Write on: Letters to the editor
Gullible pressMany thanks to Green Left and Phil Shannon for his review in issue 407. Even more so than he normally does, Phil produced an analysis that is politically thought-provoking and insightful both for those who have and those who haven't yet read the book in question â in this case, Paul Hendrickson's biography of Robert McNamara.
If I could add just one word to an excellent article, it would be inserted where Phil refers to McNamara's lies being repeated by a gullible press.
The US, and Australian, press were willingly gullible. That is, the establishment media (those in charge, if not always those at the lower levels) knew very well that their governments were lying about the war. They complained only when the lies became so transparently false that they discredited themselves by repeating them.
Those involved in opposing the war also often noticed a distortion in the reporting of their views or plans. It was not a matter of gullibility, but of bad faith â sometimes on the part of reporters with their careers uppermost in mind, always in the case of the editor or publisher.
The character of those media has not changed, except for the worse, which is what makes a paper like GLW so valuable.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Puzzled
I agree with Dave Riley (GLW #406) on the desirability of left electoral alliances in parliamentary and local elections. But I am puzzled by Dave's reference to One Nation as an example for the left to follow. He says:
Anyone who is at all familiar with electoral regulations in this country should know that it is becoming more difficult for minor parties to field candidates. By combining forces we begin to deal with these practicalities while finding common political ground.
With the notorious success of One Nation to point to, no one can say it won't work. It did on the far right, remember, by the simple fact of opening the process up to all comers and by excluding no one.
But One Nation was intended to be a new party, not an electoral alliance. Is Dave advocating that a new left party be created? If so, how?
One Nation came together around Pauline Hanson, an individual who benefitted from massive media coverage. The left would probably not receive similar assistance. But more importantly, One Nation's success in uniting the right was very short-lived. Unity crumbled as successive waves of dissidents were expelled or resigned.
It is unfortunately easy to envisage a similar scenario occurring after a left unity process. The fragmentation of the Progressive Labor Party is an example.
Solid unity requires agreement on program, strategy and organisational methods. This will not happen overnight but will require a period of discussion and joint work.
To prepare the ground for future moves toward left unity, we need to strengthen collaboration amongst left groups and create a culture of comradely discussion within the left.
Melbourne
Release classified information
We, the undersigned, ask the Australian government to release into the public domain all information it has relating to crimes against humanity committed by the Indonesian military in East Timor.
Those responsible for atrocities carried out in East Timor, illegally occupied for 24 years, must be brought to justice. We owe it not only to the East Timorese but also to the people of Indonesia, and to ourselves.
The continued domination of Indonesia by the military represents a threat to the wellbeing of all the archipelago and beyond.
We therefore request that all classified information relating to the Indonesian military's crimes be immediately declassified and made publicly available, in accordance with established international practice.
Nationalise the banks
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairperson Allan Fels said that his final decision to support the merger between the Commonwealth Bank and Colonial (which purchased the Trust Bank from the Tasmanian government late last year) was influenced by the deal made between the state Labor premier, Jim Bacon, and the Commonwealth Bank. Initially, the ACCC raised concerns about the merger for reasons including the fact that the merged bank would have more than 50% of the banking market in Tasmania.
The original privatisation of the Trust Bank was accompanied by a deal between the Bacon government and Colonial (the Trust's purchaser) that supposedly protected the state from job losses and branch closures. That deal became worthless when it was announced that Colonial and the CBA would merge. Instead of moving to reverse the privatisation of the Trust Bank, Bacon went on to try and make another deal â this time with the CBA.
Bacon won from the CBA little more in that deal than the CBA was offering all around the country in its effort to win public acceptance of the merger. Bacon's deal included such reassuring promises as: in towns with branches of both Commonwealth and Colonial Trust banks, only one of them would close immediately, and that the bank would wait at least five years before closing the other.
Instead of making deals with big capital which do not challenge their power to make decisions in their own corporate interests, it would have been better to reverse the privatisation of the Trust Bank. Similarly, a movement needs to be built â tapping into the mass resentment with the big banks' robbery of their customers â that demands that the federal government re-nationalise the CBA and indeed the other big banks.
Hobart
A safe haven?
Hunger strikes, attempted suicides, mouths being sewn up, escapes and protests, forced returns to Kosovo: is Australia really a safe haven for refugees?
In all the knee-jerk talk of increased security, maybe we should think about whether it is wrong to detain these genuine asylum seekers in Woomera, Curtin, Port Hedland, most of whom will eventually gain refugee status here.
The peaceful demonstration last week should lead Australians to finally ask some difficult questions: Who are these people and what have they been through? Are we mistreating refugees by placing those without visas in detention for possibly long periods? Why is Australia, Olympic host, a world-leader in harsh asylum-seeker laws?
The frightened expressions on the faces of women and children who came out of Woomera were unbearable to watch. We must ensure the peaceful protest doesn't mean those people in Woomera get even stricter treatment from ACM, who lose profits from escapes. Surely, putting children in isolated detention centres is as unkind as it is unnecessary.
While the Olympic torch was being carried in glory around central Australia, refugee children were behind barbed wire nearby. We should be listening hard when they cry freedom from Woomera.
Bondi NSW
[Abridged.]
Woomera uprising
The uprising at Woomera was an example of what happens when working-class people are criminalised, constantly told what a burden they are to the white majority, and racially segregated like different breeds of cattle in these impersonalised concentration camps.
Phil Ruddock, a man who has been told not to wear his Amnesty International badge by that organisation, went on National TV talking about criminal charges and illegal immigrants.
This is brainwashing. Not only is there really no such thing as the capitalist legal category of illegal migrants, but people are supposed to be given equal treatment regardless of which country they are from under an important principle of international law.
The Woomera uprising is as important to me as any uprising of Australian workers in history. The real criminals were exposed by the Four Corners program earlier this year â they are the bureaucrats of the Immigration Department. They beat and harass the stateless persons as the Refugee Council of Australia calls the refugees, while the government takes away their right to appeal against orders to go back to war zones.
It's the White Australia Policy in all but name, the words and laws might be different, but the values and intent is all the same anyway.
Detention Working Group
Reactionary and dangerous
The arguments raised in Helen Riley's response to Margaret Allum (GLW, June 7) are reactionary and dangerous, and should be opposed by progressives.
Riley argues that the biological imperative to produce children genetically related to their parents is extremely strong. As evidence, she cites that adults believe they can extend their own existence into the future by having children.
In reality, what is extended into the future through biological parenting is not the parents' existence, but their wealth (or lack of it). Capitalism cannot have class divisions fall every time a capitalist dies.
Riley's next piece of evidence is the apparent secrecy accompanying adoption practices. Again, she adapts to what the capitalist system requires us to believe, i.e., that biological parenting is morally superior to adoption.
Under capitalism, there is secrecy accompanying homosexual practices. Does this lead us to conclude that homosexuality is wrong, or rather that capitalism promotes this view to defend the interests of the rulers (i.e., that the heterosexual-based nuclear family, the free mass welfare provider, is natural)?
The genealogical bewilderment experienced by many adopted children is another result of pro-nuclear family ideology: people are made to feel inferior if they do not know their real parents. Again the parallel with homosexuality is instructive: many young gays and lesbians commit suicide (the ultimate bewilderment), not because homosexuality is inherently problematic, but because capitalism is homophobic.
Riley argues that support for technological advances that enable women reproductive choice disembodies people, denying offspring personal history. Here she equates personal history with biology, just as, under racism, social worth is equated with skin colour. Biology, whether it is skin colour or the exact method of reproduction, should not equate to personal worth.
Riley derides the profit-making nature of fertility aspects of the medical industry. But it is because of acceptance of the arguments that she promotes â i.e., that technological developments furthering women's reproductive choice should not (necessarily) be supported â that such an industry can be privately controlled without significant uproar.
To argue, as Riley does, that couples need to accept infertility and then look to other options could easily be applied to abortion rights â couples need to accept fertility and then look to other options. Socialists and progressives firmly reject such arguments, and push for full reproductive choice.
Parramatta NSW
[Abridged.]
Fiji
I would like to point out that the coup which has taken place in Fiji is much more complicated than most comments made in the press including GLW appreciate.
The problem has come about by past actions of CSR, importing Indian labour to work in their sugar plantations because the natives were considered lazy.
The problem, or rather cause of the problem, is mirrored in Sri Lanka where the British imported Tamils to work in the tea plantations and left a legacy of conflict there, between the indigenous people and the imported Tamils.
The Imperial powers follow Caesar's dictum, Divide and Conquer.
Finally, racism is not confined to Fijians. I worked in a government department which invited a delegation of both races from Fiji to a symposium in Adelaide. At a social event at the conclusion, my wife and I were approached by some Indian-Fijians inviting us to visit Fiji with the assurance that we will make sure you don't have to suffer these 'niggers', indicating the indigenous Fijians.
Blackwood SA
Come the elections
The next federal election is due in October 2001. Between now and then the public will have experienced the extra hardship that the GST and other regressive legislation that the Coalition government has inflicted upon us.
The traditional constituency of the Liberal Party is the urban middle class, but their masters are very wealthy, that is, the plutocracy.
The political paradox is that, in order to please the plutocracy, the Coalition government has changed the taxation system. That has resulted in the closure of many small businesses and those that remain are dissatisfied with the extra work that they have to do as well as the compliance costs.
A wider section of the community could show greater interest in the next election. I contend that the time is now opportune to select candidates and choose the electorates that the Party decides to contest.
In order to secure the best possible vote relative to the restrictions with which a socialist party is confronted, the candidate should become known in the electorate well before polling day. This can be done by publishing and distributing a monthly bulletin in the electorate, writing letters to the local press and by canvassing Green Left Weekly.
Strathfield NSW