Not a right-wing plot
Calls for cuts to immigration are not some right-wing racist plot as some quasi-leftists assert.
There is sound ecological evidence to support the contention that Australia is already overpopulated. Some recent evidence is:
- The southern fishery has collapsed as a consequence of the human population making too great a demand on that resource;
- Air pollution in Sydney has been so bad on some days recently that people have been advised to stay indoors for health reasons. Most of that pollution was due to exhaust emissions from motor vehicles driven by an ever-increasing population;
- The recent algal blooms in the Darling River were due in large part to too many people taking too much water and hence reducing the flow rate combined with too many people emptying their sewage into the river.
Any further increase in population will aggravate the stresses we are already placing on the environment and add to the numbers of unemployed.
C.M. Friel
Alawa NT
Done to death
The assassination of JFK has surely been done to death (I realise this is an unfortunate metaphor) in films, documentaries and books. But what about the mysterious murders of
1. Martin Luther King? James Earl Ray admitted he dunnit (1968) but only on the grounds that he would not get a fair trial in Tennessee if he declared himself innocent. After some years in prison he escaped, told journalists that he still wanted a fair trial in a federal court, was denied this, and was re-arrested, to serve the rest of his 99-year sentence.
2. Malcolm X was shot while making a speech in 1965 in New York. Some Black Muslims were accused of the murder, tried, and found not guilty because of "insufficient evidence". No further investigations were made. Malcolm's home had been fire-bombed a few days before.
3. The assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. (One expects political savagery in the US, but not in peaceful Sweden.) Palme was shot as he came out of a cinema. Only one suspect was found, and he was freed on "insufficient evidence".
Is anybody researching these three unsolved mysteries? Surely King, Malcolm X and Palme were as important to history as was JFK?
Rosemary Evans
St Kilda Vic
ACT elections
In the ACT elections on February 15 the Democratic Socialist Party stood a candidate, Lara Pullin. I cannot understand why the International Socialist Organisation supported the ALP above the DSP. Maybe it's because the ALP is a "workers" party. In the last 8 years the ALP has carried out policies which are essentially anti-worker and anti-people. The base of the ALP is now far less in the working class and more in trade union bureaucrats, professionals and university graduates. And anyway the base of the DSP is the unemployed, students and workers.
Maybe it's because the DSP is "electoralist". But we are using elections to reach out to people and to put a progressive, green, socialist platform. There is no party which is more electoralist than the ALP, where the parliamentary wing dominates and is not accountable to the rest of the party.
Or maybe the ISO support the ALP, because the DSP's politics are indistinguishable from those of the Labor Party. But we support jobs for youth, indexed wages and pensions, a legal abortion clinic in Canberra, more public housing and oppose Labor and Liberal pandering to big business.
Surely the crucial task of the left and the greens is to build an alternative to the "Laberal" parties — whether this be the ISO, DSP or the greens. Building an alternative is not achieved by supporting the ALP ahead of other left groups in elections.
James Basle
Cook ACT
Dig, cut, pollute mafia
I very much share this paper's concern over the tactics of the New Right. The strategy seems clear; right wing newspaper barons are in de facto control and are in alliance with the nuclear industry and the other multinationals. Together with their reactionary political allies they form a fighting force which our environmental organisations will struggle to compete against.
News coverage of the proto-fascist onslaught in New Zealand is already kept to a minimum. The green algae catastrophe has not been given the importance it deserves, nuclear accidents in India which slowly kill thousands are kept secret and the criminal operations of some multinationals in South-East Asia are conveniently ignored as well.
The Australian Labor Party will not only be ousted but the right wing (dig, cut and pollute mafia) will ensure they not only stay in the political wilderness (what's left of the wilderness) but right in the soil eroded and salty desert. One thing must be clear to all environmentalists: the struggle for the 21st century will be the most important ever.
Michael Rose-Schwab
Rapid Creek NT
Courts
Courts are the homes of the ultraconservative Right Wingers and the great bastions of behaviourism. They belong to the middle ages as they breathe tradition long gone. They protect the rich and capitalism from the poor.
Courts pretend to be interested in curing the evil doers but in reality, they are only interested in maintaining themselves and the livelihoods of their employees.
The system must have police and courts to harass and menace the poor. Otherwise the poor, the anti-system radicals, and the selves without any reference to the riches and prestige of the system's controllers.
At courts, the bulk of crimes are against wealth and property. The bulk of criminals are from the poorer classes and the emotional kind. But the bulk of judges and magistrates are from rich conservative backgrounds using more bluff than logic.
Rich kids from private schools that fail the Higher School Certificate don't cry when they don't get a uni or TAFE place, they don't expect one. They just use their conservative wowser prefect skills to get themselves a job at the courthouse.
Lawyers, coy court workers, and criminals all are the same to a judge or magistrate. He treats them all as dirt as he considers them all to be crawlers. He believes he however is special and should be treated as a king or queen of the capitalist right wing system. He believes that that failed psychology theory called behaviorism really works but doesn't really care.
Courts are the greatest wanks known to mankind and womankind. They are full of stage actors all pretending remorse and cures, but achieving nothing for anyone. The stage actors all ensure the school type soap operas continue whether TV is around to capture all the drawn out action or not. Courts are right wing bastions of nonsense.
David Fletcher
Connells Point NSW
[Edited for length.]
Left and greens know best
Mum votes Liberal and Dad votes Labor.
Mum hates the greens as they are the scum of the earth. All of these urban cowpeople are troublemakers that have sent our country broke. The environment is nothing as nobody has ever seen the greenhouse effect or suffered from pollution.
The greens are unemployed loafers that support Labor.
Labor sent Australia bankrupt by supporting unions and the greens. Labor only put Keating in as Labor wants to go to the poll and get walloped. Keating is leading Australia to the Great Depression and is devoid of ideas unlike Dr Hewson, the saviour of Australia and Australians.
Dad reckons Dr Hewson will destroy Australia if elected. His Great Depression with the GST package will send inflation to 20%, the same level as unemployment. Even Paul Keating would beat Hewson who hates the unemployed and greens already. Hewson is an arrogant superficial simple academic who doesn't know the real world outside the rich and big business.
Mum and Dad make a perfect couple. That's why they united.
But us kids have rebelled against our parents.
We want to privatise the Liberal and Labor parties. That would release more money for essential services as all over the world governments are handing back the power to the people. In over 80 countries, governments have lately privatised government businesses that are not worthwhile to keep, making $300 billion, selling things ces.
For if Labor is as bad as Mum says and Liberal-National is as bad as Dad says, then they are valueless to everyone as they will lead us all to eternal poverty and damnation. It will be hell on earth if either controls Australia.
Labor, Liberal-National, or the other Laberals must know, Liberal, Labor and the National parties must be sold for the good of all Australians. Only they must be privatised.
Only the Left and the Greens know best for us. Only you unemployed have experienced the real Australia.
Tanya Johnston
Putney NSW
[Edited for length.]