Date: Mon, 25 Nov 96 11:26:20    
Subject: M-G: Class Struggle on line


	          Class Struggle

	Communist Workers Group. New Zealand section of the 
Liaison Committee of Militants for a revolutionary Communist International


            
>  LCMRCI                 On the Palestinean intifada                  
>  LCMRCI                 The Dalai Lama in New Zealand                
>  LCMRCI                 New Zealand elections                        
>
>---------------
>

Joint Declaration on Israel/Palestine -
>
>The Palestinian uprising in September formally began over a hole in the 
>ground, dug by the Israelis in Arab East Jerusalem to complete an ancient 
>tunnel near the western wall of the ancient Jewish temple. 
>
>The excavation was perceived by the Palestinians as an outrageous 
>provocation: not only was it trampling on Muslim religious sensitivities by 


>interfering with the Al Aqsa Mosque but it was a de  facto repudiation of 
>the Oslo Accord. In the words of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 


>the opening of the tunnel ‘expresses our sovereignty over Jerusalem’.
>
>He knew that his provocation would result in an uprising.  He also knew 
that 
>world opinion would condemn him. But all of that was for a purpose, to 
build 
>support for his hardline among Israeli's and to force  Arafat and the PLO 
>security police to renegotiate a new deal with the state and at the same 
>time enforce more concessions onto the Palestinians.
>
>The new Likud-led administration has stepped up the attack on the 
>Palestinians. Netanyahu is using the settler group Ateret Cohanim to drive 
>Arabs out of East Jerusalem. The Old City is already encircled by huge 
>settlements built on confiscated Arab land. Arab houses, community centres 
>and businesses have been illegally seized, occupied or demolished all over 
>the West Bank and Gaza, but particularly in East Jerusalem, where the 
mayor, 
>Ehud Olmeret, has exploited loopholes in the planning legislation. The 
>disputed tunnel is being built without any planning permission at all.
>
>However, the digging near the mosque was the culmination of a series of 
>provocations that began long before Netanyahu took over as prime minister 
>after the elections in May of this year. In the three years since Labour 
>leader Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands on the 
White 
>House lawn, Palestinian anger and frustration has been growing. The Oslo, 
>Cairo and Taba Accords, signed by the Labour government, were supposed to 
>lead to limited Palestinian sovereignty in Gaza and the West Bank. But the 
>reality has been the continuation of detention and torture, endless 
curfews, 
>and now a refusal to withdraw Israeli troops from Hebron despite the 
>agreement. The systematic repression of the Palestinians has continued 
>because the real aim of the agreements is not to bring peace, but to 
>guarantee the control of US imperialism over the Middle East.
>
>The direct occupation and control of Gaza and the West Bank by Israel had 
>proved extremely difficult during the six-year Intifada, so the Labour 
>government sought to stabilise the region by using Arafat and the 
>Palestinian Authority as their puppets. In return, the Palestinians were 
>granted token concessions and an armed police force. The 30,000-strong 
>Palestinian security force has been used to repress the growing opposition 
>to Arafat’s betrayal of the struggle for self-determination. Arafat and his 


>police have been guilty of the most horrific repression and torture of 
these 
>youth.  But Israeli violations of the accord under the more right-wing 
Likud 
>government are now eroding Arafat’s authority and hence his capacity to 
>control the Palestinians. Arafat used the tunnel question to provoke street 


>demonstrations and limited confrontations as a tactic to press Netanyahu to 


>stop ignoring him.
>
>The confrontation over the tunnel has caused divisions inside both the 
>Palestinian police and the Israeli armed forces. Some Palestinian police 
>opened fire on the Israeli army during the conflict, and on this occasion 
it 
>was not only unarmed Palestinian youth who were killed but some Israeli 
>soldiers as well. Although Arafat has now regained control over the 
>estimated 20 per cent of his police who broke ranks, socialists must fight 
>for them to come over to the side of the masses. On the Israeli side, about 


>400 retired soldiers have decided to relaunch the Yes Gvul movement that 
was 
>active in the Lebanon war, and are demanding the right to refuse to carry 
>out repressive actions against Palestinian civilians.
>
>The renewal of the intifada has been dreaded by Washington, Israel, the 
>so-called moderate Arab states like Egypt and Jordan, and by Yasser Arafat. 


>They are all aware that the three-year-old Oslo Accord does not grant the 
>Palestinians self-determination. At best it would create a mini-state, a 
>‘bantustan’ under an Israeli-style apartheid regime, with Arafat as the 
>dictatorial native ‘chief’. Now even this miserable project is in doubt. 
>Dependent on extreme right-wing religious groupings to keep him in office, 
>Netanyahu is refusing to honour many concessions promised by Rabin and 
>Shimon Peres. His government’s policy is to strengthen the Israeli presence 


>in the Occupied Territories by building yet more settlements.
>
>The Clinton administration has attempted to save the misnamed peace 
process, 
>fearing a generalised uprising that would threaten the stability of the 
>whole region. After the latest adventure in Iraq, Arab states are backing 
>away from the US military containment policy, as are most of the European 
>imperialist powers who have their own agenda to follow in the area.
>
>Although Netanyahu would no doubt like to return to the days of the Cold 
>War, when Israel was perceived by the US as a strategic asset against 
>Soviet-influenced Arab regimes, Clinton’s aim is to draw the Arab regimes 
>closer to the imperialist fold. But with the US presidential election in 
>mind, Clinton also made it clear that he would oppose any pressure to force 


>Israel to back down.
>
>Netanyahu’s policies are also causing consternation in the governments of 
>the 22 states of the Arab League, most of which are facing strong 
>fundamentalist opposition to the Oslo Accord. Even King Hussein of Jordan, 
>Israel’s closest ally in the region, had to denounce the building of the 
>tunnel as a ‘violation of the sanctity of the holy city’.
>
>Peres, the leader of the Israeli Labour Party, has accused Netanyahu of 
>undermining the peace process. He speaks for the wing of the Israeli ruling 


>class which thinks it necessary to give up some territory to the 
>Palestinians in exchange for stability and the chance to prosper. 
Socialists 
>should participate critically in mass peace demonstrations, which have a 
>progressive component despite their Labour Zionist leadership.
>
>Hamas has become the major organising force within the Palestinian 
>resistance. While opposing its reactionary political aims and repressive 
>social policy, socialists must critically defend its struggle against the 
>Israeli state and Arafat’s puppet regime, and campaign for the release of 
>its political prisoners. The clerics use fundamentalist ideology as a means 


>of social and political control over the masses in struggle, just as 
>Khomeini did in Iran in 1979. The extremely limited and conjunctural nature 


>of this ‘anti-imperialism’ soon became clear in Iran, as it will to the 
>Palestinian youth if they continue to be misled by these reactionaries. 
>Significantly, the Hamas clerics gave no lead in the uprising against the 
>opening of the tunnel, preferring individual acts of terror which leave the 


>masses unmoved and inactive.
>
>Youth in the Occupied Territories have not turned to the fundamentalists 
out 
>of religious conviction, but because of the treachery and cowardice of both 


>Arafat and the traditional working class leaderships in the region, in 
>particular the Stalinists. Right now, fundamentalism seems to be the 
>strongest political and ideological weapon at hand with which to fight 
their 
>oppressors.
>
>Revolutionary socialists must intervene in the intifada, advocating the 
>building of workers’ and peasants’ councils (with delegates elected and 
>recallable by rank-and-file assemblies) and militias, and the forging of 
>links with Jewish workers. At the same time, they must campaign for Jewish 
>workers to support the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and fight 
>to break them from their Labour Zionist leadership. They must seek to 
>exploit the contradiction between the Hamas leadership and base by the 
>judicious use of transitional and democratic demands, directed at the 
>clerics, to expose in practice their bogus anti-imperialism. This is the 
way 
>to win the youth to revolutionary Trotskyism, and demonstrate that the 
>theory of permanent revolution is the only real anti-imperialist ideology 
>because it understands that the democratic revolution can only be completed 


>by the socialist revolution under the leadership of the working class. What 


>is missing is a revolutionary working class leadership that can unite 
>Palestinian and Jewish workers in a fight against all oppression. Only  
>unconditional  support for the Palestinian uprising and right to 
>self-determination will create the conditions for a joint struggle by Arab 
>and Jewish workers to smash the Zionist state and stablish  a multi-ethnic 
>workers' council republic within a socialist federation of the Middle-East. 


>Workers in the USA and the European Union must build an working class 
>anti-war movement which brings the US military machine in the Middle-East 
to 
>a halt. 
>
>
>* Israeli armed forces and settlers out of the Occupied Territories now!
>* Release all Palestinian political and Jewish anti-war prisoners!
>* For the right of all Palestinian refugees to return!
>* Down with Zionism and imperialism!
>* For the unconditional support for the Palestinian right to 
>self-determination!
>* For the unity of the Arab and Jewish workers to smash the Zionist state 
>and for a socialist multi-ethnic federation of the middle east!
>
>15 October 1996
>
>Liaison Commitee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International
>(Bolivia, Europe, New Zeland, Peru)
>
>Leninist Trotskyist Tendency
>(Belgium, Britain, Canada, Germany, Jamaica, South Africa, Sri Lanka)
>
>Committee for a Revolutionary Regroupment  
>
>
============================================

>
>The Dalai Lama's Mission.  
>   The recent visit of the Tibetan Buddhist high-priest, the Dalai Lama, 
saw 
>
>many thousands looking up to this man as a spiritual leader. What is it 
that 
>
>makes people put their hopes in religion as the answer to their personal 
>needs? The answer is that capitalism alienates people from their labour, 
>themselves and from others. This makes most people unhappy if not 
despairing 
>
>of the lack of meaning and/or control of their lives. Religion is one means 


>of seeking a solution to that alienation by finding "spiritual" peace and 
>happiness outside the troubles of daily life. It creates the illusion that 
>one can be at peace with oneself and others despite the same old capitalist 


>rat race. But is it no answer because it stops people from taking an active 


>role in changing the rotten capitalist system which alienates exploits and 
>oppresses them in the first place.  
>
> Religion historically, has played the role of offering solace from the 
>troubles of this life, by holding up a set of beliefs about a better life. 
>This makes people accept their existence, rather than challenging it and 
>changing it. Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Taoism and all became religions 
>which justified a feudal class or caste system and the poverty and 
suffering 
>
>of the poor.  While Buddhism preached equality, it too led to the passive 
>acceptance of the existing social order in which the mass of peasants were 
>exploited and dominated by landlords. When asked by the NZ Herald why he 
was 
>
>a Buddhist monk, the Dalai Lama answered "The aim of a Buddhist monk is not 


>just happiness. There is a transcendental goal of total spiritual 
>liberation". 
>
>"Liberation" for Tibet.
>   The Dalai Lama, as the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, is travelling 
>the world seeking support for Tibetan autonomy from the Peoples' Republic 
of 
>China.  We are opposed to his mission.  Yet Tibet is a nation with its 
>particular history, territory, culture and language.  It has the right to 
>determine its own future.  Nevertheless, we considered Mao's invasion of 
>Tibet as progressive in the early 1950s.   Why? Because the "communists" 
>destroyed the pre-capitalist relations and the power of the big landlord 
>church which oppressed the peasantry.  At the same time we reject Mao's 
>denial of the Tibetan's right to self-determination.  We do not justify the 


>oppression of the Tibetan people by China, any more than we justify the 
>Chinese leaders oppression of its own people.  But we do not support the 
>independence of Tibet under the rule of a Buddhist church which would act 
as 
>the agent of Western imperialism. 
>   We say that Tibet run by a caste of priests would not be a democracy but 


>a reactionary theocracy in which religious self-alienation would dominate 
>peoples lives.   What's more Tibet would 
> be another imperialist proxy state used to break-up China into numerous 
>pro-capitalist semi-colonies.  That is why Mrs Thatcher and other 
right-wing 
>politicians side with the Dalai Lama against China.  China is a degenerated 


>workers state which despite the rule of a bureaucratic dictatorship, 
retains 
>the advances of the abolition of capitalism.  We are in favour of Tibet 
>remaining part of that degenerated workers state.  That is we are against 
>Tibet seperating, if that means the restoration of capitalism.  However 
just 
>as we are for a political revolution in China to overthrow the bureaucracy, 


>we are also for a genuine workers' republic of Tibet, a secular republic 
>which decides freely for itself what relationship it wants with China.  
>   As Western imperialism pulls China apart in several directions, so it 
can 
>be re-partitioned by predatory imperialist powers, we stand with stalinist 
>China's control of Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong, against imperialism.   For 
>this reason, we reject the partition of China into small semi-colonial 
>proto-capitalist states.   Inside China, we defend democratic rights in 
>Tibet, Sinkiang, Manchuria and other non-Han Chinese lands, including the 
>right of the majority to secede from China as workers' council republics.  
>Our aim is to overthrow the stalinist dictatorship and replace it with a 
>pan-Chinese socialist federation oof workers' council republics.  
>
>
>
>Religion:  the opium of the people  
>
>Communists view religion as Marx did: "Man makes religion, religion does 
not 
>make man.  And indeed religion is the self-consciousness and self-regard of 


>man who has either not yet found or has already lost himself.  But man is 
>not an abstract being squatting outside this world.  Man is the world of 
>men, the state, society.  This state and this society produce religion, 
>which is an inverted consciousness of the world because they are in an 
>inverted world...  The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly 
the 
>struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion."     
>"Religious suffering is the expression of real suffering and at the same 
>time the protest against real suffering.  Religion is the sigh of the 
>oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of 
>spiritless conditions.  It is the opium of the people."    "The abolition 
of 
>
>religion as people's illusory happiness is the demand for their real 
>happiness.  The demand to abandon illusions 		about their 
>condition is a demand to abandon a conditions which requires illusions.  
The 
>
>criticism of religion is thus in embryo a criticism of the value of tears 
>whose halo is religion... The criticism of religion disillusions man so 
that 
>
>he thinks, acts, and shapes his reality like a disillusioned man who has 
>come to his senses, so that he resolves around himself and thus around his 
>true sun.  Religion is only the illusory sun that revolves around man so 
>long as he does not revolve about himself."    "Thus it is the task of 
>history, one the otherworldly truth has disappeared, to establish the truth 


>of this world.  The immediate task of philosophy which is in the service of 


>history is to unmask human self-alienation in its unholy forms now that it 
>has been unmasked in its holy form.  Thus the criticism of heaven turns 
into 
>
>the criticism of the earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of 


>law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics."From 
>"Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law".
>		

>------------------------------
>
New Zealand elections

>A victory for the Right??
>
>The left must unite and fight!  
>
>The election was about the bosses restoring peoples faith in parliament and 


>at the same time blocking parliament from doing a `u' turn on the economy. 
>The changes of the last 12 years were not the will of the majority. 
>Governments ratted on their promises and left their loyal supporters highly 


>pissed off. MMP is supposed to make sure that future governments act only 
>with majority support. And so restore the illusion that the majority rules. 


>The first objective has been met for now. The 88% turnout shows that people 


>have renewed their hopes in parliament.  It remains to be seen how long 
this 
>will last. 
>The second objective is not so clear. Whatever government comes into 
office, 
>it will have to govern with, or split, NZ First. The vote swing from the 
>left to the centre, where NZ First stands for individualism against the 
>collectivism of the left, and to the far right ACT party, makes sure that 
>the ideological standard of the new right counter-revolution will be raised 


>in parliament. This together with the blunders made on the left which saw 
>particularly their Maori support move to NZ First, makes it much more 
>difficult to challenge the counter-reforms of the last 12 years.  But 
>challenged they must be.
>
> The counter-revolution of the last twelve years has left the country 
>bitterly divided and polarised along class lines. The election result which 


>puts NZ First in the key pivotal role will initially moderate these left 
and 
>right poles, and prevent "extreme" change. That is, unless the left 
regroups 
>and takes up the fight to split NZ First and create a left majority 
>government.
>
>The `right' constituency.
>About one-third of the country goes along with the supposed benefits of the 


>last 12 years. The election results showed that National retained its 
>support. National has turned itself more into a party of the centre, 
>creating a defacto coalition government with United which wanted to 
moderate 
>the social impact of these reforms. This was why ACT was formed to prod 
>National to "finish the business". 
>But there a good reasons why National cannot do this with NZ First in tow. 
>NZ First is a protest party of those who have missed out. But they dont 
want 
>to undo the counter-revolution, but they do want to find a place for 
>themselves. This means putting some limits on profits which big business 
>would find unacceptable. Yet such a government would not do a "u" turn 
which 
>is the bosses biggest fear.
>   That is why National plus NZ First and ACT could form a  government and 
>continue down the road of embedding the new right counter-revolution with 
>some modest "social measures" to accommodate the elderly and Maori. Sooner 
>or later however, those protest groups would find that the Nationals agenda 


>was in contradiction with their needs.
>At the very least NZ First would be an unreliable and unstable partner. 
That 
>would provide an opportunity for the left. 
>
>The `Left' constituency.
>Polls have contined to show that on many issues there is about two thirds 
>support for a shift back towards more social equity and fairness, 
supporting 
>a left-centre coalition of Labour-Alliance and NZ First. The election 
>results showed that this propertion is about right with about 50% of the 
>party vote going to these three parties.
>But the distribution of votes definitely favoured the right and centre, and 

>the left lost to the right because of its refusal to cooperate in strategic 

>voting.
>There some feeble attempts in the last weeks to sort out left and right 
>coalitions.  But the Alliance continued to refuse any electoral deal to 
stop 
>wasted vote splits.  NZ First maintained its centrist purity of refusing to 

>commit itself to left or right until after the election. 
>Yet polls showed that there was a clear majority of Labour, NZ First and 
>Alliance members who favoured a left-centre coalition. Why then, did Labour 

>and the Alliance not see the need to adopt a rational approach to strategic 

>voting?
>Act made damn sure that it got the message out to National supporters to 
>give it their list vote. National finally saw the sense in this and 
>sabotaged their own Wellington Central candidate to allow Richard Prebble 
to 
>win. National strategic voting for ACT in Auckland where the recovery has 
>boosted the governments support, helped to give ACT its 6% overall a 
support 
>and put 8 rightwing ACT candidates into parliament. Led by maddog Prebble 
>they will use over opportunity to raise the new right flag.
>Peters is.. very anti-worker, against the unions, for the ECA,  for benefit 

>cuts and he blames Maori for underachievment.  
>In Class struggle we have called for months for the labour movement to 
adopt 
>a rational approach to strategic voting. This is based on our analysis that 

>both Labour and the Alliance are bourgeois workers parties which differ in 
>degree not kind. Therefore, it was necessary to get as many MP's from both 
>parties into power to give them the chance to form a `left' government.  
>Obviously, if both Labour and Alliance voters vote for their own 
candidates, 
>one must lose and those votes are wasted. This is why we advocated a 
workers 
>list which in each electorate specified which candidate should be 
supported, 
>and which party. 
>
>In the event, this worked more by accident than design. But as Anderton 
>noted on election night, many Alliance voters voted for their candidate 
>where they had little chance, and some of them at the same time voted for 
>the Labour list. This left the Alliance with only 10% of the party seats.
>
>Lesser Evil opportunism
>The whole point of fighting to get Labour and the Alliance well represented 

>was not to "Bring down the National Government". This means that Labour and 

>the Alliance are a lesser evil, wheras in fact they are not.
>This is the position of the CTU who can't bring themselves to say who to 
>vote for! TUF came out with a very late call to vote for both Labour and 
>Alliance but didnt say how! 
>However, most  workers still believe that Labour and the Alliance will be a 

>better option that National. They do not yet see the need to junk all of 
>these parties and fight for a revolutionary labour party and workers 
>government. It is necessary therefore to break workers from their illusions 

>in such parties so they can take the next step to fight for a genuine 
>workers government. 
>Therefore, unlike Workers Power and Socialist Worker, we do not pander 
>opportunistically to these illusions and support Labour and the Alliance 
>because we expect them to be better at meeting workers needs. We support 
>them so as to expose them as betrayers of their working class supporters. 
>The reason we support Labour and Alliance is only that they claim to 
>represent workers. They promise to help workers.  But will they?  We say 
no! 
>They cannot keep their promises, because no capitalist government can 
>deliver social justice to the working class. 
>This is because they all have to promise to protect profits first. The only 

>way that companies can make profits in NZ which is a weak, dependant 
>semi-colony is by cutting their costs to compete internationally and make 
>profits. This means cutting not only wages, but taxes which funds welfare 
>spending. 
>The attacks of the last twelve years  on workers jobs, living standards, 
and 
>social welfare cannot be reversed by any left-centre coalition. This is why 

>they promise so little. But before workers can start to fight to remove the 

>system that exploits and impoverishes them, they have to get rid of any 
>illusions that capitalism can be reformed to be fair and equal even a 
>little!
>
>
>Any `U' turn?
>
>Lets look at Labour and Alliance promises to prove that they are piss-weak, 

>and that even they cannot be kept. This is because the most mild tax 
>increase to maintain or increase social spending will cause the capitalists 

>to go on strike.  Recently Hugh Fletcher, in a speech to the Auckland 
>Manufacturers Association, said that any change of government that 
>undermined the economic reforms ot he last decade would see capitalists 
>taking their money offshore. Investment will fall off, inflation will rise, 

>interests rates go up, the exchange rate fall. This would be very bad for 
>business. 
>The need for Labour and the Alliance to put profits before workers has to 
be 
>demonstrated to workers so that they can overcome any remaining illusions 
in 
>them. 
>
>Popular Front
>Because we want Labour and the Alliance to be exposed as betrayers we were 
>always opposed to a vote for Peters. This is because Peters party is a 
>bourgois party, and a a centre party would be able to offer a coalition to 
>Labour. But such a coalition would be a Popular Front, to be avoided at all 

>costs.
>A popular front is any coalition between bourgeois workers parties and a 
>bourgeois party for the sake of becoming the government. Because the left 
>needs the centre to stay in power the centre can dictate terms.
>That is why we oppose any formal coalition with NZ First because NZ First 
>would dicate terms. This would enable Labour and the Alliance to blame 
>Peters for having to make compromises to keep Peters onside and to stay in 
>power. Peters would force Labour and the Alliance to compromise and water 
>down their already piss-weak policies to keep the bosses in NZ. He has 
>promised not to put the squeeze on foreign investment because he knows that 

>without it the NZ economy would collapse.
>
>Peters anti-union.
>Peters is the bosses preferred stooge at the moment because he is able to 
>contain and divert much of the discontent created by the massive 
Rogernomics 
>counter-revolution, and focus it on foreigners instead of the capitalist 
>class. The Wine Box exposes  a few multi-millionaire cheats, but it leaves 
>capitalism itself squeaky clean. Peters is also very anti-worker. He is 
>against the unions. He voted for the ECA 1991. He will refuse to repeal it 
>and force Labour or the Alliance to drop their promise to abolish the ECA. 
>   Peters voted for benefit cuts. His Maori programme is Kaa Awatea, 
flogged 
>from National. It puts heavy emphasis upon Maori self-help, and blames 
Maori 
>for underachievment. This means that the Maori seats captured from Labour 
is 
>a move to the right towards individual self-help and away from collective 
>struggle. 
>Peters believes in individual self-reliance which is why his spiritual home 

>is still the national party. In any coalition with Labour and the Alliance, 

>the needs of workers will be sacrificed the needs of kiwi individuals - "me 

>first" -creating a mass of competing individuals who will be the enemy of 
>the working class. 
>
>Minority Left government.
>That is why we say no coalition with NZ First! Labour and Alliance break 
>with Peters, fight for a minority government now! This means acting on the 
>initiatives of Anderton and Clark to do a deal now so they can collaborate 
>as a minority left government. If Clark refuses, and does a deal with 
Peters 
>which is highly likely,  Anderton would be absolutely correct to stay out 
of 
>the coalition as he intends, not because Labour could not be trusted, that 
>is true of both Labour and the Alliance, but because he would be dragged 
>into the popular front with Peters.  
>But by itself this will not give the left the numbers. Labour and Alliance 
>together add up to 50 MPs when they need 60. This requires a tactic to win 
>
>back those members of NZ First who do not belong in a bourgeois party- 
>especially the young Maori segment.
>While the Maori seats have been dragged to the right by Peters, and coopted 

>into Ka Awatea, which accept s that capitalism can deliver to Maori, just 
>like Donna Awatere-Huata. But they cannot deliver in reality. This means 
>that the most glaring contradiction in politics at the moment is between 
the 
>new NZ First MP's and the Maori who voted for them. It is necessary to 
>exploit this contradication, expose Peter's petty-bourgeois politics, and 
>split the MP's from NZ First, or the voters from the MP'S who want to 
become 
>new Awatere's.
>The way to do this is for Labour and the Alliance to put up the repeal of 
>the ECA. This will force NZ First to vote against the measure or split 
>between the Maori left under Henare, and the white right under Michael 
Laws. 
>Some Labour may also split further down the track if the regroupment on the 

>left starts to adopt the Alliances `economics'. The remaining right rump of 

>Moore, Cullen, Gough and Co, would go to the centre. The left majority of 
>Clark, Dalziel, Maharey etc will link up with the Alliance.
>
>Are splits healthy?
>What will such splits and fusions mean? They mean that voters are more 
>demanding and expect to vote for a party that stands for something, and 
does 
>not break its promises. It means that politics becomes more honest as party 

>lines take on the shape of the class lines in the class polarised society. 
>That's good, because when they do break their promises, there are no 
>excuses, and workers can begin to see through the sham of bourgeois 
>parliament. 
>What if a left-centre re-alignment of Labour/Alliance and NZ First Maori 
>happens? Can such a new party be transformed into a revolutionary workers 
>party? No. It cannot jump over the fact that it is a parliamentary party 
>which limits itself to legislating for change in parliament. Even a real 
>workers government which legislates for the expropriation of capitalist 
>property cannot do that without the organised power of the working class 
>outside parliament. 
>
>Working class power
>That is why the real power is outside parliament. It is the bosses economic 

>power to strike and shut down industry, and to use the police and the armed 

>forces to back them up, and against them, the potential power of the 
working 
>class which creates the wealth to strike, shut down industry, and defend 
>itself from the state forces.  That is why a showdown with the capitalist 
>class cannot be decided in parliament, but will take place outside over the 

>ownership and control of industry.  
>
> FIGHT FOR A CLASS STRUGGLE  	PLAN  OF  ACTION!
>Ø [1]   JOBS FOR ALL! Labour and Alliance's job creation plans are not good 

>enough. Start with a 30 hour week for 40 hour pay and reduce the hours 
until 
>everyone who wants a job has a job. Abolish the Employment Contracts Act.
>
>Ø [2]   A LIVING WAGE! Minimum wage of $10 per hour, clear. No youth rates. 
>Living benefits, pegged to inflation.  For overtime to be restored, along 
>with all other work conditions lost under the ECA. Wages to be adjusted to 
>inflation by workers committees. No stand-down for the dole.
>
>Ø [3]   TAX THE RICH! 50% over $50,000 to 100% over $100,000. For a 50% 
>capital gains tax on companies and speculators. Confiscation of property of 
>corporate tax evaders. 
>
>
>
>
>Ø [4]   FREE HEALTH, EDUCATION, HOUSING, ACC, 24 HOUR CHILD CARE!  Massive 
>public investment and works to restore the cuts in the welfare state. No 
>user-pays charges by any State supplied services.
>
>Ø [5]   STOP ASSET SALES!  Re-nationalise all privatised assets without 
>compensation and under  workers control! Corporatised assets to be put under 
>
>workers control.
>
>
>Ø [6]   RETURN ALL STOLEN MAORI LAND! Nationalise land and all other energy 


>resources with Maori right to traditional claim on use.
>
>Ø [7]   EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL! Regardless of  nationality, race, gender, age 


>or sexual orientation. Equal pay for equal work for women and youth. Free 
>access to contraception and abortion on demand. 
>
>Ø [8]   CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS!  for Pacific Island and Asian workers in the 
>workforce. Amnesty for Pacific Island and Asian over-stayers. Immigration 
>under workers control.
>
>Ø [9]   REJECT ALL IMPERIALIST ALLIANCES.  Pull out of ANZUS.  Break all 
>military ties with Australia.  NZ out of the UN and UN peacekeeping forces!
>
>Ø [10]   FOR WORKING CLASS OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF THE MEANS OF 
PRODUCTION, 
>
>DISTRIBUTION AND EXCHANGE!  



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