·WAIHOPAI SPYBASE PROTEST SATURDAY JANUARY 24th
·WAIHOPAI & THE GCSB SPY ON NEW ZEALANDERS
·NSA SPIES ON EVERYONE
People from all around New Zealand will be converging on the super-secret Waihopai satellite interception spybase, in Marlborough, on Saturday January 24th.
The Anti-Bases Campaign’s activities will start in Blenheim. At 10.30 a.m. we will assemble in the vicinity of big roundabout on Main Street (which is also Highway 1). We will display our banners, placards, etc, where a large number of Saturday morning motorists and other passersby will see them. After 15 minutes we will march along Symons, High and Market Streets (through the Forum), across Main Street, proceeding to the office of local National MP, Stuart Smith, at 22 Scott Street.
At 11 a.m. we will assemble at the office of local National MP, Stuart Smith, at 22 Scott Street. There will be speakers, namely local Green MP Steffan Browning; John Minto from Mana and Murray Horton from ABC; we will picket the office, and deliver a letter to the MP (the letter is below). Special features will include our visual suggestion for John Key’s new flag; and guest appearances by Uncle Sam and “John Key”, that well known double act
We will be at the Waihopai spy base’s main gate on Waihopai Valley Road at 1.30 p.m. There will be speakers; information will be provided on the function of the base and there will be a peaceful protest, involving a range of activities, calling for its closure.
2014 was the year which brought further revelations from Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald that the GCSB & Waihopai have been conducting mass surveillance on New Zealanders for years (as ABC has said since the spy base was first announced in 1987). Other revelations included details of the GCSB spying on a number of other countries, both hostile and allies, on behalf of the US National Security Agency (NSA). The Government tried, unconvincingly, to fudge or minimise these damning revelations. Since being re-elected the Government has whipped up hysteria about “Kiwi jihadis” to pass even more repressive spying agency laws (the Countering Terrorist Fighters Act); and has expressed eagerness to be a part of America’s new war in Iraq. Waihopai will be NZ’s key contribution to this new war, as it has been to all American wars in the recent past.
Waihopai does not operate in the national interest of New Zealand. In all but name it is a foreign spy base on NZ soil, paid for with hundreds of millions of our tax dollars; it spies on New Zealanders; and involves us in America’s global spying & war machine. Waihopai must be closed.
GCSB Director Ian Fletcher has led by example and is getting out. We suggest that the rest of the GCSB staff also decide that now is right “to spend more time with their families”. It shouldn’t be too onerous for them – they should be eligible for American pensions for services rendered.
SO the usual Anti USA BS.
Remember “go home yanks”?
Autonomy is what every country has a right to achieve,-not only USA.
yes Larry – the usual nonsense from people who choose not to make a decent contribution to their country
I’ll be unable to join you but good luck with the protest. Keep spreading the word and fighting the good fight! This base is an integral part in New Zealand’s contribution to the 5-eyes network, the same US / NSA-led network which spies on ordinary citizens phone and internet traffic en masse. The sooner we have nothing to do with this, the better!
Just another greasing of the palms schemes between Key and Obama. Neither of them care for the people, or the opinions of the people, yet Key and Obama will spy on the people, because Key and Obama and their administrations and wealthy mates have much to hide, and lose, as we rise to fight against their syndicated financial gains of inequality. This Key and Obama stand to lose if we can stop them.
In the interests of balance…
One hastens to add Waihopai was established by a decision of the Labour Party under Lange at the same time that Aotearoa New Zealand people declared their desire for a nuclear free nation and in reality voted for the World to drive in the peaceful direction.
It was Labour who supported the Government’s Countering Terrorist Fighter Legislation Bill in December 2014. This Bill is more hype and bullshit in the context of the bogus war on terror. My submission to the Select Committee, what happened on 9/11? History’s most recent choke point. All policy settings have been altered by that incident. Curious?
http://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/51SCFDT_EVI_00DBHOH_BILL60721_1_A414326/957750eb3c795a89a59f5d5c332a6e186f13bf1b
This is the thing that needs to be comprehended. By our ongoing complicity, and denial of the reality of our support for the USA we support organised murder and genocide – we assist the unlawful criminal activity to continue.
There is a history of the Labour Party cleaving to a larger saviour, unprepared to man up and do it in the public interest as they know they should.
Security only comes through confidence in the surplus of tomorrow. We can only create this necessary abundance through an independent social-political-economy that supports all the inhabitants of Aotearoa New Zealand.
This lesson was understood by William Ball Sutch and many of his compatriots following the initial colonial conquest by the mainly British interests that annexed most of the good bits of NZ to themselves. These always ensuring that there was an abundance of idle peasants willing to work for a few tokens and thus cut their fellows throat in their individual need to provide sustenance for their families and selves. Our honoured founder Wakefield was one such enlightened gentleman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Company
Nothing has changed, bar the techniques and methods of maintaining a surplus of labour, and the appearance of scarcity, to keep everyone focused on making money for the guys at the top of the greasy pole.
Independence means responsibility for a well organised and planned nation and commonwealth. Are we ready to assume that burden?
The 1935 Labour Government made a significant contribution in establishing universal welfare. It according to Sutch could have made a large dent in the banksters power, which for them was the City of London.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Labour_Government_of_New_Zealand
The adversary is the same, and the medicine is no different, however we are confronted with a systemic increase in dynamics to balance in reaching resilience and a thriving social and political economy shared by all inhabitants. We have this year ascended to a place at the UN Security Council (SC). Our support by the USA and the Western Powers can only mean our assent at a government level that we are ‘in the club’.
We told the world to gain our SC place that NZ would represent the interests of the smaller nations. Do we lie so well?
We need to appreciate that New Zealand’s role in the earlier League of Nations under the 1930s Labour Government and it dismay at the appeasement allowed the fascist aggressors. New Zealand in the post WW11 era played a key role in the formation of the UN. It also negotiated ANZUS. In the development of history the present World is more dynamic and liminal space of possibility.
The perfect storm, climate change, energy, economics and population/pollution, is an unraveling tornado which devastates regions in a sometimes persistent manner, war in the middle east, or dramatically with Earth events, social upheaval and economic crisis.
The farcical attempts by World Leaders to resolve agreement to curtail Carbon Emissions is confounded by the New Zealand Labour Party’s insistence on its broken ETS which is proved to increase Carbon emissions.
None appear willing to face the whole reality. Absent this none see the whole problem. Absent this how do we achieve real independence?
Stop TPP.
Piss off the 5 Eyes surveillance agreement.
Massive effort on renewable, sustainable, resilient, egalitarian economy; and
Work for World Peace, assured through mutual self paced economic development and security.
It is only through comprehending how this came from that in the science of history that we can learn from previous experiments and experience in order to reorder for the public and future inhabitants interest.
Most like to leave an inheritance of value to their children, do we do this only on an individual level and forget that all our individual efforts are buggered if the systemic direction is greedy.
Go well in your efforts CAFCA and all who participate.
Sorry for my absence, love and peace from Dunedin.
50 protesters turned up!
Such apathy in NZ. How can we ever hope to beat the system?
People realise that the government ignor all protests, so don’t bother trying. This is a government for themselves,we are just bothersome
nobodies , until we all realise we are all in it together and cant leave the protests to a few we will get what we always get , ignored and dismissed.
This is exactly why Labour is down again in the polls…again. The wacky left supporting nonsense protests like this. The protesters called it a success.50 people for gods sake! Until the left gets a bit sensible, it can look forward to the opposition benches for some time yet.
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