The princess and the rest
Now that Princess Diana is divorced she will have to struggle along as best she can on a settlement of $30 million, no doubt she will be greatly consoled by having been involved in such a nice little earner. Anyone who doubts that she needs it has only to refer to the Advertiser of 19/5/94 which published the financial accounts of her Highness.
The Princess succeeds in spending more than $6000 a week keeping up appearances, clearly she greatly enjoys being recklessly extravagant on the long suffering British taxpayers' money.
I won't use the word parasite because some people may object, but today in Britain 16 million people live on or just above the poverty line, 1 million are on the housing waiting list, 100,000 are homeless, over 1000 pensioners die of cold in the winter, the real figure of more than 3 million unemployed is higher than in the depression of the '30s. I remember it well.
There has been a sixfold increase in mortgage arrears, the National Health Service is in crisis; it was once among the best in the world. The crime rate has soared while the clear up rate has dropped. Trade unions have been almost destroyed leaving millions virtually defenceless and terrified of employment.
But the Princess is blissfully unaware of all this as she blithely engages in mindless extravagance and reflects happily on being able to do so into old age.
Norm Taylor
Henley Beach SA
[Edited for length.]
Bias
While appreciating Lisa Macdonald's recent article on immigration, I must express my disappointment at seeing Green Left follow the mainstream with the photo chosen to illustrate the piece.
Rather than accurately reflecting the steadfast bias in our migrant intake towards anglo's of one sort or another, GL perpetuates the idea that migrant equals Asian. In the current climate of racist backlash, this is a dangerous and ill-considered approach.
Chris Martin
Petersham NSW
Lest we forget
I am pleased to see that you have recently devoted several articles to the disastrous changes which are being proposed to the public housing system. It is particularly heartening to see in the article by Sandy Eager (GLW #238) that a fight back is being planned to these attacks. I will certainly be at the budget rally.
However, whilst the article focuses on the Coalition's offensive, it is necessary to point out that many of the changes were prefigured in Labor Party speeches by Brian Howe and Paul Keating before they lost office.
Socialists should not be left with any illusions that the path taken now is any different to that being proposed by Labor. It is absolutely necessary to fight these attacks with a broad-based independent housing rights movement, allied to other progressive forces. But lest we forget that it was the ALP which co-opted the housing rights movement in the first place — it would have been interesting to see the response to these "reforms" if the ALP had retained office.
Maree Roberts
Ainslie ACT
What backflip?
Victorian ALP leader John Brumby has announced a policy review " to make the ALP more electable". According to the July 16 Age, this will involve junking its opposition to privatisation and the City Link freeway project, and supporting the Kennett government's changes to Workcover. They have already dropped their opposition to the Albert Park Grand Prix.
These "changes" been welcomed by the mainstream press but are they really a " backflip"? The answer is no. Up until its 1992 defeat, the Labor government had its own program of privatisation and cuts.
The Western Bypass, closure of the Upfield train line, removal of tram conductors, cuts to education funding and the sell-off of the State Bank were all either proposed or carried out by the Cain and Kirner Labor governments. They also sold off the Loy Yang B power station cut some 20,000 jobs from the public service.
Since losing office, the ALP, through its links with Trades Hall Council, has squashed a movement which could have stopped Kennett's 1992 industrial relations legislation. Those few campaigns that have achieved their aims have done so in spite of, not because of the ALP.
It is this sorry record that Victorians voted against on March 30. The refusal of the ALP to lead any consistent fight back against Kennett's vicious attacks is to be expected from a party which has no fundamental disagreement with Kennett's policies.
Sean Lennon
Coburg Vic
[Edited for length.]
Death penalty
Much publicity is given around the world to Aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia, and quite rightly so, but I can't help wondering why the same publicity is not given to black deaths in custody in USA?
In 1995, 56 prisoners (mostly black or Latino) were legally executed in USA prisons. This does not include deaths in police custody, suicides, murders or deaths due to illness in prison. About 100 prisoners will be executed in USA this year. Since the majority of blacks in southern US are sentenced to death by all-white juries, this virtually amounts to ethnic cleansing. A black peron in any southern state accused of killing a white person is about 10 times more likely to be sentenced to death than a white person. In Georgia about 90% of those on death row are black. Execution is by electrocution.
Executions contravene the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights but US authorities choose to ignore this.
It is an appropriate time to reflect on the hypocrisy of the Olympic Games being held in the racist state of Georgia. The International Commission of Jurists in Geneva has issued a statement that death sentences in the US are arbitrary and weighted towards blacks. It also showed that 40% of people executed in America between 1973-95 were black, whilst blacks form only 6% of the population.
Stephanie Wilkinson
Seven Hills NSW
[Edited for length.]