Nuclear avoidance
ANSTO's Prof. Helen Garnett faced a Senate Estimates meeting on November 12. She refused to answer many of the questions put to her about the proposed new reactor in southern Sydney, claiming commercial confidentiality or memory lapse or passing the buck to the government. A shame, because there are plenty of questions that need answering. For example, the current claim is that building a new reactor will create 800 jobs in the construction phase, but in 1993 ANSTO said that only 175 (temporary) jobs would be created.
Garnett was asked whether agreements had been finalised to ship spent fuel rods to the UK and USA. She said the agreements had not been finalised but ... wait for it ... there is a "wouldn't it be nice" timetable!
She then rebuked a Senator for talking about "reprocessing" of spent fuel rods to extract and re-use uranium. Garnett prefers the word "processing". Perhaps it will help deal with critics who point to the Department of Foreign Affairs' statement that reprocessing is "contrary to sound non-proliferation principles".
Garnett offered another nugget of semantic wisdom. Spent fuel is not to be called "waste". Presumably it is still an "asset" despite the 1993 Research Reactor Review's statement that: "The spent fuel rods at Lucas Heights can only sensibly be treated as high level waste. The pretence that spent fuel rods constitute an asset must stop."
Sutherland Shire residents have set up a group called Campaign Against a Nuclear Reactor. To get involved ring (02) 9545 3077 or write to PO Box 595, Sutherland, NSW 2232.
Wollongong
Kernot and the ISO
Has Kernot finally seen the light by joining the ALP? Well, according to the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) she most certainly has.
At a meeting of the Stop Uranium Mining committee on November 17 the ISO raised the idea that we should ask Kernot to speak on behalf of the ALP. According to them, because the ALP had increased its support in the polls since the defection of Kernot, she would be the most appropriate speaker from the ALP.
Rather than trying to break illusions in the ALP, they seem to only want to continue to build them. Rather then condemn her move, they have clapped her along. I guess the only thing left for them to do is to join the "bastards" and also try to keep them honest.
Mansfield, Qld
Vegetarianism
Emma Lea and Robert Ryan raise quite an interesting discussion in their comment piece "Why eat meat?" (GLW #297). On the issue of the environmental impacts of commercial meat production, however, I feel they offer a somewhat distorted picture.
The figures they quote are certainly damning of the capitalist meat industry, particularly as it relates to desertification, pollution of waterways, and the destruction of Third World ecosystems. The only conclusion that can reasonably be drawn is that these practices are ecologically unsustainable and in need of radical reform.
The implication of the article (although unstated) is that production of grains, vegetables and fruits is ecologically benign.
Research by ecologists such as Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner and others since the late '60s have proved otherwise. The sheer amount of synthetic (i.e. unnatural) chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides used in the commercial production of all agricultural products has had an enormous and increasingly negative impact on the biosphere over the last 40 to 50 years.
In Latin America, agricultural workers on fruit farms are regularly poisoned with pesticides necessary for the capitalist production of vegetables, grains and fruits. Some of the most persistent environmental pollutants are pesticides, necessary to the capitalist production of grains. The massive increase in eutrophication of waterways in Australia and North America are the result of unsustainable agricultural (as opposed to meat) production.
The ultimate conclusion that Lea and Ryan reach, that vegetarianism per se is an environmental and social imperative, simply cannot be sustained. The real culprit here is not meat, but capitalism and its insane drive for profits in every sphere, which will ultimately destroy the world's ecology, unless it is overthrown.
New Farm Qld
Stock market
I wonder if your publication has written any article on the effect of stock market growth on inflation. I feel that when stock market grows fast it contributes to inflation. For example, when BRE-X shares went from $2 to $200 before it collapsed many investors made millions of dollars without having produced one ounce of gold.
I read all the time from capitalist economists that union salary demands adds to inflation. Why doesn't stock market growth contribute to inflation of an economy?
Ireland
Until 1921 Ireland was indeed one unit, politically. The Northern Protestants, however, wanted no part of a united, independent Ireland. At the June, 1922 elections in Southern Ireland, the pro-treaty parties gained a majority in support of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 which recommended partition. The Northern majority wanted no part of the then Irish Free State whilst a majority in the South voted for the Treaty which advocated partition. Though the Free State leaders were not happy with partition, notably Michael Collins, they saw this as the best step at the time and a first step to a later united Ireland.
The IRA never forgave Collins or the Free State for what it had done and regarded the Dublin government and its predecessors as illegal. That is why Tom McEvoy (Write on, GLW #294) refers to Southern Ireland as a "quasi republic".
Tom McEvoy then claims that "the war is against Britain's claim to the ownership of any part of Ireland". The problem is not the British still wanting some toehold in Ireland for some out-dated colonial reason, but how to settle the demands of the Protestant majority who regard themselves as British and not Irish.
In short, a United Ireland would carry a minority that would not regard themselves citizens of Ireland. In the early days of the Troubles the IRA attempted a class consciousness across the religious divide, hoping to appeal to a working class unity. But it didn't work; both sides stayed within their respective religious tribes. That is the dilemma that has confronted London since 1921.
Given a referendum on Ireland, I'm sure there would be a 90% majority of UK citizens in favour of Britain leaving Ireland forever.
A letter published in Green Left some weeks ago from Kathie Rea seemed to open a door to sensible discussion on the problems of the two Irelands. Let's keep it that way and not wander off into the bigoted history that Tom McEvoy is schooled in.
Mareeba Qld
[Abridged.]
Liberation theology
Congratulations to Sandra Wallace for her thought-provoking review of Michael Lowry's book, War of the Gods, about Marxism and Christian liberation theology. One day — hopefully — GLW will publish an equally good review about some book, yet to be published in English, covering east Asia's many approximate equivalents of Latin America's liberation theology.
For example, Thailand's Santi Asoke sect which played a crucial role in the Bangkok May '92 uprising; Indonesia's large and growing Islamic liberation theology movement, about which there was barely a public mention in this country, in English, until George Aditjondro arrived. And too little since.
What's not clear to Australian commentators is how Indonesia's widely divergent, openly discontented masses are rallying under the only effective legal mouth-piece left open: Islam. What's not clear to Australian leftists is similarities, and differences, between '90s Indonesian Islamic liberation theology and its '80s Latin American/Filipino rough equivalent.
There's no Muslim Pope — Islam's essentially very egalitarian. And as "Catholicism is not a soul-mate to capitalism to the extent of Protestantism", in Sandra Wallace's well-written phrase, neither is Indonesian-style Islam — despite right-wing scholars arguing opposite.
Darlinghurst NSW
[Abridged.]