Write on: Letters to the editor
Australian 'democracy'
Our PM, gently chiding Dr Mahathir on his authoritarian approach to unrest in Malaysia, tells him that the better way is the ballot box.
Remember Chris Corrigan and Patrick bringing in savage dogs and their minders to stop any wharfie who didn't fit in with their intensified profit making schemes.
The last time I recall such tactics being used was by one of the guards in a concentration camp in Germany. The guard would go into the camp with savage dogs in tow and sool them on to anyone who took her eye.
Balmain NSW
[Abridged.]
Labor's Qld prison boom
Queensland Labor has elected to ignore the problem and treat the symptoms by once more pouring our tax dollars into the prison system whilst they ignore the most cost effective way to reduce prison overcrowding: legalisation of currently prohibited drugs.
At present our prisons house a large percentage of non-violent drug law violators. These victims of the system typically get draconian sentences, often serving more time than murderers and rapists.
By legalising 'consensual crime' we could reduce the burden on our justice system. Police could focus on the real crimes such as rape and murder, crimes with real victims. Our prisons would ring hollow as thousands of good people regained their freedom.
The huge dollar savings could be reinvested into education, housing and the public medical service. Most importantly, we would be a more 'just' society, one step closer to being truly free.
Qld
Gratuitous insults?
Olive Langham (GLW #335) accuses me of "gratuitously insulting" Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population. I plead innocent!
In fact, I gave AESP members the benefit of the doubt, simply describing them as "naive and mistaken to campaign for Australia's ecological problems to be blamed on migrants".
I did point out that "AESP gives respectability to the views of rabid racist like Pauline Hanson, anti-Asian Australians Against Further Immigration and even the neo-Nazi bully boys of National Action".
Olive must have been "insulted" because I revealed the fact that National Action — a proudly neo-Nazi, virulently anti-Asian racist group — openly uses AESP's "research" on their web page because — they not me say it — it "reinforces what Nationalists have been saying for years: that mass immigration is doing untold damage to Australia's environment".
Olive Langham and AESP must stop avoiding the question and ask themselves why their ideas appeal to such racist filth?
Westmead NSW
Population and environment
The "impractical suggestions" of Francesca Davis (19/8/98) and the "gratuitous insults" of Norm Dixon (2/9/98) are, unlike the pious waffle of Olive Langham (30/9/98,) practical suggestions "to address the problems facing future generations of this country".
Shorn of the sermonising, Langham's argument boils down to: 1. The State of the Environment reports show that we need to repair and maintain a sustainable environment; 2. We must act locally and change elsewhere is "fanciful"; 3. We therefore need to stabilise the population.
What Olive hasn't stated is that this means massive restrictions on immigration.
No one seriously suggests that the State of the Environment reports are not compiled by "reputable scientists". The question is, how do we address them?
Yes, we must act locally. But how do we "solve" Australia's problems in isolation from the rest of the world? Do you really think that we will remain unaffected by what occurs elsewhere?
We can't directly change what's going on overseas, but we can offer support to those who are trying. That is called international solidarity. It has done all sorts of great things in the past, like bring about a halt to western imperialism's invasion of Vietnam (the napalm and defoliants used doing at least a little environmental damage).
It becomes an even more important question when one's own country is directly responsible for environmental and social degradation overseas.
Olive, you might also want to think about why some countries suffer from overpopulation. You might find that the common factor is that their social welfare structure is so inadequate that people are forced to have large families in order to ensure their own economic security.
That might lead you to think that one of the ways to overcome the "population problem" is to struggle for social, as well as environmental justice, both in Australia, and in solidarity with those overseas.
Adelaide
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