Selling out
It beats me when I receive a leaflet requesting support for a public rally against selling off public assets and sponsored by the people listed. It is hypocritical.
I was reading about Tolpuddle when I was just eight years of age and always believed in the trade union movement. Today they seem to be tied up with the right wing, as does the present ALP government. The public is generally apathetic and it doesn't help the cause of socialism when the sponsors have sat back through the years doing nothing whilst Telecom was busy empire building and spending billions of dollars of public money wastefully.
The unions today are full of fat cats who are no more interested in the work ethic. A fair days' work for a fair days' pay etc, or the socialist ethic then was Mrs Thatcher. We can readily see from ALP figures how many grass roots socialists there are in the whole party — 30% is probably high for MPs/MLAs, maybe 40% in the branches.
If there are more they are not being adequately represented. Lets get to grips with the real problem. Getting rid of ALP reps who sell out to the highest bidder.
Bill Wilcox
Ferny Hills, Qld
Naomi Wolf T-Shirt
Zanny Begg regards the Left Alliance anti-Naomi Wolf T-shirt (GLW #152) as "elitist" and "sectarian": "putting a gun target over Wolf's (or anyone's) face is a reactionary way of dealing with political debate within the progressive movement".
I wonder how Zanny defines "progressive" such that Wolf is included , given her admission that Wolf, in Fire with Fire, promotes "the interests of a few rich women". Zanny fails to see that these interests are promoted against those of other women and against emancipatory left programs. Wolf is the backlash.
So who is the enemy? We have seen Thatcher and the Queen through gun sights, and few lefties complained. Wolf is more insidious. Few "progressives" were fooled by Thatcher, but plenty have embraced Wolf in the name of accessibility.
Zanny says the shirt "aligns" Left Alliance with "extremely right-wing/anti-feminist circles". Who? Not those White House lefties: Bill Clinton receives Wolf's unrestrained praise as "pro-feminist" (single mothers may disagree, given Clinton's war on welfare). Nor Paul Keating, a "socialist", apparently, whose election is a victory for the "women's vote" according to "progressive" Wolf. Does a gun sight on Keating equal alignment with the Liberals?
Zanny doesn't mention the "We hate Hilary Clinton, too" slogan printed on the sleeve, or the alternative back slogans, "I'd rather have a revolution than a feminist boss", and, more specifically, "Making money made feminist: Fire with Fire Guidebook for the New Feminist Corporate Oppressor".
Fire with Fire's cover glorifies "women bosses", and inside we find advice for black and working class women: design a hair product and start a factory. So much for the oppressive beauty industry.
Fire with Fire is an extended diatribe against left feminists, expressing contempt for Marxist feminism for failing to teach women how to make money. (Union organising doesn't count because Wolf is referring to upward-mobility.)
Zanny claims that The Beauty Myth "popularised feminism around the world" and that Fire with Fire was less widely read. However, Fire with Fire was sold everywhere (including the DSP's International Green Left Conference) and has been recently republished. The success of The Beauty Myth makes it more important to challenge Wolf's politics.
The T-Shirt has generated debate on Wolf's politics and feminist politics in general, both at NOWSA and within the progressive movement. I hope this debate continues.
Cass Bennett
Left Alliance
Sydney
Pollution
I'm sure most readers are alarmed by the way we are polluting the atmosphere and are concerned at the prospect of human-induced climate change. However, let us not pretend, as Phil Shannon does (GLW # 150), that we know what is going to happen.
Far from the planet warming it seems that much of the northern hemisphere has cooled since the late 1940s due to an increase in atmospheric aerosols (Fred Pearce, New Scientist, 9/7/94). Pearce lists numerous sources, natural and human, of these fine particles. However the main value of the article is the way it highlights the extreme complexity of predicting climate change. He lists seven factors whose climatic forcing (ie the way they attempt to alter the climate) is comparable to, or greater than, CO2. The response of clouds, the most important greenhouse "gas", to these chances is unknown.
Current climatic models are more advanced than those that predicted the, now discredited, nuclear winter scenario. Yet they are still inadequate simplifications. Their predictions of global average warming vary by 250%. At smaller scales the situation is worse. There are huge differences in predictions for each continent and at the regional scale agreement is rare.
Significantly, the models have only limited success in reproducing current and past climates. Much of this success is due to "fudging" of parameters which cannot be modelled. (Yet they will vary if climate changes.) Predictions for individual grid points are out by over 5oC half the time and none of the models can get the Antarctic average to within IOoC of the correct value.
Yet when scientists remind us of these limitations Shannon's response is to slander the messenger. His attempt to compare the uncertainties surrounding greenhouse warming to those pertaining to the dangers of cigarette smoking is farcical. Study after study has confirmed the dangers of tobacco smoking; the tombstones are there to count. On the other hand there is not one shred of physical evidence supporting CO2-induced wanning.
Rather than believe every disaster scenario simply because capitalism has a track record of producing disasters, we should familiarise ourselves with the state of the debate and keep abreast of developments. This may not produce spectacular headlines but it should avoid having to wipe egg off our faces.
David Wheeler
Wollongong
East Timor
I thought GLW readers would appreciate this excellent verse, recently sent to the Australia-East Timor Association (NSW) by Ian Hodges of Bundeena:
Our new national anthem
Australians all let us rejoice
For we are young and free!
No need to heed the genocide across the Timor Sea!
Their shores abound with oil and gas
Australia wants to share;
Let Indonesians kill at will,
Advance Australia fair!
With brutal friends and greedy ends
Advance Australia fair!
I think that says all that needs to be said about the shabby relationship between the present government and the Indonesian regime. My thanks to Ian Hodges.
I hope GLW is able to cover the constitutional challenge to the Timor Gap Treaty, brought by a group of East Timorese including Jose Ramos Horta, to be heard before the full bench of the High Court in August.
Stephen Langford
Australia-East Timor Association NSW