Write on: letters to the editor
McDonald's for all
The federal health minister, Dr Wooldridge, thinks Australians could take to the idea of getting a free McDonald's for each child immunised. Perhaps we are so Americanised that we see nothing wrong in his crass razzamatazz attitude.
Ah! Dr Wooldridge, 'tis strange company you would keep. Exposing our children to such a company, which appears so afraid of the spotlight of honest inquiry it reverts to such questionable behaviour.
Wooldridge is a doctor of medicine, isn't he? I was perplexed by his recommending the distribution of fast foods for our children, as we all know that such fast foods are not appropriate for their healthy growth. Does the federal Department of Health employ up-to-date nutritional advisers at all?
Wouldn't a book voucher be a better incentive if we are to be about such disgraceful bribery? And what is it about immunisation which has parents questioning? No doctor or nurse ever warned me about the dangers, although they are supposed to. I had to find out for myself. So am I apathetic or are they? Perhaps it is apathy to just accept Wooldridge's suggestion of McDonald's for all and to revel in the questionable taste sensation for free. Perhaps the new flag could have the Big M on it. Have a nice daaye y'all!
Port Macquarie NSW
[Abridged.]
Ignoring the real issues
Edgar Penzig, right-wing Christian and anti-graffitist "crusader", has described anti-McDonald's protesters in Katoomba as follows: "I was approached by some 'thing' with an anti-McDonald's petition — I say 'thing' because that is all you could call it. I think it was male; I'm not sure. It had filthy dreadlocks, rings through every part of its face, and dirty, greasy, filthy clothing. And this sponger had the gall to complain about McDonald's. Strewth, he was more of a danger to the environment and people's health than any smallpox bug" (Penrith Press, January 14).
If you have read Die Sturme, the Nazi daily, edited by Streicher, you will see identical language. Penzig has an Australian-best collection of Nazi gear which he calls "Third Reich Artefacts". His aim may be to clean up the town, but his other aim is to squash dissent and gain self-publicity from impoverished and marginalised Australian youth, who are victims of a deregulated economy much vaunted by Penzig.
Wentworth Falls NSW
Perception of Americans
I happened to stumble upon your web site. I'm doing a project in my US Foreign Policy Class (I live near Chicago, Illinois, USA) and I would like it if some readers could respond to the question: "How do you perceive American Business and Government?" You can e-mail your responses to mdjuric@concentric.net.
Thanks!
USA
DSS
The Department of Social Security covertly discriminates against their "clients".
I am on a disability support pension but have some income from my late husband's superannuation. My godson, who has cerebral palsy, asked me in September if he could leave his Altonville home and live with me while he tried to get a job in Sydney.
I took him in. I then found DSS was classing the $70 a week he paid me for full board as income. That meant it was costing me $35 to be charitable and have him live with me. When I rang DSS to complain they said they still had to assess 2/3 of the $70 as income.
I got onto the Welfare Rights Service. They rang up and got it fixed. They told me DSS should only assess 20% of full board as income for pensioners.
Senator Grant Tambling says in a letter to Mark Latham MP who acted on my behalf: "Full board and lodging are assessed at 20%. As soon as Mrs Wright verified with the Department that her godson was actually paying for 'board and lodgings', Mrs Wright's payment was amended." What a gross untruth. Nothing happened until Welfare Rights stepped in.
Everyone in the community I've mentioned this to says "Nobody lets DSS know if they have a boarder. They stuff you around unfairly". Well, I'm honest and I also managed to get my godson on a disability support pension before he obtained employment. So I couldn't keep them in the dark.
DSS is bad enough now. God knows how much worse they'll get under Howard!!
Sydney
[Abridged.]
Michael Collins
I was very disappointed by Sean Healy's review of Michael Collins (GLW #259). In that review Healy describes Collins as a "sell-out" and as one of Ireland's "greatest traitors" and talks about the "more radical" Eamon de Valera. This is a simplistic analysis. Collins' reputation has been dealt with harshly by left historians.
The treaty with England that Collins signed was a bad one, yet it is important to remember that it was signed under duress. I cannot so easily dismiss the British Prime Minister Lloyd George's threat of war as Healy does. Collins more than anyone knew how poorly armed the Irish resistance was. The Irish negotiating team should really have immediately gone to the public and protested Georges' threats. But that is easy to say in hindsight.
More importantly, the "radical" de Valera sent Collins to London to negotiate instead of himself because he knew the negotiations would not result in a republic. It was then the height of hypocrisy and opportunism for de Valera to attack Collins for not winning a united Irish republic.
The treaty ratified the partition of Ireland but did not cause it. The North was effectively partitioned long before by virtue of the fact that the loyalists were armed to the teeth and ready to use violence against anyone to protect their interests. Neither the film nor Healy refer to Collins sending military assistance to the North to defend the Catholic community against loyalist pogroms.
The republican movement was divided into a right and left but I think it is too simplistic to lump Collins into one camp. His tendency to vacillate was clearly revealed in his various attempts to negotiate with his republican opponents. This is a symptom of his rural middle class background, and a result of the fact that the labour movement as a rule abstained from the nationalist struggle, especially after Connolly's death.
But more importantly I believe the "sell-out" view of Collins ignores the inspiring struggle he led which finally forced the largest imperialist power at the time to the negotiating table. I agree that the film exaggerates Collins' role at the expense of everybody else, even de Valera, but it is your typical Hollywood "hero-pic". Then again the story about a man who cycled around Dublin under the noses of his enemies, with price on his head, protected by a whole network of safe houses is ready-made for the big screen. I'm just glad Jordan and Neeson got to it before Kevin Costner did.
Millner NT
American Civil War
Phil Shannon's review of James MacPherson's new book (GLW #257) on the American Civil War could be the starting point for an interesting debate, but given that the book is finally just used as a opportunity for more point-scoring at the expense of Pauline Hanson, I guess it probably won't.
Post-modern people with a Marxist education could be usefully following the dialogue going on in outfits like The Southern League (PO Box 40910 Tuscaloosa, Alabama), whose brand of identity politics draws its material from the problematic of the American Civil War. Racism is only one element in the problematic, and nowadays not even the most important.
Strait jacketing discussion into the romantic vs progressive categories of a liberal historian like MacPherson (even if Marxist trimmings are put on the strait jacket) is not really doing justice to the complexity of the Civil War debate (or for that matter the debate on slavery generally and the Marxist perspective on it: take a look at Ellen Meiksins Wood's books on the subject). Nowadays there are better models for inter-race relations in the English-speaking world than the North-American one: South Africa for instance. These are the models to point to when engaging in debate with Dixielogues. The advantage with them is that they are conducive to opening rather than closing the Confederate mind.
Not everyone in the Dixie milieu is on the same intellectual plane as Pauline Hanson. Do Marxists always have to bring the debate down to the level of the dumbest opponents?
Left anti-Semitism
I'm not sure what the two critics of my original letter on left anti-Semitism are trying to say (GLW #259) other than to confirm my original point: that unfortunately Marxist or socialist views and racist ideology can co-exist.
Contrary to what Adam Davies suggests, I hardly need to justify my credentials as a "progressive Jew". I have spent the last 15 years in organisations such as the Australian Jewish Democratic Society campaigning for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and for local Jewish-Palestinian dialogue to facilitate that outcome. This position has aroused considerable and often vigorous opposition from the mainstream Jewish community.
Davies also implies that Israel's oppression of the Palestinians in some way negates the reality of the Jewish experience of racism in both the Western and Arab worlds. This assertion is as obtuse as the claim by some Israelis that the Mufti of Jerusalem's collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War Two serves to justify the continuing denial of national rights tot the Palestinians.
To Savoulian, I would remark that I know of no branch of Zionism that views anti-Semitism as a built-in-part of socialism. The Labor Zionist movement which ruled Israel from 1948 to 1977 strongly identified with traditional socialist objectives. A considerable section of the left-wing of the movement even maintained a pro-Soviet position well into the Cold War period.
Most Jews would, however, judge socialism and socialists on their record. The persecution of Jews by Stalin and his successors in the Soviet Union naturally disheartened many former Jewish supporters of socialism. Equally, the fundamentalist anti-Zionism espoused by some radical left groups in the 1970s and '80s (sometimes extending into outright anti-Semitism) alienated many other Jews on the left. However, those moderate and radical left groups which display a principled opposition to anti-Jewish racism will continue to attract considerable Jewish support.
North Caulfield Vic