Dunedin in the mid-80’s. I really liked his most recent blog “Wimpy response to out-of-line cops”. The latest Hager/Hubbard story […]

The limits to tolerance of the police

Written By: lprent - Date published: 3:00 pm, December 16th, 2008 - 66 comments

On discovering that her boyfriend had been spying on her and her friends for the police, and the consequent violations of her expectation of privacy, my niece Rochelle had quite enough tolerance of the police. That is sufficient cause to get seriously annoyed, and it is generally unwise to seriously annoy geeks. So she has […]

Howard – some advice on what questions to ask

Written By: lprent - Date published: 11:49 am, December 16th, 2008 - 23 comments

Yesterday, Howard Broad made statements about the targets of the SIG (Special Investigation Group) to National Radio. Interview with Howard Broad on his actions. I’ve seen some of the e-mails when Rochelle Rees discovered them. From them and his statements, I get the impression that the police commissioner is and has been kept out of […]

Police Special Investigations – A fundamental lack of humanity

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 8:02 am, December 15th, 2008 - 46 comments

Aside from all the democratic, political and moral issues raised by the Police’s behaviour, there is a fundamental lack of humanity in their actions. Yeah, perhaps the Police do have a role in preventing the graffiti of billboards (apparently they used their informant to try to track down a group that graffitied a red meat […]

No Right Turn: Police State

Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:17 pm, December 14th, 2008 - 35 comments

No Right Turn has written in his cogent style on the police spy issue. With the kind permission of No Right Turn, I’ve quoted it in full below. Because the police operate independently of the government at the operational level (as they should), the “mission” creep is always going to be a issue. Unfortunately the […]

Judith Collins – thoughtless idiot

Written By: lprent - Date published: 11:34 am, December 14th, 2008 - 28 comments

Nothing is quite as important to a democracy as activist groups that engage in peaceful protest for change. In the past these are the groups that have worked for extending the franchise (including to woman), establishing the rights of workers in employer/employee relationships, the abolition of slavery, campaigned for sewerage systems and clean water reticulation, […]

Sunday Star Times

Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:28 am, December 14th, 2008 - 30 comments

My niece Rochelle Rees has uncovered some unsavory practices operated by element of the NZ Police directed at peaceful protest groups. You can read them either by buying the paper, or by these links to articles from Nicky Hager. Police anti-terror squad spies on protest groups Who the police were spying on The activist who […]

Class divide

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 4:08 pm, December 12th, 2008 - 117 comments

Taken a matter of minutes ago, the Workers Party protest outside John Key’s multimillion dollar Parnell mansion. Just to remind you that we’ve just seen a man worth tens of millions of dollars take work rights off a whole bunch of people who earn minimum wage. In case you’re wondering what they’re holding up, it’s […]

Present

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 1:03 pm, December 11th, 2008 - 9 comments

I was sent this by a comrade in the union movement. You can download the A3 poster here to do poster runs. There’s already a bunch up in central Wellington this morning. Or why not grab the image on the left and send an email to your friends and family letting them know (in your […]

Something to go to in Auckland tonight

Written By: Tane - Date published: 10:02 am, December 11th, 2008 - 1 comment

We Won’t Pay for Their Crisis Public Meeting convened by Socialist Aotearoa with John Minto, Unite Union Catherine Delahunty, MP Green Party Frank Doleman, Socialist Aotearoa and a wide representation of Auckland’s fighting left. 7pm Thursday Dec 11th Auckland Trades Hall, 147 GreatNorth Road Grey Lynn www.socialistaotearoa.blogspot.com 021 1861450 solidarityjoe@yahoo.com

All I want for Christmas

Written By: Tane - Date published: 5:20 pm, December 10th, 2008 - 11 comments

This viral email from the Council of Trade Unions is doing the rounds. Make sure you click on through and tell John all we want for Christmas is fair work rights: On the twelfth day of Christmas, the Government gave to me… Just days into the new Government and already National has introduced laws which […]

Basin Reserve flyover

Written By: Tane - Date published: 11:31 am, November 28th, 2008 - 43 comments

Over the last few weeks I’ve heard the odd grumble in Wellington leftie circles about the proposed Basin Reserve flyover but until now haven’t really paid much attention. Nor, does it seem, have many others. The 3D artists’ projection above shows why we probably should. According to the Save the Basin Reserve campaign, the NZ […]

Farmers workers protest today

Written By: Tane - Date published: 10:25 am, November 21st, 2008 - 33 comments

Workers from Farmers stores in the Auckland area will take part in a ‘Skinny Santa’ parade down Queen Street today to protest against their low rates of pay and for a $15 minimum wage. Most Farmers staff are only paid between $12 and $13.50 an hour and the company’s latest pay offer would give the […]

NZ Labour supporters site launched

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:15 am, November 20th, 2008 - 32 comments

NZ Labour Supporters has been launched as an unofficial online hub for Labour supporters. It looks like a good wee site. Along the lines of g.blog for Greens supporters, any registered user can write blog posts. Looks like there are forums and the ability to contribute to a multi-media library too. They’ve started off with […]

What should Clark do?

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:10 am, November 18th, 2008 - 28 comments

There’s a lot of talk about Helen Clark leaving Parliament in a year or so to head for an international role. While Clark would obviously be more than capable of performing well at that level, I would prefer to see her do something completely different. Labour needs to build its membership and its connections with […]

Undefeated

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 3:14 pm, November 17th, 2008 - 41 comments

Paul Holmes wrote yesterday: “While Labour moves to the Opposition benches, it does so weirdly unmolested by the election defeat, weirdly undefeated” Damn right, the Left seems undefeated, and so it should. The Right has only won power by masquerading as the Left; Key’s mandate is only to maintain the legacy of the Fifth Labour […]

Chainmail

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 12:55 pm, November 14th, 2008 - 43 comments

Thanks to the two people have mailed election leaflets authorised in my name back to me. And such lovely messages you’ve attached to them. Glad to see you’re so in favour of free speech. Of course, sending intimidating or threatening messages through the mail is an offense, which could explain why, despite me putting my […]

Unbelievably awesome

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 11:03 am, November 13th, 2008 - 11 comments

Via Laughing Squid: This morning in NYC international pranksters The Yes Men recruited volunteers through the website Because We Want It to distribute thousands of copies of a fake version of the New York Times dated July 4, 2009 with the headline ‘Iraq War Ends’. Gawaker describes how the prank came together and here’s the reaction from the New York Times. There is also […]

Designer needed

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 4:15 pm, November 10th, 2008 - 4 comments

A couple of mates of mine are working on a new left-wing project and are in need of some design help to get it off the ground. It sounds interesting and should be a bit of fun, so if you’re a leftie with design skills and you’re happy to donate a bit of your time […]

08wire signs off

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 2:55 pm, November 10th, 2008 - 8 comments

As a kid at a decile two high school in under National in the nineties, the one thing I did get a good education in was heavy metal. So, I appreciate 08wire setting their final video to the great Metallica ballad ‘Nothing Else Matters’. You’ve done fantastic work, see you in 2011, if not before.

Campaign to save MMP underway

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 2:19 pm, November 10th, 2008 - 79 comments

The Right hates MMP. The old system, FPP, advantaged the Right by about 1.5% according to this study. In 1978, 1981, and 1993 the Right governed despite the Left having more support. Under FPP, National was the ‘natural party of government’ and that has changed under MMP. So, the National/Act government plans to have a […]