Rape
Why is it people like Rosemary Evans (Write on, GLW #73) justify rape in such a pathetic and dismissive way? She sounds as if she has been brainwashed into accepting all these "rules" that patriarchy has laid upon women.
Just because Desiree Washington accepted Tyson's invitation, does not mean she automatically gave her consent to have sex. Women should be fighting these attitudes and unwritten rules that say if you walk the streets at night, go to a man's house alone, even get drunk, then women deserve everything they get. Society needs to focus more on the actions of the rapist, rather than cross-examining every detail of the victim's behaviour, who, as the cliché points out, often gets raped twice: by the perpetrator and the justice system.
Casualties of sexual assault have had their self-esteem, beliefs, and trust in society destroyed, and this is why every woman who is raped is an innocent and suffering victim.
Linda Jacobsen
South Perth
Daylight saving
The term "daylight saving" is a misnomer and, in fact, the correct name should be "energy saving".
For a household to turn their lights off one hour earlier than they normally would, saves a household 150 hours of energy per year (1 hr x 30 days x 5 months).
This current scheme means all areas that are to participate in this daylight saving or energy saving practice, adjusted their clocks twice a year; once at the beginning of daylight saving and once at the end of daylight saving, and adjusted their body clocks at the same time, at much inconvenience to families and households.
Under this proposal, the whole east coast of Australia will move their clocks forward only a half-hour, but maintain it on that half-hour extra setting for twelve months of the year. This scheme will provide 182
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55D> hour x 365 days), or a 20% increase in energy saving, as against the traditional methods now used in daylight saving or energy saving.
In conclusion, under this scheme, all east coast states would be on the same time zone, (EST + 1/2 hour) and all states would save energy for 365 days of the year, with less power being consumed, less coal being burnt, less harm to the ozone layer, and more energy being conserved, and no re-arranging clocks twice a year.
This is a sensible compromise, an extra half hour would not be too much for our western and northern counterparts to bear, and in exchange, they save energy and money.
It may take some time to convince all the people that this ans of conserving energy, but if we can introduce "Hancock's half-hour", it will certainly introduce harmony on the border towns of Coolangatta and Tweed Heads.
Bob Hancock
Coolangatta Qld
Population
The principle of population growth has significant implications for both socialism and for the conservation movement.
Like the populations of all successful species, the human population increases geometrically. The resources that humans need or want may increase geometrically — at either a faster, equal or slower rate than humans, or they may increase arithmetically or they may not increase at all. in all except the first of these cases, human needs and wants will ultimately outstrip the environment's ability to provide them.
As a result humans, like other organisms, are forced to compete with each other, and with other species, for their needs and wants. Furthermore, in most places, humans ensure that the environment bears the cost of our consumption before their fellow humans do. Thus, it is clear that the geometric population growth of the human species leads inevitably to social injustice and environmental destruction.
While the waste and greed associated with capitalism clearly make the situation immeasurably worse, the sad fact is that even those lands that go out of their way to care for their peoples, such as modern day Cuba, must sacrifice elements of their environments to cater for their expanding populations and will ultimately — if their populations grown naturally — become as unjust as the rest of us.
The solution to the problem, long term, clearly lies in preventing population growth. This, fortunately, is now possible thanks to recent advances in reproductive biology.
Safe contraception, sterilisation and abortion techniques exist and, in most parts of our country, are available to those who wish to use them. Through their use it is possible for people to limit themselves to a number of offspring that would do no more than replace the parents. Such a course of action would stabilise or reduce the population of the region, country or potentially world, in which it was the norm of reproductive behaviour.
The benefits of such a path are clear; lasting social justice becomes possible, and the battle to save our environment becomes winnable. This is not to minimise the struggle required to attain these goals, but population control moves them from impossible to achievable and thereby gives new purpose to our struggle.
Our immediate tasks therefore on a local front are to ensure reproductive technologies remain available and affordable. On a world scale we should pressure our country to assist in the provision of safe access to reproductive technologies to communities that lack such access and to pressure political, social and religious groups that uctive technology.
If we wish to achieve our environmental and social goals in Australia, we will require a stable or falling population. We will only get this by controlling birth rates. If we cannot control birth rates then the effects of immigration are irrelevant. If, however, we are controlling our own birth rates, if we are providing assistance to other countries in controlling theirs, then and only then will there by an environmental justification in restricting immigration.
Ian van Tets
Jamberoo NSW
[Edited for length.]
Cuba
Thank you for Dennis Kevans' lovely sarcastic Cuban poem (30 Sept). I wonder if its ghastly recipients have ever heard the words of the "March of 26th July", which is really Cuba's second national anthem? If not, I don't believe the Americans will ever understand what they're up against.
Marching towards our ideals,
Knowing we will triumph,
On the threshold of peace and prosperity,
We will fight together for freedom.
Forward, Cubans,
Cuba will reward our courage.
We are soldiers
Who will fight to free our motherland,
To put an end to the infernal plague
Of corrupt leaders and greedy tyrants,
Who have brought only misery to Cuba.
We will never forget
The blood shed by our Cuban brothers.
We must stay united,
Remembering those who died.
Our nation was wounded and drowned in sorrow,
And is determined
To end the problem once and for all.
Let us be an example
To those who are totally bereft of pity.
To fight for our cause
We offer our lives.
Long live the revolution!
Rosemary Evans
St Kilda Vic
World cop
The continuing economic sanctions and bullying tactics by the US against Vietnam and Cuba are a constant reminder how disgustingly hypocritical American foreign policy really is.
Looking at Vietnam, wounded pride drove the Pentagon to massively support every fascist junta in SEA, supply the murderous Pol Pot gang with weapons and keep the Vietnamese community on the ropes. The massive refugee problem was used as a propaganda tool by the White House to punish Vietnam. Thus people were used as pawns just because Hanoi had refused to bow to the Yanks and accept a fascist dictatorship blessed by the Catholic church.
Again, in the case of Cuba, wounded pride and the principle of a neat and clean pro-American backyard determined foreign policy. Considering the pressures Cuba has been under it is remarkable the Castro regime is far less oppressive than Washington's vassal countries like Nicaragua under Somoza, Pinochet's Chile, the Argentinean butchers, Bolivia, Brazil and the list goes on. Naturally the Vatican (with its far more sophisticated brand of oppression) aided fascism by attempting to suppress liberation theology.
The reactions of the world community to the shameful treatment of Vietnam and Cuba has been pathetic to say the least. If the No. 1 world cop can get away with such lunacy, Reagan's description of the former USSR as the "evil empire" (to use such a joke it ceases to be funny. To continue with Christian mythology it is appropriate to say "The devil is blessing America."
Michael Rose-Schwab
Rapid Creek NT
Unions and Accord
Maurie Davis (Write On, GLW #73) is too cynical in his response to Bill Ethel's "breath of fresh air in the stifling environment of the Accord ridden trade union movement". The situation is as if you, who were too weak alone to open the door of a cage into which your opponents have locked you, can now open that door because some of them have joined you. But instead of marching out to do battle alongside your new allies, you find the rotting clothes they have discarded and bring them back, into the cage, and close the door behind you, to ensure you cannot forget the stench.
Which approach do we wish to take? Davis appears to prefer the first. He harps on history.
Perhaps "Ethel and his ilk may have left their run too late". But our task is not to act as history's judges but to act in history. This question cannot be decided until battle has been joined. And in that battle, I would prefer to unite the largest forces available on my side, with only this proviso: that now, regardless of the past, they fight consistently. Therefore, I consider the words of John Clancy (Write On, GLW #72) ten times more useful than Davis' as a starting point for discussion on how to unite the forces that will fight for social justice and the environment.
Jonathan Strauss
Perth