Telephone typewriter
There has been a drastic reduction in the service of the TTY (telephone typewriter) relay. This was previously a 24 hour service providing deaf people and people with speech impediments a constant communication service with the hearing world.
I and many others find it very discriminatory that unless the families and friends of these people have a TTY personally, they are left without contact with family etc, between the hours of 6pm and 8am weekdays and all weekend.
Apart from the inconvenience of hearing people not being able to contact their deaf or speech impaired friends and family it could also have life threatening implications in an emergency for these people if they need to contact anyone who does not possess a TTY.
Why should deaf people be put through the added stress of not having constant contact with the hearing world? This could also carry over into the business world, as hearing people in business and their hearing clients often find it a necessity to have after hours access to telephone to conduct business. If you are deaf or speech impaired this could mean loss of business when it has been made so difficult to make contact after hours.
Sandra Warren
Melbourne
[Edited for length.]
Peter Singer
Having not read yet Peter Singer's How are we to live, allows for no comment.
However on perusing Dave Riley's (GLW #163) vitriolic confusing review of the same, leaves the distinct impression that it was just a vehicle to express his own bigotry on animal rights and related issues.
Such angst against the idea of personal ethics, as opposed to following-the-leader, shows in itself the power of whatever system Dave has been very successfully subjected to. The contorted logic used by this and like systems is evident by the self protection it affords the hapless follower by creating mental blocks, when threatened, that can be insurmountable.
Dave, once again, emphasized his slavery to the ravery of others — who or whatever they pay be?
His words did not enlighten us the reader. His concepts and ideas seemed but a mish-mash designed only to denigrate. Influenced as he so obviously is, by an unknown-to-us bias, he ended anecdotally with a Hitler story. That really is using the big guns. Shame though that he got it so wrong.
Hitler did love animals — he loved eating them, so much in fact that he suffered from excessive flatulence. Periodic vegetarianism was recommended to overcome this problem.
Hitler, so to speak, became an occasional vegetarian to stop from talking out of his arse.
I think there is a lesson in that for you Dave!
David Nicholls
Weetulta SA
Priscilla
We were surprised by Kath Gelber's film review "Camping in the Desert", GLW No 163. We were bewildered at Kath's attempt to deal with the glaring political insensitivities portrayed in the Priscilla film.
Kath's effort to grapple with Priscilla's sexist and racist overtones was to say, in essence, it's O.K. because we live in a racist and sexist society. Kath wrote, "Does portraying the sexism and racism that exist in society make the film sexist or racist?" Yes, just as billboards display depictions of semi naked women, perpetuating the "Beauty Myth" and images of women as submissive — this is also sexist. Would Kath argue that the billboard isn't sexist, it's just that we live in a sexist society? If it is recognised that the ideological products of a society, ie films, billboards, media, etc work to reinforce society's oppressive ideology, then surely they should be criticised and challenged.
Further, offering the counter criticism that the portrayal of the Filipina bride's situation as being due to "lack of circumstance that made her who she was", disregards the racist and sexist images of Asian women, that this film reinforced. It presented the image of poor Aussie blokes who get tricked into marrying domineering Asian women (no mail order bride here), and the myth that Asian women are sexually permissive and available, to be oppressed by these nice blokes, only because they are protecting them from their natural promiscuity. In the mean time, the other main female character, white upper middle class, gets to run her own nightclub.
Our society is sexist and racist and therefore it was not surprising that Priscilla portrayed this, however it is inappropriate to condone it. The excuse that "Suffering homophobia doesn't make them into inherently nice people" falls flat as explanation for such an offensive movie and goes no way in challenging us to question our society. Perhaps in the future GLW review section could employ a system of praise for performances political content and its entertainment separately.
Andrea Savage and Elle Morrell
Clifton Hill Vic
[Edited for length.]
China
The person who wrote the article "China's urban workers in the 1990's" (GLW #163) strangely refers to the economies promoted by Deng Xiaoping as "market Stalinism". Nothing could be further from the truth. Stalin would have greatly opposed what happened in the Soviet Union and what's going on in China today.
What happened in the Soviet Union and in China today is the systematic introduction of capitalism. Deng's policy will eventually destroy what Mao Tsetung set out to achieve in China. Socialism.
The road to socialism came to an end in China with the jailing of the gang of 4 (including mao's widow). They were the true believers. Not Deng. Deng Xiaoping was always considered a capitalist roader. He has proved that by implementing that policy.
It has been reported that there are already 20,000 millionaires in China. Good for Deng, bad for the workers of China, and Mao's road to socialism.
When you see the leaders of the capitalist class slapping fellow travellers like Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Deng on the back you can rest assured they're not on the side of the working class.
It is sad to see the great experiment of socialism in the Soviet Union and China being eroded by traitors.
W.G. Fox
Brisbane
Reclaim The Night
I came away from this year's Reclaim the Night march in Sydney elated and frustrated. Elated because the rally mobilised over 8000w omen. Frustrated because it did not present a way forward for the women's movement.
The speakers had a very apolitical approach to the problem of domestic violence. No-one called for a fight for women's liberation, which would provide women with economic equality and reproductive freedom. Instead the rally was confronted with a series of very personal, horrifying stories of people who had survived sexual assault.
These stories gave much needed validation that abuse does happen but stopped short of posing any real solutions to how to fight it. So rather than feel empowered by being in such a huge crowd of women, one was left feeling depressed about the abuse we have suffered.
The old slogan of the women's movement, "the personal is political", seems to have been inverted to "the political is personal". This approach turns rallies into group therapy. There are counsellors who can provide these services. If a political movement tries to, it can only lead to personalised and defeatist politics.
This defeatist sentiment was perhaps best illustrated when the chair requested that male children be taken from their mothers and escorted to the end of the march by Men Against Sexual Assault because the march was women only. Is our fear so great that a six-year-old boy becomes a threat?
If we are going to stop violence against women then we are going to have to build a campaign that challenges the sexism that is endemic to this system. This fight will require mobilisations that put forward political demands like adequate funding for refuges, equal pay for women, decriminalisation of abortion and so on. It will also require the mobilisation of the majority of society, both men and women.
Zanny Begg
Resistance National Executive
[Edited for length.]
Disability discrimination
The federal Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1993 formally recognises the rights of people with disabilities to participate in all areas of life. It provides protection for everyone in Australia against discrimination based on disability. It can be used to stop people with disabilities being treated less fairly than people without a disability.
People with disabilities were recently discriminated against in their participation in the Commonwealth games. Also the new rise in the cost of taxi fares discriminates against people with disabilities because taxis are often their only form of transport. The money spent on making taxis yellow and getting uniforms for drivers could have been better spent by making taxis more accessible to people who use wheelchairs.
The Kennett government does not seem to be acknowledging the importance of the DDA and are still discriminating in their planning and provision of goods and services, eg the inaccessibility of the new city circle tram and the newly acquired buses. It is up to us to challenge the state government and other people or organisations who discriminate by making formal complaints to the Human Rights Commission.
A coalition of interested individuals and groups has been set up to promote the awareness and implementation of the new DDA. It is called DARE (Disability Action on Rights and Equality). If you are interested in finding out more, contact Jeanette Lee on (03) 254 5666.
Peter Vassallo
Melbourne