Croatian coverage
If your newspaper has regular articles on the war in Croatia, I urge you to have someone sell the paper at Croatian clubs throughout Australia as you will have many people supporting you.
Thank you for the unbiased, truthful articles on Croatia in your last issue of Green Left. Good luck in future editions and keep up the fantastic articles on Croatia.
Stela Krivicic
Albert Park SA
Mates
1991 has seen the departure of big business mates, Hawke and Gorbachev. Their replacements, Keating and Yeltsin, will benefit big business even more at the workers' expense.
A green hero, like Robin Hood, is long overdue.
That's why the arrival of Green Left Weekly is welcome. Before the end of this decade, according to the stars, the era of the Green and the Left will come. It will arrive after Hewson. The right will be dead by then.
Kerrie O'Rourke
Killara NSW
Aunty's offer
Today I visited my rich aunty on the upper North Shore, the rich part of Sydney. Upper crust people are crumbs held together by dough.
She loves the LibLabs. They always benefit her. Hewson and Keating are held in equal esteem. She's getting richer daily.
She said that if I abandon all my principles she will make me rich too. Then I will be able to treat the unemployed and workers as dirt beneath my feet also.
I could own ten pop groups by Christmas and take all their earnings. I'd use enterprise bargaining to destroy morale and then sack those that gave cheek.
I would hire musicians directly off the Newstart queue as you don't have to give those types much of a wage. If they give you cheek you get Social Security to torture them until they see reason. My reason, of course.
Once that good old GST comes in, my profits go up 15%. I pass these on to my bank account. I put up all prices and admission fees to pop concerts 20% to cover my overheads.
For Christmas, I thought I would reward my aunty by cutting down a forest and selling it. That would help me buy her another mink coat.
However, if I stick to my principles, I will have to reject Aunty and forego my future wealth. I'll have to live in poverty and struggle. Do I ruin my life with principles or riches?
Wayne Pekin
Mount Pleasant NSW
Jesus
I disagree with some of Phil Shannon's story — On Jesus and Social Justice — in the last Green Left.I respect the right for Phil to put forth his point of view, which coincides exactly, as I understand it, with Karl Kautsky in The Foundations of Christianity (viz. questioning the very existence of Jesus of Nazareth) and with that of the orthodox or "classical" Marxist school in general.
Nevertheless, it is not possible to believe that Jesus's ideas and prescriptions, such as his idea of universal love, can be dismissed, as they are by Phil, as sectarian. There is nothing sectarian about the idea of universal love.
My commitment to this notion does not affect my unconditional commitment to the working-class movement and its struggle for social justice and human emancipation. On the contrary, I would hope that it confirms it.
Graham Milner
Nedlands WA
Abuse of free speech
Once again the Murdoch controlled print media in the Northern Territory — namely the NT News — demonstrated its scandalous talents by publishing a letter calling for the extermination of gays. While opinions like this are nothing unusual among the moronic sections of society, the fact that the NT News tolerated this drivel and gave it prominence is an alarming development.
Freedom of speech is precious but so are the safeguards against the abuse of these liberties. We have seen the dangerous consequences of such rhetoric in Nazi Germany, South Africa and here in Australia against homosexuals. The progressive people of Darwin are paying tribute to Stuart Challender, against whom this NT News sponsored hate letter was directed.
Michael Rose-Schwab
Rapid Creek NT
Unions and Indonesia
The South Coast Labour Council's success in preventing the export of 30,000 tonnes of steel to Indonesia should stand as a beacon to other trade unionists.
Most trade unionists are appalled at the attitude of the ACTU, the ALP and Labour Councils everywhere to the brutal acts carried out by the military forces of that empire of oppression to our north, not only in East Timor but in West Papua and other centres of dissatisfaction in Indonesia.
It is one small victory blow for liberty that is long overdue from the trade union movement, which has been muzzled for too long by Labor Party domination of its leadership and policies.
C.M. Friel
Alawa NT
US enemies
Bush has gone home after a highly successful visit and it's now time to look at US policies.
It seems the US still does not feel guilty about Hiroshima, Vietnam etc, so can we expect more of the same in the future? Since the US economy is now in a recession, it needs a new enemy, because s.
Now the Soviet Union is no longer a viable enemy, other evil empires need to be created: Libya for terrorist activities it did not commit. North Korea for having too many nuclear weapons. So , if one lacks an excuse to go to war — take your pick.
Henk Hout
Sydney
Power
During his recent visit, George Bush was referred to as the "most powerful man in the world". Why is it that this was taken to be a compliment when it is the equivalent of calling him the world's greatest war criminal?
The centralization of power in the hands of an individual is profoundly undemocratic and intrinsically wrong. Whether they be the director of a multinational corporation, a millionaire media magnate or the president of the country with the largest stockpile of weapons, conventional, nuclear, chemical or biological, they are just as much an enemy of the people as was any of the communist bureaucrats in the defunct Soviet Union.
If the United States was a true democracy then George Bush would have no more power than anyone else. It is not enough that he be voted for as the lesser of two evils; as a paid employee of the people he should be no more than a conduit for their equally shared power.
True democracy, which is just as elusive in Australia, requires politicians with consciences at least as big as their egos.
"Freedom" and "democracy" will continue to be meaningless slogans until we save our respect for those who are humanity's greatest servants rather than its would be masters.
David Munn
South Brighton SA
Sleepers, emerge!
In reply to Arthur Gietzelt (GL #39), I agree the left is fragmented and disunited and characterised by reacting to crises such as AIDEX, and even there the impetus was characterised by crisis reactions.
When a party or movement in this country can combine credibility with ethicality I'm confident the sleepers and the apolitical will emerge from their indifference.
I also agree that Labor is a better choice than either Liberal or National but Labor are still the pits. I'm sick of wasting good protesting time on specific issues when for ages it's been obvious the political system needs overhauling. Democracy needs to be defined, constituted and implemented. Then it won't matter who's "in power" because the people will rule by consensus and referendum.
The other alternative is all of us on the left back the Democrats who seem to have a reasonably sound track record and constitution. I'd appreciate any feedback on this letter.
PS: There must be one political scientist among us with a few clues.
Tom Trouble
Highgate Hill Qld